#also this scene pretty much speaks for itself but the the way he like hangs his head in embarrassment always makes me want to cry

[not-freyja]

New Zelda Game!

Okay cool, cool cool cool cool, I am calm, I am so fucking calm. Looks like Nintendo is staying true to their word that Wild is not getting another game, so now the questions are, what Link is this, where are we in the Timeline, and what information about the game itself can we pick out of these crumbs?

Whose Zelda is it anyway?

So two options:

New boy.

Legend. It’s fucking Legend again sucks to suck bro

Case for new Link and Zelda:

Less messy for the Lore

That’s it, that is the only argument

Case for Leggy boy and Fable:

LA animation style! While it can be fun to bring back older styles of animation for nostalgia/artistic reasons, that seems like a poor choice for *LOZ* games, which are always on the edge of what a game can do. Moving “backwards,” so to speak, in any aspect, would be a disservice to the franchise. However, doing it to maintain consistency for a particular character, and to use the animation style to make sure the audience knows this is the same character from LA is a very simple but effective tactic.

The map! So that shot was so BOTW and so fun, but the view we got wasn’t just recognizable as “Hyrule,” is was, down to the relative heights on the mountain cliffs against each other, the map from ALTTP/ALBW. Nintendo has never repeated a map without it being the same Link. So! Checkmate motherfuckers.

The character designs. That… that was just Legend and Fable, come on. Look at the dress. Every Zelda has a slightly different costume design, and that was hers. Look at Link. Baby boy!

I want this. Let me have it.

Timeline positioning

Okay so if we assume that this is in fact Legend, the next question becomes, “When is it?” Leggy boy currently has 5 games that are canonically his. (Triforce Heroes could be a random other Link, so while we like to say 6 we can’t *prove it.*) So. Let’s break it down.

ALTTP: canonically his first game, can’t be before this one.

Oracles: canonically happen after ALTTP, and he is very much still a child in here.

LA: the game this one is artistically modeled after. Narratively this fits nicely right after Oracles, and in the canon timeline, fits between Oracles and ALBW, so I think a whole new game being crowbarred prior to this one would be… not great for the narrative.

ALBW: This is trickier. No canon time between LA and ALBW is given, it could be a week, it could be years. It is entirely possible that Echoes of Wisdom occurs prior to ALBW, which would make it a direct sequel to LA, which makes the art style make even more sense. It could also be after?

…hang on a fucking minute, lets get the fucking map.

Left, ALTTP. Right, ALBW

Basically the same map! Duh, it’s the same Hyrule. But. BUT. Bottom right, in the lake. Do you see that?!

ALTTP: no log bridge. ALBW: Log bridge. Now, let’s look at the pretty picture from the EOW trailer.

NO FUCKING LOG BRIDGE!

This is before ALBW. Therefore, the game order for The Hero of Legend is

ALTTP, OOS, OOA, LA, EOW, ALBW, TH(maybe)

*cue manic laughter*

Lore Implications

Ganon.

There being a Ganon at all actually has me pointing my finger at the Oracle games and screaming. The TL;DR in those is that there was a plot to resurrect Ganon, each game Twinrova gets closer, but Link stops them. Now, there were also supposed to be three of those games, which means that it is entirely possible that the third unseen Oracle plot—please Nintendo let Link and Farore hang out, I am on my knees barking like a dog—could have resulted in his resurrection. This is the only explanation I have that doesn’t break the Lore or involve Time Shenanigans.

Also, Link does KO the bitch in that opening scene in the trailer. His presence is either just that—a set-up plot point—or him and Link are currently duking it out in the hole. Fun!

Link and Zelda

Now this game is going to put their relationship in the front in the “I have to save them because I love them” way that we usually see from Link’s POV.

Getting it from Zelda’s POV is going to be very interesting. We might be getting a look into her head, into her feelings and thoughts about the whole ordeal of the Legend itself. I hope so. But also, this isn’t just Link and Zelda, this is *Fable and Legend* specifically. The two that were meant to be be siblings but the dialogue that established them as such was cut from the final version of ALTTP. So. This game has the possibility to do three things

Canonize the Prince Legend thing, like they were going to do in the nineties.

Not address the topic at all, leave it nebulous.

Zelink.

None of these are bad choices, but option two is definitely the safest. Both options one and three will cause an uproar from part of the fan base. I can already see the ship wars. Please don’t do this people. Please.

The Holes 🕳️

What are they? Where did they come from? Ganon’s Trident Where do they go? No actually, where do they go? The Dark World (doesn’t make sense in the Lore)? Lorule (that would be a choice)? The Twilight Realm (I am convinced that Lorule and the Twilight Realm are the same place actually and you cannot change my mind)? Some new never seen before parallel dimension? A non-place, like a gap between realities (sexiest option)? I have no idea!

Fun!

That fucking “Fairy”

Tri? Don’t trust it. Will not trust it. Never trust that a companion in a LOZ game is what they first appear to be. Who does Nintendo take me for? A fucking amateur?!

Anyway, I am about 40% convinced that’s Link. I have evidence, but it is circumstantial.

I AM HANDLING THIS NORMALLY.

[love-byers]

stancy + mlvn music coding

this is probably gonna be messy but i will try my hardest to keep it comprehensible

okay so recently i was rewatching the robin/vickie/vickie's bf scene in the gun store (4x08) because i felt like i'd heard the song that plays there before. it reminded me of the song that plays during this scene in 2x01

the song that plays in the s4 scene is actually 2 songs back to back, the first called 'Kids Two' (a variation of 'Kids" from the s1 sound track) and the second called 'Choices', originally from the s2 soundtrack. 'Choices' plays in the scene in 2x08 where dustin apologizes to lucas for lying about dart and suggests max take his place in the party and also says he felt the electricity between lucas and max-- and it leads into the scene where max and mike talk about el, and mike reminds max that she's still not in their party. i find that interesting because no one in that scene says choice, and no one in either scene is making a choice. that name does make sense for the s4 scene, because vickie is torn between her boyfriend and robin, clearly implying she must make a choice. 'Choices' is the song that sounded familiar to me.

the songs aren't exactly the same, but they are definitely similar and the one in s4 is likely an edited version of the one from the stancy scene.

those scenes are obviously parallels, steve sneaks up behind nancy and scares her and they kiss, just like vickie and her bf. then nancy/vickie look at jonathan/robin in a seemingly yearning way. love triangle stuff.

i always figured the song in the stancy scene was an original track from season 2. but turns out it isn't from s2, its from s1. its called 'First Kiss', and, you guessed it, it plays during mike and el's first kiss in 1x08.

i am not lying, go and watch the scenes.

after discovering this, i watched some more stancy scenes to listen for more similarities in the music. and i came across this scene from 1x05, where nancy almost hits steve with her bat and he apologizes to her over dismissing her concern over barb, and nancy gives him a kiss.

i went through the s1 tracklist and even tried shazam-ing the scene, but nothing turned up. i thought it sounded like 'First Kiss', but i wasn't sure if it was my own bias feeding into that. so i went to reddit, where all the people with way too much time on their hands hang out, and asked if anyone knew which ost was playing in that scene. this is what i got back

the reddit gurus agree with me.

as they said, first kiss also plays when mike and el make up in the hospital in 3x05. makes sense, since it's supposed to be their song.

i will also add that the stancy scene in 1x05 is immediately followed by the scene of joyce kicking lonnie out. that speaks for itself. AND, the mlvn scene in 3x05 cuts directly from el smiling at mike to a dead body. take that as you will

so lets recap

'First Kiss', or a section/version of it, has played during

1x05 steve apologizes to nancy 1x08 mike and el kiss 2x01 steve scares nancy and stancy kiss, nancy yearns over jonathan 3x05 mike and el make up via m&ms

2 stancy scenes and 2 mlvn scenes.

hm.

and 'Choices', which i strongly believe is derived from 'First Kiss', plays during

2x08 dustin apologizes to lucas and points out the electricity between lucas and max 2x08 mike and max talk about el 4x08 robin watches vickie and her boyfriend kiss

2 references to a love triangle (dustin,lucas,max & robin,vickie,dan)

and a nod towards mlvn involving max, who in the next season will come between mike and el's relationship.

HM.

im not sure if any of these besides 'Choices' play in s4, but once i do a rewatch i will let you guys know. im pretty sure they don't because i have a weirdly good memory when it comes to my hyperfixations so i think i'd remember it. like i knew the music from the stancy scene in 2x01 just from watching it like four different times since 2017.

all of this coupled with the countless times byler has had music parallels with jancy and lumax, i'm pretty sure this means byler endgame.

if anyone tries to say that it doesn't matter that they reused mike and el's first kiss song for a loveless relationship, i wholeheartedly disagree with you. they make songs that are specifically for one scene and are never played again. for example 'The First Lie', the song that played during jonathan and nancy's first kiss has only played during that scene. never again.

so if mlvn is what the fans say it is, the main couple, the epic love story of stranger things, why can't they just have a song to themselves? jonathan and nancy do. im sure they could've found another song that fit for the stancy/jancy scene in 2x01, knowing the implications it would give if they used it. but nope, they had to use 'First Kiss', which takes place an episode before the stancy scene. 1x08 -> 2x01

one more example, 'On The Bus' is from the s2 soundtrack. it plays once during s2, when lucas and max talk on top of the bus. it doesn't play at all in s3, and then randomly in 4x04, it plays during a byler scene. THAT. HAS. IMPLICATIONS.

take this however you'd like

[knickynoo]

HELLO, EVERYONE! I SAW THE BTTF MUSICAL YESTERDAY, AND AM READY TO POST SOME (SEMI) COHERENT THOUGHTS!

