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moonhoures · 1 year

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One Night Stand

🕷️ kinktober — day 2: anonymous sex / roleplay 🕸️

pairing: hoshi (svt) + reader (afab/fem)

genre: non-idol!au, fluff, smut

warnings: 18+, minors do not interact, explicit smut, established relationship, unprotected sex, vaginal penetration, quick mention of spitting on a dick, pet name: ‘gorgeous’ (for reader), creampie, roleplay, anonymous (?) sex

word count: ~2.5k

synopsis: you and hoshi have been married for a few years now. to keep the spark between you two alive, you decide to go out and have a one night stand

a/n: writing this nearly made me a hoshi stan so i hope it effects you like it did me. enjoy <3

posted: october 2, 2023

kinktober masterlist

Clubs were in your past, or so you had thought. You couldn’t remember the last time you had been in one; it had to be well over five years by now. Dancing and drinking were things you indulged in only on occasion nowadays, rather than every weekend like you used to. Since you finished college and started a steady career, you had slowed down a bit, even more so when you got in a serious relationship with your now-husband, Soonyoung.

Your husband was far from boring or conservative, but you found a comfort in each other that mellowed you two out. A sense of ease came with the normalcy that your relationship provided you. But with that normalcy also came routine. Soonyoung was a co-owner of a dance studio in the city, and you were a higher-up at a local marketing business. He got up at five a.m. to head to the gym before opening the dance studio, and you slept in until seven a.m. to be at work for nine.

The two of you would come home anywhere between five and seven p.m. depending on how busy you were. You enjoyed reading or watching a couple episodes of whatever show you were watching. Soonyoung would come home and review the videos he had taken of his choreography that day, or he would watch other people’s choreographies on social media for inspiration. On most nights, dinner time and the hour or so right before you fell asleep were all you had to be with each other. Your sex life was fine by most standards, but both of you had noticed it had dwindled in the past year or so with your work schedules growing more and more tight.

That’s how you ended up alone at a club one Saturday night. You sat at the bar, a few sips left of your favorite drink in front of you as you people-watched. There was another girl at the opposite end of the bar, probably freshly twenty-one if you had to guess. She was pretty, and she had an equally attractive guy hitting on her. Whatever he was saying was making her laugh, and it made you smile a little, your heart growing warm. You remembered when you were her at one point, years ago. Soonyoung was the guy making you laugh back then, always the best mood maker. You missed those nights.

“Excuse me,” a voice startled you, coming from someone closely behind your shoulder. Your head swiveled to see a man around your age with blond hair and sharp, slightly-slanted, dark eyes. He was around 5’10”, towering over your seated figure. He was dressed in a simple, chic outfit, fit for a night of going out and getting laid—which you assumed was his goal. The low-cut, white tank top he wore that exposed his collarbones certainly gave that impression, “Is this seat taken?”

The man gestured to the seat directly to your right, and you shook your head, “No, go ahead.”

“Are you here by yourself?” he asked as he sat, an almost concerned look in his eyes.

“Yeah,” you admitted, taking a sip from your drink. There was a ring of water left from the glass on the counter.

“Wow,” he smiled incredulously.

“What?”

“I just don’t understand how such a beautiful woman like yourself could be at a place like this alone. Are you waiting for someone?”

You smiled, warmth flooding your cheeks from his flattery, “No, I just came for a good time.”

“And are you? Having a good time, I mean?” he asked.

If you were honest, the answer would be no. You had only been here less than twenty minutes, but the closest thing you had to “fun” so far was the DJ playing your favorite song. You had tried to do some dancing when you first got here, but it felt weird knowing you were by yourself, so you tapped out after two songs.

“No,” you bashfully confessed, averting your gaze to escape the pitiful look he was sure to give you.

“Would you like to dance?”

Why not?

You took the hand he offered you, letting him lead you to the dance floor. And for the first time in years, you let go. You danced to your heart’s content, feeling more carefree and loose than you had felt in a long time. A grin settled on your face as you danced with the man that flipped your night upside down, a wide smile on his lips as he watched you dance with him. At one point you were grinding against him, his arms circling your waist. His forehead was pressed against yours. It felt like you two were the only ones in the room, the two main characters of your own movie while the DJ orchestrated the soundtrack just for you.

“You wanna go back to my place, gorgeous?”

The question was spoken directly into your ear so you could hear over the music, but you would be lying if you said his breath fanning over your neck didn’t make you shiver. Right now you wanted nothing more than to say-

“Yes.”

A ride in his fancy car later, down familiar roads, led you to a nice house right on the outskirts of the city. The man took your hand, your fingers naturally intertwining with his as he took out his keys and smoothly got the front door open for the two of you. He didn’t bother turning any of the lights on as he continued to lead you throughout the home, swiftly moving through the main hallway until he paused. He hesitated, glancing at the closed door to his right. His eyes held a playful look in them when he gazed at you over his shoulder before opening the door and bringing you into the room.

It was a mostly unused room from what you could see, one big, wooden desk was pushed up against the wall with only a laptop, a notebook, and a few assorted pens and pencils strewn on top. Aside from the desk, there was a desk chair, a sofa, a rolled-up yoga mat, and some other small sets of work out gear.

You watched as the man carelessly pushed the notebook and writing utensils to the floor across the room. He at least had a heart to nudge the laptop to the edge of the desk and close it. Before you could say anything, he was using his hands to hoist you up onto the desk, bunching your dress up higher on your thighs as he did.

“Are you always this careless?” you asked him, giving him a pointed look.

He merely shrugged, “It’s my roommate’s stuff anyways.”

You tried to keep your composure as his hands snaked under the edge of your dress, dangerously close to your underwear, “Oh, your roommate, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said absentmindedly, “It’s just shopping lists and stuff. Don’t worry about it.”

A giggle erupted from you as he buried his lips into the space of your neck, pressing kisses and teeth along the skin. It tickled there, and it’s almost like he knew that. While he distracted you, his hands expertly peeled your underwear off, letting them fall at his feet. It wasn’t until your rear was dragged practically off the edge of the desk that you realized how close he was getting to having you. All he needed to do was get his cock out.

“You want this, right?” he asked, looking for consent before going any further. His eyes were warm and genuine meeting yours, but he was met with only a flurry of lust-clouded eyes looking back.

“I need it,” you corrected him, bringing your hand up to the back of his neck. You pulled him in for a fiery kiss, a mesh of tongue and teeth and spit that was so messy but so perfect. He hummed in surprise at the sudden force, but you felt him smile against your lips before his hands reached up to hold your face while he showered you with more kisses.

In the midst of making out, you got ahold of his belt, tugging at the buckle until the leather slipped out of it easily. He grunted into your mouth as you swiftly pulled the belt undone and unzipped his jeans. Your fingers dug into the top of his pants, pushing the denim down, but you were met with a little resistance from his hips.

He took over, pushing the pants down to his ankles before kicking them aside. He then bunched your dress up higher on your waist. Your mouth watered watching him get a grip on his erection, the tip flushed and the shaft decorated with veins. You felt yourself already clenching on nothing, and it only got worse when he let a long glob of his spit fall straight onto his dick. He caught it effortlessly, as if he practiced this multiple times a day, and then used it to lubricate himself for you.

With his hand still pumping his cock, he looked at you, tilting his head just the slightest, “Open up for me.”

You didn’t even need him to elaborate, you simply widened your knees, allowing him to take your thigh in his hand. He held you just like that as he fed the tip of his dick between your folds, a wanton moan involuntarily leaving his lips. As he continued to seat himself inside of you, you held back, biting your lip.

“God, you’re so tight,” he said, tilting his head back before looking back down where you two met. He watched himself slowly pull out before bucking his hips forward again. The desk rattled the tiniest bit, and he loved the sound it made. Some primal part of him wanted to fuck you until the desk broke, but the rational, clear-headed part kept him cool.

His thrusts grew in pace and accuracy, aiming to find your g-spot with every stroke. It only took a few tries before he found it, your eyes nearly rolling back and your jaw going slightly slack when he did. A satisfied grin appeared on his lips, and he continued to thrust in that specific pattern that he pioneered. He held you at the waist, keeping you in the position he wanted as he dove between your hips again and again. The desk was shoved against the wall with every movement, sure to make marks on the pale structure, but neither of you cared enough. It can always be repainted.

“Gonna cum for me, gorgeous? Huh?” he spoke through bated breaths, absolutely eating up the way moans were freely cascading from your mouth as if you couldn’t stop them even if you wanted to. As if he had fucked you into a babbling idiot, “You wanted me to show you a good time. Is this not good enough?”

His voice was patronizing but also as sweet as honey. His hand reached up to cup your cheek, urging you to look him in the eye. But it was difficult to look at him steadily when he was pounding into you the way he was, making your entire body bounce.

“N-no,” you managed to say, “So good. Perfect.”

“Perfect,” he repeated with a short laugh, “That’s right.”

Wood creaked underneath you and thumped against the wall behind you, but the man fucking you still grabbed your thighs, hoisting them up a little. The kisses on your shoulder lightened up as he focused on getting you to finish. He was going to ask if you were close, but when your breath quickened and your lower back arched, he knew he had thirty seconds (tops) to prepare for your orgasm to hit. He kept the same pace and force he had, letting it coax the climax out of you. His pride swelled as he felt you clench on him, multiple times, while you came. Warmth and arousal flooded your core, leaving his cock wet and dripping when he pulled out. A mix of your clear fluid and his creamy seed slathered on him.

“Fuck,” he breathed out, his palm soothing over the skin of your thigh, from your knee down to your hip. He was trying to loosen your legs up so that you could relax, “How was that?”

“You definitely know how to show a girl a good time,” you mumbled, making him laugh.

“Yeah, well, it’s a one-time thing for me, sorry to disappoint.”

You sighed, “I knew it was too good to be true.”

He laughed some more, placing a kiss on your temple before landing a gentle slap on the side of your rear, “Let’s go clean up. Then you’re out of here in the morning.”

You chuckled, letting him help you down onto your feet. The two of you quickly made your way to the bedroom, and he picked out clothes for the both of you to wear before you headed into the shower. After cleaning up, you two got comfortable in the large bed, and he didn’t shy away from spooning with you like you expected him to.

When you woke up the next morning, the space beside you was empty, but the smell of breakfast being cooked wafted down the hall to you. You groaned as you stretched your limbs out, peeling the sheets back so you could get out of bed. Your feet shuffled against the floor all the way to the kitchen where you saw your husband standing at the stove. A towel was draped over his shoulder while he prodded at the bottom of some pancakes with a spatula. You tried to stifle a laugh when you saw his unruly bedhead, but a small squeak escaped you, notifying him of your appearance.

Soonyoung’s face lit up, “Good morning, gorgeous! Sleep well?”

“Sure did,” you smiled, walking up to him so you could give him a morning kiss on his cheek, “You?”

“Like a baby,” he smirked, flipping the pancakes over to reveal perfectly golden, fluffy discs, “Oh, and uh, sorry about the spare room. I’ll clean that up in a bit.”

You rolled your eyes, but your grin remained, “Yeah, just be thankful you didn’t knock over my laptop, or we would have had an issue.”

After a few moments of comfortable silence, only broken by the sound of you gathering plates and cups for you two, Soonyoung spoke up again, “Did you have fun last night?”

“Yeah, I did,” you felt your cheeks grow warm under his glance, recalling what took place in the club and the spare room, “It felt a little weird, but in a really good way.”

“Yeah? How so?” he asked, setting the pancakes on a plate and grabbing a fork for you.

“It felt like we were in college,” you said, leaning your cheek against his arm as you side-hugged him, “It felt like I fell in love with you all over again.”

“Good, that was the point,” he smiled, kissing your temple. He added, “And I did too. Fall in love with you all over again. We should do that again some time.”

“Yeah, we should.”

— taglist #1

@jaylaxies @xiaoting999 @kookthief @zaddywilk @wonrangwoo @pedriswrld @ikykleeknowww @odisdad @abby-grace @jungwonloveer @pinklemonadeflav @celestialplatinum @luvkpopp @nlklstan @kisses4denji @jenos-eye-smiles @a-l-i-y-a @channiesprincess @bekah931215 @mrsdacherry @heerinnie @fairygirl18 @cinnikoi @im-ur-calico-cat @unlikelysublimekryptonite & i’ll tag my fav hoshi stans @hoshiseon and @hoshologies 🖤

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c-e-d-dreamer · 1 year

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The Rest Is History

A/N: Listen, was I supposed to be working on IPB AU? Yes. Did I write this fun drabble instead? Also, yes. I'm surrounded by enablers.... but the fact remains that Cassian is absolutely thinking abou the Roman Empire daily. And he would make a hot history nerd, so here we are. Dedicated to the GC ❤️

“Listen. I get it. It looks cool and all that, but you seriously expect me to believe any general in their right mind is going to use catapults and ballistae in a forest? A forest? Just imagine the poor guys trying to maneuver those into place between the trees. It would take forever and only leaves you exposed and puts you at more of a disadvantage.”

Nesta has to bite her lip around a smile as she listens to Cassian rant in the other room. Even through the closed door, his voice carries down the hall to her.

She had known Cassian was a history buff from their very first date. They’d gone to a bar in the historical part of town, down by the harbor, and as if he simply couldn’t stop himself, Cassian had leaned over after they’d ordered their drinks and explained how the location was notorious for shang-haiing back in the day. How one of the most notorious culprits was actually a woman who would flirt and trick sailors into having drink after drink with her until they passed out and woke up dazed and confused on a ship the next morning while she walked away with her pocket full of coin.

He had apologized almost as soon as he’d finished speaking, clearly embarrassed by the outburst. But Nesta had been so entranced by the way his hazel eyes had lit up when he spoke, the golds and greens of them practically sparking even in the low light of the bar. Entranced by the way his lips had tugged up into an easy, excited smile around the words he spoke. Entranced by his passion and his love even if it was for a topic she didn’t necessarily share in.

It had been enough to want a second date with him.

It had been enough to want a lot of dates with him.

And now, here Nesta is, curled up in the room they converted to her own personal library and office, listening to Cassian rant away to his followers on TikTok. It still leaves her with that same feeling as their first date, that same soft warmth blooming between her ribs. Still has her shaking her head fondly, as she burrows deeper beneath her pile of blankets and returns to the final chapter of her book.

By the time she is finishing the last page and finally closing the book, Nesta is less than impressed. She digs her phone out from where it’s buried between blankets and opens her Notes app, adding to her running list of points to make in her review. The ending? Terrible. Nothing worse than an author who clearly got offered a new book deal so they suddenly decide to add unnecessary plot to the final ten pages to set up another book. She’ll definitely be warning her TikTok followers about that.

To take her mind off the ending, she decides to open up the app in question, to check on what her followers are saying about her last book review, liking and replying to a good chunk of them. With a soft sigh, she sinks deeper against the pillows at her back, navigating to her FYP. Almost all of the videos are a trend sweeping across BookTok, of different creators trying to teach their boyfriends and husbands how to be a good book boyfriend. It has an idea sparking in Nesta’s mind, her eyes dancing toward the closed door to the library.

With a decided nod, she clambers up to her feet, padding out of the room and down the hall. She pauses in the doorway to Cassian’s office, leaning casually against the door jamb and watching him work. He has his ring light set up on the desk, phone poised and recording in the center. His hair is scraped back into a bun, and he’s wearing a loose tee that teases just enough of the dark swirls of ink that splash across his collarbones, that twist down his arms. But it’s his hands that really have Nesta’s attention, the way he waves them about as he passionately speaks to the camera.

“And don’t even get me started on the depiction of Marcus Aurelius. Did they even have a historian in that writer’s room?”

As Cassian continues to rant about the Roman emperor and his character in the movie, it’s clear that he can feel Nesta’s eyes on him. It’s the smile that gives him away first, the slow tug of his lips until the soft, dopey look he fondly calls his ‘Nesta smile’ takes over his face. And then his eyes start glancing toward her, and even with the distance, Nesta can see the way his gaze softens around the edges.

Even still, Cassian continues talking, continues recording as if nothing’s amiss. Nesta rolls her eyes fondly, but that merely has his smile growing. She always teases him when he does this, for the way he won’t re-record any of the videos and posts them regardless. When Nesta had taken a peek at his account and his videos, she’d seen plenty of comments asking what or, more particularly, who he was looking at.

When Cassian finishes, he reaches forward to stop his recording, turning to give Nesta his full attention. “Hey, Nes. Finally finish your book?”

“Yes. The ending was terrible.”

Cassian chuckles, the sound deep and warm. “I’m sure your followers will appreciate your honesty on that.”

Nesta shrugs noncommittally, but she knows he’s right. It’s how she built her following in the first place: completely honest and transparent book reviews. “Speaking of followers. I do need your help with a video, a BookTok trend. We can call it even from when you made me chase after you for that August video.”

“Hey, that Pheidippides joke was hilarious,” Cassian defends, standing up from his chair even as he shakes his head as though fondly remembering the video. “The Persians slipped away like a bottle of wine…”

Nesta snorts at the reminder of the caption he used, turning on her heel and leading the way back to her library. She grabs her phone from where she left it, taking the time to set it up so it has the perfect framing of the door. Once she’s happy with it, she presses record, curling her hand around Cassian’s wrist and tugging him into the shot.

“So the trend is to lean against the door frame like the men in books do.”

“Lean against the door frame?” Cassian asks, shifting until his shoulder presses against the door jamb.

“No, the top frame,” Nesta corrects, grabbing his wrist again and tugging his arm up to demonstrate.

Cassian readjusts his stance, settling his weight forward as he leans against his raised hand, and offers her a winning smile. “Like this, sweetheart?”

“Yes, but you’re not supposed to smile. It’s meant to be sultry,” Nesta explains, frowning at Cassian’s expression. “What is that face?”

“Blue steel.”

“That’s it. You fail,” Nesta laughs softly, turning to walk back toward her phone and stop the recording.

An arm snakes around Nesta’s waist, fingers curling and spinning her back around. She barely comes face to face with Cassian before he’s backing her up against the door jamb, caging her in with his large body. Her breath hitches in her chest at the way his hazel eyes have darkened, and she can’t look away, even when his arm tightens around her waist, arching her back and pulling her flush against him. His hand slides along her jaw, thumb skating across her bottom lip before he leans down and kisses her, Nesta sighing into his mouth.

“How’s that compare to the men in your books?” Cassian whispers when he pulls back.

Nesta is sure that she must be blushing, but she clears her throat and extricates herself from Cassian’s hold. She can practically feel Cassian’s smirk on her back as she walks back over to her phone and stops the recording, but she refuses to give him the satisfaction. Especially when she watches back the way she became flustered and then melted into him in 4k.

