#I’m thinking I should do a tier list or figure out what my favorite bits of each piece are

[wolvesbaned]

she is different every time i draw her!! i should do a tier ranking of my favorite versions lol

[ech0wo]

So, this is a list of posts that really sum up why tickling feels so warm and soft and nice to me. Im pretty sure that I checked with everyone I put on this list to make sure they were ok with me putting a post of theirs here, and if I missed you, please DM me and let me know!!

I made this here compilation so I can put them all in my pinned post, but also so I can send this whole post to a few IRL friends of mine so I can share my funny little interest with them without feeling self-conscious.

please please please reblog this with your own additions or things you think are important and that I should add

one last thing. If I send this to you and you're one of my IRL friends, I'm sending it to you not only cuz I trust you but also because I might want more tickles irl, because its a safe thing for me that i love dearly, and I dunno how to ask for it, because a lot of people think it's weird or sexual or childish, but it's not for me.

Like cuddly tickles? Top tier. Tickle hugs?!?!?! I'll be a giggly melted goop in your arms and I'll thank you after,

Also also also! if anyone has any questions about the T-community (that's what this is called, the tickle community or the T-community)I I will answer all of them to the best of my abilities

[cringeyvanillamilk]

Who's your favorite Tokyo Revengers character? Mines is Baji, Hanma and Kazutora!

I’m happy to finally gush about my favorite Tokyo Revengers character! I actually already made an updated top 10 favorite characters list so this would be a piece of cake!

Also I see that based on your favorites, you’re into the seemingly wild characters who actually have a lot of baggage and layers to them! Fantastic taste! ;)

My top 10 favorites are:

Takemichi: Imma go off on this boi because he is one of my favorite shounen protagonists! Okay, I feel like I said this for a lot of shounen protagonists, but I feel like Takemichi hits a bit different. He’s like a combination of, coincidentally, my favorite shounen protagonists, Deku and Asta. He’s emotional like Deku, but also determined like Asta. But I think what makes him stand out more is how flawed and human he appears. Like he doesn’t initially have nerves of steel. There were many moments where he wanted to give up and run away, moments where he felt fear, and even moments where he felt like he had to do things alone. Thankfully, he was always reminded of what he was fighting for and that he was never alone. Takemichi just seems more like a dynamic in comparison to other protagonists. I think having him mess up and struggle repeatedly throughout the story is more interesting compared to a character who always refuses to back down and give up, no shade towards those types of characters. Takemichi is just so relatable and sympathetic. Home boi went through so much trauma for so many people. A true king.

Draken: Best side character. He has a good head over his shoulder and just seems so much cooler in comparison to other characters. What I like most about Draken is how he is the conscience of the gang. I have such a soft spot for this boi. He seems tough, but is actually very caring! Truly top tier!

Mikey: I’m a huge fan of how complex Mikey’s character became. He has so much baggage and layers that I’m honestly impressed with how the mangaka is handling him with so much care! An absolute rollercoaster ride and I’m loving it!

Chifuyu: THE OG. THE DUDE. BEST BOY. Chifuyu went through a lot and yet he remained strong and loyal. His mental and emotional strength should not go unnoticed! His will and dedication is amazing.

Mitsuya: We stan a gemini king. Mistuya was a pleasant surprise! At first I thought he was just a chill dude until we get to know his backstory and relationship with Hakkai and Draken! The more he appears in the manga, the cooler he gets! Love how he acts like an older brother figure for others! Also a fashion designer and artist?! He’s so perfect! 

Kakucho: OH MAN. Kakucho is so loveable and showcases probably the most morals among the gang of antagonists. He really stands out imo!

Hakkai: I love this big baby. He’s so dorky and cute not gonna lie. A very shy boy, but he’ll FIGHT! Love his development in the manga! I just wanna pinch his cheeks!

Inui: A VERY GOOD BOY. I love how he was initially an enemy, but became a loyal supporter of Takemichi! His relationship with Koko was very spicy and I overall think he’s very charming!

Koko: He’s such a complicated boi, but he’s also so interesting! I find his relationship with Inui to be a highlight and I just love how self aware but also self-destructive this guy is. 

Kisaki: He is such an engaging antagonist! He’s so calculating and manipulative! He really said “work smarter, not harder”! He’s so unpredictable which is why he’s so fun to watch! I think his motivation is both spicy and ridiculous (in a good way)-! If you know, you know! 

Honorable mentions: Hina, Naoto, Angry, Baji

[yoichichi]

Modern!au Connie Headcannons

Modern!Connie Springer x reader

a/n: I just love best boy Connie and whenever I think of something about him I jot it down in my notes and the list was getting a little extensive so I figured I’d share! These are just some random Connie HC, can be platonic or romantic reader insert! Please feel free to come in my inbox and talk about Connie I love him :(🖤 I hope you enjoy!

gif not mine, credit to owner

His snapchat is literally so chaotic, half of his memories he just doesn’t remember

And it’s usually a cursed video involving Sasha

WILL FaceTime you just so he can see your reaction to a TikTok he sent that you have to see now

Don’t ask me why but he will give you wet willys any chance he gets he finds it so funny

BRUNO MARS STAN I DON’T MAKE THE RULES

He’s just always bumping Bruno so loud when you’re in the car together to the point where all you had stuck in your head was Bruno - he gets limited access to the aux now

His favorites are That’s What I like, Young Girls, Treasure and Gorilla 😐

An actual good driver but is always a few above the speed limit

Got pulled over once and when the police came to the window he stuck his hand out the window and went “what man you’re not gonna dap me up?” - they made him take a sobriety test

Makes you shave his head and clean up his edges for him - has tried to convince you more than once to shave your head so you guys can match

Idc he’s a god tier kisser like king of make out sessions

He’s never too rough or fast with it, and he’s always making sure to give your lips a break and kiss your neck for a bit before he comes back up

His right hand is always holding you by the back of your neck to keep you in place ugh

Moving on

Collection of beanies 😌

Ok but if you’re sad he has a whole change of demeanor like

intently listening and humming to show he’s invested and if you’re really torn up he has one of your hands in his and he’s rubbing it softly - and if you need to cry he’s literally so good at makin you cry LOL

Like he’d just squeeze your hand and go “hey it’s ok babe, you’re allowed to feel that way” whether your relationship is platonic or not he’s calling you babe

And he’s so good at knowing when to switch up the mood and make you laugh and happy again ugh

He has a list of movies in his notes app that he wants to watch with you and half of them are really awful horror movies that he thinks “might actually be worth it cmon, what’s it gonna hurt?”

Him, he’s a baby and no matter how awful it is he’ll be a little jumpy after LMAO

I just, he’s a chronic sock stealer

He just loses his so easily?? And he has no qualms about strutting into your room to steal a pair of socks and soon you’re like??? Where the HELL are my socks?? And he’s like yeah jeez you gotta get some more.... cause what’s he supposed to do when YOU run out

Ok but more on him being a good driver, he only got pulled over before because his taillight was out and he actually isn’t an angry driver either, like he gets cut off and just kinda sighs or completely ignores it he just doesn’t care, unbothered king

One time someone pulled a random u-turn in front of him so he had to slam on his brakes but his first instinct was to swing his arm over you and then ask if you’re ok 😕

HE WAS SO SILENT TOO no honking, no gasp, and when he asked if you were ok he literally just went “you good?” In a super soft voice

He is ALWAYS humming something to himself and if you ask what he’s humming he doesn’t get embarrassed just excited to tell you :) but you’re obligated to listen to the song after too

And he always has a favorite part and he’ll go omg it’s coming up it’s it’s right here ugh omg did you hear that? And play it for you one more time

He just can’t get rid of anything electronic it scares him

He has all his old phones, game systems and an old laptop stored away somewhere

“Where the hell do I even throw them away??! There’s no way they go in the regular trash cause, like, there’s acid in them or some shit. And all my personal info is on there! And they say you should shred any paper with your info before you recycle it, and I can’t shred my mf PHONE!”

Sometimes he thinks he wants a nose piercing but he has a fear of it getting ripped out in his sleep or something (I’ve had it happen, it was god awful, I have so many nose piercing horror stories...)

He does have his ears pierced though

He had those little diamond studs when he was younger, too

He just thinks they’re stylish :)

Looks the best in sweatpants idc

Isn’t actually that bad at flirting like he’s just goofy and nice so like ~swoon (idk maybe I’m projecting here 🙄)

His favorite place to eat out is L&L, he’s a regular customer and his fav is just some simple spam musubi or the kalua pork and cabbage 🤤

Ok he’s loud but also a little shy like the kind of guy where if it was his birthday and you were singing happy birthday he’d get a little bashful and be all like omg,,, ok y’all I get it thanks jeez

Sometimes when he laughs to hard he snorts and covers his face with his hands cause he’s just dying and can’t help it

I feel like he has a habit of having to keep his hands busy and fidget with stuff so when he’s doing something mindless like watching TV he’s pulling on his bottom lip or pulling at the skin around his nails, but one time your head was in his lap and so he started just running his fingers along your skin or playing with your hair if he could and now he prefers doing that instead 🥺

He just pats his lap and looks at you with a lil smile expecting you to cuddle up

TL;DR: Connie is best boy and I love him

—————————

That’s all my most recent thoughts on Connie y’all ☺️ I might make a pt 2 in the future but lemme know if y’all liked it and would be interested in that! ily 😽 and if you’d like to be added to my taglist just lemme know! I write for aot and hq so you can specify for both or one!

-🐇out

taglist: @plutowrites

[kekoma]

— iwaizumi as your boyfriend.

no thoughts this time. just hajime. hope you enjoy.

ahh the lovely iwaizumi <3 aka iwa-chan~

another top tier boyfriend. can definitely bring him home to your family and they’ll love him automatically.

but before diving into what it’s like dating hajime, let’s warm up a bit and take a look at his crush stage with you.

actually takes him awhile to even realize he likes you more than a friend. 

only picked up this feeling when he noticed that he finds himself extremely comfortable around you and that he didn’t like the concept of you dating someone if it wasn’t going to be him. 

isn’t quick to act on his emotions though. no no no. matter of fact, no one even knows he has a crush on you (except for oikawa of course.)

hajime doesn’t show any signs of getting nervous when around you, attempting to distance himself from you because of fear he might slip or any of those antics. definitely isn’t the type of guy who spills to everyone that he likes you too. likes to keep to certain things to himself and you’re one of them. 

just acts completely normal around you for the most part.

although he does end up studying you more than before and constantly thinking about how you might feel towards him. 

but this won’t catch your attention since the subtle change doesn’t catch your attention automatically.

iwa does go out of his way to spend more time with you when he decides that he actually wants to be with you.

“hey y/n, a new cafe opened up a few blocks from school. i was thinking we should go there together for lunch.”

“oh? sure but i thought you had something to do during lunch?”

“i did but i rearranged it for later since i wanted to eat with you today.”

of course he asked oikawa for some type of advice/help when it came to asking you since iwa didn’t want to come off as boring or cheesy when asking you out. 

may or may not have wrecked his brains with different ideas about how to go about it which is why he went to his best friend for help.

“i can’t think of proper way to confess to y/n... hey dumbass, if you really liked someone, how would you ask them out?”

“first of all, rude. can’t believe that’s how you treat a good friend like me. anyways it’s simple my dear friend. i would go up to them during lunch, flash a charming smile, and just ask them to be mine. it’s cute, right?”

