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lilithknoxville · 2 months ago

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could you please please write a fic abt jess during the IDR era, where the reader finds out she’s pregnant while jess is on tour, and she’s staying with ape and phil, and they’re all super excited. (the gif has nothing to do with it, i just like it. 🥹)

Unexpected Harmony (Jess Margera x Fem!Reader)

Summary: “Will…” You trailed off, avoiding her eyes, “Will you and Phil be upset if it does come out that it’s positive?” Your voice was soft, and April’s expression softened.

Content Warnings: 18+, Pregnancy, Adult Themes

Word Count: 2,664

A/N: so… i literally have no idea what to do for the summary or content warnings. just stick with me here folks. i have been so in love with jess since i was a child, so this was such a healing balm for the soul. i literally loved writing this so much, i was cheesin’ hard as fuck while i was writing. thank you so much for the request! as per usual, no beta reader we die like men. requests are still open!! onto the story! ✨

NOT MY GIF

You huffed out a sigh, rolling over in bed. You had been sick the past couple of days, a stomach bug reigning havoc over you. Your energy was low, and all you wanted to do was sleep. Usually when you were sick, Jess was like a mother hen, fussing and attending to you to your wits end. You didn’t have that luxury now, with him being on tour with CKY for their newest album. His mom and dad, April and Phil, constantly had been checking in on you these last couple of days, and you were beyond grateful for them. They had taken you in when you and Jess started dating, and you had been living with them for all of four years now. April and Phil became more than just your boyfriend’s parents; They were your parents too. You never had the best parents growing up, but April and Phil became the parents you never had. You stayed up late, watching TV with Phil; April taught you how to cook and you were always in the kitchen with her, giggling and joking around with each other. She had taught you the famous ‘Ape Stare’ (as coined by Bam) that had the Margera brothers cringing away and stopping whatever stupid thing they were doing. You were pretty sure April was more excited than you were when Jess finally proposed to you, but she would never admit it.

The sound of your door creaking open made you turn your head, and you saw April standing there with a smile on her face. You rolled back over, giving her an exhausted smile.

“Hi, Mom.” Your voice was soft, the obvious exhaustion you felt seeping through your words, “What’s up?”

“Just checkin’ on you, baby.” She came into your room, closing the door behind her. She had a plastic bag in her hand, which you assumed was medicine. She cast a glance around the room, cringing at the dirty clothes on the floor - Most of which were Jess’, “You feelin’ any better?” She asked, sitting down on the bed by your legs. Her hand came to your forehead, feeling it with the back of her hand.

“Not really. I still feel like I got hit by a bus.” You admitted, sighing softly, “This stomach bug is miserable, Ape.”

“I know, baby.” April’s voice was gentle, and she looked down at the bag in her hands, “I got you some things from the store.” She started pulling some things out of the bag. Most of it was your standard medicines, some ginger ale, but it was a pink box she set in your hands that threw you for the biggest loop. Blue words, reading ‘PREGNANCY TEST’ jumped out at you, and you laughed awkwardly.

“Mom?” Your voice was slow as you looked up at her, “What is this?”

“Well, sweetheart…” April started, her face showing a soft, motherly kindness, “I know you and Jess are… doing adult things. So there’s always a chance for this ‘stomach bug’ to actually be a little bun in the oven.” Hearing the words come out of her mouth made panic flare in your stomach, and the nausea that had been ebbing in your stomach to flare up. You took a slow breath in, forcing a smile on your face.

“There’s no way.” You shook your head, all but pushing the box of pregnancy tests out of your lap, “We use protection, I’m on birth control!” You chuckled awkwardly again, keeping the smile on your face to keep yourself from going into a full blown panic attack. April’s hand came to your knee, which was under your comforter.

“Just humor me, baby. I was this sick when I was pregnant with Jess, and I was even worse with Bam.” She explained, and the forced smile slowly fell from your lips, “There’s a chance this is just genuinely a stomach bug, or there’s a chance it is pregnancy.”

“Will…” You trailed off, avoiding her eyes, “Will you and Phil be upset if it does come out that it’s positive?” Your voice was soft, and April’s expression softened.

“Oh, honey…” She murmured, giving your knee a reassuring squeeze, “We could never be mad at you. You’ve made Jess so happy over these last few years, and Phil and I love you like you’ve been a part of our family since day one.” There was a soft, genuine smile on her lips, and tears sprung to your eyes. You took a couple of breaths to calm yourself down, staring hard at the box of tests in your lap.

“Okay…” You breathed out, pulling the blanket off of you. You stood slowly, the panic and fear rattling around in your head making you feel light for a moment. You opened the box of tests, pulling out a single one, and excused yourself to the bathroom that was right down the hall from your room.

You entered the bathroom, closing the door behind you. You stared at the blue foil wrapper in your hands, praying to anything and everything that could have possibly been listening that it would come up negative. You and Jess weren’t opposed to having children, but every time the two of you talked about it, it was always something for the future. With how often he left for tours, right now wasn’t the right time. Deciding to just buck up and get this done with, you tore open the blue foil, pulling out the pregnancy test.

You came out of the bathroom after a couple of minutes, the pregnancy test face down against your palm. You entered your bedroom, setting it down on the dresser, and you sat down on the bed next to April. She wrapped an arm around your shoulders, and you rested your head on her shoulder, heaving out a heavy sigh.

“No matter what the test says, Phil and I won’t love you any less. Whatever it says, we’ll be here.” Her voice was sweet, and she pressed a kiss to the top of her head, “I promise you that, and I’m not just saying that because you live in our house.” She teased, which made a soft smile come to your lips.

It was a tense ten minutes, your anxiety going crazy in your stomach. Finally, you heaved out a sigh, checking your phone again and seeing it was time to check it. You felt frozen in place, but you forced yourself to stand and go to your dresser. You grabbed the pregnancy test, the results pressed into your palm to hide it. You took in a deep breath, steeling your nerves.

“It’s gonna be negative.” You murmured, nodding in finality. It was more to calm down the nausea pulling at your stomach, and you turned the test over in your hand, staring down at the results.

Two blue lines stared back at you. Immediately, your world felt like it was crashing down on itself. You looked over at the writing on the stick, seeing that two blue lines meant you were pregnant. You stared at the results in silence for a second, trying to tell yourself it was your mind playing tricks on you. No matter how hard you blinked, how much you rubbed your eyes, those two blue lines didn’t change.

“What does it say, honey?” April’s voice brought you back to the real world, and the shock coursing through your veins suddenly crashed down on you. Tears sprung to your eyes, falling down your face within seconds. You sobbed, holding out the test to April. She gasped, standing up and wrapping her arms around you in a tight hug. You clutched onto her, sobbing into her shoulder.

“Oh, honey…” She murmured, rubbing your back soothingly, “It’s gonna be okay. Everything is going to be okay.” She held you tightly, whispering words of encouragement and promising you that things would be okay, until you had calmed down enough to suck in shaky breaths.

“Th-This isn’t real.” You hiccuped out, pulling back from April’s embrace, “This can’t b-be real.” You sniffled, closing your eyes as April wiped the tears from your cheeks.

“It’s real, sweetheart. But you will be okay, I promise you.” She reassured you, and she helped you back to bed, covering you up with the blanket. Phil, who had come towards your room when he heard you crying, poked his head in the door. His face had a look of concern on it.

“You okay, squirt?” He asked, stepping inside your room. April held the pregnancy test out to him, and he took it from her hands, his expression morphing into confusion. When he realized what he was holding and started putting pieces together, his mouth dropped open in surprise, “Wa-Wait, is this-?”

“Yes.” You answered, wiping your eyes and blowing your nose into a piece of toilet paper April had gotten for you. Your voice was tight, strained in your throat, “I’m pregnant.”

“And it’s-” Phil started, before he cut himself off, “Well, of course it’s Jess’ kid. You two are only glued to each other 24/7.” He chuckled, and it made a small smile jump to your lips.

“And we will help you and him out no matter what.” April nudged Phil in the ribs, causing Phil to nod in agreement, “How are you feelin’, honey?” April asked, sitting on the bed by your legs again.

“I-” You started, thinking long and hard about your emotions. Almost subconsciously, your hands came to just under your belly button, as if you were going to start feeling something kick this early, “I’m a mix of emotions right now. On one hand, I’m terrified. I don’t know if I’m ready to be a mom yet.” You trailed off, gnawing on your lip, “But on the other hand, I’m so excited. Knowing that I’m carrying a perfect mix of me and Jess. It’s this perfect blend of fear and joy.” You admitted, looking between April and Phil for a moment, “Do I sound crazy?” You asked, your voice barely above a whisper, and April chuckled gently.

“You’re not crazy at all, hon.” She squeezed your hand softly, “I was the same way when I found out we were pregnant with Jess. It was terrifying, the idea of growin’ a tiny human, but it was also oddly comforting.” Her voice was so full of earnestness that it made you smile slightly, the whirlwind of emotions still echoing in your head making you stare off into space, “Though I have to tell you - I am so beyond excited for the two of you.” She whispered, a grin spreading across her face.

“You are?” You asked, confusion spreading across your face.

“Phil and I get to be grandparents! Your baby is going to be spoiled rotten!” April clapped her hands together, the excitement in her voice was enough to make a real smile come to your lips, “Oh, Phil, think of the zoo trips, Halloween - Christmas!” She turned towards Phil, who was leaned up against the doorframe. He shook his head, chuckling.

“Imagine all the little onesies we’re gonna have lying around here.” Phil couldn’t help the smile that came to his lips, seeing his wife so excited about grandchildren was enough to make him grin brightly, “Your kid is gonna be spoiled rotten, hon.” He echoed what April had said earlier, looking at you with a smile.

“Oh, God.” You whispered suddenly, your hand coming to your head, “I have to call Jess.” You gnawed on your lip, anxiety gnawing at your stomach, “I have to tell him.”

“Well, that is probably the smartest choice.” Phil grunted out, patting the door frame, “You do that, squirt.” April gave one last squeeze of your hand, following Phil out of your room. You gnawed on your lip, still looking at the pregnancy test in your hand. You reached over, grabbing your phone, and flipped it open. You dialed Jess’ number, which you knew by heart, and held your phone up to your ear. It took a few rings before Jess answered.

“Mmm, hello?” He mumbled into the phone sleepily, and the sound of his voice made your heartbeat speed up in your chest, “What’s up, babygirl?”

“Hi, baby.” You swallowed thickly, “Did I wake you up?” Your voice was small, and you heard the other end of the line shifting.

“Doesn’t matter - What’s wrong?” His voice was full of concern, and you felt tears trying to jump to your eyes. You pushed them back, taking in a deep breath.

“Jess, I’ve got some news.” You started, your voice slow as you tried to figure out how you wanted to say this, “So I’m not sick with a stomach bug.”

“Well, that’s good.” Jess chuckled slightly, “I know you were sicker than a dog - Did you go the doctor? They told you it was the flu or somethin’, didn’t they?” He asked, the line shifting as you assumed he laid back down in bed.

“No, I didn’t go to the doctor.” You spun the pregnancy test around in your hand for a moment, gnawing on your lip, “Jess…” You whispered, your voice suddenly thick with the threat of tears.

“Baby? Tell me what’s up.” His voice was soft, “You’ve got me concerned over here.”

“I’m pregnant.” You announced, and the line went silent for a moment. You heard the soft sound of his breathing, and anxiety flared up in your stomach, “J-Jess, please say someth-”

“I’m on the way home.” His voice had an air of finality to it, and you stuttered for a moment, “No, hey. Listen to me.” He cut you off, and you fell silent, “I made you a promise when I proposed to you that I was going to be here for everything when it comes to you. That includes doctor’s appointments, ultrasounds - everything.”

“Y-You’re not upset?” You asked, your voice small again, and Jess chuckled fondly.

“No, baby. I promise you I’m not upset with you, not in the slightest.” His voice was soft as well, “I wanna be home with you while you’re growin’ our child.”

“But what about your tour?” You asked, and you heard the line shift again, a bag unzipping.

“Chad and the guys will have to understand.” Jess’ voice was muffled for a moment, sounding like he was balancing his phone between his ear and his shoulder, “My fiancée is pregnant.” His voice was breathless, and the laugh that left his lips was warm, “Holy shit. My fiancée is pregnant! I’m gonna be a dad!” The sound of the excitement in his voice made you smile, tears brimming in your eyes.

“That you are, honey.” You whispered into the phone, bidding him goodbye after a few minutes of talking. You set your phone down on your bedside table, your hands coming to just below your belly button. You sat there for a second, the anxiety in your mind eased just slightly.