“Well, I can’t post this.”

“You should definitely post it,” Cassian murmurs, his voice closer than she expects, but then his arms are curling around her waist as he plasters himself to her back.

And maybe it’s the warmth of Cassian wrapped around her. Maybe it’s the peace and security she’s found in his arms. Maybe it’s the way this history nerd has made her feel happier and more loved than she ever thought possible. Maybe it’s the way his lips pressing a line along her neck is very distracting.

Whatever it is, Nesta finds herself trimming the video to remove the parts at the beginning and end where she started and stopped the recording. Finds herself quickly adding subtitles and typing out an easy caption of, ‘I guess he passes after all… #BookTokChallenge #BookBoyfriend.’ After all, she can always delete the video later if she really wants to.

She presses post and tosses her phone aside, turning around in Cassian’s arms and kissing him properly, more than happy to go stumbling down the hall to their bedroom in a tangle of limbs. And later, while Cassian makes them dinner, Nesta sits atop their kitchen island and decides to open TikTok again, unable to hold in a surprised laugh as she reads the top, most liked comment on her most recent video.

Is that the fucking HistoryTok dude????

—

Updated Taglist (let me know if you’d like to be added or removed): @moodymelanist @nesquik-arccheron @sv0430 @talkfantasytome @bookstantrash @eirini-thaleia @ubigaia @fromthelibraryofemilyj @luivagr-blog @lifeisntafantasy @superspiritfestival @hiimheresworld @marigold-morelli @sweet-pea1 @emeriethevalkyriegirl @pyxxie @dustjacketmusings @hallway5 @dongjunma @glowing-stick-generation @melonsfantasyworld @isterofimias @goddess-aelin @melphss @theladystardust @a-trifling-matter @blueunoias @kookskoocie @wolfnesta @blurredlamplight @hereforthenessian @skaixo @jmoonjones @burningsnowleopard @whyisaravenlike-awritingdesk @ofduskanddreams @rarephloxes @thelovelymadone @books-books-books4ever @tenaciousdiplomatloverprune @that-little-red-head @readergalaxy @thesnugglingduck

#nessian #nesta archeron #cassian #acotar #acosf #nessian fanfiction #nessian fic #nesta x cassian #my fic

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jxtina-86 · 5 months

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Control

Part of the Roman/Katherine series - this follows on a few months after the The Request where these two decided to level-up their escapades.

Two things inspired this. This promo which makes my brain short-circuit every time I see it and this GIF series. Especially the first one. Jesus Christ. Anyway - credit to the owner (and @thesamoanqueen for finding that first one MONTHS ago when I first had this idea).

Oh and I spent way too much time hunting around for a certain item that features in this and reading the reviews - my search history is beyond rescue at this point.

Warning: Sexual content/descriptions

Rating: MA

Comments/reblogs/likes all welcome!

****

Katherine rolls her neck slowly, easing the tension that's built up from sitting still for too long. Stretching her arms up briefly, she drops her hands to her face and pushes her glasses up to rub her eyes.

Letting the frames fall back into place, she blinks at the screen. She clocks the time in the corner and knows she should shut her laptop down and come back to it in the morning with fresh eyes. But yet…

Her brow furrows as she re-reads the last few paragraphs. She knows it's a bad habit - she should leave it alone, let the words sit and breathe a little longer before she edits, but in moments of frustration, such as this one, she can't help herself.

Her finger hovers over the delete button for a second before she shakes her head and retracts her hand. Spinning slowly away from the desk, she once again pushes her glasses up onto her head. Closing her eyes, she slowly pieces together fragments of the intended scene in her head.

His hands, one gliding down her body, fingers tugging… the other cupping her face, turning it to his.

His body pressed against her back, firm, strong. She melts into his embrace, her body loose and willing as his fingers slip between her legs.

Her thighs open, welcoming him and she relishes in the groan that vibrates through him as he teases the exposed and sensitive skin.

A loud buzz.

No. That's not right.

Her eyes flicker open and she sees her phone lit up. She already knows it's him before she even spots the name.

Back at the hotel x

She swipes to reply but he sends through another message before she finishes.

You better be in bed, baby girl. It’s late x

Busted, she grins at the screen as she taps out a reply.

I'm working x

Go to bed x

Make me x

She chews her lip, waiting as she sees that he’s typing. There’s a brief pause and then…

She grins as both her face and his flashes up on the screen - a new photo she took the last time they were together in the back of a cab on the way back from a bar. The smirk on his face and her wide eyes give away the fact that his hand, not seen in the photo, was sliding over her thigh and between her legs as she’d taken the snap.

Her skin tingles at the memory, but Katherine still leans back in her chair in mock defiance as she answers the video call. Yet the second she sees him, her resolve begins to crumble - even she would admit that was inevitable.

Roman is standing in a hotel bathroom, in a pair of grey joggers that are slung deliciously low on his hips. Katherine physically has to suppress a whimper, her eyes unsure of where to look as she takes in his chest, abs, arms, face, the faint imprint of his dick against the grey material.

Roman smirks, leaning forward to tower over the phone he has propped on the vanity.

“See something you like?”

“Always,” she replies, not missing a beat.

“You should be in bed. It’s nearly midnight there, baby girl.”

“I know. But I was mid-flow.”

“Bullshit,” he chuckles. “You wouldn’t have replied if you were.”

Katherine pouts in response.

“Bed,” he tells her. “I’ll make it worth your while.”

“Will you?” She tries not to sound too hopeful.

Roman scrapes a hand across his face. “This was your idea, baby girl.”

She pouts. “I didn’t realise a four-week stint was on the cards.”

“Yeah, about that…”

“No, Ro…”

“Someone dropped the ball, my schedule got fucked. I swear to God, I gave ‘em fuckin’ hell.” His brown eyes stare at her pleading through the screen.

“So when are you back?”

“Saturday.”

“So three extra days?”

“Yeah…” he exhales slowly. “I’m sorry, Kat.”

She forces a smile. “It’s okay. Shit happens.”

“I’m gonna make it up to you. Dinner on Saturday. I’ll take you to that fancy sushi place you’ve been telling me about.”

“It’s booked up for weeks, I tried.”

“Good job you got yourself a man with contacts then.”

“How-”

“Uh-huh, I got contacts, that’s all you need to know.”

She smiles. “Okay, okay. Thank you. I can’t wait.”

“For you, anything.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Anything?”

A deep laugh echoes through the screen. “Oh, you really are trying it on tonight, baby girl.”

“Four weeks, Ro,” Katherine whines, unashamed of how much of a brat it makes her sound.

He shakes his head. “Firstly, this was your idea. I’m just playing my part. And secondly, it’s only a few more days. Plus,” his voices drops an octave. “You’re doing so well.”

A shiver curls down her spine. “Yeah?”

He nods slowly, his head rocking to the side as he eyes her. “You can hang on a few more days.”

She knows he’s right - it was her idea.

And she also knows that if she does default on this agreement, there’s no real consequence. He’d only take it further if she asked him to.

But the way he embodies the character she demands of him - a man in charge of her pleasure - makes her feel that she owes it to him to carry out her part.

She didn’t quite imagine it would end up like this - what had started as the occasional teasing play had quickly evolved. The sex had been pretty fucking wild before she’d made the request. Now it was off the charts.

Now she could only cum with his permission and more crucially, only in his physical presence.

In past travel stints, they’d survived on phone sex, purring down the phone at each other, listening to each other’s breathless moans, slick fists and fingers and the occasional gentle hum of a toy.

Now he’d pull her back from the brink, even from miles away with just one solitary word she finds she can’t ignore. Stop.

It had been equal parts delicious and torturous. Katherine had countdowns set on her phone for each trip away, waiting for his return. But even then, he’d take his sweet time, watching her writhe in frustration until he relents and tells her ‘now’.

But four weeks. Four weeks was not the plan. And nor was an additional three days.

He interrupts her thoughts. “Did a package arrive today?”

She blinks. “Huh? Oh. Yeah.”

“Go open it for me.”

She does as she’s told - the spell is wound too tightly to refuse him anything at this stage - and heads for kitchen. “Why’d they send it here?”

“I asked them too. Knew you’d be in to take it and saves me getting a redelivery or going to the depot.”

She nods, placing the phone against a mug on the counter before finding a knife to slice open the box. “What is it?” she asks as she peels back the flaps of the box.

He smirks. “You’ll see.”

“What’s with the mystery?” Katherine grumbles lightly as she rifles through the packing paper that fills the box. Her hand finds a smaller box - two in fact. She tugs the first free and casts Roman a curious look. “A new phone?”

“For you.”

“Why-”

“Find anything else?”

“Yeah, I-” she stops as she pulls out the other box and sees the image on the front. She raises an eyebrow. Looking back at the phone, she sees the wicked smile playing across Roman’s face. “You’re a bastard, you know that right?”

“What?” He winks. “Can’t I treat you, baby girl?”

“This,” she taps the box. “This is not a treat. This is a torture device.”

“Don’t be too hasty,” he smirks. “Read the box.”

She scans the blurb and then looks back up at him. “Oh…”

“Not such a bastard after all, right?”

“Perhaps,” she throws him a wink. “But Ro… it says it needs a Bluetooth connection to set up and link to more than one phone.”

“Two steps ahead of you, baby girl.” Grinning, he tugs a phone from his pocket and flashes it at the screen.

“You planned this?”

“Well, I didn’t quite plan not being with you to try it out together but actually, this works just as well…”

Katherine can feel her heart starting to pound as she opens the box and the vibrator slides into her hand. “Pretty,” she tells him with a grin.

“Turn the phone on. Passcode is your birthday.”

She does as she’s told and when the phone boots up, she clicks on the solitary app on the homescreen. A second later, she jumps as the vibrator starts to hum in her hand and she looks up to see Roman grinning at her. He twists his hand to show her the app opened on his second phone too, his thumb on the screen sliding slowly up. As he does, the vibrations gradually increase and Katherine feels her breath catch in her throat.

“All in my control,” Roman murmurs, his dark eyes meeting hers through the screen.

She nods, almost hypnotised.

“I’m gonna take care of you, baby girl.”

“You… you are?” Katherine feels a tremor down her spine at the thought.

“Only if you do exactly what I tell you.”

“I will.”

“Good girl.” A whimper escapes her before she can stop it and he scrapes a hand over his face and down his neck with a deep chuckle. “One day I’m gonna see if I can just make you cum by saying that over and over again…”

“That,” she breathes shakily. “Would be one hell of a dangerous talent.”

“More dangerous than this?” His thumb is back on the app and the vibrator jolts once again in her hand. “Bed, baby girl.”

She doesn’t need telling twice. She eagerly gathers the three devices in her hands and makes her way to the bedroom. Propping up her main phone against the lamp on the bedside table, she awaits his next instruction.

“Strip. Slowly.”

Taking a step back so he can see her fully, she hooks her fingers into the waistband of her tight shorts. Turning away from the screen, she wriggles her hips as she slides the material over her ass before slowly bending forward.

She hears a sharp intake of breath from behind her and glances over her shoulder. Roman’s eyes are dark with lust and his tongue slips out to wet his lips briefly as his head tilts to one side. “Keep going,” he breathes.

With a grin, she edges the shorts down her legs before she slowly straightens. Turning back to face him, she crosses her arms to grab the hem of her shirt before pulling it up and over her head. Cool air hits her breasts and she cups them, her thumbs brushing over her bare nipples.

“Fuck,” Roman groans. “Keep going.”

She shakes her head. “Show me first.”

“Show you what?” he says, taking a step back and dropping his gaze down for a second. He drops a hand to the waistband of his sweatpants and tugs them an inch further south but not far enough.

“Show me what’s mine,” Katherine whines softly.

“What’s yours, huh?” He glances up, his hand letting go of the waistband and dropping instead to palm his dick through the material. “You’re gonna be in a whole world of trouble when I get home.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Missed those sweet fuckin’ lips on my dick,” he groans. “Fuck, keep touching your tits baby girl.”

She does as he requests, her fingers gently circling her hardening nipples and she’s rewarded almost instantly. She bites her lip, her head rocking to the side as he pushes his sweatpants down and kicks them away. It still takes her breath away every time she sees him naked - every part of him is chiselled and toned to perfection and she can’t quite believe her luck that she gets to explore every part of him.

She watches, transfixed as he takes his hard dick in his hand and pumps it slowly. She closes her eyes briefly and remembers the last time they were together - on her knees in front of him, hands loose on those deliciously thick and taut thighs of his. She’d gazed up at him, her brain still foggy from the intense orgasm he’d bestowed on her moments before, her mouth open as he fisted his dick with one hand, the other wrapped in her hair.

“Get on the bed,” his voice cuts through her thoughts and it takes her a second to remember where she is.

She steps forward and readjusts the phone on the bedside table, making sure he can see her and she can see him.

“What were you thinking about?” he prompts as she settles back against the pillows.

“Our last time together,” she sighs. “I’ve thought about that night every fucking night since.”

He grins. “Me too.”

“And the morning after…”

“That too,” he agrees.

It had been equal parts rough, messy, fast, slow, tender, loving. He’d pushed and pulled her body in ways that left her unsure which way she was lying, facing, standing. He’d growled in her ear commands to wait, stop, cum, knees, open wide. And then he’d scooped her up, carried her to where she lay now, and cocooned her in his arms until she fell asleep.

The following morning, every movement was slow and gentle - he’d adorned every inch of her with soft, warm kisses, making his way down beneath the sheets and made slow, lazy love to her, his body pressed firmly against hers, his hands cupping her face to kiss her as her legs at wrapped around his waist.

“Stop,” Roman murmurs and Katherine realises her hand is on her stomach. She feels her cheeks flush as she blinks at the camera.

“I…”

“You’re forgetting something.” He lifts the spare phone into view. “I’m in control, remember?”

She nods, reaching for the toy before taking a shaky breath of anticipation. A second later, it begins to hum softly in her palm.

“Squeeze them tits for me again,” he tells her and she notes the soft rasp in his voice already.

She obliges him, her free hand palming her breasts for a moment, awaiting his next instruction.

“Pinch your nipples for me.”

She gazes at the screen, feeling the haze starting to cloud her mind. He’s leaning against the vanity again, one hand out of sight that she knows is back fisting his dick and her mouth waters at the thought.

“Now with the toy.”

The vibrations hum through her body as she glides the toy across her breasts before circling one nipple and then the other, making both impossibly long and taut. All that’s missing is his hot mouth and tongue on them and she tells him so, drawing a shaky ‘fuck’ from him before he resumes control.

Literally.

The vibrations kick up a notch and Katherine’s back arches in response as she continues to drag the toy over the sensitive skin of her breasts. She lets the toy slide down to her ribs for a second, finding the spot that makes her squirm from any touch, her head flooded with the memory of Roman discovering it for the first time and practically latching onto it until she begged him stop through squeals.

“Uh-huh,” he corrects her and she returns the focus to her breasts once again. “Better. But I need to know…”

“Know what?” she manages to get out as she swirls the tip of the vibrator around one nipple again and again.

“How fuckin’ wet you are.”

She lets her free hand drag over her stomach slowly, her legs spreading. She can feel how wet she is already - the combination of the situation, the toy, him, her imagination all make it inevitable. She lets her fingers caress her inner thighs for a second before she slides two fingers across her wet slit.

“So wet,” she tells him with a groan.

“Show me…”

She pushes her two fingers inside herself briefly, letting out a moan as she does. She pumps them slowly, once, twice before she holds her hand aloft to show the glistening mess.

“Taste yourself.”

She bites her lip for a second, holding his gaze before she rubs the tips of her fingers across her bottom lip and then swirls her tongue around them. She grins at the screen, watching Roman’s eyes clouding with lust and wonderment.

“I taste good,” she murmurs.

“I know,” he rasps. “I’m gonna eat that pussy up all fuckin’ night when I get home, I swear. You’ll be beggin’ me to stop.”

“Never,” she promises. “You between my thighs, why the hell would I tell you to stop.”

“My favourite place, baby girl. And you might not be telling me to stop, but I sure as hell have to hold you still to get you good.”

“That just makes me wetter,” she teases. “I miss you, Ro.”

“I miss you too, Kat,” he says softly. “I had a whole other plan for this tonight.”

“Yeah? Tell me…”

“I was gonna drag that damn toy over your entire body. Real slow too - I wanted to hear all those breathy moans you give me when I’m teasin’ you.” The rasp is back in his voice and Katherine can feel her skin start to prickle in anticipation once again. “Do it, baby girl. Do what I’m saying.”

She lets out a soft moan as she moves the toy down her body at last.

“All the way,” he encourages. “That’s it… across your stomach, tease them thighs for me…”

Katherine’s eyes close as her back arches as the vibrations near her core. She’s not sure how she’s going to last beyond a minute when this toy is inside her.

“Slow,” Roman’s voice echoes beside her. “Spread those legs for me.”

“Ro…” she whines.

“Almost,” he promises as she bites her lip as the vibrations relent for a second. “Tease your pussy for me, talk to me…”

“Fuck, Ro…” her voice catching in her throat as she runs the toys over her wet entrance. “Like when you tease me with your dick, making me beg for it…”

“Just like that, baby girl.”

“Or when you spit and blow on my clit,” she gasps, her back arching at the thought. “And then you wrap your… your arms around my waist so I can’t escape… Ro…”

“Keep going…” The vibrations kick in again for a split second, just as she drags the toy over her clit and she yelps in shock. His chuckle fills her mind and she doesn’t need to open her eyes to see the wicked grin on his face.

“I… I need it,” she gasps.

“Keep teasing,” he tells her. “You know how I love to make my dick nice and wet with your juice before I fuck you… Do exactly that…”

His breath hitches and her eyes flick open to see that he’s moved - no longer in the hotel bathroom, he’s on the bed, the phone angled so that whilst she can’t see his face, she can see the length of his body. She groans as she sees his hand, slowly pumping his dick, his thumb swiping over the tip with every other stroke.

“Kat…” he breathes. “You listening to me?”

“Yeah,” she moans.

“Push it inside you.”

She gasps as she does. It’s the first time he’s let her put a toy inside her for four weeks and even though the toy is far smaller than what she’s used to, it feels impossibly big. Her back arches as she slowly pushes it deeper inside herself, her breath ragged at the sensation.

Rocking her head to the side, Katherine glances at the screen. Roman has moved again so she can see his face. His dark eyes glint wickedly at her as with one hand he still grips his thick cock and the other flicks the vibrations up a notch. Her whole body starts to hum and she lets out a strangled whimper.

“Do not,” he half-growls slowly. “Cum. Not until I tell you.”

“Ro…” she gasps. “Please…”

The vibrations stop and she’s left panting and squirming whilst he chuckles at her from a thousand miles away. “Too much, huh?”

