#all of the aesthetic shots were given to the humans which is so sad

[knakrack]

TRANSFORMERS (2007)

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary109

12/31/2023

sunday

new year's eve is okay.

we were invited out but couldn't / can't go, since my gf is sick. that's okay because i feel ugly today and don't want to go outside ever again. there was another shooting today on the strip/ around the mgm, i guess maybe not actually a shooting, just a man going crazy and firing a gun into the air, a poker player, a guy who did some pro stuff i guess, even. nobody died, hopefully no one was injured by the bullets as they came back to earth or whatever. idk how 'in the air' he shot them really, maybe just vaguely towards the sky, instead of directly up. he probably hit some kind of losing streak. the big vegas shooting, the one in the mandalay bay, happened for likely similar reasons. that guy wasn't a pro but it probably had something to do with gambling, maybe not even losing, maybe something to do with not being comped. that's at least my favorite theory, i hate the people who talk about conspiracies with that one. all those annoying people who say 'no motivation' or whatever, it's basically proven at this point that human life as something that happens on its own terms instead of by a law one projects, and life outside that valuation process, is utterly meaningless and gives anyone license to kill anyone. think of all the incel shooters, the shooters consumed by irreal fantasies, adam lanza wanting to 'save' kids from suffering so killing them. that is the essential pulsion, i think.

the end of this year has given me lots of reasons to be unhappy, i am going to sleep before the year is in i think, i'm already tired, i feel sick too.

2024 is going to be fine. this year was fine. probably good. i don't know. it was another year i was alive. that's all. maybe not. i love my girlfriend, we've lived together this whole year. she made me travel with her, which was nice except for when it wasn't.

what right do i have to complain at all though, i didn't pay anything for any of that. i am such a stupid bitch honestly.

today i learned about a fashion designer from 2009 who made clothes that i think are cute who seems to have gone insane. his name is paul griffiths, his brand was babycakes, his website is totally insane.

the book seems like it's entirely nonense, the guy is into annunaki alien conspiracy stuff, he's like way into rishi sunak on twitter it seems like. i don't find it annoying, that stuff, it just makes me really sad. maybe it's because of this video from 8 years ago.

there's parts in this vid that make me feel something terrible, like when he talks about not wanting to ever go outside, and how he's okay with just going crazy in isolation, then he begins going on this tangent about how you have to be truly kind, and how he's failed himself in that, and then he talks about how he hates the times where he's hidden behind a character and coldness instead of being himself and being kind. and then he launches into a thing about genetically altering human dna to correct human evolution.

it seems like his brand was doing really well in the whole like, i wanna say 06-09 period, and up to 2014 he seems like he was pretty normal, even in the vids from 2015 where he's not freestyling while watching himself obsessively build in minecraft he seems lucid. even now he seems lucid, he just seems to get lost in these pretty schizoid/delusional things, that whole kind of conspiracy spiritualism got to him like it did a lot of millennials it seems like. really depressing to see. it's good to remember how that happened though, it helps put a damper on nostalgic revisionism, to treat this stuff like it truly died, or something. even the aesthetic he was doing in 06 and onwards, that whole thing still lives on in like meow wolf big room edm bro psychedelia. it's sad because i half like the stuff that fomented all that, the super weird japanese pop art inflected stuff, harajuku excess and so on. it's so ugly/frustrating where that all ended up, the big brostep festival edm world, all the cool music that came from that weird nexus too, absorbed by that, where metalcore warped tour bros absorbed electronic music, creating some of the worst aesthetic strains we still are around today. that stuff is ignorable maybe, for some people, but it's still all around out here.

here are his clothes/the photoshoots he did for his clothes that i found on his blog, which is here:

here's something i read on the blog that made me want to cry just now:

"im gonna be meeting Panic at the disco tomorrow and ill be at the show in Manchester. ill get them to wear Babycakes with the silly outfits that they wear ;D

business is going crazy. greg got a hair cut today. BCthelabel is going well, you will all hear lots about that soon :D kyle is amazingly hot ;] Mummy and Daddy are splitting up but ive got my mum a cute new house :D

Rawr!

I love taking photos…

This is where i work, I employ all my best friends and my mum."

the falling off and going crazy after reaching this kind of high is devastating, he really was featured in all kinds of magazines and stuff, he went to warped tour to promo his clothes. anyways the clothes and stuff:

it's such an annoying and particular thing the brand did, but i am into some of it, there's this one rainbow shirt that i think is really cute but i probably just want that because it reminds me of the some girls album art. the site also has some other crazy stuff on it, he's made little games, apps, one thing is a whole drawing app, one thing is like this mental clone of minecraft he made.

it all makes me feel like this song:

the ugly cheap synth stuff, oh to add to it, paul is super obsessed w/ chiptune stuff, which i'm super into, anyway, that ugly cheap synth and then the dirty feeling of the song, the bombed out remains of 2008 still living. too many cultural images in my head informed by american apparel. right now i'm wearing american apparel thigh highs. isn't that fucked. no matter what i'm going to be someone obsessed with always being skinnier, trying to figure out ways to be pretty, seeking eyes on me while hating it always too. i'm so sick with my own self. ugh.

all the reading i've been doing is obviously related to that. but i wonder about how that stuff condemns basically, how much of this is anyone's responsibility, any of the cultural images i take up are given to me, yeah, but i can't tell if they're happy gifts, gifts i received happily and only realized later, or i know that's not the case, these were things i'm stuck with, or stuck to, given to me because they seemed to be the only things i really responded to. weird skinny girls, and like 8 year old me, seeing that, thinking, that's something to tether myself to. it spoke to every negative thing, rather than being a fantasy of 'womanhood' or whatever, like terfs or gender critical people would put it. the only thing that made sense of my disolcation or whatever.

back to paul, now he's also really into ai stuff, generating women (really they look like kids but i don't know if that's his fault or something the ai does when he tries to get it to generate people) wearing clothes that look related to the brand and putting the logo on the pictures. i don't think it's false advertising, he's just fallen for another scam.

it's the end of the year, and i'm just thinking about this.

this year really has had beautiful moments for me, going to japan with my gf, or my gf taking me, my gf taking me to chicago and me us getting to stay with a long time online friend, us staying out really late, us just being in this apartment, me cooking for her. i want to cook every night, i want to get back to that, the fact i'm not makes me feel sick. like i want to do something bad to myself, i don't know why i'm feeling so fucked up right now.

all of reality is queasy, lo and behold this song:

and i am tired. tomorrow i am going to listen to my album again, and see what now needs correction, and see if there's anything i want to delete, but i don't think i'll be looking to delete anything off the album. we'll see though.

anyway i really am getting tired. happy new years, and

byebye!!!!!!!!!

[wiypt-writes]

Honey Haloed Weakness

A Bucky Barnes One Shot

Summary: Sometimes second chances come when you least expect them.

Warnings: Bad language, fluff, feels, some sad stuff…character death…mentions of smut but nothing explicit. Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Enhanced Reader. (Nicknamed Honey). Reader appearance bar eyes is deliberately not described. Moodboard is just for aesthetic purposes

Characters: Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson

A/N: This was originally written for a writing challenge last year, and I meant to revamp/repost it for Bucky’s birthday a few days back but never did. Then the rumours of the title for the first ep of FATWS hit my feed and…well, it reminded me of this.

Disclaimer: This is a pure work of fiction and classified as 18+. Please respect this and do not read if you are underage. I do not own any characters bar the reader and any other OCs. By reading beyond this point you understand and accept the terms of this disclaimer.

Main Masterlist

************

One bullet. One pull of the trigger. That was all it took. As you watched, the shot flew clean through the shoulder of one hostile, ricocheted off Sam’s shield and then hit a second straight in the hand causing him to drop the knife he had been slashing at Sam with. The three of you stooped, Falcon, The Winter Soldier and you, Silver Shadow. Shield, guns and sparking hands all lowered as you glanced around, the last noises of your fight dying in the air.

“Man did you just shoot two guys with one bullet?” Sam turned to Bucky, his tone laced with shock and awe. “Did it look cool?” Bucky quipped back, an air of nonchalance in his voice, despite the level of surprise he himself felt.  James Buchanan Barnes knew he was a good shot. But that…that was something else.

And something that had been down to chance more than anything. Even if he had tried to make that shot, there’s no way of predicting the trajectory of the bullet once it emerged from the guys shoulder or controlling the angle it exited at… 

Unless… He turned to look at you. Your hair, splattered with blood and gore from the battle, hung like curtains of scarlet drenched silk round your face, from behind which warm eyes glanced back at him. Your features remained passive, adorned with the same expression you had worn when he had first seen one another in your rundown apartment in Bucharest when Steve had come looking for him post the Vienna bombings. 

Sam turned away muttering something about retrieving the Intel they had come for off the hard drives in the main office, and once his back was turned, you caught Bucky’s eyes with your own and blinked as Bucky swallowed. After using your powers, your irises were always ringed with a bright gold, a honey halo. And, as Bucky allowed himself just a second to indulge in the warmth they exuded over him, one slipped onto a sly wink. And then he knew for certain.

“You did it.” He looked at you and you merely stared back remaining passive. He was right, you had. You’d controlled the shot, directing it exactly where it needed to go. And Bucky wasn’t sure whether he felt turned on or slightly emasculated. “Don’t worry.” You said gently as you made your way back to the jet. “I won’t tell Sam, on one condition?” “Yeah? What’s that?” Bucky asked, turning to look at you. “You ask me out for that drink Steve’s been telling me you want to take me for.” And with that you left him standing there, slack jawed as he watched you head up the ramp. **** “So, in a word, you’re still a punk.” Bucky finished recapping the tale later the next morning, leaning back in the comfy chair by the bed Steve lay in. The old man laughed and shook his head. “She’s a devil, I’ll give her that. Mind you, she always was good at playing the cards she was dealt.” A fond smile spread across Steve’s face at the thought of you, his other best friend, the girl he had pulled from that shitty HYDRA base in 2014 when they had been chasing the Sceptre. No one had any idea who you were, what you could do, where you had come from…and that included you. You hadn’t spoken for three days other than to thank him or Natasha for the food and clothes you were given, and Tony for his kindness. And then, on the fourth day, Steve found you in the kitchen at the base, trying to decide on what to make you for lunch, and he won you over with an expertly made grilled cheese. “What’s your name?” He asked softly as you sat chewing.

“I…I don’t know.” You shrugged, your eyes wide as you looked down at your plate.  Steve gently reached out, his hand taking yours softly as you looked at him, your eyes flashing that sparkling gold colour.

 "Honey, you’re safe now, you know that right?

“Honey…” You said wistfully, “I like that.” 

And so it stuck. Where your ability to manipulate metal came from, no one knew. A mutation? Maybe. Human enhancement experiment? Possibly. But it didn’t matter. What mattered was the fact you embraced the responsibility that came with that power. You wanted to help people and, as such, you agreed to stay with the Avengers and they were better for having Silver Shadow as their teammate, and Honey as their friend. Allowing himself another few moments of nostalgia, Steve eventually shook himself free of his memories and, with a sly look turned his head to face Bucky. “In my eyes it’s normally correct to buy a dame a drink before you bump uglies on an African Plain. Yeah, I know exactly what went down between you two that night in Wakanda.” Bucky blinked before he snorted, shaking his head. “Of course she told you…” When the dust settled after the show down in Leipzig, Bucky didn’t see you for almost a year until you came to Wakanda with Steve to be there when they brought him out of Stasis. You were different then, but so was Steve. A year on the run in the shadows had hardened you both. Those warm eyes still flashed gold, yet they carried a darkness that hadn’t been there before.

But they still exuded all the power and warmth of the sun. And Bucky was on fire.

“Can’t sleep either?” He asked as he emerged from the comfortable farmers hut he had been given to live in. You shrugged. “My mind gets a bit busy sometimes. I find the stars help.” He sat down beside you, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Ever wonder what it’s like just to be normal?” You sighed and he snorted, his head turning slowly to look at you as you gazed up at the sky. “What’s normal?” You laughed softly and looked at him, your eyes flashing in the moonlight, turning this time a deep amber speckled with brown. There was a moment, another blink and then your lips were crashing together, tongues fighting for dominance, hands grabbing at whatever they could reach. Under the moonlight, sultry cries and gentle whimpers were shared. Skin slid on skin, hands wandered and explored as together you reclaimed your grasp on humanity, what it was to feel something other than fear and death and anger. And then you had to leave and it was another twelve months since Bucky saw you again, this time on a battle field in Wakanda…with those creatures. Now your eyes were fierce and laced with a reddish gilt, as you tore metal armour limb from limb, wrenched weapons from hands, made sure shots hit their targets, your daggers flying and returning to your hands.

But there was no beating Thanos. 

“I can’t control his gauntlet.” Your voice was laced with the desperation you felt, broken as you realised your powers were of no use.

And then Bucky had been snapped.

“Those five years were long.” Steve shook Bucky from his reminiscing. “For all of us. Trying to forgive ourselves for our failure. And it was that inability to do so that saw us figure it out, a way to bring everyone back.”

Bucky looked down. He knew all about that. Seeking redemption, wiping your leger clean. “Don’t keep her waiting another five years.” Steve locked his eyes onto Bucky’s. A plea, a beg.

So he didn’t.

Later that night, Bucky asked you for that drink. And he dated you, bought you flowers, made love to you some nights, fucked you into the mattress on others. You ran missions side by side with Sam, walked and danced in the rain.

A diamond ring was bought, a yes was said

And one bright April day a year later, his honey haloed weakness became his wife.

***** “Where are my keys?” Bucky asked, frowning as he gently closed the drawer to the sideboard. “You know, Honey, I wish you’d stop moving my stuff.” No sooner had he finished, he felt a vibration in his pocket and a moment later he heard the keys in question jangling. He turned with a soft sigh to see them hovering about a foot away from him in the air. You stood at the other side of the room, hand raised lightly as you wriggled her fingers causing them to move higher as you arched an eyebrow. “You owe me an apology, Buckaroo.” “So what’s new?” He chuckled and you smiled as you shrugged on your jacket and walked towards him, whilst he checked you had everything your needed. Even for a simple trip down the road it seemed like you were prepping for a mission, but then again, maybe you were… You made your way out of the Brownstone into the glorious September sun, your hand curled around Bucky’s arm, nestling comfortably in the crook of his elbow, the shiny platinum and diamond of your rings sparkling as they caught the light. Bucky had a knack for steering and making sure everyone moved out of the way, which was why you were happy to let him take the lead. After a short walk, you reached your destination and made your way down the familiar narrow gravel path towards what you were aiming for. Your pace slowed a little here, it was always harder on gravel, you felt like you were sinking almost.

Together you stopped in front of a beautiful headstone made out of white marble upon which a simple inscription was etched in deep, gold writing.

‘Steven Grant Rogers. Much loved husband, father and friend.’ Below the wording sat Steve’s symbol. His shield, the star surrounded by rings, along with a simple phrase to remind everyone exactly who the stone commemorated. ‘Captain America is hope, he’s freedom, he’s just a kid from Brooklyn’ Bucky’s metal hand gently ran across the top of the headstone and you smiled softly at him, before a noise drew your attention back to exactly why you had come here today specifically. Smiling at one another, Bucky turned and gently lifted his four day old baby boy from sling around your chest as you watched, reaching up to smooth a finger down the baby’s soft, rosy cheek. Steve had been so excited when you had both told him you were pregnant. But you had all known deep down that Steve’s time was coming to an end. The serum wasn’t repairing what was happening to him anymore, and hadn’t been for a while. Steve had noticed its effects had been dwindling for almost thirty years by that point and he was ready to go, to be with Peggy who had left him some ten years previously. All of you had hoped he would live long enough to meet Baby Barnes, but things never do work out the way you want them to, and Steve had passed quietly surrounded by his friends and family some six weeks before your baby boy bad been born. Bucky had made a vow, a promise to himself that his son would understand exactly who his Uncle Stevie was. Not Captain America, but that little kid from Brooklyn who was always too dumb to run away from a fight. “Had to bring him to meet you one way or another.” Bucky said gently, looking from his son’s face to the stone with a soft smile before he crouched down in front of it. He took a moment, the words he was trying to form sticking in his throat as pure emotion washed over him. He felt grief, he felt loss, but also joy at the fact he was a new father and an overwhelming sense of gratitude and serenity that he had found his salvation, his second chance.

And it was draining to feel it all at once. You stepped forward, softly squeezing his shoulder before you crouched by his side, gently wiping the tears from your own face as Bucky finally found his voice again. “Yeah, it was a him, so I got to pick the name.” Besides him you chuckled. “I can still see your face, Stevie, when we told you about that deal. Girl I picked, boy he picked.” Watery blue eyes that still had that sparkle widened as Steve looked at you both, horror on his face as he shook his head on disbelief. “What? You can’t do that…I mean it needs to be a joint decision, no matter what the gender…surely?” In the end, Steve had been right. Whilst Bucky had suggested the first name for your little boy, he had struggled with a middle one and it had been you who had quietly suggested one as Bucky stood in the hospital room, gently rocking his new-born baby in his arms. Both of you had welled up with tears at the simplicity and the poignancy, and the utter love you both felt that your son would help keep the memory of your friend, your brother, your Captain, alive. “Punk,” Bucky gently shifted the baby in his arms so he was facing the stone. “Say hello to Steven Roger Barnes” His son. His beautiful son. A life created because two people fell in love. 

