#and already changed 'something bad' to include more animal characters and so it's about them discussing their situation
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petr1kov · 8 months ago
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actually an underrated little song from wicked to me is 'something bad'. i really like the ominous vibe and i kinda love dr dillamond tbh
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demonlorddiva · 9 months ago
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Obey Me! Brothers When Your On Your Period
Gonna keep the gn for the most part so anyone who gets this can feel included!! We’re all suffering together and I just want comfort 😭✌️p.s this is very me coded and I’m very much a crybaby and overreact to everything when I’m on my period so bare with me. My asks are open so if you want me to delve deeper on certain characters let me know!
Lucifer
Is informed of the menstrual cycle reading up on humans before you came to the devildom… well at least some of them
Makes sure you have the proper supplies you need already stocked in your room
Does NOT understand the emotional part
When Lucifers giving you one of his famous lectures, the pain begins and your just trying to stare at the floor
Lucifer: “are you even listening to me?”
You: “yes”
Lucifer: “I expect more from you as our human exchange student you know?”
At that moment you just put your face in your hands and start sobbing, too overwhelmed with the emotions and the pain
He’s taken aback for sure. He’s always expecting you to get mad at him, talk back, get angry, something other than this
He’s immediately by your side apologizing and making sure your okay
When you explain to him the situation he understands and lets you lay down with no other words
In the future when your on your cycle, he’s very gentle with you
The second he finds out your hurting, he immediately try’s to help in any way he can
Weather it’s getting you painkillers, a heating pad, anything you need
If you need a quiet place to be while your meds kick in he will let you lay down on the couch in his office while he rubs your back
Mammon
Has NO IDEA what a period is
But being your first man he notices the changes in you during that time
In a moment of pain you tell him what’s going on and have to explain to him about it
“Yer bleeding.. and ya do that ONCE A MONTH??? WHY???”
After a while he’s in tune of when it happens (mostly) and what you need
Always keeps pads/tampons on him in case you ask
If your cramping, all bets are off. No one is aloud to bother you or ask you for anything. Your going straight to his room or yours so he can take care of you.
“Leave MC alone! Cant ya see they’re in pain?!?”
If your craving snacks he will raid beels snack stash to get you what you need
Doesn’t mean it but when your upset and not on your period asks “what ya pmsing??”
he just wants to know
He can’t handle it if your emotional tho it gets him worked up too (even tho he tries to hide it)
“Don’t cry ya baby, you’re fine. The great mammons here ya know? It’s okay”
Leviathan
Figured it out through anime (what else is new)
If you tell him he might get a little wiggy and not know what to do
He’s trying his best let him live
Tell him what you need and he will do it for you literally anything
If your in pain he thinks your dying and panics a bit tell him you’ll be okay and you just need comfort
If you come to him teary eyed asking him to hang out he will put on a slice of life anime or something fun and cuddle with you in his bathtub bed
All the plushies and pillows are there so your warm and cozy
Keeps medication in his room on the off chance you need it
Satan
Oh this boy KNOWS about the pms
Read up on every book imaginable
If you get angry or frustrated during this time he completely understands
Your in pain! Who wouldn’t be upset
Definitely wants to fix the situation immediately but that can get overwhelming at times
“What do you need? Medicine? Heating pad? Water? You know you should stay hydrated.”
He’s just trying to help!
But sometimes you just need comfort
When you come to him, you just have to explain that you just need someone to be with you and to relax and it clicks
He will bring you to his room while he lays down and reads with you
If the pain gets to bad he will rub your head or back until you relax more
DEF yells at his brothers if they even think of bothering you
Asmo
I have a HC that asmo knows when your on your cycle before even you do so imma run with that
You don’t understand why he’s being so overly nice to you all of the sudden
He drags you into your room and you don’t get anything until the pain starts
“I just thought you could could use some extra asmo loving right now!”
It seems like he can read your mind on how your feeling
If your aggravated or frustrated he will let you rant and rave
If your sad and crying he will hold you while you let it all out
If your feeling self conscious he will tell you your gorgeous and amazing while he massages your scalp
Self care is in order, even if it’s just a warm bath he prepares for you with all the salts and oils to make you feel so relaxed, you can’t help but feel so cared for
Beel
We love this man but he doesn’t know anything about humans 😭 but he’s so willing to learn if it’s for you
Your pmsing all day at RAD and your very excited to have your snack that you have in the kitchen
After school, you immediately walk into the kitchen to find beel.
You open the cabinet for your snack, finding it gone
“Oh that? Sorry I was hungry”
You immediately start sobbing
He legit doesn’t know what to do
He normally promises to buy you snacks later and you are okay with it
He’s so guilty and so sorry
When you come to your senses and calm down you explain to him what’s going on
Your in pain?? Where does it hurt? How can he help??
Once he gets a grasp on it, every month he’s got you set
All your favorite snacks and sweets are bought for you to enjoy
If you don’t come down for dinner cause your ‘not hungry’ he’s worried
Will figure out your favorite meals you like for this time and make them for you
If you need a cuddle while your in pain he’s so warm and so cozy
Belphegor
He knows about humans and knows about periods but doesn’t know everything
And he’s a little late to the game with you
The other boys have gotten used to how you are during this time of the month and he’s new to it
You two are walking home and he’s upset with you
What could you do? You NEEDED him for a project you were working on for class so you woke him up from his hiding spot to pitch in
And he was upset and ranting
Not knowing the pain and emotional state you were in
You try to hold your tongue for as long as you can as you walk in front of him
Bel: “this is so so stupid, why do I have to do this project anyways?”
You: “I have to do this project too you know? Stop complaining so we can get this over with” you say with an irritated tone, just trying to get home.
Bel: “what, you on your period or something human? Lighten up”
Maybe it was the cramps irritated your body, making your back ache and your head hurt. Or maybe it was the hormones making your emotions run rampant. But you stop in your tracks, making Belphegor stop too
He can’t see your face, but he hears you let a sob out, wiping your eyes before you made a sprint to the house of lamentation 
Belphie doesn’t normally run, but he runs after you, missing you before you run to your room and shut the door behind you
Mammon sees the commotion, and stops him before he can reach your room to ask what happened
When Belphegor tells him, he’s pissed and lets him have it and explains the situation
When he realizes he’s so upset with himself
He shouldn’t have let his frustrations out on you during such a hard time
After a bit in your room, you hear a soft knock at your door
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were hurting”
You spent the rest of the evening cuddling
Finishes his and your part of the project to get some stress off of you
If he felt you twinge with the slightest bit of pain he would hold you that much tighter
After that, if he found out how you were feeling it was immediate nap time, he hates to see you hurting
Will massage your back to get you to fall asleep
Gets a bit too worried when your pain gets too bad and will ask Satan for help if needed
Welp here ya go! Belphegor isn’t even my favorite character and I got SO deep with him so you belphie Stans EAT UP
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webtomo · 4 months ago
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While I am optimistic about Tomodachi Life: Living The Dream and will probably be buying it and playing it regardless of anything, there are a few things that kinda potentially concern me about the game. I assume most of these will be addressed at some point in the future, but I want to run through them real quick.
1 - The "New Horizons" problem.
Though I did play a lot of New Horizons when it came out and did thoroughly enjoy it, it is undeniable that the game is held back by a number of flaws. Most notably, the fact that they significantly stripped back a number of features (especially near the time of release) as well as the general "softening" of the game. Now, don't get me wrong, New Horizons is far from a bad game. But many things sort of hold me back from considering it the definitive Animal Crossing experience, especially after coming off of New Leaf/Welcome Amiibo. I do really enjoy the customization of the game, but in many ways it almost feels like they had forgone things like villagers personalities and their autonomy in order to make that happen. Not to mention the fact that many key elements of the series were not in the game at all at launch, and were instead added in later updates. I am hoping that at the very least, the team behind Living The Dream will be able to learn from the negative aspects of New Horizons. Tomodachi Life is a series that, in part, is made by the randomness of every social interaction and is way more heavily focused on social interaction than Animal Crossing as a whole is. So with that in mind, I do hope that they don't entirely drop the ball in that regard and can present us with something interesting. Another big aspect of Tomodachi Life is relationships and the drama that the islanders get themselves into, so I hope that they allow for those things to continue to be relevant in this entry without dampening the personalities of the islanders.
2 - Gay Marriage.
I think most people know about this by now, but back when Tomodachi Life originally came out a controversy sprung about, named the Miiquality movement. This movement was centered around making Nintendo acknowledge and allow gay couples to exist in Tomodachi Life, since it was one of the only games in the life simulation genre to not allow it. Nintendo responded by claiming that they would promise to include it in a potential sequel, since it was too late for them to change anything in the original Tomodachi Life for 3DS. Now, this is a net good thing, and I and many other have been asking for this for a long time. However, I am somewhat worried that for whatever reason, they do something to work around the gay marriage thing. It honestly would probably be kind of stupid for them to do this, but I can very easily picture a reality where they forgo the entire existing relationship system and replace it with something else, maybe something like the Miitopia system or something. But honestly, at that point, it would just be easier to allow gay marriage outright since the Miitopia relationship system was the reason that game was marked as an 18+ title in Russia and Nintendo seemingly had no issues with releasing the game there despite it. Nowadays, we live in 2025. There is no reason for them to not include it at this point. Tomodachi Life for 3DS released in 2013 in Japan and 2014 everywhere else, which predated the legalization of gay marriage in the United States and a number of other places in which the game released, and is still not fully legal to this day in Japan (but is pretty close to potential legalization at the time of writing). Nowadays, Nintendo seems more open to the idea of having visibly queer characters in their games, for instance the Fire Emblem series allows you to be gay in most of their modern releases. Just last year, the Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door remake officially canonized trans Vivian, so I do think the option is still on the table.
3 - Scale and design.
The trailer we have seen shows some already significant design changes in this game compared to the previous two, which honestly I do think looks decent and I have positive thoughts on the art direction as a whole. However with any big new changes, there are bound to be some rough points. The flatness of the island we have seen is a little weird, which I assume may be related to a potential building feature, in which case is fine, but in many ways honestly feels like a visual downgrade from the 3DS version. Albeit we have not seen too much so far regarding the appearance of the island, and if island customization is a thing then that could potentially negate that issue entirely. However, a bigger concern of mine is the scale of the island itself. I am somewhat worried now that since each islander is living in a little cabin instead of an apartment, that the amount of Miis you are able to add will be limited. This isn't entirely a deal breaker necessarily, however I think most people would agree that it would be extremely disappointing if the game forces you to limit the amount of people on your island arbitrarily. I think if they were to cut down the amount of Miis per island, a reasonable minimum should be at least 50. Ideally I would prefer if the cap of 100 Miis was still a thing, since its a pretty reasonable number and I would be happy if they even allowed for more than that. Though if they do decide to limit the islanders to a smaller number, then I think it would honestly kill a lot of the hype for this game, since a big aspect of Tomodachi Life is the broadness of interactions possible between many islanders at a time. The Switch is more powerful than the 3DS so I am hoping they at least have some way around this issue, but the Switch isn't necessarily a powerhouse to begin with, so we will see how that pans out.
With all of that being said, I am still very excited for this game. I imagine future news will address some of these issues, but for now I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens. I will continue to post more about Living The Dream as more news presents itself.
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starmahgalaxies · 2 months ago
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The sibling energy starting off this movie I am dying for. Hikari is such a troll; I love her.
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I want! The little notice and delivery message is so goddamn cute. Early 2000s web and mail pages whiplash tho.
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Egg!
I will never not laugh at this dumb joke. Doesn't matter the language or anything else. Whenever I see it I'm just like "egg!" Makes me think of Tamagotchi too.
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A nuke destroying the credits is morbid as hell. My first reaction seeing the Japanese credits was ...okay then. lmao.
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Kuramon is so cute. A little gremlin in disguise but so cute. I like how they compare it to a jellyfish... and continue refer them as a jellyfish even as I will call Infermon and Diablomon more of a spider with the spindly legs (not enough of them, first thought is still spider though).
The desktop layout and everything is sure taking me back to my childhood. I love depending on the program or file he has a bilingual desktop
...IS THAT NETSCAPE?!
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Taichi, there's no reason to be jealous of Koushiro's penpal. The first person Koushiro decided to come to was you, chill. lol. They're such silly beans.
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TSUMEMON MY BABY!! I love you lil' one so much, even if the anime gives you the least amount of time to shine. (this is literally it for this movie. Kuramon is everywhere is the whole point next time around. I may be a little bitter as it is my favorite stage and favorite lil' lil' guy, but I still enjoy the other evos)
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I get the POS failing at the cash registers, but I always found it a bit weird that the prices for already printed barcodes and labels are changed when they're not connected to the internet? They are printed; they are done, how? Unless they are implying they've been labeled in the last few minutes or something else.
