#after I complete the main storyline I’ll probably go back and add in the different routes (aka going with Tim/Brian)

[crushedsweets]

Papa, me want more movie 😡(on your own time no rush i just love this game already)

IM PAPA NOW ?!?

[felicitykings]

my bestie @holly-mckenzie tagged me to post 8 shows to get to know me. 

tagging: @justabritishmusicallover , @gothamstreetcat, @brvceselina, @apple-grass-and-smiles, @sonyarebecchi, @kaz-breker, @jennortegas, @mike-el , @gaffney, and @charlieconwayy

(please note: this is in no particular order)

stranger things (2016-) - i’ve been obsessed with this show since the start really, there’s just something about it, particularly those first two seasons, that just keeps me coming back. there’s fun characters that i enjoy watching and it has an awesome soundtrack!

gotham (2014-2019) - truthfully this was the first piece of media that really connected me to batman and that world. i’d seen movies before but i never felt connected to the character. but something about watching this kid grow up and earn the cowl, especially with all the choices he made that eventually led to him becoming batman had me rooting for him. and honestly, every single cast member on this show is so perfectly cast - particularly RLT as oswald. they’re the gold standard for me now. and i loved how everything fit together in this retelling.

primeval (2007-2011) this show has always been that show that has felt like mine, you know? i have so many fond memories of watching this growing up and it has always stuck with me without it ever being repeated on tv or having a large fanbase that regularly makes content long after the show is over. no, the show has just always stayed with me all through its own merit of having lovable characters and a really great storyline that i will always be upset was never allowed to be completed.

dark (2017-2020) - admittedly, i was super late to this party having only watched it earlier this year but WOW what a show. i think i can honestly say that this may be the best written and conceived show of all time - certainly of the shows i’ve watched. i have literally no complaints about it. the fact that most, if not all, the story seems to have been planned from the beginning is obvious with the number of twists and turns and strong character development/story arcs and it just makes it all the better when you can rewatch and spot even more each time. this show is incredible! i really can’t say enough about it and if i keep going here, i’ll never stop.

stargirl (2020-2022) - stargirl my beloved you were taken from me far too soon. i’ll be honest and say that i wasn’t expecting to love this show as much as i do when i decided to give it a shot. but it was so utterly charming with truly likeable characters - whether they’re heroes or villains - that you can genuinely enjoy watching. and it has a strangely nostalgic feel/tone despite its modern day setting that just adds to its likeability. 

rtd era! whoniverse (2005-2011) - this is probably cheating but just including doctor who in general felt wrong when it is this era (main show and spinoffs) that i cherish the most and i couldn’t include one without the others. maybe its the nostalgia idk but this was when the series felt the most grounded to me and despite its issues i still adore it as an era of this show’s history. the shows worked great side by side, targeting different audiences, with characters that felt real. in the case of the main show, you really felt that the companions were real people, with real lives who were plucked out of them to go travel with the doctor and it really dealt with the consequences of that which has been seriously lacking in recent years. for torchwood, the characters were allowed to be messy, truly truly messy and just plain human. they made mistakes, there wasn’t always some magical fix for them, they were on earth with limited resources just doing the best they can and sometimes it might not be the ‘right way’ but they still try and it’s beautiful. for sja, they’re just kids but they’re still real kids and they were never treated as less than their adult counterparts, they were given room to grow but never in a way that seemed patronising. there’s a magic in this specific era that i will love my whole life.

roswell (1999-2002) - i’ve always adored the balance that this show managed to get between the typical early 00s teen drama side and the sci-fi/fantasty elements. while in a lot of teen sci-fi fantasy shows these days focus on that rather than character dynamics/growth, this one really excelled at giving each character a compelling arc throughout the show, while developing a strong individual dynamic between every possible pairing of its main cast which is amazing compared to some of its contemporaries where there’s always characters who never interact outside the group setting. as such, you really get to see why these characters are putting themselves on the line for each other time and time again. they’re really a family and it’s shown consistently through the show (rather than characters just saying it without any development or actions to back it up) and it’s incredibly endearing.

the originals (2013-2018) - what can i say? i love this disfunctional “frankenstein family”. the show has its ups and downs but they’re all a mess and i love them. how many times can a group of people stab each other in the back? plenty and i truly love every second of it. morally grey characters / villain protagonists and such an interesting concept because there are barely any “good” guys to root for, it’s just a case of season by season, and sometimes episode by episode, deciding which ones are right this time, if any of them are.

other faves include:

pennyworth

all creatures great and small (2020-)

1899

swamp thing

the tracy beaker franchise

waterloo road (2006-2015)

sense8

get even

on my block

nowhere boys

we are lady parts

wolfblood

one of us is lying

teen wolf (specifically s1-4)

[otnesse]

Quoting @likeawinterbird since I can't even access his post, nor can I directly reblog in respnse

It’s Pokemon Best Wishes! It aired back in 2010, until 2013, and it’s the fandom’s whipping boy, because the league was lackluster, the character touted as main rival was weirdly disinterested*, and it was the first time the show sort of rebooted, to make it a good introduction to the basics for the younger generations, so Satoshi/Ash made some rookie mistakes in over-excitement at first and Pikachu was temporarily depowered in the earliest part [prompting bad first impressions and skewing the score between him and not-quite-main rival]. *(So completely one-sided for the first half, despite him being a rookie/new trainer, because Shootie/Trip’s some kind of child prodigy, and his own story is focused on someone else entirely.) Satoshi/Ash also had many other rivals (including one who better fulfilled the expected role of main rival, Kenyan/Stephan, and even had a great battle in the league!), and each of his friends got their own rivals and storylines too, but yeah, fandom whines and cherrypicks things to complain about eternally and never shut up about it. It’s not just seen as an “acceptable target,” it’s seen as undeniable fact, that it’s terrible. Many people write it off without watching it or after the first episode or two or fail to understand Pikachu’s Electric Type attacks were sealed and it was suffering from exposure to Zekrom, even though it’s stated several times in series, by different characters. Sheesh, I hated XY, but at least I gave it many, many episodes a chance! Its fanboys would jump down my throat, the anon hate was intense, people were lauding it from the first preview alone as an “apology for Best Wishes!” Iris, the main girl of the BW! series, remains to this day the only one to never get a collector’s figure or even any full-sized figure, toy or fancy collector’s item, and also the first to ever break the tradition of reappearing in the next series and meeting the new girl. She has pretty much no merch, just a recent chibi keychain as part of a set commemorating all the main girls, who also got several full figures… (hence why I made that figures post). To add extra insult to injury, she was also the first dark-skinned main girl. Ouch. sazandorable i’ll admit my brain just blanked on “are people seriously complaining about CLOUDS in bw! now.”. like, it’s op’s right, it’s true they used to be super pretty earlier, i guess that really sucks if they’re a big fan of sceneries. but REALLY? you gonna hate on bw for the CLOUDS? REALLY? FOR REAL. It’s honestly ugly, yeah, BW! has beautiful scenery, but rather than focus on that, it was just “yeah, but you see this specific part of the scenery? Ugly” and focused the post on that and told me it “doesn’t change a thing” that DP started it. :| /blocks

Honestly, the Trip bit was definitely one of the worst bits about Best Wishes. And I really didn't like how Pikachu was pillored like that all in a crass attempt at starting fresh even by their usual standards (even without Pikachu's electric attacks, he still had Iron Tail, so it's not like he COULDN'T use that instead to beat his foes, including that Snivy. That's my BIGGEST complaint, that they didn't have Pikachu just resort to other strategies DESPITE clearly having them.). Though I will state he was STILL a better rival overall than Paul was, that loss notwithstanding.

As far as the reasons for changing up Ash are concerned, I'm sorry, but if you're going to reboot the series, go the full mile and cut ASH out of the series and replace him with a new character. Don't degrade his character like that (The mistakes he made in that series were the kinds that even Kanto-era Ash, aka the time he actually was a rookie, would NEVER make. Case in point, somehow mistaking a human, Iris, for an Axew despite looking absolutely NOTHING alike. Probably the closest he ever got to making that kind of mistake was in the beginning of the Kangaskhan Kid, and even that was excused by the fact that Jenny disguised herself as a Chancey to catch poachers, and she was hiding in a bush.). And the league results for that one were inexcusable. Nor was the decision to not even have Ash partake in a side league [you know, something like Orange League or Battle Frontier] to compensate. And from what someone like Lizardo on Pokecommunity stated, the Gym Leaders overall were basically treated the same way as in AG (ie, not good at all), which actually comes across as even worse with the downgrade Ash got overall.

I also didn't really like Dawn's cameo especially when, last I checked, Unova DIDN'T have contests at all, so she had zero reason to even BE in Unova. I wasn't fond of May even reappearing at all in DP, but at least there was actual setup justifying her presence there regarding that Wallace Cup being trans-regional. Ash doesn't drop everything he's doing just to visit his friends while in the middle of a league, so why should they? And personally, I felt the show definitely should have done a true adaptation of that World Conference thing from B2W2, not just as a neat way for most of Ash's traveling companions to reappear due to either being Gym Leaders themselves or in the case of May and Max actually related to one, but also as a way to give true closure to Misty, but they didn't and just had a half-baked Junior Cup instead (to be fair regarding that bit, though, part of the reason was because Game Freak failed to let the anime producers in the loop regarding there being actual sequels to Black and White rather than a third version, so I could sort of see why they wouldn't go in that route, but I still think they should have ultimately).

That all being said, there were definite positives to the series:

For what it's worth, of all the things I have a problem with regarding Best Wishes, Iris actually was one of its positives ultimately, mostly because she came the closest to actually BEING a true successor to Misty. I did initially think her getting a Dragonite early on was a bit much, but after recent research into her backstory, I've changed my tune on that one due to realizing she's basically been battling since BEFORE she formally became a trainer (certainly far better than the OTHER time someone got an extremely rare Pokemon for no real reason [*cough**cough*Dawn's Togekiss*cough**cough*]). I also like that they learned from what happened with Misty earlier and made SURE she actually DID continue her goal, and even indicated she had no intention of becoming a Gym Leader until AFTER she became a Dragon Master. I mean, yeah, sure, her "Just a Kid" comments were a bit much, but on the other hand, considering Ash being badly mangled overall, I can sort-of tolerate it since she ultimately had a point there.

I also liked the fact that there were indeed some continuity nods there, like Clair reappearing, or how Ash reminisced about his Butterfree when raising a similar caterpie. I also liked that he did get his Charizard back ultimately. That was definitely a major positive for that series, especially after Ash's mishandling regarding character.

And while not a full positive (the manner in which they went with Team Rocket just left a lot to be desired), I will nevertheless give credit where it's due and state they at least TRIED to make them actual credible threats after being made bad enough jokes that even Takeshi Shudo regretted his vote to keep them on for AG (just wish it was more them taking down a Pokemon OTHER than Ash's Pikachu, though. Just having them beat one of Ash's rookies would have MORE than sufficed especially when a large part of their joke status was the result of them losing to Caterpie way back in the third episode).

[princeoftheroses]

Since you want asks, PLSSSE I want your Utena TH0ughts. WHAT is your favourite black rose episode? actually how do you feel about the black rose arc in GENERAL

black rose arc, black rose arc, oh black rose arc!!! by you adding how do i feel about the arc in general you are unleashed me to make a long post giving my very disorganized thoughts about this arc.

a couple of people call it a filler arc? i guess technically it is because it does not directly contribute to the main storyline and it wasn't in the manga and also the ending of the arc sort of makes it so the whole arc kind of didn't happen???

but also i think if a person labeled it as a filler arc they are kind of missing the point?? even if it doesn't contribute to the main plot (which it absolutely DOES but i'll get to that) it adds so much nuance to the characters of utena.

you get to see side characters and how they tick!! some of which like kozue and shiori become very important later as they become miki and ruka's rose brides in the akio arc! (side note : what was up with ruka he just kind of showed up and disappeared lmaooo)

also, it adds to akio! (tw warning for only the next paragraph, i'm talking about akio so you can except me talking about grooming and abuse)

not only is this where akio is introduced, but he is always so omnipresent. it was ... honestly really terrifying to see how chill he acts with utena here. of course the real grooming begins in the akio arc but you can see how he starts here. how he kind of builds himself as anthy's cool older brother that utena can trust and ask for advice for... but we the audience know that he CANNOT be trusted as even know we see him being shady af in the background. i really feel like if we skipped straight from the first arc to akio arc a lot of the creepiness of akio would not have been realized because of ... just how NORMAL he akio acts to utena. he's charming, he's smart, and he overall is somebody utena SHOULD be able to trust bc we should all be able to trust an immediate family member of a best friend , but of course the world doesn't really work that way. anyway akio tangent over because BOOOOOO akio (he honestly terrifies me so much because of how many predators like that exist and you can meet without realizing their intentions)

BACK TO BLACK ROSE ARC

one of the main reasons i feel like this isn't a filler arc, at least not in the traditional sense of the phrase, is because it builds a lot character relationships. something that i didn't like when i first watched revolutionary girl utena but now is one of my FAVORITE things is that for a while we don't really get a straight forward utena/anthy episode. because their relationship doesn't need to build in an episode, it just slowly builds over time. we just see these two causally existing and they just start to trust each other.

in the akio arc we get to see just how close utena/anthy have gotten over the series because of their late night conversations. like how if the black rose arc didn't exist akio wouldn't have been as impactful, if the black rose arc didn't exist it would feel more sudden how close utena/anthy have grown imo.

this arc adds a lot to the world as well. as long as the students stay inside of school they will not grow. dead people wander the halls thinking that they are still alive. these two facts contribute a lot to utena theorizing and analysis (mainly, the ideas that ohtori exists within a plain of frozen time literally because of anthy's magic and metaphorically because the cast is very cozy in their coffin) and i could not thank this arc for that enough. not only are these very cool ideas that may or may not have inspired elements in my own story (i can neither confirm or deny that one of my oc story is heavily inspired by utena) but they just add so many layers!

this arc also felt necessary because of the new duelists??? if we went straight from the first arc to the akio arc then it would've kinda gotten very tiring to see the student council constantly duel and lose to utena (with the exception of touga's sole victory to utena in the first arc before she duels him again and wins) but these new duelists possessed by the black rose are very interesting!

if i did have to make a compliant about this arc, though, i will say that at times the stories felt very disconnected to each other. while it was very funny for utena to not even know who keiko was when she dueled her, it would've been nice if sometimes the arc of the black rose duelist intertwined more with utena. as the arc goes on, the student council is on alert and is trying to figure out where the black rose is coming from, but they never really try to ask utena about it and utena never really tries to get involved? she just is chill until she gets the note to go to the duel arena to fight the black rose duelist. i don't really have a solution on how to fix this? maybe have the student council member that the black rose duelist takes the sword from be more involved? idk.

the villain of this arc mikage also really fascinates me??? i... really like him??? but not even as a villain ... i just really pity him. the realization he has in his duel with utena that everything he has been doing is for nothing because mamiya is already dead .. that always really hit me? the horror in his voice when he starts to recall the truth in his false memories.... for some reason, this is one of the most terrifying parts of the show for me. the realization that something you were doing, something you were doing that might've been awful but you were doing it because of somebody you care about deeply and love, it was all for nought. how much time he has wasted...

even before his duel with utena, there's this moment when after he got punched by utena he says something like "if she hadn't seen my duelist ring and challenged me to a duel, she could've killed me" or something like that, he's just so pathetic and i feel very bad for him but at the same time am too disconnected to him to truly feel empathy for him... that's some TOP TIER shit

overall, this part of the show is one of my favorites. the only part i like more is the last few episodes because it makes me very emotional.

