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nikki-writes-stuff · 5 years ago

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At the Edge of the Woods (Werewolf!Steve x Reader)

Summary: When you move into a cottage on the edge of the forest, you’re ready to start a new life in a new, quiet town. But when you attract the attention of Steve Rogers, a man who everyone in town seems to dislike and fear, your world is turned upside down after he decides that you belong to him.

Pairing: Werewolf/Alpha!Steve x Omega!Reader

Read part two here!

A/N: Hey, guys! So a couple warnings about this one: it contains stalking, a/b/o dynamics, non-con, dub-con, breeding kink, and a whole lotta sin. Also, this is my first time writing anything with alpha/omega stuff in it, so be kind! And let me know if you liked it or if there’s anything I need to work on when writing about this sorta thing. Thank you so much, and enjoy!

It was love at first sight. From the moment you laid eyes on the cottage, you knew it would become your home. The thing was tiny, barely any bigger than a shack, and it was a good fifteen minutes’ drive from the nearest sign of civilization. But you didn’t care; you were enamored with the thick layer of ivy that had overtaken the western wall of the structure, and there were huge bushes of honeysuckle growing along the edge of the forest just a few feet from the backdoor.

And when your real estate agent told you the price of the property, the deal was immediately sealed.

“You’re kidding,” you’d deadpanned. “That’s all?”

“Yep,” she’d grinned, clutching her binder of properties tight against her chest. “Quite the bargain, huh?”

“I mean… Yeah,” you’d laughed. “It must be too good to be true. What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing, structurally,” she began, “The plumbing is on the older side of things, but it passed inspection. Same goes for the heating and air conditioning. There’s been a bit of a rodent problem in the past, but the appraiser said that a few mouse traps should do the trick to take care of that.”

Her smile had fallen at that point, though, and she shifted on her feet as she considered her next words.

“What is it?” you’d prompted.

“Well… The thing is,” she said sheepishly, “The locals have this superstition about the woods in this area. People say that they’re, uh…haunted.”

“…Haunted?”

You were barely able to contain an amused grin from overtaking your face, and with a shrug you turned back toward the kitchen, admiring the view of the trees through the little window above the stove.

“I know, it’s pretty weird,” the agent chuckled. “But people around here really do believe it. Something about an urban legend. I will say, though, that coyotes and wolves are known to roam around at night, so that’s probably where the paranoia comes from. Just try not to go out after dark. And if you get any chickens or outdoor animals, I’d keep them inside a kennel.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” you assured her. “I’m not exactly a farmer. I’m just looking for a place to settle down.

“And I think this cottage is the perfect spot.”

A month later, after the papers were signed and your possessions were moved in, you found yourself happier than you’d ever been in your new abode. You’d purchased house plants and artwork, designing the small space until it was exactly to your liking. You’d even decided to take up gardening, and your tiny back porch had become dotted with pots filled with flourishing herbs.

You fell into an easy routine. On Mondays, you would venture into town, picking up groceries from the local mart and picking up any other supplies you needed. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays were dedicated to your work; you were the owner and manager of a blog that had become an overnight success several months ago, and so you spent those days curled up in the cottage, typing away at your laptop and creating content.

The only strange thing thus far had been the town residents’ reaction to you. Everyone was friendly, of course, and they’d made it clear that small town hospitality was a value the entire population seemed to share, but you weren’t oblivious to the way they side-eyed you. No one ever looked suspicious, per se, more like…expectant. Like they were waiting for you to say or do something, though you had no idea what it could be.

Earl, the bookstore owner, was by far one of the friendliest people you’d ever met, and after four weeks of the bizarre treatment, you finally asked him about it.

“Oh, don’t mind us,” he waved you off, sliding your new books into a paper bag. “It’s just that no one’s ever lasted long in that cottage o’ yours.”

“…Well, that’s a bit…unsettling. What happened to them?”

“Nothing,” he was quick to assure you. “Nothing bad happens to ‘em. It’s not like they’ve gotten hurt or anything. It’s just that, uh… Well. Strange things seem to happen in that part o’ the woods at night, and it’s scared the last couple o’ tenants off.”

“Huh… My real estate agent did mention something like that,” you admitted, starting to feel an irrational spark of apprehension. “What kind of things did they see?”

“Well… I don’t wanna scare you away,” he grumbled, scratching at his salt-and-pepper beard.

“I promise you won’t. I really like where I’m at right now. I’m just…curious, I guess.”

Earl seemed to consider it for a moment before giving in.

“Alright,” he sighed. “But for the record, I don’t believe any of the silly nonsense some folks ‘round here like to gossip about. This is a quiet town – a safe town. The only dangerous thing about this place is Mary Jo’s strawberry rhubarb pie down at the soda shop – I swear those things are the reason I got diabetes.”

You chuckled at Earl, and he gave you a warm smile before leaning towards you over the counter, propping himself up on his elbow.

“So, anyways, back to your house,” he started. “The last people there were this younger couple. They were nice kids – had just gotten hitched. But after a few weeks, they said they started noticin’ howls at night. Now, that’s normal for this area; we’ve got some wolves. But these howls were close, so loud that it woke em’ up most nights.

“Then, they started seeing people walking around the property around midnight. It coulda’ been that they were smokin’ some stuff they shouldn’a been smokin’, but they swore up and down that they saw naked men traipsin’ around. One time, there was one on their back porch, and the husband ran out to chase him off, but as quick as they saw him, he vanished.

“Again, I don’t know if I believe all of that junk,” Earl huffed. “But… the old lady who lived there before the couple said the same thing before she passed away, god rest her soul. And ol’ Lizzy didn’t lie about this sorta thing.”

You made a quiet hum of contemplation, nodding.

“Well,” you eventually spoke, “if I see any naked men hanging around, I have my handy dandy taser.”

A wide grin broke out over the older man’s face, and he reached over the counter to cuff your shoulder.

“Thata girl,” he chuckled. “I like it. And if you do see people hangin’ around on your property, give me a call, ok?” He fumbled around for a business card, eventually opening the cash register and pulling one out. “Call the bottom number if anyone gives you trouble, ok? I know I’m not the most intimidating guy around, but I keep a shotgun at the house just in case. And if the wolves become a problem, call the police. They’ll send some guys over from animal control to chase ‘em off.”

“Thanks, Earl,” you smiled, tucking the card into your wallet. “Oh, and before I forget, do you have any stationary? Letter writing paper, colored pens, that sort of thing?”

“I’m afraid we don’t. Oh, but Greg and Lou would probably have some. Try their art supply store; it’s right around the corner on the left side o’ the road.”

With that, you thanked Earl and walked out, clutching your paper bag of novels to your chest. You had to admit that the idea of wolves on your property was starting to scare you, but the thought of a naked guy just hanging out in the woods was enough to make you laugh to yourself. Even if it was true, you’d dealt with weirdos before. If that was the worst of your problems, then you’d be a happy camper.

You followed Earl’s instructions and immediately spotted a quaint store with a sign over the door reading “The Brushstroke”. Upon walking inside, you were greeted by the smell of paper and ink, and papier mache mobiles were hanging from the ceiling every few feet, dancing in the breeze that had flown in after you opened the door. Two men were standing behind the counter, sipping from steaming mugs of tea, and their heads popped up as you walked in.

“Hey, there!” one of them called, giving you a wave. “Welcome; come on in.”

“Hello,” you replied with a smile.

“We haven’t seen you around before,” the other man remarked, a kind smile on his face. “You wouldn’t happen to be the new girl in town, would you?”

“Word spreads quickly, I guess.”

“It does when you live in a town like this,” he nodded. “I’m Lou, by the way. And this is my husband Greg.”

Greg nodded in greeting, and you gave them a wide smile.

“It’s nice to meet you guys.”

“Likewise, hon. Can we help you find anything?”

You told them what you were looking for, and they instructed you towards the back of the store, where you found a wall filled with rows of neat packets of paper right next to a cubby of pens of all types and colors. You took your time in making your selections, not even noticing the door of the shop opening and closing; it was only when you heard Greg and Lou’s quiet conversation come to an abrupt halt that you glanced around the corner to see what was going on.

Your eyes widened when you saw the man standing in front of the counter; he was tall, maybe a few inches over six foot, and built like a tank. A thick, well-groomed beard adorned his face, and his hair was on the longer side, curling just past his ears in thick, easy waves. Despite the chilly weather outside, he was only dressed in a blue long-sleeved t-shirt and jeans, and you watched his biceps bulge under the fabric as he crossed his arms over his chest.

“…Steve,” Greg finally said. “Long time no see.”

The man – Steve, evidently – nodded his head as he approached the counter.

“Wh-what can we do for you?” Lou asked, seeming to shrink back as he walked towards them.

“I need a new sketchbook,” Steve mumbled, almost too quietly for you to hear. His voice was deep, resonating, and something about its gravelly edge made goosebumps rise up over your arms.

“You know where to find ‘em,” Greg stated after clearing his throat. “Just get whatever you need and go.”

It looked as if Steve was about to say something, but after a pause, he just nodded, ducking his head and turning directly towards you. You stiffened as he grew nearer, feeling an unexplainable urge to turn and run away from him, but then his eyes met yours, and you were frozen in place.

Blue irises stared directly into you, and you watched as surprise washed over his features. His nostrils flared as he took a deep breath in through his nose, and you swore that you saw his pupils dilate as he looked you up and down. When his gaze finally met yours again, and you stumbled back a step, stunned at the look on his face. It was as if he knew you.

But that couldn’t be; you’d never seen this man before. If you had, you definitely would’ve remembered him.

“I-I…” you stuttered. “I’m sorry.”

You weren’t sure what you were apologizing for, but all of a sudden you were broken out of your strange stupor. Fixing your eyes firmly on the floor, you turned and blindly grabbed the first stack of papers that your extended hand came in contact with. You did the same with the pens, grabbing a random pack before turning on your heel and heading towards the front.

Or, rather, heading directly into a broad, firm chest. You hadn’t heard any footsteps, but while your back was turned Steve had apparently stalked up behind you, and now you were so close that you could smell the distinct scent of pine wafting off of him. Pine and…something else, something musky. It made your mouth water and your eyes flutter shut, and you could have sworn that you heard a deep growl sound from his chest.

The noise startled you so badly that you dropped everything, even your paper bag from Earl’s, and you felt as if your entire body was trembling as you turned away. On unsteady feet, you walked back to the front, glancing at Greg and Lou out of the corner of your eye as you headed towards the door. Lou was watching you with a concerned expression painted across his face, but Greg was still staring Steve down, as if he were sizing him up.

The cold, early-spring wind hit you square in the face once you exited the store, and it sobered you up enough to cease your nervous trembling. There was still a sense of blind panic, though, a deep-seated fear that drove you to march over to your car without turning back.

As you peeled out of your parking space and sped towards your home, you slowly began to calm down, taking slow, even breaths to slow the frantic beating of your heart. As you put more and more distance between you and the mysterious man from the art store, you found that, even later on when you were safe in your home, you still couldn’t rationalize why you’d felt the way you had. And that evening, when you were getting ready to go to bed, you couldn’t help but feel like you were being watched.

Typically, you kept the curtains in your bedroom open, enjoying the sight of the forest laying just beyond the panes of glass. But tonight, before going to bed, you drew them shut before burrowing under the covers, hiding away from the lingering, unexplainable dread that had followed you home that day.

____________

You weren’t sure what had woken you. When you jolted out of your slumber, you were laying sprawled out over your mattress, your sheets tangled around your ankles. Everything was quiet, unsettlingly so. It was as if your cottage was holding its breath, waiting for something horrible to happen. The world was black beyond your windows, and the clock on your bedside table read 3:42 in the morni-

Wait.

The lingering tendrils of sleep within your brain melted away as you bolted upright, your wide eyes focused on your windows and the curtains that were neatly pulled away from them. Your heart was pounding in your ears as you slowly, deliberately, stood up from your bed, reaching for your phone blindly as you kept your eyes on the windows.

You drew the curtains closed as your thumb hovered over the emergency call button, and you gulped before turning towards your open bedroom door.

“H-hello?” you called out, voice still thick with sleep.

There was no answer, and you took a deep breath before stepping out into the living room. You were relieved to find nothing out of place; the kitchen, as well, was in perfect order, as was your tiny bathroom. You grew bolder as you searched your house, checking underneath your bed and inside of your wardrobe, but still you found nothing.

Eventually, you sauntered over to your back door, and that’s when you smelled it. Smelled him. The same scent that had flooded your senses back at the bookstore was thick in the air right next to the backdoor. You blinked rapidly, feeling a stirring in your gut as you inhaled it, and you gulped as you faced the door.

“…Steve?” you murmured, suddenly unable to make a sound any louder than a whisper.

Without realizing what you were doing, your hand came up to the doorknob, tracing the curve of it with your thumb. A tiny, experimental twist revealed that it wasn’t locked, and a small voice in the back of your head supplied that it was sure you’d locked it before going to sleep.

One more twist, and the door popped open, goosebumps rising up over your skin as the night air rushed over you. You turned on the porch light with a flick of your fingers and stepped out, wincing when the floorboards creaked under your feet. You half expected to see a naked man standing there just as Earl had said, but there was nobody.

You let out a shaky laugh, leaning against the doorway as your eyes flitted over the forest. You felt silly, getting all paranoid for no reason. With a small, sheepish smile, you straightened up and turned to head back inside, eager to climb back under your warm sheets and forget about the whole thing.

But that was when you saw it.

You stopped in your tracks and sucked in a deep breath as the wolf sauntered out from the tree line, its eyes focused directly on you just as yours were focused on it. Its fur was sandy and mottled with streaks of light brown and creamy white, and in the dim light you thought that you caught a flash of blue in its eyes. You took a step backwards as that same smell washed over you, and for a short, fleeting moment, you thought that there was something familiar about the beast.

It took another step towards you, and that was when you realized how massive it was. You’d seen pictures of wolves on the internet; you knew how big they were supposed to be compared to people. But this was another thing completely; this wolf looked to be the size of a grizzly bear, and you knew that if it were to stand up on its two hind legs, it would tower over you.

Abruptly, you broke out of your paralysis, blinking rapidly as you turned back towards your door. You heard a growl from behind you, but you ignored it as you fled back into your house, slamming the door shut and turning the lock back into place. A thud sounded on its other side, followed by the scratching of claws against wood.

You waited several moments, silently begging the animal to stop, but the thumping only carried on, accompanied by muted, distressed whining. Taking a deep breath, you turned to your phone, punching in ‘911’ and holding the device up to your ear.

“911, where is your emergency?”

“U-um… I-I’m at 432 Nottington Lane. Please, there’s this, this wolf outside and it’s trying to get it, and…”

As you spoke, the noises suddenly stopped. You paused, frowning at the door and straining your ears. But everything had once more gone silent.

“Hello, ma’am? Ma’am, are you still there?”

“Yeah… Yeah, I’m still here. Um… I think it’s gone now. It’s… Yeah, it’s gone. I’m really sorry to bother you guys. Just, uh… Just ignore this call, please. I’m sorry.”

You hung up and set your phone down on the kitchen counter, staring hard at your back door.

“…Shit.”

_______________

You didn’t close your curtains again after that night. You told yourself it was because there was no reason to, that you had nothing to hide yourself from. But, in the back of your mind, you knew that it was because you were too afraid of waking up with them open of someone else’s accord.

Two days went by with no further incident. You kept up with your little routine, throwing yourself into your work and acting as if you weren’t still shaken up from the ordeal. You called Earl and let him know you’d seen a wolf, just like he’d said, and the two of you had laughed over the scare it had given you. But the laughter didn’t reach your eyes or your heart, and it was still hard for you to fall asleep whenever night came around.

On the third day, though, you decided that you needed to get out. Every time your eyes strayed to the forest, you felt a pinprick of anxiety, and you were desperate to forget about what had happened. And so, dressing in your most comfortable leggings and oversized sweater, you ventured out into town, stopping for breakfast at the soda shop.

Mary Jo’s Soda Shop had been open and owned by Mary Jo herself since before you were born. It was located right in the center of town, and it was the closest thing to ‘busy’ that the small township’s population could be capable of. The front porch was lined with old, worn rocking chairs, and empty planter boxes sat beneath every single window; you were sure that they’d be overflowing with petunias as the weather turned warmer.

The atmosphere was warm and cozy as you stepped inside. People of all different races and walks of life found solace under Mary’s roof, and it was clear by the easy smiles, easy laughter, and easy conversation that pervaded the dining room. A teenaged girl, who you’d later find out to be Mary Jo’s granddaughter, showed you to your table and took your order, and as you settled down into the cracked-leather seat of your booth, you found yourself finally relaxing.

It was easy to get lost in your own thoughts, especially with the dull roar of voices and the soft sounds of country music playing over the radio as background noise. You stared off into space as you sipped your orange juice, content to just zone out for a few moments and let your brain go on autopilot.

Maybe that was why it startled you so much when a man abruptly slid into the seat across from you. You were pulled out of your revelry by a dark shadow suddenly appearing in your peripheral vision, and your initial fright only deepened when you looked up to see who it was.

“Steve…”

The man from yesterday was staring you down, dressed this time in a red and black flannel. His hair, too, looked like it had been combed out, and his beard was shiny and soft-looking, as if he’d rubbed oil into it that morning.

You didn’t know what to say as he sat across from you, his fingers laced together on top of the table, and for an uncomfortably long moment, the two of you were completely silent.

“What’s your name?” he finally asked, and you arched your eyebrow at him.

“Why do you want to know?”

A muscle in his jaw ticked, and he let out a long sigh through his nose. He didn’t answer your question, and you started to shift in your seat as he continued to stare.

Finally, you told him, murmuring your name under your breath. Upon hearing it, he nodded, finally glancing up when your waitress came back to take your order. When her eyes fell onto the man seated across from you, she visibly paled, her mascara-lined eyes widening as her smile turned to a grimace.

“Mr. Rogers,” she said timidly, “my grandmother told you not to come in anymore-“

“It’ll be fine, Rosie,” he grunted. “I won’t cause any trouble; I’m just talking with (Y/N), here.”

Rosie looked over to you, and you blinked up at her, hoping your incredulity was showing through in your eyes.

“I… I’m not sure…”

Steve huffed and looked over at you, a predatory edge appearing in his visage.

“Go on,” he encouraged you. “Tell her.”

“I really don’t-“

Suddenly, his scent was flooding your senses once more, and you almost gagged on your words as you breathed it in. You wondered why Rosie didn’t seem to notice it as it washed over you, nearly suffocating in its intensity.

“I, uh…” Your voice trailed off distractedly, and Steve’s knee nudged yours under the table.

“I-it’s fine,” you finally managed to stutter, and a pleased smirk appeared over his features.

“See? Everything is fine,” he insisted. “Now, weren’t you coming to take our orders?”

Rosie hesitated, but finally she slipped a notepad out of her pocket and nodded.

“Perfect. I’ll have the sampler with crispy bacon. Eggs over easy. And, uh… a biscuit on the side,” Steve listed off.

After a moment of silence, he cleared his throat, prompting you to jump a little before telling Rosie what you would like.

“Oh! Uh… I’ll have the same,” you muttered, though you hadn’t really been planning on eating anything of the sort.

But Rosie jotted it down in her notepad, all but fleeing to the kitchen after you were done speaking.

“And I’ll take some coffee!” Steve called after her.

When it was finally just the two of you, he once again gave you his full attention, and you fought to keep your mind straight.

“I don’t…know you,” you mumbled, squeezing your eyes shut. “I don’t know you, and you’re making me uncomfortable. Please, just-“

“I really liked the nightgown you had on last night.”

Your eyes bugged open, and your head shot up to look at him. You felt your blood run cold as he watched you with that same smirk he’d worn while ordering Rosie around, and you clutched your purse tighter to yourself.

“Wh…What did you just say?”

“You heard me,” he insisted. “How are you liking living in that cottage? The last few people there-“

“What the fuck,” you interrupted. “You…you were watching me?”

He sighed at your interruption but nodded, leaning forward on his elbows.

“And you were watching me.”

“No,” you shook your head. “I never saw you, or I would’ve called the cops-“

“But you did see me,” he insisted. “While I was in my other form.”

You furrowed your eyebrows, but then understanding came over you, and you shook your head.

“Jesus Christ,” you muttered. “You mean…the wolf?”

Steve nodded, looking up when Rosie came back with his coffee. She all but slammed the cup on the table, spilling a few drops of the beverage as she poured it. After shooting him a sour glare, she turned on her heel to attend to the other tables around you, the occupants thereof starting to notice who you were sitting with. The din of voices had gone just a bit quieter as they watched him, and you were starting to realize that the entire town knew who Steve was, and judging on the locals’ reaction to him, his reputation wasn’t on the favorable side of things.

“So… Let me get this straight,” you deadpanned, watching as Steve took a sip from his steaming mug. “You’re saying that you were the wolf I saw?”

He nodded, swallowing his coffee.

“I’m among the last of my kind,” he sighed, tapping his fingers against his cup. “At least in this area of the country. But, yeah, that was me, scratching at your door. I was honestly a little hurt by your reaction-“

“You’re fucking insane.”

A scowl overtook his features, and his hands tensed as his fingers went still.

“I would really prefer it,” he growled, “if you didn’t use that sort of language with me, Omega.”

“Ome- What?” You shook your head, unable to process how insane this man really was. “Ok, I’m done here.”

You grabbed your purse and stood up from the booth, but a hand clamped down on your upper arm as you made for the front door.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Steve insisted, and you felt fear course through you at how possessive he’d just sounded. “We have a lot we need to talk about.”

“Let go of me!” You tried to pull away from him, but you might as well have been struggling against an iron chain. Steve didn’t budge as he held you in place, and a whimper escaped your throat as he began pulling you to sit next to him in the booth.

“Steve.”

Both of you froze when you heard the voice, and you looked up to see three men standing over your table, frowning at the man who still had a firm hold on you.

“Steve, let the girl go,” one of them said, and you saw Steve’s lip curl out of the corner of your eye.

“Rhodey,” he grunted. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Not long enough,” the man fired back.

For a second, you were afraid that Steve was going to ignore them, but then his grip on you disappeared. You hurriedly stood up again, backing away until you were out of arm’s reach from him. The entire restaurant was silent as everybody within held their breath, watching Rhodey and Steve stare one another down.

“This isn’t any of your business,” Steve said, and it was then that you realized you couldn’t wait there any longer. You didn’t care how it played out; you just wanted to get out of there.

And so, while everyone was distracted, you turned on your heel and slipped out, pushing past the front door, running past the rocking chairs and planter boxes, crossing the street without first looking both ways. Your heart was pounding a mile a minute, and you didn’t fully know where you were running to until you were standing in the entry way of Earl’s bookstore.

“Hey, there,” he called out to you, but his typical cheerful greeting died on his tongue when he saw your face. “What happened?”

Twenty minutes later, you and Earl were seated in his office. You’d told him everything, save for the way Steve’s scent affected you. You knew it was crazy, and you didn’t want one of your only friends in your new town to think you were as insane as your stalker.

“…Shit.”

It was the first word he’d uttered since you began telling him your tale, and he rubbed his forehead as he took in your story.

“Shit. I mean… I always knew there was something off about that Rogers boy,” he admitted. “But he’s never pulled anything like this.”

You quirked an eyebrow, glancing up at him.

“Why does everyone dislike him?” you asked. “It seems like the whole town has something against him.”

Your friend sighed and sat back in his chair, stroking his beard in thought.

“It didn’t used to be that way,” he started. “Steve, he grew up here. He was always the golden boy – never cursed, never acted disrespectful. Hell, he was a boy scout for years, and all throughout high school he was the team quarterback. He won so many games that he became a local celebrity.

“But, uh… Well. Shit hit the fan the day he turned 18.”

