#been shipping them since 2016 and they better be first let me tell you

[famouscyclenerd]

Anyways... I'm looking forward to reading about elucien and gwynriel.

[penny-anna]

Just thought I’d let you know that your onslaught of Back to the Future content inspired me to rewatch the movies this weekend, which was such a delight :)

Do you have any fic recs, by any chance?

ah glad to hear it!

*rubs hands together*ohoho let's see what i got here

Like Water Flowing Underground by Kleenexwoman

Marty struggles to fit in with his new reality, but is any other world a better fit?

i read this one back in 2015 and come back to it every so often. just beautifully done.

Becoming Marty by butchcassidy

Scenes and glimpses from Marty's childhood and how he came to be Marty.

obligatory trans marty rec!!

Time is a Wave and a Particle by Kleenexwoman

Another one of those "Marty has trouble dealing with living in an alternate universe" fics.

heavy content warning for mental illness & specifically psychosis on this one!!

beautifully written, absolutely gutwrenching, this one is gonna haunt me ):

Alternates by Wildgoosery

Marty's life isn't at all like how he left it.

i eat up post-canon 'marty deals w being in a new timeline' fics like candy nom nom nom

wish someone would tell me who to be (ready to try anything) by Adanska

(“Fashion cycle,” Doc had explained, looking more ‘50s than anything else. “The Eighties just came back around in a big way for kids your age, you shouldn’t stick out too much—people will just think you’re hipsters.” “What, like the pants?” “No, a nostalgia-obsessed movement—ah, nevermind.”)

lesbian marty & jennifer visiting Actual 2015 its great give this one a read!!

we can't live in the present forever by ideal_girl (trainwreckdress)

Marty wonders if Doc has the same problem; histories overlapping, memories colliding in the space of a single, shared moment. He hopes not.

a 'marty deals with having 2 contradictory sets of memories' story

Inevitable by nbfutureboy

It's a bizarre twist of fate. When they’d found out they’d been expecting twin boys, Jennifer had suggested, sensible and sweet, that they pick out two new names. No comparisons to the kids of the first 2015 - they could be their own people, without having to compete with a future memory. 

very sweet fic about trans marlene mcfly!!

The Man in the Box by makesureyouwashyourhands

People said the strangest things about the McFlys. They said that Marty McFly went to bed one night and woke up a different person. Or, the two Martys: how they differ, and how they're the same.

*throws another post-canon new timeline fic at you*

The Human Body Is Incredibly Faulty by ThePhenomenalStingray

Written for the ask, "For that headcannon prompt, Doc is a complete mother hen mess when Marty’s hurt".

cute!! <3<3<3<3

First Impressions by Kristen Sheley

To say that he had been surprised when the kid had showed up that evening at his doorstep was an understatement. He hadn’t ever imagined anything so fantastic, and his was a mind that had visualized a lot of unrealistic and fantastic things! But a seventeen-year-old time traveler from the future was never one of them. Equally surprising to him was that this kid was apparently a friend of his. What a sixty-five-year-old was doing hanging out with someone so young, Emmett could only wonder. Maybe Marty was a student of his, from the University.

an oldie but a goodie!! absolutely banging bit of missing scene work from the first film w doc & marty adjusting to each other in 1955

The Longest Odds by leaper182

Marty McFly just had two more years to go before he could start thinking about the future.

But then the odds shifted, and the only future he has to think about now is whether he'll make it home alive.

wip not updated since 2016. not a whole lot of this one as it looks like it didn't really get off the ground but the central concept (tribute marty + former victor mentor doc brown) is just gutwrenching and im going to be rotating it in my brain forever!! ETA: totally failed to clock the ship tag on this one oops!! its tagged doc/marty but i don't remember anything shippy happening in the chapters posted. read at your own risk ig.

that's all for now!! i got more stuff in my to-read so stay tuned hopefully!!!

[strawberry--bride]

To admin

can I ask a question ? I hope this question of mine doesn't upset you because I don't intend to do so, I'm just asking out of curiosity. What's the reason why you make OC for ship boys when they all love Yui and have a girlfriend. Please don't get me wrong, I don't have a problem with OC, by the way, I like all of them, but I want to know what is the purpose of this work. I've heard before that people make Oc to almost mirror their own personality with boys because not everyone is like Yui, but I see people like you make a character with the most similarity to Yui and instead of Yui, you ship her with your favorite boy. What's wrong with Yui shipping with Subaru? Because the character of both is similar. Is it because you hate Yui? Because your OC is exactly like Yui.And when I see that these two characters have so many similarities, but you even left your old favorite ship, Subaru and Yui, because of your OC, it makes me wonder what is the reason? Have you hated Yui like other people? Or is it just jealousy? Or maybe you don't want to see your favorite boy with someone, but as far as I know, your OC is different even with your own personality . Please let me tell you I don't mean to upset you . I'm just curious.

// Before answering this question, there's one thing I have to clarify for those who haven't been around on my blog long enough to hear me mention this in the past.

Sharon was not created to be a DL OC. I created Sharon way back in 2016 when I was in the Mystic Messenger community. Heck, I don't think I had even heard of Diabolik Lovers at this point. I picked up the game in 2017, didn't like it at first, banned it to the back of my shelf for 2-3 years and then picked it back up in 2019 for a second time and got hooked.

So the similarities Sharon bears with Yui in terms of personality and general demeanor do not stem from me wanting to 'replace' Yui with my own character, since Sharon had already been established and possessed these character traits long before I even knew Yui exists as a character.

I definitely will not deny that the two of them do share a lot of core personality traits such as kindness, compassion and patience. However, there are differences between the two as well. Sharon has deep-rooted feelings of self-hatred due to her blaming herself for her own parents' death. She tries to cover these dark feelings by being kind to those around her, but this raises the question whether her feelings are actually sincere or whether she's simply trying to make herself feel better. Yui may not be the most confident girl either, but she doesn't struggle with her self-image nearly as much as Sharon does.

This raises a second point, their backstory is different. Yui is a human with Cordelia's heart which makes her 'Eve'. Sharon is not 'Eve' and will never be. She was born from a human dad who hailed from a family of Vampire hunters and a mother with Vampire descendent (although not a Pureblood). Because the human genes are bigger in proportion, her Vampire nature has so far been suppressed and in the current timeline, she still believes herself to be 100% human.

Her parents reflect the concept of 'forbidden love', since her father was raised to condemn Vampires and see them as nothing but bloodthirsty monsters. However, they were able to overcome their differences, found love and even created new life. This is why Sharon's birth name is 'Nozomi', written with the character for 'hope'. She was their literally hope that one day, humans and Vampire would be able to co-exist in peace.

Now for the shipping part. The first boy I shipped with Sharon was Shuu, based on in-character interactions which took place on this blog. I still think the two of them match well together, bearing similar traumas in having lost someone incredibly dear to them and blaming themselves for their deaths. (Sharon's parents & Edgar respectively).

However, with Subaru being my favorite boy, I genuinely enjoy pairing my OC with him and drawing art of them. That being said, I do think their personalities match well. This is also where there is a key different with SubaYui. I do like Subaru x Yui as a ship even to this day but often times it feels very one-sided in regards to what they do for each other. Subaru is completely relient on Yui as she was the first person to show him genuine love and affection (which he never got from his mother).

I imagine the Subaron dynamic/development to be much more of a rocky road since Sharon is not nearly as mentally stable as Yui is. She struggles with similar issues to Subaru and just like it frustrates her how he calls himself a monster, he also grows agitated by how she will hide her true feelings behind a smile. This is actually what made Sharon fall for him in the first place. He didn't just welcome her kindness with open arms and abuse it, he actually got mad and called her out on her hypocricy. This is what eventually made her realize that she had to stop acting kind as a mere coping mechanism to mask her own pain.

I probably rambled on for way too long already but to summarize my response:

Do I hate Yui/Am I jealous of Yui? -> Nope! I love Yui. I have her as my avatar on my translation blog for a reason.

Do I simply not want to see my favorite boy with someone else? No. As you already pointed out, I don't see Sharon as 'me'. I wouldn't date any of the DL boys myself, honestly! Way too much drama!

What is the purpose of my OC? A personal passion project and comfort character. Sharon exists for me and not to please anyone else. If you don't like her, then don't follow this blog, it's as easy as that. I don't have to justify my character or my ships to anyone as long as I get a personal sense of enjoyment out of it.

[kishimotomasashi]

Sasuke

Send me a character and I'll tell you:

First impression:

I first met him through a Naruto game on the nintendo DS my friend let me borrow and so my first impression was entirely related to his abilities in the game. Which I thought were pretty lame. It was Naruto Ninja Destiny, I believe. So I wasn't really interested in him at all I just vaguely knew he "turned evil" because I saw him in the Akatsuki cloak and I was like "oh, his evil older brother corrupted him? that sucks"

Impression now:

My baby boy forever. I will see characters come and go and will have many phases but Sasuke will always have a special space in my heart.

Favorite moment:

I think the entire moment where he's speaking to the Hokage he made Orochimaru revive. Not only because it was such a great moment of character growth for him, a decision he made without like 3 awful adults manipulating him into it at once, but because it was honestly kind of funny, too. Imagine going up to the God of all Shinobi and saying "btw, my brother is better than you". Sasuke physically cannot stay three minutes around an adult without disrespecting them.

Idea for a story:

One day I'll write that Team Taka character exploration longfic and then it'll be over for you bitches.

Unpopular opinion:

It's twenty twenty TWO put the anti-Konoha/Sasuke-was-right essays down. We get it. Everyone gets it. Most people agree. I agree. I don't need to see the same 5 posts I've been seeing since I logged onto this website in 2016 anymore, talk about something else oh my GOD.

Same goes for the fucking shipping discourse, everyone stop arguing about sasunarusasusakunaruhina or whatever and join me into SasuGaa and PolyTaka nation

Favorite relationship:

I guess still his relationship with Itachi? I'm soft for their childhood flashbacks but I also like exploring Sasuke's feelings on him after he learns the truth about him + after their final moments together. Meaning it depresses me to think about it and apparently I can't get enough of Sasuke angst. It's just a really fucked up sort of attachment and I'd like to imagine how he ends up dealing with it and growing out of it so it doesn't hurt him anymore :(

Favorite headcanon:

I have two faves:

1- Sasuke used his sharingan to study theory while under Orochimaru in order to memorize things more quickly + to train himself to get used to using his sharingan at the same time. So now he knows a lot of random trivia that is basically useless to him by heart. It only serves him when once in a blue moon he hears someone say a fact about one of the very specific topics he knows about and he's able to tell them that they're wrong.

2- Sasuke does not listen to rock/punk/metal or any of the genres people say he does because of the emo stereotype. Everyone else on Team 7, however, does.

[heavensenthearty]

I read the post you reblogged about Zutara and colonization and about what happens in your country and wanted to let you know I am sorry you are treated that way in your country. You deserve running water, electricity, steady supply of necessities, etc. People have no right to judge you.

TW // Starvation, torture, slavery, death, child death, genocide, graphic depictions of violence, blood, rape

*inhales deeply*

*exhales*

First of all, anon, I want you to know (ironic as it is) that this post isn't directed to you. You're wonderful, and I appreciate you and your message. I'm just tired.

Tired of privileged people telling others in third-world countries how we should feel about certain stuff, how we should act, what we should think, how much more than us they know about our own countries and languages tweeting from their fancy phones with their comfy Wi-Fi in their houses with actual furniture. And don't even give me that crap about minimum wage because everything is better than this:

This is Venezuela. This is what I see when I go out in my city only for people on the internet to tell me I'm an imperialism apologist.

What are their basis again?

Oh, that's right, I ship prince and a "peasant" in a fictional story.

Everybody is so obsessed with oppression these days, huh? Well, I've have had it with their pearl-clutching takes. Let me show them how oppression really looks like, but before we start, I just want to say I'm sorry you have to see this...

So, like I said before, according to anti Zutaras in the ATLA fandom, I deserve everything that I said about being provided with 6 hours of electricity per day, dirty water and rotten food just because I ship Zutara.

Well, lo and behold. Isn't that implying that my neighbors that don't even watch ATLA and their 7-yo children whose ribs I can discern beneath their clothes and from the other side of the street due to their malnourishment also deserve it?

Or the families that have died because they had to eat frogs they hunted themselves because that's how starved they were?

Or these kids that have to "work" finding things with value in dumpsters just to earn something to eat?

Or the people that only gets three (3) hours of electricity a day? Or the ones that haven't have electricity period (or water for that matter) ever since 2016?

The babies that have died because of the heat?

(Guys, Venezuela has an average climate of 92°, thermic sensation 104°.) (We can suffer heat strokes while inside our houses with no energy to supply temperature conditioning equipment.)

Or that the people that has been tortured in prison like this girl deserve it?

That she deserves it? ⬇️

I live... fucking here... and I ship Zutara.

THIS. IS. SO. RIDICULOUS!!

For real?! People are calling me a racist?! An imperialist?! A colonizer?! SAYING THAT I FUCKING LIKE BEING OPPRESSED WHEN I COME FROM THE COUNTRY WHERE EVERY GIRL THAT WENT TO PROTEST IN 2016 WAS RAPED AND THE MEN WERE KILLED IN PRISON?!

EVERY. SINGLE. TIME THEY SAY THAT I'M REMINDED THERE'S A PRETTY GOOD CHANCE I STILL GET RAPED IN HERE AND LATIN AMERICA OVERALL BECAUSE EVERY COUNTRY IN THIS SIDE OF THE CONTINENT IS DEAD-SET IN RAPING VENEZUELAN WOMEN!! THERE'S A PRETTY GOOD CHANCE ONE DAY THE ELECTRIC SYSTEM IN THIS MANHOLE OF A COUNTRY GOES DOWN FOR GOOD!! THERE'S A PRETTY GOOD CHANCE OUR ENTIRE NATURAL LIFE ENDS UP LIKE THIS!! ⬇️

SO MOTHERFUCKING WHAT IF SHIPPING TWO CHARACTERS MAKES ME FORGET ME AND ALL MY FAMILY COULD END UP DEAD TOMORROW AND NOBODY WOULD CARE?!