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So begins a long game of phone tag.
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Koushiro silently judging his friends for not being able to communicate.
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It could be like an old battle screen or menu for a game ❤️
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I love the impression that if Hikari was losing she would have taken the out. "Yeah, bro, I'm losing bad, I'll come home when I can." That would be out of character for her, but it is funny to think about.
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So continues the game of phone tag.
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Taichi not being straightforward with Hikari. I'm like... you could have tried "it's urgent and people are in danger;" or "you'll get to see Tailmon again;" or anything really that is not sounding like a bossy older brother demanding her to ditch her friend's birthday party. Find better leads for the conversation next time XD.
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My guys trying so hard to find a working computer, and they almost hit the mark right off the back. Nope, nope... no.
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No, no! Koushiro, do not fall for empty stomach. You are going to get distracted, and then you are going to regret it!
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Infermon is such a troll. I didn't recognize I took a screencap while the sign was spinning upside down, but here we are. Another thing is that adds a lot of character is communicating mostly through electronical text messages (makes the phone call creepier, which I would have included if I had room).
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A single motionless frame is hard to give as an example saying I like the animation in this movie, so I picked two that conveyed motion the best I could.
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It's okay, little one. Next movie you'll get to spread your wings 👼.
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Not to say I told you so, but I told you so.
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I would say this is why you don't thump computers. I won't though (with any heat at least), poor kid is about to have a heart attack.
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LMAO, HOW?!?
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BBY SPOTTED!
Also damn Miyako hit a growth spurt in the next couple years. Girl is tiny.
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*wonders in befuddlement once more why Adventure 2020 started with Our War Game when it can not hit these feels on the basis of being an introduction and not a sequel, which the original movie was* (I do actually like the start of 2020 reboot but I am much confusion)
That said... *rips heart out, steps on it* That feeling almost equates here.
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LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOO!!!!!!
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This is such a 2000s movie. The antagonist being beaten by poor internet speeds and influx of hundreds of thousands of spam mail. I love it so, so much.
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If you didn't make it, you would already be dead.
Unless I keep on missing it, they never clarify/know that Odaiba is ground zero in the original. They mention they can't guess the trajectory or where it's going to land until... it happens. That would be heartbreaking. For the audience in a tragedy. Everyone at ground zero would already be dead.
I'm pretty sure neutralizing a nuke isn't as simple as they have it, but I'll let it slide. I love this movie. I don't want precious kids (and countless people) dead, so it's fine.
Thank you for sticking with my meme-y long posts. I like that 54 episodes + movie easily are divided into weekdays over a couple months. If you don't care, well, you probably aren't seeing or reading this far so... XD
I will likely do a post about when I'll start 02 posts (the season itself I am almost done with watching). I know I'll be taking a break but still should start this summer.
👋
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sifloop-occasionally · 25 days ago
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I am very intrigued by your ISAT apocalypse AU. Pls tell me more.
So! Here's some more info about AU! Maybe too much, and sorry if my english will be too bad 💔
In the first place this au was made for roleplay, wlw roleplay, so Siffrin and Loop are using "she" as pronouns
What happened to the world?!
Catastrophe! Infinite wars! Present days. And - the end of the world! Half of humanity went to bunkers, and the other half mutated, and also plants and animals mutated too.
Loop! Or, for now, bearing the name Sisyphus, knew, that something bad will happen, so she made herself robotic copy to tranfer her personality to that copy, and then die. But something went wrong, and robot didn't get almost no memories, and Sisyphus also didn't have time to die, and, instead of it, she mutated.
Very much time later, nature already started recovering from disaster, people started living in "green zones". The robot, who took name "Siffrin" wakes up, helps party with really strong beast (they call mutants "beasts", yep) and they take her with them.
But they travel for a mission! They searching for "ancient paradise" - mutant-free zone.
Now i have to mention it - Loop and Siffrin are linked. Mentally. So Loop, the original Sisyphus, is helping Siffrin with finding herself, in old observatory. But Loop shown only to Siffrin, mostly because she is scared that party, raised with knowledge, that beasts are bad, won't accept her.
Later Loop is helping to find Boniface in a small destroyed village, he* was hiding from beasts that some bad guy brought to village and then stole his sister.
Will they find Bonnie's sister? Will they find that "ancient paradise"? Who knows.
So now about characters, pronouns and genders: original story were written in russian and we literally don't have rules to use they/them as pronouns. And I didn't know how I could include theme about non-cis-genders in APOCALYPSE AU. Please, don't take all this changes too close to your hearts💔
So yeah, Isabeau is a cis-man, but also very good guy(and he is redhead 😈). Boniface here is just a preteen boy. Others? Women.
And, Siffrin didn't know about that she is a robot. Even when Loop told her "you are my copy" she didn't get it. She just thought she is very strong human!
For now this story already ended, but I won't tell you the ending right now so you(yes, you, the reader, who didn't quit reading this textpost after... any of nuances) can tell me your theories!!!
Ugh I wanted to make this post with a laptop, but my wi-fi still doesn't work and I will whine until they fix it sorry 💔
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constantfragmentation · 8 months ago
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HI FELLOW SILCO ENJOYER
What are your thoughts on the polycule theory of felicia-silco-vander? 👀
Whew... where to begin?
Fair warning, this is going to be a long assessment.
First off, I firmly believe (unless S2 Act 3 makes me eat my words), that the writers didn't realize Silco and Vander would become such popular characters. I don't think that was the plan. They were side characters meant to beef up the main stars Jinx and Vi. Rightly so. They were devised as parallels for Vi and Jinx throughout the story. And it was beautiful.
S1 was filled with little details that enhanced every part of the plot and character development through each act.
However, if S/V were so important, more care would have been put into their backstories, which have been kept pretty vague. And these so-called continuity mistakes/plotholes seem pretty big for a studio that has been meticulous in the details all through S1.
We meet Vander, who changes his life after seeing the kids lose their parents and adopts them. Vander is seen as the builder and leader of the Underground, and he seems to lead with the threat of who he used to be (until Sevika calls his ass out).
Silco is introduced as the mean baddie immediately via Vander/Benzo's conversation in E1.
"There's worse things than Enforcers out there. We both know that."
Then his full intro including an underground evil lair and mad scientist at the end of E1.
E2 leans into the same MO for Silco. Until finally coming to the best episode (IMO) in all of S1 and it's E3, where things come to light. But he's still evil, vicious and spares no one. Silco appears to have zero empathy and is filled with a deep seeded hate.
"Silco?! You animal! Go crawl back into whatever hole you came out of!"
S1E1-3 Silco completely paints him as terrible from the Underground's perspective. Silco - bad. Vander - good. Both Vander and Benzo see Silco as a dangerous threat. So does the rest of the Underground feel the same? Do they know about what happened to Silco by Vander's hands? Sevika chooses him because she lost faith in Vander as a leader.
So, that makes me wonder if Silco WAS the brains behind everything from their smuggling business and building up the Underground to the rebellion. Vander on his own, seemingly, isn't shit. He is the muscle. WIthout the brains, he doesn't haven much in planning so he turns to making a deal with Enforcers instead.
By S1E3, we start to see beyond the veil a bit. Vander tried to drown and murder Silco. Let's remember one thing. Vander didn't just try to shoot Silco or they got into a fist fight and things got out of hand.
He tried to DROWN him. There's no way Silco went with Vander to the river fearing his life. Now, whether they went to talk in private and it got heated, you still have to sit back and look at Young!Vander and think wtf?
He is painted the good guy from the beginning. A man with restraint and compassion, looking out for everyone and especially his 'kids'.
It takes will and strength to smother/drown a person. It is NOT a quick death, it's a slow and painful death. Vander's intent was to kill him. Not once, did Vander think in the minutes holding Silco underwater that damn, this is wrong or overkill? You don't flippantly say "I'll never forgive myself" for trying to murder you slowly. Now beating the shit out of him and ruining his eye, yeah, that would make more sense from Vander, knowing he probably turned Silco into this worse person and fucked up his face, vision forever.
The viewer is left to assume it was something so fucking bad, Vander had to kill to stop it. Plus, Silco is already painted as the bad guy, so we presume Vander was right in trying to kill him?
So, what was so bad that this course of action was required? Well, it's pretty damn vague. In all of E3, Felicia isn't mentioned or hinted at ONCE. Not once. If Vander tried to kill Silco because of her, why do we not learn about any of it?? That seems like a pretty important fact, yes? This is Vi/Jinx's mom and she was a close friend? I'd say that's important.
Nope. Silco drags Vander to his lair and waxes on about fighting Piltover and finally realizing his dream of a free Zaun by any means.
Vander tells Silco he's never forgiven himself for trying to kill him, but nothing else is added to it? We're left to believe that Silco was either too powerful and influential in Zaun or that he orchestrated the bridge fight (that Vander was still fighting until the kids arrive and they see their dead parents).
This grey area is why the fandom has spent years trying to decipher what was so bad that it tore two brothers apart with attempted murder.
We learn in S2, Vander apparently "looked everywhere" for Silco and then wrote him a letter in a mine, hoping Silco might come across it. Well, if your brother tried to murder you, I'd say you would stay far away from him and not venture to old places in case he might try it again? Sounds reasonable, yes?
So Vander just gave up trying to talk to Silco and explain everything for YEARS? By S1E1 he and Benzo know about Silco and probably know where he is and that he's up to no good obviously. So why haven't they talked once in years?
Vander said he was in a rage over Felicia's death. But I'm sorry, none of that makes much sense and frankly takes the fire out of what created the fracture between two friends.
I would have preferred Riot not explain than give us a half-assed backstory of three happy-go-lucky buddies and the death of one is the backbone of hate, distrust and betrayal.
Again, Silco said Vander BETRAYED him. If they were arguing about Felicia and her partner dying, leaving kids orphaned, I don't call that betrayal. Vander's letter sounds like an argument that got out of hand. You don't just accidentally drown your best friend for the greater good because your other friend died in a fight ALL of you were fighting. You knew people would get hurt and/or die. It's reality.
It just doesn't FIT. It doesn't fit these characters at all in the narrative from S1.
Another reason I believe Riot never intended to go further with Silco and Vander's backstory is in the animation. Like I said above, S1 was littered with little and amazing details that we, as the viewer, have been analyzing for years.
The drowning was a VERY young Silco and Vander. Vander clearly has a beard and looks much older on the bridge in E1. The flashback in E3 looks like it was 10 years earlier at LEAST. That would be around the time Vi was born or a toddler if we're estimating her age by S1E1 on the bridge.
Vander beat the shit out of him and then decided to kill him by drowning. THAT is a major choice to make. That is a vicious choice. So we do see Vander as being more violent in his youth. So if the drowning came AFTER the bridge, that also doesn't quite fit either. He takes the kids and chooses pacifism, yet soon after, he's murdering his best friend. AND he suddenly shaved and grew younger, because he wanted to look clean and pretty before killing his bestie?
Zero continuity here. Bad writing. If there was mistake due to animation, they should have changed the backstory to fit than ramrod something else that looks badly done and makes zero sense to your audience.
Personally, I wish the drowning was PRIOR to the bridge battle.
It would make more sense if Vander was having second thoughts while planning the bridge fight. Maybe a separate attack went wrong and he realized they were going to lose and many would die. Silco, maybe having more influence or threatening to show Vander as a coward to the people is what finally triggers Vander to kill him. In order to stop this, Silco needs to die and then maybe Vander can convince others the fight is already lost against a superior firepower.
To kill Silco in that manner, signals to me, Silco was a great threat. Which means to me, Vander either felt he was a threat to him (since Vander does become the power in the Underground - the Hound) or he is beginning to feel like this fight is pointless and will change nothing. People will die for nothing.
Making it all about Felicia, just takes the fire out of rift between these two men all these years.
Again, she's never mentioned.
Silco even reflects in S1E3 that he still respected Vander after the drowning until he learned Vander was working with Enforcers and basically made a deal with Topside to keep the peace. That continues his pathway as a rebel and he's going to take down Vander with it or use him "what you really are".
Silco knows how violent Vander was and he's going to use it with Shimmer.
If we go by S2 timeline, then both Silco and Vander would know Felicia's kids well before the bridge battle. in S1, Silco would know who Vi is, at least and be aware of Powder. He would know this by S1E3 when he says "Have you heard the rumour? Vander the coward fled town with his children and were never seen again."
Pretty callous talking about his other bestie's kids like that. Damn. If Silco cared for her, then wouldn't he spare her kids? I just don't see this was ever about Felicia. It doesn't fit. He really didn't flinch in having Vi or any of the kids killed. HER kids? I'm having a hard time with that one.