You frowned; you couldn’t picture the crazy, creepy man you’d just been borderline-assaulted by as a popular, polite teenager.

“What happened when he turned 18?” you asked.

Earl hesitated, wringing his hands. For a pregnant pause, he didn’t say anything, but finally he took a deep breath.

“Look, I don’t personally have anything against the guy,” he finally huffed. “But even I get the creeps when I’m around him. That boy, he was never the same after that fourth of July. Hell, the town hasn’t been the same since.”

You raised your eyebrows expectantly, and finally Earl began the story.

“Steve’s folks were a nice couple. He was their only kid, so each year, Sarah and Joseph would throw Steve this big birthday party. I’m talkin’ fireworks, barbeque, the whole nine yards. But his 18th birthday outdid them all; the whole town practically showed up for it.

“But Steve was off the entire day; I think he was sick or something. He was real sweaty, and his eyes were all…red. Like he’d been scratchin’ at ‘em. And when the fireworks started goin’ off… The boy lost it.

“It was like a flip switched in him; next thing we knew, he was takin’ off into the woods, holdin’ his head like his skull was gonna split in two. His mama went runnin’ after him, and then his pops went to get ‘em after about five minutes or so when there was no sign of them comin’ back.

“After half an hour, we went searchin’ for ‘em, and it wasn’t till dawn that we found the three of them.”

Earl took a deep breath, rubbing his eyes with a trembling hand as he recalled the memory.

“I was in the team that found his parents, and… Hon, they were butchered. The bodies, they were hardly recognizable. Big bites had been taken outta them; blood was everywhere. Another team found Steve about half a mile away, completely naked and shivering by the river.”

“Oh, my god,” you murmured. “That’s… That’s horrible.”

Your friend nodded gravely, but he wasn’t done yet.

“We all figured that it was a coyote that got ‘em,” he continued. “Or a wolf. But Steve… He was in shock, you see, so take what I’m about to say with a grain o’ salt. But all the way to the police station, he kept sayin’… He kept sayin’, ‘I didn’t mean to kill them… I didn’t mean to kill them.’

“O’ course, no one really believed him; it was clear that an animal had gotten to them, and this was Steve Rogers we were talking about. The kid had never said an unkind word to anyone. And his family got along great.

“A few years passed, and Steve was never the same, but we expected as much. Everyone was still nice to him, and he tried for a while, you know? But then Peggy moved into town.”

“Who’s Peggy?”

“She was this real nice girl – British. She moved with her family to the area. Shoot, she was a firecracker. Didn’t take any shit from nobody; the whole town fell in love with her. Including poor ol’ Stevie.

“When the two started dating, we were thrilled for ‘em. Steve was finally starting to act more like himself; you shoulda seen him. The kid was head over heels, and she was the same. About six months went by, and we really thought that they were gonna make it.

“But then…”

Earl swallowed thickly, eyes darting back up to your face before resting once again on his hands.

“Peggy was found one day in the woods, just like Steve’s parents – mauled, butchered…dead.”

“Jesus Christ…”

“No one saw or heard from Steve for years after that. The kid just vanished into thin air without warning. And so soon after Peggy’s death, well… You can imagine the rumors that started flying around about him. Five years went by, and that was when people started hearing and seeing strange things in the woods. And your cottage, it’s right by where the bodies were found; you can’t be more than a quarter of a mile from where they found Peg.

“Eventually, Steve moved back into town, though no one recognized him. He’d always been a skinny, lean kinda guy, but when he moved back, he looked like he does now. And even if he hadn’t changed so much on the outside, no one would’ve recognized the polite young man we’d all watched grow up in this new Steve. He was mean; I can’t tell you how many fights he got in at the bar, or how many times he lashed out at someone just to have an excuse to throw some punches.

“Whatever happened to his family and his girl, he’s never been the same since. And if he really believes what he told you earlier at the soda shop, then he’s finally lost his mind.”

___________

You spent the night at Earl’s house. He and his wife set up their guest bedroom for you, and as you and Sherry ate dinner, Earl called the sheriff. You listened in as he told him everything that Steve had done, including watching you the night before, and after ending the call, Earl gave you the sheriff’s number.

“He said to call him at the first sign of trouble,” Earl instructed. “And he said that he’s gonna head over to Steve’s cabin to have a nice, long talk with him. Don’t you worry; Sheriff Wilson is a tough son of a bitch, and he’s a great man. You’re in good hands with him.”

You thanked the couple profusely, and you were finally able to sleep restfully through the night, knowing that you weren’t alone. You didn’t even mind that you could hear Earl and Sherry’s snoring from all the way down the hall; you hadn’t had such a good night’s sleep in days.

The next morning, Sheriff Wilson stopped by after Sherry had served up breakfast, and you had to admit that you did feel better after talking to him.

“So I set everything straight with Steve,” Sam explained. “He said that he’d been drunk that morning at breakfast, and he admitted to saying some things that he regretted. He asked me to apologize to you on his behalf, and he said that he would stay away from you from here on out, if it would make you more comfortable.”

“I’d be more comfortable if he moved to a different country altogether, but I’ll take it,” you’d joked weakly, coaxing a laugh out of the sheriff.

“Well, I’ll run it by him the next time we see each other,” he’d chuckled. “But for now, I think you’ll be just fine.”

After helping Sherry clean up from breakfast, you reluctantly got into your car and started back to your cottage, feeling your short-lived relief start to dwindle away as you approached your home. Who’s to say that Steve would stay true to his word? And there was something about the memory of him calling you ‘omega’ that didn’t sit well with you. You had no idea what that meant, but the conviction, the possessive, commanding tone in his voice still made shivers crawl up and down your spine.

Once you stepped into your cottage, you gave each room a cursory once-over, making sure nothing was out of place before plopping down onto your couch with your laptop. You were severely behind on work, and you needed the distraction to calm your nerves.

Before you knew it, the sun was starting to slip over the horizon, and as the evening turned to night, your eyelids started drooping. You’d finally managed to catch up on work, and although it took you until 9 o’clock at night, you were back on schedule with your blog.

Finally giving in to your sleepiness, you stood up and stretched before methodically going around to each door and window, making sure that they were all closed and locked. After once more checking that Steve wasn’t hiding in your wardrobe, shower, or backyard, you relaxed and went into your bedroom, changing into a flannel pajama set before crawling into bed.

Sleep came easily to you that night, but it didn’t stay for long.

_________

It was, once again, just after 3 in the morning when you woke up, although there was something different about this time around. There was an almost electric charge to the air, and it immediately made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end. You sat up in bed and looked around your room, and even though the curtains were still closed, just as you’d left them, you immediately noticed the smell.

Your hand fell onto your nightstand, blindly fumbling for your phone, but it wasn’t where you’d left it. Panic pierced through you, and you frantically reached for your charging chord, but it was no longer plugged into your cell. There was, however, something new sitting on your bedside table, and you flicked your lamp on to see clearly what it was.

Your blood went cold when you saw the paper bag from Earl’s, still filled with your new books, just as you’d left it in the art shop.

“I’d been meaning to give that back to you.”

A scream tore itself out of your lips, and your hand flew up to clap over your mouth as you turned to the man now leaning in your doorway.

Steve was watching you with an amused smile, though it didn’t reach his eyes. His hair was wild, and you noticed the way his chest rose and fell with quick, uneven breaths. He looked…unhinged, and Earl’s voice started ringing in your ears, telling you all the gory details about the deaths that had followed this man through his life.

“Steve, please,” you begged, pressing your back against your headboard. “I don’t know what you want-“

“Oh, c’mon,” he scoffed, rolling his eyes. “You’re a smart girl; I’m sure you can put two and two together.”

With that, he pushed off of the wall and sauntered towards you, ignoring the way you trembled as he took a seat on the edge of your bed.

“I read your blog, by the way,” he remarked. “I actually liked it; you’ve got a talent with writing.”

You gulped, not sure what to say as he turned to face you. For a moment, something flashed through his eyes, something other than the smug cynicism that usually dwelled there, but he looked away before you could get a good look at it.

“I’m sure Earl told you a lot of things about me,” he murmured. “And I’m sorry that’s how you had to hear them. But I’m not… I don’t want to hurt you. Honestly.”

“Wow, that really puts me at ease,” you grumbled. “It definitely makes the fact that you’ve broken into my house twice now totally ok.”

Steve huffed, and annoyance crossed his handsome features.

“Careful, omega,” he grunted. “I’m trying to be nice, here.”

You wanted to snap at him that he should really try harder, then, but you kept your mouth shut, knowing that you didn’t want to anger him if you didn’t have to.

“…Why do you keep calling me that?” you instead asked, and the fire in his gaze cooled just a bit.

“…I’ve given this a lot of thought,” he finally sighed. “And I can understand why this all sounds so crazy; if I were in your situation, I would probably think the same thing. But just… hear me out, ok? I’m going to tell you everything I know.”

You nodded, hugging your knees to your chest, and after another deep breath he began.

“I used to be normal, or so I thought,” he began. “I used to be like you; I didn’t know what was out there. I didn’t know that certain legends that we’ve all learned to accept as fiction were actually based on fact. But that all changed on my 18th birthday.

“That was the day that I first turned into a wolf.” Steve paused, looking pained for a moment, but after swallowing thickly he continued. “I had no clue what was happening to me. I just felt…wrong, like I was being torn apart from the inside. I fought to keep control of myself, but… I couldn’t keep it in anymore.

“People got hurt; I’m sure you’ve been told all the gritty details. But that wasn’t… It wasn’t me. I tried so hard, so goddamn hard, to keep it inside, bottled up, but eventually I couldn’t hold back anymore. And that was when I left.

“I went looking for people like me. It took me a while, but eventually I found a small group of them in New York. They called themselves the Howling Commandos.”

Steve laughed, shaking his head.

“Not the name I would’ve chosen, but they were good people. They helped me control it, taught me how to remain myself even when I’m in my other form. And I learned more about what it means to be a, uh…

“Werewolf.”

You bit your lip, staring at him as you grew even more fearful; he believed this. You could tell by the way his eyes were glistening with barely-contained tears, and if you weren’t so terrified of him, you would feel sorry for how sad he looked.

“Steve, you… you must realize that this is hard for me to believe, right? I mean… This isn’t Twilight; this is the real world.”

He rolled his eyes at the mention of that book.

“There’s about a thousand things wrong with that fucking story, and I’ll die mad about it,” he muttered under his breath, and you hugged yourself tighter as he stood up.

“You want me to prove it to you? Fine.”

Steve stood still for a long moment, closing his eyes, and you found your gaze straying to the door behind his back. He was distracted, evidently focused on transforming into a fucking wolf, oblivious to you as you slowly moved to set your feet on the floor.

Now is your moment, your brain whispered, and after taking a deep breath, you leapt to your feet. You didn’t notice the way his skin was slowly starting to grow patches of blonde fur, nor did you register that his voice had become more of an animalistic growl as he realized that you were trying to run. You were solely focused on making it out alive.

The back door was closer to you than the front, and you could practically feel Steve’s breath on the back of your neck as he gave chase, and so you nearly yanked the door off of its rusty, old hinges as you went flying out onto the back porch. You just barely managed to close the door behind you, and right before it slammed shut, you were able to make out an open maw filled with sharp teeth. The same thumping you’d heard several nights ago sounded from within your home, but with the way the wood was creaking and splintering, you knew it wouldn’t keep Steve trapped inside for long.

You began to run towards your car, but with a curse you realized that your keys were still resting on your coffee table inside the cottage, and you wouldn’t go back inside there if someone offered you a million dollars to. So, fully aware of what a terrible idea it was, you started running down the length of your gravel driveway, the small stones and twigs digging into your feet until you felt them starting to grow slick with blood.

You didn’t get far at all before you heard the sound of a low, deep howl split the silence of the night, and you pumped your legs even faster when you heard heavy footfalls starting to give chase behind you. Frantically, you turned and made a beeline for the forest, hoping to lose him in the woods. Low branches and brambles clawed at your face, and the cuts on your feet burned so bad that tears started rolling down your cheeks.

It was simultaneously an eternity and a millisecond before you felt a massive weight crash into you from behind, and with a cry you fell onto your belly. Your arms and legs scrambled about as you tried to crawl away, but you stopped with another scream when a set of impossibly sharp teeth nipped at your shoulder. Even though they didn’t cut deep, it was still enough to scare you into submission, and you immediately went still as your captor panted above you.

Your chest rose and fell as you fought to catch your breath, but it felt as if your heart had stopped beating entirely when you chanced a look to your right and saw…a paw. A huge, sandy-blonde paw about the size of your head was planted in the mud right next to your neck. You turned, and on your left side was the same thing.

Slowly, you rolled over onto your back, and you found yourself face to face with the wolf from before, only this time, you were close enough to see its blue eyes clearly – Steve’s eyes.

“…Steve?” you breathed.

Before your disbelieving eyes, the animal hovering over you started to shift and change, morphing gradually back into the man who’d terrorized you so much up to this point. Except now, as he straddled your hips, completely nude, you knew that he’d been right all along.

“Still think I’m crazy?” he panted, still out of breath from the chase.

“I… How…”

“I tried to tell you,” he grumbled, leaning down. You squirmed when you felt him press his nose to your neck, nuzzling it as he inhaled deeply, and you whimpered when his cock twitched against your thigh. “God, you have no idea what your scent does to me.”

You made a small noise of protest when his tongue darted out, laving over a spot right under your jaw.

“I thought it was too good to be true, you know,” he groaned, and you let out a noise that was dangerously close to a moan as you realized you could smell him once again. “I thought that people had to be a werewolf to be an alpha or an omega, but as soon as I smelled you in the art shop… Fuck, I knew you were mine.”

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” you tried to protest, but you were silenced when Steve nipped at your neck.

“We both know that’s not true,” he chided. “We both know what my scent does to you.”

Steve dragged his teeth down the side of your neck, and you shivered at the sensation. You wanted to fight this; you didn’t want to give in to him. But something inside of you refused to do anything but lay there beneath him, panting as he tasted your skin.

“I’ve never been with an omega before,” he confessed. “The Commandos told me they were incredibly rare, a dying breed just like me. But fate must have brought us together for a reason.”

“I’m… I’m not an omega,” you insisted, but a soft mewl fell out of your lips when he ground his hips forward, the line of his cock sliding up the length of your clothed pussy.

“Then why do you have a mating gland?” he rasped, his tongue darting out to lick at a spot on your neck.

“A what?” you squeaked, but suddenly his hands were on your hips, flipping you over onto your hands and knees. His palms groped your ass, and suddenly you felt your pajamas being pulled down until they pooled around your knees.

“I can’t wait any longer,” Steve growled.

No, no, no. Your thoughts were swirling rapidly as Steve’s fingers slid down your spine. You didn’t want this; you weren’t an omega; Steve was crazy.

Why does your body want this so bad?

You couldn’t find the strength to try and crawl away when Steve’s hands left you, but your eyes widened when he suddenly spread your legs wider apart. The cold night air was icy against your cunt and your thighs, and when the warmth of his hands finally returned to your body, you couldn’t hold in your moan.

“That’s right, omega,” he panted, his hand reaching down to cup your pussy. “Fuck, you’re so wet; it’s already dripping down your thighs…”

Your pussy made an embarrassingly loud squelching noise as he pushed his finger inside, and your body’s reaction started drowning out your brain. As he thrust his finger in and out, your hips started pushing back against him as white noise echoed in your ears.

“Mmm,” you whined, clenching your teeth. “M-more, fuck-“

“More?” Steve cooed. “You want more?”

You nodded your head, and a gasp parted your lips as he added another finger, curling it in a way that had you seeing stars. Your legs spread wider, and you dropped to your elbows, pushing back in time with his hand.

“This is what you need,” he growled. “You need your alpha to take care of you, don’t you? To use your pretty little cunt and fill you up with my seed. Ain’t that right, doll?”

“Y-yes,” you moaned, feeling your walls start to flutter around him.

All too soon, though, he pulled his hand away, leaving you hanging on the precipice of your orgasm. You burrowed your face into your arms and whined at the loss, but a few seconds later, Steve was gripping your hips. You could feel his fully hard length against your ass, and your breath caught in your throat upon feeling how big it was.

“W-wait-“

Steve shushed you, tangling one of his hands in your hair as the tip of his cock glided through your folds, brushing against your clit.

“It’s ok, omega,” he whispered. “Just lay back and take it.”

With that, his head pressed against your entrance, and your lips parted in a silent scream as he impaled you. Your cervix ached as his dick pressed against it, and you were vaguely aware of the broken moans falling out of your lips.

“Fuck, doll,” your alpha breathed, and you felt him rest his forehead against your shoulder. “Feels so good, so fucking good. My good girl…”

You groaned when he drew his hips back and thrust forward again, jarring your whole body with the movement. Your teeth clenched together as he found his rhythm, the initial stretch still burning. You’d never felt anything like this before, and the pain was mixing with your pleasure until you couldn’t tell one from the other.

Slowly, as the minutes went by, your abused cunt started to adjust, and your moans became less and less strained as you once more felt pleasure start to crest within you.

“That’s it,” Steve praised, pushing your hair away so he could press a kiss to the side of your neck. “Just relax; let your alpha make you feel good.”

You whimpered as he started thrusting faster, his hips snapping as deep, gravelly growls spilled out of his throat. Your own moans filled the air as you once again felt your orgasm build up inside of you. Your pussy walls contracted and fluttered as you got closer and closer, and Steve’s hand came down hard on your ass.

“Go ahead, omega,” he commanded. “Cum for me; don’t hold back. Give it to me; let me feel it. Cum for me-“

With a wail, your body did as it was commanded, and you trembled as you reached your climax. Your cunt squeezed his cock as he slowed his thrusts, and your hips moved of their own accord as you rode it out. Quiet, hoarse moans were still trailing out of your mouth as you came down from your high, and Steve’s beard tickled your skin as he pressed kisses along the curve of your shoulder.

“Good girl,” he praised, and you were sickened to realize that you enjoyed his words of encouragement.

You were surprised when he pulled his cock out of you, and you allowed him to flip you over onto your back. His cheeks were flushed, and he was panting, and your eyes trailed down to see his cock still painfully hard.

Without warning, he shoved it back inside of you, and your hands flew up, digging your nails into his back as he once again started thrusting at a brutal pace.

“’M gonna fill your fucking pussy up,” he was moaning, his hair falling into his eyes while his mouth hung open. “Gonna breed you like the little bitch you are-“

Despite having just cum, shocks of pleasure spread through you as he filled you, and in this position, you could watch his muscles bulge and flex as he chased his release. His eyes were squeezed shut, and one of his hands was pawing and kneading at your breast as he used the other to support his weight. The veins in his neck throbbed as he grew closer and closer, and you were taken off guard to find that you were approaching your second climax with him.

“You already gonna cum again, baby?” he whispered. “Do it. Give it to me; I want it.”

You closed your eyes and arched up, frenzied moans of yes, please, God, more, I need more, spilling past your lips almost unintelligibly. You were so close – just a little more and you would be pushed over the edge.

Just before you could reach it, though, Steve’s eyes snapped open, focusing on your neck hungrily. You should have felt fear, knowing what he was, what had happened to his parent and his last lover. But instinct took over, and you found yourself tilting your head back, baring your neck to him in a sign of submission.

With a feral growl, he lunged forward, and you shrieked as his teeth pierced your skin, right where he’d claimed earlier your ‘mating gland’ was. You closed your eyes, expecting to feel your life fade away, ready to see blood spurting up from the wound. But that never happened; no, instead you felt as if you’d just been electrified. Every sensation you were feeling was suddenly amplified tenfold, and your vision went black as you came for the second time.

Your ears were ringing, but you were still able to hear the primal roar that Steve let out as he came, painting your inner walls with his seed as hips finally slowed to a stop. For several long seconds, the two of you were perfectly still save for your chests as they rose and fell with your heavy breathing. Steve’s cock began to soften inside of you, but he made no move to pull away. No, instead he collapsed over you, his head resting against your chest as his heated skin shielded you from the cold air.

“You were perfect,” you heard him whisper, and one of his fingers came up to trace the bite mark he’d left behind on your neck. “Your bond scar is gonna be so gorgeous, little omega.”

Sleep threatened to overtake you as you lay there, not truly processing Steve’s words as his weight atop you lulled you towards sleep.

“Go ahead and rest, doll,” he murmured. “I’ll carry you back home, and then we can go again. Don’t worry, doll; I won’t stop until you’re nice and round with my babies.”

You should have felt scared – you should have pulled away and ran into the woods. But instead, you let out a content noise of acknowledgement before doing just as he said. The last thing you registered before slipping into a deep, dreamless slumber was his arms as they wrapped around you and picked you up, carrying you away from the road and into the forest.

#steve rogers #steve rogers x reader #dark!steve rogers #steve rogers imagine #dark!steve rogers x reader #werewolf #werewolf!steve #alpha!steve #omega!reader #a/b/o dynamics #a/b/o au #werewolf au

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magireco · 4 years ago

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ive never played/watched magireco but do you think the large cast is a part of iroha just being seen as “madoka 2” ?? ive never touched the thing because from what i know its much darker than the original anime, but i do know there’s like 20 thousand megucas in the game and each of them has their own story, so there’s plenty of characters that could be seen as more interesting. theres also the fact that a lot of people dont like gacha games (and magireco, other than being one, is sexualized quite a bit so that probably makes people steer away from it as well, but that’s another topic) and magireco NA no longer exists anyways so it’s harder to actually understand the new content, plus as far as i’m aware season 2 of the magireco anime has not been confirmed to be planned? correct me if i’m wrong on that though

hi!! i have a lot to cover with this ask, so i’m going to answer your questions as neatly as i can in a fun little numbered list. read under the cut!

1. what do you mean by large cast? if you’re talking about how there’s more characters in the game/anime than in the original series, then i don’t think that really has anything to do with iroha. it might just be to garner fans’ collective interest since the original anime hit it off so hard. also, it’s just really hard to please huge collectives of people, especially really critical anime fans... *shiver.*

2. i think iroha bearing a similar resemblance to madoka was used to draw old fans back in, as well as living up to the tradition of all “main character” magical girls having pink hair. iroha and yachiyo were probably meant to resemble madoka and homura at least design-wise, and also seeing iroha, madoka, and homura together in one image is visually appealing; the colors and the familiar faces next to a new face are nice to look at.

3. magia record is not nearly as dark as the original series! in the anime, there are no main-cast deaths. this does not inherently prove that a show isn’t dark, but literally, the only onscreen death is of yachiyo’s friend from her original team, and that was in a flashback... rather than slowly losing characters as the story goes on, it starts off with iroha alone, then she meets other magical girls and they form a team, etc. i go on about this on my blog bc, once again, in my opinion, magia record has much more hopeful undertones and actually gives the girls a chance to, well... live. it’s an alternate timeline(that madokami can’t interfere with, there’s lore to that) wherein glasses homura is the homura featured(she actually gets a lot of character growth in the game), the main quintet is all together, the mikazuki villa crew really are just the found family trope combined in a little package.

4. there are a few reasons for there being a lot of characters in the game, one of them being that they literally adapted every spinoff into the game. oriko magica, tart magica, suzune magica, kazumi magica... all those characters are there. then they added a bunch of side characters, which, i dunno? there are some side characters i really like and others i just kind of don’t really care about. but they really grow on you! .... most of them.

5. yeah, blegh. the game certainly has its flaws(the whole series does, but that’s another ask for another day). the anime is much, much less fanservicey though! i have my gripes about the designs and i certainly have my gripes about the way the characters are drawn sometimes (looking at you, swimsuit mami artist), but with me being an experienced gacha player (unfortunately) that was just something i decided to put up with in exchange for a fun story. i can see why people might get the misconception that the anime is just as sexualized, though. i don’t like the main characters’ designs that much, honestly... they all show too much skin, so i agree. weird.