I know Twitter doesn't gives a shit about minorities or POCs and I'm on my right to be angry at the fact the only thing they do care is putting themselves on pedestals for dictating what's wrong and what's right! Oh, look the guy hailing Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and Carl Marx (altogether) is gonna preach us! According to their ideals, it is worth to receive water like this in exchange of not paying taxes! ⬇️

And I know I'm going to receive "backlash" (if it can even be called that way for this that I'm saying. Go ahead, let them send all the laughing memes that they want. With this, everybody will know they are laughing of all that blood, all those corpses.

I know I didn't write this to be tragic or worthy of enough sympathy; I told you, I'm just tired. I felt like it was time to let people know how life is for fans in my same situation.

Have you ever listened to the song Flares by The Script?

"Did you find it hard to breathe? Did you cry so much that you could barely see? In the darkness all alone, and no one cares. There's no one there."

This is how I feel all the time. I'm sorry I can't keep my emotions bottled up enough to stand with my arms crossed while ATLA Twitter goes off.

I don't regret what I wrote in here, tho. Sorry, not sorry.

[profnodanna]

Who are the most annoying shippers in the K fandom?

Eheheh, dear anon, what a particular question you've asked me. I wonder from where it comes from. What made you ask this question. And why you chose me. Did you send the same question to other people? Or are you genuinely interested in my opinion? Does it have something to do with the ships I like? Has something happened in the fandom? Are you trying to stir up some drama? Are you going to link my answer to some private chat to demostrate a point? Or your actions are sincere and pure? Are you a friend or a foe?

Unfortunately for you, you haven't unlocked the option to hear my frank and caustic opinion yet. You know, it requires a lot of friendship points, and they are hard to gain when you're anonymous to me.

I could stop here, but I don't want to avoid your question. On the contrary, I want to use it to clarify some of my thoughts about this fandom, my way to live it, and the behaviours I draw a line at.

I've been living the K fandom on tumblr since 2016. And at least once a year, some anon would go around to make the same kind of question to active blogs in the fandom. Why? The majority of people in the fandom, in all the fandoms, agrees that, in the best case scenario, this is the kind of question that can cause discomfort to the whole community. It's never nice to accuse someone of being annoying just because he likes this instead of that.

Since I am part of this community, I don't want to cause discomfort with my unrequested judgement on the personal quality of some categories of people. If I don't want trash in my community, and I don't want others to throw around their garbage, it's up to me to act correctly in the first place.

I won't go around saying "uh, these shippers are dumb af!" expecting they won't get offended. Even if they're really dumb. I mean, even dumb people have the right to enjoy themselves.

There are lots of immature brats in fandoms. Let's not add more trash to the pile of trash (unless you want it. In that case your actions speak for yourself).

Second point. I'm gonna tell you a secret:

Annoying shippers don't exist. Annoying people do.

Why I am saying that. They're not annoying because of the ship they like. They're annoying because they're immature brats who can't behave in a group of people with different ideas and likes. It has nothing to do with the ship itself, which is the true victim of the whole affair.

It can happen that some ships tend to attract more annoying people: that some of them can become a tiny group very loud that seems to talk for all the shippers. Well, that's not true. It's the contrary. They keep away all the good shippers, who legitimately don't want to be involved or associated to them.

So when we say "urgh, these shippers are so annoying!" we end up with offending quiet people who were making their own business. And that's not nice.

This leads to another consequence: if you present yourself as X shipper, and you act like a whiny brat, or you're a moron to other people, you're going to ruin the reputation of your ship to others' eyes.

If you love your ship so much, better trying to behave in public. (Which is the reason why I don't go around the internet commenting here and there "what a stupid idea!", "are you dumb or what?!", "I can't believe you wrote that, are you five???"; not because I want to be a good person. Nope. Because I don't want to ruin my otp. That's love. And maybe slightly concerning).

And this is why, my dear anon, I'm not going to tell you which shippers I find annoying.

Instead, I'm going to tell you which behaviors I do:

Not understading the source material and not being humble enough to listen to people who have actually read all of it;

Twisting the canon to make it fit for your ship or headcanons; we're not talking about "interpretation", I saw with my eyes people who can't even read a panel of a manga. I hope they're twelve or something, because anything above twenty is concerning.

whining babies who need attention; "why everyone likes this ship? why nobody likes this? Why everyone is so mean to me? I only said you suck because you like X, I don't understand! nobody understands me and my very intellectual thoughts". Guys, everyone with a bit of salt in their brain laughs at you.

not being able to make critical analysis of the story or character, ending up with reading everything through your "emotional immature" glasses.

Look, it's simple. There's a difference between giving an opinion, and being a dick. If you can't understand it, maybe you need some time to grow up.

To conclude, I want to clarify that I am very open to talk about ideas, headcanons, characters analysis, even in very critical ways. I don't shy away from giving my very frank and honest opinion about these matters, and to say what I like, what I dislike, and what I hate with all my heart.

But I'm not gonna point my finger to a generic group of people in public. I will rant with my trusted friends in private setting, as it should be.

And if someone write some kind of bullshit that doesn't suit well with me, I'm going to reply directly to them. And not to make them change idea (it's useless with some people), but to give to the readers another point of view.

I hope the answer has satisfied you, anon.

See you next time, space anon.

[thealexchen]

You being so open and getting so much joy out of the lis series while still having nuanced discussions about its flaws makes me really happy. I don’t feel embarrassed or “cringe” about liking it thanks to finding your blog. You have so much confidence and that inspires me a lot. 💜

Hey, thank you so much. That really means a lot to me, and I’m really humbled and honored my blog has helped you! Honestly, a lot of it came from experience. I’ve been a LiS fan since 2016 so I wasn’t around during the original game’s release, but I’ve witnessed all the crap that LiS fans pulled through BtS and LiS2 especially.

There were some nasty ship wars when BtS was coming out, but it really came to a head when LiS2 was revealed. It was downright awful and I exhausted myself defending it and arguing with people about why they needed to give it a chance and support games with POC leads.

But almost two years after it ended, it’s not like LiS2 is a perfect game either— far from it. I wrote my critique last year to reconcile the messy, conflicted feelings I had about how it handled the very themes of racism and xenophobia that I had praised DN for having the guts to tackle a year prior. I had defended it so much before because of how intense the initial hate was, but as time went on I realized I had my own serious problems with the game too. I still think that it was unfair for people to trash on LiS2 before seeing any of it, but I also regret defending LiS2 in 2018 before I had formed a solid opinion on it. At some point I had to say “screw it, this isn’t worth my time,” and walk away from the haters. I had let my frustration and anger about the fans dampen my own excitement for LiS2, and my experience with the game had been soured as a whole. I’m not going to change everyone’s mind or even get them to see where I’m coming from, and that’s not my responsibility. I think that "confidence" you mention has been me learning how to genuinely not let people's opinions get to me as much anymore.

All that taught me a lot about how to approach TC: avoiding comparisons, listening to but not internalizing dissenting opinions, and just allowing myself to enjoy the game my way and like it as its own thing. I will always be happy we got our first queer Asian American protagonist in Alex, for example, and how many Asian Americans were involved behind the scenes. But of course, I didn’t want to oversimplify the issue and claim that TC “talked about race the correct way!" compared to LiS2.

It also meant letting myself feel disappointed with whatever I didn't like after 6 months of hype. It's totally fair to think "This was great, but it would've been even better if..." because nothing's perfect. Even now, some people hate what I loved about the game and vice versa, but that doesn’t devalue what I took away from my playing experience. I’ve found that this kind of thinking has been better for me in general and it feels a lot more freeing to just be able to express myself fully. It really means a lot for you to tell me it inspired you, so thank you for taking the time to write such a kind message! 💜💜💜

[xsamsharons]

let’s talk about sharon carter.

so because falcon and the winter soldier is coming out in a few hours i wanna go on a rant about a topic i think it's about time we address: sharon carter has never given you a reason to dislike her and the "she's reduced to a love interest" isn't the feminist take you think it is. let me expand:

so let's start with what we've all been hearing since the announcement of sharon being in fatws: "i really hope they don't reduce her to a love interest". this isn't the feminist take you think it is, this is just an excuse you use to hide the fact that you are jealous about the fact that 1. sharon kissed your favorite character 2. "got in the way" of your two-white-boys ship and 3. may potentially be a love interest to either sam or bucky. and yes, sharon didn't have much "character development" throughout the mcu, but how much do you expect a character to develop in TWO MOVIES?? what the captain america trilogy did, was set up a character and a story line to be further developed and explore on later projects (see: falcon and the winter soldier show). now, i agree with the fact that it would be cool to see sharon develop as a character like it's cool to see EVERY character develop. but "being reduced to a love interest"?? repeat after me: a woman isn't REDUCED just because she has a male partner!!

ok so, moving on to my second point:

before i get to it, let me just list a few things sharon has done in the only two movies we have seen her in.

sharon carter was a S.H.I.E.L.D agent, one of the best even, and she was so good NICK FURY HIMSELF TRUSTED HER TO PROTECT CAPTAIN FUCKING AMERICA !!

after SHIELD fell, sharon was capable enough to find a job as a CIA agent, and we see her being in charge of her counter-terrorism task force team in civil war (reminder: she joined the CIA after shield fell in 2014, and we see her giving orders in 2016. she's so good it only took her TWO YEARS to climb up the ranks of the fucking CIA)

she was the first agent to stand up to Alexander Pierce in ca:tws (who by the way, after Fury's death, was her highest superior and her main boss), and didn't hesitate to pull a gun on a higher ranking agent (Rumlow) when he pulled a gun on another agent, and after she was disarmed and Rumlow cut her stomach with a knife, she was still able to kick the agent out of the way and made sure he was safe, proceeding to fire at Rumlow after.

later on, in civil war, sharon saves bucky and steve's lives and helps them not one, not twice, BUT THREE TIMES.

first one is when she shares classified information with steve about bucky's whereabouts ( the only reason steve even found bucky and was able to save him in bucharest )

the second one is when she activates the sound of the tv located in the office steve and sam are being kept in, which the reason they are able to hear zemo and bucky's conversation and work out something is wrong. later on, during the same scene, she's the one to tell them where bucky is being kept, that being the reason they even knew where to find bucky during the blackout.

and finally, she's the person who retrieves captain america's shield and suit and sam's suit and redwing. this is goin against the sokovia accords btw.

so, sharon carter does not hesitate to put her career at risk and go against her superiors multiple times to do what's right, saving steve and bucky's (let's be honest, the two characters bc of who you hate her sm) lives. must be a pity hating sharon so much yet knowing she's the only reason the were able to evade shield and the cia and stay alive during ca:cw and ca:tws.

keeping all of this in mind, i think we can ALL say and agree on the fact that sharon carter has proven the fact that she does not need a man (in fact, the men need her to save their asses multiple times during these films). she's a badass character, a badass woman and a badass agent who's damn good at her job. but yet she's "reduced" just cause she openly showed romantic interest? are you sure marvel reduced her to a love interest, or are YOU the one who reduces badass women to their partners the MINUTE they aren't single anymore.

so yeah, sharon carter has proven she doesn't need a man, but she's allowed to WANT ONE. a woman should be allowed to have a partner without people claiming she is being "reduced" or acting like suddenly all of her own personal achievements don't matter.

so, as @616-hawkeyes said: sharon, baby: i hope you kick a lot of ass and kiss a lot of people, and if one of those people happen to be bucky and sam, good for them! they should be so fucking lucky.

in conclusion: sharon carter has never given you a reason to dislike her, the only reason you do is because of a faux feminist agenda and the fact the kissed your fav character or "got in the way" of you ship. that's fucking disgusting and that's not even mentioning all the shit you put emily vancamp through. do fucking better.

[yellowmagicalgirl]

Hey, how do you and other Krexie shippers work around the age gap? I mean, I ship Krexie and have my own headcanons, but I'm curious to see what others have done.

I feel like I answered this before several months ago, but I don’t feel like finding that post so I’ll answer again. The full answer to your question is a short essay (and that’s without including the footnotes) so I’m gonna put it under a cut. This is based upon my own experience in the fandom, and the krexie circles I frequent are the ones on FFN, AO3, and of course, here on tumblr. Abuse and grooming (in the context of real people) will be talked about below the cut.

TL;DR I’ve seen three main ways of dealing with the age gap: ignoring it, aging Krel up, and aging Douxie down.

Ignore It

This one actually encompasses two different methods. The first of the two is to treat one or both of the boys’ ages as nebulous, with the maturity level of “teenager” and nothing more explicit since Douxie is about nine centuries old and Akiridion royals live for centuries Krel’s exact age is unknown. In this case, the age of one or both of the boys won’t be mentioned aside from being hundereds of years old. In addition, at least on Douxie’s end, this is somewhat canon. Fun fact: Douxie never calls himself a college student, and neither does Archie. Likewise, neither of them call Douxie 19. That was Steve, who deserved far better of a character arc than just to be the idiot that he is in Wizards. However, even though he deserved better Steve is not a reliable source of information on Douxie’s age, but Douxie and Archie are. In Wizards, the only information Douxie and Archie give on Douxie’s age is that he’s about nine centuries old.[1]

The other method of ignoring the ages is to treat Douxie as a 19-year-old (ignoring the immortality) and Krel as a 16-year-old, and to mention one or both of their ages. Their ages are ignored due to one or both of the following reasons: for one, in real life a three year gap between teenagers doesn’t automatically mean the older person is a predator. It’s something to be cautious about, and the younger person really needs to have people they can trust since if the relationship does turn toxic they would have less power and thus be in more danger (usually, though it is possible for the younger person to be more dangerous to the older one), but that doesn’t automatically mean something bad will happen. The other reason to ignore the boys’ ages is because honestly? If someone needs non-canon ships to tell them which relationships are healthy and which ones are dangerous, then their parents/guardians and teachers have failed them. Fanfic authors, fanartists, and other people creating/consuming fanworks on the internet are not responsible for educating random people on the internet. In fact, they and their content are not responsible for if a random person is abused, even if the abuser uses fanworks to groom the victim. It’s the fault of the abuser for being abusive.[2]

Out of these two methods, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen more using the former method of ignoring than the age gap than the latter.

