#arc v I may have mixed feelings about you but its the show than made me start writing this darn thing

[shitpostingkats]

There are two, possibly three oneshots planned in the yugioh gc au for the sole reason of making sure the Arc V bois and girlies get adopted and happy endings.

[scorpionyx9621]

Do you think Jason Todd fandom is kinda toxic? Because it seems like NO MATTER what DC do, there'll always be complains. Forget the bad adaptation like Titans. Even Judd Winick cannot escape the criticism with how he potrayed Robin!Jason. They just never satisfied.

SORRY, IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO RESPOND TO THIS. I just moved from Washington D.C. to Seattle, which, for my non-American friends, that's 4442km away. And I DROVE THERE ALL BY MYSELF. And now I'm trying to find new work in a new city and trying to stay mentally healthy and positive. Life is exciting but hard and scary.

*sighs*

As someone who was a fandom elder with V*ltr*n. I've seen some of the worst when it comes to fandom behavior. I'm talking people baking food with shaving razors and trying to give them to the showrunners. I'm talking leaking major plot details and refusing to take it down unless they make their ship canon (I am looking at you, Kl*nce stans) For the most part, DC Comics has had a decades-long reputation of treating their fans like trash and not caring what they think so from what I've seen, we all just grumble and complain in our corners of the internet about how we don't like how X comic portrays Jason Todd.

The challenge with Jason Todd is that he's your clinical anti-hero, the batfamily's Draco in Leather Pants, he's a jerkass woobie, and on top of all of that, he's a Tumblr sexyman. It's a perfect storm for a very fun but frustrating character to be a fan of. It doesn't help that every writer decides to re-invent the wheel every time Jason comes up so his canon lore is confusing at best and inconsistent as a standard.

I guess starting with a general brief on who Jason is and what is uniform about him with every instance he's appeared in comics/media.

Grew up in a poor family in Gotham with a dad who was a petty-mid-level criminal, and a mother who dies of a drug overdose.

Survives on the street on his own by committing petty crimes and potentially even engaging in sexual acts to keep himself alive.

Is cornered by Batman and taken in after Dick Grayson quits/is fired

Becomes the second Robin, but is known for being the harsher, more brutal Robin.

Is killed by Joker after being tortured, but somehow comes back to life and regains senses through the Lazarus Pit

Resolves himself to be better than Batman by basically being Batman but kills people.

Where there has been a lot of conflict in the fandom is the fact that Jason Todd is not a character that is written consistently. DC Comics loves to go with the narrative that Jason was "bad from the start" and was the "bad robin" when, yes, he has trouble controlling his anger, but he also still is just as invested in seeing the best of Gotham City and trying to be a positive change for the world as any other DC Comics hero.

Where I get frustrated with the fandom is its ability to knit-pick every detail of a comic they don't like while completely disregarding everything that makes the comics great and worth it to read. My example being Urban Legends. To which most people had pretty mixed reactions to. I was critical of the comic at first but as it went along I ended up really liking it. I have a feeling DC Comics went to Chip Zdarsky and told him he had 6 issues to bring Jason back into the Bat Family, and honestly he didn't do a bad job. Did it feel rushed? Absolutely. I wish there was more development of Jason and Bruce's characters and their dynamic as a whole. However, where I see a lot of people being angry and upset with Urban Legends is that they feel Zdarsky needlessly wrote Jason as an incompetent fool who needs Bruce to save him.

Whether or not that was the intention of Zdarsky is up to debate. However, and this may be controversial, but I don't think he wrote Jason Todd out of character at all. For as fearsome, intimidating, and awesome as Red Hood is. Jason is a character who is absolutely driven by his emotions. Why do you think he donned the role of Red Hood? As a response to his anger towards The Joker for killing him, and towards Bruce for not taking action against The Joker and for seemingly replacing him so quickly after he died. Jason didn't care about being the murderous Robin Hood or for being the bloody hammer of justice against N*zi's and P*d*ph*les. He only cared originally about making The Joker and Bruce pay. It wasn't until he trained under the best assassins in the world and realized most of them were horrific criminals who trafficked children and were p*dos that Talia began to realize that the teachers that she sent Jason to train under started dying horrific and painful deaths.

The entire story of the Cheer story in Batman Urban Legends was started because it finally forced some consequences upon Jason. Tyler, aka Blue Hood's father was a drug dealer who gave his supply to his wife and kids. And when Tyler's father admitted he gave the drugs to Tyler, it immediately made him fall within the self-imposed philosophical kill-list of Jason Todd. And Jason, well, he proceeds to kill Tyler's father. When this happens, Jason is in shock. Tyler's dad fit the bill to easily and justifiably be killed by Jason. We've never seen Jason having to deal with the consequences of being a murderous vigilante on a micro-level. When Jason realizes what he's done in that he's murdered Tyler's dad, he's shocked. He tells Babs the truth. He does a rational thing because he's in shock. He doesn't know what to do, he never has had to face the consequences of his actions as Red Hood and now the gravity of befriending a child as a vigilante hero who kills people just set in when he killed the father of the same child he was just introduced to.

(Oh here's a little aside because it had to be said, Jason would not have been a good father or a good mentor to Tyler and absolutely should not have been his new Robin. Jason is a man who is in his early 20's (not saying men in their early 20's can't be good fathers at all) who is a brutal serial killer using the guise of a vigilante anti-hero to let him escape most of the law. the complications of having the man who murdered your father adopt you and make you his sidekick are way too numerous for me to explain in a long-winded already heavy Tumblr essay post. There's a reason why we don't advocate for a story where Joe Chill adopted Bruce Wayne or one where Tony Zucco took in Dick Grayson.)

The next biggest argument is that they feel that Jason is giving up his guns as a means to just be invited back into the Bat-Family. To which I will tell anyone who has that argument to go actually read Urban Legends. Already have and still have that argument? Please re-read it. Don't want to? That's okay, I will paste the images from the comic where Jason specifically says that he doesn't want to give up his weapons for Bruce and his real reasoning down below since the comic isn't exactly readily accessible.

Jason gave up the guns because he felt the gravity of what he had done and knows how it'll effect Tyler. Thankfully his mom is alive and in recovery. But Tyler doesn't have a father anymore. And Jason killed Tyler's father. It may have been in accordance to Jason's philosophy, but it was a case where it blurred the lines. Jason Todd isn't a black and white character, just very dark gray. He doesn't kill aimlessly like the Joker. If you are on Jason's list you probably have done something pretty horrific, and also just in general, being in his way or being a threat to him. Mind you, in early days of Red Hood and the Outlaws (Image below) Jason almost killed 10 innocent civilians in a town in Colorado all because they saw him kill a monster. That being said, Jason isn't aimless in his kills.

(Also can we just take a moment to appreciate Kenneth Rocafort's art? DC Comics said we need to rehabilitate Jason Todd's image and Kenneth Rocafort said hold my beer: It's so SO GOOD)

That being said, the key emphasis in the story of Cheer asides from trying to introduce Jason Todd back into the Bat Family and give an actual purpose for him being there, other than him just kind of being there ala Bowser every time he shows up for Go Kart racing, Tennis, Golf, Soccer, and the Olympic games when Mario invites him, is that Jason and Bruce ultimately both want the same thing. Jason wants to be welcomed back into the family and to be loved and appreciated. Bruce want's Jason back as his son and wants to love and protect Jason. Both of these visions are shown in the last chapter of Cheer while under the effect of the Cheer Gas. It's ultimately this love and appreciation they both have for each other that helps them overcome their challenge and win.

Jason Todd is a character who, just like Bruce, has been through so much pain and so much hate in his life. The two are meant to parallel each other. While Bruce chose to see the best in everyone, giving every rogue in his gallery the option to be helped and give them a second chance, hence why he never kills, Jason has a similar view on wanting to protect the public, but he understands that some crimes are so heinous they cannot be forgiven, or that some habitual criminals are due to stay habitual criminals, and need to be put down. But at the end of the day, the two of them both try to protect people in their own ways.

I am aware that through the writings of various DC Comics authors such as Scott Lobdell and Judd Winick, the two have had a very tumultuous relationship. And rightfully so, I am by no means saying that Scott Lobdell writing an arc where Bruce literally beats Jason to within an inch of his life in Red Hood and the Outlaws, nor Judd Winick's interpretation of Under the Red Hood where Bruce throws the Batarang at Jason's neck, slicing his throat and leaving him ambiguously for dead at the end of the comic is appropriate considering DC Comics seems to be trying everything they can to integrate Jason back into the family. That being said, a lot of these writings have shaped the narrative of Jason and Bruce's relationship and have an integral effect on the way the fandom views the two. It doesn't help that Zdarsky acknowledged Lobdell's life-beating of Jason by Bruce at the very end of Cheer by having Bruce give Jason his old outfit back as a means of mending the fence between the two of them. That does complicate a lot of things in terms of how they are viewed by the fandom and helps to cause an even greater divide between the two.

Regardless, I want to emphasize the fact that Jason Todd is a part of the family of his own accord. Yes, he's quite snarky and deadpan in almost every encounter. However, Jason is absolutely a part of the family and has been for a while of his own will. There's a great moment in Detective Comics that emphasizes this. Jason cares about his family because it is his found family. Yes, they may be warry about him and use him as a punching back and/or heckle him. At the end of the day, we're debating the family dynamics of a fictional playboy billionaire vigilante whose kleptomania took the form of adopting troubled children and turning them into vigilante heroes. Jason Todd wants a family that will love and support him. This is a key definition of his character at its most basic. This was proven during the events of Cheer and is being reenforced by DC Comics every time they get the opportunity to do so.

Now, none of this is to say that I hate Judd Winick. I do not, I don't like the fact that in all of his writings of Jason, he just writes him as a dangerous psychopath, and Winick himself admits to seeing Jason as nothing much more than a psychopath. Yet Winick is the one who the majority of the fandom clings to as the one true good writer of Jason Todd because 'Jason was competent, dangerous, smart' Listen, friends, Jason is all of that and I will never deny it. However, what I love about Jason isn't that he's dangerously smart of that writers either write him as angsty angry Tumblr sexyman bait or that they write him as an infantile man child with a gun. There's a large contention of this fandom that has an obsession with Jason Todd being this vigilante gunman who is hot and sexy and while I definitely get the appeal. It is very creepy and downright disturbing that all of you hyperfixate on his use of guns and ability to be a murderer. It is creepy and I'm not necessarily here for it.

What I love about Jason Todd is that despite all of the pain, all of the heartache, all of the betrayal, and bullying, and death, and anguish. Jason Todd is one of the most loving and supportive characters in all of DC Comics. Jason has been through so much in his life, but he still chooses to love. He still chooses to see the bright side in people. Yes, he takes a utilitarian approach and chooses to kill certain villains, but at the end of the day he wants to see a better world, and he wants to be loved. It takes so much courage and so much heart to learn to love again after one has been abused or traumatized. I would not blame Jason at all if he said fuck it and just went full solo and vigilante evil. He has every right to, but he still chooses to be with the Bat Family of his own accord. That's something that I see a lot of in myself. I have been through a lot of trauma and yet I try to be a better person myself in any way that I can. It is extremely admirable of Jason to allow love back into his heart when he really doesn't need to. He kills and he protects because he has this love of society. It may have been shaped by anger and hatred, but Jason has found his place amongst people who love him and value him. I think Ducra, from Red Hood and the Outlaws put it best in the image given below.

To end this tangent, I love Jason Todd and all of his sexy dangerousness, but it's far more than that. As much as Jason may be dangerous and snarky, he loves his family without a shadow of a doubt. I look up to Jason Todd because despite all of his pain and all of his trauma, he still choses to love. Jason Todd is a character who is someone I love because despite all of his flaws and having a very toxic fandom, he still serves as a character filled with so much heart and so much passion. I wish more writers would understand that. But for now I will live with what I have. Even though the fandom may be vocal about it's hatred for his characterization, I choose to love Jason regardless because he is a character who chooses love and acceptance regardless of his pain. Jason Todd is by no means a good person in any sense of the word. He has easily killed upwards of 100 people by now. He is a character who is flawed and complex but ultimately is one who powers forwards and finds love and heart in a place from so much pain and anguish. That is what I love about Jason Todd. After all, to quote a famous undead robot superhero, "What is grief, if not love persevering?" Jason Todd chooses to love despite all of the trauma and pain and grief. Yes, he is hardened in his exterior, but inside there is a man with a lot of love to give and someone who deserves the world in my eyes.

[scalproie]

tell me abt. vergil. (tom feldman eyebrows dot gif)

How I feel about this character : 💙you all know very well how I feel about this character.💙

All the people I ship romantically with this character: H A !

My non-romantic OTP for this character: legit every potential relationship could be super interesting with Vergil because right now, outside of his own brother, the man has an abysmall social circle. The relationships I crave more to see with him are with the fortuna trio, aka nero, kyrie and nico respectively. I do love to see actual vergil content with the familiars

My unpopular opinion about this character: I know I made a meme that contradict this and I may have talked about it before, but I dont really "get it" when people are acting like V and Vergil are completely different characters and not like, the same character without demonic power. Its kinda like, to me, if people were saying Tony Redgrave and Dante werent the same character. Like okay the Vergil/V/Urizen dynamic is much more complicated than a single interpretation but still the gap between V and Vergil kinda stick to me :/ (also I wouldve thrown Urizen into the mix but there isnt content of Urizen to begin with so lmao), like, it's the same character. They have different designs but it's the same character having a character arc. and with that being said, lemme say that I did like V, thank you V for everything you've done, but I'm not gonna go to war to get to see him again, as cruel as that might sound, both he and urizen served their narrative purpose

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: ONLY CHARACTER WHO HAS YET TO CRY TO SHOW GROWTH AND NO THE VOV FLASHBACK DOESNT COUNT, I WANNA SEE RENDERED TEARS, CAPCOM, THAT DEVIL SURE MAY CRY AND I WANNA SEE IT, I WANNA HEAR DAN SOB INTO A MIC

[scottymcgeesterwrites]

Final Fantasy VII Review

 Year: 1997

Original Platform: PlayStation One

Also available on: PC, PlayStation Store

Version I Played: PlayStation One

Synopsis:

The Shinra Electric Power Company rules over the city of Midgar, and the eco-terrorists AVALANCHE stop at nothing to try and prevent the life essence of the planet from being used as energy. Barrett, leader of AVALANCHE, hires a mercenary named Cloud Strife for their bombing mission on a Shinra Mako Reactor. Cloud doesn’t care much for the greater cause and only wants his pay. But then, after a mission goes awry, he meets Aerith, a flower girl who is the descendant of the Ancients. He quickly finds himself wrapped up in the greater conflict against Shinra.

 Gameplay:

Final Fanatasy VII utilizes magic spells via Materia – little orbs that come in a variety of colors pertaining to the natural elements. You can mix and match them on your weapons and equipment, which gives you access to different spells and stats. All your equipment varies with the number of slots for how many Materia orbs you can put in. Leveling up not only upgrades the character but the equipped Materia as well.

 Final Fantasy VII also uses an ATB system but is known for introducing Limit Breaks – finishing moves that build up after the character gets hit over time. Final Fantasy VI had a prototype called Desperation Attack – but it was very rare as it only appeared when your character had 1/8 of their total HP, and there was a 1 in 6 chance of performing the Desperation Attack after selecting Attack. I actually had no idea that was a thing until long after I finished the game, and never experienced it when I played Final Fantasy VI.

Graphics:

Out of all the Final Fantasy games, I have to say that this one has not aged well. It has the worst graphics of the entire series. The battle and cinematic graphics are passable.

(Most of the graphics power seemed to be put in Tifa’s, uh, bosom.)

But the characters in towns, the overworld, and in-game cutscenes are incredibly blocky. PC versions are supposedly sharper, but the PlayStation One version makes it nigh impossible to see any facial expressions. 

The graphics are definitely a product of its time. I always say that the beginning of 3D gaming was essentially like puberty – awkward and full of zits. It wasn’t yet at that stage where it could be aesthetically pleasing. We marveled about it when it was first released, yes, but then we cringed in retrospect.

The environment backdrops however are probably the strongest points, where they capture the industrial nature of Midgar, the reactors and other such buildings.

Story:

Final Fantasy VII became legendary the minute Square released it. Every aspect was memorable. Part of it could be due to the fact that it was the first Final Fantasy game to enter the 3D realm. Another part was Tetsuya Nomura’s character designs, which hit the cool meter to the point of sub-zero.

 The cinematics blew our minds. The opening action scene with Cloud, Barrett, and the rest of AVALANCHE attacking Shinra’s mako reactor is the most memorable opening to a Final Fantasy game. Period. Final Fantasy games really do know how to start at the right spot, no matter how good or bad the overall game is. The opening is always the best part.

Then there was the motorcycle chase. Cid’s airship. The gun fights. Battles with Sephiroth. The extra stuff to find, like summons and extra bosses. So much was jam-packed into the game.

 But the story was the primary factor in making VII famous. It’s definitely one of the better ones. Man, the story became so famous that even gamers who haven’t touched a Final Fantasy game knew the major spoilers. It is the equivalent to knowing Darth Vader’s line, “I am your father” without having actually watched Star Wars.

Aerith (Aeris in the English releases) Gainsborough – the innocent flower girl who holds the secrets of the Ancients – develops a romance with Cloud and fucking dies at the end of Disc 1 by the main villain – Sephiroth. The scene shocked everyone and practically made headlines. Everybody has seen the horrible image in one way or another.

It seems to me that since Final Fantasy V, the stories have gotten more and more used to main character deaths, ultimately transforming into a heavy-hitting TV series rather than simply a video game series. In other words – it matured. Looking back, Final Fantasy IV appears to be child’s play and a prototype of later dramatic storylines with fully realized worlds.

 Final Fantasy VII was also the first Final Fantasy game to create a world much like ours – one with cars and trains and airplanes and machine guns and even cellphones. The main city of Midgar reflects industrialization at its worst, with miles of slums and claustrophobic cities. Shinra Electric Power Company is a reflection of capitalism at its worst - a single entity in charge of so much that it’s pretty much the government. For the first time in a Final Fantasy game, you play as characters who dance between the morally ambiguous line of terrorism and activism. Funny enough, the theme of neglecting the planet resonates with us now more than ever. This game ended up being rather prophetic about the uncontrollable growth of corporations.

While the story is memorable with many intriguing elements, the plot itself is a tangled web. In my opinion, they really hashed in so many things that it’s easy to forget crucial details. It’s not straightforward, but at the same time everything does connect by the end. While Shinra is the driving force as a whole as the villain, Sephiroth takes over, then you learn about his backstory and then with the evil scientist Hojo and the extra-terrestrial Jenova and then “Weapon” and then the planet’s history and this and that and the other thing.

If I were to put Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy VII together and contrast them, as many gamers do, I would find that Final Fantasy VII is the summer blockbuster and Final Fantasy VI is the Oscar winner. Final Fantasy VII started introducing the sappy romance subplot to the series. A love triangle forms among Aerith, Cloud, and Cloud’s childhood friend Tifa. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with having a love triangle, the writing is like watching middle schoolers trying to express their feelings. Final Fantasy VI and Final Fantasy IV treated any romance with dignity and realism.

But maybe I’m being a bit harsh. After all, Cloud Strife did go through some suffering as an adolescent. His backstory clearly drives his antisocial behavior, so that becomes a good arc. 

The goofiest but memorable part of the story deals with Don Corneo and Wall Market and running around store to store doing tasks in order to free Tifa from Don Corneo. It ends with Cloud needing to cross-dress as a woman to get inside Don’s mansion. Because, you know, it’s not like Cloud can just break in with his sword and Aerith’s magic or anything like that. But whatever. It’s anime.

The recent Final Fantasy VII Remake for the PS4 seems to streamline the story, and actually enhances the emotions they were trying to deliver in the original. I will be talking about the remake in a separate post altogether since I’m almost done with it at the time of this writing. But there’s a lot that I want to say about comparing and contrasting the remake and the original.

The latter half of the plot takes a couple weird turns. At one point, Cloud became catatonic and confined to a wheelchair.

That part of the game became the sluggish part for me. Sephiroth also tries to confuse Cloud, which confused me. Cloud apparently suffers from some alternate subconscious mumbo-jumbo and like. . .ungh. I get an aneurysm thinking about it sometimes.

Complicated plotlines like Final Fantasy VII start showing up from here on out in the Final Fantasy series. The trend of bishonen characters also begin here, bishonen being the Japanese term for “beautiful boy.” Cloud and Sephiroth have that look. The series starts hashing in sappier romances and much more of an anime feel.

Final Fantasy VII ultimately marked the start of a new era for the series – introducing both cool and overused tropes.

Music:

Hands down the best Final Fantasy soundtrack of all.

The entire soundtrack of this game is memorable. The opening tune, with its light twinkle when the stars show up, is enough to make any gamer know exactly what that’s from.

With a story set in a more modern world, we have music that is more modern. After Final Fantasy VI had a more serious and operatic score, Uematsu displayed his love of progressive rock here. The motorcycle chase incorporates a lot of synth, which was fitting for zipping through the streets of Midgar. However, Final Fantasy VII is the first Final Fantasy game without that familiar starting bassline for the battle them. The battle theme is instantly recognizable but also radically different from its predecessors. It’s dramatic and displays danger.

Meanwhile, the boss theme is one of the best boss themes in the series, or any video game really. It’s an electrifying progressive rock piece, and it’s my personal favorite boss theme.

 The more instrumental pieces are somber, given the dreary atmosphere of the planet. The world map music is very different from its predecessors. It’s romantic one moment, soaring the next, and then dips into foreboding terror. I guess that sums up the story of Final Fantasy VII.

And we cannot leave out One-Winged Angel, which I will talk about below.

Notable Theme:

Without a doubt, One-Winged Angel – played during the terrifying final battle against Sephiroth – is the most memorable piece of music in Final Fantasy VII.

It may very well be the most popular song of the entire series. Nobuo Uematsu was inspired by Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. It’s a whopping 30 something minute classical piece. If you look it up on YouTube and browse through it, you can definitely note the similarities. However, Uematsu didn’t want some boring classical introduction to the piece. He wanted to add the destructive impact of rock. The theme has a very distinct stamping-your-foot-down quality to it.