[Fair warning that some things here may spoil parts of the show.]

• First things first: It was so good. It was so, so, very good. Incredible show. I'd been hearing great things about the show since it first came out in London, and I've been listening to the music since it dropped, so I pretty much went in knowing I'd like it but it still managed to be even better than I thought.

• Just the setup of the theater itself and the ambiance prior to it starting was so cool. The way everything is lit blue and there's all the electrical zapping and humming. THE CONSTANT TICKING OF CLOCKS THAT FILLED THE THEATER. Nothing had even happened yet, and I was like, "This is such a good show."

• My one big cause for hesitation was Casey playing Marty. I know absolutely nothing about the guy, but Marty is just so dear to my heart, and MJF's energy and physicality isn't something easily captured. I had my doubts about seeing someone try to bring Marty to Broadway, but Casey walked onto the stage, called out, "Doc?" and I went, "Yeah, okay. There's Marty."

• For real, though, Casey was phenomenal as Marty. He had the vocal inflection down. The right amount of crackliness. Very good balance of cool kid and disoriented mess.

• Um. HUGH COLES?!? Talk about brilliant casting. I mean it when I say that he somehow seemed more George than George from the movie. The audience reacted with a sense of awe when he started speaking and moving around the stage. It was like Crispin Glover had been plucked straight from the film and injected with More Georgeness. When he did the laugh, the audience went nuts. His physical acting and the way he captured George's gestures perfectly was amazing to watch.

• As I'd expected, Musical Doc is ten times more chaotic and unhinged than Movie Doc. Roger Bart's comedic timing is impeccable. He earned himself frequent howling laughter from the audience from the moment he appeared on stage.

• His "Good thing I kept this radiation suit from my Manhattan Project days" line was a nice touch.

• "Despite my fear of heights, I was standing on my toilet," was such a gem of a line.

• THE DELOREAN. WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THE DELOREAN. I had no idea how they were going to depict a car speeding to 88mph on a small stage, but THEY DID IT. Astounding. Honestly might be the coolest effects I've ever seen done on a stage. Also, I wasn't sure how I'd feel about the addition of it being voice-activated and talking, but it worked nicely!

• The musical obviously had to trim some parts of the movie—and even omit parts entirely—but it was done so well that you either didn't even notice or miss they were gone. The change from George being hit by a car to simply falling out of the tree was one of these changes. (Marty's under the tree trying to catch him, btw, which is how he ends up getting knocked out)

• I couldn't tell if this was an ad-lib from Casey, but when he was trying to get his pants back on in the Baines house scene, he started struggling a bit with the tangled suspenders that were wrapped around one of the legs of the jeans and muttered in frustration, "Why do I wear suspenders??" Very funny little moment.

• Great chemistry between Bart and Casey. The connection between Doc and Marty was THERE. The musical GOT IT RIGHT. So many hilarious moments between them in the form of completely unintelligible banter, where they're just talking over each other and having like...verbal tennis matches of nonsense. It's hard to describe in writing, but trust me, it was so good. It went something like this:

Doc: "Marty!"

Marty: "Doc!"

Both Simultaneously: *literal gibberish*

• There's a beautiful little addition to the scene when Marty shows up at Doc's house in 1955 and tries to convince him he's from the future. After Doc asks him to take him to this supposed "time machine" Marty goes, "Sure, hang on, I just gotta grab some flashlights." Then he goes straight to a cabinet and quickly retrieves two flashlights without a second thought, to which Doc is like, "How did you know they were in there??" Marty knows!! He knows exactly where the flashlights are because of course he does!!

• Perhaps one of the funniest moments of the show was right at the end of the "Future Boy" number, where the music stops and there's that breaking of the fourth wall moment. Doc and Marty look around in confusion at all the backup singers and dancers awkwardly standing around his house (one of the singers continues dancing/singing long after the others has stopped lol) and Doc wordlessly opens the door so they can all scurry out.

• Doc's dream of visiting the year 2020 where everything is perfect and there's "no disease" got some very loud laughter from the audience.

• Oh. Oh, the scene at Doc's house at night after the demonstration with the toy car. The way everything gets solemn for a moment, and Doc is doubting himself and worried about failing. Marty's lovely little speech about how everything will be okay because he believes in him. He trusts Doc. He knows it'll work and they'll get him home. The way Marty is the one looking after and taking care of Doc in that moment. When he asks, "Do you need anything, Doc? Can I make you a sandwich?" And then when he says softly, "Goodnight, Doc. Pleasant dreams."

THE MUSICAL GETS IT RIGHT. THE WARMTH. THE LOVE. THIS WAS SUCH A NICE ADDITION.

• "PUT YOUR MIND TO IT" !!!! I loved this sequence so, so much. Marty gets to strut his stuff while George flails around trying to imitate him. It was funny, the choreography was great, and we get such a nice Marty and George hug at the end! Why didn't they hug in the movie??

• The audience was super engaged and reactive through the whole show, but it noticeably ramped up in the latter part—starting with the night of the dance. There was such an excitement as people anticipated George swooping in to take down Biff and protect Lorraine. When Biff went down, the audience whooped and clapped and cheered so much.

• EARTH ANGEL! THE MOMENT GEORGE AND LORRAINE KISS. It was just like the movie. The music suddenly swelled, Marvin belted out, "The vision of your happiness", George and Lorraine kissed, and the audience. Lost. Their. Minds. It was as if people were experiencing the story for the first time—that's how strong the reaction was. So cool.

• Audience also went wild at the start of Johnny B. Goode. That was a neat sequence as well. Huge laughs at the "But your kids are gonna love it" line.

• The clocktower scene! Marty handing Doc the letter and saying, "I wrote you a thank-you note; don't read it until you get home!!" LOL. So many amazing effects going on in this one. For those of you who have seen the show, you probably remember Doc running up the clocktower stairs, right? Did the audience nearly die of laughter like they did at my showing? That was truly one of the top 5 funniest moments of the show, in my opinion. It had me giggling hours later once I was home. For those of you who have not seen the show, I don't think I can adequately put into words what was happening during this scene, but it was incredibly funny. It's good there wasn't any dialogue during it, because no one would have heard it with the way everyone was laughing.

• The fire trails on stage got quite the awed reaction. Super cool.

• The hug! We get our Doc and Marty hug at the end! I'm so glad they realized that moment was missing from the movie.

• I liked the shift from Marty waking up at home to him waking up on the bench in town instead. The "George McFly Day" part was a fun addition, and it flowed nicely into Marty's "Power of Love" performance.

• THE CAR FLEW. IT FLEW UP IN THE AIR AND THE WHEELS TURNED IN AND IT WENT OUT OVER THE AUDIENCE. HOW DID THEY DO THAT. IT DID A COMPLETE ROTATION UPSIDE DOWN WHILE CASEY AND BART WAVED TO PEOPLE. If anyone knows of any videos or articles explaining how they did things with the car, please let me know because I can't find anything and I would love to know how they did it! You couldn't see anything holding the car, and i'm so confused! The effects were so good.

• Love how, when the show ended, the giant screen on the stage just said, "Make like a tree and get outta here."

...I think those are all my thoughts. I was planning to write up a post with just a couple of bullet points of highlights and instead. Well. This is what you get from me, and if you've followed my blog for any length of time, you know that. But really, the show was so well done. I had a blast. I bought a pin that says, "Whoa, this is heavy" and I'm going to put it on my denim jacket :)

For those who are planning to see the musical, I hope this helps hype you up for it. And for those who can't see it, I hope this gives you a good look at what it's like!

[julie-sufan]

The In-Depth Look at Julie-Su Part 6: Knuckles #16-23

Issue #16 is a one shot. Here Knuckles is upset after finding out that his mom plans to marry her new boyfriend. He runs off not wanting to talk to anyone at the moment.

First (But definitely not the last) time that Julie kisses Knuckles. Then they share a nice quiet moment together.

Issue #17 & 18 features yet another past echidna guardian with a ton of backstory. He meets Julie-Su who is riding an absurdly evil looking horse type of creature.

Love that she's giving him attitude even when in the thrones of death.

In issue #18 she stops by Lara-Le's house (Knuckles's Mom) for some tea and cookies and to hear about of Tobor's (The echidna with the unique eyes) backstory.

Another moment I like. Here we see Julie-Su going from being in complete denial about wanting a relationship with Knuckles to hugging him on the exact same page. Kind of reminds me of Michiru from Fruit of Grisaia who would also fail at trying to be a tsundere type.

Second kiss scene.

Issues 19-21 barely has Julie in it and centers around the Royal Acorn Family. It really feels like a plot that should have been in the main Sonic comic series but for some reason ended up here.

Issue 20 features the first full appearance of Elias who would later show up in the Sonic comic.

After this point Julie gets knocked out for pretty much the rest of the arc.

Next arc 22-24 is going to be a bit tricky to talk about without getting political because it features politics. Please keep in mind that this arc was written way back in 1999.

It features a importance first appearance of Julie-Su's half sister Lien-Da working with the Dark Legion to smash stuff up. No matter what you're views are I like to think that people would come together against the anti-flat screen party.

Did some quick research and found this from howstuffworks. Flat screen tvs used to be called HDTVs when they were first released around 1998.

"Those sets came from manufacturers like Panasonic and Sony, and had a different appearance -- they were wider than standard televisions. That's because the new HDTV standard also included a new aspect ratio. The standard aspect ratio was 4:3, the new ratio was 16:9. They also came with a hefty price tag -- the first sets on the American market cost $7,000 or more."