“You…”

He grins. “I’m going easy on you, baby girl. This is nothing compared to Saturday…”

Katherine can feel her brain start to short-circuit. “What… what about Saturday?”

“That’s for me to know.”

She groans in frustration and then gasps again as the vibrations start again. Her hands grip the sheets tightly, twisting them around her fists as she tries to anchor herself to the bed.

“Breathe,” he tells her and she lets out a shaky breath in response, unable to stop herself from doing anything he says.

Through hazy eyes, she gazes at him through the screen, watching his hand grip his dick firmly and his abs tense. His head rolls back for a second and she wonders what he’s thinking.

“Tell me,” she moans.

“Tell you what?” he replies throatily.

“What you’re thinking about.”

“You. Always you, baby girl. You grinding on me, sliding up and down my dick.”

She nods, her eyes closing. “Your hands on my tits… then up to my neck and pulling me down to kiss you… Flipping me over onto my back, pushing my…” she gasps as the thought swirls around her head. “My legs up over your shoulders so you… you can go deeper… Ah, fuck…”

“That’s it,” he groans. “Wrapping my arms around your legs so they don’t fall and fuckin’ you hard and deep…”

“Twisting me over,” Katherine’s mind is overdrive now, snippets of past encounters flashing before her. “Pulling my hips up, pushing my head down so you can fuck me even harder…”

She’s not sure how she’s getting the words out. Her body is on edge, the toy throbbing inside her, pulsating even and every part of her is tingling. Her mind races on, imagining Roman pulling out of her with a growl and flipping her back over, his mouth on hers for a second before he slides down her body and wraps her legs around his head. What a combination that would be, his tongue and mouth on her clit whilst the toy hums inside her.

“It’s like you read my mind,” she hears him groan and only then does she realise that thought has spilt out of her mouth.

“I just…” she whimpers softly as she feels blood rushing to her ears. “Ro…”

“Not yet…” The hum of the toy inside her ebbs slightly and she tries to steady her breathing to slow down the surge of pleasure rattling through her.

“Please…” she chokes out.

“Soon,” he promises. “I got you, baby girl. I promise.”

Fixated on the screen, she watches as his leg twitches and she knows he’s close. “I wish I was there, Ro…” she starts, watching his head roll back onto the pillows. “My hand where yours is right now. My mouth too, running my tongue up and down your dick, taking you all the fucking way…”

“Shit… Kat…”

“Keep going,” she tells him, enjoying the thrill of telling him what to do for once. “You gripping my head, pulling me back and telling me to open wide so you can cum on my tongue…”

“Kat…” he growls, his eyes closing tightly as he gasps and she watches enthralled as he cums, his fist pumping himself dry as she moans at the sight.

“Ro…”

His chest rises and falls as he sinks back against the pillows for a second and then she squeals as the vibrator jolts back to life inside her.

“I got a request,” he murmurs.

“Yeah?” Katherine manages to get out, her body tense with anticipation as her back arches yet again.

“Saturday. My flight gets in at 5. I’ll be at yours by 7. You better be ready.”

“I will be,” she promises.

“Wear those heels that I like. The black ones. And that dress that makes your ass look amazing.”

“Done,” she groans. “Anything else?”

“The toy.”

“What… what about it?” Her breathing is getting more laboured as she twists on the bed.

“I want you to have it in you already.”

“Ro… no…”

“Oh yes, baby girl. I’m gonna tease you all fuckin’ night. I want my dessert nice and wet after dinner,” he chuckles.

She can picture it now: sat in a dark corner of the restaurant, one of his hands casually resting on her thigh whilst with the other he sends powerful vibes quite literally her way. She can see herself gripping the table, trying to compose herself as he grins wickedly and then leans towards her and whispers dirty thoughts into her ear.

“I told ya I was gonna eat your pussy up when I got back. I just wanna make sure it’s perfect for when I do…”

“Fuck… Ro…”

He chuckles. “Take my sweet time with you till you’re a fuckin’ mess. Squeeze and pinch your tits as I do, make you taste yourself on my fingers, fuck you with that damn toy until you scream my name, baby girl…”

She’s on the edge, right there, waiting for that word, begging him to say it.

“Then I’m gonna fuck you slowly… Pull all the way out and then push back in inch by inch so you feel every single part of my dick buried inside you…”

“Ro…”

“Tell you what a good fuckin girl you are…”

Her eyes roll back as she balances on the edge, her breath caught in her chest, the vibrations too much now. There’s no way back, even if she tries, she’s right there and she’s going to…

“Cum.”

She falls, with a gasp that echoes around her head. His name tumbles from her as every inch of her body erupts with force and she feels herself twisting and writhing without shame before him.

Her head throbs as she comes down from the high and she tenderly unclenches her fists from the sheets.

“You okay?” Roman’s voice cuts through as always, pulling her back. “Talk to me, Kat.”

“Yeah,” she murmurs, her eyes still squeezed shut as she grounds herself back in the here and now.

“Hey,” he murmurs. “Look at me.”

She twists her head towards the phone and opens her eyes slowly. His face fills the screen, his eyes wide and full of concern like they always are after moments like these.

“That was amazing,” she reassures him as she reaches down between her legs to remove the toy. Her own eyes widen as she feels how wet she still is. “Jesus, Ro… I think you made me…”

He laughs. “Just imagine what I can make you do on Saturday.” He tucks his arm beneath his head and not for the first time tonight, she wishes he was there next to her, wrapping his big arms around her.

“You’re serious about what you said, aren’t you?” She picks up the phone, bringing it closer to her as if that will make a difference to the distance between them.

“Deadly serious.” He eyes her for a second. “But only if you’re up for it.”

She chews her lip. “I am…”

“You don’t seem sure.”

“It’s not that.”

“Then what?”

Despite the space he offers her, she can’t find the words. Not the right ones anyway. She can’t tell if it’s the post-orgasm haze or something else, but she can’t put into words the disconnected thoughts running through her head.

She can feel him watching her, so she smiles to reassure him.

“Tell me,” he murmurs. “Or… Can I tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“If you’re worried that I see you differently because of all this shit we do together… You best believe that ain’t true.”

She stares at him in disbelief. How…

“I do this for you because I wanna make you happy, baby girl. You wanted to explore it, I was right there with you. But that doesn’t change how I see you. It’s just a tiny part of what we do together. I think you gave me an opportunity to tap into something too and I like it. But I like you more.”

She blinks. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Read my mind.”

He grins. “I know you, baby girl. Inside out. Literally,” he winks and she feels her cheeks flush. “But seriously, Kat. I’m not here just for this. This is just a bonus. At the end of the day… I just want you.”

Her heart flips. They’ve skirted around this for months - she’s bitten her tongue far too often not wanting to ruin it in case he was just looking for a casual fuck.

“I just want you too,” she hears herself whisper and his eyes light up at the words.

“I’m still doing what I promised you earlier on Saturday,” he tells her. “But on Sunday morning, I’m gonna show you exactly how much more you mean to me than just that.”

“You always do,” she says softly.

“What do you mean?”

“You do that already. Whenever we have nasty sex, the next time you’re treat me like glass.”

Now it’s his turn to blush and he runs his hand over his face with a grin. “See? I can’t hide it.”

“Hide what?”

“I’ll tell you Sunday.”

But she already knows.

Fin x

So... votes for a follow-up? Wanna see how Saturday unfolds...? Or Sunday...?

#roman reigns fanfiction #roman reigns smut #roman reigns #roman reigns imagine #romanreigns #wwe fanfiction #wwe fic

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jakekiszkasleftnutsack · 2 years

Text

Mile High Club

Danny Wagner x f!reader

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Summary: What are the chances you run into your favorite band at the airport when heading home after one of their concerts? Low. What are the chances the tall, dark, and gorgeous drummer seems interested in you? Slim to none.

Warnings: 18+ GRAPHIC SEXUAL CONTENT, secondhand embarrassment, unprotected sex, teasing, light degradation/name-calling, breath play, impact play for like a second, let me know if I missed any we are not being thorough today.

W/c: 4.7k

A/n: I don’t really do the christmas thing but here’s a little something to hold y’all over while I work on some requests and bigger things. Special thanks to my girl @whereisthemusic for the crumbs! ily

Edited by @garbagevanfleet

Theme Song: Kiss Me You Animal - Burn The Ballroom

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Airports can be very liminal spaces sometimes. In less traveled cities the terminal has a certain eerie quality about it, like an abandoned industrial town but slightly more comforting because it smells like warm cinnamon rolls. You’ve been in enough of them that you’ve come to somewhat enjoy existing in that atmosphere and watching people go about their lives. Granted, it’s usually a lot more fun traveling toward your destination than away from it.

In your case, it’s one of the less exciting times to be sitting at an airport bar, clad in your new concert merch. Your post-concert slump is hitting harder than it ever has before, as to be expected after seeing your favorite band perform for the first time. You had scored a spot at the barricade, they performed all your favorite songs, and you touched the hands of Josh Kiszka himself. Yet, despite all this, you’re sad to be at the tail end of that wonderful fever dream and returning to the real world.

Nursing the cocktail you ordered for yourself, you pull out your phone and review the few videos you took the night before, hoping to beat the emptiness you feel with a little bit of joy.

“Three beers and a tequila soda, please.” A very familiar voice catches your attention from a few empty barstools down.

There’s something eerie about hearing the voices that fill your dreams in real life, so eerie that when you turn your head and spot Sam Kiszka leaning against the bar by his forearms mere feet away, you feel like you’ve seen a ghost. Your whole body goes rigid but your cheeks flush. All at once, you’re exhilarated but terrified, bashful yet determined to somehow make contact. For fear of letting the moment pass you by, you let slip the first word that manages to reach your lips.

“Samuel,” you mutter, mortified to be existing in his vicinity.

Lazily, his head pivots until he finds the source of his name. He looks slightly thrown by the odd greeting but he’s probably very used to the dumbfounded look plastered on your face, so he smiles a beautiful toothy grin back at you.

“Hi! Love the shirt.” He smiles with one side of his mouth.

“Thanks! Love the music.” You silently cringe when you remember that you’re wearing the Dreams In Gold tour shirt you recently bought.

“Ahh, touché! What’s your name?” He props himself up on one elbow as he turns to face you, crossing one foot over the other in the process.

“I’m y/n, It’s really nice to meet you after such an awesome show.”

“Yeah, it was a good one, wasn’t it? I’m glad you enjoyed it!” He smirks proudly at the compliment.

“Enjoyed it? It was magical, I was mesmerized!”

“We’re mesmerizing now, eh?” Josh quips, out of nowhere. The curly haired piece of ass settles into the barstool on your opposite side and reaches past you to snag the freshly prepared cocktail Sam ordered for him. “Haven’t heard that one before but I have to agree. Just look at that handsome man, so entrancing.” He gestures to your still unlocked phone that you forgot was zoomed in on a paused, lewd looking video you took of him performing Age of Machine the night before.

All the air leaves your lungs when you notice your mistake and you quickly reach to flip the phone over, but Josh is quicker and snatches it off the bar top first. He holds it up next to his face, displaying it for Sam like a trophy while he parts his lips and rolls his eyes to the back of his head, attempting to make a similar face to the one on the screen. “It’s uncanny.”

“You’ll have to forgive my brother, he seems to have forgotten his manners,” Sam addresses you, then turns to Josh to speak in a patronizing tone. “Josh, this is y/n.”

“What?! It’s a good photo,” Josh giggles like he’s a master of comedy, but you feel like you could curl in on yourself and disappear.

“Josh is all too proud of his talent for making sex faces.” Sam cockily makes fun of his brother as you anxiously try to grab your phone back from Josh.

“Sorry, y/n.” He dangles it in the air, briefly lifting it out of your reach before holding it out for you to take, all the while smiling proudly.

“Whatever you call it, nobody’s immune.” You shrug your shoulders in favor of Josh’s argument, hopefully deflecting the spotlight away from yourself. Unsurprisingly, he accepts the flattery and wraps one arm around you, squeezing you into a goofy side hug.

“Ahh, see?! She knows what she’s talking about!”

Sam chokes out a few beginnings of words but all of them fail to make a valuable point in protest. “Wha- No! You’ve just claimed another victim!”

You’re about to jab back when Danny’s tall dark figure materializes over your shoulder between you and Sam.

“Well, hello. Are these delinquents bothering you?” He smiles down at you as he grabs the remaining lone beer from the bar.

“Yeah actually, could you take care of them for me?”

Danny laughs, but the other two boys launch into a tirade of various “hey now” and “wait a minute”’s.

“Not really, I was just telling them how much I enjoyed your concert last night. I’m y/n, by the way.”

He holds out his cup for you to cheers, so you tap the side of your cup against his. “Very good to meet you, y/n. Nice t-shirt.”

You roll your eyes as you take a rather large gulp of your cocktail but ultimately smile at his compliment as he takes a sip of his own drink, and watches your expression shift. He’s only being kind, he doesn’t need to know how mortified you are.

“Thanks, I couldn’t resist. I wanted the poster too but I guess there weren’t enough, they were all gone by the time I got there.”

“Yeah, we heard that’s been happening a lot, apparently.” He purses his lips and looks off into the distance somewhere, potentially in contemplation. “Well, that simply won’t do.”

Danny turns you to face him head-on by grabbing the back of your barstool and turning you away from Josh and Sam. While you’re watching him, completely dumbfounded, he slings his backpack around his shoulder to bring it in front of him. He rummages around inside of it for a moment and produces one drumstick, twirling it between his fingers effortlessly before holding it out to you.

“Oh my god. Are you serious?” You try to keep your hands from shaking when you take it from him, but to no avail.

“Oh my god, the Holy Grail!” Sam chimes in, lightly mocking your astonished tone, causing Josh to make a painfully sad attempt at stifling his laughter. You and Danny side eye his friends together but shake off his teasing rather easily.

“Ignore them, they get weird when they’re tired.” He rolls his eyes, offering a sweet apologetic smile for the rowdy bunch.

“Are you sure I can have this?” Apprehension litters your voice.

“Consider it a gift.” Shrugging his shoulders, he lets one hand land on the back of your barstool. His arm is actively blocking you from the rest of the airport and locking you in, figuratively. He’s also giving you an excellent view of his beautifully sculpted bicep.

You turn it over in your fingers, inspecting the various notches along its body suggesting it’s been lightly used. All the cracks and divots add so much character to the imagined worth of your gift. This drumstick is quite literally about to become your most prized possession.

“Thank you, Danny. This is so kind of you.”

“You’ll have to come to another show so we can get you a matching set.” You can hear the edge in his voice, leading you to suspect that it wasn’t a suggestion.

“Is that a promise?”

Before Danny can answer, your attention is captured by a short brunette woman making her way over to the five of you out of the corner of your eye, furiously tapping at the phone in her hand. She smiles politely at you purely as a formality, since she clearly has more pressing matters at hand. A few yards behind her you spot Jake walking with a small posse away from the bar and down toward the terminal. “So sorry to interrupt, but our flight’s boarding soon. We gotta go.”

“Of course, I don’t want to hold you up. I should probably go find my gate anyway.” You return her smile then turn back to the boys, who are moving with absolutely no sense of urgency.

With a clearing of her throat and a jerk of her head in the direction of the terminal, each of them begins to descend from their barstools. Josh downs the rest of his tequila soda, and they all take a moment to say goodbye to you. They thank you sincerely for coming to the concert and showing your support for the band, followed by a round of warm hugs. You try to milk each one for as long as possible without seeming too obvious, especially the last one, which happens to be Daniel.

“Thank you again for the drumstick, I’ll cherish it forever.”

“You’d better be sleeping with it every night.” He punctuates the last word with a wink.

Um- Daniel? What was that?

“Of course, what else would I do with it?” You two share a laugh while standing in extremely close proximity, only halfway pulled away from the hug so that you’re still holding each other by the arms.

“I wish we could chat more, it was really nice to meet you, y/n.”

“Likewise. But you’ve got a flight to catch.”

Based on the way he’s looking into your eyes, you know you’ll be screaming into your pillow long into the night once you’ve made it home. You’re sure you’re probably blushing, but you do your best not to think about it for fear of saying or doing something stupid. Because, let’s face it, you have no idea what you’re doing and have been walking on eggshells for the entire conversation.

Danny gives your arms a light squeeze before letting you go entirely and picking up his backpack from the floor. He walks backward for a moment as he takes his leave, allowing you both one final wave goodbye before he jogs to catch up with the rest of the group.

What the actual fuck just happened?

۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵

As you’re scanning the signs for your designated gate, your much-too-large suitcase in tow, a foreign hand lands on the small of your lower back.

“Are you following me now?” The voice is one you recognize, but its speaker is so close to your ear that it startles you right out of your skin.

“Holy shit, Daniel Wagner, you scared the living fuck out of me!” You smack him dead in the center of his chest with the back of your hand in retaliation as your heartbeat makes its way to a normal pace. Your jab had seemingly no effect on him though and he laughs at your expense.

“Sorry, I just couldn’t help but notice the drumstick sticking out of your bag.” He taunts, gesturing to your half-open backpack and falling into stride with your steps.

Obviously, you know that Danny’s stick didn’t quite fit in your carry-on so it’s been poking out past the zipper, but you turn and grab for it anyway as you flounder for a comeback.

“If I didn’t know any better I’d say you’re the one following me since I’ve basically got an antenna.”

“I plead the fifth.” He holds his hands up in a defensive position.

Eventually, you come to a halt, and you realize that you’re standing amongst the entire Greta crew waiting next to their gate. You fumble for your boarding pass in the side pocket of your bag and check the gate number. You’d think they’d have made these things easier to read, truth be told you probably couldn’t read an eye chart at this particular moment in time, as flustered as you are.

Your eyes go wide as golf balls when they finally locate your gate number.

“Gate 6.” You say it aloud just to confirm that it’s correct since Gate 6 just so happens to be the very gate you’re already standing at.

A wicked smile creeps onto his face as he comes to the realization just seconds after you. “Are we on the same flight?”

You tuck your boarding pass under your arm so you can readjust your items and get ready to board. “It sure looks that way.”

“Do you live in Nashville? I mean… not in a creepy way.” The way he stumbles over his words amidst his excitement makes you mourn for your aching heart.

“I might. Maybe we’re neighbors.” You shrug your shoulders and raise one eyebrow in pseudo-curiosity

“What a nice surprise that would be.”

The flight attendants begin calling groups and special members to begin boarding, so you keep your boarding pass in hand and readjust your items to get ready to board.

“Well, since we’re sharing the plane I expect you to behave.”