“... so let me ask you this since you decided to be funny. should i beat your ass now or later?”

“hey! you asked and i gave you an honest answer!”

“ah so now? gotcha shittykawa.”

iwaizumi ends up asking you during one your countless late night runs for snacks.

wasn’t anything super romantic yet it wasn’t completely boring/awkward either.

iwa went for a straight forward approach (not like ushijima straightforward).

 basically explained how he’s been feeling towards you lately and that he wants you to be his. of course when you accepted is confession and expressed how you felt the same— hajime couldn’t stop smiling like a fool.

side fact: he thought about going for a somewhat flirty approach at first by saying how cute you looked in his hoodie and if you really liked wearing his clothes then he wouldn’t mind supplying you with more without hounding you to return them after awhile.

however, iwa thought it sounded odd so he ended up confessing to you in a normal manner to avoid any kind of embarrassment.

now we can dig into the main course meal here: what’s its like dating hajime.

three words that come to mind with him... dependable, caring, and attentive.

starting with attentive, he doesn’t miss a beat if something is wrong with you.

due to constantly studying you previously (and still to this day), learning and picking up the habits you have— he’s able to figure out when things aren’t right with you so hiding your feelings isn’t an option for you love.

although if you attempt to hide them then don’t be surprised when he pulls you aside and confronts you about it. of course, it won’t be anything harsh like but more on the “hey you’re acting strange and this isn’t something i’m going to drop.” side of things.

this is when caring comes into play. iwaizumi isn’t the type of boyfriend that’s oblivious towards your emotions/moods nor does he leave you be.

will also add that he has made it known countless times to you that if anything bothers you then he wants to know in hopes that he can solve the issues. 

but if you’re someone who isn’t up to talk about the issues just yet then he’ll be understandable— won’t push too far but will give you a prep talk in hopes that can it lighten your mood. which i will label that as dependable playing it’s role.

to add more for dependable, i’ll mention that he’s the type of boyfriend that will wake up in the middle of the night, early in the morning or whatever time if you called him about going through any type of mental issues (having a break down, panic attack, etc.). he’ll rush over the minute he heard your voice and of course he ends up bringing items that could comfort you.

we stan and love that about him.

moving along, i’ve already mentioned that hajime remembers things about you but it’s not just emotional wise. matter of fact he knows what your favorite foods are, drinks, kind of aesthetic/style you go for, places you want to visit, hobbies, and all of the good stuff. 

if he were to ever be tested about how good he knows you, mans is getting an 100. can’t convince me otherwise.

the type of boyfriend who’s supportive of everything and anything you do. makes it known that he’s your number one fan and believes in you. 

won’t let you overwork yourself. hajime constantly makes sure your health is in good condition, but it you happen to get sick then best believe he’s showing up to your place with medicine and bringing you back to normal.

iwa purposely leaves his hoodies and shirts at your place since he knows you’ll end up wearing them and when you return them, they smell like you. he likes your scent.

he typically likes to gift you things he saw in the stores that reminded him of you as well as giving you flowers. sometimes you have to ask him to relax on the gifts because your room can’t handle it all.

hands down, DEADASS can’t convince me he DOESN’T, is the type of boyfriend who will throw hands at anyone who flirts with you or attempts to touch you.

like he would come back from getting something, visiting you at work or however you want to picture the scenarios and would see some lame guy trying to spit game at you.

the minute he notices him, iwaizumi is coming in to save the day. tries not to take the violence approach at first, but the minute that other dude says something disrespectful then his whole career is over.

hajime beats ass for a living so beating that man up was no problem, but getting him off of the dude is because the only thing on iwa’s mind is murder.

may even stomp his lights out and then go with a smirk.

anywaysss pda? pda.

iwaizumi is surprisingly comfortable but also a tad bit awkward with it. tries to avoid it sometimes because he doesn’t want others to notice just how soft he is with you/be made fun of.

but in public, the most iwa will do is the basic (with your permission of course because this man refuses to do anything if he doesn’t hear that you’re okay with what he does with you). such as holding hands, gives small kisses on your face that isn’t deemed too inappropriate, holding you in his arms/hugging, and all that good cutesy stuff.

two things he likes with you is piggy back rides and when you ruffle his hair.

with piggy back ride, for some reason it makes him feel all warm inside and he does it instantly the minute the words slip from your lips. sometimes he’ll offer one if you don’t ask him first. other times, he’ll offer them to you if he notices you’re too tired or your heels are hurting your feet.

when it comes to ruffling his hair.. he may act like it bothers him to the MAX sometimes but deep down this man loves it. just doesn’t want to admit to it just yet. the feeling of your hands in his hair is like floating on cloud nine for him.

as for private; of course cuddling is on this list. dude loves feeling you close to him and may even fall asleep while cuddling. don’t think positions really matter (unless notices that you’re trying to big spoon him).

definitely more touchy with you, but of course consent is key so he never goes too far with his touches/stops when you ask him to.

going to dates now~ 

dates with iwa is a mix of sporty and chill. will also add that sometimes it’s random.

like he’ll pick you up from class and suddenly say “let’s go on a date.” while you’re standing there a bit confused.

although if you aren’t someone who’s into sporty type of dates then he’ll always opted for the chill ones which is basically going to the arcades, laser tag, roller skating, paintball centers, go karting and etc.

shows more of his romantic side with the dates and you actually find out how soft he can really be. vv cute.

of course some of the dates won’t only be you two since oikawa tries his best to sneak himself in so he can be the third wheel that takes bomb ass pictures of you and just watch over you two like a parent.

“aren’t you tried of third wheeling oikawa?”

“oh no. never. besides without me, iwa here wouldn’t have any good pictures to post on his instagram... we both know he isn’t good at taking pictures.”

“i-... right right.”

gonna end it here before my brain overheats just a bit, but dating iwaizumi is worth it and each moment with him makings you fall in love with him all over again.

definitely gets the trophy for being the best boyfriend ever and you’re the luckiest person ever to have his heart.

something i forgot to add earlier— his top nicknames for you are; princess, dummy/idiot/stupid, babe/baby, and occasionally he’ll call you his munchkin <3

© all content belongs to kekoma 2020. do not repost, modify or translate.

[ofmorninglory]

2020 Creator Wrap

2020 Creator Wrap: Favorite Works

I was tagged by the amazing @distance-of-song and the wonderful @incorrectbatfam

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought to the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

I’ve been having a particularly rough start of the year mental health wise, so I thought I’d love on myself for a little bit with this particular tag. It’s kind of hard to choose 5 stories because I actually like a lot of the things I produced this year, but I’ll try to stick to the rules. These ones are probably not gonna be in any particular order, because choosing is already hard and giving them a tiered list is going to be harder jsjs 

Under the cut for you folks who want to avoid clutter! 

you’re the light that i follow 

the first half of this fic i actually started writing in 2019 after i found out they had killed Joan off in young justice for no apparent reason and then proceeded to not give her a proper send off like our wonderful Joaney deserved. initially a fic purely made out of spite, “you’re the light that i follow” takes first mention simply because it helped me process some very big feelings i was trying to process in march. it was heart wrenching to finish it, but it also helped me rationalize the emotions in me and laid down the foundation for what later became my coping mechanism for dealing with grief. it certainly holds a special place in my heart. 

should’ve worshipped him sooner

this one was probably the LAST concept i managed to figure out for bluepulse week, but it’s literally my favorite one. while i really care about all of my bluepulse week fics (i think i did a pretty okay job with 2020′s bluepulse week) this one probably takes the cake, probably because i love Henry a little bit too much now. also, Bart calling Jaime “little beetle”? y’all can’t tell me that wasn’t the best fucking decision DC ever made (IT’S CANON. you can pry it off my COLD DEAD HANDS) and the line “get off my goddamn dick” is still my favorite thing i’ve ever written. i have to admit i originally didn’t like this one that much, but it really grew on me after it got such a warm reception, so thank y’all for that!

the leaving is just the same

another bluepulse week fic because i really loved bluepulse week jsjsj pretty sure i spent all my writing braincells in that one week. i love this one because i got to write betty allen-reyes a little bit, but also because it was really nice to explore the concept of the speed force as this sentient, all-knowing, all-powerful force of the universe that chooses to fuck with her speedsters on a daily basis because of reasons yet unknown to us. also, the line “she was all reyes, but her heart beat to the rhythm of bart’s own” is so good and i can’t believe that came out of my brain. also one of my favorites because it allowed me some creative liberties on where all the characters ended up and i think that’s really cool. loved the idea of Jaime as president of Kord Industries and Bart as his trophy husband after retirement. pity i stuck Bart in the speedforce cause i’m mean jsjsjsj 

of duty and fate

one of my only homestuck fics this year even when i had so many things planned for johndave week and didn’t get around to write them all. loved writing this piece because it’s also me getting one of my crossover AUs out there in the world. it doesn’t actually have any crossover in it because it’s heavily focused on the BEFORE of the story i want to write, but i still had a lot of fun writing it! the type of yearning in a high fantasy AU between a prince, heir to the throne and his knight is probably the BEST FORM OF YEARNING and I just love the idea behind this whole story. it’s come to my attention it’s a bit difficult to follow, but maybe if i ever got myself to finish writing the whole story it might be a little less complicated. then again, it’s a crossover AU, so who am i to say jsjsj

nightmares

probably the MOST self indulgent thing i’ve written after “too hot, hot damn” and this one is probably even MORE INDULGENT than “too hot, hot damn” simply because this crossover in particular makes absolutely no sense in EITHER original context. nevertheless, i love this one because it has some of my BEST writing and it has a friendship that i think would be superior if the universe hadn’t been such a coward. i keep thinking about a second part to this one, but i haven’t managed to do it. this crossover AU also spured some original content this year, so i guess not all is lost! anyways, it’s one of my favorite things i’ve written, if i’m being honest, and it has the same soft feel to it that “glitter (silent confessions)” has and i love it because of that same reason jsjs

this was actually really cathartic, i’m not gonna lie. left me feeling less angry at the world and at myself, so this was really nice! thank you for tagging me, and whoever wants to give themselves some love ABSOLUTELY SHOULD. 

[you-have-made-a-fatal-error]

Could you rank the Nancy Drew games from your least favorite to favorite?? I’d love to know!

ok! in the form of a tier list bc otherwise i’m sitting around arguing w myself about whether i should rank game x at 22 or 23 or 24 etc etc- and that’s just a mess tbh

untouchable tier: scarlet hand and shadow ranch - tbh i enjoy scarlet hand just a little bit more BUT. on the whole. these two - all the elements that make up these games work together to create a whole greater than the disparate parts. and also having a ‘super extra god-tier’ would be dumb. so we have two.

real güd games: ghost dogs, deception island, blue moon canyon, castle malloy (fight 🔪🔪🔪 me), shadow at the water’s edge, alibi in ashes - all build a strong atmosphere but each for whatever reason doesn’t make me see god. alibi in ashes maybe a touch lower than the rest but only just.