6. season 2 was confirmed!

7. NA was discontinued right after the first arc of the series. disappointing (oh, i could go on), but we got to see a lot of iroha’s character development in the story.

8. what i was really trying to get across with that post was really just to gripe about in-fandom stuff. there are plenty of other characters that could be seen as more interesting than iroha, especially considering the mikazuki villa girls are all so varied, but that’s kind of how it is with every series, honestly. there’s always going to be one character that seems less interesting compared to other ones. i just kind of realized that iroha gets the short end of the stick compared to the other girls. not only because of her resemblance to madoka, but because of her perceived blandness and the lack of people who care to analyze why she might act that way. her pink motif and gentle, kind demeanor translates as “madoka copy” in people’s heads, and, y’know, it translated like that in mine the first time i saw her, too. but, when you actually think about her arc aside from her resemblance to madoka in several different ways, you get a really interesting and special character; just as special as the others! there was a similar issue with madoka, honestly, with people brushing her off because she wasn’t as “emotionally deep” as the rest of the quintet, even though that’s not true at all. i think it’s unfair that people will brush off a character just because they’re nice; that they’ll reduce characters like iroha and madoka to their cuteness and kindness only and not analyze the rest of the details that they have intentionally(or sometimes unintentionally, y’know how anime writing can be) been written with!

...but then again, i’m biased in my own way, admittedly. i relate to iroha (i really just made that post because i was thinking about how i’ve never seen someone touch on how her memory gaps affect her), and i just wasn’t seeing any coverage on it, so i thought, someone has to do this! i also just... don’t see people who coin themselves as “iroha fans” very often? she’s one of the characters who is there, but usually not deemed interesting enough for someone to be a superfan of. i’m probably hypocritical, considering homura akemi is my favorite character and she’s pretty popular in the fandom, but what i said is more of an observation than an accusation anyway. i had similar feelings with madoka, but i haven’t gone on a proper ramble about that yet.

...these characters also aren’t real people, so i’d say i probably shouldn’t go on such long rambles about them, but i really do feel like they reflect a lot of real life experiences sometimes. like, me connecting to iroha’s struggles is something that connects her character to an actual experience. however, like i said in my original post, i am very much an overanalyzer, and i tend to take concepts and just run with them, especially when something stands out to me. this is also just a magical girl show, so i’m really not taking anything that personally.

also, to clear anything up, the original post wasn’t meant to come across as me being angry, per se, at people who think iroha is boring, it just kind of ticks me off that she’s brushed off so quickly in the larger fandom because of her demeanor. this doesn’t really apply to people who aren’t into the series at all yet, because i’d literally also think “okay so we have madoka, and madoka with a hood” if i were in your shoes! also, people are allowed to dislike characters for no reason. i’m just silly and go on long defensive rants over the sad magical girls, and would probably be sad if people didn’t like iroha because of the reasons i mentioned.

all in all, i do reccomend magia record very much if you can get past the sexualization of the gacha cards and the, um... poorly designed outfits. because the NA server has been shut down, there are channels on youtube that graciously upload videos of the in-game stories as well as side stories! in the game, there are sometimes entire side stories for characters’ outfits. because it’s a gacha game, there are events and such, and the event stories i’ve seen and/or read (most of the ones i’ve read have to do with homura though) are a lot of fun. i reccommend checking out muffinrecord’s channel if you’d like to read any of the stories (hopefully you’re the type of person who can sit and watch live2d models move around with boxes of text on the bottom for 25 minutes like me). they have everything sorted into playlists in that section of their youtube. of course, i also reccomend watching the anime, if you’re interested! the animation is polished and nice, even if the story is a little hard to follow at times. but if not, that’s okay too.

thank you for the ask, and i hope i could clear some things up for you!

#asks #anon #i am so sorry for all this text

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etherealellaelf · 5 years ago

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Disney Remakes: they’re not all bad.

I submit that some of the disney live action remakes are, regrettably, a bit off. But not all of them. A lot of them are really good. Here’s why.

-Lion King did really put me off with the lack of expressions. I’m not sure if I have much to say about it, lol I’ll have to see it and let you know. Honestly though I don’t think I can because I love the original Lion King so flipping much, it’s a masterful movie and part of its mastery is the beautiful hand drawn animation and its expressive characters. I can’t think I can watch a bunch of real lions just talking. Who knows? I’ll keep you posted.

-Alice in Wonderland, one of the first of them, had some really good feminist moments. I love the Hatter and Alice’s love for each other, I guess he’s like the only human in Wonderland so it makes sense. But I get some weird ideas because the denizens of Wonderland are supposed to mirror the characters in Alice’s real life, and since the only redhead in Alice’s life is Hamish, that weirdo who asks her to marry him and he’s a total jerk.... and the Hatter is a redhead too.... idk it’s weird. Also it’s weird if he represents her dad because number one he’s dead and number two it’s incest, but the Hatter does say a few things that her dad said at the beginning....hmmm... fishy. However I feel like I can rest assured because this might just be the case of “Johnny Depp came to shoot today in a homemade cosplay and nobody can stop him because he’s just a mad genius”, in which case why do they keep letting him do that??? I don’t mind the hatter’s design, but can you imagine Just Plain Old Johnny Depp In All His Sexy Glory as a mad hatter? It would have been fine. They had to give him a gap between his teeth, CGI enlarged eyes, crazy red hair, white and pink makeup... oh well, whatever, it’s fine. I like how Underland looks a bit more like Narnia than like a Tim Burton land; I honestly don’t know if they gave him complete creative control when it came to the CGI set design. It might’ve been cool to see that.

-Cinderella was wonderful, I thought. I really love how Cinderella and the Prince interacted a lot more, falling in love over a long period of time. In fact, I feel like it was a spiritual remake of Ella Enchanted(which, in my opinion, Disney really botched up because the book was just so amazing), so they did really good in my book. My brother, however, hates that at the end she just twirls in her tower and doesn’t do anything to save herself, when in the original she tried to escape. He thinks it’s really unfeminist and he doesn’t want his daughter to act like that. I agree on that mark, but I’ll let everyone watch it. Also they threw a little bit of the Beauty and the Beast original fairy tale in there when her dad, a merchant, asks what she wants and Cinderella asks for the branch that brushes his arm or whatever; similar to a single rose, when her sisters ask for riches. I also liked the handling of Lady Tremaine; it really humanized her and I felt for her. The stepsisters were silly as per the usual. The King went from a bumbling psychopath(the cartoon) to a very melancholy, concerned father, and I cried at his death scene. Bravo, Kenneth Branagh, bravo.

-I really like all of Beauty and the Beast, although I do think that they made Lumiere & friends a little bit too important in this movie. I needed more moments between Belle and the Beast that were in the animation! Evermore was breathtaking though, let’s be honest. Although let’s be honest, I REALLY REALLY wanted to see a shirtless Dan Stevens emerge from a wall of rose petals because that sounds absolutely magical and super HOT. I’m so mad they had to redo it. Also I like the subtle crush Lefou has on Gaston; I’ve always wondered if he liked him. I do wish that Josh Gad had toned it down with his fabulousness though, because although I love fabulousness I wonder if it was slightly offensive. I really liked Gaston, and I feel like he could have gone a little bigger and with more bravado, could have been from slightly comedic to VERY comedic, but I think that’s alright. He did a great job. And as for everyone complaining about the villagers being really nasty and openly evil towards Belle, I actually liked it. It’s clear in the cartoon that the villagers whisper behind Belle’s back, but I feel like she just has a small smidgeon of an idea that they think she’s weird. In this, they freaking ATTACK her. They’re like ‘We can’t have smart bicc’s in our town! Get out me town!” It is a bit on the nose sometimes but I think it works because it helps Beast and her relate to feeling like outsiders. I do think the Beast knowing how to read kind of gave them something in common as well, but I disliked how he scoffed at her favorite book, Romeo and Juliet. I wish he had been more understanding like, “There’s this poor girl whose library is like, seven books, and amongst those seven books, one of which is probably the freaking bible because they belong to a pastor, her favorite is basically a romance. She’s not well read; I’m going to show her the classics.” Which back then was probably, like, idk, Voltaire? Too soon? Eh I’m not sure when it takes place. I do wish he’d gifted the library to her though, that was a nice gift for her in the previous movie. (Here’s the thing; the Beauty and the Beast cartoon is basically a perfect movie and I don’t think anything can live up to it, but this one was good too. It wasn’t better, but nothing can be better than that movie. Except maybe the Princess Bride or the first Pirates of the Caribbean or the stage production of Phantom of the Opera. No, not even then.)

-Dumbo? I haven’t seen it yet, I’ll have to and update this.

-Okay so Aladdin is really good. I entered the film with the meme cringe in my mind, totally expecting it to look weird and bad, but honestly Will Smith was such a great actor! And I actually freaking cried so many times because number one: the genie was aladdin’s father figure that he never had! He taught him how to date! Number two: the genie got his true love as well, and you see her and their kids at the beginning of the movie! SPOILERS btw. Sorry. Also Number three: they picked Will Smith to play the genie because he’s HITCH of course! The matchmaker extraordinaire! (I just love Will Smith. I wish he would run for president; it wouldn’t be the first time we had an actor in the white house. Just kidding, I don’t want to burden him that way, and there are really smart candidates this year to choose from. I just am urging everyone to go vote, and no more harambe crap!!!!) Also Jasmine had a nice new empowering role in this movie. I just sort of wish Jafar had been more menacing and villainous. But his actor was fine, just a bit soft-spoken.

-Lady and the Tramp- I started it on Disney+, I need to finish it. I’m halfway there.

-Christopher Robin is a gift; it’s both simple and complex. It has a lot of nice metaphors and I could feel my heart hurting for much of the film. Seriously good aesthetics as well, Director of Photography!!!

-The Jungle Book is a really good remake! So much excitement, and I could totally see Bill Murray in Baloo. (I think it’s equal in terms of story to the movie Mowgli, although Mowgli had that nasty little surprise at the end, I’m still hurt about it.)(also in comparing, the CGI is similarly good, but Mowgli wanted to do a really ambitious face capture thingy and I’m not sure if it worked,(uncanny) but it was interesting! It was also a lot darker. I think they’re both good.) Ben Kingsley was superb, of course, as Bagheera, as always, and he has a really fatherly voice(I thought Christian Bale did well as Bagheera as well, but he was more of an action figure in that movie, less of a father/teacher figure). And John Favreau, as always, went the extra mile to bring the action, the writing, and the moral through, and made it super good for children at the same time!(the same cannot be said about Mowgli, as there were some violence/action things that go beyond ‘peril’, hence it’s PG-13 rating) My one discrepancy was the voice of Kaa. Scarlet did fine, but I always thought of Kaa as a boy. I think they could have found a slithery voice actor for Kaa. Benedict Cumberbatch did really well as Smaug, hissing and growling, and he could have done well. I also think that Tom Hiddleston could have done a great job; he has a really gentle and pliant voice that can turn menacing in the matter of seconds, and if it’s about the snake being sexy as Scarlet Johanssen(haha what??), I think that Hiddles can bring it.(I’m not quite sure what I’m talking about at this point so I’ll shut up now.) I do feel like Mowgli started shooting way before The Jungle Book was even a glimmer in John Favreau’s eye, and that kind of makes me want to root for Mowgli because I’m sure that different movie houses have people working in both, probably swapping stories with their friends, and I’m sure it wasn’t an exact copy, but I can totally see Bill Murray in Baloo’s face and that can’t be by accident. Just saying. Not calling Disney out or anything, but I’m sure they can take it, they have like a trillion dollars. Anyway. Still a good one.

-Haven’t seen Pete’s Dragon.

-101 Dalmations, I know this shouldn’t count but it just does. I loved watching this as a child. I’m so happy they didn’t make the dogs talk? Haha it usually works when they do, but it gave a lot of room for Doctor House and Mister Weasley to interact. Also Glenn Close is great. I think this movie’s a good example of a career woman who decides to get domesticated and her sista is like, “Girl, you can’t do this! We have to be strong women! You have to come back to work!” But Anita is all, “Girl, respect my decisions! Feminism isn’t forcing your girl to be exactly like you, it’s giving me the respect to make my own decisions. If I want to have a baby with my husband, that’s fine. I want to be a mom!” I feel like the “new” 101 dalmatians remake they’re gonna make, will have a different opinion. Similar to wicked and maleficent, it’s going to humanize Cruella, but I just hope that they’re nice to Anita. She’s such a smol soft bird and if she wants 2 billion dogs and one baby, that’s fine... ugh, that’s gotta be like so much dog poop in her house... anita what are you doing...

-Maleficent. Obviously I love it. I love how those arguing fairies are super incompetent at raising Aurora because they’re too busy fighting, so Maleficent has to swoop in and rescue the princess. I like how Maleficent is a fae and it’s so sad how there’s like this rape metaphor when Stefan cuts off her wings, and that would be reason to curse his baby, especially because they were in love and he betrayed her! Stole her wings! Married someone else! T^T Maleficent, you poor misunderstood fairy! I love her motherly relationship with Aurora. I love that she’s the one who kisses her forehead to wake her up because Philip met her just that day. However, I don’t like how they just shove Philip out of the way, because Sleeping Beauty is honestly so romantic, and I love how they dance together and everything. I also like the raven boi. I ship him and Maleficent so hard and I hope he doesn’t die in the sequel, I haven’t seen it yet.

-So technically the Parent Trap is a remake. It’s awesome. It gave my childhood so much romance and prank ideas. It’s much better than its predecessor, especially because the mom in the old one is, like, urged to look prettier by her butler(wtf?!?! YOu’re FIrEd?!?). I’m so glad we’ve come so far.

Anyway, those are my thoughts. Are the remakes better? In some cases they are. I think Cinderella is better than its predecessor. I think the original Alice is very good, as a nonsense movie, and I feel like the remake is equally good, but they’re different movies with different motives and plots. The original Beauty and the Beast is my favorite and it’s perfect, so the new one isn’t better, but it is really great and I love it, too. Anyway, that’s all.

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purplesurveys · 4 years ago

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896

Would you ever try Fear Factor for one million dollars? Why or why not? Yes. It would make for hilarious stories for get-togethers and I think that winning a million dollars that I could use up for the rest of my life doing some dumb dares for a few hours would be worth it. If you have a camera, when do you use flash? Only if it’s dim. I don’t like the effect that flash gives. What would you do with eighty-three crazy straws? Find an aunt or uncle with a kid who’s having a birthday party soon so they can use the straws as giveaways or something. If you use hair spray, what brand do you use the most? I don’t. Is Catcher in the Rye in your library by any chance? It’s probably in another college’s library, most likely our college for the arts and letters. There’s no reason for it to be in a mass communication library.

What if there was no such thing as the word 'one'? Then that would imply that we have/have to have plurals of everything, which just sounds a bit bizarre to me.

What do you have automatic sympathy for? The 11,000 employees of the country’s biggest broadcasting network that was recently officially shut down by our – surprise surprise – government. These are people who weren’t even involved in the network’s franchise renewal status (which was/is the main issue), people who have families, people who relied on these jobs to get by during a worldwide pandemic, people who loved their jobs, people who found family in these jobs, It’s absolutely crazy how people can defend their stance against the network and justify the loss of 11,000 jobs. What is a cool disposable object? I don’t know who looks at disposable objects and thinks they’re ‘cool,’ but the first thing I thought of was my vape pen of choice, which are disposable. It has enough puffs to last several months with me so it’s more convenient for me to keep buying them than spending a large amount on a refillable one. Hilary Duff or Lindsay Lohan? Why? Hilary Duff as Lizzie McGuire is more nostalgic to me; I used to watch it nearly everyday. I never watched Lindsay’s movies other than Herbie. What do you think of the actor Michael Cera? No opinion but I remember the time when he was often used on 9Gag memes. Simpler times lol. Anyway, I haven’t seen any of his movies. What is the best thing about a Barbie doll? I think it’s really fun how they’ve come up with a bazillion outfits for Barbies and Kens. And different versions too – as far as I know there’s been a Filipino Barbie for a while :) What is something you'd say in your will? If I passed any time soon I’d like to include some things about my dogs and how they’re supposed to be taken care of. If we’re talking about what I’m putting in my will if I ever reach like 80, I just wanna make sure every person who’s been in my life and stayed for a bit is mentioned and thanked and I wanna make the list as expansive as I possibly can at that age. Idk, I’ve always been sentimental. Any thoughts on fake abortion clinics? What??? I don’t know what those are and what they do, but they sound awful. What was a username you'd thought wouldn't be taken but was taken? I’ve tried using my full name as a username in a few websites and seen them being taken. My first and last names don’t make a common pair, so I’ve always found it surprising. Cherry or peanut ice cream? Peanut. Not gonna lie, it’s an unusual flavor – but Asians kinda put peanuts on everything heh. What is your dream cellphone? Why? Whatever new phone Apple puts out because unfortunately I buy into toxic consumerist shit like that lol Would you rather be watching The Bachelor or The Bachelorette? Neither. From one to ten, how big of a movie buff are you? I’d give myself an 8. I’ve seen my fair share of movies and I can honestly say that my favorite films are not cliche picks, but I’ve also yet to see a bunch of classics that other ~movie buffs~ hail as being excellent movies like Taxi Driver, Silence of the Lambs, Rocky, American Psycho, etc. I also haven’t been watching movies as much as I used to, which takes down another point for me. Who is a celebrity you think will never get into trouble? The Irwin kids. I wouldn’t call them celebrities per se though; they’re in the spotlight for the most wholesome reasons. I’ve seen every segment Robert Irwin has had on Jimmy Fallon and it’s amazingly precious. What is an important holiday to you? Why? Probably the EDSA Anniversary because without it we’d still be under a dictatorship. Name a catty girl you really dislike. I wouldn’t call anyone I know that. What is a museum you would like to go to? The top 3 museums that I would love to visit are the Anne Frank House, the Met, and the Art Institute of Chicago. And wherever Monet’s paintings are, because he’s my favorite artist. Personally, do you look better with short hair or long hair? Short. Long, frizzy hair does not look good on me and on anyone else. What was the reason why you last blocked a person from your IM? He was a stranger who hit on me. I added him back only because we had a considerable amount of mutual friends and I thought that maybe he used to be a classmate or something, but he messaged me some shit that he had probably copy-pasted to 700 other girls saying like ‘hey do you mind if you and I talk? I find you really pretty’ like six seconds after adding him back. It was so fucking creepy and I never blocked someone so quickly. I was already in a foul mood that night so I also showed the brief interaction to Gab and I gave her freedom to curse the shit out of the guy if she wanted to. What is a cliche thing that happens a lot in anime? I don’t like anime and have never watched it. What are your views on the cartoon show Invader Zim? I’ve never seen that either. If you have some, what is tonight's homework about? I don’t have homework anymore. If you have one, what is your favorite sushi flavour? Cream cheese salmon rolls from a local place called Torch. What is the first thing you think of when I say 'Jack'? Rose. Do you understand JavaScript coding? A teeny bit, thanks to the theme customizations I used to do on Tumblr when I was 14. What would you do if you found a gun in your best friend's bedroom? Confront them, and maybe even scold them. I definitely would be angry. Not even just because it could mean they’re suicidal, but because I don’t believe in guns. What do you call your grandparents? I call both sets Lolo and Lola. When I say 'Go', you say: I just remember the song Green Light by Beyoncé because the chorus on that is her screaming ‘Go.’ What colour do you usually paint your nails? I never paint them. They’re pretty, but I never saw them as a necessity. What would be a cool earring design? People come up with cool designs all the time now though. I’m completely sure there are a million versions of this now but I would love sriracha sauce earrings haha. What do you think of raccoons? No opinion as I’ve never encountered them. Any thoughts on the actor Paul Rudd? NEVER AGES Who is the better liar: your mother or your best friend? Mom. Gab will lie to me sometimes but I can always tell. Are breast implants something you'd consider? Why or why not? I considered it when I was a teenager because people used to pick on me for being flat-chested, as if I had a choice as to what size my body would end up being. Also, flat chests were the butt of so many jokes in the early 2010s so it made me insecure for a very long time. Nowadays the environment is a lot nicer and I’m seeing many flat-chest positivity posts (if that’s even a thing) so I’ve changed my mind about implants. Besides nightmares, what is the scariest thing about sleeping? Sleep paralysis. You can wake up from nightmares. Do you find the phrase 'nom nom nom' annoying? Not as much as ‘rawr’ annoys me. Do you look better with red lipstick or black lipstick? I look good in neither but I would go with red. When was the last time you had chocolate milk? Oooooh it’s been a while :( I feel like that’s something people have to start selling more, honestly. I don’t see chocolate milk being sold other than at the grocery or convenience stores and ugh, I just want more restaurants to add it on their menus lol. That being said, the last time I had it was in January, during a journalism workshop that we hosted in a school in Marikina. The teachers offered us that and a Fudgee Bar as thank-you snacks :)

#survey #surveys

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herotheshiro · 4 years ago

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this isn’t a review but just some thoughts i guess. i’ve been reading erwin x levi dj’s recently and i’m like ... the CONCEPT of attack on titan is interesting (humans have to fight against titans but also they’re essentially trapped (cornered) within this one area, the horrors of war/advancement, also who is the real danger: the titans or the fellow humans you live with? also NOTE these are concepts that i’m coming up with based on what i know of the series (very little) and what the dj’s sound like they’re saying lol) but if only the original content and mangaka wasn’t facist/imperialist and nazi-sympathizing.

i was indeed an aot fan a long while ago, i almost watched the entire 1st season of anime and read a good chunk of the manga (NO idea where i stopped though). i stopped following it partially bc of the mangaka and partially bc i got bored for whatever reason, but as i said i like the concept and that’s why i kept going with it for a bit. also i just found out that that one fan-theory abt marco actually being alive and secretly leading reiner and co never became canon and i’m like poo that’s disappointing bc that would’ve been cool lol

back to erwin x levi for a bit, we hadn’t gotten our erwin development/spotlight where i was in the manga so i didn’t hardcore ship it (i didn’t ship eren x levi though, i disliked that pairing lol. i think my levi ship of choice then was levi x hanji). anyway i’m a lil surprised i guess at the diff dynamics i see for them in dj’s ... like there’s quite a number of teacher x middle school student and i was like huh gross they’re around the same age right but then i see their apparent canon dynamic of commander and person who follows commander unwaveringly also guess what this person was picked up by the commander and was given a new life (??) and i’m like ‘oh i guess i see why ppl would do that ... wack though’ ... i mean per usual with pairings where one of them is white you get your weird ass nazi-esque vibes from some of these dj’s (’you’re an angel right? bc you have blonde hair and blue eyes’ UM OK ... sounds suspiciously like a certain fucking group who valorized certain features ... like it’s less sus if it was written ‘oh you’re like nobody i’ve ever seen before, maybe you’re a celestial being’ but no the artist went there). like i mean the concept of someone who is willing to do whatever the fuck to gain knowledge abt titans and the outside world is like ok cool you got a twisted personality there that’s vaguely interesting to explore but then i think abt the mangaka’s political leanings and how he presents war/military sometimes and i’m like damn fuck ...

if it wasn’t obvious i have no fucking idea what the hell is going on in aot or with any of its characters anymore and i have no desire to really know (the wiki is mad detailed fr though omg). but it’s been a while since i consumed aot content to any degree so i was like damn ok reading abt erwin and levi’s canon dynamic. the only thing i know is that recently there was a timeskip so now everyone has new designs. anyhow don’t interact with me on aot bc i’ll prob ignore your messages as i don’t care abt this series nor care to interact with ppl abt it

#rant #like if you want to clarify certain problematic aspects then go ahead but if you're defending it let me be real idc #i'm not gonna go into a fucking analysis of aot here. just google it there's tons of articles talking abt how shitty aot's politics are #also i hope i don't get flagged for saying 'nazi' in my post. i'm not promoting them

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oc-rehab-centre · 5 years ago

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[HNK OC Review] Sapphire

Hey there guys, gals and other gendered pals! This account has been rather quiet as of late, wouldn’t you say? A shame indeed, although we received our first public OC review request today. While the user would prefer to be left anonymous on this post, this review is available for you and them to read through. So sit down, relax and let’s do a quick review of this Houseki No Kuni OC!