I had noticed a certain piece-by-piece feel of the song and that’s exactly how Uematsu composed it. This is the only song that Uematsu has composed where he created several tunes in his head and then rearranged them to make a single comprehensive song.

If you want to get technical, One-Winged Angel is the first Final Fantasy song with lyrics. The chorus sings in Latin about Sephiroth’s burning anger, with some lyrics actually taken from the medieval poem Carmina Burana. It sounds fantastic when fully orchestrated.

In Advent Children, the animated sequel to Final Fantasy VII, the music is accompanied by hardcore metal. This new rendition really illustrates the destructive power of Sephiroth. Uematsu changed the lyrics for Advent Children. They are more original now. I specifically noticed the lyrics “Veni, veni, mi fili”, which translates to “Come, come, my son.” Sephiroth is inviting you so he can kill you.

 Uematsu has stated that the original orchestration didn’t sit well with him. As I suspected, Advent Children’s hardcore metal version is the one he preferred, the one he would have composed had he the technology at the time of Final Fantasy VII.

Verdict:

Another must-play for any RPG fan, even if you think it’s overrated. It’s a must-play because of its popularity, in the same way that people are wide-eyed when you say you haven’t seen Star Wars or such-and-such other popular movie. It’s a whole lot of fun, especially in the scenes that involve other forms of gameplay, such as the motorcycle chase and even a battlefield strategy game in protecting Fort Condor. 

Direct Sequel?

Yes – first there was the CGI movie Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

I actually watched Advent Children before playing Final Fantasy VII. I had already known most of what happened in the game and Advent Children became a monumental craze when it first came out. Everybody was talking about it. Watching the sequel before playing the game skewers your interpretation of things. My first impression of Cloud was that he was always whiny and angsty, and meanwhile Tifa kept nagging him to move on. I felt really bad for Cloud losing Aerith.

Then when I actually played Final Fantasy VII, I saw that Cloud starts as this badass mercenary. Tifa is spunky and clearly is the better choice (IMO) but Cloud is enamored by Aerith after only meeting her briefly. WHAT? Cloud. Bro. Make a move on Tifa, you nitwit. Tifa is AMAZING.

 Square Enix then continued the story with Dirge of Cerberus – Final Fantasy VII. This video game sequel focuses on Vincent Valentine, a fan favorite of the original game.

Let me remind you about something – the original game revealed Shinra’s inner deep secret experiments, namely with Sephiroth and Jenova. Dirge of Cerberus introduces an even deeper research team within Shinra called Deepground. I don’t know about you, but it already sounds like the start of a terribly redundant string of sequels, like how the Jason Bourne movies keep revealing an even deeper level of conspiracy theories. Vincent’s mysterious background is now fully revealed. He is defined by – guess what? – another angsty lost lover story, this time with a woman named Lucrecia. Now, okay, look, maybe I’m just being a dick about these types of love stories. But when it keeps popping up within the same series in the same manner, I start asking if you have anything else to offer on your menu.

Lastly, there is the prequel for the PSP – Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII. Of all the games in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Crisis Core has received the most positive reception. If anything, play that after playing Final Fantasy VII before bothering with anything else.

 Oh, and of course there is the Final Fantasy VII Remake, which we thought wasn’t going to happen for the longest time but they finally released it in April 2020. More on that later after I finish it, and after I post my entire series of Final Fantasy reviews!

[elemental-daddy-neos]

YGO! Questionnaire

Tagged by @cipher-wise

Pleasantly surprised to be in one of these, so let’s go

Favorite series: *Gestures to icon* Is it any surprise I’ll be picking GX? I love GX with all my heart and soul. The story’s pacing is very good and never feels like it’s dragging its feet to get to where it’s going, most duels are over in less than a full episode with the longest one being three, there are so many good characters to get invested in, and this boy right here is your protagonist.

Look at him blow kisses to the audience after beating Crowler, how could anyone not love Jaden Yuki? I care him so much. Even the filler episodes in GX are pretty fun to watch most of the time, and it’s the good kind of filler that may not advance the plot much or at all, but it’ll give you plenty of good memories to take with you. Who could possibly forget the eggwich thief? Not to mention the soundtrack fucking slaps.

Favorite protagonist: I mean...

Yeah it’s Jaden. GX hooked me immediately when I started watching it because of how much I loved this boy. He’s that perfect mix of cocky and sweet when it comes to dueling because he’s confident in his own abilities, but he never stops having fun and being amazed at what his opponent can do, he cares about all of his friends and does his best to help them with their problems, he’s kind to strangers, and he has exactly half a brain cell. 

I feel the gif speaks for itself, but Jaden’s dialogue when he turns around here is “I’m such a sucker for things like this! I’ll help you, ma’am!” Dorothy says “No, you’ll be late... Don’t you have a test today?” And Jaden replies with “Who cares if I’m late? I couldn’t leave a lady in trouble!” Jaden Yuki is my absolute favorite protagonist.

Favorite rival: Oh man is that a tough one. Am I allowed to pick two? It’s a hard call to make between this dumb edgy bitch-

And this dumb gay bitch

Honestly they’re tied for favorite rival in my book. I absolutely loved Chazz when I watched GX, and I thought his arc about breaking through his inferiority/superiority complex and learning to accept loss as a part of life without letting it define him was wonderfully written, and seeing him grow as a person throughout the show just made me feel happy for him. Shark... I really thought I wasn’t going to end up liking Shark at first, but god he just gets so much better as Zexal goes on, starting out as this mean spirited middle school bully in episode one, and slowly ending up as Yuma’s boyfriend closest friend. It’s incredible to look back at how Shark acts when he’s first introduced and compare it to... season 3, I think it was, where just hearing the words “Yuma’s in danger” is enough to send him running to his rival’s side. Chazz and Shark. They are my favorites.

Favorite BFF: Him

Crow Hogan is an absolute treasure and he was my favorite part about watching 5Ds. This little bird man first gets introduced by stealing cards for his kids and clowning on Sector Security, and he’s a source of so much good throughout the show. Excellent best friend (technically brother but I’m counting him), wonderful father, 10/10 person all around. Plus the fact that the only thing stopping him from berating his bitchass brother even more was Yusei having to literally pick him up and pull him away is definitely extra points in my book. What a powerful little bird. His only weakness is people that are taller than him, which is unfortunately most people.

Favorite GFF:

Yuzu. Have I actually watched Arc V yet? No, but I’m still picking Yuzu for my number one here. Tea and Tori are just awful characters, I’m neutral towards Alexis, and Akiza... Did have potential to be something interesting on her own, despite how uncomfortable she made me in seasons 1-2 of 5Ds, but her relevance is alllll downhill from there. I’ve seen one clip of Yuzu yelling at a man eating pie and calling him a 100th rate duelist, and that was all I needed to know she would be my favorite. (Clip here) 

Favorite villain: Oh boy

The fuckin carrot is my favorite villain, and I say this as someone who fully believes he didn’t deserve to be in the last episode. Vector did some fucked up shit in his day, and he only continued to do fucked up shit in Yuma’s day, but I have to say he was pretty effective when it came down to his goals. He got things done and went right for what he wanted by taking direct action to seize Don Thousand’s power, and he manipulated Yuma perfectly by preying on his kind nature and love for Astral to use him to further his goals. 

...Plus I mean just look at his subbed dialogue God he’s such a slut. Evil slutty alien.

Tl;dr Vector was a horrible horrible person, but he was a good villain, and he was so entertaining whenever he was on screen that it was impossible not to like him. Still kinda wish he got what he deserved though, and what he deserved definitely wasn’t another chance.

Speaking of Don Thousand though, can we talk about how unfairly pretty he is? If I had to pick a runner up villain in terms of looks alone, it would definitely be him.

God it was not fair how pretty the big bad of Zexal was. He’s fucking gorgeous, and in my opinion, the best looking villain at the very least.

Favorite card: *Sweats in Duel Links* Favorite? There’s so many cards out there to pick from, but since I’ve already broken the rules with my two favorite rivals, I’ll be picking two of each card type: Spells, traps, and monsters. One for the aesthetic, and one for how often I make use of it.

First up, the Aesthetics group

What can I say, Vampiric Koala is such a cutie, Dwimmered Path has some really pretty card art, and Rainbow Life is an eternal flex on any heteros I may encounter while playing Duel Links. Nothing better than a gay trap card.

Now for usability

Dragon Knight of Creation is suuuper helpful in any dragon themed deck and has a permanent slot in my decks for Mokuba and Kaiba, PoG is always a fun way to boost up weak monsters to ridiculous heights, and Dark Bribe just lets you block your opponent like “Okay I know you wanna hurt me but I will let you draw another card if you do not do that thing”, and they can’t refuse you.

Favorite episode: I’ll be copying cipher’s format here and picking one for each series, but this will still only total out to five for me since I’ve yet to watch past Zexal ^^; Soon I’ll get to Arc V! One day...

Season 0: Episode 16:  Turnabout by a Hair's Breadth - The White-Robed Crisis I’m a sucker for my son Joey, and this was a good Joey episode about him and his sister, plus it was nice seeing that doctor get what he deserved :) Duel Monsters: Season 5, episode 12-14:  The Deciding Match for Duel King - Yugi vs. Leon/Golden Castle of Stromberg/KC Grand Prix Ends  Probably a weird batch of episodes to pick, I know, but a lot of DM was kinda forgettable to me, and these are some of the few episodes I do recall. I just... really felt for Leon’s situation, and I wanted good things for that boy. I care him. GX: Season 3, episode 34: Dark Fusion! Inferno Wing!! Jim. Jim Jim Jimmmmm. This was the episode that finally made me understand why saviorshipping was a thing because it hits you with all these memories Jim has of Jaden and shows how they bonded before all this Dark World shit happened, and the whole thing was very emotional. 5Ds: Season 4, episode 2-3:  Recollections, Entrusted with a Friend's Dying Wish God Crow, my precious bird son. I really liked the backstory they gave him, despite how much it hurt. It was probably the best character development he got in the whole of 5Ds, and let you see a side to him you probably wouldn’t expect. I loved watching him get his justice. Zexal II: Season 2, episode 5-6:  Alito the Silent Fighter - Reunion of the Passionate Duelists!/ Be Revived! The Duelist Soul That Transcends Life!! I picked these episodes for Nistro and Nistro alone. He was one of my absolute favorites in Zexal, and seeing how well he and Dextra were doing was good for the soul. Just look at this good lion man right here.

Look at him!!!

Favorite decks to use: Elemental Heroes, Aromages, Red Eyes, Six Samurai, and Crystal Beasts.

Fusion, Ritual, Synchro, Xyz, Pendulum, or Link: I’m a simple girl, I love fusion/tributes for how easy they are, but synchro can be pretty fun, too

Years in fandom: ??? Even I don’t know the answer to this one, friends. I used to be in the fandom when I was in middle school, wrote/read a few fanfics here and there, but then I fell out of it for... Well I’m 22 now and only got back into things 6 months ago? I started rewatching the abridged series of Duel Monsters in March, and from there I just wanted to consume actual Yugioh content and never went back.

Who am I tagging: @finding-fallen-petals @dizziedaikonn​ @chazzaroo​ Go wild y’all

[what-is-your-plan-today]

Riding On Ch8: A Bun (And Cookies) In The Oven

Summary: Frank and Fliss attend Mary’s end of year fundraising gala at school, the Nursery is finally finished and plans are made regarding Mary’s adoption.

Warnings: Bad Language words. Smut (NSFW, NO UNDER 18s!).

Pairing: Frank Adler x Fliss Gallagher

A/N:  LONG update here guys but a lot happens! First off, please bear with me if the legal terms are a little off- from my research they seem to be similar to the UK ones but if I get some things wrong…just go with it! Also the photo I used for the Nursery inspiration was found in another fic on Tumblr- I can’t for the life of me remember which one. I did, however, ages ago ask permission so if you recognise it that’s why. Chapter Song: Best I Ever Had by Vertical Horizon

Series Masterlist //  WIYPT Masterlist

 And it may take some time to patch me up inside, but I can't take it so I run away and hide. And I may find in time that you were always right, you're always right.

“You braved the outhouse yet?” Bill asked as he skimmed that last bit of the wall he had been working on, the trowel he was holding sliding in a large arc, spreading the plaster evenly.

“Had a brief glance but there’s all sorts of shit in there.” Frank said, dropping his tools onto the dust sheet as he stood back to admire their work. “Some larger pieces of wood and a few engine parts I had spotted that might come in handy but other than that think it’s all for the dump.” “We can hit that one evening next week if you want?” Bill added, hopping down from the step ladders.

“Yeah, if you don’t mind helping?” Frank looked at him and Bill shook his head. “No problem.” He said. “Still thinking about getting a boat?”

Frank gave a smile “I thought about getting one and doing it up. The garage is big enough to use as a workshop." "Well it’s good to have a hobby.” Bill nodded.

“Plus if I get one it will stop Lissy converting it into stables.” Frank said, looking around the room again. “She still wanting to expand?” Bill asked.

“Yeah, she’s talking about buying more of the land that surrounds the yard but…” Frank scratched at his chest “I told her to wait until Bean is here.”

“Good plan.” Bill smiled, before he turned to Frank “Speaking of Boston Bean, any ideas on names?”

Frank smiled “We had a few but we need to give it some proper thought. Mary wants us to call him Theodore.” “Theodore?” Bill arched an eyebrow.

“Yeah, Teddy for short. Something she saw on TV.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s not going on the list, trust me.”

The two of them cleared away their tools, tipped the pots of water down the sink in the main bathroom before Frank quickly cleaned up after himself, heading back into the nursery where Bill was taking a look at a patch on the wall. Deciding it was ok he turned and nodded and the two men made their way downstairs and into the main area at the back of the house.

Frank opened the door to their kitchen living area and the smell of baking hit the pair of them immediately, but it was the view that made Frank stop in the doorway. Mary was stood on a chair at the kitchen counter, mixing something in a bowl. To her left Verity was supervising, nodding when Mary showed her whatever it was she was mixing, and to Mary's right, Fliss was wiping the surface down, one hand resting on her belly. It was the sight of his girl stood there, in that gorgeous blue and white checked sundress, all barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen, with her mother and Mary that had him feeling suddenly quite emotional. Mary giggled and looked at Fliss who smiled at her, reaching out and brushing her cheek with the back of her fingers. Nanna, Mom and Daughter, a matriarchal trio Frank never imagined he would ever get to see Mary part of. And it was beautiful. "You OK lad?" Bill looked at him and Frank blinked and turned to face him, swallowing the lump in his throat. "Yeah, sorry. Was miles away" "I noticed." His future father in law smiled softly, squeezing his shoulder before he loudly asked if there was any chance of beer before he died of thirst. "You know where the fridge is." Fliss shot back. "I just spent all afternoon with Frank plastering the walls in that Nursery and that's the thanks I get?" Bill shook his head as Frank chuckled and walked to the fridge. He opened it, grabbed 2 beers and once he popped the tops off he passed one to Bill. "All finished?" Fliss turned to look at Frank as he gave her a soft peck on the lips. "Yeah." He smiled as she rubbed her hands up his arms to his shoulders "Once its dried out which should take a day or so we can paint." Flies smiled and was about to say something when they heard Mary and Verity yelling, their shouts punctuated by Bill's loud guffaws as he jumped back, a freshly baked cookie in his hand as he ran away from Verity who was swatting at him with the tea towel. "There's like a hundred of them!" Bill sniggered shoving the cookie into his mouth. "You can spare one." "We actually made extra." Mary looked at him, hands on her hips "Because Fliss and Nanny V said you and Frank would both walk in and rob some." Frank looked at Fliss, his eyebrow raising as she grinned before he glanced at Mary who smirked back. "Well in that case..." he mumbled before he grabbed Mary easily, hooking the arm that held his beer round her midriff, swinging her off the chair as he snatched a cookie with the other, taking a huge bite. Mary's giggles died down as he set her on the floor and made an appreciative noise. "These are good." "You sound surprised Francis..." Verity pointed the wooden spoon she was holding at him and he shook his head. "You know what I think of your cooking V..." he flashed her a wink and she rolled her eyes and turned back to whatever it was in the bowl. "OK Mary, this frosting is ready so you wanna do the cupcakes?" She nodded and the two of them moved, Verity handing Mary a little spatula so she could start to dish out the yellow frosting. "Shall I ring through to The Shack and order us a burger each?" Frank asked, and everyone made appreciative noises. Already knowing his, Mary and Fliss' order by heart, he ordered what Bill and Verity wanted before the two men strode out to Bill's car to pick up their food.

“You sure you’re ok?” Bill asked Frank and he turned to him, smiling.

“Yeah, honestly I’m fine.” Frank smiled. Bill looked at him before he turned his head back to the road.

“It’s overwhelming isn’t it.” The older man said gently and Frank looked at his hand, shaking his head as he gave a soft laugh.

“You can say that again.” He said “Doesn’t seem five minutes since our first date and here we are. Our own home, weeks away from our baby being born and me taking a weeks’ worth of annual leave to finish the decorating.” “You’ve done it once.” Bill said gently. “The baby thing I mean, not the decorating…although we did do that once too…”

Frank chuckled before he took a deep breath “Not like this.” Frank shook his head “Never done the first 6 months. Not really. I mean I helped Diane but…” “Well you got us to help out.” Bill spoke again, taking a right turn “I know Verity can’t wait. Another grandkid for her to spoil.” “I do appreciate everything you’ve both done for us Bill.” Frank looked at him. “I mean the money, helping out with the decorating, everything you do for Mary.”

“I know son.” Bill smiled, “And it’s our pleasure.” Frank smiled and looked back out of the window.

“What else is on your mind?” Bill probed gently and Frank looked at him, giving a little scoff.

“You’re just like Fliss.” He said with a chuckle and Bill grinned.

“Well you’ve been a little quiet all afternoon.”

Frank studied Bill for a moment, and then realised that he actually had a perfect opportunity here to talk to someone who had been through something a little similar to what he was struggling with. And he trusted and loved Bill, like a father.

“We had an incident with Mary, last week at school.” He said, and taking a deep breath he explained to Bill what had happened and the decision he and Fliss had come to about the adoption. “We were planning on asking her at some point but…well, the time hasn’t bene right you know. We don’t want her to think it’s a reaction to what happened at school.” Bill looked at him before he slowed the car to a halt at a red light. “That makes sense.” He said gently “But I’m getting the impression you’re not so sure.” “It’s not that I’m unsure as such…” Frank sighed, “I just…Oh I don’t know Bill, the whole thing just seems so fucking shitty and complicated. How did you know it was the right thing to do? With Fliss and Steve I mean?”

“I just did.” Bill shrugged. “Our circumstances were slightly different thought. I met V when Fliss was 2. Steve's mother, my first wife, Andrea, she died when Steve was 3. Brain tumour. I never thought I'd love anyone again but then when I met Verity one evening 2 years later through friends she blew me away.” Bill smiled and Frank watched as his face went softer before he continued “We dated for 3 months before we met each other’s kids and the first time I saw Lissy she was fast asleep in the car seat in the back of Vs battered old fiesta and...” Bill sighed “I loved her from the minute I laid eyes on her.”

He set the car into drive again and they continued down the road as Bill spoke again.

“She started calling me dad on her 4th birthday. I’d been with V just over 2 years then and it was at her birthday party and we told her to make a wish. She blew her candles out and then later that night I was tucking her in and she said to me that she knew she wasn’t supposed to tell anyone what her wish was, but if she didn’t tell me then it wouldn’t come true.”

To Frank’s surprise the man’s eyes misted over and his voice became a little bit croaky.

“She’d made a wish that she was my daughter.” Bill shook his head “And that she could call me dad. So I told her I didn’t have a problem with that as long as she didn’t and…” he smiled “But I get that your situation is different. Fliss’ shitbag father walked out on Verity before Fliss was even born. You’ve got a whole other scenario you’re dealing with.” “Mary told me months ago she wishes I was her real dad.” Franks sighed “You know I explained to her that a label doesn’t matter and then the whole thing with the kid at school kicked it off again and she broke her heart to Lissy that evening. It got me thinking that I’d bene so wrapped up in my own worries about Diane and whether it would be right to allow Mary to refer to me as her dad that I hadn’t really given much consideration about how my refusal to do so was affecting her.” Bill pondered something for a moment. “You know I had the same concerns over Steve. I know that sounds hypocritical because I was over the moon when Lissy first called me dad but, well Steve was

3 when his mum died and had a few vague memories of her. I was worried that by letting him refer to V as his mum those memories would fade and it would in some ways disrespect her, you know? Almost like it would invalidate who she had been.”

“But you did it anyway?” Frank asked.

“With Steve it just happened.” Bill said, “He started naturally slipping into calling Verity Mum, and we just decided not to make a big deal out of it and let him do what he felt was right for him. Even now he alternates sometimes, calls her Verity instead of mum but I know it doesn’t change a thing. He loves her like she is his mother, and she loves him like he’s her son, which he is anyway of course as she adopted him too.” “And that felt right?”

Bill nodded “It did to us, but the most important thing was it did to Steve and Fiss too. So we floated the idea a year or so before we got married. Fliss...well she had no reservations at all. Burst into tears and hugged me saying she couldn't wait for me to be her proper dad and have the same surname but Steve was a little more subdued, I suppose, is the word. We assured him if he didn't want V to then she wouldn't be offended. He took his time to think about it. Came to his conclusion a week or so later and announced over dinner he wanted to do it. So that was that.” Bill pulled up outside the shack and cut the engine, turning to Frank. “I guess what I'm trying to say is Mary will let you know if she's not happy. From the sounds of it I don't think you'll have any problems, but the important thing is like Titch said, you give her the choice...” “I know.” Frank nodded, “Liss and I discussed this. I don't want to make her call us mom and dad either it she doesn’t want to. To be honest, I'm still not 100% sure how I feel about that but I suppose if we do adopt her then…” “You still worried about how it would make your sister feel?” “A little.” Frank smiled softly. “I'm sure she would be happy Frank.” Bill said gently “This is the same internal debate I had about Ange. But you have to remember, she left that little girl with you for a reason. If you ask me, the very fact we're having this conversation proves she was right. I think this is exactly why she chose you, because she knew that whatever decisions you make regarding Mary are done with love and care, and this is the best outcome she could have hoped for.”

Frank felt the lump in his throat again and Bill gently reached over and grabbed his shoulder.