NOW FOR THE SPECIFICS

favorite black rose duelist: honestly? wakaba. the girl deserves it this is stress relief for her. not only is this duel very emotional as i don't think we've ever seen utena refuse to duel somebody (at least not in the way that she does in this episode) but just the SHEER emotion.

i'm a real sucker for fighting the person you care about the most which is why the dark signer arc in yugioh 5ds is the best yugioh arc and this just really takes the cake in this arc. utena always shows concern for the black rose duelist because they are clearly people in pain who were not able to properly duel with their grief which let mikage manipulate them, but it's taken to a new level here.

the way that after the duel is completed, wakaba comes home to her empty dorm where saionji used to be but now isn't always gets me. she's just such a lonely girl and that's never really resolved for her. a lot of the other duelists have a optimist note to end on (kozue asking miki for a milkshake, shiori and juri saying hello to each other as they walk past, keiko being friends with nanami again, etc.) which is why the fact that wakaba is more alone now then she is ever... it is a feeling i can relate to an almost embarrassing amount.

favorite episode: COWBELL OF HAPPINESS, NANAMI TURNS INTO A COW-

ANTHY YOU GLORIOUS TROLL-

favorite episode that isn't cowbell of happiness: i'm very torn between the landscape scaped by kozue and thorns of death. shiori and kozue are both very interesting characters that i like a lot. but i'm going to go with thorns of death for now, as while i really like the landscape scaped by kozue, i think my preferred miki/kozue episode is their episode in the akio arc. meanwhile i like thorns of death way more than i liked whispers in the arc (mostly because i just do not really care that much for ruka, but azure paler than the sky was a banger and he was in that?) i just loved the feeling of seeing shiori the girl juri loves so much and juri's reaction to seeing her. the way my heart was wrenched when black rose shiori mocks juri... it really did hit different. but the hopeful ending did make me feel a lot better. i do like the way that juri out of all the student council members is the one closest to self actualization and this really sets that up even if there is still a bumpy road until then.

honorary mention: the boys of the black rose and kanae as a black rose duelist are both really great. i feel like if this wasn't the arc opener it would've had more room to stretch its legs and show how horrific it could've been. kanae is a girl i feel really bad about and similar to wakaba, i don't really think her episode was a very optimistic ending for her especially since akio probably killed her later in the show?

honestly the minute akip appeared on screen, engaged to a girl who HASN'T EVEN GRADUATED and is also emotionally manipulating her so much and having his little sister manipulate her too... throw the whole man away

tl;dr - the black rose arc is very good and i like it a lot, the ending of the arc really fucks me up, somebody give mikage & all the black rose duelists therapy, throw akio in the garbage, and this show probably exists in some sort of time loop / frozen time space as a metaphor for the whole coffin thing but you can probbaly find people smarter than me talking about that.

oh and go rewatch cowbell of happiness it's great

[melodyalanaroster]

To answer some Fanfic Questions...

So, this is my response to @broxklynn‘s post... I decided to make this its own post... So that It can be properly answered.

1. How and why did you start to write? Is there some kind of story behind it?

I started writing in general when I was in elementary school... Back when I just had a Platform 9 3/4 journal, not many friends, recess, and a desire to immerse myself in the world of Harry Potter. I enjoyed writing, and even joined the Writer’s Club in High School (but I eventually left to join Anime Club and Divergent Thinking Society). As for writing MCL fanfiction, I began writing Sam’s and Alana’s stories as early as when I first got into the fandom, back in 2013. Alana’s story started out as “A Fresh Start”, had a one shot called “When I Wake”, then turned into “Let The Dawn Be Broken”, and is now “The Melancholy Of Melody Alana Roster”. The final product barely has any hints of the first 3... In fact, Sam’s story, “Fighting Darkness”, has been completely debunked due to what I’ve decided to canonize in “The Melancholy Of Melody Alana Roster”. Writing MCL fanfiction has been a major help in distracting me from the depression that was caused by family issues, severe abuse, Stockholm Syndrome, my mom’s disease and her death, as well as working at several shitty jobs. Writing has helped me escape reality and keep myself sane enough to not be a black hole of hate, anger, and sadness to my friends and boyfriend.

2. What do you struggle the most with your writing?

There are 2 major things I struggle with... 1 is Timing. I often set deadlines for myself that I never meet and it makes me so frustrated that I miss them... There are currently things in my drafts that were meant to be “Holiday Specials” for Valentine’s Day and Halloween 2020 that are still unfinished... It makes me feel like I’m letting my readers down, when its more of me letting myself down... The other thing is Inspiration. Because I hate my job, I often think about Alana’s story in an effort to not be completely consumed by the fact that I do hate my work... Due to that, I often come up with ideas for my story that I think are FANTASTIC for my story... But, by the time I get home, I’m either in too much pain or too tired to write, or I’ve forgotten the ideas...

3. What is your favorite genre to write?

I love writing Romance with a bit of Slice of Life and a hint of Action/Adventure... 

4. Slowburn or “Flame”/PWP?

Slow burn any day.

5. How do you overcome writer’s block?

If I absolutely can’t write... I work on other stuff I need to do... Typically, something around the house, or something online I need to do... I also look for cool stuff to add to wish lists... I’ll occasionally play videogames or read comic books... In an effort to subvert writer’s block, I like having multiple chapters in my drafts at once. If I’m not in the mood to work on one chapter, I can work on a different one.

6. What kind of thing you dislike the most, when reading a fanfiction? (for example: particular plot, grammar mistakes)

One thing that makes me upset (and it makes me madder when I do this) is misspelling... Especially when it looks like its almost blatant... You have autocorrect, USE IT! Or when a fanfic is so awful, yet the author acts like their work is a gift from god... I don’t mind a “bad” fanfiction... Hell, the concept of “My Immortal” is so bad that its hilarious... But Fifty Shades did a lot of damage and E.L. James acts like she’s bigger than Jesus... Seriously, she wrote Twilight fanfiction, changed some minor details and names, people who have no knowledge of BDSM ate it up, and she acts like she’s a “Sex and Relationship Guru”...

7. What’s the biggest issue for you, when writing a Beemoov fanfiction?

The biggest issue for me is finding out when to allow for Beemoov’s writing and placement to take place in my story. I don’t like a lot of the events of UL and LL, so I’m often finding myself in a position where I have to watch video playthroughs and go “Okay, how can I omit this character, but keep this scene?”. I’ve had to do that A LOT with Alexy and Rosalaya.... Although, to a certain extent, I’ll often cut their scenes out altogether. I really hate what Beemoov did to them. They were great characters in HSL, but became utter shit in UL and stayed shit in LL. To make up for Beemoov’s writing style, I’ve created my own characters, added in old characters (like Kentin and Armin), added in bits from the manga (like Viktor, Severina and their fathers), and gone off on my own storyline. The Melancholy Of Melody Alana Roster is close to MCL at times, but often veers off onto its own road.

8. Have you ever created a character based on person in real life? (celebrity, someone that you know, etc)

YES!!! A LOT of characters in my story are based on real people! Alana’s step-father, Nate Films, is closely based on Nathan Fillion. A lot of her family members are based on members of my own family, just changed a bit to fit the story. Lynne Roster, Alana’s mom, is what I had always dreamed my own mom would be... Hell, Alana’s cat, Sylvester, is based on my own childhood cat, Luna.

9. How do you feel about your own characters? Do you think of them as your babies or have rather love-hate relationship with them? (And, do you have favorite one?)

I love most of my characters. I do hate 3 in particular... But, you’re supposed to hate, or at least not respect, them... That’s why I poured my hatred into them... Those 3 are Carol, Kai and Azrael. Carol has aspects of my abuser in her. You’ll see more of her when I finally post the HSL related chapters... And understand what I mean... Kai is based on one of my real life cousins that I’ve not been happy with for years (the one who my bf has deemed “the family failure”). You mainly see him in the Cousin Mels chapters, and in the Christmas Special... Azrael is the one who is seen the most in the UL chapters, and she is a main adversary for Alana. She is the one who broke her the most, the one who ended Alana’s relationship with Nathaniel, the one who truly traumatized her. As for ones I love... The one I love the most is Alana... I know, she’s a reflection of me, so that’s kind of vain... But, she’s a part of me. When I do finish her story and am at the point where I need to say “Goodbye”, it will hurt....

10. Enemies-to-lovers or friends/bestfriends-to lovers?

Definitely friends/best friends to lovers. I also like toying with what happens when best friends turn to lovers, but circumstance parts them and one moves on...

11. Is it easy for you to get inside your character’s head? Can you empathize with them? Is there’s some similarities between you and your main character?

It is VERY easy for me to get into Alana’s head... Like I said in #9, she is a reflection of me. She looks and acts like how I’d like to in a lot of situations... Her life is more interesting, traumatized, and more well off than mine... But, she is still me in major ways...

12. Who has been the biggest supporter of your writing?

Definitely my boyfriend. He doesn’t really understand the game itself... But, he likes how happy it makes me and he respects how much of my heart, soul, blood, sweat and tears that I’ve poured into writing my story. He loves listening to me read passages from it to him while I’m working. He gives me advice and his opinion is highly valued... My family knows I’m writing a large story, and have seen some of the images that I’ve gotten commissioned, but they don’t really know or care about the game. They do respect the fact that I am writing. They love the fact that I’m slightly following in my mom’s footsteps in that regard (she wrote 3 books and several poems). My online friends have been very supportive as well! I’m constantly updating them on what I’ve worked on each day in my Discord Server and the words of encouragement always help.

13. How do you handle criticism?

Not well. Due to the abuse and family issues mentioned in #1, for a good amount of my life, I’ve gotten nothing but harsh criticism... So, now that I’m away from all that, at 26 years old, I’m just now getting to a point where I’m starting to take it better... But, I’ve got a long way to go.

14. Do you like giving your characters trauma? Why/why not?

I hate sounding like a sadist... But, I’m going to anyway, so fuck it... Yes. I have done awful things to Alana over the years. In A Fresh Start, she got sexually assaulted and ostracized. In When I Wake, she gets into a car crash, put into a coma, and in her dream state murdered by Francis in front of Nathaniel. In Let The Dawn Be Broken, the plan was for her to end a war. In “The Melancholy of Melody Alana Roster”, her childhood cat dies, her mom gets sick, she gets abused by Carol, her best friends get ripped away from her for a bit, she gets sent to a country halfway around the world alone, she gets assaulted and ultimately turned into a weapon of mass destruction.... I’ve even thought of killing her mom off at one point... But decided against it...

Now, granted, A Fresh Start and Let The Dawn Be Broken never saw completion, but happy endings were planned for them...

I do this, all while giving Alana happy endings in each story because “If Alana can go through utter hell and make it through, then so can I.”... I know, I’m “god” in that regard and I can control how Alana’s life is.... But, the fact that in my writing, she ends up standing tall, happy, with everything she wants, after everything she goes through does make me feel better.... 

15. Are you proud of yourself? When you look at first piece you wrote and compare it to the latest one?

Yes. If you look at A Fresh Start, you can tell it was written by someone fresh out of High School. There’s no real depth to it. Let The Dawn Be Broken isn’t much better... But, The Melancholy of Melody Alana Roster has become my magnum opus. It is the largest piece I have EVER written, and will probably remain the largest piece I write. I am very proud of what I have created... And when its last word is written, and I am ready to get it made for it’s place on my shelf, I will feel very bittersweet about it... That being said, my original plan for a sequel involving Nathaniel’s and Alana’s daughter, Aurora, has been discarded. I don’t believe Aurora could ever have as much of my heart that her parents do...

And there you have it! Some insight into my world, writing, and history!

[walkingdaryls]

no sunburns

pairing: loki x female!reader

requested: nope!

summary: you and loki spend time together in tony’s beach house during the team’s vacation

—btw, i don’t usually like making giving reader a specific description (so it’s relatable to everyone) but for the sake of this storyline, she’s pale. i’m sorry if this is an inconvenience to anyone :( love u

(obviously: a bit AU. just for funsies...also why does it look like he’s saying “how much do u weigh” in the gif LMAO)

You could tell it was late into the morning by the way the bright sun shined on your face through the large windows. Usually, you’d groan and flip to the other side of the bed and try to dive back into sweet, sweet slumber. But you suddenly remember this wasn’t the Avengers Tower. For the past couple days you’d been on a blissful beach in Hawaii with the rest of the team. Tony was kind enough to offer all of you to stay in his huge beach house, on a completely private beach with a lively city just a ten minute drive away. When people said “paradise”, this is what they meant.

You eagerly stretched, letting a sigh of relief escape from your mouth. As you walked out of your room and into the main area of the house for some coffee, you were suddenly put off by the silence in the house. The only thing that could be heard were the waves crashing outside and birds chirping happily. The past couple mornings would be extremely loud and obnoxious due to the team all eagerly trying to eat breakfast, get their things together, and head to the beach bright and early. And it’d usually end with everyone yelling at Tony for being the last one to get dressed.

“Um, last time I checked: my house. I may get dressed whenever I damn please,” he’d said one day.

The day before, Bucky had accidentally snapped one of the paddle boards in half, causing ruckus throughout the house. That’s what woke you up at 7am.

That was your only issue about this vacation: waking up early. You were known as the “sleepyhead” on the team...always staying up too late and waking up before lunch (on the days you could, obviously). It was planned for everyone to be on the beach early in the morning so the rest of the day could be for having a nice barbecue on the back porch, visiting the town, and then going out at night. If it weren’t for Nat coming to wake you up right after she did, you’d be the last one out the door every morning. Except for today.

You glanced at the vintage clock on the wall.

10:50 am. Your eyebrows furrowed. Was everyone sleeping in today? You didn’t remember Nat coming to wake you up or anything. Weird. You brushed it off, continuing to make your coffee.

“Well, look who finally decided to wake up,” a voice sounded from the living room. You jumped, sighing of relief once you saw the familiar face standing meters away.

Loki wore his usual slight smirk on his face. He was wearing an oversized, dark green button-up shirt with black beach shorts underneath. It was so quite amusing to see Loki dressed in anything other than his usual black suit or his green uniform. Thor practically dragged him on this trip, so the past few days he just wore a sour expression on his face.

“Yep...” You sighed, not knowing exactly how to have a conversation with the man, “Want some coffee?”

“No, thank you. Already had some hours ago. You know, when everyone else woke up.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, “Wait, where is everyone else? Nat didn’t wake me up.”

Loki walked closer to the kitchen, his hands behind his back all mannerly, “She tried. Twice. You wouldn’t budge. Steve thought it’d be fair to just let you get your sleep for one night.”