His statement catches you so off guard that you stare up at him for a moment just processing the words. He quirks an eyebrow at you with the smuggest expression you’ve ever seen on a human man, an expression that almost taunts ‘what are you gonna do about it?’.

When you realize he’s completely serious, you stand up straight, clear your throat and respond with, “What are you gonna do if I don’t?”

His eyes narrow for just a moment, pulsing as he processes your response, his smug smile never wavering. “I guess we’ll see.”

Sam taps Danny with a backhanded smack on the shoulder, signaling that their group is boarding. The Greta boys file onto the plane according to the flight attendant's instructions, and Danny turns around only once to look at you. It makes you snort-chuckle to yourself while you fall behind to wait for your group to be called, but as he slips out of sight you shoot him the same smug smile that he gave you.

۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵

Everything has settled down significantly since boarding, the other passengers are relaxed in their seats and the flight attendants are popping around every so often to check on things. All is calm, except for you. You haven’t been able to stop looking at the back of Danny’s head the entire time and your heartbeat hasn’t slowed since you were all alone on your barstool.

They’re not seated all that far from you. You can tell exactly who is sitting where, even though it’s not a difficult game to play. Danny has an aisle seat on the same side as you, his curly hair passes the top of his seat, which is right next to Sammy, because, of course. You can see Josh’s khaki-clad leg bouncing away across the aisle, and next to Josh is obviously Jake with his damn hat on. It’s impossible to miss.

Their presence is beyond distracting. How many people can say they’ve been on the same flight as Greta Van Fleet? A majority of the folks here have no idea who they are; the fact that they’re in the presence of legends is completely lost on them.

To not take advantage of such an opportunity would be an abomination - jail worthy in fact. But how to take advantage? That’s the real question. How does one get more time with them without forcing it? Why does it feel so painful to just take what they gave you of their time and be happy with it? Why does the idea of going this whole flight with Danny just out of reach after he so shamelessly flirted with you sound like utter torture? How are his shoulders so toned and perfect?!

They are perfect. He’s perfect. You can see the ridges of his side profile in that muscle shirt if you lean a little into the aisle, your chin propped up on the heel of your hand to look as inconspicuous as possible.

Then, right on cue, Danny turns his entire torso around in his seat and looks back down the aisle right at your dumb little face. He’s smirking, like he’s fully expecting to catch you staring in his direction. There’s nowhere near enough time to react, but you lean right back into your seat and out of sight as fast as you can possibly manage.

You wait what feels to be at least four years before daring to peek around the seat in front of you again to make sure he’s no longer looking. But no, there he is, turned around in his seat and smiling devilishly awaiting your return. You narrow your eyes at him, just to let him know you’re not falling for whatever it is he’s trying to do. He sees your suspicious eyes and shoots you one playful wink in return. He fucking winks at you and turns back around in his seat like a diabolical tease.

“Well, that does it. I’ve just about had it with you, Daniel.” You whisper the thought to yourself, or what would have been to yourself if you weren’t in such close quarters with a ton of other people. The woman sitting across the aisle looks at you with distaste and you sheepishly apologize then return to the task at hand.

You pluck your bag from the floor under the seat in front of you where it was stashed and dig through it until you find what you’re looking for. An old-fashioned printed ticket from the concert and a sharpie, one that you keep on your person at all times for emergencies just like this. In your elegant chicken scratch, you write out your message.

It’s important to keep it short and sweet, you decide, so that there’s no room for interpretation. ‘Follow me’. Surely, there’s no way a directive so simple could be muddied in his boy brain.

The overhead light is already on, signaling that it’s safe to leave your seat and walk around. With one defining nod and your note in hand, you swiftly unbuckle your seatbelt and begin to strut down the aisle. Your target is locked in, Danny’s seat is just a few steps away. As you pass him, without so much as a turn of your head, you place the scribbled ticket directly in his lap and continue on toward the vacant lavatory.

You hurl yourself into the bathroom as quickly as you possibly can to promptly stop your stomach from falling out of your ass. It takes you a moment of standing quietly to realize your hands have been shaking. Until now, your whole body was running on pure adrenaline and kept you from feeling any real apprehension. Now that the severity of what you’ve just done starts to sink in, along with extreme regret, you contemplate whether you should just flush yourself down the toilet.

The longest two minutes of your life slip by, and still no interruption to your bathroom break. Maybe he’s waiting a little while to follow you so it doesn’t seem as suspicious? What if he doesn’t come at all? Facing rejection by having to walk past him back to your seat is out of the question. What if he looks at you? A ragged breath catches in your throat when that idea crosses your mind, threatening to turn into a sob if you let the thought linger any longer.

Just as you’re promising to never follow your instincts again, the clunky bathroom door shuffles open, and in comes Danny without as much as a knock. While he shuts and locks it you twirl around to smirk at him, leaning your shoulder against the wall as you cross your arms. As much as it would have broken your heart to have embarrassed yourself for nothing, you can’t help but find it kind of hilarious that he couldn’t bring himself to pass up temptation.

“How the fuck am I supposed to have my way with you in here?” he quips after taking a single glance around the space. You don’t answer him, and it only deepens your smirk when he finally registers the look on your face. “What’s that look for?”

“You’re a horn dog.”

“Um, this was your idea?” he speaks with a melody of bemusement.

“Oh, so just because a girl invites a guy to follow her into an airplane bathroom she automatically wants to screw him?”

He cocks an eyebrow at you and leans his own shoulder against the wall, mimicking your stance since he’s caught on to your game. “So you brought me here for some friendly conversation?”

“Absolutely not,” you snort, causing him to roll his eyes and shake his head a little at your teasing, though you think he seems to find it charming.

“Well… it’s not ideal, but after that stunt I’m not letting you out of here until I’m good and ready.” He grabs you at the waist and pulls you towards him; he towers over you and you have to crane your neck to kiss him properly. You fumble with his belt as he pulls on the hem of your shirt.

“Wait,” You pull away gasping, and place a palm on his chest to let him know to pause. “I kind of want to keep it on.”

“Seriously? You’re really gonna make me fuck you in my own merch?” He's unamused.

Looking up through your lashes at him, you nod bashfully and throw in a lip bite for some added innocence. “Mhm, but if you rip it you have to buy me a new one.”

You swear you can hear a growl come from deep in his chest when he pauses for a moment to look at you before grabbing two fistfuls of the t-shirt material and ripping it right down the middle. A genuine gasp escapes past your furiously beating heart, followed shortly by a hiccupy giggle when you do the same to his own shirt in retaliation.

“Hmm, would you look at that?” He glances down at each of your handiwork and clicks his tongue three times to chastise your behavior. “You’re gonna fuckin’ get it now.”

Some shredded pieces of fabric fall to the ground, but he makes no move to fully remove either of the tattered shirts, instead opting to slide your shorts and panties off. He shoves his pants down just barely enough to free his rock hard, veiny cock from its confines. Using the small amount of strength you can muster, you lift and perch yourself on the tiny sink when he grabs your knees and spreads them, putting you on display for him. His massive hands hold your legs wide open so he can bend down to lick a slow stripe up your center. Just a few skilled flicks of his tongue over your clit is enough to get you ready for him, but he purses his lips and spits on your pussy for good measure.

“Oh, fuck,” you whisper breathily at the filthy act.

He chuckles lightly at your reaction, stands up, and positions himself. He takes his cock in his hand and smears his own saliva around with his tip before pushing in a few centimeters.

“Oh, fuck,” you repeat yourself.

“That’s right, babygirl. Fucking take it.” He pushes in all the way this time, immediately pulling back out to slam in again. As if hunkering down for the long haul, he cradles your legs, one in each hand, and a warm feeling fills your whole being. Is it too early to be seeing stars?

You let your head lull back in ecstasy but he grabs your jaw abruptly, forcing your attention back to him.

“Eyes on me, sweetheart. I want to see the face you make when you cum.” You nod in understanding, promising to heed his request. He goes to return his hand to its place holding your leg, but when you open your mouth to moan he quickly covers it before you can utter a sound.

“Shhh, we have to keep quiet. Let it all out for me, but don’t make a sound.” The gruff timbre that lines his voice while he fucks into you at a merciless pace could make you cum all on its own.

Your brows furrow to a peak, painting what little he can see of your face a shade of almost pained frustration. He flicks his thumb over your already sensitive clit to accompany the never ending waves of pleasure he’s pushing through you with his cock.

Out of nowhere, the tide rolls in and your orgasm ripples through you like a warm breeze and he rides it out relentlessly, his eyes locked onto yours. For all you know, the clouds could part and the gates of heaven could open to accept you at that very moment, and you would happily ascend. You try to scream his name only to be muffled into his palm, and through teary eyes you see the devious smirk that he tries to keep from creeping onto his face when you struggle like he fucking loves the power he has over you.

Just as you’re verging on the point of overstimulation, he reaches his own climax, spilling its contents deep in your core for you to hold onto for safe keeping. His hand leaves your lips and comes down hard on the meat of your thigh with an audible slap. You cry out, but he’s in no condition to care about that while he shudders and moans and bruises your leg with his grip.

The pumps come to a halt and the comedown is slow, you’re thankful that he leaves his cock inside your twitching pussy to savor the feeling just a little longer. Although, you hadn’t noticed that in the midst of all the action your position had shifted until he was practically on top of you in an uncomfortably crooked way. You can’t be surprised since you enticed him to ruin you, but clearly, he hadn’t noticed either and almost loses his footing when he finally pulls out, you have to throw an arm out to help steady him. His bicep is warm and damp, the vein prominent.

“Danny, Danny, Danny.. getting carried away now are we?” you scold, clicking your tongue at him like you would a child.

He laughs sweetly, like strawberries and sugar or windchimes on a summer evening. It almost takes your breath away. “How could I not? You’re a vixen.”

“Who? Me? Of course not, I just know a once in a lifetime opportunity when I see it.” You shoot him a sly smile and move to stand up. He holds his hands out to aid in getting you upright, but when you reach for your clothes as he fastens his belt, you’re hit with a realization.

“Daniel. My shirt.”

He looks puzzled, but still cute, until it dawns on him that you’re on an airplane filled with strangers, and thanks to him your new shirt is lacking structural integrity.

“Shit, umm…” He scans the floor of the bathroom before scooping up his own discarded shirt, also completely unwearable. “I have a shirt you can wear, I’ll go grab it.”

A moment of silence.

“Why the fuck did we bother being quiet if you’re just gonna walk out there with no shirt on?”

“Aww, y/n,” He pecks your cheek “That was just for me.”

۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵♡۵

thank you for reading

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#gretavanfleet #gvf #danny gvf #danny wagner #danny wagner smut #danny wagner x reader #gvf smut #greta van fleet fanfiction #greta van fleet smut #gvf fanfiction #gvf imagine #danny wagner imagine #drw #greta van fleet imagine #greta van fleet

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ahiddenpath · 11 months

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Digimon Adventure 02: The Beginning

I just got home from seeing the Japanese audio/English sub. This is not a review, and I doubt I'll feel the same way about it in a few days, because I'm all up in my emotions and I haven't had a think on it. So here is nothing more or less than my visceral, 100% subjective reaction.

Extreme spoilers beneath the cut, spoilin spoilin all day long. Also cussing and blaspheming, apparently I like to keep it classy.

My head is a boiling vat of pudding.

As the film ended, someone screamed, "Toei why you gotta do us like that?!" Someone else yelled, "Jesus Christ I did not need that in my life." As we filed out, another gem: "They had a digital god in this one, and they still didn't unfuck Kizuna." (That last one, I think, while funny, was not relevant. This wasn't about the older kids, they had their turn and several more, lmao).

Some notes:

-Genuinely I was not prepared for a horror. Or child abuse. I love horror games! I watch them nearly daily! Did you know I have only once been more upset/disturbed by a horror video game than I was by this movie?

Did people take their kids to this? Like, that seems totally reasonable to me, taking your kid to digimon!!! Jesus cHRISt!!!!

-I thought my bar of, "I want to see the 02 kids grown up and interacting," was so, so low. I thought my bar could not be lower. But this was Lui's story, not theirs. And this is Toei's story, not mine, so I have to accept that... They wrote what they wanted to. But yeah, the bar I thought was low was not cleared.

-SOMEONE HELP ME, Himekawa is older than Lui. Himekawa's group, they were the first Chosen. Right??? Does the time line not shake out here??? Himekawa was probably about 10/11 when she was Chosen, and she's a full ass adult in Tri??? So, like, I guess the question is, how much older is her group than Lui at age 4? Are they at least 6 years older???? But- God what age would that make- God damn let me get the chart. Shit, I'm lost. Help??????

Shit I liked:

-Lui's second birthday scene

Not the original scene where Lui meets Ukkomon. This is the second birthday, his 8th birthday, where they sit in a dark room full of presents and treats. Ukkomon mentions Lui's parents and friends. They enter the room and proceed to not say a single ducking word while Ukkomon and Lui talk and talk and talk, and it is the creepiest and most atmospheric shit I have seen. Holy shit!!!!

Obviously, the audience already knows shit is fucked up with Ukkomon, but at this point, ooooooooooooooooo baby that tension is HIGH.

-Power in the hands of children

Ukkomon is, like, seconds old when he meets Lui. Lui is 4 and extremely disenfranchised, even for a 4-year-old. Lui wishes for what he doesn't have. Ukkomon devotes his whole self to those wishes.

What happens when a 4 year old meets a baby genie? When that much power is in the hands of the innocent?

You don't want to know, trust me. Lowkey wish I didn't know!!! Christ on a bike!

As much as we love digimon and the Chosen and all of that, it's always been messed up how much power they have, and how much responsibility. It's so much pressure, it's so high stakes! It was really cool to see Toei explore how sideways all of this could go, literally at any moment.

-A few character moments

Honestly that part where a girl is chatting up Ken and Wormmon is visibly pissed is, like, my favorite thing in this movie. Oh! Also I loved seeing the international Chosen, that was so great. The gut scream of WALLACE/WILLIS in the theater when he appeared!!!!!!

Bonus:

My husband said he liked how there was a command center in Imperialdramon's head. I think that was actually some kind of... plane??? Made by Ukkomon??? I have no idea. You know, the place where Ken and Daisuke are accused of flirting.

Stuff I didn't like

-It was half flash back

I'm being a little harsh here, because stuff other than flashbacks happened in the first 46 minutes, but... I checked my phone after the final flashback (not counting Lui jumping into Ukkomon in the end). I was 46 minutes into a roughly 90 minute film. I'm not against flashbacks in principle, and I tend to like new characters, but... This just wasn't what I hoped for in a movie about the 02 kids. I accept that this is 100% subjective.

-It was too damned fucked up for my tastes

Jeeeeeeeeeeeeeesus H Christ!!!!!

Okay, so first of all, I generally am of the opinion that a lot of recent media has substituted trauma for substance. It's easy to make an audience pity/relate to/feel protective of a character by showing them suffer.

Lui wetting himself was so disturbing for me- in children, that's often a sign of ongoing abuse. I could easily be reading into it, but that combined with the range of age of his bruises (and he had more fresh contusions, too, they start red and turn purple and brown and eventually a yellow green) hinted that this wasn't some one off occasion caused by a sudden spike of stress. That was Lui's life. And he really might have frozen to death that night, if not for Ukkomon.

In a way, if I'm right and not just reading into things, this scene was well done. But also, like... I just don't enjoy the substitution of trauma for gradually making us care about a character and understand what they've been through. It seems like some kind of heavy handed short cut, and it usually has the opposite effect on me- thrusting me out of the narrative and making me distrustful of it.

Or maybe I'm just distancing myself, because I genuinely get so upset.

And don't even get me started on the scene where Ukkomon dissolves. I was not ready for that shit. It was just too much for me, I'm sensitive, lmao!

-I'm not sure what I think of the Chosen reacting to Lui's story

I kind of felt like the Chosen were oddly hard on Lui? They weren't actually, in reality they encouraged him to find a resolution with Ukkomon and reminded him that relationships go two ways.

But, like. Could someone have, like... Idk I was really waiting for someone to cry or hug Lui or reassure him or something? Instead it was like, "Poor Ukkomon. He tried so hard and you relied on him too much!"

And my visceral reaction to that was, "UKKOMON KILLED AT LEAST ONE OF LUI'S PARENTS AND MADE THEM MEAT PUPPETS FOR YEARS, JESUS!!!! AND YOU WANT LUI TO GO SEE UKKOMON AGAIN?!?!?!?!?" Like, that whole thing was literally a nightmare??? But Ukkomon was an actual whole ass baby god, and then again, as my husband put it, "Ukkomon did what CPS wouldn't." Lui needed help, stat.

I'm gonna need some time to sort how I feel about this. I can say that, as I watched, I felt like the emotional tone was really off for the last half of the film. All I could think about was the horror, and any time someone criticized Lui, or even told him to go see Ukkomon, I was just like- MEAT. PUPPET!!!! MEAT!!! PUPPET!!!! (Did those kids that Ukkomon made Lui's friends also die?!?!?!). Literally, snow was falling and the Chosen were playing, and my head was like, MEAT. PUPPET!!!!

There's no walking back that emotion, at least not in a 40 some minute window. Not for me, personally. I'm probably going to have nightmares. If I knew going in that this was a horror, I'd be fine with that. But gdi I though I'd see my blorbos having good times mixed with a plot.

Instead, nightmares.

-Lui's final scene with his mother

Lui tells himself, "This time, when I go back in time... I won't rely on Ukkomon for everything" (paraphrasing). He sees his mother inside his memory of his 4th birthday. He says to her, roughly, "Lui loves you, please remember that."

And magically, the mom is kind to him that night.

Now, to be fair, even disastrous relationships can have good times. Maybe it would have been just that night that was better. But there was this feeling of, "Oh, if I just talked to my mother when I was 4 years old and horrifically abused, it would have been different."

That just isn't how that works. If I had to guess, the film is just supporting communication. But god, don't ever point back to the child victim like that. Too bad that 4 year old doesn't know how to communicate with his abusive caregiver! Things might have been different!!!!!

I'm sensitive to this kind of thing, so it's totally possible I'm fixating too much on this or blowing up the importance of this moment. But yeah, not a good emotional reaction to that.

In summary: this was not the film I wanted. In fact, it's a film that will stick on me like a burr, but like. In a bad way? But also it did have some killer ideas. Ukkomon has to be one of the most interesting things to hit Adventure in years. So much power in the hands of an innocent, so disastrous so very fast.

My brain is still pudding. Time for some nightmares. Good night, I hope the film didn't distress you if you saw it! And my sympathies if you took your children, the biggest of oofs (how could you have known??? You couldn't have).