 Because James Buchanan Barnes had a Honey haloed weakness.

[opbackgrounds]

Hi there Sarc' ;) I am sorry if the question has already been asked but I thought it could be interesting to have your opinion about this. While I love most of the female characters in OP and think that most of them are well developed and can be truly good role models for girls I still feel that Oda sometimes has a sexist view on female characters (the jokes about the naked bath scenes for example or Kororo being considered ugly make me really uncomfortable). What do you think about it?

Ah, I wondered when I would get this question. 

When people talk about sexism in One Piece they typically are referring to two different things: How women are drawn, and how they’re treated within the narrative. While there’s some overlap here, there’s enough distinction that I want to address them as two separate points in two separate posts, because I guess I had Opinions, and by god there should be a limit to how much text one tumblr post can be expected to hold. Consider this an introduction.

Buckle up, kiddos. This is gonna be a long one. 

Nami Face Syndrome Isn’t the Problem...

An important thing to remember with Oda’s art and storytelling style is that almost everything is hyper exaggerated for effect. You don’t go into One Piece looking for realism. You don’t go into One Piece expecting the characters to act like normal people. Everything--from the art to the humor to the battles--is stretched and pulled to its absolute limit in hopes of garnering a particular reaction. When a character is sad they cry big bubbly tears with dribbles of snot coming from their nose. When they laugh their mouths take up half their face. 

And when a girl is hot, her tiddies are two great big watermelons stuck to the center of her chest.

What is often dubbed “Nami Face Syndrome” within the fandom is somewhat misleading. After all, why was Wanda, who is a literal dog that walks on two legs, decried as yet another Nami clone at her introduction? I would postulate it’s less to do with her face and more to do with the fact that from the neck down they are virtually identical, something that’s made more obvious because Wanda is literally wearing Nami’s clothes

What makes this frustrating for a lot of people, myself included, is that it’s not that Oda is incapable of drawing more diverse body types, but that he often chooses not to. Take for example the Kuja tribe

or the Charlotte family daughters (thanks to Arthur at Library of Ohara for the resource). It’s pretty clear Oda has the chops to make his women as weird as the men, and he often does! For important characters, even. And yes, as the Kokoro example given above sometimes the gonkness is brought attention to, but for others like Lola and Chiffon it’s...not. 

(more on mermaids later)

But Sarcasticles, one might protest, even Oda’s “ugly” characters have ginormous boobs! Where is my itty bitty titty committee representation >:(

To which I can only shrug. For Oda, boobs on a woman are like abs on men. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense, they’re gonna have ‘em

Seriously, Oda. What the fuck.

...So What Is?

I have a theory that’s impossible to prove, and that the problem isn’t so much Oda’s character design so much as the ratio of his male to female characters in general. It’s not that every female character is a Nami clone, but Oda has a template he uses for attractive female characters ages 16-25, the same way he uses Robin as a template for attractive women ages 26-35, which is how you get cases of mistaken identity like Viola for Robin or scenes during Reverie where one could be forgiven for thinking Nami’s supposed to be an identical triplet

 Oda does this for his men, too. It’s not as obvious because 1) Even men with similar facial features can have a wider variety body types due to Oda having a sliding scale of buffness he’s willing to attach to a pretty face and 2) There are more men. 

There are a lot more men.

In groups where the male to female ratio is more or less equal (Baroque Works, Big Mom’s kids) you get a wide variety of designs. But there’s only one female Supernova. There’s one female Warlord. CP9 only has one female agent. Only one of the Revolutionary Commanders is a woman. There are very few female background characters in crowd shots, especially among marines. Big Mom might be the only female Emperor, but she’s not young, In fact, when drawing her at age 28, Oda defaults to a much more generic “pretty girl” face before giving her much more striking, memorable features in her 40s

If you look at Oda’s male characters, the ones that are supposed to be hot are often given the same square jawline and the thin-bladed nose that at one point in time was reserved for Robin. Both Coby and Sabo had very distinctive noses before their glowups, while Ace must have had a laser treatment done on his eyebrows sometime between Alabasta and Marineford. 

But the biggest difference on the men has got to be muscle mass. The overgrown noodles of early One Piece are lost to the annals of time. Shanks alone must have gained 30 pounds of pure muscle from the time Luffy got his first bounty to his appearance at Marineford. 

Now, I will acknowledge that there is a difference between the increasing sexualization of female characters and the male power fantasy of giving Zoro bara tiddies post-timeskip. While I do think there are certain male characters specifically designed to be the Hot Dude, what I’m trying to emphasize here is that Oda works with templates for both men and women, and both of those templates have been exaggerated over time. Bigger boobs for women, more muscles for men. And when you’re only slotting for one girl in any given group, and that one girl has to be The Hot One then you’re going to have a lot of ladies that end up looking the same. 

My love for Otohime on this blog is well known, and I want to use her as an example of what Oda can do when he works beyond this template, because it’s really freaking good  

Otohime is neither conventionally attractive nor gonk. She’s dressed in very conservative, traditional clothing and has a narrow waist and small chest. 

There are no sharp edges on Otohime. Not her eyebrows, not her jaw, and most of the time not even her hands, emphasizing her gentle nature. You don’t see it as well in this panel, but Otohime’s head is often drawn wider than her shoulders, emphasizing her frailty. Oda gives her a longer neck to compensate, and the overall effect is a very soft, willowy figure. 

Her headpiece looks like a sunburst. The audience never sees her fins, so Oda gives her a scale patterned kimono-dress-thingy (my knowledge of Japanese clothing is, uh, not good) as a visual reminder that she’s not human. The sash that circles around her head harkens back to Japanese mythology as a symbol of divinity, similar to a halo in Western culture. And fun fact: Otohime is named after a god, just like Neptune, while her goals and ideals are pure enough to be heaven-sent. 

I’m not an artist, but this is a really damn good character design. A lot of Oda’s older female characters are. Dandan, Tsuru, O-Tsuru, Shakky, Kureha, Big Mom, and Nyon are all instantly recognizable and have strong designs, even if a few of them fall into the hourglass figure that Oda often defaults to. It’s just...there aren’t that many of them.

So the question becomes why aren’t there more women, and I think the answer is because, ultimately, One Piece is a series geared at boys. While I wish there were a few more important ladies, I can understand why there aren’t. 

Note, that doesn’t mean I think it’s right or that Oda is obligated to include more women. It’s just one of the facts of the shonen manga industry at this point in time. 

A more important question, I think, is why does every younger woman have to be attractive? And why do the attractive ladies have to wear outfits that are blatant fanservice? This is something I don’t have an answer for. Oda has said on more than one occasion that he writes One Piece with his twelve year old self in mind. It could be that it’s a calculated move to appeal to his audience, in which case it’s certainly worked because said Hot Ladies are constantly used in marketing and merchandising. It’s the Hot Ladies that top the popularity charts (although, to be fair, who’s there for competition?). In the most recent chapter a new Hot Lady was introduced, and the fandom went batshit crazy for her.

Even the fans who are very vocal about how Oda sucks at drawing women. It’s interesting how that works out sometimes.

Or maybe I’m giving Oda too much credit, and he’s just horny. Not having direct access to Oda’s mind, I don’t have an answer. If I had to guess I’d say it’s a little of Column A, a little of Column B, because that’s usually how life is. 

But in a vacuum big tiddies are just a design choice. An exaggerated aesthetic, in a series full of exaggerated aesthetics. It’s when that design choice is paired with in-story comments, actions, and decisions where things really start to get heated. But that’s a whole other ball of wax, and there should be a limit to how much one tumblr post can be expected to hold. I promise I’ll get to the meat of your question next time.

Thank you so much for your patience. I really do think it’s important to start here before diving into everything else, if only because it helps keep my thoughts organized. I hope you’ve found this helpful, and if not, I hope to do better next time. 

[weeklyhumorist]

17 Extinct Dog Breeds

HALmation

(odysseus spotrolae)

HALmatians saw their popularity surge after Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 HALmatians hit cinemas in 1968. Shortly after, animal shelters from around the country started reporting an increase in unwanted HALmatians, many of them given as gifts to children. Parents soon regretted this error as they realized that while this breed can at first seem helpful, kind and full of human emotion, they are also capable of cold dispassionate murder.

  Glockapoo

  (gunanus familiaris)

This toy breed was first introduced in Tibet at the turn of the 13th century by peasant farmers who used them to protect their livestock from wolves and to guard their property from bandits. However, they were only bred for a short period of time due to the fact that they accidentally shot everyone who knew how to breed them in the face whenever they got a little too excited playing fetch.

  Sled Dog

(tobogganae mushmush)

Sled dogs were considered a crime of nature and an affront to God after scientists successfully spliced the genes of a canine with the genes of a sled. Once it was discovered easier to have dogs pull a sled instead of be a sled, they discontinued the experiment.

  Citizen Kane Corso

  (xanadutus rosebudium)

The rise and fall of the Citizen Kane Corso reads much like a Greek tragedy. You’ll find that the more you examine its history you start to see a complex portrait of a breed that rose from obscurity to the top of the canine mountain only to fall back to earth as a broken shell of a dog that let power, greed and corruption go to its head. May the existence of the Citizen Kane Corso serve as a cautionary tale for the follies of man as well.

  Afghan Hog Hound

(blanketus theftallumus)

The Afghan Hog Hound originated in the Isle of Man in 1792 after a hearing impaired breeder thought a local farmer asked for a ‘SHEET’ dog. Lamentably this breed was not known for its ability to heard sheets, but rather to steal them from their masters. It wasn’t until the harsh, tragic winter of 1821 when the entire village of Laxey was found frozen and half eaten by two Afghans were all comfy womfy in the entire town’s blankets that breeders decided enough was enough. A tragic, but adorable end to a truly unique breed.

  Schnozer

  (proboscis honkersius)

Schnozers were bred for their outstanding eyesight which assisted Danish hunters in the wilderness of Silkeborgskovene. After the invention of binoculars, the breed was eventually retired and its modern day descendants are now known as ‘drug seeing dogs.’

  Fabridore Retriever

  (fiercius slayium)

This Italian gentleman was one of the most beautiful dogs to ever walk the face of the earth. It was the type of dog that men wanted to be and women wanted to be with and that was precisely the problem. There was only one ever bred and this genetic misfit was the progeny of a golden retriever and a Italian greyhound who mated on the sexiest beach in Milan at dusk while a sexy guitarist named Raphael played the sexiest sonata on his guitar. The dog came out so unbelievably good looking that all other dogs felt it to be way too out of their league and were too shy to mate. A sad end to one of the most graceful dogs on this list.

  Cybill Shepherd

  (lunarluz rubio)

The popularity of this flaxen haired variety has fluctuated over the last 50 years. In the 70’s, this breed was coveted by coastal elites for its beauty, but envious dog show judges shamed ‘Sibbies’ out of the limelight until the mid 80’s where it regained adoration in primetime as the family dog ‘Comet’ on the show Full House.

  Asset Hound

  (401k9)

Dogs have been bred to guard and protect for thousands of years, but if you needed a dog to protect your financial investments it was this breed. This dog was so good at what it did that it took years to realize that every single one of them had been embezzling money from their masters and by the time they found out it was already too late. They had taken their families and moved to the Ozarks and went into hiding.

  American Invisible Terrier

  (whereishe unseenozoa)

Popular among allergy sufferers, Invisies were hairless and possessed little dander. Unfortunately they were prone to becoming lost and were difficult to train due the uncertainty of whether or not they were even in the room.

  Cock-A-Doodle-Poo

  (eggius buckbuck)

Native to the Lincolnshire and Cornwall regions of The United Kingdom the Cock-A-Doodle-Poo was a breed of doodle-poo hound known for their delicious eggs and obnoxious screams. The breed was fairly common in English households for nearly two centuries until they saw their popularity decrease due to the rise of the chicken which was much cheaper to care for and far less aggressive towards children.

  Pappyon

  (elderium grampisius)

This ill-fated, short lived species were all born as elderly dogs. Lovingly referred to as ‘Benjamin Muttons’, this breed was known for its rambling, nonsensical stories.

  Mustachioed Collie

    (handelbarium lassilis)

This breed has undergone many changes throughout its existence; both aesthetic and personal. Originally bred with a large handlebar to honor the Kaiser, it gradually diminished to the style of the ‘toothbrush mustache’, popular at the time with film stars and fascist dictators. As a result, the breed eventually fell out of favor with the general population.

  Bald Beagle

  (glabrascola monoxodilis)

Benjamin Franklin is said to have turned heads as he lobbied to have either the turkey or the bald beagle as the national bird. His judgment started to get called into question because the bald beagle was a dog; not a bird and turkeys weren’t even invented yet. Historians suspect this was a result of Franklin’s syphilitic insanity.

  Palmeranian

(phylangesis floofli)

A toy breed known for its ability to hold a basketball and to tell the future the Palmeranian became threatened after the invention of gloves and mittens which led to its inevitable suffocation.

  Muttnik

  (astrorbitera woofli)

Although not quite extinct, Muttniks orbit the earth in search of spy satellites and can be seen only once every 32 years on the western horizon at dusk.

  Bernard

  (soy un perdedor)

This dog never had a chance. The biggest loser on the list spent the duration of their pathetic fucking lives living in a kind aunt’s house who charged very reasonable rent, but they still couldn’t pay it on time because they worked their entire miserable life in a thankless job that paid very little money because they had some delusional fantasy of becoming the next great American novelist. This breed fizzled out much like the Fabrador Retriever, but for opposite reasons.

  17 Extinct Dog Breeds was originally published on Weekly Humorist

[xfadingstarx]

A Bleach Retrospective: In defense of Bleach

These are opinions, please respect that.

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My Journey with Bleach (please skip if you want to go straight to the analysis):

On September the 8th, 2006 YTV’s weekend evening anime programming block (Bionix) aired the first episode of Bleach. I, unfortunately, did not catch this episode, instead, I caught the second episode on September 15th the following week. I was ten and from then on, Bleach fascinated me. It had an interesting concept, tight pacing, catchy music, a good story, and unique character designs. I also really enjoyed how Bleach lacked the same kind of emotional labour that Naruto demanded (as child who survived off of constantly seeking validation from others because of absentee parents, Naruto is way too much work).

My fascination with Bleach got me started in the fandom communities of yesteryear, for I was a child with zero internet supervision. My introduction to fanfiction was because I loved Hitsugaya Toshiro.

Bleach was my entry into poetry (poem at the start of every volume).

But alas, all good things were not meant to last and by the summer of 2009, I was officially done with Bleach. It had felt stilted for some time before then. Over the years, I would gradually revisit bits and pieces of Bleach, but I would not read it in its entirety until months after its finish, about a decade after I had first saw Bleach on my TV. Between the time I stopped reading and the series ended, I became friends with people who didn’t think highly of Bleach and I also started seeing criticism I had made about Bleach in 2011 being repeated by fans on the internet, I started to think that maybe Bleach was bad, but I knew what bad writing looked like —I started reading fanfiction through Bleach fanfiction AMVs on YouTube — and somehow Bleach didn’t sit right with me in the “bad writing category”. 

I sit back now, a decade and ahalf later from when I first started and ask, “was Bleach really that bad, and if so, why do I keep coming back to it?”

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What Made Bleach So Good?

Unique story and aesthetics: When Bleach first started in 2001, it was one of the first manga series to talk about souls and death in a poetic way and with such coherence. Bleach clearly knew what it wanted to say about life and death. It also had a very unique aesthetic, very similar to that of “The World Ends With You” or “Persona 5″ — an urban Japanese take on R&B kind of vibe. Also, Bleach had the most “realistic” and minimalist art style amongst the Big 3.

Cool Music: Bleach had cool music, from very solid rock’n’roll and R&B style songs in its OPs and EDs to very funky OST music with lots of pizzazz. Many singers feature by Bleach ended up successful (to varying degrees) outside of anime, eg: Orange Range, UVERworld, YUI, sid, etc.

Versatile tone: Bleach was edgy, there’s no doubt about that. It was willing to show a lot of blood and bodily violence, especially in the manga (eg half of people blowing up and bits of bone still attached). Despite this though, it was not pretentious about its edginess — it didn’t revel in it. To contrast the edginess, there is a lot of humour in Bleach with character interactions. It was able to be laid back enough with its strong characters that it would rely on the characters’ relationships for comedic relief. The post-credit skits and the fillers really helped to add to this overall feel as well.