“Oh...” You sipped your coffee, “So they all left already?”

“Yes. Probably will not come back for another few hours,” He said simply. You felt quite upset knowing you were missing out, but at the same, a full night’s sleep was nice. Besides, you still had nearly two weeks left of vacation.

“You didn’t want to go with them?” During the three days in Hawaii so far, Loki only joined you and the team twice. One time at the beach, which he only lasted twenty minutes before going back inside to read a book. And the second time, when you all went shopping at a flea market nearby. He joined your meals at the house, obviously, but he didn’t really go out. It upset you. Others might’ve still hated his guts, but you didn’t, and he deserved to enjoy the time off.

“No.”

“Loki, I know you don’t wanna be here, but at least use the free time to your advantage. Once the two weeks are over, it’ll be back to work. Who knows when we’ll get another long vacation, right?”

“You mortals are so obsessed with this so-called vacation. You do realize you could enjoy ‘free time’ whenever you please, right?” He stared at you intensely, and you didn’t like it one bit.

“That’s not really how it works,” You breathed out, “Vacations like this: where I have absolutely zero worries...extremely rare. I’m putting it to good use.”

He chuckled sarcastically, “By sleeping away half of the day?”

You stood there with your eyes narrowed, wanting to slap his amused grin off his face. You and Loki never personally had any issues with each other, but he did get on your goddamn nerves sometimes. It was always sarcastic remarks when sitting across each other from the dinner table. Or smirks from across the gym during training. You’d consider each other friends....but, really odd friends.

“Just for today,” You spit back, “And FYI, I’ll be putting the rest of my day to good use. Until the others get back.”

“How so?”

You gestured to the large glass windows showing off the gorgeous beach just meters away. Loki raised his eyebrows in amusement, humming a quick “ah”.

“You wanna come, too?” You said without even thinking it.

For just a flash of a second, the look in his eyes became just a bit softer. He truly was not used to the feeling of being wanted or included in something. But you barely even noticed before his usual demeanor returned.

“I hate the beach.”

You shrugged, “I hated it too, actually. For a longgg time. But Nat slowly started dragging me out during vacations. To pools, too. I eventually started enjoying it. I just hate how badly I burn.”

“Burn?”

“Yes,” You absentmindedly pulled down your soft t-shirt down off your shoulder, exposing the cherry-red burns covering your skin, “See?”

Loki slowly stepped forwards, almost mesmerized. He was practically towering over you. This made you gulp, suddenly extremely aware of how close he was to you. You could feel the coldness of his skin radiating off of him, even without touch. His hand was slightly raised, as if he wanted to lightly touch your shoulder, but he refrained. You secretly wanted his icy hands to add that relief to your burns, but you kept silent as well.

“Does it hurt?” He asked, stepping back once again. You responded quickly, covering your shoulder once again.

“Yes, to be honest. But I’ve grown used to it. One of the downsides of being pale.”

“But I don’t burn. And I’ve been told I look like a ghost?”

You snorted, remembering Clint’s comment at the dinner table one night.

“Well, you’re a God, remember? I think mortals have different rules with that kinda stuff.”

Loki nodded, “How boring.”

You sighed, “Tell me about it.”

The room fell silent, so you awkwardly sipped your coffee once more before speaking up.

“I’m going to go put on my swimsuit. So...no beach for you?” You sort of wanted some company, if you were being honest.

Loki shook his head, “I’ll just go back to my book.”

“Alright then,” you nodded before scurrying back to your room and finishing your coffee.

You let out a large breath once you shut the door in your room. You didn’t know what it was exactly, but Loki always made you nervous. And it wasn’t in a bad way, more of an...intimidating way. It didn’t help that he was obviously handsome, too.

Tying up your bikini, you carefully observed yourself in the mirror. You looked great. The green, leather bikini had been a gift from Wanda a few months back. You had yet to use it, so why not? You winced at your burns on your shoulders once more before heading out the door with your sunscreen and towel in your hands. And of course, your signature cat-eye sunglasses on your face.

Making your way through the living room, you suddenly became extremely aware of Loki’s presence on the couch, and his gaze following you. But you didn’t dare look back. It was a rush of relief once you passed the glass doors and set aside your things.

The day was absolutely gorgeous. The sun was shining, but nothing too strong. There was a gentle breeze, and you felt blissful. You even danced around by yourself to the speaker playing next to you, partially forgetting about Loki sitting just meters away inside.

You prepared to skip over into the clear waters when you remembered. Sunscreen, ugh. You could just see the look of disappointment on Steve’s face if he found out you forgot sunscreen and only made your burns worse. The entire team had been in shock upon seeing how badly you burned in just a couple days, but Steve was the most worried. Always, constantly reminding you to put sunscreen. Especially on your back...since that spot was easily missed.

So there you stood, with music blasting on the beach, rubbing the cream all around your body. You made sure you wouldn’t miss an inch of your body. You were sick of the burns, of the itching, of the potential peeling. You made sure to double up on the sunscreen when you got to your shoulders. And your cheeks on your face...you got easily red there too.

But when it got to your back, you looked like an idiot trying to reach back there. Usually you’d have Nat or Wanda to help you right away, but you were alone.

Well, almost alone.

You didn’t dare look back inside, scared of seeing Loki watch you struggle. The temptation to ask him for help was extreme, but it was too embarrassing. You thought about maybe just hoping for the best and getting in the beach like this, but it was too risky. No more sunburns.

You tried to reach your back once more time before you realized it was an impossible task. So, very hesitantly, you turned to look inside the house. And just as you expected, Loki’s eyes were on you. His book had been thrown aside, and he was leaning over to get a good look at you. He held his usual smirk, obviously enjoying watching you struggle.

“A little help, please?” You called out. You felt so childish. But to be honest, you were a bit surprised when Loki got up with no protesting. Just an amused eye roll.

Your leg bounced a bit in anticipation as the raven-haired God made his way down the couple steps and over to you.

“Yes?” He asked. You knew he was teasing, and you hated it.

Your eyes narrowed, “I can’t reach my back. Could- Could you please?” He eyed the bottle you held out to him.

He inhaled sharply, “I guess so.” His cold hands grabbed the sunscreen from yours. But you didn’t flinch when you felt his icy fingers brush past yours.

You turned around, facing the beach and away from him. The snap of the opened cap could be heard. He squeezed the sunscreen into his hands before rubbing them together a few times, and gently placing them on your back.

The feeling of cool skin on your burnt back was pure bliss. You didn’t give him any reaction, but your eyes did close with pure relief. His hands were hesitant, but he began rubbing the cream around your back.

“Your hands are cold. It’s nice,” You say first. His hands stop for a split second before returning to their job.

He noticed you never flinched, “They don’t bother you?” His voice was soft.

“No, I’ve always liked the cold.”

It was that sentence- the simplest comment - that had Loki almost freezing in his spot. But he remained calm. And surprisingly, so did you.

Oh fuck, did I just accidentally flirt with the God of Mischief? You wanted to cower away. You silently thanked the skies for not facing him in that very moment.

“Oh?” Was all he said. His hand movements had slowed just a bit.

You blurted out, “Actually...god this is really weird, but could you just- could you place your hands on my shoulders? Like, just leave them there? Cold compress helps burns.” And now you were extremely thankful you couldn’t see his face.

“Okay.”

You couldn’t help but exhale loudly upon the feeling of his coolness on your skin. It was just what you needed. You two stood in silence for just a few seconds longer before you gently tapped his hands, signaling it was enough. You finally turned to face him.

“Thank you,” You smiled shyly.

“Do the burns feel better?” His face remained neutral.

You nodded, “Much better.”

He gazed at you for a few seconds before snapping out of it.

“Well,” You spike up, “I’m gonna get in now.”

“Right,” He nodded. You nodded back, not sure on what to say. As you turned around to the beach, you suddenly stopped in your tracks. You didn’t want to leave the conversation off like that.

“Loki, can you please just get in?”

His amused expression returned, “Pardon?”

“I- I don’t like getting in the water by myself. The beach is fun with other people. Otherwise I’m just the idiot floating around like a fish.”

“A fish?” He snorted. You chuckled, digging your toes in the sand nervously. He caught that. He could sense your nervousness, which only softened him more.

How could he say no? You were the only person who’d ever offered him something so genuine.

He rolled his eyes, “Well, fine. Only because everyone else is gone.”

You smiled brightly, “Yay! Come on.” You jogged towards the shore without a second thought. The smile only grew once you were ankle deep in the cool waters. You turned around, finding Loki in the same spot as before, slowly unbuttoning his shirt. You couldn’t help but stare...He was so focused on his buttons, so it wouldn’t hurt, right?

Clint had been right. Loki was truly pale. Very pale. Even more than you. Yet his chest still glowed like the God he was. His skin was as soft as ever. You wondered for a second what it’d be like to run your hands-

“You mortals do love to stare a lot,” Loki said, making his way towards you. You simply smirked, looking away to mask the redness growing on your cheeks.

He hesitated once his feet reached the water. But you stood there, already knee deep, watching him patiently.

“It’s so therapeutic, I promise. Come on,” You beckoned him over. His face seemed so confused, you almost laughed.

Slowly yet surely, he finally stood right next to you. You looked up to him, eyes scrunched from your smile and the sun in your eyes. He stared you down, but he wasn’t holding the intense glare anymore. It was definitely much more peaceful. He was pretty like this.

“See?” You smiled wider, splashing him lightly.

He stood completely still for a hot second, before suddenly splashing you with as much water his strength could muster.

You gasped, “LOKI!” And you found yourself splashing him back.

And he splashed you again.

You screamed, going deeper into the water. He followed you, continuing his splashing. You tried to splash back, but it got to the point where you were so deep into the water, you had to focus on keeping yourself afloat rather than splashing Loki.

“Oh, fuck, I don’t reach here anymore. Time out, time out!” You barked a laugh, struggling with floating due to so much movement.

Loki’s genuine laughter was music to your ears. You’d never heard him release such a noise before.

His splashing stopped as he made his way over to you and gently scooped you up with one arm. It took you completely by surprise. You watched the God with wide, curious eyes.

Once balanced against him, and no longer struggling with floating, you splashed him once more, completely drenching his hair this time. He shut his eyes, promptly letting go of you in order to wipe his eyes.

You laughed loudly, swimming away closer to shore.

“You think you’re so clever,” Loki called out, hot on your tail. Your heartbeat accelerated as you felt him get closer to you.

You weren’t able to reach the shore before you felt Loki’s hand grab your foot and drag you back. You screamed, not able to contain the giggles pouring out of you.

Loki watched you with a smile on his face as you laughed with your eyes closed. You held your hands up to your face.

“Please don’t splash me, I’m begging you,” you yelled. You tried to get away, but he was quick.

His hands gripped your waist, pulling you in once again.

“Last time I checked, you splashed me first,” Loki said, his voice deep. Your faces were so close. So close. And with your wet bodies practically pressed against each other, the tension was suddenly thick.

You slowly came down from your fit of laughter, drawing back into reality: which was Loki’s face eerily close to yours. You sighed softly, making eye contact with his blue ones. You couldn’t read the look on his face, but his gaze was so intense once again, you had to hold your breath.

His fingers brushed your waist ever so slightly, and you reacted without thinking.

You leaned forward, meeting your lips with his. It was a quick peck, before you pulled back in shock.

Your cheeks were tomato red, and it wasn’t because of the sun anymore.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I-“ But your voice trailed off, because Loki’s other hand reached up to touch your face softly.

“L-Loki?” You whispered, your faces close once again.

“Don’t apologize, darling,” Loki said, before meeting you in a second kiss.

His lips against yours, his soft hand on your waist, your hand in his dark locks: it was almost too blissful.

You changed your mind: this was paradise.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” The familiar voice of Tony Stark sounded from the shore.

You helped, breaking apart from Loki, just to see your entire team watching you with their jaws on the floor.

“Oh,” Loki smirked, “Back so early?”

—

[thatgamefromthatad]

3 more games like Merge Mansion - the genre is evolving!

More and more games like Merge Mansion (two-item merge games) are being released and I can hardly keep up, but I’m glad because I find this genre so satisfying! Here I’ll review three more relatively new games, which are all unique in that they break off quite a bit from the original Merge Mansion, and include their own mechanics not seen in the other Merge Mansion-esque games I’ve covered!

You can see my original Games like Merge Mansion review here, although it’s quite outdated as many of those games have made significant changes since I wrote that in early March. I’ll try to add some updates to the original post sometime in the near future to better reflect that current status of each of those games. You can also find links to the other two-item merge games I’ve previously reviewed in my final ranking at the end!

Read my full reviews of Plantopia, Merge Adventure and City Boom below:

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Plantopia: Merge Garden (Early Access)

Developer: Voodoo

Release Date: May 7, 2020 (Early Access)

This game is an interesting one because I only found it recently and started seeing ads for it recently although it’s apparently been around for about a year. I’m thinking it was soft launched and only recently made available in my region. The title screen indicates it’s still early access so that would make sense.

An initial release/soft launch date of May 2020 would actually make it older than Merge Mansion, which I believe was released in Sept. 2020. However I’m not sure about the exact timeline as they could have been in development/soft launched around the same time and the games are actually quite different overall so the basic similarities could be a coincidence.

This game truly amazed me because although it has the basic elements of what I would consider a Merge Mansion-like game, that being the two-item merge mechanic on a two-dimensional grid-like board viewed from the top, with item generators and item collection objectives, it’s otherwise very different from the other two-item merge games I’ve played. There are at least three separate boards, possibly more considering the tool shed and flower lab unlock a bit later in the game, and instead of completing objectives by getting items right off the board, you use items from the greenhouse and tool shed boards to start growing plants and then harvest the resources. The flower lab adds an additional step, as you can take the plants you’ve harvested to that board and merge them further to create bouquets and oils etc.

This game is probably the most complex and challenging out of all the two-item merge games I’ve played, which I think makes it more fun but less relaxing. Basically if I want something to play mindlessly while chilling out and watching YouTube videos I would play Merge Mansion or Merge Friends, but when I want to play something more advanced and for a longer period of time I play Plantopia.

🌼 Art: 3/3 (although I mostly prefer all 2D art, this game does the 3D/2D mixture better than some other games and I just love the colors and style of the different plants, boards and products. It all feels very “cottagecore” as the kids these days would say lol. The 2D character designs are also OK and pretty cute)

🌼 Story: 2/3 (it’s definitely a step above the “moving into this old mansion with my grandparents” story, I did get to know the characters a little better and some of the objectives are plot-related, such as growing aloe to help another character with his sunburn, or growing a special flower that reminds another character of her late husband etc. But I wasn’t really feeling like I wanted to learn more, and the storyline didn’t have a huge influence on my overall experience)

🌼 Gameplay: 5/5 (definitely the strongest game in terms of gameplay in my opinion, like I said it is more challenging and there’s more to think about but it makes for a really fun and varied experience!)

🌼 Variety: 2/3 (although there are three whole boards and you unlock different plants as you go along, there isn’t as much variety in the merging part since you basically just merge seeds into sprouts, sprouts into younger plants etc. until you have the full plant to place in a plot. You know exactly what you’re merging up to and there’s no thrill of discovering a new item by merging up. The items also come from boxes or from preset, unmovable generators so there’s no fun in discovering new generators either. But it is cool that each plant has its own planting requirements like more water, more fertilizer, more light etc.)