“Hey…” You whispered to your stomach, “I know you’ve gotta be the size of a jelly bean right now. You’re my little bean.” Your tone was warm, full of love, “You’re gonna love your Daddy. He’s sort of cool, in my opinion.” You chuckled, rubbing your stomach, “You probably can’t even hear me yet, but it’s okay. You’ll probably get sick of hearing my voice, I’m gonna be talking to you all the time.” You smiled, looking up towards a framed picture of you and Jess on your dresser, “You’re gonna have your Daddy’s eyes. I just know it. And then I’m gonna have two blue eyed loves of my life.”

The feeling in your chest was weird, but oddly comforting as well. Knowing that, soon, you’d have two heartbeats inside your body was something weird to think about but something that soothed the anxiety trying to swirl in your stomach. You knew you’d be okay, no matter what. Especially if you had Jess at your side, and April and Phil behind the two of you.

#jess margera #jess margera x reader #viva la bam #cky #cky fics #lilith’s writing #jackass x reader #jackass fics #april margera #phil margera #lilith’s requests

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celestiall0tus · 7 months ago

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Even if you didn't intend negative implications, they are still there and may hurt real people.

The "future vs past" motivation behind distribution of Syren's Song characters seems a bit far-fetched to me. Kagami and Sabine are supposed to be connected to their traditional cultures. Marinette and Nino (and Sabine) aren't connected to futuristic themes in any way. And lot of characters on the hero list aren't known for a connection with the past.

On the mental health thing with Bloody Bug, I am not saying mental health topics should not be explored, but when all characters of colour who have mental health issues just so happen to have them of a dangerous to others and "scary" kinds - violence and obsession - and the only white character with mental health issues, Luka, has social anxiety, which is harmless for people around and is perceived by society as an "endearing" trait, a "gentle lamb" as opposed to being seen as a "monster", it kind of doesn't look well.

The problem wouldn't stand this much if you gave any white character non-pretty issues to deal with. There's Chloe who in your story doesn't even feel much conflict between her former cruel self and her current heroic self or any relapses (bad habits die hard) but is just magically a good person now, there's Sabrina who has been traumatized by Chloe earlier and also did messed-up things that also were forgotten by everyone including herself next moment, there's Adrien who had a lot of non-pretty issues in canon that could be explored, there's Felix who even if he's better than his canon self, still isn't a sweet kid but is moved offstage by the narrative. Exploring at least one or better several of these could balance the scales.

And while you have the right to have topics you react painfully to, so do other people. And negative racial stereotypes are real and harm people. Including portraying Middle Eastern people as violent. Including portraying Asian girls as obsessive. Including applying blatantly different standards to wrongs done by people of different origin. And that IS a bothering thing. And I am being serious. I am asking you not to argue with me and defend yourself but think of the effect your stories can have. Think of people who get treated as "unstable" in Western countries due to their origins, who experienced being condemned for things while other people's faults get glossed over, and need encouragement and support from stories, not further condemnation. Please don't make it about your hurt dignity instead, or about how I'm too ignorant to understand complexity of your stories. Because it isn't about me either.

Nope. Nope. Nope! Fuck you. Fuck me. Fuck everything and everyone. You hit every button to trigger everything and now I'm retaliating. Now I'm lashing out.

First of all, Siren's Song is full fucking AU, bitch. I can write the characters how I fucking please. I don't have to stay to fucking canon if I don't fucking want to. Do you think Nathalie is a pscyopathic killer bent on suicide? Do you see Marinette suffer from severe depression after being in a car crash that took everything except her life? Do you see Adrien making a deal with a kwami to live at least one more year before he dies? No? Then why the fuck bring canon into a completely different AU that you know absolutely nothing about? Especially when there has only been two AUs of mine that pull from canon and even then, those are divergences.

Speaking of, let's cover that Bloody Bug again. Second, how fucking dare you. Social anxiety is harmless? Who the fuck do you think you are? Do you have any idea how damning that is to people? I may not suffer from it, but I have friends and family that do. I've had to watch and still watch that anxiety keep them interacting with people "normally" and see them question what is wrong with them when they hit that low point. It's not fun to watch and is damning. I don't fucking care what your society, yes your society, sees it as. Social anxiety is a massive fucking bitch. Not to mention "normal" people questioning what is wrong with them like they're a problem.

Third, I understand the harm things can cause PoC, but canon is no better. I had a friend warn me about making Nathaniel the goat like he is in canon because of the negative connection between Jewish individuals and goats. It was then that I learned that Nathaniel was Jewish and saw it on the Wiki. Fuck's sake, I wouldn't have known Alix was Arab unless I looked on the wiki and saw it. Until Bloody Bug, I thought she was just a French girl. I even had friends that were surprised to hear she's Arab-French. Furthermore, Alix is shown multiple times to be afraid of her anger and that violence that is a trigger of anger. She is seen fighting it until she hits her low when she gives into it, as is usually the case for anyone. If I was just depicting her as angry and violent with no real reason, I'd consider your words, but I'm not. There is reason to her anger and violence for the first two seasons. However, season 3, it's not there. Why? Character growth and development. Alix has gone through that big arc and can now focus on being a better person.

Four, Marinette is just as obsessive as in canon. The only difference is I am taking it seriously as a disorder that is being taken advantage of by a manipulative person, causing it to fester rather than a haha look how silly she is. You want to talk harming, lump canon in with my stuff because that's where it all comes from. This has already been implied with the reveal in the prior chapter of Bloody Bug that Mayura likely has her hooks in Marinette. As I said before, Marinette won't be able to get better until the end of season 3 when she is freed of Mayura's clutches. But that doesn't matter so long as it's displayed once, right? Who cares about the character's journey to be more than what they were, right?

Fifth, Chloe and Sabrina aren't the same as they are in canon. Chloe had her cruel moments, but wasn't as bad as she was in canon. Sabrina may have been misused from time to time by Chloe, but they were ultimately friends. Yes, the spider thing still happened, but kids are naturally cruel, so I kept that. Adrien's issues all revolved around his unrequited love for Ladybug and neglect as a hero. Take away those issues, you lose a lot of what he was. That's why here he's more of a cinnamon roll than in canon. Felix is still an ass, but he isn't actively destroyed Adrien's life like he was in earlier seasons. You'll be seeing more of him soon, but he's still an ass.

Sixth, this is close 3rd person for the second time. A lot of things are going to happen in the background because they aren't important to ADRIEN AND ALIX and their stories. I'm not going to sit there and share every little detail that happens behind the scenes like canon does. I'm following Adrien and Alix and when they learn of something, it's like first, but using third person language.

Seventh, Everyone has their own problems in Bloody Bug. However, this isn't Miraculous AU, Paradise, Absolution, Salvation, or any other of my work. I'm not going to sit here and go through all the issues that people have and their journey to recovery. I did that with Miraculous AU because it was integral to the story, but it's not for Bloody Bug. They are there to flesh out the background characters and add pieces where canon would have just left it as a one off line. The only people who really matter are Adrien and Alix. And Alix had her arc, now it's Adrien's turn.

Eighth, fuck you. You are parading around issues that are non-issues. You are bringing attention to shit that you long since missed your opportunity on. This is far from the first Alix that has been portrayed as violent and angry. There have been others and I'll share for the class and you:

Oh look! Four other Alix that are just as angry, violent, and rebellious. At least Bloody Bug Alix feared her anger. These ones embrace it and let it fuel their rebellious spirit.

Ninth, you know what? If you want to condemn Bloody Bug for my misrepresentation, why don't we touch on all my other works, shall we? I mean, I have all day, and I'm sure you do too at this rate. I am also incredibly petty little fucking bitch that long let go of parttaking in a society that long deemed them broken and wrong, so I have no issue rising to a challenge that doesn't need to be challenged. So, why don't we? How about Miraculous AU where everyone's issues are solved so much faster because of miracle powers? What about Paradise that brings in religious and cult like idealogies and mentalities? Oh, and Paradise with the white woman wanting to purge the world all to save her dying son and all manner of people flocking to her for salvation? Or the heavy ideology that the villains in Paradise are the angels and the demons that want to keep things as they are being the heroes?

Tenth, take your canon and shove it. Unless we want to go back and forth about all my works plus canon and how they misrepresent PoC or religious groups, then you can shove off.

Eleventh, and final, I will always write for the character first. I will keep in mind the background of the character and try to represent them more than canon did, however, I will also consider the story. Is it important? Does it need to be said? How far is too far? I have considered these questions, especially for my novel, where I'm still going back and forth, but ultimately am willing to risk the plunge for the character themselves. Just as I am with Bloody Bug, Siren's Song, and every single AU I've made so far. If you don't like it, disrespectfully, block me and fuck off. Anything else you say at this point will be duly ignored and deleted.

#l0tus answers #l0tus rants #go fuck yourself #bloody bug au #siren's song au

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adobe-outdesign · 1 year ago

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Your thoughts on the Sandile line? I really like them, but I think they could've done more with Krokorok than just 'Sandile, but standing up'

The idea of "put water animal in sand" isn't really anything new, but it's usually an enjoyable premise. In this case, Sandile's a crocodile with what's essentially a nictitating membrane that helps protect its eyes from the sun. That's really neat, and the dark eyes both emphasize this trait and draw attention to its face.

Aside from that, there's not a ton going here, but it has a few elements, like the stripes, that will be built upon as it evolves. The colors are also decent, using a sandy brown as the base with a pinkish underbelly to add some color. The only little thing that bugs me is the legs—seriously, why are they drawn so much worse than the rest of the body?

Krokorok is a bit... weird. Not in and of itself of course, it's a fairly standard evo, but in the way it functions relative to the entire line. I don't know if this is just a me thing, but Krookodile never really felt that much larger or more advanced than Krokorok; it's a little more intimidating, but they both just kind of feel like two different designs for the same evo in a way. Basically, in other words, it feels like this line should've been a two-stager; Sandile could've evolved into either Krokorok or straight into Krookodile, but the way it evolves as-is feels a bit off.

Anyway, regardless, Krokorok's probably my favorite of this line. At this point, you can pick up on the secondary theme; these guys are part dark-type, and are designed to look a bit like robbers or crooks with sunglasses and prison stripes. It's nice—there enough to pick up on but not so over-the-top as to feel unnatural.

I also like the stripe placement here; it feels very well-balanced, though you probably didn't need the ones on the bottom of the legs or the arms. It's also nice to see more of the underbelly color.

I already went over how Krookodile doesn't feel quite evolved enough, but despite that it at least looks visually distinct enough due to changing color, eye shape, and stripe patterns. I generally like the aforementioned more on Krokorok, but it's good that they mixed things up a bit.

Visually, while the red color does come out of nowhere a bit (maybe Krokorok's underbelly should've been a darker red), it does make it pop and really gets the dark-typing across. I like the evil pointy sunglasses look, and how that shape is matched by the nostrils and the body stripes. Plus the overall theme is clearer here, which is always good.

However, I don't like the spike placement as much; instead of having a spike perfectly on top of each stripe, they're just kind of chaotically smushed along the back without much rhyme or reason. The way the first stripe connects to the arm is also strange, and the pale stripeless underbelly draws a bit too much attention to itself. Also, look at those legs—what the heck happened to the anatomy there??

Anyway, as a whole, this line is pretty solid; the theming is clear and creative, and the visual elements are decent. The only thing that it suffers from is maybe having one too many stages; but all three stages are at least distinct from each other, which is more than some lines can say.

#sandile #krokorok #krookodile #pokemon #pokemon reviews

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mahou-furbies · 1 year ago

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Alright here's the results for the 2024 Precure Hopes and Predictions!

Q1: Hopes for the theme of the season?

Technology/games. Or more likely: science?

Military, video games

Technology / Gaming

Computers and/or bugs

Video games/Tech

the arts (both performing and visual)

Seriously hoping for creating things as a theme

Art theme! Or something winter-related (a precure team located in Hokkaido? That would be so cool!)

I would like a season based on a combination of gemstones and popular hobbies like arts, sports, and science. It can have a moral theme of "finding your inner sparkle, your one true talent."

I've always thought that season-based characters (spring, summer, etc.) were really fun, with lots of possibilities as far as power and design go! But it would be harder to have a sixth ranger, and we've just had a 4+1 season, so I'm not too hopeful… I guess I'd like a story around art (like, each of the girl represent a certain form of creativity?) We've had lots of cures who were artist of some kind, but their interests are rarely reflected by their cure powers!

someday i want a 4 seasons precure

Flowers

I hope for flowers theme or elementals but i think it will be idols or fashion

Insects would be fun! (ladybug lead, butterfly and honeybee Cures. Moth midseason!)

Carnival.

Cars and racing, fairy tales (specifically Peter Pan), music and dancing

We never had a proper fairy/fairy tale season, so that!

Fairy

unlikely but aliens would be fun

cats/felines + lolita fashion + fantasy

Pirates

Mythology

Gemstones

Sports

Q2: Predictions for Cure theme colours?