Lien-Da has never looked more sinister. You can really tell that the artist (Jim Valentino) enjoyed drawing the Dark Legion and it's various members.

Nice Chaotix group shot. This upcoming full page scene I'm going to let speak for itself and that's all I'll say on it.

Hope you enjoy seeing Julie hang upside down because that's what she spends the most of issue 24 doing.

Next up: More hanging around and the Dating arc.

[corey-beepington]

Hello! After re-watching your Deltarune short film, Eviction Day, I can confidently say that I:

Am SO happy to find that you have a tumblr blog! :D

Absolutely LOVE that film, despite not being in the Deltarune fandom but still intrigued by the concept/story of Spamton and the Addisons - I genuinely think this is perhaps the BEST interpretation of Spamton's story (and possibly the best Deltarune fan project) I've ever seen!

I'd like to ask a couple of questions regarding the short film if that's okay with you:

What parts of the Addisons' personality did you want to show through your designs (the way they wear their jackets, their eye colour, body type, hairstyle, etc.) and why?

What inspired you to focus on Blue Addison's perspective for the film?

While I understand the references to Spamton Neo with the 'twisted angel' imagery, am I correct in theorising that 'Big Shot' equated to the whole angel thing Spamton became obsessed with (please correct me if this is not the case)?

(Btw I absolutely adore your design of Blue Addison - he's adorable and looks like he'd give the best hugs! And I think he definitely needs a hug after what he witnessed in the short film.)

Thanks for enjoying my silly short film...first time ive ever gotten a big ol string of questions about it sooooo -puts on my reading glasses screen or whatever would be the equivalent for a silly little television-

There we go, i do love talking alot about what goes into a cartoon sooooo

here goes the Ramble

I love the addisons, and I LOVE when people give them individual body types instead of copy/pasting the same skinny twink..I think it adds alot more personality to them..especially since their entire personality is...I guess having no personality. I like to think they have an "advertising" personality which is copy/paste but once theyre off duty, they're themselves. I wanted to show this with one scene in Eviction Day where Blue Advertises when trying to rehearse what to say.

As for each Addison's design itself...Well..I knew the full group of addisons would have very very little screentime, yet I wanted the audience to FEEL for them ya know?

Actually, in the first first first draft of Eviction Day, the diner scene was MUCH longer...but it made Pink WAAAAAY too unlikeable...and I didn't wanna animate all of it.

So I had to make the designs count

In general, I love them with blacked out eyes, it makes them feel more...robotic...even a tad bit frightening...also a fan of their eye's being glowy and think a black scalera would amplify it. I remember seeing blacked out eyes for addisons one day when scrolling instagram..I don't remember the artist sadly, but I latched onto that hc almost instantly.

Their suits are pretty copy-paste with the exception of Pink who doesnt wear an undershirt and lets his fluff sort of hang out...it feels very Pink to me...speaking

Anyway, each design individually

Pink

Pink is..well Pink, very sharp, probably the one who gets the most sales and thus designed to be the most "conventionally attractive" out of the bunch. As mentioned above, I wanted to show how proud he is by him being the only addison who doesn't wear an undershirt and preferring to let his fluff hang out.

He's only in a few shots..but he exists to well...foreshadow...I mentioned in another ask, I don't see Pink as a jerk, more as a guy overcompensating on his hate towards Spamton to cover up deep down missing him and being worried. He worried once Blue shows signs of distress.

Very superficial.

Yellow

My yellow, unlike popular hc, is far more chill, a gentle giant if you would...like he's a guy you can depend on, but very shy despite his looks. He never appears until the end at the Trash Zone so this gives me the "he's shy" hc...or he's also not much a seller. I see Yellow as a guy who sets up his group's store front...and probably beats up viruses with his bare hands, you know the behind the scenes backstage guy.

He's dependable and friendly, and that's why he is how he is.

Orange

He exists.

Like...I'm not super attached to Orange...So he's just...Orange...generic...I see him more as holding a managerial position over the group over selling (he does try to scam you)..but he was never doing anything major in the short so he just...Exists I guess.

BLUE

BOY BABY BOY. HE IS MY FAVORITE.

Blue strikes me as the friendliest and most huggable of the group, in game he doesn't scam you....or even try to...he just gives you free samples...and you can take as many as you want!

I wanna think he's not a great salesmen, but he's built at "marketable plushie" size so he can at very least draw people in...considering your intent to hug him, I think it's working.

For some weird reason, a handful of people have asked in a "is this a fetish" way or even been upset at me for making blue plus sized and to that I say

go outside.

You'll find that people of all shapes exist in the real world <3

Just for you anon, here's some old concept art. I wanna give a big big thanks to my friend SPAMiGO who helped me tie down their designs. I'm not the best character designer, so he was a huge help in making these designs nice!

2. Why Blue?

Awhile ago, I made an animation called "Spamton's Biggest Deal"

Alot of people liked it for some reason.

I wanted to do something like that again...I honestly didn't quite like this cartoon, it was rushed and ew old spamton art...

I didn't want it being my only contribution to the Deltarune fandom...I was feeling...quite ambitious....

So it crawled so Eviction Day could run.

I'm a horror artist by nature, I LOVE horror and I wanted to MAKE another horror deltarune cartoon because it was VERY heavily requested...but i didn't know what

Over the summer in 2022, I ended up cosplaying the Blue Addison..in my research...I found the line about garbage noise...

I think every scary thing that could be done with spamton has been done.

But this

This detail was so overlooked.

There was SO MUCH horror to be had in this scene that I just HAD to do something with it.

And so I wrote the first script in august...I really fell in love with the blue addison around this time and wanted to share my love of this overlooked character with other people.

Also I ship blue addison and spamton really hard and struggled to find Content

(disclaimer because someone will ask: I do not headcanon the addisons as brothers)

So this was another way to spread my gospel...albeit subtly....

Ships do things to a person.

When Undertale's anniverssary came around, I re-posted it to twitter and asked

"why the hell did you guys like this"

I got alot of good answers, i asked what was good, what was bad, what you'd like to see

And then weaved it all together.

I officially began on the short in september of 2022.

but tldr: i liked the character, i liked the horror, 123 addisons making out cyber cafe.

3.

Ah...the mural....

Ok I'll spill the beans, the mural was the very first shot that beamed itself into my head when Eviction Day was barely a thought...just the image of Blue Addison staring at something...horrible...

It was the sole reason I made the film

I plan on doing a more elaborate post on my patreon in the future about it because there was SO MUCH thought that went into this one 5 second shot.

as for your question specifically

There's many ways to interperet the mural tbh...I wanna think Spamton saw himself as a savior...an angel...one who would bring the light and become big..bigger than anything

A God.

or something like that.

That's all the time for now anon. I hope this answered your questions....as I said I will ramble on and on about pre-production stuff, sometimes ill throw stuff up on the patreon as well (the animatic is there now actually) if you wanna support more stuff like it too!

Now go take a rest...your eyes must be so sleepy reading all this

[dazais-guardian-angel]

I hate to nitpick the Atsushi hallucinating scene in the new episode cause it was SO well done otherwise, but I'm still really sad that they cut out Francis being there. Like... it's not entirely necessary, I guess, but it just adds so much to his character and to the scene itself?

The Francis in Atsushi's mind is this looming, intimidating presence, because Atsushi did of course fight against him, he was his enemy at one point, but I think it undeniably says a lot that he's even included here at all.

I'm pretty sure I saw this discussed back when this chapter first came out, but while everything Atsushi's hallucinations say to him are framed as negative, putting him down, they can also be read as letting him know that the burden of responsibility for making such a huge decision isn't on him (hence why he decides to let Fukuzawa decide instead, because he can't make THE choice, but he can still choose to act to let someone else decide, and not simply do nothing), and Francis is no exception in this regard. Since he's naturally haughty and arrogant in his personality, this fake version of him doesn't at all feel out of character, coldly saying that "nobody expects anything of you", but again, I think this line especially can also be read as "you are not expected to do anything". In that way, it feels more reassuring, and maybe even dare I say kind -- the fact that Atsushi even considers him important enough of a figure in his life to think of what he would say to him in this moment means that he counts Francis among his allies now. Yes, they didn't get along at first when Francis lied and told him that he only wanted to revive Margaret just so she could kill Hawthorne (because god forbid he actually admit out loud that he cares about people, smh), and obviously because of the whole almost burning Yokohama down and trying to kill him and Akutagawa thing lol, but I'm pretty sure Atsushi changed his mind about him after he saw the state Margaret was in, and recognized how much Francis cares about her and wanted her to be alright. He probably still remembers him talking about his desire to bring back his daughter and save her and his wife, too. The guy still probably isn't someone Atsushi would want to hang out with and be buddy-buddy with during his free time lmao, but the airheaded vain old sport still has a good heart, deep down, and I think Atsushi has seen this by now, because he's a kind person, and so I think it speaks volumes that he unconsciously looks to him for advice here. Francis is just a really good and underrated character, and this is such a small but meaningful moment that shows his development so well, the only moment with him we've gotten or any of the Guild really in such a long time, so it makes me sad to see this cut 💔

I also just feel like not including him kind of weakens the impact of Akutagawa's appearance here?? Like, there's a progression of the order of people Atsushi hears/sees in this scenes: first, people from the ADA sans Dazai, who are all portrayed as on the same level, because he cares about them all equally, aside from I guess Kyouka (again, sans Dazai, the most important person to him). Then, there is Francis, and not to say that Francis is more important to Atsushi than the ADA, obviously not, but he's one of the last to appear because he used to be his enemy, and so he commands much more of a presence, has more of an impact -- but at the same time, like I said, it's complicated: he's not really his enemy anymore, but something between a rival and a friend, and so for that reason his words carry more weight. He is someone Atsushi, logically, shouldn't trust, after what he did to him in the past, and yet he does, because things have changed since the Guild arc, and he knows he can count on him to be there for him and the ADA now.