🌼 Playtime vs. Wait Time: 4/4 (another huge advantage of this game, there’s no energy system so you can play for very long, the only time constraint is waiting for plants to grow)

🌼 Overall Enjoyment: 4/5 (I’m definitely very impressed with this game but the things I mentioned in the Variety section are probably the biggest thing that prevents me from giving it a 5/5 overall. It is exciting when you unlock something new by progressing through the game but I especially enjoy moving up item ranks and discovering new generators, so in that area this game didn’t really do it for me. But otherwise it’s really a great game and a very unique entry within this genre!)

🌼 Total: 20/23

Merge Adventure - Dragons!

Developer: Ludigames

Release Date: March 25, 2021

First of all, even though the full name of this game includes the word dragons, I haven’t seen a single dragon unless one was mentioned in the written adventure logs, which I don’t usually read.

With that out of the way, this is another very unique game in terms of merge games as it is also an RPG. Some of the items you merge on the board are used to equip your hero, while others are used to unlock new adventures that yield different loot upon completion. You don’t actually get to engage in battles since the adventures themselves run on an idle system where you just get an adventure log to read to how your hero is doing and then collect the loot after a certain period of time. It is definitely something new for two-item merge games and deserves credit for the unique concept, but execution-wise it unfortunately fell short in a lot of ways.

🗡 Art: 1/3 (the art here isn’t necessarily awful but it is on the uglier side compared to a lot of the other games in this genre, specifically the board pieces. Maybe I’m biased because I prefer fun and colorful items, and these items involve a lot of wood and metal and such, but the board often seems so monochrome I can’t even tell certain items apart or remember which item track they belong to. Some of the level 1 items are just differently-shaped scraps of metal. The hero design isn’t bad but I only have one character to base that opinion on. We’ll get to that later)

🗡 Story: 2/3 (I honestly can’t remember if there’s an overarching plot but I will give it a point for the adventure logs, even though I usually don’t read them, it is cool that you can read what your character’s doing and how they obtained the loot they ultimately bring back)

🗡 Gameplay: 2/5 (I want to give it more points for being unique but despite the interesting concept I did have trouble with the gameplay. First of all, it has one of the smallest boards out of all the games I’ve played and a lot of different generators, which guarantees your board will become clogged very quickly. The numbers in the corners of each tile are supposed to help you keep track of what level items you have I presume, but they only make an already cluttered board look more cluttered, and the fact that I already couldn’t tell some of the item designs apart means having all the items crowded and jumbled makes for a very confusing and frustrating experience. Getting new items through loot from adventures seemed cool but then led to more frustration with more items to squeeze onto my fully packed board. Also I have no clue how to get more heroes, I’ve only had one this whole time playing so far, so there’s not much more to the RPG experience other than equipping more powerful items)

🗡 Variety: 2/3 (technically there’s a wide variety of items but as mentioned previously the very monochrome nature of the items makes the experience feel less varied and you can barely enjoy discovering new items when you’re just trying to find space on the board 90% of the time. Also, most of the item tracks just go: item, bigger item, bigger fancier item, biggest fanciest item, or, piece of item, more pieces of item, mostly put-together item, fully assembled item)

🗡 Playtime vs. Wait Time: 1/4 (your time is limited by the energy system, generators needing to refill AND waiting for your hero to return from an adventure)

🗡 Overall Enjoyment: 2/5 (sadly I didn’t really enjoy this game, although I guess my favorite part would be merging up weapons and other equippable items to make my hero more powerful, which isn’t something I could really do in any of these other games)

🗡 Total: 10/23

City Boom

Developer: Playwind Ltd.

Release Date: April 9, 2021

This game is very interesting as it’s the only merge game I’ve personally played that has you compete against other players. This game actually works pretty much exactly like a game I played loooooong ago called Coin Masters, where you gain coins by attacking or raiding other people’s bases while spending coins to build up your own base. The main difference here of course is that the other way to get coins is to merge items and complete requests, while in Coin Masters it was like a slot machine thing. I checked and they are not made by the same developer.

Anywho, the multiplayer aspect of this game was exciting since I definitely have a competitive streak, and I’ve been playing every day to try and climb up the leaderboard (I’m in the top 1,000 so far lol!) However this game is still new and pretty wonky, and it aggressively tries to get you to buy things, much more than any of the other two-item merge games. Also, this game is one of those games that’s very reliant on a constant internet connection so if you don’t have great internet (which I don’t) you will have a lot of issues with the game freezing, just a heads up.

💰 Art: 3/3 (I got to admit I’m a sucker for the cute, colorful and cartoony, and I just can’t get enough of the silly little cats in this game 😂 I appreciate that the 3D art style in this game is very consistent in all parts of the game, and this game also has 3D animated sections: for example, when you go to attack another player a cat rolls up in a little tank and rockets fly around)

💰 Story: 2/3 (there isn’t really a linear story but I give it a point for the different themed areas you progress through as you grow your town, plus the personality put into the cat characters)

💰 Gameplay: 3/5 (I do enjoy this game, especially the fact that I get to compete against other players, but there are a few issues. This game has a lot of limited time events, there’s seriously like 2 or 3 running at a time and seem to change every day, which does add some fun and variety, but creates a unique problem of having event-specific items on the board that I don’t know what to do with when the event ends. I don’t know if that event will come back again or if those items are just completely useless and should be sold now. Currently they’re just keeping my board very clogged. Also, this game really aggressively pushes overpriced microtransactions, which can get very annoying, but I will say that I was still able to play and enjoy the game a fair amount without paying anything. Lastly, the items make a really off putting clunk sound when they merge. May not seem important but it makes the merges less satisfying for me personally)

💰 Variety: 2/3 (There is a variety of event items but as far as the main items there’s very little variety, basically just four categories of items, so I put this in the middle)

💰 Playtime vs. Wait Time: 2/4 (what I like is that there are a lot of chances to get extra energy but what I don’t like is that rather than having energy refresh one at a time every few minutes, you have to wait like half an hour for all the energy to refill at once)

💰 Overall Enjoyment: 4/5 (honestly despite all my criticisms of it I kept coming back to this game, I really enjoy the competitive aspect and none of the problems with it are to the point where it seriously impedes my ability to play. That’s why I kind of have a separate category for overall enjoyment to begin with, because even if a game scores well or poorly in specific categories that won’t necessarily reflect my overall experience)

💰 Total: 16/23

Rankings

Plantopia (scored the same as Travel Town but after playing Travel Town for a while I’ve gotten more bored with it. Plantopia is the new reigning champion! 🎉)

Travel Town

Merge Design

Mergedom: Home Design

Merge Friends

Miss Merge

Merge Mansion

City Boom (scored the same as Merge Mansion but I preferred it less)

Merge Life (note: the linked review is outdated as the game has undergone a lot of updates since I wrote it, I will update it at some point but take the current version with a grain of salt)

Merge Matters

Merge Villa

Merge Adventure (scores the same as Merge Villa but I think I was a little harsh on Merge Villa to begin with, this game is much less playable)

Thank you so much for reading!!! I hope these reviews helped you if you enjoy merge games as much as I do! 💖 You can find more of my full game reviews here and follow me for more stuff about mobile games. Have a great day 🥳

[unnyhunny]

dino squad website (circa early 2008)

Hello, everyone! The Dino Squad website from early 2008 is accessible in the Wayback Machine, but as far as I’ve been looking, there isn’t a good post or guide to what’s actually in it.

Like everything in ‘08, this site uses Flash for pretty much everything it does (and PHP for everything else), which can make some things difficult, obviously. I can’t direct you in how to run Flash in 2021, but I wish you the best. The site I’m using is linked below, but there are several in the Wayback Machine that seem to work, although I haven’t noticed any differences yet. I have a few theories about this site, that I’ll get into when they’re relevant.

http://web.archive.org/web/20130210222200/http://www.dinosquad.com/

Feel free to explore! I’ll be leaving my notes down below.

When you enter the site, you’re greeted by this screen, alongside a stock alarm sound, and the Dino Squad theme.

This next part is hard to show, but I’ll do my best. This is actually a cube that you’re just in, and there are interactive elements in the room that, when you hover over them, they have special prompts that go to other areas of this flash site. Also, it is noticeably slow to scroll.

[the floor]

[the wall directly facing the logo, presumably the entrance]

[the wall on the right]

[the wall behind]

[the wall on the left]

[the ceiling]

On the left hand side, there is a Music Player, that goes through memorable tracks from the Dino Squad soundtrack, like “Dino Squad” (the main theme), “Transformation” (the transformation sequence song), and “BaBaBa!”, a song that I don’t remember ever being in the show, and sounds similar to the transformation theme, but acapella. Also, Rump is there, for some reason?

[the music player]

Now, this is where it gets really interesting. There was an ability to make accounts through the site, and gain “Ooze Power” through, presumably, doing well on the mini-games, some bones (?), and a badge system that, when clicked, doesn’t do anything.

[the user profile]

From left to right, the dino silhouettes are: Buzz, Caruso, Fiona, Max, Roger, and...Moynihan? Veloci? It’s impossible to know, but it’s presumably Veloci, because Moynihan wasn’t revealed to be a raptor until the final episode (or second to final episode? I’m a fake fan). 

On trying to click on any of the games, a log-in option comes up -- you need to log in to play the minigames, which means that I can’t play any of them, because it’s impossible to make an account now (I tried).

[the log-in page]

When I try to register, there’s the outline of the Dino Squad logo, but no site content shows up besides that. This is a running theme, so I’ll only show the emptiness once. Also, it’s important to note that I think the tube at the top of the window is ooze, which is a delightful touch.

[the empty screen]

The interactive elements of the room are either mini-games or character/story info sheets, so I’ll go through them one by one, starting with the character/story info.

Character/Story Information

Right by the door, there is a green monitor that offers you the ability to “Get the 411 on the DinoSquad, their vehicles and weapons.” Unfortunately, they won’t be quite able to deliver.

[characters hover-over text]

Here is the character select screen. Did you know that it’s Rodger, not Roger? I didn’t. Unfortunately, of the characters listed here, only Caruso and Victor have their original info, which will be displayed first without comment below.

[character select screen]

[caruso’s info sheet. if someone else wants to transcribe this, be my guest, but there’s just too much text for me to do time-wise.]

[victor’s info sheet.]

On another green monitor, Dino Video would be available, where you could “Watch the latest DinoSquad shows and video clips online”. Unfortunately, it brings up a menu with two choices, and neither of them work.

[dino video hover prompt]

[menu options for dino video]

Next, we have the Dino Dictionary, with “Crazy facts about the Dinosaurs that roamed and ruled the earth for over 160 million years.” Unfortunately, these links are dead, too, but they’re shown as options in the archive file web, so they might be viewable.

[dino dictionary hover text]

[dino dictionary menu options]

Next are the character hovers. These would, on click, take you to their page. Only Victor’s and Caruso’s work.

[veloci hover text]

[max hover text]

[caruso hover text]

[fiona hover text]

[rodger hover text]

[buzz hover text]

Next, we have some tips for going green. This is the same reference center that the Dino Dictionary uses, so it likewise doesn’t work.

[Go Green! hover text]

Moynihan and Rump’s text comes next. I can’t imagine what the log entry for Rump would have been.

[moynihan hover text]

[rump hover text]

That was all of the informational parts of this website. Now, it’s time for some fun.

Mini-Games

Or it would be, if they worked.

For all of the following, it just prompts the login page on-click, so I can’t really do anything or show what it might have looked like, unfortunately.

The first game is Dino Dodge, where you “Test your skills at this crazy game! Catch the bones, badges, and ooze, but dont [sic] get hit by the Dino-skulls!”

[Dino Dodge hover text]

Next, My Squad. This is where you’d click to party up and stuff, I’m guessing, but it just brings me to the Login page, and I can’t do anything with it.

[my squad hover text]

[what the squad page could have looked like. under it, with the circles and icons, could have been a way to display your most awesome badges.]

Next, and possibly the saddest part of these, is RaptorQuest. “Your Squad will need all the ooze power possible to complete these 3D missions to save the world from evil primordial ooze.” I don’t know what this could have entailed, but it sounds like all of the ooze power from playing the games mattered here, and that there were 3D missions that could have had something of a storyline are gone? I’m in mourning.

[RaptorQuest hover text]

After RaptorQuest is Oozefest, a game where you “Load up on ooze and fire away at Victor Veloci and his side-kick to send them back to their primordial state in these three Dino-levels!” Presumably, oozing them is a bad thing in this game, although how well that holds up to canon is debateable.

[oozefest hover text]

My Badges is next.

[my badges hover text]

The final game is Hyperdino. My immediate guess is that this would play like the Manhole Game-and-Watch game?

[hyperdino hover-text]

[manhole game]

Some Interjections

1. This website was made very early on, and was probably only using the pilot characterization.

Most importantly to this being that Fiona’s penchant for speed is what is most notable about her here, when that was really only in the pilot/dino-cycle part, near the very start of the show. The logo isn’t necessarily a giveaway, but the Max/T-Rex picture at the top is one that I don’t see much except on early promo art.

2. Did they make new art for this website, with this room, or was this an early base idea?

3. Why was there an option to advertise, and where would the ads be shown?

4. Victor has many weapons and vehicles, but doesn’t have the wonderful Dino Dirigible yet?

5. This site (and its Flash) isn’t backed up besides the WayBack Machine.

It’s not in BlueMaxima’s Flashpoint, but I couldn’t extract the whole swf file from the html -- just the landing page, with Max and the alarm. If there’s a way to back this all up as one swf, that’d be spectacular, but from what I can tell, it’s using a mix of swf files and other files to deliver content.

Thank you for reading, and I hope exploring the site is/was fun! If you find anything I didn’t, please reblog and add!

[agir1ukn0w]

Attention Reylo Fam!

After hearing some disturbing rumors on social media that Lucasfilm may be considering pulling back the release of The Rise of Kylo Ren in order to change some major plot details of Ben Solo’s journey to becoming Kylo Ren (specifically his involvement in the destruction of Luke’s academy), I have decided to write a letter to Lucasfilm asking them, if the rumors are indeed true, not to do so. Obviously it is more than likely that the things I’ve been hearing are no more than supposition, given that I’ve only seen them on Tumblr, however I would still like to voice some of my concerns and the collective concerns of the fandom to Lucasfilm if there is a small chance they will receive my letter and take it seriously.

I have just finished my first draft, and I wanted to post it here so that you may read it and give me suggestions on things I should change or add on in the comments. I value the input of my reylo family, and I want to be as truthful and accurately representative of the feelings of the collective fandom as I can. I will post the draft below the cut, and also, if you would like your name to be included in the signing of the letter (either your blog url or, if you are comfortable, your real name), please let me know and I will add you to the list.