Maturity of the Story: Bleach was very willing to handle topics that made people think. For example, the Ulquiorra - Orihime subarc was treated with a sense of carefulness about it, as if to reflect Ulquiorra’s own cautious curiosity about the heart. A less emotionally mature story would’ve gone for the cheap rape/torture porn, but instead we are treated to determined strong Orihime, who has found strength through the heart after the death of her brother, clashing with the nihilistic hollow who wants to know if there is happiness outside of emptiness. It’s a very loaded question and one that requires both perspective and life experience to fully understand both parties. As well, Bleach always knew what it wanted to say about life and death as the final conflict of Bleach is between Ichigo, who has accepted his transient life and Yhwach, who is scared of death. And ultimately, underneath all that action, Bleach produced takes on its themes that were hard to relate to unless the reader themselves had a certain level of emotional maturity (eg: 12 year old me got nothing out of the Ulqui-Ori arc, but 20 year old me spent a good 10 mins crying after)

Strong characters: Contrary to popular belief, Bleach does have quite solid characterization. In fact, Bleach is the journey of Ichigo as a character, from grappling with his weakness and pain to finally accepting all the parts of himself and his history in order to defeat Yhwach and protect those he cares about. Even the secondary characters of Bleach receive a sizable amount of backstory and/or development. Bleach also managed to have more proactive female characters. Even the damsel in distress Orihime stands up to Ulquiorra and slaps him. As a result of these strong characters, Bleach was able to rely on them and their relationships to drive aspects of the story (eg Ichigo crying in the Fullbringer arc).

Willingness to Deal with Emotion: Given that Ichigo is an internally motivated character, it was obvious Bleach would deal with emotion at some point in time. Making Ichigo just a normal high school boy also relives the previous edginess. Bleach also clearly too the time to make its readers feel in its early years. We are treated to beautiful panelling and very real displays of strong negative emotions. Bleach is also very good at giving its characters room to breathe and be sad. Eg: moping Orihime, moping Ichigo, etc. As well, Kubo went to extraordinary lengths to break Ichigo down during the Fullbringers Arc.

Interesting Character Designs: Every character in Bleach feels vibrant and unique with their personality showing through in their designs. For example: Shunshi’s sloppily tied up hair, visible stubble, and overcoat-hidden-haori show that he is both easy going and not looking for a fight; meanwhile Byakuya’s neatly pulled back hair and neck covered by scarf show that he is both someone who likes structure and is conservative.

Poetry and Symbolism: Kubo manages to weave poetry into Bleach in the beginning of each volume. The poem was said by the character on the volume. It gave the reader insight to this character and it gave Kubo a chance to flex his poetic chops. Further proof of this is the fact that many people don’t realize that the name “Bleach” refers to the bleaching of soul that is key to the story. Kubo loves to use rain to set sad scenes. It rains when Ichigo fights Grand Fisher, Zangetsu tells Ichigo that he hates the rain, etc. Kubo also specifies that he wishes for the reader to read certain volumes on stormy, rainy nights.

Panelling: Many people like to criticize Kubo for the lack of effort with the Bleach manga, but Kubo has stated that he uses negative space (i.e., foregoing backgrounds) to focus more on his character’s expressions. This not only further proves that Bleach cares a lot about its characters, but it’s done well enough that the average reader likely doesn’t notice the lack of background on the first read through. As well, Bleach has very cinematic panelling. Kubo uses the format of manga well, utilizing the human mind’s ability to fill blanks in with clever panelling to create tone and build tension and the feeling of movement through a scene.

In fact, in finding pages for this analysis, I found myself noticing that Bleach panels very similarly to slice-of-life shoujo but with a boy MC manga like "Horimiya": focus on expression through intimate angles and use of panels and breaks to create mood and the feeling of cinema; whereas something like DBZ panels like a shounen action manga with many hard lines and action shots, instead of a focus on subtle details and emotions.

Some Examples:

Notice now in Chapter 197: The approaching danger, Kubo uses a gradual zoom to build tension and the black background to add intensity and signal to the reader that Hitsugaya is relaying important information.

Here in Chapter 234: Not Negotiation, the immediate close up to Ulquiorra’s eye from the full body shots creates a sense of intimidation and unease with its sudden intimacy. As well, the immediate zoom in from Ulquiorra’s side full body shot to his facial profile creates tension and the change from the dark background to the white face with Orihime releases this tension (very fitting with considering the line for this panel is “but not you”). (This scene also ties into Ulquiorra’s central dogma of “that which is not reflected in my eyes does not exist’.)

Again in the same chapter, this gradual zoom in on the two creates tension that is then release in the next panel and summarily cements Ulquiorra as a terrifying BAMF.

In Chapter 262: Unblendable, Kubo uses the negative space to create a feeling of isolation, similar to how Orihime is supposed to be feeling.

In the same chapter, notice how Kubo creates a sense of intimacy (not in the romance sense) with the relationship of Ulquiorra and Orihime. He creates tension gradually with the zooming into Orihime’s eye and releases it with the zoom out to Ulquiorra. Through this scene, Kubo has shown us that Ulquiorra and Orihime have a tense relationship and with the implication of eye contact through the shots and panel breaks creating both the intimacy and showing Orihime’s defiance.

(Interestingly, I’ve noticed that Ulquiorra and Orihime have a lot of these intimate zoom shot-reverse-shot eye panels)

___________________

What are the Bad Parts of Bleach?

Okay, so by now, you’re probably thinking that I’m ignoring the massive amounts of critique that Bleach gets and don’t get me wrong, while Bleach does have a very special place in my heart, I’m also not maudlin enough to pretend that Bleach was all good.

Pacing:

Pacing in the First Half of Bleach (Karakura Town - Arrancar)

When Bleach first started out the pacing was excellent. Kubo showed great mastery of pace to control the tone and highlight the emotions throughout the first two arcs. Mid-way through the Arrancar arc, the fatigue sets in and it was hard to keep up with, especially since Kubo would interrupt one exciting fight set up to go set up more plot elsewhere (eg Fake Karakura town right as Ichigo and Ulquiorra were about to battle). Whilst looking back and reading it all at once does help with the pacing, it was frustrating if you were reading/watching on a weekly basis.

Pacing in the Anime:

I don’t ascribe to a simplistic belief of “fillers bad” simply because I think that sometimes fillers can be a good thing, for example, since every chapter is ~15-20pp, some character interactions have to be cut for the sake for space, so filler is a great opportunity to add those moments back into your story. For example, a lot of early Bleach fillers are just the people of Karakura town just hanging out. That being said, Bleach does have an unfortunate amount of fillers, with some of them even interrupting tense fights (eg the Beast Sword Arc interrupts Ichigo’s battle with Ulquiorra). However, the padding that the fillers provided did wonders for the transition between Soul Society to Arrancar Arc in the anime. Ultimately, the Bleach anime adaption was a long-running anime made for syndication and that’s okay.

******* Brief Aside: many people like(d?) to point out that Bleach has a very cyclical plot structure. I used to think this way too; however, this is not the case. There are many other long running stories that repeat similar goals. The problem lies not in the idea, but the execution. The main complaint about the Orihime rescue was not that it was uninteresting, but instead that it felt a rehash of the plot of the previous arc. This is largely because the story was not given enough time to breath between similar character arcs. For example, in One Piece, Luffy and Co have to save Nami and by extension, her home village so she can join them; however, the next time a Straw Hat needs to be saved is 227 chapters (2 whole story arcs) later. In between saving Rukia and Orihime, there is only a really an arrancar encounter, a bit of training, cheering up Ichigo, and a Grimmjow encounter before Orihime goes with Ulquiorra, thus making the goal of this arc “save Orihime” in only ~59 chapters vs 227. These two similar arc goals so close to each other does indeed create the sense of repetition.

Pacing from Fullbringer to End:

This is where Bleach really lost a lot of people. If you weren’t gone after the Ulquiorra fight, you probably were by this arc.This arc went at breakneck speed, and ngl, during my first full read through I almost gave up here too. I mention earlier that Ichigo had been broken down in this arc, but it was hard to feel his despair and the weight on his shoulders because there wasn’t enough for the reader to take a beat and breathe. The Thousand Year Blood War, similarly suffered from sloppy pacing, with many readers feeling like story lines of Squad 0 and the Soul King were anti-climactic. As well, this arc started with a massacre and feature the deaths of many fan-favourite characters, and unfortunately due to the pacing, their deaths were not given a sense of gravity.

Missed Opportunities and Forgotten Story lines: Many people felt that Kubo forgot about a lot of his characters after the Aizen arc. Many thought the Fullbringer Arc was going to be a Chad/Orihime Arc. Whatever happened to Uryuu lolol? We all just collectively forgot about him for a large portion of the last half of Bleach. At one point in time, there was a rumour going around that Kubo had written out the story for Bleach and lost it. Idk if there is any credibility to it. However, in a 2017 interview, Kubo did say that he did end the series exactly the way he wanted to.

(If anyone wants to see me write an entire ass text post about Orihime and her treatment in Bleach, please let me know because I will do it)

Too mature:Even though above, I praised Bleach's mature handle on its themes, an unfortunate side effect of this is forgetting that the characters are only 15 at the beginning and for the first half of Bleach. This unfortunately, leads to some readers feeling disconnected from Bleach.

Epilogue: THE DESTROYER OF SHIPS!!! A lot of people hated this ending. Many people felt like the romance was shoe-horned in, others didn’t like the pairings, and there were some people who actually liked it. Personally, I didn’t like it too much, but it was a cute conclusion nonetheless. Since it didn't add anything to the story except for a "where are they now" look and because of that, I low-key felt like it was unnecessary, but w/e.

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Perspective

Making a long-running weekly serialized story is hard and doing it for 15 years is gruelling (obligatory “fuck capitalism” here). Like many artists of long-running manga, Kubo destroyed his health for the sake of publishing Bleach weekly. Kubo on his health after Bleach (photo from AshitanoGin on Twitter):

Given this insight, I think it’s only fair to be respectful and grateful for Kubo’s contribution to the anime-sphere. Also, through his work, Kubo seems to be a very understanding person and artist. I’m sure he knows better than anyone where Bleach went wrong, but there’s nothing that can be done now. Despite him having a twitter, he is not Joanne and doesn’t feel the need to constantly hemorrhage out word of god info about Bleach (and thank god for that).

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Final Thoughts

It’s hard to forget my happy memories when I think about Bleach. It had my first adolescent crush and first OTP. As a result, I think the best way to enjoy Bleach is to take what you want out of it. People always think that something has to be 100% without flaw for it to be good, but that is not true at all. It is totally okay to just like the parts that you like without engaging with anything else. It’s special to you for a reason, you know? 

There’s no use in fretting over what Bleach could’ve been, besides, very rarely is the reality better than the fantasy in your head.

I do think though that a lot of Kubo’s issues could’ve been fixed if he planned the story better but not all of us can be “I've been planning One Piece since elementary school” Oda Eiichiro.

Other voices on this issue: here

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Wow. I can’t believe you made it this far down. Congratulations! Thanks for reading my 2:30am non-sober take on Bleach (it only took me 7 hours to write). Here's a cookie <3

[blackjack-15]

Death, Philosophy, and the Runs — Thoughts on: Legend of the Crystal Skull (CRY)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it. Like with all of the Odd Games, there will be a section between The Intro and The Title called The Weird Stuff, where I go into what makes this game stand out as a little strange.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: CRY, mention of CUR, mention of ASH.

The Intro:

 It’s time for New Orleans, y’all.

Legend of the Crystal Skull is a game that’s often rated highly by the fandom, especially for its atmosphere (which is among the most well-done and pervasive of the whole series). Honestly speaking, were it not for the mental health/death/immortality storyline(s), CRY would simply be a Jetsetting game a bit out of order, given its fascination with its location (even if the amount of locations is slightly smaller).

One of the high points of this game is honestly its location and ambiance. CRY takes the idea of the “dark and stormy night” and plays it to perfection, cloaking everything in such thick atmosphere that the players, like Nancy, can’t always see the way ahead, and have to take leaps of faith every once in a while.

The characters contribute to the thick atmosphere; Bruno is a shadow, Henry’s hiding everything under a guise of nonchalance and a fishnet glove, Renée is all gardening grandma hospitality but never says anything about herself, Gilbert has Southern Manners while avoiding saying anything bad even when he means it, and Lamont refuses to get involved in anything outside his shop. They aren’t perfect suspects, but they’re good characters, and it elevates the game.

Bess’ hesitance to delve into this atmosphere makes her the perfect partner for Nancy who begins by investigating just who the Skeleton Man was who attacked her before spiraling deeper and deeper into the mysteries surrounding Bruno Bolet and his crystal skull.

But while the costumes, pageantry, puns, and secrets all contribute to the atmosphere, nothing quite reaches the same level of Sheer Aesthetic as Bruno’s last years being dedicated to finding a crystal skull. Glittery and gothic with power over life and death, it’s easy to see why the game is named after it (which, of course, I’ll get into below).

This isn’t to say that CRY is all sizzle and no substance — far from it. CRY doesn’t attempt to teach the player the entire history of New Orleans, the complex background and practices of voodoo (or any of its other sister practices), nor does it get into iguana physiology or the mechanics of how to make someone sneeze or get the runs.

While education is of course present in CRY, it’s more centered in philosophy than in hard, straight facts. Professor Hotchkiss – a returning character perfectly suited to the French-influenced New Orleans and her love of slightly sinister history – gives the mission statement of the game, summing up its central philosophical question – “Does this mean that there mysterious external forces at work in the universe of which we do not and cannot ever have full knowledge? Or does it all boil down to us? If the human heart desperately wants something to be true, does the human mind have the power to make it true?”

It’s a fascinating question, and touches on all sorts of real-life phenomenon – the power of suggestion, the placebo effect, intelligent design, among others – without ever seeming like HER is trying to Teach a Lesson. Out of all the edutainment elements in this series, CRY (and I would add ASH in here as well) features some of the most subtle work that HER ever accomplishes.

The Weird Stuff:

Of course, a discussion (one-sided as these metas mostly are) of CRY wouldn’t be complete without addressing the things that qualify it to be a truly Odd Game within the Nancy Drew franchise.

The first and most obvious is that we’re dealing with death – and a recent death at that — for the first time in a while. We’d have to go all the way back to CLK to see another death of a relative not long before the mystery starts, and Emily’s mom’s death and Josiah Crowley’s death don’t hang over CLK the way Bruno Bolet’s death hangs over CRY.

Bruno is given instead more weight – part of the mystery is figuring out who he was, what he liked, what he wanted, and what he did every day, especially leading up to his death. The house is almost a stand in character for Bruno; it reflects him perfectly, including all the things that were important to him, and just as determined to keep his secrets. A lot of Nancy Drew games have the house/location as a character, but only a few associate the location with a specific character, and CRY does it possibly the best.

The second thing that makes this game so odd is the showcasing of an abusive relationship. Sure, Summer doesn’t hit Henry or anything, but is just as abusive all the same, and the game doesn’t shy away from showing her horrible behavior and the effect that it has on Henry. He stays with her because, like a lot of abuse victims, he doesn’t think he can do ‘better’ – that somehow this is what he deserves – and the only slight problem with how it’s portrayed is that we don’t get to see Henry leave her and be happier.

Lastly, in an oddity for Nancy Drew games so far, mental illness is put at the front and center of the game (rather than being a one-off random thing not really mentioned like in CUR). Henry, separate from the abuse he receives from Summer, is obviously depressed, and the game doesn’t really shy away from showing it. Sure, they might not use the term “clinical depression”, but that doesn’t mean that it’s not acknowledged. Henry’s depression, his sadness, his feeling of being out of control and yet still tied down – that permeates every moment of the game, and especially his conversations with Nancy. The whole reason Nancy’s there at the Bolet mansion in the first place is because Ned was worried about his shy, depressed classmate.

Gosh, Ned is such a good guy. He deserves so much better than Nancy “Lacks Tact” Drew.

Unlike a lot of the “Odd” games, the odd things in CRY don’t detract from the game; they make the game what it is. It’s a bit more mature, a little more introspective, a touch less black and white than most of the Nancy Drew games have been up until this point. No characters are simply caricatures, there’s very little stereotyping (for a ND game), and it’s not pointlessly spooky or try-hard in any way. CRY is the rare game that simply is what it aspired to be; while what it aspired to be was odd (and it is Odd), it doesn’t make it bad. It makes it feel genuine and honest – and after ICE, I can’t think of anything better for a game to aspire to be.

The Title:

We’re getting to the portion of Nancy Drew games where, regardless of the quality of the actual games, their titles are smash hits every time. “Legend of the Crystal Skull” is an incredibly good title on multiple levels.

First, it tells us what the game is about – not the Crystal Skull itself, but the legend of it – the myths, mysteries, and effects of the Skull. Not only does it (correctly) indicate that this game is a little more about philosophy than it is about something concrete.

The second thing it does is establish a sense of mysticism that is reinforced the second the game begins. We’re in New Orleans, we’re learning about this Crystal Skull, it’s dark, rainy, and spooky, there’s death and specters and possibly more afoot…and this doesn’t start with the Skeleton Man cutscene, or the phone call, or even the warning on the screen to play with the lights off – it starts with the title.