Standard pink/yellow/blue to follow the pattern Hugtto set

please please please don’t go back to pink/blue/yellow

Ideal - Pink/Yellow/Green/Blue or White; Realistic - Pink/Blue/Yellow/Purple

Pink, blue, yellow, purple

Pink, Blue, Yellow, Purple, Red

I want a blue and a pink at first, then green and yellow (maybe also purple) but I am sure it will be pink/blue/yellow again

Pink, Blue, Yellow, Purple maybe, No green lol

Pink, blue, yellow, purple, maybe green?

I'm kind of curious, since Toei got pretty original with the colour scheme this year… My guess is, either they'll go for something super conventional like Healin Good or Delipre, or they're going to keep their "unique color scheme" streak.

Similar to ALaMode it can be the standard trio (PBY), followed by a red and purple duo, and later joins a vibrant green.

pink, blue/teal, purple, black/white/grey would be super cool!

Pink, Orange, Green, Yellow, Blue, Purple

Pink - Blue - Red - White (midseason)

Pink, Red, Purple

Pink, blue, green

Pink, red, white, and purple

White, orange, indigo, green, red, teal

dark pink/red, blue, and gold (later cures would be green, purple, and black/white/grey)

For gaming: the usual letter button colors (red green yellow blue) For science: uhh, def needs a Cure Combust thats red. I imagine her having a combo attack with a blue cure that makes blue fire.

Pink leader (current season was too revolutionary, time for Toei to get back to a safer structure), a yellow/orange, a blue one, a mixed weird color joining mid-season and hopefully a green cure

for aliens green orange pink

Green pleasssse (probably pink for the main Cure)

We've gotta get at least one green cure right?

Two colours for each Cure.

Q3: How many Cures do you expect there to be at the start?

Q4: Any other thoughts?

Hopefully there'll be more than one villain active at the same time, Hirogaru Sky was honestly kind of disappointing in that regard (it does not help that the first villain's debut came with a fart joke).

I'm fine with another pink, yellow and blue Cures, but please, at least try to make them different by using different shades of said colors. There are so many, don't settle for the most basic color palette.

If it doesn't happen, I could always make fancures instead.

I really want a cure who becomes an engineer of some kind in the epilogue. Specifically a girl becoming an engineer

I am sure it will not be what I want XD but precure prove me wrong this year!

I would love unique flower motifs for each cure. All of the possibilities!

Mythology would also be a fun theme, but the Tropical team had a phoenix and so did Cure Wing, so they would probably try to space that out.

The cures' designs would be based on wild cats and domestic cat breeds: maine coon, norwegian forest cats (e.g cure forrêt), serval, jaguar. There would be a cat goddess (who could possibly also be a precure)!

Male Cure, Twins as cures, a disabled cure, a chubby cure, and a cure of color (like Elena)

I think it'd be neat to have the main trio be required to transform together as a call-back to Black/White, Bloom/Egret, Melody/Rhythm, Miracle/Magical, and Macherie/Amour, plus to keep celebrating 20 years of Precure

they will go back to pink/blue/yellow

i want scifiesque magical girls i feel like theres been lots of fairytale themeing recently and i want something very different also the idea of the midseason cure being the pink one amuses me greatly

I want more boy cures

A male lead, preferably voiced by Yuki Kaji

Please, no babies, not another one…

Random list of elements that (I think) haven't been done that much in a precure season: 1) Have cures be siblings/give a significant role to a cure's sibling. 2) Have characters actually be in a romance! I know precure has a young demographic, so romance isn't exactly important, but it's a bit tiresome how many precure romances tend to be unresolved crushes that are dragged throughout the season! I don't care if it's girl/girl, girl/boy or boy/boy, it would just be nice to see characters confess to each other and have their relationship build from there throughout the story. 3) I know there have been debates on relationships between the cures and the villains, how redeemable the villains are, how much the cures should be concerned about them, etc., but I'd like Toei to play on that dynamic more. Maybe a villain questioning their allegiance, or even turning out to be a mole for the good guys! Or on the opposite side, a cure joining the bad guys willingly, whether misguidedly or to become a mole themselves! 4) Fun stuff with the mascots! The mascots are a family! A mascot is a family member of a cure (don't ask me how that works!) Secretely-a-villain mascot! Mascot who is reluctant in their role and a bit cranky! 5) Families and non-magical friends being a relevant part of the cures' life. To be fair, it has been done several times, but it's always nice to see. 6) Boarding school!

Thanks to everyone who took part, reading these was super fun. Let's see if anyone got it right! (though you only get half of a point if the pink-blue-yellow prediction turns out right lol)

#precure

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bluepoodle7 · 1 year ago

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#Shezow #ThinkingAboutReviewingEachEpisode #Sheviews #MyThoughts

(I will be editing this post a lot and there might be multiple parts.)

I'm thinking about rewatching Shezow again but might make a review on each episode and maybe add my thoughts to it then at the end put what episodes I liked in order.

I wish this show got a second sheason.

Maybe keep the artstyle the same but make it better animated.

Maybe add Dudepow's evil version and Maz's parents.

I'm already dreading She-Phat I remember seeing most of the episodes on The Hub then later just Youtubeing the rest.

--------------------------------

This is my first time reviewing a whole series so go easy on me.

I remember seeing this ad play on the Hub Network Channel when it was a thing.

Then later checked it out.

0:32

Image and video not mine but link is there.

Shezow (Premiere Promo) - Hub Network - YouTube

----------------------

The Pilot differences.

SheeZaam

I have seen the SheeZaam pilot a long time ago when it was basically lost media.

I think this pilot was aired on G4 for the Midnight Spank block but I never watched it but researched about this and the Disney Shezow pilots.

I was too young to watch that and I never knew when it aired.

But I did like the ads for it.

The SheeZaam pilot looks like something I would see on Newgrounds randomly and also the origin of the laser lipstick at 02:20 but it's a actual laser instead of a lightsaber or a beam sword from smash bros.

It's pretty dated like a old school offensive Newgrounds cartoon but for a flash cartoon standards it's okay and it was made in 2005.

If this show stayed adult I know the jokes would either get better with the right writers or worse but it depends on the time period.

I would add these characters as background characters like Joe Halpern just being a trash man then later helping the new Shezow fight crime while making dated jokes and maybe be annoyed by the she puns that replace his cursing.

Maybe make Joe slowly get more progressive in later episodes.

I give it a 5/10.

----------------

The Disney Version Of Shezow.

This aired in 2007 on Disney's Shorty McShorts' Shorts pilot block where I think all the pilots never made it.

I never got to see this on my tv since back then I didn't really watch Disney a lot during those days I was mostly into Cartoon Network, Nick, and maybe other kids networks at the time.

This show really likes the dude looks like a lady joke and the no way José jokes.

I just wonder what the "I wasn't talking about the house." joke was about at 01:02-01:11.

I hope it's not bad.

I wish guy in the new show kept the fart knockers saying though.

Also add back in the bully characters and add José back in as a student that Guy knew before Maz.

01:58

This scene gave me a idea on a artwork I made with the 2012 guy looking in the mirror behind pilot guy.

Also the show made it canon that José was made to not know that Guy and Shezow are the same person which is weird to me but also had a crush on Shezow which is just Guy in bugs bunny drag but not knowing it.

I guess in the 2012 pilot they scrapped that detail.

The Shezow chant is different and its about pinching all the cheeks, the Shelair was hot pink and Sheila is just a lip tv, and feminine intuition or in the 2012 show it's She-S-P or a sixth sense.

The theme is different at 05:09-05:18.

This has the origin of the super sheslap at 03:46-03:48 and the laser lipstick returns but as a laser sword at 04:37 which is interesting to me.

This version of Shezow looks better animated for 2007 then the 2005 which was choppy and I wonder if Disney was brave enough to pick this show up would it be different then the 2012 version.

Also would Guy count as a Disney princess if they made a episode where Shezow got crowned as one?

Also the truck reminds me of the Illbleed trap with the truck from level 3.

The Truck trap I'm talikng about.

A blog about obscurity stuff, plushies and food. on Tumblr - #Woodmill Truck Trap

04:22

Forgot Disney Pilot Shezow has to pull his hair to do the first sonic scream.

02:50-02:59

Also in SheeZaam had that tampon weapon that suck up and contains liquid enemies which is cool.

I wonder if the tv network executives would allow Shezow to carry a tampon or a pad to use as a weapon?

Also the gendered bathroom scene returns in the 2012 version but the 2007 version had it at 05:13.

The 2012 version had the same scene at 0:29.

SheZow Files : She-S-P - YouTube

I give it a 6/10.

SheZow on Vimeo

2012 Shezow Pilot

---------------------

Now we are getting into familiar territory.

The first half is a little different from the Disney pilot.

José is replaced by Maz and has more of a friendship connection than José in the pilot.

Maz has a personality unlike José who is just a joke device and falling in love with your best friend troupe.

The bullies are gone and the "I'm not talking about the house." joke was removed in this pilot.

But in the 2012 Shezow Pilot the movers saying no problem and yep when putting up the furniture in the house.

Instead of in the Disney pilot there is only one mover by himself moving everything inside the house while just saying yep, an mhm noises, yeah, and okay.

The truck crashing scene is not here in the 2012 pilot.

Both guys still have the toxic masculinity sayings like the "girly unpacking" and it's a guy thing".

Both Kelly's still are the most intelligent of the team and Guy in the 2012 makes puns right out the gate.

The 2007 guy kind of sounded a little mean and called his boy squad fart knockers.

The "I'm not talking about the house." joke gets replaced with "Nice digs." and "I wish I had a Aunt Agnus." And Maz is the one to explain what is happening to the mover in the 2012 pilot and in the 2007 pilot it was Guy who said that information.

Both Guy's both toss stuff including the urn of their dead Aunt Agnes and both make the similar saying in both scenes.

Both Guy's make the tacky ring joke.

The Shezow change chants in the 2007 and 2012 are both different.

But the 2012 version of Shezow is the best dressed of the three pilots and also I like the leopard print.

Kelly in the Disney pilot just info dumps what Shezow is while 2012 Kelly is a mega fan and wants to be Shezow. (Remember that for later.)

Both Guy's snatch the ring away from their sisters.

You know what I want to know.

How did both Guy's know the chants when they find it too girly to pay attention to it?

Dude looks like a lady joke returns. 3:37-3:38

And both Guy's say "Say whut?" But the Disney Guy had better delivery of the joke.

I like it that this show has that Ben 10 rule where the user can't take off the ring until the user dies troupe.

The 2012 Shezow pilot has a I wonder what power I have montage.

The Shelair was behind the mirror and is a nice touch.

This shelair looks better than the 2007 Disney pilot and Shelia went from being a mouth tv to being a Ai like character similar to Karen in Spongebob.

02:47

Now we are in the new ideas added to the Shezow story.

I like it how Guy was like nah and then sees the Shehicle then says ok.

Remember Guy and Kelly are 12 and driving.

Guy is pretty good at driving even doing the MIB ceiling driving to avoid traffic.

The whole Shezow can't fly thing. (Keep that for later.)

Guy says Sheilarious at 6:35-6:36.

Shezow is as fast as sonic with super speed but running in heels is something to work on.

The She-S-P gets explained at 7:35-7:36.

Also the commercial break animations are pretty cool and feels like old school anime commercial break things.

7:48-8:14

SheZow S01E01 SheZow Happens & Coldfinger - YouTube

They say "Get the dog's jewels and his too." and that flew over my head when I first watched it and caught me off guard.

8:33-8:35

Yeah the dad hates Shezow for saving the day instead of the police doing it.

Reminds me of the Powerpuff Girls episode with the donut eating cop getting mad that the girls are saving the day instead of the cops.

But I would love to know more about Guy's Dad.

Also the closet threw up on on you joke is a wow.

10:41-10:43.

I want a vinyl figure of Guy in Shezow form with the random stuff he found in his closet to cover up that he is Shezow.

I like it that the show let Maz be part of the Shezow squad instead of being the guesser on why Guy keeps leaving. This is way better than what they did to José.

Also Maz saying a whole bunch of shepuns to guy and him looking annoyed is pretty cool.

I thought they would have made Maz a toxic person but he is just a happy chill guy.

11:17

Guy had to say Sheyeah to change back while in the Disney and SheeZaam pilots I think the power just poofs away then reappears when danger is near but I'm not sure.

Also Sheroes are the canon fan name similar to bronies for Mlp.

I remember the Shezow Creator having a tumblr where you can ask him questions but it's long gone now but I know a few things from looking at Tumblr from the outside without a account in the past.

Like Shezap is both male and female.

And how Aunt Agnes died and who killed her.

