#I have since moved on for better or worse I am constantly looking for ‘’lore friendly’ clothes as if 3E peeps don’t also want to hoe out

[dirty-bosmer]

Redownloaded Oblivion and am fighting for my life looking for clothing mods that will not leave my HoK's pussy lips exposed to the elements, BUT I remember my humble origins, a time long ago, 13 years old and crying out of frustration because I couldn't figure out how to install the Apachii Goddess Store. All I wanted to do was breast boobily across Cyrodiil with my Better Bouncing Boobs (H-cup) and chain mail sorceress underwear I mean, armor. If you're ever wondering “who the fuck is downloading sexy Oblivion mods?” you are probably right in thinking it's a lot of horned up dudes but it was also ME, your local gaymer gorl in the throes of her budding queerness.

[rowyourglassboat]

Makoto Selfship Lore

(FYI: I made this when I was 15-16, so this might feel a little odd - I don't actively selfship with him anymore either, but I do still hold him very dear to my heart). // Playlist

Christmas night, 2012. The first day of the apocalypse.

A plane flies through the air, its nose pointed down below as it delves. The screams had already stopped despite the fact it keeps falling, aiming for a body of water waiting to envelop them all after a trumpet had rang through a young girls ears. The blow nearly deafened her, or maybe that was just the sudden quiet in the passenger cabin deceiving her as the adults around her went from shouting, cursing, to being as still as the dead.

Her mother's head tilted, blood running from the sockets of her eyes.

Only then did a scream once again sound.

Down, down, down did the plane go. No one to stop it as a body lay at it the wheel to steer it away, and so it fell into the cool waters that tasted of salt...and iron. It filled every sense, washing through the girl just as it did the cabin the waves welcomed into their embrace.

There was no way she would survive, not when water filled her lungs, but before everything went dark a single hand reached out, glowing with radiance. And then there was darkness.

It was a year later when a body was washed ashore, the acidic sea known to harbor monsters bearing fangs and empty stomachs leaving it untouched to return to a lone beach. Beneath the body lay sand, slowly kicked up by two figures approaching. Their eyes were filled with curiosity as they bent down to look at what they could only assume to be a corpse - only for it to move.

Astonishment had them both reeling leaving them in silence, before one of them finally opened their mouths. A chipper voice rang out. "Well, Guren, it seems we found one of those kids the vampires use as a food source."

The other scoffed. "You think your family will believe that, Hiragii?"

He shrugged. "Might as well try. Come on now, we better get her dried off before we head back."

Relationships:

Shinya Hiragii - Adopted me. We consider each other more like a brother and sister, but from an outside view, he was a surrogate dad.

Guren Ichinose: Odd uncle. Never had a great opinion of him.

Yuichiro Hyakuya: Two kids who liked to pick fights with each other. I eventually got over it as I got older, but he still holds a small grudge. Very much like siblings that constantly bicker because he can't let shit go.

Shinoa Hiragii - Technically my aunt, but I was always the more responsible and older one.

Shiho Kimizuki: Best friend. When he first came to the compound with Mirai (his little sister), no one was willing to give her the treatment she needed unless he was part of the army so I pulled the only strings I had with the Hiragii name until they frayed and snapped to make sure she was given proper care until he was old enough to join.

Yoichi/ Mitsuba: Squad members.

Mikaela Hyakuya: He and I were one of the only ones able to take a step back and use common sense in the group, so we definitely appreciated the other reining everyone in. He has an unreciprocated crush on me (think this is because I was really into love triangles at the time).

Makoto Narumi: Partners.

Cursed weapon:

Hammer and nails - Can be turned into giant pillars that crash down into the ground. Primarily used to transform a layout on a battlefield during combat to take an enemy off guard. Best used for support but could handle a one on one fight if necessary.

Demon name - Amaryllis

Timeline of relationship:

First Impression - Makoto does not like the Hiragii's, so when I was first brought back, he did not have a good opinion of me, viewing me as another lap dog to the family name. This only got worse after we actually met for the first time during some training rounds, and I kicked his ass. He did....not appreciate that. Especially since he has this thing where people should respect their elders and I am one year younger than him.

We ran into each other a few times at the compound and on missions, but it was really begrudgingly working with me on his side. He wasn't going to risk everyone's lives over a petty grudge.

Nagoya arc: Once again, working with each other, his squad, and the Shinoa squad team up to take down a few vampires. This is mainly filled with him being more annoyed at Yuichiro than me all the way up until the airport scene. A human expirennt awaits them. This ends in a seraph summonung Abaddon being summoned, Yui turning into one as it possess him (again), and Guren turning against everyone. Makoto squad, including his childhood best friend, Shusaku Iwasaki, dies.

Logically, the Shinoa squad with Mikaela and Makoto flee.

During the manga, there is a three month time skip, and this is when most development of Makoto and my relationship develops.

Turning point: A week after the airport scene and Makoto is still avoiding everyone as he processes what happened, I end up going to find him hiding away up on the roof, staring at the moon in silence. I join him, and we end up having a talk about how it's okay to grieve and that everyone in the squad, especially me, is there for him. (I am willing to be bullied into writing this scene).

Some time passes with everyone trying to get further away from the army we abandoned, moving from hideout to hideout while keeping up training, killing monsters of the apocalypse, scavenging got food, eat, which allows him and I to settle into the other being around. He ends up admitting I'm not that bad, and he pushed me too quickly based on preconceived notions. From there, it's building respect and a friendship that slowly toes the line of something more.

We don't really put a title on what's between us, though it is obvious to everyone and us we are becoming a thing.

During a fight with some monsters, a group of vampires show up, having let the monsters out to help them track any humans running about. With no other choice, a fight starts. One, we aren't exactly winning. Left with very few other options, I and up summoning a nail knowing there's a subway beneath us to pick up enough dust to give the group a cover to use to escape- Only I end up falling down with Mikaela being the one to attempt to save me. (read: get trapped in the rubble with me).

For a few days, it's just him and I trying to get back to everyone.

When we finally do reunite, Makoto is the first to run up towards us, taking me in his arms and pressing a kiss to my lips with a declaration of love.

Shiho and Shinoa get on me about it, jokingly asking why I chose him of all people while the rest of the squad congratulates us.

First time: When we're alone in a small library, the old owner of the house we were at seemed to collect while everyone was out gathering supplies. It started off with us reading only for me to tease him at how annoyed he got when I pointed out a dumb scene in the romance book I was reading and ended in me on his lap riding him. (F for vampire Mikaela, he could definitely smell the scent of sex even after we tried to clean ourselves up).

In the last month of the time-skip, the group settles in with a small community near the beach until two vampires approach. Ones offering allyship - Ferid and Crowley. From there, the group goes back to Ferid's mansion only to reunite with Guren and his own squad, including Shinya. Except something is....off. Guten isn't acting like he was the last time they all saw him and is instead explaining how everyone who died during the apocalypse can be brought back to life if everyone just follows his plan..

Obviously, I'm not big on this idea. Not even when I learned Shinya had actually died at one point as was brought back to life by Guren. This is what started the apocalypse in the first place, btw.

Everyone thinks it over, and there's no real conclusion reached if this is a good idea.. and is also when Makoto just disappears from the manga. . and I drop it shortly after because of it. So we're going to wrap everything up without canon.

The end: A giant fight inevitably breaks out with the army again as they try and harness the power of a seraph again, trying to control it - only for it to blow its horn. Now, for those that don't know the 6 trumpet summons 4 angels. The direct quote goes as follows:

Then the sixth angel sounded: And I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, “Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates.” So the four angels, who had been prepared for the hour and day and month and year, were released to kill a third of mankind. - Revelation 9:13-19

We see where I'm going with this, right? I was one of the four angels. Or a person injected with their DNA like Yuichiro was with the seraph inside him. (Along with Shiho, Yoichi, Mikaela, and Shinoa).

With me being possessed and with no other option but to try to defend themselves the group was pushed back, nearly killed if it wasn't for me regaining a sliver of consciousness in the last moment to redirect the blow. But the angel was still in my mind, taking over. With no other option i have to ask Makoto one final question: will he be the one to kill me for the sake of everyone else.

Through tears he does, plunging his trident into my chest. I got penetrated, guys. The last moment Makoto has with me is with my blood on his hands and the light leaving my eyes.

That was goodbye.

And with the other angels, the army, and the seraph still on the loose Makoto is left with no other option but to leave me there as everyone urges him to flee.

Once again he leaves those he loves behind as they soak in the ichor of their own life.

Epilogue: Makoto stands alone at a grave. Or he should be. A figure stands behind him, almost hazy as it approaches. The grass he's standing in doesn't bend under its footfall, the only way he knows for sure this is another illusion his demon is summoning to taunt him once again as my image comes into view.

Brown hair swaying in the wind, hazel eyes, the same old uniform I always wore, and a necklace with a ring he gave me with a quesrion on his tongue hanging over my shirt. The sight of it mocks him just much as my smile - Far too angelic for his liking.

He wants to tell me to go away, knowing I'm not real, but Makoto can't find the strength in himself to ask for fears that if he does, I'll be gone for good. Left as nothing more than a memory as he stands before a headstone he erected. For a moment, he lets himself think it's a ghost before he has to go back to the world waiting for him now that everything has settled.

Basic HCs:

Makoto insisted on using yen to get one of those plastic rings you get in those turning capsules instead of just breaking it to get me one because he wanted to buy me a ring. It's stupid and hurts to wear but brings a smile to my face every time I see it. Hangs on a necklace under my shirt.

Desoie Makoto being as gullible as he is, he knows I cheat at cards. When it's Makoto and I playing, he'll tell me to knock it off, but when we're playing with the group, he'll cheat with me.

Won't admit it, but Makoto loves it when I kiss the mole under his eye.

In one of the hideouts we were using, Makoto found an old guitar that was still playable. A good part of the time while we were there, he would play for the group and me to pass the time.

The few times we did find a car in working order big enough for the group and Makoto was driving, I always got to be the passenger princess.

Whenever the demon in his cursed weapon was giving him nightmares, Makoto would come and find me to curl up with.

Shiho and Makoto end up bonding over having to deal with me.

The grave he visits doesn't even have my body because it was stolen away to be harvested of any seraph DNA that could possibly be reused. He has no idea what happened to me in the end.

No but writing this really reminded me how much I missed him :,( my pathetic bean. The loser. <3

[miraculouscontent]

Kagami and Marinette deserve so much better.

Anyway, let’s just start literally where this episode starts, because it makes no sense. Remember back in my “Truth” critique where I basically said that the episode seemed like it’d been shoved through multiple drafts and no one checked the final one?

Same applies here.

Like--okay, ”Truth” and “Lies” take place at roughly the same time, which means that the same filler akuma/sentimonsters appear to interrupt Adrimi’s moments just as they did with Lukanette’s, giving its audience a clear timeline of how the episodes line up. The reason this is important is because the writers can’t even keep consistency within singular episodes and then honestly thought that they could do it within two.

“Lies” begins with Marinette talking to Tikki about the grimoire, because apparently she has the non-translated version and there’s a secret to figuring out the code that Tikki believes Marinette will discover eventually.

...Alright, I’m derailing here but I have to add how absolutely stupid Fu was when dealing with translating the grimoire. He was supposed to teach Marinette how to be guardian, yet he didn’t teach her how to read the grimoire (if there’s supposedly a “secret” to it, is he really going to bank on Marinette figuring it out herself eventually instead of just giving it to her and avoid the risk altogether??), kept the translated pages on his tablet without sending them to Marinette as he deciphered them, and took time to write a letter to her in “Miracle Queen” but left no guardian-centric advice for her to work off of, meaning that Tikki had to explain how the Miracle Box worked to Marinette back in “Truth.”

The show goes out of its way constantly to turn everything against Marinette even if it makes all the characters around her look either incompetent or cruel. It’s not that I’m not used to this by now but it’s just infuriating that it keeps trying to raise the stakes and tension when Marinette made such a tiny mistake to cause the issue in the first place, and now we find out that Fu had no back-up plan or strategy, apparently expecting this 14-year-old girl to act perfectly and cover for him.

And of course, instead of leaving the scene off on Marinette being encouraged by Tikki and Marinette showing confidence in herself (i.e: what would’ve been a nice scene), the kwami accidentally fumble with the keyboard in such a way to have Marinette’s computer bring up  a news story about Adrien, which leads to Marinette leaning towards her computer and sighing over Adrien and his “amazing life.”

Can I just point out how annoying it is that all the Adrienette moments so far on Marinette’s end have been forced, not just in general (because we’re used to that), but literally forced by the plot so Marinette would talk about him or other characters would bring Adrien up?

“Truth” had Alya insult Marinette to her face over her Adrien crush because Marinette was freaking over something non-Adrien related that they couldn’t have known about, Luka was sent a no-context picture of Marinette’s Adrien wall which led to him lowkey teasing her about it, and then Truth was forced to listen to Marinette’s friends and Tom babble about Marinette’s supposed crush on Adrien even when Truth points out that it’s not a secret, making the “joke” fall absolutely flat.

And now “Lies” comes along and has the kwami drop things and step on the keyboard in the exact way to pull up Adrien stuff for Marinette to fawn over. It’s at this point I’m realizing that - had the kwami stayed inside the box or just not been around in general - Marinette literally wouldn’t have brought up Adrien at all in either “Truth” or “Lies” and now I’m sad. I really don’t want to have a counter for “episodes where Marinette wouldn’t have so much as breathed Adrien’s name if the kwami/someone else wasn’t there to force it.”

So yeah, the episode had to force Adrienette into its Adrimi episode because the show can’t go five minutes without reminding the audience that Adrien exists even though this episode is primarily from his point of view, made worse by this scene’s lack of ability to exist.

See, from the timeline in “Lies” lining up with “Truth,” there is no possible way for this opening scene with Marinette talking about guardian stuff and then fawning over Adrien to happen. There’s an akuma scene in “Lies” that literally is just copy-pasted from “Truth” (it actually does this again with another scene later but that’s not important right now), so that means anything that takes place before said scene in both “Truth” and “Lies” have to line up.

Except they can’t. The akuma scene in question interrupts Marinette’s movie date with Luka in “Truth,” and before that, she had just opened the Miracle Box, wrangled up the kwami, talked to the girl squad over video call, talked to Luka, and then immediately had to leave. There are no cuts or wiggle room anywhere in there.

Therefore, the scene in “Lies” is impossible. Either the scene is supposed to go elsewhere in the episode (we don’t actually know how many days it takes up so it’s hard to say on that front) which just makes the episode even more convoluted, or this means that one would have to pick between the scene in “Truth” and the scene in “Lies” because they literally cannot co-exist.

“Lies” was supposed to coincide with “Truth” and they messed it up in the first scene of the episode.

Then comes Adrien himself, who really shows the series’ clunkiness in focusing on other characters. It’s not that I’m against the show moving away from Marinette to show other people’s point-of-view (I definitely didn’t complain during the Couffaine sibling scene in “Reflekdoll”), but Adrien cannot carry his own episode.

In Marinette’s opening scene, we immediately got details on the grimoire and lore about how reading it actually worked. I didn’t like it and it wasn’t good, but it was new information.

Adrien, meanwhile, spends a large portion of the episode being sad (a very grand and unique plot, my dudes) and giving us information we already know. “Truth” has to come first because “Lies” is half of a follow-up on it, meaning that the audience is already aware that Ladybug has been forgetful and has had to miss out on patrols. It’s just that now we get to see Chat Noir sulking about it and--okay, I am just going to go off, alright?

Firstly, Chat Noir tells Ladybug later on that he “understands” her guardian duties, but he previously mocked her behind her back by using air quotes when he was talking to her answering machine (since she obviously wouldn’t see that). We saw in “Truth” where he admitted that he doesn’t mind her being guardian “as long as it doesn’t change their relationship,” and that’s on display right here with his comments.

Not only is it extremely disrespectful, but for someone who claims to be so loyal and understanding to Ladybug, he sure doesn’t show it.

Secondly, he leaves her a message about how he’ll take care of patrol, then proceeds to slack off because she’s not there to keep him in check. He sulks around Paris, mumbling about how Ladybug isn’t around and constantly checking his messages to see if she’s replied to him. Chat Noir has shown his “priorities” in terms of heroism before, but patrol isn’t supposed to be about getting time with “““his lady”““ yet that is clearly all he cares about. He even ends the patrol unprompted, either giving up or just generally having not finished, because I don’t believe that the “end” of patrol just happened to be at the place Kagami was.