I've said before that in Silco's eyes, Vi is an extension of Vander. When he finds Powder and she cuts off Vi as her sister, Jinx becomes an extension of himself, thus HIS daughter. It's like Silco's last "fuck you" to Vander by taking Felicia's other daughter as his own.
Overall, I hope to hell it's not some love triangle. Or either man was in love or had a crush on her.
I read some fans saying since the flashbacks are Vander's in S2, we're seeing things from his perspective. I'm all for an unreliable narrator with characters because it keeps things open for interpretation.
But we would need to see this from Silco's perspective, too—not just the drowning/betrayal. Silco sees this as a major factor in the direction his character takes. It's a life-changing moment for him.
We also don't see any flashbacks to the years Silco took care of Jinx after Vander's death. If he knew Jinx's mom, wouldn't that come up? Wouldn't that be something Jinx would remember and influence her?
In S2, she reminisces a few memories of her mom like nothing has happened since. She and Vi act like nothing really happened between them. By the end of S1, the sisters diverge when Jinx decides who she will be. It's Jinx, not Powder. She knows Silco loved her and, more importantly, accepted her for who she was. She was perfect in his eyes.
Plus, Vander's trio flashback seems odd in both animation and backstory choices. Silco looks VERY different than his flashback of the drowning. His hair is much longer (man bun), he has a widow's peak he doesn't have later (weird). He appears to care for Felicia and happy for her being a mom. They made him more physically attractive and older than the flashback in S1E3.
Vander doesn't look like the younger version in Silco's drowning flashback. He looks older too. Animation choices were made that don't match the continuity of the previous season.
We're assuming their smuggling business is doing well if Felicia talks about the Underground being much better for everyone. Are we still giving Vander full credit for that? S1 implies Vander built the Underground both from Grayson and Zaunites.
Silco jokes he is "Bozo #1". To me, he is joking but not in saying he's the mastermind in this duo. Without him, Vander's just a brute.
I'm not sure of Vi's age by S1E1, but maybe she's 10 or 12? So prior to the battle unless a fallout happened with Vander and Silco, why don't we see Silco with the kids? Why do the kids act like they don't know him? If they were such a tight trio with Felicia, why only Vander with the kids?
He fought at the bridge knowing Felicia had two young kids that could be orphaned and was still fighting when the kids showed up. He already knew Felicia was dead but was still fighting.
If her death was too much, why didn't he stop then? The kids appreance stopped him. Okay. I get that. But we don't see Silco anywhere on that bridge, does he know she dead? Is he still fighting? Where is he?
This whole polycule feels like they had to throw it in somewhere but didn't adequately explain it to match the motivations of the characters we have known and studied. It opens more plothole questions than it answers. It creates more problems that did not need to be there.
If Felicia wasn't that important to expand on last season, why do it now and do it poorly that contradicts characterizations already laid down in the whole previous season?
I'll say it again and again: Riot did not plan for it. They didn't think Vander and especially Silco would be so popular, and fans would demand to know more about them.
Plus, another thing that kind of bugged me:
When Vi is embracing Warwick/Vander and tells Jinx "He's your dad too."
Yeah, it's a nice moment, but it's a shit on Silco too. Technically, didn't JInx have more years with Silco than Vander? She saw Silco as her father (although not the best), accepted her, encouraged her skills, gave her important jobs, wouldn't give her up and called her perfect in his dying words.
I guess fuck that dad, right? He is evil dad and now he's dead, doesn't matter anymore.
Did anyone else feel like Jinx turned back into Powder this season? The kicker in S1, is that she CHOSE to be Jinx. IDK. The sisters were real quick to hook back up after everything.
As I've said before, they needed maybe three seasons if they were going this route. No character is getting enough time this season for good story-telling and character development. Too much is getting crammed in one season and it's sad because there is SO much story to work with.
I, for one, would watch another season of these characters. You could take time to explain the Black Rose and Mel's story. Ekko has nothing this season. Jayce doesn't have much. There's very little explaining and too many new questions that won't get answered in one season.
Vi became an Enforcer for half a second. Granted Caitvi only knew each other for maybe a week so for their 'relationship' to fall apart doesn't surprise me. But Cait bouncing back and forth. Jinx bouncing back immediately after Silco's death doesn't make sense since he wasn't the cause of her mental illness.
"Silco didn't create Jinx. You did."
Sister's bond quickly like nothing happened between them. Sevika is suddenly on Jinx's side with little work considering they disliked each so much.
Intro of a new character, Isha.
Viktor turns into Jesus and hangs out in the Big Bang with Sky. I was waiting for Machine Herald and got Jesus Herald.
Ambessa could have a better story but again, I think they needed at least one more season to flesh everything out. It's all too fast and packing way too much into one season of plot for so many characters. The sister's reunion is too fast. We don't get enough info on Warwick yet.
I hope, but they can't tie all this up in three more episodes.
Sorry for the mental vomit, but I've been thinking about this all week, and now it's out like verbal diarrhea. Even though I've enjoyed this season, I can't help but feel disappointed. S1 was so much better.
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dreamer1084 · 9 months ago
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Natsuyuu Anime S7EP1 VS Manga Vol21 Ch.84
I notice some characters' dialogues has been changed or deleted. I won't mention them if it doesn't affect too much (because there are really too many small changes) A little personal interpretation included.
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Manga here only mentions in one sentence, while anime used its traditional dialogue "Since I was a child, I have seen things that others cannot see..."
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Natsume's inner description here is directly expressed in his attitude. And Tanuma's "talking about pottery" is deleted, although it's not important.
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Youkai who wants his name back changes to the Inu no Kai in amine. I think the anime wants to re-introduce the Inu no Kai, and it is more lively this way. Natsume's "are you hurt?" is deleted. Although he is gentle to Kappa, but Kappa is obviously fine XD
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In manga, dango is used to comfort Sensei who is disappointed because his cherry blossom-flavored wine is gone. In the anime, dango is used to make Sensei stop drinking at home, and with new flavors of dango.
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In amine, they go to Nanatsuji and eat there wearing casual clothes. In order to bring out the background setting of the anime to the audience, they let Tanuma mention about Reiko. In manga, Tanuma says he wants to see the mini-sensei made by Natsume, and amine changes it to later to show his disappointment for not seeing it.
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Anime adds a scene where the two looked at each other because Touko doesn't come out to welcome Tanuma as a guest. Tanuma already said he wanted to go to Natsume's house in manga, so we just see Touko directly. (However, this makes manga feel more like "I come to your house because I want to see Mini-Sensei", while anime moves the dialogue to later, so the causation becomes more ambiguous)
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Half of Tanuma's dialogue is deleted in amine, and Natsume doesn't directly indicate Youkai in the dialogue (although they all know it)
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"But it doesn't seem like a bad thing, let's wait and see." This dialogue is also deleted. Later, Natsume askes Sensei not to be too harsh on Mini for the same reason, and the dialogue there is also deleted.
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Touko holds a broom in amine. And her dialogue with Mini-Sensei being regarded as a hamster when she doing housework is deleted.
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Manga Sensei follows simply because it seems interesting. While anime feels more like Sensei is annoyed that Mini takes the tea bowl away.
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In manga, it seemed like Sensei doesn't want to get involved in unwanted trouble. He says Mini is too small and it's hard to find him. He also says that there seems to be bad Youkai around here, so they should leave quickly. Sensei in anime simply tells Natsume to be careful because of the bad Youkai he feels.
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That's about it. There are also some detailed changes in other dialogues, but I won't mention them because they shouldn't be too important, and I don't have the ability to compare them line by line XD But I want to say something else:
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It may be okay to hide behind Touko and drink from a tea bowl. But, if Touko moves her head a little bit, she might see Sensei floating in the air with a fan...LOL
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ssaalexblake · 3 months ago
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I wish fandom asked Why more often. Like, sure, to take one example in sunrise on the reaping; Collins could have used a different original character in the story rather than having Effie there. Apparently there could be No actual reason for having Effie there that helps the story.
So, instead of just stomping our feet Immediately and not thinking about it, why don't we ask why Collins chose to include Effie instead.
I mean, I'm not Collins and these are just some things I got from it, but I think Effie's presence tells us a few things. I mean, for starters you have a person who is falling for a different part of the capitol propaganda than most of the other capitolites we see up close. Effie's not out there thinking that these kids are animals, she thinks they're people and is visibly moved and shaking in the launch room as she sees Haymitch off (and presumable already saw Wyatt, Maysilee and Lou Lou off). Effie is an example of somebody who has fallen for the treaty of treason as absolute, not the dehumanisation of the districts. It's important to note that there's not just One type of propaganda the people are being fed.
She also demonstrates their society's obsession with looks, and this works in part Because we know her when she's older. Effie of the trilogy is caked in makeup and in wigs all the time. The implication is that Effie who is at most, what? 25 here, realistically, is already Late in the game of plastic surgery to 'fix' everything wrong with her (because she's apparently old and ugly at that grand old age... ugh) despite her being afraid to do so and not wanting to go near needles because of it! Which tells us something about the Effie of the future. She genuinely feels social pressure to do something she's afraid of because of low self esteem over her body, which is why she presents as she does in the trilogy. This series isn't Only critiquing things like implicit submission, Collins also takes shots at things like beauty standards and bodily autonomy (and their lack of it). Sure, there's no evidence that Effie was literally forced to have work done, but there is that victors are. Effie now chooses to hide herself under more make up, wigs, and presumably surgery (or at least botox or something like that) because she has to. The capitol isn't into non conformists, lets be real.
(and, honestly, I think that part is really important. I've seen 22 year old girls get paid promos in instagram for damn Botox. 22!! the only botox you need at 22 is for medical reasons, not to remove non existent wrinkles)
How come Haymitch knows Katniss' parents? Well, that's because Katniss says that district 12's population is only about 8000 people, and i cannot emphasis that this is TINY, and while 24 years have gone by at the 74th games, it's unlikely the number has changed that much. This is a small town, every kid of reaping age at the very least knows Of each other (even Katniss could list off past tributes and their families, and Katniss almost tried not to know things about other people. This was a sign) but kids of the same age in that district Do know each other. We already knew that Haymitch was roughly the same age as Katniss' mother from lore drops in CF (Maysilee being Asterid's friend makes them around the same age, Maysilee being Haymitch's district partner, it's never mentioned that Katniss' parents were different ages). It would have made No sense and gone against established canon for these kids to not know each other.
So, why are mags and wiress here? They're showing the importance of mentors imo. It may even be a bit of a nod to how Bad Haymitch was at mentoring when he was so broken down in thg,all the little things that Mags and Wiress do to just treat the tributes like people deserving of respect Haymitch notably does not do, showing how broken down he is by 74. Their presence also highlights how damn important it was to the tributes to have support staff who were genuinely trying to help them.
It's also probably a hint to how genuinely screwed twelve was regularly in these games. If it's not enough that your odds of being reaped soar Shockingly higher in such a small district in contrast to others, that they assign mentors from other districts makes it even worse for the ones who do get reaped. Twelve was just Lucky in this quell that they were assigned mentors that genuinely helped them and didn't just not bother to to aid their own district's kids.
And could you really blame those mentors, either? They want the kids they travelled on the trains with and saw reaped to live. They want their district to get parcel gifts that year to ease the burden on families. Are mentors who aid other districts looked down upon for 'helping the enemy' back home? Is it another scheme to set the districts into conflict with each other instead of the capitol?
Their presence also tells us things about the universe just by comparing them from point A to B. Having people assume that the games had a severe effect on Wiress' mental state for years, and then to say that No, she actually kind of owned the capitol with that one. What really happened is that she was tortured for her part in rebel actions.
And okay, i'm not saying these reasons have to be good enough for people to like the inclusions, but people could at least be bothered to think about it and actually try and work out why she did these things. Because it's all just shades of not liking something so finding a ~moral~ reason why it's bad otherwise. You don't like it, so obviously the only reason Collins did this was because she's a greedy old crone!
In the end, I think she could probably have achieved some of the same points without these inclusions, but i think it would have made the book clunkier by adding even more new people from the long list of them we already had to remember to the list, and i'm not sure she could have given some of it the depth it has with how she did actually do it.
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yumeka-sxf · 2 years ago
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My thoughts on Spy x Family: EYES ONLY Guidebook (English ver) - part 3
Continuing from my previous two posts, this will be my last post discussing the English version of the SxF manga guidebook "EYES ONLY." I'll discuss some of Endo's and Lin's comments on specific chapters, some of the included concept art for the series, all the Twiyor tidbits the book has to offer, and conclude with a couple things the English version of the book omits.
Endo's and Lin's comments on specific chapters
There's at least one comment from Endo and/or Lin on every chapter of the manga from when the book was originally published (up to chapter 61). Unfortunately I can't cover every single comment, but I did want to highlight a few (more will be covered in the Twiyor tidbits later on).