Part 1 - Biography Analysis

+ some quick words in advance!

What there was to read of Sapphire’s bio was admittedly scarce. The amount of information chalked up to about 1 page and just over 500 words. While shorter character biographies are quicker to read and easier to get through - I’m a firm believer that when it comes to telling your OC’s story and telling us about them, more is always great! I would definitely suggest adding more to this bio and there are several templates for OC bios available on platforms like DeviantART and Amino.

Also, apologies if I’m mistaken, but it looks as if this and the other piece of Sapphire sent to me were created in an avatar/anime dress-up game. I’d advise instead of doing this, perhaps drawing your OC yourself or requesting/commissioning artwork from an artist instead. It just adds something more original and personal to your art and OC, plus there’s more creativity that way!

Name: Sapphire Nicknames: Saphy, the Blue Angel, Jewel

There is already a canon “Sapphire” in the Houseki No Kuni universe. However, this isn’t a huge problem. Perhaps add a colour, shade or type into her name to distinguish her from the canon character. For example, there are various diamonds in Houseki No Kuni: Diamond, Yellow Diamond and Red Diamond. Perhaps you can distinguish your Sapphire from the canon “Sapphire”. Below is a picture of some shades of sapphire and I think “Cornflower” or “Kashmir” might fit your character the best.

Credit: SpiralMuse.org

As for your character’s nicknames, perhaps add some more context, like:

Who refers to Sapphire by these names?

How did she earn these nicknames?

Does she like these nicknames?

I believe doing so would add some more dimension to your character. It would show the reader how she fits into the universe and can even allow them to determine things about their character before even reading through the entire bio. Also, I don’t think that the Gems would know what an “angel” is, given they don’t seem to have much of a grasp on human religion albeit mythological creatures stemming from these religions.

Age: Between 200-250 years old

Species: Sapphire

While I can’t say a straight-up “no” to this being an answer to this question, sapphire wouldn’t qualify as your character’s species. For this category, I’d suggest writing “Gem” or “The Bone”, as those are the most common names for the species’ of the crystalline characters in Houseki No Kuni. My apologies, just a nitpick!

Strength: 9

Sexual Orientation: Straight

Appearance: Sapphire is a blue gem with long flowing hair tied up in a ponytail. Everyone likes Sapphire’s hair because it is very sparkly and shimmers a lot in battle, making them hard to miss when they fight the Lunarians. Sapphire’s eyes are also blue. Sapphire has markings on her face which appear when she’s very angry at the Lunarians, and they don’t go away until Rutile comes to calm her down. Sapphire doesn’t like these markings but Sensei says that they make her special, but it doesn’t make her like them any more though. Sapphire has large wings made out of wax and pieces of silver that were made by Rutile, which she uses to fly and cut through her enemies with.

To begin this, in the two images that I was sent with this biography, there is very little consistency in the design, which I reckon is because the customization options varied between the two used games/apps(?). Nothing hints to this character having a wardrobe of outfits and I believe that more care should’ve gone into at least ensuring the design didn’t change so drastically and like this. Like I said, drawing it yourself or asking for art from another person can make a larger difference than you may think!

Now as for what is stated here in this portion of the bio, it is admittedly very cluttered and rather disorganized. The sentence structures are rather awkward in nature and seem to jump from one topic to the other. (eg. Rutile calming her down and Sensei’s opinion on her markings.) A few pieces of this information could definitely be removed from the “appearance” section and placed into another, like “personality” or “relationships”. Please stay true to the fact that this is an “appearance” description and not a description of everything under the sun.

There is a strong emphasis on Sapphire’s beauty and strength in this portion, which is alright, although it comes off as just slightly conceited. (Though I think I’m alone on that stance, nor was mentioning that opinion truly important lmao.) I have a slight problem with her two most apparent traits, I will confess. Sapphire’s facial markings and wings.

What struck me as odd about the facial markings is that such things have never been seen in the canonverse, it just seems so alien and frankly unnecessary. The markings are cited as only showing up when she is angry and sound as though they serve no sense or purpose other than displaying this single fact. While there is a potential for some interesting OC lore, I would personally suggest removing this feature unless you have a logical way of explaining their presence on her face/body.

The gems also wear thick coats of powder across their bodies, remember? If these markings were anywhere, I imagine they’d exist within/on Sapphire’s crystalline body and would struggle to show up through this powder... This concept is just very confusing and I can’t think of any logical reasons/examples to give you that would make them work.

Now for the wings, it’s obvious that this was inspired by the Greek tale of Icarus. I personally think that your concept is interesting but it brings up many questions, both for the sake of character-building and well, science.

Why would Rutile create Sapphire a set of wings? How come none of the other Gems get their own wings? Did it take Sapphire time to learn how to use their new wings? In Houseki No Kuni, the laws of physics are constantly defied, but seeing a character flying with wings made from a metal that is 655 lb per cubic foot seems like science the creators wouldn’t push against... Ahem, anyways, I believe these are questions you should explore if you plan on keeping the implemented features there.

Personality: Sapphire is an emotionless character who is very strong and works alone whenever she can. She thinks that she is too dangerous to work alongside other Gems because she could hurt them when she gets angry or made in battle. This is why Sapphire asks to work alone. Sapphire also wants to protect her friends very much and that’s why she’s always so angry at the Lunarians for taking away the other Gems. Sapphire also competes a lot with Phos because they’re both strong Gems only Sapphire is more loyal and useful to Sensei more than Phos was. Sapphire also doesn’t like Padparashadda very much because Padparashada isn’t helpful to Sensei either when he’s asleep all the time, and because he makes Rutile really upset which Sapphire doesn’t like.

Emotionless, hm? Given the fact that she supposedly have markings that trigger as a result of an emotion (anger), I would hardly go to say she’s emotionless. In this paragraph, she’s listed as: angry, protective, competitive, loyal and passionate - all of which are emotions.

Just like in the “appearances section”, there is information in this paragraph that would fit better elsewhere, like her relationships with the listed characters, whose affinity and history with are never explained in this bio.

I think that there are definitely more traits you could add to Sapphire’s personality. She is rather simplistic and I believe there is a lot of potential for her to be much more. Perhaps read about sapphires and find out what they symbolize for some inspiration or even randomly generate personality traits/attributes in online generators! Spice things up a little, make this OC more personal, make them feel more real.

Likes: Sensei, killing Lunarians, blue roses, King, her wings, being strong, the night time Dislikes: Phos, Padparashadda, when the lunarians get away, seeing broken gems, getting very angry

Powers: She has wings that let her fly and attack the Lunarians in order to make sure they cannot return back to the moon. Sapphire is stronger than Phos

Another useless piece of info, but you’ve spelt Padparadscha wrong a number of times. It’s not so hard to do a quick spellcheck! I probably sound like a broken record, but the wings continue not to make much sense to me, and I think you need to revisit the concept a little more. Given how you explained them, they sound very very powerful, seemingly strong without consequence. Also, the fact that Sapphire is stronger than Phos would be more believable and intriguing if Sapphire had clearer motifs and a more developed personality.

Her likes and dislikes are rather generic, which admittedly broke my interest a little. I’d suggest adding some likes and dislikes that reflect Sapphire’s character a little better than her love for murdering the Moon People.

The characters she likes and dislikes also may leave the reader curious. Though you went into slight detail about why Sapphire and Phosphophyllite aren’t besties, seeing more info on relationship with Sensei, Padpa and the aforementioned Rutile would be great.

Backstory: Sapphire was born on the Cord Shore and taken to the school by Sensei. Sapphire liked to cling to Sensei because she saw him as a father and always wanted to please him. When Sapphire was growing up, Sensei could tell that she was powerful when he saw Sapphire’s markings, which showed up when she got mad after seeing some gems return to the building broken by the Lunarians. Sensei let Sapphire fight earlier because he knew she could protect the gems with her hardness and her ability. One day, Sapphire was in battle but the Lunarians escaped too quickly, making her very angry. Rutile gave Sapphire a gift which was a set of wings made out of wax and silver so that the Lunarians could never escape her again. Sapphire’s wings were so powerful she didn’t have to use a sword anymore and could take down even more Lunarians every day with only her wings.

*inhales*

Oh boy.

Ok, uh, I feel as though Sapphire’s backstory makes her seem like a very very special snowflake - something you should never strive for with a character. Sensei and Rutile both seem to be out of character, as both seem to feed Sapphire what she wants with a silver spoon... She seems like a bratty chosen one and I can’t say this backstory will sit well with everyone.

There’s so little here that it makes me question a lot, and it frustrates me that’s there isn’t more to justify the choices and thoughts of Sensei and Rutile. Why did Sensei see such potential in Sapphire? Why would Rutile craft wings for Sapphire? Why did Sapphire get away with working alone?

There’s just so much left unanswered and unexplained... Please, if you ever decide to work on this, please add more and fill in these enormous holes. Adding a timeline would help with the pacing because when all of this is happening and at what ages Sapphire was when these events happened isn’t specified, adding to the confusion.

Fun Fact

Sapphire has never gotten broken before but she is curious about what it feels like.

Sapphire wraps herself in her wings when she sleeps.

Haha that first piece of trivia is rather cute. It reminds me of being young, seeing a friend with a cast and wondering what it feels like to break an arm or a leg. I think that’s really cute! The second - well, you already know my stance on the wings ^^’

Notes + Summary

If there is one thing that always sucks about fandom OCs, it’s that the fandoms always impose restrictions on creativity. In the case of Sapphire, I feel that a lot of the creative choices would definitely work to her benefit, but in the world of Houseki No Kuni, several aspects of her character feel unnatural and vague.

Anyways, here’s a reiteration of my main points from this review.

Please add more to this bio! There wasn’t a whole lot of information in this bio, certainly not enough for Sapphire to be considered a fleshed out OC. As a result of how short this bio is, there are a lot of holes and a lot left unexplained. There is a lot of potential for this OC to be bettered by filling in those holes wisely! You can look online for a template to find section headings you’re missing, like: relationships, statistics, etc.

Getting your own images would be pretty great! Artists are always better than doll maker games!

Altering her name just a little by a colour prefix (eg. “Cornflower Sapphire”, “Kashmir Sapphire”, etc.) would differentiate her from the canon blue Sapphire.

The removal or better explaining of the facial markings and wings would definitely be beneficial if you want to make her fit better into the series.

Sapphire is written like a special snowflake, she’s practically written like a protagonist and seems to directly challenge Phos. Perhaps tone down the amount of special features she has, there’s nothing wrong with being just average. Sometimes, looking and behaving like a wallflower can make an OC better?

Explaining Sapphire’s connections with her peers in greater detail would be beneficial, considering they seem to baby her a fair bit.

Overall, I’d give Sapphire an overall rating of 3.5/10. There just wasn’t a whole lot to work off of from this bio and what’s there is admittedly not superb. I hope this doesn’t discourage you from creating OCs and encourages you to make some changes to Sapphire. As I said, I see a lot of potential in her, as long as you fill in those holes in her bio and correct what is flawed in a way that makes sense and seems natural.

That’s all for this review, Ciao!

#OC Review #Houseki No Kuni OC #Land of the Lustrous OC

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konekoryuugamine · 5 years ago

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Chaos Critic’s Top 10 Disliked Anime

Oh man I am going to get SO much flack for this one . . . I know, I know" so many anime are out there, and so many are like this, and yadda yadda - Look, I wanna do this, I wanna help people steer clear of these shows, and if someone likes these shows, more power to ya, but I don't like them, this is only opinion, and I prefer that no one calls me a liar or a jerk for saying something about an anime that is all speculation and varied per person. Anyways, I don't own these animes, and please read and enjoy, no flames, thanks a bunch. Let me say this now: not all anime rock. I have been an avid anime watcher since I was in the 5th grade, and when I realized anime were released every year, in the hundreds, I was flipping over in cartwheels. Vampires, dragons, wizards, ninjas, rock and roll - all of those in my favorite animation style that is pretty much SO flipping awesome in so many ways - made me so happy. I ended up binging anime on Toonami, (still do), and joined several anime sites to get the latest anime dishes and series that I could muster up enough free time to watch. My parents grew concerned about me watching so much of it to the point where I would have been addicted, but then I ended up telling them it was where my heart laid, and they accepted, it with somewhat unwilling protectiveness. After all these years of watching anime and reading manga, I ended up developing tastes that ranged from very horroreqsue anime with suspense and mystery to ridiculous comedy with great puns on words. 'Bakemonogatari', everyone.

However, with these tastes and genres came some of the weird and strangest animes I have ever seen, and am currently watching. Does this mean I think all 'weird' anime are bad? Heck no - 'Bobobo-Bobobobo', "Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt" and "FLCL" are some of my favorites, although I consider Bobobo a guilty pleasure. I did run into some strange and bad anime, however, and it made me wonder whether or not getting into anime at all was a good or bad idea. It even made me think that these were the animes that gave other great ones bad wraps - hence the stereotype of Japanese anime always being about ten-year-old girls and tentacles. No idea why, honestly. The more I do think about it, however, I do feel there are some pretty bad anime out there on the internet, and if you ask any anime fan, they will list some anime that are bad, their favorites, and even one they watch when they choose to. Many a conversation I had often resulted in me talking about the ones I liked more than the ones I hated, to my relief. But otherwise, I feel these anime I'm about to list carry their ideas a bit too far, go too far with anime as a format, or are just overhyped and bad as heck . . . just because an anime is weird, strange, badly dubbed or whatever else does not mean I have to hate it. I have my reasons. So, without fault, here's my top ten anime I dislike more than others. Keep in mind that these are the anime I dislike for certain reasons, and if someone out there does like these, and calls me out for hating them, then I accept it. Just because I hate something doesn't mean you can make me like it.

And here they are. NUMBER 10: " Lil' Pri" I thought this series would be cute to watch for a while, and I decided to watch a few episodes. I ended up binging the whole series and started thinking too much about it. Then I realized it wasn't really that good. Ringo Yukimori, a young girl who enjoys Snow White's stories, literally bumps into two other girls at a concert for a super famous singer named Wish. The other girls, Leila Takashiro and Natsuki Sasahara, also enjoy the stories of Princess Kaguya and Cinderella. The suddenly then run into three adorable talking animals, Sei, Dai and Ryoku, (a bird, a squirrel and a dragon), who are looking for their princesses in the human world. The main idea behind this series is that the three girls turn into older versions of themselves with the embedded spirits of Snow White, Cinderella, and Princess Kaguya to help bring human happiness, "happiness tones", to Fairyland and save it. Humans' happiness and believe in the fairytales has dwindled, decreasing the happiness tones. So, the girls agree to help retrieve those, and along the way, they figure out Wish is the Queen's 'long-lost' son, who can turn into a rabbit . . . Yeah see where I'm going here? The anime is, for all intents and purposes, as straightforward as a magical girl series can get. There are no hidden meanings to Ringo, Leila or Natsuki, and their names pretty much are dead giveaways to what stories they enjoy most. Prince Chris, a.k.a. Wish, is immediately given focus at the beginning of the series, and there are no real surprises until the last few episodes of the series when the girls give up their magic, hint-hint, and leave Fairyland after retrieving all the happiness tones. Let me tell you, that can get kind of boring . . . The main problem I have with this series overall is how bland it is and how it seems to take ideas from several other little girls' magical shows, such as Ojamajo Do-re-mi or Pretty Cure. The concepts of having normal girls become heroes to save other lands, rescue royalty and adapt to their situation are something I've heard before and seen more excellently done, in other shows. The fact the girls also become idols onstage is an interesting quirk, but it reminds me too much of the Witchlings' maid outfit changes from the fourth season of Ojamajo.

It doesn’t help the CGI in the anime comes off as awkward, leaving the concert scenes clunky and hard to watch. Their movements are stiff, and their voices are not exactly the best. They do get better in vocals as the series progresses, but everything else stays the same. When I also state how bland the series is, I'm also referring to Ringo, Leila, and Natsuki, reluctantly. The audience is told and can understand the heroines well enough to the point where we wish they had more depth. They all love Wish, they love fairytales, Ringo loves apples and has seven brothers, Leila is half Italian, Natsuki loves sports - we get it. The problem is that they have no other depth than being cardboard cutouts of anime heroines. We are never given any character conflicts, they never have issues that expand over the series, they never really get the kind of development other series like Sailor Moon receive for magical girl heroines. I know I may get flack for mentioning that, but I have seen development of Usagi Tsukino in both the manga and the new anime adaption of the series. The girls don't really receive any development here, aside from the minor mentioning of growing up and accepting happiness as it comes rather than forcing it on others. The reason this one ranks so low on my list is because I do still enjoy the cuter designs of the characters, and give it points for trying to come up with a good driving plot that does bring to mind the idea of growing up and being happy. It’s a cookie cutter style idol show but it has heart to it. It tries to overstep its bounds, but never gets the chance to. At the same time, I also think Show By Rock!! and Zombieland Saga did the “idol concept with a twist” take much better, what with one being a Sanrio based product that combines an isekai with an idol show, and an idol show about zombie girls that satirizes the entire idol industry. NUMBER 9: " Full Metal Alchemist" I am going to get SO much flack for this one . . . Before someone eats my liver, let me say I love the series as a whole, but compared to Brotherhood, this series has become something that both baffles me and makes me confused. The series revolves around Edward and Alphonse Elric, who try to bring their mother back from the dead using the practice of alchemy. Strictly taboo, and stricken with grief, they decide to bring her back and return to their happiness. However, something goes horribly wrong and Alphonse's body is taken as compensation for their mother, who doesn't truly return. Ed sacrifices his arm and leg to save his brother and bring him back in a suit of armor. After the incident, in the anime, Ed decides to join the military of Risembool and hunt down the Philosopher's Stone, which is implied heavily to be something that can work real miracles. I enjoyed watching the series, and I empathized with both Edward and Alphonse. They lost everything, tried to get it back, and lost more in return. Their tackling of the philosophy of equivalent exchange and getting something for nothing is truly moving, and the deep symbolization of The Philosopher's Stone being hope and realization is something that I know I will never see duplication of. Then . . . I saw the ending episodes of the first series. And I got mad. I expected an epic climax, much like what happened in "Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood". I wanted Ed to get his limbs back, Al to get his body back, Ed to marry Winrey, Hoenheim to die and accept his flaws, for the Philosopher stone to dissolve, and for Scar to repent himself . . . Instead, we got something that felt rushed, confusing and strange to me. Something that throws the entire series out of whack because of it. The leader of the Homunculi, who had been chasing Ed and Al all over the place until they reached Liore again, were being led by Dante. The old lady who taught Izumi, their teacher. The old lady who was killed by Greed in episode 33. Who had an assistant who had that strange alchemic tablet. Dante, as it turns out, was a lover of Hoenheim, much to everyone's shock, and when Hoenheim and she gave up their souls for the stone, they created something that they could use to swap their bodies and minds, intelligence included, into other beings, sort of like the plot of "Quantum Leap" without the randomness and depth. She was jilted because Hoenheim left her, (reasonably succumbing to his guilt over killing so many people to make the stone), and she decided to make and use the Homunculi to chase down HIS sons and make a new stone. In other words, she ended up wanting to make another stone, and her real motives for why are never explained, although her anger over Hoenheim leaving her for another woman, then using HIS KIDS to make a new stone, is petty in terms of evil levels. She toyed with the Elrics, taunted them throughout the series, and ended up controlling things to make a new Philosopher's stone. That part, however, is hard for me to buy. Dante being the villain behind everything, including the making of the second Philosopher's stone, and bringing back Rose for no other reason than to use her as a 'figurehead' then possess her, is hard for me to take in. This would mean she'd have to have tabs on the Elrics at all times, be involved in the Risembool military, use more than one person at one point or another, display that she knew about the war and probably was the one who started it in the first place. There were no indications to me that Dante was the villain all along through the series, as the Homunculi were given more screen time than her, her assistant and later body double Lyra was shown twice and was bland as other minor characters, and things don't connect well for me to buy it logically. If she was the one behind everything, and she was supposed to have been fake-killed by Greed, then when did she successfully possess Lyra? How long has she kept tabs on the Elrics? Was she involved somehow in Trisha's illness, that kickstarted the entire flipping hunt for the Philosopher's Stone? If she was also involved, why drag Rose into the battle to just tick off Edward? And furthermore, if Hoenheim knew if she was behind everything, and knew he'd be killed otherwise, then why didn't he just come right out and explain everything to the brothers when they first got involved with the Homunculi? Was he just afraid of dying? Of killing others?

The more confusing thing is how this ending was created. Anime depends on the manga in most cases to flesh out the story. If the manga is over several volumes, like One Piece or Bleach, episodes will be released and designated in arcs and storylines. If the manga is ahead of the anime, then the writing process for the episodes can be ad-libbed thanks to the story that’s already present.

When the manga halts or goes on hiatus, the anime must do something to fill in the extra space while the mangaka continues their work. Hence “filler arcs”. Like the extra few filler arcs in Bleach that involve the new captain or the Bounts, or the filler arcs in Naruto that everyone wishes didn’t exist. They exist to not only extend the anime’s lifespan but to try and flesh out the worlds of these series to make them feel more alive.

In this case, this was a filler ending for the Full Metal Alchemist anime series. The manga had gone on hiatus and they had nothing to conclude the show with, so they had to deal with what they had. I wanted to like it, but after looking at everything, I just find that nothing fits. Either way, the ending of the original anime just befuddled me with an antagonist who was barely connected to the story to me, and the threads that bound her fingers to her puppets were about as thin as fishing line to me. . . . Not to mention I'm still wondering how the anime connected itself to the 'parallel-world' of 'Germany' and how Edward was stuck there through the movie "Conqueror of Shamballa", but that movie did try to tie up the original anime series with a bow.

Of course, this leads me to say why I dislike it so much: because Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood exists. It’s an amendment to the series that aims to follow every detail of the manga. We see more progressive action and character development from start to finish, and we see an expansive world that was never given to us in the original anime. Fans of the show were rewarded with Ed and Al getting what they wished for, intense and awesome animation, and a marriage proposal that is adorable no matter which way you put it.

However, I will say the first 10 to 13 episodes of the original anime are far better introductory episodes than the first few episodes of Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood. We see the Elrics grow and reach their respective early goals quick, and we actually get to know Alexander and Nina before Shou Tucker fucks things up. We also get deeper motivation for Ed’s reasons to become a State Alchemist.