Patrol is about protecting Paris and scoping things out. Ladybug is trusting him to pick up the slack when she’s not around and he should be picking up slack, yet he has completely failed on that front. This is made worse when considering that the Season 3 finale had Ladybug breaking down to him from guilt and we know that Marinette had a breakdown before that to Luka, yet Chat is doing nothing to lighten Ladybug’s burden, putting up a falsehood on Ladybug’s answering machine to make him look better than he actually is.

Then, thirdly and most importantly/infuriatingly, Chat Noir knows that Ladybug is busy and he knows that she’s taking on a new responsibility, yet he not only jabs at her for “how hurtful it is when she leaves him to patrol alone” (one, cry me a river, and two, I don’t care if it’s a joke, it’s insensitive), but before that scene, he was actively hoping for people to get akumatized so Ladybug would be forced to show up and he could spend time with her. He egged Xavier Ramier on, even asking him if he “missed being Mister Pigeon,” and then looked on with glee as Chloe bullied Sabrina because he thought that an akumatization might happen.

And this is on top of so many other issues with this whole scene. Adrien complains all the time about his schedule and how restrictive his father is, but suddenly - in the episode right after Marinette had to break up with her boyfriend due to her cramped schedule - is lounging around and wasting time. It hurts to see Marinette suffering from all of her responsibilities while Chat’s biggest problem is how little time he gets with Ladybug.

Also, another point on Mister Pigeon is that that’s the akuma that had interrupted Marinette’s movie date and kiss with Luka. I’m not suggesting that Chat egging Xavier on led to him getting akumatized, but I am saying that Chat wanting akuma to happen with no regard for Ladybug’s happiness is yet another point on the list of why I hate the love square. Marinette genuinely forgot about patrol with him - genuinely was forgetting about everything, really - and as a “punishment,” her own partner whined, didn’t patrol properly, and egged on an akumatization that eventually ended up happening which then broke up the little bit of happiness that the universe was allowing her to have.

Oh, and did I mention that he’s also dating Kagami at the time as well because here we freaking go.

Now, I did not get on Marinette’s case for her Adrien wall and stammering because Luka is largely aware of where she stands in the relationship and she only brought Adrien up when someone else did, even when Luka wasn’t around or being mentioned. Adrien, however, I have multiple bones to pick with, starting with how utterly needy he is for Ladybug’s attention.

This guy has tons of friends, all these fans, and could get people to flock to him whether in or out of the mask, but he wants Ladybug, and anyone not Ladybug isn’t good enough. There’s a scene later in the episode where Kagami - his girlfriend, mind you - is pouring her heart out to him, and he gets distracted by Ladybug instead of listening to her. Even when he excuses the distraction, he then gets distracted again even though Ladybug is no longer in the background.

Lying to protect his identity is one thing, but what Adrien does to Kagami goes beyond that. He’s pining after and flirting with another girl and Kagami has no idea. She’s speculated before that Adrien likes Marinette, but she’s mostly left in the dark because Adrien hasn’t told her anything, nor has he confirmed with her whether it’s okay or not for him to flirt with other girls so long as he’s not pursuing them. He could’ve admitted that he was in love with Ladybug but that he wants to try things with Kagami, but he refuses to open up to her or put himself out there.

Except, he technically does, once, when Kagami tells him to pose for her and he strikes his transformation stance, but he caught her completely off-guard and it’s no wonder why she was put off by it or thought it was unnatural. Not only that, but when Kagami tells him that he’s acting like a clown in that scene, we can see by jumping back to “Truth” that Chat Noir fished for Ladybug’s compliments which then led to a line about him talking about how Ladybug enjoyed him acting like a clown; a direct connection.

Kagami didn’t validate him, so he fished for Ladybug to do so because Ladybug was both forced to answer the question and wasn’t able to lie to him. The show has Ladybug state that her most preferred trait of his is his humor but I am certainly not laughing.

Chat Noir even goes further after the fight with Truth (so another copy-pasted scene) by saying that he has the most fun with Ladybug specifically, and this is all while he’s still dating.

Then this guy has the gall to talk during his break-up about how his fun times with Kagami weren’t lies after apologizing to her for his constant lying, as if he’s trying to earn her sympathy when we know that he’s been pining after Ladybug and flirting with her like she were his number one when he already had a girlfriend waiting for him (and who, by the way, had covered for him earlier and was sitting sadly on a staircase outside, feeling abandoned). The episode presents the break-up as if Adrien’s problem was the fact that he had to constantly lie to Kagami due to being busy with hero work (which is already dumb when we also saw him lounging around and complaining about how nothing was happening, meaning he was inadvertently supportive of the idea of having less time with Kagami and more time with Ladybug even if that means Paris is in danger), but the real problem ends up being that Adrien neglected Kagami emotionally and wasn’t able to give her the attention she wanted.

It’s both sad and annoying that Adrien has always sulked about his dad not paying attention to him and then we get Adrien not paying attention to Kagami, looking for Ladybug when Ladybug had already left and Kagami is trying to tell him something very important.

This is what I mean when I say that Adrien can’t carry an episode on his own. He’s incredibly selfish and most of his dialog just involves him complaining about Ladybug or making excuses. Kagami carried the episode more than he did because more details were revealed about her - specifically the fact that she likes drawing - and she’s active in making things happen (being the one to make the excuse to set up their fencing lessons, deciding what they’ll do with their hour of free time, etcetera).

And regardless of what girl he’s interacting with, Adrien can’t respect either of them. I just talked about Kagami and I’ve already talked about how he treats Ladybug when she’s not even around, but now we get to how he treats Ladybug when she is around.

During the climax of the fight with Lies, where Ladybug requires a distraction to safely pull off her lucky charm, Chat Noir decides - without Ladybug’s input - to sacrifice himself yet again.

I have to stress that Ladybug is stressed and Chat has always talked about her plans and listening to her, yet he has a horrible habit of making decisions all on his own and letting Ladybug deal with the fallout. Whenever he has the chance, he’ll throw himself in front of her and take the big hit, presumably with the mindset that Miraculous Ladybug will fix everything so it’s not like it matters.

Ladybug even shouts at him when he hints at what he’s about to do and there was absolutely time for them to talk about it, but Chat Noir just lets himself fall and be bait, even throwing out what is a clear confession (again, while he’s still dating someone else) before he’s knocked unconscious by Lies’ power.

And when Ladybug yells at him for it when everything’s said and done, pounding at his chest and looking absolutely upset over the whole thing? He not only brushes her off, but he boops her nose and talks about how “irresistable” her “angry little pout” is.

He might as well have just said, “you’re cute when you’re angry,” because that’s exactly what he’s implying; that Ladybug’s anger is something “amusing” to him and not something he takes seriously. We’ve already seen it before in “Reflekdoll” and “Oblivio” as well, so this is just a continuation of already-annoying behavior.

Then, instead of Ladybug getting even angrier for it, the episode has her smile at him, which not only isn’t a normal reaction compared to how she’s reacted before, but now gives the impression that she’s being conditioned by the narrative to accept Chat Noir’s behavior in whatever shape or form it takes.

Because think about it: regardless of how upset Ladybug gets over Chat Noir, it never works out for her and she’s forced to either make up with him quickly or just get over it because she can’t be fighting with her partner (meanwhile, like in “Glaciator,” Chat Noir can be as upset as he wants and she’ll apologize first). She presumably would now have the authority to take away his ring by virtue of being guardian, but he’s also been her partner from the beginning and he’s had so much time to get used to the cat. Most likely, she would sooner blame herself for failing to reign him in than blame him for failing as an adequate partner.

There’s nothing she can do. She has to deal with the hand that she’s been dealt and getting angry at him has done nothing; rejecting him has done nothing.

And of course the episode throws everything under the rug in the ending with an insulting LadyNoir scene where Ladybug and Chat Noir talk about the secrets their forced to keep but also how they can trust each other.

Meanwhile, Ladybug has no idea of all the things Chat Noir has done behind her back. She still has no clue about “Copycat,” nor “Syren,” nor any of the stuff he did in this episode that she’ll probably never know about. Factor it in with “Miraculous New York” (whether one considers it canon or not) where she rightfully shouted at him because he betrayed her trust, and here we are one and a half episodes later (since “Truth” and “Lies” take place at similar times) where suddenly they’re all buddy-buddy and Chat Noir doesn’t have to deal with any consequences to his selfishness.

I’m glad that Kagami didn’t forgive Adrien in the end (even if I’m upset that she doesn’t know how bad it really was) because she had every right to walk away and not want to be friends with him. I only wish that Ladybug could do the same thing and never look back, but due to the love square’s status as endgame, we know that can’t happen, and Ladybug will eventually be forced to fall in love with a guy who mocked her responsibilities behind her back, disrespected her authority by opting to tease/flirt with her, continued pursuing her despite her rejections, and hoped for Paris to be in danger just so he could see her.

And... yeah, that hurts. It really does.

[when-they-write-stuff]

The thing about the Hale pack was that everyone in it was absolutely, one hundred percent, drop-dead gorgeous.

And the thing about Stiles Stilinski was… well, he was Stiles Stilinski.

The last time he’d really looked into his reflection and been insecure, had been the first time he’d tried asking Lydia Martin out, and it’d been like he wasn’t even there. Stiles might as well have been invisible for the way that sharp green eyes never lingered on him and sometimes, he thought it just might be better that way. The thing about hot people was that Stiles was not one of them and because of that, he was constantly confused.

Confused about why Derek kept him around the pack, anyway.

Sure, Stiles was a mad genius when it came to doing research. There wasn’t any lore he couldn’t dig up and there wasn’t any monster he couldn’t figure out how to kill. That might be why, he thought. Why Derek hadn’t quite given him the boot yet.

The thing about being the only plain human in a pack of drop-dead werewolves was that Stiles sometimes wondered if that’s why Derek had never offered him the bite.

It wasn’t like he was calling the big grumpy werewolf biased or anything. Scott had once accused Derek of only going after the losers at Beacon Hills High and the man had been pissed off about that for days. But then Stiles had watched his friends go from sticking in the shadows to owning the halls, and he sometimes wondered why he hadn’t been offered that chance too.

Stiles was pretty sure it didn’t bother him. He just… wondered sometimes.

It might bother him a little bit.

It was a cool autumn afternoon when Stiles sat on the porch of the Hale house watching Derek train the other betas. Erica was kicking ass, which wasn’t really surprising because the woman could be absolutely feral when she wanted to. Stiles thought if he ever got into a one-on-one with her, he wouldn’t be making it out alive.

The first time he’d come over to the newly built Hale house to watch them train, his first thought had been 'badass'. Honestly, his brain hadn’t been able to come up with much more but that might be because two out of the four werewolves had been shirtless and one of them had been Derek. Which… totally wasn’t a thing.

Over time though, Stiles was a little less amazed. He’d watch Erica kick Isaac’s butt and glance down at his own hands, wondering if he could ever do that. If he was given the chance, that is.

It didn’t bother him though, remember? Not even just a little bit. 

Or whatever.

The door behind him opened and closed as Lydia dropped down at his side with a glass of water in one hand. Red hair fell over her shoulder as she tilted her head, studying the betas and then smirking as Boyd knocked Jackson to the dirt. Chewing on his lower lip, Stiles glanced over at her.

“Hey, Lyds?”

“Hm?”

“Do you think Derek would have offered you the bite if you weren’t already… you know. A terrifying death screamer?”

The girl gave him a quizzical look and Stiles tried not to blush, ducking his head.

“Just wondering.”

He could feel green eyes still studying him, but Stiles pretended like he didn’t see. Once more, he focused on his hands, waiting for an answer. And an eternity seemed to pass before Lydia shrugged, turning her gaze back forward.

“I don’t know. Maybe. Eventually.”

Stiles swallowed. How long had it been since he’d officially started considering himself a part of the Hale pack? A handful of years, after multiple occasions of nearly dying at Derek and co's side. So how long counted as eventually? He didn’t think that long.

“Stiles?”

He glanced back over at her, forcing a grin onto his face. “I’m good.”

Lydia didn’t look convinced, but Stiles just turned his attention back toward the training. He did his best to keep his gaze off Derek and the man's unfairly well-formed everything. Because the last thing he needed was Erica to catch him staring and give him one of those knowing smirks that she was always so quick to wear. Or worse, for Derek to ever see.

Once more, Boyd knocked Jackson into the dirt and Stiles snorted, cheered up even if only for a quick moment.

He could hear the beta cursing from where he sat.

-

The rest of the Hale house was silent when Stiles sat on the couch hours later, his computer open on his lap and an empty bag of popcorn at his side. Isaac had done nothing but complain all afternoon that Derek had worked them way too hard earlier and when Erica had told him to can it, the beta had slunk into his room with a glum look.

But Stiles could hear snores now, so he was pretty sure Isaac had knocked right out.

The others had left an hour ago with all the cash Derek had on him, claiming they were going to pick up pizza. But they still weren’t back so Stiles had pretty much given up on that ever happening. For all he knew, they’d completely forgotten about coming back and were crashed at a pizza place somewhere enjoying the food that was meant to be for the entire pack.

He wasn’t sure where Derek had gone off too— the loft was silent other than Isaac. 

Except, suddenly one of the doors opened and closed down the hall and Stiles glanced over his shoulder to see a very wet and very half-naked Derek Hale step out of the bathroom. His heart rate instantly rose and he whipped back forward, focusing hard on his computer screen again.

Stiles could hear the man's footsteps moving toward his bedroom and he cursed internally, trying to take deep breaths. He’d been looking up… what had he been looking up again? Witches. No, fairies? 

Screw all the drop-dead gorgeous werewolves.

That��s what Stiles would like to say.

He found himself fiddling with the hem of his sweatshirt instead of actually paying attention to whatever was on his screen. By the time the footsteps came down the hallway, he was pretty sure his heartbeat had quieted a little bit, but he still tried to focus even harder on his computer. 

Derek passed him with a raised eyebrow and Stiles did his best to ignore it. Grunting, the man moved into the kitchen, shuffled around a little, and came back out with a cup of coffee. Stiles raised an eyebrow of his own at that.

“And you say I have bad caffeine habits.”

“It’s decaf.”

“Oh, wow, Sourwolf. Now that’s just boring.”

Derek flat out ignored him this time, grabbing the remote and flipping on the TV. Whatever the betas had been watching earlier came on full blast and Stiles yelped, slamming his laptop shut in surprise. 

“Dude, I’m trying to do research here!”

That earned him a pair of rolled eyes and Stiles huffed, shoving himself up. Almost as quickly, Derek caught his sleeve and Stiles froze. 

“Er, what?”

“Where are you going?”

“Home, dude,” Stiles said, trying to pull away. But Derek’s grip was like iron. “So I can make sure we all live to fight another week, unless you want to go in blind to whatever the hell is terrorizing Beacon Hills this time?”

The man didn’t answer for a long moment, still not letting go. And Stiles didn’t like the way those grey-green eyes searched his face, as if Derek knew exactly what Stiles wasn’t saying. Which… wasn’t anything. It totally wasn’t anything.

But then the man’s brows furrowed. “You’ve been acting strange lately.”

Stiles stiffened. Derek didn’t seem to notice, though, looking lost in thought.

“And your scent has been off.”

“O-okay,” Stiles said, trying to pull away once more. It still didn't work. “So, that’s a total invasion of my privacy, you fluffy asshole. Do you often go around checking on my scent, or is this more of a one-time thing?”

Derek gave him a red-eyed glare at that and Stiles tried to pretend like his heart didn’t skip another beat. “Is something wrong?”

“Is something— what? No, Derek, nothing's wrong. Things are just fine and dandy.”

Stiles had always thought it was unfair that werewolves could hear heartbeats because one raised eyebrow from Derek told him the man didn’t believe a word he’d just said. Grunting, Stiles looked over at where Isaac’s snores were still coming from, and then over his shoulder toward the door. Just in case. 

Then, Derek finally letting go of his sleeve, Stiles crossed his arms.

“Why haven’t you ever offered me the bite?”

The alpha tensed, eyes turning guarded. And Stiles tried not to feel hurt at that, biting down on his lower lip.

“Am I not good enough, Derek?”

“Are you not… why would you even think that?”