“Thanks Bill.” Frank smiled at him.

“Any time, now let’s go get this food, I’m starving.”

It wasn’t long before they were all sat outside back at home, eating happily as Mary filled them all in on what she was going to be doing at the gala the next day. Frank watched her, smiling to himself at how excited she was. Such a contrast to the sullen, obstinate 7 year old that he’d had argument over argument with about going to school. But then again their entire circumstances had changed, dramatically, and for the better he may add.

His heart to heart with Bill had made him feel a little more at peace with everything. If truth be told, since Mary’s little breakdown last week he’d been worried about a lot of things. Worried he was making a mess of things with her, worried he was going to do the same with Bean. But he realised now he wasn’t doing it on his own anymore. He had Fliss and her family to help him, and even his Mother too if he so required. Whatever bump in the road the encountered in the future then they would face it as a family, and this eased that nagging, gnawing anxious feeling a hell of a lot.

At just before 8 Mary was dismissed to bed, despite protests, and a little after 10pm Bill and Verity also decided to head home. Frank thanked them both for their help, Verity for giving up her entire afternoon by shopping, picking up Mary and then baking enough treats to feed a small army, an Bill…well, for just about everything he’d done that day.

They stood on the porch area of their home, waving the two of them off and Fliss turned to Frank.

“I can almost hear your mind whirring from here Sailor.”

Frank chuckled as Thor headed back up the path, having given up chasing the car down the drive. “Yeah, I had a moment before. But your dad set me straight.” “Moment? About Mary or-“ “To be honest about everything.” Frank looked at her as they headed back inside, closing the door “Mary, Bean, about not fucking everything up.” Fliss looked at him before she shook her head “Baby that’s not gonna happen.” “I know.” He smiled “I just had my worries, that’s all.” “You don’t think I worry at times too?” she asked him gently “I’m fucking petrified about him arriving and how I’m gonna cope with a baby but…” she stepped forward and took his hands “I know that as long as we stick together an work through whatever we face together, we’ll be fine.” “Yeah, we will.” He smiled, bending down to give her a soft kiss. “Wanna sit outside?”

She nodded and together, Thor padding behind, they made their way out to the back garden. Fliss dropped heavily onto the wicker garden sofa and Frank lifted her feet up setting them in his lap. He expertly ran his thumb up the arch of her right foot and she gave a little groan of satisfaction.

“Back still sore?” he asked glancing over at her and she shrugged a little.

“A little, nothing major though.” She sighed “I’d kill to get in the hot tub though, unwind a little. So not fair I can’t.” “There’s always the pool.” Frank suggested and she looked at him.

“How is going in the pool going to help me unwind?” she looked at him and he grinned, arching an eyebrow.

“You’re a bad, bad man.” She snorted as she swung her legs off his lap and moved to straddle him.

“And?” he smirked as his hands ran up the side of her thighs, creeping under the hem of her dress which had ridden up.

“Just pointing it out.” she grinned, leaning down to kiss him. His hands came to a rest on her hips, squeezing gently as his mouth moved from hers to find that spot just below her ear. With a sigh, Fliss tilted her head back as he continued to nibble gently at her skin, her fingers tangling in his hair. She gave a soft pull, tugging his head back so she could kiss him again, pushing down on his lap as he thrust his hips up to meet her, the pair of them giving a little groan at the contact. And that was it. Hormones raging, sending a fire through her entire body, Fliss stood up, slipped off her panties and then reached to Frank’s jeans, undoing the button.

“Ok, so no foreplay then?” he asked as he lifted his hips so she could slide his jeans and boxers down, his already hard cock springing free.

“Less talking, more fucking…” she said, reaching down, wrapping her hand around him. Frank let out a hiss as she gave him a few tugs before she straddled him and lining him up sunk straight down, letting out a groan as he tilted his pelvis upwards, filling her as he bottomed out.

“Fuck, Lissy…” his voice was gravelly, his head falling back against the rear cushions of the garden furniture, hands on her hips as she rolled them forward, finding a rhythm that was soft, deep and perfect for the quiet, late summer evening.

Despite the fact they were outside and Fliss’ earlier demand, there was no rush to any of their love making. It was slow, gentle and sweet. Frank’s thrust’s upwards weren’t measured, he hardly put much effort into moving, keeping in synch with the rolls of her pelvis, rocking them together as Fliss leaned over, capturing his mouth again. The gentle breeze from the night air ruffled through her hair whipping it around her face and Frank moved his hands, brushing it away as he cradled her face, his nose brushing against hers. After a particularly deep push upwards Fliss let out a shaky moan into his mouth, tightening her fingers in his hair as she felt him striking her spot again and again. Her bump was causing her to lean forward slightly, which meant he was hitting her as deep as he possibly could and the feeling was intense, her toes curling slightly as she could feel the heat in her belly burning, the slick from between her legs rubbing off on his thighs slightly which was driving Frank wild.

“So wet baby girl…” he mumbled as she slid a hand between her legs, his fingers gently teasing her clit.

“Who needs a pool?” she manged to quip between her gasps, and Frank smirked a little, watching her face intently as her eyes locked onto his. His fingers never once quickened, his touches light and teasing, and their pace continued on to that very end, until with a breathy gasp and a shudder it became too much and she surrendered to the inevitable bliss that washed over her entire body as she came hard. Her hips stilled and Frank moved his hands back to her hips, pulling her down onto him as he bucked upwards, his thrusts now quickening as he chased his own end, spilling into her with a loud groan before his eyes flickered shut, his head falling backwards.

Fliss leaned forward, peppering soft kisses up his neck to his jawline and he let out a smile as she dropped her mouth on his, biting his bottom lip softly his hands rubbing at the base of her back.

“How was that for un-winding?” he asked, opening his eyes to see her looking at him. She simply smiled, kissing him again.

****** “Where do you want all these?” Fliss asked Bonnie as her and Frank walked across the school yard, Frank’s arms laden with the various boxes of baked goods.

“How much did you bake?” Bonnie snorted as Frank set them down on the wooden tables that Bonnie indicated

“My mum does nothing by halves” Fliss smirked as she glanced around. Mary was stood showing Frank something on a chalk a-board, Rosie interjecting here and there.

“Hey Stack.” Fliss stepped over to her “All set?”

“Yeah we were just working out the pricing and what best to charge if we wanna make a certain percent profit.” Mary said.

“You suss it?” Frank asked, “Although that’s a stupid question…” “Yeah, it is.” Mary shot back, causing Frank to smirk a little as he glanced at Fliss “Bo-I mean miss Stevens we thought a dollar a cookie, or 3 for 2 and then 2 dollars a cupcake or brownie, and 3 for 5” “I think that’s fair.” Bonnie nodded.

“Ok, cool… “ Mary grinned standing the board up and giving Rosie a high five.

Bonnie and Fliss helped set up the cakes on the stall and Frank found himself getting roped into helping one of the male teachers set up the field where a few events and fun races were going to take place, the man thanking him profoundly when he headed over, spotting him struggling to set the soccer nets up.

“We had someone due to help but…well, most parents shy away from this stuff.” He sighed “They want their kids to enjoy and experience it but don’t wanna help us out.” Frank smiled “Well, to be honest I’m happy to be here. This is the first one Mary’s taken part in.”

The teacher smiled “Yes, she was a bit of an enigma when she started but she’s come out of her shell recently. Lovely girl too Mr Adler, always polite. You must be very proud.”

Frank beamed and turned back to where Mary was behind the stall, Fliss talking to her with Bonnie and Rosie both listening and nodding before he turned back to the man and smiled “It’s not all down to me but…yeah, yeah I am.”

An hour or so later more people had arrived and Frank and Fliss wandered around a bit. They chatted to Rosie’s mom and dad, a dark haired, bespectacled man called Phil and a smaller, red haired woman called Melissa, and the couple invited them over for dinner in a week or so which they both accepted. Whilst Mary and Rosie were close, Frank’s interaction with her parents had been minimal simply because Fliss had fallen into that role of being the one that set up the girls’ little togethers, and he was keen to get to know the couple simply because Mary seemed to be taken so much with their kid. They were inseparable at school, and Mary had already said that over the summer she wanted Rosie to come for a sleep over which, given her previous position on such things had knocked Frank for 6. Of course they had said it was ok, and Fliss had simply told her that Rosie was welcome at any time over the holidays, even saying she’d arrange for them to do something with one of the riding school ponies.

As Frank was mid conversation with Phil about a boat he was currently repairing, Fliss excused herself to go to the toilet. On the way back she decided to detour to the cake stall to see how Mary, Bonnie and Rosie were getting along, and as she passed 2 women stood a little way away, deep in conversation, she heard something that stopped her in her tracks.

“Child prodigy, apparently.” One of the women was saying.

“Well whichever way you dress it up I feel sorry for her.” The other sniffed, flicking her blonde hair behind her shoulder, the ridiculous sized ring on her left hand catching the sun as she did so “I mean, her Dad, sorry, Uncle is a total fuck boy and only went and got his new girlfriend pregnant a year or so after they got together…no wonder the kid’s apparently a screw up. Did you know a when she first started here she broke a boy’s nose?”

“Excuse me?” Fliss blurted out, her neck and cheeks flushed with anger. Both women spun to face her, the blonde one looking at her “Who the fuck are you calling a screw up?”

“Erm, private conversation…” The woman looked at her and Fliss snorted

“Yeah well maybe you should keep your bitchy opinions to yourself, just in-case that Fuck Boy’s pregnant fiancée overhears you.” She shot back, and the woman’s face slipped a little as she suddenly realised who Fliss was. “Who the hell do you think you are?”

Frank, meanwhile, had finished up talking to Rosie’s parents and was now looking around for Fliss. He spotted her pale green maxi dress in the crowd as she stood talking to two women, and then frowned as he realised she wasn’t talking as much as angrily ranting, her hands flying out to her side before she pointed at one of them directly. He had no idea what the fuck had sparked her off, but he jogged quickly over, catching the end of the rant.

“I don’t see any of your kids going to university 2 days a week or being asked to run a stall handling money because they can do sums in their head like that.” Fliss snarled, clicking her fingers “So keep your shitty, horrible comments about my family to yourself.”

“Hey, hey…” Frank gently grabbed her arm. “Honey…come on.” “You know nothing about us. Any of us.” Fliss shot at her as Frank looked at the women, realising instantly he recognised one. With a groan he moved himself in front of Fliss his back to them and looked at her.

“Stop.” He said firmly but calmly and she looked at him, her eyes blazing with an anger he had never seen before. “Come on.”

She shot a glare at the women before she turned and allowed him to steer her away. He dropped an arm round her shoulder and gave her a squeeze “What the hell set you off into momma bear mode?”

“Her!” Fliss seethed as she shot a final glare over her shoulder at the bitch "She was making shitty comments about you getting me pregnant and saying it was no wonder Mary was a screw up…I mean who the fuck does she think she? I swear to god if I wasn’t pregnant I’d kick her ass." "Don't let her get to you honey." Frank said softly, kissing her temple.

“Does it not bother you?” “Only because it’s got you so wound up.” He said, “I’m not going to let the opinions of two Stepford Wives bother me. They clearly have no idea what they’re talking about.” "Bet she's called Karen." Fliss spat. "Carly, actually." Frank replied without thinking and Fliss stopped to look at him. "How the hell do you-" she groaned "tell me you haven't!" "It was a drunk night a very long time ago!" He began to protest and Fliss shook her head making a noise of disgust.

“Well suddenly that makes a little more sense.” She said, before she snorted "Is there anyone in this State you haven't shagged?" "I love it when you swear in British." He grinned before sighing as his attempts at humour fell flat. "Oh Lissy come on...it was years ago. I was a total fuck up till I met you." "Was she married back then?" "I don't know!" He shrugged "not exactly a great topic for pillow talk is it?" "You're disgusting." She rolled her eyes before she stepped away from him and headed over the stall that had been or original destination, leaving Frank wondering what the fuck just happened. With a sigh he followed her over and smiled at Verity who had just arrived with Bill, who was at that moment teasing Mary, trying to haggle with her over the price of the Brownies.

“Hey…” he tugged on Fliss’ elbow “Are you seriously pissed at me?” She looked at him, pushing her shades up off her eyes “I just don’t like being reminded of your Four F stage.” “My what?” he looked at her, blankly. He had no idea what she was talking about.

“The Friday Fergs Fuckboi Frank stage” she said and Frank snorted, shaking his head.

“Ok, well, I can categorically tell you that now I’m in a double F stage.” “What?” it was her turn to look puzzled.

“Yeah, the Fliss’ Frank stage” He flashed her a cheeky grin and she blinked before she snorted and shook her head.

“I hate you.” She mumbled as he pulled her in for a hug, giving her head a quick kiss, the chuckles vibrating from his body to hers.

*****

The rest of the week passed fairly uneventfully. Mary broke up for summer on the Friday and Frank finished the painting and the wallpapering in the attic. On the Saturday he got 3 out of 4 of the walls in the Nursey painted, leaving just the feature one for Sunday, which he was ridiculously excited about. However, his plans of an early start were derailed when he slept in a little later than he had anticipated. Fliss was still out for the count when he climbed out of bed, and he dressed as quietly as he could, dropping a kiss to her cheek before he headed down to the kitchen and was joined by Mary a few minutes later. For whatever reasons she was in a particularly raucous mood, probably because she had realised she didn’t have to go to school on Monday, bouncing around the kitchen telling Frank loudly what she was going to do that afternoon which involved riding Monty and swimming in the pool until it went dark. Then, apparently she was going to watch a load of movies and stay up all night…Frank didn’t bother to tell her there was no chance, as both he and Fliss still had to go to work. As with the previous Summer, Roberta was looking after her Monday to Wednesday, and Verity and Bill had her on Thursday and Friday, which meant she was basically going to be up the same time as normal every day so he could drop her off.

However, that was an argument for later. Right now he was simply trying to get her to calm down.

“Mary, for the last time, be quiet!” Frank groaned “Fliss is still asleep.”

“But it’s almost 10 am.” Mary whined.

“It’s Sunday and she’s cooking another person, she can sleep however long she wants” he replied “Now come on, we got painting to do.”

Mary looked at him and let out a groan. “I’m 9. Making me paint this house is child labour”

“You wanted to help with the nursery.”

Mary glared at him “He ain’t even gonna be here for another like 7 weeks or whatever.”

“Yeah, and the rate you’re going it’s gonna take us that long to sort it. Come on it’s the last wall.” He cajoled as she bit into her toast “We did your room first, then the attic. I even let you pick that horse wall paper for up there.”

Mary shoved the last of her toast in her mouth and hopped down off the stool “Fine…” she said with an exaggerated eye roll. “I’ll go change into my painting stuff.” He watched her go, tossing the crust from his toast to Thor who caught it expertly, before he headed upstairs. Fliss wandered out of the bedroom and onto the landing, still in her sleep set, yawning.

“Hey…” she smiled at him and he beamed back as she shuffled to him for a hug.

“Did Mary wake you?” he asked and Fliss shook her head.

“No, I was just dozing.” She said.

“Ok, well we’re gonna finish painting the nursery.” He smiled and she pulled back grinning. “Want me to get you breakfast first?” “I’m good.” She smiled “I’ll sort myself out and then come help”

Pressing a kiss to her head he stepped back and watched as she headed down the stairs before he walked into the Nursery, joined shortly by Mary. All bar one of the walls were painted a cream colour, and he checked the paint for patches, happy that it looked ok before he looked pulled the print out of the theme they’d looked at on Pinterest and handed it to Mary once he’d taken a look at it. Grabbing the stepladders he set about marking squares out on the wall where the crib was going to lie against with tape. Then with a pencil he supervised as Mary checked the photo and wrote a letter in each square to signal what colour they were going to be painted to make a block pattern of different greens, browns and blue.

Once the squares were marked out he handed Mary a paint brush and told her to keep between the lines. He knew he might have to go over a few patches on the areas she did, but even that was quicker than him doing it all himself and it was important to both of them she felt involved, even if it was under duress.

Half an hour or so later Fliss joined them and the 3 of them finished the wall in little over 2 hours, standing back to admire their handy work. Fliss beamed as Mary nodded in satisfaction.

“Can I go see Monty now?” she asked.

“Yeah, we’ll head over.” Fliss nodded.

“I’ll get the furniture up whilst you’re gone.” Frank smiled.

“Sure you can manage?” Fliss teased. “We’re supposed to be at my mum and dad’s in 4 hours.”

Frank shot her a look and she grinned cheekily before she headed out of the room to change into her stable gear.

With the radio on, Frank unwrapped the packaging to the crib and got to work, humming gently to himself as he powered through, following the instructions. It was fairly easy all things considered, and he had the crib fully assembled and in position in 45 minutes. Smiling to himself the chest of drawers were next, then the little wardrobe and the changing unit. Then he fixed the blind to the window and added the stencil he’d bought over the top. All in all it took him just under 2 hours until he jumped down from the little step ladder and looked around.

Now it looked like a nursery.

 He took the cardboard boxes and wrap down to the garage and slung them on the pile of other garbage that needed slinging during the week and then back into the nursery, removing the dust sheets from the new carpet and then he set about unpacking the various bags and items of things they’d bought for bean. He placed the blankets in the crib, the lamp on the table, shuffled the rocking chair around and then stepped back to admire his work.

“Oh my God…” He jumped a little and turned to see Fliss blinking. He’d been that wrapped up in everything he hadn’t heard her come in.

“Frank, you did everything.”

“I’m sorry.” He blurted out, cursing himself. “I got carried away. I didn’t think. Did you want to do the accessories or…” “No, I mean yeah, but…” she shook her head, stepping into the room “It doesn’t matter. Sailor, it looks great!” She slid her arm round his waist as he dropped a kiss to her head, her eyes scanning the room. She stopped and frowned at the stencil above the window blind. Frank swallowed a little nervously, that was one thing she hadn’t seen before. He watched her profile as she read the cursive writing, which spelt out the words ‘All because two people fell in love’, and she turned to look up at him, tears in her eyes.

“Oh, Frankie…”

He smiled at her, his own eyes threatening to fill up again as he pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “It’s true.”

She turned back round to look once more at the room, her hand falling to her bump as they simply looked around the bedroom that would soon enough house their little baby boy.

“It’s perfect.” Fliss said, and Frank smiled, his arms wrapping around her from behind, his hands cupping her bump as he pressed a soft kiss to her neck.

After the usual Sunday roast Verity’s which was filled with the normal laughter, teasing and also some cooing from Verity over the photos of the nursery which Fliss had taken they headed home and after breaking the news to Mary that she was up early, which resulted in a mini- melt down until Frank threatened to send Monty to the dog-food factory if she didn’t stop right away.

“Whatever Frank, Fliss will never let you do that.” She glared at him, hands on her hips.

“Fliss won’t have a say in the matter.” He shot back, “Bed, now Mary. Don’t make me count to three.” “You know, I really hate you right now.” She glared at him.

“Well that suits me fine, because at this point in time I don’t particularly like you either.”

With a filthy look she turned on her heels, stomping from the room and muttering something under her breath, from which Frank made out the words Uncle and douchebag.

“I might be getting older but I can still HEAR YOU!” he yelled after her.

“GOOD!” came the shout back before the stairs thudded under her feet and her bedroom door slammed shut.

Frank exhaled, ran a hand through his hair and then checked all the doors were locked before he headed upstairs. “What was all that about?” Fliss asked as she emerged from the en-suite dressed for bed.

“Her being a pain in the ass about going to bed.” He grumbled, face planting onto the bed with a groan “Do we really want another one?”

“Too late for that now Sailor.” She chuckled. “She said she hated me and called me a douchebag.” He said, rolling over onto his back and Fliss let out a laugh.

“No comment.” “Hey.” He pouted, a hurt expression on his face. Fliss stuck her tongue out at him before he sat up with a heave and stripped off ready for bed.

They lay awake for a couple of hours, chatting, and talk turned to baby names after Bill had teased them over dinner that they still hadn’t decided on one. They had discounted a few, but had yet to settle on any that really grabbed their attention.

"What about Max?" Frank asked. He raised his head from where he was led, nose pressed against the curve of Fliss' belly as his hand gently tracked the movements his son was making. Boston Bean was being fairly active considering it was past 11. Fliss, who was sat propped up by a mound of pillows against the headboard looked down at him, her hand pausing where it has been raking through his now very fluffy hair and she wrinkled her nose. "Mmm not keen" she mumbled. "Although I like the X. The way it melts into Adler." Frank blinked before he snorted and Fliss laughed "God you talk some shit" he chuckled and she swatted at his head as he moved back to where he had been before, nose brushing her skin. "Benjamin..." he offered again, "Benjamin Billy. Then we can keep calling him BB" "That's actually kinda cute." Fliss said. "And its after my dad, although he's William." "William." Frank rolled the name around a little "I like that." "Could be a middle name." Fliss said "I don't really like Will, which is what it will no doubt end up shortened to and Bill...no, that's dad. And an old man's name" "I'll tell him you said that." Frank smiled and she shrugged. "I tell him he is an old git all the time" she retorted. Frank's hand stopped as Bean gave a particularly harsh kick and Fliss jumped a little. "Jesus..." she groaned. "Looks like we got a future footballer on our hands. You gonna be the next Tom Brady huh buddy?" Frank chuckled talking to her bump before he stilled "hey, what about-" "No." Fliss said, shutting that suggestion down immediately "We are not calling him Tom or Brady. Besides, that abomination you refer to is not football..." "Excuse me." Frank scoffed "It’s better than that damned shit you Brits play! Soccer." He muttered the word, shaking his head. "No, THAT’S football!" Fliss said indignantly. "Soccer" "Football!" Fliss repeated "it's a ball you kick with your foot! We invented it, we named it!" "Okay, okay!" Frank chuckled "Calm down before you go into labour!" She swatted playfully at his head as she grinned. "You know I would have loved you to have met my granddad and had this debate with him. He'd be spinning in his grave if he could hear us. You know he was actually a professional at one point?" "No kidding?" Frank askes and Fliss gave a hum. "Way before I met him, obviously" Fliss sighed "he played right back for Preston North End but had to retire early when he broke his leg. Never recovered from the injury. Dad said he had a pretty mean right peg on him. I mean leg..." she corrected her slang. "He was their designated Penalty taker. In the 10 years he played he took 60 penalties and missed a total of 2" "That's pretty cool." Frank admitted. "OK, so maybe if he grows up playing soccer that wouldn't be so bad..." "Alex Gallagher." Fliss chuckled "not quite as famous around here as Tom Brady...but still the GOAT. Well, in my eyes anyway." And then she took a deep breath. Frank paused, his hand staying still as he looked up at her smiling softly. "Alexander." They both said at the same time, Fliss' mouth curling into a little smile, her hand falling on top of his. "Alexander William Adler." She beamed down at him and Frank nodded, his own smile growing wider. "Yeah. Yeah I like that." He leaned up to give her a gentle peck, smiling against her lips "I really like it. Alex for short..." She smiled at him as he gently cupped her face. "Alex Adler it is." She nodded, her eyes misting up slightly before he kissed her again. ***** The next morning they packed Mary off to Roberta’s. She wasn’t in quite as bad a mood with Frank as she had been the previous evening. She was talkative enough to ask who had been on the phone when she had walked into the kitchen and why it meant Fliss had ended up re-jigging her morning around. The told her they had some stuff to sort for Bean, but in truth they were heading to see Greg who had called following Frank’s text message to say he could fit them in to talk about Mary’s adoption before his first appointment that morning.  