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So Bond wouldn't have actually died from Yor's cooking then? Good to know her cooking isn't that bad, lol. Also that's a good question, Lin, maybe you should ask Endo? 😅
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Lots of great info about the cruise arc. Makes sense that they had to plan it out many months in advance and keep revising it to patch up plot holes. All that work definitely paid off! Interesting that they almost considered not having Loid on the ship at all. Glad they didn't because otherwise we wouldn't have gotten one of his best outfits! 🤣 (can't wait to see this piece of work in color in the anime!)
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Incidentally, the scene Endo mentions where he "managed to make Yor look pretty cute" is this one (she does look pretty cute here).
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My favorite comment of Endo's about any chapter has to be this one for chapter 56. Never change, Endo 😂
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And lastly, some good comments about chapter 59 (Becky visits the Forgers).
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This is one of my favorite stand-alone chapters so I'm glad it was well received. Funny how they kept going with the joke instead of ending it "normally"...but when you have such great characters and setups, good comedy writes itself!
Below is Endo's commentary about Henderson, not a specific chapter, but thought I'd point it out since he mentions Henderson is the only character he's done a shower scene for...not anymore!
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Also, while not related to a specific chapter, I do like what Endo says below about Loid and Yor's "dark sides."
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He enjoys drawing them this way, which is cool, but he's also cautious about not overdoing it and saving those expressions for important situations.
Concept art
Most of the pre-serialization character designs included in this book were also in the exhibition pamphlet, which I already discussed thoroughly here (wish I had remembered these were in the fanbook so I wouldn't have put so much effort into trying to read Endo's scribble notes). So I'll just mention a few of the most notable things.
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As I discussed in my post about the pamphlet, Franky was at some point intended to be the uncle of the family. Though I do think it would have been fitting to make him the uncle, I also like the main focus being on just the "nuclear" family, with the uncle and other characters having supportive roles.
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An interesting note about the beta version of Yor is that she seemed to be more like Fiona - she was in love with Loid right from the start, to the point of trying to eliminate Anya! I doubt this is something she would be doing all the time as it would have been difficult to make her a likable main character if she was always trying to kill her daughter...in all likelihood, she would have tried to kill Anya at first before eventually learning to love her as a daughter. While I see how this could work for an intriguing character arc, I'm glad Endo decided to make Yor a loving mother to Anya right away, and not make her feelings for Loid an obsessive "love at first sight" kind of thing.
Twiyor tidbits
Being the shipper that I am, I tried to see if I could pinpoint any Twiyor subtleties throughout the book, as vague as they may be! 😂
Below are excerpts from Loid and Yor's character pages where we're given info on their current stance about each other.
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Love the emphasis on their bond of trust ❤️
Below are excerpts from chapters 14 and 35, probably the most Twiyor-heavy chapter pages in the book.
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This confirms that Loid did indeed interpret Yor's kick as her not having any romantic feelings for him.
Below are comments by Endo and Lin for chapter 30, where Fiona is introduced.
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Endo's line is a little ambiguous here, but I think he's saying how people sympathize with Fiona because she's "doomed to lose," which is...telling 😅 (does Fiona's loss automatically mean a Twiyor win?)
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Endo says he likes the "You're strong, Yor" conversation, one of the most Twiyor-ish scenes in the series so far! 😊 Lin also mentioned how they got to use that theme again during the Becky chapter.
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Weird that he chose to highlight this line of all things as Loid's "Family Comment" for chapter 10. Could this and chapter 79 be more foreshadowing for an eventual "Twilight vs Thorn Princess" showdown? 👀 Or maybe he just likes teasing fans because he knows it's something they fantasize about.
English version omissions
There's an additional Endo interview that's missing from the English version of the book: an interview with him and Kazumi Takayama, a former idol of the group Nogizaka46.
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At first it seemed very odd that they would leave out just this interview, but after discussing it with others on Discord, I realized it's because it has to do with an idol. Apparently getting licensing rights for anything that has to do with a Japanese idol group is very difficult, which is further hindered by the fact that Takayama isn't even part of that idol group anymore, which makes getting the content green lit for official release overseas even more taxing. So probably Viz decided it wasn't worth the trouble and just left out that interview. But thankfully u/Nemshi on Reddit posted a fan translation of it, which you can read here. They talk a bit about SxF, but most of it is just general questions they ask each other.
And the other thing missing from the English version that I really can't understand is the inside cover! Another great 4th-wall breaking joke from Endo (I added a quick translation of the Japanese version below).
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Unlike the Takayama interview, I have no idea why they didn't include this. They include the inside cover as an extra page in all the English volumes, so why not here? Very weird.
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And that's all I'm going to share for the "EYES ONLY" fanbook! Honestly, there's so much great content in the book that I didn't touch on, like info about East/West relations, about Eden Academy, Endo's comments on all the designer chairs for the volume covers...and lots more. So definitely get a copy yourself if you can! It's a must-have for any SxF fan 😁 Books like this aren't officially released in English very often, so the fact that Viz thought it was worthwhile to make this proves how much of a hit SxF is!
<- Return to Part 2
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kerubimcrepin · 9 months ago
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LIVEREAD: WAKFU, THE GREAT WAVE [TOME 1, Chapters 4-7]
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Always some weird shit happening in this country.
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I really wish they didn't make Grougalorasalar so fine because now putting him next to Joris feels like one of those "trying to give my cat body dysmorphia" memes.
EXCEPT JORIS ALMOST DEFINITELY ALREADY HAS THAT 😭
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Some thought that it's quite cheap, to resurrect a character this way — however, killing 1k people is already established as a type of resurrection that works, within canon. And there is dramatic irony, considering at the end of the movie she kinda began to understand the error of her ways... It's like the universe is saying lol, no peaceful death for you, keep suffering, y'know? It's compelling.
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SHUT THE FUCK UP. I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR FEE-FEES. YOU ALWAYS CRY WHILE COMMITTING WARCRIMES. COME UP WITH A NEW GIMMICK!
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Like literally — this guy will cry over his dead son, and act scared about being forced to commit more warcrimes w/ Joris in the movie... and then go on to commit more warcrimes for centuries. Is he for real?
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I think that, of all the people he could have picked, Julith is the most befitting candidate to try and fight Yugo.
She hated holier-than-thou types. She was aligned with Brakmar. She was willing to commit mass murder and abuse her son to reach her goals. For the right reasons, she will be willing to do more mass murder and son abuse once more. It literally makes so much sense to me.
(ANKAMA PLEASE CHANGE HER MOTIVATION FROM REVOLVING AROUND THE MAN SHE WAS IN LOVE WITH. DO KEEP THE CHILD ABUSE, THO. IF YOU DON'T DO THESE 2 THINGS, THIS MANGA WILL BE UNREADABLE AND UNBEARABLE. THANK YOU.)
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Once again, I really appreciate the irony. I hope she feels bad about this — I hope it's clicking for her that this is what she was going to do. (I love torturing characters I love torturing characters I love—-)
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I really wish we got some more of a conversation here — like "it's been approximately 600ish years since you died" or "the world almost ended like 4 times since you died, and there was a huge flood and stuff".
I really wish to see the reaction of some random mortal character from Dofus era to all the bullshit that has happened since then.
(God, I hope her first thought after learning how long it has been is, "oh, I guess I won't know what happened to my son. It has been a long time. He died a long time ago, I guess. That's probably a good thing." It would be so funny so so funny sooooo funny to me. hehe)
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Due to Atcham being an owner of one of these thins in the past, I sadly have an affinity for them.
(I like to think Atcham wishes he could get another one, but being able to own an animal like this was like, one of the things he had to sacrifice to become a Bontarian.)
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Something wrong with her, for real.
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Loving their resurrection of Julith not just physically, but in spirit too <3
Welcome back, Irredeemably Evil Female Character Driven To Kill Torture And Abuse Innocents (Including Children) By "My Husband, Who Is The Only Person The Writers Have Me Care About, Died"-Disorder And No Other Character Traits Besides Motherhood/Desire To Be A Mother (Despite Being Abusive To All Children Around Her) Given To Her. You truly are a classic, in Ankama media!
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I wonder if Julith is being forced into this, or if the only lesson she got from dying is "Jahash wouldn't have wanted me to kill 1k Bontarians" and she is still as weird and horrible of a person.
I guess it's hard to judge what is happening, without knowing what 'Salar told her.
By the way, if she still has a grudge against Bonta for planning the perfect series of events to kill her and Jahash, it will be so funny. Lady you literally tried to killed a woman's husband <3 you have no moral high ground anymore <3 and she never Had a moral high ground to stand on, but now there's like, hypocrisy to it too, if she uses the "my husband and I were plotted against" card.
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[giggles cutely] You see, , this is why I often bring up Joris while analysing child-parent relationships and immortality. Ankama loves reiterating on ideas and concepts.
For example, the most recent motif is poisonings and belladonna, especially when love and royalty is involved...
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I know I roasted the hell out of Eliatrope for her bad ruling skills, but I don't think that calling a ruling queen "kiddo" and "the girl" is helpful in this situation.
Then again, Aurora said that her father spent most of his time holled up in a cave, in season 4. Maybe he usually doesn't do politics. Maybe he's more of a military leader, while others do all the work.
...Yeah, I know, I know. Ankama just didn't give a shit and I'm just making stuff up to make it make sense.
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diamondkat · 8 months ago
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Regarding Alastor being redeemed, I have been seeing some posts regarding how it can happen that trigger an instant ick reaction from me. I have taken time to think about why I keep having such a strongly negative reaction to it. The first thing I took into consideration is that I really do not want my current favourite bad boy to become good. I am first and foremost a villain fan and his becoming good has a high chance of ruining the character for me. This means that there is a chance that I would dislike any theory that ends with Alastor redeemed. A lot of time you see people making arguments for why a ship or character should not be liked when the real reason is they personally don't like it and the reasons are merely support. I try to make sure I am aware of my personal bias.
Regardless of my personal bias, I have decided that there is one particular theory regarding how Alastor can be redeemed that I hate from the bottom of my heart. It is the theory where Alastor after being humiliated, degraded and losing everything including his pride has no choice but to accept Charlie's care and change for the better. Sometimes it involves betraying the hotel first, but generally involves him being unable to deal with the challenges that he faces. I am sure how this works in the minds of those who like this theory makes perfect sense. He can no longer rely on himself, he sees that he isn't capable of anything and now has no choice but to become what Charle wants him to be. I hate it so much. I have kept turning it over in my mind and I think I have figured out all the reasons why separate from my bias.
First, suffering doesn't make people better. It just doesn't. The theory seems to require enough suffering to rewrite Alastor's personality and make him Charlie's puppet. It also reminds me of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The story of how the proud woman was broken down to make her obedient. She might be "better" but it also felt to me like she died and became a puppet. He would be "redeemed" but that wouldn't be Alastor. It would just be something that looks like him. I just feel like fans of Alastor who like this theory don't realise that he would lose everything that pulled them to him in the first place if this happened. Some could not deal with him being less energetic in the main show than the pilot due to him being bored. How would they deal with what would essentially be a hollow creature wearing his face trying to become good because there is nothing left in him?
Second, with a proud character you can't brute force them into letting people in. Part of the idea of the theory is that after he is humiliated and suffers in front of them, he will drop his smile and be forced to let others in. That doesn't make sense to me. We have already seen in S1E8, how Alastor deals with things not going his way. He holds onto what little control he has by refusing to drop his smile and holding onto his pride while going through a breakdown. The best way to get someone like Alastor as far as I am concerned is to deal with him the same way you would deal with a wild animal. Slowly lower their guard. I think Charlie is already doing that whether Alastor knows it or not. Besides, pride is an important part of the character. Pride is part of what drew me to the character in the first place. The kind of pride that makes a person think it is okay to say, "If I wanted to hurt anyone here I would have done so already" in front of the Princess of Hell, is part of what drew me to Alastor. If he lost it, the character would likely immediately lose all appeal to me. So, there is some personal bias there.
It would make sense to me if the theory was more about Alastor learning that he can rely on others and doesn't have to depend solely on himself which leads to him opening up and letting others in. However, the theory leans very heavily into suffering as a way to make him a better person and a complete erasure of everything that makes up the character through suffering to make him into someone who wants and is worthy of redemption. That's fine for fanfiction but I hope it never becomes canon.