Stiles scowled at the growled accusation in Derek’s voice. Because god, it wasn’t like he was asking this out of the blue. “You’ve never even asked, dude. Not once, not even a hint. I’ve been apart of this pack for years now and yeah, I know I’m just Stiles. Human, annoying, only-good-at-research Stiles, but I’d make a good werewolf, dammit!”

Derek’s eyes were wide now and he looked a bit taken aback. Carefully, the man stood, looking at Stiles as if he might spontaneously combust at any moment.

Which… he totally wouldn’t. No way.

It didn’t bother him.

“I’m just Stiles,” he said again, quieter this time. “I know that, but—”

“Stiles.”

Derek’s tone itself was enough to cut Stiles off midsentence. Which was a bit of a relief, because he didn’t really know where he was going with it anyway. But he still glared at the man, surprised that Derek’s expression was nothing but gentle as the man looked steadily back.

“Would you want the bite?”

And it didn’t seem like a real question. Not like Derek was offering, but maybe he was surprised. Surprised that Stiles would even bring it up, surprised that Stiles would even want to be a werewolf. Which wasn’t fair, right? It was just— he just— Stiles clenched his jaw. “Why haven’t you ever asked?”

A long moment passed before Derek answered. “You’re human, Stiles.”

“Well, no, duh.”

“You’re human,” Derek repeated. “But not as a weakness. Your mind, your soul… I’ve never offered the bite because I know you’ve never wanted it. Not because you’re annoying, not because you’re not pack—” The man hesitated, then looked at him carefully. “Because you’re Stiles and there’s nothing more beautiful than that.”

Stiles’s breaths caught in his throat. He stared at the werewolf, all words lost to him for a moment. Which was more than unusual and even Derek looked concerned for a moment. The man took a small step forward and Stiles uncrossed his arms just as quickly. “I… what?”

Derek rolled his eyes, but Stiles could’ve sworn the tips of the man's ears were a little red. And he had heard everything right, hadn’t he?

“Hey, Derek, am I dreaming?”

“You’re an idiot, Stiles,” Derek said. “But you’re also the human one that holds the pack together.”

Stiles focused on Derek’s face. Then his hands, then the floor. His mind was still processing things rather slowly and when he’d asked, he’d kind of expected a gruff response. Something about Stiles sticking to what he did best— research— or maybe just dropping the topic altogether with a threat to his safety if he didn’t. He didn’t expect to glance back up and for Derek to be so close, Stiles choked on his breath.

“Do you want the bite, Stiles?”

“Well... no.”

The look Derek gave him was purely judgemental now. Stiles flushed. 

“I was just wondering.”

“Hm.”

“Don’t ‘hm’ me, asshole,” Stiles said, giving the man a shove. But Derek caught his hands and Stiles was frozen all over again, heart skipping yet another beat. Looking down at him, Derek smirked, and Stiles had no doubts the man knew exactly what was going through his mind at the moment.

“I don’t keep you around just to put on a show during beta training, you know.”

And yep, that was it. Stiles had officially died and been brought back to life again. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times, but no words came out. And screw all the drop-dead gorgeous werewolves, remember? He hated them. All of them.

“You’re my favorite human, Stiles,” Derek said, softer this time. And okay, maybe Stiles hated one werewolf less.

He decided that was definitely true when Derek leaned down and kissed him.

-

It's been decided that when my brain decides to start working again, it decides to start working overtime, so here we are! I figured you guys deserve some fluff after that last fic, so I hope you all enjoyed!

[thehmn]

I used to watch my brother play the Metal Gear Solid games and it’s actually really interesting to look at Hideo Kojima’s games in the context of how homosexuality is viewed in Japan.

I’m not going to speculate on Kojima’s own sexuality, I’ll leave that to himself, but his games are famous for being very horny, homoerotic and having a ridiculously high number of bisexual male characters. People will point out that they’re all villains, but that’s just the explicitly bisexual characters. His two main characters, Snake from Metal Gear Solid and Sam from Death Stranding, are also implied to not be straight.

This is where Japanese culture and the extensive lore of Kojima’s works comes in.

Homosexuality is taboo in the west and Japan for different reasons. In the west it’s seen as sinful, but in Japan it’s seen as disruptive. Don’t make a fuss. Don’t call attention to yourself in any way. Don’t mess with the status quo. Most queer people choose not to come out to their families for this reason. And to make matters worse, even if a small majority of Japanese people are in favor of queer people having rights the government is very conservative and it’s even illegal to depict homosexuality positively in some parts of Japan.

So what does Kojima do to appease his government and the culture of his people? He does what people did in Hollywood in the 30’s and make the explicitly bisexual characters villains and make his heroes covertly bisexual.

Kojima always had an interest in sexuality and gender. In high school he wrote a story where all women succumbed to an illness, leaving the men unsure of how to continue. Remember, at the time the majority of women in Japan quit their jobs when they got married and took care of their husband and children. So who was supposed to take care of the house and their sons? Could men just stop craving intimacy or would they have to turn to each other? And how would they make more babies? I’ll get back to that.

One of the most famous scenes in Metal Gear happens when Snake disguise himself as Ivan, the lover of Volgin. Volgin walks up to what he assumed to be his lover and grabs his crotch, looks confused, grabs him again and asks “Who are you? I know the major better than anyone else” Volgin and Ivan are undoubtedly villains, but their love for each other is surprisingly the most human thing about them. If Snake puts on Ivan’s mask during his bossbattle with Volgin, Volgin will hesitate at first, then double his attacks in anger, but also cry because he’s trying to kill a man with his boyfriend’s face.

Snake/Otacon is the most heavily implied relationship in the whole series that hasn’t been confirmed. In the first game Snake could end up with Otacon at the end, and since then they’ve moved in together, raised a child together, talked at length about how they taught each other to love, teased each other about their libido, and the list goes on. They also notably get call-backs to two other canon romantic couples; Raiden and Rosemary when Otacon tells Snake that he won’t be let back inside before he takes a shower (Rosemary wouldn’t let Raiden back in because he got pee on him), and Volgin and Ivan when Otacon says he knows Snake better than anyone else. My point being, Snake and Otacon are very heavily implied to be a bisexual couple.

Then there’s Death Stranding. The game is definitely written by a more mature Kojima who has been hanging out with a lot of Americans. His view of sex and love is more nuanced and he understands that there’s a difference between sexual and romantic orientation. We still got Higgs, a flamboyant villain who acts very predatory and is heavily implied to be bisexual, though never confirmed, and Sam who’s implied to be asexual (he has an Ace of Spades sticker on his bike) and biromantic, and we get our first confirmed good bisexual character, Die-Hardman.

Kojima never got to play around with gender much in Metal Gear Solid, but he made up for that in Death Standing. Remember that story he wrote in high school? We see a lot of inspiration from that here. The solution the men came up with for having healthy babies in the story was to have men carry pods around on their stomachs where the fetus could grow in the most natural way possible.

There’s still women in Death Stranding but there’s a lot of men carrying babies around on their stomachs, men forming family unions, and the main character Sam acts more like a stereotypical mother than father. There’s literally a scene where Deadman puts a hand on Sam’s pod like it’s a pregnant belly and basically asks him “The three of us are a family, aren’t we?”

Sam later tries to give the baby to a woman, Fragile, but she only sees it as babysitting and gives it back, so Sam gives it to Deadman who declares it “our little one”.

By the end of the game the three of them are seen together, depicted as two parents holding their child. Throughout the game people are constantly trying to hug and touch Sam but in the end the only person who gets a hug is Deadman.

It’s also worth noting that in the universe of Death Stranding Sam and Deadman are believed to be a couple before they actually are. Deadman made sure of that so no one would question why they spend so much time together.

There will no doubt be more bisexual men in Kojima’s next game, and I’m curious to see if there’ll be any development in how openly he depictes queer characters. He’s a middle aged man so no matter what his own sexuality might be I don’t expect him to easily shake the expectations of Japanese society off, but he has started hanging out with a lot of Danes, most notably Nicolas Winding Refn who despite making extremely violent movies is very open minded and has, when asked, been very honest about his own sexuality (to spare you the pain of digging though Danish interviews, he’s a straight, slightly bi-curious man with an interest in BDSM, but who’s also satisfied leaving a lot of his fantasies to his imagination because his movies gives him an outlet for a lot of it).

You can see a lot of Scandinavian/Nordic influences in Death Stranding and I’d be surprised if Nicolas didn’t expose Kojima, intentionally or unintentionally, to the Scandinavian view of homosexuality. I can best describe it with a news report I once saw on national television. Parents were worried about a dangerous road that their children had to cross every day to get to school but the government wasn’t doing anything about it. The parents they interviewed were a gay couple but they were treated exactly like any other worried parents. No fuss, no spectacle. Please think of the safety of these parents’ children.

I can imagine that approach would go over very well with a middle aged Japanese man who clearly wants queer people to be able to live happy, fulfilling lives with families and children but doesn’t seem to want to upset his society.

Other people have pointed out that Kojima and Nicolas seem to inspire each other a lot and have taken an interest in each other’s cultures, and Nicolas was the first person to announce publicly that he’d be in Kojima’s next game, so I’m really interested in seeing what that will do, if anything, to how comfortable Kojima is with depicting his queer characters. Something certainly happened once he started socializing with a lot of Americans.

I am of course not saying Kojima is a saint who’s doing everything right, but he is an interesting guy to follow.

[furiosity-wills-the-cat]

Chara, the fourth Blook cousin:

A crack theory that accidentally become way more serious than it should have because it somehow, despite my best efforts, ended up making sense

Brought to you by my idiot conspiracy brain (affectionate) and by encouragement from my Tumblr followers

Under the cut for the sake of your dashes and sanity

Ok here we go my very elaborate accidental theory, because in order to answer the complex questions simply you must first make simple things more complex or something

First, you need to know that Chara became a Blook cousin by adoption.

All of the Blooks are adopted.

Ghosts are not born into families, they make their own.

Got it? Great, because we’re about to start running

so first, im gonna make surprisingly uncommon claim in this fandom, and I am going to say that undertale ghosts are all dead

I’m taking the tiny details we know about ghosts and sprinting with them to new places

Ghosts also do not have souls I decided

Undertale souls do not work the same as souls in traditional mythology

So every ghost is soulless Unless and Until they become corporeal

Evidence: Monster souls cant exist without bodies, and ghosts are monsters, therefore ghosts cannot have souls without bodies

Further evidence: Asriel doesnt steal blooky’s soul, blooky is unkillable, we have no concrete evidence that blooky has a soul

What about mettaton? He only has a soul after he has completely committed to being corporeal and to a specific body.

Also maddy and mettaton are both only killable while corporeal

Im also connecting the dots we have about souls in a new creative way so let me live for a second

Additionally, i am going to claim that there are a lot more ghosts than just the blooks, some evidence given below

Theres like actual scientific knowlege of ghosts in the undertale verse which seems unlikely if theres literally only three or four

The underground is so much bigger than you think, theres that giant forest in snowdin, a large town in the ruins, the huge city of new home, who knows how much space in the large open areas of waterfall etc. Its really really big okay

Also based off evidence of blooky, we can conclude that ghosts can turn invisible whenever they want to and/or haunt objects to hide

So I personally think that ghosts are, generally speaking, extremely reclusive

And the blooks are just a special exception, a beautiful family, amazing for them

So anyway im going with typical ghost lore for now, for the sake of ease, so im gonna say ghosts generally come from monsters who are particularly restless or unsatisfied when they die

HOWEVER i dont think they remember being monsters or anything before being a ghost. They just kinda fizzle into existance with a fully formed personality and immortality while being unkillable and feeling vaguely uneasy

ALSO i personally think that chara was a ghost for a long time before they became a blook by adoption

Based on game lore, i think ghosts can possess any inanimate object and just kinda wear it? But it takes a lot of strong emotion to become corporeal

And chara is the super weird exception because they were a human not a monster.

They dont have a soul (i headcanon that their soul got destroyed when asriel died)

And they KNOW this, which is a huge part of why they kinda just... give up

Because they lost their ability to fulfill prophecy

Also, without a soul, they lost their ability to reset, so for the first time since falling underground, theyre subject to the relentless march of time

But theyre still weirdly strong and powerful and more emotional

ALSO they DO still remember being a human but they catch on pretty quickly that other ghosts dont have memories and because chara is stupid they just lie to fit in

Theyre too tired to explain themself, they just want to be alone and feel awful

Now back to ghost lore

Emotions are a lot harder for ghosts??? I decided

And they dont know why,, they tend to blame it on the soul thing

But realistically its actually more of the immortality thing making actions not have consequences and/or or not having a body so they cant have a sense of touch or have physical effects of emotion

They all know that ghosts just tend to be way more floaty and bored and numb

And thats part of why the blooks are so special

Maddy’s rage and Mettaton’s yearning and Napstablook’s misery are like... not great all of the time...

but theyre also way way more emotion than most ghosts have,,, they are just a family supporting each other, being as functional as they can,, just an emo(tional) ghost family

most ghosts barely do anything except like stare at walls but the blooks have their snail farm and that helps them have purpose and it is good

And they hold each other accountable and it is nice

So anyway chara just chills and is in a depression coma for a few decades before the blooks find them and are like “our child/baby cousin”

and they raise them for a cool minute

They are all very protective of the new baby emo blook

And chara doesnt get therapy but at the very least they once again have a family, and they decide they want to try to become corporeal eventually just like mtt and maddy

So anyway chara starts hanging out in the ruins a lot more and they finally tell the blooks theyre leaving to go become corporeal in the ruins

This is actually because they are trying to hang out with toriel

because they miss their mom ;;

but chara’s not gonna admit that to anyone, especially not to themself

And because theyre still repressing their emotions constantly and pretending to be fine, they cant become corporeal

And they hang out in the ruins for a long time because they feel guilty lying to everyone about everything

They still feel like its their fault that all the monsters are stuck underground, because they were SUPPOSED to save everyone and they COULDNT and it HURTS

But again, they are doing too much repression to use this guilt to become corporeal,

so instead they just kinda hide and watch toriel from a distance and cry

Blooky visits them the most, thats why blooky is chilling in the ruins so much at the start of the game

Theyre just there to visit their shy baby cousin ;;

Ofc they wont tell frisk about this because chara wants space and privacy and blooky respects that

but maddy and mtt also visit them a lot

Oh also when mtt and maddy start dissapearing, blookys mental health plummets as their family and support system starts to dissolve

Blooky was actually doing extremely well (for a ghost) for a long time, i headcanon,

but theyre doing the worst theyve been in a long long time during the game, because of family issues

So anyway, chara dissapears when frisk shows up, and maddy assumes this is becaude frisk hurt their fragile feelings

Maddy spends hours desperately searching the ruins for chara and cant find them and assumes that they had their heart crushed and went to hide and disappear in a depression coma for another few decades, and thats part of why maddy is so furious with frisk

Like,, to be clear, maddy is still jumping to conclusions and throwing blame around with no proof, but also, its a logical conclusion to come to

And mettaton has already disappeared too and been gone for a while, too, by this point, so it hurts even worse

But anyway, what actually happened to chara is that;

Because chara is a human ghost, not a monster ghost, normal ghost rules dont apply to them

And they can possess living things too they find out

Maybe they knew it a long time ago, maybe its a new discovery, but for whatever reason they end up possessing frisk and theyre like “what the heck”

And frisk still has most of the control

But now chara is like,,, “this is my chance, im a human again, gotta save the world for real,,,”

and they cant explain this to anyone without revealing their past

so they just chill in frisk’s mind while being super crypic and trying to figure out how it works

Pacifist route, this is pretty much exactly what happens

They manage to help frisk save the day

And in my headcanon, the no mercy route is started by frisk who is scared when faced by monsters attacking them

And then chara, who was aready hiding in a semidepression coma for a while, immediately transitions to a panicked “gotta protect this body, gotta protect my chance to be human, i died and threw away my chance to save everyone the first time, i CANNOT lose this chance again”

And so the combination of both frisk and chara is the genocide run

Because frisk kills in self defense, and whenever frisk hesitates, chara jumps in

Also theres leftover feelings from the whole asriel incident

Because again, ghosts come from monsters who died unsatisfied

And chara’s main source of unsatisfaction is how they were trying to get asriel to kill people before he died and then he didnt

So thats a strong strong feeling ruling them

So anyway by the time they both realize how bad its become they figure its too late and also the amount of LOVE has made them numb

And thats when chara who, despite everything, still has idiot hero complex and thinks they need to save the world

So, while panicking, they step in at the very end, and erase the timeline and delete everything

And also to clarify

They DONT HAVE this power at any other point in the game

Because, guess why

They become corporeal

Just like maddy, the no mercy route is the only thing that gives them strong enough emotion to spontaneously become corporeal

So they become corporeal and as soon as they have a soul again and can reset again, they just erase everything

Ok back to fluff

Post pacifist route, they are still a non corporeal ghost

They can still float around and look just like the other blooks

And it takes them a while to open up about things, but they do end up moving back in with blooky so that blooky isnt completely alone

And also they do way better with a family

Also they can float through the mountain and talk to flowey down below and bring him news

And now that they know about him, they can bond with him and explain that they dont have a soul either but that doesnt mean theyre worthless

Oh ALSO

The other dead humans dont have ghosts

BECAUSE

ghosts only come from restless dead MONSTERS

and chara is the weird special exception

Because they were a monster when they died

They became a ghost and asriel didnt because they were way more restless and stressed than asriel was when both of them died

Like sure, asriel felt awful, but chara was the one who was way more like “this is my fault, i CANT die now, the world NEEDS me”

So anyway

charablook the emo tween ghost and asriel flowey the eldrich goat daisy are siblings once more and they hang out and eventually they are okay and have a family again

Thank you for reading, this has been my thoughts on a crack theory that accidentally went too far

This isnt even everything, maybe i’ll make a part two eventually, but i promised to have this post out like two days ago, so i wanted to post SOMTHING

Anyway leave your thoughts if youd like

Im not looking for people to disprove it, i already know its crazy, i dont think it was intentional by the game writers, but i do think its a fun concept

thats the fun of it, so if anyone wants to run with it im all for it lol

Thanks again! Have a nice day!