(you might have noticed that i have crystal skull straddling tiers 2&3 - look i know that i like it but it has been a long long time since i’ve gone back to it - for no reason really except that it’s not currently installed on my pc and installing it would involve.. you know.. waiting until it’s installed? anyway it’s there bc i don’t trust my memory on this)

tier 3 games i enjoy but know are flawed: og secrets can kill (self-explanatory really), treasure in a royal tower (because honestly i’ve played it so many times the atmosphere doesn’t really build for me anymore, it’s too automatic and too easy to race through now i know how it’s progression works), blackmoor manor (i just - this game has a lot of elements that don’t quite come together nicely for me. some of them are just a bit too much i think. it’s not even that i don’t enjoy them - but maybe silly ghost hunt AND serious gaslighting AND witchy alchemical shit AND a snarky parrot are too much for just one game?? i understand WHY there are huge tonal shifts bc don’t wanna get too dark n scary in what it ultimately a kids game - but they can be. a bit much.), kapu cave (which i tbh kind of love, but i’m not gonna argue it’s top-teir quality - aside from quigley i mean), and trail of the twister (lot of fucking annoying characters, little to no snooping - but i kind of enjoy just about all of the tasks)

‘meh’ teir: haunted carousel, secret of the old clock, danger by design, phantom of venice, captive curse. captive curse could honestly be lower, but thing is anja is by far the most memorable bit and she’s also far and away the best bit? danger by design could maybe be higher, and then i remember it went ‘nazi romance’ with it’s historical backstory? but jj and the catacombs and honestly the vendors and weird minette- but nazi romance. also every time i play it i’m forced to contend with the fact that i absolutely owned heather’s brown-with-pink-pinstripe pants in ~2006 which is not something i like to revisit. haunted carousel, secret of the old clock, and phantom of venice are the games this tier was made for. there are good elements, sure. but there are also elements that are jarring and/or annoying as fuck.

if this tier list was a pass/fail course, this would be the line separating pass from fail.

‘nah bro’ tier / the ‘i could probably split this into several tiers’ tier: stay tuned for danger, message in a haunted mansion, the final scene - all feel weird to me, they don’t really jibe with the rest of the series. they very much yell “we’re still figuring this shit out”. which is fine and neccessary - but not what i’m looking for most of the time. at the time they were made stay tuned for danger and haunted mansion would pass, but we’re not there anymore. icicle creek is, well. honestly it’s ‘meh’ in it’s truest form, even though i called the last teir meh. the characters all kind of suck, tino the douche shows up again, you have to cook at specific times and that’s a bitch and a half. and there’s no big, stand out element that might bump it up a tier. i don’t actually hate fox and geese though. waverly academy is ass honestly, and if i had added a tier below this waverly would be in it. it’s not quite the worst, but ohmygod it seems to hate teen girls - who are also the target audience for the game, which makes it even worse tbh. and all the puzzles are shit. tomb of the lost queen just kinda sucks. i like it marginally better than waverly, and I do enjoy the hierogylph-decoding puzzles even though they’re absolute NONSENSE bc that type of puzzle appeals to me, but the characters are bad hotchkiss is bad the new interface is bad and i can’t use any of the 800 million oil lamps when nancy needs a light. bad. thornton hall and sea of darkness would be in the waverly tier below this one if i had added that extra tier. thornton hall has atmosphere but absolutely fucking nothing else and the writers straight up did not do their jobs, nothing makes any sense at all. the definition of fake deep tbh. but... atmosphere is enough to save it from the ‘utter shit’ tier below. sea of darkness has nothing going for it and then it had the gall to add chrismas bullshit as though it wasn’t a game released in MAY also I oppose the holidays in general, BUT at least they got a new fucking writer. still not great though.

THROW IT IN THE TRASH tier: secrets can kill: remastered - obvious trash. ransom of the seven ships - no suspects, terrible game mechanics, shittier version of loulou who was honestly already skating on thin ice with me - trash. deadly device - deirdre is shitty, the new interface is still bad, i can BARELY interact with the environment, the characters are nonsense, nothing is appealing, everyone has weird stick-thin gumby arms - TRASH. silent spy - TRASH and also NONSENSE, get your spy/international intruigue/terrorism out of my nancy drew game. alibi in ashes is prime nancy is personally involved in a case material, and spy is the fucking anti-ash. TRASH. labyrinth of lies - TRASH and NONSENSE and peak fake-deep nic-era dialogue - hopelessly up its own ass and doesn’t realise it actually has nothing to say. TRASH. shattered medallion - awful fucking nonsense, somehow nancy cares even less about her friends than she did in ransom, nothing means anything and no one has any clue how tv shows work. also, and i feel like this isn’t stressed enough, turns fuckin nancy into the type of person who would appear on a reality tv show. and why is bess even there? why would she be literally anywhere near this tv show production? it’s bad, it’s nonsensical, and it’s TRASH! throw all of these in the garbage, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

...and i left midnight in salem and the two dossiers out of the ranking bc i haven’t played them. (haven’t actually played secrets can kill 2 either but lbr i don’t need to in order to know it has no redeeming qualities)

erm. ta-daa?

[currentfandomkick]

JL confronts Marinette

From bio!dad Strange au, where they made her kryptonian to keep her alive. This is post-Hawkmoth (debating using a random and revamping Gabriel altogether tbh)

“Don’t.” Marinette was tired of heroes, tired of being one. She had to handle hawkmoth’s fallout, keeping so many secret identities (hers, JL, miraculus team, her gotham family’s) and she just wanted to sleep.

Flash found her first, but Superman grabbed her and put her in the air for a ‘talk’.

“Don’t what?” She knew superman wasnt a detective. She knew he was a reporter though and she could see baiting and needling just under the surface. He’s an interrigator then, she decided.

“Don’t come in and try to fix what the miraculous team already handled. Paris was abbadonned by your league.”

She figured this was about Ladybug. Paris is always going off the the miraculous holders and ladybugs were always deemed the defacto leaders. She liked that Daesuqa (Talia) took over leading long term missions for the most part, handled meetings and politics so her and Chat and the others could be more like the teens they are in theory.

And everyone knew Marinette was Chat Noir’s favorite after she got how many akumatized people to release their akuma on their own? And that she supplied mirauclous users with kwami food (though it was common for many other civilians). It was common knowledge to all, but Hawkmoth apparently, that if Chat or his miraculous team or the entire team was needed, you went to Marinette.

Superman furrowed his brow at that though. “I didn’t know there was an active team here.”

So it wasn’t about the miraculous or years of magic terrorism her city endured?

“Been here for years. Hawkmoth’s sentencing is in a few hours.”

She hoped it was the kwami’s choice. Tikki murmured that people were surprised by what they could live through, and she is thw kwami of life. Tikki would make him wish he was dead routinely. He deserved it for regualrly slaughtering the city.

“No, that’s...” superman shook his head. “I came here to talk to you about...” he gestures to her then. She didn’t get it until she realized she was floating on her own.

When did he let her go?

“I know you’re Princess.”

Marinette’s blood stopped then. No. He can’t. They can’t.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I know Chloe changed my handle to Princess of Paris a few years ago but indont think heroes can stalk teens for that.”

Good, play into that. Distract until someone you trust can come. She hit an alert on her phone while he wasnt looking.

Pegasus should be here soon.

“I know you know it only as the Chimera project.”

Wrong. It was the surgery that kept her alive.

“And i know you’ve been poisoning yourself to stay hidden.”

Antidotes came from venom. It was fone to ise the stickers, they kept her human. The crystals were for emergencies only.

“What I don’t get is why.”

Why would she want him to kidnap, or abduct her? Take her from her family? Her life?

Don’t show that you’re who he thinks, anvocie whispered. Keep being the Paris Marinette from social media. The savage who snarled Weredad into submission.

“I really think you have the wrong girl. Its listed under my file as a volunteer flyer that i’m a flying meta, like most of the flyers.” Good, keep it up.

“And superman, if I had to guess why some girl that i look like would supress their powers, its becuase this is France and until the Miraculous team came clean about some being meta, you were imprisoned on suspicions of being meta, even infants were, are in the rest of France. Paris is the only place you arent imprisoned for it.”

Superman paled at that. “I. I wasn’t aware.”

“why would you be?”

Superman did respond to that.

“And if this Princess of yours is still hiding, she might be protecting her loved ones. Or maybe she thinks you’d steal her away from her life and home? Everyone knows about the fortress of solitude and i dont think anyone besides you would like living there, especially so far from people.”

Marinette watched him process. As long as Red Robin didnt see her, didnt confirm her identity, she was in the clear.

“Now if you’d excuse me, I’m needed to finish filling out a report on the final battle.”

That had superman’s attention.

“Final battle.”

“Yes, we just took down Hawkmoth a week ago.”

“He already has his trial, in a week.” Disbelief. Not worng either.

“It took the citizens of paris a week to finish voting. Finally tallies come in tonight if we try him as humans or if the kwami—gods of various concepts—are the ones to try him for his crimes. Afterall, he enslaved one kwami and abused another.”

Superman was not doing well, far too pale. Shock? No, they sent so many videos before the JL banned them.

Guilt. Regret, too. Probably.

“Now can you put me down somewhere? I’m not out as a meta and indont plan on being out anytime soon. Any supporting the miraculous teams do have their enemies too, and i dont want to be targetted.”

Superman nodded. Numb? Possible.

She let hersef be taken down.

Pegasus was there, Flash on his way. Another person who could make her.

She had to move fast.

“I hope I cleared things up?”

Superman nodded.

Max was ready to fight, glaring at the blue boyscout.

“Ready to go Miss DC?”

Marinette nodded, letting him guide her to the portal.

Flash didnt make it in, but he didnt see her face either. She’s take the narrow victory.

They exited in the Paris Grande Hotel. The Mayor had Batman and Red Robin with him. Crap.

“Is this...”

“Our civilian contact, Miss DC,” Pegasus stated almost too professionally. Great, now Red would know they know each other as friends. batman too.

“Batman, Red Robin, correct?”

“Yes. We, we just found your heroes videos and came to help. I see we’re too late too.”

Marientte nodded, avioding eye contact with Red. She wasnt sure if he learned to act infront of Batman yet, and wasnt risking it.

“I heard you came up with many of the emergency procedures and built the comms system with Pegasus.”

“As a flyer, yes. As Miss DC I just make sure the team stays fed and Chat doesnt forget to sleep.”

Batman shot Red Robin a look as he said, “I know the feeling.”

Marinette didnt fight the smile then. Yes, that was her Hero Stalker Tim alright.

“Would you two be interested in helping the league develop a better system to sort incoming messages?”

Pegasus moved first. “If we do, Miss DC is to be left alone. Her mother is very atrict about her not getting involved in science, and refuses to believe that her daughter has been actively helping the miraculous team.”

Batman turned his attention to Marinette then. “Is that so?”

Marinette nodded. “My birth father and her left on... terms i never got the jist of. He and his friends teach me in secret. Mama,” not maman, she forced herself to say, “she said something about it being destructive and dangerous, so she wants me to stick to the arts instead.”

Batman nodded. “Experiments can be, but that doesnt undercut the good you’ve done. I’ll tell the league you will work off-site should you accept.”

Marinette nodded along. “I can help where Pegasus gets stuck, and be contacted through him but otherwise would prefer not to be contacted by the League. I’m a civilian, and no offense, but there ahve been leaks before.”

“Understandable. The league thanks you for your help, and apoligizes for what you went through.”

Marinette could feel the hole Red Robin was burning into her. He earings. And the fox miraculous. Shit. He knew.

Marinette wanted to punch the league in their face collectively.

“All May i go now, i have a meeting to get to.”

“Of course.”

