#WHAT A SERIES

[van-del]

The rank wars are so genius, both team and solo. They take advantage of people’s competitiveness and drive skill sets higher and higher. Then there’s the commentating. In-story it’s just fantastic, with the logs it’s a learning opportunity for all agent ranks. On a meta level, having a standard set of Border triggers made this much easier.

Someone mentioned it on Twitter: Tamakoma’s unique triggers + the A-rankers customized ones (eg Kitora’s spider gun) shows that the mangaka did think of unique weaponry but there’s a canonical limitation on it. imo it gives a broader base for creativity, strategies and characterization.

Thinking up unique weapons for everyone would’ve caused a wall but the stratification of skill lessens that likelihood. The better you are the more you are thinking of winning, of learning from others, of the structures of the weapons, their limitations, their their trion usage, the edge you can get from bringing your own self into its functions.

The black kogetsu, mantis, pinball, Kitazoe’s meteors Ikoma whirlwind, everything Yuma does with Scorpion, the fact Jin invented Scorpion in the first place all of it is because of the rank wars and all of it is useful for fighting neighbors.

It’s genius on all levels

(Btw trion usage =/= limitation. Ikoma whirlwind comes from Ikoma’s upbringing. No one else being able to do it isn’t because of trion.)

[littlejessamckenzie]

never thought when i started watching downfall that the tragedy wouldn't be the city of thousands of people being destroyed, but the fact that the gods couldn't get their family back together and realized they would have to leave the creation they loved...OOF

[beedoes-stuff]

10 moments from the new jersey rats that i think about a lot (in no specific order):

everytime bing and boom argue. specifically that one time they brought up stacey and boom was like “oH yOu reAllY wAnNa tAlK abOuT stAcEy” like yea i do wanna talk abt her in explicit detail so spill‼️

when the intern made the shot BOTH. TIMES. if they have no fans i’m dead.

jean moving hair from the interns face. ahem:

jean laughing, then yelling “FUCK”, and then getting cut off

bing ordering strictly girly drinks (bc they’re better)

“yes that is a ukulele. objectively the most embarrassing instrument that anyone could ever play” *me, holding my pink ukulele covered in dinosaur stickers* alright, no need to be a bitch about it. (/jjjjj and i mean yea true but hush)

“you gotta turn up the charm” —> proceeds to do the opposite of turning up the charm

when jeans car got towed. nothing goes right in this man’s life istg.

guy apologizing to boom. very sweet moment. love it.

boom singing riptide at the end. lives were changed. (mine specifically)

[baked-hylian]

okay but what the actual fuck science saru

[orangeshipper]

Things I loved about Gemini: (it's looooong sorry)

Gelis and Nicholas. GELIS AND NICHOLAS. A whole book of them being gloriously MARRIED. More than indefinable "love" they demonstrate that they respect each other, value each other, recognise when the other needs space, they trust each other... They're such a TEAM and it's BEAUTIFUL.

Also the way they TEASE each other. Glorious.

They were in their own house, in their own room and nearly in their own bed. It had been rather precipitate. She said, ‘Gloucester agreed? You’ve got what you wanted?’

‘Not yet,’ said Nicholas crossly.

‘From Gloucester.’ She couldn’t breathe. Her anxieties fled.

‘He wouldn’t have been any good,’ Nicholas explained. ‘He doesn’t have those little –’

‘The meeting?’ she said. But she was just teasing now, and was punished for it.

Also

Below this artful translation, her husband had written: Be patient. I am not.

Also

She was good at codes, and hardly had to look up anything. It was one particular to themselves, so that she translated the last few lines first, which proved to be the only personal ones in the note, but which could hardly have been more specifically personal. She flushed, and choked to herself as she read them, because he would know very well the disturbance he was causing. She hoped he felt as frustrated himself when he wrote it.

Also that time near the end where Nicholas just wants to happily make out with his wife and the WHOLE GANG comes in, and he's like NO TOBIE THERE'S NO WINE GO AWAY (amid much other talking)

Like, their love just fits around their life and friends and it's BEAUTIFUL. (Lol except when he kept being late to things because of it. Snigger.)

JODI. I loved seeing Jodi grow up and becoming a man, so well tutored by his family and friends.

HENRY. OH HENRY. With your beauty and blond hair, but also your brown stubble and your height and your one dimple... The slow, grudging, gradual, hesitant edging towards seeing that families could have a healthy dynamic, that silliness and learning and skill and pride could be GOOD things... It broke my heart to see how damaged and messed up his whole worldview was. There was hope... He was finding common ground with Jodi...

Pause to shout out to this glorious line from Gelis in a glorious scene:

'Nicholas, if you don’t sit, I shall take Henry at his word and carry him off to the bedroom. And that will frighten him silly.’