And then, after him, there is Akutagawa. Who is basically exactly the same as everything I just described for Francis, but times one hundred. Of course Akutagawa would be last. Of course, if there's someone Atsushi would simultaneously and paradoxically be both intimidated by and yet comforted to hear their advice because of their tumultuous history together, far more than Francis, it would be Akutagawa. The progression of ADA members > Francis > Akutagawa in that order gives Akutagawa's appearance much more weight imo than just going straight to him from the ADA members, especially with the specific framing of him standing in line behind Francis to judge/advise Atsushi.... it's just much more powerful, and I wish they'd kept it like this, for both Francis and Aku's characters.

[thegeminisage]

star trek update time. oops, i'm behind! thursday we did ds9's "the quickening" and voy's "basics part i" and last night we did ds9's "body parts" and "broken link."

the quickening (ds9):

this episode was good, LOVE a good julian ep, i am SO TIRED of assisted suicide plots. can we all CALM DOWN. what happened to terri schiavo was absolutely horrific can we PLEASE stop making star trek episodes about it

okay. that aside. julian and his teddy bear!!! enraged we did not get to see it. love the backstory for him. love this whole thing examining his arrogance but i think there's also a little bit of like. almost like religious faith in the power of modern medicine too there. like he just believes so much that science and medicine can fix these people, fix the jem'hadar. he doesn't want to accept that there are things he can't do and it's not JUST arrogance, like some of it is, but some of it is just pure stubborn refusal to accept suffering at face value. he's a good person. i love him

i was really shocked the episode didn't end with him going back down to the planet after his first failure...like, that would have been an open ending and a sad note to end on (like at no point do you believe he's just gonna fix everything and it'll be fine) but then he totally did cure the babies only. which, good for him. and mister assisted suicide has a new job now

basics part i (voy):

CHAKOTAY'S BABY!!!!!!!!!! god i was hoping it really was chakotay's and sometimes DREAMS DO COME TRUE

furthermore, chakotay held janeway's arm once when they were being jostled. i rewound and watched it twice

i liked chakotay's little...look, i know pretty much everything about his heritage is obviously bullshit, but it's NOT bullshit that the baby was made without consent, even if there was no actual sex involved. there absolutely was a huge violation which happened under traumatic circumstances (getting tortured by his future baby mama). plus, the baby is half cardassian, and the cardassians have done their level fucking best to make life miserable for him & his for YEARS. so i liked his little crisis about it. he so rarely gets depth that isn't just about the absolute criminal portrayal of indigenous culture, so this was nice. i don't know if comparing it to real life rapes done by colonizers was unnecessary bordering on exploitative or accidentally a bold move towards calling colonization what it is (i'm sure there's a huge array of opinions on that one) but the crisis itself was a valid one and i really liked where he came down

THE RETURN OF SUDER! man, tuvok is so cool. i don't think i could hang out with that guy even if i HADN'T turned into a serial killer temporarily after melding with him, but tuvok put his money where his mouth is. he's fucking rehabilitating him

i like also that suder is reformed but not totally changed. it would have been too hard to buy if he wasn't still a little murdery, deep down. and BECAUSE he's still a little murdery, deep down, he and the doc (unmurderable) make perfect companions to retake the ship on their lonesome

speaking of the doc, him randomly getting beamed out into space made absolutely NO sense but it was really funny

anyway, ship landed, which is always bonkers, but i loved the cliffhanger, absolutely cannot WAIT for the rest

body parts (ds9):

was led to believe ahead of time this episode involved a pregnancy...the summary said it was a quark episode...i was like damn, quark gets pregnant?

but actually what happened was so much weirder. i'm not talking about kira and the baby, we'll get to that, i'm talking about QUARK! for the first time in 4 seasons....................quark compelled me. huge HUGE day in the me community

firstly, it was fun that we highlighted his family as being a bunch of kooks - every single relative of his we've ever met has bucked ferengi tradition in one way or another. secondly, it was fun when he threatened to kill that guy. and finally...the scene at the end. wah. he didn't want to take their charity but he DID because they LOVE HIM? what the hell. you'd never get this shit on tng. ever

that said, i did Not like that dream sequence and the grand nagus jumpscare. they really got me for a minute there

also, girl, what was going on with quark and garak...very absolutely heterosexual murder, ig

KEIKO AND KIRA.........first of all, that marriage is so solid, there is room. she could joint heir marriage. julian could move in just like o'brien said in the next episode. there's so much room in there. let them in

great way to let this woman continue to work while pregnant also. good for them

i do wonder if kira is like. nervous that after she has the baby she wont be staying with them anymore?? i was surprised she'd want to agree at all, but she not only agreed but seemed sad it was temporary?

also, WAH, keiko being sad bc she misses her baby..............god. and then they held hands!!!! women.

broken link (ds9):

NOOOO odo my best friend...

:') that quark came to tell him goodbye when he left btw. MAD that kira couldnt go w him :( she did bring him that little crime report though i love that

i was worrie dta first it would just be an episode about him failing to date this blonde lady...please...she's horny for him but she's no lwaxana troi and she is NO kira nerys. i hope thats the last of her

GOWRON MY BELOVED..................him being a changeling explains so much about his behavior. that changeling got his huge eyes down perfectly also

kira's sneezing. please. that's so charming. bajorans are so lucky they only have to do 5 months of pregnancy that baby will be born in no time

getting garak to taunt odo with his mysterious past as a means of comforting him was SO fucking funny. truly, genuinely, what would he do with sympathy? fuck nothing. but interrogating garak for three days and getting a little mystery to work on? might as well be his birthday. they are always in one way or another having breakfast together

julian almost skipping a stone across the changeling lake. sir what the hell

turning odo into a real human person is FUCKED UP! i can't believe they left his face like that too although i am pleased to have called it (WHY they did that) ahead of time. odo's never been naked before this is so horrible :(

garak trying to do a little genocide was absolutely INSPIRED. he heard "no survivors" and just Snapped. he was willing to kill himself and everyone on that ship, too. he does not do it by halves. i'm sad we keep getting garak episodes with no bashir and garak content, though

odo at the end almost crying about his job :( i don't think he's ever cried before either!!!!!!!! horrible.

TONIGHT: voy's "basics part ii" and "flashback"

[herschelkrustofsky]

so i just finished season 2 of DS9 for the first time and i have so many thoughts about quark and his relationships with the crew; specifically ben, kira, jadzia, and odo. throughout the season, we see quark either trying to connect to these four — albeit in his own grating way — or proving his worth to them after a major fuck-up. (this is the case for jadzia specifically; he inadvertently put her on danger in invasive procedures [2x03] risked his own life trying to save her. we see them hanging out in playing god [2x17], so we know they’re cool and that jadzia forgave him. this should go without mentioning jadzia sticking up for the ferengi more than once throughout the season, specifically to kira, and insisting there’s more to them than their money grubbing ways.)

with ben, quark attempts to connection with him over a drink in second sight [2x09], only for ben to turn him down — presumably because he has too much on his mind and quark is quark, but the way the camera lingers on our favourite bartender, we can see how the rejection ate at him. the rejection sensitivity is dialled up even further in shadowplay [2x16] when quark attempts to get playful with kira, only to be told she utterly despises him for collaborating with the cardassians during the occupation — forcing him to realize that their snark isn’t a game and that she legitimately doesn’t like him, to the point where he says (verbatim) that he wishes he hadn’t brought it up. this comes up again in the jem’hadar [2x26] when he mentions to odo that kira specifically doesn’t like him, showing how much he internalized that conversation and ruminates over it even with the passage of time — and that’s still not all!

in the collaborator [2x24], there’s a specific exchange between odo, kira, and quark that’s very relevant to the theme of quark feeling rejected and isolated by the crew. transcribing it doesn’t quite do it justice, so i’ll just link the scene itself:

TL;DR: these two show up and quark immediately gets defensive and nervous. given his interactions with odo on a regular basis + kira’s recent (and completely understandable) anger, he figures them confronting him together probably spells out trouble for him. and unfortunately, in typical odo fashion, he doesn’t exactly make him feel any better:

quark: you want something from me, don’t you?

kira: how’d you guess?

odo: it’s simple. we’ve been here more than a minute, and we haven’t insulted him, threatened him, or arrested him.

quark: exactly. so what is it?

quark values odo’s opinion a lot. and while i’m sure odo was just playing around and being sarcastic, this is the last thing quark needed to hear in that moment and solidifies in his mind that he’s only of any value to the others when he’s useful, which ultimately culminates in this confrontation with ben after they’ve been captured by the jem’hadar:

i’ve seen this clip before, but it was only last night, after having seen season 2 to completion, that i finally had the full context for it — specifically, for quark’s emotions, and why he went on his little tirade. he isn’t angry at ben specifically; he’s angry at the entire DS9 crew for (in his mind) treating him like an annoyance that’s only worth speaking to when he gives them something in return. i believe he brings up his species as a whole rather than Just Himself for two reasons: 1, it gives him a roundabout way to express his outrage without getting too vulnerable, and 2, he is attempting to rationalize why he’s faced with the indifference and the animosity that he is. chalking it down to speciesism helps him rationalize why this is happening, but the alternative is also pretty devastating: that they just don’t like him as an individual.