Pegasus opened the portal and escorted her out.

They both waited five minites, Max feeding Kaalki, for the call.

“So why didnt you tell me?” Tim was pissed.

“Media blackout. Any time i tried to call it was blocked.”

Tim swore. “Alfred!”

“You are so lucky Pegasus doesnt know anything about gotham.”

“He’s there?”

“I work with him alot.”

“So when you visited Gotham...”

“French government would know. Not hard to connect the dots of girl leaves to see gotham fmaily and suddenly the league shows up after banning all of Paris from contact.”

“I. When did it happen?”

“Before Chrismas. I would have had Nonna tell you but she didnt know either until after the fact and they said if she told anyone itd be me going to jail for her.”

“That’s. What hellscape do you live in?”

“I died so many times i don’t even know now.” She stopped keeping track after she got into the eighties. That wasn’t even a full year into being Ladybug.

“That’s not comforting.”

“Please tell me that you’re not outing me to Bats. I just got two leaguers off my tail.”

“I won’t tell him, but if the new Robin does i’m not stopping him.”

She almost forgot Talia’s son was a Robin. She didnt see him in uniform yet—as Damian (not wayne but damian who was mourning lost family, damian who didnt know how to talk to people his age). She knows he’s a bit thick with social cues, and his detective skills need work in her opinion but he’s skeptical and has good insticts. He might make her as Marinette if he’s there.

“Is he...”

“He’s with the Titans now, but theyre debating coming here to yell at the league.”

“Videoing it?”

“Obviously. Want a copy?”

“Ill make popcorn before watching.”

“Rkc are doing well by the way—stopped a human trafficking ring and i think they took the victims.”

“Harley’s working with them,” marientte got he update earlier. “Hood and zsasz took out the lower and mid tier that woudlnt snitch. The case should be smooth sailing—the sirens put out a blanket hit on anyone trying to touch the witnesses.”

“So managing two teams this whole time,” red murmured, almost... bitter, or disapointed in something—no someone. Himself?

“Just tweaking things. Daesuqa handles most the team since she found me and Chat. Apparently she was compatible enough to do a lot of the non-fighting work. I still did battle strategy and all but,” Marinette shrugged.

“She focused in survival aspects here, and long term stability for Gotham. Daesuqa has handled most of non-kwami work here outside of kwami and candidates,” Max added. “On top of her work as a student and designer and inventor.”

Red Robin groaned. “When do you sleep?”

Marinette hummed. “I have meds to make me. And angry family to make me take them.”

“Her... what are we calling him now?” Mac was asking about Felix, adiren’s gremlin cousin who’s mom isntryign to adopt her. Also a fellow reverse theif and possessive friend.

“Uh, gremlin.”

“Her gremlin calls to let is know if she does get rest on the weekends and we trade off on weekdays.”

Red robin hummed into the phone. “So staying to the shadows?”

Trixx and Tikki looked up at Marinette at that. tikki wanted her to be the Ladybug, the be seen and everywhere and she...

Trixx knew why Marinette liked the shadows and background. Trix understood that bit.

“Yeah, i’ll still play in between and have some kwami things for life now.” She and Chat were working out gaurdian duties still.

She wasnt interested in the JL.

@emeraldpuffguide @ilovefluffbutsmutisalsogreat @mystery-5-5 @weird-pale-blonde-person @dast218

[ckret2]

So I've been deeply pulled into the Radiosnake pairing bc of your fantastic writing! Problem is, now I have fic ideas but no knowledge of the Hazbin background. Can you tellI me where I can get more Hazbin info? I've only watched the pilot and read your stuff. I heard there were comics??

That is an excellent question anon, because right now it is really hard to get Hazbin background easily.

Okay, so, the canon info on Hazbin Hotel can be sort of sorted into four tiers, from most to least canon.

Tier 1: The Definitely Canon

There is, of course, the pilot. And then there is an Angel Dust prequel comic, only seven pages of which have been released so far. We’ve been told it’s gonna be finished and we’ve had glimpses of in-progress prequel comics for a couple other characters—most prominently Alastor’s and Charlie’s—but so far that unfinished Angel Dust comic is the only one that’s been officially released.

Finding the in-progress comic pages is... a challenge. Nobody, as far as I can tell, has been specifically collecting all of the pages we’ve seen so far. I was able to scrounge up:

Couple more Angel pages

some Alastor pages

another Alastor page

a random Alastor panel

another random Alastor panel—I’ve seen the full page of this before, Alastor goes “Hello ladies!” and they go “HELLO ALASTOR~<3″ but I can’t find the full page now

There’s a smattering more canon panels on the artist faustisse’s twitter, but I haven’t dug them all out, and some of the posts I’m gonna link in a lil bit have a glimpse of another panel.

If you haven’t already heard of Helluva Boss, I recommend looking into it as well. It’s a second series being created by the same folks, different cast of characters but set in the same version of Hell, so any canon details we learn in Helluva also apply to Hazbin.

Helluva’s pilot is here. Plus a cute music video here.

Earlier this month, during a BLM charity stream hosted by show artist Ashley Nichols—she runs regular streams under the title “HuniCast”—they released a few sneak peaks of future Helluva scenes, all compiled here.

And that’s it for canon. Two pilots, a music video, a smattering of future scenes, part of one comic, a few WIP pages/panels from other comics.

Tier 2: Pseudo-Canon

Everything else we currently know about Hazbin (and Helluva) are things that the creators have told us. Consequently, they’re all pseudo-canon—and likely subject to change in the future as the shows and comics are further developed and released. Some details that were released/described in the past have been contradicted at other times, or else radically changed by the time the pilot came out.

(For example, when Alastor was first created years and years ago as an OC with no plans for Hazbin, he was a demon deer who could shapeshift into a human shape—now he’s a demonized human with a few deer traits. And Charlie and Cherri Bomb used to look very different.)

So until and unless they make it into canon, all these pseudo-canon details are subject to change and should be taken with a grain of salt—but, they also comprise most of what we know about the characters’ backstory and the as-yet-unaired characters.

Pseudo-canon info on Hazbin is scattered mainly between two sources: the creators’ twitter accounts, and livestreams where they take questions and talk about the making of the show. If you and livestreams do not get along (my ADHD and livestreams do not get along), or if you don’t want to wade years and years back into twitter accounts to dig up every scrap of info on the characters the creators have ever mentioned, collating all the pseudo-canon info is gonna be hard. (It’s gonna be hard even if you do want to sit through the streams and dig through all their tweets.) Lots of fans, me included, depend on the absolutely heroic work of various fans who are willing and able to watch hours-long streams and collate a list of canon factoids released during the streams. I’ve reblogged as many of these posts as I’ve been able to find:

Alastor’s sound design (on twitter)

Alastor's Sound Design (post I made with screenshots of weird—but very interesting—subtitles slipped into the aforementioned video)

Sir Pentious and Cherri Bomb’s sound design

Niffty and Husk’s sound design

Charlie, Katie, and Tom’s sound design

Intro song’s sound design

Happy Hotel’s sound design

details from Faustisse (including a pic of a couple costume designs. Most of these posts come from zatyrlucy, who’s been doing a fantastic job of going stream-by-stream to get lists of details from the regular streams by Ashley Nichols and by comic artist Faustisse.)

more details from Faustisse (including a pic of the Von Eldritch family dining room)

Faustisse 3 (better look at that table)

Dollymoon’s Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART ONE (Shoutout again to dollymoon for compiling these, we’ve never spoken but I am eternally grateful for this service. Dollymoon’s posts are THE single most reliable compilation of Hazbin Hotel’s nebulous pseudo-canon facts that I have found to date, including both links to the sources and timestamps where applicable. Dollymoon’s URL has changed since making this post so the “read more” link doesn’t work but the “source” or “reblogged from” links direct correctly to the new blog. Incidentally, the risk of other blog creators deleting their blogs/posts or changing their URLs is why in info posts like these, I always link to my own reblogs rather than their original posts—their original posts might vanish without warning, but I know I ain’t gonna delete my posts, so these links will still work in the future.)

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART TWO

Hazbin Hotel Facts - PART THREE

Faustisse 4

HuniCast - Australian Wildlife Relief charity stream

I think this was a faustisse stream (the original source deleted these posts, so the comic pages that were originally behind that read more cut are now gone.)

Faustisse stream 6?

And those are all the masterposts of factoids I’ve managed to collect. If anyone has more masterposts, chuck ‘em at me.

Even this isn’t all the knowledge that’s been released about the show. The posts that dig the farthest back are Dollymoon’s, and even they don’t comprehensively cover all of Hazbin’s production. A couple of these characters, Vivziepop created as a teenager, so there’s some truly ancient concept art floating around out there that will have details that probably aren’t canon anymore... but might still be until something happens to actively contradict them.

Tier 3: The Wiki

The wiki is kind of an absolute mess. It’s a chaotic blend of things actually seen in the pilots/comic, things mentioned at some point in some stream somewhere, and wild fan speculation based on what they headcanon as plausible based on the above, all mixed together with very little indication for which is canon, pseudo-canon, fanon, or speculation. Most of the statements on the wiki don’t have citations.

(And, on top of that, half the main characters’ info gets split up into separate tabs instead of just having a normal-ass wiki page, AND their image galleries are on COMPLETELY SEPARATE pages that are linked to in one of the tabs, and the most important characters all have TWO SEPARATE GALLERIES. Which doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the facts hidden underneath those tabs, but nevertheless drives me up the wall.)

Some things on the wiki were added according to info released so long ago it’s probably changed by now. Some are possibilities that got reported as facts. Other things on the wiki have unambiguously changed, or else are just flat-out incorrect. (For instance, at this moment Alastor’s page still lists him as an overlord, even though it's been confirmed that Alastor is not an overlord despite his power level because he isn’t interested in and didn’t pursue that position, per this stream. For a little bit, somebody’s fanart of their headcanon human Alastor got added to the wiki as concept art.)

tl;dr: the wiki should never be trusted as a primary source. The wiki’s better than it used to be. Even so, at this time, it’s only trustworthy to fill in the gaps of what you already know is true from other, better sources.

The thing it’s good at is it more or less compiles all the known info all in one place. Trying to figure out who the hell this Vox guy is is really hard if you’re reading for mentions of him in compilations of a dozen different streams, much less if you’re trying to comb through those dozen streams yourself, plus a dozen more, plus three different artists’ twitters. In comparison, it’s really easy to, say, just go look at Vox’s wiki page, where all the trivia is compiled. (And Vox’s page is actually one of the better cited on the wiki. Look at all those numbers!)

So, if you need to find out who this character is you’ve never heard of before, if you want to see a full list of the thus far named characters, if you don’t remember whether Alastor likes coffee or tea, if you want to know what Angel’s twin sister looks like, if you need a reminder of Sir Pentious’s death year... check the wiki. It’s an okay starting point.

But, if you see a “fact” on the wiki that you yourself don’t remember from straight out of the pilot, and it doesn’t have a citation that links to a tweet or a stream... regard it suspiciously. And do not trust it unquestioningly as fact until and unless you have seen the source.

Tier 4: Noncanon Creator Shitposting

I’ve mentioned Ashley’s HuniCast streams a couple times. The biggest draw of them is that she usually gets several of the voice actors in the streams, where they’ll happily say nonsense in their character voices. For the most part, they’re not sharing any actual canon info they’ve been given on their characters, just goofing around pretending to be their characters. Nevertheless, a lot of the things that happen in streams get accepted as broad fandom headcanons, like Alastor being into dad jokes. (My favorite, for obvious reasons, is this one.)