"Hi guys!" Greg strode out of his office greeting the pair of them with a smile "Damned girl you getting bigger by the day?" He teased, gesturing to her bump. "Bloody well feels that way." She grumbled. Frank placed a hand on the bottom of her back and guided her into the room where they both took a seat at one side of Greg’s desk.

“So…” he smiled “Tell me then, what’s sparked this off?” Frank briefly explained about the incident with the kid at school and how Mary had reacted, along with the handful of times she had mentioned wishing they were both her parents. Greg smiled, pausing only to thank his PA who walked in with two coffees and an apple juice. Once Frank had finished Greg leaned back, a finger trailing over his mouth before he smiled.

"So the process you’ll go through, if you decide to go through with it is called Kinship adoption." Greg repeated "In general, the procedure of adopting a family member’s child is considerably simpler than other types of adoption because some parts of the domestic adoption process will not apply ergo it is normally easier and faster. And given the fact that you already have legal guardian status this negates any requirement for home studies, nor will there be any need for a supervision period post an initial care placement period as she is already in your care." "So what do we need to do?" Fliss asked. "First off we need to obtain permission from Polland." Greg said "He needs to surrender his legal parental rights by law." Fliss frowned and Greg looked at her before he began to expand on his explanation. "A child can’t have more than two legal parents at a time." Greg looked at her "So as you both would be Mary's legal parents via adoption, it means that Polland's legal rights to her will be completely severed." "I thought they were already terminated?" Fliss looked at Frank who shook his head. "We discussed petitioning for it but it would have prolonged the whole hearing process." Frank looked at her. "I just wanted Mary to settle and legally be allowed to stay, and, well to be honest, it didn’t feel right to sever him completely whilst she was so young, even though he is a total dick. Mary could have changed her mind down the line about all sorts of things so…” he trailed off.

“So all that means that technically he still has the right to apply for visitation if he so wishes." Greg looked at Fliss “But an adoption would stop that." "What if he objects?" Frank asked, the thought suddenly springing into his mind. "Then we would file to the court to have his objection overruled, and request they sever his rights regardless of what he says." Greg said "And given the history with this case, I think there's a pretty good chance we would win." Frank nodded "Ok, so rights removed one way or another. Then what?" "Then we petition the court, file the paperwork, all the boring stuff like the welfare checks will happen, which, will predominantly focus on you Fliss as Frank went through all of this already. They may want to meet your family but I wouldn't worry about it at all. It’s a safe, stable and loving environment that Mary has. That's clear to anyone." Frank gently took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together as he gave her a smile. "And then, once that's over you’ll attend a finalisation hearing where you’ll be granted legal parental status." Greg says. "It sounds complicated but it’s fairly straight forward because, as I keep saying, she's been with you for a while now and she's a relative." "So how long would it take?" Fliss asked. Greg wrinkled his nose "if Polland doesn't object I'd be surprised if it took longer than 3 months. Given that Bean is due to arrive in just under two, you might wanna hang off until things have settled down a little. Maybe kick it off at the end of September, give you both time to get to grips with the fact you have a new baby. Leave it with me, I’ll speak to one of the guys at the Welfare department, see exactly what parts of the process they will need to do and then we’ll take it from there.” “Sounds like a plan.” Franks smiled, as Fliss squeezed his hand.

*****

"I prefer Theodore" Mary shrugged when they told her over dinner about the name they had settled on. "But William is cool, after Bill." "Well when you grow up and have your own kid, and by grown up I mean 35 on account that you won't allowed to date until you're at least 30..." Frank pointed his fork at her "...you can call your own kid that." "I might have a girl" Mary shrugged, the towel she was wrapped in slipping from her shoulders slightly. "Theodora then" Fliss said, shoving another fork full of chicken into her mouth. Mary pondered this for a second before she shrugged and Frank simply arched an eyebrow as he looked at Fliss who leaned back in the whicker chair and grinned. "So why can't I tell anyone the name?" Mary asked after she swallowed more of her dinner. "Because we want something to stay a surprise Stack" Frank explained "everyone already knows he's a boy. We just wanna keep a little something to ourselves for the 5 weeks or we have before he arrives." "But we wanted you to know." Fliss smiled. Mary grinned "Ok. Secret's safe." She placed her fork down on her empty plate "I'm finished, can I go back in the pool?" "Give it 5 minutes for your food to settle yeah?' Frank looked at Fliss who nodded at him and he cleared his throat slightly. "And while you're waiting, there's something else we wanted to talk to you about." "Ok..." Mary looked at him. "You know how you asked us where we were going this morning?" He looked at her, his hand dropping to Fliss’ knee under the table and she tangled her fingers with his, giving them an encouraging squeeze. "Yeah" “And I said it was to do with Bean?”

“Yeah…” "Well, it was actually to see Greg. And it was about you." Her eyes widened and she swallowed her food with a gulp "they're not taking me away are they?" "No, no nothing like that." Fliss soothed her quickly, "In fact...kinda the opposite." "I don't understand" she frowned. "We went to see Greg to ask him about how, if you want us to, we can start the process to adopt you." Frank looked at her. Mary blinked and she looked at Frank who held her gaze before she turned to Fliss. "Adopt me" she whispered. Frank nodded. "But only if that's what you want. It won't mean anything will change, not on a day to day basis anyway, it just means that me and Fliss will both have full-“ He was cut off as Mary jumped up out of her seat and flung herself at him, wrapping her arms round him, pressing her face into the crook of his shoulder and neck as she began to sob. Fliss watched them both, a lump forming in her throat as Frank glanced at her, his eyes glassy. "I'm hoping they're happy tears." He said, clearing his throat. Fliss smiled gently as he simply sat rocking Mary slightly till she calmed down enough to sit back, her hands reaching up, fingers threading into his beard. "So..." she sniffed "you would be my mom and dad?" "Baby we already are." Fliss leaned forward as much as she could to gently rub her back. "I told you that a few weeks ago." "But legally?" "Yeah." Frank nodded. "It will take a little while but Greg says that it will be quicker than usual considering its something called a Kinship Adoption." "What does that mean?" Mary asked quietly. "Basically because you're a relative to me and you've been living with me for so long, some of the process may not be needed." Frank explained. He hesitated for a moment, debating how honest to be before he decides to explain fully to her. She had to understand, she deserved to. "What it does mean, however, is that to allow both Fliss and I to become your parents, they have to completely cut your father off. Which means he has no rights to see you at all going forward. He might refuse our application because of that." "He could refuse?" Mary frowned. "Yeah, but I don't think he will." Frank shook his head "And even if he does we can fight it." Mary nodded, her head bowed a little "He never wanted me anyway..." "Well we do." Fliss said firmly. “And he’s a jackass for not wanting anything to do with you Mary.” "If he does refuse will I have to go live with him?" she looked up her eyes wide. "No." Fliss shook her head "it just means things stay the same as they are now." "That's not so bad." Mary shrugged and Frank gave a huff of a laugh. "Glad to hear it." Frank raised an eyebrow as Mary began fiddling with the collar of his t-shirt "Now, we're going to need to wait until after Alex is born as things are gonna be busy for us all when he arrives but we wanted to give you chance to think about it and make sure it’s what you want. And whatever you decide it doesn't change a thing, ok? You'll stay here and we will still love you no matter what." Mary swallowed and looked at Frank earnestly "I do want. I know already. I don't need to think about it." Frank smiled and brushed her hair back off her face which was getting rather long now and she beamed back at him. "Will I still need to call you Frank?" Frank took a deep breath "that’s up to you. Why don't you see how you feel OK?" She nodded and reached up to kiss his cheek before she hopped down and turned towards Fliss. She chambered onto her knee as best she could and wrapped her arms around her neck, hugging her tight. "I'm so happy." She sniffed and Fliss let out a little noise that was half laugh, half sob and she held her back tightly. Frank wiped his eyes, sniffing a little as he fought to keep it together. He had expected an emotional response from Mary, but it still hadn't prepared him in the slightest for how he was going to feel. For so long he had resisted being referred to as her father and now here he was about to embrace it, and make it 'legal'. Whilst he still had that tiny little bit of guilt regarding Diane, he was pleased to find he didn't feel a shred of doubt, nor after all the soul searching and conversations with Bill last week, and then his mother this afternoon who had, rather emotionally, told him she thought it was a ‘wonderful’ idea, even stating that if Polland did object, she was ready to go onto battle alongside him. Greg was convinced they would have a great chance of winning if it came to it, and even if they didn't, like Fliss said, nothing would change. But for now, he pushed all that to the back of his mind, focusing on the here and now as Mary sat on Fliss lap, her hand skating over her bump as they both giggled, Mary pulling her arm away and squealing. "He just kicked real big!" She looked at Frank, drawing out the word real as he smiled. "Clearly he likes the idea too." He quipped as he stood up "and you know what I like the sound of?" He whipped off his t-shirt and in a flash plucked Mary off Fliss' lap and ran full pelt to the pool with her in his arms as she shrieked and swatted at his back playfully, Thor running behind them, his loud barks booming around the garden. With a huge jump Frank propelled them straight off the side and under the surface of the cool water. They both emerged a second or so later, Mary spluttering as she splashed him causing him to reach out and grab her leg, pulling her back under. "I’m going to be living with 3 children Bean." Fliss patted her bump, just as Thor gave one final frustrated wine before he launched himself into the pool too. Mary let out a huge laugh and pointed to him and Frank grinned as she chambered onto his back. "Hey Frank look..." she giggled loudly "doggy paddle" Frank found that far more funny than he should.

[noddytheornithopod]

Okay, now that I’ve gotten all the Bad Batch controversies out of the way... I can finally talk about the actual damn episode properly.

Like I said on my whitewashing post, overall I liked it, but I am kinda hesitant for reasons I explained there. I now want to focus on the actual story itself on its terms, and see how I feel about that. Apologies if I jump all over the place.

Probably my biggest issue narrative wise was that I felt some of the stuff around Crosshair was a bit contrived. Like, I was fine with him going full GOOD SOLDIERS FOLLOW ORDERS and all that, my issue is that I feel like the others took a while to realise he was following Order 66. Like, Tech even says he can’t be certain their mutations entirely screwed up their programming, with the camera even cutting to Crosshair. And like, before that Crosshair is berating Hunter for letting Caleb escape. When Tech said what he did, I feel like Hunter should’ve probably said something like “that must be why Crosshair tried to kill the Jedi”. Granted, it probably would’ve then led to questions like why Crosshair’s genetics let his chip work and not the others (something that isn’t answered, but it’s not something I felt that needed to, different genetics affect things in different ways we can’t always predict), but like, when they’re on Onderon and Crosshair’s like “yeah let’s shoot literal child refugees”, I feel like they shouldn’t have just conflicted with him, they should’ve outright wondered if he was falling for his programming. It doesn’t break the episode for me and I guess they probably just assumed Crosshair was being his usual dickish self, but I guess that also is a reminder that this is the second time we’ve seen him, so we don’t know if he’d normally be up for killing innocents if a mission requires it (since TBB are still given missions, their thing is they just do them the wrong way). It’s just like, you’d think at least Tech would make some comment about it. As Saw said, he’s supposed to be the smart one lol.

On the topic of inhibitor chips, I was surprised that Crosshair’s was only partly working. I guess it’s because he still had a level of personality to him? The more you know, I guess.

I do think the Bad Batch work better here as many have said, I guess probably because they’re the focus of the story so they have more room to show who they are and nuances to that. My favourite is probably Tech, I tend to gravitate to the nerd characters in things. Shame he has to look so fucking white for being a clone of a brown man though. :/ Kinda like Wrecker too, even with the issues HE has too. Great, even in my main comments my issues with them are popping up. :v

On that note... I do appreciate the idea behind the Bad Batch, being clones who turned out different and it’s about accepting and embracing your differences. It’s just in execution, it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Like, it could be a commentary on things like ableism, but thing is, these characters are basically superpowered (if people weren’t fixated on bashing women they don’t like and were equal in their vitriol, you could EASILY call the Bad Batch a bunch of Gary Stus). It’s one of those things where a sci-fi/fantasy allegory is well intentioned but because of things that don’t apply to our reality, the allegory kinda falls apart. Like yes, “be nice to people different to you” is one thing, but it does lowkey feel a bit like “they’re judged because they’re better than everyone else, those stinkin regs are just jealous”. Well no jealousy is shown in the episode, in fact a normal clone calls them defects... which is weird because even if yes TECHNICALLY they are, they’re basically presented as turning out different, but those differences are things that are beneficial to them, and not impairments. I guess I feel like the message would be stronger if they actually had major weaknesses, aka why they’re “defective”, but their strengths are something they excel at so much they’re allowed to serve (which I GUESS was the idea, but we don’t know what made them defective originally and what got their mutations enhanced). And yes, you can infer things like Wrecker being “dumb” (which has its own issues, and even then he’s still competent enough on a battlefield, honestly he might even be more just impatient and impulsive and thus can’t sit still to learn more complex things), but yeah. It’s kind of a mixed message here, I appreciate what they’re going for, but like many fictional allegories, it kinda falls apart and it’s also presented in a very individualistic way.

Okay let me say something positive: AZI-3 IS BACK! I assume he got memory wiped so he wouldn’t have any memory of Fives, but I really liked him in the Order 66 arc of The Clone Wars so I was happy to see him again. Well, until he was hit with that stun blast. I hope he’s okay and able to be repaired!

Echo’s attack with his probe arm thing is pretty cool. It was also cool seeing how he was integrating into the Bad Batch. I also theorised he was most likely to be immune to the inhibitor chip out of the group, because while I felt the Kaminoans wouldn’t overlook inhibitor chips in even mutated clones (they do explain that they kept them around because they were always successful at what they do despite their unorthodox tactics), I had a feeling that the Techno Union putting all those cybernetics in his head maybe screwed with or even removed the chips. Get the poor guy some skin colour though.

I have also seen some people bring up the potential issue of ableism with Echo given he’s an amputee with prosthetics, but I don’t have much to comment on in that regard. But yeah, using disabled bodies for shock value and it being seen as a measure of humanity like in The Bad Batch arc of TCW is a trope I could really do without.

I’m liking Omega so far. She’s definitely got a different vibe to other kid characters we’ve gotten in these shows, probably because she was raised on Kamino. Also appreciate that her voice actor is New Zealander too (she’s not Maori which would’ve been the ideal, but was born to Indonesian Chinese parents). Her curiosity makes a lot of sense, she’s not just mischievous because kid. Was nice to see Hunter open up to her too.

I’m intrigued to see where they take Crosshair. IDK why his genetics allowed his chip to still work, but it’s nice to see at least one of the Bad Batch follow Order 66. I guess they decided against it for more (as much as I’d liked to have seen it) because Order 66 doesn’t just make clones decide to kill Jedi, it basically removes any level of humanity and personality they may have developed and makes them basically stormtroopers. That, and well they want our heroes of the show to be the Bad Batch, and that can’t work if they’re now the goody two shoes batch.

On the topic of Crosshair, my favourite scene in the episode was actually when Omega talks to him. She tries to empathise with him, and whether she’s just naturally intuitive or is Force sensitive in some way, she can tell that Crosshair despite everything seems to be struggling, and it’s ultimately beyond his control that he’s like this now. And then he’s off to get his chip working at full capacity and is now a full on Imperial, RIP.

Also yeah, I’m on team “Omega is Force sensitive”. It’s possible she just has some heightened abilities because she’s an enhanced clone, but the way they framed her firing the blaster especially just screamed Force sensitivity to me.

On the topic of inhibitor chips, Crosshair proves that it’s possible to make them stronger, so it does potentially mean that if members of the Bad Batch are captured, their chips could be dialed up to make them loyal Imperials. I guess one could also wonder if they could be slow for the effects to come into play for some of them, so some maybe slowly turn later on? I doubt they will go that route because they probably want to keep all our heroes around, but it’s something, especially if they eventually conclude they have to remove their chips to be safe.

Seeing Saw in the first episode was surprising but also pretty cool, especially with how the model is transitioning from his Clone Wars appearance into Forrest Whittaker. Love how he sees right through Palpatine’s bullshit, especially when he makes that jab at Tech that seems to be a bit of a blow to his ego, lol. Some have wondered why he’s so chill here, but you have to remember this is early days Saw. He’s still cautious, but he’s not paranoid and overly violent. The way some of those refugees reacted to the clones does make it seem like there’s already Imperial forces occupying Onderon (well, they’re literally out in the forest at a camp). Mainly bring that up because I have to wonder how much time has passed, and how quickly Imperial forces showed up to Onderon.

Seeing Tarkin be a dick is always glorious. He just goes everywhere and KNOWS he’s in charge, lol. It was also interesting how even if he’s feeling like he’s ready to abandon clone forces, he sees potential with Clone Force 99 if they can follow Imperial doctrine.

The Kaminoans also seem distrustful of the Empire, not because they’re against it but because they want to keep their current deal. Maybe if Tarkin heard them out the Empire would have a better army, lol. Taun We from AOTC even cameoes. I do wonder what’s eventually going to happen though, given the clones are obviously abandoned in the end, I wonder how the Kaminoans are going to take it.

Also, Nala Se is back. Yeah, THAT Nala Se. Wonder what she’s doing with Omega as her medical assistant, lol. Oh yeah, she also stopped the doors and let the Bad Batch escape. I have no idea what she’s planning, but I feel like she’s being shady, given not only the Fives stuff but also because despite having a fondness for Omega she does seem like she’s very controlling of her (after all, she’s just property to her), hence why Omega wants to get out and be with the Bad Batch.

Okay, I think that’s everything I wanted to say? But yeah, have a lot of reservations, but still curious to see where this goes despite that.

[astridthevalkyrie]

What do you like/dislike about Riverdale, if you were to make a list? I'm curious, because I didn't think you would like something like that, and it doesn't seem like you're enjoying it that much.

i have so many mixed feelings about riverdale, thank you for the ask!

what i dislike (because we end on high notes)

- my biggest problem with the show is that it completely forgets that its cast has to interact with each other. you’ve got four main characters, each with a foot in a different world and plotline and that’s great, but there has to be a plot connecting them, otherwise it doesn’t matter! archie and veronica’s stories were so boring in season 4 that i actually skipped past some of their scenes. why should i care about fred’s mysterious twin brother? if you skip all his scenes, you literally don’t miss anything because he didn’t matter. i want to care about the core four as a friend group, but they always pair up betty/jughead and archie/veronica. there should be more crisscross, more of the boys and b & v, put jughead and veronica together, throw cheryl and toni and kevin in, mix it up, or at least have more group scenes!

- the reason betty and jughead’s stories are more compelling (at least, to me) is because they capture what i watch riverdale for, spooky murder mysteries. it’s always them (mostly betty) who’s thrown into danger, who tries to get behind it all, and if you compare that to veronica’s rum business, it just....doesn’t work. it’s sad because archie and veronica are good characters who are given useless plot lines. with more spooky stuff, they could actually shine.

- unpopular opinion time (i think) - i dislike cheryl strongly. i liked her in the first two seasons, she was a zany, fun character who needed a hug, but the way she treated toni in season 3 and 4 was....awful. she admitted to gaslighting her! plus the whole business with the gangs. i hate that it was treated as a feminist issue. fangs didn’t get kicked out because he was helping his sick mom or something, cheryl stole from hiram for the hell of it, and then when she was kicked out for violating a rule, acted like it happened because she was a girl. proceeded to lead a beating of two men, one of whom is a POC. she is a rich, privileged girl, who has treated her girlfriend terribly.

- jughead should have been a POC with the storyline that he has. 

- some things that should mean a lot just...don’t mean anything. why tf is veronica okay with penelope running her rum business when she tried to kill them all? how is archie making a truce with hiram when he is The Worst? alice gave away all of betty’s college money??????

- what happened to hermione’s character after season 1? she was so interesting and they just...made her hiram’s puppet.

- probably more but i can’t think of it

what i like

- if you don’t take it seriously it’s so fucking funny iwfgegf like.....the scene where betty is the gryphon queen, ethel’s seizure, archie’s classic “epic highs and lows of high school football” plus “i am red” and the fact that edgar evernever was in a fucking rocket like what a funny show

- the core four! betty. hot take? i think? but betty is not a bland character. the show romanticizes her mental illness which sucks big time, but she herself is very compelling and fun to watch. she gets emotionally tortured a lot, but the actress does it pretty well (lili reinhart was kinda bad in season 1, but she improved a lot). her arc with the black hood and with the farm were my favorite parts of each season. jughead. like i said, i think he should have been a poc with his storyline, but he’s still fun nonetheless. my favorite jug was the one in the first season, because archie and jughead was such a cute friendship and i miss it. archie. my boy has a heart of gold and he’s a dumbass and makes bad decisions but you can’t help but like him. the show likes to forget that he’s supposed to be the main character. veronica. she has such an interesting character and backstory and it’s a crime that all she does is run her underground club or whatever because if you throw her in a murder mystery, it would be very interesting.

- the season 4 murder mystery was, in my opinion, the best one. moreso than jason’s, because, like, you kind of suspect clifford blossom anyway? they’ve already considered him, but in season 4 the full reveal of who and how and why was unexpected and i really really love bret and donna as villains, i hope we see more of them.