#spoilers #digimon spoiler #digimon spoilers #digimon #digimon adventure 02 #digimon adventure 02 the beginning #02tb spoilers #02tb #hidden reacts #reaction #faves

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shuttershocky · 1 year

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hi shutters. im gonna start arknights. do you have any guide/tips for new players? what to do, what to not do, what to save, what to discard, where to find community resources(if they exist). stuff like that. thanks in advance!

Most new player guides will tell you all you need to know about getting started in the game, so I'll list down 5 things about the experience of /learning/ the game instead.

You don't have to play - Before we start, it must be said that Arknights is still a gacha game, an inherently predatory monetization scheme no matter how generous the in-game system is. If you feel like you may be vulnerable to FOMO and spending real money, I don't recommend you play at all. If you're here for the world and characters, Arknights has excellent comics available for free on their website, while players upload most event stories on Youtube for you to read through without having to touch the game. With that said, let's continue.

Take your time - Raising units and generally progressing in Arknights takes a lot longer than in other mobage. Don't worry about things like "catching up". Limited time events that have already had their rerun get added as a part of the main menu permanently, and eventually they even include the free units you get per event. You're generally not going to be missing out on any content (except for 3rd party collabs like the upcoming Monster Hunter event, but that's because they don't own Monster Hunter), so don't feel like you have to rush through the game. It won't work, and you'll get easily frustrated. Think of it more like a puzzle game with updates. You don't rush through puzzle games, the point is to enjoy the puzzle.

Don't spend - This goes for all mobile games in general, but especially Arknights. The money to in-game currency conversion rate is godawful, but the actual flow of the gacha currency (called Orundrum) given to you by just playing the game normally is rather generous. Combined with a few other features that don't need to be discussed here and even a F2P player's account looks like a whale after enough time, because you eventually just get most of the units from how often you're given free rolls. Take it from me, you don't need to buy anything to get gigastacked, it will happen to you over time.

Ask for Help - Arknights is a puzzle game, and that means even with some of the best units in the game, you can find yourself stuck on stages if you have no idea how to approach strategy. If you're ever stuck, Youtube is filled with various clear guides made by the community, targeting everything from lazy clears (often called AFK) by super strong Doctors that don't want to think, to low rarity clears targeted towards new players who are mostly using the 3 star characters (as they are much quicker to raise). Just take a look at the codename of the stage you are stuck on (for example: "WD-EX-8"), and type that into the Youtube search bar. You'll find a ton of different guides from various creators. You can even shoot an Ask to this blog if you want more personalized help, though of course I can only answer those in my free time.

Take reviews with a grain of salt - Probably the biggest source of FOMO pressure in Arknights is the community itself, what with how much content creators love to use clickbait videos telling you a certain unit is a godtier must-have and if you don't have them you WILL be unable to keep up so roll for them NOW or a certain unit is fucking dogshit unusable and if you have them they're a waste of space. No in-betweens. Of course, when you actually get to try these characters for yourself you're going to realize even the absurdly powerful units aren't going to be autowinning stages by themselves (usually), nor are even the most despised, godawful units completely worthless strategically. It's a puzzle game, ultimately a lot more is going to depend on your ability to problem solve. My general rule of thumb when it comes to seeing community reactions to new operators is if everyone says they're good, they're almost certainly very good, but if everyone says a new unit is trash, it's a cointoss as to how bad they actually are. Probably the best recent example is the 6 star Mystic Caster Ebenholz, who was derided as being awkward to use and generally awful in most stages. His stock eventually rose and rose as people discovered that while Ebenholz struggled in most stages, he was incredibly good at taking on stages with very difficult, powerful enemies, flattening most of these elite enemies and bosses in an instant and trivializing the stages meant to be challenging. If you look up Ebenholz online you're mostly going to find people reacting to his initial appearance and calling him bad, but you're not going to see how he's carved out an extremely valuable strategic niche for himself. You never know who's going to end up useful, so don't be afraid to play around with your favorite units.

#arknights

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secretgamergirl · 5 months

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When Complete BS Becomes "Common Knowledge."

Someone told me they stopped paying attention to someone who reviews movies after one too many mean-spirited jokes about trans people, and it was one of those cases where the reviewer in question definitely had the vibe of someone who'd go around doing that, but I couldn't think of any real flagrant examples. Cut to me watching a movie the other day, remembering that oh yeah, I skipped that one guy's review of it because I wanted to go in blind, and sure enough, that review has this big long crappy 5 minute aside of an out of left field "DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY GENDER!?" routine. So that's a shame.

Now this particular guy rather famously Does Not Get Out Much. Pretty sure he hasn't really have any exposure to a single trans person, or to any real die hard transphobes, and most likely what happened here is he saw I dunno, an episode of South Park or a facebook post from some bigoted aunt, or some Tiktok video, something like that, and just blithely assimilated it into his world view.

But you know, the reality is... to the best of my knowledge no trans person has ever actually said this, or anything similar to this, and we sure as hell don't live in a world where anyone would have the back of someone who did? But you know, here we are.

Now I want to be clear, this isn't some kinda thing where trans people can't take a joke or anything. Literally while I was typing this, some cis guy just tossed this out, and this is a real tired old hokey one, but I cracked a smile, because oh yeah, the whole "programmer socks" bit really is a weirdly accurate stereotype.

And there's plenty of other trans jokes I'll laugh at. Ones directly at my expense. Some real dark ones even. You wanna go off on trans women all having the same like 10 names and them all sounding like we were born in the 1800s, go for it. Other stuff about how we all dress? Coping mechanisms? Low standards? Being too into pickles and sriracha? There's plenty.

But "DID YOU JUST ASSUME MY GENDER!?" and while we're at it, "I identify as..." don't even have the vague shape of something you're ever going to encounter in reality. Like if I didn't know the context of where these came from and hadn't had them posted a thousand times or so by people with swastikas for avatars and such, these probably would get a laugh from me the first time I heard them, because they sound like weird surrealist humor. Like, "don't you hate how every time you go to the laundromat, you have to play chess with the dragon before they let you in?"

But, again, I know the context. And the context is a bunch of fascists want people like me dead, and they're both too scared to pick up a gun to do it themselves and too incompetent to know who to point it at or where to find them. So they sit around with each other and go "hey, what sort of person does everyone hate? Let's all say trans people talk like them!" And because they haven't spoken to a single human being besides each other and the rich parents they're sponging off since getting banned from the Something Awful forums in the 90s/punk bar in the 80s/whatever, they settled on "rich white person calling the cops on somebody for walking down the street" and "didn't I first get into being a hatemonger because I was stupid enough to think that time I saw someone roleplaying he really thought he was a big scary dragon?" Which has honestly worked out weirdly well for them when you stop for half a second to appreciate just how absolutely ridiculous it is to ever imagine cops coming to the aid of trans people.

Like... here's a situation that actually plays out in reality. I have a bad tooth. Dentist says I need a root canal, and she doesn't do them. Refers me to another dentist like an hour and a half away. I walk in, write my Victorian sounding name on some paperwork, fill in all my various medications, wait a bit, hop into the big dentist's chair, so far so good. This dentist busts out the pick and the mirror about to have a look, and goes "hey, so I noticed on your medications you're taking a ton of something called divigel? What is that?" I say "oh, yeah, I'm trans, so I'm on supplemental estradiol." She almost drops the mirror, stares at me like she just realized I'm Venom and if she bent down to look at my teeth I was about to swallow her whole head. She stands bolt upright, says, "your teeth are fine, get out." I'm a bit confused, but I can read a room, so I say "well that's weird, but OK..." and start to leave. I get a "have a nice day SIR!" shouted at me. And then I go out, call the cab company to say my appointment ended early, and get told too bad, it's coming when it's scheduled, and someone snickers. See, at some point in having to take cabs to all my appointments, a driver worked out that this woman he'd been picking up from this address for the past year has a similar voice to and maybe vague family resemblance to who he'd been picking up from that same address the year prior, and after getting the courage to ask me, guess who's constantly having cabs show up late, or not at all, or on time with a driver staring angrily into the rear view mirror while blaring AM radio with someone shouting about all "the gays" needing to be rounded up so they can burn in hell. And I just need to suck it up and live with it. I'm sure as hell not going to pick a fight over it. I'm just gonna stand out in the cold (fortunately with nice warm knee-high socks) waiting for this cab for an hour because I sure as hell can't stay in this lobby.

But again, the whole weird myth here posits a world where trans people are all-powerful and control the government and stuff. And the basis for that is like... sometimes people refuse to pass ridiculous laws to stop trans people from doing things we only do in bigots' imaginations at great taxpayer expense, and SOMETIMES someone is responsible enough to double check what's up before they allocate the funds. Like... hell, you know what's exactly as completely divorced from reality and honestly the same people doing to same crap? That wild BS about "schools keeping litter boxes in classrooms because all this acceptance of trans people means we also have to accept kids who think they're cats!" Like... how the hell can anyone actually be stupid enough to believe that anyone else could be stupid enough to believe that they're actually stupid enough to believe such an OBVIOUSLY made-up narrative? Like... lawmakers bring that one up and try to get bills passed on it. Everyone else in the room is socially obligated not to laugh and ask whether they also want to pass legislation against Bat Boy and UFO abductions. This is Ralph Wiggum tier absurdity.

But like... what do you do about this sort of thing, really? As the person ultimately has to deal with the dentists who think I'll bite their heads off, ask to speak to their manager, and drop trou over a sandbox the state mandates they keep in the middle of the room, I'm... not in the room when this BS gets concocted, or discussed, or shared in Minions meme some film critic sees and imitates to try and be relatable and relevant. Can someone else start grabbing all these people by the lapels and shake them and shout questions about how they can be this stupid, maybe invite them back to reality for me?

#bigotry #transphobia #out of touch boomers #the one joke

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pagerunner-j · 2 months

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Me, pulling up Rotten Tomatoes to indulge a long-held suspicion: So just how bad is the Borderlands movie?

Me a few seconds later: ...oh. Oh. It's at 6%.

It's that bad.

I read the Rolling Stone review just for the schadenfreude, and the last paragraph quite thoroughly excoriates it:

The bar for video game movies has been staggeringly low, and why these screen-to-screen adaptations are so hard to crack is a subject for another day. Borderlands doesn’t just suffer from the usual slings and arrows of moving something stupendously successful in one medium to another, and praying that most of the beloved, vital elements don’t get lost in translation. It is, in no uncertain terms, a horrendous waste of time, talent, and pixels. Not even the pleasure of seeing Blanchett twirling pistols and kicking ass can salvage this. Go play the Borderlands shooters. Go watch six-hour gameplay videos of it on YouTube. Go get several chlamydia tests back to back. Every one of those options are far more useful and far, far less painful than this.

And oh, god, this one-liner from the Independent:

It’s dragged us back to a time when studios used to make these with all the grace and acuity of a drunk person attempting to place a 3am chicken nugget order.

Ouuuch.

#borderlands

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risingshards · 3 months

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Blegh okay I thought about it and after rewatching some eps and reading this again, I kinda like my rambling thoughts on acolyte ep 6 so here goes

Preface: I'm a very very VERY easy to please sw fan and I don't like ragging on shows or movies or whatever this way much these days if I can avoid it with how internet fandom is, like especially with this show with all the hatred and vitriol it's gotten from the incels.

And I've been enjoying the show a ton so far, and ep 6 wasn't bad...just. blech. I have critiques.

TLDR: I was excited for a big thriller mystery in the High Republic era told with a queer lens, and instead I feel like I'm getting a Goodreads review of a scrubbed Reylo fic listing the tropes.

spoilers and me bitching after cut lol

I'm just like why is it reylo now????????

I figured with the mentor swap we'd be heading to Osha turning to the dark side and maybe Mae to the light, but the way it's being put out there feels lacking. Osha is turning so quickly that it felt like i was reading some enemies to lovers romantasy for my book club (at least it hasn't been as awful as the colonizer romance they had me read but that is a LOW bar to clear....). Like a lot of the romantasy books I've read, it feels like setup and taking time to build meaningful connections between characters is ignored for like "oh wow he took his shirt off...he's so jacked....what was i talking about again..." I saw a video with the audio descriptions for the ep and it literally sounded like a romantasy audiobook.

And to note: if you love the enemies to lovers romantasy booktok books, like more power to ya! For me it's like when you stare at one of those magic pictures and you can't get your eyes to cross to see the picture, like "I do NOT understand what I'm supposed to see here."

Str8 enemies to lovers just kind of blech me out, where the evil one commits various atrocities that make me want to see them get what's coming to them, and then minutes later the good one is like "whoa he's hot maybe he's not so bad..."

Osha being so Jedi-like in personality only to immediately falter at a hot naked dude just feels gross. Like can't we have any other reasons for women in Star Wars to get tempted to the dark side than a shirtless man gaslighting them? Probably unsurprisingly but I REALLY did not like Reylo (I was in a very bad relationship and I kinda put the headcanon onto TLJ about it being an escape from an abuser because it came out right after I got away from that, so that going any other way did not vibe right with me) so maybe it's just residual feelings from that.

Again more power to you if this is your thing I'm not coming at anyone for enjoying it!

I think another thing that's making me uncomfortable is seeing interviews with Hedlund about Qimir about his desire for freedom against those who want him gone being relatable in a queer sense, and like I get that, I feel that. But if that's the character with the metaphorical queer experience why are we doing mega straight reylo 2 with him? And that guy brutally kills one of the queer girls and calls her it immediately after??? It doesn't help that the show started off feeling really queer, and now like 80% of the queer characters are dead and we're doing reylo 2. The "oh fuck yeah REYLOOOO" interviews I've read this week are NOT reassuring in this regard.

There's just something my pea brain doesn't get when it comes to stories with more shades of gray in series that are typically pretty black and white with morality. When a character crosses that threshold so far into villainy, I want to see them face some blow back for it, not immediately start going all "uwu they're torn and hurt aren't they?" about it. In Star Wars generally speaking I want the antagonist to BE the antagonist, not get thrown into this space between protagonist and antagonist that just has me all crossed up. I know there are plenty of redemptions in Star Wars for the villains, but I like it better when it's more mythical about the hardships of trying to save a villain's soul like Luke and Vader than "the lightsaber represents kylo's dick" reylo stuff.

I get that like the morality is probably supposed to be muddled in this show, and we're not supposed to feel good about Osha and Qimir getting closer smash cutting to Jecki's fresh corpse, but again, the execution feels messy when you have the gleeful "OH YEAH WE'RE DOING ENEMIES TO LOVERS BABY REYLO SLAYYYYYYY" interviews. Again I'm a VERY easy to please sw fan, and I've been really enjoying seeing the High Republic era in live action, seeing cortosis and wild lightsaber duels, all the expanded universe pulls, it feels really fresh in that regard. And all the performances are stellar, and having such a diverse cast is incredible.

If we had more than thirty minutes and more than 8 episodes to build to all this it'd feel a lot better. The character development feels like it's on roller coaster speed, but with Knife to Throat and other tropey scenes also seen in a bajillion enemies to lovers romance books nowadays thrown our way to fill the gaps. These scripts feel like they needed an editor to really go over the scene to scene motivations and logic and character work and dialogue, instead of mashing booktok trope buttons, which is also how I feel about most romantasy books I read...

Counterpoint to myself is that Star Wars is built on tropes and archetypes so this is like taking some tropes and archetypes of the current day's fiction and playing with them.

But idk.

Like am I really supposed to care about any of what I'm seeing or is it just gonna be booktok and fanfic tropes thrown my way now to a bunch of characters with muddled personalities and motivations clashing? We don't necessarily need someone to root for, and I'm probably being unfair to a lot of this, but after how thrilling Ep 5 felt, 6 has me wondering what the bigger picture of this show is, because it went from feeling like a fascinating if a bit messy story to one that might just be "Look here's enemies to lovers, knife to throat, corruption, oh and here's one bed!" without as much under the surface of that character and plot wise as I would have hoped.

#star wars #the acolyte #star wars the acolyte spoilers #if you like these ships tropes dont come at me this is just my take lol #i was like oh is this too harsh then i read some of the OH FUCK YEAH REYLO interviews #and was like ok i think i wanna post my rambles #i need to rewatch ahsoka i think

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topsy-cryptid · 4 months

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I expected to go into the Acolyte hating the broad strokes but appreciating the minor details, but this show surprised me by reversing that expectation! So, here's my review of the first two episodes.

The Broad Strokes:

The gorgeous visuals. Dare I say it? On par with Andor.

The pacing. Intrigue was set up and maintained! I'm not entirely sold on this show (see: Minor Nitpicks) but I'm still curious enough to see it through to the end.

The characters. Sol is the most likable character so far, with Osha and Jecki as close seconds. I dislike Mae, but that's just because she's a well-written villain.

White and gold color schemes my beloved. So elegant and dignified!

The premise. Most of the other Star Wars shows released this year were building upon previous shows (Bad Batch – Clone Wars :: Ahsoka – Rebels). The Acolyte is the first time the High Republic has been shown on screen, which is a tremendous undertaking. I think they did a fantastic job with the setting.

The fight scenes! Indara's fight with Mae is particularly memorable because it's so cool to see Force-enhanced battling in real life. Like, oh! Now I see what the prequels Jedi meant by "the Force is clouded"! This is what it looks like when they're at their peak!

PowerPoint transitions.

Balancing plot, action, and character moments. This is part of pacing, but it deserves it's own bullet point because this is massively hard to do.

The Minor Nitpicks:

"Our political enemies might use this against us." Tell me you didn't put any effort into political worldbuilding without telling me. What political enemies? I don't expect names, but I would like to have a broad idea of what the stakes are, especially if this is going to be an ongoing issue for the Jedi characters in this series.

Jecki was talking to Osha on the ship and even smiling, then Sol and Yord walked in, and Jecki's smile dropped, like she was doing something she wasn't supposed to. Why?

I've been getting into East Asian cinema, and going from that to The Acolyte makes it extremely obvious that these actors are Westerners. Something about the way they bow, and the way they request permission to speak. The Jedi's respect-based culture is not natural to any of these characters.

Every guy I went to high school with acted like that apothecary owner. I don't understand why Hollywood is obsessed with this character archetype, but honestly, I wouldn't mind never seeing it again.

Does Indara not know anything about tactics? Obviously Mae threw the knife at the bar owner to distract Indara. Really, Indara should have killed Mae when she had the chance, but her guilt and shock understandably stopped her. In that case, she should have changed her position on the battlefield to prioritize protecting the bar owner until Mae gave up and left.

Torbin's death had "video game player character commits suicide when their constitution gets too low" energy. It isn't insensitive to do it this way, it's just not how I would've done it. Suicide is not a foregone conclusion for poor mental health.