BUT HENRY. It's a testament to DD's writing that I felt such profound sadness when he and Simon died. It was heartbreaking. How could I be so sad by the death of two characters who had been so irredeemably and consistently vile? It was beautiful and destroyed me.

Leading to another thing I loved - how grief is shown in the HoN. One of the most striking parts of the whole series was Nicholas's grief over Marian, then again his response to Henry and Simon BROKE ME.

The storm broke for Nicholas then. The black pillar of grief with its debris crashed upon him unawares, overwhelming in its ferocity; worse than the sorrow for his people at Nancy, for Godscalc or even for Umar and Marian; Felix; Zacco… reaching back beyond that, to a bottomless misery he could not remember; beating him down as he crouched. He wanted to scream. He could not keep silent. Anselm Adorne, hearing, set his lips but did not come near. Andro Wodman, forced awake, clenched his eyes to shut out the anguish.

It just touches so many characters, and that grief is allowed space to breathe and to be. I'm thinking Nicholas's raw distress in contrast to Adorne's quieter grief, the loss so deeply felt lingering from Will Rogers' death... etc.

Similarly, I loved seeing the lingering impacts of trauma following the battle at Nancy from Caprice and Rondo. They don't just get over it. Robin has life-changing injuries, which are dealt with sensitively, and he has to learn to live with them. John seems to have some kind of PTSD too, how aimless and lost he seems to find himself afterwards, how they both just need to talk about it but everyone is afraid to. They heal, but it takes TIME, and isn't just forgotten or brushed aside.

Seeing the dots appear that will connect to Lymond... RANKIN!!! (One thing I'm confused about - so, Sybilla is Jordan and Isabelle's child. I've seen the theory that Jordan's blame of Rankin for Margaret's death (HEARTBREAKING) was what led to them having to marry secretly. Really, though?? I just didn't pick up on lingering animosity from the epilogue, when the families still evidently hang out a lot? It seems like a stretch to me but I can't see any other reason.)

I have to comment also on JULIUS. THE PIG. I'd half seen a vague spoiler that he wasn't all good, and had thought him generally untrustworthy/a bit of an idiot/greedy anyway for quite a few books. So it wasn't a huge shock. I LOVED their showdown fight though. I know people herald the swordfight between Lymond/Richard in GoK as The Greatest but I have honestly preferred both this one and Lymond/Gabriel's duel at the end of DK. It was just so brutal and hard and desperate and bloody exciting to read.

Ok that's it off the top of my head. PHEW. I completed my self-set and entirely arbitrary aim of reading the full HoN series within a month, and feel a bit lost now!

Whoever said this series was a slow burn, TRULY. I only started to feel like I was beginning to understand Nicholas like... book 6 onwards. I loved that understanding dawning and developing. I ended with a big, stupid, contended grin on my face.

[stormyvoltzzz]

So... MHA ends in 5 chapters huh? I just wanna say... thank you, from the bottom of my heart Kohei Horikoshi for creating MHA. It's meant so much to a lot of people over the years, myself included. Thanks for creating memorable characters and moments that people will come to remember for years to come. I just hope MHA stands the test of time and is never forgotten. So many series end and fall into the void. I hope MHA will never meet that fate. I know I won't ever forget this series. Once a fan... always a fan... I'm sure gonna miss these characters if there is never going to be anything else ever made with them in it. God bless you Horikoshi Sensei! You are one of the real ones. Godspeed to you and your future endeavors.

[syn4k]

dude.... dude.............

[magpiefngrl]

Ilya Rozanov is a fucking masterpiece

[silver-rings-and-rabbits]

Georgie you wonderful woman!!

[arianwells]

RIGHT THERE IN THE PRISON CELL??????

[thatsolacegirl]

Okay, so Wilhelmina_Murray wrote a beautiful Tasertricks fic series called Somewhere in Time (post-Wandavision and Loki series) that every Tasertrickster must read.

This is my appreciation of her work, time and effort. She wrote such a beautiful story! Please read!

[cloudyfacewithjam]

"My beautiful new regiment is beyond air cover in one of the most inhospitable terrains in the world, with daytime temperatures reaching 50 degrees and very little in terms of armaments - no tanks, no armored cars, just a truck or two. But they are very resourceful men."

[kaisyun]

really sketchy lalo drawing

[bluedivvy]

finally finished the dark pictures anthology with the amazing and beloved @lazycoyote and mannn little hope was wild it blew my marbles as lee said

the ending was crazy i think its severely underrated imo (also angela is my little kitry meowmeo) (and all of her alters ig)

my rlly cool rankings of the little hope characters + all the supermassive games (the ones that count) i love all of them including man of medan i swear it has a great ranking its just lower than the others

[soldier--poet--queen]

Hey Everyone I Just Finished Trimax and Oh Boy Would You Believe That I'm So Completely Normal About It.