It’s easy to find the source audio for all this wonderful nonsense by searching youtube for “HuniCast highlights,” and then rummaging around for animatics people make out of the audio. The only one noncanon video of this sort I can think of that didn’t originally come from HuniCast is a lone one from Alastor’s singing voice (who’s a different voice actor than his speaking voice).

So, obviously, none of these are canon. But they do come from some of the people actually involved in the creation of the show, and they are in the characters’ canon voices, so a whole lot of people treat them as semi-canon anyway. (Even the wiki lists “dad jokes” among Alastor’s likes, which to my knowledge hasn’t come up anywhere except for HuniCast streams.) Since they’re so broadly-known, they’re worth knowing about as important sources of fanon, even if you don’t want to adopt them into your own headcanons. They’re basically the same level of canon as blooper reels.

[metalandmagi]

Summer 2020 Anime Worth Watching!

Apparently it’s time for the summer anime season, even though it feels like time is meaningless at this point. But somehow, there are still new shows coming out, so if you’re looking for something to watch when you’re stuck at home, here’s a list of the first impressions I got from this season. I don’t really know if it’s going to be worth it, considering how the spring season delayed so much, but here we are. 

As always, not all of these are available on Crunchyroll, but I’ll put a * next to the ones that are.

And if you’re looking for a bit more variety, I have lists for 2019 and the rest of this year’s seasons too...because remember when there was good anime being released instead of just everything being an ecchi or a second season?

2019 master list

My master list for every season of 2020 anime

New Shows!

*The God of High School: An over the top action anime consisting of one big tournament arc! It follows a group of teenagers competing in the epic “god of high school” martial arts tournament to determine the best fighter in the country. Following in the footsteps of Tower of God, this is the newest “crunchyroll original” that is being adapted from a South Korean webcomic. You can tell from the first episode that this will be a spectacle with crazy characters and lots of wild action and humor!

Great Pretender: When a Japanese con man pickpockets the wrong person, he ends up hopping on a plane to Los Angeles and getting wrapped up in a scheme with a sassy Frenchman named Laurent...who basically runs the mafia. There’s humor, there’s plot, there’s great characters, and it’s kinda gay. It’s an exciting original anime from studio Wit, so the animation is bursting with character, and both the music and the general vibe remind me a lot of Baccano or even Lupin III. And since it takes place in America with several foreign characters, there's hilarious English and accent shenanigans abound! The bad news is it’s still in Netflix jail, so if you want to watch it legally you’re kinda stuck for now. 

Japan Sinks 2020: A giant earthquake hits Japan, and a family must cope with the mayhem together. Because what the hell else could possibly go wrong this year? This is a new series (based on a novel) made by Masaaki Yuasa, the guy behind Ride Your Wave and Walk On Girl, if that tells you anything about the style of this anime. I’ve only watched the first two episodes so far, but I heard it goes from being a gripping realistic disaster series to a balls to the wall adventure. To be honest, disaster shows/movies freak me out, and this one is pretty devastating so far, which is a testament to how well it's made. But I appreciate that they include glimmers of hope when they’re needed. The best moments are the quiet ones that focus on the actual people and the narration that juxtaposes the time periods. There’s so much atmosphere, and the music really enhances the experience. And it’s all out on Netflix now, with a dub and a sub!

Deca-Dence: When humanity has been pushed to the edge of extinction by monsters called the Gadoll, the rest of civilization is forced to live in enormous mobile fortresses and send groups out to battle the unknown monsters. So basically like Mortal Engines but the fortresses can turn themselves into giant fists and punch the monsters. We follow a girl named Natsume who wants to be one of the soldiers who fight the Gadoll, but she is constantly rejected because of her prosthetic arm. So she ends up with five years of cleaning duty supervised by a stern but mysterious badass named Kaburagi. I honestly don’t care at all about the plot of the anime, because for me the characters are what drives everything, and these character dynamics are great. I’m not going to say it’s the most original story, but I think it’s fun so far. 

*Rent-a-Girlfriend: A typical harem/romance anime that follows the world’s most annoying protagonist named Kazuya. After Kazuya is dumped by his first girlfriend, he seeks out a rental girlfriend out of self pity….BECAUSE APPARENTLY THAT’S A REAL SERVICE THAT EXISTS IN JAPAN?! Like you can actually rent moms/dads/girlfriends/boyfriends and so on. Anyway, his fake girlfriend is the picture of anime waifu perfection...until Kazuya starts being his typical asshole self and she reveals her true nature of being an absolute sass master who don’t take no shit from no boring ass main character. Shenanigans happen and the two of them end up having to pretend they are in a real relationship. And I’m just calling it now...Kazuya’s grandma is the real best girl of the series. If you want a harem that’s actually funny and doesn’t mind roasting the protagonist, give this one a shot. Although I wish this were just a straight up romance instead of a harem because there is no way in hell that any girl, let alone more than one would want actually to date this guy. 

Next Seasons and Continuations!

*Fruits Basket 2019 (Season 2): Thank goodness Fruits Basket wasn’t delayed or cancelled last season because sometimes I feel like it was the only thing getting me through the spring. I’ve ranted about how good it is enough by now. If it can’t brighten your year, then nothing will. Just watch it if you haven’t already. 

*Re:ZERO-Starting Life in Another World (Season 2): Subaru is still trapped in another world, and he’s still as angsty as ever, but that’s not going to stop him from constantly putting himself through hell when he keeps dying horribly every time he needs to reset the timeline! There are mysterious new villains, nobody knows who Rem is (again) and I think there’s a plot somewhere under all the suffer porn. Seriously though, this show is pretty cool (even if I was two years late to the party). It’s one of the most interesting isekai anime I’ve ever seen, and it feels like it’s acting as a deconstruction of the genre, kinda like how Madoka Magica is for magical girl anime...both shows certainly have enough crying. The story is weird but interesting, the world building is cool, the villains (and sometimes the heroes) are batshit crazy to watch, and I like its moments of humor. 

No Guns Life (season 2): The story of Juzo, the hard boiled detective who plays by his own rules continues in the second season of No Guns Life. In case you missed the first season, this is a mystery/action anime that feels like an old noir film had a cyberpunk baby. There’s underground conspiracies, there’s interesting side characters, and...oh yeah the main character has a gun for a head. That’s right. we came to see a bara detective with a literal gun for a face, but we stayed for the world building and mysterious plots!

*Fire Force (Season 2): I’m going to be honest here, I really didn’t know if I should include this one or not. I have a major love hate relationship with Fire Force, but I figured there may be other people out there who would like it more than I do. So in case you missed the first season, this show follows a group of firefighters who puts out fires caused by spontaneous combustion using a mixture of guns and super powers. It was created by Atsushi Ōkubo, aka the guy who made Soul Eater. So it’s bound to be amazing right?

Not necessarily. Strap in for this one lads. 

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed with this show overall. Its main characters just aren’t that interesting most of the time, it can’t decide on what kind of show it wants to be, and so much of it just dragged for a good part of the series. I don’t know if it was a problem of pacing or if the plot was just that uninteresting for a while. The first couple episodes set up a very unique plot, filled with intriguing moral dilemmas. And then it proceeded to abandon everything interesting in favor of badly timed fan-service. It just couldn’t strike the balance that Soul Eater had between its humor and its sincerity. If they wanted to make an ecchi show, they should have just made one instead of inserting the same overplayed scenarios into every episode. I don’t care if a show has fan-service as long as it fits the tone, or if it only has certain episodes dedicated to playing up the humor. But Fire Force has a habit of just inserting it wherever it wants regardless of what’s actually happening in the episode. Also, some of the humor revolves around one of the main female characters who has a really messed up self image because she’s slightly more muscular, and not a tiny delicate flower like some of the other girls. Not going to pretend that doesn’t bug me. 

But that doesn’t mean there is nothing good about it! If there wasn’t, I wouldn’t have finished the first season, and I wouldn’t be including this one. So far, the second season has actually been funny because it made the first episode more like filler, instead of cramming in too much plot all at once. And to the surprise of no one, the animation is absolutely god tier. I wish it was being used for something other than clumsy fan-service, but it’s still really something to see. The world building is super creative and 100% my aesthetic, and there were a couple side characters I really loved later in the series (Benimaru). And I did like the twists and turns the series took later in the season when it actually focused on the conspiracy behind the fire force and the cult. When it follows the mysteries it sets up, it’s more fun to watch. Who would have thought? 

TLDR: There’s good stuff and there’s bad stuff. This show is really something you have to watch for yourself to decide if it’s going to be worth it. I’m going to at least try the second season, because I want to see where this goes, but it’s on thin ice. 

Honorable Mentions

Isekai edition! Both of these came out last season, but I hadn’t mentioned them when I made my spring list. But they’re both getting dubs now so I’m still counting them.

*My Next Life as a Villainess- All Routes Lead to Doom!: A twist on the isekai genre where our main protagonist wakes up as a character in her favorite otome game...only to find that she’s actually the bitchy rival side character who ends up either dead or exiled in every route of the game. So naturally she does everything she can to prevent this by becoming a sweet and caring supporting character...who inadvertently makes every single other character in the game fall in love with her. I ignored this show for the first few episodes because I need another isekai in the world like I need a hole in the head, but after hearing everyone rave about it, I caught up with it in no time. It’s a fun take on the otome game tropes, and it manages to be funny and sweet while not committing to any particular pairing.

*Ascendance of a Bookworm (Season 2): That’s right, it’s another isekai where an adult is reincarnated into the body of a child in a fantasy world. But this time, it’s a nerdy girl whose entire purpose in life revolves around reading books (can relate). However, when our main character Mine is thrust into this fantasy world, she quickly realizes that this particular fantasy setting is a little too...medieval  for her tastes...meaning a family of commoners like hers would have no clue how to read and books are only meant for rich people or the church. So of course Mine has to figure out how to either get her hands on some books or make them herself. This is a super cute show that I waited a long time to finally watch, and since the second season is finally being dubbed I wanted to shout it out. It’s just a wholesome isekai version of Dr. Stone. There’s no real action, but it’s a relaxing watch if nothing else. 

Well, there you have it. Hopefully nothing else gets delayed or cancelled because it’s pretty slim pickings as it is. And before anyone asks, I didn’t include GIBIATE because I thought it was a massive disappointment that somehow made a time travel horror anime plot boring. There’s also My Teen Romantic Comedy Snafu, but it’s been 5 years since I watched the other seasons and don’t remember anything about it. But there’s that too in case anyone is a fan of the series and didn’t know it got another season. 

See you next season…if the world is still here by then?

[sadaveniren]

2, 8, 12, 15 please!

Thank you for playing~

2. What is your favorite snippet of dialogue?

Okay this is one part of a whole scene of dialogue that I love from an older fic of mine, but the Lilo banter is just God tier imo.

“Technically I’m bisexual,” Liam said when Louis vocalized this again as he scrutinized what Liam had picked out for his first trip to a gay club.

“Great Bisexual Awakening doesn’t have the same umph as Great Gay Awakening.”

“Also, I’ve always been bisexual.”

