#but its also sort of the only consistent thing I've had going for me for my whole life so uh. yeah

[helloidkwhatimdoing-0]

I've been trying to get myself to revise all weekend but im clearly burnt out and clearly struggling with my executive dysfunction so I know I should just give myself a break, but I left my revision till the last minute again, so if i don't revise now then I'll have to go into a test having done no revision, so I'll probably fail, and like, yeah it's only finance, but thats the problem, it's only finance, and its gonna make me sound like a stuck up bitch but thats why i can't fucking fail it, like failing any of my subjects already makes me want the ground to swallow me up, but failing finance??? Failing arguably the easiest fucking subject i do, the one thats nowhere near as important and difficult as the others? I think I'd throw up, I'd cry and I'd throw up and I'd be so mortifyingly embarrassed, but now i don't know if I'll pass or fail or what because i didn't do any fucking revision because I'm burnt out because I've had so many fucking tests for no reason and I'm so fucking tired and fuck

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Something has been bugging me since the end of the Playful land event: How does the world not notice that these people are never seen again after going to this park. Even if its stated that only the positive magicam posts are the only things that leave the park, surely those guest's families/friends/employers/neighbors that didn't attend the park wouldn't eventually notice their absence. Moreover, how does no one still on land notice that the moving park leaves whilst everyone is still on it, and it never comes back to drop them off.

Makes me wonder if Twst has some sort of United Nations that would be alerted of this and set a worldwide lock down, so when the park needs to connect to a mainland again the country's military can apprehended them.

One of the biiig question marks of both Glorious Masquerade and Stage in Playful Land are all of the potential repercussions of Rollo/Fellow's schemes coming into fruition. The stakes of these two events are notably much higher than your typical TWST event, and that opens their stories up to further scrutiny. I'll talk about GloMasq first, then Playful Land, since I feel the former is also relevant to the points the asker mentioned.

This is going to be kind of a long post, so I'll slap everything below a cut! ^^

I don't know how frequently this is brought up, but I've heard some say it's unrealistic how Rollo was able to find the seeds for a supposedly wiped out plant and cultivate a ton in secret for his master plan. Now, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief in this instance because:

Spite can make a person do insane things (and what is Rollo is not spiteful as heck)

Rollo has lore which paints him as a diligent person who has a talent for gardening, so it feels in line for his character; he also seems to have an interest in history and is extremely neurotic so I could buy that he obsessively researched until he came across records or some trail to the flowers

The Bell of Salvation's ringing twice in a row is what triggers the flowers to bloom, and this has not happened prior to GloMasq because Rollo is the one who is consistently tending to the bell + the bell normally has a preset schedule; anyone that passes by the flowers would do so when they are inactive, and they are such an old phenomenon to begin with that no one in modern day would really recognize it or the danger the flowers pose

The narrative of GloMasq does not call extended attention to HOW Rollo was able to get the seeds, so it's not something that comes to mind unless you as the fan speculate about it; this doesn't come across as a plot hole, but it would be one if the narrative had pointed it out because then it would practically be obligated to fill the details in

The other major fallacy of GloMasq is that Rollo's machinations would have inevitably led to chaos once the flowers reached the rest of Twisted Wonderland, as some sections of society are reliant on magic. Now, I disagree with the notion that mages could band together and fight back against the flowers; we've seen from how the NRC students handle it that this would be a pretty useless effort since only the super powerful (which are few and far between) would be able to muster up enough magic to overpower the flowers. The majority of people are non-mages though, so the argument could be made that these people could help the mages by weeding or something similar. The question is, could this truly outpace the growth and attack of the flowers, especially when the average mage has far lower magical reserves than the average NRC student??? Remember how long it took the NRC kids (who are mostly healthy, youthful, and strong) to weed just the flowers in the waterways? My money's on the crimson flowers just overrunning the entire world long before they can be plucked out.