I'm sorry, I have to bring up the attachment discourse. The characters in The Acolyte are far too preoccupied with it. The Late Republic (prequel era) Jedi had the same rules against attachment, but they trusted each other to know what they were doing. For example, when Obi-Wan defends his former Padawan (Anakin) against Mace Windu in ROTS, Mace is skeptical but holds his tongue. When Master Sol does the same in The Acolyte, Vernestra immediately accuses him of attachment. Why? Why doesn't she trust Sol (a Jedi Master who has proven himself) to mind his own attachments?

Master Sol is moderately shocked that his former Padawan was accused of murder, and Vernestra goes, "I didn't know you still had feelings for her. :/" Not even the prequel Jedi were this critical. Yes, even Luminara.

Overall, I did like the show, and though my standards are low for it, I am excited for the next episode. I probably won't be reblogging much about it, but so far I appreciate this show as an addition to the Star Wars canon. Well, it's better than Ahsoka and Book of Boba Fett, which is good enough in my book.

#the acolyte critical #the acolyte #the acolyte spoilers #meta

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blazeofnight · 1 year

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PotO Italy (Trieste) review - Act 1

Disclaimer: I apologize in advance if I sound a bit defensive, but honestly, the amount of badmouthing the show is getting based on a few unofficial pictures and videos is astonishing and it gets old quickly (but I admit some of the memes are gold and I am enjoying them).

I have not seen other replica productions in full, only pictures, but I have seen the West End production in March. I do consider using Broadway/West End/replica productions as the one and true standard to judge non-replicas unfair in general, but I think it's fair to use them as a comparison to try and understand how these changes affect character dynamics and stuff like that, and to help in trying to understand the reasoning behind the choices made.

My visual memory is VERY poor, so if you've seen the show too and notice I remember something wrong please tell me so I can correct it!

This is almost 5000 words long, so please make sure you want to read it before clicking in the read more. Also please forgive any typos.

The one for Act 2 is here.

THE LOCATION

Il Rossetti was built in 1878 and is typical of the time, with a large stalls area on a gentle slope surrounded by open boxes, and two rows of balconies. During modern renovations they "opened" the boxes at the back to extend the stalls area, and these last rows are raised and angled to give you a better view of the stage. I have to say it is a good compromise to make an older structure more suited to modern audiences.

The interior is painted a rich lapislazuli blue with cream and gold trim, and the domed ceiling has some nice painted clouds. They have installed small lights that resemble constellations, the effect is very nice and they had the good idea of using it during Masquerade to great effect!

The foyer is also very nice, and there is a bar with good spritz at an affordable price.

We were seated in the second row of the raised stalls area, on the right side, and the view was great. Of course some details and expressions were lost, but unless you are aiming for a close and personal experience, it's a good view. There are some columns as you can see in the picture, bu they are thin and don't really obstruct the view in a significant way.

The audio control station was at the back of stalls, too, on the centre right (next to where I was seated), this meant there was a bit of light coming from them but it was low enough to not be a distraction.

I personally found the music to be a bit too high at times compared to the singers' voices, but it's something I think every time I see a live musical and when listening to the audios I take the voices are perfectly clear, so it's likely it's just me having some audio processing issue. The orchestra is 16 instruments, so reduced from the original but it still sounds nice.

There were subtitles! Two screens at the side of the stage with Italian subtitles, and also an app you can download on your phone for subtitles in English, Italian and German. I saw some folks using the app nearby and it looked like it was well synchronized, also since it was white subtitles on a black background the light was not really an inconvenience.

I saw the afternoon show on June 8th.

OVERTURE

The auction scene is pretty similar to the standard, the only difference is the attendants are seated with their backs to the public. Old Raoul is seated in the row closest to the audience, and he turns towards the monkey for his lines so we can see him in profile. The auctioneer activates a big lever switch on the wall to light up the chandelier, which raises over the centre of the stage instead of the audience.

Let's address this immediately: yes, the chandelier is smaller. It still looks nice, and if you're someone who never saw the show seeing it rise and move around is still a very good effect to open the musical with! The flashes of the chandelier's lights turning on and off at the beginning of the overture were timed to the music, which is a nice touch.

A cool idea that I think could use being improved was having the crash accident be replayed in reverse and slow motion during the chandelier rise! The idea is cool, and by using strong white back lighting it looks almost in black and white, reinforcing the idea of a flashback. BUT. This was done, I suspect, because during the chandelier crash you don't really see Christine and the other actors standing below it, which means that if you don't already know what happens it risks being confusing.

I think it could be easily be solved by having the auctioneer add a couple of lines when talking about the accident to make clearer that's what we are looking at and helping people who have never seen the show before connect the dots. It is a cool scene though! This is where the rotating stage-in-the-stage is used for the first time, and you get to see Buquet laughing maniacally while holding the fake lasso, dangling from a metal stair on the "back" of the stage.

HANNIBAL

We transition into the Hannibal rehearsals! I liked the ensemble costumes, they did remind me of actual early '900 opera costumes and the teal+gold combo is nice. Also, a couple of the soldier extras were ensemble actors wearing their regular suits with capes, fake armour and helmets on top of it, I loved it because sometimes rehearsals are just like that!

Image credit, via cdaae

Anna Corvino is a delightful Carlotta, her fake Italian accent is a delight and I loved how she incorporated some stilted acting that is very typical of early '900 Italian opera. It's a small detail but a very nice bonus for opera aficionados. You could really feel her exasperation when the background drop accident happened, overall she felt arrogant but not as entitled as other actresses I've seen in the role.

Piangi (Gian Luca Pasolini) arrives on a litter and stomps on a ballet girl (who understandably yelped loudly) when dismounting, I liked this detail to show he's a bit clumsy. The litter is also used instead of the elephant at the end, with Pinagi getting on it and the bottom giving out comically. Piangi was also suitably snarky towards Reyer in the Rome/Roma bit, and he did say "Amateurs!" while leaving with Carlotta.

Monsieur Lefèvre was dressed in a snazzy cream suit and he was quite funny, his anxiousness in leaving the theatre behind was palpable from the beginning and the little pause before changing topic when André and Firmin ask him why he's leaving was perfectly timed.

Ear Carpenter is clearly having the time of his life as André, and Ian Mowat is a suitably snarky Firmin with a likeable practical, no-nonsense attitude.

A special note for Rober Ediogu, the male dancer in this production: the scene was a bit cramped, but his grace and elegance are absolutely undeniable and he really gave the vibes of a consummate professional who has Seen Things while working at the Opera.

When Meg (Zoe Nochi) suggests Christine (Amelia Milo) for the main role, she physically pushes Christine to centre stage rather forcefully! Megstine fans will be happy to know this Meg is definitely the proud founder of the "Christine is awesome" fan club.

I agree that the Elissa costume could use a bit more oomph, but it was not bad at all. I think adding some vertical decoration to the skirt in a dark gold tone or big fake jewels would elevate it without making it feel too busy, but under stage lights it looks sufficiently nice and the teal fabric has a lovely shine to it that doesn't feel cheap.

An interesting change is that Reyer does not appear! You hear him speaking from a small orchestra pit on stage, and the actors are similarly looking at it, but he's not seen so you have this extremely annoyed voice coming from the depths of the stage.

THINK OF ME

If you were wondering if Amelia Milo can sing: yes she does, and quite well! In this song it's noticeable that her upper register could use being a bit stronger, but she's still quite young and I trust her voice will mature beautifully, Right now it has a very light, airy quality to it, very angelic. She can and does put more force behind it when needed later in the musical, but I think it suits this song beautifully. You really get why she gets to be a replacement on the spot!

The rotating stage is used again, this time with better lighting, and we get our boy Raoul (Bradley Jaden) being adorable and fangirling over Christine. For those interested in the brava/bravi discussion, Bradley says "Brava".

I don't have much more to say about this scene, I admit it isn't one of my favourites so I tend to get a bit distracted and just listen to the song.

Image credit, via cdaae

ANGEL OF MUSIC

Christine's room is extremely essential: one of the short sides of the rotating stage has been decorated with wallpaper and the mirror, hanging above Christine's vanity and chair. It is very simple but it works and the vanity has a nice lived-in feel to it. Christine has a nice white nightgown that looks similar to the original one, probably in plainer fabric but I wasn't close enough to notice. It's white, it has flounces, it's pretty, so close enough for me!

This is a very Megstine moment, they stand very close and touch a lot and Meg sounds genuinely worried but also happy for her friend. The vocals were very nice and I think Amelia really nails the hypnotized/transfixed aspect of Christine towards the Angel/Phantom, she had some great expression in this song.

Image credit, via cdaae

There is no Madame Giry (Alice Mistroni) rebuking the dancers for being sloppy before this scene, so when she comes to pick up Meg it feels more as if she's purposefully making it so Christine is alone. Meg leaves quite upset, stomping her feet and yelling "Rehearsals, rehearsals, ALWAYS REHEARSALS!" which I found quite funny.

LITTLE LOTTE

No managers bit, Raoul just arrives while Christine is reading. It took me a while to warm up to Bradley's Raoul but I ended up liking him a lot! He's going for a more adult portrayal, still enthusiastic and loving but a bit more level-headed. In this scene he's clearly leaning more into the enthusiastic side and it's a very nice and sweet interaction.

It is very clear that the memories he has with Christine are very dear to him. In this production it's Raoul who says "Those picnics in the attic" and he had a super tender, fond expression that was just the best. Just a very sweet scene overall, I really enjoyed it.

THE MIRROR

Oh boy, I loved this part! Christine had a suitable mix of awe and fear, the Phantom sounded extremely angry, almost growling "My triumph", and then becoming soothing and welcoming after seeing Christine's scared reaction.

Do you remember how the mirror is ABOVE Christine's vanity? It means that when the Phantom appears, he is literally towering over her (especially since Christine is kneeling on the floor), it makes for a very imposing entrance! The mirror is a bit opaque so when it comes up and suddenly you see the bright red of the cloak's lining it is a very nice effect. Christine has to climb on the chair and table to reach the Phantom, and then they disappear in the darkness, almost engulfed by it. It was all very pretty to watch and made for a great first impression of the Phantom.

Image credit, via cdaae

THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA

Ok, onto the bad part. Unfortunately, they didn't find a way to give something to do to the characters in this scene. The scene is quite dark, they cross the stage, then get out of a door and cross it again, disappear for a bit and reappear on a box on the upper level of the fake stage and sing there for a while, then a catwalk is lowered and they walk on it, then a very short boat ride. No candles, they used a holographic fake flame effect for the boat ride that resembled will-o'-the-wisp fires burning just on the "surface", and while I liked the idea it could be implemented better.

They definitely have to find a way to make this feel more like a descent into a dungeon, cave, whatever, and better effects to transmit the otherworldliness that Christine perceives. As it is now, it just doesn't work.

ETA: I forgot to mention, a lot of folks remarked how this song sounds played faster than usual. I suspect it might be because as I said they don't really know how to keep the actors busy, so shaving off 20 seconds or so is good for them. This is just a guess, though.

THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT

This has a lot of issues, too. The set is pretty sparse: the boat on the left, the pipe organ at the centre, and the Phantom's bed on the right, plus a nice background suggesting the passages and mazes that lead to the lair. I think a more gothic-looking bed and a couple more props could complete it nicely, but not too bad.

Unfortunately, once again they have to find stuff to do for the actors. The piece starts with the Phantom sitting at the organ and Christine standing a bit far away, looking at him. This isn't bad per se, it gives you the impression that Christine is trying to get a feel for the situation and what's going on and it makes sense, but... it goes on for too long. It becomes boring, the worst crime for a musical.

FINALLY he gets up and Christine starts getting nearer, they kinda circle each other and then the Phantom blows a candle in Christine's face after "Only then can you belong to me" and suddenly we're back to a more traditional choreography with the classical embrace pose. I really don't like it because it's pretty clear from watching that the candle blowing makes Christine suddenly change her attitude and behaviour and... it makes me think of a roofie, sorry. She's suddenly less scared, more agreeable, and at the end she loses consciousness. Nope nope NOPE.

On the good side, when Christine faints we get the catch and carry! All that crossfit Ramin is doing paid out! The Phantom gently lays Christine on the bed and covers her with her cloak, despite the unfortunate implications of what happens just before it is a sweet moment.

In general, Ramin played the Phantom as very gentle in this scene, you get the feeling of a genuine care and not wanting to scare Christine (magid drug candle apart). It reminded me a bit of the book, where the Phantom kidnaps Christine with the idea of having her spend a month or so with her, and then when she's got to know him reveal her his face because by then she knows him as a person and he hopes she'll stay by her own will.

Despite the issues, this scene got a BIG applause because Ramin did display an awesome vocal control, since his voice is on the warmer side I think it's a song that suits him a lot.

I REMEMBER/STRANGER THAN YOU DREAMT IT

In this version, the Phantom is aware of Christine being there and he lets her touch him, which makes the unmasking feel even more as a betrayal of sorts.

There is no Mandarin robe and no crawl, but the scene is suitably pathetic nonetheless. The Phantom is angry at the beginning, but it quickly turns more into a kind of sad resignation. I was really hit by the delivery of "now you cannot ever be free", it didn't sound like a threat but more like a sad realization that Christine has sealed her fate and thing will not go the way the Phantom hoped for. Immediately after that, the pleading in "fear can turn to love" is honestly heartbreaking. You get the feeling that he's trying to reach Christine, to make her understand, through the pain he's feeling.

At one point Christine falls on the floor, petrified, and scuttles away when the Phantom tries to get nearer, she does keep her distance a bit longer than I expected but then when the Phantom crumples on the floor she gets closer and tries to return the mask. the Phantom turns towards her, reaching out, but at the last moment turns away saying "No", and then gets the mask back while looking away from Christine.

The "come, we must return" bit is softer than I expected, too. He's clearly upset but tries not to show it and does not manhandle Christine, guiding her offstage gently.

Very pathetic, lots of self-loathing, 8.5/10 but only because there's no crawl, otherwise it'd be a solid 9 despite the staging.

MAGICAL LASSO

Man, this Buquet (Matt Bond) is unhinged! He clearly loves scaring the dancers, he has a WONDERFUL manic laugh. Madame Giry is her usual scary, ominous self. I did not mention it yet, but one of the high points of this production is the lightning. They use it quite effectively, especially to set the mood, and in this scene it was fantastically gothic and doomy. It's a short scene but it worked well to remind us that we are in a story with gothic elements, people will die, etc.

NOTES I/PRIMA DONNA

The rotating stage is slightly ajar, so you can see Meg finding a noose in box 5 (which in this production is at ground level) and playing with it during the scene before joining the others for her part. This means that a part of the stage is occupied by the fake stage, so unfortunately there's less space for the actors to move around.

This is just a minor quibble, everyone is very good in this scene with the usual amount of funny moments, over-the-top reactions, Raoul not understanding a thing, etc., Piangi was very supportive of Carlotta, Anna Corvino hits some very nice notes, the usual.

Carlotta's dress was way less snazzy than the original productions, but it did look nice (a dark-ish green with very dark velvet trimming) and fit well, also the train did take up a lot of space which fits the character and her large ego.

I loved that when André says "your public needs you" there is a longer beat than usual with Firmin saying nothing, then Carlotta turns towards him with a "weeell?" expression, and only then does Firmin rushedly say "we need you, too" with ZERO emotion, it was great! He was so DONE.

I also loved how they ended it: everyone went on the stage while it was slowly turning towards the public, ending up in the usual line facing the public and with the stage lights completely open, giving the impression they all really just stepped on the Opera's stage. It worked very well and did give me a beautiful moment of immersion and a reminder that the Opera, too is a character of sorts.

IL MUTO

I liked the staging! Overall it's slightly over the top, and the dresses are less glitzy, but the Rococò meringue-like look is still there and it works well. There is no bed but some decadent couches and ottomans instead, the background is on fabric with a big window showing a balcony and a nice garden. When the husband fakes his leave, he gets out of the door and behind the background where the window is, and then they change the lighting so it looks like he's standing on the balcony. It's simple but it adds some nice physical depth to the scene.

They do take a page from the movie here: when the performance gets interrupted by the Phantom Carlotta calls for her seamstress (with a super loud "SARTAAAAH!" we all enjoyed), who appears with a big perfume-like glass bottle and sprays Carlotta in the mouth, then everything resumes. Instead of croaking, Carlotta is more gasping for air as if her voice isn't coming out at all.

You can see the managers sitting in their box (there's no madame Firmin here) and André enjoying a nice bottle of wine, when Carlotta runs away in shame he jumps on the stage and does his bit as if tipsy and not 100% "there". I can see why Earl wanted to play the role, he's clearly suited to slapstick comedy and enjoying every moment of it!

So, André jumps in without a plan but knowing he has to do something, then he turns and sees they have a full house.. and no Countess... He manages to salvage the situation, mostly thanks to Firming feeding him suggestions from the box (I could clearly see him mouthing "ballet ballet BALLET!"), there's the usual ensuing confusion and then the male dancer LIFTS André to move him out of the way, while he's looking completely and utterly lost. It's great.

The dancers are not wearing separate outfits, just the "standard" white tutus. This is a clever way to have one less set of costumes to make, since they have moved up the ballet all of a sudden it makes sense for the dancer to not have changed yet, they probably were doing warmups and the like.

Instead of the Phantom shadows, we get the Phantom swinging wildly twice from one side of the stage to the other while laughing maniacally. It does work, because the third time it's the hanged Buquet that swings in instead, so when you see the rope for the third time your brain needs a second to register that this time something's different. My only complaint is that Ramin is clearly having a lot of fun and so his laugh isn't the most menacing xD

The scene ends the usual way, with more confusion, screams, Firmin trying to calm down the audience, and Christine and Raoul escaping to the roof.

WHY HAVE YOU BROUGHT ME HERE?

For this scene a walkway gets lowered to represent the roof, you can see the beams below which is nice. The background is a bit too dark and you can't really see it clearly, I think it's meant to show a dark night sky and the Paris skyline but it really is too dark to see what it should be, which makes it hard to understand they're on the roof. I hope they change it because it's the one blemish in an otherwise really nice scene. Christine has no special dress or cape for this scene, if I remember correctly she's wearing her Il Muto clothes + the nightgown but the rooftop scene had a lot of more interesting stuff to notice so I might be wrong.

Amelia really makes you feel how what just happened plus the kidnapping plus the revelation that her Angel of Music is a murderous weirdo is hitting Christine like a ton of bricks. She sounds so anguished at times! But luckily Raoul is there to help, which leads us to...