Age Krel Up

This, again, has two different methods. The more common method is to have Krel (and the other Arcadia Oaks High students) age naturally, until they’re at an age that the fanwork creator is more comfortable with having krexie at. These types of fanworks take place years after the events of Wizards. The other method is to create an au where Krel (and likely the other Arcadia Oaks High students) were already the age the fanwork creator is more comfortable with when Douxie and Krel first met. I, personally, have created a lot of content for the first method, and I’ve seen other people use this method as well. My fake marriage au utilizes the latter method, and this method would also work for au’s where Douxie and Krel are both adults when they meet but the au does not follow canon.

Age Douxie Down

This one also has a basis in canon, though I haven’t seen any other krexie shipper use this method of dealing with the age gap. I, personally, use this whenever I want to make krexie content that’s compliant with Trollhunters and 3Below but also do not want to deal wit backwards time travel because I hate backwards time travel. However, someone should write an au where Douxie and Krel are human high schoolers whose biggest problem is being gay for the guy attending your rival school.

Now, while Douxie and Archie gave Douxie the vague age of about 900 years old and Steve made the assumption that Douxie was a 19-year-old college student, Trollhunters actually went out of its way to show that Douxie was a high school student.

In season two episode 10, Mary reveals that she was dating a student from Arcadia Oaks Academy, and Eli remarked that that was their rival school. I was in high school when Trollhunters was airing, and let me tell you: high schools do not have rivalries with colleges. Arcadia Oaks Academy would have to be a high school, or maybe a k-12 or 6-12. However, it’s far more likely that Arcadia Oaks Academy is a high school with the same age range of students as Arcadia Oaks High. In season three episode 1, Mary excitedly tells Claire that a student from Arcadia Oaks Academy is at Arcadia Oaks High. This student is Douxie, and unless I’m remembering wrong he also mentions attending the Academy. Unless Mary knew all along that Douxie was a wizard and was trying to give him a cover story for why he was hanging out at Arcadia Oaks High only for this information about Mary to be cut from Wizards due to time constraints, there is absolutely no reason for Mary to lie about Douxie’s age to Claire. The fact that Douxie was considered to be a high schooler by most of the fandom (some people had been on the train of “he’s a centuries old adult” for a long time) is why the krexie fanworks created pre-Wizards are all treating Douxie like a high schooler. (Yes, people shipped krexie (or at least consumed/produced fanworks for the ship) before Wizards came out. I have my fic on AO3/FFN and other people’s comments to prove it, as well as some fanart saved to my blog. Sadly, some of the people are now antis, and one them has now harassed at least one krexie shipper.)

Personally, when I age Douxie down, I age him down to 17. Only 17. Not 17-plus-several-centuries-without-aging. In-universe he may try to call himself 1492 years old, but he’s really just 17. However, as I mentioned before, if I’m aging him down to 17 then I’m also completely ignoring the backwards time travel aspects of Wizards. And, by doing that, I end up really changing the lore of Wizards. If you would like more information for the timeline I use when I age Douxie down, please refer to this ask.

In Conclusion

Thank you for reading this. These footnotes aren’t nearly as on topic and are more of a ramble.

[1] Re: Douxie having a really vague age of nine centuries. If you take enough chemistry and physics (but in my experience especially chemistry) courses, you will have it drilled into your head that 900 years old could really be anywhere from 850 to 949 years old. So, while 919 is definitely possible in the age range given by the age of “about 900″, it’s really a give-or-take number. However, if we truly want to be accurate, then if we choose to have Trollhunters take place in the 2016-2017 school year, choose to have had the moppet been between 16 and 19 years old at the Battle of Killahead Bridge, and we consider that the late 12th century (aka the time period of Wizards... supposedly, considering that it is not historically accurate) to be the latter half of that century, then Douxie would have to be somewhere between 834 and 886 years old. If we want a 16-year-old moppet and for the 900 years to be an accurate case of rounding, then the Battle of Killahead Bridge would have needed to be in 1183 at the earliest, which is accurate for the description of late twelfth century. If Douxie were to really be 919 in 2017, then the Battle of Killahead Bridge would have needed to take place somewhere from 1114 to 1117, aka the early twelfth century.

[2] Re: the argument that fanwork creators are not responsible for if an abuser uses their content to groom a victim. When I was a kid, the big scare was that strangers would lure off innocent children with candy. We were told not to go anywhere with a stranger, even if they had candy (or puppies, kittens, etc.) I don’t know how many kids have been hurt by strangers promising candy, nor do I know if this is something kids are still being warned about, but I do know that there isn’t some campaign against candy companies for daring to sell candy that an abuser would use against kids. This is because, as horrible as children being hurt is, it’s not the fault of the candy companies. It’s the fault of the abuser. And likewise, it’s not the fault of a fanwork creator if someone else uses their content to harm others.

PS: A side note since we’re discussing ages. I’ve been in this fandom for years, specifically on tumblr, AO3, and FFN as well as one of the discords. It wasn’t until the krexie discourse started that I started seeing people start calling Krel 14. I had seen people call him 15-16 in the past, because the fandom wasn’t sure if he and Aja were twins or had a minimum of a 9-month gap (assuming, of course, that Akiridions reproduce like humans do). That being said, before the discourse I never saw anyone treat Krel (or Aja, for that matter) like he had a canonical age. 14, however, seems to be something that stemmed from the wiki. You know, the same fan-run wiki that claims that Nomura’s full name is Zelda Nomura even though nowhere in the shows, books, games, or graphic novels is she ever called by that name. Yeah, the Arcadia Oaks-Pedia is not a reputable source. I’m going to give the wiki editors the benefit of Hanlon’s razor and hope that they were just going “well, since Krel is Aja’s younger brother and we’re assuming she’s 15-16 years old like the rest of the protagonists he must be 14-15 years old” and it was only after that that antis took the idea of Krel being 14 as canon and then ran off with it to be cruel and cause chaos.

[chouetteffraie]

The Inherent Romanticism of Headpats - Why Ship Dazatsu

I was scrolling through the dark corners of bsd tumblr and came across a few “Why I Ship (blank)” posts and thought I’d like to try and articulate my unending love for dazatsu in a similar fashion! Please note that I am in no way trying to steal the spotlight from other ships or trying to claim that dazatsu is “better” - it’s just my favorite and I wanna talk about them! Also, I physically cannot talk about them without a shipper’s bias - I’ve had them in my heart since like late 2016. This is ingrained into my spirit.

So, without further ado, let’s talk about why I ship dazatsu (and why you should too). yes i’m kidding about that last part.

warning for manga spoilers and headers that would make amazing fic titles. tag me if you use one. manga pictures taken from dazaiscans and easygoingscans.

1. The Promise to be Good

hehehe let’s start with maybe the most obvious one that is, arguably, the most canon fact about these two. Just because I choose to view it as romantic doesn’t mean it IS - but it is certainly a beautiful aspect of their relationship and yes it makes me soft every time I think about it.

We all know Dazai’s past and what inspired him to make the switch from the Port Mafia to the side that saves people - Odasaku. No matter what you say, it’s obvious that Oda and Dazai have a very close, meaningful relationship - and arguably, Odasaku had the biggest impact (and the most importance?) in Dazai’s life. When Oda told Dazai to leave the Port Mafia, to go make something beautiful with his life - he did. And it’s those words alone that keep him motivated to stay in his job and help protect the city - because he loves it, maybe, but because someone he loves urged him to.

Dazai, despite what his strange poetry may make you believe, is only human. As much as those words mean to him, he gets discouraged.

Along comes Atsushi, the starving tiger boy by the river. Atsushi is an orphan parallels to oda saving the orphans already, and he was in dire need of someone to save him. So, Dazai did. Whether it was because of the tiger or Odasaku’s last words, Dazai saved Atsushi and gave him life. He provided food, shelter, a means to provide for himself - even companionship. Everything Atsushi has, it started with Dazai picking him up off the riverbed and lugging him along. What’s more, Dazai didn’t just turn him over to somebody else - he presented a case to Fukuzawa to keep him and serves as his mentor. Further along in the canon story, he provides Atsushi with the emotional guidance that he needs (Portrait of a Father, anyone? Let’s cry over that for a second.) He doesn’t just give Atsushi a moment’s care - he helps him build himself up, he supports him, and together, they protect the people of Yokohama.

Atsushi is living, breathing proof that Dazai is living up to his promise to be a good man. Even better, he seems to be perfectly happy with confirming that yes, Dazai is good, whenever Dazai needs it.

In this way, they complete each other. They provide a source of comfort that nobody else has been able to. Atsushi is Dazai’s proof that he is doing the one thing he wants to do, more than anything - be what Odasaku wanted.

2. You Saved Me, We Save Each Other

Keeping that in mind, Atsushi is sort of Dazai’s reward for being good. Now, I’m not implying Dazai is owed Atsushi at all - to an extent, you could argue Atsushi is maybe even too good for Dazai. But Dazai is trying to be a good man, and Atsushi is the one who tells him and reaffirms his efforts and gives him that praise, that recognition, that reward for being good. Dazai’s main inspiration to stay on the light(er) side is Odasaku - but that doesn’t mean that Atsushi can’t become another huge driving force that makes Dazai want to stay on that path. Oda motivates him, gives him the reason to start. Atsushi can be the prize that makes trying worth it when he tends to forget. 

Atsushi saves Dazai. He saves him from his self-doubt, and from the world that gives him every reason to believe he has failed in his promise. If anything, that promise might be Dazai’s strongest lifeline. By reinforcing the line, Atsushi is saving Dazai.

And of course, Dazai saves Atsushi. He did literally save him by the river, and he helps teach Atsushi how to Not Die by virtue of being his mentor, but it’s more than that. Dazai has been the one to save Atsushi from his own mind time and time again. He provides a reason for Atsushi to believe he has (or is) earned/earning the right to live. Atsushi isn’t entirely over his desire to prove himself worthy - but Dazai is always the one to tell him that he has succeeded in his goal. Dazai is the one to say “You’ve proven yourself. You deserve the life you’re living.”

3. You Learn Something New Every Day

As Atsushi’s mentor, Dazai naturally teaches Atsushi things. But beyond the simple strategic battlefield lessons, Dazai has been there for Atsushi multiple times to help him address and begin to overcome his trauma. Sure, some efforts are worse than the others (dazatsu stans just wipe our memories of the train station scene and that’s valid and sexy of us i think.) But in times when Atsushi is clearly distressed, Dazai has been there to help him through it. He’s helped Atsushi sort through his grief, and he’s helped Atsushi start to see that his feelings are valid and that he’s allowed to live a fulfilling life.

Atsushi isn’t the only one learning, though! That’s one of the best parts of the ship - Atsushi teaches Dazai, too. Dazai has spent a long time feeling as though nobody will understand him intimately, or as deeply as Odasaku did. But Atsushi is getting there. He’s one of the closest to it, I think. From saying things like Dazai is a good man, to picking up on Dazai’s feelings at Oda’s grave in Dead Apple, and even the end scene when Dazai asked Atsushi directly if he thought he was a good person and Atsushi said without hesitation “Sure, why?” Atsushi teaches Dazai that he is human. He teaches Dazai that he is capable of feeling and forming close, intimate connections. They help the other learn about the areas they need to, and in both cases, they’re becoming patient teachers and prized pupils.

4. I’ll Listen When Nobody Else Will

Everybody knows how Dazai is often brushed off when talking about dying. People have brought up that the agency just has faith in his resilience, but that doesn’t meant that they aren’t acting without care towards Dazai. Atsushi does this too - in the very first episode, Dazai’s attempt at suicide is just taken with him being exasperated at his antics before pushing him down. But here’s the thing - it’s generally agreed upon that Atsushi is the one who is sent out to find Dazai. Atsushi is the one who knows where to find him. Arguably, Atsushi is the one that will listen to Dazai. He’s becoming the one who can not only pick apart Dazai’s mannerisms and slightest tells - he isn’t proficient, but he’s working on it - but he’s the one that treats them with care.

I’ve spent a lot of time noting similarities between the understanding Atsushi has of Dazai to the understanding Dazai’s truest friend had to him. Here’s one thing that separates Oda from Atsushi, and for me, it’s one of the major reasons why I personally ship one more than the other: Odasaku didn’t push Dazai the way Atsushi does. Both Oda and Atsushi have a way of laying out a field for Dazai to talk and bounce his thoughts off of, no matter how cryptically they come out. But Atsushi asks questions, he prods at the darkest corners of Dazai and he allows Dazai to question himself so he can continue to grow. Where Oda gave Dazai a place to feel comfortable in where he was, Atsushi gives Dazai a space to feel comfortable as he grows, which is what he needs in order to continue being a good man.

And please note, this isn’t me saying dazatsu or Atsushi is better than odazai or Odasaku. What I mean to say is this is where the difference lies, and Atsushi gives Dazai what he needs now - something he might not have needed without Odasaku’s urging to leave.