Shezow and Logan did go out but it was for a Shezow thing.

The creator is okay with Guy and Maz being a thing.

Maz's parents if shown were one is male and one is female.

Is a White and Asian couple.

I give this show a 8/10.

Images not mine but links are there.

The Shezow Tumblr that archived the creator's posts.

The Shezow Database! on Tumblr - #post by Obie Scott Wade

#Shezow #Thinking About Reviewing Each Episode #Sheviews #My Thoughts

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weirder-than-usual · 1 year ago

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"WEIRDER THAN USUAL" 🎃🌴💜

Comic coming in 2024. AGE RATING: 15+

The final product will feature themes of abuse, trauma, mental illness, and inappropriate language-- [IE: Swearing]

In the current day and age, somewhere in Florida, never mind where & how long exactly, sits the hidden town of Hollow Heights.

It's not invisible or anything! Just one of those small towns nobody really cares about. People don't really come by unless they're lost tourists with shitty GPS. And there isn't really much to note? It's your standard Florida suburb where everyone knows everyone; full of questionable adults, birds, bugs, casually insane crime, and some pretty cheap-yet-decent houses!

...Oh, yeah. And a magical curse that turns everyone who lives there into MONSTERS!

No one is ever born this way; Pax, Robin, Clinton & Ozzie sure weren't! But despite their looks, all Monsters maintain human brains & minds. And they're actually... pretty normal! 4 outcast teenagers simply doing their best (on a good day) to survive this hell-hole.

No one knows how it started. Most people don't even care anymore. All that everyone around here knows is that that the curse only effects people living in Hollow Heights specifically; and that it's only a matter of time before it gets to YOU.

They've also noticed that Monster forms primarily reflect the individual; they're NOT determined by genetics! In fact, whenever you become a Monster, & develop the powers that come with, there are 3 things the curse seems to always keeps in mind.

Who YOU are.

The things you've gone through.

And how you handled them!

More specifically... they tend to manifest after exposure to trauma.

There is cruelty for all of us. While only 1 in 4 people suffer with a mental illness, I think it is fair to say that everybody faces trauma at least once in their lives. Be it a loss, injury, or being met with somebody who doesn't love you like they should. It is very easy for us to get stuck on these experiences. They can make permanent changes to who we are, to the point where we may not recognize ourselves in the mirror anymore. Scary, ain't it?

And that's it. That's "the curse." It makes for an experience where simply existing begins to feel... Weirder Than Usual. And whether we heal / move on or not is a choice that only we can make, and a process only we can begin.

And while the trauma that induced it never truly goes away, there IS a way to get rid of the curse; and it's not as crazy as you'd think!

You can only heal so much inside of a toxic environment like HH. So the solution is simple: Get out of there. Free yourself & live freely somewhere else; ANYWHERE else! But of course, that's easier said than done. Especially in a world where things like money, power, oppression, and "being a child" still exist.

One of the poor souls trapped here for now is Pax Manalo: a down-on-their-luck martian violinist with strict parents, telekinetic & semi-psychic powers, adorable heart antennae, and a VERY charming & freaky clown boyfriend who swept them off their feet. And for months now, Pax (being the isolated wallflower & hopeless romantic of a 14-year-old that they are) has been certain that Florian Funnyman was THE ONE.

...Until Valentine's Day came around, and Florian puts his girlfriend through the unthinkable. Something so horrible that it broke her heart, changed her life forever, and left Pax wondering if there'd even be a point in ever speaking about it again.

She doesn't want to get in trouble. She doesn't know if she wants HIM to get in trouble. She doesn't even know if anyone will believe her! Especially since Florian & his family have pretty damn high reputations around town. It's a small place, he's only a grade above her, she's friends with his brother, she doesn't have any other good friends--!! and Florian's been keeping a very watchful eye to make sure nobody ever speaks of it.

But as time goes on... Pax realizes that they can't just stay here in Hollow Heights, or dating a guy like him. And that they need help, a support system, to help them through this. And thus, Pax is left no choice but to reach out and connect with the other Monsters around them; and it doesn't take long before she finally meets some kindred spirits along the way.

Kindred spirits who are willing to help keep her safe; Kindred spirits who will support her as she tries to get her life back, learns to better advocate for herself, share their own sorrows with her as well as they face other hardships & all grow together, and stand by her no matter what.

As she finally finds her voice and speaks out about the true monster, and seeks all the justice she can get. 💞

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wirewitchviolet · 1 year ago

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StarCraft 2's story- Good or garbage?

I'm kind of lurking in the discord of a new RTS that's running a kickstarter right now. I don't know how strongly I want to endorse that because while what they have in the can looks darn good in terms of mechanics and gameplay polish and the people involved seem generally cool, I don't think anything at all is really pinned down otherwise. At the very least though it looks very "I'll make my own StarCraft 2! With blackjack! And hookers!" and I'm down for a game with that flavor of mechanics doing well when made by anyone other than, you know, Blizzard.

It's impossible not to draw comparisons when a game is pretty nakedly marketing itself as "we want to divorce the things we like about this one game from the monsters who made it" of course, and so now I'm thinking about just how powerfully terrible the writing was in StarCraft 2, but I'm not going to go off about it in some poor people who I don't know even have a writer yet's forums. I'm gonna ramble about it on my blog.

Now there's two ways to look at this one. We can look at the story of this game on its own, in a vacuum, or we can look at it as a continuation of the story of StarCraft. It's terrible by either standard, but let's start by looking at it as a continuation first.

Now, I'm not going to jump in here and just slap you with a novella long list of all the flagrant plot holes, direct contradictions, and unrecognizable characters if you actually go through these beat for beat. I've done so in the past. Might have done so on this blog. I mean when StarCraft 2 came out I was absolutely insufferable to everyone around me shouting about these things. Like... I don't even know how you can drop so many balls like that. Maybe they were doing that thing where they didn't even glance at the source material and were just poking around some fan wiki populated with random crap from tie-in novels and comics by people who were just going off on their own things... I do always have to mention though that whether by intent or incompetence they seem to have totally dropped the expansion's story from the canon, at least before 2's expansions came along years later.

But no, I want to focus on just basic themes and character arcs here. So the original base game of StarCraft breaks its story into three arcs, each from the POV of a character from one of the three playable factions in the game. This isn't the greatest structure for maintaining narrative cohesion throughout, especially when one of those factions is the communal hive mind of a big swarm of space bugs who at the end of the day just want to eat everything. And if I'm being brutally honest, there isn't a whole lot to write home about in the back third either. They kinda slipped back into old habits there and it's kinda just the sort of stock fantasy story you tend to get with games. Decadent ancient space elf empire ignores a big obvious problem due to hubris and a frankly incompetent leader, turns out their ancient traditions and prejudices are total BS, go quest for some magic rocks, have your big grand final battle where the hero self-sacrifices to blow up the monsters.

That first third though, and some threads that carry through the rest, have some good stuff going on. We've got a newly appointed magistrate (the unseen unvoiced player) and marshall (Jimmy) on some backwoodsy wild west sort of planet. They're pretty young and idealistic. Space bugs attack, they try to help, trying to help gets them in trouble with their higher ups who don't really buy the seriousness of this space bug invasion. Desperate for anyone to help fight the good fight, they fall in with a fringe militant cult leader (Mengsk) and his right-hand gal (Kerrigan) who he busted out of some government psychic supersoldier program. Jimmy immediately crushes on her, she doesn't reciprocate.

The gang goes along with all of Mengsk's plans, overthrowing the government to gain control of their armies and psychic experimentation programs to deal with these space bugs, and the level of moral compromise this involves gradually ratchets up until everyone finds themselves complicit in Mengsk killing the whole civilian population of the capital by having Kerrigan set up a psychic murderbug attractor and nobody bother's to evacuate her afterwards.

The other two realize they made a really bad choice of who to throw in with, smash up some major military hardware in the process of bailing on Mengsk as he's setting himself up as dictator for life, and eventually throw their lot in with the protagonists in the third arc, just kinda helping out while they do the whole deal of defying the orders of the ancient space elf council, learning the magic arts of the misunderstood outcasts, flying a big spaceship into the main brain controlling the space bugs. Kerrigan meanwhile gets converted into a space bug/human hybrid super soldier which... honestly feels like it's setting stuff up for a big showdown that just kinda never happens.

Still, we've got characters, they've got arcs. Mostly we have Jimmy (and the silent player character) learning the hard way that long-established power structures tend to be too inflexible to be helpful, and you should never trust anyone openly seeking personal power because they will just exploit everyone around them. It all even roughly follows the classic 3 act structure (and I mean, there's literally 3 acts mapping to that too, just that act 2 is all shown from a villain's perspective). In other media, this is sort of just the bare minimum, but games rarely bother with characters growing, changing, or having real setbacks that make them question things along their way.

This was followed up with the expansion, Brood War, which mirrors that same structure. One long story arc for each of three playable factions. Space elves largely doing standard fantasy beats, middle third switching to a villainous POV so radically different the main narrative gets largely put on hold, and some really good stuff with threads stretching through the whole thing.

Here the villain interlude is that it turns out Earth in this setting is run by full-on fascists, they caught wind of everything going on in this region where there'd previously been a big rebellion, and swing back in to clamp down again. They don't interact with the actual protagonists much (generally, they see the space nazis sweeping in and run off to lay low), so we mostly just have them swooping in and quickly mopping up Mengsk's little newfound dictatorship, with the actual story being the relationship dynamic between the guy in charge (DuGalle), his right hand man he's known forever (Stukov), and a local rebel welcoming them with open arms (Duran). Long story short, Duran's actually a double agent and very gradually pits the other two against each other. DuGalle eventually has Duran kill Stukov thinking he stabbed him in the back, realizes that's dumb, ultimately fails at his whole invasion, and in the epilogue kills himself, which if you read the relevant bit of my FF14 summaries, you know is how I like my stories about clear nazi analogues to end.

In the main narrative though, we pick right back up from the big heroic sacrifice with the bummer of a reveal that killing the primary brain of the psychic space bug collective didn't really get the job done, because some of its secondary brains (refreshingly not a concept pulled out of nowhere, these were firmly established to serve the dual purposes of having clear military targets for a giant pile of bugs, and a way to actually have enough characters for dialog exchanges in that third of the story) are trying to put the band back together. In their current disorganized state though, Kerrigan is no longer a semi-autonomous corrupted bug minion, but totally has her free will and sense of self restored, while still being all chitinous and at least somewhat capable of commanding the other bugs.

So as the whole expansion plays out, and the perspective shifts from the space elves doing some real desperate migration and defense because the plan to save their home world from the big bug invasion ultimately failed, through the nazi invasion, and ultimately to the POV of the secondary bug-brain you'd previously played as who'd been buggified Kerrigan's baby sitter essentially, now forced into taking orders from her, we are mostly dealing with this big hanging question of whether she's really good and trustworthy again, or secretly still under bug control, or if she's good for now but any minute that hivemind could properly come back online and take her over again. And of course, Jimmy's all angsty and pining because he never got over that one-sided crush.

While there's plenty of red flags about her being trustworthy over the course of things, the narrative actually manages to play things close to the chest well enough for the ultimate reveal to be a pretty fun twist. She absolutely 100% is fundamentally herself again, it's just that for a series of mostly pretty well-justified reasons, she absolutely hates every other character in the story. Either they've been trying to kill her, they abused and manipulated her, or they've totally objectified her. Or they're nazis who just showed up, who you don't really need a personal reason to want to kill, but just for good measure they're trying to revive and mind control the central bug mind, so, yeah, that's a threat. So at the last minute the whole thing just reveals itself as a big elaborate revenge story with a fairly strongly gendered theme about being denied agency and being othered, where the actually quite clear-headed just ruthless girl wins.

And then, a decade later, we get StarCraft 2. And what's the main narrative of StarCraft 2? We spend the whole time focused on Jimmy, who has somehow gone from this young idealistic biker/space cowboy with thinning hair, talking like a hippie and bouncing around getting in way over his head trying to rescue people from space bugs by just lending a hand to whoever else seems interested in doing that and crushing on this girl Kerrigan who couldn't be clearer about not liking him back to uh... some sort of gruff jaded old former military general with a bunch of old war buddies, a drinking problem, and a full head of hair, cruising around on his big personal battleship saving various worlds from the big space bug threat pretty much singlehandedly, and hoping to rescue his love interest Kerrigan from space bug mind control, with the help of some kind of prophesied magic space rocks you can build a big totem out of. It even completely de-buggifies her in the end, leaving a helpless little naked girl to chivalrously scoop off the ground and carry to safety. P.S. She's white now.