I actually think most societies would still be intact and able to operate without magic, seeing as 90% of the human population (which is implied to be the predominant race) are non-mages. Only very select industries and professions require magic to operate, and these are overrepresented to us (the players) since we are seeing the perspectives of mainly students who attend an elite magic school. These magical sectors, as well as societies which run primarily on everyday magic use (like Briar Valley) are the ones that would be the most in danger. This most likely explains why Malleus in particular was so panicked about Rollo's plans: if fully realized, his people would be in peril. This is not outright stated, but can be inferred. The main story also retroactively affirms Malleus's fears of being powerless. He was always told by his grandmother that the Draconias have great power so they can defend their people's smiles. What happens if that magic is stripped away? Then he is no longer able to protect his people nor his loved ones. In this way, GloMasq works well as both a standalone event as well as supplements TWST' grander story. It does not challenge what we already know but does support it.

Altogether, most details in GloMasq make sense and the event doesn't go out of its way to create more questions than answers. This... isn't the case for Playful Land. In fact, I would say that Playful Land does the opposite (in trying to explain plot holes, it creates a LOT more questions) and tries to hand wave everything away with one thing: money.

Firstly, Playful Land is kidnapping and trafficking innocent people (even if the park is said to be a more recent phenomena). Would their friends and family not notice they went missing and report this to the local authorities? My guess is yes, it's just not elaborated on in the event itself since the perspective through which the story is told is limited (Yuu doesn't know this world that well + the NRC kids, who are the people Yuu gets a lot of the lore from, are mostly privileged and don't need to worry about crimes of this magnitude). I believe the "people go missing, why aren't the police doing anything about it" can maybe allude to real world crimes that occur but aren't reported or resolved, which is very scary to think about. I don't know if this was the intention of the devs, but the comparison is certainly there and can be made. Or maybe it’s just that law enforcement hasn’t caught up yet?

It’s also odd to me that so many people were able to be taken by this huge, very showy moving park. I think that Fellow lures people out under the cover of night (which was the case with the NRC students, I will assume this is the case for the other victims too) and the park starts moving away from the pier after the guests go inside, but???? Even so, there are night owls and cities that don’t sleep. You mean to imply there were zero witnesses whatsoever??? Even though Playful Land is so big and bright, especially at night… Maybe this part plays into the idea that crimes may be reported but aren’t necessarily resolved…? That’s the only way I can rationalize it in my head.

Where the bulk of the issues start to come in is in alllllll the surrounding details. For example, a lot of the NRC students Fellow is kidnapping are connected to wealthy and influential families. How the heck are Fellow and his benefactors going to keep Vil’s fans, the Kingscholars, the Shrouds, the Asims, the hypothetical Leech mob family, and maybe even Maleficia herself and Malleus, from coming after their asses???? AND FELLOW SPECIFICALLY FUCKED UP BY ENCOURAGING THEM TO “INVITE THEIR FRIENDS” FROM SCHOOL… because guess who will be spilling the beans to the headmaster about students going missing the day after inviting everyone to go to this supposedly “free” amusement park?? All the students Fellow told them to blab to just so he could catch more of them 😭 Then from there it would definitely escalate and governments might get involved since Leona is a prince and Kalim has royal relatives. I could see Playful Land having to go on the run (as in, have supplies delivered to them rather then docking for them, knowing that police or military would be there to arrest them at ports). But they can’t do that forever, especially since not being able to dock effectively prevents them from picking up new prey.

With the combined powers of the NRC victims’ families, they would surely be able to challenge the people behind Playful Land, no?? Unless you mean to tell me these mysterious people somehow have more power than literal royalty AND the Asims combined??? And we’ve never heard of them until just now??? Okay, you’re starting to lose me here because this is adding on top of the lore we already have but in a way that comes off as difficult to believe since the amount of wealth and power some of the NRC kids have is already ridiculous.

Playful Land is also supposedly constructed by very powerful mages which makes me wonder why they got together to create such a thing???? Did they literally all get bribed with enough money to agree to this project? Were they deceived about the true nature of it?? Are the other 4 of the top 5 strongest mages involved in any way??? How was this not publicized that it was a project that very strong mages were working on given how few mages there actually are and how much Playful Land is talked about in online rumors?? And let's remember that the park also somehow has tech that easily disables Ortho's functions so he can't send a SOS signal or anything. Okay??? And you're telling me this supercomputer child who was made by a genius inventor CAN'T override it???