- as ridiculous as it was, i enjoyed the breakfast club episode. 

- everyone is so hot in this show. the core four? hot. the serpents? hot. the pussycats? hot. the parents? hiram and hermione lodge could step on me, please and thank you.

- bughead is cute and i’ve read a couple of fanfics about them. there was basically no buildup in canon, we don’t know how close they were before the show started, but like. meh. it’s one of those basic ships you like because the actors have chemistry and they’re cute.

- something i complained about before, but i like the core four as a group! all of their scenes together are the best. the booth at pop’s, survive the night, the entirety of the lake house episode (the jeronica kiss was :) don’t @ me) 

- it’s a good show to watch to pass the time and you may find it satisfying if you’re thirsty for murder mysteries like i am.

[zerochanges]

2020 Favorite Anime

I am sure I don’t have to exactly spell it out that 2020 was a different year, we all know the spiel now. It was in particular a bad year for me for a lot of personal reasons on top of the whole world wide pandemic thing killing millions and shutting down business and and all our hobbies--so I really was straight up not having a good time. It’s because of that I honestly didn’t really keep up with a lot of my hobbies this year so when it comes to choosing my favorite anime and games of 2020, I don’t have as much as I usually would. 

So this year I decided to just say screw it, there are no rules. I usually try to impose some on myself every year for my lists: rules like no sequels, no long running shows, no shows that technically started last year, only new content from this year and not older stuff I watched/played this year but came out from a prior one. This time, there are no holds barred. I am just going to list my top whatever the hell I feel like listing. So starting with anime and in my usual alphabetical order; here we go.

The 8th Son? Are You Kidding Me?

Maybe a guilty pleasure? Maybe I just enjoy some trashier shows? It’s hard to say. There is nothing that great about 8th Son, it’s very bland and doesn’t stick out amongst the million other isekai (another world) power fantasy series that are all the rage now and yet there is a strange draw to it. Perhaps it’s because almost all the isekai elements in the series feel more forced than anything else, like they are just tacked on to appeal to modern audiences. 

8th Son honestly feels more like a good old fashion fantasy series from the 90’s that just had to add isekai elements in it to appeal to kids today. I really enjoyed it for that aspect. The power fantasy isn’t too out of control (although the protagonist is quite strong), and there is no real end goal or attempt to return to your previous life. The protagonist Wendelin is more or less just cool with how things are now. Instead it focuses on his growth as a mage and how he tries to navigate the political intrigue of this feudal world being one of the youngest born in a noble family with no clear line of succession to take over yet being the most talented and magically gifted child of said family. 

Ascendance of a Bookworm

Proving that not all isekai series have to be a power fantasy, Ascendance of a Bookworm plays out more like an educational take on medieval times, think something among the lines of Spice and Wolf, if you will. One day Motosu Urano wakes up in the body of the small child Myne in a fantasy world much like medieval Europe but with a few other elements like magic and sorcery. While at first that may sound like a high flying adventure it really isn’t. The series is more about following the average life of a peasant in this world and how far out of reach literature is to them, given the lack of printing press and the like. Urano now Myne tries her best to create books for the common people and spread literature, a herculean task considering the insane douchebaggery of the higher caste in this world. But armed with modern day knowledge of the 21st century Myne is able to create modern conveniences and wow most people around her.

Black Clover

So I am going to include long running shows now this year, get over it. Black Clover has been a favorite of mine in recent years. Out of the modern Jump battle series I find myself more and more drawn into Clover (and also my one true love, the ever underappreciated World Trigger) than the other more popular ones that seem to rule all the anime conversations today. Since I was following the series dubbed as it aired on Toonami this year brought me the end of the first part of the series; finally seeing the epic conclusion of Clover Kingdom’s long standing battle with the Eye of the Midnight Sun and revealing some pretty great and shocking twists behind the war of elves and humans along the way. 

This finale was fantastic and honestly while I am glad to see the series continue on and grow from there, and look forward to seeing more of this new second part of Clover that focuses on a war with the Spade Kingdom, I absolutely would not have complained if the whole thing ended right here with this story arc. It wraps up so beautifully and is a compilation of three great years of episodes. 

BOFURI: I Don’t Want to Get Hurt so I’ll Max Out My Defense

Bofuri is not a series I thought I would enjoy as much as I did but it really won me over. Essentially just a ‘cute girls do cute things’ kind of show but with a twist of it being in an MMO game, there is something about it that made it so comfy and easy to watch. There’s always something enjoyable about watching the protagonist Maple, an absolutely clueless newbie at video games continue to be the bane of existence to the developers and admins of the game as she constantly breaks it and becomes insanely overpowered on a regular basis all from her own cluelessness. 

As the title suggests she is the only person in the world to get scared of taking damage in a video game and puts all her stats into defense and literally nothing else entirely. After so much grinding the girl is such a tank she can just walk through enemies to kill them. It’s fun little things like this that make the show always worth a chuckle as her legendary player status continues to rise while in reality she just has no clue how to play RPGs whatsoever. 

Boruto: Naruto Next Generations

If you think Black Clover had a great run of episodes this year in 2020 just wait until you see what Boruto had to offer. While not a perfect year, the series did take off for about 2 months thanks to a pandemic hiatus, once it came back it was stronger than ever. We came out of the gates running and kicked off the return of Boruto with a fantastic 20+ episode long story arc centered on introducing the main group of villains in the series, the Kara. The world of Boruto became much bigger and much darker, and the series in the last year has started to bring in a lot more manga content and moving at a brisker and faster pace, changing the status quo up quite a lot. Watching the New Team 7 grow so much and rise to these challenges was rewarding and I am so excited for the vessel story arc teased at the latest Jump Festa this December. 

Ultimately though their first encounter, crushing defeat, and subsequent rematch with Deepa; a new anime only member of Kara meant to introduce the organization to anime viewers was an insane show de force of animation and one of the best battles in 2020 anime, dare I say. These kids are growing into great warriors and the stakes have been raised so much.

Cardfight!! Vanguard Gaiden IF

The 2018 reboot of the Vanguard series saw not only the card game get refreshed but the television anime as well. Dubbed the V Series by fans thanks to all the new card serial numbers starting with a V post reboot, these last two years have been fun and full of fan service for long time viewers of the anime. Gaiden IF is the final season of this reboot before the fourth entry of the franchise Overdress begins in 2021, and was a very strange and experimental one at that. Gaiden IF holding true to its name was a gaiden, or spinoff of the series that wasn’t necessary in the same canon as the regular show and more fascinating had zero card fights during the entire show--instead being one huge parody of card game animes in general and the beloved cast of characters the series has built over its ten year run. 

It’s quite hilarious and a great round of fun, especially since there isn’t a main character in sight. Gaiden IF is carried entirely by a cast of side characters and former villains now taking over the role of protagonist. I’ve never seen a show go for an entire season with such minor characters playing such a huge role and that is one of the best aspects of it. Every week watching Ibuki Kouji, one of the most feared and powerful villains in the series being tormented and kicked around as a would-be hero now honestly carries the entire show. 

But really, this was one of the first anime to air post pandemic hiatus and it was so refreshing to have Vanguard back. Every week it reminded me how much I loved the franchise and anime in general, it was such a delight to finally have something enjoyable back in my life after such a grueling pandemic hiatus of nothing. 

Dragon Quest: Dai no Daibouken (2020)

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think there would be a modern adaptation of Dai no Daibouken, or The Adventures of Dai as it is being called in English now. This was one of my all time favorite Jump manga growing up and I always thought the original unfinished 1991 anime was the best we were ever going to get as far as animation goes, so to see this beautiful new series with its fantastic storyboarding and animation, great use of CG mixed in with hand drawn, and what seems like an outright declaration from the series itself that it will adapt the series in its entirety this time, it’s all too much. 

This new Dai adaptation is like a dream anime that was made just for me. Every Saturday morning I giddily log on to watch the new episode just like being a kid again with Saturday morning cartoons. If you are sleeping on this show, don’t! You won’t regret watching it, Dai was one of the all time great Shonen Jump properties of the 90’s and is ready to show kids today what that era has to offer!

Gundam Build Divers Re:rise Season 2

Rerise was hands down one of my favorite shows last year when the first cour aired, and this year is no different either, dare I say once again this was probably my favorite show of the whole year. It’s hard to really go into what made this second cour so good without flat out spoiling all the best parts, and all the character development, and all the amazing battles, but suffice to say, this may be one of the best Gundam shows of the entire decade, Build series or not. Hell I ain’t afraid to say this kicked G-Tekketsu (Iron Blooded Orphans) ass this way to Sunday, I don’t care that this is a toy commercial for a much younger audience. Basically, watch Rerise, it’s going to be a great time. 

If My Favorite Pop Idol Made It to the Budokan, I Would Die

This was another series that I expected very little from but ended up really enjoying each week. The basic premise is pretty simple, a super fan obsessed with an idol (singer) goes to insane lengths to support her and thinks her love will never be reciprocated but maybe it just might be. It’s kinda strange and an unusual romance series that isn’t really all that big on romance. In fact it seems to be much bigger on being informative about idol fan culture and nerd culture in general and poking fun at that while never being too mean spirited. 

I think that’s the charm of this one. These are by all extent weird kinda creepy people that are obsessed over young girl singers but it never demonizes its cast for that nor does it ever go too far in the power fantasy of them ‘getting the girl’. It’s about the struggle of fan life and the tightknit and utterly bizarre groups of friends you can make in a fandom--and also maybe some love might happen along the way.

Jujutsu Kaisen

Another big modern shonen jump battle manga got its chance to be animated this year, and this time courtesy of studio Mappa who are the real stars of this party. Everything about Jujutsu Kaisen feels like Mappa throwing down the gauntlet and trying to one-up the highly praised and beloved Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba from last year that wowed everyone with UFOtable’s signature beautiful animation. It’s very fascinating to see the insane levels of gorgeous jaw dropping action set pieces between these two series, both raising the bar to ridiculous levels in their own ways. On top of the animation front though are some very easily lovable characters, a much darker feeling supernatural story than one may expect, and probably Crunchyroll’s best dub produced in 2020. 

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken is another series from beloved auteur Masaaki Yuasa. Bringing with it his signature style and wonderful animation, his hardworking compatriots at studio Science Saro deliver something truly special, an anime about why anime is great and just how the heck it is made to begin with. I think one of my favorite aspects of Yuasa’s work is just how sincere almost his entire output is, and how you can really feel a certain kind of emotion and vision behind each work that is unique to it. For Eizouken it is definitely the joy of creation and what it means to pursue something creative. Easily one of the best watches of 2020 for both its visuals, sound design, characters with great chemistry that have to deliver very heavy and technical dialogue but do so in a really natural and enjoyable way--and hey the shows within the show that the girls make are also usually pretty interesting and good too.

MAJOR 2nd Season 2

I think my favorite aspect of this new middle school arc of MAJOR 2nd was seeing just how much Daigo has changed over the years since we last saw him in elementary school in the first season. No longer in little league and now trying to save his school’s baseball club, Daigo has grown into a strong leader and really feels natural with everyone he talks to. It’s a huge departure from the bullied and reclusive selfish kid he was in the first season. Seeing the kid grow up into somebody reliable and caring like this almost brings a tear to my eye. 

It’s an old cliché but saving the falling apart club in your school is a classic underdog story and the fact that Daigo built his own team from the ground up really sells it. The team is largely made up of girls too which brings a really great girl power aspect to it as well. With just 3 boys and the rest of the positions being filled with females, the haphazard team Daigo put together not only has to show that nobodies can make it but that girls are just as good as the boys.

Rent-a-Girlfriend

I love trashy romcom harem anime, I will be the first to admit it. I am not even their target audience, in fact I am probably the exact opposite of their target audience yet I can’t get enough of this kind of garbage, and Rent-a-Girlfriend brings in the garbagest of garbage it can! The name says it all right there, our hero is literally so pathetic he has to pay girls money to go on dates with him. And he just continues to ruin everything around him with his constant lying and all around patheticness. He is like a blackhole of suck that will drag down any and all that go near him. What more can you even want?! 

I am half facetious here of course, but to an extent what I said about Kazuya isn’t wrong. He’s the biggest loser around, and I love him. It’s fun to watch him squirm, and it’s nice to learn more about him and see he has a good side deep down too. In a lot of ways he’s probably one of the more relatable leads in these kinds of shows as he’s just as pathetic as all the rest of us who watch these kinds of shows are. But besides Kazuya there are plenty of nice leading ladies too and probably most surprisingly a fairly well fleshed out circle of friends that he hangs out with. Usually these kinds of shows will sideline the male friends of the leads and only focus on time between the lead and the girls, so it’s refreshing to see so much time spent with other boys in the show too. 

Also as an addendum to anyone who watches the series dubbed, Aleks Le‘s performance as the lead role is maybe some of the best casting in modern anime dubbing I have ever heard. He kills it in this show. It’s a performance that carries the entire show. 

Shadowverse

You might say, I saved the best for last, but honestly this was a coincidence. Shadowverse is a by-the-numbers card game anime. It starts very slow and very bland, and offers nothing new to the genre instead sticking entirely to the classic tropes and clichés of sports anime and Yu-Gi-Oh clones alike. That is for the first 12 episodes or so. It begins to evolve and gets a little more interesting from there, then something happens. Something I cannot explain. Something that makes no sense. Something that the production committee probably should not have allowed to occur. The show just goes absolutely, positively, certifiably, fucking insane. 

Out of nowhere, the plot suddenly turns into a straight Neon Genesis Evangelion knock-off, complete with plugsuits, random nonsense mysticism from exotic religions, and soul crushing nightmarishly harsh treatment of the child protagonists. Suddenly time freezes for everyone but the main characters, and the totally original not Kabbalah, Tree of Woe, begins to end the world. Now armed with their new psychic powers (that they just have now out of nowhere!) the kids have to fight brain washed former enemies and loved ones alike that seek to destroy the world via assimilation into the darkness. 

Suddenly we have moments like the above where Luca, the coldhearted and cool Shadowverse player who only ever began fighting in tournaments to earn money for his younger sick sister’s treatment has to face off against a possessed evil version of his sister who bemoans all the isolation he put her through, never being there with her, always away trying to earn money. She berates and destroys the young man’s heart for his well intentions. Luca with no other options has to put her down for the good of the world. 

You know, for the 12 year old kids in the audience that signed up for a show about a cellphone app.

I haven't even gotten to the best part yet, the show isn’t over! There’s still 12 episodes left in the series and do you wanna know the best part?! The heroes already failed! The world blew up and everyone got sucked into a blackhole and died! That’s not a joke. The bad guys won. And there’s still another season worth of episodes to go! I am not kidding, this is how the show ended the year 2020! This is legendary, no fucks given status if I ever saw it. The best way to end 2020 if ever there was one:

Every week I anxiously log on to watch Shadowverse after it jumped the shark just to see what insanity happens next. This is Tommy Wiseau The Room energy levels of pure insane dribble. Shadowverse might be the biggest disaster of a card game anime of all time, and I simply cannot get enough of it now.  

BONUS THOUGHTS For 2020

Random Anime Collecting: This year saw Discotek release three Case Closed/Detective Conan movies on blu-ray. Detective Conan is a series near and dear to my heart, and one I spent a lot of my college days obsessed over. This is a franchise I really went to great lengths to collect after Funimation reprinted many of the long time out of print volumes of the series back in 2013, and I bought them all back then. Buying new Detective Conan movies in 2020 felt super surreal, and also wonderful. I really hope I can keep buying more in 2021.

Hidive for these hard times: I didn’t include anything really from Sentai, I am not sure why, maybe none of what I watched this year would count as a favorite of mine, maybe I was just lazy and didn’t want to add to my list anymore. Honestly though I watched a lot of series this year on Hidive. I think my favorite has been the new dub of Pet Girl of Sakurasou. 

A Lost Classic: Nobody is talking about God Mazinger finally getting released in English from Discotek and that kind of bums me out. The series was one I obsessed over when younger, especially because it was rare to find even raw footage of it lead alone subtitled. It was never subtitled in fact, so Discotek’s release is the first time it has ever been in English. 

[seasaltmemories]

Persona 5 Royal Review/Analysis

So I didn’t have a ps4 when the original persona 5 came out, so royal was my first experience with the game, as a result, I will be talking about spoilers for both the original content and Royal bc a lot of the additions seem mixed in aside from just the third semester stuff

let’s get the summary

Prepare for an all-new RPG experience in Persona 5 Royal based in the universe of the award-winning series, Persona! Don the mask of Joker and join the Phantom Thieves of Hearts. Break free from the chains of modern society and stage grand heists to infiltrate the minds of the corrupt and make them change their ways! Persona 5 Royal is packed with new characters, confidants, story depth, new locations to explore, and a new grappling hook mechanic for stealthy access to new areas. 

So one of the things that I picked up really early on into my playthrough was that Persona 5 feels like a very adolescent piece of media, like yeah it is about highschoolers, but more than just its cast and setting, it seemed really fixated on capturing and adolescent mindset, there is this fresh awareness to the injustices of the world and a burning desire to fix it without much understanding of how to even began to tackle those problems, and the fact it stuck so hard to to that worldview made me a lot more forgiving of its flaws then I might have otherwise been, not that there isn’t stuff to critique about the way it tackles controversial issues, but at the same time i just had this mindset of, “well of course they aren’t going to get everything right, what can you expect from teens?”

Anyone who knows me knows I am a pretentious blow-hard, but I think P5 is a perfect example of just how important style is to anything.  So much of the pure glee and joy I got when I booted up the game came from the fun presentation and commitment to the phantom thief aesthetic, I have a lot of thoughts on gameplay that seem to be contradictory to the general consensus but to keep things brief, all the “sneaking’ around a palace, grappling from places, ambushing enemies, and performing all out attacks just all gave this sense of being cool and stylish that was great, even if the writing stronger, without those fun flourishes I don’t think I would have enjoyed my experience as much

I also think the more than any other game, persona 5 does a great job of making me thinking “just one more thing” you got a lot of confidants to fill and stats to raise to fill them so there is always something to do, at most during the story sections things sometimes dragged, but i was eager to finish them to get back to finishing my goals, for as long as the game was, this made it feel so much more manageable

Unpacking an entire 110 hour playthrough is kinda an overwhelming task, so instead I’m going to talk about my four favorite characters and hopefully that will cover some good amount of material

1) Goro Akechi- one of the first things I knew about this game was what a controversial character this bastard was and it turns out I fell on the side that loves him bc I think I have a thing for traitor characters, I have to say though for most of the game I wasn’t sure how I felt about him, I knew his true role going in, so it was hard to get attached to Detective Prince Akechi as most of his interactions with Joker felt like an act, however his Rank 8 confidant link, when he not only pulls out a gun on you and challenges you to an one on one fight but also freaking throws a glove to challenge you in a duel I was like “oh so you’re a little bitch boy then!” and never turned back

To me part of what makes him so compelling is just how stubbornly he is set on his path straight to Hell, a lot of ppl were moved by his tragic backstory but honestly it does little for me, I think it is important to consider, but you have to remember he approached Shido about his powers first and basically volunteered to be his personal assassin, still it is hard to ignore that sense of lost potential, in a way I can see how getting to pretend to be a part of a safe and welcoming team environment almost made things worst because he just kept feeling like, “why wasn’t I allowed to have this earlier” and just too tied to his current path of self-destruction to waver from it, like even the fact the Phantom Thieves and he had the same goals regarding Shido in the end, he couldn’t side with bc that would mean acknowledging all the murder he did was for nothing, so they just continued to be another target on his list, made all the more dangerous bc of the affection he held for them

That said I don’t think I would have liked him so much without Royal’s updates, I mentioned Rank 8 being a key moment for me but aside from that, the fight with him in Shido palace had so much going on, it kinda dulled the weight of any one of the numerous revelations, 3rd semester kinda brought in the perfect amount and balance of the different sides of Akechi, the minute he appeared I swear me and my brother cheered in joy, obvious spoilers for the rest of it

I had seen 3rd semester Akechi called “feral” and while he is still as horny for murder as ever, i don’t really think that fits, there is still a sense of restraint to his actions, yet he doesn’t mask his true intentions and feelings so much, what I like is that his rudeness and outbursts come off as very deliberate and planned, as if he enjoys exposing the contrast between his “pleasant” reputation and his true bitterness, and with the reveal that oops he is supposed to be dead, you still have that determined “don’t be a fucking pussy, just pull the trigger,” attitude, I really like the dynamic that forms between a Joker that just wants the best for him and an Akechi that just emphatically refuses to be saved in anyway, he is an easy character to woobify but I love how canon just at every turn doesn’t let you ever see his true vulnerability even if we all know it exists down there, also just something about hearing him curse is always so much fun and delightful

TLDR: I have a lot of feelings about this edgy bastard and may or may not already have a playlist for him

2) Makoto Niijima- another character I had an interesting relationship with, while from the start she seemed like my type, the overwhelming love for her kinda made my hipster side apprehensive, however predictably I was won over and I did romance her in the end (what can I saw my Joker is into brunettes)

Part of what makes her stick out so much to me, is how the game felt much less afraid to show her unlikable in comparison to other characters, i usually don’t complain or really notice this but more than any other game series I’ve played, there is definitely a lot of self-insert fantasy elements involved, ppl rip the newer FE games apart for that, but I never really saw it as the terrible as the cast had dozens of life changing interactions with other characters, the fact most of the interaction we see are through Joker’s eyes, and the fact that he is the catalyst to changing several adults’ lives made this element a lot more noticeable

But not only does Makoto take an antagonistic role at first, but they let her be so smug and annoying that I probably hated her with the same passion as the characters themselves, yet even when she comes over to or sides, her flaws are still pretty open, like when trying to help out Futuba, she definitely had that air of, “neurotypical trying too hard to make you normal” that was understandable but still annoying, and I appreciate it bc it made the contrast between her good points all the sharper