This isn't like, "oh whoops, we forgot the main character lost one of his boots at the end of last season" nitpicking. This is doing complete 180s on the character arcs and backstories of the central characters here. Kerrigan not needing to be rescued from zerg corruption is the ENTIRE point of Brood War's story. Which also establishes there's no longer really a zerg threat of any sort beyond what she personally wants to tell her mindless bug pals to do. And really, even if you want to de-canonize all of that for whatever reason, tacking a "hero saves the girl" ending onto the story we had in the base game of the original StarCraft still just does not work. You're taking a story whose whole theme is "putting faith in the wrong sort of person has serious consequences" and then turning around and going "actually no it doesn't."

And you know, speaking of Mengsk, it's a much lesser point, but StarCraft 2 depicts him like he's some sort of grandiose emperor from some ancient dynasty. Big imperial palace, little silver spoon in his mouth prince of a son who wants to break from his family's legacy, the whole nine yards. Again, this both fundamentally misunderstands his part in the whole central narrative, and everything that happened to him in the expansion (where not very long at all after his big power grab the UED showed up and completely took him apart, and would have executed him but Kerrigan prolonged that to watch him squirm). And when did he have this kid of his? With who? And where is Jimmy getting all these war buddies? He didn't have'em at the start of things or he wouldn't have had to join up with Mengsk. And his war buddies from that war would just be the magistrate and the surviving protoss characters who act like they barely know him here.

So, no. This does not hold up at all as a continuation. How about if we just look at it in a vacuum then?

Nope, still bad. It leans heavily on a backstory we don't get to see. And I don't mean we're missing a ton of StarCraft 1 flashbacks. I mean, we have all these "old buddy" characters, especially Tychus, but we don't get into how they became friends or do anything to show how they still are, so there's no real emotional stakes to where that ends up going. We start with him drinking his life away in a bar over how he misses this apparent old girlfriend, but we never get into the history between them and even the depressed drinking never comes up again past that shot. We vaguely establish some bitter history with this Mengsk guy, but that never really leads anywhere at all. We just kinda have these various vague and generic handwaves at Standard Protagonist Backstory Stuff. Then we actually dive into things, and it's this very episodic affair where you just hop around from planet to planet either showing up to rescue people or showing up to collect a magic rock to help build the magic Toblerone that cures being half-space-bug. And I mean, I already covered how this sort of simplistic no tension, hero always wins, collect all the treasures for victory sort of narrative is the general baseline for game writing, but other people have been trying to move things forward the last couple decades and this is just sitting at the starting line with a princess to rescue.

Now to be fair, the original StarCraft absolutely also had questing around for magic rocks. The protoss have a totally magic rock based electrical grid, the overmind wanted to eat their special magic rocks to make them more vulnerable, the last protoss mission even had a big ancient temple that did an energy blast, but that one just killed all life on the planet outside of its immediate vicinity, which feels like a more grounded thing for an ancient alien artifact to do than... vaporize/purify space bugs and leave everything else alone. And it wasn't scattered in little bits everywhere.

And then of course there's the expansions to StarCraft 2... well the good thing here is they're so divorced from anything in the original game, and even from the base game of StarCraft 2 that you don't have to worry about them messing with the legacy. I mean, OK, Heart of the Swarm has this whole weird reset where we have Kerrigan mostly human again, just so she can go on a big spirit journey and bug herself up again, so that she's strong enough for her ultimate goal of... showing up to take down Mengsk... again. And you somehow end up with a zergified version of Stukov which... OK that's just the weirdest possible way to double back and recanonize that expansion. I'm not sure that Kerrigan and Stukov were ever even really aware of each other's existence, and he died to a bullet through the head in a military base with no zerg anywhere near it. I mean, unless you remember that Duran was a double agent working for Kerrigan. Except the thing there is if you know the plot of the secret epilogue mission you'd know he was ACTUALLY one of the secret ancient aliens who created both the protoss and the zerg just pretending to a horrible bug monster spy for Kerrigan, in turn pretending to be a normal human. And that's a pretty obscure detail I'd forgive someone for missing except that literally in the mission where you're playing as Zerg-Stukov, the whole reason you're playing as Zerg-Stukov is that Kerrigan is busy doing one of those things where the two wizards fire big energy blasts at each other like some kind of tug-of-war with weird phallic overtones, and the big energy phallus she's trying to squish back is FROM Duran, in his revealed-himself-to-be-that-whole-mess glory. They remembered one thing only to get it wrong basically.

But yeah, otherwise that one's just so wild a departure I don't even know what to say. There's just... named zerg characters? They're all like bug centaurs? Because we need people to talk to and they just totally forgot they had cerebrates to get around that problem? Instead of the ancient ancestral zerg being like, psychic ringworms gradually specializing their hosts over generations, here they're like... talking dinosaur puppies who steal each other's "essence" to get huge? Past a point there's so little resemblance to the source material that I can't even be mad. And then the protoss expansion just kinda decides that the whole casting the dark templar out of their society over irreconcilable religious differences is something they've actually done like... 3 or 4 times? So we've got the outcast invisible jedi and the outcast robots and the outcast Darth Vader wannabes with some sort of society-wide ordered queue where there's exactly one person directly ahead of everyone they're allowed to kill to move up in the world. Oh and we're claiming this one robot centaur is Fenix somehow. Despite Fenix being very dead, and this robot centaur neither having that goofy muppet-y orc voice nor the overwhelmingly positive attitude. And he also somehow doesn't notice that he's a robot centaur and not a guy in a life support pod inside a robot spider. They also expect us to believe this little naked twink turned into this pile of steroids and shoulderpads somehow:

Oh! I almost forgot but also there's this thing called the Khala and it's unambiguously this set of religious teachings defining a caste system and such... but then here someone watched Avatar so we're retconning that into some sort of psychic spiritual network you connect to through your hair. You don't plug your hair in though it's just like a wifi antenna. Also it only works if you're part of the main society that keeps throwing other people out none of these other people have hair wifi. Also like the entire deal here is that protoss just are not psychic, it's their one flaw. There's this whole thing with them representing physical perfection but being held back by being a bunch of very religious idiots, while the zerg are mentally perfect what with the hive mind but physically just, like, a ringworm, so the ultimate life form their creators really wanted to create requires the zerg to take over the protoss, or just going screw it and hybridizing the two in a lab. Again, this is one of those really obscure details, it only comes up in the weird backstory in the manual that doesn't even get touched on in the game outside the one secret mission in the expansion... but here we have the same scene both acknowledging that deep lore and totally contradicting it.

But yeah, taken as their own independent stories... well... what stories? Kerrigan wants to be a big buff bug lady so she can depose a jerk she already deposed, and she does that. There are no complications or twists along the way. "Artanis" has to go collect all the protoss the in-group don't count as people, because Satan got into their hair wifi and anyone who didn't just get a haircut turned evil. So he goes and does that. Again, no complications of any sort along the way. Also no real ideological conflicts.

The deal with the robot protoss is some idiots went "hey what if we took all of our greatest most celebrated heroes and we copied their minds into robots in their entirety" and then got super confused that they still, you know, want to be treated as people with rights and such and not just mindless robots. So, you know, simple fix there. Then the... actually just evil ones are... lead by John DeLancey. Everyone likes him. So, problem resolved? And the dark templar are already befriended from before, so nothing's needed there besides going to their homeworld to pick them up. Their uh.... home world everyone already evacuated to and then that was compromised and their leader was replaced with puppet and then everyone maybe died? But yeah they're fine.

So then after all the racism is solved forever by just... deciding not to do that anymore, Kerrigan jumps in some kind of magic pool to transform into a giant naked golden angel, and she does this to become the embodiment of purity of essence we apparently need (which also purges all zerg-ness I guess?) and... look there's no easy way to say this. It turns into Homestuck. That whole convoluted thing from Homestuck where there's this eternal cycle of universes being created by light and dark themed people teaming up to create the next one and in theory kind of operate as it's gods but not if they don't feel like it... we're just ripping all that off wholesale for this complete asspull of an ending. And then everyone shoots space satan in the face. He's a big squid. And then Kerrigan turns back into a normal human girl so she can go on a date with Jimmy. Oh and then there's a third expansion recycling the scrapped plot from that action game they were going to do back on the N64 or whatever but I learned how awful the company was before getting curious enough on that one.

It's just bad. Even by game writing standards, it's bad. And I didn't even get into how bad it is with women in particular. We've got the big doe-eyed scientist who needs to be rescued from the scary bugs and then oh no it turns out she got bit by a bug and now she's turning into one and has to be put down (and no, this has never been how that worked). Then we've got Kerrigan who aside from needing rescuing and purifying and coming out naked has this whole expansion to herself where in theory she's totally in charge and self-directing every decision, but every time you click anywhere the confirmation is just her getting all pouty and whiny? Like a toddler you're telling to put shoes on so you can go to the doctor or something? Like, is it just me? Is it the direction? Is it the voice filter? Was the actress just miserable in the recording booth?

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Then she's got this little bug girl assistant who hangs down from the ceiling, kinda like the adjutant from the original StarCraft, but instead of being all detatched and robotic she's all uwu pwecious? And the protoss campaign just kinda keeps turning women into mouthpieces for Satan. It's... a whole thing.

So yeah, badly written stories all throughout, no matter how you slice it. No continuity, no consistency, no character arcs or tension, just be the big cool action hero, do some getting the band back together stuff, collect some magic rocks and ritual circles, purify this girl here with the big magic circle (3 times no less) and then whatever there's space Satan. It's a mess... did I even have a larger point with this?

Probably not, but it was entertaining I hope? Maybe throw a little cash my way?

#Starcraft 2 #blizzard #terrible writing #game writing #People always object to me pointing out Kerrigan wasn't originally white but oh wow those people have nothing on the bald Jimmy deniers #like people come up and say OK he looks bald in his chat window animations but it's an old game and they couldn't do hair right back then #except no everyone else totally has hair and mostly it looks fine for real there was a conscious design choice to give him receding hair OK #Anyway Blizzard is terrible and nobody should support them in any way just boycott those monsters please

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wyvyrnygo · 1 year ago

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So I've been doing a pokemon sleep nuzlocke... (PART 1)

I think I should probably put my progress in the run on my tumblr too

So here's the rules

normal nuzlocke rules

sleep to get your starter (not the pikachu you get at the start of the game)

the first pokemon you befriend each day in pokemon sleep is treated as an encounter for a route in the actual pokemon game (for this i'm using hgss)

Once per week you can get two encounters in 1 day by doing 2 sleep sessions in 1 day.

I'm also using FFXVI themed nicknames for this (so there will be images of FFXVI characters next to the Pokemon that's been named after them in this post, which may be spoilers?).

Anyway here's my progress for the first week

(Note: All Pokemon Sleep Encounters in this week were done on the Cyan Beach island in Pokemon Sleep)

Day 1: My starter is Rattata (named Gav), which is a pretty good Pokemon for nuzlocking HGSS early on to be honest (Guts + Dark Type Coverage). I mostly played up to the first rival battle on this day

Day 2: My first "encounter" is Spheal (named Jill), one of the most adorable ice types. Oh and Ice types will pretty much clear the first two gyms easy. I mostly just went through the first few routes to Violet City today, I wanted to wait until I had 3 Pokemon before doing the first gym, even though it's likely to be easy with just

(Edit: I remembered just after finishing slowpoke well that ice type doesn't actually do super effective damage against bug and now my entire life is a lie 😅)

Day 3: My second encounter is Eevee (named Clive), this one is going to be interesting to use due to the options it presents, however I'm currently thinking of having it become Flareon for use against the Steel and Ice gyms later on. Also Flareon is fluffy and huggable uwu. Today I started by clearing out Sprout Tower before the first gym

Anyway, Jill the Spheal sweeped the first gym easy, that's Badge 1/8 and the first stage of the nuzlocke done, I imagine the next gym will be easy. I'm not sure what my counter to Whitney will be yet honestly, it may require sleeping until I get a ghost or fighting type. For now I've just done Slowpoke well and will wait for tomorrow for another Pokemon before doing the second gym

Day 4: On this day I didn't get much sleep so I decided to add a new rule to this run - once per week I can get two encounters by having two sleep sessions in one day. So here is day 4's two encounters - Midadol the Mankey and Charon the Sudowoodo. These two are going to be really helpful. Mankey can handle Whitney's Milktank and Sudowoodo can handle Bugsy's Scyther.