If I did have to recommend this series to people who’d never seen it, I’d say go watch the first 10 episodes of the first FMA series, then watch Brotherhood in its entirety. Get the context and emotional development first, then come back in for what else is in store. And now I'm gonna put on this football helmet while I wait for the hate mail. NUMBER 8: " Ghost Hound" This one is a special case of bad to me. There was a point where I got hooked on the anime "Serial Experiments Lain" and I got into the idea that many anime were deeper than they seemed. Lain was a dimensional protagonist who I felt much in common with, and developed a sense of what I wanted to know about ESP. I decided to get into shows involving the subject, and later developed a taste in supernatural shows and law dramas. Or anything that often touted lighter themes of horror. I found this anime on accident one day when I was looking up scary anime. And after finding out it was done by Production I.G. and Shirow Masamune, I was ecstatic. I was disappointed when I watched it. The entire story revolves around a boy named Taro, who was kidnapped with his younger sister Mizuka on September 22nd, 1996. His sister died, but he survived the horrific situation. Since then, he's been seeing a therapist and has horrible PTSD-induced nightmares involving the situation. He also develops the ability to astral project himself into The Unseen World, which is the space between the living and the dead, and he uses his ability to better himself and his friends Makoto and Masayuki, who have also suffered similar traumatic childhood situations. They are led on this journey by their psychologist, who has his own agenda on the matter, but wants to help solve the supernatural insanity in the boys’ lives due to his own interactions with The Unseen World. On its own, this idea is rather interesting, and you feel it can be done well over the course of 13 episodes, with an added OVA of how the entire conflict is resolved with death being a part of life, how having a power means it comes with greater responsibility and how everyone has issues they must come to terms with. And in the case of Masamune’s anime, delve deeper into the human understanding and structure of the conscious and unconscious mind. However, the anime takes a rather . . . interesting, turn in its story. And when I say interesting, I mean something that may or may not work, depending on who you ask. When the boys get together and go after the one who kidnapped Taro and his sister, they come across Miyako Komagusu, who has spiritual powers thanks to her miko line. She chooses to help them and Taro soon becomes fixated on Miyako due to her appearance, which is eerily similar to his sister.

Soon, the whole kidnapping element is thrown out the window, same with the title of the anime being only Makoto's astral-projection form, and comes in with a religious sect underneath Makoto's family and the fact his grandmother tries to make Miyako the new head after her father is hospitalized. And it's later revealed that the Ogami Religious Cult has ties to an underground group of illegal drugs, medical enhancements, MUTANTS, and child kidnappings . . . At this point, I was saying "why?" On the one hand, it's a dark turn for an anime that started out with ESP, traumatic incidents, and they do save Miyako from the group of psychos. Whether or not the group remained standing was unclear to me, and the more I thought about how deep this went, the further I ended up in mental spirals of how logic had to be invoked. On the other hand, it's a mish-mash of every cliche involving some evil mastermind group I can think of: the bad guy actually did this to such and such, who became the main guy's best friend, and now they want the girl who the main character has a connection with, and they all have supernatural powers, and they get others who betrayed the bad guys to help them. This overlay of genres, and the fact the ESP is forgotten at about halfway through the anime for my liking, (along with there not even being MUCH of the supposed 'ghost hound'), there is also a stunning issue I had with the design of the characters not fitting the backgrounds. Whereas the designs were simple, the backgrounds were overly lush, too detailed, too mesmerizing. Not like in "Over the Garden Wall", but still. All in all, 'Ghost Hound' is a mixed bag to me. It does provide some good food for thought and an interesting storyline, but the second half ruins the story and eliminates the ESP the story was embedded into. NUMBER 7: " School Days" I am aware this will be on others' hate lists, but hear me out . . . yeah, it's that bad in the anime form. "School Days" is based on a visual novel game of the same name by Overflow, and has quickly garnered a reputation. The series involves this character, Makoto, as he makes his way into high school and develops a crush on adorable and shy Kotonoha. At the same time, depending on which way the player goes, he'll also fall for his best friend, his best friend's cousin, the other girls IN his class - well, you get where I'm going with this. But before I get to the anime, let me explain a bit more about the game itself. It incorporated motion and sound into the visual touch, making it look like you were playing an interactive anime, which wasn't that bad of an idea. There were also numerous cut scenes, (including graphic content might I add), that depicted the characters, and something that made the series very popular online: the death scenes. What made this game unique from others is that it included graphic and detailed executions of main characters in several gorey fashions, along with some of the worst bad ends that can ever be imagined when it comes to one main character screwing over someone else. One death scene in particular involved Kotonoha committing suicide from a tall building in front of Makoto and Sekai, and you can HEAR THE CRUNK AND BUBBLE OF HER BODY AS SHE HITS THE PAVEMENT. THAT ALONE TELLS YOU WHAT IS AT STAKE IN THIS GAME IF YOU SCREW UP. But, because of how varied the main character's answers can get, and how many cut scenes are available at the time of the first go-around, someone will have to play the game multiple times before a Good ending is unlocked, like the super-rare harem-esque relationship between Makoto, Satonaka and Kotonoha. (Apparently, it's impossible to get because of how many things you can say, but I digress). Now, to explain how the game became an anime . . . and I really don't want to . . . The anime adapts the storyline of the game, following Makoto in high school, and he tries to get Kotonoha to fall for him, and Sekai tries to help him, then she falls for him. In short, it's a typical anime that depicts a three-way love triangle. Until about the fourth or fifth episode. After he gets Kotonoha as a girlfriend, he dates Sekai, with the knowledge of everyone, and LIES about breaking up with Kotonoha, AND HAS SEX WITH SEKAI, for the purpose of making things better with Kotonoha. He then goes around and sleeps with OTHER GIRLS IN HIS CLASS and AVOIDS KOTONOHA to keep up this whole thing. That is called "sleeping around" and "being a jerk". The reasons why people list this anime on their worst list is mostly because of the annoying voices, or because of the stilted and bland colors in the background, but to me and numerous others, it's because of Makoto Ito being a two-timing jerk who also has sex with numerous girls while still having one intimate girlfriend. No, what also cements it for me, are the last three episodes: Sekai announces she's pregnant to the class, Makoto is reasonably cut off from his friends, Kotonoha, who had been RAPED, is devastated, and Makoto blames Sekai for ruining his life when he was JUST as much at fault in the first place. He goes out with Kotonoha, and right as he gets home, Sekai, reasonably ticked off, stabs him brutally with a butcher knife, and Kotonoha kills her and affirms she was lying about her pregnancy, then takes Makoto's head and sails off. This was about the only way I could have expected this entire mess to conclude. Someone had to die, Makoto had to be given his karmic payback for sleeping with so many women, and for cheating and leaving Kotonoha to be raped and blaming Sekai for everything when he had his own faults, and Kotonoha had to take revenge or grow a backbone because of how everything bad happened to her for some reason. In other words, the conclusion is more satisfying to me than the show itself, and that actually saved it a few places on my list. Watching it from start to finish is terrible, and the way you know about Makoto's sleeping around makes you want to slap some sense into him. Or stab him with a knife, but I digress. NUMBER 6: " Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-Chan" AND now we get to something that's both bad and comedic. And for once I'm not talking about Spongebob. "Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-Chan" is an anime that combines hentai and comedy, and as for the brand of humor, it relies on what is known as the continuous running gag. To understand what I mean, let me give you a few examples of continuous anime running gags: Team Rocket blasting off in every episode of "Pokemon" and doing some kind of farfetched scheme to capture Pikachu, how Joey Wheeler is also denoted as being immature or a punk, and as of more recent anime I've seen, how Tsukune is subjected to being fought over by Moka and the other girls. The reason I'm bringing this up is that these are the gags I've seen being used in shows that quickly got stale . . . and were still being used as the show went along. 'Pokemon' is still the biggest offender of this since Pokemon Co. got a hold of the dubbing and anime creations in both Japan and America. The gag of Team Rocket blasting off is okay for a season or so, but seeing them just get pounded again and again makes me feel sorry for them, and makes me want to slap them and say "Stop blowing yourselves up all the time!", thinking they'd learn. But hey, I can dream can't I? The issue with that is the issue with this anime completely. "Bokotatsu-Tenshi Dokuro-Chan", or "Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro-Chan" is an anime that focuses on a boy named Sakura Kusanabe, who is a normal boy going to school and having a crush on his classmate. Apparently, 20 years into the future, he invents a machine that prevents the aging process on women after the age of 13, making them . . . physically younger. They literally call this in the anime a "pedophile's dream world". So, God, in the future, sends an angel, Dokuro, to go and assassinate him so he can't make this crazy machine . . . if you are laughing right now, I was too. The plot is ridiculous, as par for how it's supposed to be a comedy, but the manner of ridiculous ends there and it becomes more mindbogglingly annoying with each passing episode. Dokuro, when she gets to Sakura, decides to live with him and convince him to not build the machine, and in the process, does so with her rambunctious energy, super-human strength, her annoying voice, and often times, KILLS HIM WITH HER KANABO CLUB CALLED EXCALIBOLT. That is the gist of the entire show. He tries to impress a girl, he 'insults' the over-sensitive Dokuro, she kills him, she brings him back to life. He tries to make some friends, she gets offended, she kills him, she brings him back to life. And so on and so forth. For about thirteen episodes. I ended up watching the series with my younger sister when I was about 15, and I couldn't help but laugh ad how dumb it was. And because I knew I couldn't change the videos because of my younger sister saying "Show me more, show me more! I wanna see him die again!" . . . I felt a part of my soul die. (I also learned never to show my sister that kind of anime again . . . until she watched "Attack on Titan"). so, Anyways! The entire anime, dub or sub, is annoying, high pitched, and the characters are all flat as boards. Dokuro's entire character is her crush on Sakura and the fact she wants to help him while never learning she accidentally causes his deaths. Sakura is a perverted young boy who is trying to get by, and ends up falling for Dokuro in a stereotypical fashion. There's also other angel characters, such as one who uses a . . . cattle prod, and she has ram horns . . . and one who is a . . . transvestite punk goblin? To be honest, I never bothered to remember their names because I forgot about them after another two episodes. Same with Dokuro's sister. The only reason I remember her was because the show made her look hot for a 7-year-old, and she used a wet towel as a weapon. And everyone in the school thought she was hot. . . . I'm gonna stop on this one now before I get angry again and say that this anime isn't very good, but it does do a good job in setting up something that is both hilarious in context and causing some of the better memes in AMV Hell 3. NUMBER 5: " Sonic X" From contrived and humorous to awkward and strange. I first watched this show, much like others, on the Fox Box, (among other anime that were terribly dubbed by 4Kids). It was . . . strange, to see a talking hedgehog with blue quills run about with a two-tailed yellow kitsune, and on Earth no less. I had to change the channel every few seconds or so because I felt so strange watching them. I ended up feeling the same thing when I was watching 'Sonic Underground'. I know now that the feeling was 'awkwardness'. The story follows Sonic and his friends from the planet Mobius as they get transported to Earth because of some unintended calculations from Sonic screwing with Dr. Eggman's machine. Because they don't how it happened, and they don't know how to go back, they have to adjust on Earth, and they do just that. In the process, Sonic befriends a human, Chris, whose father is a scientist. And the wacky adventures are supposed to continue from there . . . I'll go ahead and say this now: combining humans in a world of anthropomorphic animals has to either be done well or not at all. I'm cool with anthropomorphism being talking animals, like Bubbie from 'Flapjack', or like Fred the horse or Beatrice from 'Over the Garden Wall'. I also don't mind if they have only the humanistic approach, and cannot talk, like the animals from 'Wicked'. But if it's full anthropomorphism, like Looney Tunes or Tom and Jerry, then it has to make sense as to why they are there and how they can fit in with the environment. It comes down to three basic things: environment, history and art style. If the environment is okay, and the history of there being anthropomorphism is established, and the art style is in turn okay, then it is okay in the long run. This is why I enjoy "The Looney Tunes Show". The environment is more modern and bent to match reality, the history of the characters is established early on and build on episode by episode, (and there's the references that add to it with Looney Tunes jokes from previous shorts from the 60's), and there are confirmed humans in the show who don't notice the anthropomorphism, and the art style blends it all together in a clean swipe of hilarity and animation brilliance. This is also why I enjoy the movie "Cats Don't Dance": it takes anthropomorphism of animals and turns it into a metaphor for racism in 1940's Hollywood. It combined a relative environment of a historical timepiece, added the necessary elements of anthropomorphism with its own rich metamorphic history and the art style made all of it look like it was a classic cartoon. If the environment works, and the history is laid down, and the art style manages to work it together, then anthropomorphism in shows is alright and well done in my book. But, (and I do have to be honest when I say this), if even one of these is never touched on, or brought too much into focus, then questions will be raised and things can be turned awkward. This is what I feel happened when I watched 'Sonic X'. The environment was Earth and all humans, with no mentions of Sonic being real before, and then out of the blue Sonic and his friends fall to Earth, "like Magic". The art style made it harder for me to watch because of how cartoonish Sonic and his friends looked compared to the humans and Eggman. It also could have been because every line looked SO SMOOTH, and there were no detailed areas or specifics, but I could have been wrong. To me, this series started off awkward, and continued to get more awkward with the introduction of Shadow, Eggman's schemes and the later part of season one. The conclusion of season one was, and I'll say it lightly, okay. Chris saying goodbye to Sonic and his friends at the expense of never seeing them again was heartfelt, and he did act reasonably when it came to seeing them leave. (Although the CGI could have been better for their transition back). THEN . . . season two happened . . . then season two happened . . . Just like how I feel with "Sword Art Online", I feel season two of 'Sonic X' is weaker than the first. Chris coming back because he longed for Sonic all these years and building a machine to send him to Mobius, and he happens to turn into a kid again because of the time differences on planets? Sure, I'll buy that, albeit it sounds like Sonic 06 to me. And Cosmo being the key of life for an evil overlord, and later performs a sacrifice of herself to save everyone and Tails is left in the Friend Zone? Cliche, painful to watch, predictable and overall weaker than the previous season. I don't want to spend too much on this season either because the plot and Chris made it weaker than when we witnessed Sonic and his friends adapting to Earth and humanity. Introducing an annoying character again and adding a character who becomes the key for hope is something I feel has been done better before. I hate feeling this way because I watch "Sonic Boom" now, but I feel that one is better than this . . . I hate to feel that way, but I do. NUMBER 4: " Eiken" Stop me if you've heard this before: a new male student to a school, desperate to make friends, ends up tripping and falling, literally, for a busty babe who is perfect. Then he has to do something insane, meet her friends, and tries to hook up with her only to be shut down as lucky, a pervert or a complete loser. If you answered me with "That's the opening plotline for Rosario+Vampire", then you're close. I also would have accepted "Stop talking, that sounds like every hentai anime out there", but fair enough. This is also, word for word, the opening scenes of the OVA series "Eiken". THIS one is BAD. Originally an 18 volume manga series, "Eiken" involves a boy named Densuke Mifune, who transfers to Zashono Academy at the start of a new year. He accidentally gropes one of the school's most attractive girls, Chiharu Shinonome, and gets drafted into the Eiken Club, which is run by her friend, the lively and flirtatious Kirika Misono. He is then subjugated to being tortured by the club members while he tries to get Chiharu to like him. . . . there is a catch to this one aside from being stereotypically harem/hentai anime. "Eiken" has become infamous in the anime community for having female characters possess pronounced, er . . . "tracts of land". Yeah, I said it. The entire manga and two-episode OVA series follow hentai taken to ridiculous extremes, involving large boobs. I don't know how the joke came about, or how people come to know about this, (probably in the same manner that people know about Boku no Pico), but dang it, I hate that I know about this one. The only reason this isn't my number one pick is that I found other clips on AMV Hell about it, and decided to check it out. Now, I bet you're wondering: why would a straight-laced, highly intelligent young woman like myself watch a two-episode OVA involving girls with 'humorously' large breasts and a perverted boy who day-dreams of bondaging his crush in measuring tape? I'll let Alucard get channeled here for that reason. Ally? (Alucard: Fuck you, that's how.) Thanks, ya fuck-mothering vampire. Aside from hitting all the earmarks of cliche and hentai moments in the book, the OVA adds to it by adding as much fanservice as physically and mentally possible, such as the bananas, the table dresses, the bondage day-dreams, etc. If someone wanted to make a hentai porn, those already exist. This is trying too hard to be something like porn without being it. And kind of doing it poorly. The games of the academy also are involved in some kind of rigging, which is contrived and makes no sense whatsoever, and Chiharu is involved with the bad guy, who is also cliche and makes no sense, and the entire resolution is easily predictable. It's dull, and only served to make me angry when I watched the OVA to see what the frick it was about. I really do regret it. I cannot stress how much hatred and pity I have for those who read this and actually enjoy it. If you do, more power to you; but just remember something. THEY GAVE A 10-YEAR OLD BOOBS THE SIZE OF BASKETBALLS. NUMBER 3: " Black Butler II" Before ANYONE says anything, YES I consider the second season of "Black Butler" to be another anime entirely. Makes separating the two much easier. For the record, nothing is wrong with "Black Butler". The series is wonderful, the pacing is perfect, the storylines between the manga and the show differ greatly, but either way the conclusions are perfect, the artstyle and metaphoric coloring is syched, the voicing acting is awesome - shall I go on? So, when I finish the first season and see the second one, I decide to watch it. I really, really, REALLY wish I hadn't. The first season was, in all definitions of the words, "a work of art". The second season too it, and decimated every last loose end that was tied up in the first season finale. Why am I being so hard on this series? For a couple of reasons. First of all, the plot. The second series picks up with a new young blond gentleman, Alois Trancy, who has recently been found by his family after a kidnapping incident. Because of his trauma, he's become a bit of a jerk and often harms others. At his side is a handsome and elegant butler, Claude, who looks eerily closer to Sebastian than I can stand. They take the mansion over, and Alois goes about his merry way to be happy, albeit in the worst of ways, by torturing his female maid Hannah and the triplet servants. If this is starting to sound like a warped Ciel Phantomhive to you, then you are feeling the exact same thing I felt when I first watched it. Of course, the first episode delves right into these two firsthand, how Alois is a bit of a prick, (the fact he wears booty shorts), and how he is not above hurting others to get what he wants.

Something I don't remember Ciel ever wanting to do or exhibit. So, in episode one, a strange man with a large suitcase comes to the door and Alois lets him in. The man is later revealed to be Sebastian Michaelis, who was searching for something. In the suitcase is Ciel Phantomhive's soulless body, and Sebastian leaves the mansion with a tea box, holding a familiar blue ring. Alois is ticked, Claude is pissed and Ciel comes back from the dead. The reason for this is pretty much left obvious for the viewers through flashbacks: in the first series finale, Sebastian was about to take Ciel's soul, when a contrived demon spider, Claude, swiped his delectable soul away from the raven demon. Sebastian, reasonably ticked off, went after him and gave him his soul back, but now Ciel's memories of the previous season are gone, he has lost his revenge sought, and doesn't remember how he helped to save London. There's a reason I hate this anime. Claude stealing Ciel's soul and him having amnesia are just more contrivances that serve nothing more than to force the plot of there being another demon-master team for Sebastian and Ciel to go up against. Rather than build up to something in the previous season, everything in this one is left readily explained, and it just hurts to see how everything goes swiftly to dog poop. The second reason, the behavior of Claude and Alois Trancy. I've seen several worst anime character lists over the web, and Alois Trancy often dominates because of his smarmy attitude, his devastating contrasts to Ciel and how he harms others and begs to be saved by Claude at every instant notion of danger.

And, I can see why. Alois was, without a doubt, raised in a hellish environment, and all he had to look forward to was his 'brother', who is actually a saving grace for the anime and the blond. However, the severe deaths and mass village murders that took place because of his brother's pact with Hannah the Demon just wrecked everything for him. If the writers wanted to make Alois more relatable, like Ciel, then more emotional touching could have been done. Instead, Alois is often shown not regretting his actions, causing trouble and damage at every beck and call, and like in one episode, begs for help from Claude. I can tell he's supposed to be a contrast to Ciel, but it's too far. Especially when you count in how he also has three servants and Claude. As for Claude, he's not off the hook either. His mannerisms are more unique than Sebastian, but aside from that, he's the same dandy as Sebastian. All he does differently is be more cold-hearted and go back on his bargain made with Sebastian in the second episode. And to explain that in further detail, he and Sebastian ended up making a blood pact using roses and their own blood to see who would get Ciel Phantomhive's soul: a who would win kind of scenario with a yaoi prize going to the winner. Claude was the one who suggested it, and he was the jerk who broke it. Sebastian even pointed this OUT, and still, Claude wanted Ciel's soul. Not . . . to mention when Ciel and Alois' souls combined, he acted a bit . . . creepy around Ciel. (Dude kisses his leg . . . pedophilia there.) Three, the introduction of Hannah and her role in the story. Hannah is literally the Deus-ex-machina in this story, and I will not lie when I say I genuinely believe it. The maid, Hannah, later in the episodes, is revealed to be a demoness, (whom Sebastian never noticed before, even when Clyde used her as a sword sheath), and was never brought into full use as a demoness and user of magic until the final three episodes. She is given a very cliche and bland personality at first, which gives way to how she was putting on a facade to get close to Alois, because she felt what his brother felt when he made the pact with her. As much as I feel Hannah is a saving grace of the anime, I have to ding some points off because of how she exposites her role in Alois' past to him, in Ciel's body no less, and ends up performing a final act, that should not be possible, until she dies with Clyde and Alois. She could have been a better part of the story if she was given more of a stronger personality when Alois was being cruel, without going too sappy. Not much else about her makes me want to hate her as much as hug her. She does has a reason to be near Alois, she does care about him unlike Clyde, and does win him over in the end. But in all cases, she was a little bit of a good thing in a large bad thing. And as for the fourth reason, the flipping ending of the second series. Oh . . . MY GOD . . . Here's what happens as a recap, and stay with me here.

Ciel and Alois' souls are combined so he can be used by Claude as a last-ditch effort to win over Sebastian, and Sebastian gets reasonably ticked. Claude acts creepy, Ciel and Alois fight over Ciel's body and a maze is conjured that is fixed by Alois to let Claude win and take Ciel's soul away. Sebastian and Claude fight in the maze, Grell is there for no reason, Hannah is trying to talk to Alois who is in control, and Ciel's will takes over and changes the maze again. Alois finds out Claude lied and did want Ciel's soul, and Alois is ticked. The butlers complete the maze, and see Hannah over a passed out Ciel/Alois, and now with a new mark on him. The butlers are then escorted by Hannah to a demonic isle where they fight, and Alois' final contract with Hannah is revealed: he decided if Ciel's soul was so valuable, then he didn't want anyone to have or love it. So he wished that Ciel was a demon. Ciel Phantomhive becomes a demon, and his last command to Sebastian before this happened was to follow his order and help him. . . . The slap mark on my forehead is red. Alois, being jealous of Ciel, wished him into a demonic being, and now Sebastian, who ended up with a happy ending in the first series, is now stuck with Ciel for all eternity. And as a bonus punishment, Ciel is immortal and has to retreat with Sebastian to the demon world and never return. I was so angry when I watched this episode that I threw my phone across the room in a rage. Thank god for the Otterbox, or else it surely would have broken. There are several problems I have here with this ending, one of the most obvious being how Hannah could get Alois to get another contract in when he was already in one with Clyde, and how Ciel's body could handle THREE contract pressures at once and not feel any kind of soul degeneration, or something by then. But no, the largest problem is how and why the writers turned Ciel into a demon. The point of 'Black Butler" was to become associated with the concept of revenge and learn that it is not often what others are searching for. It's to be accepted that people will do bad things, and often get away with it. It doesn't mean taking revenge is the best option. While it is fulfilling, oftentimes it's not. Here, the concept of revenge is taken to the extreme with Alois turning Ciel into a demon because he was jealous. There's nothing in the lines of retribution here, aside from the fact he sacrificed his life to save Ciel's and Sebastian's. All that he did he did for petty jealousy. Ciel never did anything wrong in this series, so it was as if Alois was the torturer and Ciel was the poor dude strung along on the wall. The revenge within this series was also manipulated and forced between Ciel and Alois, compared to how Ciel had to sleuth out who to kill in the first series. Forced elements are never good. They always end badly. And this series is just proof of it. Having Hannah use her power to turn Ciel into a demon is also a stretch, as it is never implied she could do something like that before. I blame it more on the writers going "This is a good idea' and inserting it into the anime for kicks. . . . or to create a 'hint-hint-yaoi-hint-hint' product to establish a new fanbase. BUT, that just about sums up this one: contrived, bad characters, and ruining the first season of what made it good. And now I will put on a helmet . . . because the second one is going to make SO many people angry at me . . . NUMBER 2: " Sword Art Online" I can feel the fury from much hate-mail coming my direction, but let me explain my piece before someone goes all out and eats my liver. I like sci-fi tech stories in anime. .Hack//Sign is one of my favorite anime, and it still stays as one of the better examples of video games in anime, next to "No Game No Life" and "Log Horizon". It takes gaming into another level and gives you a video game world you want to participate in, and characters you want to root for. Yet this anime is where I draw the line when it comes to intense immersion. Aside from the stunning artwork and the stellar designs of the characters and worlds, I don't know much else I can commend about this anime, aside from the fact that it was also a fanfiction that became a thing. (Remind you of anything?) Now, back to what I was saying. SAO follows a boy, Kazuto Kirigata, or as he goes in the game(s) "Kirito". In the first arc of the anime and stories, he gets stuck in a game called "Sword Art Online", along with about a thousand other players. The mastermind behind it, one of the creators of the game, got them stuck there, and to leave, the players have to reach level 100 of the entire game and defeat him. And they can’t be forcefully removed from the game system due to it being hooked to their nervous system. Sure, it's a good idea, and sure I thought it was okay, but a part of me instantly disliked this idea because the same instance occurred in '.Hack//Sign', except the main character was the only one stuck in the game, it was psychological aspects with less action and the main character was a male avatar with a female body in the real world. I just thought it was a rip-off of the series, and when I decided to watch the rest . . . I had to nope out. About two to three episodes into the series, the players of SAO start to think the beta-testers for the game are beating everyone else easily because they know the mechanics and grinding points. So they try to force beta-testers to help them get information about the game and everything that entails it. And of course, no good comes from it because someone has to be the sacrificial lamb. This also spawns the term “beaters”, beta-testers who are ‘cheating’ in the game because of their foreknowledge.