The Mystery:

We begin with Nancy and Bess visiting New Orleans – the French Quarter, to be specific – for a fun little vacation, only to be met with a Dark and Stormy Night. Ned, knowing of his girlfriend’s plans to visit New Orleans, asks her if she can check up on a classmate of his who’s going through a hard time: Henry Bolet.

Determined to get the visit out of the way, Nancy leaves Bess back at the hotel and traipses over to the Bolet Mansion. When she walks in – I know, honestly, Nancy –  the open door, she’s greeted by a person in a skeleton costume in the front room, rather than a miserable college student.

She’s soon knocked out by the Skeleton Man, coming to when an elderly woman offers her an odd concoction and the Skeleton is long gone. Soon, Nancy discovers that Henry’s dead uncle was in possession of a Crystal Skull that was to protect its owner against any source of death other than murder, the plot starts to thicken quicker than a bubbling roux.

CRY is home to an incredibly solid mystery, full of atmosphere, colorful characters, and even a food minigame as if to draw me in specifically. While I don’t think it’s the best Nancy Drew game by a long shot, I would say that it’s definitely the best of the Odd games, and by far the most successful mystery + atmosphere combination that we’ll have until we reach SAW, quite a few games later.

Now, let’s move on to our colorful characters.

The Suspects:

We’ll start with Renee Amande, as I think she’s our first character who is properly introduced post-cutscene (with her concoction). Bruno’s elderly housekeeper, Renee is a practitioner of voodoo (kind of) and a believer in the crystal skulls – she wants to reunite all thirteen of them to move the world to a higher plane of understanding.

Our villain, yet not our killer – not directly at least – the only thing Renee is guilty of other than attempted murder of a plucky Illinois detective is falsifying a letter. The shock of the “false” crystal skull shocked Bruno so badly that he had a heart attack and died, but Renee didn’t actually kill him. She’s one of those villains in Nancy Drew stories who commit a minor crime, and jump immediately to murder when she’s discovered.

As the villain, Renee is actually the only suspect that could even work. The game plays with Dr. Buford and the mysterious Skeleton Man, but in reality Renee’s the only one with motive and opportunity. But, given that Nancy spends 3/4ths of the game trying to figure out what crime has actually been committed, rather than working with cold hard facts, that works out pretty well.

Henry Bolet, on the other hand, is apparently catnip to a good section of the Nancy Drew fandom, and is the closest thing to a living victim that we actually have in this game. When his parents died, he was shipped off to live with Bruno – and Bruno shipped him off to military school, so he should be a bit more muscular than he is – and he’s never gotten over their deaths.

Like, “Nancy finds him crying over his parents” kind of never got over their deaths.

I’ll be honest, while I know lots of people who did Love him with everything in them, I never really saw the appeal of Henry Bolet as a love interest for anyone, or even as a compelling character. His voice actor – Brian Neel – does a great job, with his voice definitely being the part of him with the most obvious appeal, but otherwise…maybe it comes from my distaste for underdog stories, maybe it’s that I’m no good with crying people, who knows.

As a suspect, Henry’s pretty much out from the moment that he confesses to Nancy that he sold a trunk for quick cash for his abusive girlfriend. HER isn’t bold enough to have that be a lie, nor are they dumb enough to make him the culprit after that. Henry’s out of the running for most of the game, but he never really becomes Nancy’s confidante, not like other early-clear suspects.

Henry’s an interesting puzzle as a character, but that more comes from his place as the central piece of CRY’s “Oddness”, rather than any interest in him as a possible suspect.

On the other end of fandom appeal lies Dr. Gilbert Buford, whose greatest sin as a character is declaring an obvious heart attack an obvious heart attack and using regular, polite Louisiana manners for a man of his age while interacting with a character who obviously has no problem with it at all.

Dr. Buford is hard at work giving the majority of Bruno’s characterization that doesn’t come from his house to him, as well as giving a truly excellent scare when finding Bess in the Secret Meeting scene. As a suspect, Buford is a moderately good one – cagey, a doctor, knows about the Skull – but ultimately falls short as he just has too many of his own secrets to carry.

I personally like Gilbert Buford as a character, and find him an entertaining source of exposition – but then, I grew up around Southern manners (and military manners, which aren’t too dissimilar), so that might be the reason why.

Rounding out our suspect list – though barely qualifying himself, honestly, is Lamont Warrick, owner of a curio shop and intensely vulnerable to hot sauce and sneezing powder.

One can only imagine the Horror that would occur if Nancy were to mix those two allergens. Well, one can also Giggle at the mental image, but still.

As a suspect…well, even HER knew that he was a non-entity; his biggest part to play is actually after the game concludes, where he closes his curio shop in order to search for Bernie, who has swallowed the crystal skull.

I guess someone had to search for it? I’d love a follow-up with him, maybe over Labor Day, or Memorial Day, where Bess goes back to see if he’s had any luck, only to find that he found a dead body along with the alligator, and in order to not get suspected for the murder, they have to bring the body with them and pretend that it’s alive, taking it to bingo games over the course of the 3 vacation days.

Yes, that was all to set up a bad “Weekend at Bernie’s” reference. Hush.

The Favorite:

As you might have guessed from…well, most of this meta, one of my favorite parts of CRY is the sheer atmosphere that the game embodies from its beginning through the closing puzzle.

The Bolet mansion is just the right amount of cluttered yet comfortable, shadowy yet detailed, and gloomy yet homey to be a nigh-perfect location. The graveyard isn’t hard to navigate, is filled with puns, and does a lot of the character work for Bruno and (to a slightly lesser extent) Henry while allowing both characters to be private and a bit mysterious. The greenhouse is simultaneously cozy and elegant and yet slightly cage-ish and slightly claustrophobic.

Even the locations that Nancy stays away from — the hotel balcony, Zeke’s, the food truck, the secret meeting — are thick with a different kind of atmosphere: less wet, less foggy, more brightly lit, more French Quarter than haunting mansion. Bess’ locations are welcoming yet secretive, perfect for the reluctant amateur-amateur detective who just wants her vacation to be fun and mystery-free.

Adding to the atmosphere is the sheer number of cutscenes/cinematic camera usages in CRY. The opening with the Skeleton Man, Bess getting caught at the meeting, opening the final crypt, Renee shutting the tomb…they’re all so perfect, and do a great job at making you feel really immersed in Nancy’s New Orleans experience.

My favorite puzzle is honestly finding the glass eyes. CRY isn’t really a game I remember for its puzzles; they fade a little bit into the background (with the exclusion of a couple I don’t like) because they’re well integrated into the story, and because the game doesn’t really grind to a halt to make Nancy complete minigames like in, for example, CUR.

My favorite moment is split between two very different moments. The first is, unsurprisingly, the conversation with Hotchkiss mentioned above where she lays out the theme of the game. It’s a shockingly nice moment in the game, coming in the start/middle of the mystery and being a familiar face – er, voice – for Nancy to get help from. It’s a moment that lets you stop and think about what Nancy’s actually dealing with, rather than effectively pausing the game through a rhymed puzzle about the skull or other such nonsense.

The other moment is a little more obvious and a little flashy – the moment when Bess is discovered at the Skeleton meeting. The tension right before, the sudden pop-up of the skeleton mask between the boxes, the conversation afterwards…it’s just as close as possible to a perfect scene. It’s long enough before Bess is discovered that the player can kind of get comfortable, but not so long that it drags on. The moment of discovery is startling, but not scream-worthy or too scary to replay over and over or in the dark. It’s just great.

The Un-Favorite:

There’s not a ton to complain about with CRY, but I do have a few small things that make replaying it somewhat of a chore.

The first is my least favorite puzzle: the loquat bug spraying. It takes a long time, it feels shoved in the game just to have an extra puzzle, and Nancy can only take one loquat at a time. I feel like the player should be able to take up to 3, and then come back and do it again if they need/want any more loquats. Honestly, it’s a puzzle in a place where a puzzle really just shouldn’t be.

My least favorite moment in the game would probably be the chest that Henry sells to Lamont. After selling it and building it up for quite a few minutes, it’s kind of a letdown that it only has a few things it in. This would have been a great place to have more character-building work done, but instead the focus is on “how do we find it/open it” and less on “what can this do for the story”.

Finally, I mentioned it above, but I’m not a fan of how Lamont pretty much is a non-entity in the game. I’m fine with one suspect being less suspicious or having less ‘dirt’ on them than the rest, but Lamont really doesn’t have anything on him. He’s never a suspect for the Skeleton Man, he doesn’t really do anything sketchy…he’s just underwhelming.

The Fix:

So how would I fix Legend of the Crystal Skull?

I think really the only fix that I would attempt is to give Lamont a little more plot significance. Sure, his curio shop is beautiful and wonderful and important to the plot, but Lamont himself really isn’t. In order to include him more in the plot, make Lamont a bona-fide treasure hunter that manages the curio shop for cash in between expeditions. He’s heard that Bruno has a treasure that people have killed for, but couldn’t figure out what it was before Bruno’s death. He buys the chest from Henry and searches it top-to-bottom trying to figure out if it’s hiding something since it’s obviously Bruno’s personal chest.

To add a bit more importance, I’d place him at the Bolet mansion on the night of Bruno’s death as well. Renee’s there, Dr. Buford is there, Henry we’ve already written off completely in the actual game as a suspect, so Lamont should be there as well, snooping around to try to figure out what treasure Bruno’s got and if he can persuade him to sell it (or at least let Lamont see it). Nancy can match footprints in the garden to his boots, or some other method of proving he was there. I’d just like for Lamont not to drop off the map early on. It also makes his canonical ending that much neater.

Honestly, that’s it.

Sure, I’d appreciate the loquat bug spraying minigame to be fixed as well, but CRY is honestly a pretty character-based game, thick with philosophy and legends, and it doesn’t need a ton of help in that area. Make all the suspects viable for most of the game, and I think an already entertaining and atmospheric game would be just a little bit better.

[offtopicoverload]

Howdy there!! Who are the li’s you fancy the most from LITG??

hi! thanks for the ask!

i honestly dunno who’s my top answer, cuz they’re all interesting in their own way

I’m only going to talk about female LIs cuz the only male routes I’ve finished are Bobby and Jake, and I tapped through most of Jake and only ended with Bobby on my first run cuz I never unlocked Marisol, so I’m not the best source lol

Talia:

She’s just so chill but has no problem standing up for MC, she has her back no matter what

Which, like, what a queen

She’s the original and only one of 4 LIs, which maybe it’s just me, but for a game based on an incredibly heteronormative reality show, allowing representation for queer audiences from launch is such a big deal and so cool to me, so Talia’s kind of special in my mind

She was also my first LI so nostalgia points

And she’s such an easy LI, not much drama on her route outside of Lucy, just her having MC’s back as the boys make themselves look like idiots

And she has so much potential, like I know some people think her only personality trait is fancying MC, which I mean, is a little fair, but there’s so many opportunities for her in fics and headcanons to develop the good amount of information we got on her in 13 days

I absolutely love how self-aware and confident she is

She just went for what she wanted, struggled a bit with commitment at first, because who wouldn’t, but after that it was smooth sailing

Like obviously what she said in the Beach Hut at the beginning of the season wasn’t great for MC, but she knew exactly what she wanted out of her time on the show

She was confident in herself and her sexuality so much so that she was just down to have a fling with a girl and not worry about how it would effect the show

And then she *coupled up* with that same girl, not even giving a shit about the rules or anything

A queen

Allegra:

I know she’s not an official LI, but her arc is what got me into writing so she gets a million points for that

I love what could have been done with her progression if she was given an actual route, I’m a sucker for some good enemies to lovers, but alas, she’s canonically a bad bitch with a lot of internalised homophobia yet enough confidence to ask MC out

I still love her

Marisol:

I know so many people hate her, and I get it, but I do really like her growth

Maybe it’s cuz I’m pretty analytical too, but her analyses never bothered me or anything, and now that I’ve played her route so many times, it’s pretty obvious that that’s a defense mechanism, and I understand that

She very much so has a “figure their weaknesses out before they have a chance to figure mine out” attitude, and I’m 99% positive it’s because of the ex that Elisa reminded her of

So not only has she been burned in the past, I’m willing to bet it was by the only woman she’s been in a serious relationship with

I really have no problem with her commitment issues, it’s understandable, and I can really empathise with her fear of coming out, it’s absolutely terrifying even if you’ve accepted it and bought a flag, saying the words can be really difficult

My biggest issue is her entitlement and immaturity, I guess?

Like her using Graham to make MC jealous just feels like an excuse to crack on with him and still have MC available for when she’s ready

I understand her being scared to couple up, but playing games to distract herself just made things with MC worse

And unless youre on her route, and sometimes even when you are, it’s clear to me that she expects things and has no problem saying what they are, but going after them is a problem?

Like her going after Lurik even though they don’t have a connection, or Gary even when he’s with Hannah

But then it never works and she gets sad and I melt because I’m weak

ALSO, can I just say how awful it is that Lucas and Henrik don’t pick her unless they have to???

Like cmon she deserves MC after that

And when they finally couple up? And she’s all soft? The GROWTH ohmygod

Anyway I love who Marisol became, maybe not everything she started out as, but definitely the person she ended the season as, more confident and self assured and willing to be vulnerable

It’s precious

Elisa:

I still haven’t done an Elisa route

I tried to a couple months ago, but dumping Marisol felt so cruel, what the hell was Fusebox thinking with that?? 

I do really like that they learned from their mistake though, even if they went in the opposite direction

From what I’ve seen of Elisa, she can be pretty sweet, I’ve seen her described as a Lucas-Bobby hybrid, and while that’s not the most interesting personality to me, I will say that she’s a really cool character that FB messed up on

Why did they make her a straight up villain???

And why ONLY her???

None of the other female LIs have been villains or had such a complete 180

Like her going from shouting at Chelsea, who is literally meant to be MC’s ride or die and the person outside of your LI that youre supposed to want to defend and avenge, to “i cant even sleep because im pining so hard”

I know the treatment of black women has been discussed before, specifically in regards to Hope and Erikah, and it is by no means my place to speak on it, but I definitely think something’s going on with Elisa

Anywayyyy, I love her archetype

The celebrity and influencer has so much potential, to the point that I wrote a one shot without even knowing her lmao 

And she’s so confident in a way that’s so different from Marisol

She doesn’t even care if MC’s happily coupled up, she WILL get in her pants and I respect that

In conclusion, Fusebox did her dirty and I’m probably going to try and retcon some canon for her in the future

Lottie:

Ohmygod

Lottie

A goth babe

Lottie

Yeah, anyway, so I love her

Her growth is just unbeatable in my opinion

Yeah, she still has her flaws by the end of the season, but she went from ready to rip everyone’s throat out to biting her tongue around Hannah

And her and MC???

And the development between them??? 

Ugh

No matter what way you swing it, you’ve either got best friends to lovers or enemies to lovers and I adore both

And her aesthetic is one of my favourites, I’m alt myself and having a character like that is just so cool

My Runaways MC is a ball of sunshine with some hidden darkness specifically because Lottie’s such a dark cloud but can start shining with the right person, and that’s my absolute favourite trope

But man were the wedding episodes a cop out

Why couldn’t they give her the Noah treatment? Or the single treatment? Where they just get together after the show? Same with Hannah, why are they giving such an intense confession after who knows how long of literally nothing, like no communication even????

Don’t get me wrong, I kinda simultaneously love it for the angst and yearning, but it just… makes no sense?

So yeah, amazing bat lady that I seriously vibe with and wish my MC could have wifed up

Hannah:

I know this is a little controversial buuuut

I fucking love Hannah

But only OGHannah, Returning Hannah was butchered and I will never let that go

And it was such a toxic message too, that she needed to change herself and her appearance just to get a guy to like her?

Fuck that, Original Hannah was amazing and perfect exactly as she was

I love her trope, too, the naivety and how obvious and clear it was that she’s still learning about the world and relationships, to the point that it’s going to get her in trouble

And her obsession with fairy tales? 

Fucking adorable ohmygod

I started a fic a while ago that I think I’m gonna scrap, that just indulged in the fairy tale metaphors and stuff because I just love how cute it is lmao

If she wasn’t dumped, I think she could have had amazing growth alongside Lottie, and their friendship/kinda, probably, most-definitely-if-MC’s-not-there-more-than-a-friendship growing together would have been so good

In an alternate reality Hope was dumped instead, and that helps me sleep at night

I firmly stand by the fact that Noah should have been the deciding factor between Hope and Hannah/MC, where Lottie said something that screwed with his head earlier in the day to make sure her friends were safe

Noah should have saved Hannah/MC and Hope should have returned with Rocco, hellbent on revenge and proving herself

That would have been so good for Noah stans and such good drama, that actually made perfect sense

Hope was fully expecting that she’d get picked by Noah because they’d spent three days attached at the hip and then to just… not have that happen. It would have driven her insane and if there was then a scene with MC where she just like, gives up

Like she’s spent the past two days grafting Noah but he won’t make up his mind and she’s just done and MC can comfort her or fight with her and you just get to humanize her make her vulnerable and hurting and I fucking WISH they did something like that, even for RHannah

And Hannah’s growth in the Villa would have been so amazing

I think her idea of a perfect guy is definitely too much, and I’m not advocating that she settles by any means, just that she could have learned that there are things more important than money

That conversation on day 1 where you choose between money, kindness, and intelligence still baffles me

Like why are you a gold digger Hannah?!?!