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Belgium brings their ex-vocalist back to Rotterdam 2021

Here we chop chop boys like we chop chop wood

This review space would’ve been reserved for Belarus. Unfortunately, their broadcaster was not ready to make nice, and ultimately refused to serve EBU with anything but not-even-so-thinly-veiled propaganda, so much so that EBU, after all they’ve given the time for them for to snap out of it, finally had to be like “bye bitch” (- Lizzo) with enough push from the fandom, and informed everyone that Belarus will miss this year’s contest <3

Which means that I don’t have to deal with 41, but with 39 writeups to do overall, if my timing permits! The Roop could’ve always used a little less competition, anyway /j

Speaking of The Roop’s competition, time to aim at another one of their semifinal folk with a review. Come forth, Belgium!

ARTIST & ENTRY INFO

Hooverphonic, eventhough they’re not as big of a name as Flo Rida, is the biggest act to compete in this year’s Eurovision, and even had lasted longer as a thing than Flo Rida. He barely even got his proper famous kickstart around in the 2000s. Hoover have been around at least for 5 years more than him, if “Years active” section on Wikipedia is anything to go by. And back then they were just known as Hoover, correct. Their lineup of singers has changed for quite some time, but otherwise the band since its inception is rooted in basically two men: Alex Callier and Raymond Geerts. They used to have a keyboardist too but was he a part of their glory years in 2000? No? Thought so, he’s irrelevant then. In fact, their first vocalist wasn’t even present on their first album, so they went to have another one, who did just one album with them before 2000 and left. Now I’m only constantly and consistently bringing up 2000 because that’s when they had their break out moment in relevancy - after they changed their singer once more before they found someone called Geike Arnaert - the woman you’re seeing on the MV’s thumbnail right now, and not someone certain for whom there was a public outcry for she is the only Hooverphonic component that’s not coming back from 2020 to 2021. But more on that later. I’m here to present you the break-out hit, for those who just don’t know:

I used to like to think of Hoovers as trip-hop sensations, well not in the style of Massive Attack because they have their trip-hop sound with actual hip hop thrown in, Hooverphonic’s style is that but with a tinge of symphonic.

Well, “Mad About You” wasn’t really the only hit they had, before that they got a bunch of minor and domestic hits, and their music was used for soundtracks. So it’s a little bit cheating still to think of “Mad About You” as their breakout hit, but that’s still the biggest song of the band. If I were to recommend you stuff from them that aren’t necessarily the biggest hits but still, “The Night Before” with yet another one of their vocalists is pretty good.

So when I tell you that Hooverphonic is a band of a very long career. Well some bands do survive a lot without having their lineup change for 10+ years, but Hooverphonic vocalistes come and go sometimes, and for 2020 forray, when they were first announced, they came in to that talk show studio where they were guests in with a promising little starlet Alex Callier found at The Voice Belgium (for the Flanders region) and was her mentor there, Luka Cruysberghs, as their current vocalist.

Is it just me or her and Stefania Liberakakis look like they could be cousins?

All went smooth and dandy, until Alex started spouting stuff about Eurovision the fans found not amusing, such as calling Eurovision a circus or something, later begging and pleading to medias that his statement was “lost in translation” - now I would say it happens to the best of us, like for Tornike, but deep inside I think I know Alex meant what he meant, inside or outside context. Because everything just went even more sour when everyone found out Hooverphonic were missing from the common song “Love Shine a Light” for the 2020 consolation programme in place of Eurovision, and when they were forced to explain, Alex just straight up said he didn’t like the song, so he decided to not do it. Fuck, I myself don’t adore the 1997 winning song, but I like it, and would’ve still done a piece of that song out of respect. Take it or leave it, god damn. Also they were noted to be the only people plugging in their other material in the time when Eurovision 2020 artists on the consolation programme were either saying inspirational stuff or “hope to see you soon!” or a combo of both, once again, courtesy of mostly Alex. Now I’m not saying his ego is bigger than Kirkorov’s... of fucking course not, no one has an ego bigger than Kirkorov’s. The only thing that can beat him in that regard is if someone booked Kanye West for Eurovision last minute.

Following 2021, they were very excited to jump on the “leave 2020 songs behind” train, while a few artists like VICTORIA and The Roop rallied for to keep their entries in tact if they were allowed to. And with that, in late 2020, they went ahead and celebrated the 20 years of “Mad About You” by getting rid of Luka as a vocalist and bringing back the aforementioned Geike to reprise her part. Seems pretty reasonable, but for the Eurofandom it was simply seen as a dick move, and mostly for the reason that all 2020 artists deserve a 2021 chance, even if they’re band members. What felt more dickish is that Luka was straight up told “byeeee u’re no longer our bandmate xo” on a Zoom call between band members. Like, it’s fine to be told you’re fired in person, even if still humiliating, because what’s the other better way? What’s equally worse is to be told this via email, but the email you were sent was sent like a few months ago and you only read it NOW. At least I guess that proves we know what the “sad and losing game” was that Luka asked to be released from now, heh.

Not to worry Luka-stans, as Alex will still have her, just as not the part of the band anymore. But instead give her a solo career. Yeah well we’ll see how long that lasts.

With the 2000 glory heydays lineup of Hooverphonic we have their entry be “The Wrong Place”, as the completely quite different song they promised (or didn’t) when saying that they will certainly and absolutely get rid of their old one for the 2021 if they had a choice. What they didn’t get rid of is the theme of the worse part of relationships - “Release Me” is about probably wanting to be let go of and released rather than kept by the side when it’s probably not working out. “The Wrong Place” is one of those episodes that probably happened during then - they had a house conflict, she chose to have a smoke to forget about it, the man’s after her Johnny Cash T-Shirt. Not much else to say about the song’s technicality fortunately than I’ve already said so much about the band, so how does it fare in the Hoover-lore, for me?

REVIEW

See, I would like to root for Luka ever having her chance to get to experience Eurovision if she wishes, but maybe it’s lowkey for her own benefit she wasn’t the chosen vocalist for the song, as Geike could do “Release Me”, but Luka wouldn’t be able to do “The Wrong Place”.

“The Wrong Place” is well-suited to the first vocaliste’s melancholic blend-in timbre, and a singer like Luka would sound a little too light on this with her soft-spoken sound of her voice. Besides, I don’t think she could be old enough to relate to the lyrical subject’s domestic struggle issue. Not to say 20 year olds don’t smoke and drink, it’s just that “The Wrong Place” feels a little bit too much mature enough.

Although I think that both of them could absolutely rock the music video visuals.

The song itself is very Hooverphonic. They used to do this kind of standout triphoppy sound back in the days, but as of lately they kind of grew out of the label to do more of the music that kinda sounds like movie soundtrack music. Idek the exact label I could give it to their music so move soundtrack music it is I guess. It has a decently paced structure (could’ve done without the overly repetitive ending where they repeat “you’re in the wrong place” over and over, like ffs I know where I am!!), and interesting lyrical choices. Such as “organic cup of... tea”, as in, WOW! HOOVERPHONIC HAS ENOUGH WITH THE TEABAGS FULL OF GROUND AND GRINDED TEA! THEY WILL ONLY MAKE TEA FROM PURE HERBS AND FLOWERS, AS IT WAS USED TO BE DONE! and acting like her Johnny Cash T-Shirt is the kind of prized possession her man is not allowed to wear to rub it in her face. Imagine if it was something more mundane. “Don’t you ever dare to wear my... pink polka-dot T-shirt”? Damn right it doesn’t seem to suit the mood lol.

It’s not what I exactly wanted from Hooverphonic, but probably what I subconsciously needed from them anyway, ever since they were announced for 2020. I only got into “Release Me” sometime AFTER the contest, “The Wrong Place” is a bit more instant to stand behind. So well done to them to commit to their craft.

Approval factor: I guess I do have to stamp this with my stamp of approval. It’s nice and all. Follow-up factor: “The Wrong Place” follows up as a more of a Hooverphonic discography track after the fairly average and overlookable “Release Me” (eventhough the latter has the tinge of theirs as well because it’s a more symphonic ballad, and they do have symphonic stuff on their discog afterall). As a Eurovision entry, it comes across as even better somewhat, and even slightly more standout, but that might not necessarily work in their favour. Qualification factor: And that’s because they’re absolutely stranded in the semi with too many qualification choices to name. Belgium gets to be a bit quasi-obvious, but they’ve failed with a Hooverphonic-penned song before, plus, the pop girlies of this semi are more likely to eat out a band like this alive, but I wouldn’t exactly say Belgium is doomed to fail either, because I am positive Hooverphonic will think of something. I’m just saying that shocking things can happen every now and then.

INTERNAL CORNER

Well, considering Alex Callier is not running his mouth this time as much as he did so last year’s season, I think it’s safe to say that Hooverphonic have had nothing to write home about.

No, wait...

Well I did mention that Luka got replaced as one of the events that happened to Hooverphonic’s lifetime, but thank God that Alex promised her a solo career, right? Right?

Well, apparently, we’re getting towards it.

And the first lyrics of her first solo forray post-Hooverphonic-vocalist-duties features the lyrics about possibly her making someone “regret it”. Lol now watch this song to be a karma kick into Hooverphonic’s ass if Belgium happens to not qualify this year. Luka forewarned y’all with sharp precision.

Annnnnd that’s pretty much it, besides the band jumping on the trend of turning their entries into a Festivali i Këngës 59 acoustic night European version by presenting their own acoustic version of this track. I did not have the kind of courage to link to the Azerbaijan’s “slow version” on their review in fear of overruning my post even longer than they would usually be for these reviews, but at least it moves people to a certain degree

Well, my question of the days is, does “The Wrong Place” in acoustic make you sad twerk?

ANY LAST WORDS?

Belgium’s big weakness is when it comes to stage their entries, notably for the last two years where the Eurovision actually happened. Sennek was awkwardly put in the middle and succumbed to the curse of Lucie Jones of grimmacing too much and therefore ruining her score in the process, possibly. Eliot was just simply upstaged by the decision to include big drums on stage. Alex Callier acknowledges all that sort of thing, so if anything goes absolutely right and Hooverphonic manage to make it to Rotterdam (which I think they can do because Belgium and Netherlands are neighbours lol? unless their lockdown rules get super strict in May), he should get on to mending all the flaws that Belgium had in the past for staging, and have a spectacular vision. Because it’d be sadly hilariously ironic if Hoovers miss out on the final due to the staging again. Can’t just constantly blame the vocalist - Geike would be flawless live, if Hooverphonic trusted in her for so many years. Can’t blame the song - it’s not too bad. So staging, I guess.

Good luck Hooverphonic, you’ll certainly need it. Also can RTBF consider that they could send anything else from the Wallonian music scene other than The Voice Belgique acts~

[wanderingmirror]

They kept him chained down within his own mind. The mask of being human always causing his anger to spike. Dean hid his rage behind smiles and attitude. But when Sam chose a demon over him, the room they had been in turned into an even greater mess. Archangels, Angels, and demons across the world could feel the wave of dark and golden grace. Ruby shivered and whimpered silently to herself while away from Sam.

Dean felt the rage overflow, he could not control himself as he searched for his human brother. Words are the nicest thing he could have with the She-demon.

———————————————————————

When Lilith was slain, her blood opening the cage, Dean entered the room, a dark look in his eyes. Sam felt fear spike in his chest when he saw the darkened look coming from his brother’s eyes. The moment Ruby was in sight, the words died in Dean’s throat at what the She-demon manipulated his Sammy into doing. Ruby, fortunately for her, was only stabbed with the knife Dean had taken with him. Dean letting out a vicious roar as he did so. Sam shivered and the beings in the area did the same. As Lucifer came up from the cage he felt the vengeful, dark grace push against his own. He yelled and his wings fluttered. Dean looked over to the fallen angel, his eyes glowing a pure white.

“Abbas?” He said softly and moved closer to the human who should not have grace coming from his form. Dean twitched and felt the signs of a black out coming for him. Sam’s eyes widened when Dean’s rolled into the back of his head. Lucifer lounged for the elder Winchester as he collapsed, but he only caught air as both brothers vanished. Sam was the only one awake to see the old church get destroyed. Dean unconscious.

———————————————————————

When the two brothers returned to Bobby’s, Dean fled into the panic room. Locking himself in and screaming in agony and rage. A long locked away secret clawing to get loose. To find their anchor. “LUCIFER! MICHEAL!” Dean screamed in Enochian. “GABRIEL!” His voice shaking the house entirely. The names of his brothers and his anchor sending shivers through Sam and Bobby’s spines. “Bobby what’s going on?!” Sam shouted as Dean’s wails got louder and louder. Bobby shrugged in terrified confusion. He scurried with the younger Winchester when the screams, worryingly, stopped. They found Dean laying limp on the wall farthest from the door. All of the Archangels shivered when the screams stopped.

Lucifer curled within the vessel he inhabited. “I hear you brother. I hear you.” He whispered with his grace nudging against the darkened grace surrounding his in a bond made long ago. His eyes sealed shut and his body shivering.

———————————————————————

Sam and Bobby dug deep into the books and lore to figure out who Lucifer had called Dean, since the eldest Winchester refused to come out of the panic room to do so. “Castiel, can you come down here? We need your help.” Sam prayed and got an answer through the book before him being flipped and a page being turned to. Faded, but still legible. Abbas, Archangel of Judgement. Three pairs of wings, bronze, gold, and white. Dirty blonde hair and eyes the same as Dean’s.

Dean’s wails started up again. He wanted to be freed. He wanted to spread his wings, to reap judgement past due. His grace wanted to wrap around the grace of his anchor, to feel it cool and calm his own. And after four days of this cycle of quiet then chaos. Dean left the panic room in a daze. He leaned against the door frame as he walked to his and Sam’s shared room. Laying down and passing out. “Dean?” Sam asked softly when he woke to find Dean curled around him later on. Arms wrapped protectively and legs tangled with his. Dean just pulled the younger closer and encouraged him to sleep too.

———————————————————————

The chase to find and reseal Lucifer was long. Castiel and the other angels tense and nervous around Dean when they were needed. Dean was quiet, hands itching to touch the remains of grace from his anchor only to find him long gone. Bond eerily quiet and cold. When they found Gabriel, the archangel froze. Eyes locking on Dean when he brushed his grace against that of Gabriel’s. The amber eyed male tearing up. He was then pulled into the arms of his big brother. Sobbing and pushing his grace into Dean’s, seeking comfort he hasn’t had in millions of centuries. Though the elder Winchester was surprised at first, he still soothed the other with his own. “You’re awake! I heard you! But they wouldn’t let me find you!”