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twoa-plus · 10 months ago
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dissecting stanford pines and finding organs that don’t exist but like in a metaphorical way
that’s it that’s the title i’m going with. this is a long one folks o7
most of this isn’t sourced or canon at all it’s just personal interpretation/headcanon/whatever else u wanna call it, but!! since more people are seeing my deranged gravity falls ramblings now i figure i should probably give some perspective as to why i like/defend ford as much as i do
(in my other gf posts i do try to stick to canon to back up whatever point i’m making - this is just about my personal opinion of ford as a character, and should be able to be thrown out in regards to my other posts)
so for some background/setup/whatever (it’s important i promise bear with me), different people have different instinctual responses to anxiety/stress. i come from a family (genetics are fun) where the default response is to start (metaphorically ofc) biting and hissing like a cornered animal. this doesn’t necessarily mean there’s any actual hatred or malice or anything towards the people that end up getting scratched - they might just be at the wrong place at the wrong time, they might’ve done something super minor and insignificant that added on to a preexisting pile of stress, etc etc
i cannot stress enough that i am not saying this is ok. you dont need me to tell you that hurting people who don’t deserve it is a bad thing, lol. what i am saying though is that sometimes people can kind of suck for reasons other than just genuinely wanting everyone around them to be miserable
this is the last “background” part i swear BUT another thing thats less genetic and more just me being weird is that i’m the type of person where like. any minor environmental change can really stress me out lol. like even just reorganizing my desk can be pretty emotionally taxing
SO. finally back on topic. stanford pines. i see a lot of the behavior/patterns i just described in him. like i’ve spent my entire life around people like this, and while i understand why a lot of people see him as just some asshole, i can’t help but see him as a guy who’s just kinda going through it lol
just talking about the more recent events as of the series, he’s just spent 30 years god knows where doing and seeing god knows what, he has an abusive ex who wants to murder him and his entire family (plus the whole dimension, really), and in the three decades he’s been gone the entire world - including his own house - has changed and left him behind. add onto that that he went missing in 1982, way before we had all of the emotional/mental health resources we have now, we all saw what the stans’ childhood was like, and that ford is terrible with people - including, imo, himself. if there’s anybody out there who would have Feelings and not understand what they are or where they’re coming from or what to do about them, it’s this guy
this entire setup is the perfect circumstance for fear and anxiety and stress and uncertainty to all get translated into anger. a really big example of this, to me, is how he talks about dipper in journal 3. i’ve talked about this before somewhere so i’ll try to summarize as fast as i can lol
reading his initial entry about dipper would make u think he like. hates this kid lol. but i really don’t think he ever did - he was really excited to meet the kids in the show and already seemed to care about them just by virtue of existing, and his opinion on dipper in journal 3 seems to do a complete 180 pretty quickly which ,,, doesn’t really fit ford as a character. like i love the man but that guy can hold a GRUDGE
here’s how it reads to me:
ford gets back to his home dimension after 30 years and everything is different
he’s subconsciously kind of struggling with the fact that he doesn’t really have a “home” anymore - the sense of familiarity and comfort that would normally come with the word is gone. (i specify that it’s subconscious because, like i said earlier, i do not get the vibe that he’s particularly aware of his own emotions)
he finds out that journal 3 - something he made with his own two hands and considers part of his life’s work - has also changed in the decades he’s been gone. this adds to the feeling of unfamiliarity with the world around him
it’s easier to blame that “final straw” and say that he’s just upset about his work being tampered with rather than address the actual root of the problem, so that’s exactly what he does. this still doesn’t mean that there’s any genuine hatred towards dipper. anger in the moment, yeah, but not hatred
again, this is entirely personal interpretation, and i completely understand if u don’t see it like this!! this is just a pattern of thoughts/behavior that i’m very familiar with, so it’s easy for me to apply it to situations like this even if it’s not really part of the canon
i also think there’s a big problem in this fandom with just ,, not seeing ford as a Person with Emotions? idk how to explain it but it feels like people expect him to always know exactly what to do in every situation just bc he’s old and academically smart. like whenever another character does something objectively bad it’s “well there were extenuating circumstances,” (which is usually true and i agree !!) but ford never really seems to get that treatment. if he does something bad it’s just because he sucks
a big example of this i think is the fight between him and stan (y’know the “you ruined my life”/“you ruined your own life”). you cannot look me dead in the eyes and, in full seriousness, with the context of everything ford was going through with bill at the time, say that he was fully mentally/emotionally stable during that conversation. “oh so you’re blaming stan-“ NO!!! stan was also going through it!!! that’s the entire point - they’re both people with their own lives and emotions and everything else that comes with that, they had very human reactions to their respective situations, and they both ended up hurt!! hopefully i’m explaining this right but i just don’t like it when people pin everything on ford, like there was a lot going on and at the end of the day he’s just a human
wasn’t really sure how to work this in so i’ll just put it here - i don’t think ford ever truly hated stan, either. familial bonds are complicated, and there can be a whole lot of anger towards someone without true hatred being present. i briefly mentioned the stans’ childhood sucking earlier, and i don’t just mean stanley - it’s easier to pinpoint him as a victim of abuse/neglect, but that doesn’t mean ford had it great either. their parents (specifically filbrick, but caryn didn’t exactly do a fantastic job with them either) expected nothing of stan and the world of ford, both of which would weigh heavily on any child. plus, ford being the favorite doesn’t mean all of his emotional needs were met - filbrick seeing him as an opportunity to make money doesn’t mean he was suddenly an emotionally present and caring father towards him. WCT wasn’t just an opportunity for ford to go be a famous scientist or whatever - it was a chance for his father to love him, something both of the stans desperately wanted. (WCT was also on the opposite side of the country from where they lived but i’m sure that’s completely unrelated !!!)
do i think stan deserved anything that happened to him after the science fair incident? no, absolutely not, he was a child. do i think it was right of ford to just stand there as his brother got thrown out? no, absolutely not - but he was a child too. as for them not speaking for a decade after that, like i mentioned earlier ford can hold a grudge like no other. (this doesn’t just apply to stan, either, ford dedicated half of his life to trying to kill his ex lmao.) i think ford’s ability to hold on to anger like that is actually a pretty major part of/flaw in his personality, but again, anger - even the strongest, most long-lived of it - is not synonymous with hatred. stan, who ford has always gone to for help when he truly needed it, it not what ford’s hatred looks like. bill, who ford actively wants to die, is
anyways!! i never know how to close these things lol. ig in summary i just see ford’s behavior (in the show at least) as more of a sign of internal struggle rather than like ,, genuinely hating the people around him and wanting their lives to suck. did/does he have an ego problem? absolutely. is he incapable of love and human connection? no. is he immune to manipulation/abuse/neglect/etc and everything that comes with that? also no
he’s an interdimensional criminal why can’t he go to the theraprism. i think he should
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My thoughts on the (potential) Love Triangle between Taigen, Mizu and Akemi (part 1)
A lot of people want to know my opinion on the subject, so here it comes.
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First, I’d like to clarify. I’m not a fan of love triangles – for the simple reason that most creators cannot do them RIGHT.
I’ve seen multiple situations when writers who had previously created an amazing content, ruined their own show by sticking to the love triangles, which ended up being really cringy. There are multiple examples:
Emily in Paris, Sex Education - but well, in those tv series the main theme is a romance, and Blue Eye Samurai is a different kind of series: one in which romantic love is not the main theme, just something that is part of the main protagonist’s character development.
The Legend of Korra – that’s entirely different case, because when it first came out it was the series with a great potential written by great people, who have already created another really amazing cartoon series (The Last Airbender). And while the Legend of Korra stole the hearts of many people (not mine, though), huge part of its fandom agreed that the whole love triangle business was awful.
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Asami is really pretty and smart (like Akemi), while Korra is quite muscular and an amazing fighter (like Mizu). There's also Mako who finds first one of them really sweet, while the other just drives him crazy (sounds familiar?)
To understand what I’m talking about I need to reveal spoilers, so be warned. If you plan to watch the Legend of Korra and you don’t want to know anything about it, skip to the part “spoilers end” . Although I can tell you I’m going to talk ONLY about the love triangle, without mentioning anything else from the plot, so you can still watch The Legend of Korra after checking these spoilers and have a lot of fun. Anyway, to understand this meta, I definitively recommend reading everything, including Legend of Korra spoilers.
Here’s how the Love Triangle from this series played out:  
(spoilers begin)
The main protagonist, Korra starts falling for a certain handsome guy called Mako. He is her friend and he starts dating a very beautiful girl called Asami. All three of them have a lot of screen time together, because they are meant to form the so-called Team Avatar. The fourth person who is part of this is Mako’s brother Bolin and HE has a crush on Korra at some point, which change the Love Triangle into the Love Square, which makes it even more complicated and cringy.
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In season one there is a lot of bad stuff happening. Korra kisses Mako when he is still dating Asami, and she does so right after her date with Bolin. At the end of this season Mako and Korra end up together.
In season two Mako and Korra start as a couple, but their relationship is bad and full of fights. They break up and only two episodes later Mako kisses Asami. But Korra has a temporary amnesia, so she doesn’t remember the break up and next thing she does when she sees Mako is… kissing him. Yeah, really complicated shit. Eventually she remembers and they break up. Again.
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Fandom's reaction, basically.
In season three Korra, Mako and Asami are not dating anyone. In this season Korra and Asami start to act as friends and not mere colleagues. Their friendship looks quite nice.
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The Love Triangle FINALLY ends and the series only benefits from giving it up. Until...
In season four Korra and Asami are evidently close friends, but in my opinion they’re just that, I didn’t notice anything else. Except maybe one scene when Korra blushes and tugs a strand of hair behind her ear, when Asami compliments her new haircut. And at the end of the season… Korra and Asami end up together.
But not officially. Not on the screen. I mean… there is no kiss. They just stare at each other lovingly while holding hands. They only act like a real couple in sequels which are released as comics. The creators wanted to play it safe, so they decided to leave their canonical bisexual girls couple out of the animated series. They claimed it was their intention from season three.
(spoilers end)
And I hate how it was done, but not because the endgame couple is a bad couple. They are really great together in sequels, but my problem with this is that we didn’t get good enough build-up for them in previous seasons.
I mean… if you REALLY want to SEE some early signs of the endgame couple, then you WILL see them, but only if you look for them specifically. Which I understand perfectly well, because I often ship different people in different shows – both animated and live action, both gay and heterosexual – and even if they don’t end up being canon, I still have a lot of fun checking out fanarts and fanfictions.
My main rule is “ship and allow others to ship” (whatever and whoever they want). We can ship different things and still be respectful to each other.
But, back to the business… You probably wonder why I talked so much about the Legend of Korra when I’m supposed to talk about Blue Eye Samurai?
Because that’s my main concern about the upcoming (rumored) Love Triangle in the series. That it will be cringy and it will make the engame couple’s relationship look less believable, just like the Legend of Korra.
But it doesn’t necessarily need to go into this direction.
Because, guess what? Some animated series actually created AWESOME Love Triangles and by doing this they made their endgame couple’s relationship MORE believable and MORE mature.
Great example of this is Miraculous Ladybug.
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And I’m telling you – if you haven’t watched it yet, you absolutely HAVE TO! Don’t let the fact that it’s the kids show discourage you. They do some awesome plot twists and story building. And their LOVE TRIANGLES are so well executed.
This time I will reveal some spoilers WITHOUT spoilers so you can read everything without skipping.
So, the thing is, two main protagonists Adrien and Marinette are interested in other people throughout the series and they date different people throughout the series. All of this serves the plot really nicely, because it helps these characters learn stuff, to figure out what they want, so they can prepare themselves to be the part of the endgame couple.
The idea behind those Triangles is that sometimes “to understand why some people are not right for you, you first need to date them” and “every relationship is a lesson”. And it was also truth for MIZU, because her relationship with Mikio was an incredibly painful lesson. Also, both she and we (the audience) learned what kind of person is wrong for her. That she cannot be with a backboneless coward who cannot handle strong women (guess who can?).
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Check out my other post about Peaches to learn how this particular relationship killed Mizu's innocence.
Interestingly, there is another similarity between Miraculous Ladybug and Blue Eye Samurai. It’s not really a spoiler, because it gets established IMMEDIATELY in the show.
The real fun of Miraculous Ladybug is the fact that Adrien and Marinette are also superheroes of Paris – Cat Noir and Miraculous Ladybug - and they DON'T KNOW each other's secret identities.
And it’s really hilarious, because Adrien doesn’t really notice Marinette (at first) but he crushes really hard on Ladybug, without knowing that she is Marinette. But he mainly courts her as Cat Noir, and Marinette (who is Ladybug) doesn’t really like Cat Noir ROMANTICALLY, she only sees him as a friend (who annoys her with his crush). BUT she is head over heels for Adrien, without knowing that he is Cat Noir. Fandom likes to refer to this situation as The Love Quadruple.
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Why limit yourself with the Triangle when you can have the Quadruple?
And it makes this show SO FUN to watch, because it leads to many emotional or/and ridiculous moments, and the audience is having the time of their life. I observe a certain similarity between this AND Blue Eye Samurai.