Dear Disney Lucasfilm Ltd.,

I would like to preface this letter by saying think you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for all the wonderment and inspiration that you have given me these past four years of my life. These movies, tv shows, books, etc. have been a cornerstone of my cultural upbringing since before I can remember and I personally believe that Star Wars is the single greatest tale in the history of the world. I thank you with all my heart for carrying it forward so honorably.

That being said, I still very much believe in this story’s potential to be a beacon of empowerment for those who feel so disenfranchised and even oppressed in the real world. I still believe that this story is capable of making children look up and believe in themselves and their power to make a difference.

I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand the reasons why you made the choices you made with regards to Episode IX: TROS. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a fine movie, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. No work of art can possibly please everyone, and I would also like to thank the cast and crew for working so hard and putting their entire souls into these projects these past several years.

This has all been a roundabout way of coming to the main point of my letter to you. Specifically, this letter concerns the character Ben Solo.

I’m sure that you have been hearing and seeing a variety of heated emotions on social media concerning the fate of this character. The first time I met him way back in TFA, I knew that he was someone special; even then I felt a very deep connection with his struggle and began to root for him. The arc that you gave him in TROS was beautiful, and everything I really wanted to see. I’d been hoping for his redemption for a long time, and to see it so beautifully acted on screen was truly inspiring. Although I must say that I really could have done without his death, for the purpose of this particular letter, I will digress from that opinion, even though I know for a fact that I am not the only one who holds it. At the end of the day, Ben’s storyline was fulfilled because he overcame the darkness within him, helped Rey to defeat the ultimate Evil, and brought her back to life with his love. I couldn’t have asked for more.

However, I have been hearing rumors on social media which are very concerning. A few people have suggested that Lucasfilm plans to pull back the release of the comic The Rise of Kylo Ren by Charles Soule in order to change some of the major details of Ben Solo’s story to better fit with what happened in the movie. Specifically, I am referring to the very important fact that Ben actually didn’t kill his fellow students in cold blood and that he didn’t set his uncle’s academy on fire. I don’t know if this rumor is even true, and I pray that it isn’t. The fact that I have as yet only seen these rumors on social media leads me to believe that there is little probability to it.

However, I cannot convey to you the depth of my despair should they turn out to be true. And I know that I am not alone. The fandom has already seen the plates, clearly showing that it was not Ben who set fire to his uncle’s academy. It would be a huge mistake to completely redo them now, and I can tell you with absolute certainty that you would lose the good faith and trust of many people in this fanbase.

I have written this letter to implore you all at Lucasfilm, if these rumors are indeed true, to please rethink your strategies; Speak with your fans directly, understand their viewpoints and how important this character is to so many. I won’t tell you how much I personally love and care for the character of Ben Solo so as not to take up too much space in the letter, but there are many others who love him feel a much deeper connection with the character than I. Should you chose to do this, you would not only be drastically changing important details of the character’s life, but you would also be taking his own past from him. So many dedicated fans will feel disenfranchised. Furthermore, your sales would go down drastically. I cannot tell you how devastated the vast majority of your fans would be. We all want justice for Ben Solo, and if we cannot have it through him living a long and happy life, we deserve to see it through the truthful telling of his past.

Both Disney and Lucasfilm have been major centers of hope and inspiration for me throughout my life. The messages that you send, that even those who have made terrible decisions in their lives can be gravely misunderstood by others, and that they can always make things right, is extremely important to me. And the story of Ben Solo is one which I have followed closely since I saw The Force Awakens for the first time. I believed in his ability to redeem himself even before the information that what happened at Luke’s academy wasn’t his fault came out. Even when it was assumed that he had killed his fellow students, I believed in him because that is what Star Wars is about. Belief, hope, and understanding. In The Last Jedi, Leia says, “Hope is like the sun. If you only believe in it when you can see it, you’ll never make it through the night.” I have held on to that message ever since I heard it, and it has gotten me through many tough, emotional times in my life. I know that you respect your fans, and we as a fandom have not given up hope that you will do what is right for these characters.

Once again, before I close out this letter, please accept my deepest gratitude for all that this company has done to bring Star Wars into a new generation, inspiring us to go forward and create our own stories and modern myths. I am, and always will be proud to be a Star Wars fan.

Sincerely,

…………

Let me know what you guys think, I am excited to mail this letter!

Peace, Love, and Reylo💜

[lovleez]

oner 《恶浪》 mv/film theory

(this is less of a theory and more of a debunking of the mv though)

warnings: mentions of violence, murder (i wont include gifs of the bloody moments but it will be discussed!!!), animal abuse, and a bomb or two ? (someone gets blown up ;-;)

honestly the debunking might get a lil bit dark around the ling chao and ziyang individual parts, so be warned of that!

it would be helpful for you to watch/listen to these to process whats going on here:

oner 《恶浪》 mv (cw blood, murder, animal abuse, & heavy violence - please dont watch if these are triggers for you!!!) (there’s also eng subs in this link ^^)

oner - AGENT  (this is a song, but there’s quite a bit of dialogue near the end that ties into this plot!)  (cw gunshot, beeping noises that resemble a bomb ?? - all at the end of the song w/ the dialogue)

okay lets dive into it d(^-^)> !!!

to get the important info out of the way!

the start of the mv shows the three of them chilling on the couch, as friends do, watching,,well themselves on the screen (oner’s past performances as idols) (and i do believe that the idols part of this has some significance that i can figure out). the important takeaway from the beginning rlly is that they’re three good friends...who are completely unaware of each other’s secret occupations

their occupations being: ziyang, a murderer, yueyue, a spy, and ling chao, a hacker

now to jump into the main story! (starting around 1:35)

yueyue and ziyang both have the same target: the man in the restaurant. however yueyue gets there first and does his job well, as he gets away without being caught. ziyang is frustrated that his target is taken already.

*interesting detail here, but when trying to enter, ziyang shows them a ring with a purple jewel in the middle for entry,,,coincidentally, the man yueyue kills in the bar in his personal segment in the film later also has the same ring? obv the ring is for the restaurant entry so maybe ziyang wasn’t going to kill this “boss” but maybe negotiate/discuss something with him instead...but also thats disproven by the fact that ziyang pulled out a gun to presumably shoot him before realizing the dude was dead....

but also,,,suspicious how there was a zoom in to the purple ring when yueyue kills the man in the bar..maybe it means more than we think it does? altho im not too sure what  to think abt it for now

     for reference:

     ziyang’s ring                                    

     dead man in bar’s ring

.

moving on 

okay so since yueyue is a spy n all, he has to confirm his kill somewhere right? this somewhere is a phone booth,,,one that ling chao has rigged up with a bomb,,,,

speculation: someone hired ling chao to kill someone who will be approaching the phone booth; at this time, lc doesn’t know that this someone is yueyue (and is v shocked to see him there through his cameras as evident by his “what the hell! are you kidding me?”)

....and after this part the film dives into their personal stories to give more background on who  these three are (i’ll expand on those after i finish explaining the present timeline ^^) before coming back to the main story 

so!

ling chao “accidentally” blew up yueyue oh no (he’s still alive tho yey)

& then yueyue holds up a piece of candy,,,and immediately knows its ling chao (cuz its the piece of candy lc was eating earlier in the film) 

(and to take care of all loose ends that my brain is providing me with: in the beginning they didn’t know abt each other’s secret occupations...how does yueyue know that lc is capable of doing this? my answer: they used to be agent buddies!!! i’ll expand on this later hehe)

 .

and so

it was at this moment ling chao knew...he fucked up

he’s afraid yueyue might come after him.

which, is exactly what yueyue does

after going home or somewhere, yueyue receives a text telling him to get rid of “them” (ling chao) bc his “identity is exposed” 

....so now yueyue has to go and hunt down his buddy ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

and they fight! looks very painful for ling chao,,,poor dude,,,

since ziyang comes out from the back door to join the fight, theres two possibilities that come from this:

1) ling chao knew yueyue was coming and knew he couldnt take him down himself (lets be honest; he looks rlly scrawny) so he called ziyang to his location for backup (how could he know ziyang can fight? agent buddies 👐) 

2) ziyang and ling chao live together in the same house

anyways, both results making it obvious that ling chao and ziyang are on the same team while yueyue is on another (lets ignore the fact that ling chao was getting up to fight ziyang as well)

the fight scene is so dramatic oml T-T

ziyang could also be motivated to beat up yueyue in this fight cuz the dude did  take his target before he himself could (loophole: how did ziyang know it was yueyue who took his target? answer: maybe yueyue left like a signature or smthn at the crime scene, or ziyang saw him walk out  ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯ )

and when they all beat the living heck out of each other and are dramatically lying down in different areas of the room 

the tv turns on to a council saying “still want to be idols?”

(and remember, the thing they were watching on tv earlier was themselves performing,,,as idols. i cant connect it further than that so lemme know if yall figure smthn out ^-^)

so mayhaps this council is yueyue’s agency and they wanted to turn the trio against each other...? they would have set this whole situation up: they knew ziyang wanted to kill the restaurant “boss”, so they assigned yueyue to take care of him first, which creates conflict between those two. then, they hired ling chao to rig up a phone booth with a bomb; basically setting him up against yueyue

whether this council succeeds with their plan or not is unrevealed bc the film has a “to be continued” at the end, so the storyline still will have more to it!!!

although i would say the council succeeded since they all did beat each other bruised and bloody

.

that leaves the question: why  is the council setting them up against each other?

what are there previous connections beyond them just being friends 👀 ?

and here i shall bring back the “agent buddies” bit i was talking abt earlier, as well as why i linked the agent song in the beginning

near the end of the mv, there’s quite a lot of dialogue between the three of them, and it goes like this:

[robotic voice: welcome agent oner

ling chao (?): check 

yueyue: yo what up guys!

ziyang: yo what up bro

ziyang (yueyue?): alright lets take them out

yueyue: okay gentlemen we got a lot to do

ziyang: ey we gotta finish this quick, i got a date tonight

yueyue: really?

ziyang: no hard feelings (couldnt catch the rest)

yueyue: okay shut up

ling chao: hey guys, i saw a hit

(?): copy that

yueyue (ziyang?): hold your breath....now

ling chao: guys watch out

yueyue: okay guys locked and loaded

*single shot can be heard, then the reloading of a gun*

yueyue (?): go go go!

yueyue: fire fire fire!

yueyue: ???? *indistinguishable orders*

ziyang?: i got trouble i got trouble

yueyue: ?? i got ?? lets go

ling chao: stay together

ziyang (yueyue??): okay set to kill

ling chao: damn the truck is (blown?)

yueyue: what the hell

ziyang: okay let me (???) it

*bomb beeping noises*

yueyue: ???? clean this blood on my shirt]

(not sure how accurate my hearing is but its enough to make some guesses 😅)

agent buddies! the three of them used to be agents, as the song is titled, at some agency...and they probably made a pretty strong team together

the agency story would explain why they all seem to be good fighters too!

thats why the council might have wanted to tear them apart. perhaps the council was doing something that they knew would displease the trio, so they needed them separated lest they team up and try to defeat them 

i also think this audio could have been describing a mission going wrong for them, possibly their last one as a team. someone was probably hurt (im betting on either ziyang or ling chao), and they quit the agency and aimed to live normal lives from then on

...but old habits are hard to forget, so ziyang starts to kill ppl in his free time, yueyue joined another agency as a spy, and ling chao uses his hacking skills for other purposes

however they all dont tell each other, which could add on to the tension of their fight at the end of the film

.

now to dive into their individual bits of the film. these all don’t connect much to the main lore, just expands onto their lives with their secret occupations btw!

.

YUEYUE

his segment details moments in his daily agent life; im guessing he’s not very happy with it judging by his nightmares? or the nightmares are bringing up his past at his old agency which he does not like

he’s also master of disguise woah

personally i think he’s losing “who he is”. he’s always playing the role of another person, always putting on another disguise...so he starts losing his sense of identity (if that makes sense ;-;) 

(and if you wanna stretch it and make things wholesome, maybe the only times he [feels like himself] is when he’s around his two friends)

so basically: he’s always filling out other personas to the point where he doesnt know who he is anymore

(this is also the segment where he kills a man in the bar with poison,,,and the man was wearing the same ring as ziyang,,,,which is like Hm. why’d the directors do that 🤔)

.

ZIYANG

aka the murderer :D

(and not just regular serial killer type, more like joker-esque type where they’re a bit insane,,,)

okay his segment starts of with him dragging a man through a white room, where the floors is covered with plastic, and on the walls are a bunch of clay molds of human body parts

:D

my brain has concluded that! ziyang takes clay and makes molds of his victim’s faces/body parts of who he kills! to make statues! 

(i dont even know how i got there aksjdhdh but thats just what i assumed the first time i watched this film thingy)

and to make it more messed up than it already sounds,,,im guessing he’s a famous statue maker too, and holds shows where he presents his works to the public and maybe even bids them off ?

     ,,,,little did the audience know,,,,

          (this kinda remind me of sally and gabe’s statue from the pjo too now aksjhdkdh)

(i got this assumption from 6:50 in the film where he walks out in front of an audience who start clapping,,,and let my brain run wild with the rest,,,)

of course, he probably kills off the people he was the molding the clay off of once he’s done with his works,,,or sometimes even in the middle of his works as shown in the mv (*-* )

but alas that is not all to his story,,,

judging by his flashbacks when he’s beating that one dude to death with a bat, he used to be bullied when he was in school, which seems to be the source of all his anger throughout the film..

    ( yeah he killed the bullies too (_ _ )> )

its part of his personality to be rough and short tempered - he doesn’t like people looking down on him (as the bullies did)

and,,,if you want to be wholesome again! perhaps he found some bits of happiness and peace when hanging out with the others :]

.

LING CHAO

cw: animals abuse!!! 

his is pretty simple and is already explained in the mv itself! i’ll walk ya’ll through it though in case you didn’t watch the film tho akdjdjkf

basically: he’s just a dude who loves dogs :]

a lot

in his segment, a girl (handong, looking absolutely stunning ToT) approaches him wanting to take home another stray, and when he asks her where how the previous dog she adopted was doing, she says that “my bestie loved him a lot, so i gave him to her” ( -_- )

so...he lets her keep the dog, but also decides to keep an eye on her...to the point where she becomes very paranoid that someone is stalking her (which..she isnt wrong in)(but she doesn’t believe it to be ling chao because they’re..dating? i think? and he lulls her into a false sense of security that he’ll protect her from harm)

and then bam! one day he breaks into her house, steals the dog away, and then,,,,blows her up,,,,,

(i must say as disturbing this scene is,,,,i absolutely adore ling chao’s look here askjdjfd)

(i mean?? look at him?? loving the black lipstick ugh)

(v pale tho ;-;)

okay anyways the next flashbacks reveal that handong was abusing her dogs & starving them, and him being the animal lover he is, decides to kill her for it ig

(also she,,,stabbed the other dog that she “gave to her bestie” so-)

yeahh thats the end of his story; nothing much to take from it except that his hacker skills are still intact past agent days 

.

.