And now we have a full team by Pokemon Sleep's standards (Note: Compared to a normal nuzlocke of this game, we're still 5 encounters behind, this new rule will hopefully even it out a bit as well as help me get enough sleep on occasions I get not enough to function)

Also Bugsy is in shambles, Sudowoodo wiped his entire team with Rock Throw. So that is 2/8 badges. The big challenge is next - Whitney's Miltank always worries me

Day 5 and 6: I couldn't continue the run during these days due to being busy preparing for a Yugioh tournament as well as other stuff. But here is my pokemon sleep encounters for those two days. Otto the Croconaw and Tarja the Ekans

Day 7: Our day 7 encounter was Morbol the Bellsprout (I went with a monster name because I couldn't think of a character that fit that evolutionary line better) This is probably going to be more helpful as a poison type than Ekans honestly

Also I put the two encounters I couldn't put in the game due to being busy into the game

And that is the end of week 1 of the Nuzlocke, Goodbye Snorlax!

For today I will just be progressing my way towards Goldenrod City, I'm still pretty busy right now so I won't be doing the gym until Day 8. Hopefully Whitney's Miltank will be easier than I think it is, I do have a strategy forming for this fight though thanks to Bellsprout and Mankey.

Anyway I'll edit this post as I go along I think (this may need a seperate post for week 2 since idk if im getting too close to the character limit for posts)

PART 2

#pokemon #nuzlocke #pokemon sleep #pokemon heartgold #pokemon soulsilver #this is a really dumb idea #ffxvi #ffxvi themed pokemon nicknames #johto #snorlax #rattata #spheal #eevee #mankey #sudowoodo #croconaw #ekans #bellsprout

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all-devouring-history-hub · 2 years ago

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A Review of Eastern Bloc Cars.

Eastern Bloc cars. Automobiles that came from nations dominated by the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Union. Even though I hate communism and socialism with a burning passion, You cannot deny how iconic the Eastern Bloc cars are.

Today when most people think of an Eastern Bloc car, they think of a car like a Trabant: Broken unreliable, and just not a good ride all around. This sucks because in my eyes the Eastern Bloc cars are severely underrated.

So I took it upon myself to research the most iconic eastern bloc cars and to review and rate them from best to worse.

Apologies if you guys were expecting another history review, I swear this is not becoming a car blog, I swear! Plus it's nice to talk about something for a change that doesn't involve war.

Think of this like a review of cars, except they're from Eastern Europe. An area of Europe that had cars inferior to their Western counterparts.

Fun fact, I originally started this yesterday but got deleted because I had to restart it due to a bug. So I'm starting from scratch.

Anyway without further ado, Let's dive into the weird world of Eastern Bloc cars.

Trabant 601

The Trabant was an absolute joke of a car. It's infamous for the fact that it symbolizes to fall of Communism and the downfall of the Berlin Wall. Even so, is the Trabant really as bad as people say it is? Yes.

Design-wise, I'm going to be honest, I might be the only person that actually likes the design and considers this the best part of the car. It's so simple and basic as hell, that you can't help but find it iconic and lovable.

Despite my loving the design of the Trabi, That's really all the positives I have with this car. So where do I even start? Well, I believe we should start with what it's made of because good lord.

The Trabant body is made out of Duroplast, A resin plastic. But the ingredients for Duroplast are basically recycled waste, more specifically cotton waste, and phenol (A type of acid) resins.

Yeah, when you look at that, it's probably not the best when it comes to that. It's also cramped inside due to the interior, and really loud as well. But the worst offense of the Trabant by far is the engine.

The Trabant's engine was a two-stroke engine manufactured by the defunct German car company DKW. While it was modern at the time, Eventually two-stroke engines began to be phased out by more reliable four-stroke engines, But the Trabant didn't do that.

Instead, they kept the same engine long after it was phased out. The reason for this is that the two-stroke engines, due to the nature of the design, burn fuel very fast. As a result, there was smoke and gas fumes coming out of the car.

So not only do we have a car made out of waste, it emits smoke fuels too. That's just fucking great, isn't it? There were attempts to replace the engine with a more modern one, but because East Germany didn't have the funds to build a new engine, it remained like that.

Yes, the East German government, which had ways of trying to fix the engine, decided to leave the obsolete and broken engine for at least until 1990 instead of improving it. Great job guys.

And it gets crazier. As if the bad quality of the car wasn't horrible enough, the wait time you do to even get one is even worse. People are put on a waiting list most of the time to receive their car.

In a standard that is actually the same theme with most Eastern Bloc cars, The waiting time to get a Trabant was about 10 to 13 years. Yes, you had to wait 10 to 13 years to even get a car that barely works. Communism at its finest.

The speed is also the slowest by a whopping 100km/h(62mph), embarrassing (Though then again this was the same standard for the other cars too)

Overall, The Trabant is pretty much considered the worst car ever made by many people and while not the worst for me, I definitely see why it's hated. The design may be iconic, But it's not enough to save a car that is broken, slow, loud, and emits smoke faster than a barbecue.

Yet this was the most common car in former East Germany, with a number of 2,818,547 produced from 1964 to 1990. Even though people had to wait a long time before they can get one.

Bottom of the list so far, Let's move on.

Skoda Octavia

The Skoda Octavia is the first Czechoslovakian (Czech Republic) car on the list. Produced from 1959 To 1971 with a number of 229,531 units, This was one of the big hits for Czechoslovakia, during the 1960s

While the Information on this car is short, I was able to gain some info on this.

Designwise, It looks great. Compared to the Trabant, the design is less simplistic and more iconic of the era. The wagon style certainly helps as well to make it more distinct.

The features are an improvement. It has redesigned front axles with a coil spring and shock absorbers that were designed to absorb shock impulses. The engine too, is an improvement with a straight four engine instead of a two-stroke engine.

As well as the speed, which it has a speed of 110 to 115 km/h(68 to 71mph) While not by much, It's an improvement over the sluggish Trabant.

Fun fact, the car name was brought back in 1996 for a new model, which is oddly still being used today.

Overall, this car is an improvement over the Trabant, Design, and Technical. Then again I expect a lot from Czech cars so. Top of the list baby, Let's move on.

Skoda 110r

Huh, would you look at that? Another Skoda! In all honestly, it's kind of an upgrade of the Octavia, despite coming from a different series . Produced from 1970 to 1980 with a total of 56,902 cars made, This was the Porche of the East which is saying something.

Design-wise, It has the most unique front I've seen in an Eastern Bloc car, with a look of a sports car honestly even though it was from a similar model. Ironic, considering it was used for motorsport. Still though, Nice design.

Technical features didn't change much with the exception of only two doors and a fastback rear which Gives its distinctive look.

Engine and Speed are pretty much the same as the Octavia, With a total of 145km/h(90mph) and the engine being a straight four engine.

Overall, however, This is like the Octavia, but actually modern at least by 70s standards. The design is an improvement, and the technical details are more modern at least, But the engine and speed are still the same as the Octavia. Still though, Not a bad car.

Top of the list, but only barely. Let's see if can we get a car that beats this.

Moskovitch 408

Our first car from the Soviet Union ( Russia), The Moskovitch 408 was a revolution for the Moskovitch car brand. Produced from 1964 to 1975 with numbers in the thousands, This small family car was the second best-selling Moskovtich car of the 1970s.

Design-wise, It's something. For a car that came out in 1964, A time when most Soviet cars looked like a Trabant on stilts, This is a big upgrade. It has a squared-off body with a flat roof panel and sharp tailfins.

Technical-wise, It had many modern features for its era, with Drum brakes ( Power brakes from 1969 onward.) As well as a better engine with an overhead value engine giving it 50 hp ( Horsepower).

Also, and let me say this, The 408 is the First Soviet car to actually have safety features. This is funny cause Soviet cars rarely had that many safety features beforehand and generally would lead to accidents like this.

Safety features include crumple zones, a safer steering column, a softer grip, and finally fucking seatbelts that they didn't think to introduce earlier.

The speed is about 130km/h( 80 mph). Not as fast as the Czech Skoda 110r but still decent than the Trabant and even outpaces the Octavia.

This car was exported to the eastern bloc nations as well as Finland of all places

Overall, the Moskovitch 408 is a decent car. Design-wise it's better than Moskovitch's other works previously. And the technical stuff is a bonus, Plus we finally have safety features. Thank the lord for that.

Higher than the Trabant and Octavia, but putting it behind the 110r. Still, though not bad for our first Soviet car.

Wartburg 353

Ah yes, we return to East Germany. As if shitting out Trabants wasn't enough, we have the Wartburg 353. In all honesty, This might be the best car East Germany has, and that's a bold statement.

Produced from 1966 to 1988 in a total of 1 million, the Wartburg was a modern car for its time. It might just be one of the best cars of the Eastern Bloc, In terms of design and technicality. And I mean that.

Design-wise, It's a step up from the Trabant. While it's simple, It's actually durable and has a strong chassis car frame to back it up. It's dependable and easy to care for. Obviously, it's no Western car, but it's a massive step up in terms of design quality.

Technical aspects include Front rear drive, which significantly improved the steering, a trunk, and by 1983, Innovative electric gauges.

The engine is the biggest flaw, however, with the same two-stroke engine as the Trabant. I think you know where that leads, although to be fair, It was less severe than the Trabant (though it was still an issue)

But it's the speed that stands out among all others. What's that? Keep your mic up your ass Johnston, we're coming in hot for a fucking 170km/h (105mph)

Easily the fastest car on the List. I don't think anything can top that. I will be hard-pressed into finding a car that triumphs this.

The Wartburg was massively popular in the Eastern Bloc but it took about 10 to 15 years for people to actually get one because of communism and insane wait times.

Overall, This car is the best so far. it's an all-rounder, Plain and simple. The design is great, the technical stuff is decent and the speed is insane. The only flaws of this car are the engine, the wait time, and the fact It was used as a car for the secret police so I deduct some points.

Yes, it was used for that. It will be common as time goes on. Other than that though, this car is great. Top of the list with ease.

Fso Polonez

Our first-ever car on this list from Poland, the Fso Polonez is probably one of the most famous and most produced cars from Poland. If you live in Poland, Then you might have heard of this car.

It was produced from 1978 to 2002 with a total of 1 million units, not including the truck and pickup versions. This is the first true modern car of the Eastern Bloc on this list ( and the only one).

Design-wise, we have our first hatchback-shaped car, a design that you may have seen before when getting a car. This design works cause it's modern for 1980s Poland, A time when they still had cars dating back to the 60s or just got a Fiat.

Technical features were based on its predecessor Fiat licensed model, the Polski Fiat 125p. It had a modernized engine as well as the chassis, all came from the Polski Fiat.

The biggest advantage of the car, however, was the safety. This might be the safest car in the Eastern Bloc. It's weird, I know. Considering this is the eastern bloc we are talking about. The car was the only Eastern Bloc car to pass the Us safety tests.

The speed of this bad boy is 175km/h (109mph) So like the Wartburg but a little faster. Impressive from Poland.

So remember when I said that It would be hard to find a car that beats the Wartburg 353? I kinda lied, because we found a winner right here. Sorry.

Overall, the Fso Polonez is a near-perfect design for Eastern Bloc cars. Great design, Nice technical issues, Incredible safety, And Sick speed. I think we may just have found the winner here.

Top of the list with ease, Surpasses the Wartburg. This might be the final time I change the top spot.

Vaz 2101

Ahh yes, here comes the first of three Lada cars on this list. Starting with the first-ever Lada. The Vaz 2101, commonly nicknamed Kopyeka( Which is a name for the smallest Soviet coin in the Soviet currency.), was produced between 1970 and 1988 with a total of millions of these cars were made.

I think I posted this a while back, I don't know when, but I didn't describe it.

Design-wise, I love it. Even though it's basically a licensed Fiat 124, this has become iconic for me. The simplistic design is perfect for Russian steppes. The front is enjoyable, and in general, I like the front wheel, rear-engine design a lot for cars and this is no different.

Technical features are where the car is different from the Fiat by giving it 800 modifications in order to be tailor-made for the Russian climate, such as suspension, rear brakes, carburetor, and thicker gauge(sheet metal) steel, Making it more comfortable in a ride.

The engine is mostly a decent engine in that It uses a petrol engine, which by itself, reduces the problem of fuel burning fast. As well as possessing a crank to start should the battery fall flat in Siberian winter.

The speed of the Lada is 140km/h (87mph). So fast speed also counts as well. Pretty much the biggest influence the Lada has is its influence on Russian motoring. The Lada pretty much changed the face of the Russian automobile industry as it slowly tried to modernize. So Russians better thank they had the Lada in some sense.

Overall, The Vaz 2101( Or Lada)is possibly one of the best Soviet cars ever made. The design is great, the technical stuff is a boost up for an already licensed car from Fiat and the speed is top-notch. The only flaws are the wait time and the fact that it was a licensed car and not something originally.

I Would put it in front of the Skoda 110r but behind the Wartburg 353. Still, Third place is not bad.

Yugo

This car sucks fucking dick man, there's no doubt about it. I think It might just be the worst of the cars on this list, and it's something after I smashed the Trabant.