I kinda wanted to roll my eyes at first at her archetype as an honors student, bc yeah i was a nerdy student who didn’t know how to connect with my peers and just kinda subconsciously sucked up to adults bc I didn’t know what else to do, but in comparison to the teeming tragic backstories involved, you can see a stark difference in scale, yet Makoto is just carrying all this familiar teenage girl anger that reminds me a lot of Serena from Arc V, and getting to see her embrace it is very cathartic, I also really enjoyed her confidant which was surprising after seeing everyone tear into it so much, I feel like a lot of ppl’s confidant’s centered around other ppl and it didn’t just start off with the Eiko stuff, you see her Makoto want to change from the sheltered snobbish life she has kinda trapped herself in and rediscover her dream of being a police commissioner, I also found it fitting for her to also kinda figure that out through her own little investigation and to see that exploration of justice explored through her acting with a third party

The fact she is related to Sae also gives her interesting relationships we get to see from a different POV, and a greater investment in arcs outside her own, it just naturally gives her the feeling of being more well-rounded to have it spread out, and while her romance stuff did have the same sort of fantasy elements (that I greatly self-indulged in) overall I never felt like Joker was “saving” her in some way but growing and exploring along sides her

Overall, a great character and while i think best girl debates are dumb, I will not stand for hearing her described as worst girl

3) Ann Takamaki- honestly before I got this game I expected her to be the “main girl” with a lot of popularity and focus so seeing how little love she gets was heartbreaking for me, bc she is part of what made the early phantom thieves so enjoyable

I’ve heard the discussions about the issues around her sexualization and I think things on that access come out to be a wash, the developers kinda brush near some interesting ideas about the struggles women face with sex and attraction but don’t really know what to do with that, and so I think trying to trace and overall arch one way or another about her and her body issues is kinda a lesson in futility

in the end though what made her click for me is just how much fun her personality is, like I feel like in other stories her cheerfulness might come off as generic, but the fact that she is introduced so depressed and sullen makes her attitude shift come off as refreshing, like we know she can be serious, but the fact she isn’t being repeatedly sexually harassed by her teacher gives her like plenty of reason to goof off and enjoy herself

Again despite all the criticism I really enjoyed her confidants, the Mika stuff was honestly barely a blip in the thing and most of it alternated between her shooting the breeze and just having fun and still dealing with that lingering guilt and issues surrounding Shiho and just not having been able to save a close friend when she really needed her, I think the contrast is very much needed, especially to keep things from feeling like wallowing, which i felt was a problem with some other confidants

In the end though the main reason i didn’t romance her was bc as much as I liked her as a character, I didn’t want her to be with Joker specifically, i wanted to support her and see her finally confess her feelings to Shiho and the two of them go ride off into the sunset lol, still there’s a reason I reached rank 10 with her first

4) Takuto Maruki- lol so in this section I’m going to basically go into all my 3rd semester thoughts, again the first leg of his confidant was kinda dull, but I was prioritizing him bc of the deadline, once we got into his personal past that is where I got interested

On one hand part of the charm was just getting to see a more adult story, while there are other adult confidants I found the grad school and like academic stuff relatable, plus like the little moment with the steamed glasses was very funny, he’s just a down to earth guy and his kindness is genuine

However when he stepped up as the antagonist in the third semester, that’s when he got interesting, I found the conflict itself of a dream world to be kinda simple, aside from the fact obviously we need to oppose this for a plot to happen, Persona 5 is all about this humanist approach to personal growth and change, most of what I found fascinating about Maruki was the kinda self-martyring narcissism to his approach, like aside from treat the phantom thieves with kid gloves at time and just doing his best to avoid being a bad guy, there is this simmering resentment he masks and tries to replace with his desire to basically save the world, rather than deal with his own drama and baggage he tries to invest his energy into solving other problems

And you can see some of the parallels between him and the phantom thieves that points out some of hypocrisy of themselves, calculating the exact risks and harms of altering ppl through the Metaverse is hard to do due to a variety of factors, personally I don’t even have other Persona games to look to, but in general while it is for the greater good, the phantom thieves basically impose their will onto ppl who didn’t consent to that change, and in the end they decide to oppose Maruki purely based on their desires to not live in it, the game doesn’t do much with it, but I found the contrast more interesting than the Holy Grail one, plus his boss battle was more fun bc you actually got to use the main mechanic of the game, exploiting weaknesses and baton passing

But yeah all this comes to a head at the latter half of the boss fight where he just is so desperate and refuses to lose, it is like abundantly clear that this dream world is much more for himself than it is for anyone else, it is a desire to turn all his trauma into something more meaningful than just pain, and nothing shows that more clearly than the fact he fistfights a high schooler even after he has basically lost and tries to let himself die rather than face the consequences of his lost.  All in all I think he was the my favorite antagonist and palace holder

Some last thoughts I couldn’t fit elsewhere: Casino was my favorite palace, while weak story-wise, Okumura was far from my least favorite palace gameplay-wise and his boss fight as frustrating as it was might be my favorite for engaging with the player, if anything my least favorite palace was Futaba’s, my favorite showtimes are probably Morgana/Ann, Makoto/Ryuji, and Joker/Kasumi, Caroline and Justine are a delight and I really miss them, Tycoon is addicting and distracted me from being able to beat the game for a while

I got more hot takes I might elaborate on in length in the future, but in conclusion this is another rec where I can see and understand ppl being disappointed in some of the writing and its quality but at the same time i think there is still value ppl are too quick to dismiss and definitely multiple reasons to still enjoy it, I think this is going to stick with me for longer than I first thought it wound

[wishingformemoria]

(Spoiler heavy) S4 hopes and beyond for Viren, Claudia, and Aaravos.

Prefacing this with: this is just my opinion, and what I want to see regarding these three. Feel free to disagree and discuss in the comments. Each section is meant for its own reading, so if you'd rather skip to a certain character you can; rather than each part leading into the next. Video version of this post linked here! (Timestamps in the description) I know the novels, comics, and games will add more context to scenes for the show and will be great in their own right. But there're things that should be there within the show that people can’t skip. (Links are bolded)  (Reddit version)

TL;DR:

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  • To make the conflict between dark versus primal magic more meaningful, we need to see more grey-areas in dark magic. Which should be shown through actions. I can't think of a better way to do that than by shifting the focus to Viren, Claudia, and Aaravos.(The rest of the cast still gets meaningful screen-time! Ex: Callum learning more primal magic.)

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  • If (big if) Viren gets redeemed no one should be obligated to forgive him, but he has to do right by his family first before anything else for a realistic redemption arc.   • Claudia will have to get worse before she gets better. She needs to separate from Viren (and Aaravos), to figure out what her goals are and see the world outside of just her family. _____________________________________________________   • Aaravos, when he escapes, should genuinely grow to care for Viren and Claudia and for that be a conflict itself, due to whatever his plans are. If he does care, he needs to respect boundaries. Period. (Sorry! The whole "switch targets to throw Viren aside to focus on Claudia" doesn't sit right with me; including the fact, Aaravos has no one else, and it'd be a waste for him to throw away the people who have anchored him to the present!)

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Viren:

I’m of the mind that not every villain needs a redemption arc, or even deserves one. They especially don't need to be redeemed to justify likeability and "negative" character development is interesting too and is just as "realistic."

Viren is that character for me, and I’m still interested in where his story goes from here; his actions kick-started the plot, and there're many ways for him to go forward. There is no point in resurrecting this character if they do nothing with him.

He’s a polarizing character. I have mixed feelings on him but does he deserve redemption? He has to do a lot to justify one; every character is capable so long as enough time is spent to commit to the idea of a believable redemption arc. Viren’s redemption will not come from the elves or dragons, (not that his actions against Xadia should be ignored) but they will not be what causes him to realize the error of his ways. It has to come from his family, but forgiveness should not be obligated.

I don’t think we as the audience are meant to feel sympathy for his character, more towards the people he’s connected to--his children. I want to believe he was once a loving and caring father, as seen in this end credit for S1, and that this is the reason Claudia and Soren idealized him so much even after the fact he started to change.

I need to be shown this, not informed. I understand there’s things to save until later in the story, but if they were going for sympathy for Viren--it could have been shown within the flashback scenes of S2; not in a skippable content.

I know they use the end credits to foreshadow things.

I despised Viren’s actions in S3, and while he's being manipulated by Aaravos, Viren lost whatever "greyness" he had this season. Viren claims what he does is for humanity and yet turned the human armies into monsters; he even considered doing this to his own son! There is nothing "pragmatic" about this, even if you try justifying their fire resistance. We don’t even know if this was reversible!

And this is due to Aaravos' manipulation but it didn't take that much prompting. Aaravos gave him everything he wanted: Power. Respect. Recognition. Something Viren has wanted for a long time. He took Aaravos’ suggestions uncritically after becoming King.

Viren has done terrible things before meeting Aaravos, but he's not responsible for every wrong in the show. His misguided vengeance for Sarai was driven by emotion, not logic; is how this all began. We wouldn’t have this story without Viren. There are too many unanswered questions and things only he can solve that shouldn't be placed on his children to solve.

I don’t think he should be redeemed. If he’s redeemed, death should not be that redemption. Because what is the point in his resurrection if they go that route? It would take Claudia leaving Viren (and Aaravos) for him to realize, whatever his goals were before this, that it was not worth losing his family’s love. Probably the only people who do still love him.

Redemption arcs do not end when a character realizes their actions were wrong, it begins that way, and it’s a continuous effort to correct them. But forgiveness should not be obligated for the acknowledgment of change. Especially not so from the people they harmed; too many times a villain gets redeemed at the expense of their victim’s feelings, and that their victims are obligated to forgive them to complete their redemption arc.

I want the show to answer this: The Viren that Soren and Claudia idealized so much, did that person ever truly exist?

Claudia:

I’m not alone in disliking her actions in S3, and as much as I didn’t want her to go down this path, she has. I felt she needed more screen-time in this season to justify it. More conversations with Soren challenging their belief systems--not seeing eye-to-eye for example.

Claudia has constantly had to choose between the people she loves, between her family and childhood friends. Never wanting to make that choice: feeling personally responsible for her family’s health and happiness instead of Viren doing that himself. Family may be what drives her, but it can't be the only thing.

Love has been her motivator behind her actions. It was never about power.

Claudia has a lot of potential and it shouldn't only be to further Viren and Soren's character development. What about her? Even though I felt Aaravos’ warning to Viren was unnecessary, since I never saw Viren being honest during the prison scene anyway--the implication of that was if Claudia did learn the truth? She would have turned away from Viren the same way Soren had.

Claudia doesn’t do this because she desperately wants to believe Viren isn’t this person who’s done these horrible things; She goes into denial when Soren reveals the truth of the secret mission to kill the princes because she’s placed Viren on a pedestal. Even her excuse in “Hearts of Cinder” of “maybe he’s just doing what needs to be done” not even she believed that. Claudia’s clinging onto the family she has: the abandonment of her mother isn’t a good excuse for what’s she’s done in S3, and Viren took advantage of that fear. It only took Viren questioning Claudia’s faith in Ezran for her to become silently resigned. Claudia isn’t staying with Viren because she thinks he’s right, she’s staying because he made her believe she can’t trust anyone else. She’s in a vulnerable spot now without Soren.

And Soren is going to have to deal with people openly celebrating his father's death and his sister's disappearance. But I’ll save my thoughts on him for another post. Claudia and Soren need each other and things are going to get worse for her before they get better. She’s not going to accept her father has changed until this pedestal she’s placed him on is broken. Possibly she’ll even escape from him when she gets the chance. S4 should deal with the aftermath of S3, and show us how she’s not handling it well. I don’t think she’s beyond hope. Claudia’s lost right now, not evil.

Aaravos:

Prefacing this with: I know Aaravos is using Viren as a means to an end; I'm not blind to that. The fact that he refers to Viren as his "vessel" and Claudia as an "asset" is so telling in how he views them--not as people, but tools. And likely nothing beyond that.

Aaravos is the type of character you’d introduce in the second to last season, not right there, in the beginning. Yet, Aaravos is our narrator and much more than that: heavily tied to this story’s history; both past and a present we don’t know about yet. There’s a reason the present era is called “The Return of Aaravos.” Is Aaravos an unreliable narrator or is he telling the story from the beginning of what was true at the time, and telling it in a non-linear manner? In the words of Jean-Luc Godard: “A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order.” Is he a friend to humanity? Despite standing with the elves for humanity’s expulsion from Xadia? (x) Does his “special interest” in humans extend to seeing their potential as equals or just a means to an unknown end? 

Aaravos is apparently genuinely “kind, generous, and giving” as informed in this interview with the creators,"he's disliked, that's not the same as bad." But the question of whether he's a Lucifer or Prometheus remains to be seen. And if a Prometheus, was his “gifts to humanity” dark magic? Since Aaravos is the only elf seen thus far using it. I could make a separate post on just Aaravos, but for the sake of this section, it only focuses on his current relationships: The person he mainly interacts with is Viren, who connects Aaravos to the present story. As just one of the many examples of elf and human relationships on the show, they’re both manipulative, self-serving, and form a tentative alliance; only time will tell how lasting it is once Aaravos is free from imprisonment. What his plans are for when he escapes is anyone's guess; he's embittered by imprisonment and seeks vengeance for all who put him there. Punishing their descendants if need be. (Ex: Killing Sunfire elf Queen Khessa, related to Queen Aditi; harming Zym due to the Dragon King and Queen overseeing his imprisonment.)Centuries may not seem long to elves or dragons, (especially so with Startouch elves having the longest lifespans of the elves), but it is a long time to be alone. While I understand he doesn't have to form any attachment to Viren outside of escaping imprisonment, it’s the more interesting route. Aaravos doesn't have anyone else, and their stories are closely intertwined now. But there’s a clear power imbalance in this relationship and Viren is aware of that. Viren is only in this mess for two reasons: his curiosity got the better of him, and he was at a low point, desperate for someone, anyone, to listen to him. The power then given to him by Aaravos only sealed his fate. (Despite this, their interactions were enjoyable to watch; largely due to the amazing voice actors, and the fact their character’s personalities balance each other out.) There's no doubt that Aaravos will continue to manipulate Viren and now by extension, Claudia.

But if Aaravos is this "kind, generous, giving" person, then that needs to be shown through his actions of caring for anyone other than himself; and if Aaravos does grow to care it becomes a conflict of interest. Their dynamics would need to change the moment he cares because boundaries are nonexistent for Aaravos regarding Viren. As for Claudia, she’s going to be wary of him and will sooner blame any changes in Viren on Aaravos, (which is not an unfair assessment), rather than accept Viren changed a long time ago. Aaravos will likely mentor her and their relationship will grow into nothing beyond that of a student and teacher. Viren and Claudia are already skilled in dark magic, Aaravos just knows more due to age and possibly contributing to its creation. Again, this is just what I want to see for these characters: Aaravos is going to be a series-long mystery, but that doesn’t mean he shouldn’t get character development in S4 and to have him grow to care for the people who connect him to the present this alone will prove he's what these interviews claim him to be. Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments whether you agree or disagree? O/

[nadziejastar]

An old headcanon of mine was that during the experiments Xehanort gave both Isa and Lea Keyblade inheritance ceremonies. To explain Lea's Keyblade and Isa's when he inevitably got one. I figured that if he was intending to turn them into vessels being able to wield would make them more useful in the clash. But for some reason in KH3 the Darknesses didn't have to be wielders but the Lights did.

When King Mickey stopped time, Young Xehanort began to move. Since he can control time, was he breaking the King’s spell?

Young Xehanort wasn’t using his own power at that time. The King’s magic was broken because Master Xehanort was assimilating with Young Xehanort. Only “Recusant Sigil” was added by Organization XIII.

It was when the figures started appearing in the thrones.

Indeed. Time was stopped just as Master Xehanort was materializing. So he moved his consciousness to Young Xehanort’s body. Reacting to this, King Mickey exclaimed, “Oh no. Are you…” Young Xehanort was holding a Keyblade that he originally wasn’t able to handle thanks to Master Xehanort’s power. Though the keychain on it is different, the Keyblade he takes out is Master Xehanort’s.

I see. Young Xehanort himself is still on the Destiny Islands and isn’t able to wield a Keyblade yet.

Right. Even when he appeared as an additional boss in Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep Final Mix, he wasn’t using a Keyblade.

Ya know, you raise a good point. But I’m not sure Xehanort would have even needed to perform an inheritance ceremony on his vessels. I think they automatically gain the ability to wield once they share a heart and consciousness with him. Young Xehanort could wield when Master Xehanort transferred his consciousness into him, even when he couldn’t have ordinarily.

But yeah, I had always figured that if you had a strong enough heart to be one of the Seekers of Darkness, you must have a strong enough heart to wield a Keyblade. I think all members of the New Organization XIII had the potential to wield, which is why they were able to be turned into vessels in the first place. (I’m not counting the reserve members who were only there for plot convenience). After all, Nomura said that only a strong heart is necessary, not whether it’s a good or bad heart. I think Isa definitely had the potential if he really was Subject X originally. The whole idea was that they were the sole subject who didn’t collapse.

Xigbar: Figures. If I had a Keyblade, it’d be different.

Sora: Like you’re actually worthy to use one.

Xigbar: Oh, I am worthy.

Sora: Whaddaya mean?

Xigbar: The old coot promised to bequeath me his. Why else do you think I would ever put up with all his nonsense?

Riku: It’d be wasted on you.

Xigbar: As if.

Larxene and Marluxia actually are Keybade wielders from the ancient past (though I personally doubt that was always their backstory). They had something that made them special to Xehanort, along with Luxord. I don’t think Xigbar’s words after he was defeated were originally supposed to have anything to do with Luxu. I think Braig truly knew that he had the potential.

Xigbar: All this altruism is giving me the warm and fuzzies. So the, does having a heart of light come with an extremely good insurance policy?

Sora: Just say what you mean.

Xigbar: Oh, but I did though. No good will ever come from putting other people first.

Herc: I was able to save Meg’s life because I was ready to risk my own.

Xibar: Because you’ve got friends in high places, you mean. Tricks like that don’t fly for your average joe.

Sora: What do you know? You weren’t even there! If you were, you’d admire Herc’s courage.

Xigbar: I don’t admire one guy leaping into danger if it means someone else might have to jump in to save him. You’re all just lining up to lose out. Dooming others to take the fall with ya. Oh, and you can spare me the usual party line. Yes, hearts are powerful when they’re connected. But if you put to much of that power in one place, some of those hearts might end up breaking. Still, Sora, that doesn’t mean you should change. Accept the power you’re given. Find the hearts joined to yours.

It’s the only reason why Braig even stuck around Xehanort, before he got retconned into Luxu. He just needed someone to perform the inheritance rite on him. That’s what his original deal with Xehanort was all about. I think Braig had a strong heart. He was able to retain a sense of self, even as a vessel.

I wonder if he was talking about T/A/V here. I think there was an important reason that Xigbar saw Xion’s face as Ventus. He is connected to Sora, has a heart of light, and is one of the hearts joined to Sora’s. Also after Olympus, Ven’s heart is stirred to save Aqua. She sacrificed herself for Terra.

Sora: I know the Keyblade didn’t choose me, and I don’t care. I’m proud to be a small part of something bigger–the people it did choose. My friends. They are my power!

Xigbar: Those are just words. You’ve lost. Fine. See where your power gets you here. Xemnas! He’s all yours.

Maybe that’s why Xigbar was so rattled by what Sora said here. Braig kinda sold his soul to the devil for power. But Sora was able to gain the ability to wield without having the inheritance ceremony performed on him. It made him feel like he took the dark path for nothing. I think Braig struggled the entire time with feelings of guilt over what he did. Terra, Aqua, and Ven were the first people he actually harmed. So, it makes sense he’d be haunted by Ven’s death glare and kill himself in the end.

Xemnas: However–through weakness of body…weakness of will…or weakness of trust–most of the original members we had chosen for the Organization were inadequate. Thus, naturally, they never had a chance to attain their goal. Yet, even this was to be expected.

Axel didn’t seem to be desirable as a vessel for whatever reason. He wasn’t retrieved like Isa and the others were. It just seemed like Xehanort never took a particular interest in him that way, like he did with Isa. Maybe Demyx, Xaldin, Zexion, Vexen, and Lexaeus didn’t have strong enough hearts in Xemnas’ view. I think Axel was a different case, though. He wasn’t defeated by Sora. He sacrificed himself for Sora. That puts him in a unique position regarding how Xemnas viewed him. And I think Xemnas always viewed Axel differently from the others. Lea had a very strong heart and was very strong mentally. I think Xemnas must have known that. Despite his lack of trust, he was kept around, unlike all the other traitors.

Xemnas: A heart is never lost for good. There may have been variances in our dispositions, but a number of us unquestionably showed signs of a burgeoning replacement. Once born, the heart can also be nurtured. Our experiments creating Heartless were attempts to control the mind, and convince it to renounce its sense of self. But understand, one can banish the heart from the body, but the body will try to replace it the first chance it gets, for as many times as it takes. And so I knew, even after we were divided into Heartless and Nobodies, it was just a temporary separation.

Xemnas was obviously talking about Axel here. He would definitely be the one that would first come to mind with the burgeoning replacement. I think Axel’s arc was entirely based on this idea. He lost his heart, and his relationship with Roxas and Xion was literally filling a huge void. So, Xemnas knew that Axel had a heart and maybe this is why he wasn’t ideal vessel material. He was too strong-willed and had too much sense of self. Vexen, too. I think he had a burgeoning replacement heart. I think Vexen was trying to help Sora before he was eliminated. Being in Castle Oblivion probably brought back memories for him, too. Like how when he was a human he cared about Ienzo more than anything. He felt remorse and tried to warn Sora. But in any case there’s a lot of evidence that Xemnas was fully aware that Axel had a heart.

Saïx: I passed on the message as you so desired. I told the young Sora to keep defeating the Heartless.

Xemnas: Good. Not only have you the power to inflict pain, you also have the power to plant seeds of doubt in one’s receptive heart. Sora will soon begin to doubt himself. It will cause him to hesitate and that hesitation will turn to anger. That anger will fuel him to get rid of his apprehension and move forward. He will pave the way for the future we desire.

Saïx: There’s something I’ve meant to ask.

Xemnas: About Axel? The poor fool. How long will he keep chasing the illusion of friendship, when he himself lacks emotion? Trying so hard to retrieve what he has lost, when it may never have existed in the first place. He deserves nothing more than our pity.