5. Guiding Light

When two characters are each other’s north star, where is there not romance? Dazai is very much Atsushi’s main source of guidance, a side effect of being his mentor for sure - but it’s more than just asking questions. Their relationship runs deep into Atsushi’s train of thought, to the point where Atsushi hallucinates Dazai’s presence when he feels uncertain. Any time Atsushi needs guidance or reassurance, he looks to Dazai. 

This is more shipper goggle-y, but I like to believe Atsushi does the same for Dazai. I’ve said over and over again that above all else, Atsushi is Dazai’s proof that he is being good. I also like to think that Atsushi, in a way, is a ray of light for Dazai to follow. He’s selfless (although for some reasons that deserve to be readjusted), he’s kind, and he loves life - all life. He’s a sunbeam in action that provides a perfect example for what Dazai could be and is trying to be - and if this light is happy with keeping Dazai close, maybe there’s hope for him after all.

6. What Makes Life Worth Living

Atsushi and Dazai are opposites in once major aspect: Atsushi has a sort of reverence for life, whereas Dazai craves to escape it. These are two major points of their characters - but here’s the kicker. Dazai wants to get close to human emotion. He wants to understand what makes life worth living. Atsushi is quite possibly the strongest candidate to show him what he can do and how loving life can help. I’m not saying that Atsushi is Dazais’ fix-it-all elixir, but he has a good chance to gently prod at Dazai and get him thinking.

Atsushi can show Dazai what makes life worth living. And that’s something that I think would do Dazai a world of good.

7. Can I Change for the Better?

ATSUSHI! INSISTS! DAZAI! IS! GOOD! I will not ever diminish this point because it is so important! Dazai seems to have it in his head that his blood is mafia black, that he can play the charade of a good man but will never be more than an actor playing a part. Atsushi, though - Atsushi is constantly telling him that he is good. Atsushi, who probably couldn’t keep up a lie for that long because the poor boy has zero tact. Dazai even asks Atsushi frequently if he’s a good person, and Atsushi always says yes. Atsushi gives Dazai what he needs to hear.

Atsushi, however, has his own issues. He has his own trauma to tackle, and his own bad habits to reform to become a better person. Atsushi isn't’ a bad person, but he also isn’t the best version of himself. Dazai can help him become that. Dazai can give him the guidance he needs, as he did with sorting through his grief surrounding the headmaster. Dazai can help Atsushi start the battle against his past, and he has been there with him every step of the way, whether in body or spirit. They help each other be better.

8. I Trust You With What I Love Most

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again - the toast they added to the end of season 3 is one of the most tender moments Dazai has ever had with anybody. One thing Dazai never does is let people in on his past - not past the necessary details, anyway, and especially not the intimate moments he holds in his heart. But sharing that toast with Atsushi - inviting him in to the toast he shared with Oda and Ango, “To the stray dogs,” - it’s one of his most vulnerable times on screen. I don’t care what you say. Dazai deliberately letting Atsushi in, giving him this tiny piece of his past he’s had tucked away in a safe place - that was him offering up a piece of his heart. I’m soft just thinking about it again.

Other than that, Dazai has an enormous faith in Atsushi. He’s built entire plans trusting that Atsushi will do his job perfectly the way it needs to be done. Hell, towards the end of the Guild arc, it was his faith in Atsushi to bring the doll down to him that convinced Twain they were beat. Not to mention, Dazai has trusted Atsushi enough to form a new partnership without him in order to protect the city - and if that’s not one of the most blatant displays of trust and faith you’ve seen, I don’t know what is.

9. There’s a Softness Within Me I Didn’t Know I Had

Another thing that’s good for Dazai - Atsushi is comfortable. Dazai can let his guard down, just a tiny bit, around Atsushi, There was the graveyard scene in Dead Apple, or the toast scene at the end of season 3 - those are moments where Atsushi has given himself a moment to relax and show Atsushi how proud he is. This kind of emotion, this vulnerability that says ‘I’ve been hoping you’d pull through and look at how amazing you’ve become’ - there’s a softness that holds that Dazai doesn’t hold for anybody else. It’s a gentleness or pride, of trust, of somebody becoming more than you could ever imagine and coming back to you, even thanking you - it’s a sensation nobody else has given Dazai, because nobody else has been a protege as trustworthy and gentle as Atsushi.

(and, believe me, there’s a hundred other examples of the softness in the anime, manga, official art, and so much more. here’s a thread that you can still add to if you want)

Atsushi is also soft with Dazai. He wants to make him proud, sure, but there isn’t any fear once their job is done. Atsushi doesn’t have to fear horrible repercussions if he makes one misstep - Dazai allows him to learn, to grow, and to feel however he seems fit (or, it’s a skill he’s improving at as the series goes on.)

They give each other a safety to feel vulnerable. They are comfortable to each other. And, of course, they have a special softness for the other that they do not hold for anybody else.

10. My Mistakes are the Cracks You Have a Knack for Fixing

Again, Atsushi is always there to reassure Dazai that he can be a good man. One part of this is that he insist that Dazai’s past doesn’t have to affect his future. He’s one of the only people who tells Dazai that he doesn’t hold him accountable for what he’s done before - he’s Dazai-san now, and that’s what matters to Atsushi. Atsushi gives Dazai the most space to fix these mistakes, to move past them, and to learn from them, not holding them against him at all.

In the same way Atsushi is Dazai’s proof that he’s being a good man, he is also Dazai’s proof that he can fix the mistakes he made. (Of course, I’m not excusing the way he strings anybody along - but the first step to fixing a mistake is admitting you have made one and working on yourself, and that’s what Atsushi allows him to do.)

In conclusion, I think Dazatsu is so soft and amazing because it’s about the healing and acceptance. BSD is all about gray morality, and dazatsu is a soft ship that can take each other’s bad and accept them. It’s not only about seeing the darkest side of somebody - it’s about accepting those flaws but also giving them space to grow. They grow and they learn and they heal together. They ensure that the other never has to go through a drastic change alone. In a way, they can be home for the other, a refuge from the shitty cards life has dealt them and a steady lifeline to reach for a better tomorrow. That’s why I love dazatsu - because I can’t see another situation with nearly as much love and trust as they have. They are tender, they can be vulnerable, and they can heal. 

Like the beautiful sunset hours the met in, they celebrated in, they console each other in, they allow the other to turn the page on their past and start anew, with a clean canvas for a dazzling display that they can make together.

[fromtheplanethexagon]

the robot problem: a critical look at tobecky, 5 years late

hello wordgirl fandom i am back :) and i have a lot of thoughts that i never got around to expressing before i moved on from the show. so be aware that everything i'm saying is based on my experiences during the 2012-2016 era of the fandom & state of tumblr in general, and i am not familiar with more recent fan content.

it's been over five years since the show ended, and @ifbrd​ reminded me (along with some great analysis) that while tobecky was super popular since before the show technically started (thanks to the play date shorts), it's pretty unhealthy in a lot of ways that tend to be excused or flat out ignored in fanworks. i'd like to reflect on that a bit (a lot); specifically, how both the show and the fandom approached this enemies-to-lovers ship, and how easily this ship can slip into uncomfortable territory if we're careless about how we interpret the ship and create fan content of it.

i will admit, i'm mostly writing this as a response to past me and my old creations - though i moved on from the show as a whole years ago, i do like taking the time to reflect on old interests once in a while, and reevaluating my thoughts on them. and this ship is probably the biggest one that still lurks in the corners of my mind once in a while, so let's go.

cherish is the word: a short positive note before a much longer negative one

i wanted to start this essay off with some positivity, because i am going to be very negative after this. tobecky was, in some ways, cute. it's obvious from the very beginning that these two characters are on pretty equal ground, even if one of them isn't aware of it. and that's part of the fun - the irony of how unaware tobey is that his nemesis/crush/person that pretty much always wins against him is someone that he completely dismisses as incompetent. i want to point this out because honestly, in general i don't like enemies-to-lovers because a lot of them use a power imbalance within the dynamic, and i hate power imbalances, especially when it comes to actual life-or-death scenarios (at least, as much as cartoons can do that). in most episodes, becky is never actually forced to go along with his wishes. she's not held in a 'date' against her will, nor is she ever really outwitted by him. i bring this up because there is one huge, uncomfortable exception, which i will get to later.

another big plus to the ship is the fact that they just... get along? even when fighting? of course we get brief moments where they just hang out and talk about paintings or whatever, but i'm talking about how much they get each other, even if they don't realize it. like the word banter, for example. been there since day one. becky loves words, and while most other people in her life don't really care (ranging from 'eh, that's cool i guess' to her brother calling it annoying), tobey gives her a chance to show off and thus treats her as a worthy adversary as herself, not because of her more generic superpowers - something that we've seen in canon that she feels self-conscious about (see: her motivation in patch game). one of the less noticed examples, to me, is "it's your party and i'll cry if I want to", because it's just - okay. they both are excluded from a social event, and while it's obvious that tobey deals with it by destroying the city, it's also pretty obvious that becky also deals with her frustration by fighting in that battle. like, yes, realistically it's just objectively bad that he's destroying buildings. but they're also providing each other with a way to work through their frustrations, first by fighting and then by talking things out, and finally by hanging out together instead of dwelling on being excluded from the party.

so it makes a lot of sense to me that many tobecky fans gravitated towards writing far-in-the-future fic, usually by implying that some growth had taken place before starting to write the ship. (there are, as far as i'm aware, 2... maybe 3 exceptions, that take the time to attempt a real redemption for him, at least when i left the fandom.) because if you take away his worst moments, either by reasoning out that he was 10 years old and a mess, or that he was a cartoon character in a cartoon world where everyone's actions are over-the-top, or by just flat-out pretending that certain episodes never happened, there's some pretty solid ground to start a ship on.

go gadget go: we all do not see it, we simply close our eyes (review of canon)

when the show began, i was the same age as the characters. a lot of other people were, too - at least in my cohort of the fandom. i think it's pretty safe to say that many of us have fond memories of the show's earlier seasons, and held on to that interest as we got older, for whatever reasons. so like, not to be all 'as an OG fan...', but i remember seeing the shorts air for the first time in 2006. i have a diary entry in july of 2009 about how i, a 12yo with no concept of the idea of 'shipping', was disappointed in the new tobey episode because i wanted more tobecky interactions. (that was robo-camping, btw, lol.) and so i remember how exciting their rivalry felt, watching them as someone literally their exact same age, and then watching that again as a nostalgic 17yo, and then uh... growing up, to put it frankly, and realizing just how unhealthy most of their interactions were.

okay what i meant to say was, this section is an overview of the relationship's canon portrayal throughout the years.

first, we have early tobecky: this includes the shorts and the first few seasons. this is their classic relationship: he likes her and takes robots on rampages to get her attention, she majorly disapproves and has fun taking him down. we've all seen the show, you know what i'm talking about. his backhanded ways of trying to find out her identity often feature prominently in the episodes, which - sigh, i've mentioned this whole issue before, but it's kind of a grey area in the whole uncomfortable-factor thing, because while trying to find out her identity is VERY invasive, it's something that like... everyone in the show tries to do, even her canon crush (scoops). on the one hand, it's really not a great look, but on the other hand, this is a cartoon meant to parody a genre in which this trope is extremely common. so i just wanna say that i have Issues and Thoughts on this aspect of their relationship, but there are other things i find more important to discuss here.

second, we have late tobecky: this is seasons 7-8. this is... a very strange and huge shift from the previous dynamic, though it's not necessarily obvious. what i mean by that is that for some reason, the show writers made it so that half of tobey’s rampages have nothing to do with his crush on wordgirl, even though that used to be the sole reason for his villainy. seriously. we have the birthday episode, where he's upset because he feels left out; wg vs tobey vs the dentist, where he's mad that he has a cavity; and trustworthy tobey, where his robot goes on a rampage... after becky accidentally makes it malfunction. the two outliers are ‘guess who’s coming to thanksgiving dinner’ and ‘patch game’, but they still differ from previous seasons because 1) his destruction is isolated to a forest far away from the city, and 2) his motive is still to impress wordgirl, but his methods are relatively tame. also he completely gives up on the secret identity thing??? i may have missed some things but i think he straight up tells her 'yeah there's no way you're wordgirl, lol' and the subject is just dropped for the rest of the show.

i also want to include 'the robot problem' here, because it's one of two season 6 tobey episodes, and follows the 'doesn't destroy buildings to get her attention' pattern: in fact, he teams up with her to try and stop someone else from going on a rampage (even if his reasons are selfish, lol).

and finally. the other season 6 episode. we have go gadget go, the bane of my time spent in the fandom. because GGG is the single episode where tobey truly manages to take away her autonomy, and proceeds to abuse that power for an extended period of time, for his own amusement. it's bad. it's Very Bad. put in the context that it's a white boy doing this to an (ambiguously) brown girl, it's REALLY REALLY BAD. and the more i look back on it, tbh, the more weirded out i am that the show not only made it seem like she wasn't affected at all within the episode, it just... forgot about it (which is not unusual for shows and especially children’s shows, but WG does make some efforts to either retain continuity or create canon reasons for why things are forgotten about). it's the kind of thing that you can't excuse and honestly you can't redeem (like at this point, you gotta ask yourself why you're spending so much effort trying to redeem this guy when becky has several other possible ships that are nowhere near this unhealthy - violet, scoops, honestly even victoria if you want another hero/villain ship, my absolute fave rarepair rose, etc).