but here’s the kicker: they DO like quark! ben lets him come along on the camping trip despite his wishes to spend time with jake and only jake. he engages in conversation with him, feeds him, and is pretty damn amiable towards him despite quark’s incessant complaining. he defends quark to eris when she expresses annoyance over him. meanwhile, odo specifically joins the rescue mission to make sure quark gets home safe (in his own words!!!) and even tells kira she’d miss quark if anything were to happen to him — they ALL would — and she agrees!

the tragedy is that all of these things are discussed when quark is out of earshot (no pun intended) or just not paying enough attention. but despite his growing disillusionment with them, quark is willing to resort to violence (something he’d really rather avoid) to protect his friends; first demonstrated in invasive procedures and then coming full circle when he lethally shoots a jem’hadar trying to hurt ben, who returns the favour by making sure quark isn’t left behind despite eris’ insistence. and this time, quark IS around to hear that someone cares about him; not just anyone, but the station’s commander, which certainly gives him the validation he’s been craving all season long.

while i can’t find the clip, i think quark’s little monologue to the gloomy morn at the beginning of the episode describes it best; he isn’t just their bartender, he’s their confidant and their friend — or desperately wants to be. unfortunately, his learned / cultural behaviours, impulsivity, and selfish tendencies (as demonstrated when he abandons morn to scurry after his boytoy, aka odo) drive a wedge between him and the people he’s come to want the approval of so badly… and despite his glaring flaws and their often flippant treatment of him, they manage to like him anyway. big ears just needs to listen better, it seems — or maybe his friends need to make their affections a little more obvious.

i just. man. it’s such a subtle arc, one you probably don’t notice unless you’ve been watching a bunch of episodes consecutively like i have (not to mention my, ahem, keen eye on a certain ferengi…), but it’s so satisfying. they didn’t have to do all that for him and they did. this show and its attention to character detail is incredible and i can’t wait to see what else it has in store for me. 🖤

[willel]

Contradictions

As some of us guessed, it seems the play has a handful of contradicting information. The same kind of contradictions you see when the novels and comics. Stuff that directly conflicts with the show itself.

What makes this more frustrating is the show runners insist this is canon despite the contradictions, so once again, I think the only thing one can do is take SOME of the information as useful and the rest of it as being dramatic for entertainment sakes.

Once again, my thoughts will be below a read more because of spoilers.

Contradiction #1: Henry's Coma

Apparently in the play, Henry does not go into a coma after killing his family......... he goes to school the next day or something. All for the purpose of allowing Joyce to confront him and say Victor Creel did all of it.

Why was that necessary? There could've been a scene of Joyce saying it was Victor Creel's doing without needing Henry to come to school after what just happened???

So pointless. I think Henry being kidnapped by Brenner and Victor being accused of killing both of his kids and his wife is pretty important to what they set up in the show. Why contradict that?

Contradiction #2: Communication through the void

Apparently in the show, Henry can willy nilly just speak to people through the void whenever he wants.

Either this is a direct contradiction to El's experience in the void or it's just something Henry can do since we've seen him easily mess with peoples heads and whatnot.

El has only communicated with someone through the void 3 times. Once with Will when he was in the Upside Down. Once with Terry who also has powers. Lastly, once with Billy when he was possessed by the Mind Flayer.

There have been plenty of instances where she's in the void and no one can hear her no matter how much she speaks or yells.

Contradiction #3: Henry's already been to the Upside Down

A friendly anon sent me a message related to this, but apparently it isn't the Upside Down that gave Henry powers, he already had them by the time he got there. I guess due to the run away scientist's machine? I dunno.

It's a bit of a relief to hear that. But this presents another problem. Henry has already been to the Upside Down. It's not "somewhere new". All it does is confirm El didn't create Dimension X. Still don't know how to feel about this.

Contradiction #4: Barely any symptoms of possession

Apparently they made it pretty clear in the play that Henry was possessed by the Mind Flayer in much the same way Will was. Through special effects, they show the Mind Flayer entering Will much the same way it did to Will in season 2.

I don't know if this is the viewer's interpretation or the play said it, but Henry liked to be in the attic because "it's cold". But.... usually the attic is one of the warmest places in the house. Heat travels up out the main house and into the attic. Depending on the attic, it can get really hot actually. Henry hanging out in the attic "because it's cold" makes no sense. I guess if the play is taking place in the fall or winter and the attic is not insulated whatsoever, THEN it would be closer to the temperature outside than the temperature in the house, making it cooler than the house?

I don't mind recentering the Mind Flayer as the main baddie, but making this a direct possession is just... an odd choice imo.

I would expect the show to have depicted things way differently if this was all just a possession story line.

Contradiction #5: No gates, but still alive?

Something that totally slipped my mind. When no gates are open, the Mind Flayer is completely cut off from the real world and everything it is in possession of dies.

If Henry was possessed and no gates are open, how is he still alive? How can the Mind Flayer communicate/influence him?

I suppose the show contradicts this itself a bit with the Demogorgons, Demodogs, and the Mind Flayer smoke being alive and well all the way in Russia without a gate.

Conclusion

So far, here is what I will be ignoring and what I will be accepting in my world view of Stranger Things. Keyword "my". If you're reading this, you're free to believe and accept whatever you want, I'm not telling you what to do. Just wanted to make that crystal clear, sometimes I feel like people think I'm speaking as some kind of authority and they couldn't be more wrong. Lol

#1: Henry does not go to school after killing his family. He is kidnapped and kept secret by Brenner, just like the show depicts.

#2: Only Henry can easily communicate with anyone through the void because of his telepathic mastery displayed in season 4. If he can give people waking nightmares, then he can have conversations with them too.

#3: Unless the show is going to show more, I choose to believe Henry was not fully possessed like Will or the rest of the Flayed. But some secret third option. My brain will decide what that secret third option is later.

#4: I guess I can accept the blood transfusion thing. But, I also want to acknowledge that I still think powers exist naturally in the world, it just takes a lot to make it happen and they might not be very strong. So, I'm thinking a combination of natural aptitude, MKUltra and Henry's blood is what made El is the person she is today.

My opinions will likely still be changing, but this is where I am for now.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Super 002

All aboard the hindsight train. 

Okay, so this episode kind of sucks.  I feel a little awkward saying it after all these years, but I just watched it, and I stand by my assessment. 

When it aired, everyone was extremely excited, because we were still riding the high of Dragon Ball returning to a weekly TV anime.  On top of that, Episode 2 was a Vegeta episode, so that was a big deal.  On top of that, the episode was all about Vegeta going on a vacation with his family, so that was a big deal to the Vegebul side of the fandom.   When you stop and think about it, Vegeta and Bulma don’t really get a lot of screen time together.  This episode might be the most time we’ve seen them interact. 

And I don’t want to dismiss all of that.  Vegeta’s my second favorite character, and I’m into Bulma as well, and I’m not much of a shipper guy, but I like me some Vegebul content.  And I’m pleased they made an episode like this, buuuuut that doesn’t change the fact that it sucks. 

Let me explain.  You see those two screenshots up there?  Those were all over Tumblr in 2015.   The one with the train kind of speaks for itself.  Hey, they’re on some silly theme park ride, and Vegeta’s a grump about it!  The second one needs a little unpacking.  Bulma took an air-car/plane thing to the resort, because she can’t fly.  But Vegeta refused to ride inside the craft and stood on top of it the whole time.  So Bulma decided to mess with him a bit by speeding up and diving underwater and flying through a forest.  After that last one, Vegeta comes out of the trees with twigs in his hair and clothes. 

Fans liked this for the interaction between the couple, but there was also an easter egg in this shot, because those two fruits hanging off Vegeta’s hair are a durian and a pomelo.  In Japanese, pomelos are called “zarbon”, so this whole bit was a not-so-sly reference to Zarbon and Dodoria from DBZ.  So that got a lot of coverage. 

So when you see stills like these, and all the hype surrounding them, you might think this was a pretty eventful episode.  But then you watch it, and you realize... this is it.  That still with the train is just that.  A still.  It’s not animated in the show.  There’s no other shots or scenes with the train.  You just saw the entire train bit from DBS Episode 2.  Watching the episode just means you get to hear the voice actors talk over it for a few seconds.

Likewise, the bit with Vegeta standing on top of the plane is exactly what it says on the tin.  Vegeta just... stands there.  That part is animated, sure. It’s actually a decent highlight of the episode, because Bulma does some fancy maneuvers, but the punchline is that Vegeta doesn’t move and barely speaks through the whole thing. 

I’ve long maintained that the key to the Vegebul ship is how the fans have so many large gaps to fill in.  You just don’t see the characters interact that much, so even fleeting moments like Bulma calming Vegeta down after he gets covered in octopus ink are treasured like gold.  And that’s fine, because usually stuff like this is peppered into a larger plot.  But in DBS Episode 2, this is the plot.  We’re just watching Vegeta begrudgingly waste a day on a resort. 

Finally he just gets frustrated and leaves.  I hate this part of the episode, because they’re watching some sort of live show, and the guy hosting it goes out of his way to point out the guy who isn’t smiling, like “Hold on, everyone!  That guy isn’t smiling!  Let’s all stare at him and crowd around him until he does!” And damn, if that ain’t me. 

Tell you what, nothing actually happens in this episode, so let me use this time to go off on a rant.  I hate this kind of shit.  Every year, co-workers ask me if I’m watched the basketball game last night, and I didn’t.  I never do, because I don’t watch basketball.  I’m not interested, and I don’t expect I ever will be.  