.

annnd thats a wrap folks! nothing else to expand on; i’ll definitely make another part to expand on this if they decide to release another mini film in the future tho :]

[scharfkugel]

What your average person who’s favourite Blazblue character is (insert char here) is like:

(Read-more because this is a looooong post)

Ragna: 50% chance of being a Blazblue giga-normie who’s only played cross tag battle and who’s only knowledge of Blazblue comes from abridged Alter Memory parodies on youtube. Other 50% chance of actually being a giant fan of the series since the old days and a chill guy.

Jin: Almost certainly a giant edgelord and if you’re unlucky, a big-time role-player who’s cleaned out the RagJin tag on AO3 and Fanfiction.net dozens of times. Approach with great caution.

Noel: Twitter resident who’s feed is full of pictures of Noel and whatever other half-obscure anime girls they’re obsessed with. Overuses the word ‘waifu’ and likely has a fightstick with a Noel decal on it.

Mu-12: Same as above except with a slight added hint of edge.

Rachel: Similar energy to the Noel fan except probably an even bigger weirdo. Has gotten into countless twitter wars that probably go something like “but she’s actually a thousand years old!!!”.

Taokaka: 50/50 chance of either being a horny furry who doesn’t even know what game Taokaka is from, or a really chill person who likes Tao for her cute and funny personality. Even if they’re the second type, they probably don’t know or care much about the ridiculous story of the series.

Iron Tager: Giant shitposter who’s only here to do epic funnies on netplay as Tager. Spends at least 50x more time labbing obscure tech and combos than actually playing the game. Likely a hardened and punished war veteran of Blazblue if they actually played Tager back in the Calamity Trigger days.

Litchi: An enormous tournament tryhard who’s success in locals half comes from the huge amount of time they spend on the game, and half from the deafening clickety-clackety-ass noise their custom fightstick makes that tilts the opponent to hell and back.

Arakune: They remember what was taken from them since the days of CT and CS. They will still beat your ass anyway. Extremely powerful person you must treat with caution and respect.

Bang: Absolute legend with god-tier taste. Bang fans are the chads of the Blazblue fandom that while small in number, are great in heart and passion. On a side-note, they probably kinda suck at the game.

Carl: An obscure person, but one who knows a lot about the series and only wanted the best for Carl. 50/50 chance of either being a god at the game, or being unable to do a 236 input.

Relius: A bastard but in a sexy way that makes you kind of respect them. They probably just like his aesthetic and playstyle, but that doesn’t stop them from making jokes about his robot wife.

Hakumen: Probably only ever got into Blazblue in the first place because Hakumen looked badass and they wanted to main him. Knows Hakumen’s entire monologue off by heart; doesn’t know when to stop pressing drive.

Nu-13: Highly volatile and dangerous being. I strongly recommend you stay as far away as possible from them, because whether they’re an enormously horny weeb or someone maniacal enough to main her, nothing good can come of interaction with this perilous partitioner.

Lambda-11: An actually normal person unlike the Nu fan, they’re just here for the cute girls and a good time. That said, if they main her then prepare to get your ass beat just the same as if you versed the Nu main.

Tsubaki: An underdog of the Blazblue fandom, they understand and appreciate greatness where the rabble of the fandom cannot. Probably sick to death of everyone saying Tsubaki sucks and is annoying. Probably can’t play Tsubaki.

Izayoi: Same as above except they’re also a giant tryhard. Netplay monster that messages “anyone wanna play cf?” on discord except no one replies because they play Izayoi and have a 80%+ winrate.

Hazama: Horny. They’re so horny. Hazama fans are an extremely dangerous and extremely horny subsection of the Blazblue community that I fear more than anything else.

Terumi: Exact same as above except unlike the Hazama fan who can at least be somewhat tasteful and reserved about their horniness, the Terumi fan is completely shameless and doesn’t care if anyone knows.

Makoto: They’re like the Taokaka fan except they actually play the game. Some are weird, but most are cool people with good taste.

Valkenhayn: idk has anyone ever seen someone who’s favourite character is valkenhayn? please pm me and I’ll add whatever you say here.

Platinum: Doesn’t know what a Blazblue is; just here because Platinum is cute and looks like a magical girl. Either into Pretty Cure, Madoka, or both.

Amane: Extremely respectable person of good taste, but also basically an extinct species. Wishes Amane got into cross tag battle, even though they know it will never happen.

Bullet: Horny. They’re like in a middle-ground of shamelessness between the Hazama and Terumi fan, except their twitter feed can’t be flooded with Bullet images like the Noel fan’s because no one else’s favourite character is Bullet.

Azrael: Extremely powerful and kingly aura, the Azrael fan strikes a primal fear into my heart that no other person can. Whether or not they’re horny for Azrael doesn’t matter, their energy is mighty enough to make all respect them.

Kagura: Horny, but tastefully so. They’re like a toned-down version of the Azrael fan, with another notable difference being that they actually have to use their brain when they play the game.

Kokonoe: 500 IQ Blazblue genius who needs to alt-tab out to a google doc showing them the optimal combo for their current position every time they land a 5B. Also likes catgirls.

Celica: Like the Lambda fan, they’re just here for cute girls and a good time. Was excited about Celica getting into cross tag battle even though they don’t play it.

Nine: I don’t even have to say it. You already know why people like this character. Let’s just go to the next one.

Jubei: Person most likely to like Nine for an actually good reason, they love the ninja grandpa cat because they have good taste and love kitties.

Izanami: No one calls Izanami their favourite character unless they’re REALLY good at her, so if you see the Izanami fan, watch out. Like the Izayoi fan, no one wants to verse them because they’ll get their ass beaten 100-0 and will get a freshly filled salt shaker while they’re at it.

Es: Have they actually played Xblaze? Do they really like Es for non-superficial reasons? Could it be that their love of Es is one deeply rooted in her characterisation and storyline? Yeah probably not.

Mai: See above but replace “played Xblaze” with “read Remix Heart”.

Hibiki: Do not be fooled. Although the Hibiki fan seems innocent enough, that maybe they just like his design and playstyle, these people are horny as HELL. Bonus points if there’s a clear pattern of them being horny for twinks in other media too.

Naoto: Unlike Es and Mai, this person most likely actually DOES know something about Bloodedge Experience and is a big Naoto fan because of it. However they’re sad because no one else does and when they say something like “Spinner Superior is such a cool villain” everyone else says “Who?”.

Susanoo: As if it were an ancient evil uncovered after dozens of millennia, Mori unleashed Susanoo on us. and subsequently, the horniest and scariest form of Blazblue fan to date. I fear them twice as much as I respect them and their complete audaciousness to be horny for Susanoo.

[straynstay]

Double Knot theory

this might be completely wrong, sorry lol it took me the whole day to come up with this, my head hurts lol

Alrighty peeps, here I am again with another attempt in trying to understand what’s behind the minds of SKZ when it comes to concepts, so I’m gonna analyze Double Knot on my yeezys after watching several times all their MVs (yes, I’m crazy lol). I’m not gonna be able to put pics of everything here cause tumblr sucks sometimes, but you can check the MVs to see what I’m talking about in case you don’t remember or didn’t notice. BARE WITH ME CAUSE THIS IS GONNA BE A LONG RIDE!

Starting with District 9 (where it all began), we have Mr. Bang Chan (the one in charge of their duties, therefore the leader) that sees a red flower and realizes that something is not right because if everything is monochromatic, how can there be a red flower? A glitch? An abnormality in their reality?

I think that the flower is a Poisenttia, but I don’t understand much of flowers, so I might be wrong. But if it’s really a Poisenttia, it could mean that the flower is pointing them to “salvation” since, according to Google, this flower is used during Christmas to symbolize the star of Bethlehem which led the Wise Men to where Jesus was born. So maybe the flower is showing that there’s a way out of this controlled reality they’re in? Maybe... (or maybe the flower will lead them to the big boss).

Moving on, Chan runs away to find that one of the drones that was watching them has crashed with a glass (?), making him place his hand on the panel that is projecting their world, and it wobbles (idk), meaning that they’re in a fake reality (everything is not what it seems!!)

Chan then hands out red papers with an encrypted message (I tried really hard reading what was on it, but it looks like and alien language or sth) to all SKZ members and they all get inside the bus (I’ve always wondered who’s driving the bus…) to break free from that reality and they enter another reality, a post-apocalyptic one, kinda lol, which is District 9 and they think they rule it cause they raised their flags there (but they’re not the ones in control, sorry boys)

And at the end we see the Stray Kids logo with black letters and the K in red. My mind went crazy and thought: S T R A Y K I D S = 9 letters, but one is different. > 9 boys, but one is different. Who? I think is Hyunjin because he’s the only one that looks at Chan after receiving the paper to escape and because he’s the one that the camera shows right after we see their logo on the floor lol So what I take from this is that Stray Kids now has become a glitch in their perfect system, but Hyunjin is not completely okay with it.

Moving on, in Mirror (not Miroh) we have Hyunjin alone in a room with 9 chairs, which I think that while the others left, he stayed behind. He’s writing on a piece of paper: who am I? where am I? I am not me (and the pencil dramatically breaks). They repeat several times “I don’t even know who I am, I just came along as they told me to” so I’m assuming Hyunjin is the one who’s still lost while SKZ is trying to break free, and maybe he’s having a hard time trusting Chan cause in the end Chan and Hyunjin are facing each other (don’t fight boys lol). 

And I say that Hyunjin is the different one by watching subtle things in other MVs (like Voices, MIA, My Pace...) in which the scenario changes suddenly when his part comes, or when it doesn’t glitch as much as the others, etc., which makes me believe my theory that he’s the odd one, the one that actually doesn’t want to be part of the group.

May I add that in My Pace they’re all stepping on red pamphlets on the floor that says “Just stay in my lane”… and they’re not staying in their lane anymore? (you can’t control SKZ trying to take over the system).

Now we move on to I Am You MV which is the sequel to My Pace, right? So we see them after glitching a lot in My Pace and they’re still being watched, but now Jisung breaks a surveillance camera lol and they move to another post-apocalyptic scenario cause, let’s be honest, who would live on that rooftop with drawings of a couch and a plant if it wasn’t for the end of the world? But what called my attention was the fact that we see Jeongin’s reflection on a puddle and we see two moons (hi Side Effects and Double Knot), they’re on the move on a truck instead of a bus, and we have an interesting scene with Chan and Jeongin’s reflection becoming one (so they’re indeed in this together), but what about Hyunjin? Well, we see him assembling something like a bat-signal that has SKZ logo on it as if he’s now calling for them…but by the end of the MV their logo still has the K as the odd one out.

So what’s all this about? In my weird mind, Chan discovered that they were living a lie, being controlled and told what to do and decided to break free from all of it, and while the others seem to agree, Hyunjin isn’t fully convinced about it. Maybe he’s scared? He doesn’t know who he actually is, since they all seemed to be in a mind controlling environment being watched 24/7, so he’s lost. The albums go like this in the storyline I’ve created in my mind: I Am Not = I’m not who I think I was, my life has been a lie; I Am Who = who am I? everything is a mess while I’m searching for my own self at my own pace; I Am You = I’m a glitch just like you.

NOW WE MOVE ON TO THE CLÉ SERIES!! (I swear to God SKZ is trying to give me a headache cause I’ve never used my brain this much before in my life lol)

In Miroh (not Mirror lol) we all know now that they are trying to overtake the system. They were able to enter the surveillance room and find those who they thought were controlling them. There’s some signs I was able to check in Miroh during the parade (that I haven’t noticed before) that are quite interesting. The first one says “There is no Tarzan in City Jungle”. Tarzan is considered a wild man, someone who’s not behaving the way society demands since he was raised in the jungle among animals. The other signs say “Something happened, nothing changed” and “The world is the same”, so I’m assuming that society is celebrating the fact that the faulty/glitched ones (the “Tarzans” aka SKZ) are long gone now – since District 9 –, and everything is back to normal with everyone behaving like they should and the system functioning perfectly, but they don’t realize that SKZ figured their way into the City Jungle (aka the central part of the system) and are gonna make a mess in it lol

I have already analyzed Side Effects (you can check it here), but I’m gonna go even crazier now and assume that Side Effects is also them being chased by the “boss” after what they’ve done in Miroh, and they have to follow unlocked roads in order to lay low and not be captured. Maybe that’s why Hyunjin is the nervous one in the MV, fighting Seungmin (cause he’s about to register with a camera where they are and what they’re doing) and Felix (who wants to leave the cart, their ‘safe’ zone), because he didn’t want to be there in the first place. His lines in the song shows he’s afraid and doubting himself.

But at the end of Side Effects, Hyunjin is now converted to SKZ’s cause, if that makes sense. After everything they’ve gone through, everything that happened in Miroh and the other MVs, he’s finally part of the group. So Chan, as the leader, reaches out to him, and Hyunjin accepts, leaving a key behind – which I think might be what he was holding onto since District 9 (cause they all had separate rooms in that ‘prison’ and that key looks like a regular room key and not one of the fancy keys that show up on Double Knot). Now they’re gonna walk their path as a unit, not individuals.

Alright, that being said, I’m gonna move on to Double Knot. In Double Knot we see them walking on a road that looks almost exactly like the one they’ve been staring at in Victory Song in a city with two moons, so that means that after running a lot in Side Effects, they’ve reached their destination = the city. 9 fancy keys appear on top of some maps, so I’m assuming everything is complete now. We see an Astronaut billboard and we also have “take off” being showed in a bracelet, a ring, a necklace, and on the road. I’ll comment on those two later.

Right, so here comes the fun parts of this analysis. When Jisung (?) ties his laces, the ground becomes glitched as if something (aka SKZ) is interfering in the system (we can see signal written, so it means ‘no signal’ or ‘error-signal’). 

And now EVERYTHING STARTS TO MAKE SENSE! Because SKZ now knows that since everyone is in this together after Hyunjin decided to join them in Side Effects, they can play with the glitches! Let me try to explain it better: after watching this MV and the others, I now see their concept kinda like Wreck It Ralph, if you know what I mean lol They’re not where they were supposed to be and they’re glitching inside a world that’s being projected to them, a fake world in which someone is in charge, but they broke free from that control, so now that they’re complete as a unit, they can be like Vanellope and play around with the faulty system that can’t handle them, meaning that they’re free and can go anywhere, change from one to another, lag the system and confuse the hell out of whoever is still trying to stop them.

This MV has more glitches and interferences than any other one, so it probably means they’re closer to the end than before. I don’t know if they’re trying to reach the main core or anything like this, but I do believe that this is not the end for them, I still think that there’s a final boss even after Miroh... but this is just me guessing lol

Minho, Jeongin and Seungmin see that they’re still being watched by a drone (kinda like District 9) and they’re recognized by the system (can you see their names on the side of the screen right below Stray Kids?), maybe the system is trying to get rid of the glitches?

Hyunjin is running alone on the street until he reaches a crossroad (now he doesn’t have to choose which road to take, he can go anywhere) and then after running some more he finds a key with the SKZ logo on the floor. This key is the same key that Chan uses to unlock the Yellow Wood on the elevator, btw, and the same key that we see him trying to open the white door with; the same door that Chan peeks through the key hole and sees himself and the SKZ on the sky, somewhat in a heroic kinda pose, right?