Because let’s face it – the funniest part of BES is based on the fact that no one besides Ringo (possibly also Master Eiji) KNOWS that Mizu is a woman.
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Taigen who is convinced that Mizu has a dick, and Ringo who is genuinely curious about how two girls have sex XD
And if a girl (not necessarily Akemi) were to fall for Mizu (whether Mizu would reciprocate is a completely different story), it could lead to many interesting (and funny) situations. But it would have to be executed in a smart way, without losing the endgame couple from the sight.
Because if it’s done without control, it could lead to a scenario I really HATE and it appears in various anime (mainly those of shounen type). It’s the case when the author of the series creates many romantic situations with different characters, so you can ship many couples and you don’t know until last minute which one would be endgame.
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The greatest examples of this would be Bleach and Naruto, both of which had Love Triangles which annoyed me to the core. While I genuinely enjoyed watching these two series, the romantic parts just made me do constant facepalms. Honestly, I’m not sure which one was worse.
Ichigo with his huge “rescue Rukia, do anything for Rukia” arc only to have another arc to rescue Orihime?    
Nah, it was probably Naruto with his “ignore Hinata, who is crushing on me so much she cannot utter a word in my presence, adore Sakura just cause she’s cute, but spend 90% of my time (90% of the plot) obsessing over SASUKE, because he is absolutely NOTHING MORE than my rival, and it’s a total coincidence I kissed him at the very beginning of the series and I literally cannot have ANY major episode without yelling his name and telling everyone why I want him back”.
Yeah, Naruto and Sasuke, just platonic friendship. Sure.
Okay, but jokes aside (it’s not really a spoiler, since Boruto exists and the majority of Internet is aware of the fact)…
Although I think the endgame couple Naruhina is a really cute couple and they have a good story in “The Last”, their relationship would be much more enjoyable if the author used the plot to solidify their mutual attraction, instead of introducing Love Triangles just for the sake of… Love Triangles. Because, let’s face it – from the narrative point of view, Naruto being with Sasuke makes much more sense. I mean, come on, Sasuke (and Ramen) is all Naruto ever talks and thinks about, and the only thing Sasuke thinks about when he doesn’t think about his revenge (sounds familiar?) is Naruto.
Doing something like this – creating Love Triangles to create confusion and to make ALL THE SHIPPERS happy – is definitely something I DON”T WANT to see in Blue Eye Samurai.
Because you cannot make everyone happy. Instead you should create an amazing content and those who are unhappy can comfort themselves with fanfiction ^^ (Ao3 exists for a reason, you know?)
So, okay, I talked a lot about Love Triangles and different series, so now it’s time to talk about Blue Eye Samurai itself.
PART 2, PART 3
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prince-dolls · 5 months ago
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Week one of the @look-back-month-challenge !
Since I only started collecting dolls recently, I'm including all the toys:) and I'm bad at doing daily things so here's the whole week^_^
Day 1: introduce the newest toy to the one you had longest
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I've had Bella since I was two! My sister was born at that time so we got a puppy each<3 she's still the cutest plushie ever to me! Newest is the Miku doll that I got in the beggining of january. I basically only got her body, face is 3d printed and everything else I made myself.
Day 2: chronologically oldest toy
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For this day, we got my furby Jace Furbelen and my bunny!
I bought Jace, but the bunny was gifted to me by my childhood friend. She was a little older and a single child, so she had all the cool toys! He never got a name, but I played with him a lot, mainly with my sister, who had a cat lps. We would build houses for them from leaves, grass, sticks and magnolia flower petals or dig them caves in the sand:) then she would get mad at me when my houses were better xD
Day 3: a toy you love but rarely photograph
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This could be almost anything, since I only post dolls and furbies, but I love my little dragons! We got Saphira, Firnen and a snalgli:)
They're 3d printed and I made them into Inheritance characters<3 Eragon and the other books were everything to my child self, so I adore having these out! They're so cute, I love how Firnen is a bit smaller and he has to look up at Saphira and I'm happy they get to be together forever on my desk/shelf<3
I also made the lil snail guy look like the ugly slugs (the slimy look included hehe) and I love him for it>:)
Day 4: do you still have any toys from your childhood?
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YES!! A LOT!
I love my toys, and when I love something, I don't want to get rid of it. These are just some; I get *very* attached to my things, from toys to the laptop I had for years after the hinge broke and I had to prop the screen up every time I used it. I still have my bakugans, gormiti figures, my filly ponies, lps animals... I do only keep one to three of each thing, though. Others I usually give away to my little sisters. So I have a big range of toys from my childhood, but not a lot of them in numbers. I got two fillies, three gormits, two bakugans, one pony toy... for the ones in the pictures, we got my TMNT Mickey figure (that lost his skateboard and that looked much better to the child me lol), a fairy I got in a pink heart bath bomb (I didn't know it was a bath bomb and made it diffuse in a jug of water to get her out and she smelled amazing for a decade after getting her) and my beloved bakugans that live on my desk lamp!
Day 5: any buying regrets?
that little penny's box goat girl...😒 I really, really thought I would love her. I did not. It was bad, I felt bad and seeing her made me feel worse. Luckly, with the help of my boyfriend I managed to fix everything and I love the sheep boy that she became! I actually made a whole post about fixing him already:)
Day 6: any you're thinking about getting rid of?
Eh.. no. At least not in the foreseeable future. If I get bored of dolls or furbies I'll keep them, since it's not like there's a lot. For the other toys, they already passed the "keep at most three of a kind" test, so I'm left with only what I really loved or what has a big sentiment attached.
I did cancel one order this week though, for the UfDoll tea series boy. I would fully change him anyway, and he was meant to be a bigger version of a doll I already have, so with a bit more thinking (and the seller being late on shipping the guy) I decided against it. Sure, it would be nice, but I don't really need him. I'd rather save that money for something else:)
Day 7: a toy you like, but don't want any more of that kind/line/style
Most of the toys from my childhood, I already have the ones I wanted and I don't want any more. I also don't want any more furbies, I got my beloved Frupi and Jace and they're enough for me:) I love my furbies so much, I feel I don't have the capacity to add another one! I could not care for so many>_< also, for as much as I adore the UfDoll 1/12 body dolls (I got 3), I think that's my limit:)
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Bonus picture of the toy shelf!^_^
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tamelee · 11 months ago
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Hi tamee :) I don’t know if you answer questions about fics or writing from fans but I was wondering if you can help me out. I’m writing a fic and it starts right after where the anime ends as Sasuke leaves Konoha. But a vital point in my story is that he goes to prison. So I discussed this with a friend and she just starts going at me about how much she hates fics like that and about Sasuke not being guilty but it isn’t about that tho I want to know what you think about those too but it’s just a point in the story. Do you get what I mean? I feel so discouraged and I was so excited about it too as it’s inspired by another story 😢 Do you think it’s okay to write about it for a fic or will fans hate it?
Hi~ 
I appreciate the trust you’re giving my judgement on that >< take my advice lightly though and feel free to discard it immediately if it doesn’t resonate. It’s ultimately completely up to you and what you want to do.
Let me just say that I completely understand where your friend is coming from. I’ve seen this discussed before and although I won’t discuss specific fanwork, I’ve heavily criticized Esaka’s ‘Sasuke Retsuden’ for this reason as well. She put her idea of Sasuke that fit the story she wanted to tell (not as he is) as an incompetent, completely idiotic, passive, and unconvincing character through a “plot” that included a prison simply so she could use a bunch of female-deprived criminals for scenes and have them fall in love with the “sexy-new-doctor-Sakura” and pretend Sasuke would be jealous. Ultimately, Esaka’s braindead-Sasuke being there and behaving pathetically had nothing to do with the story, especially because most of the plot points that moved the story further happened in a building next to it and he didn’t even do what he said he would do in prison 🤷🏻‍♀️
I don’t really think it matters what you choose to do, but your intention behind it does. 
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The Anime added that scene of Sasuke being imprisoned to show that they punished him for his actions and he willingly let that happen which insinuates he felt guilty and that doing so was the right thing to do. (Also, Naruto's reaction about it was weird.) This is a problem (for many reasons) because it changes the scene of him leaving Konoha as well. His informal “sorry/thank you” (he says すまない - sumanai which expresses both) enhances that further whereas in the Manga he doesn’t look guilty in the slightest and the words are spoken for Kakashi and Sakura’s sake (the pause in the Manga says it all because the “aah” in the Anime has a tone of understanding)- not because he expresses any regret. Instances like this, no matter how small, is exactly why people in this fandom can never just agree with each other. 
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You can always explore these feelings through characters because they all experience it differently, but ask yourself why and what your message is? Is your story proving that Sasuke should be feeling guilty? Does he agree with the imprisonment in your story? Do the characters around him agree? Are you trying to prove a point? What is the meaning behind the choice to put him in jail and what are you saying to your readers? It all depends on these things imo.
A bit off-topic but I personally enjoy stories a whole lot more when there's... you know, conflict. It's not really a story without it and sometimes you gotta torture the characters first and let them believe in something you want to prove is wrong and get to the point that you're working your way towards. (Congrats, there's a Theme ><) Sometimes in fandoms its readers don't have that patience... I’ve noticed that some fans specifically want everything to be accomplished and happy right from the start because they already know the characters (I’m not saying it’s a bad thing), but they aren’t looking for a story, they want comfort. In which case it's understandable, but know please that it's not a fault in your writing. It really is just an observation. Perhaps, if your story isn’t heavily revolving around your plot then I wouldn’t complicate it- again, it’s all up to you though!! Happy writing 🧡
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inventors-fair · 5 months ago
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Anacommentary
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Themes we had in common this week: lots of deathtouch, which is understandable; quite a few enchantments, honestly more than I was expecting; an abundance of green which was far from surprising, but also—a large amount of blue? It's not that odd to see, considering the history of the Sultai, but there was barely any white, and I think only a single red card in the whole shebang. Serpents and snakes actually have some history in red imagery, right? That's pretty surprising. But there was a good blend of history and originality here, and I liked the strongest of both sides in equal measure. I think that even though they're underrepresented, people know their snakes when they see them.
Sorry about the lateness on this one, but hoo boy there's been a lot of life and Magic in the way. Let's keep going and get some work in. I like the swinging between big mechanics and big flavor, but I want this year to really be a strong contender for the kinds of contests that make me excited about the game. Things that make me happy within here feel a little difficult sometimes with some of MTG's direction, especially seeing it on the front lines at the LGS. Snakes are lovely and the love of snakes is just so.
Speaking of things, JUDGE PICKS are cards that I wanna put a little pin in to say "yeah check this out." Sometimes they were close to podium-ing, sometimes they're just cool.
Last note: AD was wonderful this week for those that included it, and thank you all for putting it in the text box of the card itself. Saves me an eternity of double-checking.
@curiooftheheart — Fynn, the Bared Fang
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The Omenpaths certainly are interesting tools for traveling the planes now, aren't they. I do wonder, with the whole Bloomburrow angle, what came first from this card. Did the association between Fynn and his snakey history develop into the name, or was the little switcheroo something that came first with the reasoning added around it? Either way, I think it's a little silly—not a bad silly, just maybe not the kind of silly that resonates with me. I do enjoy the idea that other characters can/should get themselves changed between worlds, and Bloomburrow really is the coolest way to depict these changes re:Dragonhawk et. al. It's interesting that this is the second anthropomorphized snake in the submissions; how canon are those to the plane? Because I don't remember any except through the planeswalkers. Hm.
Multiplying deathtouchy snake guys is pretty great for a mechanical bend, though, and if you've got the right evasion in limited then you can make this work just fine without too much trouble. A little toughness boost means that early hits are going to create some problematic bodies and it's a fair bit easier to trade. As someone who really.....really, really, really disliked playing Bloomburrow in draft, I hope that the archetypes are different upon return, because goodness knows that this would be perfect for a GB shell in almost any other format with a little extra deathtouch to go around, and you can't do that with squirrels. Ugh. I assume this would be for a limited set, but it could be okay for, like, a Commander bonus sheet like how DMU had? I'm not quite certain what that particular intent was.
~
@dabudder — Illusory Molting (JUDGE PICK)
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Okay, it took a second of processing before my worries about infinite snakes were quelled. What a doozy. Firstly, all things considered, I'm really surprised that there weren't/aren't more cobra motifs on Avishkar. I know that cobras are more of just an indigenous species than a national symbol of India, but they're super cool and pretty specific. One greenhouse serpent does not a motif make. The AD is great, clear and beautiful. In the flavor, I'd drop "certain" from the start, and maybe change the second half to something a little more specific. I do love the lore that you put into it, though, because aether-animals on Avishkar are already cool, and I love seeing the changes in behavior that result from it.