Why don’t you just want a Prince/ss Charming???

Her and Hope should have swapped and I don’t understand why they weren’t

I mean, I do really like Hope, but Hannah’s just so cute and has so much to learn and her struggling in the Villa just to have a lightbulb moment with MC would have been precious and now I want to write it dammit

Anyway, Hannah is adorable and had so much potential and she never should have returned if they were just going to scrap everything that made her Hannah, except for snooty literature

I wanna listen to her rattle on about Belle and Mulan and every other Disney Princess and what they meant for representation and progress in media and then compare them to their original stories like a dweeb and I would have melted on the spot

Like yes, please tell me more about how gruesome Cinderella is

She should have shown up at the finale and hugged MC and been innocent and sweet so I could have just lost my shit for like a half hour

But stan OGHannah, burn RHannah

AJ:

Adorable, precious, denied an arc outside of coming out

I am not exaggerating when I say that I cried at 4:30 in the morning at her blushing face when playing the first two days

It’s just so fucking cute and I’m a sap and I don’t know why it made me cry, but it did okay?!

And her coming out was such good representation!!! By far the best thing in Boat Party, and I’m so proud of the progress FB’s made in queer representation at the very least

I know she’s pretty one dimensional, but most of S3 is unfortunately

Her being available right off the bat was also such a win, I’m positive it’s the reason she had so many stans

If her and Yasmin had switched or her and Lily, they would have been the ones that were dominating Reddit polls and stuff

And I know she’s written as masc but I just can’t really see it? Like I can’t see her in a dress, but outside of a few clothing items, I guess I just can’t see it? Maybe androgynous is more the word for my image of her, like definitely a mix

She’ll wear a skirt under the right circumstances, but never a dress, a crop top with a flannel, her prom outfit that’s like a frilly jumpsuit, stuff like that? idk im not a lesbian

Her route for me was so glitchy, but I know that if MC’s stolen from her by Yasmin, Tai, or Ciaran, she has some really cute scenes and I wish I could have seen them

And I know some people were ragging on her for the eyelash at the end of the scene but I thought that was just a perfect callback - maybe it’s the writer in me

Basically, AJ’s adorable and why did Ciaran have to split her and MC up, not cool dude

Yasmin:

I forgot I was doing a Yasmin route a while ago, but from what I’ve seen and played, she’s really sweet 

I hate that she’s almost nonexistent outside of her route

Give us a mysterious musician friend, you cowards!

I saw that she sings to MC on the final date and damn is that cute

Her eyeshadow kinda throws me off, but her stuffed animal makes up for it

And I’m salty that Yasmin the Lamb disappeared too, that was such a nice detail that made me start a Yasmin route

She’s distant and self-assured, but has a soft, gooey, nostalgic center and I wish we saw more of that, even if we weren’t on her route

My final thoughts on Yasmin: An artsy indie icon that I really need to stop getting distracted from and finish her route

Lily:

Again, don’t know much about her, but she seems really cool

Her shaving her head between the finale and Boat Party is such a flex and I wish she did it right before Boat Party so we could see her in all her bald glory

She’s into cars, right? And… architecture?

Idk, I barely remember my own name, let alone a 10 minute date from months ago

But I’ll definitely get around to doing her route at some point, maybe just to write for her, we’ll see

Elladine:

I know she’s not an LI, but MC so should have been able to run away with her

I missed that option in S3

I kinda get why they didn’t do that, but Boat Party’s just so messy in general

And I would include Genevieve here, but she’s so cute with Seb that I’d feel bad splitting them up

But Elladine had actual problems with Nicky!!!

Why did they mention it for it to never pay off??

And I’m so mad that the hype around her died when it was revealed she wasn’t an LI or the badass of the season, because I still adore how sweet she is

I also want to brag that before we got a name I was calling her Emma and that’s just on example of my almost psychic-ness

But yeah I wanted Ell to be a run away option and I’m salty that she wasn’t

Know what, fuck it, Viv too, she’s smart and cool as hell, let us love these awesome women FB, you cowards!!!

I have no idea who would be my number 1 based on canon, but if we’re talking hypotheticals, I think my answer, as strange as it is, is Hannah.

I just love what she could have been, but by no means what she is. 

It’s so awkward to know her for three days, not see her for three weeks, then spend a couple more days with, a couple weeks at most, just for her to write a whole ass book about MC?? And tell her about it with that hair????

No thanks, I’ll stick with closeted sapphic horse girl nerd Hannah because I guess that’s somehow my type??? Oh god what the fuck I swear I’m not a total weirdo

[dariadraws]

and my final piece so far for @geekinthecorner‘s @batfam-big-bang fic Bats Of The West, it’s Jason Todd! ngl i think this is one of the ones i had the most fun with, and also the one i crammed the most details into that no one but me will ever know exist, but i’ll share a few of them under the cut, along with the image description. plus, a list of all of Jason’s scars in this au, and how he got them.

also, like i said, this is my final piece so far but i fully intend to come back and round out the batfam, draw all the other characters i havent had a chance to get to yet, so keep an eye out for that, and in the meantime here’s some fun facts!

alright so. first off, just some general overall thoughts on Jason and some of the details i added here.

 his gun in the first pic is super expensive and pretty, but i imagine he doesnt use is as often as some of his other ones, simply because when he’s out in The Wilderness tracking down criminals for weeks on end, it’s not really the kind of place you want to bring your prettiest, most expensive gun. when he’s on the ranch or in town tho, or really just anywhere where he doesnt anticipate needing to rough it for more than a couple days (which isnt the same as not expecting the need to get rough), he’s probably got this gun.

his gun belt and holster are a whole other story tho. he spent exactly zero dollars and zero cents on them, just assembled them from some spare leather they had lying around, which is why theyre in such Not Great condition, and also why the belt itself ended up so long. he could cut it down to a more reasonable size, but it’s not like there’s anything else he could make from those scraps anyways, so why bother.

that big gun in the second image isn’t technically his tho, it’s the Communal Ranch Rifle. mainly it’s just used to scare away coyotes (or, yknow, actually hit coyotes) but it does occasionally see real action as well, tho not often.

also. does it even need to be said? his hat.. holder... bead... thing. with the turquoise inlay. is a gift from Dick

alright and now the fun part! i go through all of jason’s scars, and how he got them. there are quite a few and a lot of them are. Sad. so be warned, and take care of yourselves! (also just for the record, i promise the fic itself isnt actually as dark as this will make it sound. basically none of this shows up in the story, i was just given free reign to design whatever i wanted, and poor jason ended up paying the price)

ok so. scars. 

first off, the claw and bit marks on his arms and shoulders are from getting attacked by some coyotes back when he was still just a kid. to quote my explanation back when i pitched this to Em, “bc as a Young Human with minimal supervision and not necessarily having someone to call him inside once it gets dark, he was unfortunately Very Delicious, if somewhat scrawny, by coyote standards”

next up: a bullet scar on his abdomen, on his lower left side (our right), from some kind of shootout with a criminal. this one is middling-recent; after bruce adopted him, but before the joker thing. i dont really have anything concrete for that one but it was a through and through, and somehow, miraculously, missed hitting any bones, and any organs. just missed his lower rib by like. an inch. that one messed bruce up more than jason, honestly. if anything, he was just surprised it took him that long to get shot, with the life he's had

the ones on his cheek and on his chin were just Regular Childhood Shenanigans scars, no real story.

the one through his mouth is from his time with the joker though. there's also the J brand on his right bicep, also from the joker.

also joker related, hes got a lot of scars on his hands, especially his knuckles and fingertips, from trying to fight his way out of his captivity, and scratching his fingers raw trying to pry open the door to his cell/untie the rough rope he way tied with/whatever the specific situation was. also some minor rope burn scars on his wrists from the same deal.

also some blade scars across his palms from trying to stop/block knives. definitely with the joker, but probably at some point in his youth as well

a few faint lines across his neck from being a temporary hostage a few time while helping Bruce on cases when he was younger, but none of them ever went deep or caused any serious damage

oh and also, whip scars on his back from his time with the joker, which arent too prominent, and mostly cant be seen from the front, except for a couple of spots where they crest over his shoulders and the very tail ends of them can be seen, but they’re there 

and also some kind of straight scar on his left forearm, which was a carry-over from my usual Jason design, that i like but dont really have a story for, so that one’s purely aesthetic, lol

and that’s it! i think? that’s all my notes on that? either way this post is getting Way Too Long, and i still gotta do the image descriptions, so i’m calling it there. 

[IMAGE ID: two images of Jason Todd in old-fashioned cowboy clothing. He has red, curly hair with a streak of white running through it at the front. his skin is pale but sunburnt, has deep-blue eyes, many freckles both on his face and on the rest of his exposed skin, and his body is broad and muscular, and he has many scars. he has small round metal piercings in the lobes of both ears, as well as an additional two in the top cartilege of his right ear.

in the first image, he is facing directly at the viewer with his arms crossed, and a challenging look on his face. he is wearing a maroon cowboy shirt with checkered red accent at the chest and the sleeves rolled up to his upper arms. he has a dark blue polka-dot bandana tied around his neck, and over that pass two strands of red braided cord holding his tan cowboy hat, which is visible hanging off his neck behind him. the cords are tipped with small metal beads, and pass through a large, dark brown wooden bead inset with turquoise, which regulates their length. he is wearing dark-wash blue jeans with prominent yellow stitching, pulled over his cowboy boots up to the ankle until only the foot of each boot is visible. the boots are dark brown with pale seams and red stitching, and light brown heels and soles. fastened around each boot are embossed red spur-straps, with metal spurs extending from them behind the boots. at his waist are two cracked leather belts. one is dark brown, with a pale silver buckle stamped with vine designs, and it is threaded through his belt loops. the second belt is hanging diagonally over his hips and holds his gun and holster. this belt is a reddish tan with a pattern of darker brown, overlapping rings down its length, and has a darker silver buckle. it is long enough that the loose end of it wraps back around itself several times before hanging down. the holster is simple brown leather folded over the gun, with two straps to tighten it. the gun itself is an ornate and expensive-looking revolver, black metal with intricate gold detailing and a mother-of-pearl grip.

in the second image, he is facing slightly to the side, with a long shotgun propped over his shoulder with one hand and an unimpressed expression on his face as he looks somewhere to the right of the viewer. he is shirtless, and his torso is muscled, stocky, and as sunburned and freckled as the rest of him. his cowboy hat is hanging off his neck again behind him, once more held in place by the braided red cord and round wood-and-turquoise bead. he is wearing tan, high-waisted pants tucked into his cowboy boots, which are the same as in the first image but now fully visible, with red pulls at the top. the pants are attached to red suspenders, though they are not on his shoulders and hang down around him instead. his gunbelt is once more around his hips, but the holster is obscured behind him, and isn't visible. the hand not holding the shotgun is down loosely at his side, and has a red and white bandana wrapped around the wrist. END ID]

[andy-the-8th]

Day Of and Day After - Sam (Part 5)

Part 5 of Creatures That Defy Logic

Read on AO3

That feel when you're 14 and your boyfriend turns out to be a merman, but you've still got things to get done this summer.

Sam's perspective at the end of the movie.

A/N: Sam was perhaps the least-developed character in the whole movie, so writing from her perspective was kind of a fun blank slate. I've given her a last name, individual background interests and information, and invented (mostly - Jennifer is Sam's friend who had like 2 lines) a whole supporting group of original characters for the chapters from her perspective - maybe they'll also be connected to other stories?

Sam got home about an hour after leaving the marina and Cody's parents behind. Hot from the long walk and summer air, she went immediately to the kitchen and downed two glasses of water, letting the coolness spread throughout her body as she sat and calmed down at the kitchen table.

It had been a good plan to walk back. Sam was as much an athlete as Cody or Sean or any of the boys they hung out with - her mind and muscles were connected, and one always worked better when the other was engaged.

With the open air and time to walk with purpose, she had managed to calm her emotions about losing Cody. She hung on to the mermaid's silent promise to have him back before school started, somehow communicated to Cody's mom via telepathy. God, telepathy. Another ontological thing to adjust to. Would Cody have telepathy when he returned?

She'd managed to stop crying about halfway through her walk. She knew it would come again that night, and probably the next several nights. She could hear her friend Jennifer laughing at how silly she would look crying over a boy going away for the summer, even a boy as socially desirable as Cody Griffin. Sam and Jen connected on a lot, but in the boys department she sometimes wished Jen could be a little less shallow. As far as Jen was concerned, a boyfriend only needed to be cute and popular - emotional depth, socializing, deepest-darkest secret keeping was for girl friends. Sam agreed on all the latter, but had always thought romance could be about something more.

She hadn't been attracted to Cody for his popularity. If anything, she was drawn to his drive, his energy when he would compete, the charisma he had among his teammates and with his friends. The way being one of the popular guys hadn't turned him into a cocky prick like Sean and some of the other boys on the team.

Sam felt like they were meant for each other, even if they'd only been going out since spring break. She thought Cody felt the same - Cody was like an open book, which was something she'd always loved about him. He was terrible at lying, and you could always see every emotion on his face. She had never doubted his feelings for her.

Which was part of why she was still not over him not telling her about this sooner.

Sam's older sister Jackie had come home from college last summer, talking about all the drama of dating in college with her high school friends once they were all back in town. The new thing she kept talking about was love languages - the way people show each other they care. Sam honestly thought most of her sister's talk was needlessly dramatic, and hoped that the boys she knew would grow up to be a bit less vapid and out of touch than all the boys Jackie seemed to encounter. Regardless, Sam took the little checkmarked quiz in the back of Jackie's magazine, and which said her love language was trust - being able to tell each other anything.

When she'd told Cody on the beach that she wanted him to be able to tell her anything, she could even hear Jackie's or her mom's voices in her head, saying that she was being a bit demanding for a three-month relationship in 8th grade. She didn't care. She knew she loved him, and to Sam that meant complete honestly.

So having to find out after Cody sprouted fins, apparently blew up the scoreboard (?),  and ran away from the meet was justifiably infuriating. To be fair, she didn't really expect this to be what Cody was keeping from her. Part of her was relieved that it wasn't him seeing some other girl. She didn't think he would do that, but this was junior high after all. She only now slightly regretted storming out that day - she may have been sad to lose Cody, but he had hurt her too with his lack of trust and uneven expectations.

The fact that she had to learn about the details from that Josh kid only exacerbated the issue. Apparently they were close friends or something now? Then again, he looked at Cody like a science project - like he was something to study. Still, she could tell that he was important to Cody, and had clearly helped him out when the problems had started - even if she would rather have been the one to do it, the kid's science background probably helped a lot more. Even if Josh insisted they weren't problems, they were steps of Cody's metamorphosis, it sure still turned into a lot of problems for everyone else involved.

Josh's - no, Jess's - weird-ass comment about her "kissing" him after performing mouth-to-mouth was probably the part of the day she least wanted to remember. Like, sorry for trying to save your life. Thank God for junior lifeguard training and boyfriends who can apparently shoot lightning out of their hands.

Still, as she was thinking about school the next day, Sam realized it was going to be weird to not be able to talk about where Cody was with anyone. She was his girlfriend, after all - "the most popular girl in school" as Jen naggingly kept reminding her - and had always been an extrovert, wanting to talk things over with people she cared about to make them all make sense. Jess was now in the weird position of being her only peer she could be fully truthful with about what was going on her life.

That would make for an interesting summer.

God, and Sean would no doubt have a million questions after whatever he might have seen at the swim meet. It was bad enough that he still attempted to flirt with her whenever possible - him getting into a fight with Cody that had to be broken up by Josh Jess of all people surely was going to make him all the more insufferable.

Getting up from her chair, Sam tied her hair back and got up for another glass of water. She was reminded of Cody's weird sudden thirstiness at all times over the last several weeks, and how that finally made sense, and (thankfully, maybe) wasn't diabetes, as she'd repeatedly warned him. He'd  insisted it wasn't, with the excuse that his mom wouldn't want him to go to regular doctors to get tested anyway. That part at least was true, even if only half of the story. Diabetes would have been a bit more normal, but imagining Mrs. Griffin dealing with insulin shots was almost scarier than her dealing with merpeople.

Merpeople of all things. She didn't doubt Cody's promise to her this time, but still: there'd better not be any mer-girls to hear about come the end of the summer.