Produced from 1980 to 2008 in Yugoslavia, This trash dumpster was produced with a total of 794,428 Yugos by the end of production. This is the antithesis of a good car and the automobile industry as a whole.

I don't even like the design of the car, It looks so weird and a little ugly. You know you screwed up a car when the design is so similar and weird as fuck. That is impressive. I have a gif to describe this car.

And when I mean quality, there is almost none at all. I think one person gave a review about his experience on the Yugo and he brings up some pretty good points. Let me show you.

rob5740: I owned a 1985 1/2, year model, you read that correctly. It was only built to last a year, but most things gave out right away. No tinted glass, no glove box. Gas cap would not come off, even full-service stations could not remove it to provide me gas. The door release and window cranks were cheap plastic, I noticed them with cracks during the test drive, they snapped off and I had to roll the window down with the remaining piece and open the doors from the outside! It struggled with more than two passengers, flooring it on an even surface, and no power. Replaced the radio 3 times, and three clutches on a car that I was done with at 25,000 miles. Knobs fell off the radio, old sliding channel finder stuck, foam around the air vent and heater chipped out, would not go into gears and also not come out of gear, On highway driving the stick shift would almost melt into place and a huge yank with huge force was all that would bring it from fourth gear to first to stopping. Cover to stick shift came off in my hand once, one time the engine disengaged from the motor so the key made no difference I could not turn it off so we abandoned it and let it run out of fuel on the side of the road. You never knew if the ignition would work, sometimes it was dead and also had to be replaced. Door hinges that were designed to make the doors feel heavier broke off, paint on the exterior ground trim rubbed off, light bulbs were burning out everywhere, rear single strut failed to hold the hatch up new. Other things wrong....signal indicator would speed up then super slow down, hood release came completely out in your hand detached but somehow if you stuck it back in it worked! numerous wheel alignments but the wheel always veered off, and could not handle gravel or dirt roads you'd be shaken to death, seats were stiff and uncomfortable, lacked power in wind, and wind would sway the car out of lanes if you didn't fight against it. Covers to pedals were not glued so you could just peal them off, cardboard interior walls had bent areas and were fading new, no cup holders, would roll backward on hills, and you were never sure of anything, what would break or not work next, it did not want to be a car, even children's toys are made safer and better to last, I found it hard to believe humans had made anything so cheap, what is the point of making things that never work, to begin with? Water would come in the driver's side window in the rain, and going over bumps you would hear almost a strain on the frame, tiny and cramped. Brakes were good, wipers were good, cute attention-getting, but none of that matters when nearly everything else was cheap and defective, literally a paperclip held the plastic together in the door releases. Battery was a relic, needed water in its cells.

You see what I mean. I don't even need to mention the speed in the fact that despite it being 86 mph ( 138km/h), It was the slowest car in the United States. How is this car progressively worse than Nidai's shits?

Okay, Not everything about the Yugo is bad, The brakes are good, the speed is surprisingly good and if you take care it, it might be okay, but in honesty, The Yugo is without a doubt one of if not the worst cars ever made.

Aside from the positives, I'm not gonna even warrant this a full review, because the flaws are there in plain sight. Easilly bottom of the list, yes it's worst than the Trabant of all cars.

God lord, What do we have next.

Dacia 1300

The First and only Romanian car on this list, The Dacia 1300 isn't perfect, But compared to our last entry, It's better. Produced from 1969 to 2003 with a total of 1,959,730, This was one of the most common cars in Romania at the time.

Design-wise, It's decent. It looks sleek, Like a Mercedes. Despite the fact the design was based on a Renault, It was modern when it first came out, compared to most Eastern Bloc cars at the time.

Technical-wise, it has Some issues. While the performance and engine were up to date, the main issue was the body panel corrosion, as well as the fact that there was no air conditioning, anti-lock brakes, or even a fucking airbag. Think about that for a second.

The speed was basically 145 km/h(90mph). A fast speed, Not the fastest, but fast enough.

Overall, the Dacia 1300 is a decent car, With some issues. Also, it's a secret police car as well, so automatic deduction of points.

I'm putting It behind the Skoda 110r but above the Moskovitch 408.

Tatra 603

Okay, so I said in a post that this is the weirdest car ever made. I still stand by that fact, However, I like it A lot. Produced by Czech car maker Tatra from 1956 to 1975 with a total of 20,000 cars, The 603 is one of the most forgotten cars when people think of Eastern bloc cars.

Designwise, Like I said earlier, It's weird. But it's the fun kind of weird and not the bad weird. The frontal area looks like it came from the Twilight Zone. The car body is sleek and smooth, It radiates luxury in its entirety. Just look at it and you will see why.

Technical stuff, It had suspension, Shock absorbers, Coil springs, and a synchronized gearbox that gave it four speeds. That's pretty much what I found.

The engine is actually reliable, due to the V8 air engine being air cooled so that gives it some better quality.

The Speed was also fast for a car like that, at a rumored 170km/h(106mph). Surprisingly it was a luxury car reserved only for Communist party officials. Ordinary people couldn't get this car.

Overall, the 603 is a Sick ride if I have seen one, The design is the main highlight, but the features are not terrible and the speed is fast. I'm putting ahead of the Wartburg 353 but behind the Fso Polonez.

I'm feeling like I'm losing some quality with this review, so tell me If the quality has changed.

Gaz 13 Chaika

I know what You guys are thinking, No this is not an American 50s car, This is a Soviet-made limo. Produced from 1959 to 1981 in a total of 3,179 cars produced, This was the Main limo for the Soviet leadership, even though It looks like an American car, and the Soviets hated the Americans. Ironic hypocrisy.

Design-wise, It's an American-styled car simple as that. Given that it was styled for Communist officials, I can see why they did this, but it's coming off as copying someone's work. I think it feels good inside.

Technical details are independent suspension with spring coils

The engine is basically the same as in the Tatra 603, the V8 so nothing has really changed much there.

The speed is 159km/h ( 99mph), Which is surprisingly fast for a limo. This thing was used by the Communist officials of Soviet Russia as well as East Germany and Hungary for example. The limo was also used and rented for weddings.

Overall, Not a bad car. Given the design resembles American cars in the 50s and since the car industry was at its peak there, It looks a little bit better than most, but not by much.

I would put it above the Vaz 2101 but bellow the Wartburg 353.

Lada Niva

Possibly the first Suv of Soviet Russia, The Lada Niva is the longest-running off-road light vehicle still produced in its original form. Produced from 1977 to the present day in a total of 650,000, Possibly more, the Niva is an icon of a Suv.

Design-wise, It looks great. It looks like a compact SUV in general, Considering that this is the Soviet Union we are talking about here, the fact they even made this SUV at all is something.

Technically, It definitely has modern stuff for its age. Independent suspension, coil springs, rear seatbelts, Right external mirror, an anti-locking service mirror, The list goes on and on.

The Engine is powered by a petrol engine, which proved to be effective when traversing the high terrain of the Soviet Union and later Russia.

The speed is okay, A mild 130km/h (81mph) Never really hurt anyone. Also, the safety is horrendous, during tests in the 2000s, the car's survivability was so bad that if a crash happened, the person could suffer traumatic brain incidents.

Overall, the Lada Nia is a cool SUV that is incredibly useful when traversing difficult roads, and has a lot of features, But needs to improve safety.

Behind the Chaika, but above the Vaz 2101.

Lada Riva

The Lada Riva is the last of the Lada series of cars that are on this list. Out of all of them, this is basically a modernized Vaz 2101 and one of my favorite eastern bloc cars. Produced from 1980 to 2012 with a total of 3,000,000 units, the Lada Riva was the successor to the old generation of Ladas.

Design-wise, Like I said it's a modern Vaz 2101, the front does look a little more streamlined than the original, like it's a Mercedes, and the hull and car, in general, are noticeably bigger than the Vaz 2101, But it's still a Vaz 2101. through and through.

The technical stuff is basically drum brakes with brake shoes on them, Coil springs, and manual transmissions.

The engine turned out to be a straight four petro engine, Which definitely helped it survive until 2012.

The speed of the Lada Riva was however insane about 180km/h(112mph), Making it the fastest car in the Soviet Union and the eastern bloc.

This probably beats the Fso Polonez in terms of well, everything. The design, while a redesign of an older car, still looks good, The engine is great, the technicals are decent, And the speed is madness.

I said I would not change this, but come on, I have to, The Riva takes the top spot from the Polonez. It's without a doubt the best of the Eastern Bloc.

Overall, really decent car to have.

Gaz 24 Volga

Last but not least we have the Gaz 24 Volga from the Soviet Union. Produced from 1970 to 1985 and then produced as the Gaz 24 10 during the Gorbachev Years from 1985 to 1992, with a total of 1 and a half million, this car struck fear into people. If you lived in Russia during the 1970s, You would fear the Volga.

Designwise, It looks modern compared to its predecessor. The front looks like something you would see in a horror film, The body is progressively bulkier than before, And the back has a trunk in the back.

Technical-wise, it's more modern than the Gaz 21 with it having a rear bumper, flat ashtrays in rear doors, and a modern radio. More modern upgrades include the use of seatbelts instead of central armrests, Windshield wipers, and many more.

The engine of the car flip-flops between a straight four engine at one time or a v8 engine at the other. All I know is that these two engines were used throughout this car's lifetime.

The speed of the car is 145km/h(90 mph), slightly faster than the Lada. this was also used as a taxi car, pretty much being the only taxi car in the Ussr. In fact, nobody privately owned these except for the higher-ups

Overall the Gaz 24 is a solid car, With a modern design, technical improvements, and nice speed. I will have to deduct points for its police car status.

I will put it ahead of the Vaz 2101 but behind the Lada Niva.

Conclusion

Well, this was a long time for me to make. I never expected to make it this long, I had more to put in here but after seeing the amount of time I took and how much I put in, I started to reduce it. Maybe I will do part 2 of this, But I don't know if I could.

In the end, though, it was fun to talk about the Eastern Bloc cars and see if they are better, which are ehhh.

So before I Sign off, Let me give you the final results of the list as well as some honorable mentions.

1st: Lada Riva

2nd: Fso Polonez

3rd: Tatra 603

4th: Wartburg 353

5th: Gaz 13 Chaika

6th: Lada Niva

7th: Gaz 24 volga

8th: Vaz 2101 (Lada)

9th Skoda 110r

10th: Dacia 1300

11th: Moskovich 408

12th: Skoda Octavia

13th: Trabant 601

14th: Yugo

Honorable mentions

Zaporthzets series.

Gaz 21 Volga

Fso Syrena

Wartburg 311

Skoda 100

Barkas B 1000

Zil 114

Skoda 1203

This has been Sam and I hope you all enjoyed it. This might be the only car review I will ever make, But it was nice to do something different for once. Have a good rest of your day! :)

#sam talks #cars #Cold war

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mxrp-official-steve · 1 year ago

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Your Msparp re-build update: Your Feedback edition!

So! Over one week ago, we dropped the early beta for the msparp rebuild. We let it run for a week, and then we begged with napkins tied around our necks for you to FEEDBACK US.

I now stand before you with a suspiciously feedback-shaped belly ready to go over the data! If you want to see the changes we're gonna be implementing going forward in reaction, scroll right to the bottom!

THEMES

Ok so this is genuinely pretty funny to me. You guys really like the themes despite them being almost entirely unedited defaults that came with the assets we're using. Good to know, though! I was kind of considering deleting this question. Of note many of you want better dark themes and less bright ones, which me and Hex took note of.

LAYOUT

Despite the website being almost exclusively canned assets right now, I figured I'd gauge reaction to the style. As you can see, it's a positive-leaning 'meh'. This is pretty understandable. I did however notice that many of you were asking for a theme more similar to the most-recent MxRP layout in the open forum segment here.

I have an idea for this. A shoulder to tap on, you might say. Keep your eyes peeled in the future- specifically when we get all the features put in and can start putting the makeup on this pig.

THE NEW CHATBAR

Pretty heavy 'meh' present here again- just with a heavy lean towards positive. This is good! Especially since the WYSIWYG editor launched with the bugs we were initially delaying it to try and avoid- of note most of the changes Hex made during the week were Workarounds. Editing this thing is a bitch and will continue to be up until the bugs are patched up- after that Hex can REALLY cook with fire and mold this thing to our liking. The new editor was one of the main things we were taste-testing you guys on here- and with this we've made the decision to keep it barring any like, completely catastrophic incompatibilities or bugs that like, completely break it or something.

POLL; BBCODE OR HTML/MARKDOWN

This one's pretty clear cut, don't you think? You guys want your BBCode back.

So we're gonna work on that!