“Telling me you’d be okay with sucking my dick while you were drunk and then not speaking to me for days once you were sober and almost impregnating your girlfriend de’jour to reassert your heterosexuality sounds a lot like being in denial.”

“Once! I tell you about a pregnancy scare once and you make me sound like some...serial impregnator or something.”

“Do you know how many times I’ve had a pregnancy scare? Zero times. Do you want to know why?”

“I know why, you twat. Now will you approve the outfit or not?”

8. How often do people catch onto your little details?

Hmmmm 50/50? When people live comment I like to see if they pick up on any foreshadowing and usually they do! Which is great because it means I laid them out well. But things like pop culture references don’t always get noticed. Those are little Easter eggs for myself.

12. What’s the hardest thing to write for you?

Transition scenes or just ending a scene in general. I was trying to figure out how to end a scene last night and I just 😥😥😥 blanked.

15. Give us a snippet of something from your WiPs!

This is from my @onedirectionbigbang which will be coming out eventually 🎉🎉

“Do you have to change your face for each pose, Noel?” Aunt Hailee asked as he changed his face once more, adopting his father’s nose and chin so he almost looked the spitting image of him when he was younger.

“Of course, Aunt Hailee. What’s the point if I don’t?”

Her aunt didn’t answer him, just shook her head. “Finley, will you want a copy of these? I can have Niall give them to your mum.”

Finley’s brow furrowed and Noel mimicked her. “My mum?”

Aunt Hailee smiled. “Yeah. He’s been meeting up with that lot since you went back to school, and we had him over for a mum’s Sunday roast last week when Niall and Louis were travelling. He loves wizarding photography so I figured this would be good for him to have.”

“Oh, yeah sure.” Finley’s eyes were wide and Noelle slid back to a face that looked closer to Finley, something felt right about settling into it.

“What’s the matter.”

“I didn’t realize my mum was meeting up with anyone,” Finley said. “I mean, I’m happy. I think he should be meeting up with other people, but it’s like you said. If I wasn’t at Hogwarts I’d know what he was doing. And it’s weird that I didn’t know.”

“You can always ask him about it in a letter? Maybe when you write to him about this?”

Finley nodded. “No wonder he said it was okay to come. If he knows Niall-” her head snapped to Aunt Hailee. “Umm.. Excuse me? Ma’am?”

Aunt Hailee smiled. “Please, you can call me Hailee.”

“Hailee… is mum coming to the game then?”

Aunt Hailee shook her head. “Not today. He’s busy most weekends but it’s on his list of things to do. Niall wants him to see. This would have been a great one but he said he was visiting his mum. An all day trip.”

Finley nodded. “Yeah, without magic it’s a bit of trip to get up to her.”

Noelle nudged her. “Hey, in your letter ask him if you can tag along when he goes to the match. Then I can meet him, like you’re going to meet my mum today.”

The smile that came across Finley’s face was soft. “That sounds really fun.”

[i-want-anne-hathaway]

Challenge day two. Dear Evan Hansen. If you didn’t see that last post, I’m being an impulsive idiot.

Anybody have a map is a good song. I don’t- I don’t really have much else to say about that. Like, it’s just a good song. I enjoy every song in Dear Evan Hansen so this should be more tolerable than Hamilton. It’s also significantly shorter than Hamilton.

Waving Through a Window is actually about vampires, as confirmed by Lauren Lopez.

For Forever is my least favorite song on the soundtrack, and I still really like it. It’s just my least favorite because... actually I don’t know. I just vibe with it slightly less than everything else.

DEAR GORDON RAMSEY, WE’VE BEEN WAY TOO OUT OF TOUCH!

Okay, but in all seriousness, Sincerely Me was the second DEH song I’d ever heard, and I tried to figure out the plot just from the two songs I’d heard. I knew that Connor was dead, and I knew that he and Evan were not friends. Other than that, I had no idea.

I’ve watched the boot of this show so many times that the choreography is playing in my head, and that just shows how much time I have on my hands.

I’ve literally watched it so many times. Doing the dishes? Listen to Dear Evan Hansen. Doing homework? Listen to Dear Evan Hansen. Existing?? Listen to Dear Evan Hansen.

Antonio Cipriano doing the pronoun showdown of Requiem though. It makes me Sad™️. But like a good sad. It’s a sad song, but he is amazing. Not really related to DEH, but about Antonio Cipriano. In my head, Antonio Cipriano, the actor for Phoenix from JLP, and Renée Rapp’s boyfriend were all different people. I was so confused when I found out they were actually one person.

If I Could Tell her would be so sweet if you took away the context that it’s all a lie and her brother is dead. I will be getting a guitar, and I will be learning this song on it. It doesn’t sound right on the ukulele. It has to be a guitar. This is making me sad that I never got to see it when it came to my city on tour. This is also reminding me that I should finish watching The Politician. This is also also reminding me that Laura was in Glee.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU TRIED TO KISS ZOE MURPHY! ON HER BROTHERS BED! AFTER HE DIED!”

Disappear can and will make me cry under the right circumstances. If it wasn’t for the fact that my parents are home, I would be screaming this song. But noooooo, they get off of work because they’re veterans /j.

Okay, so the beginning of You Will Be Found sucks to me, but I do enjoy the end of it. Is it really inspiring? Yeah. Is it a bit boring? Also, yeah.

Still thinking about the time I Evan Hansened out of a tree, and I didn’t tell anybody I’d just fallen out of a tree. I just sat there like “gee I sure hope nothing’s broken” and then got up and never mentioned it until like 3 years later. For clarification, I didn’t jump out of the tree, I actually fell

Time for what is regarded as the worst DEH song ever. To Break in a Glove is fun, and I like it. Every other song has a lot going on plot wise, but this song just feels a bit more calm and laid back.

Only Us would also be a lot sweeter if the context was different. This song does make me wish I had a significant other to just like stomp in puddles together in the rain. Like, is that too much to ask for?

Good For You is my favorite song. It’s just top tier. Literal perfection. And the dialogue in between parts with Evan and Alana and Evan in Jared. Ya know what, fuck it, I’m going to the basement so I can sing this shit. THIS SONG IS SO GOOD. I JUST- UGH.

Words Fail became my comfort song, which is like... what? Of all the songs I could’ve picked to comfort myself, I chose the one where he’s literally crying the whole time? Yes. Yes, I did.

It’s raining outside, so I’m going to stare out a window like I’m in a music video for this song. That line “I never let them see the worst of me” literally makes me so sad.

From what I’ve seen, people either love So Big/So Small or hate it, and I don’t get how you could hate this masterpiece of a song.

I WANNA LISTEN TO IN THE BEDROOM DOWN THE HALL! I’M ADDING IT! IT’S LITERALLY SO GOOD! Cynthia’s verses just hit different in this. I wish they’d been able to keep this in the show. And the last line of the song is just so goddamn sad, I wanna cry. “I think I’ll wait another day to pack these boxes cause once I’m through, I’m left with just one thing to do. Remember.” IT’S SO SAD!

Okay, last song... it’s not loading. Oop- nevermind. This song makes me feel good. It’s hardly even a song, but it makes me happy.

I can now listen to Hamilton and Dear Evan Hansen. Goodie. Next on the list is Be More Chill. Fun.

Final judgment of DEH? It’s a great musical that lands really well with teens, not because it has a super great handle on mental illness or because all the characters are role models, it’s because they can see themselves in the characters, which can be reassuring at this age.

[rigelmejo]

February Progress Update, March Goals:

(Updated as it’s now the end of the month) How February went:

Chinese novel chapters read in February (so far): 27 (a huge amount! Last month’s was 8. This month - 4 were Guardian, the rest are 寒舍)

Chapters I studied with Listening-Reading Method: 2 (Catch me barely doing L-R and just reading Guardian instead...)

Chinese shows watched: 6. (I expected this number to shoot up and I was right! Word of Honor - tian ya ke adaptation - is airing and I am watching the raws first then the English subs as they release. I’m also maybe going to start Anti Fraud League since I finally finished ep 1. YouTube recommended me another Zhen zhehan drama - he plays Zhou Zishu in woh. It’s called Demon Girl and I’d had it in my list to practice anyway with when I got bored since it’s set 1920-1940s, one of my fave drama settings, featuring a demon heroine in which demons are like mutants who live among us. Which happens to be my LITERAL favorite story setup - mutants/monsters/etc sci fi or supernatural setup in which the story uses it to tell fantastical tales while also commenting on real social issues. Some stories do it better than others - In The Flesh and Bureau of Transformer do excellently, Love and Redemption and Guardian do some fascinating stuff with it, Heroes touches on it only a little compared to Xmen which is known for it, and Merlin often failed to commit to a strong message. But regardless - if a story has this Setup I will ultimately wanna see. So that show definirely has 3 selling points now: my Fave story setup, a heroine as the lead, and an actor I like as the other lead. I also found Mystic Nine and LORD Critical World in HD on a chinese site so I’m very tempted to just watch them in chinese only since it’s more convienient then the english sub links I have for the shows. An interesting update: trying to watch a show this month was easier than in the past - last month I could barely watch Any shows, and before that I distinctly remember shows being harder to catch the details. I watched Anti Fraud League ep 1 fully this month and caught all details roughly without pausing - and like 3 sentences of exposition on main character Mi Huo I paused and replayed the scene just to catch all the chinese subtitles and clarify I understood correctly. I think I got about 90% of the details - because I was a little vague on some word meanings and just guessed on those. And grasped 100% of the overall plot. which is well beyond where I was at month 10-11ish last time I tried watching shows. Also yay! A detective show felt as easy as watching a fluff romance which is so great, because I like this genre much more! Although I am going to give a grateful shout out to Granting You A Dreamlike Life because... while the shows first 15 eps I did watch are Not My Thing, I watched it like 8+ months into learning and it was both a challenge and easy enough TO watch and keep watching. Which made it great for improving. I really think it helped a lot. And I also think... at this point I probably could rewatch guardian without eng subs and be fine. When I watch shan he ling today I guess I’ll find out if I can handle a wuxia plot though without eng subs lol)

Japanese Audio listened to: 14 (no change, this is since start of year)

Personal books read: 11 (since 2021 started - so 6 books in February. I have been reading SO MUCH lately, I’m really excited? I’ve been meaning to read so many of my books I just hadn’t gotten around to it. This is also likely to increase as I’m about to finish dmbj 2 next time I pick it up).