Putting her glass in the sink, she stretched back and decided to put all the drama of middle school girls and boys - human and otherwise - behind her for the rest of the afternoon. She slid open the glass door next to kitchen table and stepped out onto the small porch in the backyard, lined with shelves of potted plants all sorts of colors and shapes. Sam had always loved her plants - succulents, aloe, bromeliads, spider plants, dracaena trees - things tied to the earth. Her room and the back porch had become her container gardens, where she'd retreat to care for them and decompress. She gathered up her watering cans - large spouts for rainlike streams, small bottles to directly water the soil - and the various pump bottles of plant food for each variety. As it was the beginning of June, it would be time to refresh the fertilizer in all of the soil. She filled the watering cans at the sink and moved smoothly and slowly from plant to plant, dabbing drops of liquid plant food to the soil, carefully parting leaves and stems, watering just the right amount for each species. The work was perfect, slow and relaxing - Sam focused on the diverse needs of each individual plant as well as appreciating its beauty and growth progress.

Sam was actually quite a good biology student herself, though she had always been more inclined to studying plants, both aesthetically and via agriculture, than anything to do with the oceans. Land management and endangered species conservation were at the top of her extracurricular interests - she had been president of the middle school environmental club the last two years, organizing recycling drives, local beach cleanups, and nature walk days for the elementary school.

This summer she had managed to get a part time job at one of the local greenhouses, which served both the florist shop and a few of the garden centers around town. Her job would start two weeks from the end of school. The prospect of spending the summer caring for things of the earth was far more comforting and appealing than tomorrow and dealing with people again.

Sam mentally noted the irony of her caring so much for things of the land, with her boyfriend turning out to be a literal sea creature.

She finished all of the care and cleaning for the plants on the back porch, then carefully went upstairs with the smallest of the watering cans and repeated the process with the small collection of indoor plants in her room.

After finishing up, she laid back on her bed, staring at the musician posters on her ceiling - Backstreet Boys, TLC, and Destiny's Child - trying to let her mind zone out. She reached into the bottom drawer of the dresser next to her bed for her CDs, finding what she had been looking for: TLC's FanMail, new just last winter. She popped the CD into her small player and put her headphones on, closed her eyes, and focused on following the rhythms of the drums and harmonies in the voices. The music worked - she found herself drifting off to sleep, exhausted physically and mentally from the rest of the afternoon.

It was almost dark outside when she woke to her mom coming in the front door downstairs. Sam quickly got up, taking a few seconds to reorient herself in space and time. Quickly trying to pull herself out of the weird fog of falling asleep midday, she made her way downstairs.

"Oh hey! Were you asleep?" Her mom rarely missed anything. Like Sam, she had long red hair, pulled back into a bun over her black dress shirt and blue blazer. Her mom was a lawyer, one of the only ones in their town who worked in environmental protection policy. Most of her days were spent with documents and plans from the various touristy planners, boat charters, and other industrialists looking to exploit the town's oceanside location, circumventing whatever environmental protection laws as they could. Ms. Lindsey Brathwaite was the main champion of the environment standing in their way.

Sam consciously widened her eyes and slightly shook her head to wake herself up. "Only a bit. Had a busy day earlier, lots going on with tomorrow the last day of school."

"Oooh, any plans for tomorrow night? Two weeks still til you start work, anything going on in the meantime with ze boyfriend?" Her mom always had a good sense of humor when discussing Sam's social life, even if it got a little annoying sometimes with not taking things quite as seriously as her daughter would like. If only she knew this one.

"Actually I was just going to maybe hang out with Jen and the girls tomorrow. Cody's, uh, Cody's going to be going away for the summer."

"Oh really? Family vacation? I would have thought they'd stay around, tourist season and all." Lindsey never missed a thing.

"Uh, no, he's going away by himself. Swim training thing, out in Australia." At that Lindsey turned right around from where she was busy taking plates out of the cabinets. "Australia? Really?"

Sam did her best to nod nonchalantly. "I think he has something going on there for like, potential Olympic training maybe? And Mrs. Griffin's sister lives there too." Sam turned away, slightly bit her lip, worrying she might be laying it on too thick. Best to avoid too many details with the story, in case she or Jess or anyone else couldn't remember them all if they had to. That said, a training camp for the Olympics wouldn't be too out of the ordinary to be in Australia - the next actual games were in Sydney next year anyway, and as she said, Mrs. Griffin had a sister who lived somewhere on the north eastern coast.

Lindsey was still no less surprised but at least seemed to buy the story, frowning at her daughter slightly. "Aw, I'm sorry to hear that, I'd imagine you'll miss him, especially with such little notice!"

"You have no idea." Sam's tone accurately indicated to her mom that she was annoyed but also wanted to drop the subject for right now.

"Well we can get on making dinner right now, then if you want to call Jen later tonight you can set up your plans and talk things over? I won't be needing the computer tonight so the phone'll be all yours." Sam really loved her mom, especially how she knew when to give her space to work things out socially. "Jackie will be coming back next week too!"

The thought of her sister showing up again for the summer made Sam even more glad to be out of the house at her greenhouse job. Jackie was alright, but ever since Sam had grown up enough to be dating, her sister was only too interested in being helpful - and prying - in that department. There were only so many details Sam would be able to give about the boyfriend she'd already told Jackie about.

"OK, thanks Mom! I'll call Jen after dinner." Sam walked over to the salad bowl Lindsey had already put out on the table, and began carefully mixing in croutons and putting the dressings out from inside the fridge. After the day she just had, something as simple as making dinner was an appealingly normal event.

[cbspams]

ONF - New World (Performance MV)

The last one. Ahhh, when I first committed to watching RTK, I wasn't sure what to expect and I didn't know anything about the other groups. I'd seen TBZ's Reveal (Catching Fire) which lured me in and I'm grateful for it because I got to see all the other amazing performances everyone pulled off. Beyond just the performances, it was really heartwarming to get little glimpses of the hard work everyone puts into each stage and how they're always supporting each other, within their own teams and outside of it. I would definitely recommend watching RTK if you're interested in getting into any of the groups featured, and even if not I would still recommend watching the performances because they're all so unique in their arrangements and stages. It's the kind of thing that can only happen on a competition show.

Thanks for putting up with all my ranting and know that I love you if you've read all my different thought posts. I hope you all look forward to Kingdom: Legendary War as well, it's gonna be HYPE!

Alright dudes let's get down to it.

Admittedly I did not love ONF for a lot of RTK. They're a great group, but I felt like their stages didn't favor the same kind of theatricality other groups had. And when they were ranked highly for We Must Love + Moscow Moscow (2nd round, My Song) stage, I was frankly a little miffed.

I adored their stage for It's Raining though, and all throughout RTK even if I didn't love them I still thought they were wonderful. Their reactions were so entertaining to watch and their stages were all fun and well executed.

I struggled watching New World a bit because I couldn't get over the fact they went back to more simple performances when It's Raining had been so elaborate.

The performance MV for New World is amazing. I understand the live performance had to be filmed indoors and that because it's indoors and because the stage is black and the stairs are black and the bleachers are black, the impact is different. But I'm really sad about that because the open air film location they did for the performance MV fit the song's vibes so much better. The kind of controlled sunlight, the open air lattices of the building they were standing on, the contrast between the dark outfits the members had and the bright cream of the building's plaster. All of those contributed to such a different vibe for the song, which is so bright and fun.

The opening to the light performance is a short film, similar to ONEUS and Pentagon. I'm not too sure about this but it seems to start with fast cuts from their previous MVs? And then slows down marginally to give a bit of storyline that seems to be a combination of pre and post apocalypse/societal collapse in a fantasy/cyberpunk mix world? Yeah, I dunno I've watched it 4 times and that's the best I could come up with. Especially because the ending shot is several very large meteors crashing through the atmosphere and like, those are pretty deadly so...?

In the pre-performance bit with the ONF members, they had discussed a theme of Pandora's box. Most people know that Pandora's box is a symbol of curses and tragedy, often tied to themes of humanity's greed versus humanity's innocence in listening to the gods. On opening the box, all the diseases and negativity inside flooded out to torment humanity but Hope remains in the box to allow humanity to maintain light in the darkness, and only humanity can give up hope.

NGL I was really excited to see how they would execute that theme. But then?? They kind of treated the box as a time capsule? I could kind of see it like them put their hopes into the box, which is an interesting twist on the tale of Pandora's box but also Confusion because that's definitely not the theme of that story. I kind of let it go though, because maybe they were just borrowing inspiration from the story and not actually trying to represent it.

Moving onto the actual performance and song. The intro is so intense! It's a really interesting fit because the rest of the song is way more dance upbeat/electric. But as far as openings go, pretty impactful and very pleasing to watch the ripple effect with the backup dancers down the aisle.

Again with the colorful flashing lights. Cool? Yes. Contributing to the aesthetic? Not particularly. Productive to the storyline? No. Part of the performance? Yes. Shruggy on this one, I don't really have anything to add that I haven't mentioned in previous commentaries.

I do really like the song though. Just as a piece of music, it's so fun to listen to and has definitely joined the ranks of my usual kpop bops. The kind of light, fast electro beat is something to jam to. Wyatt's voice is just so good, especially as part of the pre-chorus. The contrast makes it delightful to go from verse one to chorus. The lyrics and message of the song are really well thought out and executed as well, talking about reaching a better world and turning away from hurting each other/the environment/generally being hurtful.

OKAY. So this part is actually something I really adored: the sort of robotic formation. Wherein the members stand in the center of several backup dancers who seem to place on pieces or armor or something onto the member's limbs. A very clean cut, fast paced dance sequence that really strongly reminded me of early iron man scenes in which the different parts of armor were installed on the body. Also lowkey reminiscent of magical girl transformation hahahaha. But it's done so cleanly and while the camera angles make it hard to focus, it's still such a treat to watch. AND THEN. The members come up to the shoulders of the backup dancers and for Wyatt's lines, they're just!! In control! If y'all have watched power rangers or Gundam or Aquarion or Neon Evangelion or like, any of those then you know what I'm talking about, in which the human character slides into some massive machine and controls them from the inside to fight monsters (kaiju) and stuff. And the next bit with J-US and the hands! Creative, interesting imagery, just a complete delight to watch. It's just sooooo fun and I love that for ONF, I really do.

I genuinely think that their theme doesn't make much sense without the context of the lyrics and even then it still feels clunky and sort of inspired by rather than actually embodying the concept. So I'd dock point for them for that personally because I think that when themes are introduced and performed, they should show up as more than just a simple prop. But also I acknowledge that dance and musical performances like this (not musicals) aren't necessarily intended to be storytelling, especially in 4th gen kpop. I do like their theme with the keys and opening, I feel like the performance would have been enhanced if instead of using pandora's box, they choose to use the gateway to the new world. A bit on the nose but a lot more impactful with the key turning bit after the second chorus.

On the key turning bit with the weird holographic box: Dude. Those backup dancers? So clean. Nice stiff steps that feel very robotic which goes wonderfully with the costumes. The keys they each take actually read RTK ONF if you go clockwise from the left (MK). Just a neato little fact. Attention to detail is so good. And the timing of the key turns, of course it was gonna be to the beat but like still! Satisfying af.

Why Wyatt grabs the box and slams it to the ground I don't know. Maybe it has to do with the line dive into new world.

The high notes. Again. Literally just. What the fuck guys, they're so good. I'm gonna cry. The stability, the pitch, just. (sobbing)

The LED screen in the back is interesting? Is it supposed to be a door into the new world? Probably?

Dance break!! Guitar solo!! The door tradition into the weird stripey LED screens that just feels so chaotic and kinda like I'm going through a movie warp portal. Somehow when combined together it all works lmao??

I love the bridge. There's no reason for it, I just love Wyatt's fast paced lines and the kind of dun dun dun fast tempo beat tapping.

The ending of running away from the camera, towards the little cliffs and the LED screen was a good choice because the last lines refer to how they'll never stop as long as they're alive. Not the most impactful ending but definitely satisfying given the song's lyrics and meaning. Again, that lack of pandora's box kind of haunts me?

Overall if I consider this ONF performance compared to their others it doesn't feel quite as thought out and executed. Similar to their We Must Love + Moscow Moscow performance where I couldn't really see the marionette theme, I couldn't really understand the idea of Pandora's box in this performance and I really wish they had chosen perhaps a gateway to the new world or some other theme instead because it would fit much better. It's also a little lackluster compared to the performance MV that had a lot of contrast which created more focus and contributed more to the atmosphere of the performance.

Still, as a performance on it's own, it does pretty well and I'm really happy for ONF to have performed it. Thank you RTK for introducing me to this song and to ONF in general, I hope they continue to release some really good stuff.

[semi-imaginary-place]

I started watching deca-dence

1: oh what was that called. there’s a name for this tech aesthetic.... also the city is floating on monster goo which is also their energy resource... is that really a good design?????? why is there open access to the monster goo i mean those kids are totally going to fall in. Oh boss dude’s a super secret agent thing. lots of reveals this ep. That action sequence at the end was really cool but wow i do not like those squishing sound effects. also, of all the livestock to raise, why cows??? per pound of protein, cows are horribly inefficient especially when land and resources like water are scare.

2. We have a post apocalyptic society and they kept bagpipes of all things??? I’ve noticed this in fiction and perhaps this is true of real life but sustained conflict coincides with the glorification of the warrior/soldier social class. oh god and now the creators are doing a post moderist take, yay capitalism. this is a good take on the isekai “transported to a game world”/mmo lightnovel genre (see past post). what makes something “real” I was playing of a ttrpg around that concept... mikey’s got all the flags to die horrifically and be part of kaburagi’s tragic backstory. lol kaburagi got turned into a mod. There’s also something dehumanizing and horrifying in managing a society like this all to maintain the status quo. so let’s see if I have this straight, the remnants of capitalism made deca-dence and then a bunch of little robot people who are incentivized via a game system to destroy the squishy monsters. the city design makes sense now it wasn’t made with things like safety or efficiency or any regard for the residents in mind, it was made to look cool. Living in a fuel tank is exactly the type of bullshit to expect from a videogame.

3: kurenai has the vibes of that one cool npc that the the main character out grows to show how strong you’ve become. (the trope is rife with misogyny. who was the one that talked about it? ... femfreq?), wonder what the show will do with it. good job deconstructing the instant expert trope. lit. unregulated capitalism. what is corporations replaced government but for little cyborg people. curious about this minato guy. the 175 years until decommission or whatever makes me wonder how long all of this has been going on. on the screen with the eurasia bubble, were other structures, so i wonder whats happening elsewhere in the world.

4. the game trailer style shots.... the juxtaposition of the tankers discussing battle strategy for a life or death situation, with the cyborgs excited for the next raid event and talking about the game’s story is real good. its a revolving door of mood whiplash. oof dramatic irony since the entertainment corp also seems to control gadoll numbers. Why do none of the Power wear armor? oh right aesthetics and game logic, i answered my own question. I was thinking about this for a little while but kaburagi really does have the set up to be an isekai/mmo light novel protag so I’m really glade we have natsume as well. If done improperly her character type can get kind of annoying, the show did a good job of humanizing her which is important since so much of the disconnect between a game world and a lived reality hinges on her. why isn’t altitude sickness a problem for anyone?

5. yikes. saved twice within the first 10 minutes. maybe dont charge in there natsume. and it was the cool lady too! oh shit limit release. now the stakes are up. isnt kaburagi totally going to get his little head chopped off and the his little green battery extracted.

...

...

...

6. I’ve always had a soft spot for the struggle against the inevitable and unmovable. i was wondering how they were managing the squishies population. just where is this lake? what weird ass hazing system has kaburagi ended up in... is this the slow part of the anime? where they save up frames for the finale?

7. i just realized that kaburagi purposefully chose dog faced characters twice in a row. like he can choose to look like whatever he wants and he good, i feel comfortable looking like this. good for him. How did they punch a hole in the wal anyways, mechanically? with gadoll? We’ve see that they can either change the projection surrounding deca-dence, or actually have full control of all material int he bubble. oh kabu-san you are finally starting to think. but its not the gadoll that are the root of the problem, its the deca-dence system. btw since cyborgs run on the green juice which i think is made from gadolls??? how does kabu plan on fueling everyone. he hasn’t thought about it has he. of course the gadoll have a kill switch. do the tankers have one...?

8. a setup episode. my heart was racing during the avatar retrieval part, so much tension. jill is great. not sure why kaburagi doesnt just tell natsume whats going on. i do think it’d be a shock and a lot to take in just like when the gadoll reset on the mountain, but it’d make coordinating much easier. as is taking her along while not telling her whats going on doesnt feel right. also the green slanty eyed cyborgs given me bad vibes from the start, after all he’s the one that told mikey about removing the limiter. I’m kinda sad we only have 12 episodes so we have to enter the finale already. i would have loved to see the tanker teams, natsume and fei, and minato and kaburagi relationships fleshed out.

9. YEAH YOU SHOULD HAVE TOLD HER EARLIER. so she would have time to process all that world shaking information not in the middle of the operation when it could cost her her life! also doesn’t this mean all the cyborgs still alive are now trapped in the waste disposal place.

10. i totally forgot about that tunnel. that said it looks kinda fragile, how’d it survive the explosion? And how did the robo crew get a hideout?? jill is amazing. she’s like a wizard. Natsume just doesn’t get a break, no ones explained to her the cyborg-avatar thing. I’m too invested in this show to analyze anything.