“ERROR-SIGNAL” shows up at the end when they’re all together, and we see that the Stray Kids logo is now all white (they’re all the same now). At the end, there’s blue while we see the interferences, which I think is because they’re gonna go up to the sky in Levanter.

THEY’RE GONNA TAKE OFF TO THE MOON!!! or not lol mark my words: Stray Kids everywhere all around the UNIVERSE! the world is too small for them now! The MV also shows “the owners of Clé”, meaning that they’ve learned how to make the system work for them now. GO, STRAY KIDS!

Something weird that I noticed while watching the MVs is that they’re always on rooftops (in Victory Song, Voices, I Am You, Miroh, etc), as if they’re trying to reach higher than that, but can’t or don’t know how to yet. They need an Astronaut to help them Take Off (see what I did here?), and I believe that the answer is behind the white door that Chan is about to open. Now I have no idea who or what might the astronaut, or what’s behind that door, but I hope we get more answers in Levanter.

Wow, I think I wrote a lot and there’s still much more that we can talk about this MV and SKZ’s concept. Maybe I’m dead wrong, but this is how I interpreted the story, so feel free to discuss your ideas with me if you want to~

STRAY KIDS MAKE ME PROUD AND THAT’S ALL THAT MATTERS ♥️

[gascon-en-exil]

But What If You Want to Come Out on Vers Bottom?: A “Coming Out on Top” Review (Part 1)

A review quoted on this game’s website describes it as “the Citizen Kane of ripped, naked big-dicked dudes in love.” Incredibly narrow superlative notwithstanding, that’s some high praise. Does Coming Out on Top earn it?

(I also solemnly swear not to make a relevant innuendo involving rosebuds, because there’s enough dirty wordplay here without my input.)

It’s been a bit unusual for me to return to CooT, having played it when it first released in late 2014 and then only on and off since then as the game was regularly updated. I believe it’s actually the first proper dating sim I ever played - no, Fire Emblem’s Avatar romances do not count as far as I’m concerned - and it set a very high bar for quality that has unfortunately never quite been surpassed by other (gay) titles in the genre.

This is perhaps all the more remarkable in that the premise here is not the most original thing in the world: Mark Matthews (you can change his name at the start, but I’ll be going with this default masterwork of blandness) has just come out of the closet to his two roommates Penny and Ian at the start of his final semester at university, and the story plays out from there as he meets, dates, and potentially falls in love with a wide assortment of men while also balancing his studies and his relationships with the aforementioned roommates who also double as his friend group. That’s...basically it, and apart from the romance plotlines the rest of the game’s content feels fairly extraneous. Mark can’t flunk out before the end of the story no matter how much you neglect his grades (although his job prospects in the ending will improve if you do work on them), and for the most part whatever money he amasses or friendship bonding moments he has during his free time on the weekends only plays into whether you get friendship endings with Penny and/or Ian. Unlike Chess of Blades survival is usually a given in CooT, and while there are quite a few death endings sprinkled throughout the game’s content almost all of them are played for laughs (and sometimes Steam achievements, because why not).

No, there are three major selling points here independent of the excuse plot. First and perhaps most noticeably, the writing never takes itself too seriously and incorporates everything from silly banter to fourth wall-breaking (refuse to come out at the start of the game, for an early example) to the sort of understated pun work that makes Dream Daddy’s script apparently living off corny dad jokes all the more egregious by comparison. There’s even a fair amount of self-aware meta humor, in a game released several years before the likes of Doki Doki Literature Club! made that par for the course for dating sims.

Then there’s the sheer diversity of options on display in terms of storylines and how certain scenarios play out, including the third point which is, well...the raw, uncensored gay sex. Despite the innuendo of CooT’s title Mark is not a total top, and most of the game’s myriad sex scenes can go down in a variety of different ways depending on what Mark/the player expresses a preference for - including situations involving various types of kinks. There’s also a very limited degree of body customization available; in the options menu there are toggles for Mark and all of his (primary) sexual partners that give you the option to add facial and/or body hair to their portraits and CGs. The hair options aren’t gamebreaking by any means - for Mark it only allows him to switch between twunk and otter, and while there is some diversity in race, age, and body type among his love interests and hookups there’s still a notable number of muscled 20-somethings. Still, I do appreciate that the toggles are there. You’ll notice my own preferences for the guys in my screenshots.

Back to that other kind of variety though. With six primary love interests and numerous divergent paths for each of them - some good, some bad, and some hilariously strange - there’s a ton of content to work through in CooT. The pathing is set up so that you get the opportunity to meet almost all of the love interests before you’re asked to commit to one of their stories, something the game heavily telegraphs so you’ll never feel like you’ve been unknowingly pushed past a point of no return. These introductions are generally on the SFW side, but there are two chances for some rauchy fun even before you commit so let it not be said that this game has strictly enforced monogamy at all times. On that note, there’s also Brofinder.

Penny comically missing the point aside, Brofinder is an in-universe Grindr equivalent. It can be accessed if you decline to pursue any of the love interests, or more conveniently from the main menu independent of the story. Fittingly for the type of app it’s lampooning, Brofinder dates are disconnected vignettes that all, if done correctly, end in some hot NSA action but impact nothing else after you’ve completed them. There are ten of these, all added via progressive updates following the game’s initial release, and taken together they add substantially to the many ways in which Mark can get laid.

I should also mention the secret seventh joke “love interest,” but as that one has become a bit of a minor meme and will probably come up if you Google blindly about this game I’ll leave it at that.

...Yeah. Leaving it right there.

There are some places where the presentation of CooT falters, but nothing on the scale of the dodgy voice acting found in some of the other gay dating sims I’ve discussed - mostly because there is no voice acting. Aside from the CGs and the character portraits the artwork can be rather workmanlike and forgettable, and similarly almost all of the soundtrack I would liken to elevator music which might have inspired one of the Brofinder dates now that I think about it. The supporting cast on the whole also doesn’t get much opportunity to shine aside from Mark’s roommates, because the love interests’ stories are all unrelated to each other and as such the people around them can only be involved in one of the game’s plots. I’m tempted to sum this all up as weak worldbuilding, but let’s be honest here - all this game needs is the suggestion of a generic American university and surrounding town peopled mostly with archetypes (at times comedically memorable ones, granted) to give it sufficient background. Most actual porn gets away with far less than that.

When I did my review of Chess of Blades I was able to discuss each of its love interests in a single follow-up post, but CooT simply has too much going on for that. Therefore this review will have three additional parts: two covering the six primary love interests, and a third going more quickly over the Brofinder dates. At time of writing I don’t think I’m also going to be grading the sex scenes of how realistic they are like I did with CoB, because there are too many of them and nothing sticks out as egregiously as it does in that game. There will however be as much description for them as I can manage; that is the main selling point here, after all.

[5-falsehoods-phonated]

may I request some fluffy Janus and Patton cuddles?

Yes! I'm sorry this took so long to answer but I hope you enjoy it!

Controller Passing Made Easy

Summary: Having Patton in his lap just makes switching who's playing the game easier, that's all! And if cuddling ensues during and after than that's their business.

Warnings: spoilers for a boss fight in Twilight Princess if you want to avoid that

Ships: platonic Patton x Janus, platonic Mociet

Janus swore quietly as he took another hit from a bulbin he hadn't noticed sneaking behind him. The buttons clicked loudly on the old controller as he executed a rather impressive spin attack that went immediately into a finishing blow, making Link turn quickly to slash at another enemy and sending it flying into the lava. The camera angle spun wildly as he searched for more enemies, letting out a sigh when he saw there were none.

"Alright, let's see if I remember this boss."

Since Janus had been accepted and Remus...mostly accepted, the barrier between the "light sides" and "dark sides" had been much easier to walk freely across. Which allowed Janus to finally bring his console out from the other sides' common room and install it in the "light sides'" where there was much fewer outlets being used and the couch was free of mysterious stains and sticky spots from where Remus flopped down on his returns from his side of the imagination. He shuddered to think of what even a quarter of them could possibly be from.

Shaking his head he gathered what hearts he could from the pots surrounding the door and entered the last room of the dungeon just as Patton came down the stairs. His eyes flicked towards the other as the cutscene started but Patton's were glued to the screen, watching curiously as Link entered a large room with a sleeping beast chained upright in the middle of the room. He crossed the floor slowly and quietly sat beside Janus on the couch as the gem on the beasts forehead glowed red, music beginning to pick up while the monster raised its head to examine its prison. It roared as it tugged at its chains and Patton gasped out as it ripped them free from the wall and let a final challenging roar right in Link's face. The battle was on.

Quickly maneuvering behind Fyrus, the Goron Mines final boss Janus instantly remembered the gimmick as he saw the chains dragging on the ground, grabbing them as he switched on his iron boots and tried moving backward, swearing louder as it did nothing. Remembering his bow just as the monster was catching up to him he aimed and quickly shot at the glowing gem on its head, grabbing the chains again as Fyrus' steady gait turned into a stomping rampage. The top heavy boss fell hard on the ground and he quickly ran around to slash at its vulnerable gem, smirking in satisfaction knowing he was doing it right. This particular boss was one of the easiest in game to figure out and beat but it had been such a long time since he had sat down and played any kind of video game that it was almost like doing a first playthrough again; which was nice considering how many times he had beaten this particular title in the past.

With a final strike of his sword another cut scene started up, victorious music swelling as Fyrus shrunk and collapsed while twilight particles flew off of him to condense into a piece of fused shadow above, Midna taking form to reach for it and create a portal to exit the dungeon. Smiling slightly Janus made sure to save before putting the controller down and turning towards Patton.

"Was there something you needed?"

Hurt was quickly replaced with a smile as Patton stood up quickly and shook his head. "Nope, sorry! Just wanted to see what you were up to since you've been down here a while, I'll leave to let you-"

"Patton." Janus winced as he realized how his question must have sounded. "I didn't mean anything by that, I've been down here a for a couple hours and thought perhaps you were wanting the TV. I truly didn't mean anything by it."

Pattons smiled turned more genuine as he carefully sat back down, gesturing to the TV. "I haven't seen this in a while. What's it called again?"

"The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess. Thomas got this shortly after getting a Game Cube, it was one of Virgil and I's favorites."

Patton nodded. "I remember now. Did you know Thomas owns the newest one?"

"There's a new one?" Janus put the controller down curiously. He'd been a little out of the loop lately when it came to the things Thomas did unless he was actually needed.

Patton nodded again more excitedly, launching himself over to the TV and digging quickly through the game sleeves until he found what he was looking for. "This! The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild!"

Janus took it excitedly, wondering when it had come out. The cover art looked beautiful, slightly painted and bright and showcasing an expansive world to discover and explore. He looked up at Patton imploringly, eyes flicking to the switch he had noticed but hadn't touched since it wasn't technically his, content enough to play on the console he had brought up with permission. Patton laughed softly and took the sleeve from him, quickly setting up the game and handing him a different controller.

-----

"There's another one!!" Patton bounced slightly as he made Link dash towards another frog to add to their inventory. Janus smiled fondly and tightened his grip around Patton's waist, the fatherly sides soft hair tickling the underside of his chin but he made no move to sit up. He didn't really know how they had gotten into this position, sitting in front of the couch with Patton nestled comfortably in his lap with his head resting underneath Janus' chin, but he supposed it made passing the controller back and forth easier. They hadn't gotten very far in the game, both of them much too excited to explore the map and take pictures to actually progress the main storyline. As it was almost six hours later their stamina wheel was full and they had done enough shrines and collected the spirit orbs needed to gain seven new heart containers. Janus was reasonably sure that they'd probably be overpowered for most of the games bosses at this point but he didn't care and Patton didn't really seem to either, excitedly moving from one interesting thing spotted in the distance to another.

He blinked out of his thoughts as he felt Patton tap his hands with the controller, unwinding them from their previous position and taking it as the moral side settled back against him with a content sigh. Thankfully it was a "finish all the leftovers in the fridge please" day so they hadn't had to be distracted for too long as they whipped up something quickly earlier and ate before returning to their game, the other sides not doing much more than shooting them questioning looks before going about their own business. Roman and Virgil's glances were admittedly a bit more...touchy, but it didn't seem to bother Patton so Janus was content to focus on the game rather than the tense atmosphere the mindscape hadn't managed to shake yet.

Some time later Janus finally made it to the top of a glowing mountain, smiling at the scattered blupees running around before gasping as he took in a strangely beautiful creature. Snapping it with his camera The Lord of the Mountain stood in the small pond surrounded by the little bunny owl creatures, celestial patterns swirling across its glowing blue body as it moved around unaware of his presence hiding behind a bush. He tapped Pattons arm gently not having heard a reaction from him yet. Looking down as he still recieved no response he nearly melted at the sight. Patton was slumped slightly to the side, glasses askew and mouth agape as he slept still nested in Janus' lap, which he only now realized was quite cramped. His back also let it's own discomfort be known as he glanced at the clock and startled as he realized it was nearly midnight.

He set the controller down gently and with a wave of his hand turned off the TV and console, knowing that unless he shut the game down completely it would pick up where he left off. He carefully maneuvered to stretch out his tired legs, taking off Patton's glasses and setting them down on the table as well. Gently twisting he managed to get an arm under the others knees while his other supported his back, holding him close as he slowly stood up. Glancing at the stairs he scoffed and shook his head. Absolutely not, and sinking down would risk waking Patton up, which looking at his peaceful face that was something he definitely did not want. Couch it was then.

He sat down slowly and leaned back to swing his legs onto the cushions, gently moving Patton around until he was more or less laying on top of him. Thanking the stars he seemed to be an incredibly heavy sleeper he snapped his fingers to change them both into their pajamas, chuckling as Patton curled tightly into him clad in his fuzzy gray cat onesie. Janus himself had black socks and sweatpants with a comfortable dark grey long sleeve that covered his arms until they met his usual gloves. His relationship with the others was improving, but the trust was not yet established enough for him to break out his own onesie just yet. Another snap left the room blissfully dark and with Patton's warm weight on top of him he drifted almost immediately to sleep.

------

Patton blinked tiredly as sunlight knocked insistently against his eyelids. Waving his hand had the curtains drawn in an instant and he sighed into the darkness, snuggling further into the warmth beneath him.

His eyes snapped open as he lifted his head to see exactly where he was, confusion marring his features as a scaled face was seen just inches from his own. Realizing he must have fallen asleep while playing the game last night he smiled warmly at the other side, giggling as Janus shifted in his sleep and the tip of a forked tongue blepped out adorably. Settling again on the others chest, Patton sighed into the warmth and closed his eyes, content to have a late morning with the beat of Janus' heart thudding comfortingly in his ear.

This work and other one shots are also available on AO3 if you'd like! Submissions for other one shots are still being taken if theres something you'd like me to write!

[leighas-life]

Review Of Meg, The Trench, Primal Waters, Origins By Steve Alten

Meg #1 (4/5 stars)

*I didn’t write a review for this one, but my thoughts for the second 2 sum up how I feel about Meg (and probably the series as a whole when I finish it.)