Kirito then gets the idea that since he was a beta-tester for the game, and knows the details of the game and knows everyone hates his ass now, he can beat the game himself. So, he gives a shortwinded diatribe about being “The Guy” and goes it alone. This is given the fact he also seems to have no motivational aspects for this, nor does he TRY to reach out to other members of the SAO player communities that are stuck in the game, but the other players treat him and other beta-testers of the game as jackwagons. Beta-testers of games are beta-testers for a reason; they OK a game and game-play for little to no money, or much, and most of the time are good gamers. And the nicest people. I should know; I know a dude who beta-tested Destiny. Here, they're treated like jack-wagons, and Kirito just enforces the whole idea by acting like a jackwagon and walking away from other players to continue the game because why not. Aside from that, Kirito's personality is one of disinterest and expressionless pity. He wants to get out, but he continues alone until he meets Asuna, who for all intents and purposes, is the BEST character in Part I. Their relationship is easily one of the better things in this anime, albeit ham-fisted and later turned to sludge in the second and third parts, but still. Seeing them happy was a GOOD thing midway through this anime of darkness. It did give Kirito and Asuna something to fight for, but it never really fleshed either of them out for me. Skewer me later, I have a LOT more to point out. AS the show progresses, the plot becomes more and more linear, it never forks, Asuna is later RAPED IN THE SECOND PART, IN GRAPHIC DETAIL, and Kirito's flat sister comes into play as well. My disinterest in the characters and hatred of the second villain of the anime was enough to make me switch to something else. I'll be finishing this anime up for a full in-depth analysis later, but for now, I'll go ahead and say my piece here and leave it at that. I know people like this anime, and it makes me happy to see they like something collectively. I may not like it, like how I may not like One Piece as much as I used to, but for people to come together about an anime is okay. It's just I don't like this anime, and I don't mind others liking it. The pacing of the story measures out for almost an eternity, Kirito's ambitions and goals and behaviors are never really justified, the second part's villain made NO flipping sense, Asuna was degraded as a character and as an archetype, Kirito is in desperate need of development, reasons are needed for how they can be so OP in many parts, and I want some more answers on how his sister came into the picture. And . . . for the love of god . . . I want a redo on this anime's second half. . . . and I think most people do as well. . . . I don't think I can continue this part until I can get the FINAL and WORST anime I have ever seen out of my system. And believe me when I say . . . it's BAD. NUMBER 1: " Pupa" This anime. This . . . anime . . . I found this anime after scrolling around on Crunchyroll for something to watch in the Summer of 2014. I was interested in the genre and cover of the anime and decided to give it a try. . . . I want to erase it from my brain. Utsutsu Hasegawa and his little sister, Yume, are exposed to a rare and monstrous virus called 'Pupa'. Yume becomes a vicious man-eating monster, while Utsutsu gains regenerative powers. They are then approached, almost as if by magic, by a researcher who wants to contain Yume and Utsutsu and use them as guinea pigs for research. Utsutsu allows it, saying he'll do anything for his sister, and decides to become his sister's food source so she can assume a normal life. While the concept is golden and has the potential for deeper symbolic meaning, like how it used the teddy bears as the shattering of Yume's humanity and innocence, and how Utsutsu's relationship with his sister was put to the ultimate test, it becomes . . . hard to watch. In more ways than one.

The anime episodes are 4 minutes long each, leaving the entire series at a binge-able time of 1 hour. There’s not much to do with that much time, and it can’t be a fast-paced comedy like Hetalia. It’s a horror series. Horror series need to work quickly but have context and depth, or else the deeper meaning is lost. Since this is also animation, it means the drawings and backgrounds need to be visually appealing or eyecatching so the viewer can keep watching without problem.

Artistically speaking, the characters are well designed, but in animation terms, their movements are as bad as an early Studio Deen production.

And that’s where the praise ends.

There is an episode of the anime, each being five minutes long, of Yume just eating her brother, and saying "Utsutsu" over, and over, AND OVER again . . . If you get the idea of where I am going with this, then you know exactly WHY I do not like this anime. The concept itself is the driving force for the anime, and after that, NOTHING HAPPENS. Yume is kidnapped and experimented on, like Utsutsu, but he saves her and still decides to be her food source. She feeds on him, they love each other, they live normal lives, yadda yadda. Nothing. Conventional. Or concrete. Happens. Characters are introduced, but they come and go and are never touched on again unless the plot calls for them to make an appearance. Utsutsu and Yume's mother is cold and sees Yume as a monster, which may or may not be her delusions given how she was also abused by the kids' father, who is ALSO never developed outside of being a wife-beater, and both are who I consider to be the worst parents of all time. Yume and Utsutsu, for all purposes of the anime, are the most developed and touched on characters. But, they never do much outside of adapting to their own hellish nightmare. Never do they ask Maria the scientist for a cure, never do they try to escape or move along with their lives. They just get stuck in their nightmare, forever to be mad. I hate it when animes like this come around. It introduces an interesting scenario, only to forget plot and context in favor of showing more and more grotesque imagery and disturbing content. I know it's rated M, but in all honesty, the incest insinuations and the fact that no one helps these kids out of this problem is enough to make me mad. I will say it has beautiful designs.

I will say it had an interesting idea. I will not say it's a good anime. And, now you know why. Well, there you have it. Those are the top ten anime I personally dislike, and in a few cases, hate to the core. But, just because I hate these anime doesn't mean that others can't enjoy them. That's the power of the internet and personal opinion. Now . . . I'm gonna go back to writing MLP reviews . . . I've been getting rusty, and I feel like I'm gonna get so much flack for these . . .

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personamaiden · 5 years ago

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Confused again.

Well I know I said awhile back I had determined I was INFP 964 (9w8). I have since started to question my aux function again, and whether I have my ennea core and first fix switched. Still feel pretty sure on my Dom Fi and my ennea tritype though.

What makes this hard for me is trying to figure out if I’m more intuitive or sensing, because like I feel fairly even at both? I’m nether remarkably good or bad at ether, and concrete vs abstract isn’t much help, because I will get bored if I dwell on ether to long. I have no issue with talking about theories for hours (provided the theory actually interests me anyway, but that’s like true with most any topic theory or not), but also get irritated when people are to unrealistic (namely if their trying to act on something unrealistic in real life) Like, thinking about doing something crazy is one thing, but doing it is another. I get lots of ideas some realistic, some not, but rarely carry them out. Wish I could live a in bubble of my own design, away from the world, and Don’t always feel an interest in interacting with it (though I’ve felt more of a pull as of the last few years, but not overwhelmingly) Oh the other hand, I tend to be very into aesthetics, I have a love and appreciation for things that are beautiful, especially in nature, I love making the food I cook pretty, have loved photography since I was young, and love and been told I’m good at by others at interior design, and love putting together outfits (both in real life and in online games). I also tend to focus on sensory aspects in games, “what do their clothes look like”, “how is the game graphics”, “what sorts of societal advancements do they have in this game universe”, “what is the world like as a whole”, things like that. I love knowing what the rooms look like, what they eat, what animals are there, etc. I also love knowing how the characters might think, putting myself in the character’s positions, and can fantasies for hours about this. But I can also outright miss details if I’m distracted by something, or not paying attention. I remember some things really well, like names and facts that interest me, usually birthdays, but forget other things really quickly, like some things people said, or things I did over the past week.

How do I find my type when I feel even in both N and S? I know I can’t be, but I can’t figure out what’s stronger.

I’ve asked 3 bloggers so far about my type, and not surprisingly gotten 3 different answers. INFP, ISFP, and INFP who switched later to INTP. These are all bloggers who I feel confident in and have respect for, but of course all had different information to work with per the information they requested. So I’m not surprised by this, and expected it, but unfortunately, doesn’t help me decide much.

As for enneagram, I’m having issue deciding if my core if 9 or 6, whichever one is not my core is my first fix, I know this pretty sure. But it’s hard because I strongly identify with both core fears, and have traits of both types. I have a major problem in my life with being lazy, and exercising self discipline, as well as a need for inner peace, a major dislike of fighting, mainly with those in my real life, but even tense scenes on tv or in video games, or if people I play with in online games are fighting, I get unsettled. (I’ll never forget hearing two other officers in a guild I was in on a MMO I play screaming at each other over voice chat....), which is all in keeping with 9 (and I’d say w8, because I though I dislike fighting, I am very much capable and willing to fight (verbally not physically) if I feel it’s warranted. I also hate feeling angry, but it also tends to be my gut reaction when something annoys me.).

However, I also tend to like having a support system (though honestly don’t go out of my way to seek one unless really stressed), When I get really upset, can feel the need to seek someone to talk with (honestly that could just be a person thing), and am both trusting and distrusting of people at once mainly those I don’t know as well yet, or who I feel leary of for whatever reason, but prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt, but with the though in the back of my mind “keep an eye just in case, you don’t know much about this person yet”. Which seem more 6 like.

This went on longer then I thought. XD

#persona maiden #pmtype #mbti #INFP #ISFP #ennea9 #ennea6

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endless-season · 6 years ago

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mor part 1 summary

Gonna try mostly use pics from the trailers and merch cause I don’t think ppl should post too much stuff openly while the movie is still showing and having screenings :|

Pls dont repost pics thanks!!!

Mor started with Kagutsu crater so for a moment I thought i accidentally bought Side Blue again lmao.

This time Kagutsu Crater scene had a close up of Habari, Hisui on the building, Neko with her parents, Ootori as well as bby Mikoto.

Slate kid does the random talking for one line thing.

Mikoto wakes up from the nightmare. Anna was lying on his lap and sharing the nightmare and also wakes up. Anna also asks, Mikoto, do you want to be free?

Cage imagery: SO IT WASNT S4 OR ANYTHING. IT WAS. METAPHORICAL!!!! It’s BRUTAL AF and I love it. Looks like we’re having plenty of Mikoto reflection in this movie :D

First up. Mikoto. Alone. In this small cramped world aka cage. But then Totsuka, Kusanagi, Yata, Anna and all the Homura folk show up inside. Totsuka also mentions “But you don’t dislike it like this, right?” (in a dark evil jailer voice) im (not) kidding. (but really . the music didnt help hahah. blackmail voice i swear)

To which Mikoto thinks: Yeah, I don’t dislike it, but that’s exactly why it’s hard to breathe.

Cut to Homura preparing for Anna’s birthday as per MoR chapter.

Alphaboy moments: Chitose pushes Akagi into Bandou. Dewa shoves his hat onto Chitose. Fujishima /RELEASES THE (eric’s) HAIR/

ON A SIDE NOTE: Some of the animation in this scene looked very season 1 :o I think maybe the originally planned to include parts of it (ilu dramatic totsuka) in the anime but ended up cutting it out so now they made new parts using it!

CAKE WAS CUTE. ANNA WAS CUTE. Anna pic 10/10 best animated scene.

Anyway Homura trio head to that bar/restaurant where they reminsce about Anna growing... how homura’s grown... Reminscing include that one pic of side red anna btw. Which was literally... just the line she says :’D And the one pic of KoR induction. Which again, was just that one scene.

Mikoto suddenly mentions Kurayama out of the blue. (Tsurumi’s character looked nice in KoR manga but... RIP his and Kurayama’s anime design...) To which Kusanagi’s like, ‘its rare for you to think back on stuff, are you drunk’ (yes, hes totally drunk from that one sip of strawberry fizz yall bought him) and mikoto mentions the dream about Kagutsu incident he had with Anna. If Kurayama was red king... theyd prob already have another crater. Kusanagi mentions its nice a peaceful like this.

Cage imagery: Suoh alone in the cage. Kagutsu burning and laughing at Mikoto from outside the cage.

Anyway, they leave as per MoR chapter again. Totsuka passes shiro and WTF the TotuKa Tatara OST track was playing.... atmsosphere where ==. Wtf. Why. It was so random?!?!?!?!

As per the MoR Trailer: Alphaboys buying anna presents scene. Chitose: “These flowers are for a special lady, by the way, would you like to be my special lad-” *Dewa shoves his hat on him*

RIBBONTSUKA. WHAT A POSER.

Anyway so now we move onto Mikoto.

INTENSE MIKOTO VS BEAR SCENE. HE FEELS LIKE HE SHOULD BUY IT.

And then Munakata appears and they banter a bit about buying presents. Suddenly cage imagery happens. Mikoto: You’re a King that lives inside the cage, huh. Munakata: Suoh, what you refer to as outside the cage... isn’t somewhere people can live. Suoh: *walks off* I know that...

Yata and Kamamoto walk along the streets talking about cooking. They see someone using candle. And Yata mentions how he once tried to board that airship too. *insert lsw bicycle chasing blimp scene*

As per MoR chapter, Totsuka leaves to take photos, Mikoto follows along since he was gonna go buy cigarettes, they have the whole candle and listening to peoples stories and blimp conversation. ;-; Dramatic Totsuka doing crazy gestures was so cute i love him ;-;

“There’s the types of people who are like “MUAHAAHAH LETS DESTROY THE WORLD” which is very interesting.jpg

Anyway we get to Totsuka’s “There you and everyone else here. I’m not interested in other things” line. And Mikoto thinks of: Kagutsu SB scene Anna: Do you want to be free? Totsuka: But King, doesn’t dislike it here, right? Kusanagi: It’s so peaceful. Munakata: What you refer to as outside the cage... isn’t somewhere people can live.

Meanwhile Colorless is downstairs, talking to Hisui via kotosaka about info and their plans. Btw Colorless looked so civilised and borderline adorable and then suddenly went back to their crazy self and we end this with

"FIRST, I'LL START BY KILLING TOTSUKA TATARA"

#k stuff #k mor

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surveys-at-your-service · 6 years ago

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Survey #191

“i got a baseball bat beside my bed to fight off what’s inside my head.”

Museum date or aquarium date? I suppose aquarium. Have you ever been a part of a protest or a march? No. Do you play any video games? Yes. Did you ever have an emo or scene phase? Yes. Name a subject you know a lot about. Meerkats. How would you describe your style? Too-Poor-To-Dress-Goth-So-Wears-Band-Merch-And-Graphic-Tees-Instead. What’s something most people love that you hate? Coffee. Who knows the most about you? Sara. Applesauce or pudding? Pudding. If you could create ANY mix-up or mythical animal and have it be brought to life, what would it be? I think I've mentioned a meerkat with butterfly wings before? Or bird wings? Describe a moment that is a prominent memory, but didn’t have a strong impact on your life. Uhhhh there's a lot. One random one would be learning to ride my bike. If there was one problem/issue you could wipe off the face of the earth, what would it be? Ohhhhhhhhhh god, there's so much. Maybe poverty? Do you think everyone in our lives serves a purpose, or are some people just there? In the story of your own life, no, not everyone. How do you feel about getting your picture taken? I hate it. Most embarrassing poster you’ve ever owned? Never owned one I was embarrassed by. When was the last time you were in a public setting and a stranger annoyed you? I'm not sure. Strangest pet peeve? Probably how much I hate people going in/out the wrong door. If you could make a guest appearance in ANY show, which one would you choose? Uhhhh Supernatural, maybe? Who do you think is the most underrated comedian? I don't know enough comedians for this, nevermind less successful ones. Do you always make eye contact with people when you’re speaking to them? No; this is something I'm super awkward about. I don't know how long "normal" eye contact is, so I think it's very easy to notice how, when talking to you, my eyes will suddenly wander. Could you see yourself having a child with the last person you kissed? We physically can't. We both don't want kids, anyway. Who is your favorite person to have random conversations with? SARA. When you were small, did you ever ask where babies came from? If you did, do you remember what your parents told you? I think I did, but I don't remember. What’s the nicest compliment you’ve ever been given? That I was/am "absolutely beautiful" and deserve "everything in the world." Who did you have your first kiss with? How did you meet that person? Jason. We "met" via Facebook because I accepted his friend request because I thought he was a different Jason lmao. Apparently he saw me in the hall and knew he had to talk to me so somehow found out my name. Which. I still want to know how. I've come to find how creepy our origin story is lol. Have you felt butterflies in your stomach today? No. Did anyone/anything get on your nerves today? No. Think of the person you fell the hardest for. What first attracted you? I don't know which I fell hardest for, honestly... because one was to an unhealthy degree, but my bond with Sara is healthy. I know I'm closer with her than I was Jason, but I guess by definition I still "fell hardest" for him? In that case, I thought he was really unique, even odd, which I appreciated. Has anyone recently found out something you didn’t want them to know? I got to where I told my therapist about the RP hobby, per Mom's and Sara's recommendations. I'm trying to work towards not being so secretive and embarrassed by what I love, so I very slowly got it out to her as practice and as a trust exercise. Is there something you currently want, that you can’t have? HA, there's a lot. A drawing tablet, for one. Who was the last person to make you feel embarrassed or uncomfortable? LAAAAAAAAAAAAAWL. Probably the last person I had a social interaction with that wasn't my mother. Think of the last film you watched. Who was your favorite character in it? Buddy (Elf). What color is your couch? Tan. What are you known for? Probably as the unsuccessful, antisocial, lazy 23-year-old that still depends on her mother. Has anyone ever threatened you? Yes. Have you ever been scammed? I don't think so? Are you making sure you’re using your full potential? Boy, I try, but I know I don't. If you have a partner, have you ever had to sleep in separate beds? If you don’t, how would you feel if a future partner wanted separate beds? We're long-distance so like. It'd be a bummer, but that's it; I understand wanting comfort, and even I know sleeping on your own is comfier. I'm just a cuddler and would sacrifice comfiness for the sake of physical closeness. What is something you are skeptical about? People’s intentions. <<<<<< This. Is there a murder case you find absolutely fascinating? I'm sure there's some I've forgotten. What is an unusual item somebody you know owns? Ummmm. OH HA Sara keeps the complete/"good" sheds of the snakes in her room. What’s the oldest TV-show you like? When was it made? I Love Lucy, 1951. If you have a job, do you prefer morning shifts or evening shifts? N/A, but I know I'd prefer morning. Do you have a mug with your name/initials on it? No. Have you ever designed your own mug? No. Is there a game that you excel in? A number. Have you ever been in a row boat? No. What are you most confident about? Most insecure about? Ummm... probably photography, I guess? I'm most insecure about "odd" interests and hobbies. When are you most likely to say something you don’t mean? When I'm angry. When was the last time that you saw fire? I'm not sure. Probably while lighting a match to burn some incense. Do you like wearing sunglasses? Why or why not? No. I don't like my vision being dimmed. What do you think in general of girls with short hair? Rock it. How about guys with long hair? Usually attractive to me. Have you ever seen somebody get shot? No. Would you ever try one of those DNA kits? Totally. With films in languages you do not speak, do you prefer a dub or subtitles? It depends if the voiceovers are convincing or not. Generally, I like those because subtitles distract me. Which cuisine do you like the least? That I've tried, Japanese. Are there any foods you dislike because of the texture? YEAH. LOOOOOTS. Do you let your pets sleep in your bed? Yes, except Bentley. Who are your favorite songwriters? Otep Shamaya probs tops the list. What are your favorite one-hit wonders? YO "My Own Worst Enemy" by Lit is a BOP. Have you ever seen anybody naked by accident? Maybe? Have you ever had a sexual fantasy about a celebrity? ... lol yes. Have you ever changed your clothes in the car? Yeah. About how quickly does your hair grow? UGH, fast. Because I have it short now, it's overgrown in like, two months. It looks awful where it is now, but I should be getting it cut this month. Do you have to/choose to shave anything unusual? Fuck "have to." No one has to shave anything if they don't want to. But anyway, I suppose you can consider above my lip "unusual." Much to my annoyance, I have dark body hair so develop the dreaded "ladystache" if I leave it alone for too long. Do you groom (wax, pluck, or thread) your eyebrows? No. If you wear makeup, what are your preferred brands? N/A Did your school have somewhere for girls to get emergency pads/tampons? Yes, but for a bit of change. Fucking stupid. Did you have to take showers after gym before going to your next class? No. Were you in any extracurricular activities or clubs in high school? I was in the art and honors club, but we didn't do after-school activities. Have you ever picked up and kept a rock because it caught your eye? I think. Have you ever laughed at a scene (TV/film) that wasn’t meant to be funny? Ha, I'm sure. Have you seen any Hannibal movies other than The Silence of the Lambs? I haven't even seen that, but I want to. I know it's a classic and have heard great about it from horror fans. Have you read any of the Hannibal novels? No. Do you like any indie movies? Probably. What part of a man’s body do you find most attractive? I'm suuuuch a sucker for prominent shoulder blades/moderately muscular backs. What part of a woman’s body do you find most attractive? I'm weak for hips. Do you think guys look good in makeup? YO most I see doing it fucking rock that shit. I deeply respect guys who embrace their more feminine traits. Do you like using clay and/or peel-off masks for skincare? No. Do you like bread crust on pizza or do you prefer it cut off? Mmmmm love it. Have you ever driven while drunk/intoxicated? No, absolutely never would. What’s the worst/hardest drug you’ve taken? N/A What is the worst/hardest drug you’ve been offered, but declined to partake in? Nothing. If you’ve ever tried drugs or alcohol, what was your reason for trying it? I was just curious about how it tasted and knew a bit wouldn't hurt me. Do you think you could ever have an abortion if you expectantly turned pregnant? The only way that could currently happen is if I was raped, and I don't know what I'd do. I lean towards carrying it would probably be legit traumatizing to me so yes, but I suppose I'd have to be in that situation (knock the fuck on wood) to truly know. What is the weirdest ailment a pet of yours/your family’s has sustained? Ummm. The weirdest... probably the intestine thing that killed Cato. I can't remember precisely, but I believe it was some type of infection that completely clogged him. Maybe even a disease. If you were far from home and needed to sleep for the night, would you choose to rent a crappy hotel room for $60 or sleep in your car for free? In the car. Is there a situation you caved into peer pressure and regretted it? Maybe? Have you ever been in a relationship that was going great, and then suddenly something weird happened and you just KNEW it was going to be over soon? That happened with Jason. I had this odd feeling something was off for a little while. He was quieter and seemed somewhat depressed, which was totally unlike him. I even asked him quite a bit if something was wrong, but he always reassured me he was fine. Which of the guys you’ve been interested in hurt you the most? lul we knooooow. Do you know anyone who is engaged? Yes. Do you know anybody who is pregnant? Yes. I'm going to one's baby shower next month! What is your relationship status on Facebook? Taken. Would you be able to name everyone you’ve kissed? Yeah. Last person you watched a movie with? Sara, her dad, and I think her mom and one brother was with us? Who has the power to break you? I honestly hope no one anymore, at least not entirely. But Sara comes the closest. Favorite “little kid” movie? TLK. What are you listening to? WoW's Grizzly Hills music. :') Who do you feel most comfortable talking to about anything? Sara. Or Mom. It depends on the subject. Do you find smoking unattractive? Very. I think it says something about how much you care for your health. Have you ever just laid down outside and stared at the stars? Yup. Has anyone ever asked you if you were bipolar? I don't believe so. What was the last thing you looked up on Google? Types of rat cancer for that pet ailment question. We don't know with certainty, but that's likely what killed Tezzeret, brain or eye cancer or something like that. Do you lose interest in someone quickly? If you do something stupid, ha, bye. I can lose interest very fast but also slowly. Ever cried while you were on the phone with someone? Yes. Does your password have to do with a boy/girl? No. Have you ever made a boyfriend or girlfriend cry? Yes. Think back to last year. Who did you like? Sara. How did you meet the last male you called? He's my dad so like- Ever been kissed on the leg? Maybe? What was the last thing you ate? Ham, cheese, and mustard on wheat bread. If you HAD to kiss someone right now, who would it be? Sara. Who was the last person you rode in the car with? Mom. Name some things you love about winter? NOT HOT AS FUCK, snow, frost, gingerbread, chocolate-covered peanuts, I can walk outside without worrying about ticks, my birthday, hot chocolate, looking at Christmas lights/decorations, nice tree designs, Christmas itself... I just love winter. Last person to hear you cry? Probably Mom. How do you feel about your relationship status? I love it. Only thing that could make me happier is if we weren't long-distance. Is it possible to be JUST friends with someone you wanna be with? I dunno. Have you ever been given roses? Yes. Would you ever sky dive? I don't think so. Where was the last place you fell asleep other than your own bed? Sara's bed. If you dated someone that someone else liked, would you rub it in their face? Uh no, I'm an adult. Have you received a text message that made you cry? Yes. What do you think of your country’s education system? If you could change it, what would you do? WOULD YOU LIKE AN ESSAY????????????? I'd change a fucking load of things. If you could move out of your home country permanently, would you? If so, where would you go? No. Is there a celebrity that everyone else seems to love, but you find totally overrated? Why is it that you don’t like them? I'm not in a place to really answer this; I'm not knowledgeable of almost any celebs' lives. Think back to the last time you got really angry. Do you think your anger was justified, or did you act in an over the top way? It was fucking justified. If you could volunteer for any charity, which one would you choose? Do you think it’s more important to help humans, or are animal and environmental charities equally important? Probably one for the environment as far as volunteer work. We're absolutely annihilating our one and only home, and if we don't collectively get our shit together as a species, we're gone. I think both are equally important. Do you have any allergies? If not, what do you think the worst thing to be allergic to would be? Pollen. I think the worst of the ones I know would be any deathly-allergic food, especially those that there are traces of in many foods. What do you think of the term plus-sized in modeling? It is it empowering or demeaning? It's demeaning in its name. Just use "modeling" as the term. "Plus size" just makes it sound as if you're not a "perfect" model. Do you prefer holidays where you relax, or actually do things? Mmm, depends on my mood, honestly. Do you think you are ready to be on your own (have your own home, job, etc.)? No. Do you think that after we die our spirit is still alive? Totally. Do you sleep in a bra? I feel very sorry for anyone who does. Has your ex ever gone out with someone close to you? No. Can you suggest someone funny on YouTube? Personally find Game Grumps or Shane Dawson the funniest people on there. Sprite or Mtn. Dew? I hate Sprite, so. Has anyone close to you ever been suicidal? Yes. What is the 10th picture in your phone/camera of? A picture of Roman as a kitten. :') Are you friends with someone who’s autistic? My niece is, if she counts. Has anyone ever walked in on you having sex? No. Have you ever had a Bic Mac? No. I don't like lettuce on burgers. What’s your favorite part about the holidays? Seeing how excited my niece and nephew are. How old is your television? Idk exact years, but we had it before the divorce, so it's been a while. Would you ever dye your hair an unnatural color? BITCH I always want my hair an unnatural color. Have you ever been to the zoo before? Yes. If you’re reading a book, what page are you currently on? N/A How many online accounts do you have? Or have you lost count? I've definitely lost count. Have you ever been to a convention? (comic, YouTube, etc.) A reptile one. Have you ever done a first aid course? No. Has anyone ever compared you to someone you don’t like? No, I don't think so. Do elevators freak you out? Yes. How do you find new music to listen to when you want it? YouTube recommendations or Spotify. What is the biggest difference between you and your best friend? OUR FEELINGS TOWARDS MEDICATION. YOU NEED IT SOMETIMES BABE. What is something most people are turned on by but you’re not? Penises in general. I'm still bi, but seeing a dick is just. Ugh they're just hideous to me okay. Is there anything you wish you had done with a current/previous significant other? No. Well, I'm curious how actually deep sex would feel, so I guess I kinda wish Jason and I went that far, especially now that I'll probably never have actual intercourse again, but. Oh well. What are the top three qualities that draw you to a new person? Charismatic, caring, and respectful. What job would you be terrible at and what job would you be good at? Anything dealing with customers; exposing animals to healthy human contact. Do you think that forgiveness is mandatory to move on from something? I think so, to fully move on. Name three things you would buy if you had the money to buy them? A PS4, drawing tablet, totally new and better camera. If you could have a video of one event in your life, what would the video be? Sara's reaction to seeing me in her room on her birthday. Her face was the most priceless thing ever. What did you think was cool when you were younger? Light-up shoes lmao. Who do you wish you could back into contact with and why did you stop in the first place? Megan. She lied about just about everything in her life for pity. When I finally called her out, she was so upset with herself that she like, fell off the face of the earth. Have you ever had a dream of stabbing someone? No, but rather Dad trying to stab me. What’s the most bizarre Horror movie you’ve ever seen? Idk off the top of my head. Would you ever take a Lie Detector test for your significant other? No, but only because I find them as bullshit. Especially as someone with anxiety, I'd be so scared of something showing as a "lie" to remain calm. Plus, a question may just prompt a memory or thought in you that shows up on the test or whatever but isn't related to lying, stuff like that. Ever had a forbidden love or lover? No. Do you like canopy beds? YES. I WANT ONE. If you could summon any animal to come to your rescue, what animal would it be and why? Ummm maybe a bear? They're tanks and super dangerous with their claws, teeth, and muscles.