I get it.  They don’t need me to have a conversation about sports; they can just talk to each other, but there’s this compulsion to bring me into it, so I won’t feel left out.  Except I’d still be left out, because I don’t watch the games.  And even if I did watch the games, I’d still be left out because I don’t enjoy them.  If this mattered to me, I would just break down and watch the games, but it doesn’t matter, so I don’t. 

This is why I don’t bring up my actual interests in the workplace.  I like Dragon Ball Z, but I never tell anyone that because I don’t want them to think I’m a huge weeb, but also because I don’t expect anyone to care much about my niche interests.  I try to respect the fact that it’s not worth bringing up, and it won’t make other people feel included, it’ll just be me babbling about something the other guy doesn’t know about. 

Sports and other mainstream things are different, though, because they’re more widely known, and there’s this cultural expectation that you sort of have to be familiar with them in order to socialize properly.   I remember once I had some other co-workers who eagerly talked about Lost and Heroes every week.  Same deal, except they didn’t try to bring me into it, which I appreciated.  But with some people, I can tell there’s this frustration, like “Why can’t you just watch the damn basketball games like a normal person, so I can talk to you?”

The thing is, I’ve done that before.  Not with sports, they suck ass, but I’ve watched shows and movies and things in an attempt to get to know someone else better, to relate to them better.  And it often just doesn’t work.  Like, I might enjoy the thing myself, but I don’t think it endears me to the other person any more than I would have managed otherwise.  Sometimes, I just end up further away than before, for whatever reason.  It’s not worth the trouble, at least if the motive is to socialize.  It’s not worth getting into Dr. Who or the Green Bay Packers just to impress someone, even if they’re really cool or sexy or whatever. 

So there is this notion of the reverse, where I feel like the message I get from some people is “If you just watched the game last night, then you would be approachable.  Then you would be cool.  Then I could actually enjoy your company.”  And this implies that the stuff I do instead of watching the game last night is the problem.  I need to stop doing that so I can make time to watch the game last night, and then I’ll be Doing It Right.  That’s where I get annoyed, because it’s like some people I’ve known seem to think it’s a matter of wearing me down.  “When are you going to stop liking comic books?” “When are you going to stop liking Star Trek?”   “Aren’t you sick of this Dragon Ball show yet?”  “You know, you seem to like attractive women a little too much.”  These things are always couched like I somehow feel obligated to enjoy the things I enjoy, when the actual truth is that the other person just feels obligated to put up with it, like they’re doing me a favor by spending time with me, and I should show my appreciation by disguising myself as someone I’m not. If I just stopped being myself and started watching the game last night, then I’d be on the right track.  Sure I would.

The point I’m making here is that Vegeta’s into fighting, and training to surpass Goku, and the only reason he came on this trip at all was to honor that promise he made to Trunks way back in DBZ Episode 207.  That was months ago, and it was supposed to be an amusement park, not a resort, but Trunks considers this to be even better, so I guess it all works.  Anyway, Vegeta’s not imposing his interests on the other vacationers.  He doesn’t fight them all, is what I’m saying.  But Firedance MC still wants to call attention to his frowny face, and he wants everyone to know about it.  He’s not trying to make Vegeta smile because he wants Vegeta to feel better.  He’s trying to make Vegeta smile in order to make himself feel better.  If he actually cared about Vegeta’s mood, he wouldn’t be shaming him publicly. 

But we still have like eight minutes to go in this episode, so we fill it with Whis and Beerus screwing around.  Beerus wants dinosaur meat from some planet.  He thinks its delicious flavor will jog his memory of a vision he had recently.   So he gives Whis three minutes to fetch it.  Whis tries to simply take a fresh kill from a hunting party, but their leader takes offense, and Whis never just explains his case.   “Hey, my boss is the God of Destruction, and he’ll kill you if you don’t surrender your dinosaur.”  That would probably settle it right there, but no. 

So the hunter transforms and Beerus gets impatient and they fight and Beerus wins.  Then he gets annoyed and blows up the planet anyway, dinosaur and all.  As he watches the planet explode, he suddenly remembers the name of the figure he saw in his vision. So he doesn’t need the dinosaur meat after all. 

This is all an enormous waste of time, because of the following:

1) Everyone already saw Battle of Gods, so we already know where this is going.

2) Beerus already destroyed (half) a planet in the previous episode, so we already know he’s a capricious, self-centered prick in this show.

3) The fight with that hunter alien was pointless, because, again, we’ve already seen Battle of Gods, so we know Beerus isn’t going to lose to some rando alien.

4) Even when he finally remembers his vision, he keeps dragging it out anyway. 

Beerus: I remember now. 

Whis: Oh, do you?

Beerus: Yes, that figure I saw has a name.

Whis: And pray tell, what is this person’s name?

Beerus: It was... what was it?  I’m sure it started with an S...

Fuck...

It takes this guy two episodes to say the word “Super Saiyan God”, and it’s a big letdown because we already knew that from when he said it in the movie.  Who is this for? 

I guess I’ll close with this shot of the cruise ship.  Bulma spots this from the shore of the resort, and contemplates renting a cruise ship for her next birthday party, and Trunks seems to think this is a cool idea.  I mean, is it?  She’s already at a resort, and she’s dreaming about some other luxury getaway? 

I mostly wanted to bring up this ship because I think it might be the same ship we see in Episode 3, but I’m not sure there’s a way to tell.  Still, it kind of exposes the problem with this decompressed storytelling.  For whatever reason, Toei chose to retell the Battle of Gods movie across 14 episodes of this anime, and the boat was part of the strategy.  This way we can have a whole episode where Bulma prepares to launch the boat, you see.  If she had the party at home, like in the movie, you couldn’t do that. 

Also, you can have an episode like this one, where she gets the idea to use a boat.  The thing is, there’s nothing else for this episode to be about, so it’s just Bulma and her family on vacation.  And that would be fine, I guess, except this vacation is used to set up another pleasure trip right afterward.  It all just runs together, you know?  There’s no ups and downs to this plot.  It’s all just a flat, horizontal line, leading us slowly, inexorably, through the events of a popular movie the audience already saw.

[altschmerzes]

Other people have mentioned this too, but something I really enjoy about your fics is how you write the different team dynamics, and the friendships Jamie has built with all of them. Your younger!Jamie AU is definitely going to be a really interesting take on all of this, and I was just wondering - what relationships/interactions between Jamie and the team are you most looking forward to writing?

thank youuuuuuuu wah i'm so glad you enjoy that aspect of it!! it's one of my absolute favourite things to write about, i love pulling the lesser focused-on players into it particularly. like i said the other day i'm really, REALLY looking forward to thierry and richard's upcoming scenes in 'the same story' especially.

YEAH THAT'S GONNA BE AN ADVENTURE FOR SUUUURE. obviously there's like. ted and roy and company, and Everyone's got stuff in here, but there's some particular stuff i'm looking forward to as well. i've always been extremely invested in jamie and dani's dynamic and this au is gonna be a very fun version of that - particularly the trickshot competition from 1x06, which i'm doing an au version of! there's some very interesting stuff going on with jamie and sam too. the bad ground their relationship starts off on courtesy of jamie is obviously very different here, given that jamie is like. y'know. fifteen and has zero power here this time, he's not on the team, he has no real 'status' to speak of and no sway on other people. but his like..... being a jerk to sam and the others (which he is! because if he wasn't a horrible little brat it would not be like. true to the character lskdjfs this is an au version of the narrative but he's still Who He Is.) is still impactful and a significant demoralizing factor when ted first arrives. it's more that it takes the shape this time of jamie sort of.... representing, in their eyes and particularly in sam's, the wider community and how they're feeling about the team. it feels like the community itself is sneering at them, which isn't. helpful.

(plus he's a sort of. element of the place that's indicative of how badly things were being run under the joint leadership of rupert and cartrick. there's a lot that goes into 'what had to go wrong here for a teenager who works part-time as basically a handyman is just allowed to Be Like This and nobody really bats an eye' and a lot of it is down to 'rupert didn't care and set a standard of not caring about Anything pretty much and cartrick thought it was funny in a pathetic circus clown sort of way')

SO yeah there's a different vibe but some very interesting ground there with his like. difficult relationships at first, particularly sam.

i'm also looking forward to writing julie and leslie higgins and how they're feeling about/interacting with the whole thing? also, and this might be a weird pull, but michelle has a fairly small but significant role in this au wrt jamie specifically and i'm actually really looking forward to that.

and finally there's a whole like..... this is a lesser element of the fic that sort of orbits the general plot and established characters but i sorta needed some peers for jamie to have, particularly given a lot of his worse behaviour in the front half of season 1 was directed at his teammates/peers. so that didn't quite fit when he's in such a different role, so there needed to be a context for that, and for his subsequent major apology/amends stuff (which is still gonna happen with the team, he's gonna apologize to them for how things went, but it's a smaller deal and an easier process given he's a kid and he couldn't really. do much to them in this situation.). that's where the park kids come in! i decided to build him a little group of teen friends that he has from school and that he hangs out with all the time in the park ted walks through every day to get to work. one of them is one we already know through a few encounters with ted, shannon, who gets built out a little more into a more Present character, and there's a couple other kids i just wholesale made up to flesh out his peer group more (for fun and profit, their names are dean, asher, and eleanor). shannon is the one we're gonna see the most of and they're not a major part of the plot by far - i know people get like..... twitchy with non-canon characters lmao - but i'm excited about the role they DO have and i think it's gonna be pretty fun.