ALL I ASK OF YOU

Ok so, this is where this production starts to REALLY diverge character-wise. Are you ready? (Trigger warning: discussion of suicide, and mention of depression, if this might upset you please skip to the next song)

So, this song is no longer a lovey-dovey 4-minute long "I love you!" "I love you more!". It's Raoul talking Christine down from attempting suicide by jumping off the rooftop.

During the previous number, Christine grows more and more distressed, especially after hearing the Pahntom's "Christine", and she ends up at the very edge of the roof, clearly debating if it'd be better to jump. Why? you might be wondering. My theory is a mix of her getting depressed after her father's death and now having that final connection to her father severed, plus feeling responsible for Buquet's death. I did come out of this musical thinking that, the way it is in this production, the Phantom works excellently as a physical representation of Christine's depression. More about that later.

Raoul notices what's going on and backs off a little, giving Christine space. He sits on the edge of the roof, still giving her space but within arm's reach. Meanwhile, Christine has barely moved. She's standing on the edge, her shoulders hunched, hugging herself spasmodically, her hands white, her face turned down looking at her feet, or maybe at the pavement many, many floors below.

And Raoul starts the song, but now it hits differently. This time he's telling a girl feeling alone, depressed and suicidal that he'll be there for her, that he'll do what he can to make her feel safe, that he'll turn away the darkness. Not just the Phantom's darkness, but depression, too. He's seeing her at her lowest and saying "I still care for you, I still love you". Especially since at this point Raoul isn't really sold on the whole "the Phantom of the opera is real" thing, so from his point of view the real issue is Christine's depression, not a magical man in a cape.

And this gets through to Christine, and slowly, timidly, she starts to answer. "Turn my head with talk of summertime", she asks. Show me that there is a future filled with light instead of darkness for me, that I can get better, that I can live without this fear. Tell me that your promises are true, tell me that you'll stay at my side even when things get difficult and ugly, like now.

Yeah, it really got to me. This song is when I forgave this production (almost) everything.

When Christine starts singing, she's still completely still. She really looks like a statue, it's impressive the amount of anguish and desperation she projects by just being so still as if rooted in place, closed off to the world. Then, she slooowly starts to break her pose, first by looking at Raoul, who extends her a hand and... after a few seconds, she takes it and goes to sit beside him. She gets more animated as the song progresses, they hug, then the big kiss at the end.

I just realized as I was writing, this scene parallels Christine giving the Phantom his mask back, even the positions of the one offering help (Christine/Raoul) are the same as the one who has to accept it (the Phantom/Christine). It might be a coincidence, but I hope not because it would be beautiful. Where the Phantom rejects Christine's hand and help at first and accepts only to get up, close off completely and be separated from Christine, here Christine is much happier to receive help and this then leads to her and Raoul getting closer both physically and emotionally.

So everything's well, they lived happily ever after, etc., right? Right?

ALL I ASK OF YOU (REPRISE)

Ah, yes, the Phantom's turn to break our hearts.

The rooftop raises, revealing that just below where Christine and Raoul had their loving moment there's the chandelier... and the Phantom upon it. As he's singing he gets down from it, stumbles among the rooftop beams, and finally collapses on the floor holding his head in his hands when Christine and Raoul's happy voices echo in the distance. It's a very nice Phantom's breakdown, very vulnerable despite him having just killed a person. It really makes you feel sorry for him despite the situation (of his own making) he's in.

He then gets back to the chandelier, the roof rises again and the chandelier with it, the chandelier catches fire (well, not actual fire, it's a nice red smoke effect), the lightning changes to a nightmarish red, and you suddenly realize that there are red LEDs all around the stage's frame that are lighting up and making everything even more oppressive and quite infernal. The Phantom saws away at the chandelier's rope, until it comes crashing down.

Yes, the crash is less impressive than in the original. Yes, it's less clear exactly what is happening (I mean, that it's falling down on the Il Muto's bows). It's still a nice effect, the chandelier swings down towards the orchestra while the lights go on and off. If you've never seen the original, I think it can still make an impression.

I also think that this is less of a focal point for this production. For me, at least, AIAOY stole the show and in general, the emotional twists and developments were the real star of the show. It feels more like the chandelier's crash is there because it has to be, both for plot and marketing reasons.

Overall, the first act started a bit rocky, the two "big" songs have some major issues that need to be addressed, but once they got the characters going it picked up steam quickly. At intermission I was already feeling I got my ticket's worth back, to be honest.

I am working on part two, which covers the second act, the actors' performances, and some general/final thoughts. It'll be longer than this one, so I'll need at least a couple more days to finish it.

#poto italy #phantom of the opera #cw: suicide #cw: depression #long post #ramin karimloo #amelia milo #bradley jaden #anna corvino #phantom of the opera italy

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systemrestart · 7 months

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Took me a while, but I've finally finished writing my thoughts on all 22 Touhou games I've played!!!

I tried to keep it brief but uhhhhhhh it ended up being insanely long anyways ;; Whoops. Maybe someday I'll be able to make full-on video reviews for each of them, there was a Lot I glazed over and a lot that's hard to describe without footage.

But regardless, here it is, my thoughts on Touhou 1-19, plus 9.5, 12.5, and 18.5! (Warning that this may be incomprehensible to a non-bullet hell player 😅)

[TOUHOU 1: HIGHLY RESPONSIVE TO PRAYERS]

The obvious black sheep of the family, HRtP isn't a bullet hell shooter, it's an arkanoid-style breakout game. But even so, I LOVE it. HRtP is very precious to me. It's definitely Hard, VERY hard, and the stage layouts can be a little unfair in places lol, but the controls are tight and responsive, and it's incredibly satisfying to improve.

Or even just to play purely for fun! For a decade, I honestly didn't expect to ever 1cc it, I just enjoyed playing casually, and HRtP is very friendly to that approach, with infinite continues, the ability to max out your starting lives, and a shorter time to complete than the other games. It's almost 30 years old now, but if you like breakout style games or old arcade, I still think it's worth a try! Maybe someone else out there will come to love it as much as I do

[TOUHOU 2: STORY OF EASTERN WONDERLAND]

Touhou's first proper shmup/bullet hell, and it is unquestionably the roughest in the series ;; That's not to say it's bad, just that it's aged a little poorly.

I try not to hold future QoL stuff against the older games, but man, not having a focus option, or health bars for the bosses, is Painful. This game also has some of the worst visibility issues in the series (like, bullets being the same color as the background, with no outline), and also an awful glitch that hurts gameplay (dying SHIFTS YOUR HITBOX. considering that knowing where your hitbox is is VITAL to survival……. yikes), so yeah, I understand why it's not fondly remembered.

But it has its charms!! There's the infamous (gay) conversation in Stage 2, this is the only game in which Genji (Reimu's pet turtle who helps her fly in the PC-98 games) speaks, I think the low cap on lives+easy score 1-ups is an interesting combo, AND this game introduced Marisa!!! Even if her design is very different now

I don't play this one much. If I were to rank all the games this one would probably be second lowest. But it's an okay time and you can still get some tense battles!!

[TOUHOU 3: PHANTASMAGORIA OF DIMENSIONAL DREAM]

The first VS shooter of the series!

Basically the idea is that you clear waves of enemies to both send bullets/attacks at your enemy, and charge your gauge to send even more powerful attacks, or even a boss. First to lose all their health loses the round.

The VS shooters are very chaotic, and the enemy AI can absolutely be unfair ;; But the high energy back-and-forth of a match is extremely thrilling!! I also really adore the final boss of this game, Yumemi Okazaki……. a human college professor from the real world, who came to Gensokyo to try and capture someone to prove magic is real to her school…… and she fights with, science? I find her super charming and fun, one of my favorite final boss characters

Now that I've played other VS shooters, including the game that apparently inspired this one, I can say that PoDD is very rudimentary. But sometimes you don't need a lot of fancy bells and whistles to have fun! Now if only it didn't require button mashing, I would play it more often……..

[TOUHOU 4: LOTUS LAND STORY]

LLS was my favorite Touhou game for a long, long, long time.

A big reason it was a favorite is because it's one of the most beginner friendly games by far. No cap on lives (plus 1-ups are granted by score, one of the easier systems), a free bomb after every stage, you can increase your starting lives significantly, there's a "slowmode" option to help you train, most of the patterns are either exploitable or designed around having no visible hitbox…… etc. It was first game I beat on Hard, way back when I was a teenager and could normally only play Easy mode. That's still a precious memory.

LLS also has one of the best overall soundtracks in the entire series. The fun, dream-like Lotus Love, into the tense and foreboding Sleeping Terror, into the calm anticipation of Dream Land, into an explosive heartpounding finale with Faint Dream ~ Inanimate Dream………. absolutely killer.

LLS has aged a little, it doesn't have much of the "flashy", colorful danmaku Touhou is known for. And despite being GENERALLY pretty easy there are a couple insanely difficult patterns that aren't balanced well. Aside from that, it's a little Too easy for me now (at least on Hard and below), but, I still play it regularly just for fun, and will always have a very special place in my heart for it.

(plus, side note, LLS was the introduction of the Stage 4 gimmick, where something is unique about the 4th Stage, boss, or both. I love Stage 4 gimmicks and miss them dearly in the newer games,,)

[TOUHOU 5: MYSTIC SQUARE]

God I love MS. I love MS so much. Probably my second favorite in the series at time of writing.

MS truly is the Greatest Hits of the PC-98 era. Mima and Yuuka come back as playable characters, the danmaku patterns are fun and unique (so much so that ZUN reused a few of them in future games!!!), it has most of the QoL features LLS had besides the free bombs, it introduced one of my favorite characters (Alice), and this is one of the few games where I actually find the faster characters easier/more fun to play as!! Both due to the bullet patterns themselves and because the 1-up system (point item collection) is especially suited for fast characters.

MS is much harder than LLS, but a lot easier than some of the later Touhou games, so it's a great middle ground in terms of difficulty. I only have 2 major critisicms; 1) while the 1-up system and patterns make fast characters more rewarding, there isn't good balance for the other options, so if you wanna play Yuuka you're kind of screwed. And 2) Stage 4. I actually love the Stage 4 gimmick (dual boss that's followed by a solo fight after you take one of them down), but Lord. Stage 4 has two awful glitches that can happen to you, and bullets that are the exact same color as the background. ZUN why

Besides that though, I think MS just naturally caters to my preferred playstyle (chaotically weaving and dancing through bullet spam), so it's a top tier entry for me :)

[TOUHOU 6: EMBODIMENT OF SCARLET DEVIL]

If MS isn't my 2nd favorite in the series, this one is.

I will say this. EoSD has Aged. Imo, it's aged more than MS has. Being ZUN's first Windows game it's a little rough around the edges; muddy graphics, rough soundfonts, heavier reliance on RNG and bullet spam over intricate patterns, and it's missing certain QoL features that it Feels like it should have (like, the PC-98 games were missing stuff, but those games felt like they were built around the limitations, EoSD has a lot of areas where it FEELS like it was designed with future QoL in mind, but it's just….. missing). It also sucks that EoSD is one of only 2 games that locks you out of the final stage if you play on Easy (LLS is the other one),,

But. EoSD is still beloved for a reason. One of the most solid soundtracks in the series, a fun Stage 4 gimmick (different spellcards for different shot types), score-based 1-up system, the introduction of the Point of Collection line, some Iconic boss battles, etc. AND, one of those weaknesses is actually kind of a Strength for me, because again, my preferred play style is well suited to bullet spam!! Stages 5 and 6 are SO fun for me, even though they're commonly cited as things people DISLIKE about EoSD.

EoSD is definitely unpolished, but it's still one of my top favorites, both for its general strengths and for how it caters well to me personally lol.

[TOUHOU 7: PERFECT CHERRY BLOSSOM]

PCB is my current favorite!!

Of all Touhou games, I feel PCB strikes a perfect balance between being accessible, but also still having challenges for those that want it. The patterns are really a step up from EoSD; with the introduction of a visible hitbox, ZUN could make them both more dense and more complex/unique, but they're designed to still be easily understandable. Other QoL features were added that also help a lot (like the enemy tracker, spellcard indicators on the healthbar, success/fail counters, you can save practice mode replays, etc). There's also good variety in the playable characters, each has their own advantages and disadvantages, and one of the best shot types in the entire series is here (SakuyaA lol).

I feel like just saying that doesn't express my love though, there's truly nothing like weaving through a dense maze of beautiful bullets, and PCB is one of THE best for that feeling. I also love this game's 'special feature'; the cherry borders. Not only are they fantastic for survival and training (the border acting as a shield allows you to try new things and take risks where you otherwise wouldn't/couldn't), you can also utilize them in various way; break them on purpose at optimal points to maximize score, keep them as long as possible to milk graze points, use them to clear difficult patterns and stage sections……. it's just a great system that adds depth without overwhelming the player!!

And of course, I must mention something unique to this game; the Phantasm stage! PCB is the only game that has this. It's basically just a 'hard mode' version of the Extra stage, but, the patterns are both exciting to face and gorgeous to look at, the boss herself is genuinely Iconic, and her theme may be even more so.

PCB is pretty much the full package, and is also my recommendation to new players starting out, 100%.

[TOUHOU 8: IMPERISHABLE NIGHT]

This is the last of Touhou's "holy trio", so to speak, alongside EoSD and PCB. There's not much I can point to that's "wrong" with it, or "worse" than the other two, but idk, I don't feel as positively towards IN. I do still really enjoy it though!

There's a lot of great things about IN; the introduction of Spell Practice, there's two different final stages/bosses, the really cool concept for the playable characters/shot-types (character fight in teams, and once you beat both Finals with all teams you can play as each character individually, for a total of 12(!!!) shot-types), the Stage 4 gimmick is a callback to LLS (you fight Reimu or Marisa depending on your character!!), and of course there's some great bullet patterns in there (Keine and Marisa are standouts to me).

There's a LOT of content, more than most Touhou games, which is great!! But there's definitely some aspects that don't feel well polished, which brings it down a bit. The 'special feature' of this game, the Youkai gauge, is not only insanely confusing and complicated, and it's also not fun OR worthwhile to engage with,,, Maybe if I was a hardcore scorer I'd find some value in it, but…… eh. At least it's not obtrusive or anything. Then there's the solo shot-types….. while it's cool they're there, I don't know if ZUN playtested the solo Humans ;; They are very clearly not designed with solo play in mind and if you like to clear ALL shot-types like I do, this can make it an arduous experience to get through all 12

I think it's mostly these things, plus me feeling kind of neutral on the soundtrack and cast, that make IN not stand out, despite all the content. Still a great game, I play it a lot, just not as often as some other entries.

[TOUHOU 9: PHANTASMAGORIA OF FLOWER VIEW]

The 2nd VS shooter in the series!

Mostly the same exciting, chaotic gameplay as the first one PoDD, though with a few key difference. You can now use Focus, which also ties into a new mechanic, the 'scope', which allows you to freeze falling spirits (helps with setting up combos and crowd control) when they touch it. And, using your spell/special attack gauge causes a 'wave' to ripple out and clear bullets around you. I think overall these are excellent addition and that add fun strategy to gameplay.

However, I'm not great at keeping track of combos or purposefully placing spirits during the constant barrage of bullets,,, And some of the character's scopes are……. not fun to utilize. There's also the same problem I had with PoDD, how rapidly pressing the shoot button hurts my hand over time, and while PoFV actually has an alternate control scheme, that alternative FORCES you into focus mode as you shoot. I want to be able to not think super hard about when and where I shoot, so I can focus on dodging, but this just makes the problem Worse because it hampers my movement ;;

I do like the bullet clearing wave though! Plus, this game introduced one of my favorite characters, Aya, AND brought back Yuuka from the PC-98 era!! It's not a bad game and I've had fun with it. I'm just not crazy about the Touhou VS shooters overall. If I wanna play a VS shooter I'd rather pick something like Twinkle Star Sprites.

[TOUHOU 9.5: SHOOT THE BULLET]

This is the first of the 'photo' games, and I have a soft spot for this one. It can be extremely rewarding to clear a difficult scene, and the whole photography thing is a SUPER interesting take on bullet hell. The one thing that sucks is that there's little incentive to go back to scenes once you've managed to clear them. But I guess that's not the point, it's to slowly conquer the challenges each level throws at you and clear as many as you can.

Very solid game, something you can chip away at over time, if you like bullet hell and like interesting challenges give it a try!!

[TOUHOU 10: MOUTAIN OF FAITH]

MoF is the start of a new era. It's pretty stripped back in terms of gameplay because ZUN wanted to focus on making a basic, polished shmup, and he certainly achieved that. The new engine feel smooth as butter, the graphics and sound are crisp, and the bullet patterns and stages are solid. Some of the core gameplay mechanics have been changed though, and it's a little mixed.

For instance, the bombs have been changed in 2 key ways; there are no longer unique bombs for each shot-type, and using a bomb costs you some of your Power instead of an item. Not having unique bombs takes away an element in picking your shot-type, but I don't mind the bomb itself since it's both effective and powerful. Losing Power can be frustrating, and you can end up in a horrible loop if you lose too much at once, but, MOST of the time I find MoF is very generous with Power, and that combined with not being restricted to bomb items can actually be a really sweet deal.

Most of the other changes are similarly mixed, but ultimately I think they work well together! There's only 1 thing I have major critism of, and that's the removal of practice and accessibility features. There's no more extra starting lives from here on out, which I understand, but it does make me sad, as extra lives allows new players to see more of the game (and allows old players to relax on just-for-fun runs). He also removed Spell Practice, which sucks :( But, by far the most egregious change, is that using a continue starts you over from the beginning of a stage….. and just seeing a stage is NOT enough to unlock it in Practice Mode. This is a HUGE hit to the game's accessibility for new or unskilled players, not even allowing them to practice the stage they're stuck on, or prepare for anything beyond it. If you die on a stage so much you have to continue, what the hell made ZUN think starting the whole stage over with almost no lives would help??

Thankfully, I don't need that accessibility much anymore, and there IS a fanmade practice patch out there. MoF is definitely among my top favorite games of the series, it's just a great basic shmup and great start to the new era. Also shoutout to my favorite final boss theme, Venerable Ancient Battlefield ~ Suwa Foughten Field. Loved it so much as a kid that I would mod it into other games LMAO

[TOUHOU 11: SUBTERRANEAN ANIMISM]

SA is considered the 2nd hardest game in the series, and there is good reason for that. Beyond the patterns and stages just generally being pretty difficult, the lives, bombs, and continues system are very punishing in this entry.

The continue system is exactly the same as MoF, which is to say, brutal and unforgiving. Bombs are also tied to power like in MoF, but unlike MoF, Power only goes up to 4.00 instead of 5.00 (with MarisaA as an exception) meaning less bombs overall and leading to the same issues there were in MoF. And, you don't earn full lives, you need 5 life pieces to gain a full extra life, and the one and ONLY way to earn life pieces? Is through clearing boss attacks without bombing or getting hit. There is not even a SINGLE free live in the entire game, you must earn every single one with flawless performance.