This is a conversation solely between Xemnas and Saïx that was added in KH2FM+. No one else is present. And Xemnas has his hood up, which is kind of a cue for hidden meanings. Not to mention, what purpose did this scene serve if its only meaning was to show that Xemnas thinks Axel is a fool? That’s kind of obvious and doesn’t need its own new scene. Saïx lowered his head when Xemnas said he has the power to plant seeds of doubt in one’s receptive heart. I think Isa’s heart was reacting more now that Axel was gone.

Axel and I talked for a while about the things we can’t bear to lose. Axel thinks that for Nobodies, it’s our pasts, because that’s all we have to remember the pain of losing something.

Another reason I think this scene was about Axel’s relationship with Isa is because Axel was trying to chase an illusion of friendship with him. He was trying so hard to retrieve what he lost, though it never existed in the first place. Saïx is not Isa. Then Roxas and Xion showed up. Even without a heart and emotion (at the time), Axel still longed for friendship. And he chased Roxas so hard after he left because he filled the void of what he lost.

Xaldin: To hold something dear is to let it hold you. His heart is in thrall to it, don’t you see? And that, Roxas, is ample weakness.

Roxas: I’m not sure I follow.

Xaldin: Nor should you. You have no heart to love with. Come. We return.

Xemnas knew that Axel was a great candidate to regrow a heart. And his memories of the past were what he held most dear. I think Xemnas knew what would happen if he was sent to Castle Oblivion. It would awaken his sleeping memories, and nurture his heart. Then he could be used to find Ventus.

Axel: You’re sure things are better this way?

Saïx: I never expected you to question it. If you could save one of them…why would you choose the puppet? Or put it this way. Which would you rather suffer the loss of: some make-believe friendship, or a real one? Things are finally right again. Of course we’re better off this way. Xemnas is exasperated from all the “fixing” we’ve had to do. We have to set things right. There is simply too much on the line…Lea.

My theory is that Xemnas instructed Saïx to have that conversation with Axel.

Axel: But how do you know that? Everybody thinks they’re right…

Xion: This is right.

Axel: They’re gonna destroy you!

Xion: Please don’t hold back, Axel. Promise.

Axel: What’s your problem? You both…think you can do whatever you want. Well, I’m sick of it. Go on, you just keep running. But I’ll always be there to bring you back!

Xemnas was using Axel’s feelings for his own ends. He really was a pawn. Xemnas wanted Xion back because she was preventing Sora from waking up. He really needed her at that point. Saïx knew this. Xemnas knew Axel was already filled with doubt. If Saïx made him doubt even more, then that hesitation would turn to anger. And then he’d be more likely than ever to bring Xion back if she leaves again. It was the same reverse psychology Saïx used on Sora.

Saïx said things are finally right again. And Axel was angry about how everyone thinks they’re right. So, the plan did work. Xemnas was using Axel’s memories of the past and of Isa as a tool to manipulate him. To make him bring Xion back. His desire for friendship played right into Xemnas’ hands. I think Xemnas knew that Axel’s longing for friendship made him far more able to nurture a heart than most others.

Axel waited.

In the shadows of the spaces between, he waited for Sora… For Roxas.

“Traitor,” Saïx had called him. But his betrayal of Organization XIII wasn’t exactly a recent development, Axel thought with a bitter laugh.

Marluxia and Larxene conspired to steal Sora’s memories, trying to take possession of him. No one could predict what Roxas would become, the Nobody created in such an unusual manner, born in the moment when his somebody Sora became something that was not Sora. Well, no—it was possible that Xemnas had some idea. Perhaps Vexen when he tried to tell Sora about Twilight Town and those close to him. Or all six original members of the organization.

The organization could hardly be called that anyway—this ragtag bunch of Nobodies united only by their desire for hearts. It was only natural that conflicts would arise between the newcomers like Marluxia and the six founding members, what with all the quarrels among the half of them posted in Castle Oblivion.

Axel had only acted to keep Sora alive—to keep Roxas alive. But thinking back on it now, maybe all he’d done was to play right into Xemnas’s hands. Agony racked his body. Saïx had dealt him a mortal blow, or close enough.

“Hurry up, Sora…,” he muttered, lifting his face to the nonexistent sky.

Before he died in KH2, Axel suspected that he played into Xemnas’ hands. Xemnas knew that Marluxia and Larxene were traitors. He didn’t want Marluxia and Larxene to gain control of Sora. And neither did Vexen. Xemnas sent Axel to Castle Oblivion as the only person to handle the situation. He apparently knew that since Axel was growing so close to Roxas, he’d side with Sora.

Xemnas: It is clear that through his actions, however foolish they may have been, Axel has touched Sora’s heart. Perhaps HE will soon awaken.

Xemnas even thought that Axel had the power to wake Ventus. Axel faced his demise by trying to help Sora save Kairi. And Xemnas admits that touched Sora’s heart.  I also think Axel’s demise in KH2 was foreshadowing the final battle as well.

“Listen, Kairi! Trust me. I’m going to get you out!”

Behind him, the portal closed.

“What are you saying…? Vile traitor!” The great Claymore took shape at Saïx’s back.

Axel didn’t waste a second grabbing his chakrams. But his body was reluctant somehow.

I don’t want to disappear… But still, it wouldn’t be so bad if I did. Not here.

I don’t think Sora or Xion were supposed to be there originally. Just Lea, Kairi, and Saïx. Even in KH2, Axel would rather disappear than kill his friend. I think the same would have been true in the final battle. Lea would have preferred death over actually killing Isa. He just wanted to save Kairi. Not that he actually could defeat him, though.

Axel let out a deep breath and leaped into the air as flames erupted around them.“…Pathetic!” The Claymore moved to block Axel’s strike, while Saïx himself didn’t even twitch.

This is a pretty overwhelming disadvantage, Axel thought. Well, I knew that before we started fighting. I can’t win against Saïx with my own strength.

Still, he refused to hesitate. He had to force this path open.

He wanted…to find hope—the hope that Sora and Riku had.

Saïx gave him a cruel grin. “You will lose everything!”

And then the Claymore pierced Axel’s chest.

Axel wanted to see Roxas again, but he felt bad about hurting Sora and Kairi. Saïx mortally wounded him while he was trying to save Kairi, and he used the last of his life to atone for what he did. He apologized to Sora for kidnapping her, then died. But he died with sadness and regret. Roxas went back to Sora and he was all alone.

I think it was similar with Lea and Isa’s final battle. Lea and Kairi wanted to rescue Isa, but they were outmatched by Saïx, especially in his Berserk state. I think they were both at their limit and there was nothing they thought they could do to win. Kairi was down. Lea was prepared to die in that moment, protecting Kairi, since things were already hopeless anyway. He didn’t even try to defend himself. He would have died with sadness and regret, just like he did in KH2. But just as soon as the Claymore would have pierced Lea’s chest yet again…Isa stopped. It would have been a victory for Lea’s heart and he would have been extremely happy. But then Xemnas shows up. And Lea is definitely no match for him.

Xigbar: The house is looking pretty empty, huh? I thought I’d get a little enjoyment watching Axel throw one last tantrum, but he went a lot quieter than I thought.

Luxord: Perhaps he was ready for it. Perhaps he put his existence on the line and won what he’d been longing for.

Xigbar: Wait a minute. How would that even be possible? We don’t exist, remember? What you’re saying goes against the laws of nature.

Luxord: Then perhaps he bet his NON-existence. Either way, he came out a winner. Oh, Axel. A grifter to the end.

Saïx: That’s absurd. He won nothing and is nothing. He couldn’t stand the emptiness of being without a heart, and that led to his demise. He was foolish and weak.

Xemnas: But…Weakness has the power to awaken that which is dormant.

But Lea acted differently when Xemnas launched his assault compared to earlier with Isa. Lea was prepared to go more quietly. He looked Isa in the eyes as when he was about to strike. But with Xemnas, he closed his eyes and had his head down. He was just as resigned to his fate in this scene, as he was at the end of KH2. He knew the odds were against him, but took a gamble and came to the battle anyway. He knew he wasn’t a Keyblade master and had little chance of beating Isa in a battle of strength. 

And he definitely didn’t have the strength to defeat Xemnas. But he had proof that Isa’s heart remembered him, and still cared for him. He put his existence on the line and won what he had been longing for. He came out a winner, and was ready for the end. He was foolish and weak. But his weakness had the power to awaken that which was dormant. Though Xemnas wasn’t anticipating it that time, obviously. For that scene, I think Isa’s heart being awakened made more sense and was foreshadowed FAR more than anything else.

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, Ch 22-26 [Epilogue 5]

/So a lot of heavy shit has happened, though worse is yet to come (I’ve been warned of an onscreen sexual assault in chapter 32).

Everyone’s been having babies and funerals! It’s a busy time.

(note: csa mention in chapter 23, though it does not occur in the narrative)

Chapter 22

This is another John-Terezi text convo chapter. There’s been a three-year timeskip. And... it’s raining ghosts now.

So I guess that’s what became of the whole ghosts in the Furthest Ring thing?

We also learn that, on top of the breeding restrictions, trolls are banned from rising beyond certain levels in government. Jane is, we learn, pretty much running the government behind the scenes, because what makes fascist movements tick is one evil person, obviously.

Karkat’s the one with a backbone at least...

JOHN: and karkat...

JOHN: he’s gone completely off the grid!

JOHN: at first we all assumed that the reason he ran away was because he got fed up with his shitty poly relationship.

JOHN: which was probably part of it, honestly. but now i keep seeing his face on all the resistance posters!

JOHN: i think they may have actually put him in charge?

TEREZI: H3H

TEREZI: 1 4LW4YS KN3W H3 H4D 1T 1N H1M

This situation is only exacerbated by the ghosts. So that means characters who were very definitely dead in the main storyline can show up.

Gamzee has been apparently spreading this religion of ‘redemption arcs’ by ‘making out with people’, and doing some kind of milk-based ‘baptism’. John, meanwhile, asks about the ethics of kidnapping baby Tavros from his horrific parents...

We get to bare witness to Gamzee ‘redeeming’ the ghosts of Feferi and Eridan. Which involves Eridan going on about Feferi’s feet and Gamzee mashing their faces together to make them ‘kiss and make up’.

Jane, it seems, is going full Condesce in more ways than one:

Just then, a dark shadow passes over the park. The crowd falls silent as they raise their heads to watch a drone ship pass by overhead. Its design is insect-like, splitting into many jagged branches, each decked out with weapons and cameras. It’s completely silent, and encased in armor with a bright red finish, smooth and seamless. It’s often cited by Jane as the crown jewel of Crockercorp’s various military contracts with the government.

...including literally building her spaceships, and sending them out over the Troll kingdom.

So we’re basically going to have the Holocaust allegory in here I guess? Fucking hell.

chapter 23

We get more words towards Roxy’s steady character dissolution...

It’s not like Roxy had ever been argumentative, exactly. He just seems to remember someone from his youth who was somewhat more contrarian in spirit than this person he’s married to now.

Back when they were dating, John thought she was acting a little off. Not quite in a bad way, but perhaps a little too “in love,” too fast. At least she still seemed like herself most of the time. But since the wedding, every year that goes by, she seems to become just a little more conciliatory. Not just toward him but toward life in general. She indulges Harry Anderson liberally and almost thoughtlessly. She doesn’t care that her best friend is slowly turning into an executive overseeing the corporate arm up the puppet ass of a ruthless dictatorship. She still thinks Gamzee is being sincere about all this “redemption” bullshit, even though he’s been casting an increasingly dark and hungry shadow behind Jane: a malicious royal vizier to her burgeoning imperial persona.

So John’s going to do something, and hopes that it will make things feel ‘real’ again... which is to say obviously what he talked about with Terezi, kidnapping/rescuing Tavros Crocker. Well-intentioned, but... I do not anticipate this going well.

We learn a little such as... Jane’s planning to outlaw human and troll marriage, which would retroactively hit Rose and Kanaya. Which I guess is the final straw for them. (Frankly it should be well past the final straw for all of them. They should all be with Karkat by this point!)

Also Jane and Jake are in ‘auspistice counselling’. We witness a loud row, in front of Tavros...

TAVROS: It’s fine,,, my parents are kismeses after all,,,

like, fuck.......

It’s a birthday party for Harry Anderson (John and Roxy’s kid), and Jane’s gift is, well, a fucking imperial drone!

sometimes I picture V’s gleeful face as we see the next thing she’s got for us... and now you lick the clown’s armpit... jane’s making the Holocaust but for fictional space aliens...

John awkwardly finds an excuse to be alone with Tavros, to convince him to run away. The kid dialogue is convincingly naive.

The possibility of child sexual abuse (by Gamzee) is raised, but it’s made clear this isn’t the case: what ever else Gamzee is in this version, he doesn’t rape children. However, that the situation is overall abusive in just about every other way is more than clear. Tavros, on his part, seems to be very keen to leave once he’s convinced John can escape Jane’s security.

I have a feeling the imperial drone may become relevant again shortly.

Jade, however, witnesses what John’s trying to do. She insists it will just make everything worse... (also Jake has an ‘execution dance off show’ because yeah...)

Whatever weird character corrosion has hit them is finally raised...

JOHN: if there was another way we would have found it by now!!!

JOHN: but there isn’t one, because everyone’s been all... brainwashed by marriage, or whatever the hell happened over the last few years that made things be this way!

JOHN: it’s like everyone just talks past each other all the time!

JADE: john...

JOHN: i’m the only one who ever seems to realize that something...

JOHN: that something’s WRONG!

Tavros sadly can’t get a word in edgewise as they start having a go at each other - John calling out everything that’s wrong, the way Jade forced a relationship on Dave and Karkat, and... and the noise is loud enough that Jane arrives on the scene.

John finally has a go at her with all the latent awfulness that’s been building up to this point. The fascism, the way she’s treated Jake, the Gamzee thing... the narration has put us very much on his side, centred his perspective, but his friends won’t hear it. And his windy powers destroy the room. So that’s something.

John runs away.

Comment: the mostly strict John viewpoint makes me wonder if there’s any degree of unreliable narration. All the same, most of the stuff is pretty undeniable.

chapter 24

This one begins with an interesting exchange:

JADE [alt-Calliope]: the timelines are interacting again.

ARADIA: ooh do you hear anything interesting

SOLLUX: don’t be s0 n0sy aradia.

To me the implication is that a lot of the ‘arrivals’ in this timeline - alt-Calliope in Jade’s body, the ghosts - are as a result of things that might be happening in the Meat story.

Through alt-Calliope’s eyes, we see Terezi and John’s conversation. Terezi is lost, in more ways than one, in the dreaming void searching for Vriska. She’s also experiencing derealisation... John, apparently in a mood for dropping harsh challenges, tells her point blank that Vriska is either dead, or, not worth her time for leaving her in doubt for so long.

alt-Calliope explains that what is at stake is not the destruction of this universe - but those of them here are ‘the lucky ones’, who live ‘beyond the reach of the prince’. She doesn’t bother to explain what is at stake.

Meanwhile, John and Terezi talk depression. There’s some really vital Terezi dialogue here...

JOHN: please. please come home.

TEREZI: TH3N WH4T

JOHN: umm, i dunno.

JOHN: we hang out and stuff?

TEREZI: JOHN YOU ST1LL DONT G3T 1T

TEREZI: 34RTH C 1S *NOT* MY HOM3

JOHN: do you really miss alternia that bad?

TEREZI: 1 D1D FOR 4 LONG T1M3

TEREZI: MOR3 TH4N K4RK4T 4ND K4N4Y4 D1D 4T L34ST

TEREZI: BUT 1 H4V3 NO 1D34 4NYMOR3

TEREZI: 4LT3RN14, VR1SK4, SGRUB

TEREZI: 1M SO CONFUS3D 4BOUT WH4T 1 W4NT

TEREZI: UGH, 1 THOUGHT TH4T NOT K1LL1NG H3R WOULD M4K3 M3 F33L B3TT3R

TEREZI: BUT 1NST34D 1TS L1K3 1 R3TCONN3D 4 HUG3 CHUNK OUT OF MY SOUL

TEREZI: 1 3R4S3D 4N 4CT1ON OF R3GR3T 4ND GR13F...  

TEREZI: 4ND JUST TURN3D 1T 1NTO SOM3TH1NG 1 C4NT STOP CH4S1NG 4FT3R

TEREZI: M4YB3 WH4T 1 D1D W4S N3CESS4RY TO S4V3 3V3RYON3 3LS3

TEREZI: BUT 1T SUR3 D1DNT S4VE M3

oh terezi....

terezi is giving up. she tells john she texted, echoing his words, to ‘give him the courtesy of closure’. and that she’s going to let herself die, alone in the Furthest Ring.

this is the ‘sweet fluffy’ branch huh

chapter 25

finally an update on what’s going on with Karkat!

he’s been somehow appointed ‘Commander’ of the rebellion, with good old Swifer Eggmop as one of his comrades! I’m so glad Swifer is having a role. Karkat is not all that pleased about the successes of his rebellion:

KARKAT: SO FAR ALL THIS “TROLL REBELLION” HAS AMOUNTED TO IS A WHOLE LOT OF DICK ALL, WITH AN ADDITIONAL SIDE SERVING OF JACK SQUAT, FOLLOWED UP BY A FINAL COURSE OF GETTING TO WATCH OUR TOP ANALYST, CLIPER BORDEN, BEING FORCED TO DANCE TO AVOID LIFE IMPRISONMENT IN A LABOR CAMP ON LIVE TELEVISION AND MAKING A COMPLETE ASS OF HIMSELF.

It’s all a weird mix of surreal and grimdark, much like the Alpha kids’ backstory in Homestuck proper. There’s hard labour camps... making cake; a ‘pastry-based shadow dictatorship’.

Rose and Kanaya are at least involved somewhat in the troll rebellion, and transport of the Mother Grub has been arranged.

Anyway, Karkat’s typically grumpy internal monologue is interrupted by the sudden arrival of Meenah from another dimension. A living Meenah - equipped with a Ring of Life. John asks if she got it from Calliope, but Meenah insists she did not. (Possibly she got it from Andrew Hussie himself? I’d have to watch Cascade again probably...)

Meenah, it seems, is fresh from battling Lord English - apparently without success. But her massive army of ghosts arrives with her... and she’s willing for Karkat to take charge and order her around, as long as he does it with a suitably commanderly demeanour. Does this mean the rebellion now stands more of a chance? Meenah is ruthless (she was the Condesce in another life), though capricious... Karkat is honest and direct and angry about the right things, but rather prone to getting lost in it.

Also he still won’t text Dave, and won’t let Rose talk to him about it.

chapter 26

Back to John, who’s thinking about messaging Terezi again - presumably in the hope that she is not, in fact, dead?

He’s getting a good old mope on about the seeming fakeness, non-’canonicity’ of life on Earth C. But after some ‘melodramatic contemplating’ in this vein, he’s interrupted by his dad’s car.

I’m going to be very curious if the Meat route explains how all this stuff got into the Earth C universe.

Unfortunately, what John finds in the car is... not his dad, but a bit of Terezi’s blood. From which he concludes... he’s never going to see her again, there was never even a possibility of it.

Feeling derealisation more than ever, John just screams a lot.

Damn lol, this story is making me care about John Egbert of all people!

epilogue 5

This is the episode where the whole idyll comes crashing down. Things aren’t ok, things weren’t going to be ok, trying to pretend things were ok just made everyone miserable.

I am sufficiently depressed that that rather appeals as a narrative - much more than a ‘happily ever after’ ending. But it’s not over yet.

Hopefully there’s yet hope for the characters I like to find some manner of escape from this latest hell, develop out of the worst selves they’ve built... Roxy, at least, I hope can change, stop being this non-person...

[i-am-the-entertainer]

RevieWBY: Volume 6, Chapter 10, “Stealing from the Elderly”

Yeah, yeah, I’m late. Sue me.

So, this last run of episodes is essentially what’s shaping up to be the official finale arc, so I’m not sure how well I can really judge these on their own. And mind you, I’m writing this after I’ve seen Chapters 11 and 12, so I know how they fit within a larger context, but the purpose of these is to give individual chapters a particular focus. And that’s kind of hard, because these episodes are almost laughably short: it feels as though the finale arc is being stretched across episodes, much like in Volume 5.

But then I remember...the Volume 5′s finale arc was coming off the heels of a lackluster season, the chapters were longer and thus more time was being wasted, the fights that were going on were downright boring and full of problems, too many resources had been pooled into the character shorts so there wasn’t enough time to give the finale the proper attention, etc. etc. With Volume 6 the renewed production pipeline has given us a volume that’s surprisingly kept up its momentum, plus pretty much every fight has been sufficiently exciting. Couple that with some fight scenes that are cool to watch, and a lot of exciting things happening within the 13 minutes and 52 seconds (which includes titles, credits, and the gen:LOCK trailer) of this episode, I think it’s safe to say this finale battle is going to leave me feeling a hell of a lot more satisfied than the Battle of Haven.

So, let’s break down this episode.

Time For A Battle (Did We Ever Doubt It?)

A lot of the more event-based stuff for this part of the chapter is based around setting up for the upcoming battle, with the plan going awry and the reveal of Cordovin’s mech (geez RT, it’s not like you’re doing a mech show already). Let’s be honest: there was never any doubt things were gonna go wrong. They’re leaving for Atlas a couple episodes before the finale, they were not gonna squeeze in another conflict without resolving the Cordovin one.

I mentioned a couple episodes back putting Atlesian personnel in a direct antagonist position to Team QRWBYJNROM was an interesting turn, since the only Atlas rep we really got before Volume 6 were Ironwood and Winter, who were basically the good guys and in direct counterpoint to the negative image Atlas supposedly have. To have Cordovin so unhinged in her belief in the military’s might that she would use a machine designed to attack Grimm on children and an old lady drives home this idea that team RWBY (I’m not gonna bother with that long acronym) may not have friends in Atlas once they get there.

Look, I’m trying to be one of the more positive RWBY critics, but I think it’s fair to say Qrow’s moment in this episode felt a little undeserved. There needed to be an extra scene of Qrow expressing his frustrations about what was going on, it should not have happened right at the start of what’s going to be a major arc for this volume: it feels like they were trying to tidy up his arc before focusing on that. Really, it feels like Qrow’s arc this season is the one where it feels like they set it up for something bigger but didn’t give it enough focus beyond some really good moments, like they fast-forwarded it when they realized they were nearing the end of the volume and needed it cleared out of the way. It would’ve made Ruby’s heroic speeches in this chapter and the last seem more deserved.