Some other things:

@a-whump-muffin​ u inspired me and sometime soon I will be trying to play KH in japanese again, and looking at ur super amazing grammar guide u made ToT (I might try nier automata if its bearable just because I’m playing all the drakengard/nier games right now but... the language is a lot more sci fi so i’m not sure that’d go well... also i want to check if my final fantasy type-0 has japanese language settings...). But like... I am definitely up for looking at a grammar guide, and looking up words on my phone as I play. Now that’s a study method i could DO maybe ToT and also like!!! ultimately i want to do it anyway!!! i just figured it would be drowning and chickened out! but like. to study doing what u wanted to do anyway in the language??!!! wowwww ;-; i mean that’s basically why i’m reading chinese but u get the idea

Other japanese updates: I’m still listening to quickleur I just haven’t done any listening lately (u can tell by the L-R status above lol). It did help a lot though even the bits I listened to, as far as refreshing my mind on particles and verb endings. And the explanation on sentence structures u gave @a-whump-muffin​ !! (who is god tier if ur studying japanese they are <3 <3 )

Part of the ‘personal books read’ goal - I’m counting any textbooks I read in that category, in the hopes if I frame it in my head as reading for personal interest instead of studying, I will do it. Ideally I would LIKE to read my DeFrancis Chinese books, Chinese Nature Method grammar book, Chinese Sentence Patterns book, 2 books I just ordered, my japanese reading books (the 1st one a good refresher the 2nd one literally could be... my textbook for years its got so much). Those chinese books in part because WOW I am so used to so much grammar in context when reading, but when I go to produce language I’m a hot MESS. And I think just like... I really should read those books and fill in the gaps in my understanding and like solidify the correct understanding of what I can comprehend. Sometime.... I ALSO should read my Alan Hoenig chinese characters book. But will I???? AHA. I forgot to mention in my last reading post - but brute forcing learning the hanzi has been going fine actually. I was concerned just looking up hanzi when reading, that I would struggle to learn the new ones. But I can confirm that reading has gotten easier, and I’ve picked up a LOT of hanzi I was previously brute force looking up repeatedly while reading. So like... as long as this keeps working, I’ll keep doing it. I’m very lazy and the path with least resistance and mental exhaustion is what I’ll keep doing, if it works, even if it might be slower. (Although I do think the hanzi books I have are very useful and have helped me speed up progress when I used them).

I learned how to make gifs this month and I’m overwhelmed with all the stuff I could try to do? Idk its very cool i’m very excited about it.

Goals for March:

Basically, we’re sticking to the quite steady study plan I’ve had the past few months, which has boiled down to: read chinese, L-R, listen/watch if desired, do something listening related in japanese if desired. It’s not well rounded or anything but I’m making steady progress and its easy to keep doing.

Anything in bold is what I’m doing right now/likely to do (although we know how often I just derail).

Read chinese novels. (This can include Guardian. Currently includes: hanshe, guardian. On hiatus: Tian Ya Ke).

Listen-Read Guardian. (Reading guardian in Any way is the priority so if this happens yay, but if it doesn’t I’ll be happy if I’m still working through guardian and just postponing the listening part).

Optional. Play video game in japanese, use a dictionary and grammar guide when confused af. This one’s imminently likely just because the instant I get Nier remastered I’m playing it, and also playing Nier Automata etc games, so like... the opportunity and desire to play the japanese versions of games I want to do that with WILL hit me. 

Optional. Watch chinese shows. This one’s also likely because a priest novel drama adaptation just dropped (Word of Honor, shan he ling, tian ya ke/Faraway Wanderer’s adaptation) and I don’t want to wait for the english subs. 

Optional - unlikely (I’m not in the mood to listen to stuff lol). Audios. Keep listening to Japanese Quicksleur when there’s down time (like playing games), and Chinese Spoonfed audio if I feel like it. 

Personal. Keep reading while I’ve got the motivation to. I am really enjoying getting through all these books I’ve wanted to read for so long. 

BELOW I will eventually link a list of story recs (also see tag rec list for more):

Poyun 破云 (recced)

Poyun 破云 2

一级律师 by 木苏里 (recced)

盗墓笔记 series

默读 by priest

他们的故事 by 一根��瓜丝儿 

寒舍 by 夏灬安兰 pingxie supernatural au

818 (pingxie)

鎮魂 by priest (chapter 4)

天涯客 by priest

Qi Ye 七爷 by priest

六爻 by priest

FGEP

犹记斐然 foxghost rec

一受封疆 foxghost rec

女主大人 我错 gl

将军府小妾生存报告 gl

夜半衣寒 by 夏灬安兰 pingxie (can u tell i like this author)

(瓶邪同人)所谓一切发生在网配+番外 (writer and radio voicer pingxie au)

死亡万花筒 kaleidoscope of death

将军府小妾生存报告  

女主大人，我错了  

魔女霓裳

公主饶命 GL

民政局领到了媳妇

In progressing difficulty, books I want to read and should be ready to read now, a la foxghost’s recommendations:

那些風花雪月 by Gong Zi Huan Xi (took 14 months of study before I tried to read this, did try, did not click with me lol)

不正當關係 by Gong Zi Huan Xi (foxghost said this was the same difficulty as the story above, so I’m probably ready for this one too).

*SCI 谜案集 by ErYa (I’ve heard this somewhat easy to read, is a good story, and since its case-centered I think it would be a good intro to later reading books like Silent Reading by Priest)

龍圖案卷集  by ErYa (There is an audiobook on Ximalaya!)

黑風城戰記  by ErYa (sequel to novel above)

Then the recommendation says you should probably watch a lot of shows for some vocab (I sort of do so I’ll see how that helps me out), and you can start tackling xianxia, like Priest’s “六爻, and then 鎮魂, then 殺破狼, and pretty much any other of GZHX’s works.” I would guess this point is when Tian Ya Ke would be more my reading level, when 六爻 is, at the beginning. I would guess after 鎮魂 is when I could try to tackle Can Ci Pin. Sha Po Lang is steampunk and fantasy, so I would guess it has some of the sci fi type words - so if I’d be ready for that, I might be ready for Can Ci Pin at the same time.

[lesbianmarth]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6-6: it was okay.

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

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

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

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

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

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

[unordinary-analysis]

Episode 172

Honorable mentions:

Them saying joker when they mean a fake joker is really messing with me. At the same time, that idea is very interesting because it further promotes that joker is no longer one person now, he's a mantle that others can take up and claim too. Like a gang or something. Now, Joker is bigger than John.

I mention my posts for both episode 170 and the first part of 147 in this episode so you can search for those on my page by searching #episode 170 and #episode 147. If you want to, I dunno … :/. I think these posts really help to elaborate on my thought and everything I left unspoken in this episode post because I would just be repeating myself.

Yes, holden, you are kinda scary

Every once in a while I just think about how we haven’t even seen a proper teacher or authority in this school besides Darren for a whole while

My favorite words are: “anyways” and “obviously.” wbk.

My transitions have gone so downhill and I don’t know how to fix itttt

Terrence:

    We been knew that anytime Terrence shows up, I have to say something about it and this episode is very far from an exception. We get drama here ladies and gentlemen. 

    The first part of this episode is very attention drawing to him and really exposes him the most out of any part of the whole comic, which is saying something since we don’t even get that much, but still. First of all, and yes I’m jumping right into this, Roland says to Seraphina, “He turns invisible… that's his ability. He doesn’t like sharing it with others for some reason…” And not only does this statement sound hella vague and suspenseful, it explains why we’ve known so little about Terrence. He keeps himself very private and hidden away from others. Sure, he hangs around people and has friends and is a reporter, but he isn’t as inclined to share things about himself. In fact, the UnOrdinary Wikia (fan-run but still) states, “From what little is known about him, Terrence is a very secretive individual and uses his ability to aid his journalism.”  All of this very much supports the next idea that comes from Seraphina. 

    Right after learning of Terrence’s ability, Sera thinks, “Invisibility? That day, on our way back from Kovoro Mall… the person following us also had invisibility. Is this just a coincidence?” And I know everyone reading the episode breathed a sigh of relief. Here’s a quote from my own episode analysis of episode 147 (July), “Though it is not technically canon, most people believe that Terrence is the invisible guy that tried to sneak up on Seraphina and John in episode 10 and the invisible person that was involved with the whole situation at Kovoro mall. Neither cases were dwelt upon long or pushed into further investigation by the characters.” Guess what, now this issue is being addressed by Seraphina and I couldn’t be happier. One of the things preventing any characters from associating Terrence with their run-ins with invisible people has been because they never learned Terrence’s ability. He’s well known by Isen (and maybe Arlo) because of the school paper, and possibly Remi because of her concerns with high-tiers, but if Seraphina, one of his “friends” is only learning about his ability now, there is no way they really know too. Obviously Cecile knows because she used to be head of the newspaper and used Terrence’s ability to her own advantage, but Isen didn’t even want to be promoted to that so he hasn’t really put much into that. Regardless, Seraphina is the first character to be bringing this kind of thing up. 

    Again, though, I’m going to be using something I wrote in my episode 147 analysis because it ties into this episode in a more frightening way. “The characters [of UnOrdinary] often investigate and look into anything suspicious around them. Arlo and Isen looked into John. Remi chased after EMBER (one of the more... special cases), When Seraphina got kidnapped- literally everyone’s perspective revolved around it. Uru-Chan allowed her characters to look into the ultimately lesser conflicts. Yes, Arlo discovering John’s abilities proved to be maybe the biggest plot point/ turning point in UnOrdinary, but after that happened, the story still went on. Seraphina getting kidnapped? Not much to do with that endgame climax we’re all waiting for. I’ll say it again for the people in the back who aren’t paying attention.

Uru-Chan doesn’t let her characters investigate anything that will be endgame conflict.

Am I saying that right? Whatever, you all get the gist of what I’m saying.

The events that aren’t directly crucial to UnOrdinary’s ultimate climax have all been examined.

Which means: Whatever hasn’t been properly addressed by the comic that should’ve based on the character’s usual actions will be important to the eventual and overall plot. -------Terrence, and the person we readers believe him to be, falls under the category of things that should have been addressed more and were not. Like I listed before [referencing the rest of my episode 147 analysis]: the chase outside the mall, the teddy-bear scandal with the superhero posse. I can’t imagine John just letting someone who was invisible sneak up on him and Seraphina and just not give them another thought.”

Yes, this is just a big word blob, but I think it’s obvious why I chose to include the whole thing here. In July, I said that the characters of UnOrdinary weren’t “allowed” to investigate Terrence and similar situations because furthering any investigation into that would progress the endgame timeline and therefore point the story toward its finale. By leaving these concepts alone for so long, uru-chan has made sure that her story continues and doesn’t wrap up before she intends. It is a story-telling tactic. And, don’t worry, I’m not saying that this episode is proof that UnOrdinary is ending soon or anything like that because it is confirmed (by uru-chan) that UnOrdinary has at least two seasons and will be over 300 episodes long so calm down. I’m saying that uru-chan is making sure we remember her ultimate, underlying story. I’m not sure if you read my review for episode 170, but I talk about a similar concept in that post. Anyway, the appearance of any investigation into Terrence and the part of the storyline that he represents means that we are working up to a climax. A new major turning point in the story. And this makes sense too, considering we’re literally about to have that Seraphina and John confrontation. I think that, along with the obvious repercussions that will come out of that happening, we will also get a major(ish) development for our endgame plot line, because through it is far the end of the story, there has to be some progression throughout the comic or else when it would be brought up in the end, it would feel out of place.

I also think that there’s a chance there won’t be a major turning point like I just said (I love contradicting myself), but rather just a small reminder for the same reason that uru-chan is trying to keep her endgame storyline vague and elongating. I know those words didn’t make sense, but I hope you understand. Because, in its own way, any development into the underlying plot can be considered a major thing, I don’t think this matters too much. Who knows, we might get really unlucky and the only thing we get is this episode, that little mention of insight. The important thing is: we got some acknowledgement and it’s a big deal.

So: I think that with this whole underlying plot thing dealing with EMBER, the authorities, Terrence (I talk about this underlying plot a lot in my analysis of episode 170 without really identifying it as such [my bad]) is at a point where it’s willing to expose itself an unknown amount to keep its relevance in the story. That’s really all, and I know it doesn’t sound like much, but because this storyline has been so hidden and secretive in the past, this is really a much bigger deal than it seems.