#survey #questions #quiz #random

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proven-paradox · 6 years ago

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In which I yell about 5E Ranger animal companions.

So, I’m working on writing four new sorcerer origins, and I intend to release them in a PDF on Dungeon Master’s Guild for free, try and make a name for myself in the DMG circle if I can. I’ve got the fey one written and am pretty happy with how it looks at this point. Still a few small things to handle but the general shape of it is ready to go. I’ve moved on to writing the fiendish origin, and I think I’ve got a really neat setup going that makes the my fiend sorcerer into a blood-magic summoner.

For its capstone, I want to give it an ability that grants a permanent, powerful ally. Permanent as in no duration limiting it anyway, it’ll still be highly expendable. Balancing that kind of thing is going to be a challenge though; I have to be careful about what abilities this grants to players. The example of a druid summoning a lot of pixies to polymorph a party has been pointed out enough that non-minmaxers I know have heard of it, and I’d rather not give another version of that. So as usual I looked to other classes with similar features. At the time of writing, the only one I know is the beast master ranger, so I’ve done a bit of number crunching on that.

Let’s… talk about that for a bit, shall we?

My dislike of the ranger class is well established among my players--I think its features are weak, far too reliant on being in favorable terrain. Animal companions don’t help in that regard: after running some numbers on animal companions I don’t understand how they made it out of playtesting in their current state. First, the list of available companions is rather restrictive; your companion can’t be large size, so that excludes horses and bears. That’s super disappointing; both animal types I think are really well suited to being animal companions. On top of that, the language of the Bestial Fury class feature--which allows animals to make multiple attacks when using the Attack command--excludes creatures that already have Multiattack. Getting Multiattack typically comes at the cost of having lower base damage per attack, and Bestial Fury as written doesn’t stack with Multiattack. This means animals like badgers and velociraptors become deeply suboptimal choices. Then just looking at how each animal type has small quirks that aren’t balanced at all (this one has less AC, this one has a weaker attack, but they’re both the same CR) and for a minmaxer you can rule out most of them very quickly.

Looking over what’s currently available it looks like there are really only two competitive choices for animal companion: a giant poisonous snake and a wolf. The snake has potentially overpowering damage when you first get it at 3rd level, but since the save DC on its poison doesn’t scale it’s going to fall off pretty rapidly. Even so, it has the best AC and attack of the available companions. The only spots it loses are in speed--and it’s still a respectable 30’, so it’s not a huge loss--and HP--which doesn’t matter because the companion feature overwrites the creature’s HP anyway. The wolf loses to the snake early on, but its access to easy advantage on attacks makes it more competitive in the later game when the snake’s poison has dropped off. So let’s just write out their stats, shall we? The sorcerer feature I’m trying to use these as a guide for balancing comes at 18th level, so let’s compare at that level.

An 18th level a giant poisonous snake animal companion has the following stats:

AC 20

72 HP

Saves: Str 0, Dex 4, Con 1, Int -4, Wis 0, Cha -4

Perception +8

Attacks - Bite x2: 10’ reach, +12 to hit, 1d4+10 (avg 12.5) damage, poison save DC so low we can just say 3d6/2 (avg 5) damage. Average 17.5 damage per strike, 35 damage per round. 10 of that damage is of a type that’s often resisted or immune.

An 18th level wolf animal companion has the following stats:

AC 19

72 HP

Saves: Str 1, Dex 2, Con 1, Int -4, Wis 1, Cha -2

Perception +9, Stealth +10

Advantage on most Perception checks

Advantage on attacks if next to an ally

Bite x2: +10 to hit, 2d4+8 (13) damage, really low Strength save to knock prone. 26 average damage per round.

So the wolf (thanks to its Pact Tactics) is much more reliable, but the snake has non-trivially more potential.

The two numbers here that ruin everything are the HP and saves. The companion class feature mentions adding the master’s proficiency bonus to saves the animal is proficient in, but then the game neglects to actually make the animals proficient in any saves. This combined with that pitifully low HP means that animal companions are just going to die to incidental AoE damage if they’re ever actually used.

But even if we fixed that they’re still not worth much to use. Let’s look at the attacks. Assuming their master has increased their Dexterity to 20 (which they really should have by 18th level), we’re looking at base attack bonus of +11 on the ranger’s attack.

For archers we can assume the Archery fighting style was taken to boost this to +13 for 1d8+5 (avg 9.5) damage with a longbow. Two attacks, so average 19 damage a round.

For Dueling rangers, let’s estimate a Rapier attack. +11 at 1d8+7 (avg 11.5) damage, times two for 23 average damage a round.

Dual Wield ranger is a Thing thanks to the Fighting Style, so let’s check on that. Three attacks, +11, 1d6+5 (avg 8.5) scimitar/shortsword damage, 25.5 average damage a round but you eat your bonus action to do that.

So just from that, it looks like the animals do just a bit more damage per round at approximately the same accuracy. Problem is that this is just the *baseline* for a ranger. By 18th level a ranger probably has a magic weapon(s) to work with along with other items that might improve their damage. They have spells like Hunter’s Mark that increases their damage (and does not apply to their animal companion). They might have feats that improve their damage too. Given how narrow the margin between animal attacks and ranger attacks was already, any one of these factors are going to tip the scales to a point where it is always preferable to spend actions on the ranger’s attacks instead of the animal’s. The combination of Bestial Fury and the ability to attack with your animal based on Extra Attack might give a slight edge to attacking with your animal, but that comes at the cost fielding a companion that’s one fireball from frying and NOT taking the more useful benefits from the hunter archetype. In the end having an animal companion is just *never* a good move.

As a result I’ve decided to completely disregard animal companions for the purposes of balancing the fiend Sorcerer. If I limited my design space for minions to what the ranger allows I would never get anything done; animal companions are just too weak to build around. Instead I’ve eyeballed the available fiends and found a line I can draw between what I’m comfortable giving a player access to and what I’m not. This lack of guidance was frustrating, and I’m left wondering how the current animal companions made it out of playtesting. You don’t even need to actually run a beast master Ranger to see this; all it takes to see that they’re insufficient is actually writing out their stats.

As for how to fix it? You could just allow higher CR beasts as you level, but that would require removing the bit about adding your proficiency bonus to most of the creature’s attributes so the scaling is weird. It also means tossing older companions aside as you outgrow them, which doesn’t fit how most people I know play the bond between ranger and companion. Instead I have vague ideas forming, basically amounting to allowing the beastmaster to customize and train their beasts from scratch instead of relying on an existing statblock. If you start from a statblock of an established creature you make it hard to scale it upward. From that custom base, I’d allow for training to hone that creature’s abilities more, make it so the ranger has actual choices to make beyond just taking the archetype and being done. Another one for the backburner, I suppose.

#DnD 5e #ranger #animal companion #homebrew

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supernoondles · 4 years ago

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2020

A lot happens in a year, even when nothing seems to happen at all.

There's nothing new my commentary about a global pandemic (and the particularly frustrating experience of living in America during it, even with all my privileges of continued employment, owning a car, rent stability, and living in the bay area) will bring to the reader, but I will underscore this: my feelings aren't that 2020 is any kind of exceptional year, but the point where, hopefully, we finally realize that economic/climate/racial injustice has been a terrible problem for a long time, and will continue to be unless we enact massive collective change. A vaccine is not going to make any of those issues disappear, and I worry the people in power (including myself) will return to their comfortable life styles as if the next decade won't be even worse.

Anyway, general DOOM aside (RIP man), here's my year in specific!

From looking through my photos: January was off to a great start. I celebrated the new year with dim sum with J/M/M, as per tradition, and went on a foggy hike through SF with my family that involved my dad and J getting hilariously lost. Soon after I went to Sonoma with J/M -- for all my years in the bay, I had never explored north of the Golden Gate that much -- which was a wonderful trip seeing J's hometown. I helped my lab demo research at the Exploratorium, started growing my own microgreens, and went on more (to become semi-regular and my only source of cardio through the pandemic) bike rides with my lab mates. I finally saw Hamilton (though feel a need to justify here how "cringey" I think LMM is). I went to Genesis, my first gaming-related convention, and it was a lot of fun despite seeing no women. I did so many things, was making progress on research (I think? I don't recall any breakdowns) and my mental health was generally good.

The doing of things continued in February. After not going last year, I went to the Tet Festival in SJ (which was kind of sad). I joined a Chinese learning club and a crafts club and had a delicious omakase. N visited again, I went ice skating and tried to rescue a giant rat from string lights, and saw the Sonic movie in theaters (which would have been my last movie in theaters, sigh). After having a drink at Wursthall with T, I felt terrible (to the unaccustomed reader, not only do I Asian glow, my hands/feet itch whenever I drink and I feel like I want to die), and decided that was the last drink I'd ever have -- thanks to the pandemic that's stayed true. I went on a ski retreat with the lab that felt particularly special (and not just because I didn't have to pay). We (I, in convincing my mostly Asian office) wanted to make 元宵 on the eve of E's birthday, but it turns out that a bunch of CS PhD students really love singing karaoke for like 4 hours straight into the night, and at some point I was like, okay y'all, time to go to bed. So I hosted 元宵 making at my apartment the next weekend, and we watched another Bong Joon-Ho movie (The Host) to celebrate his Oscar win. Typing this out, it seems wild that this was even in this year. I also did sh*** for the first time, hallucinated white woman in the edges of my vision like a GAN, ate a lot of shaved parmesan from TJ, and let go of any stress I had about the UIST deadline to the abundance of nature and the world.

I break from the month-per-paragraph format now because we all know what happens next. M and I biked around campus to film a virtual tour for the newly virtual admit weekend. Being in Gates that Friday (three days before the bay area wide shelter-in-place order) was the last time I'd be on campus for a while. The next day I adopted 3 wonderful baby rats (my biggest brain move this whole year) and the day after that I moved home. I was counting down the days until Animal Crossing and then J and I were duplicating royal crowns in ACNH. At some point my hair got really bad. The months blurred together. Adjusting to WFH was extremely challenging for me, someone who had structured their whole life around the "I only do work in the office and I leave the office when I get hungry for dinner" logic. I would stop working at 6pm but spent the entire afternoon mentally prepping myself to do maybe 30 menial minutes of it. I binged AtLA. I gave up submitting to UIST. In May I hung out in the park with J, who came home from Seattle, which was the first time I saw anyone outside my family. Sometime in there I decided to become a Twitch streamer and had a brief revival as DJ Noon before I felt bad for roping my friends into listening to my music and ran out of interesting songs I wanted to play. In June I, like many others, took to the streets. For two weeks I donated $50 a day to a different organization. I couldn't get any work done at all and spent an entire advisor meeting sobbing so intensely that they felt bad and canceled it after 10 minutes. I emailed the university and got my housing back for the summer and I moved back to start my internship.

The internship was the break I needed -- working with W was a godsend compared to the struggle of my advisors. After reaching new lows at the start of the summer, my mental health was sloping positively again -- working on a new research project helped clear the emotional baggage of the last one. I was also getting more outdoor social interaction -- I went to Ocean Beach with M/D, Half Moon Bay with my family, and going on weekly bike rides with M. At the end of June, M, my roommate, her boyfriend M the clown (there are now 3 different Ms) and I waited for negative COVID results before going on a 2 day camping trip to Mt. Lassen, which felt completely surreal, and, at that time, completely necessary.

The summer dragged on and my mental health, at some point, began to slip. If I were to graph it it would probably look like the inverse of COVID cases in the US -- gradually decreasing, but with high variance from the day to day. I got an embroidery machine, I attended a workshop on docu-poetics with CPH that was so ripe with information my brain physically ached, I saw my lab mates again for the first time as we sat in a very, very wide circle to say goodbye to a post-doc who got a faculty job in Israel. Most weekends I drove to my parents' house and would take J on various hikes around East Bay so he could better appreciate his roots before he went off to Boston for college. He was taking the Switch with him, so in August I bought myself a new one and planned out my entire second ACNH town, which kept me busy for a while -- but surprisingly not as long as I thought, as with planning (and money from my old account) the whole project took I think less than 50 hours. The camping itch came back and the day before my birthday, which was also the day before J would leave for Boston, we went camping at a small state park in San Jose where he got heat stroke and we slept on top of fire ants. The entire experience reminded me how much I disliked camping -- but what else was there to do? I had a wonderful (and long, bless the folks who stayed) Zoom birthday party where I wore a mesh shirt I made and covered with worms on a string. The day after my birthday someone backed into my car, which, following the demands of a racist letter from the HOA, was parked in guest parking. (Ultimately this would be a blessing of insurance money, as the damage was mainly cosmetic and the person kindly left their contact information.) At this time I was also unironically watching ASMR videos to fall asleep, so I painted a two Bob Ross style paintings, one in my virtual art club, to pay homage.

Fire season this year was worse than it's ever been. Being trapped inside the house combined with my roommate moving out at the start of fall quarter and now living alone marked the second downward spiral of my mental health. The bad days were more frequent. I TA'd a game design course, my first time teaching at this university, where many students messaged me to complain that their 95s were not 100s. In the end the lowest grade in the class was an A- and 20% of the class got an A+. At some point I submitted a summer-long project I did with J and S to CHI; it is so much easier to produce work when I do not have to wrangle with M. (This paper gets accepted, but my silly grad student excitement is tampered both by general "why are we still trying to publish when society is crumbling" pandemic feelings and the fact that CHI will not be physically in Japan next year.) Maybe once a month I go birding. I feel increasingly as if there is nothing novel in my life; I am tired of it all and my body feels fatigued even though I don't do anything with my days. Some days it feels like if I don't touch someone I will explode. My use of recreational marijuana skyrockets. I start doing exercise videos semi-regularly with A. I briefly consider moving to Seattle with E, who is about to defend, before it's clear we have, as always, different boundaries and expectations. I look for places in Sunset/Richmond with M to little success.

In October I somehow pull it together and organize student volunteers for a 3 day conference that requires waking up before 5am every day. I do nothing the rest of the week. After we get flu shots and I let someone into my apartment for the first time since the pandemic started, I help E move up to Seattle. The trip is comfortable and we get to take care of each other; this fulfills a need in me. On Halloween J and I dance in a soccer field next to a combination anarchist recruitment center and homeless encampment -- now cleared by the cops -- and eat a mud pie that is too sweet. On my last day in WA I ask E if he would like to have sex, as friends, and he politely declines. I am pleased with how easily I emotionally accept this answer, how through time and therapy I've finally come to cherish our friendship without always looking for what could have been. I am extremely nervous on the flight home, and it's the first and only flight I will take during the pandemic, and the N-95 squishes my face so my head looks like a balloon, but I have the privilege of free 5 minute weekly tests through the university and I collect another negative result.

In November I fully embrace the hyperfixation lifestyle. My brain, always looking for novel stimuli, has given up on doing work entirely and instead thinks of Thanzag constantly. There is one day where I play Hades for 8 hours and I feel gross, as if I've completed my regression to my high school self. It takes 90 hours until I achieve all my goals, and with no more runs necessary to roll for RNG-based conversational triggers, I finally feel a sense of freedom. (My Switch tells me I have used it for 580+ hours this year, which is more than double last year.) The second SwSh DLC is a struggle for me to complete as I do not find catching legendaries enticing. J comes back early from university at my urging to avoid the travel surge, a week before Thanksgiving, and starts living with me. This helps a lot. My next hyperfixations come overlapping and staggered: I write 25k words of a second iteration of my 2015 NaNoWriMo with the protagonist I had developed in high school before I get bored with the story and realize I need yet another iteration; I buy a combination air fryer pressure cooker and ask my parents for a functional vacuum and bidet as early Christmas gifts and become obsessed with immaculate inside living spaces. This carries on to re-decorating my room at my parents' house, after installing a shelf in the closet and a curtain to close it off from the living room, and spending roughly 30 hours over December break organizing and cleaning their entire garage--they have not thrown out a single piece of paper or article of clothing since they set foot in this country over 20 years ago. My therapist quits the practice and my relationship with my advisors improve. I watch a few housewife vlogs and make my own. I have the revelation that doing research in a pandemic is basically just like any other creative project -- no one really cares that much if I get it done, it's just harder to do than, say, putting together a vlog in a few hours. This shift in mindset feels life changing to me, having before thought of research more as work, a taboo thing to pursue in a pandemic, and when W compliments me for the progress I've made in both the system and managing our meeting with M I do not know how to respond because no one has ever done that before. In the last two weeks of the year I start tracking my time. In our last session (that I almost sleep through), my therapist tells me that I seem stable to her and she is not worried about me. I believe her.