This leads to a scenrio where, high skilled players are rewarded with lives they don't need, and less experienced players are basically walled from even practicing. All this, combined with two other factors (some of the weirdest/most difficult to utilize shot-types in the series, and the fact that the actual bombs either suck ass or are also difficult to utilize well), makes SA one of the most "unfriendly" games in all of Touhou project. If not THE most unfriendly.

I have a lot of criticisms of this, and even now I can't say I feel "comfortable" playing through SA. But, (most of) the unique shot-types CAN be rewarding, once you learn how to wield them, and this game has some of the most exciting and challenging bosses. So many fun spellcards……… Satori and Okuu are standouts. Satori's gimmick is also really cool, where her spellcards change based off your shot-type, nearly all of them being alternate version of past spellcards in the series. And of course, this game's cast is absolutely iconic, pairing well with one of the best overall soundtracks in the entire series.

SA is one of those games where I have a lot of fun with it and think it's stellar in terms of music, cast, and bullet patterns, but certain systems and mechanics prevent me from recommending it whole-heartedly to others. There's just a lot of frustrations with it. But it's still fairly high up in my rankings, and there's some value to having a game focused on Skill and skill alone, rather than other gimmicks or resources management or whatnot.

[TOUHOU 12: UNDEFINED FANTASTIC OBJECT]

UFO was the first Touhou game I got to see the release for. It's one of my happiest memories, so my feelings towards UFO may be very biased. Just a warning lol

UFO's "gimmick", the UFOs, is how you engage with basically any other system in the game; you MUST engage with the UFOs if you're going for anything other than a NMNB clear. And ho boy is the UFO system contentious. Not without reason, either. Mid-Bosses and Bosses destroy summoned UFOs which is frustrating, it's super easy to make a mistake with gathering the small UFOs and ruin your combo, if there's small UFOs you don't want on screen they basically act as bouncing projectiles you need to dodge ON TOP of the actual bullets……. etc.

However, while I share a few of those frustrations (damn UFO destroying bosses…..), I find the UFO system to lead to a good combination of routing and room for improvisation. You can memorize when and where certain colored UFOs will drop and plan ahead for them, and if you miss what you need or make a mistake you can still think on the fly and re-route mid playthrough. It's also fun that you can specialize your routing and gameplay towards a specific goal, like stocking tons of bombs to skip difficult stage sections/spellcards, or optimzing for score, or stockpiling lives.

The overall difficulty of the stages and patterns is decently high in UFO (this game is often ranked 3rd hardest in the series), but it can be somewhat mitigated with good planning and resource management. And I personally find a lot of these stages and bosses a Blast to play! Helped again by, of course, having one of the best overall sountracks in the series…. imo at least. The UFO cast is also my personal favorite, AND they get some of ZUN's cutest sprites/artwork :)

The only other real criticism I have is that it shares it's Continue system with MoF and SA. Thank god this is the last game that forces you backwards for continuing ;;;;

While the UFO system has it's downsides, UFO is just a really fantastic entry into the series and a personal favorite of mine. We'll see how I feel once I start tackling the higher difficulties seriously though…… lol.

[TOUHOU 12.5: DOUBLE SPOILER]

Basically the sequel to Shoot the Bullet. There is very little difference, just a new set of characters and cards to face. I personally find this one a LOT harder than StB, and I don't enjoy it quite as much, but it's still a solid game I recommend it to anyone who enjoyed StB.

(EDIT TO ADD: Sometime after I wrote this part, I found an old blog entry from when I was 13, and apparently ZUN explicitly stated DS was meant to be much harder than StB. So, there ya go?)

[TOUHOU 13: TEN DESIRES]

The key phrase for this game overall, imo, is RESOURCE STRANGLEHOLD.

TD is far and beyond the most punishing game in the series, both in terms of resources and the Spirit Gauge/Trance mechanic. The requirement for the amount of pink spirits you need in order to earn an extra Life is brutal right from the start, at 8, and every time you earn a new life this requirement goes up. This doesn't reset when you die, or even when you CONTINUE. That would be brutal enough, but even with OPTIMAL PERFORMANCE, literally no mistakes and perfect utilization of Trance, you earn less lives in this game than in any other. Speaking of pulling of a perfect performance, good fucking luck, because the spirits you need to gather stay right where you killed the enemy, disappearing Quickly, so you have to either have your Trance meter full and ready, or you need to risk your precious few lives to dash up to the top of the screen, in the middle of an absolute clusterfuck of bullets, just for a FRACTION of an extra life.

And of course, there's the real kicker; getting hit causes your entire Trance meter to be used up, and it takes a quite a bit to refill it, especially because again, spirits Do Not Fall the way items do, you have to seriously risk your life for them.

Basically, TD is a very, VERY routing-heavy game, and if you make even ONE mistake it can cause your entire playthrough to unravel. It's super frustrating. There are only 2 saving graces here….. 1) you at least get to keep any extra bombs you had in stock after you die, and 2) TD has some of the easiest boss fights in Touhou. I actually find the spellcards super fun, so by sort of-kind of routing the stages and doing well against the bosses, I was able to find some joy in TD. But that is obviously in spite of the mechanics, not because of them ;;

I will say, though, that it's interesting to have a game designed to make you "boss graze", ie stay dangerously close to the boss and move around them to catch spirits. Interesting concept and it helps train you on a high-level skill.

TD was my least favorite Touhou game for a long, long time. I've softened on it a bit, fun bullet patterns are fun no matter what, but goddamn. This one's ROUGH. And sadly, the OST is pretty middling for me, though it DOES have a few standouts (Desire Drive, Youkai Shrine Back Road, Small Desire's Starry Night Sky)!!

[TOUHOU 14: DOUBLE DEALING CHARACTER]

Ah. DDC. My nemesis.

I actually don't mind this game's special mechanic; using the point of collection line to earn life and bomb pieces. I actually think it's fun and rewarding, though that could just be because I already go to the PoC line as much as possible anyways lol. No, my problem is not with the mechanic, or the life and bomb pieces. This game commits the most fatal of all sins in bullet hell; the bullet patterns are Not Fun.

So many of the patterns in the this game have 'gimmicky' movements, sometimes bordering on Random, and this is often used in combination with one of my greatest weaknesses, bullets coming at you from both above and below, at the same time. This makes them an absolute nightmare to read. There's also a ton of a bullets that are either oddly shaped with confusing hitboxes, or made huge which also makes their hitboxes confusing. And unfortunately, the stages and bosses that don't suffer from this generally have pretty bland forgettable patterns. I can't think of a single attack in DDC I would describe as "fun", and that's unheard of in the rest of the series.

Worse yet, the shot-types themselves……. half of them are 'gimmicky', kind of like SA shot-types were, but the SA shot-types had special extra mechanics that could be mastered and were rewarding to utilize, if uncomfortable to get used to. These shot-types are just plain Uncomfortable, or are underwhleming ;; MarisaB has a bomb that makes it possible to milk life and bomb pieces like crazy and basically cheese the whole game, but that's not fun either :( I wanna be able to PLAY the game and enjoy it…… but I can't.

And the final nail in the coffin…… DDC also happens to have my least favorite soundtrack and, imo, a very bland and unmemorable cast. I feel so sad saying that because I think there's some unique youkai here, but MOST OF their designs don't stick out/are pretty plain, and they feel very disconnected from Gensokyo at large. Maybe if I saw them in print materials I'd feel different, but as it stands…… :/

I want to say some nice things though, so here's what I've got. Wakasagihime has a great design (it's just…. y'know, she's a Stage 1 boss, so there's not much of her. Super sad considering I desperately wanted a mermaid Youkai). Raiko also has a cool design, AND she has the best theme in the game. Uhh…… the PoC line mechanic giving you an extra life piece instead of a bomb if you collect enough point items is a good feature that rewards smart planning and risk management. The Stage 2 boss has lasers you can avoid by staying completely still which is hilarious.

I…. think that's it. Let me say for the record, I'm open to changing my mind!! I softened on TD as I got better, found things I could enjoy in it despite my issues, so that could happen someday with DDC. It's just right now, nearly everything about DDC bounces me right off it, so it's the only Touhou I genuinely don't enjoy playing,, Hopefully someday that will change……

[TOUHOU 15: LEGACY OF LUNATIC KINGDOM]

LoLK is a bit of an odd ball, for sure. While you can play it like a regular Touhou game (using "Legacy" mode), the main mode of LoLK is "PointDevice", which plays very differently. It's focused on "perfection", and very precise movement and dodging, making you retry to same sections and attacks over and over again til you do them right.

You also earn Life pieces (Legacy) and Bomb pieces (PointDevice) via grazing, which requires you to risk your life getting super close to the bullets. All that, in combination with very dense and overwhleming bullet patterns, makes LoLK the hardest Touhou game by a long shot. Especially in Legacy mode, where you can't just retry over and over.

I honestly don't care for PointDevice much, especially because if there's a section/attack you CANNOT pass no matter how hard you try, and you've already used all your bombs, you're kind of fucked and Have to restart the entire thing ;; But, I still find Legacy mode fun, and as someone who loves to graze when I can, being rewarded for it feels good, AND allows for some really creative and interesting patterns/routing. On the higher difficulties, there's way more bullets to milk for graze, too. On one hand it's a little frustrating that it's HARDER to earn resources on Easy and Normal, but on the other hand you can argue that the extra resources help balance the insane pattern difficulty of Hard and Lunatic.

I'm not good enough to beat LoLK on Normal yet (it's the last one left for me), but I still think it's a pretty solid game overall, and I like to replay certain stages (2, 3, 5, and 6) on Easy just for fun.

[TOUHOU 16: HIDDEN STAR IN FOUR SEASONS]

Wasn't a huge fan of this one at first, but I've warmed up to it! Mostly

While this is not the first game with bullet erasers, it is the first to feature them so prominently, aside from maybe PoFV. It comes in the form of the Release system, which basically allows you to massively power down your shot type in exchange for clearing bullets (how much you power down and how many bullets are erased/for how long depends on your sub weapon choice). I think the way it can be utilized both for survival and for scoring is pretty cool. It can also be really broken if you know exactly where to use them, adding another element to routing and memorization. But it can also be handy during my casual play…… if you remember it exists. lol. I admit that I struggle to use any C key function properly ;; But that's a personal issue

The shot types are definitely interesting in this game. Instead of the standard fare, you pick a character (who always has the same shot) and then pick a "sub weapon" based on one of the other character's shots (or you can pick your own to make it stronger). This results in there being a whopping SIXTEEN COMBINATIONS, each with slightly varying properties. Lord. While I think I prefer having a smaller pool of unique and optimized shot types, this is a neat concept, if a bit overwhelming if you're like me and want to clear EVERY combination ;; But still, it allows you to sort of customize to what you're most comfortable with, or what will help you the most (for example, the Cirno/Summer sub weapon gives you short releases you can use repeatedly, but the weapon itself sucks ass as a tradeoff. So pairing it with a faster/more powerful character balances things a bit!), which is pretty cool.

My major complaints about this game are the 2 difficulty spikes; the Stage 5 bosses, and Okina's final spellcard(s). The Stage 5 bosses use the dreaded "random and erratic" bullet behaviour I hated so much in DDC, though thankfully only for SOME attacks. They're still a big spike compared to the rest of the game, even compared to Okina's fight……. until the end. Okina's final cards are super cool in concept, stripping you of your sub weapon and forcing you to just Dodge Or Die…….. but in practice it is PAINFUL, especially since it's the last obstacle before victory. She even has a bomb shield………. wtf. Brutal. All 4 variants are bad, but the Summer version is by far the worst, in my opinion one of the hardest final spellcards in the entire series.

There's also the extra stage, which is mostly spent dodging stuff coming from behind you (my nightmare), but that's more of a skill issue on my part ;; Overall, while the cast is very disconnected and don't leave a strong impression, the music is pretty damn good, the stages are fun, and the mechanics are interesting, even if they're a bit shakey and abusable. Not a top favorite but I like HSiFS :)

[TOUHOU 17: WILY BEAST AND WEAKEST CREATURE]

This game has a similar special mechanic to UFO, but I think it's a little better implemented here.

There are no "shot types" as it were; your choices are whether to power up your unfocused attacks, your focused attacks, or your bombs. This kinda makes it hard to have a preference, as each attack is better at different points in the game, so it's really up to you what's more important. I kind of like this, even though I still prefer variety, it means I can use other characters more freely.

I also like this version of the 'collect stuff on screen' mechanic, there's more leeway for mistakes (you can still activate "Roaring/Hyper" mode without having a perfect collection of matching spirits) AND the benefits are better (it protects you from hits while active, just like the cherry borders in PCB!! and you get either a massive boost to damage or a bullet eraser)! Like with UFO though, there is risk with chasing the Spirits all over the field, and it can lead to some frustrating deaths and distractions. But that's just part of what you have to manage, I think it's a fun system overall :)

What is Not Fun is an issue that actually started back in TD, but I haven't mentioned it yet, because WBaWC has it the Absolute Worst; VISIBILITY ISSUES. Your own shot, ESPECIALLY in Roaring/Hyper mode, can become so dense and flashy that it is near impossible to read the bullet patterns. Or see the bullets At All. Which is, yknow, a problem in a bullet hell game. On top of that, the whole game is tinted red, and full of red bullets, which is sick as hell on paper, but in practice makes a huge portion of the game become slurry to the eyes. And the Enemy tracker, which had its text removed back in TD, is more a problem in this game than in any other because the color of the tracker matches the color of the window border, so you may as well not even have it.

There's also a major problem in the Stage 5 boss (and in one final boss spellcard), with the stupid statues that are summoned……. I already don't like these kinds of "familiars", they''re always a pain no matter what, but WBaWC takes it to another level, as they soak up so much damage that very few of the shot types can kill them before you get body slammed or completely overwhelmed.

WBaWC is really fun and cool and has some great music and designs, but it feels…… almost like ZUN didn't fully playtest it before release. An issue that is going to persist into the final entries………. but it's still enjoyable overall, at least.

[TOUHOU 18: UNCONNECTED MARKETEERS]

I have a lot of fondness for it, but MAN is this game unbalanced lol

There's the obvious, which is the card system. I think the card system is a cool idea and can be fun to play around with, it's exciting when you get exactly the card you wanted, but there are certain cards/combinations that can kind of break the game, and it can be BRUTAL if you get nothing but trash cards on your run, and there are a Lot of 'trash cards'. And once you figure out your favorite card combo it's likely you'll never mess with anything else. Not strictly a bad thing, just a thing.

But then there's the real kicker…… Marisa. People are 100% right when they say this game is "anti-Marisa". I've tried not to mention the shot types I dislike (like most Youmu and Sakuyas), because that's a very personal/skill based issue, but here, the way this game is designed feels actively Hostile towards Marisa. It's hard to describe, but both bosses and stages are set up to have you fly all over the screen, or move off the sides a lot, and her range is EXTREMELY narrow………. AND both the shots and her bombs have been massively nerfed??? She's no longer the most powerful character, so there isn't even a trade off for picking the harder option. Seriously why the hell did ZUN nerf her AND make almost the entire game hostile to straight-forward shots?????

Well, whatever the reason, it makes her PAINFUL to play as. But, if you play as one of the fun shot types……. this game is pretty fun!! The first half a Little plain with it's boss patterns but the second half is a blast!!! If MAYBE a bit unfair (Megumu…….) ;; And the OST is fantastic all the way through. Plus, I just love the characters that were introduced, especially the 'masterminds', Megumu, Tsukasa, and Chimata. Very fun additions to the world of Gensokyo, I really hope we get to learn more about Megumu as the Crow Tengu chief.

If you're looking consistent play, look elsewhere, but for a fun time with light luck based elements this is a great game (if you don't play Marisa. Or Sakuya. lol)

[TOUHOU 18.5: 100TH BLACK MARKET]

Now this is an unique one! You go through stages that are split into semi-randomized sections, and along the way you gather money to buy cards. Bullet money buys cards during a run, and regular money lets you buy cards out of a shop so you can equip them from the start. So it's like….. a rouge-like shooter? Kinda?

I personally had fun with this. It's a little simple, and it can get repetitive, but it was nice because if I didn't have much time but wanted to mess around with bullet hell, I could boot this up and play a couple rounds to gather money for cards!!

Once you buy all the cards and earn all the achievements there's no reason to ever come back, which is sad, but idk, I had a good time milking bullets for money and slowly filling my collections. It shares some of the randomness issues with UM and is a little half-baked but I would still recommend giving it a shot, especially because it gives Marisa her time to shine after getting shafted in UM!

[TOUHOU 19: UNFINISHED DREAM OF ALL LIVING GHOSTS]

The final one so far!! I'll be honest, I've beaten it 21 times now I STILL don't understand how most of the mechanics work. Things just Happen and I either dodge or die. But what I can speak on is the downright bizarre balancing issues and the plethora of missing features.

The difficulty and balancing is wack. The vast majority of the characters feel underpowered already, and to top that off, only a small number of characters have bullet-clearing abilities, which is an absolutely MASSIVE advantage in this game, meaning that some characters are just objectively better than others. The story routes each character takes can also vary wildly in difficulty, making some paths a breeze and others nearly impossible even for the best players in the world.

But the most concerning thing for me is the missing features. No score? No "clear" achievement or signifier for different difficulty levels?? NO REPLAYS????? I can deal with the lack of score since I'm not a score player (yet), but having no indication or reward for 1ccing, and having no way to save or share your run without recording every single play session………. god. Idk, maybe it's silly, but that stuff is VERY important to me :( I'm still so sad about it, and it makes anything you achieve in the game feel….. hallow.

That being said, it's not all bad!! I love the new characters and their designs, there's some really interesting experimentation going on in the OST, I think the 'shield' mechanic adds a fun layer to gameplay (trying to make sure you're ready to restore the shield if it breaks while also trying to send over attacks and dodge)…… and I mean, dodging bullets is dodging bullets, so it's gonna be fun at least some of the time!!

Honestly, I just wish ZUN has balanced it more carefully, gave other characters more power or bullet-erasers, had more people play test it………. and of course, I wish it had replays and a way to track 1cc's :(((

And that's it! If you read any of that, thank you, I know it was long ;;;;; But I had fun, I'm glad I got to talk a lot about my favorite game series :^)

#ask #varjojentuomio #remi plays touhou #idk if i wanna put this absolute behemoth in the actual touhou tag LOL #also if theres any weird grammar/spelling....... IM SORRY I TRIED MY BEST

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