Dean soothed Gabriel with soft words. Leaving Sam confused, bitch face in full swing. “De, start talking. Now.” Sam demanded as he crossed his arms. Dean gently nudging Gabriel into his side to rest. The three had sat down after Gabriel was finished checking Dean over. Dean was reluctant to talk about his angelic history. It being far to sore a subject that even Bobby was strictly in the dark. “If I had it my way, Sammy, I wouldn’t tell you shit.” Dean grumbled. He rubbed Gabriel’s back, between wings in severe need of grooming, as he thought how best to talk to Sam. “Well, I’d like to know how long this Abbas asshole has been with you. So, start from there.” Dean wanted to laugh. Sammy thought that Abbas was someone else entirely. When in reality, he and the archangel of judgment were one and the same.

“Sammy, here’s what you don’t seem to get. I am Abbas. Abbas is me. I’m, how you say, in my own personal prison. I never wanted to be human.” Dean said with no small amount of irritation. “Before, and even after the rebellion, I got a little too twitchy for the old man’s liking. So he and Death decided to seal what they didn’t like away. What better way to deal with an Archangel who just lost the one thing keeping them sane.” Dean’s mouth twitched in a humorless smile for a moment. Gabriel shivered when the short haired male decided to groom messy wings. Though Sam could not out right see the wings, Dean could.

It was common that Dean, while still with his brethren, would check the wings of fledglings and even the archangels. Grooming them like a mother hen. The others realized long ago that it reassured Dean they were still there. As many had disappeared suddenly over time. “That doesn’t explain everything. You damn well know that.” Sam stated and Dean did laugh then. “Yeah, I suppose you’re right. They bound me in a human form, many human forms actually. Gotta move with the times right? I constantly had to grow back up. Lived with different human parents.” Dean shrugged at the horrified expression on Sam’s face.

“Then I was born in the Winchester household. As Dean Winchester. Eldest brother to you. I couldn’t access my grace back then. To save Mary. She was actually a mother I wanted to grow up with. To make proud.” Dean sighed with grief. “But, seems Azazel had other plans. And I got raised differently. Well, I didn’t get raised. I raised you and grew up being a parent instead of a child. Didn’t mind since I’d had children in my past lives.” Dean smiled fondly at those memories. Gabriel purring in his lap.

The other archangel had moved to nuzzle under his brother’s neck. Laying chest to chest to give Dean better access to his wings. Dean sat the feathers on the floor next to the couch after they either fell or were pulled. Sam found it both very cute and oddly enough didn’t seem bothered that the smaller archangel was curled like a cat against his brother. But then again, he had seen weirder. Dean grumbled when he found things within the wings, muttering about washing them later.

Dean felt his own wings flutter at the thought of bathing. His own grace shivering in quiet excitement that did nothing to pull Gabriel from his sleep. Dean poked the bond connecting him to his anchor, scowling when he found the bond was still icy and silent. “Who’s your bond with, Dean?” Sam asked after Dean gently kissed the side of Gabriel’s head. The smaller angel nuzzling subconsciously. “Lucifer. I did mention that I was going insane after his fall, ya know.” Dean arched a brow when Sam choked on his own spit at the declaration. Sam looked at Dean like he had two heads after that. Watching as the elder Winchester picked the archangel up and started for what he assumed was the bathroom.

Sam didn’t follow. Something Dean was grateful for, as he wasn’t keen on letting the giant of a man see his baby brother naked. To Dean, it’s like looking at your children. He raised the younger angels and Archangels after they were created. And once Lucifer and Micheal were old enough they helped him raised the others. Dean snorted while getting the water warm. Gabriel was always with Lucifer, both having tricks and pranks to dish out. Never against Dean though, as he could do much worse than them.

Micheal learned fighting styles and other more warrior like things from Dean. Always copying the elder Archangel, Dean pretending he didn’t see the boy as he trained beside him. Rafael was raised into books, and much to his delight, Dean always had stories to tell or books to help him learn. While he did have their father’s wisdom and knowledge, it was Dean who helped him channel it. As time went on, Dean and Lucifer fell for the other. The elder of the two seemingly calming down from his more destructive habits. Much to the annoyance of their Aunt Amara. Dean snorted again as he sat Gabriel in the bath, his wings spread out over the edges so Dean could reach them. Dean hummed softly, it sounded like a far away church organ. Gabriel purred as he woke up, blinking sleepily as he caught Dean humming in his more angelic voice.

“You still sound beautiful, big bro.” He said softly, earning a chuckle as he shuttered his eyes. Dean kept humming. While he was by no means a choir angel, he still could sing. Baritone was his most used tone. It rumbled deep in his chest and caused the fledglings and younger angels to giggle. It also calmed down the Seraphs after a day of battle. Gabriel made a small sound of relief when he felt the debris leave his wings under the spray. He hadn’t paid much attention to his wings after Abbas was sealed away and Lucifer was cast out of heaven. “And you wonder where the youngling Choir angels got it from.” Gabriel teased and made a large exhale as his oil glands were cleared. Dean snorted at the memory of having little choir angels trying to sing with him. They couldn’t keep a tune for long but they got better with time and patience. Patience, the angel race found, was ever present for them alone.

Dean scowled a bit, remembering how he got twitchy after their father created the humans. Lucifer had the mark containing Aunt Amara at the time. So the twitchy attitude Dean had at the time was thought to be understandable. It wasn’t until Lucifer snapped that Abbas felt the tugs to cast judgment upon the humans. He even felt the urge from Lucifer from time to time to do it. Though the younger archangel tried to hide it from him. Their father realized that Abbas wasn’t handling the new creations as well as he did with the angels. Lucifer being cast down was only the icing on the cake after that. Since the Archangel had no way of keeping a calm and rational mental state.

So much like Aunt Amara, Abbas was sealed in a different type of cage. “You’re brooding again.” Gabriel mumbled sleepily, getting wing massages and bathes were lulling the youngest Archangel to deep sleep again. Dean smiled softly as he emptied the tub, pulled Gabriel into a warm towel, and dried the man off. He walked to Gabriel’s room and found warm fluffy clothes to wrap his brother in. Along with boxers, Dean clothed his brother and put him to bed. “You really do have the mindset of a mom.” Sam snickered, quietly laughing when Dean turned a half hearted glare onto him. “Well when you have nothing else to do but be a parent to your younger siblings, it tends to stick.” Dean responded with no heat, Sam still felt a little guilty for not trying harder to be a better brother. Dean huffed a breath, he twitched his wings as he walked. He couldn’t do anything more than twitch them, they were bound by holy leather to his back. All three sets.

———————————————————————

Dean rolled his neck and popped it, grunting softly. It would be a long time before he could rid himself from these straps. Since no one but his bonded, who was still missing, or Micheal, who he hasn’t seen in millennium, could cut them off. Dean had tried ridding himself of them, but all it did was tighten the straps to his back. The blonde felt a growl well up in his chest, felt his darkened grace lash out at forces that were no longer within his reach to feel. With his grace locked and his wings restrained, the calls to cast Judgment were few and far in between. Sam had gone to bed, Gabriel had remained asleep still. Dean didn’t feel the need to rest. He poked at the bond, quiet still, but warming up. Dean smiled softly in quiet relief that his anchor didn’t feel he had to block Dean from him. Even if it was only to give the sense of safe-alive-home that Dean really needed.

“I’ll find you, beloved. Neither Father nor Death will keep me from you.” Dean muttered with a steadfast promise. And somewhere in the world, Chuck shivered, knowing full well that Abbas would keep that promise.

———————————————————————

Elsewhere, Lucifer was in hell. Dealing with things that had gone down while he was away. Feeling the constant pokes and prods of his Archangel of Judgement. Abbas was worried, and a small bit of anger. Lucifer knew damn well why Abbas was angry. Being separated from his grace, from his wings, from their brothers, and from Lucifer himself. Abbas was twitchy even before they were separated. Lucifer gave Abbas a small bit of reassurance, and felt the anger and worry ease into something he was sure Abbas could now manage. The darkened grace almost having a purr of its own now that Lucifer has acknowledged its owner. Lucifer can’t meet with Abbas now, in his mind Lucifer isn’t ready to see him again. But feeling his Archangel through the bond was enough to reassure him that Abbas still loved him.

As the demons around him moved, Lucifer allowed his wings to brush against the walls and the pillars of the throne room. None of the others understood what their lord was doing, nor did they need to. Lucifer stretched his wings, feeling the pops and cracks of disuse leave. With a sigh, Lucifer vanished to the surface to explore. Trying to get an idea of where his Archangel was. However, the shift in placement told Abbas where Lucifer was anyway. Lucifer was sure of that. It didn’t take much for Abbas to figure out where Lucifer was when the bond they had formed so long ago was so strong. But the younger Archangel knew that, without his wings the Archangel of Judgement could not fly to him. Something Lucifer was sure Abbas was roaring internally about.

“Do you think he’ll let me see him soon?” Lucifer looked at the sky without the need to turn around. Rafael was there behind him. “Don’t count on it, Elder brother.” Rafael said simply as he felt the warmth of Abbas’ grace flow over them both. While the archangels could only move their grace at Will to things nearest them, Abbas could reach across the world if he needed. Judgement is passed to everyone, not just a few. “I say the old man will. He can’t keep Abs away from his anchor forever.” Lucifer snarked. “Besides, he doesn’t want Abs to cast judgment on his favorite toys too soon, right?” He snickered when Rafael’s eyes went wide before the other vanished to tell their brother. “Don’t have to wait too long, Abs. I’ll find you before he has the chance to try and control you.” Lucifer muttered as he vanished back to Hell.

[calocera]

SPOILERS FOR CATS 2019, here’s my hot takes and opinions

be warned, THIS IS LOOOONG

First off my overall opinion, i LITERALLY cannot say whether it was good or bad, like lots of critics say it just...is beyond that. It’s VERY fun and that’s all I can bring myself to say, I have LOTS of problems with it but I can’t even say that they make the movie bad. It is definitely worth watching

OPINIONS ON CHARACTERS:

Victoria: she’s good! I appreciate that they kinda left her personality blank other than her innocence since that’s pretty much how she always was, still not super thrilled with her as a main character but franchesca did the best she could

Munkustrap: I loved him! he was more of a main character than I would have expected, but they STILL cut all the charm from his lines... why do I love him then? Robbie fairchild did AMAZING background acting, whenever he was in frame he was always doing something SUPER munkustrap-y and making cute dad faces. he was dealt bad lines but he worked around it best he could. Also his legs were normal so...epic fail

Mistoffelees: 😒😒😒😒😒🤢🤢🤮 disappointed but not at all surprised...he was just a Woobie, a softboy uwu nice guy. I felt like I was seeing fanon 2013 loki in cat form. THEY MADE HIS SONG A SADBOY PITY PARTY SONG...WHY WOULD YOU MAKE THE 11 O’CLOCK NUMBER SLOW AND SAD???? Where is the smug little shit who’s vague and aloof yet confident and joyous? He was murdered by his evil homophobic shadow clone. I’m not even gunna indulge the fact that him and Victoria were a thing, I’ll go over that later. He also just constantly looked like the crying cat meme his eyes were so red and watery it was horrifying, yet somehow he wasn’t the worst character , that leads us too.....

tugger: what.the.fuck.did.you.do.to.this.boy. HE GOT THE TREATMENT I EXPECTED FOR MUNKUSTRAP! HE WAS DEMOTED TO BACKGROUND CHARACTER! not only did he not sing mr. mistoffelees, he literally did nothing other than his song, he never interacted with ANY characters besides jenny in 1 scene. I know cats has no set main characters but he’s undoubtedly one of the most important characters and he’s like...the least important named character in the movie. ALSO Jason Derulo was not sexy at all. There was NO hip thrusting NO sexy meowing NO glamrock, he was just an asshole and if I hadn’t already seen the original I would have either completely forgotten about his character or though he was the worst character. I’m so fucking angy I cannot express.

Girzzabella: ngl I expected better. Her acting was great but with the horrible effects I couldnt get invested but I’ll touch on the effects later. Her singing was good, but I expected it to carry the movie and it wasn’t at all the best song in the movie, I’d say she’s about as good as I expected she’d be but the movie itself was more enjoyable than I expected so she was less significant

Old d: she was fine, she LOOKED the part definitely, she didn’t have as large a presence as ken page but I wouldnt expect that of her. Her singing wasn’t the greatest though, her voice is fine by it’s just NOT suited to old d’s songs. I would have preferred she play a female gus bc her voice is very sweet and frail, not at all built for belting like her songs required.

Macavity: he’s just...eh. He’s basically a comic relief villain which sucks. He does practically nothing besides kidnap people, say a cheesy line, and act like a caricature of a 90s cartoon villain (and not one of the fun ones) like theres a scene where he poofs away and when he does it he goes, MACAvityyyyyyy and fades away its so unintentionally funny but it just makes him so lame as a villain. not to mention he doesnt even die at the end or get any satisfying conclusion he just gets stuck on top of a statue and his powers suddenly stop working (for some reason??)

Bombalurina: fuck that, I am simultaneously glad she only was in the macavity number bc fuck off Taylor Swift but also disappointed bc she deserved so much better.

Bustopher: 😟 never in my darkest nightmares did I think I’d see bustopher Jones deepthroat multiple crayfish but here we are. Somehow THIS was the most sexual song, I cannot begin to name the fetishes checked off by this performance bc itd hit word limit. Let me just say that I said multiple times out loud, “damn bustopher kinda a freak with it 😏😏” like I CANNOT stress how weirdly sexual it gets. And ofc its all otherwise just haha funney fat guy eat food and burp and fall down. He also breaks the fourth wall a few times which like, fuck you

Jenny: exactly what was shown in the trailer. Unfunny fat jokes and slapstick humor. Also they focused WAY too many shots on her cat pussy and I wish I was making that up. Also of note is that the cgi on the rats and cockroaches are drastically worse than the rest of the movie, like not just bad designs the effects are BAD. also they translated they whole gumbie cat fur-shedding as her wearing fake skin over her outfit which would be fine but UHH the fake fur is skin tight??? so it literally looks like shes ripping off her skin and she does it multiple times its fucking terrifying

Mungojerrie and rumpelteazer: meh, they are fine as characters, not quite as energetic as I would have liked but they didn’t massively fuck anything up? The song was horrible, they went against the beat for...some reason? Like it’s a song with a very distinct rhythm and they split up the lyrics so weirdly. I liked that they followed through with the lore of them working for macavity

Skimbleshanks: YES YESSSSSSSSSS HOLY FUCKING SHIT 💗💕💖💞💜😳😳😳😳😳😳😳💜💛🧡💚💖❤️💗 i absolutely CANNOT express how good skimbleshanks made me feel. He looks like a leather daddy with his chains and suspenders and hat and stache, I hate that I’m saying this but uh...mr skimbleshanks sir😳 we were actually screaming it was so fucking good. Watching this movie was worth it just for skimble. Unironically. I’m listening to the song as we speak. It was kinda weird that they moved the tap dancing to this song but that’s more of a detractor from Jennie’s and a plus side to skimbles since it’s good tap

Gus: good! Ian did a good job of course, no one doubted that he would.

Growltiger and griddlebone: not racist but still absolutely horrifying. One of the worst parts of the movie, I actually got squeamish looking at griddlebone a few times that’s how bad she looks

Everyone else: not that good. I couldn’t tell who was who, all their personalities were annoying, I’m on imdb as we speak trying to figure out who even was supposed to be who. Demeter is completely butchered and jemima just isn’t there, doesn’t sing her part, it all sucked man.