    Now, I would make predictions about how this is going to play out or what Sera is going to do, if she even does anything, but nobody’s got time for my clownery, so let’s move on.

The Drama:

    I’m bad at predictions, so I won’t be talking about what I think is going to happen between John and Sera, though you may be wondering how, then, will I be able to execute a section on this. Well, I kind of needed to say something about this for my sanity so I’ll figure it out. Anyway, the whole confrontation between John and Sera is going to be so dramatic and climactic it’s gonna be wild. At least for the story.

    The thing that interests me is just the given effects that this event will have on the story. More specifically: Joker.

    Now, we all know that Joker is John (flashbacks to “Seraphina is Joker” post). And his whole thing right now is being this dictator of Wellston that defeated all of the past royals and  took down the hierarchy. We got that part. But one of the biggest aspects of Joker is his anonymity. Joker is an unknown student at Wellston, which allows other students to assume his identity, making Joker into a much larger thing than just one person. I said something about this in the honorable mentions.

    Anyway, back to this episode, if we do get this John and Seraphina confrontation and she does tell him that she knows that he’s Joker, I’m willing to bet the Joker we all know is going to change drastically. Seraphina is one of the sole reasons for Joker's creation and you can bet she can tear it down just as fast. The biggest known reason for John hiding his identity as Joker is because of Seraphina. John wanted her to keep believing his lie, his fake personality, and obviously by exposing himself as the powerful, violent terror, he would be dispelling any illusion of cripple John. But if Seraphina happened to find out, like she did, the situation becomes a bit more complicated.

Once John learns that Seraphina knows who he is, and he no doubt will (likely in their confrontation next episode), there will be no more reason for him to stay anonymous. Especially because John doesn’t seem too fond of the fake Jokers running around claiming his authority and beating up low-tiers, including Seraphina. 

So I think it’s pretty obvious what I’m suggesting will happen. I think that Joker is going to unmask himself to the school. I know that’s a prediction and I said I wouldn’t make a prediction, but this is like a general, bigger scale prediction, so it’s less finicky than any prediction of what exactly our confrontation is going to look like, so you’re just gonna have to deal. Anyway, I think that this unmasking of John is going to be really exciting in terms of seeing how John reacts to truly returning, again, to the person he was at New Bostin. As I’ve said before, I believe that this story is going to run full circle, as I believe even Sera’s said. I talk about this a lot in my post for episode 167 (#episode 167), especially focusing on John’s mental state throughout, so an update on that would be so interesting to me because that was one of my favorite posts to write, content-wise. 

Anyways, I’m just going to end this post here even though I feel like I just dropped a lot of ideas, but didn’t really emphasize how important I feel they are to the story, but that’s fine.

[callme-barnes]

Beauty & Brawn (Part 5)

                                                                                                                                 Summary- You are the top scientist in all of New York, the one that no one knows. Going through the science field as a woman is hardly easy, let alone rewarding. You’re bombarded with misogynistic men who only see you as a pretty face, not knowing that you have the mind of a thousand scientists combined. That is until you meet Tony Stark, the genius billionaire who could quite possibly be the answer to your prayers, and your heart.

Pairing: Tony Stark x Reader

It’s been a while. Catch up here!:

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

It was about 6 in the evening and you had officially been staring at the outfit lying on your bed for 40 minutes. This also included the not so healthy talking to yourself that you were having.

Why did you even think you could do this? Do you know how long its been since you’ve gone out? How long since you’ve last worn heels? You’re going to fall flat on your face and he’s going to laugh at you and your evening is going to go exactly like that.

You quickly inhaled and shut your eyes, forcing the negative thoughts to float into the back of your mind before you grabbed the dress and slipped it on over the nice black lingerie you had saved for a special occasion. Not that Tony was going to see your lingerie that evening, but it always felt nice to have something sexy on under your clothes just to give you that extra ounce of encouragement and self esteem.

The dress was long and curve hugging, cinching in at your waist and falling down loose past your hips. The slit going up your right leg was just high enough to show some skin but low enough to leave something to the imagination. It had a nice low U-shape neckline that flaunted your breasts but was also modest. You took in a deep breath and turned around to look in the mirror. It had been such a long time since you’ve seen yourself in anything even remotely fancy that it kind of made you nervous and giddy all the same time. Looking at the clock you saw you still had about an hour and a half to get ready so you walked over to your vanity and began to put on some makeup, turning on your favorite playlist and singing along to help release your nerves.

It was now 7:45 and you were ready to go. Your heels complemented your dress, and your hair fell nicely down your back in large loose waves. You heard the buzzer for your apartment buzz and you quickly took one final breath before quickly walking over and answering it.

“Hello?”

“Hello Ms. Y/L/N. I am here to escort you to dinner”&#157;

You smiled and rolled your eyes slightly at his tone and shook your head in amusement

“I’ll be right down”

You quickly walked over to your floor length mirror and checked everything again. You fluffed up your hair, did a couple of quick turn, reapplied some of your lipstick although it was already perfect, and then you grabbed your phone and your small bag and walked out into the elevator.

The ride down was full of anxiety and if anyone else was in the elevator with you you’re sure they would have felt all that energy rolling off of you like heat waves from the sun. The elevator ding sounded and you looked up seeing you were already on the ground floor. You took in one more deep breath in and then walked out when the doors opened. The first thing you saw was Tony’s figure. He was looking down at his watch and twiddling his fingers as though he was just an average man, nervous to to meet a woman for the first time. He never looked up and if anything he probably looked like he was gathering his own thoughts.

You walked over and put on a smile, tapping Tony on the shoulder and he immediately turned his head to take you in. His eyes roamed, from your head right down to the very tip of your feet. The gaze he was giving you made you nervous and you shifted under it before he cleared his throat

“Well if I’ve ever seen a more beautiful woman in my life I couldn’t remember”&#157;

You took the time to let out a nervous chuckle and looked down before looking back up at him

“Thank you. I wasn’t sure how fancy or how not fancy to dress so I’d say this is in between”

Tony shook his head and sent you a smile

“You look amazing. Even if we were going out to watch a movie or eat at a fast food restaurant I still wouldn’t even think about telling you since you might change”

His tone was one of playfulness and you smiled brightly at him

“Shall we?”&#157;

Tony quickly gathered his wits

“Sorry. Yes, yes we shall”&#157;

He stuck out his arm for you to take and you did so without a second thought. Talking to him was so effortless you couldn’t even remember why had you had been so nervous in the first place. You both walked out towards the front of your apartment complex and you saw his very nice black car. He opened the door for you, you sent him a polite thank you and he got into the driver’s side and you were off.

Dinner flew by and now you were both back at the tower going over Tony’s new idea

“I like it. I think it could help a lot of people by giving them access to clean water all the time. How much are we thinking this is going to cost for the countries that want to purchase it?”&#157;

“And that’s where you come in. See I want to do this as more of a humanitarian project. I don’t want this to cost a fortune, if those who need it can’t afford to have clean water now I wouldn’t want them to stress out about being able to purchase this mechanism. I want it to be affordable”&#157;

You pouted your lips out a bit and felt your thoughts racing before a light bulb went off

“We’d have to make it as biodegradable as possible. If you can locate the pieces we need that are either recycled or if they are pieces that are broke and going to be used for scraps, we could get them cheaper, I can fix them and then we wouldn’t have to charge an arm and a leg for it”&#157;

Tony nodded along before smiling

“And that’s why you’re working with me. I’ll start looking for suppliers tomorrow”

You smiled at Tony and fixed your dress. You were seated on top of the lab counter, your legs dangling and your mind racing with all the ideas that you has planned

“So Y/N, tell me more about you. I know the basics, I know you graduated at the top of your university on the Dean’s List. But how is it you’re so good at everything? I know I’m smart, but your brain kind of functions like a little computer and it’s the most, impressive thing I’ve seen in my life”

You looked up at Tony before smiling and wiped your hands on your thighs since they had since gotten sweaty from being alone in the same room with Tony

“Well, that’s because it practically is. When I was a kid, I used to get these horrible migraines in school and the longer I was in school the worst they got. Then in about middle school I had a moment in my chemistry class where we were dissecting an earthworm, and my vision kind of zoomed in a little and I was able to vividly see the entire system of how it worked and what was lying even beneath what the normal eyes could see. I started being able to solve Calculus problems without a piece of paper or a calculator by 7th grade. I just...I don’t know my brain kind of works where, if I’m asked something, I put everything together in my head, sometimes so fast where I don’t even register what I’m doing. I wouldn’t say I can see into the future or something, but my brain goes into overdrive and I’m able to kind of do trials in my head of every possible way something could go and I’m able to accomplish what I can because of that”&#157;

Tony was leaned back against the counter in front of you, listening to everything you were saying almost like he was trying to memorize all of it.

“What about family life? Any brothers, sisters? Mom? Dad?”

You furrowed your eyebrows and looked down

“None. Well, technically I do. But I don”t talk to them anymore”

“Why’s that?”

You took in a deep breath and looked up at him

“When I was in 7th grade, my counselor at school spoke to my parents about me. At first it was because there were complaints from my teachers, saying I must be cheating during tests or cheating during spelling bees and science competitions because I never missed anything. But my counselor was a nice older lady and I trusted her with what I was able to do. She believed in me so she told my parents I should be going to school at a math and science academy or a more top tier school. When I was younger we were poor. We were living 5 in a single room apartment, my mom, my dad, me and my two sisters. They signed me up into a great school like my counselor said. But I had to receive financial aid and scholarships because we weren’t able to afford it. Long story short instead of using the money I was receiving to keep me in school, they were keeping it to themselves and not paying my classes. We owed thousands of dollars to the school so I was kicked out and for high school I was back in public school”

Tony furrowed his eyebrows and looked down

“That’s insane. I can’t believe they’d do that”

“Neither could I. And it only continued in high school. I was getting prize money for doing inventions and projects and winning the competitions. But I never saw that money. I always figured it was the least I could do, since I lived under their roof and they were clothing me and feeding me. But one day I was unable to compete because my teacher wanted to give others a chance. My parents found out, they blew their shit, and I kind of became an outcast after that. I stopped enjoying science and just kind of did mediocre work. At 18 I left for college and I just never kept in contact”&#157;

Tony looked back up at you before exhaling, moving from his previous position to stand in front of you. You were so close you could feel his thighs brushing against your knees and you looked up at him

“Well it was a nice turn of events in a way. Now what they couldn’t appreciate I can. I...I know this might be inappropriate, and please, stop me at anytime, but you are the most gorgeous, smartest woman I’ve ever met. And I want to know more about you, and I want to help you reach any goal you want to conquer. I just, the short time you’ve been here has been so great”

You bit your lower lip

“Tony what....”

But before you were able to get your thoughts out, his lips came to yours and his hands moved to cup your cheeks to pull you closer. You were surprised and your heart was racing, but you felt your body instantly react and you kissed him back. Your hands moved to rest on his waist and he took that as an opportunity to pull himself closer to you. You could feel his heart beating against his chest and you melted deeper into the kiss. He pulled away and opened his eyes to look at you. You looked back but before he was able to say anything JARVIS spoke

“Mr. Stark, Fury is here. He’s called an emergency meeting and would like to meet in conference room 3″

You furrowed your eyebrows unable to decide if you should say something but Tony beat you to it

“He’s always had such amazing timing”&#157;