Speaking of online rumors, that’s another thing. How are the people behind Playful Land able to monitor any and all talk about their park to this degree?? This is the internet we’re talking about here, surely stuff will fall through the cracks or come to light eventually. Someone would leak insider info or make up conspiracy theories about the park, someone would say something. It doesn’t work if you claim the park cuts off wifi after hours so the only things circulating on socials are the positive experiences of the park. That’s still leaving a data trail implying the last place these missing people were seen was in this shady park… And even if the people behind Playful Land purged the web of the proof, it doesn’t stop others from saving or downloading that proof. It also doesn’t stop non-attendees from theorizing or spreading the news.

The easy explanation given for everything is that there are very rich and very powerful people running these operations. They would be able to silence people who speak out against them or bribe the corrupt into complying or looking the other way. Maybe that’s just a sad truth I don’t want to acknowledge (because this stuff for sure happens irl 😞) but that all sounds WAY too convenient for fiction (where the devs have total control over the circumstances) especially when we’re given so little lore for who these benefactors actually are.

There’s still way too many questions and even turning on suspension of disbelief couldn’t stop those questions from arising in my head. At best, I think we could give the devs the benefit of the doubt and say this was intentional to keep up the idea of a “shadowy” underbelly to Twisted Wonderland society. Even so, that doesn’t account for every little thing and the event’s attempts to explain it all only makes more things to explain.

I tried to explain my perspective as best I can here! However, I admit that there may be bias in my judgment because I’ve made it no secret that GloMasq is my favorite TWST story event. Please let me know if you have any other issues with GloMasq’s narrative or if you have explanations for the issues I pointed out for Playful Land; I would love to hear your takes too ^^

[milogreer]

touched on this in my top ten list, but i wanted to expand on it separately because i've been thinking about morgan and the seer obscura a lot lately 💭

so. "time is a song." morgan kinda blew up after its release, i feel like, and it's with good reason; the atmosphere of that audio is calm and sleepy but also, like… to me there's this longing for connection throughout the whole thing, ykwim?

like. we already know that the seer obscura is sort of at odds with their powers, given how they waited so long to go to the department, how they suppress their sight, and how they go radio silent after their first meeting with morgan. the seer obscura is clearly uncertain about all of this - morgan even calls them standoffish in "consulting with a seer." but they keep going back to him. being the only two known seer obscuras is naturally going to pull them together; the seer obscura is struggling to live with their unique type of sight after the inversion, and morgan is the only one who understands what they're going through.

(and he's gotta kinda pry them open because the seer obscura is notably a reserved person, but he's very gentle about it, he's understanding and patient and does his best to explain their shared sight even though he's never had to before because a) normal seers don't wanna hear it and b) he never thought there would be another seer obscura in his lifetime (much less one his own age) to talk to about it. and then giving them his own personal view of time when the typical water allegory doesn't work is just further building that connection between them.)

anyway, given the end of "learning about your magical abilities" and the fact that there's a year between its release and "time is a song," i'm sure they've gotten together at least a handful of times to work on the seer obscura's control. morgan to this point has consistently been open about wanting to help any way he can, but you can still kinda tell in "time is a song" that they aren't exactly friends yet, and that's why this one really gets me.

the setting for "time is a song" is so intimate - it's his home, in the middle of the night, with not a lot of time to make things presentable before someone he hardly knows outside of work comes over. the seer obscura needed help and comfort and even when they tried to backtrack out of asking for that, morgan invites them over anyway. he says he specifically focused on tidying up the apartment rather than himself, which means he’s looking like he just out rolled out of bed because he literally did. and that's just such a vulnerable thing to me, and it allows the rest of the audio to settle into this quiet, comfortable space that the seer obscura needs.

"when i said you can call anytime, i meant that." "another seer obscura like me[.]" "then there's you and me." "but you've got me. i'm here." "i want to know you." "it takes two to tango; you asked, and i said 'let's dance.'" like it's all just. i feel like i'm going to cry right now just thinking about this LMAO the seer obscura feels so lonely to me and morgan is constantly reassuring them that they aren't alone in this anymore, and i think that means a great deal to them.

to me this entire audio is thick with tension, but it really ramps up when they move out onto the balcony and morgan starts listing things he likes, because it's a shift from obscura lore dump to a personal heart-to-heart. he opened up his home to them and now he's opening himself up too. he gets a little silly! and then he drops the "i want to know you. you won't know that unless i tell you, so i'm telling you. [...] we can just be people with one another, too." and it is genuinely one of the most insane things i've heard in the entirety of the redactedverse. the period of silence after his laughter trails off where you can feel him gearing up to say something, the sincerity with which he says it, the relaxed atmosphere, the mental image of the only two seer obscuras on earth standing together on a balcony in the early morning hours...