Tech talk:

CGI: okay so here’s the thing, the effects are good. GREAT even, the issue is how fucking horrible the designs are. The lack of cat nose, mouth, and hairy cheeks makes them all look disgusting. Also the feet. Holy fuck why do they have feet. THERES A FUCKING SCENE WHERE TUGGER GRABS VICTORIAS FOOT AND SNIFFS IT. IT LASTS LIKE 5 SECONDS. Old Deuteronomy, Gus, and Cassandra (bc she was already bald) are the only characters I’d say look anywhere close to decent, grizabella looks okay in profile but head on it’s all horrible again. its really such a shame bc the sets are gorgeous! i really hope this movie gets some form of recognition for its sets.

the editing and directing was DOGSHITTTTTTT there are SO many scenes where characters just teleport or parts where people are singing and no ones mouths are moving its really distracting

Other things:

it’s OBVIOUS that the critics calling this movie horny have never seen the original. I’d definitely say the movie is LESS HORNY than the play. It IS however waaaaaaay more uncomfortable with its hornieness, so I’d say in that regard YES, the horny stuff is much more gratuitous and off putting despite there being an overall smaller amount than the play. ie everything bustopher jones does

They changed a BUNCH of lyrics for some reason?? Like they cut verses which I understand but there are like a handful of lyrics in almost every song they just...change. like...okay? All changing lyrics is gunna do is make people who knew the songs frustrated when they can’t sing along

the dancing was incredible! shame the cg just fucking invalidates all of it bc your mind doesnt register it as real people doing real moves

OKAY THE FUCKING CATNIP SCENE so when taylor swift showers everyone in catnip they all just fucking start moaning and go FULL HORNY its TOO MUCH like misto full on does an o face like eyes rolled back mouth open  and munkustrap is like ass up panting i still havent processed it im fucking terrified to encounter it again. they cut the orgy? yet added THIS??? k

WHY did they take 2 of the most iconic characters who FREQUENTLY interact and just

a. Never even have them make eye contact

b. Make 1 a background character

c. Completely change the personality of the other one

On the topic of Victoria/misto: I am just still at a loss as to why they thought it’d be a good idea? They completely removed Plato and for what? This? Pathetic. It’s worth noting the weirdly munkustrap has WAYYY more chemistry with both Victoria AND mistoffelees then they did with each other (there’s a part where it looks like misto and munk are about to kiss for some reason?? munk ALSO gets all touchy feely with skimbleshanks???) anyways munkustrap king moments

tldr; its worth watching, the best parts were the sets, the dancing, skimbleshanks, and munkustrp fucking CARRIES the weight of the world with his face acting. the worst things were a big fat tie between bustopher, tugger,misto,jenny,growltiger and griddlebone, and the godawful design choices

[andhereisthetea]

Just finished Season 3

I have been watching She-Ra for the past seven days non-spot and I just finished season 3 and...

god

dammit

I am just....

UGH.

I want to talk about a lot of things after this, but I know I can’t just sandwich them in this post. I watched all three seasons in less time than I should have, I feel so damn conflicted right now about certain things, even if I spoiled myself about it before.

I spoiled myself about the whole Entrapta and Hordak arc, I watched gifsets and I saw your beautiful fan arts both in tumblr and twitter, but watching it, like... really watching it, it’s a whole different thing and now I feel both sad but also relieved I’m watching this after the show ended because 1) I am sad I didn’t experience things at the same time the fandom and most Entrapdak shippers did BUT 2) this would have made a mess of me, I get affected very easily with things like what I watched.

Ok, I have some things to say about the three seasons:

First... Entrapta.

There are some things I find refreshing and others that I don’t, I am not going to point it out in this post, also I can’t expect a lot from a family show.

The thing is... I feel they should have made up a backstory for Entrapta.

I understand the lore and the plot Crew-Ra focused into, but also I knew the Lore before the creation of this show, I feel there should have been a better way to explore more characters from Masters of the Universe.

Think about the complete mystery she is.

We knows most of the characters’ backstories, at least the most complex and important ones, we knows for example that Mermisa got her ruined kingdom from her father who was killed in the first battle against the Horde. We knows basically all the story of Bow’s family, we knows about Glimmer, about Scorpia, about Perfuma’s kingdom, about even Adora, Catra who was an orphaned, and also about Shadow Weaver.

But Entrapta? she is a complete damn mystery.

She is the Princess of Dryl, she designed the Crypto Castle, a literal labyrinth without sense, she is obsessed with First One’s tech since who knows how long, she isn’t an elemental princess but she can move her hair as if it were extra limbs and evn fight with it as a weapon, something that no other specie in the whole planet of Etheria can do, she has an intelligence even bigger than Tony Stark, nobody even talks about what happened to her parents, NOBODY, like they didn’t even existed and she popped up from nowhere and created her robotic parents herself. And even if her seeking for data and more and more progress and tech can be seen as a clear symptom her Autism (like autistic people focusing so much in something they can’t do anything else, I have that) or the fact she is looking for something else but not even her know what the hell is...

She knows or is implicit that she knows about the language of the First Ones, she understand their technology better than anyone else, also, her kingdom is the most advanced, they are considered to be in the industrial era compared to other kingdoms controlled by the elemental princesses. Where did all that technology knowledge, and also First One’s knowledge, came from? I don't think that in 20 years since she had reason and enough skill to be able to learn by herself Dryl has built all that; Dryl's kingdom had been working that way since before she was even born, so who told her? who taught her?

In addition to the fact that she has access to mining in her kingdom where she has been able to find who knows how much of the first one’s technology... right under her feet. The sole fact they put someone so important for the plot as a princess who has no runestone is just mysterious, she used the Black Garnet even better than Shadow Weaver, I can completely see her or someone before her doing the same with her own Runestone (which I picture as an Amethist btw).

I think they chose to put Entrapta’s possibilities of a backstory aside because, after seeing how the character became increasingly important and popular, they realized that once they had started to create her backstory and origins, they wouldn’t have been able to stop, and the central plot wasn’t about her at all, and is very likely that whatever idea of backstory they had about her would have been focused in the central plot. 

For example (and call me crazy, I don't care) if they had said that she was the granddaughter or daughter of Keldor AKA Skeletor, I would have totally believed it.

The thing with that is... even though they chose for her an Etheria region, which in the original Lore was unimportant, everything to do with Entrapta in She-Ra becomes important immediately, but ultimately it would have distracted them from the central plot with Adora as She-Ra, and Horde Prime, who is the main villain they choose for the show.

For now I just want to imagine what could have been if she had more protagonism and wasn’t only the geek princess, she has so much potential and I haven’t seen a character so refreshing like her in long time.

Okay, I want to talk about the seasons I just watched while the information is still fresh inside my head.

One of the main things that frustrated me about the final season is how Crew-Ra COMPLETELY NAILED IT in making me hate Catra. They didn’t make her sympathetic, she is toxic and most of the time she remembered me people who I had to avoid in my personal life, so the natural reaction to all her actions is to dislike her, that is exactly what Crew-Ra wanted for us to feel.

But in some point it got to the point that if you tell me the character was unpredictable, it lost it a bit in the final episodes, she started to become predictable in her actions because as an impulsive person constantly in denial over her emotions and projecting her problems over everyone else, it was obvious she was going to go through a destructive path wanting for everyone to die together with herself because it wouldn’t have seen less like a suicide.

And as a self-centered character with tunnel vision over her purpose and actions, she was going to completely underestimate Entrapta and wasn’t going to understand why Hordak found her interesting, she would attribute everything to power and fight for positions just like SW taught her, instead of something as pure as friendship, in fact she might have know it, but she didn’t want to admit it, because to know that someone as hateful and intimidating as Lord Hordak suddenly has someone who loves him beyond that is just too much for her, who doesn’t understand and is hurt by the fact that Adora doesn’t love her back, but doesn’t want to change one bit for fear to lost the life that ironically she hates so much without Adora in it.

So of course she was gonna electrocute Entrapta and send her to Beast Island, and her impulsive decision was made out of pure fear over what she did not only to Entrapta, but to Hordak himself and what he might do to her when he finds out what she did, and no matter how much she wants to hide behind a curtain of falsehood, is a matter of time he realizes Entrapta is nowhere in Etheria to be seen.

She is a character who does not measure her actions until the consequences are so horrible that she runs away, because reality is too painful for her to even accept what she has done, also she usually thinks that EVERYONE thinks just like her, every one of her speeches about fake friendship, power and winning is just about how she sees the world work from her perspective, she has zero notions over someone’s else vision of the world.

That's one of the biggest reasons why I liked Adora in the last episode of the third season; Catra made a decision, her desire to win basically led her to condemn Entrapta to death, almost destroy the planet and ultimately kill Angella or worse. I have seen posts about people saying that Catra hasn’t killed anyone directly, but I am sorry, she did this season, and she lied about it to everyone and to herself, but Adora knows better.

Now, Hordak

God how I start with this.

Hordak, opposite to the original Lore of Masters of the Universe, is right now basically an alien version of Lucifer from John Milton’s Paradise Lost but with God being fucking evil.

Just like Lucifer, he wants to replicate his creator’s creation on Etheria, choosing to rule in hell rather than heaven, but unlike Lucifer, he stills has a connection with his creator and just like Catra, wants to satify his wished to conquer Etheria all by himself.

But unlike Horde Prime, he is in fact a good leader, and a logical one. He appreciates when his soldiers thinks by themselves and achieves their goals, unlike Prime, and he in fact doesn’t accept empty adulation, if you are good at something, you have to prove it, not to him, but to yourself.

So I just love how with every season they are adding more complexity to his whole being, and now they have added the emotional factor with Entrapta’s friendship and ultimately “betrayal”, I want to watch how this at first glance stoic character loses the shit out of his stoicism, even if I already knows what is going to happen. The fact he already got affected by Catra’s lies over Entrapta betraying him proves how far he has gone since Entrapta came to his life, if he was just impressed by Entrapta or wanted to use her, that wouldn’t have affected him that much, he already feels something for her, but he struggles to know what it is, and even if he denies it due to what just happened, he is still feeling it.

Which makes the anticipation to the discovery of Catra’s lies so much more painful. 

Also, the fact he believed Catra, just like that, made me feel disappointed, but that is based on the complexity of the character and his self-loathing, he feels he doesn’t deserves friendship nor love; he is a defective clone after all, in his own mind he is imperfect and she is the complete opposite of that, so believing it is easy, but that doesn’t make it less painful, and that is what I am sure Hordak will realize ultimately.

I don’t know how long will took me to watch the season 4, but I know is worth the effort if I want to see Entrapta and Hordak together again, I love them, they are pure brain and incredible refreshing to watch, and the affection they feel for each other is obvious, one of the most bittersweet scenes for me was when Entrapta remembered Hordak due to the trio saying his name, her suddenly quiet behavior and calmed and painful smiled was so unlikely of her that one has to admit something more is going on, also her choice of language, “I had a lab partner”, not “I have”, gives a sense of sadness to the whole scene that broke my damn heart.

I will tag you guys @cruelfeline @ineffablelabpartners @etherian-affairs because I want to know your opinions about this, I never thought Entrapdak was gonna affect me that way, in fact I never expected to ship them at all, but here we are, dying for them and I just can’t escape.

[forsetti]

On Ignorance Of Facts and History: The Democratic Party Has Moved To the Right

Whenever I bring up or post something critical of Bernie Sanders (or more often his most ardent supporters) the Vegas over/under on how long it takes for someone to tell me the Democratic Party has moved to the right is now at under five seconds.  According to far left progressive lore, the Democratic Party was once the bastion of all the things they believe the government should be.  To this group, which is overly populated with younger, mostly white males, the Democratic Party was nearly perfect under FDR and has moved to the right ever since.  In their addle-brain notion of history, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are to the political right of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan.  

I have just two words to say-”This is some ignorant, ahistorical bullshit!”  Okay, make that six words.  I have a lot of other adjectives to describe this situation I can and am willing to provide upon request.   The Democratic Party has moved farther to the left SINCE FDR, not farther to the right.  I'm old enough to remember reading about the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans in internment camps under FDR.  I also remember he met ONCE with an African-American in the White House early on in his administration and never did again.  Please recite to me all the pro-female policies he stood up for and helped get passed?  Go ahead, I'll wait.... (*sound of crickets.)

FDR has been labeled the “Lion of Liberalism” for reasons both deserved and undeserved.  He certainly deserved credit for all the policies he pushed in order to get America out of the Great Depression.  These were necessary and important for the economic survival of the country.  However, a lot of these policies were the second, third...fifth attempt.  Many of FDR's initial responses to address the Great Depression didn't do a damn thing and some made matter worse.  I give him credit for willing to learn from his mistakes and pivot to different ideas/policies.  It is important to keep in mind exactly why/how he was able to try different solutions to fix the problems-major majorities in both houses of Congress.

THE ONLY REASON FDR was able to fail, learn, and succeed was because his party held massive majorities in the House and Senate EVERY SINGLE YEAR HE WAS PRESIDENT.  It is a lot easier to fuck up and try different things when your party controls the entire government with veto-proof majorities.  If FDR would have had thin majorities or the Democratic Party had control over only one part of Congress, the outcomes from his time in office would have been very different.  If you can't understand how/why this is the case, I suggest a basic civics course or maybe watch some Schoolhouse Rock. The other factor that immensely helped FDR's policies was America's entrance into World War II.  It is one thing to tell Americans they need to come together and work for the common good.  It is another when there is an external force/situation to make this unity more likely.  What WWII did was coalesce Americans of all economic and political groups to come together around a common cause.  When the vast majority of Americans are invested in a cause, it is really easy to get them to support your policies.  The only time this has happened to some level since then was directly after 9/11 and the things America rallied around, (Dept. of Homeland Security, Patriot Act, Invasion of Iraq...) were bad ideas with even worse consequences because they came from a conservative administration. I dare anyone who tells me the Democratic Party has moved to the right to provide an example of a Democratic president who has had the Democratic majorities FDR had.  I dare them to also come up with an example of an internal or external example of something that unified the country like WWII did along with these majorities.  I could go all Rip Van Winkle and when I finally awake from my twenty-year slumber, I promise you there won't be a single factual response to my query.

Here are the real fucking political truths these “progressives” don't want to admit: 1-From civil rights, gay rights, women's rights, health care reform, immigration issues... the Democratic Party has been at the forefront moving the discussion and policy forward. 2-They've done this without the luxury of veto-proof majorities in Congress and without a lot of help from state legislatures.

3-In fact, some of this progress was made IN SPITE OF Republican control and obstruction. 4-If you fucking want FDR-like progress, you better do everything you can for FDR-like majorities in Congress. 5-If you don't give a Democratic president massive Democratic majorities in Congress and in the states, then you can eternally SHUT THE FUCK UP about how Democrats are “letting you down.”

6-Democrats in 2017 are more progressive than Democrats of FDR's time. 7-The problem isn't Democrats have moved to the right (they haven't) but Republicans have moved significantly farther to the right.  This movement along with the media's incessant “both sides are the same” gives the perception Democrats have moved to the right as well. Point #7 is really important to understand.  If the political difference between A and B is 50 points and A moves 5 points to the left but B moves 30 points to the right, the problem isn't A has moved to the right (something that is empirically false.) The problem is people look at the difference to make their opinion of the political situation. I'll See-Spot-Run this for you. If Democrats started out at -10 to the left on the political spectrum and Republicans started at +30 to the right, the difference, the median is +10 to the right.  If you use the median as your measurement, then our politics and politicians are +10 to the right. This by itself is a stupid way of viewing the situation but it is how it is reported by the media.  Our overall political landscape might be +10 to the right but that doesn't mean those on the left have moved to the right one iota. What has happened the past forty years is the Democrats have moved to -20 to the left and Republicans have moved to +80 to the right.  Objectively, Democrats have moved farther to the left than they were forty years ago. However, when the median is what is constantly discussed and reported on, it looks as if everyone has moved

+30 points to the right.  When the right moves +30 point farther to the right and the left moves -10 points farther left, the media report, is the “both sides have moved farther away from the center,”  as if starting point and how far each has moved and in what direction are irrelevant.  If you don't understand how this works, besides taking basic civics, you need to take a basic statistics course. Democrat HAVE NOT MOVED TO THE RIGHT!  Stop believing this.  Stop saying this. Stop being ignorant of history.  “But what about corporatist Dems?”  There have always been Democrats from states like New York, Delaware, etc. who have leaned more towards large corporations because large corporations and their employees make up a good chunk of their constituents.  What pisses me off more than progressives attacking Democrats from specific states catering to their constituency (you know, democracy) is when they are willing to overlook and excuse their preferred candidate of similar “sins.” If it isn't cool if Hillary Clinton casts some votes that can be viewed as being “pro-Wall Street,” then it should be as big a problem that Bernie Sanders votes in favor of private military contractor spending that will help his state. If you want to be a political purist, good luck with that but you had better be fucking logically consistent.  If you deride Hillary for saying “superpredator” then you damn well better bring as much emotional opposition to Bernie actually voting for the 1994 crime bill (you know, that bill that the then FLOTUS Hillary didn't and couldn't vote for but Bernie did.)  You better be upset Bernie advocated harsher sentences for cocaine use during the 90s.  You'd better be upset he voted against the storage of harmful nuclear waste in VT but fine him voting to strip out Paul Wellstone's amendment and sending the toxins to Sierra Blanca, a mostly minority community in Texas.  You had better be upset with his vote against the Magnitsky Act which prevents Russia from using the U.S. banking system to launder money. You had better be upset with his defiance at releasing his complete tax returns.  If you aren't equally upset with these things as you are with other Democratic candidates' histories, you are a partisan hypocrite and a huge part of the problem with today's politics.