so if you want to still ship it you have to just pretend that it never happened. (i remember trying for weeks to write something exploring the aftermath of this episode, to try and make myself feel better about it, but the more i wrote the more i realized just how traumatic this event should've been, so i eventually just dropped it.) and i brought up my own timeline of experiences earlier to point out that this episode aired eight whole years after the show started. which means that when i saw it, even though i was a huge stickler for canon at the time, i'd built up my own idea of the show and characters strongly enough to go 'yeah, no, this episode sucks and i am going to pretend that it doesn't exist'. and i think a lot of other people did too, because i really saw like... no one mention it, ever, except for some rogue fanfics over on ff dot net that already liked dynamics like that.

because here's the thing, and i don't know if people nowadays are aware of it? but i'm 80% sure (cannot find a source, so the other 20% is that it was just a rumor) that the show was originally supposed to end after season 6. and even if it's a rumor, it makes a ton of sense, because we get 1) an 'ending' to tobecky, which is a bad one, 2) a permanent wordgirl identity reveal that significantly changes one of the major dynamics in the show, 3) an episode where TJ gets to work with wordgirl and get a nice potential ending for their sibling dynamic, 4) an episode where we see Two-Brains explore life without his henchmen... the list goes on, and idk how many of these are just major stretches. but the point is. if the show had ended there, that would've been a pretty solid ending for many things, including their relationship: aka, it would prove that it was only ever heading somewhere bad, and when tobey finally has his moment of triumph, he is truly evil about it. and this provides us fans who HATE go gadget go with an easy reason to dismiss it - we can say that it was an attempt to conclude things in a way that wouldn't have happened if the writers had known they'd get more time. but despite that... it is still a canon episode.

it is odd to me how dramatically the dynamic shifts after that, though, because we seriously go from 'worst case ever, tobecky is toxic, your ship is dead' to 'no actually they get along and hang out and get ice cream together and tobey isn't even pressuring her into it, she's happy to go along with it :)' like, immediately. i never knew much about the show writers, so i don't know if the writers changed in between these seasons, but i would absolutely not be surprised if they did.

the earlier episodes are definitely problematic as well (though they pale in comparison to GGG) but i think everyone who ships it is aware considering that tobey is, yknow, a villain. from memory, he destroys buildings to get her attention, lies to her about the level of danger that people are in to trick her into spending more time with him, blackmails her into reading his poetry, and he creates a robot based on her that’s supposed to be devoted to him (but of course, all of these things backfire). not great stuff of course, but like... he’s a villain, that’s the point of his character. and considering that he’s a child these are things that can be redeemed, if done thoughtfully.

anyway, to sum up this section, the show starts off with a pretty standard 'enemies with an unrequited crush' setup, takes a really dark turn for a single episode, and then for the rest of the show takes their dynamic in a direction that makes it much, much easier to ship. as long as you ignore a lot of previous content.

wordbot: where's becky's autonomy in all of this? (misogyny)

we've finally gotten to the fandom. i recognize that a lot of this is going to come across as hypocritical considering how active i used to be re: this ship, but like... i'm a very different person now. anyway. disclaimer i guess - i don't write this to accuse all tobecky shippers of being like this - i know a lot of us aren't/weren't! but boy do i have things to point out, so without further ado:

it is very hard to ship this without allowing some bit of misogyny to slip into it. very, very hard. the entire premise of the ship involves a girl falling in love with a boy that repeatedly pressures her to date him via threats to the safety of herself and people she cares about, which... it's 2020, i shouldn't have to explain why that's terrible & a terrible example to set for children (which is why i am glad they never made it canon, tbh). best-case fan content has tobey stop pressuring her and start working to redeem himself out of an actual change of heart, which leads to becky seeing him in a new light. worst-case fan content treats his incessant pressuring and sometimes outright threats as something romantic - and even worse, romantic to the point where he deserves her attention and love as a reward for not giving up or whatever. i did see this pretty frequently for a while, especially in the earlier 2010s (didn't read much, Not My Thing At All), but i don't feel like going into detail here because of how obviously problematic it is. one medium (but still bad) case is where the fan content makes him start his redemption, but treats her liking him back as a reward for not knocking buildings over anymore. another not great case is where she tries to fix him with her love, which is a very common and very dangerous romantic trope. both are just... so incredibly unfair to her.

in content where she tries to 'fix him'... yeah i feel like it's really obvious how misogynistic that is. girls and women should not feel responsible for the evil actions of men, plain and simple. idk what else to say here i just really hate that trope and hated it back then and it just sucks! so can we not do that anymore, thanks.

in content that treats her like a reward for good behavior, there really isn't much of an explanation for what she sees in him. if she just goes 'oh wow, you're good now, i am going to fall in love with you for it' the whole thing falls flat because it makes NO sense whatsoever. we get to hear so much about tobey and his feelings and why he likes her and how he feels about it, but where is that energy for becky? why does she choose to trust him, to spend time around him, what does she enjoy about his presence? where is her getting over scoops in the process of falling for tobey? where is her telling her friends about this, confiding in them, asking them for advice? where is her choice in the matter?

win a day with wordgirl: do you guys even like becky or do you just like the idea of her (misogyny... 2!)

it was pretty standard for all fandoms the early-mid 2010s, but that's still not a good excuse for why so many tobecky fanfictions centered specifically around tobey's feelings while refusing to give becky the same level of empathy and nuance. it is true that to ship them comfortably you have to redeem him to some degree, which means spending time figuring him out and trying to find ways to pull him to the light without feeling super OOC. but ships take two people??? and there was so much potential for fanfics to explore becky's complex feelings on the matter - because she is! complex! she's heroic and kind but she's petty and has a competitive streak, she easily befriends villains but also doesn't trust them and doesn't believe they can ever really change, she's the savior of an entire planet but has feelings of inadequacy as her civilian identity and struggles with feeling like she can be successful without superpowers, she's great at the straightforward meanings and uses of words and loves reading but struggles to write passages that aren't dry as hell, it can be easily headcannoned that she's neurodivergent (special interests, issues with fitting in with her peers, taking things very literally, etc)... seriously there is SO MUCH to explore about her character, and a lot of it comes into play when you add tobey into the mix (literally ALL of the things i mentioned are explored at some point using tobey as a parallel or foil), but i rarely saw fanfiction that explored her thoughts on things further than 'he's evil but... maybe good?' or 'he's evil but... i kind of like him anyway?'.

if you want her to fall for him while being a villain, explore it!! why does she go against her morals? does she lie to herself about it to feel better? does she feel like she has to 'fix him' as part of her superhero duties to the city, and if so, how does that affect her as she tries and fails to help him? does she fall for him when she believes that he's turning good, only to feel betrayed when he starts acting worse because he feels like he can get away with it? it's such a shame that fanworks spend so little time even considering these questions, and it is absolutely a product of how deeply misogyny is/was baked into how we approach media (especially back then).

tobey goes good: but wait, i thought this show was progressive (a conclusion, i guess)

ifbrd wrote a great meta recently about how the show is a bit misogynist, despite being progressive in several ways. honestly i don't have much to add, but i'd really recommend reading through this; it makes a lot of great observations about the ways that male and female characters are presented differently through the show

i have little to add, so i'd just like to conclude with a reflection on the ship from my current viewpoint. i do think part of the reason so many of us latched onto the ship, despite how obviously problematic it was, is that the show treats a lot of things that would be serious in real life as normal or even comedic - which is fine lol, i'm not going to pretend that it's not a show for little kids, so they have to keep the tone light.

but if we, as teens/adults, decide to engage with this content in a more realistic manner, we have to be prepared to confront how messed up so many of the things going on really are. and if you still want to ship it, there's nothing inherently wrong with that! there's a lot of interesting things to explore in this ship, no matter what stage of enemies-to-friends-to-lovers you write them at, and it can be really helpful to have a space where you can explore a dynamic such as this in fiction. (speaking from experience here tbh, writing some fic for them helped me deal with complicated feelings about some ex-longtime friends.)

so to write this ship at all means that there are canon issues that you need to deal with if you want to have them end up in a healthy relationship in any manner that makes sense (unless you create an AU where none of that is applicable, which, power to you then). and i’m not saying ‘write them with a healthy endgame or you’re Bad’, not at all lol. but at least please, please take a step back once in a while to examine the dynamic that you’re writing, and please be careful about whether you mean to be romanticizing whatever behaviors you end up portraying as good.

[btsandvmin]

Normalizing Vmin or “Vmin”

This is going to sound weird, delusional and probably hypocritical no matter how I say it. But I hope you all understand this is all still just in theory. I simply want to talk about this because I want to offer a different view and hopefully help in keeping Vmin shippers from turning into something worse. I am talking about Vmin here but obviously I would apply this to all ships.

Lately the annoyance with how fans always friendzone Vmin has gotten a lot louder. It's been all over Twitter this week. And I totally understand why because Vmin deserves to be recognized as a ship just as any other. But I do want to talk about the complaint that fans normalize the real Vmin too much. Because I think it's important to see the difference between shipping and how people view the real people that are Jimin and Taehyung and their relationship.

In short I would say we have real Vmin vs “Vmin” as a fictional ship, and that normalizing these two are very different things. In fact I don’t know if we can even say that Vmin as a ship can be normalized, because to begin with in the nature of what a ship is it’s all just people’s own fantasies applied onto real people. On the other hand normalizing Vmin’s behavior as two real people is just about interpretation and personal views. Not about shipping, unless you actually believe they or another ship to be real.

So... Normalizing real Vmin is kind of a good thing. Especially if they actually are more than friends.

Think of it not from the perspective of a shipper wanting other people to recognize their ship. Instead if a ship is actually real normalization is an important tool to give them more freedom. Think about the two people involved. What do they show? A very close and intimate bond and friendship and nothing more confirmed. But even if there was more they wouldn't be able to show it honestly. That’s just how most LGBT+ individuals and couples have to struggle in today’s society, and especially if it’s someone famous.

Vmin can say they are soulmates. They can hold hands. We see them more cuddly and possibly sharing a bed. We heard Tae talk about 4 o'clock and Vmin share "their candid stories as honestly as possible". Isn't that what we want?

A lot of it has been gradual and now people see things as normal between them though they might not have if it all came at once and in full force. Over time a lot of things have been normalized, even to the point that they wrote a small article about Vmin changing male friendship norms. 

It might even be meant to gradually get worse and worse and stretch the boundaries of what Vmin can do under a platonic label. I've written about this in regards to Vmin before, and let me tell you they have indeed increased some of the things that might look a bit too intimate since then. You can read it here, it’s what I wrote in the start of 2019 - Vmin – Pushing the boundaries

Like holding hands, sharing beds or talking about some of their shared stories. Even the possible song connections keep happening more. If we are lucky they might even build up to an eventual vlive together. Something I personally believe they have been avoiding for whatever reason. Either way they seem more open and happy and that makes me happy. I hope they can keep doing it.

I sometimes struggle with if I should even share my analysis or theories because if they prove to be right and are too well spread it might actually affect Vmin in a bad way (obviously I am not big enough to have that impact, but still). It's not impossible that BTS do get affected by the fans' views of them and their relationships.

Let's talk as if Vmin is real and they are a gay couple hiding from the world because they don't want to be out. If they don't want to be out, why would we want to expose them? Even if they in an ideal world would be honest and out, in reality it wouldn't be that simple. Isn't it better to try to be open and supportive no matter what? 

Time, place and how we talk about ships matters. Even I talk about my frustrations, just look at my very first post on this blog (The “bromance” issue). But it's a huge difference if I talk about it in private or openly, who I talk to and how I would talk about it depending on situation. And most importantly if I talk about the ship or the real Vmin.

If there is a real couple how they are viewed will matter. For example I am sure Vmin would be happy that people see their love for each other, platonic or not. But how they decide to portray themselves is nothing we should be angry about. Even if it might partly be because they don't have a choice. Every thing Vmin normalize is another step towards them not having to hold back something. They can hold hands because it's seen as a platonic normal thing between them now. In 2016 this wasn't the case and Tae himself even said holding hands with a man would feel weird. Imagine what a sense of freedom and relief to no longer have to stop themselves from doing this if they have been holding back for one reason or another. 

Seeing Vmin hold hands was rare, but look at them now.

Fans might be normalizing Vmin, but it's because that's the image Vmin and Big Hit are showing us. There are many examples, I mean they literally named their song "Friends". It might be that they are just platonic soulmates or it might be a white lie to allow Vmin to do as much as possible while hiding. By the way I don't say Vmin have to be happy with everything, like the Christmas song for example, but I do believe in it being something they understand might be necessary. Either way we should be happy they can act the way they do and feel comfortable. There is nothing wrong with calling Vmin best friends.

We should be happy people see them as best friends as long as that is how they want to be seen. At least people love and respect their bond. 

I do however think it's fine to be annoyed if people question your reason to ship Vmin, because shipping is about preference and not about reality. You have a right to ship whatever you want, just as everyone else. If someone loves Vmin just as friends, great. If they try to explain why you shouldn't ship them, leave or explain why anyone is free to ship whatever they want because it's just fantasy. The problem is usually when the line between fantasy and reality is too blurry. But shipping is in itself not a bad thing. As long as we don't do it in a way that harms others or makes the member feel uncomfortable. Basically keep the shipping to places where it belongs and remember that ship material like edits, fics or fanart etc. is enjoyed as expansions of reality.

I feel annoyed too that Vmin is so friendzoned. But just that the ship isn't recognized as a good possible romantic or sexual ship, not about them as real people. Because the friendzoning for the real people might either be there for a reason, or they are just best friends. Thus we shouldn't be annoyed when Vmin are seen as friends, unless it's other shippers trying to say their ship is better. We should be annoyed when people don't understand why they are a good ship and people enjoy expanding their reality into fiction. 

But at least for me it's probably better to not try to insist Vmin or any other ship is real. We can also explain why we ship Vmin without having to say that someone else's ship is lesser. You wouldn't want someone else to force you to stop shipping Vmin, so that goes the other way as well. 