[washipink]

Rain by Jocelyn Samara D (Year 2: 2012)

Look, I am FIENDING this comic. I’ve already read through yet another year. This time, it’s chapter 7: Mixed Feelings through chapter 12: Drab.

Last time’s summary was super long because I had to establish our base cast, so this time I’ll try to keep it ONLY to major events.

After the very eventful Halloween party, everyone’s pretty fucked up. One of the straight classmates is VERY convinced he’s gay because he thought Ky was cute. Ky agonizes about exactly what gender she might be and how to tell Rain. Emily breaks up with her creepy boyfriend.

As for Rain and Rudy, they’re both VERY fucking confused about what that kiss of theirs means. After being prodded by pretty much everyone in the school, they have a heartfelt conversation in which Rudy says he likes Rain for who she is rather than what she is. That it doesn’t matter if she’s a girl or a boy.

I have a LOT to say about this scene in particular. If this came out today, the baby gays on twitter would have their heads explode. I can already hear the claims that Rudy is transphobic because he’s a gay boy that is attracted to a trans woman. I can already hear the Bi-Gay discourse. It’s AWFUL and if you start it on this post, you’re blocked.

I’d completely forgotten about the Rain/Rudy THING so I was pretty surprised when he spoke his heart on the matter. Once again, the comic goes out of its way to portray the messy realities of growing up queer. Sometimes, its like jamming puzzle pieces that shouldnt match together. Rain is not a man, but loving her doesn’t make Rudy straight.

That said, it is NOT heartening that their ship name is “RuIn”.

Gavin and Maria take it pretty rough, considering how badly THEY wanted to be with Rain. While it’s played for laughs for a bit, it does genuinely create a fracture between Rain and her friends that lasts for a while.

While they’re avoiding Rain, Gavin gets MORE into her somehow. Like, Gavin is HORNY horny.

Eventually, Maria reconnects with Chanel, a girl she met at the Halloween party. This is because she heard Chanel doesn’t like men, so she thinks she has a shot.

And it turns out she does. She’s REALLY friendly and ends up telling Maria to her face that she should just apologize to Rain and see what happens.

Our Queer Quartet (ft. Gavin) expands to a Merry Band of Five.

Rain’s even been getting along with Emily since the party.

It looks like everything’s gonna be fine!

Until Fara gets a call from Rain’s big brother.

You see, something went wrong for Aiken and he needs a place to crash. That means....

Rain is going to have to play pretend for a while.

And since Rain is being Ryan, he can't have a BOYFRIEND, now can he? So, Rudy must once again become Ruby. And if you ask me, he really like it. Like, he's ENTHUSIASTIC about crossdressing. There's so much gender going on in this cast.

During this chapter, Rain and Ky find out what each others deals are, kinda. It's an unfortunate accident in which Ky was going to "come clean" to Rain, but finds her in drab.

Anyway, things are going well. Rain, Aiken, Gavin, Rudy, Ky, and Fara go to the mall because things are getting crowded in the apartment... but Aiken encounters none other than Emily's creepy grown-ass-man ex-boyfriend. Who draws the connection between Rain and her older sister, who he used to be engaged to.

There are some real "Small World" connections in this comic.

Anyway, Aiken does NOT take it well. He pieces together Rain's new hair cut with the similar person Chase described. And it just so happens that the entire reason Aiken was here was that he broke things off with his fiance... because she is ALSO trans.

Aiken is... of course... transphobic at Rain. His big hang up is the idea that he was "lied to" by yet another "selfish tranny", so of course Fara chews him the fuck out.

I'm gonna allow the last page of the chapter to speak for itself.

Final Thoughts

Year 2 was way more interesting than Year 1. Now that all the major players have been introduced, Samara can ramp up the drama and let them interact in more complex ways.

I love this cast so much because every one of them feels like someone I've met. When I first read it, I didn't really have experience with anyone even remotely similar besides Aiken.

Something similar to exactly this happened to me when I was reading:

My mom borrowed my phone once and saw a page titled "Rain LGBT" in my history. She didn't read it or anything, she just saw those 4 little letters and Lost It. Cornered me while everyone was out of the room at a family gathering and everything. Aiken's reaction to Rain's authentic self really hit home for me. it's easy to tell why she's so scared to tell him. People have hurt queer people for less.

On the topic of the comedy, I'm not sure if its gotten any better or if I'm just more endeared to the characters having read so far.

In terms of Chapter count, we're already 25% of the way done.

For those of you reading along, I'll see you for Year 3.

[occhiolissimo]

Watching Inception again for the quiz! and having feels and thoughts again about Ariadne and Saito. They're my very favourite characters from Inception, I love how they began as "outsiders" to the dreamshare team but ended up as extremely important to the themes and emotional journey of the movie itself.

How the movie keeps reflecting and folding in itself as we go down deeper into someone's subconscious, represented by the scene where Ariadne easily folds Paris in her imagination, twists and breaks mirrors and remakes a whole city from it.

You feel her own quiet excitement as she learns how to control her dreams, and her terror when she first felt the dream shatter, when she couldn't wake up on her own.

The inevitable allure of dreamshare; Ariadne rushes back to it just as soon as she storms out of it for the first time. You can hear the reverent awe in her voice about how it's "pure creation".

I know next to zero about chess, but I love how the bishop is generally described in the game: a minor but powerful piece. Very apt depiction of Ariadne as a character and what she has chosen as her totem.

A lot has been said about Ariadne and her mythical namesake, but I still think it's just so cool how she's the literally the modern Ariadne here; leading and saving people out from the mazes of their own mind.

How she always gives in to pure curiosity and disregarding boundaries on the things that she's passionate for. This is evidenced in how quickly she's got the hang of dreamshare, and having no qualms to break into Cobb's dreams to seek her own answers.

On that note, Ariadne feels like an (eerie) echo of what Cobb and Mal had been like. Brilliant, ambitious and no-holds barred in the approach to dreamshare, to the point of invasion and destruction. It's interesting to see if she would go down the path of caution after witnessing firsthand what dreamshare had done to both of them, or if she would just embrace it wholeheartedly, becoming a sun even brighter than her predecessors had been. Will reality be enough for her after this, or will it confine her?

Okay this is actually from a Nolan interview, but I love how he described that Cobb's dependency on each symbol that he perceives as reality in the dream (the totem, Mal, the kids) grows in parallel of Ariadne's constant questioning of them. In a way, Ariadne is both an intruder to his dreams, and indicator to his reality.

The moment Ariadne persuades Cobb and Eames to continue the job and follow her down to limbo is so intense. Everybody has been so afraid of the thought of even setting foot in limbo (in the case of Cobb, again) that aborting the mission seems like the only rational thing to do. She wants them to face the horror head on, so to speak. She is full of conviction, in a time where everyone had given in to despair.

I have not given much thought with whom I'm shipping her romantically, but I feel like there's a huge post-movie potential between her and Robert, should they ever cross paths again. Robert would have recognized her subconsciously (he keeps dreaming of the woman who had both saved and killed him in limbo), and Ariadne, depending on her psyche, might either feign indifference (for her own safety) and try to attempt and assuage the guilt she might had in playing a role to tamper with someone else's mind.

I really like the idea of Ariadne/Arthur, although more in the sense of a very deep friendship (that could quietly blossom into a romance); of Arthur helping to keep Ariadne tethered, to remind her of the borders between dreams and reality (like the feeling from their scene on the penrose stairs), and him being a voice a reason to any of her incoming doubts.

Cobb and Saito, separately, would also have a pretty interesting post-limbo relationship with Ariadne. She would have seen them as survivors, for better or worse, and she already had a taste of what it feels like to be lost down in limbo, borne from the mazes of her own designs. There would be moments where she asks herself if it really is all worth it at the end. Saito with his empire, Cobb with his family. So where does that leave her?

[tokiro07]

Undead Unluck ch. 141 thoughts

[Autumn Leaves...Forever]

So a lot happened this chapter. Not so much in the sense that the events of the chapter were particularly ground breaking or impactful, just that each chapter usually only covers one plot point at a time, whereas this chapter covered three

When I say plot point, I don’t mean that they’re just a single scene, but that broadly speaking, each chapter could be summarized as a single event. For example, rather than “Fuuko skips a batch of Quests, introducing Ghost, then skips another batch, introducing Crab, then...”, that particularly chapter can be summarized as “Fuuko skips several batches of Quests until Remember is offered as a reward”

While last week’s chapter has three distinct scenes (finding Autumn, Gina watching Fuuko’s memories, Gina emerging to protect Nico and Ichico), it can be summarized as “Gina enters Fuuko’s memories to learn how to master Unchange.” This week’s chapter, though, cannot be summarized so easily as each segment is completely distinct. Whether each segment could or should have been their own chapter is up for debate, but while I found the lack of cohesion somewhat jarring, I also found the transitional scene to be the kind of character-focused breather that I would like Tozuka to do more often. Not that it never happens, just that it doesn’t happen often enough in my opinion

Onto the content, Gina fends off Autumn’s attacks with a barrier, then whips off her beret to create a giant air-sword that bisects not only Autumn, but also the clouds above as if she’s unlocked Conqueror’s Haki. Honestly makes me wonder exactly how long that sword was and what else she hit along the way