I'm not pointing these things out so much as a criticism of Bernie but to point out the hypocritical purity of many of his followers and the far-left.  There never has been and never will be a politician who does what you want them to or believes in all the things you do.  Their job, their responsibility is not to cater to one person's beliefs but the average of their constituents.   This is how democracy works. Learn it.  Live it.  Love it.  

This brings us to modern-day progressives.  Instead of having an iota of understanding of progressive history, how government works on a basic civics level, they either conjure up Democratic lore out of whole cloth or buy whatever snake oil is being sold to them by the political Svengali du jour.  These are the so-called “progressives” who are adamant FDR was progressivism in purity distilled form.  They respond to any comment about anything or anyone other than what comes from their Svengali with “corporate Democrat,” “neo-liberalism,” and “the current Democratic Party has moved to the right.”  

Most, but not all of these “progressives” are young.  For those who are older, I have zero understanding, empathy or sympathy for their ignorance.  For those who are younger, I am willing to concede they don't have the experience to know what they are spouting is complete bullshit and give them a small pass.  If you really want to know why I have such a problem with Bernie Sanders it is because he is more than old enough to know the history of the Democratic Party, yet he intentionally mislead many younger voters to where they not only believe complete bullshit but he has taken an already jaded generation of voters and turned them into a negative horde who are unwilling to even contemplate they might be wrong.   As someone who has pushed for every progressive policy, there is for the past forty years from gay rights to women's rights to raising the minimum wage and universal health care, I've never seen anyone do more damage from the left on politics, how government works, and history than Bernie Sanders.  Ronald Reagan codified anti-government sentiment on the right in 1980 with his “government IS the problem.”  Bernie Sanders pretty much did the same on the left in 2016.  Both men were full of shit and did extensive damage to our democracy.  The only difference between the two is Reagan was able to do more damage because he was elected to the presidency. Conservatives have spent the last fifty years undermining faith in the institution of government.  We've all see the horrible consequences this has had on the country.  This same effect but from a different angle is just as horrible.  While conservatives are hell-bent on rolling back cultural progress to 1840 and economic progress to 1920, there is a faction of progressives who are more concerned with reviving and arguing for a mythological Democratic Party than making sure conservatives don't undo every single progress made the past hundred years.  While progressives are fighting like hell to stop the leaks in the progressive dam caused by conservatives, the purists are on the sidelines bitching about how the dam isn't the right construction, how a “real progressive” would stop the leaks “this way,” or insisting the best thing to do is allow the dam to completely collapse in order to build the perfect dam from utopian, progressive scratch.

In order to justify and rationalize their behaviors, the far left has to create a Democratic Party Straw Man.  This Straw Man comes in the form of “the Democratic Party has moved to the right,” “both sides are the same,” “the Democratic Party abandoned their base,” “the reason Democrats have lost elections is because they aren't progressive enough,”...  In order to maintain this Straw Man, the far left have to completely ignore history, how government works, actual fucking data, and the impacts of their own behaviors.  This Straw Man has been worshiped and referred to so many times it has become part of far-left lore.  Any mention of the Democratic Party or a Democratic candidate/leader who isn't their Svengali du jour and the shibboleths start to flow unabated.  Context doesn't matter. Logic doesn't matter.  Facts don't matter.  Nuance sure as fuck doesn't matter.  The only thing that matter is maintaining the Straw Man, maintaining the lore.

If you want a good example of this looks like, look no further than health care. The current belief among the far left is anyone who isn't for single payer is a corporatist sellout and the enemy of progress.  This simplistic ascription only works in the mythological world of progressive purity.  In the real world, anyone with two working neurons knows that single-payer is one way to universal health care but by no means the only way.  Single-payer = universal health care but universal health care ≠ single-payer.  To put this is simpler terms, All bears are mammals but not all mammals are bears.  If the goal is to deliver a mammal, you've achieved it if you bring an ocelot, lemur, opossum, hedgehog...  Right now, the far left claims that you cannot be a good progressive or for universal health care unless you are completely for single-payer.  This is not only completely ignorant of universal health care it is a stupid political strategy.  Yet, in spite of this ignorance and stupidity, the far left is hellbent on making support of single-payer a litmus test for Democratic candidates.

Meanwhile, as the far-left are creating moronic litmus tests, the right are passing voter suppression laws, rolling back civil, women's, and environmental rights.  In the addled brains of the far-left, these things are seen as equivalent.  They are not.  An imperfect health care system that has reduced the non-insured rate to historical lows is not on the same level as taking away health care from 15-30 million people.  If you think these are the same, your political and moral calculus are seriously fucked up.  The Affordable Care Act is imperfect (a fact acknowledged many times by President Obama) but it was a huge leap forward.  It moved the bar towards universal health care forward more than anything since the passage of Medicaid/Medicare and accomplished something EVERY single Democratic president since FDR tried to do but failed.  Instead of being elated when the Affordable Care Act was passed, the far-left did nothing but bitch about it.  Meanwhile, the right used the passage of the ACA to motivate their base to come out, take over the House in 2010 which led to gerrymandering, right to work laws in states like Michigan and Wisconsin, voter suppression laws... without any push back from progressives.  The most progressive law passed since the Civil Rights Act and the far-left couldn't be bothered to support and defend it. Go ahead, let this political and moral calculus sink in and then tell me why on earth anyone should listen to the far-left.

I make it a point to not listen to or take the advice of extremists. They are always a small subset of the whole and always ethically and strategically wrong.  Just because they are extremely vocal doesn't mean a damn thing other than they are loud.  That they can alter the outcome of an election, as we've seen in 2000 and 2016, doesn't mean they need to be catered to and their views completely adopted.  To think so is political suicide along the same lines as the left trying to cater to white Republican voters.  Show me one city, even the most blue, progressive city where the far left has political power.  Go ahead, I'll wait (*insert sound of crickets.)  This scenario doesn't exist.  If the far left can't control city governments in the bluest areas in the bluest states, why in the hell should we listen to them when it comes to national political strategy?  

Democrats have not moved to the right.  They've moved to the left and then some.  That they haven't moved as far to the left as the banshees on the left demand doesn't change reality.  It should be remembered that at the height of FDR's progressivism, the far left of his party was bitching about him and demanding he is primaried.  To the far left of his time, the Lion of Progressivism wasn't progressive enough.  The same is true today.  No matter how progressive someone is, the far left will find fault with them.  The problem isn't the Democratic Party or progressive candidates.  The problem is and always has been with the far left who demand political purity in an imperfect, democratic system that represents a very diverse population.

My current frustration with politics isn't that conservatives are being horrible human beings.  I fully expect nothing less from them.  My frustration is with so-called progressives who mean well but their fervor for their ideals supersedes everything including strategy, actually winning elections, preventing conservatives from retaining and solidifying power...  I will say this until it is etched into the progressive psyche-”The only thing that matters right now is keeping conservatives from winning elections!”  Everything else is 100% irrelevant and a complete distraction and detrimental to progressivism.  As long as “progressives” don't have large majorities, any purity test is complete nonsense and bullshit.  If your political strategy is focused against Democrats and not against conservatives, I think you are full of shit, shouldn't be listened to, and banished from rational political discussions.

The longer the far-left drags out this fight for their purity, the longer they focus their anger and attacks on Democrats instead of conservatives, the more the people progressives claim to defend will suffer, the longer conservatives retain power long after they should. I have no understanding or sympathy for anyone who enables this.

[coldalbion]

Favour of the Gods

So, I wasn’t going to say anything about my recent experiences here, but then I saw all the utter shite @lady-feral has been getting over the last few days, and well, I think it may actually be worth mentioning. As background, I’ve been part of my local Heathen moot since its inception. It’s actually a regional one, meandering gently across the NW of the UK, so that all its members can get to one or two. Its purpose is for Heathens to get together, to chat and get to know each other - just generally be able to spend some time around other Heathens, and exchange knowledge if you’re new. We maintain a Facebook group for comms purposes, so we often get people wanting to join who we haven’t met first and have to make a judgement call based on FB profile. etc. I was recently made a co-mod, because the founder and chief moderator was on holiday. We’re friends, have been for years, and he trusts my judgement. I’m also a cripple - I have Cerebral Palsy, use a wheelchair, and recently had to have half my foot amputated after it ulcerated for Some Reason.

Recently, we had a guy join, and it soon came out that he identified as Folkish.

Now, as a rule, that’s potentially a Red Flag. I say potentially, because sometimes someone doesn’t know it descends from Völkisch and associated movements. Sometimes they are just new, unaware of the toxic stew of racism, nineteenth century Romantic Nationalism, and pseudoscience. Unaware of that word implies, in many quarters. So we have two choices, being as our group requires that:  you respect the right of other group-members to be Heathen, regardless of sexuality, gender, or ethnicity or 'race'.

1. We can instaban  and potentially alienate, isolate, or drive further into the Folkish Realms, someone who might not know what’s dodgy about such things. 

2. We can enquire about this person’s belief, where they’re coming from, and give them enough rope to hang themselves - and in the process, watch for those who might ‘Like’  or post agreement with the ever-present post courting the very thinnest edge of respectability - or even those over it, posted when the mods are busy.

As a rule, we choose 2, for our FB group. It’s better they reveal their colours online than in person. Others might handle such a thing in another way, and that’s fine too. To cut a long story short, this person eventually launched into a classic anti semitic rant, not to mention mention a whole bunch of pseudoscience. (That creaking sound you hear is the sound of someone hanging themselves on the provided rope.)   What has this got to do with the crap @lady-feral is getting? Well, I got a message from said arsehole - changing my message nickname to “Fake Heathen” and then informing me he was glad that the gods “[D]id not favour me in this life :D” I assume he meant this as some sort of You’re not Heathen, because the gods hate you so much they allowed you to be crippled implication? I don’t know - it was confusing, because he’s obviously not read the Havamal, which pretty much suggests it’s better to be crippled, than, y’know, dead.

When you’ve got a combat veteran getting shit for activism from armchair warriors who think War and Warriors are Great, either because she believes in a world where things could be better for minorities and that Fascism and White Supremacy are ridiculous and dangerous and should be resisted, or because she happens to be a woman? (Multiple sources suggest the Allfather was-as-a-woman on various occasions, just fyi.) When you’ve got a disabled person being told the gods did not favour them, despite surviving things that kill thousands every year, having a loving family, partner, and just enough to live comfortably, in a place they own? When that person could have died - and in fact pretty much did, but came the fuck back? You begin to understand that for some of these folks will always  move the goalposts. You will never ever be right, or a proper/real Heathen unless you’re exactly like them. The things about you they dislike, that they are disgusted by so badly that they want you gone unless you fit their cookie cutter mould? If you’re OK, if you gain continued life when you should be dead? That threatens the fact that they’re the favoured ones. If you, the supposedly degenerate, the vile  continue to prosper?  To face your wyrd  head on, and grin and smile, despite its bindings? What would that say about them? It might suggest that they were not supreme, favoured. That their vaunted, non-existent, genetic purity, is not enough?  Because those other-than-them still exist, and despite the attempts to eliminate or cow those folks, we still exist. We remain and that bothers the shit out of them. Because an industrialised war machine couldn’t stop us; it could slaughter thousands, millions of us, even, but still we remain.

Nevertheless, she, and we, persisted. 

And still they beat us, still they try to kill us. Still they surge with the momentary high of destroying the things, the symbols, the people  they hate. “This is our world, our faith, our country.” they proclaim as they kick, they punch, they smash. It makes them to feel good to exert their power, gives them agency, because they feel outnumbered. But the rush fades, the adrenalin drops. They look and see another target, and another and another. So they take a knife, a gun, a bomb and they kill many, knowing they’ll be caught, caged, or more probably killed. They dream, they beg, for their life to be filled with that agency, for their last moments to be making some sort of change.

They don’t want to be their ordinary selves, because their ordinary selves could be run over by a bus. They could die on the toilet for fucks sake, a stroke, an aneurysm, a heart attack. Cheek pressing tile, watching the dark unfurl amidst the pain, wondering what it was all for. Or, perhaps even worse, they could survive the stroke, become crippled, need a wheelchair, require someone to wipe their arse. They could become one of us.

We are a reminder of what could be, what wyrd  might deal them. Might bind them tight as a weaver can. They dream of the onrush, perhaps desire Valhalla, or a martyrs heaven. Because it’s the same impulse that drove the Crusaders, the same that drives Daesh - filled with the rush, Us against Them. And truly, they feel alone, lost without it. 

Of course, a byproduct of such things, of any tight knit group is access to shared resources - the Templars grew rich enough to be a bank, PMC’s profit in warzones the world over and Daesh gains funding from drugs, from selling off stolen antiquities   

Money and power, weapons and land and numbers, exclusion and castigation. All ways to demonstrate agency when others have none, to demonstrate the favour of god(s), the apparent superiority of their group, their Way over another. (Except gods, especially Heathen ones, are notoriously fickle  according to the lore - Odin’s heroes are often deserted mid-battle. One Eye’s spear flies over both sets of combatants, after all. Whatever happens, he wins.)

Both sides, Them, and Us, are defined by the other. Those who claim superiority are constantly measuring themselves against those they deem inferior. Even if they exterminated, removed, or exiled themselves from the realm of their so-called inferiors? Then they would not be superior - merely all there was, to rise or fall on their own merits, their own ability or lack thereof to navigate whatever structures were in place - they would make their own scapegoats, would find others to blame, even within themselves.

Those they hate, fear, are disgusted by, are well used to the limitations, the way wyrd - that weaving of consequence, of action and reaction - might render the path you’re on crooked. Yet still we prosper - still some of us know the onrush of poetry and song, of word from word giving word from us. Some of us are bound noose-tight, the limitations of our life allowing us a joy, a surging fury that infuses everything in our life. Perhaps this a god’s favour? To have joy despite being the the thing that so many fear, despite being the horrible reminder of what may be dealt to us, by a universe that is not, nor will it ever be, ours to control. I know that I cannot control any hate slung my way after this. If and when any comes my way, I’ll shrug. If this gets reblogged, mocked and torn to pieces, so be it. If people choose to do that, if it makes them feel better, so be it. If leaving a reply gives you the rush of a need satisfied, or an urge to troll go for it.  I really have had worse, and I’m still here. If you want to join the myriad people who’ve pointed and laughed, mocked, thrown stones both literal and metaphorical, be aware that this is nothing clever, that you’re not distinguishing yourself from anyone. You’re literally nothing new. I remain. I’m here and now, and the fact is, some of you who hate me for what I am? Some of you may become like me. I look forward to the day when you finally bring yourself to look in the mirror and see me there too, waiting.

[entergamingxp]

DualShockers’ Favorite Games of 2019 — Ricky’s Top 10

January 1, 2020 10:00 AM EST

Fortunately for you, the great editors at DualShockers have saved the best of these GOTY lists for last. Here are my top 10 games of 2019.

As 2019 comes to a close, DualShockers and our staff are reflecting on this year’s batch of games and what were their personal highlights within the last year. Unlike the official Game of the Year 2019 awards for DualShockers, there are little-to-no-rules on our individual Top 10 posts. For instance, any game — not just 2019 releases — can be considered.

2019 was a surprisingly good year in video games, at least for me. Sure, we didn’t get many absolute bangers that held the collective video game public hostage for weeks at a time. However, there were several good games that had a major impact on what should be a “tune-up” year as we near the release of next-gen consoles.

That said, while we’ve enjoyed a cornucopia of good games, they all had a flaw or five that held them back from being truly spectacular. So, in a sea of good, not great releases, I’ve chosen to highlight the games that I had the most fun with in 2019. After all, isn’t that we play games in the first place?

Here are my top 10 games of 2019.

Honorable Mention: FIFA 20 Web App

Let’s be clear, FIFA 20 was an overwhelmingly mediocre game on launch and EA has only made it worse with their various “fixes.” Ultimate Team, in particular, is in shambles for much of the community. However, I have spent more time playing FIFA than any other game in 2019. So, while I refuse to put it on my list, I still feel like I have to recognize it in some way.