11. holy shit i wonder what the last few episodes were going to be about. they’re going to black hole the whole place. also we can finally hear pipopi! I thought it a bit funny pruple nose seemed to be taking advice for them but really eh was taking orders? so minato did the tremendously stupid thing of logging out and then hopping on a shuttle to get from orbit to deca-dence so he could talk to kaburagi face to face. even if they take out the gadoll, that doesn’t stop the deca0dence system from having a kill switch on the bubble.

12. POMDOROSA DID THE END SCENE ART. it really is 7 degrees of separation, they have a tumblr here. right as the natsume flashbacks started, I knew what was going to happen. Was it really safe inside the drill thing?? ah whatever. Kaburagi really went all out and busted himself huh. He probably didn’t actually need to use so much force that it’d break decadence. ah I’m rambling. I binged watched this show in 1 day. i started tearing up at the natsume flahsbacks... I dont remember what i just watched it was pure experience. I do wonder whats happening on other continents.. Jill! I can’t believe it took you 3 years to organize your files and find kaburagi’s backup! well i mean its realistic but still.

Deca-Dence is very good, like not even talking about the thematic stuff the execution in both animation and writing are both really good.

[merinnan]

DMBJ Ep 6

I’ve been a bit behind putting these up on Tumblr, so I’m afraid you’re about to get a dump of the remainder of Season 1, plus the first two eps of Explore with the Note! (not all in one post, of course - 1 ep per post as usual)

So! Episode 6!

The Xiaoge Rescue Count at the start of ep 6 stands at 9 for Wu Xie, 12 for the protagonists, 13 for everyone.

- And we start back with Chengcheng and High Jr. I DON'T CARE ABOUT THIS SUBPLOT, MAKE IT GO AWAY AND BRING BACK XIAOGE AND WU XIE. 

- Why is Chengcheng calling her kidnapper dage? I don't like her or trust her. She is annoying and shady

- Oh, good, now we are back to Wu Xie being a good boy 

- That is a lot of guns and explosives Sanshu has recovered

- I am annoyed at how they all seem to think that A-Ning needs to be shielded from everything unpleasant because she's a girl. She's a goddamn mercenary leader. I think she can take knowing these things - and it's better to let her know as it's found out so that she can adjust to the news properly, instead of springing it on her when it can't be concealed anymore, like what happened when the blood zombie showed up.

- On a completely different tangent, Wu Xie's neck dressing has stayed astonishingly clear for running around in a tomb, crawling through tight tunnels, falling off of ledges and being dramatically rescued, fighting bugs, and fainting all over floors.

- Wu Xie is so sweetly optimistic 

 - LOL, sure Pangzi, you're here for archeological study 

- ....Wu Xie, you are disturbingly knowledgeable about guns for a college student

- Now that I've read the first novel between having watched ep 5 and now, my mind is slightly reeling from how innocent and babie drama Wu Xie is compared to novel Wu Xie 

- Awww. Doesn't matter which Wu Xie it is, babie with gun always looks kinda adorable.

- Also, I appreciate Wu Xie's trigger discipline. So often shows have such terrible trigger discipline. 

- Oooh, it's like a carved thing on the dais that got his attention. I thought it was like a computer drive or something at first, because it looked kinda like that.

- OH NO, THE LIVING VINES ARE HERE AND SNEAKING UP ON THEM 

- ...and pushing the button made them retreat 

- ...phew? 

- I am still concerned 

- The music signifies that something creepy is coming 

- lol, babie. Looking so innocent even though He Knows What He Did

- I don't know what that sound is, but that's not a good sound 

- ...earthquake? That's a bad thing to happen when you're in the middle of an evil cave. 

- WU FAMILY, WHY ARE YOU THE ONLY ONES TRYING TO STAY ON YOUR FEET WITHOUT HOLDING ONTO ANYTHING?! 

- So fucking stubborn

- This is where Wu Xie gets it from, if Erbai is wondering 

- A-Ning is the smartest one, staying sitting down 

- The tree opens up like a fucking security vault and ejects a coffin. Because of course if fucking does. 

- Oooh, yeah, that's that shot from the opening credits 

- "I can't read any of this, but it says this is the guy we're looking for" 

- "His story recorded here is the same as what we know" WU XIE YOU JUST SAID YOU CAN'T READ IT

- Come on. Earlier in the show you said "yes I can read this" and read it. And in the novel, you puzzle it out from being able to read bits. This part, you flat out said he couldn't read it, and now are telling everyone what it says 

 - I love continuity, but dramas really don't

- The music now is similar enough to the Harry Potter music that I almost expect an owl to go flying past 

- The owner of a coffin wanting the coffin to be opened hundreds or thousands of years later seems like it should be something more worrying than how everyone is reacting

- I wanna know how Sanshu knows the coffin has been there for 3000 years. Wu Xie can't read the dates on it, and the Warring States Period was 1500 years ago, not 3000 

- JESUS CHRIST, SANSHU, YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE THE SENSIBLE ONE!

- Why are you suggesting you open the chained shut coffin in order to see if there's somehow something alive (or alive-ish) in there? 

- Awwww! Wu Xie going "no, don't do that, Pokerface told us not to touch anything"

- Like. Not, "no uncle, that seems like a bad idea" 

- But "Xiaoge told us not to, and we should do what he says" 

- I have the feeling that if this Pangzi is agreeing with something, then you all should not be doing that thing. Because this version of Pangzi is an idiot

- HOW THE FUCK IS THE MOVING COFFIN GOING TO SECRETLY HAVE THE EXIT INSIDE IT, PANGZI 

- THAT MAKES THE LEAST SENSE OUT OF EVERYTHING SO FAR 

- Pan Zi's "WTF do you think you're doing" look

- This Pangzi is so bad 

- I even like Chengcheng better than him. And I wish they had taken her into the tomb and used her as bait. 

- I'm glad he's better in other adaptations. Like, I love the Pangzi in Chongqi. I am so glad that he was my intro to Pangzi, not this one

- DON'T MAKE THE BABIE SAD BY BEING DUMB

- A-Ning really should not be just standing there with her leg injury. I've had a muscle biopsy before where they took it from the thigh, which is a similar 'injury' to what she's got, and you do not get on your feet unless you absolutely have to for days afterwards.

- At least they have her limp when she's walking, and it's kinda sad that I'm glad they do that! 

- And Pan Zi should not be doing hard physical labour with a fucking gut wound

- But I think I'm more annoyed by A-Ning, because I have personal experience with her kind of injury so know first-hand what kind of pain she's causing herself by standing and walking 

- HUMAN BRAIN LOGIC GO

- Pangzi you fucking dick, just standing there watching. You should be pushing instead of Pan Zi 

- Hahahah, after all his shittalk and boasting, and he can't do it 

- Oh, there, finally

- I know that inside lid is supposed to be jade, but it looks so terribly fake. Oh my god. It's awful 

- It looks like a bad Photoshop of one of those Windows 98 default backgrounds

- I love the looks everyone gives Pangzi every time he slips up and talks about getting money from the stuff in the tomb 

- LOL, that's not a carving, that's a couple of translucent green plastic discs stuck on top of Windows Background Photoshop cover

- ...I'm kinda waiting for someone to suddenly shout BOO! really loudly while they're all carefully trying to listen for any sounds in the coffin

- They're almost at the end of the first novel in terms of plot, and there's still 4 and a half eps to go

- Wow, I think that's the first time I've seen Sanshu actually worried 

- lol, and now Pangzi says he believes him, rather than get his ear that close to the coffin himself 

- PANGZI DON'T STARTLE SOMEONE WHO HAS THEIR FINGER ON THE TRIGGER OF A GUN & DEFINITELY DON'T SMACK THE GUN

- Wu Xie has a lot of control to have not accidentally shot right then

- LOL, after all their declarations how they're archaeologists, not tomb robbers, & how they're here to protect cultural artefacts from robbers, etc - they go make references to the northern and southern schools of tomb raiding

- Just without actually saying exactly what the 'Southern School' being referred to actually is. 

- ....and now Pangzi jumps in front of the pointed gun as he grabs it. Do you have a fucking death wish, dude? 

 - And now we see the infamous bronze armour! Jade armour. Whatever

- You'd think they'd have learned to fucking take all of A-Ning's guns away from her after last time she held one of them at gunpoint 

- OMG, the face on the helmet is so fucking ridiculous, I can't - It's not even properly positioned over his face

- Aaaaah, Sanshu called him tianzhen  I'm so happy at being able to identify that word now it's ridiclous 

- That...that is not what peeled skin looks like 

- Pangzi comes right out and admits he's a tomb robber 

- And for the first time, no-one calls him on it

- Or correct him for calling them tomb robbers 

- Ah, there you are, Xiaoge. I was wondering how long it would take for you to be back 

- I see looking for people in a tomb requires no shirt XD

- Better shots of shirtless Xiaoge

- Like, same, Wu Xie. Same.

- Look, I have two braincells, and one is for Xiaoge and one is for pingxie

- YOU ACTING LIKE THIS IS WHY YOU DON'T HAVE ANY FRIENDS, PANGZI

 - Oooh, this is a goood shot of the tattoo. And of who the tattoo is on

- I don't have a Xiaoge problem. It's the opposite of a problem.

- Seriously, Pangzi is so fucking lucky that Xiaoge didn't kill him a dozen times over during their first meetings here

- Also, now that Xiaoge has explained why he threw a knife at Pangzi, I believe it's time to update the Xiaoge Rescue Count to 9 for Wu Xie, 13 for the protagonists, 14 for everyone.

- Although maybe I should have also been keeping a People Eyerolling At Pangzi Count given how often it's been happening

- More Xiaoge pics, feat. emotions that are not 'worrying about Wu Xie'

- Also, did he throw the corpse off the platform after he broke it's neck, or did it yeet itself off somehow? 

- I mean, I too wanna know how Xiaoge knows all this stuff if this was all put here 3000 years ago

- I do love that Wu Xie is already about the only person who Xiaoge will actually look at instead of staring down or straight ahead

- LOL, Wu Xie won't even let Pangzi so much as touch this. 

- I honestly appreciate that Xiaoge appears to travel lightly enough that he doesn't have a spare shirt

- EVERYTHING makes Wu Xie better than everyone else (except Xiaoge), Pangzi

- lol, Sanshu, yes. You tell him. 

- Hahahah, and Wu Xie playing along with Sanshu, the little adorable shit 

 - THE LOOK ON HIS FACE 

- KJFDHKJDAFHFKASDJHFKJASDLHGFSKLJ 

- AND DON'T THINK I DON'T SEE THAT SMIRK, WU XIE 

- There is absolutely not enough of little shit!Wu Xie in S1

- Loooool, his little nod at Sanshu now that they got their way and made Pangzi promise to stfu for the time being 

- And that is the first time I've seen that style of carriage roll like a car 

- Those skull ballistae were a cool aesthetic, though

- THAT CARRIAGE WAS ROLLING LIKE A FUCKING CAR, HOW IS IT BACK UPRIGHT AND ROLLING ALONG THE GROUND TO THE CLIFF 

- HOW TF IS IT ROLLING ANYWHERE WITH A SMASHED WHEEL 

- HOW TF IS HE ABLE TO HOLD IT FOR EVEN A SECOND, ESPECIALLY WITH ONE HAND

- A thin as fuck flagpole is going to give you jack shit in terms of something to brace with when it comes to that much weight 

- THE SCRIPTWRITER OF THIS SCENE IS BAD AND SHOULD FEEL BAD 

- *cries in physics minor*

- I can suspend disbelief for aliens, zombies, everything about Xiaoge, logic holes, and plot pits. Apparently my line is a non-cultivator breaking the laws of physics. 

- Aaaah, here come the zombies 

- So this dude is not the zombie dude 

- He is the emperor, I think?

- OH MY GOD THAT GREENSCREEN IS JUST THE WORST 

- I thought the one on the river was bad. The one of her falling as he dives off the cliff to save her is actively painful 

- Oh, now it looks like we're gonna have a dumb love triangle in the flashback. Yay. *waves tiny flag*

- Bitch, be a bit more grateful. Yes, your ex-lover caught you as you were falling & did so by basically flying, but that's just standard wuxia defiance of physics. Your husband held a FUCKING CARRIAGE with ONE HAND for AT LEAST TWO WHOLE MINUTES to keep you alive before your ex finally showed up

- "Were you really frightened?" Your majesty, what kind of a stupid question is that? 

- The emperor's armour is really pretty, I gotta say 

- Uuuugh, this stupid love story hurts in a bad way 

- I'm just gonna fast forward through it 

- ...and there's the end of the episode.

- That love triangle is going to make me scream, I know it 

- But that does explain how they're going to pad out the episodes a bit more with how far through the plot they are already 

- None of them are even really that pretty to make up for the boring, trite, love triangle plot

- How do they expect to keep my attention through it if I don't even have eye candy?!?! 

- I will be seriously headdesking if this flashback goes on for more than the next ep! 

- Oh well, there we are. The end of ep 6

The Xiaoge Rescue Count at the end of ep 6 stands at 9 for Wu Xie, 13 for the protagonists, 14 for everyone. 

[fanfoolishness]

10-13 for the su asks? :-D

10. Gush about your all-time favorite SU character real quick. Just go on a long, rambling tangent about how much you love them. Do it. We're listening.

Favorite character, hands-down, is Steven and always has been.  In the beginning, I loved his sweetness, innocence, and sheer joy.  Giant Woman is one of my favorite early episodes because you see how delighted he is by everything new and magical around him, and his joyful singing in that episode is what encouraged me to pick up the ukulele and start learning.  But there were always hints that he wasn’t just a silly happy-go-lucky kid without depth; his anger at Lars with I didn’t get to know my mom! and his grief at Pearl “dying” in Steven the Sword Fighter allowed me to trust that the show was really going emotional places in general and with his character in specific.  I’ve loved how brave and selfless he is while also starting to worry about moments like The Test and Still Not Giving Up.  Mindful Education made me so happy even as it brought me to tears because I could understand what he was going through and the feeling of being too frightened to think about the bad things and face the depths.  I’ve loved Steven’s emotional insights as a character while feeling real sorrow that he had to develop these skills to survive both gem attacks and living with a family marked by grief and trauma.  I love that they’ve given him so much space to be happy, in love, grieving, guilty, angry, fearful, ashamed, brave, proud -- every emotion you can think of, really.  I love how Zach has voiced him through the years and I love that he’s fat and round and cries easily and is tied with Connie for bravest kid in the galaxy.  I love drawing him and getting better at it all the time, and I love writing him both silly and sad.  He’s just the best

11. What fusions do you want to see in the show, and who would you like them to be voiced by?

Well, I think our time for new fusions has ended canonically.  But I did kind of want to see a Diamond fusion with Blue, Yellow and White.  Not with Steven, though.  The three of them have come a long way, but I don’t think any of them have atoned enough to Steven to fuse with him.  Perhaps a few decades down the line.  

Bismuth and Pearl would be a delight -- strong and graceful both, but I don’t know actors well enough to guess on who I would her to be voiced by.

Also would love to see Volley and Pearl’s Mega Pearl meet Blue and Yellow Pearls’ Mega Pearl.

12. Which episode do you think has the best aesthetics?

There are so many truly beautiful episodes... gosh.  Alone Together has some of the most joyful moments in the whole series and then some really inventive portions as the fusion starts to fall apart.  The Answer is so lush and romantic.  Change Your Mind of course has the beautifully fluid animation of James Baxter and the new fusions.  Snow Day vibrated with such joy and playfulness.  Why So Blue has such gorgeous backgrounds, and Fragments has the most beautifully alien moment in possibly the entire series -- the shimmer of Pink Steven running, flickering through the forest beneath a starry sky.

13. List any headcanons you have about any characters.

Steven takes up cooking as a way to spend time with himself and work on a human hobby.  He gets inspired by good (and bad) food he has out on the road, and starts booking hotel rooms with kitchenettes when possible.  When he comes back to Beach City for visits, he cooks for Greg, Connie and the Gems regularly, and sometimes for the Maheswarans, especially as he and Connie develop their romantic relationship further.  He loves Cajun cooking, is working on learning recipes from several different regions of India, and has a killer vegetarian lasagna recipe.  His favorite part about cooking is sharing it with other people, but a close second is the satisfaction he gets from working on a recipe, learning new techniques, and improving his own skills.

 Greg and Vidalia drifted apart because Vidalia didn’t understand why Greg wouldn’t do the normal human things for Steven -- get a house, take him for his shots, send him to school.  They fought about it several times with the result that they stopped talking closely around the time Steven was three or four years old, which is why Steven and Sour Cream don’t know much about each other when the series starts.  They start reconnecting after I Am My Monster when Greg apologizes to Steven for not exploring more human means of parenting for him, and he realizes she had good advice he didn’t take and that he’s missed Vidalia’s friendship.  He stops by with Amethyst one night and asks if they can talk.  The three of them talk for hours and after that they start to rekindle a friendship again.  