In 2020 I made a marked point to let everyone know that I didn't have goals. It felt lofty to have personal ambitions in the face of everything at a global scale. With this said I will now revisit the 2020 resolutions I wrote last year: (1) Intentionally seek out love: absolutely not, (2) Do enough work such that I don't feel guilty: also no, (3) sew one thing a month: no, but in the end I sewed 11 things total this year so I was close, (4) improve my Chinese: this was actually the only thing that did happen, and now my mom and I have better conversations because of it and I'm so thankful.

In 2021, however, I feel like I finally have it in me to have goals again. They are simple. (1) Get laid. (2) Submit the two research projects I've been doing forever. (3) Commit to writing down my thoughts that make me think, "Oh, that's interesting, I should write it down." Ideas are unfortunately such currency in what I do.

Last year I wrapped up this post with some candid, but embarrassing, optimism. I will offer no such high hopes for 2021, but I do ask the reader if they have noticed that I switched tenses from past to present halfway through this post. And that's 2021: an incidentally unintentional, but then consciously controllable, shift to the present.

#noon's shitty end of the year summary posts #my last post on this blog was my 2019 post lmao

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returnerofthesky · 7 years ago

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why do you hate skyrim so much, anyway?

To be honest, I don’t… “hate” Skyrim, per-say? Hate’s too strong a word for any game for me, and even then Skyrim isn’t necessarily a terrible game despite how much I dislike it.

Which probably sounds weird, but that’s just me; most games that I dislike aren’t just plain old bad games. I don’t have an emotional dislike of, say, Bubsy, or Superman 64, or so on. They’re shit games, but there’s nothing particularly redeemable about them. They might have had potential, but it’s more conceptual, rather than being very flawed games with some good ideas (like Gates to Infinity, or Super Mystery Dungeon to a lesser extent).

Anyway, to get back to the question, the reason I don’t like Skyrim is because it feels creatively bankrupt.

To steal a quote from Super Bunnyhop, it’s hard to get engaged in Skyrim when every character feels like the most boring character, when every quest feels like the most boring quest, when every dungeon feels like the most boring crawl… you get the idea. To me it feels like every single time Bethesda had the opportunity to do something creative or interesting in Skyrim or its DLCs, they took the easiest, most boring route possible instead, even though it actively hurts the game’s appeal. And it’s very telling that what I consider to be the two most interesting quests in the game (the murder mystery in Windhelm and the peace treaty in the main story) are also two of the buggiest quests in the game.

Like, vampires in Skyrim are a good example of what I’m talking about. There’s a book in the previous games about a vampire hunter and a scholar (actually a vampire) advising him, and he describes Skyrim vampires as having breath that could freeze the blood inside of you, as well as actually living underneath frozen lakes and being able to reach up through the ice, grab people, and drag them under to feed. That’s not only a fascinating (and grim) concept, but an incredibly cool idea for a snow-based vampire.

Now granted, that’s a fairly dynamic idea, and it’d be hard to implement in Skyrim (especially given they never bothered to add underwater combat), so while I could criticize them for that, I won’t. What I will criticize is the fact that they didn’t even try to make the best approximation of that idea, instead opting to make vampires into slightly tweaked and reskinned bandits/draugr/etc etc.

Like, it wouldn’t need to be exactly like the idea presented in the book, but imagine this: vampires spawn in this invisible, walk-through-able state and have a circle that activates them. Once you walk in and out of that circle, an “invisibility spell wears off” animation plays and they properly spawn, body, weapons and all. Then, they aggro and you might get ambushed if you weren’t being careful. It’s not exactly like the book, but it’s close enough, and since the rest of the game’s enemies are so samey it’d be a nice change of pace.

There’s so many elements that are lacking that it’s very easy to sense the hand of the devs making out exactly what you can and can’t do, despite the whole TES brand emphasizing freedom. It’s obvious that you can’t do absolutely anything (well, at least it was obvious until Breath of the Wild came out), but Skyrim is especially bad at locking you out or not considering other options.

You can’t double-cross or double-deal in the Civil War aside from one single part that basically is the last chance for you to decide your faction. Being a thief is basically useless unless you join the guild, because the Fence perk for Speech doesn’t unlock until the skill is almost max. Conversations in general are far less varied and open-ended than before, meaning speech checks are few and far between as is. Stealth is only really useful for sneak-attacking, since most dungeons aren’t designed to be stealthed through completely. Most of the game’s “puzzles” are those simple match-the-symbol ones, and there isn’t anything particular brain-teasing or dynamic compared to even Oblivion.

I mean, even dragons have this issue. Anyone ever try fighting a dragon without any ranged options? It’s hell. And boring. And oh, oh so bland.

Similarly, like I mentioned, the quests themselves are incredibly bland. I’ve already seen plenty of posts on here throughout the years about how even the most mundane, non-combat-sounding quests usually end up with “please go to this dungeon full of Draugr and get my thing”, but it really is that bad. Most of the quests in Skyrim are either being sent to a dungeon to deal with the incredibly mediocre combat, or you get a vague, completely unashamed fetch quest.

A lot of this is tied to the Miscellaneous quest option, which is basically the game’s way of saying “we whipped up a quick, shitty quest in an hour or two, have fun”. In Riften alone, there’s at least seven or eight Misc quests that essentially amount to “I need you to find me some items, please”:

Finding ten fire salts for the blacksmith

Getting a sword and bringing it to its owner at the castle

Finding alchemy ingredients for the alchemy shop’s apprentice

Finding some gemstones and other items for a jeweler

Finding some gemstones for a bartender’s unfinished wedding ring

Finding ice wraith teeth for a lady to preserve her

Going to another big city to deliver a dagger

Going to a small village to pick up some ore and bring it back

And there’s very little proper “masking” to make these quests seem more interesting. The two quests that I didn’t include that are still fetch quests are a quest about mead being stolen (actually smuggled out at lower prices, which you can partake in or tell to the guards), and a quest about a Dunmer raised by Argonians who wants to find out more about his real parents (which is at least vaguely interesting in and of itself, due to the general relationship between Dunmer and Argonians and all that).

It isn’t just the Misc quests that suffer from this, though. Most of the writing is flawed, bland, or otherwise retreading old ground already, and a lot of it suffers from huge pacing issues. The main quest seems to expect that you’re not going to get distracted, so all of the “urgent” situations it sets up fall flat.

The Fighters Guild recruits you, has you do one proper quest where you find out that they’re werewolves, do one more radiant quest and suddenly they decide that you’re important enough to become a werewolf too. Not that “you know so you might as well”, but that you’ve actually done enough work (two quests worth, oh boy) to merit it (also you’re forced to become a werewolf even if you don’t want to). The Dark Brotherhood essentially does the same Oblivion story of a traitor in the guild over again, except with less interesting characters and less personal stake in the goings-on.

And the quests that aren’t tied to guilds aren’t really that much better, save for maybe a handful that I can’t even think of off the top of my head. It’s lazy, messy, and boring. It’s not completely, utterly terrible or full of plotholes, it’s passable at its best, but it’s still not terribly thought-provoking. I mean, thinking about it is what made me realize it’s not that good, so.

Perhaps more damning than any of this though, is that the gameplay itself is so boring. It’s already kind of an issue that Skyrim has iffy writing in a genre that generally needs to have semi-decent writing most of the time, but its gameplay isn’t really interesting enough to pick up the slack, either.

Admittedly, this problem goes back deeper than just Skyrim - even back during the Morrowind days, people were complaining about the combat due to how you could walk up to enemies and attack or use a spell, and you’d miss even though you’re standing right next to them. People still complain to this day about how confusing the combat is for an action-RPG.

But the problem with that logic is that Morrowind isn’t an action-RPG, it’s a proper old CRPG, more along the lines of Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale. You might be moving in first-person with the WASD keys and so on, but make no mistake that its core gameplay is far more in line with how the older isometric RPGs played, right down to standing right next to an enemy and missing your swings even though the animation played. When you view the game this way, most of its design decisions make a lot more sense.

Unfortunately, that never really registered (again, people still say Morrowind’s an action-RPG), so Oblivion changed things to have some sorta-kinda action-RPG combat. They didn’t rebalance the rest of the RPG elements (how to level up, level scaling, etc) to compensate, though, but instead of tweaking everything to work more naturally in Skyrim, they just removed all of the RPG elements entirely except for the Health/Magicka/Stamina thing.

Of course, that results in another problem: if the game is going to lean so hard on its action elements instead of its RPG elements… why not just play a better action game? Like, Skyrim’s combat is nothing to write home about. Oblivion’s wasn’t great, but at least it was faster and you could attack while jumping and swimming. Skyrim’s is just slow and clunky, and lacking in depth unless you actively choose to add it in.

The perks system is what ties into the combat problems the most. The issue is that the combat actually does have a small bit of depth and quality of life improvements… if you pick the perks that activate them. There’s two main screws with this, the first one being that due to how the level scaling works, you’re better off choosing the perks that just upgrade the raw damage you deal. Since even the most basic enemies slowly become health sponges, the fancy perks usually aren’t as helpful when it comes to actually defeating them.

The other screw is that these upgrades are even perks in the first place. While some abilities are understandable (like the one that sometimes replaces a normal cinematic kill with a decapitation), the ones that alter your power attacks to have extra effects have absolutely no business being optional when the combat is already as shallow as it is. If these tweaks to the power attacks had been default abilities, the perk trees could have been changed or expanded to capitalize on the differences between each kind of attack. On top of this, the choice between maces, axes and swords could have been more significant, rather than simply being minor differences in speed and power.

I know there are more abilities and special things you can do with the dragon shouts, of course, but between having to fight through dungeons in order to get those shouts, and then kill a dragon for a soul to unlock it, it’s usually too much of a pain in the ass to be worth it. Forget going out of my way to get Throw Voice - why not just give me a Noisemaker Arrow or something and be done with it?

The unfortunate thing is that despite all these issues, the combat is still generally just okay at best, so it can be hard sometimes to complain about it. But when the entire game is focused almost entirely around this combat, with almost no quest or gameplay variety to speak of, the only way it could be really seen as “good” by any stretch is by people who haven’t played other, better games.

But anyway… uh, yeah. tl;dr: I don’t like Skyrim because even though it’s incredibly safe and boring to play… it’s incredibly safe and boring to play.

Like, it’s oddly depressing to hash all this out because I really was excited for Skyrim six years ago, and I did genuinely enjoy it at first. Hell, despite all these problems I’ve still probably put way too many hours into it than I really should have. But nowadays, it just doesn’t feel that interesting. Oblivion, Morrowind, Daggerfall, and ESO are all much, much better games, and even though they have their flaws, they have a lot more interesting ups, as well. Morrowind is all-around an excellent CRPG, Daggerfall is an incredibly interesting roguelikey experience, Oblivion generally has better atmosphere and more quest variety, ESO has great combat and writing, albeit at the expense of stealth and some puzzles.

Skyrim... I dunno. Skyrim is stuck somewhere between being an average game and an undercooked one, and that really eats at me because I know that the franchise can do better. I didn’t even discuss a lot of the other problems I have with the game, just the major ones. But considering that Fallout 4 has a lot of the same issues, but even worse... I worry for what the next entry in the series might be, if it’s handled by Bethesda proper.

#elder scrolls #skyrim #Anonymous

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tumblunni · 7 years ago

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....Man, I think Haunter is my favourite pokemon again. I usually have a brief period of each generation’s best new ghostie temporarily stealing the number one spot, but i usually tend to lose the hype for them around a year later and they join my just Gigantic Pile Of Second Favourites I Cannot Choose Between And then I used to dislike Sableye, Banette and Rotom but they all took the top fave spot as soon as I was like ‘hey if i actually use on on my team maybe I’ll like it- I REALLY LIKE IT’. but I mean, when i love them more because of my personal one i had on my team, or my headcanons or fanfics or etc, I think maybe that’s a dishonest fave cos they’re not my fave on their own benefits? And Rotom stayed in the top fave spot for a really long time cos it not only had a lot of love as my main heavy hitter in platinum but also has a big role as the main mon of one of my fave characters. And like five other fave characters in random anime one off episodes! And then it was a pokedex! EVERYTHING ROTOM TOUCHES TURNS TO GOLD

Buuuuuuuuut.... Haunter was like.. My Original Favourite My first favourite pokemon was pikachu, and then chansey, but Haunter was my first favourite ghost and it says a lot that it still holds up even all these generations later when the type finally got fleshed out with as many members as other types. Man its so funny in retrospect that I’m pretty defined as The Super Ghost Fan nowadays but I wasn’t really into them for the first three generations of pokemon. There just wasnt ANYONE except the haunter line in gen 1, and only misdreavus got added, and then in gen 3 I didnt initially like banette’s design in its first pretty awful sprite so i felt like duskull was the only good one and i didnt like its evolutions. Another reason to love sinnoh: it added great ghosties, evolutions for past ones, and made a lot of past ones available at the same time, and i mean we got our first ghost legendary too! The generation of spoop hype! (until kalos was even more of that, but it was less of a big deal cos ghosts werent so rare now)

ANYWAY Haunter is REALLY GOOD AND GREAT Its design is so simple yet perfect?? Like I know it was designed to be one of the most literal middle evolutions ever, its just meant to be basically.. half of gengar. With its oldest pokedex entries that was back before they really decided what they wanted to do with the ghost type, it was all ‘its a mysterious creature from an unknown dimension and nobody is sure if its a real ghost’. So its unclear whether its design is really meant to be the head pokemon gastly growing its first baby arms, or like.. all three stages are the same pokemon slowly emerging into our dimension, with Gengar being the true form? In any case, I never really felt Gengar was very special, aside from the fan theory it’s a doppelganger of clefable. (I mean its name is literally a mispelling of doppelganger!) like.. it always felt like a letdown of a final form? it would be so great on its own, its just a nice solid silly ‘monster under the bed’ type of ghost, a fluffy bugbear with a lot of sass and the minor original trait of its face being super big and kinda in the wrong place compared to clefable. Makes you imagine it scares people by going full cleff mimic and then just turning around in an alleyway XD I actually had a fan pokemon as a kid called Gambal which was literally just a chansey equivelant of gengar, and had powers of bad luck and stuff. But then the name ended up going to an entirely different fakemon instead who was a rabbit thing that was a game corner prize. Oh and I also had a geng of celebi! Called Tanka just cos that was my name for all my ocs at the time. Its just a type of poetry that i thought sounded Hella Cool for no logical reason. But yeah, I drew like a million pics of every pokemon as a ghost version and its just funny how subconciously i was a ghost fan even before there were more than four ghosts in existance XD

BUT WHERE WAS I Oh yeah, gengar is dissappointing! And its unfair cos if it was an unrelated pokemon on its own, I would like it! It just doesn’t hold up favourably to how awesome haunter and gastly’s concepts are. i mean, look here we have two different quality takes on the ‘floating head’ concept and then its final form isn’t a floating head. HOW DARE YOU. I guess gengar kinda still keeps the aesthetic with its oversized face, kinda? Like its a giant head just mimicing being a regular pokemon? But I mean i think a giant head with arms and legs stops being a giant head. Its why Nanimon and Mamemon aren’t as cute as regular sperical types. I think the only exception is when its a giant head with ONLY legs, and they’re small rabbit legs specifically- like Lotad or Tokomon!

Anyway, nowadays I’ve grown more appreciation for Gengar (again) because I had one in my team and I love him so I can’t not love my best friend. He has an interesting story cos he’s actually That One Haunter, lol! That memorable npc in DPPt who trades you a haunter but its holding an everstone so it doesn’t evolve. I was still equally annoyed at her even though I’d planned to press B and keep it as a haunter anyway! XD But then the cute default name Gaspar made me get really attatched to him, and man i have so many super detailed story and personality headcanons for this little goofball. Eventually he did actually evolve into Gengar, cos I traded him temporarily to a friend in order to transfer him between generations, and i forgot gengar was a trade evo so i didnt tell her to not do it. I still feel really bad that i overreacted about it, i worry that maybe I made her feel guilty! Ultimately, it was probably a good thing, because I kept my other bestie Reaper the Sneasel unevolved forever cos i dislike Weavile, and like.. obviously he kinda sucks in battle because of this. I still love all my pokemon regardless of whether they’re useful in competitive, tho! Oh and mega gengar is pretty sweet, too! It brings back a lot of haunter’s appeal! I just wish that i never saw its feet, seriously. I thought that it was just a head and arms again, but apparantly it just spends 99% of the time phased into objects and its legs just look really awful and unfitting when you see them. It makes it like a top heavy buff design and that really doesn’t work?? It sucks cos i LOVE the other ‘skipped leg day’ pokemon Mega Swampert, so i dunno why I don’t like the same thing on ghosts! Dusknoir and Jellicent are my least favourite ghosts ever. So yeah my opinion on gengar now is like... mixed? i don’t dislike it like I used to, but I don’t really love it on its own benefits or anything, i just don’t dislike it cos i associate it with a sweet and cute bestie who saved me a lot in sinnoh due to his hypnosis attack. But I still think it’s a worse design than haunter, which is The Best Design In All Of Pokemon. Even when I flip flop on what my favourite POKEMON is, I still think it’s my favourite design! Rotom is maybe the most creative design CONCEPT amoung the ghosts, but Haunter is just... so good at what it set out to do.

LETS TALK AGAIN ABOUT HOW GREAT HAUNTER IS I mean just LOOK AT IT, its just SO GOOD Floating heads are great, and gastly was a great way to take that concept and make it ghostly! And its so cool that its basically a hitodama/will of the wisp/generic spooky flame face from every jrpg ever, except made more original because its made of like.. pure darkness smog mist instead. The colour choices for it are really good too, i always really loved the dithering effect they used to make it in the sprite-based games! Its one of the few pokemon where i love the regualr better than the shiny, even though the shiny isn’t one of those terrible neon green ones. It has one of the best shinies and that shade of smoky purple still captures my heart more! i think i would prefer the shiny if regular gengar was bedsheet white though, not blue and only turning white when it mega evolves. That’s weird. AND THEN HAUNTER IS JUST AN EVEN BETTER FLOATING HEAD It loses the cool smoke but it gains these pointy ears/cliche vampire hair shaped head protrusions that just work SO WELL. Like its a floating head that isn’t just a plain sphere! That’s the one part of floating head monsters that generally sucks, a lot of them outside of the creativity of pokemon tend to be super samey generic bald spherical angry man heads. A floating head of a guy with a cliche horror B-movie hairstyle is great! And especially when its a really unhumanoid jack-o-lantern face that’s just like.. replicating that hairstyle without actually being a hairstyle. thats my fave kind of humanoid type pokemon, I love when they’re still animals or monsters or even inanimate objects that are MIMICKING humans, not just a lazy thing that looks like an actual human wearing a costume. I’m probably in the minority but this is why I prefer Mr Mime to stuff like Machamp or Delfox or Incineroar. And then also I love how it takes Gastly’s grumpy eyes and softens them a bit to look more mischeivious instead of angry. Looking always in a bad mood is probably the biggest reason i don’t like Gastly the most, i just feel sad for it. Another reason why I love sinnoh lol, it had a big happy mischief face on its sprite! (shame platinum ruined it a bit, but HGSS was even cuter) And then its just such a creative way of giving a floating head some limbs while not ruining its floating head aesthetic. Floaty rayman arms is such a ghostly thing even though there arent many ghosts that use that design aesthetic!

Honestly thats the biggest reason haunter is so great, really. it just.. encapsulates ghost, even though it doesnt have like ANY cliche ghost design elements! its such a good original concept for like the simplest and most basic pure image of ghostliness in this world. It somehow feels like its exactly what ghosts are, without taking any shortcuts from other popular ghost characters. its so simple and iconic! Its a new thing that could fit in perfectly with all those ancient B-movie creatures and I’d never question it! Gastly is at least slightly based on a will o wisp, and gengar is a bugbear/monster under the bed/shadow creature/doppelganger super combination creature. But in the aim of making something in-between the two, they accidentally made something that doesn’t look very much like ANY of them and stands out miles above them! I think this entire evolution line has had such great staying power because every member of it looks really distinct from the others, while also vaguely fitting together with theme and colourscheme so they don’t seem distinct in a BAD way. Any of these would be equally beloved as entirely separate mons, but linking them together makes them oddly endearing as a weird ragtag bunch of buddies! Its like the addams family!

Oh, but my one and only complaint is that Haunter’s gameboy era design looks better than how it got changed once the graphics got better.

To be entirely honest, I think that the changed version was their intent right from the beginning, and the cooler aesthetic one was just an accident of the limited graphics. Cos I mean the anime had that design from the beginning, after all! BUT STILL, I love it so much more and I wish it could have been proper canon. or at least remained as its shiny form or something! (A mild blue hint instead of a mild purple hint is really boring, this shiny only looks good on gastly...) The glowy outline is probably the best part, though i do also like how the colours stay more matched with gastly instead of the smog colour becoming the body colour. Actually its not even that, its just a random less appealing deep purple, it might have been cooler if it remained that lighter shade of lilac? Also it sucks that haunter retained the glow around its hands at least in the gameverse until we got 3D models. It never had that in the anime so i guess they removed it to remain consistant but like.. WHY! It doesn’t look as cool with red glow on purple as opposed to purple glow on black, but I still really liked it. Like you could have at least kept the glow when it uses attacks or something?

Oh, and isn’t it so weird that so many ghosts have had all black removed from their design as the generations go on? Like.. I mean I don’t think they did this to haunter cos they feared it was similar to Jynx, it isn’t remotely humanoid and it doesn’t have a stereotypical face or anything. And it wouldnt make sense cos they kept it on gastly. But then also banette has gone from black to an increasingly lighter grey, and its EEEEEEEVEN lighter on merchandising! I waited ages for an official banette plush, and it is a really sweet little thing thats so perfect... but then its light grey? I don’t mind cos it makes my plushie feel like more of an individual at least. Also its annoying that mega banette started off as the same dark grey/black that banette originally was, but then its one of the few pokemon that got a big change between XY and SuMo, aside from new animations and stuff. now its light grey too! Booooooo! Other ghosts that’ve experienced The Greying: Duskull, Dusknoir already started off lighter than its pre-evo and then still got more so as time went on, and Misdreavus turned green and then blue instead of grey but its still the same sort of thing. Now the only real black/dark grey ghosts we have left are Yamask and Phantump, and its just.. so weird?? Cos like none of the black dark-types have had big colour changes except Sneasel. I dunno, maybe they’re doing this to make the ghost and dark types more distinct, making it more like purple is the signature colour of ghosts? But I mean its the type icon colour for poison and psychic too so this just makes the colourschemes LESS distinct... Also I just think that the dark grey banette and the black haunter looked so much better, so it sucks that out of all the ghosts it had to be the ones I love! And out of all dark types it had to be my favourite too! (And sneasel is my fave ice type too!)

...anyway GHOSTS and HAUNTER I LOVE THEM and I’m sorry i rambled for like an hour writing all this THEYRE JUST SO FUCKING CUTE AND SWEET

oh and one last thing!! I love how haunter established the trend of ghost types being more mischievious and misunderstood than actually evil Well, i mean all three of its evo line starred in that episode of the anime, but Haunter was the one that went with ash at the end and got one more episode of cuteness afterward. That whole mini arc was the MOST MEMORABLE PART OF THE SHOW for me, I couldnt believe it was so short when i rewatched it! I totally misremembered haunter sticking around for half a season or something, cos it was so endearing to me. And its still so endearing to me every time the games decide to make a new ghost be harmless or sad, or harmless and sad. or even harmful and sad! i mean i cried the most at banette even though its past of being an abandoned toy is supposed to just be a justification why its the most angry and dangerous ghost. I’M SURE I COULD HEAL IT WITH HUGS, yells bunni, as they essentially glomp the pokemon equivelant of a shark...

god i just love ghosts so much and specifically haunter the most much hug your haunter today also your banette also your rotom also pumpkaboo and litwick and phantump and duskull...

#blunni thoughts

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