In the end if we push it too much that actual Jimin and Taehyung's relationship is real in a romantic sense it's not good for them no matter if it's real or not. As long as we accept them that's what matters most.

Something else we should be annoyed with is how fans defend their straightness and keep on expressing that a non straight member is impossible. If someone says they are straight and we shouldn't assume their sexuality I think it's good to point out that we shouldn't assume they are straight either. We need to show we accept BTS and Vmin no matter what.

Even if Vmin isn't real we should be fine with that too. I realize this might seem hypocritical coming from me who literally write Vmin analysis. But really, I hope you understand what I try to say here.

(Now watch my follower count drop...)

Thank you for reading, and thank you to everyone who follows me and tries to understand my point of view even if you might not agree.

I purple you and I purple Vmin. 💜

[thrillingdetectivetales]

Author Interview

I was tagged by the lovely @ianandmickeygallavich1​ 

(Throwing a read more in here because this bitch got LONG!)

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 136 works across 45 fandoms, just to give you an idea of what a shameless fandom hopping multishipper I actually am.

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

My total WC is 676,938.

3. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

By a Thread, By a String, By a Rope The Magnificent Seven (2016), WIP, Kudos: 987

Matinee Suits, 5125 words, Kudos: 947

Careful Application of External Pressure Grimm, WIP, Kudos: 876

This Night Ain’t for the Holy Man The Magnificent Seven (2016), 5578 words, Kudos: 875

Catch It Like a Butterfly Leverage, 1497 words, Kudos: 658

4. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I try really hard to respond to every comment, but sometimes they pile up and the anxiety of seeing the number gets to me and I just mark them all read and start over with a clean slate. So, apologies if I skipped you. I promise it was nothing personal, just me trying to practice some fumbling self-care.

5. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Probably Curtain Call, which is a Roy Harper-centric DCU fic exploring his feelings in the aftermath of the 2015 Red Hood/Arsenal run.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

Pretty much all my fic have happy endings, so I’m not sure which one is the happiest. I feel like that’s a subjective question, haha.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so, what is the craziest one you’ve written?

I do write crossovers! I love crossovers and crack fic premises and wild “okay but just go with me here” scenarios, haha. They’re the most fun to figure out, imo. The craziest one I’ve ever written is probably the Shameless-meets-Ducktales crossover I did for Tumblr Jukebox a little while back, though the one I picked up as a pinch hit for the Crossworks Fandom Exchange just last month, crossing over Brooklyn Nine-Nine with Dragon Age: Inquisition is definitely a contender for that spot.

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

I received a couple of snide comments on a Matt/Foggy Daredevil fic I did under a different name back when I was in college, but that’s about it.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do! I don’t think I’m particularly bad at it, though I do find it very difficult. I’m not sure what the “what kind” question is asking, exactly, but I actually do a smut writing challenge called Monday, Slutty Monday that includes a list of kinks I’m willing to write. You can give it a gander here, if you’re curious.

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

No, though I have had someone ask if they could use the concept of the lover’s noose from By a Thread, By a String, By a Rope for their original works. I said no, largely because it’s a concept I intend to use in my own original works, though I welcome transformative, not-for-profit works to remix or reimagine or play in any of my sandboxes.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

I have! I was lucky enough to have Doomed to Play, a Magnificent Seven werewolf/vampire AU, translated into Russian several years back!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have not! I am extremely interested, though, as I’m a huge fan of old-school, forum-style roleplaying and I really, really love collaborating on projects, so if you’re interested, please feel free to reach out to me and ask! I can’t promise anything, because I’m lucky enough to live a very full and busy life, but who knows!

13. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I am not really sure that I have an all-time favorite ship. I have a few oldies but goodies that I revisit pretty regularly, including Harry/Draco, which was baby’s first ship, and Fraser/Kowalski of Due South fame, but I don’t think I’ve ever had a true OTP.

14. What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

God, so many of them, haha. I’m terrible about finishing WIPs because I have a very short attention span, but I’m not fully willing to write any of them off because I do periodically poke at the GDocs for a lot of them, even if they haven’t been updated in years. The only one I truly don’t foresee finishing is So Let Us Not Be Lonesome, which is a Magnificent Seven ghost/medium AU, and the only reason I don’t foresee finishing it is because I hope to one day revisit it as an original work.

15. What are your writing strengths?

I’m pretty routinely cheered in comments for writing true-to-character dialogue, really lush sensory descriptions, and tempting food descriptions, so I’ll go with those.

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

I tend to overwrite and I really fucking love adverbs, haha. I was a big reader of doorstopper fantasy in my youth, which tend to be really, really purple in their prose, so I lean in that direction. I have a lot of betas whose opinions I trust tell me I go too purple quite often, but I love my descriptive language so I’m not sure it’s a weakness I’ll ever overcome. Let’s call it a stylistic choice, for now, haha.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I do it all the time, and I really enjoy it in other folks’ fic, so long as the dialogue is something that a non-speaker can still understand from context. I think I probably wasn’t great with that when I first started writing Spanish-speaking characters into my fic, but I like to think I’ve gotten a better handle on it since then.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

I think it was honestly Ronin Warriors, an anime that used be on Cartoon Network’s Toonami block way back in the day. I had a lengthy and involved Mary Sue self-insert fic that got be like, a few hundred pages long, though it never saw the light of day.

19. What’s a fandom/ship you haven’t written for yet but want to?

The two currently at the top of my list are Ted Lasso and 9-1-1, though I can hardly watch a piece of media these days without seeing something in it I want to explore that the creators didn’t have the time or inclination to explore, or that didn’t fit their narrative.

20. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh, this is so hard! I honestly don’t know. I don’t tend to go back and re-read my own fic too terribly often, so I’m really not sure, but I will say that one of the ones I think is underrated is The Lady and the Knife, which is a Luther/BBC Sherlock fic that came about because I got tired of Sherlock stans claiming his behavior should be forgiven because he was a high-functioning sociopath and thought it would be fun to see what happened if he ever crossed paths with someone who was actually a high-functioning sociopath and not just a dick. (Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed the early BBC Sherlock and some of the fic is chefkissingfingers.gif, I just really hate it when people require their characters to be morally upright at all times. Let them be villains! Let them be dicks! Don’t apologize for finding that interesting!)

I am tagging @thesummoningdark, @blahblahblahclintnickiscanon, @townhulls, @ksansart @rubinecorvus @persipneiwrites @irolltwenties and anyone else who feels like participating! I have a lot of mutuals who write fic and I’m really bad at remembering everyone’s various handles, so please, if you want to participate but I didn’t tag you, go ahead and do it and @ my ass anyway!

Luh ya bbs.

[picturejasper20]

What made Infinity train so popular?

Infinity Train, an animated series created by Owen Dennis, has been praised by many animation fans due to its story, narrative, complex characters and themes. But what is it that made this show gain such a big following in first place?

In this article the author is going to try to discuss what separates Infinity Train from other series of its medium and how these aspects helped create a unique show.

1)  Plot and continuity

When it comes to animation, series tend to be comedy-driven and episodic. They sometimes have episodes that tackle more serious themes like the ¨Burrito¨ from We Bare Bears. In the episode in question the protagonist Grizzly becomes attached to a giant burrito and carries it everywhere he goes. By the end of the episode it’s revealed that this is was linked to a traumatic event of his childhood: he was found alone stuck in a tree without his parents, a firefighter rescued him and led him grab his sleeve. The burrito reminded Grizzly of this moment.

Animated series aimed for a younger audience tend to teach simple morals like don’t tell lies and be kind to others.They also, more often than not, lack plot and continuity, which can make harder for older audience to get invested in them. Due to this episodic nature it can led to a show feel repetitive and boring after watching a few episodes.

Infinity Train in comparison to other animated series, it has a clear plot from the start. It know where it wants its story to go and what the protagonists are trying to accomplish. This was clear since the original pilot was uploaded by Cartoon Network back in November 1, 2016, which immediately made thousands of people sign up a petition to greenlight the show.

Another aspect is that each episode is important to understand the main story. This helps the series with not getting too distracted from the plot and lets the audience know that there’s always something happening on screen.

 2)  Different stories and protagonists each season.

Each season focuses on a different protagonists and expands concepts that weren’t fully explored in previous seasons. For example: one of the main things that drives the plot in Season 2 is if the inhabitants of train are able to escape from it or if they only exist to assist the passengers in their journey.

This keeps the series refreshing and avoid from getting repetitive. In every season there is a new mystery to solve. The conflicts and themes vary as well. This kind of narrative is rare to find in other cartoons that rarely change the main protagonists from season to season.

It’s worth mentioning that despite being a different stories, its important to watch all the episodes to fully get the story and the world because many characters from previous seasons usually return later.

3)  Unique concept

Another narrative tool that makes Infinity train special its is main premise: Humans who have personal issues get summoned by the strange train which is where it takes place the events of the series. Each passegers gets a ¨number¨ that symbolizes their issues and the only way to get it down is by the person facing their demons or by overcoming the train’s obstacles.  This gives the show a feeling of mystery as it makes you want to know who these characters are and why they were summoned by the train.

The machinery itself is very intriguing: Each cart is a different world/dimension that has its own set of rules and characters (nulls). The way that the train works is very strange. You never know what to expect from it. Its origins aren’t fully explained either. This helps creating an atmosphere that makes the protagonists feel somewhat helpless because they don’t have a map that could guide them and tell them how to get out.

It’s worth of pointing out that the protagonists aren’t exactly ¨heroes¨. Usually in animates shows, the main protagonist is usually a ¨kid or teenager hero¨ who fights against an evil force. Examples of this would be: ¨Ben 10¨, ¨Avatar The Last Airbender¨, ¨OK KO Let’s be Heroes¨, ¨Steven Universe¨.

In Infinity Train the main protagonist aren’t in the train to ¨save the day¨. They are there because they have to work through their own issues if they want to be free. In a way, they are their own antagonists as they are the only ones who can decide if they want to continue or not.

There are some antagonists in every season, of course. But they usually serve more as obstacles that the protagonist has to overcome to escape and get their number down. One could say their character arcs could be considered ¨redemption arcs¨ since they try to learn how to be better people.

4)  Lack of shipping

This is not as important as the other points but it helps the series’ writing: Most of the relationships potrayed in Infinity train are friendships. The series focus on its plot and rarely deviates from the main story to explore romanctic drama.

There are animated series that take too much of their time in shipping that end up becoming distracting and ruining characters that were likeable in first place. People have complained about shows like Star vs The Forces of Evil and Miraculous Ladybug for focusing too much in romance triangles and not enough time in developing their characters and the main plot.

While in Infinity Train some of the characters may share mutual romantic feelings, they don’t feel forced and stay as a subplot instead of being the central conflict of the story.

In conclusion: Infinity train is a series that has story elements that made it stand out from other modern animated series. Despite not getting renewed after its third season it is probably going to be remember by many people in years to come due to to its unique premise and writing.

Credits to @argentdandelion​ for helping me with writing this analysis and giving me ideas like about the continuity and protagonists of the show.

[savior-of-humanity]

OKAY here are my Thoughts(tm) about The Ancient Gods part II

ALSO: MASSIVE FUCKING SPOILER WARNING FOR THE ANCIENT GODS PART 1 + 2. BE WARNED THIS IS LONG AS FUCK. TL;DR AT BOTTOM.

In terms of the gameplay: I really liked how it played! The combat encounters weren’t downright vicious like in the first DLC, but they still go out of their way to mix things up (i.e a hallway filled with explosive barrels + blood punch pick-ups + Pinkies, or the double-Marauder encounter that you could ACCIDENTALLY FUCKING BUFF JESUS CHRIST) so it was still fun all around.

The new enemies added - the Cyber-Baron/Armored Baron, Riot Zombie/Chaingunner, Screecher Zombie, Stone Imp, and Cursed Prowler - are...okay. I like the idea of new enemy variants based off pre-existing ones but they felt either really fucking frustrating to fight (particularly the Cursed Prowler and Chaingunner) or were very “simple”, I guess. The Stone Imps, in particular, are a variant of Imp that are very resistant to damage unless you use the full-auto mod for the shotgun, in which they drop even more shotgun ammo if they’re killed by that. Other than that they do a Sonic-style spin-dash and slam into you, which can actually knock you off a ledge. Screecher Zombies are basically just mobile hazards that if you accidentally hit, will act like temporary Buff Totems. Cursed Prowler is fucking awful: basically, if it hits you with a projectile, you’ll be cursed with a debuff that keeps you from double-jumping and dashing that also drains your health over time, and you HAVE to kill it with a blood punch in order to remove the curse. Chaingunners are basically just the Shield Zombie Soldiers, but they shoot faster and have an indestructable shield. And finally, the Cyber-Baron: It’s basically a Baron of Hell, but with indestructable armor that can only be destroyed by shooting it’s mace when it flashes green, or by shooting it with plasma. After the armor is gone you have to kill it as fast as you can before the armor is regenerated, repeat until it dies.

Summoner Ghosts and Blood Maykrs also make a return, which is cool.

The Hammer is cool to say the least. I was hoping to see some glory kills with it but considering that it’s primary use is to either clear out groups of small enemies or to stun larger ones like Barons, it makes sense that they’d omit glory kills from it. On top of that, Marauders now have a mechanic (for the entire game, not just the DLC) where when you shoot them as they flash green, they’ll become stunned (though the sound effects are rather corny and cartoonish, even for the game). Using the Hammer on a stunned Marauder will GREATLY extend that stun, which allows you to just fucking shit on them.