The Trench (Meg #2) - 3.5/5

***Trigger warning: Rape is mentioned, along with the person being tortured, there were two attempted rape scenes, one quite graphic and incest.*** The author needs a better editing team. The writing style was good and enjoyable for the most part, although one thing stood out which was the repetitiveness. Jonas felt his temper flaring practically every other page. There was a lot of flashing. How many times can a person flash a smile, or flash their eyes in anger, flash this, flash that....? "For a surreal moment" is also used many times. Once you notice the repetitiveness, it is almost impossible not to notice, which brings you out of the story. Another thing that stood out that took away some enjoyment was a lot of telling instead of showing. Too many characters. I gave up trying to keep track of them. 99% were not important, just written in to be killed. I like how Masao treats Jonas as a true son and not a son-in-law. They have a couple of sweet father-son moments. The actions scenes were suspenseful. I truly felt Terry's terror as she goes through the stuff she went through. There are a couple of characters I hated so much and admit, I was hoping they would die, so Steve Alten is good at writing characters you hate. I do plan on reading more, as I love the entertaining value in these. Some of the triggering and problematic things you can overlook if you go in knowing what to expect. I hope the books get better as the series progresses.

Primal Waters (Meg #3) - 4/5 very problematic stars. 

TW: Because yes, this will have triggers, like the first two. Misogyny, implied/mentioned sex between adults and underage girls, suicide is mentioned, abortion is mentioned, slut and fat-shaming (blink and you might miss the slut-shaming, but it is there.) *** You can go into a vintage horror (or any genre) novel and expect some dark and nasty stuff, including how females are treated, and hey, maybe you even like those books, despite the problematic elements. Those books were a product of the time. I'm honestly not judging your taste in books, because I read them, too. It is nice to be able to turn your brain off sometimes. That being said, the way females are treated in this book just doesn't make sense. Because it is about killer sharks, does that mean it is marketed toward men and that is why all the girls are treated like eye candy, along with underage eye candy to boot? It is just cringy how Terry is described. (The Asian beauty with almond eyes.) I wasn't even at the 30% point and already suicide was mentioned, two instances of underage sex mentioned (with an adult) and one instance of what seems like a forced abortion (man paying for and probably making the underage girl abort her baby), and a cheating scumbag. (And later on in the book there are slut and fat-shaming.) Oh, and of course some shark kills! Which is the real reason to read these, right? Why in the world would Jonas let his underage daughter be one of the "Candy Girls" without even saying a word of protest? “I was hoping you might be able to use Dani behind the scenes, you know, assisting the film crew . . . something to keep her busy.” “Behind the scenes?” Erik laughs. “Your daughter’s eye-candy, Professor, and we can never have too much of that. Dani, as soon as you get settled, come find me and I’ll hook you up with wardrobe. They’ll pick out some nice bikinis, maybe a few after-hour numbers. We’ll pay you to be one of our Candy Girls, my pet name for our Daredevil groupies.” “Excellent.” Danielle’s gloating smile tweaks her father’s blood pressure. *** Also, I can do without shaming people for having body hair. It was just a silly and unneeded line. "God, I miss California. If I date one more woman with hairy legs, I think I’ll—" *** Erik points to the bow where a cocoa-brown African-American woman in a white thong bikini is posing before a photographer and two cameramen. “Not much of an actress, but who cares, she makes—” “I know, great eye-candy.” So, we have an almond-eyed Asian beauty and now a cocoa-brown African American...can't we describe POC without using food? And you don't have to keep reminding us that Terry's Asian as well. We remember! (Later on, there is an olive-skinned Italian as well.) I saw someone call these books "Shallow Entertainment" and they sure are that! I notice that he really likes to go into detail of describing how a female looks, using words like "shapely" a lot. Also, I noticed he points out skin color and eye color of the females often, but only one time did he mention the eye color of a man. I wonder why it is? So we know what eye color the females have when we fantasize about them? I mean, he writes them like "Eye Candy!" The girls on the boat are even called "Candy Girls" by the camera crew. It is basically "Girl's Gone Wild" with stupid daredevil stunts that get people killed. How has this film crew not been sued and how are they allowed to show the deaths on tv? I've never watched the real Girl's Gone Wild, but this book is similar to the Piranha (2010) movie, if you remember the GGW film crew, well, yeah, this book is like that, but with some hungry sharks and people who don't use their brains. Of course, the sex and nudity in this are not graphic or anything, but you get what I mean. That is because Steve does a lot of telling, and not showing. All the people in this book that get put in danger (and end up getting killed) are getting what they deserve. I would never say that about a real-life situation, toward a real victim, but seriously, these characters have bricks for brains. The camera, still looped around his neck, bounces against his chest— —calling out his name. Brian stares at temptation, his fear momentarily subsiding. 'The whale’s dying. Angel’s got to be circling below, waiting to feed again. One shot, just a quick one before you lose the light, then get to shore as fast as you can.' He stops paddling, allowing the kayak to drift as he glances back at Charlie. 'Calm and steady and the Meg won’t even know you’re here. One great shot of her next attack, just one killer shot.' 'Sorry Charlie, but that’s life in the food chain. Damn, this looks good. Okay, Angel, one more time for Daddy while we still have the light. Definitely a cover shot on National Geographic, maybe even Time . . .' This is why I root for the shark! A certain thing keeps happening in this book and jarring me out of the story. Steve Alten has a broken way of writing what are supposed to be suspenseful moments. Personally, I don't like this style. I don't know how to describe it, so I will show you. Balancing atop the wall, he runs back to the arena and the safety of the bleachers as fast as he can— —nitrogen bubbling in his bloodstream. Fergie bounds over another swell and pulls hard on his control strut— —as a powerful updraft catches the kite. Losing the wind, he plummets—a seabird with clipped wings— —as the Megalodon breeches, its head rising at him like a missile, its jaws yawning open, offering an impossible target to miss. Devin flees— —only to be confronted by an even bigger nightmare. This way of writing might be fine if it only happened a couple of times, but it is littered throughout the whole book. One last thing I want to add about Dani, which is a spoiler-ish. [Dani starts off as a teenage spoiled brat; there is no way to say it nicely. I liked how she grew and eventually stopped being such a pain, and she and her father started to see eye to eye again.] Don't get me wrong, despite my complaints, I really do like these books. As I said, it is nice to turn your brain off and enjoy some B movie type books.

Meg Origins (Meg #.05) 2/5 stars.

If you read and liked Meg, this tells the story of when Jonas first met the prehistoric shark. This book is interesting, to say the least. However, some of the writing was dry, dare I say boring. There were some repetitive chapter openings that annoyed me. I guess the editing team didn't notice. Once you notice these repetitive things, it is hard to keep from noticing them and it takes you out of the story. For example: In the Prologue "Captian George Nares stood defiantly on the heaving gun deck." In Chapter 1: "Captian Richard Danielson stood defiantly on the main deck." How does one stand defiantly? Do you stand in a Superman pose, with your hands on your hips? There were so many characters. I wrote a list of characters in case someone was important later on. Large casts are often forgettable. I counted about 20 characters (Plus some more that were not given proper names.) 90% of these people were not important. I liked how there was a nod to the Jaws movie. "Good God, Man! That's more than half the length of the Challenger. A creature that size... we'd need a bigger boat." Steve didn't copy Jaws. Maybe he was inspired somewhat, but the storyline of Meg is completely different from Jaws, yet people are going to still scream copycat. Misogyny, treatment of women. One girl in this is only known by her big boobs. I think she's given a name, but that's about it. You can tell this was written by a man by the way characters describe women. "...tan, oiled breasts two swollen grapefruits in the skimpy red bikini." "...hawkish eyes moved from the pair of jacks in his right hand to the D-cup breasts barely contained beneath the brunette's olive-green tee-shirt." How do you know they're D-cup? Did you measure them, or did she tell you? "Hey, so my boobs are d-cup." These are grown men, but they sound like they are teen boys who just discovered boobs. I'm not a prude by any means, but I can't say I liked this manner of describing people. I notice the men are never described this way. Don't get me wrong, I really do like these books. So far. Meg Origins should be saved only if you are a die-hard fan of the series, though. None of it is new info. It just goes into detail of what the first book already mentioned.

[notthefilmreview]

Reacting to THE HALF OF IT TRAILER on Netflix

Hey, it’s Dana!

As you can tell from the title I’m going to watch the trailer to THE HALF OF IT and deliver my thoughts and predictions while going through the trailer.

So read on for more!

https://youtu.be/B-yhF7IScUE (here’s the link to the trailer if you’re interested).

Just from the first bit of the trailer, we can obviously tell that this is going to be one of those nerdy-girl tropes which have been played out many many times before. 

Another main highlight (which is also the main reason why I wanted to review this trailer) is that Ellie is ASIAN! I do love how Netflix has started introducing more diverse main characters in teenage movies like these because it just shows that, yes, we too experience the same romances and struggles just like every other white teen in the universe.

(However, she does fit into the nerdy-Asian-girl trope which is a bit offputting, especially with the stereotypical glasses and all, but I guess it doesn’t matter *that* much).

Squahamish? SQUAHAMISH?

Who would name a town Squahamish, let alone decide to *live* in a town called Squahamish?

Is it even a real place?

Well, it turns out no - but there are many places called Squamish, particularly in Canada.

Okay, kind of unrelated, but the actress who plays Ellie (Leah Lewis) has a lovely talking voice. It’s really calming, almost velvety and caramelly. I actually advise you to go and watch the trailer just to listen to her voice.

Also, I like that in sync eating with her dad because just by looks and mannerisms you can tell that she and her dad seem alike reflecting how close their relationship may be.

However, this does bring up the question: where’s Ellie’s mum? She might either be dead (to be blunt) or her parents are divorced. I’m leaning towards the former more because that’s such a trope to give a character more depth and add in a little emotional scene.

Ooooooo okay, my girl’s an entrepreneur at the age of 17 - you go, girl!

Here it is, our designated love interest to come and swoop nerdy Ellie away *YAWNNNNNNN*

He’s probably going to ask her to write an essay for him and then they’ll fall in love and kiss and break social boundaries and live *happily ever after!*

DisGuSTaNggGg

This is such a beautiful wide shot.

Nevertheless, I can’t help but wonder how far in the countryside is this Squahamish??? Because the town looks quite lonely.

Only 10???? Ummmm...Ellie, honey, essays take *effort* and if you’re doing multiple different essays at once then I would definitely charge A LOT more. Seriously, I can barely do my own essays so I don’t know how she’s getting through her own work and all those other essays from other people. 

I am wondering if Ellie might get caught by the school for helping other people to cheat because she obviously has written about the same essay topic multiple times for different people and thinking about good points are hard to come up with. There are also other factors like the tone of voice while writing because certain people write in a certain type of way.

Also, this is a teen movie so there should be some aspect of a “moral to the story” and Netflix can’t promote cheating so Ellie may get caught during the climax of the movie.

So here it is, the guy wants Ellie to write this letter to Aster and then he and Ellie are going to fall in love in the process. GENERIC!

But, on a side note, Aster is very pretty so if she’s available at the end of the movie I’m available too so...

HIT ME UP, GIRL?

I hope they don’t make Aster a bitch but I know that if they go through with the generic storyline of the guy realising he wants Ellie instead of Aster then they need to make her unlikable.

I mean, who names their child Aster Flores???? 

Wait -

WAIT!

Is that a...meet-cute? Between Aster and Ellie? Are they going to fall in love? Is Ellie going to be gay? Are we getting a gay Asian?

Omgomgomgomgomgomg - YES!

I really didn’t want this movie to be generic and it looked as though it was going through that path but 44 seconds into the trailer and this movie is *definitely* anything but.

So now, after seeing this interaction, my prediction is that Ellie and Aster are going to bond just as Ellie’s friendship with The Guy (who I still don’t know the name of) blossoms so she’ll have that big conflict between helping him out with helping Aster fall in love with him and her own feelings for Aster.

If they actually make this a thing then I will be so happy; omg they just look so cute together.

BUT I do hope they don’t make The Guy the main kind of “villain” of the movie because we do need some solid male-female friendships in movies just to show guys and girls can be purely platonic without it turning into something more.

Okay, now I’m really excited!

Awkwardddddd...

Okay, so what I’m thinking is that Ellie’s love letters are going to help The Guy and Aster go on a date but when they actually go on the date, The Guy realises he has zero in common with Aster and says “hey, Ellie, I think I just liked the idea of dating Aster - but it’s you who she actually really likes and has stuff in common with!” 

Or something like that.

(Basically, I’m just trying to save The Guy’s friendship with Ellie as much as possible because he does look pretty sweet).

(Also, another side note, I love the colours of the film; they just look very simple and pleasing to the eyes).

So I’m thinking that maybe at the end of the movie, Ellie might leave Squahamish to go and explore the world (possibly with The Guy or with Aster, or both!)

Why do all these blonde girls look just a tad bit *too old* to be in High School?

Not to be rude or anything but it’s just a tad offputting to have Leah Lewis look like an ACTUAL 17-year-old and then have these side characters who look like mums they’ve decided to take their daughter to school to meet all her friends.

Seriously, look at that look on Aster’s face - she looks like her 4 mums are strutting into school, holding her hand, and completely embarrassing her!

But back to the review: Aster seems to be a popular girl (and her friends seem to be stereotypical popular bitches). But it seems as though Aster doesn’t like her popularity so she might just ditch her friends to hang out with Ellie and The Guy, then by the end of the movie they become a friendship trio (with Aster and Ellie dating because duh).

The trailer does end up revealing that The Guy finds out Ellie likes Aster (as we were all waiting for).

He does look quite betrayed but at the same time, I think he’s also angry at himself for not actually realising Ellie’s feelings before.

This might come after they become good friends so it looks as though The Guy seems (possibly) willing to give up his crush on Aster for the sake of their friendship (I hope).

Awwwww FRIENDSHIP! 

OMG yes, Netflix! I am proud of you!

This little phrase is kind of changing my thoughts on the end of the movie because I don’t think Ellie would actually go and date Aster right after The Guy tried to date her because - BRO CODE.

So, the movie might just focus on the development of their friendship and then Aster might join them to make them a trio, leading up to the possibility of Ellie and Aster getting together in the future.

Is this making sense???

DisGuSTaNggGg

Well, I don’t think The Guy got the message about bro code...

So this will probably be the height of the conflict where Ellie and The Guy fight over the fact that he knew she likes Aster yet carried on dating her.

This seems like a really cute moment but also a bit dangerous because, like, that’s a *train*. I don’t know about Squahamish but if I decided to walk across the train tracks in the UK, I would get crushed by a train, or (if I don’t die) get arrested or something.

Awwwwww he’s a JOCK!

Jock-nerd friendship goals omg that’s too cute.

Netflix do not mess up this friendship! They are too pure!

So overall I am super excited to watch the movie for the male-female friendship and the lesbian love story.

My initial reaction, as you read above, was that it was just going to be a generic heterosexual love story between this nerdy Asian girl and this white jock. 

HOWEVER (and this is a big however), when I watched the rest of the trailer, the story became anything but generic. The story seems complex, interesting, and really fitting to the lives of teenagers now.

So I urge you all to watch THE HALF OF IT on the 1st May 2020 on Netflix (and I’ll make a reaction post to the movie).

But as for now, keep binging - bye!