Like on this spell, for example! If you cast this on your opponent's end step, you get a copy of your best creature and all its relative triggers to swing in with at the end step. Saving one of your creatures from a removal spell and/or forcing an illegal target somehow is how you're gonna be using this the most often. And like, I don't think anyone's gonna be first-picking this in draft, let's be real. This is a standard card that's designed for brewing, for limited benefit, for token fun, etc. Whether or not the set around it has any of that support doesn't really matter, because this card's purpose is pretty easy to grok and the side benefits are already there for folks who love UG copies in the vein of Biovisionary/Doppelgang and the like. Y'know? I'm among those fans, so there you go!
~
@dimestoretajic — Cold Blooded
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What I do like is the ophiomancy angle, used to turn people into snakes to slow them down in a snowy environment. Really great mechanical representation of a limited intersection that feels magical, funny, and interesting all at once. There are a couple minor mechanical changes, but they really are minor. For one, I think it could put a stun counter on when it enters, maybe even tapping it? I feel that the turn you play this should generate some board advantage, because otherwise it just discourages tapping and feels like a non-choice rather than interaction. For two, I'd personally make this a Snow card, but that has less to do with the actual mechanics and more with the flavor bend.
The flavor text is pretty okay conceptually. I think the art direction is stellar, and then the text says "in here" and the illusion is ruined. Where is "here?" I know this is partially semantics, but it's an attention-to-detail thing; the humorist's trope could've been changed to "Is it getting colder" and worked just fine. I know this is a really minor thing! I know. It just feels like an oversight and I'm irrationally peeved. The gist is still great. Minor MSE templating: use shift+enter to make the names of the quoted characters closer to the quote, use an emdash instead of two hyphens, and don't add a space. Anyway, yes—polish, polish, polish. Thank you for putting the AD in the text box, FWIW. Makes life a lot easier.
~
@feyd-rautha-apologist — Serpent's Sight
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Do I love this card? Yes. Do I think it should be a rare? Yes—to its detriment. I think there's something cool to be said for the power level of looking at the top card of each player's library, but aside from that information, you get a conditional block trigger. I love auras, don't get me wrong, but creature auras are fairly weak overall. I saw the note about this being designed for Commander—well, what kind of deck would want this? Conditional abilities for three colors to go on a creature that's going to be subject to some pretty intense removal options from three other players is...asking a lot. The general information necessitates this being a rare. Pragmatically, this card forces a Voltron block, and that's effectively it. No library manipulation, no literal force-blocking... I just don't see where this card would have a home.
The intent on having a snake-themed first-strike-deathtouch card is on point. The name, the gorgeous art direction, that absolutely top-notch flavor text! Like, you knocked it out of the park there. The card's functionality just leaves a little bit to be desired in this more competitive world. What could make it more powerful while retaining snakeness? For one, I think the ability to look at the top card of each player's library at any time would be totally okay, and quite political. If it gave first strike and deathtouch to all your blocked creatures based on the reveals... Maybe that would be a bit much, but it can be tamped down. It's hard to add the specifics in while keeping room for the flavor (which is admittedly cramped space-wise but, I need to emphasize, EARNS. ITS. KEEP.) but there are plenty of things to brainstorm here.
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@grornt — Shorestalker Krait (JUDGE PICK)
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Yay for off-color triggers! I mean, this card's still very good, and we all know that it's good. The mechanics of a built-in Curiosity means you can run this card in mono-green and do just fine but that any kind of UG build is going to make it better and make your opponent consider your mana situation. Maybe you have a combat trick, maybe you just want to draw a card. I've always loved the ways that deathtouch changed combat, especially with the triggers like this. The ability to force your opponents' reconsideration of combat is an awesome feeling. Who knows what you're gonna do?
And fantastic use of the word "krait," too. Sea snakes don't get enough love. The zoo won't let me in to the Reptile Cuddle Puddle Hour either, something about "highly toxic" and "sir your crying is upsetting the snakes," whatever. Poor Pogu here, though, is about to learn a lesson, and that kind of environment makes me wonder what species Pogu is? I'm a bit confused by what the AD would be for this—maybe someone's feet splashing around the shallows as the krait winds its way around their legs? Are they elf, human... Not that it especially matters, but I'm wondering what the exact depiction would be here with such a well-written story to accent it. Hey, with a card like this, my role's already done: you know you did a great job here.
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@guardgomabroa — Sidisi, Loyal Servant
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Boy. This one's a doozy. In terms of snakeosity, I like the fact that you included poison counters here. Snakes are pretty adept at poisoning people and that mostly takes the form of deathtouch. For player-direct things, as if the Commander is an extension of the player, I think poisoning people works. This one's really leaning more into the whole "advisor" portion of it, though, and that's where I'm really wondering where on earth the politics would work out. Like, I'm tempted to give this to the Commander players tomorrow/Saturday and ask what they would do with the politics of it all. The problem is, with Sidisi out, nobody wants to become the Monarch. So what happens?
Sidisi enters, and you choose your target. What does everyone else do? They don't want to attack that player. If they get rid of you/Sidisi, they can freely contest the monarch, but if you've chosen a "problem" opponent as your poison victim, then they don't want to do that, and then that player dies and there's no monarch again. How would the game progress from there? The other question would be how to build this deck, and I don't have a great answer for that. If you goad players, then they're just going to be hating you for making them hit someone. If you do it slow and mill-style, then there's that conundrum above. I think this card is definitely insidious. I don't know how actually strategic it would be to play even in the 99. The self-mill is... Well honestly, that could've been a draw trigger instead, because there's not much synergy with that. Flavor with the character, but no synergy. I don't think I "get" this card yet, but I want to hear about the decision process all the same.
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@hanavesinauttija — Vuyokazi, Coiled Guardian
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There are a couple of little things that I'm just not quite meeting here, and they're essentially good ideas that I feel could have been refined by one or two degrees. Lord knows I love a massive snake so jot that down, AD on point. With the flavor text, I'm wondering about the planar exploration thing. It's curious, actually—I'm still getting used to Omenpaths and I wonder if we're going to see these interactions more and more. How do they play out? Well, in these jungles, it doesn't play well for visitors, that's for sure. Is there that much of a planar warning, though? How is Omenpath exploration canonized in terms of normalcy enough for "veteran" explorers to be a thing? I love the notion you're going for, but parsing it feels that it could be a little more refined in terms of sentence structure; that's a me thing, not an overall thing, it's grokable.
It's also pretty grokable that creatures with flash are the intended build-around, and once again it feels like this is one of those DMU-legend-sheet cards where "a commander for everyone" was included. Not a bad thing, but it's an odd place to juggle, innit? Anyway. I think that there could've been a little more flexibility, and that this card could've said "if it entered the battlefield this turn" instead of just being cast. Then you could have the additional white blink shenanigans, and it would ALSO work with flash, for the double-whammy. Having deathtouch here feels...very weird, not gonna lie. The overlap of just GW has only seen a little bit of that (three cards, wow) and the blocking-only trigger making everything into Ambush Viper is... It just parses oddly in these colors, but perhaps in this day and age it's okay to move things to different angles. I would have to see a lot more to be convinced, and even then, Ambush Viper is contentious as-is. I wonder if this could've been a 2/3 uncommon if the deathtouch part was removed. 
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@helloijustreadyourpost — Marchesa's Gift (JUDGE PICK)
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I can imagine this art pretty clearly: Marchesa's hand outstretched, with a snake coiled around her arm and wrist, its neck raised as it looks right at the camera with Marchesa's arm foreshortened to really pull the focus into the snake. I love it! Great mood, great depiction. The whole mood of this card plays up the monarch's sadism, and kinda takes away from the snake as its own character and more an extension of Marchesa's rule. To be clear, that's a cool thing, because it's clear that this card is doing exactly what it wants to do. I think the flavor text knows it's juggling negatives and grammar a tiny bit, but that's what's gotta be done.
And yeah, deathtouch + menace is a potent combo if you're going after the monarch; whether or not this card is supposed to play into multiplayer stuff where the monarch is involved, that's not clear outside of the flavor/scene. Regardless, it's not about that—it's about being a body with decent removal for cards that were played a couple turns earlier and/or chump-blockers that are stopping you from swinging in later. Overall, yeah, this card's good at killing early and it's a real pain when killing late. You could throw a bear and token in front of it, but at that point you really are just chumping, and it makes it really difficult to deal with no matter what, y'know? Fun uncommon overall! 
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@hypexion — Kenas, Ophian Exarch
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Well this card's weird as hell. Not a bad thing, but this is some semi-new space that's putting some work in. I also think that it could have leaned back a little bit into a simplified/modal version. I'd have given Kenas vigilance, deathtouch, and lifelink to begin with, and then... I think to get this general effect, had it be a trigger where you can pay upon them entering—G gives a vigilance counter, W gives lifelink, B gives deathtouch. But that's not the whole intent, is it. You wanted other counters to happen as well in case of other things. Hm... Maybe the activations could've been all in one, and it's just "GWB: Put your choice of a X, Y, or Z counter on ~."
Something in me wants there to be an additional benefit, but I don't know how. I feel that you could've pushed a little bit more, given some additional synergy to repeat the counters, spread the love, I don't know. And the only reason I'm really trying to shape this card is because you've presented such a neat idea and I want to take that expertise and mold it into something super radical, because I do genuinely love it. Snakes, Assassins, and Clerics... Because a ruler needs their people, workers, and faithful few. Clerics in these colors is such a smart choice, too! Like, I personally think this iteration has way too high a bar to get the counters on, and it feels like there's a lot of clunkiness that could be cut down by separating the abilities. I also feel like this is one of the most unique submissions here and it deserves attention to fulfill its mythic status.
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@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Snakes on a Thopter
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Well, you and I are both well aware that this card is a little silly, and that we're not going to go all magnifying-glass final-term-paper on it. Let's talk about the concept, let's talk about the fact that I'm laughing right now, and let's have some fun. Firstly... Okay, I typed the word "firstly," but I don't actually know where to begin. Analyzing the story is silly, because it's a thopter and there's hardly gonna be an "Everybody" much less a high-tension 90-minute thriller about the snakes upon it. Making me grin is probably the bar to aim for, and I'm gonna go with it there. Great original art for it as well.
You know what? This should be two mana. That's it, that's the extent of my mechanical criticism for it. Really! One mana for three tokens without the cost that Kuldotha Rebirth/Gleeful Demolition has is a little bit much, especially when there's deathtouch involved. But for two mana, you can get one or three deathtouch tokens, and you can adjust your curve with your various lower-costing vehicles to get the job done. Boom. Is that too much thought for this card? No, each card deserves the balance and effort that gets put into it. I personally feel that the snakes on said thopter need to be let down safely and rehabilitated. That's all I'll say on the matter and my agent can handle the rest of these questions.
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@melancholia-ennui — Coils of Pharika
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I took some time to read over the notes for your submission, and ultimately, there's not much I disagree with. I think I underestimated how much people enjoy Pharika, and it's a shame that her actual card is...pretty middling, if I'm being honest, but the point is about the aesthetics. She's an absolutely gorgeous (and gorgon-ous) god. I initially dismissed this card because the tapping and sacrificing and the upkeep stuff felt essentially like a color-shifted Koma, as mentioned. It's frustrating to call out the similarities, because like, Koma's uniqueness doesn't mean it has a monopoly on these abilities. Your argumentation about growth, indestructibility, hydra parallels, and multiplayer facets all make sense. This is, by all measurable means, a good card.
Does it have to necessarily be original? I don't know what to say to that. This card uses the inspiration in ways that feels relevant to what it wants to do. I'd play with it and I'd be intent on seeing the ways that I'd have to deal with it around a Commander table. If we were judging solely on that, then I'd say that this card is awesome. I think I'll leave it at that, then. Obviously we want "original" cards here, because it's the nature of custom magic design to explore what could be. This card IS original, though—it's a love letter to a goddess that happens to use the taste of previous snakes to echo across the planes. Who owns the abilities, if that question is even relevant? I'm willing to relinquish that and embrace this card's best qualities.
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@misterstingyjack — Hsys, Exalted Constrictor / Constriction of Hsys
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Vanilla legends, we're really in for it now. Wild that we're back to this after so many years... But tis the season. Anyway, let's talk about snakes! For one, it took a little rules-questioning, but this does indeed work somehow because of the DFC rules. It's not the most intuitive, I'll say that much. But it works. The cost-to-statline is pretty rough considering the bar of XXYY to effect, but the overrun on the backside is honestly fair for what it does: win the game. Like, you don't even need evasive abilities on your creatures, because it makes them functionally unblockable. That's a great effect, and probably necessary for UG limited. Allegedly it's the hardest archetype to design for, ergo. I think dropping one of the blue pips from the cost of Hsys and making it generic instead would've been fine.