I also really liked the grapple-Hookshot points that you had to use to progress in a level. I’m still not really used to how you’re supposed to move in the opposite direction of the point to swing yourself, but the idea is intuitive, fun, and makes me wish it was in the base game and the previous DLC.

My biggest grievances with this DLC, however, is how it handled some of it’s characters, the story, and the new lore that was implemented in the codexes.

So first off: I want to say that while I still appreciate the DLC, that’s honestly only with the gameplay. The story, much less the lore, is fucking stupid to say the least.

To TL;DR the story: It is, quite honestly, bare-bones as fuck. We continue from where we directly left off from the Ancient Gods Part 1: Davoth/The Dark Lord is being summoned into existence and into his physical form, which for some reason looks exactly like Doomguy except with sick tats, glowing red eyes, and a weird implant in his chest. Doomguy, naturally, tries to spawncamp him and shoots him with his super-shotgun, but nothing happens as “no blood can be spilled in this holy place”. Davoth leaves, telling Doomguy that he’ll be waiting for him in the city of Immora, the capitol city at the very center of Hell.

Doomguy goes to Argent D’Nur. He murder-death-kills shit, as per usual. He goes into this big castle where a hologram of Valen is waiting for him. He tells him that he atones for his sins and gives him the Hammer since Doomguy lifted the curse from his son’s soul. He goes to the Torch of Kings and lights it, marking his journey to the giant crystalline spear that impales Argent D’Nur known as the World Spear. Cue cutscene of a bunch of different Argenta people/Night Sentinel seeing the light of the Torch of Kings from all over Argent D’Nur. Internguy tells him that it’s a day’s walk still from the World Spear, and conveniently a very fucking awesome looking Argenta dragon shows up and gives him a ride to the World Spear.

Doomguy gets to a lake that separates him from the World Spear. The Father says “He is worthy” and then a bridge rises out of the water. Doomguy crosses past some big ass Sentinel ghosts/guardians and into the World Spear. Turns out the inside of the World Spear is like some giant, fucked up ship made out of crystal, with weird figures lining the wall and all that: Internguy even says “This isn’t a crystal at all, this is a ship!” This does not get expanded upon whatsoever in neither dialogue or codexes. Doomguy grabs Convenient Power Crystal and leaves.

Doomguy arrives on Earth through a portal, which is looking substantially better than since its invasion. Internguy tells him that a Convenient Ancient Portal close by is the only way to Immora. Doomguy kills shit, arrives at portal, activates it with Convenient Power Crystal, and leaves.

Doomguy arrives in front of a giant wall surrounding Immora. Davoth walks out, wearing a big ass power suit that looks like something straight out of Warhammer 40k. He’s surrounded by guards in cool red armor with cool spears that look very humanoid. He says some shit and a bunch of Hell-ships and demons and titans start showing up. But then surprise! A bunch of portals open up on Doomguy’s side like it’s fucking Infinity War/Endgame all over again and a fuckload of Sentinels start coming out, with mechs and dragons and spaceships. Valen is there. Doomguy and Valen stare at each other for like 5 seconds before Valen says “Let Hell tremble before our might!” or some shit like that. Doomguy fights, gets past the wall, fights some more inside the city. Again, the usual.

I also want to briefly point out that Immora is basically just a Maykr city but red, and that it’s apparently “Hell’s own technology.” Also, the red dudes in armor are actual enemies but the guns they have (the hell-razor from 2016) do piss-poor damage and they die if you so much as breathe on them.

Doomguy finally catches up to Davoth. Davoth monologues about how he’s going to get his revenge and that it’s inevitable, bla bla bla. Fight begins. It’s basically Marauder 2.0 but if he hits you and/or you shoot him at the wrong time he heals a fuckload of health. And also 5 different health bars. After you knock down 2 or 3 of his bars he stops the fight to monologue for some fucking reason? And then shits out a plot twist that surprise, he’s actually the real God, and that the Father betrayed/usurped his power, and that he will “unmake everything by his hand.” Fight resumes. Doomguy eventually beats him. Davoth asks him if he has anything to say before he strikes down his creator. Doomguy takes off his helmet, stabs Davoth in the heart, and says no in his stupid sexy voice. Davoth dies, his life-sphere emerges and then explodes. Doomguy suddenly becomes weak and falls over. The Father says “He created everything in his image, even you.” Doomguy passes out and wakes up to see 3 Seraphim seal him in a sarcophagus like the one from 2016. Fade to black, with the quote “May the blood on your sword never dry, and may we never need you again.” End game, roll credits.

If you hadn’t read any of the codexes while playing the DLC, the story probably makes little to no sense to you whatsoever. But honestly the codexes don’t expand upon things much and, if anything, just fucking make some aspects of the story even more stupid.

The World Spear is implied in the codex that it contains live Wraiths (“A live Wraith has not been seen in centuries, but rumors persist that some yet remain inside the World Spear itself.”), and while the figures in the World Spear could be Wraiths, absolutely nothing is said about them out of three Codexes related to the level, which honestly just makes me wonder the point of adding this stuff if you don’t even give a single sentence of why the interior of the World Spear is Like That.

The codex entries related to Earth are basically uninteresting as they’re pretty much just “humanity is rebuilding and views doomguy as a hero”. There is one about the Convenient Ancient Portal (Gate of Divum) but all it really says is that it was built and used by the Father to access Immora. Nothing about why it’s on Earth, or anything interesting like that.

However, the real bullshit comes in when we start to look at the codex entries related to Immora and Davoth.

So, Immora is the central - and oldest - city in Hell. It’s described as such: “Once a paradise at the dawn of creation, Immora now survives as a stronghold where the Dark Lord resides. Sustained now by the essence of Hell's victims, the people of Immora experience life eternal. Regular infusions of Hell energy have prevented them from transforming into the demons found outside the boundaries of the city. Ancient technology defends Immora from invaders, the high walls impenetrable to those who would bring harm to the last people of the first world.“

Yeah. So not only did Hell have high-tech technology all this time, but also the red guys in armor? Those are Immorans. Which is weird to me, because if Hell had this super advanced technology that’s also ancient, and thus around for a long time, why the hell are we only seeing it now?

Also, surprise! Turns out the Book of Seraphs is a complete fucking lie according to the very first codex entry related to Davoth! (”Our research shows that Maykr history and lore holds truths that are not consistent with passages found in the Hell Priest texts, revealing the true origins of Hell and all surrounding dimensions. This revelation would explain why Hell is the single dimension that connects to all others, and why it is the oldest in existence - the first world.”)

The real truth is that Davoth is the real Creator/God, and that Jekkad was the very first realm, not Urdak. He still sought immortality for his people, so he created the Maykrs to figure it out for him. They did, but decided it would be too dangerous to give Davoth that information, so they basically said “fuck you” and sealed Jekkad/Davoth while re-writing their own records to hide the truth. Obviously, this pissed off Davoth. So much so that he basically became super angry and emo and became the Dark Lord from all the vengeance and hatred (which also turned Jekkad into Hell.)

Another surprise! Turns out that Davoth had a hand in the creation of the fucking Doom Slayer! Because he wanted to get revenge against the Maykrs, he started to manipulate a bunch of people while he was trapped as a life sphere I guess. He started with the Khan Maykr, convincing her that there was a “chosen one” who would threaten her rule and thus making her paranoid as fuck. He then guided her into creating the Divinity Machine using a fragment of himself that had been sealed in Urdak. Then he manipulated Samur, by convincing him that “the Khan Maykr will lead us all to ruin.” He was then controlled and compelled to release a stranger from his prison (Doomguy) and empower him using the Divinity Machine.

As you can probably guess, he got his revenge since Doomguy would go on to utterly fuck Urdak/the Khan Maykr (as well as Samur), and ever since he knew that his “Beast” would come for him.

Listen. I don’t really mind the idea of Doomguy being used or even manipulated by different godly powers. Or even Davoth being the real God or whatever. But this new lore and story just feels... really sloppy and poorly executed, especially since it directly conflicts with the fucking base game. If he manipulated the Khan Maykr and wanted revenge against her, then why did he scream “NOOOOOO!” when Doomguy killed her?

And, if anything: Why the fuck does Davoth even look like Doomguy in the first place? Is it some form of mockery? Or did id just decide to fucking retcon the Doom Slayer being the same person as the Doomguy from Doom 1/2 with the Father’s line of “He created everything in his image -- even you.”

And, on top of that, the DLC just left more open questions than answers: what the fuck happened to Samur, since he isn’t even so much as mentioned beyond the codexes? Who is the Wretch, the being who had supposedly forged Doomguy’s armor back in 2016? What is the fate of Earth/Hell/Urdak/Argent D’Nur after the Slayer’s victory? What the fuck happened to the Demonic Crucible, the one from 2016? What about the ARC Carrier and the Fortress of Doom?

Finally, Valen, Internguy and the Father should’ve been far more involved in the story beyond just being either convenient voices telling you convenient stuff or (in the case of Valen) being a convenient guy to give you convenient weapon that also conveniently shows up with a giant army that doesn’t actually do anything but look cool in the skybox.

TL;DR The new lore and story of the DLC is basically garbage, and since I highly doubt id will change it I’m going to completely disregard it, write my own, and also take up Davoth as a muse because it seriously pissed me off that much.

[medea10]

My Review of Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni GOU

(a.k.a. When They Cry Gou)

I know what you’re thinking. Why the heck am I reviewing this anime again? I’ve already written a review in 2009 and re-polished it in 2016. (Here it is BTW) I’ve made my point on who I like, hate, what ships are worthy, and poked fun at all the deaths that happened throughout the series. I think some time has passed that I should say some thoughts on this…um, story. After all, Higurashi is one of my favorite animes.

STORY: Ah shit, here we go again!

Higurashi or When They Cry is about a boy named Keiichi Maebara who recently moved to a place called Hinamizawa. And ever since moving to this town, he’s found his days are filled with fun mischief with fellow friends Rena Ryuuguu, Satoko Hojo, Mion Sonozaki, and Rika Furude. But little does Keiichi know that there’s a little murder mystery that surrounds the town. During a town festival known as Watanagashi (or Cotton Drifting), there’s usually one or two people that go missing or turn up dead. And this year, Keiichi is next. So let’s relive the horrors that plague the town of Hinamizawa and…

One episode later.

Wait, what the…?! It’s episode 2, why are we seeing Hanyuu? I don’t remember that in the manga. The visual! THE VISUAL! WHAT THE FUCK?! ISN’T THIS SUPPOSED TO BE A REBOOT? WHAT THE FUCK?! WHAT THE FUCK?! WHY IS THERE AN ADULT RIKA?! WAIT, IS THAT ADULT RIKA OR BERN? IS THIS GOING TO BE THE PARALLEL UNIVERSE TO THE WITCHES OF UMINEKO?! THE SHADOWS IN THE OPENING ARE TOO FAMILIAR FROM OTHER WORKS! Ryukishi07, you magnificent, fucking troll master for keeping this hidden until the second episode’s air date!

Many of us did not see this coming. When they announced a new Higurashi series that was going to be done by a different studio, many of us speculated whether this was going to be a reboot or a sequel. But then we got the PV trailers and it looked like we were going to get a reboot to correct the mistakes Studio Deen made years ago. Rika’s head doesn’t look like its gonna snap off because her body is so small in comparison. Improvements! I mean, they showed everything we were already used to like the yandere girls, the original soundtrack, the original freakin’ cast, and death by baseball bat. Hell, the first episode ended with an Eiko Shimamiya song! It was on track to being a reboot! A better looking reboot!

Here in lies the sequel aspect! After episode one, we get a scene that isn’t usually seen until the Kai part of Higurashi (a good 4-5 arcs away). And they give away the secret that Rika Furude is repeating the timeline of June 1983 over and over because she keeps dying. And as the series progresses, you notice little things different from the original series. Many of the well-known storylines end much differently than what you remember. Instead of Keiichi killing Rena and Mion with a baseball bat, you’ve got Rena going psycho on Keiichi. And Rika’s fate is somehow worse than the stories of the original series. So let’s head back to Hinamizawa to hear the cicadas cry and watch a murder mystery unfold.

THE SUB: All the original voice actors have returned to voice their respected roles. Perfection in a nutshell!

LICENSING: You’ve gotta be shitting me!

As I’ve mentioned years ago in my review, the original Higurashi anime went through a turbulent time being licensed in the states. It was originally licensed and dubbed by Geneon. But once Geneon collapsed, FUNimation licensed it and did absolutely fuck all with it. Geneon could only manage to squeak out one season. At this point, FUNimation was picking up titles that Geneon used to have before it fell under including Familiar of Zero, Kyou Kara Maou, and yes, Higurashi. All of these titles mentioned here were done absolutely nothing with despite having cult followings, second seasons, and OVA’s.

A year or two after licensing it, the license expired for Higurashi. For nearly six years, the only copies you could get were out of print and estimating at $500 at the very least for a full collection. Single DVD’s could be found in rare shops, but it would take like 13 years to complete the fucking collection if you did it that way. And that was only for the first season. Second season, the best all of us could do was bootleg DVD’s from Japan Town or fansubs with glaring errors for the best season to Higurashi. We had to deal with this shit until Sentai Filmworks licensed and released the first 2 seasons and the Rei OVA’s.

AND NOW YOU’RE TELLING ME FUNIMATION IS CLAIMING HIGURASHI ALL FOR THEMSELVES?!

Where the shit was this love 10 years ago when we were asking politely to release Kai? People ignorantly blew Higurashi off for years because season two was never released in the states until 2016 because they thought the damn anime ended after Rena held up the school. I’m already irritated with FUNimation after the Interspecies Reviewers debacle and I’m still quite butt-hurt over them re-releasing Nichijou with a dub to make a quick buck. Licensing Higurashi just brings back old anger. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy Higurashi is legally licensed and can be seen on at the very least Hulu. It’s just that I hold grudges and this was a big one.