(there's more to be said wrt the seer obscura backpedaling in the beginning and later apologizing for "wasting" morgan's time after he's already told them he wants to get to know them, but this post is long enough without me theorizing about that. i'm really interested to see if it gets touched on again; i'd like to know more about them.)

um. anyway. i'm driven insane by the audio every single time. all of the insane lore gained from all three audios so far aside (<- refusing to think about how morgan brought having your threads cut into the prime timeline instead of leaving it in cataclysm), the relationship these two have already is just captivating. the end

[canmom]

reading Brainwyrms by Alison Rumfitt. it's interesting. clearly part of the post-Topside wave of trans lit, with the same 'plugged in to twitter' energy, but way more British about it. which means most of the allusions are very transparent to me. it's a combo of... hardcore kink driven romance as the main arc, in a near-future setting in which TERFism goes further to the point of outright bombings, and a scifi element with alien brain parasites that it's gradually building towards.

compellingly written, I'll give it that for sure - I lay down to read for a bit and before I knew it I'd read like a third of the book. the main character's disaffected, traumatised air is well observed, and the kink doesn't hold back.

I think my reservation with it so far is that it feels a little too much like a polemic blog post about the way things are going. the MC Frankie is a trans woman with a pregnancy kink who survived a bombing at a GIC and now works in social media moderation - it's all stuff that is blatantly Relevant To The Argument, as it were. it's tricky to criticise it for that because it's like, what you're saying is that it's tightly constructed and thematically consistent and that's bad somehow? but I think I've come to feel that I like fiction to bring me something a little new and unfamiliar.

the chapter I most enjoyed so far was actually a more metaphorical, abstract interlude, in which resistance to fascism is cast as becoming 'one mass of queer flesh, which now grabbed and clawed...'; 'faces locked in kisses until they became one face. the cops would try to pull at this mass, but to no avail'. very 'faggots and their friends between revolutions' stuff.

the chapters which are presented directly as social media posts and articles are also sharply observed. i think a lot of fiction in which the internet features heavily suffers from not understanding the internet very well (Hosoda's Belle for example), but for example the chapter 'Curious Cat' where an anonymous person (blatantly Vanya) is sending messages asking for help with a parasite, and getting rebuffed or misunderstood, and the chapter where Frankie relates a murder of an instagram model by a stalker who posts about it to a reddit community devoted to her, read as very real.

a lot of the story is about responding to a terrifying political situation in sexual terms - a flashback chapter depicting Frankie having sex with some terf's pretentious brother ("with each thrust from him, she thought to herself, I am a traitor, I am a traitor to the cause"), or the preface which jokes about how in another world the author would be writing 'cool horror stories about vampires raping werewolves, ones with no subtext at all'. I prevaricate a little on whether this is a compelling examination of a theme that I do find interesting (the mysterious origins of sexual desire) or just edgy for its own sake.

this is an odd novel for me in some ways because while on one level, this is about people who I could very easily be a single degree of separation from were they real, it's also about a facet of life that is still quite alien to me and in many ways I only know about second hand. I've never been to a kink club (that wasn't in an MMO anyway lol), I'm way too much of a nerdy autist shut-in to know what it's like to be someone who would feel put out if she hadn't had sex in a week. so even before the parasite stuff, it's hard to know how much of Frankie and Vanya's stuff is real, and how much is fantasy. is this really how things go between people? it sounds kinda fun, but unlocking the door this far has already taken years.

when I've read books about the crazy lives that American trans girls supposedly live and interesting sex they're apparently having, they've been at a certain remove, the other side of the Atlantic. and this book feels sort of similar, even though I know it's set right on my doorstep. idk, I've never been good at this.

anyway I don't think I want to write fantasy novels so directly about The Discourse of the day, but it's probably good that someone is. that said, it's hard to parse like... ok, it's titled brainwyrms, and 'brain worms' is a common way of describing an obsessive, cultish idea you receive from the internet.