When the chatbar bugs are fixed, Hex is going to start looking into converting things so they run BBCode instead. It's gonna take a lot more custom work (because BBCode is, to be blunt, ancient) but it's not nonviable. Don't worry- the shortcut buttons will be staying, and ideally so will the the ability to linebreak (because it rules)

It would also be smart of me to bring up that choosing BBCode over HTML actually makes a lot of things a ton easier- for example! Quirks were gonna be a bitch fuck and a half to integrate under an HTML standard. But if we swap back to BBCode, it's gonna be, to quote Hex, trivial. Hopefully it'll save enough time to outweigh the custom work!

GITHUB USAGE

Lol no y'all didn't. No y'all didn't y'allre goofy that 9% is fake only like four of you have lmao.

WHAT COMES NEXT

Unsurprising numbers go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

We have nothing to report on this yet. BUT it's nice to know that my guess was on point- Presets came out by a FAT lead, with random search in the immediate second place. The random search feature is intrinsic to how parp works and its identity as a website, but it's also gonna be difficult to implement and test (expect a big announcement when it's ready so we can stress it against y'all). This is gonna be our guide going forward, though we wont be following it exactly (as mentioned above, some things are gonna be easier than others, and if Hex wants those to take priority to get them out of the way I'll trust their judgement on it.

TL;DR

You guys like the themes, like the WYSIWYG editor, and you want BBCode back and character presets. These are things that're being worked on once the big with the WYSIWYG editor is resolved!

Again, thank you all so much for your support. We know the beta was rough, but you guys stuck with us and gave us your honest feedback! The beta will be staying up for the foreseeable future so we can live-deploy features and let you guys test them out.

#mxrp #msparp

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floor10ghost · 1 year ago

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Rena Reviews Euro Demo 67!

I don't remember many demo discs I had as a kid, just this and one other come to mind right now (which I'm also downloading) - but I'm just gonna chuck my thoughts on revisiting this silly psx demo disc here! It was in the official uk playstation magazine, i used to play the shit out of it over and over but only remember a couple of the games on there. Maybe I'll remember more while playing, who knows!

look at this sexy fucking disc. This invokes absolutely nothing.

The playable games on here are:

Asterix: The Gallic War

Bugs Bunny & Taz: Time Busters

Chicken Run

Cricket 2000

Frogger 2: Swampy's Revenge

Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness

Re-Volt 2 (RC Revenge)

Time Crisis: Project Titan

anyway. Join me under the cut as i talk about each of these!

straight away LOOK AT THIS SCREEN

guys i think my demo disc has covid

the music is too generic to describe lmao but it goes very well with the imagery

anyway

Asterix:

I didnt grow up with Asterix! So there isn't the full nostalgic attachment there, but theres some *vague memories* here? Anyway I don't think I played much of this because it's dogshit.

It's a *VERY* rudimentary turn based strategy where you pour potions on provinces to reinforce them, then you enter an attack phase where the bigger number wins, then Caesar's Legions attack (fallout new vegas omg????)

At the end of the attack phase you enter a minigame, one of them is a 3d platformer where you play as Obelix

VERY bare-bones. There's no music *anywhere* in this demo. It's also all just very very slow. Won't be buying this when it comes out :/

Next up: Bugs and Taz!

This one is how I found the demo disc! It was one of the ones i played over and over, lets see if it holds up lol

There's thankfully a lot more to talk about here... and music!!!

This is a pretty standard 3D platformer at its core, but you can switch between Bugs and Taz, or you can play it co-op! I imagine that's how its meant to be played. If you're playing single player the other character stands entirely still, however you can hit the left bumper to summon them back to you.

You collect carrots throughout, as well as medallions that I imagine don't do anything in the demo. They seem to be your stars.

When you have enough carrots you can participate in a minigame, the one I remember is the Pelota against the Aztecs.

It's a fairly standard game, if you're playing single player though you *are* outnumbered - but it's not too hard anyway. You just steal the ball and try to throw it through the hoop.

The one I don't remember however, is

Baladi lessons? It's a fairly standard simon says type game but

it got gender in it

all in all, neat lil demo! I mostly remember finding rabbitholes and digging around in them because I thought it was insanely cool that bugs could go underground lol

Next up: Chicken Run!

this is the *other* game I played on repeat! But it *scared the shit out of me*. You'll see why.

So... this is a stealth game

You play as Ginger and you must *be careful of the dogs*

The entire demo is dreary with unsettling ambient music, why the fuck did they make the chicken run game a metal gear clone????

Anyway, you are quite literally a chicken being chased by fucking dogs. and if you get caught a menacing stinger plays as you see this

Was a bit much for me 2 year old heart i must say! Couldn't quite handle that!

Anyway, the stealth is really simple and easy, as one would expect. There's not much going on here other than childhood trauma.

Next: Cricket 2000!

yeah

Next up issss: Frogger 2!

Okay, I had no idea this existed at all. What the fuck?

Whenever I think of frogger sequels I think of those weird ps2 ones, but this is straight up frogger

Rather than the traditional level though you're presented with a themed gauntlet, such as the first stage, a garden themed one. You are tasked with saving frogger's children.

You might be wondering, what happens if you get run over by a lawnmower?

he explodes into chunks. What the fuck?

The second level is a haunted house

This is genuinely an oddity to me, I never expected them to try implement traditional frogger gameplay into something like this. Might play it on stream at some point, I'm intrigued. That being said, I definitely dont remember this. Pretty decent? The music fucking OWNS btw

youtube

NEXT: Ms. Pacman Maze Madness!

I had no idea this existed. But first I gotta say

REST IN PEACE MS PAC-MAN

she lives on in our hearts. Fuck pac-mom, ms. pac-man was where its at

Anyway this is. really *really* boring.

It's that era of pac where they clearly had no idea what they were doing, which still goes on to this day (i say this affectionately, i love pac-man) but this one was a fuckin MISS

It's trying to translate the mazes into something completely different, more a labyrinth than the single screen mazes of yore, with block pushing puzzles and launchpads, a gauntlet you must get through while collecting as many pellets as possible

and its really lame and boring im sorry. I like that the ghosts seem to wear different attire in each level, i like that my gal ms. pac-man is here

i dont like much else. its slow and tedious as hell

however

ROCKET LAUNCHER???? HUH???

Two games left!

Revolt 2!

I forgot to take screenshots but... this is an RC Racing game, it's really a cart racer with really confusing level design, a slight bump in the road will get your car flying across the entire universe and world. There's a bit where you drive under a jeep though which is pretty cute! @is-the-driving-good? No I'm afraid, ridge racer this is not.

Anyway I'm kinda rushing a lil bit because I'm tired and the last one is TIME CRISIS!!! ITS FUCKIN TIME CRISIS, DUDE!!! I love Time Crisis!!!

Time Crisis Titan

Alas... This was not the saving grace this demo disc needed. I can't get far at all for reasons I'll get into, but what *is* there is full of the silly janky charm Time Crisis is known for.

Love these silly models! Love em

Anyway, why is this on here? Why would you put *Time Crisis* on a demo disc? This *will not* shift copies, put it as a video or something, not as a playable demo! It's a fucking lightgun game, this is clearly made for a ps1 lightgun peripheral, but people are going to be playing this with a controller!

the crosshair is incredibly slow and it's VERY difficult to aim properly which is why i didnt get far, it's just... either someone is gonna not own a lightgun and see this and think its just shit, or own one and probably plan on getting it anyway, all that's needed here is a video feature showing it off, having it be playable is *a bad move*

this is likely a pretty good time crisis game! Most of the negative reviews I can see mention the beautifully crunchy graphics being bad so the gameplays probably fine, but by advertising it like this youre convincing people it isnt.

ANYWAY

this was disappointing lmfao

a fun trip down memory lane, but yeah none of these were really that fun at all. Thankfully, the PS2 demo disc I'm downloading has much more interesting titles. Will be doing the same thing with it when I can. I wrote this one over the course of a few hours, but that one will likely have more put into it.

If you read this far thank you very much lmao, and remember:

#reenthoughts #rena writes #rena reviews

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the-phantom-otaku · 1 year ago

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Follow up on the last post I made about an Umbra Witch Ben: I've had some ideas for the Umbra Witch Ben variant and I thought I'd put them out here. Also, I will not be taking Bayo 3's version of the multiverse as canon. Rather, each world has their own Paradiso and Inferno, so there can be variants of characters like Rodin.

-As is typical of the witches, this Ben uses a pair of guns. Green of course with some white stylings and the usual bells and whistles that Bayonetta's guns tend to have. Collectively, they're called Greensleeves after the 1580 song by Richard Jones, but individually they're Helios, Selene, Polaris, and Comet. Rodin decided to give them space-themed names since Ben works with the Plumbers. I also liked the idea of him using something like the Yo-Yos from Bayonetta 3, so I like to think he uses both and might swap depending on his mood.

-His Beast Within forms inclue: Dragonflies (his bat within), an Eagle (crow within), and a Leopard (might change in the future, dunno) Fuck it, he's getting a tiger form. I wanted to give him a unique one (so not a Lynx, Panther, Tiger, or Wolf), but he seems like a Tiger man to me. So he has Tiger Within now instead of Leopard Within.

-He does dance, but his style leans more into breakdancing.

-Not much of a foodie like other Bens, but he is a music lover. He likes electronic and poppy music most.

-Like I said, he’s not much of a foodie, but he does chew gum a lot.

-He made a pact with the demon Monsieur Dragonfly, King of Carnage (name is WIP). Like his name suggests, Dragonfly is the king of the Carnage (the dragonfly demons in 2). He's like the Madamas in that he's human-like and bug themed. He sports four arms that end in dragon-like claws, a cape that turns into his wings, and of course, he has a large head piece formed from several horns. He does have poison/acidic-based abilities along with good basic melee and control over the Carnage. His summon chant is MOMAR VOVIN, which means Crowned Dragon in Enochian.

-The way he dresses isn't that far off from main Ben, but he's got more of a stylistic sporty look to him. Those converse boots that go up the shins, jeans, the usual hoodie but unzipped, and probably a different shirt than what Prime where. I also imagine him with some kind of sunglasses or glasses with tinted lenses. He doesn't have vision issues, he's just extra (and it helps when the angels come down). Idk exactly how he'd wear his Umbran Watch tho. What I'm thinking right now is just a chain around his neck with the watch attached, like Bayonetta's 2nd game design or B1's or he has a chain on his belt where it resides (tho that's an awfully easy way for it to get snatched).

-His Umbran Watch has the Omnitrix symbol on it. The moon is also there with the Omnitrix symbol inside it.

-He's picked up some traits from Bayonetta and Jeanne, so he's pretty sassy, even by Prime's standards. What's more, he's very overconfident in his own abilities, so it takes a lot for him to actually feel like he's in over his head. He's showy as well, and he definitely feels like he has to make a show to stand out compared to his transforming counterparts. Finally, I think he'd be pretty charismatic and a tad flirty (that part was also Bayonetta's influence).

-He's not exactly a new Witch/Warlock, but he's not as experienced as Bayonetta or Jeanne. He started when he was 10.

-He actually doesn't have the Omnitrix. I haven't decided who has the Omnitrix in his world yet, but he definitely knows about it and has been exposed to all the alien stuff, too, on top of the demons and angels. He actually fills a role similar to Ben Prime, where he works with the Plumbers and stops threats, intergalactic or not. He just uses Umbran magic and techniques instead of the Omnitrix.

-He was recently partnered with Rook, who is largely the same as he is in Prime's world. His Proto-Armor is a bit more ornate, though, and his Proto-Tool has been modified by Rodin so it's got self-contained demonic energy in it to assist in angel killing.

-Though he is very skilled, he has his limits and doesn't really compare to Bayonetta or Jeanne. For instance, he doesn't have demon masquerade down yet and he not even close to being able to use demon slave. He can use demon masquerade, but since he doesn't have the technique down pat yet, sometimes Dragonfly can sort of take hold.

-Max is still instrumental in his development. Bayonetta and Jeanne play a role as well, but more so as teachers for his abilities, not for morals.

-Gwen still practices magic, but she practices Lumen magic. There aren't many Lumen left, but there are a few stragglers who have survived the centuries. Gwen has had help, but she's done a lot of her studies by herself. She's contracted a Glamor and uses a Glaive (what Balder uses in 2). The blade of hers is skinnier though and she has two folded blades on her heels as well. She uses magic to make them extend for attacks.

-Ben and Gwen have a friendly rivalry with one another. They enjoy sparring, but sometimes they can get out of hand as they both grow more competitive.

I think that's all I got for now. I'll update if I think of anything.

#ben 10 #ben tennyson #ben 10 omniverse #ben 10 series #ben 10 uaf #ben prime #alternate ben tennyson #bayonetta #bayonetta 2 #bayonetta 3 #cereza #umbra ben??#i don't really have an official title for him

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