THE DUB: Holy…um, okay! This is a rather big gulp to take in. As I’ve repeatedly mentioned in past reviews, the Higurashi dub was a mixed bag of okay, bad, and oh gasperts kill it with fire. So, not great! The good folks at Geneon (before bankrupting in America) dubbed the first season with a good chunk of folks that put their fake names to the credits. Again, not great! To me, there were some aspects of Megan Hollingshed, Mela Lee, and Grant George’s performances of Mion, Rena, and Keiichi that were okay. SOME! John Snyder and Karen Strassmen as Ooishi and Takano were the best out of that dub. Everything else was just irredeemable! It needed a redub, an overhaul, and a spit-shine. For years, I’ve wondered who would be the dream cast. Sentai Filmworks unfortunately never dubbed the remaining seasons when they released them. Would Luci Christian be the heavenly voice to do Rika Furude? Could we get Hilary Haag to do Satoko? Okay, that never came to pass.

This dub is a breath of fresh air. Rika doesn’t sound like Mihoshi. Satoko doesn’t sound fake, Keiichi doesn’t sound like a weird Sonic the Hedgehog. It’s perfect. ESPECIALLY BRITTANY LAUDA AS SATOKO! I knew the second she was cast as Satoko that she was going to excel the fuck out of this role. And I was not disappointed! The only voice I’m still not quite used to is Michelle Rojas as the Sonozaki twins. Probably because I was somewhat okay with Megan Hollingshed’s voice in the 2006 version that it’ll take some time! And we FINALLY got a voice for Hanyuu. I am super excited that Xanthe Huynh is the voice and I know she’ll do great with this role! With all of that said, here’s what you might recognize these folks from.

*Keiichi is now played by Khoi Dao (known for Kiriyama on March Comes in Like a Lion, Murata on Demon Slayer, Chaka on Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Pt. 3, and Iskhan on SAO: Alicization)

*Rena is now played by Emi Lo

*Mion/Shion is now played by Michelle Rojas (known for Shizu Delta on Overlord, Touka on Assassination Classroom, Minase on Psycho Pass, Kanan on Love Live Sunshine, and Kusakai on Keijo!!!!!!!!)

*Rika is now played by Apphia Yu (known for Rio on Assassination Classroom, Marie on Black Clover, You on Love Live Sunshine, Victorique on Gosick, Natsumi on Danganronpa 3, and Laki on Fairy Tail)

*Satoko is now played by Brittany Lauda (known for Riko on Made in Abyss, Meidri on Interspecies Reviewers, Lessar on Index III, and Ichigo on Darling in the FranXX)

*Hanyuu is played by Xanthe Huynh (known for Menma on Anohana, Haru on Persona 5, Hanayo on Love Live, Hidomi on FLCL: Progressive, PallaPalla on Sailor Moon Super S [redub], and Sachi on SAO)

ANY CHANGES IN YOUR HATE-O-RADE:

Okay Medea, let-a-rip!

*inhales and exhales*

Teppei Hojo is trash. He is ultimate trash. This fucker needs to be murdered in every timeline. He is a turd in a Glenn Quagmire shirt. Him and his wife are trash. And when this pile of trash is cheating on that pile of trash, he sleeps with peak trash named Ritsuko. Teppei Hojo needs to die in every timeline. Whenever Keiichi bashes this cum-burger’s head in with a blunt instrument, I scream at the top of my lungs, “DIE SCUM, DIE”! And nothing, I repeat, NOTHING will change my opinion of Teppei Hojo.

Episode 23.

Oh, fuck you Higurashi Gou!

MUSIC: Okay, thank you for proving me wrong. I did not despise the opening theme. Having Higurashi with no Eiko Shimamiya is like having Pokemon with no Rika Matsumoto. Or Rozen Maiden with no ALI PROJECT. But this new opening is fine by my standards.

That’s right, get the niceness of the review before I get angry down below.

THESE TIMELOOPS: Rika tries to find solutions to end her time-loop in June 1983. Much like the original series, we follow stories from the Onikakushi-hen, Watanagashi-hen, and Tatarigoroshi-hen arcs (the first three stories to Higurashi, although now these have different names). However, all of these arcs have different endings. And after a positive turnaround with Satoko escaping from her abusive uncle, shit goes south when Detective Ooishi, who up to this point has never suffered under the Hinamizawa Syndrome or died a painful death goes on a murderous rampage. Higurashi style! That means, he’s after Rika Furude, will slaughter anyone in his way, and scratching his neck because he sees maggots (part of the hallucination effect).

What the shit? Ooishi for the most part has been a great guy. With the exception of the Tatarigoroshi-hen storyline, he was a nice guy! In the limbo with Hanyuu, Rika now remembers who has killed her. Every time Rika dies up to this point, she never remembers who was the cause of her demise. Hanyuu implanted that power to remember the deaths and a clue for Rika to use and then she disappears.

Now seriously, imagine Rika’s plight here. She has been repeating the month of June 1983 for over a hundred years. And each of these times she repeats, she’s horribly murdered. Rika got the shit-end of the deal in the murder department in the original series, including being dissected on while alive. Then, leaving her bloody, naked corpse out in the open of the Oyashiro altar! She’s tired of this shit! She wants to live a happy life away from Hinamizawa. She wants to grow older, become a teenager, and have fun. And this series made it worse by having her die four times in one episode. Not just that, but murdered by the most unexpected people including Akasaka, Chief Kimiyoshi, Mion’s mother Akane, and Keiichi. Keiichi has never killed Rika in any of the timelines up to this point. He has killed Mion and Rena, but never Rika. Keiichi loves Rika! Welcome back to A Million Ways to Die in Hinamizawa.

I’ll just add decapitation, drowning in a lake, set on fire, drowning in a sewage pipe, and death by…um…

Alexa, play Chandelier by Sia.

ENDING: We all know by now that in the original series, Miyo Takano is the betrayer and the reason behind all the murders during the Cotton Drifting Festival. This time, it’s someone closer to Rika that’s causing Rika so much pain. After we watched the worst kinds of murders happen to Rika, the episode after gave us our answer. Satoko, Rika’s friend and confidant is not happy that Rika is turning her back on Oyashiro and Hinamizawa. All the while pulling out her intestines!

Oh Higurashi, don’t stop being gory!

Yes, Satoko is aware of past timelines much like Rika and is almost on a god-like state. So what the hell happened to her? I know Satoko’s past has been a cluster-fuck of horror with her brother disappearing, her parents dying, and every form of abuse from her uncle. But she was able to prevail after all that. After surviving 1983, a lot has changed in Hinamizawa. The three big families of Hinamizawa put an end to the Cotton Drifting Festival and claiming there is no curse of Oyashiro. Mion and Shion moved on and are going to high school. And Rika decides she wants to move away from this village. By attending St. Lucia! And she wants to do this with Satoko.

Oh, if you don’t recall St. Lucia, Shion attended this academy until she escaped during the Meakashi-hen arc. It was also the same school that Ange from Umineko attended. But of course Ange attended it in the 90’s and we are clearly in the 80’s. Moving on!

Rika and Satoko studied their butts off for years and their hard work paid off as both were admitted into St. Lucia. Now Rika was able to prevail and fit in with everyone. Satoko on the other hand couldn’t do the same as her grades took a dip, her manners are atrocious, and she doesn’t seem to fit in with anyone. And this caused a drift between Rika and Satoko! And so during a trip to Hinamizawa, Satoko went to the old shrine where she ended up getting sent to that limbo place Rika and Hanyuu were at many times before. There, she meets Eua (God, I hope that really isn’t her name). She’s much like Hanyuu except a lot more condescending. Oh, and she’s that mysterious shadow during the opening theme. She bestows the power to Satoko of reviving on death and returning to a certain point in time. In the hopes that Satoko is able to stop Rika from going to St. Lucia! But Rika is not going to budge. She wants out of Hinamizawa no matter what. And Satoko just wants to be with her friend no matter what. Satoko is even shown Rika’s past and still no dent in…Okay, this is bugging the fuck outta me. Pause the Ending portion!

MY GRIPES WITH SATOKO: Satoko, girl, the fuck is wrong with you?! I know Rika is like your main chick and everything, but for fuck’s sake loosen the grip you have with Rika. This season has changed you and not for the better. You made a connection with ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS from Hinamizawa. Big connections! At least in the original series you did. Look at your moments with Keiichi and Shion. Are you just going to shove them off? And what really sets me off is that Satoko literally had the opportunity to learn about Rika’s hundred year’s loop of death. And feels nothing about it! Only that it’s a challenge to break her herself! God damn, at the end of season one, Keiichi learned the truth and he was remorseful. This bitch doesn’t care that her friends were murdered in such a way. And Rika’s been shot in the head, had a live dissection performed on her, and other forms of torture…AND IT DOESN’T FAZE SATOKO!

I know in my original Higurashi review, I felt sorry for Satoko as she did seem to get the short-end of the stick living in Hinamizawa. I mean, her parents died right in front of her, she suffered abuse from her uncle, abuse from her aunt, ostrisized by the town for years, and a myriad of all types of shit to befall her. But Higurashi Gou has ruined this character. Rika didn’t really do anything wrong to Satoko. She didn’t snitch on her when Satoko got in trouble. She offered help to Satoko when she thought her grades were slipping. Satoko just held onto this petty vendetta. Satoko acted like Rika sexually assaulted her and have two other people gang rape her while drugging her. Okay, that’s a call for revenge, not your petty shit.

YOU SEE WHERE I’M AT WITH YOU SATOKO?! Your actions are so bad that you have me siding with the protagonist from Redo of Healer.

REDO.

OF.

HEALER!!!

I’m done with you! Girl, bye! We now return you to my talk about the ending already in progress.

BACK TO THE ENDING: Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Yeah, Satoko is leaving a bad impression on many of us who have been following the Higurashi story for years. And it just gets worse as she uses her new power for petty shit and abusing it at that. I mean, we saw Rika use her power in order to find a way to live past June 1983. Satoko is just using that shit to win some games and have things go her way. What else could this series bless us with? How about an epiphany from Teppei Hojo?

What?!

Teppei changes for the better.

What?!

Look, I admit that these moments with Teppei and Satoko were tame compared to the shit she’s pulled in the last several episodes. But this is Teppei Hojo! The same guy that used Satoko as his personal punching bag! The same guy who fleeced Rena’s father! The same guy many of us who cheer every time we see him on a moped because we know someone’s going to bash his head in with a baseball bat. Even my best friend knows how I am with this guy. When she gave me Higurashi free swag, I took everything except for Teppei. I don’t take trash. So seeing him so remorseful makes me…conflicted.

So now Satoko’s got things turned around for her. Her uncle has…changed?! Add to that, her God-like power. Satoko decides to change the past for her own advantage. This includes changing one of the biggest stories in Higurashi Kai with the kids vs. Miyo Takano. If Rika doesn’t experience the pain in those timelines, she won’t think about leaving Hinamizawa. And if she doesn’t leave Hinamizawa, she’ll stay with Satoko forever.

Oh what a tangled web of crazy Higurashi Gou was! I gotta tell you, Higurashi got me excited all the way up until we learn it was Satoko. And then it went straight to Hell. They turned Satoko into a straight-up selfish monster. Totally unlike the Satoko we’ve all grown to love in the original series. Yes, Satoko had those moments where, yeah, you would want to throw a chair at her and beat her ass with it. But that was only temporary! You would always see the good in Satoko despite that mischievous laugh and those episodes in Higurashi Rei. And God help me, I was a shipper of Rika x Satoko 10 years ago. Not a big one, but a supporter of it. Now, I would rather support Amourshipping from Pokemon than root for this. And I despise the living fuck out of Amourshipping. That should tell you something!

If original Satoko were bestowed the powers from Eua, I think things would be different. Satoko would probably use her powers to prevent all the bad stuff from happening to her friends and to her brother Satoshi. I mean, my goodness, not once did I see her think, hey maybe I should find a way to help my ailing brother. Change a few timelines, make him all better! And of course, feel sympathy for Rika’s plight. Do it for Rika’s sake, not your own selfish desires! Rika has died horrificly for hundreds of years. And I seriously just can’t get over Satoko’s reaction to that when she learned the truth. Instead, she wants to treat Rika like a caged bird. Best friend my ass!

Now can Higurashi SOTSU fix the hot mess of Satoko? Time will only tell! And good on them for having Higurashi air in the summertime. Summertime is for Higurashi! Autum is for Umineko. Speaking of, it’s been since 2009. Any chance you want to give Umineko the old reboot or sequel it sorely needs? Oh forget it! My likeness for this season is conflicted. I was annoyed by it, but I didn’t fully hate it. It’s just that last arc with Satoko really burned my beans. And I’m sure a lot of you all feel the same way.

Guys, if you want to watch Higurashi Gou, do yourselves a favor and watch the original series first. Let that swirl around your heads for a while. I know the creator tricked us at the beginning of this series thinking it was going to be an honest-to-God retelling. It is not! It is a sequel. And a sequel that isn’t based off a game or manga of all things. So fans are jumping into this with eyes closed! And if you’re a fan of Satoko Hojo, I’m sorry. I’m just sorry.

If you want to check out Higurashi Gou, it is available to watch on FUNimation and Hulu. But please, if you haven’t watched the original series, go to HI-DIVE now and watch “When They Cry” and “When They Cry Kai”. I think you can manage without watching any of the OVA’s.

I’d rather watch that Kira OVA where the fanservice is thin, you can practically lick off the whipped cream from the Sonozaki’s tit.

That should tell you something if I’m starting to say something nice about Higurashi Kira.

See you in a few months when Higurashi SOTSU comes out.