Enter the FIFA 20 web app. I’m on this all the time playing FIFA‘s transfer market and usually having a great time doing so. If you like the idea of playing the stock market without actually investing money, this is the best way I’ve found to do it. Buying and selling players on the market and seeing that coin total slowly rise has been a fun challenge in 2019.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for FIFA 20.

10. Heroes of the Storm

I know, I know; Heroes is a dead game that no one plays. The way Blizzard just killed off the pro scene in 2018 continues to be massively disappointing, and those of us who still play are baby gamers who can’t handle a real MOBA. I get all that and mostly agree with you.

That said, Heroes, for me, is like a fresh plate of my grandma’s meatloaf: something I can always go back to and love regardless of where I’m at in life. My time in HOTS has certainly died down over the last year or so, but it’s the game I always go back to when I just need 20 minutes to unwind. Plus, Deathwing came out this year. That was pretty great.

9. Wattam

Listen, I’m a simple man. If you make a game that lets me make friends with and then explode poop, I’m probably going to like your game. So, while Wattam is in many ways barely a game, there aren’t many other games I enjoyed start to finish as Keita Takahashi’s latest.

This tale about friendship and coming together to conquer evil is one of the most joyous games out in 2019. Perfect for kids and adults alike, I thoroughly recommend this experience to anyone that has an afternoon to kill over the holiday. It won’t change your life and it doesn’t innovate, but stacking up poop and kabooming it to smithereens is so much fun.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Wattam.

8. Death Stranding

As of this writing, I’ve yet to finish Death Stranding. In fact, I just hit Chapter 3, which is where I hear a lot of people begin to have problems with Kojima’s latest. So, I reserve the right to move just toss this game off the list in the next few days.

That said, since starting the game a few days ago, I haven’t been able to think about anything else besides playing Death Stranding. I love the slow, methodical plodding Sam Bridges does as you move cargo from place to place. I love trying to map out the best possible route to stay away from trouble. I even love all the weird lore that keeps getting dumped on me.

Maybe it’s the fact that I come from a family of porters (read: truck drivers), but Death Stranding is the most fun I’ve ever had doing something that, in real life, seems like it would be pretty boring. I hope it stays that way.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Death Stranding.

7. Outer Wilds

Outer Wilds is among the most inventive games in 2019. I love how the game just gives you a world and says, “explore.” There aren’t any roadblocks to you beating it in 20 minutes and everyone is going to get to the ending in a different way. Add in a Majora’s Mask-like constantly-moving map and you have a game that’s nothing like anything else.

Outer Wilds also does something many games can’t and sticks the landing with a stellar (interstellar?) ending. I know you’ve heard this from every corner of the internet, but you really should give Mobius Digital’s freshman effort a try.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Outer Wilds.

6. What The Golf?

I adore golf games. My middle school summers were filled with countless hours of Mario Golf for the Game Boy Color and Nintendo 64. The reason I bought a Switch was to play Golf Story. For whatever reason, I can’t get enough golf in my video gaming life. I can’t stand playing golf in the real world, but virtually, there’s not much better.

That said, What The Golf? is not a golf game. Oh sure, you’ll hit objects toward a flag, but that’s where the similarities end. However, this game does just about everything else besides golf. And still, it’s by far my favorite mobile release of the year. The sheer amount of creativity in how to approach a non-golfing golf game is staggering. I don’t want to say much about what actually happens, as that would ruin the surprise. Just know that What The Golf? is great, regardless of how you feel about golf.

5. Control

Control is my annual “wow, this looks so good on my RTX card” game. Visually, there wasn’t a more impressive game to me all year. Much of this comes down to Remedy’s striking art direction. They do so much with color and lighting to make a game that is a visual feast. It sucks to hear that the console versions are less than stellar, because I want everyone to have the same experience I did.

Outside of the impressive visuals is a story that I had to see to completion. I don’t know if it breaks any new ground, but the narrative threads were so fun to pull at that I ended up doing everything. Combat is mostly fine outside of a few truly bad boss fights. If you’re looking for an entry-point to the Remedy-verse, Control seems like a great jumping-on point, especially if you have a relatively beefy PC.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Control.

4. Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night

Bloodstained is a fantastic reimagining of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The Metroidvania combat and exploration is tight and incredibly fun. If that was all the game did, it would probably still make my list. However, what makes this game really stand out for me is how willing it is to not take itself too seriously.

Bloodstained is good with it if you become laughably overpowered. In fact, it seems to want you to. The way you can just break the game is so amusing. Many games are too precious about their power curve. Bloodstained doesn’t care. It just wants you to have a good time and rest assured, that’s exactly what I did.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

3. Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

I had a paragraph written up about how FromSoft has truly evolved their gameplay with Sekiro to force you to actually learn how to play well and not cheese bosses, but honestly, there’s only one thing you need to know. This game is worth playing (or at least watching) to see the Monkey Fight.

For a developer known for creating controller-breaking and genre-defining boss fights, the Monkey Fight stands head and shoulders above them all. If the overbearing difficulty isn’t for you, that’s fine. Just look it up on YouTube, sit back, and enjoy FromSoft at its best.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.

2. Resident Evil 2

Resident Evil 2, as a remake, has no business being as good as it is. Mr. X is my favorite thing in gaming this year. His horrifying, omnipresent role in the game’s first half makes RE2 a must-play. The way he stalks you throughout the police station, appearing when you least expect it, made for countless moments of both pure terror and hilarity. Plus, the memes that sprung up around the character were exceptional.

When people ask if they should play the game, I just show them the “Mr. X Gon Give it to You” videos and they’re sold instantly. And sure, once you leave the police station, the game kind of slogs to the finish, but that shouldn’t keep you from experiencing the panic-inducing joy that is the early parts of Resident Evil 2.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Resident Evil 2.

1. Judgment

Where do I even start? Do we talk about the oddly captivating murder mystery full of more twists than a bad M. Night Shyamalan movie? Seriously, this story just goes places and is constantly defying what you think a Ryu Ga Gotoku game can be. The studio has really hit its story-telling stride with Judgment. Do we talk about how Yagami might be a better character than Kiryu? Don’t get me wrong, I’ll always love the Dragon of Dojima, but Yagami has more much range than the ever-stoic favorite foster son of Shintaro Kazama. How about the ease with which Judgment switches between serious, soap opera-style narrative and the wacky side quests we’ve come to love from Yakuza games? This has always been one of the series’ strengths; however, with the main character being a private detective, it makes a lot more sense for them to be randomly searching for a man’s cats or beating up a disgusting pervert.

Really, Judgment is my game of the year because I can’t think of another game that I had more fun playing. The beat ’em up gameplay is the same as it’s always been, but RGG has made it instantly a blast. If I want to show someone why I love Judgment, I’ll just jump into a random battle and I’m immediately piledriving all those young thugs into the ground. Judgment has, quite possibly, the best set of “heat” finishers in the Yakuza franchise. And truthfully, that’s the kicker with Judgment. It doesn’t do anything remarkably new with the Yakuza format. What it does is distill everything in the game down to its most fun form and slaps it all over the world of Kamurocho.

As I get older and there are more demands on my time, “fun factor” has become more important than ever. Judgment has that in spades. I’ve already put 100 plus hours into the game and just thinking about the game’s big moments over the past week while writing this has me seriously considering jumping back in. That Platinum’s not gonna earn itself. Thank you for reading my mini-review for Yagami’s greatest journey. If you haven’t checked out a Yakuza game yet, this is a perfect jumping-on point.

Check out DualShockers‘ review for Judgment.

Check out the rest of the DualShockers staff Top 10 lists and our official Game of the Year Awards:

December 23: DualShockers Game of the Year Awards 2019 December 25: Lou Contaldi, Editor-in-Chief // Logan Moore, Managing Editor December 26: Tomas Franzese, News Editor // Ryan Meitzler, Features Editor  December 27: Mike Long, Community Manager // Scott White, Staff Writer December 28: Chris Compendio, Contributor // Mario Rivera, Video Manager // Kris Cornelisse, Staff Writer December 29: Scott Meaney, Community Director // Allisa James, Senior Staff Writer // Ben Bayliss, Senior Staff Writer December 30: Cameron Hawkins, Staff Writer // David Gill, Senior Staff Writer // Portia Lightfoot, Contributor December 31: Iyane Agossah, Senior Staff Writer // Michael Ruiz, Senior Staff Writer // Rachael Fiddis, Contributor January 1: Ricky Frech, Senior Staff Writer // Tanner Pierce, Staff Writer

January 1, 2020 10:00 AM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/01/dualshockers-favorite-games-of-2019-rickys-top-10/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dualshockers-favorite-games-of-2019-rickys-top-10

[terryblount]

Gears 5 – Campaign Review

Spring has arrived in my village. Birds are chirping, flowers are everywhere, and cafés are packed with customers sipping beers in complete absorption of the Rugby World Cup. Meanwhile, I am locked away in my apartment from the both the frivolities of sports fans and the beauty of nature while the sounds of gunfire and chainsaws constantly blare from my room.

While an unenlightened passer-by might think the time has finally come to call the orderlies with the padded van, gamers would know right away that I am playing the latest smash hit from The Coalition – Gears 5. Apparently the whole ‘War’ thing has been dragging on for so long that the planet Sera considers conflict to be the norm, so now it’s just Gears.

JD stealing his neighbour’s cable. Seriously though, if I could have one wish, I would wish for a Lancer.

Pointless title alterations aside, Gears 5 proves that even the mass public opinion can be right about some things. After once-again donning that ol’ chunky amour, and fighting the Locust… I mean The Swarm through open deserts, ruined cities and harsh snowscapes, rest assured that the latest in Microsoft’s lovechild franchise is everything you have been hearing about, and perhaps more. rest assured that the latest in Microsoft’s lovechild franchise is everything you have been hearing about, and perhaps more.

Taking things into high gear

The whole saga of Marcus Phoenix and co. may have written the recipe for making an excellent 3rd person shooter, but somehow their storytelling has always fallen by the wayside. Despite the series eventually building up a dense and intricate lore around itself, every Gears game pushed players towards that inevitable cycle of SHOOT SHOOT, exposition, SHOOT SHOOT, cutscene.

In all honesty, Gears 5 does little to break this mold since I once again lost track of why the characters on screen were doing what they where doing. As with other Gears games, this is mainly due to the gap between gameplay and narrative being just a little too wide. Thankfully, The Coalition have made a few interesting additions by evolving the series’s narrative chops to slightly higher standards than previous entries.

First off, this is easily the most expansive entry into this series, so I guess this is where the majority of that colossal install file went. The world building is really stellar here, and as the gameplay shifts effortlessly from one expansive set piece to the next, you get this feeling that the backdrops are telling a story just as much as the characters’ dialogue.

There are some dark moments such as the scene through an abandoned laboratory where Kait learns about atrocities committed in experiments on children, as well as the dark secret behind her migraines and visions. Then there are more whimsical moments where, believe it or not, you actually face off against the swarm on a theatre’s stage while using acting props as cover.

The theatre where JD and the gang are attacked by the swarm

I also liked how The Coalition seemed willing to experiment with a more controlled pacing in a series not exactly know for taking things easy. The cutscenes are far more dramatic, and the abundance of zoomed-in shots creates a profound sense of intimacy with the characters. Gears 5 is also the first in this series to feature semi open-world intermissions, but more on that in a moment.

Gears of bore(dom)

Gears 5 is not quite the Unreal Engine 4’s finest hour, but this game is still a sensory blowout. This particular engine has had some time to become friends with our PC’s, so I don’t fully understand why the graphics settings look like a Boeing 747’s control panel. At least players willing to tinker a little are guaranteed to push really high resolutions and frame rates.

Gorgeous to look at. Makes me wonder why the original trilogy was so brown when all these amazing colours lie underneath

Most unfortunately, Gears 5 felt like an utter technical mess at times in terms of stability. Now I am well aware that my PC is entering its twilight years, and that my internet subscription leaves much to be desired. However, those finding themselves in my position had better be warned: You might have a hard time playing your game.

My review copy came through the Microsoft store – a platform that has given me nothing but grief since the moment I first used it. The usual bag of issues followed as I predicted they would: Sluggish download time, always online that refused to let me play when my shoddy internet decided it no longer loved me, and the entire install process freezing permanently halfway through.

However, the worst was that Gears 5 had this strange habit of crashing my entire PC and blaming it on my GPU. This is an utter mystery to me considering I was running the latest drivers without any complaints from other games, and the crashes seemed totally random. I could always tell it was coming since the game would start stuttering worse than someone with an old prostate trying to pee.

Biggest mystery of the game: Why is it always crashing?

Gears 5 is a weird case of when it works, it works well, but otherwise this game literally ground my entire PC to a halt. Naturally I suspected this to be the cause of the newly-adjusted overclocks I had just set on my CPU and GPU, but some searching on the official Gears of War Forums revealed that I was not alone. Definitely something The Coalition and Nvidia will want to address since Steam is filling up fast with red thumbs pointing down.

Top gear

You have to wonder if Epic Games had realised just how future proof the formula underneath the original Gears of War had been. Here we are, about thirteen years later, and playing Gears 5 feels completely identical and just as enjoyable. Overall, what separates Gears 5 and the first entry in this series amounts to very little when I thought about it.

You can really tell The Coalition have tried to preserve the classic, cover-based shooter mechanics in the way that characters move and engage during firefights, but also in how nearly all of the classic weapons have made a return. Gears 5 therefore adds more things to the formula rather than rebooting or attempting to make fundamental changes to the gameplay.

The best example of this is all the new functions that have been endowed onto the ever present but rarely seen little robot, Jack. This little mechanical marvel is now a much more central tool in how you can turn a combat scenario to your advantage.

Struggling to nail that headshot? Just ask Jack to stun the enemy making them stand up and expose their head from cover. Want that Boomshot lying at the other end of the battlefield? No problem, Jack can warp right over. Oh, your comrade is down you say? After a few upgrades, Jack can scoot right into the midst of the firefight and revive them while the player provides some cover fire.

I will be honest and say that I actually forgot about Jack most of the time since the gunplay in Gears 5 is simply too addictive. I also questioned why the little robot should be able to give your character stealth abilities to sneak up on enemies. Give it some thought: Stealth abilities… in a Gears game. Seeing it here feels like a sex toy making a sudden appearance in the middle of a monastery.

Nevertheless, once players familiarise themselves with what the little tin can can do, it is possible to get really creative with how you will slaughter the swarm. Collecting some of Jack’s special upgrade parts take place in the non-linear acts of the game where Kait is free to have a little kite surf around the world, and just hang out with Del. It is nice little diversion from the furious gunfights without entirely venturing into cut-and-paste pointless side quest territory.

Gears 5 also really goes out of its way to make the environments more engaging than they have ever been. One of my all-time favourite moments was during a snow level scene where the horde storms at the player across a frozen lake. This of course gives you the opportunity to shatter the ice right underneath their feet.

This was an awesome sequence where you get to watch seriously intimidating enemies plunge into the frigid water and flail about helplessly as they freeze solid. Combine this with weapons like the ‘Buzzkill’ (which basically flings around ricocheting circular saw blades) and I couldn’t remember when last I had this much fun in a shooting game.

That little white thing pointing out is the head of locust… I mean swarm

Aworthy sequel

Gears of War may have started its journey on the Xbox 360, but I am truly grateful that the series has come to call the PC its home nowadays. I remember spending my entire summer job earnings on a Radeon HD 2600 XT to play the first game on my Windows Vista PC. Once I saw those gorgeous DirectX 10 textures come alive at smooth frame rates, all that soul-crushing work seemed worth it.

Both Gears of War 4 and Gears 5 take me back to those days where I could play one of the industry’s most beautiful and action-packed 3rd person shooters on my favourite platform. That being said, I feel obliged to warn those thinking of picking up Gears 5 that they might run into some substantial technical difficulties. Let’s hope the Coalition and Nvidia get cracking with those patches, yes?

Solid presentation

Stays true to formula

Pacing is handled well

New and old weapons

Character development

Technical issues

Only certain characters playable

Loading times

          Play time: About 13 hours total. For the single player campaign

Computer Specs: Windows 10 64-bit computer using Nvidia GTX 1070, i5 4690K CPU, 16GB RAM – Played using mouse and keyboard

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