[bloody-fists-beating-hearts]

It’s a Fallout76/Bethesda rant

Bethesda just released Fallout 1st, a horseshit pay-to-win subscription system for their absolute cum-bubble of a game, and while it’s getting the flack it deserves there are people already putting on their kneepads so they can gobble down Todd Howards entire turgid cock, and as someone who likes rpg’s way too much this irked me, so have a massive and barely coherent rant i took off the discord because why not.

I want to start off with this:  Every good thing about current fallout comes from the fanbase. The stories people tell, the headcanons, the fanfics, the art, everything fans do for it is made with more love, and more thought, than anything Bethesda’s writing and games design team has done in the last 10 years

Now first of all, I haven’t bought or played 76. People are gonna stop me right there and go ”well you haven’t bought it how would you know its bad!!” yeah, I’ve never eaten dog shit either but I can pretty well guess that I ain’t gonna fucking like it.

I knew the second he said "there are no npcs" with actual enthusiasm that this game was gonna be shit. And if you give me 2 seconds to gloat, I never bought the game and I knew this was gonna happen and I was RIGHT so suck my fat hairy nuts all those fanboys who pre-order things mindlessly just because there's a brand name attached to it. If there is anything you take from this its DO NOT PREORDER. BRAND LOYALTY IS FOR BOOMERS AND BOOTLICKERS. FOR FUCKS SAKE BE SMART WITH YOUR MONEY.

Games like this are fucking 80-90 dollars or more in Australia so I actually have to think about whether this momentary distraction is worth almost an entire days paycheck, and I’m still looking for employment which means I actually haven’t bought shit in a while (side note, anyone wants to commission me for 10 dollars I’ll draw damn near anything. God I need to make rent)

Every executive at Bethesda seems to be playing catch-up to EA's monetisation scheme. Beth has abandoned their model of single-player rpg's in favour of a "games as a service" model. Fallout 76 seems to me like its a weird experiment for just how far they can stretch this and still make money. It actually makes me wonder if they are 

 a) just completely unaware of fanbase response [no idea HOW]

b) are running into financial problems and are doing this out of desperation

 c) todd howard is still mad that obsidian made a better fallout than he ever could and he's doing this out of spite 

  Games as a whole has become much like the movie industry where publishers will throw big buckets of cash around to development teams, and those teams have CEO's and higher ups that throw lavish meet n greets and have nice fancy suits and cars and then treat their development teams like shit, overworking them to the point of exhaustion, because the product has to be on time for release dates that are scheduled to be the most profitable (christmas is a notable one). 

And those products are consistently bland, shitty, shallow experiences. Narrative cum-dumpsters that are purposefully made to toe the line as safely as possible, to be open to as wide as an audience as possible so they can make the most money, and Bethesda is a huge offender. Skyrim was fun, sure, but it was watered down to fuck, it had shitty dialogue, it had bland one-note characters, it had a simplified skill system. It was impossible to lose. Seriously, try and fail a fucking quest in skyrim, other than one or two, it's a hand-holder of an rpg, but it has a huge community of fans that put in monumental effort, for free, because they like the Elder Scrolls, and they like the world bethesda made. 

  Then Bethesda goes "hey, that watered down thing we made got huge! lets release it about 12 more fucking times, with some of the SAME bugs, with the SAME content, with the SAME limitations and Yes, we absolutely expect you to pay for it, again. Then they release the remastered edition which, to their credit, is free to anyone who already bought the legendary edition (on PC), and does actually have updated 64bit capability and some graphical enhancements (that aren't anywhere near what some goober in his basement cooked up in his spare time, but whatever). Then, seeing that Skyrim was so popular, with kids especially, and made money, they turn their sights to fallout 4, a game that was so anticipated that someone made a fake countdown and caused a small meltdown on tumblr/social media when it was revealed to be fake (i was part of that fiasco, i remember the hype, i was there goddamnit)

So Fallout, a franchise that literally has its theme as its FUCKING TAGLINE, an ADULT game that is equal parts crude, gory and humorous. A game that satirises the cold war era of american my-country-tis-of-thee blind loyalty and openly mocks the way war was idealised, and shows that not even the literal end of the world could either stop humanity's lust for blood or its desire for conquest. Games that showed you the growth of the world - from shady sands to the NCR, from the vault dweller to arroyo, shit actually happened in the games, the world didn't just stop turning when the bombs dropped. A game where you you become a porn star for fucks sake, and it's funny. 

So Bethesda sees that, makes something like it (fallout 3) which is good, but a little rough around the edges when you look at it too hard. But the way they suck you into the vault, the way they build a relationship with your dad and your way of life is immersive as fuck, so when you leave the place you actually feel like you're leaving something important, not just finishing the tutorial

then they outsource a Fallout game to obsidian, because hey, we saved your franchise by buying it off you, but if you can make an entire game in one year and get a metacritic score of 85 we'll even throw in a bonus. And fuck me sideways and in the ear, if the obsidian devs didn't work themselves harder than a 4-armed hooker. And they made a game that on release was a clusterfuck of bugs, because they were given an unrealistic time limit and missed the metacritic score by ONE POINT so bethesda goes "nhey heh sucks to suck" and fucks them off the franchise forever. EXCEPT (and I admit I'm biased here) the game is good. The game is actually really good when you remove those bugs, and people start forming attachments to it, and mentioning how bad fallout 3's writing is by extension. 

  So Todd and Co. in his infinite wisdom, decide that the only thing a fallout rpg needs is 50s aesthetic and fuck all else, and he releases a game so watered down it can't even be called an rpg. And its not. There are no skills. There are barely any dialogue checks. Instead of dialogue, Nate/Nora is a flat, samrish individual that is either "yes sir right away sir may i have another", "yes but i'm gonna make an unfunny quip about it" "this option pretends to say no but its gonna give you the quest marker anyway". 

The game drops any pretence of difficulty by giving you a deathclaw, a minigun and some power armour in the first 10 minutes, allowing you to effectively reach late-game power levels with some minor scavenging for ammo or cores. Then the game ropes you into some inter-faction war that realistically you wouldn't give a shit about, because some spud in a cowboy hat fucking deputizes you into a military general because you shot like 4 raiders from a rooftop (with a minigun. in power armour. making you nigh-invulnerable to bullets). You're sad about your son about 3 times the whole game and then you're on your merry way to mowing down humans left right and center without a care in the world. God fallout 4's writing is so stupid it gives me an aneurysm.

 Remember the part about resources wars and america only having the veneer of a strong country while riots, inflation, and resource shortages tore it apart from within? Bethesda doesn't, have an eerily stepford pastel coloured glimpse at a world that was totally fine, nothing wrong here, shame it got nuked oh well moving on

Your spouse? yeah you love them, they're said 2 whole sentences to you then they died, be sad because you totally loved them and it is totally sad that they are dead. Your weird play-dough son shaun, you love him so much, you even tickled him on the chin once, okay he's gone off you go to chase him - woah now, don't chase him too hard we have all these side quests for you to do! What would be the narrative reasoning for a supposedly distraught parent to fuck around boston instead of finding their goddamn child? fuck knows! just go pick up some goddamn wood and get to base building sonny-jim! 

Companions? yeah, they're fun, we gave them a romance questline and it's thus: if you pick enough locks and pass a minor charisma check maccready will be ready and willing to tell you about his sick child, and then he'll ride you like a stallion. Talk to him like, 4 times, and he will be your bosom buddy for life in about 3-5 days if you just pick locks like a fucking madman, because character growth is hard and counting beans is easy.

 Also your son is a part of the faction we were talking about! something about synths, remember that one questline from rivet city that barely anyone actually remembers and was an interesting time waster at best? Well get ready to do that same quest but about! 15! more! times! because we could not think of anything else to write about synthetically produced humans that assume peoples identities other than having them as a hamfisted metaphor for slavery. Why do they take over people's identies? Well because the institute needs them to aasdkfjdh kshshshsh t9oe of course. 

Speaking of hamfisted metaphors, here's the underground railroad, named after the underground railroad that actually mattered, except this time its the same thing but synths. They are so top secret that the only way to find them is to follow the only bright red line in a street that is exclusively green-brown otherwise, and then enter their super secret password, which is "password"

They are then, like every other faction, absolutely willing to trust you, at face value, no questions asked, because have to actually do something or require a skill check might make this hard for people under the age of 12 to play. Then you go do whatever fuckin shit you do, I stopped playing at this point, and then you find out your son is actually 60, you guys have a tearful, 10 sentence reunion, then he diesthe whole reason you were out here in the first place dies, and you react appropriately, which is to say you say his name really sadly, and then go back to mowing down raiders with reckless abandon

And then 76 gets released, bethesda drops all pretense of fallout still being an rpg. You want a story? Fuck you, pay up. Its retro future and thats all that makes falloutSatirizing war mongering? You can nuke things in this game and its totally fine, its actually the goal, because fallout has nukes in it right? Pay us 10 dollars and you get army olive drab spraypaint because hurrgh war is fun and great, wasnt that the tagline from the first game?The more i rant the more angry i am because people put their heart and soul into writing this. The lore and dialogue is actual work that someone researched and loved and felt proud of and now  it's becoming a hilariously meta parody of itself. 

Honestly FUCK bethesda and and fuck todd howard for his pisspoor cash grab. Not even worth calling it a video game anymore

[veryfashionabledesigns]

Analyzing the Snicket Aesthetic, Part 1/5: Time Period, Technology, and Medicine

.-There are quite a few fan theories placing the main events of ASOUE in the 80’s or 90’s, which is plausible, if not quite probable, in terms of the technology present in the series and the timing of the real-life publication of the books. On the other hand, I’m a shameless hipster and I live for that retro aesthetic, so I like the ambiguity.

-The post-post-apocalyptic theory is a fun one, but it can be a little limiting—not to mention difficult—to apply too many practical implications to this universe. Realism is all well and good, but it can easily be discarded for the sake of a good yarn or a pointed bit of commentary.  

Figure 1: The Illustrations of ASOUE are mostly influenced by the woodblock prints that frequently appeared in Victorian fiction--black and white, hatched shading, realistic perspective—while those of ATWQ vaguely resemble Modernist and/or Cubist art—subtle color, solid shadows, and slightly warped perspective.

(Continued under the cut)

        -Anachronisms everywhere, of course.  One of the books mentions a blacksmith and a computer repair shop in the same sentence. Events and media from before, during, or (infrequently) after the date range are regularly referenced.

        -Personally, I mix and match from a date range of about 1890-1980, for reasons we’ll get into over the course of this analysis, although this is really quite a large range, and even then it’s rather approximate, and can change depending on which version of the story one is referencing, and even from book to book or character to character.

-Time does not pass normally like in the real world. The atmosphere of ASOUE feels a bit older (gothic, vaguely turn of the century) than that of ATWQ (noir, 1930’s-40’s), but the latter is set before the former (see fig. 1). History has been run through a blender set to puree.

TECHNOLOGY

        -It’s sort of lowkey steampunk/dieselpunk. Relatively little sci fi tech is floating loose in the world, but given the materials and time, Violet would almost certainly come up with some fun retro-futuristic inventions.

        -Violet’s inventions involve mechanical and electrical technology, but seemingly nothing digital. She’s largely indifferent (and in the books, possibly even disdainful) in response to the “advanced computer” at Prufrock Prep, which always struck me as a bit odd. Maybe she distrusts Nero’s vague assertions that it will deter Count Olaf, maybe she prefers a more hands-on approach to inventing, or maybe she has the soul of cranky old lady.

Figure 2: Prufrock’s advanced computer in the Netflix series features cameras, a CRT monitor, and something resembling an oscilloscope.

        -Computers exist in this universe, but they don’t seem to do much, and there aren’t very many of them. Smart phones, laptops, and similar devices of the 21st century are almost certainly not around.

-In the books, Prufrock’s computer can display a recognizable image of Count Olaf and is compared to a toad in appearance, meaning it was likely modeled after PCs from the 80s and 90s.

-In the series, it’s even more anachronistic. The monitor looks more or less like what was described in the books, but it also comes fitted with a built in camera, much like a modern webcam, and can recognize faces about as well as most characters (although this really isn’t saying much), implying some kind of primitive deep learning capacity.  

Figure 3: A few computers that could fit in the Snicketverse. (The Apple 1, hilariously, is the real thing.)

-If the internet exists, it’s pretty useless. The first season of the Netflix series has a few references to the internet, none of which are relevant to the plot. The internet makes everything easier, and the Snicketverse is all about inconvenience and suffering.  

-Photographs appear in both black and white and color, although the color is quite grainy. The shift to color photography occurred gradually throughout the 20th century.

-Hector’s self-sustaining hot air mobile home is really quite impractical, if not impossible. A proper hot air balloon would require quite a bit of fuel to keep the air inside the balloons sufficiently hot. Historically, airships of comparative size would have filled their balloons with hydrogen and/or helium, which, barring leakage or other damage, could actually remain buoyant more or less indefinitely. Hydrogen, by the way, is very flammable.

-The submarines in The Grim Grotto are steampunk as heck—that is, realistically impractical but really friggin’ cool—likely inspired by early science fiction such as Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In real life, submarines rarely have portholes; in warfare or high water pressure, they could potentially be a weak point, and they’re fairly pricy for something that isn’t strictly necessary. There are a few exceptions, though, such as in subs designed for tourism or marine biology.

Figure 4: The Quequeg has a number of features solely for the comfort of its crew, such as this lovely library with paintings and antique-looking lamps. The use of brass and copper tones, as well as the warm lighting reminiscent of gas, oil, or early incandescent lights, also add to the steampunk vibes.

-Mobile phones do not appear in the books. As with the internet, they’re just too convenient. Should they be necessary to your story, however, there are a few ways to work them in. The movie featured telephones built into cars, which is actually pretty cool. In real life, portable phones have existed since at least the 1960s, although they were too large and expensive to be popular with the public until recently.

Figure 5: The Radio Common Carrier, a sort of mobile phone introduced in the 1960s.

MEDICINE

        -If Heimlich Hospital is typical of the Snicketverse, then the medical technology of the time is… not good.

        -For all the bureaucracy and paperwork depicted, there seems to be very little control over what sorts of operations are actually performed. Count Olaf can waltz in and say he needs the operating theater for a “cranioectomy,” and nobody seems to question it. It’s entirely possible that the amount of paperwork required is so massive that nobody can really keep track of it all.

        -Patients at Heimlich Hospital often ask volunteers for simple things like a glass of water—implying that the hospital is severely understaffed.

        -It is unknown what happens if a Volunteer is seriously injured in the line of duty. V.F.D. may have its own medics/infirmaries. Alternately, they may try to recruit medical professionals who will treat patients without revealing any secrets. It is also possible that volunteers are expected to lie to their doctors, or that the healthcare system is such a mess that nobody really asks questions when someone turns up with a suspicious injury.

        -There is some good news: near the beginning of The Hostile Hospital, Klaus mentions antibiotics and shots (likely referring to vaccines). From this we can assume that many of history’s nastiest plagues (i.e. tuberculosis, cholera, scarlet fever, etc.) are more or less under control. (Although I personally headcannon that Mr. Poe’s cough is an early symptom of tuberculosis, as this would be a fun little shout-out to Edgar Allen Poe.)

        -The rusty knives used in Violet’s “surgery” imply that doctors could get away with some pretty lousy sanitation. In the Netflix series, the entire hospital is filthy.           

Figure 6: The operating theater in The Hostile Hospital is similar in structure, if not style, to the one at the Old Operating Theatre museum, built c.1822.

-Public operating theaters like the one seen in the Hostile Hospital were gradually replaced by sterile operating rooms as doctors developed proper understanding of germ theory between c. 1860-1900. (See fig. 6). Notably, the set design for the operating theater in the series uses a 19th century layout with mid-20th century materials and lighting.

        -Treatment for mental health conditions is given little attention, which is troubling; sooner or later those poor kids are going to need some therapy. If memory serves, one of the patients at Heimlich is described as looking sad but otherwise healthy, suggesting depression.

        -Given how dystopian the Snicketverse is, PTSD and anxiety are probably quite common—especially among V.F.D. members, who often wind up in very dangerous situations at very early ages. In fact, one could make a solid argument that childhood trauma might be behind the neuroses of characters such as Aunt Joesephine or Hector—both of whom, despite having severely debilitating anxiety disorders, never seem to receive any treatment.

FANTASY ELEMENTS

         -There are very few of these, but it’s far from realism. Some rough rules of thumb would be to avoid things typically considered supernatural (i.e. dragons, ghosts, vampires), but things that are not quite possible (i.e. babies can bite through concrete, reptiles can be trained to imitate human speech on command), or possible but very improbable (i.e. a harmless snake being officially named “the Incredibly Deadly Viper” solely for pranking purposes, a phony surgeon convincing a crowd that decapitation is a risky but necessary medical procedure) are all well and good.

         -It should be noted, however, that at least a few characters in-universe believe in the supernatural. In the Ersatz Elevator, the Baudelaires are briefly mistaken for ghosts, and in The End, Ishmael claims to predict the weather using magic.