This fight honestly could have been an entire chapter by itself, with Gina actually getting the hang of doing certain Unchange techniques, coming up with new ones that the previous Gina didn’t, Autumn reaching phase 2, etc., but honestly I think this fight being so fast was completely necessary for two reasons. First, it proves just how wildly overpowered Unchange truly is, and second, it proves that Fuuko was absolutely right in her judgment that Gina could one-shot Autumn. This shows that not only is Fuuko a good judge of her teammates’ abilities, but that she’s correct to put her faith in them in the way that Victor and at times even Juiz couldn’t

I also like the detail that Gina’s bow flew off and her hair came undone as she took off her beret, it really makes that simple action impactful

Fuuko emerges from the book after Autumn’s defeat, and Gina knocks the wind out of her with a tackle hug. Fuuko apologizes for making her watch her own death, but Gina forgives her because the previous Gina loved Fuuko. I don’t remember Gina 100 explicitly saying that, but I suppose she interpreted the fact that she currently loves her as being an extension of what Gina 100 said about feelings remaining unchanged beyond the end of time

Fuuko calls Gina “Ms. Gina,” but Gina rejects this because it refers to her previous self and presumably because it’s too formal, and she asks Fuuko just to call her Gina. This exchange was very cute, and god dammit, if this series doesn’t have a poly-ending I’m going to riot. Old Gina loved Andy, new Gina loves Fuuko, it writes itself... Also, seeing them teary-eyed under the sunlight shining down from the split sky is just a beautiful little vignette, once again showing that Tozuka really knows what he’s doing when setting his scenes. Like how last week the rain was both dramatic and an excuse to allow us to see Gina’s Unchange constructs, now the splitting of the clouds was a way to show how powerful Gina is while also setting up this lovely composition. Tozuka really loves that two-birds approach, and I greatly appreciate it

We cut to the aforementioned breather scene with Gina showing off her new look (Gina 100′s look) to Fuuko, saying that she wants to pay tribute to her past self while also taking an interest in Japanese fashion. I think it’s pretty interesting that Fuuko isn’t familiar with the particular trend that Gina is referencing, but I suppose I don’t really know anything about fashion trends that I’m present for, either, so why would Fuuko be familiar with one that was before her time? I tried to look into “shinora fashion,” but I couldn’t find anything helpful and I didn’t want to get too distracted from writing this review, so I’ll just have to assume it’s referring to her current style

Gina notices that Fuuko is holding Soul Calibur and recognizes that it was the reason she was able to see Fuuko’s memories, which does act as a bit of connective tissue between these two scenes, even if only loosely. Nico and Ichico are fighting about Ichico’s overworking, and Fuuko uses Soul Calibur to remove Ichico’s soul, forcing her body to rest because Unsleep would be follow the soul out of the body

I mentioned in a previous review that Fuuko’s experiences are what allow her to act as she is now, and this is chapter has two examples of exactly that. Fuuko herself has been under the influence of Soul Calibur before, so she knows that her Unluck stayed attached to her soul rather than her body and that her body was rested after the fact; Fuuko has also seen an Unchanging sword cut through one of the seasonal UMAs before, when Andy and Billy cut the Phase 3 Spring in half, so of course she knew that the same weapon would be able to cut a Phase 1 Autumn

My wife noted that all of Fuuko’s solutions have been really convenient so far, which isn’t a bad thing, since it means that we’re not going to be bogged down with a bunch of long-winded explanations or roundabout attempts at fixing things we already know the answer to, she just feels that they lack a bit of the groundwork. While I see where she’s coming from, I don’t think it’s so much that the groundwork isn’t there, it’s that the groundwork is a little disjointed from the payoff. I only just realized while writing this that Autumn was defeated using the same method as with Spring, and it’s easy to forget that Fuuko has been planning how to save everyone for about 200 years now. We don’t see Fuuko’s thought process because it’s already happened, and it’s more important that we see the fruits of her labor than the labor itself. Still, I see where my wife is coming from, and I think it would make for some nice tension for one of her plans to go sideways, even if only momentarily, so we can see her struggle to get back on track. Now that we’ve had three or four ventures, though, I think it’s about time for the pattern to break and something is liable to go awry with recruiting Void, but we’ll talk more about that in a bit

As I was saying, Ichico is finally able to sleep, and Nico is so overjoyed that he holds her body to him and weeps, not realizing that Ichico’s soul is still conscious because he, as a non-Negator, can’t see ghosts. When Fuuko reveals that she’s still watching him, he gets embarrassed and tosses her body aside in the most hilariously tsundere act I’ve ever seen. Nico is seriously becoming more and more one of my favorites, I’m so excited and anxious to see how becoming Unforgettable again will affect him

Fuuko asks Ichico to practice astral projection, since using Soul Calibur is apparently a strain on the user, which I think is a really interesting application of Ghost’s Rule. We’ve already seen Andy astral projection in combat by being able to fight the incorporeal Ghost by imbuing his sword with his own soul, and Feng has implied he can weaponize his soul as well, so I’m curious if Ichico is going to be able to take a more active role in a future battle? Not that she needs to, it’s absolutely fine for her to remain in a support role, but I’ll never object to a support character having a surprisingly involved battle

Yokezu, the current Unavoidable, is reported dead, confirming the transfer of Unavoidable to Void, prompting Fuuko and the others to come up with a plan to capture him. Fuuko declares she has an idea, to which Nico asks if it’s a reasonable one and does not receive a straight answer. Without hesitation, Gina agrees to whatever it is, as Fuuko has faith in the group and has pretty much exclusively had good ideas so far. Nico looks over to Ichico, who seems to have returned to her body just so she could agree too since she was still out of her body literally a single page ago, and acknowledges that Fuuko’s track record  for helping the Negators is pretty substantial so far. Like I said, now that everyone has such strong faith in Fuuko, it’s a good time for that faith to be tested by something unexpected coming up

We cut to the night of Void’s match, and we learn that Fuuko’s bright idea was to publicly challenge Void to a fight. Nico does question whether or not the group can still trust this plan, but this isn’t what i meant by their faith being tested. No, something about this match isn’t going to go the way that Fuuko’s envisioning it. I don’t know what’s going to go south here, but something is going to happen so that her friends are legitimately worried about her and we’ll actually feel some tension here. One more Quest before we get real tension is definitely too long to wait in my opinion, so right now feels like the perfect time for Fuuko to be wrong about something or for a third party to intervene or something

Granted, maybe saving that for the 2002 tragedy (presumably Billy’s and Tella’s) would be more appropriate, since that’s the section that has the highest stakes (preventing the formation of Under and saving presumably the largest number of people outside of Gina’s and her own tragedy), so the possibility of failure is a lot more palpable there than here

Whatever the case, I’m really just excited to see Void in action. Like with Gina and Nico, I imagine getting actual character moments will make Void more endearing to me. He really wasn’t that interesting when he was just “big faceless muscleman” hiding in a robot suit, so seeing the man underneath and coming to understand his wants and struggles should make him just as memorable and likable as all of the members of the Union

Sadly, no chapter next week, so we’ll see how this develops in the new year. See you all then!

[fatimagic]

- “You shouldn’t have spent so much money on me!” - “Well, yeah, but...Merry Christmas.”

[crusherthedoctor]

What are your favorite friendships in the series? And which would you like to see more of? :)

Sonic and Tails is the obvious one. It's iconic for a reason. :D As a Tails fan, I always appreciate when it's made clear just how much Sonic values their friendship. :3

That said, it's also cool when Sonic and Knuckles get to share moments where they're not at each other's throats. Heroes did well with that one, as did the second movie post-Eggman's betrayal of the latter.

As a defender of Big, I approve of Amy's friendship with him, since it's well within her character to not judge him at face value… Chronicles notwithstanding, cause it's Chronicles.

I think Shadow and Omega work well together in a buddy cop sort of way. I was actually tempted to include Omega in Stellar (albeit mostly cause I find Omega hilarious), but since I'm very intent on not pulling an '06/IDW and having a cast that's too bloated for its own good, I decided not to, as it would undermine my known dislike of the overuse and limitations of the Team ___ format if it reared its head in Stellar. (The Chaotix don't count, as they were already an established ensemble prior to Heroes.)

Speaking of, the Chaotix's dynamic is fun as well, particularly when Espio is visibly/audibly struggling to not lose the will to live by hanging around them. Vector is one of the most underrated recurring characters in the series IMO, so anything that lets him shine is fine with me.

Blaze's relationship with Cream was cute, though I do think it was underutilized in retrospect. Since no media seems interested in going back to it for longer than a minute (cause Blaze is chronically handcuffed to Silver), I created the Trudy/Cream dynamic in part as a spiritual successor, in the sense that Cream gets to form a close bond with someone that's neither her literal mother (Vanilla) or her older sister figure (Amy).

Sonic's relationship with Cream is also wholesome, and gives the former a prime opportunity to show that while he may take pride in his own abilities, he's not the self-centered asshole that some make him out to be.

To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Dr. Eggman's bond with himself. The admiration is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of working that sucker to death (c'mon now), most of it will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also his hate for that hedgehog, which is deftly woven into his characterization - his personal philosophy draws heavily from Dr. Eggman, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate Mike Pollock, to realize that it's not just funny - it's the more the merrier. As a consequence, people who don't get a load of this truly ARE idiots - of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humor in Eggman's existential catchphrase "I was just about to consume this delicious banana," which itself is a cryptic reference to- *gets dragged off stage*

What interactions would I like to see more of? I'll take anything to be frank, since the aforementioned over-reliance of the Heroes tradition has made me open to pretty much any dynamic that hasn't been seen all that much. If I had to name one in particular, I'd appreciate more opportunities for Rouge to interact with characters other than Shadow or Knuckles, and not have her scenes or overall purpose in the story revolve entirely around them.