I’ve implied this before, but I say clearly: RWBY’s writing isn’t eh because it’s lazy. It’s just rushed. They are attempting to tell a story on a grander scale than what their production time allows. This large cast is better suited for a show that has at least 20 minutes every episode, so every storyline can get enough focus. Instead, and this has happened with pretty much every volume, they realize halfway through that they don’t have enough time to cover every major thread they’ve sewn, and they skip important steps just so they can finish the volume at the point they want it to. I honestly would prefer having longer hiatuses between seasons if it meant everything they try to introduce could get properly addressed.

As for the rest of this section, the humor’s still working well. It’s nice to know they’ve kept up with the consistent balance of humor and drama this volume when it seemed almost sporadic for the last two years. My personal favorite moment was Adrian fake crying. That baby’s got a career in theater in his future.

Cat vs. Bull

Oh, there’s Adam.

My prediction that Adam wasn’t gonna play a major role until these last couple of chapters came true! I’m a genius!

Okay, I’m not. But I will say with regards to Adam: there could’ve been a better buildup to his appearance. This sequence basically confirms that what Blake saw in Chapter 1 was probably not a hallucination and really him, following her and waiting for her to be alone. If that’s what things were building up to, I would’ve included lingering shots or references implying he was following her: like, I dunno, a shot of him hiding among the crowd on the train, Blake sensing him while walking around Argus, Cinder mentioning to Neo that she couldn’t find Adam anywhere...it would’ve built up tension towards Blake v. Adam Round 3.

As for the animation, well, good as always (...nope, couldn’t say that last part with a straight face). Seriously though: this fight with Blake and Adam is really well done. The PvP fights we’ve been getting this volume have so far been really good, and having one with Adam equals a lot of spectacle. It’s clear the animators have a lot of fun animating his fights, as there are some really creative things going on.

Conclusions

I’m sorry to say this again, because this volume has impressed me otherwise, but it feels a lot like we’re gonna get another finale arc that didn’t get the proper buildup. I keep saying this, but they seriously need to consider delaying releasing the volume until after they’ve finished everything. It’s the model that gen:LOCK’s gonna be following, the last thing we need right now is more rushed storytelling. But they have improved on the other things to the point that from a technical standpoint I’d be daring enough to put this volume on the level of Volume 2 (with better animation).

As for this chapter...well, it’s a set-up chapter. I was tempted to wait to watch all four chapters in the finale arc and then put them together, but that wouldn’t be consistent with what I’ve been doing. From a writing standpoint, this had a good mix of humor and drama, but in the context of the entire volume certain arcs felt like they were rushed. I don’t like the return of the cliffhangers that plagued the last couple of chapters of Volume 5, but it’s worth noting that those cliffhangers came at the end of disappointing deliveries of action-–they were short so animators would have time to work on them, but it wasn’t enough time for those episodes to be anywhere near as epic as they needed to be––all the work seemed to be focused around the Maiden battle, and that’s not even in the final episode. At least with this set of episodes it seems there’s enough action going on and they had enough time to work on them that they feel satisfying. That holiday break probably did wonders for these chapters.

So yeah. I think I’ll focus my energy on reviewing these as a whole when I do a full-volume review.

By the way...if you’ve been following my thoughts all season, how would you feel if I made my full-volume RevieWBY an actual video?

[windrocklibrary]

Galemont Talks About: Things That I Recall From E3 Conference (now that they’re over)

These are a collection of things that I mainly remembered the most in regards of the 2018 E3 Conference and my thoughts on it. They’re all a combination of things that I both like and not really like. Either way, all of these are my own opinions and spins on it.

Disclaimer Note #1: Yes, I like video games. No, I don’t/can’t play them or rather to an extent that I can play MAJORITY or ALL of them. Why? Because I’m poor -- so I might as well revel around other people’s emotions and mine (makes me sound like a vampire or something).

Disclaimer Note #2: I won’t include the sideshows or extras (e.g. Nintendo Treehouse). I am going to state things based on the things that are presented at the conferences.

ELECTRONIC ARTS (EA)

Frankly not the most memorable for me. They mentioned not much from EA other than sports games like Fifa, NFL, and NBA (ones I remembered at least), Battlefield V, Command & Conquer Rivals, and Anthem to name a few.

I kind of like how the folks at EA are somewhat self-aware on what they’re doing when talking about Battlefield V, stating that they want to depict their own image of WWII; though that’ll probably start a conversation for some folks I can imagine. It’s a bit of a downer for me considering that people are applauding at the information that there won’t be any lootboxes. Whether or not this will be true is beyond me.

Anthem looks interesting, to say the least. Though it’s such a shame that they didn’t mention, let alone, showed much. So with that being said I can’t say anything and even be very excited about it. We’ll see how it’ll go.

MICROSOFT STUDIOS

Lot’s of games. They showed off first party games like Halo: Infinite, Gears 5, and Forza Horizon 4. Ori and the Will of the Wisp was pretty neat and made me somewhat interested in trying out the Ori series.

The reveal of Devil May Cry 5 and Jump Force was very wild! The rumors that I often hear regarding DMC5 since last years Game Awards were very enticing, it was very cool to see it actually be true on E3.

Seeing Jump Force was surreal, especially when you’re watching Naruto, Goku, Luffy, and Frieza beating up each other in a hyper-realistic depiction of New York City’s Time Square; the shot of Ryuk and Light from Death Note is pretty wild too--would love to see what other Shounen Jump characters to be revealed there.

The trailer for Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice looks very slick, kind of expecting it to be shown here especially after the teaser during the Game Awards.

The Amazing Adventures of Captain Spirit looks charming; a story that sets in the same universe of Life is Strange makes it interesting in my book. The game’s also free.

I’m super glad that Studio MDHR is making an expansion for Cuphead! It has always been a dream of mine to for Cuphead to have an expansion of some sort and I’m actually really excited that it’s real! They even made Ms. Chalice a playable character so that’s cool!

The game Cyberpunk 2077 was almost thought to be a myth until now. It’s essentially one of those games where you heard it and you’ll never know when the game will actually be released or revealed again; so seeing it back up again is pretty cool especially with their own flares for an introduction. Hopefully, it won’t go off into dark again.

BETHESDA

What’s the deal with that big dude during the Rage 2 presentation? He was like silent for a straight 15 seconds or something, some said that maybe his prompter bugged out? Who knows. Most of the presentations there were a little awkward, though it’s probably because most of them aren’t exactly used to standing in front of a big crowd or something.

Speaking of awkward, the Andrew W.K. live performance was whacked. He didn’t sound good there if I have to be honest, I don’t think most of the audience were jazzed about it too.

Wolfenstein: Youngblood was interesting, DOOM: Eternal caught me by surprise. Most of the other games shown there were interesting but didn’t really move me a lot.

Frankly speaking though despite the often awkwardness, there were some funny moments as well. Todd Howard’s presentation was a fun one to me; he was very self-aware of the jokes that went all over about him. I’m glad that Fallout 76 was expanded more in this conference because it was showed on Microsoft’s; it’s going to be an online multiplayer experience but apparently, it’s pretty divisive among folks, I personally think it’s neat--the nukes, however, is probably going to be a little sketchy in my opinion.

They also announced Elder Scrolls VI. Well, I say announced, it’s basically a tease; then it’s over.

DEVOLVER DIGITAL

Same thing they did last year: a satirical shitshow that makes fun of the conferences. It’s pretty fun, but admittedly I kind of got bored with it and I just want to see games more than them losing their minds. I say that because most of the jokes they do are basically beating on the same old topics that have been talked by folks for so long. Their conference is basically a self-contained story-arc, this one being the continuation of the previous one and I’m sure they’ll probably continue it next year.

They did show some games. 3 I believe. A battle royale shooter (I think?) called SCUM, a frenetic and comical platform shooter called My Friend Pedro (the one I’m most interested), and something called Meta Wolf Chaos XD which is a remaster of the cult favorite FromSoftware game of the same name. I’ll probably need to look it up on that more, looks fun.

SQUARE ENIX

Not really intrigued with it to be perfectly honest. Some of the things that they showed there have already been shown during the Microsoft conference (Kingdom Hearts 3, Just Cause 4, and Shadow of The Tomb Raider). While they did somewhat expand on it a bit, it kind of lost the impact that I think it could’ve had.

They announced an expansion of sort for Final Fantasy XIV Online along with a crossover with Monster Hunter World, showed Dragon Quest XI, and a new title called Babylon’s Fall by Platinum Games that is basically a teaser. Speaking of teasers, they also teased another new title called The Quiet Man; which admittedly has the strangest trailer.

Somewhat disappointed that they didn’t show anything about Final Fantasy VII Remake. It’s been so long since they announced it and showed a gameplay footage of it. Hopefully, they’re doing alright because the longer it goes on like this, it might become stale.

UBISOFT

The things that they showed there feels rather unsurprising because I kind of expected the things that they would do at the conference.

Kind of happy that they showed their new Just Dance game as their first thing, that way they cut the fluff and make the rest of the show focus on larger titles. There’s also a dude who tripped himself into a television.

Beyond Good and Evil 2 showed a new cinematic trailer, featuring Jade--but evil or something. The presenters said they want to show a gameplay footage but they showed very little. Joseph Gordon Levitt popped in and talked about putting people’s creative work into Beyond Good and Evil 2 (at least, that’s what I recalled)--didn’t really go into details on the incentives though.

For Honor got a new update featuring Chinese warriors into the mix, and they’re making the game available for free to grab for a limited time until June-18-2018.

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 was showed again but explained a little more there, it looked interesting despite feeling like another generic rpg shooter. It looked interesting, they mention how they’ll do season updates throughout the year for free and I thought that’s cool. I do hope they’ll do well on this one.

Starlink: Battle for Atlas was showed a bit more again there and good golly they made a surprise with Star Fox crashing the scene, especially making Fox McCloud being playable with his Arwing. Pretty slick. Yves Guillemot even made a surprise by giving Shigeru Miyamoto a gift and I thought that was adorable.

The DLC for Mario+Rabbids Kingdom Battle that features Donkey Kong was shown there, looks neat but didn’t show much, it was explained in further details during the Nintendo Treehouse though.

Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey was announced there and it’s surprising to me considering that Origins was out since last year. It looks pretty I’ll say that much. You can also play between two characters in the game: Alexios and Kassandra. It also looks like they’re making the game very action rpg-esque, kind of like Origins.

PC GAMING SHOW

This flipping conference went on for WAY too long. 2 hours for crying out loud! I also fell asleep halfway through or something because many of the things they showed there weren’t fascinating to me.

Satisfactory won the award for the punniest game title.

Lot’s of SEGA games are coming to PC, ones that caught my attention being Shenmue I & II and Yakuza Kiwami and Yakuza 0.

 Untitled Publisher, a publisher that’s new to me announced 3 new indie games--2 of which I found the most interesting: Bravery Network Online and Overwhelm.

The game Maneater is basically a game about you being a shark and I have an iffy feeling it’ll shed a bad light on sharks for the public (I hope not).

Took so long for them to show Ooblets, a game that I’m very excited for, showed a new trailer though it showed some things. Wished there was more though.

SONY

The conference kicks out with The Last of Us: Part 2. Ellie is pissed as hell and I have no idea why and I’m scared. She also kissed a girl so that’s something. It kind of caught me off guard because I didn’t follow the previous game and its DLCs, so the whole information of Ellie being a lesbian is pretty new.

Resident Evil 2 Remake is revealed and it looks slick. The fact that Capcom released and announced games lately that actually looked cool as heck is wild. Hope it goes well for them in this one as well as DMC5!

This year’s E3 Conference showed off not one, but THREE samurai games; two of which were shown off in Sony’s conference: Ghost of Tsushima and Nioh 2. Not complaining, they all look slick.

Kingdom Hearts 3 also appeared in this year’s E3 Conference not once, but THREE times as well at different conferences. I should’ve mentioned before that every trailer did show something different, with the one in Sony having the most difference. It looks like Kingdom Hearts 3 is going to have Ratatouille and Pirates of the Carribean joining in.

I remember wanting to see more of Death Stranding and know what the heck the game’s about, and they showed some gameplay footage during the presentation. Still have no clue what it’s going to be about though.

There’s a weird looking game called Control, something to do about a girl with a gun who has telekinesis. Looks minimalistic and clean; it might be good too.

Spiderman features a handful of villains beating up on Spidey in the end. It’s a gameplay footage and oddly I don’t feel that intrigued by the trailer for some reason.

NINTENDO

Surprisingly not a lot of big games were announced on Nintendo Direct. I’ll say it here and now that the majority of the Nintendo Direct is mainly for the new Super Smash Bros. Aptly named as Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Needless to say, a lot of people were happy and so was I; though I’m surprised and mildly sad they didn’t show anything about Metroid Prime 4.

The first thing they showed was a mech game called Daemon X Machina. I first thought it was Armored Core, but the surprising part is I somewhat half-correct. The game was actually made by the same people who made Armored Core! Pretty funny to me considering that the design of the mechs in Daemon X Machina and Armored Core looked very similar. The trailer was wicked sick too so I’m sold.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 got a new DLC called Torna: The Golden Country that is available this September, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses is also announced to come out next year. So I’m sure the fans of those series would be very excited.

Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu & Eevee got a small spotlight there, but it’s mostly on the accessory Pokeball Plus. Turns out, every Pokeball Plus comes with a Mew for free inside; which to me is basically a way to make people want to buy the accessory then (that’s marketing ploy right there). This is interesting to me because it reminds me of the message in the last Let’s Go trailer that mentioned: “you’ll meet a special Pokemon”. This could either mean Mew or something else. So we’ll see.

Fortnite is on Switch, not a surprising thing to me and I think it’s good for the game and the devs who made it. I personally think Epic Games deserve the success with their game in my opinion.

Overcooked 2 is coming soon and now features online co-op which is great! Killer Queen Black looks interesting and my personal favorite Hollow Knight is finally out the day the Direct was on! If you’re into metroidvanias I highly recommend Hollow Knight very easily--the game is generally worth having as well in my opinion.

Super Mario Party was also revealed and I’m genuinely happy; it would feel weird for a Nintendo console to not have a Mario Party game. It also has a Goombah as a playable character there too!

The Direct also bust out a montage of games; the ones that caught my attention were Dragon Ball FighterZ, The World Ends With You, Splatoon 2 Octo-Expansion, Wastelands 2 Directors Cut, Megaman 11, Paladins: Champions of the Realm, Arena of Valor, and Ninjala.

Now for the big one. Super Smash Bros Ultimate. The announcement was great and crazy long, and you can definitely tell that Masahiro Sakurai and the devs were busy when they made this game. It’s essentially a port of the Wii U, but it’s brand new and it adds so many things it might as well be a new game. The game’s biggest feature is the fact that they’re having ALL of the characters throughout the history of Smash Bros. ever; being someone who got introduced to the series since Brawl, seeing Snake and many other old characters was super cool.

They also showed off new characters as well. Princess Daisy is finally in Smash and that was very exciting to me; she’s treated as something called Echo Fighters, which is a fancy term of a character that is a clone but with some variations (other Echo Fighters being Lucina and Dark Pit). They showcased Inkling and what they can do, and in the end, they announced Ridley from Metroid.

END

And thus concludes the many things I found interesting in 2018 E3 Conference. I think this year’s E3 Conference has been rather modest as so many of the games are mainly coming out next year--and these are the ones that are meteoric as well. As to who won E3, well that’s beyond me, especially considering all the factors on what makes someone win E3. If you’re talking about the number of games revealed, I’d say Microsoft. If regarding the games released in 2018, I’d say Nintendo. Either way, I just want to see great games that are fun for people to play with. If the anyone can have a good time and be genuinely happy with a game; then that’s a win in my book.

[oscar-isaacs-number-one-bitch]

“Justice League” Movie Review

Justice League is the 5th film in the current DC Extended Universe, and the direct sequel to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. It is first time we get to see all our favorite DC superheroes on screen together. Batman, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, The Flash, Cyborg – they’re all here, and things are not looking up for the world at large. With Superman gone, hope is far from prevalent, and fear and acts of terror are on the rise. But when Steppenwolf, a doom-bringer from another world, begins to exact his devastating plan on earth, bringing a race of parademons to attack those on whom they can smell fear, the world will need a team of warriors to band together and put aside their differences in order to stop him, and bring justice for all.

This movie had a lot riding on its shoulders. For starters, it’s the story sequel to Batman v Superman, which was not only one of the worst films of last year, but one of probably the top 10 worst superhero films ever made. But it also directly follows Wonder Woman, one of the best, and easily the biggest, films of this year so far. To top all of that off, production on the film was an absolute nightmare scene, not in the sense that it was always going to be a bad movie or not, but there was just so much that happened to it between the pre and post-production process, it was hard to imagine what kind of film it would end up being at all. After director Zack Snyder tragically lost his daughter to suicide and had to step away from the project in early March, Joss Whedon (director of the first two Avengers flicks) stepped in to help finish the project, and based on the two artists’ wildly differing styles, people wondered if the film would feel too jumbled, as if torn between two visions. How is the movie? Well, to put it plainly, it’s just fun.

Let’s begin with the positives, as I always do: this is a fun ride to take with this team. After the dreariness of Batman v Superman soured most people to the idea of the DCEU, Justice League would have to give them a sense that the idea could still work, provided some things were shifted around and they like the chemistry of the league itself. And for my money, the chemistry is absolutely there. Sure, it could use a little more work, and truth be told Cyborg is the only one who really gets any true, at-length character development, but when these characters are all on screen together, their individual personalities jive well off of each other without having to compromise the distinct uniqueness of any one member. Each individual member gets a chance to shine, and none overpower the others in terms of screen presence enough to make the audience feel as if this film is owned by any one character. 

Bruce and Diana make a great duo with solid chemistry, both on the recruiting path, and both aware of the horrors to come if they don’t succeed in bringing these people together, with Ben Affleck and Gal Gadot still inhabiting these characters better than most others before them have. Ezra Miller’s Flash is actually quite a fun character to interact with, providing most of the quips and the comic relief, but not in a way that feels too childish or annoying enough to beg for DC to just bring Grant Gustin into the mix. Going into it, I thought Cyborg might be the weak link since we never got to see any promotion for his character really outside of this film, but truth be told, although it wasn’t a particularly “stand out” performance, Victor’s development ends up being one of the more memorable and well-handled plot points throughout the film overall. And this brings us, of course, to Superman (honestly if you really thought they would have a Justice League film without Superman, I don’t know what to tell you). How does the movie handle the man of steel this time around? Well, that S on his chest may actually yield some hope for the horizon yet.

Anyone who’s known me for any meaningful length of time knows that I am a humungous Superman fan. If anyone ever asks who my favorite superhero is, he is always the answer. Superman: The Movie was the first superhero film I ever saw and I’ve loved this character and everything about him ever since. Anyone who’s known me for any length of time knows I also have very strong feelings about how the character should be handled, and that I believe the DCEU thus far has done that fairly poorly. However, in this incarnation, we finally get to see Henry Cavill show us a little bit of that brilliant, classical charisma he brought to Man from U.N.C.L.E., and give us easily the best Superman of the DCEU thus far. He cracks jokes, he smiles (imagine that), and once he actually gets to work with the team, one feels as if everything has finally come together the way it should for these heroes…for the most part.

And this brings us into the negatives of the film (and, as a preface: although there are plenty of them, they don’t hold enough combined weight, at least not to me, to bring the movie down from being enjoyable). Ironically, the guy they spent most of the marketing money on, Aquaman, actually ends up with the least compelling character and story arc in the whole movie. Don’t get me wrong, Jason Momoa fits the reincarnation of the character like a glove, and he’s entertaining to watch, but they just never give him anything to do besides shout one-liners, throw a spear, and stand there looking like Mr. Macho Cool Man. His solo movie is just a little over a year away, so I expect we’ll definitely get a good bit more development there (it is James Wan behind the camera after all), but still one can’t help but feel that the foundation laid here is lacking the necessary gravity to care what happens to him beyond there being a missing team member if he gets taken out.

The film also suffers by way of its villain, but not in the way that most Marvel films or even Wonder Woman did. Steppenwolf isn’t just an underdeveloped villain; he’s not compelling in really any way at all. While it’s fun to see the heroes take him down, he provides no real threat that one is ever unsure the heroes will defeat. His plan, his backstory, and his development is all generic, C-level stuff, and that’s not to mention he sounds like the guy who voices Optimus Prime in the Transformers films. Every time he was on screen, all I was interested in was getting back to the heroes and what they were doing. I only ever cared about his character insofar as he moved the plot forward, but given the weakness of the plot itself, I found myself unable to truly invest in whatever he was doing. There’s nothing to his character beyond wanting to destroy the world, and as reliable of a thing that may be for heroes to fight against, the lack of a memorable why behind that destruction gives the film no real stakes to overcome.

Warner Bros. had a mandate for the production team behind this picture that it could not exceed a 2 hour run-time, and while I understand the need not to make films overlong for the sake of not winding out an audience, I believe it ultimately hurts the film’s narrative flow. The first act has to cover a lot of ground very quickly with establishing each of these characters individually, and so the film does feel rushed in a number of spots. There are also some visual effects and editing mistakes that I thought could have been cleaned up, and a couple of scenes where the green screen and CG from re-shoots is simply way too obvious to ignore (although the CG of Cyborg and Henry Cavill’s mustache didn’t bother me as much as it might some people). At times the film does feel as if it’s torn between two different visions, and while that can be a tad jarring, it ultimately doesn’t deter from the narrative enough to make it incohesive.

Overall, Justice League is a good time – to a fault, but still a good time. It doesn’t carry any real weight and doesn’t have much gravity in terms of its far-reaching implications for the rest of the DCEU, but that’s okay for now. It’s average, but it’s a fun average, and that’s what really needed to work to give this universe the push and the hope it needs to continue. While the villain is incredibly generic, and the plot is noticeably weak, with a few plot holes popping up here and there, the chemistry between these heroes is undeniably there, and I look forward to seeing them again. Oh, and there are two credits sequences (mid and post), so be sure to stick around for both of those too. My overall verdict: see it, but at a discounted price, like a matinee or early bird showtime.

I’m giving “Justice League” a 7.2/10.