The name, on the other hand, is way too crunched in there. Yes, playtesting and functionality, but we're doing the critical smorgasbord here, so edit appropriately, harrumph. Flavor text: 10/10 on the frontside. Everything is crisp, mythical, visceral, and I'm down for it. She is indeed an elder snake! I wonder what the functionality of the aftermath is to the story, and there's some conjecture there. Presumably, after something kills Hsys, you can cast the constriction, so is that like a mythos of her coils? Or is the front face more of her mouth attacking, and the constrictions the result of the body that follows once the head has slithered off? It's not entirely clear, but I'd like to hear what your thoughts are.
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@nine-effing-hells — Wyrm-Hexed Heir
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I'm gonna remind myself to link to the Prince Lindworm story HERE, for those of you who are reading this and need context like I did. I'm not that familiar with Norwegian fairy tales, but here we are now, and I gotta say, you got things pretty much down exactly! Or at least, that particular aspect of the story. Is it hard to translate these things into cards a lot of the time? I say yes. Honestly, I'd say that you could've shortened some things, because the flavor text and the adventure name are really crunched in there. That's a card constraint thing more than it is a legitimate card critique, though, so let's talk about the actual mechanical parts.
The translation aspect of story to card is a little rough considering that there's not an easy way to have these two be synergistic in the deck that might want to play them, at least not directly. Bargaining is one thing, but that's also assumes this is seeing play in the WOE Bargain archetype. Maybe it is! Looking at the snake itself, I gotta say, a five-mana 3/3 isn't the most intimidating. Sacrifice your smallest thing and then you got a blocker. What else could've gone there to make it more intimidating? I'd say that a 4/5 body could've been pretty chunky, and hell, even deathtouch could've been a fine addition here. I don't want to say that because there's so, so, so much deathtouch in these submissions already, but if you're gonna make evasion that much harder, I'd say really go for it. Perhaps the punitive aspects are already present and I'm underestimating them, but five mana should be able to finish some games in limited, IMO, and a 3/3 isn't gonna get there. Still: love the notions that you've made and I love being introduced to a new cultural story. The tweaks are easily tweaked, so nobody needs to get the whips out.
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@piccadilly-blue — Eurydade, Coil's Whisper
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Are you okay? This card is...fairly normal. I kid, I kid, because it's nice to see some cool grounded pushing. I saw the worries about whether or not this card was mechanically able to do these things, but hey, Fiend Artisan says so, and the tutor-to-life-loss in black can do its job here just fine. The only issue is the fact that for a lot of Commander players who say "my deck's a 5, but it can hold its own at a competitive table," this card would read as "get combo and win." Those players are lying, by the way, because cEDH is its own lovely world, but that's not the point. Repeated tutors that are hard to get rid of are a big feelsbad at the table. In limited, of course, this card's just plain slam-and-jam, to the point where I'm not even worried about it.
It's interesting that it's not a "may" ability, and that it forces a creature to attack. Like, in theory, there's not much that this card can do for creature combos unless it also has ways of protecting them and of protecting your life total. It's not that hard, tbh, through black shenanigans... I worry that the player who plays this card will get hated out to the point where they don't want to play it. If it only tutored creatures, then it would be an easy thumbs-up. The fact that it's any card makes me want to have the cost upped or some kind of non-combo drawback, but that balance is really difficult. I like this card a lot, and it's giving me a lot to think about! Where is the line, though, that's the real question... 
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@ra-ra-ranamon — Two-Headed Cobra
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You're the first person to reference a teammate this contest, and I think you might actually have been the only one! Yay! So here's the question: would it be worth it to target another player instead of referencing a teammate because of the fact that it could work for politics in other multiplayer formats besides 2HG? Or, is the reference here specific enough that it should be taken at face value for a teammate set, with the knowledge that it's not going to have usage outside of that, and is just a Rampant Growth on a stick otherwise?
The rub of it lies in the design principles of modern Magic and how you want to go about navigating those waters. Personally, I understand how specificity is okay to spicing up those formats for the sake of variety. Which formats are relevant enough to make that kind of wording reasonable, though? And that's where I gotta ultimately land: there's an easy way to make this target another player instead of specifically a teammate, and then it works both in a Battlebondian limited and other formats as well. It's a fine blocker and a fine card in general all things considered, yeah? Definitely good for making friends and helping with spicier fixing/ramp, and it could help with early mana trouble if someone is keeping a risky hand without wanting to mulligan. The design is actually REALLY good for 2HG if you can get there, so it's a semi-cautionary but ultimately approving thumbs-up from me.
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@real-aspen-hours — Deathrite Serpents
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Getting things in literally five minutes before the deadline is...cutting it a little close. I think from now on, I'd caution everyone to consider: the submission cutoff isn't like a test timer, but it's more like a reminder that we need things in prior in order to add them to the posts, because life/jobs/etc necessitate it. Cutting it close also means that you might miss important things on cards like power and toughness. Either way, we're back to the Ambush Viper question and flash on deathtouch creatures. It's fine, of course, to have it in the multicolor, and with the other mono-black instants that do deathtouch/indestructible, it kind of makes sense.
All that on a body of indeterminate size, plus fighting, plus flash... This card is trying to make a lot of destruction spells where there doesn't really need to be any. Spreading out the various effects across these colors means your modal spell feels like a single spell that has too many moving parts to function differently than you really want it to. Frankly, the fighting AND the inherent deathtouch are unnecessary. I think a flash creature that does an Offer Immortality plus [effect that's different than that] would be a fine rare; a Naturalize, perhaps. Last note: I appreciate the more abstract idea here with the flavor, sort of. I'd rather see the twist on the tropes than just having the themes stated.
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@reaperfromtheabyss — Ecdysal Genesis
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I learned a new word, yay! I'm not gonna remember it because I've got a lot of words already fighting for space in there, but it's a really great word to keep in mind. The principle of the flavor is there and there's something kinda gross and gnarly to be said for the image of snakeskin just turning into little phantom snakes themselves. The mechanics and the art and the mood all come together in a great way. I also strongly disagree with how the cost works here vs. the effect. I would've worded this card just to target a creature you control, remove its counters, then create the snakes. Easy peasy, with room for flavor text.
Oddly enough, Hierophant Bio-Titan is the only other card that can remove counters as an optional additional cost, from what I've found. I had no idea that card even existed, so there you go... Either way, I still think that something like Hex Parasite could've been a better example, but again, that's just me. My reasoning is that, while removing counters as a cost makes sense as an activated ability, instants/sorceries don't necessarily need that wording, and if this spell gets countered then you're left with a counterless creature and no snakes. In terms of how this card functions in general, I should say that I think it's super cool and a great way to make a lot of tokens, and it's especially fun with, like, Railway Brawler and its ilk. Counters are fun! Tokens are fun! I think there are better ways to implement this card but it still has that great basis.
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@sparkyyoungupstart — The Serpent Consumed/The Serpent Consuming
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More-oboros? I like seeing what kinds of snake tropes/images people latch onto for this week. It's a great cultural touchstone. This card is...certainly ambitious. Let's talk about the fact that there are a lot of triggers that make this not quite the cycle that you're looking for. Rather, it's the specific fact that the triggers happen upon entering when the exile/return happens. After the third chapter of Consumed, you'll get to reanimate two creatures, and them immediately you'll have to sacrifice three creatures because it'll flip to the front side. After discarding three cards, you'll immediately flip to the front and draw two, which is...fine? But at the same time, I mean, you're always netting a loss.
Is that the intent? Probably—always consuming, but always consumed at the same time, until you are eaten. I don't hate the fact that you're going for a lesson-y thing. What's missing is the fact that, in nearly any format where you're trying to make things relevant over time (the point of sagas), this card reads "BBB: You lose the race." Immediately sacrificing blockers means you get swung in on, and then you bolt yourself. Then you discard the card that you drew for the turn, with the promise of maybe getting some advantage? Then in two turns, if you're not dead, you lose your board again. Who would play this, and why? This card objectively makes winning the game so much more difficult in every circumstance. I don't mind story-themed cards, but Magic is still a game at its core.
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@tanknspank — Snake Charmer
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Jail for one thousand years. It took me a second to get the gist but this is a very clever card overall, and whatever, if they can make Charming Prince, then you can make this guy. I think that "green's pushing their creatures again" is the embodiment of this card in a ELD-era fashion; it's not fundamentally unbalanced or broken, though. Getting a boost on a creature: super good. Fighting: honestly even better, and unless you're tutoring in limited you're going to be using that mode the most, I think. I would have preferred for it to do it with one you control and one you don't, just to ensure that there's the intended interaction, but that's my modern sensibilities.
Is the tutoring what makes it too much? That's...a very good question, and I don't know if I have an answer to that. Even though it doesn't get it to hand, you still get to search, and the push for this card to be a bounceable, warded body is a little much. That's what breaks the card, if anything, or at least pushes it over the line. Even though this isn't in Eldraine flavorfully, I would suggest instead that the third mode be a Once upon a Time effect? Not guaranteeing a hit would at the very least put some damper on the abuse potential. All-upside cards like this need a little bit of braking, and perhaps I'm just paranoid. I'll stand by my judgement, though. Love the fun niche.
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@xenobladexfan — One Among the Fanged (JUDGE PICK)
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I'm getting KOL vibes, in a good way. Heh. So! I'm vibing with this notion of someone who's embraced their snake powers, although I'm curious if it's a spectral-snake kind of deal where they're summoned from pure magic, or if they're controlling a group of snakes in a more shamanistic nature-oriented way. Regardless, this is probably more of the mechanical-matters kind of deal with the "form of" feelings integrated, yeah? No Mercy has always been a real pain in the butt, but six mana compared to four with all these upsides isn't so bad. I think the intent, giving YOU "deathtouch," is pretty sensible.
Getting the extra life loss in is cool, too, although I think the long-lasting-poison flavor doesn't need to be there, exactly? Life loss on damage when it's dealt would be totally okay. The memory issues, especially if something complicated happens in the second main phase, are potentially frustrating enough to knock back to contact, i.e. the payment trigger should happen immediately. All in all, though, this card may be a finisher, but it's not entirely unstoppable. Larger/evasive creatures can swing in around after a couple turns, and/or they can hold blockers to ensure your own swings aren't as harmful until you have an empty board. But if you already have the upper hand, well! It certainly makes for a venomous crackback. Big, flashy, game-ending potentially, but not unbalanced. Nice stuff.
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@yd12k — Orochi Oracle
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I appreciate how much effort went into making the explore ability work on the channel there. Is it worth it? I...don't really know. Countering spells with an uncounterable ability, even at quad-pip, is pretty ruthless. I know that only Ghost-Lit Warder and Mirrorshell Crab could counter spells like that and those were taxing, not hard counters. The more I look at this card, the more I feel that it's got a lot of blending and a lot of text without a lot of payoff for it in that sense. Ambush Viper, Mystic Snake, the GU explore archetype from LCI, and to a degree Coiling Oracle from the name... There's a lot of 'stuff' in this card. Is it worth it?
I mean, a six-mana quad-pip 2/2 isn't usually worth it, even with deathtouch and a counterspell, because getting to cast it means I'm holding up pretty obvious mana for a one-time use, or channeling and losing a deathtoucher at a time where I may or may not have relevant mana. I think that this card is ultimately inelegant more than anything: a lot of options that end up feeling like they're overencumbering an otherwise notable love letter to a bunch of snakes from Magic's past with a little tweaking here and there. Personally, I don't think it works, but I know that there are historian nerds that might like it. I think going back to the drawing board, picking one notion, and going with that would've resulted in your strengths coming out properly.
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@yourrightfulking — Ambush Glade (JUDGE PICK)
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This one was a really close call, I'll be honest! I get that sense of planar biology, like this is the kind of glade where you'd wander into and get swarmed, and there are other explorers warning you that you shouldn't go into those types of areas. Very Zendikari in a lot of ways. It's missing the perfect opportunity for flavor text, something humorous to go along with the notion that you're about to get attacked by a lot of snakes, and I really would've liked to see what you'd've come up with. Second note: "When this enchantment enters and whenever you cast your first spell during each opponent's turn" could've taken off that trigger for ya.
All the same, I do love this enchantment because it does two things very right. One: it gives a specific and powerful draft archetype between these colors—GU Flash shenanigans—where there's a lot of overlap but with a mood of caught-in-the-jungle. Two: for that archetype, it gives a pretty awesome win engine where you get to eventually swing in with a buttload of 2/1 snake tokens and actually win with a wider board having gotten the advantage in the previous turn. Thank you for not giving the snakes deathtouch here, because that would've been an absolute abysmal thing to play against. I really like this card overall and it was pretty close to the podium!
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Slither in with yall's legends this week, and enjoy. @abelzumi
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