and like if you look at the newspapers, or twitter trans discourse, you certainly could believe that this country is on a rapid slide to putting us in camps. however, my day to day life has been... it's not without hostility, but the average street harasser isn't doing it because of a Guardian or even Mail article. this country has a subculture of deranged weirdos who hate our guts, and a political class who will happily stoke culture war shit to score points, but most normies I've met don't care one way or another that I'm trans - they might mention a family member or friend they know who's also trans. the day to day conflicts are over way more prosaic shit, the landlord vs tenant forever war, or how the kitchen should be cleaned. which of these windows is more informative of the 'overall' state of affairs? not that a more violent terf cult is a bad premise to write a novel around, but a sense of impending doom is a pretty powerful mechanism to keep you scrolling, right?

like in 20, 40 years - will the terfs really be bombing the Tavistock and banning transness, as Rumfitt imagines in her near-future setting preface? or will they go the way of those newspapers in Thatcher's time who smeared the gay movement, just as they smear us today? of passing political obsessions like 'new atheism'? I don't know the half-life of cult shit.

anyway, time to read the rest of the novel, and see how it handles this brew that it's concocted.

[inchidentally]

https://www(.)autosport(.)com/f1/news/stella-singles-out-exceptional-japan-f1-podium-as-piastris-2023-highlight-/10559510/

I think you've posted about Andrea Stella's relationships with Lando and Oscar before and I've been thinking about this and just needed to share my thoughts with someone.

when Oscar talks about his best weekends, its always Qatar where he felt like he really maximized his result and SIlverstone which he talks about as one of his most complete performances despite missing that podium.

When it comes to Japan and his first podium, it's like he's happy with the result and what that meant for the team, but it's not actually a weekend he reflects on super positively in terms of his race. I feel like he's never the one bringing it up, it's always like a reporter being like "and Japan?" and he's just like "yeah I guess that was nice too", but he doesn't really talk about it as a personal highlight (even though I'm sure he isn't like... upset over it, just not a performace he rates as his strongest).

all that to say I love that Andrea actually picks out his qualifying performace there as a highlight of his season, because it was! it just feels really subtlely supportive of him to bring up a moment that Oscar doesn't really talk about himself, and kind of got lost in all the comparisons or race pace between him and Lando.

idk i just needed to tell someone this lol

oh anon and I am so glad you shared it with me bc I wanna go offfff

truly this quote is the kind of thing I could see making Oscar feel emotional about and puff up with pride. it's the sort of meticulous score card that his big brained A-levels overachieving ass must eat up with a spoon:

"In terms of speed, in terms of capacity to learn very rapidly, in terms of collaborating with his engineers and extracting the information that he needs to grow so rapidly, in terms of his own awareness of where he is in the various stages to go from: ‘I know nothing about this track, first time in a Formula 1 car' to being P2 on the grid. And also the way he keeps himself calm, controlled – therefore always capitalising on his potential because he doesn’t create any unnecessary stress - that’s quite exceptional. And I can see why he was so successful in junior categories."

and god, the stern but loving dad role Andrea has taken with Lando and Oscar. especially when you think from Oscar's perspective how he was coming into a team fresh off of a dramatic court case and filling a seat that everyone - including Lando - was still deep in mourning over. from what I remember Oscar's "promo" by McLaren was more like something they'd do to announce a new reserve driver rather than Lando's new teammate. especially considering the weeks of emotionally overwrought posts and content about Daniel leaving. I'm guessing a lot of that had to do with trying to mitigate the comment sections turning rancid on any Oscar content (and I'm being generous saying that). but there was exceptionally low fanfare attending Oscar's arrival, especially considering him having such a scorching record coming up to F1.

so for someone like Andrea to come into his new role and choose to watch Oscar so closely when Oscar was honestly sort of - either ignored or still hated bc of Daniel and Alpine - during those races before Silverstone has come good in the huge revolution of public opinion about Oscar. Lando was already comfortably at home and only needed a little managing. side note I love how many times in challenges Lando would pretend to pout and say "Andrea said there has to be balance and fairness between teammates sooooo" akgfkasgs he had Lando's number already <3

but for all that Oscar has been a trooper about having to kind of operate without the kind of consistent found family that Lando has and dealt with the press and DTS dutch angle drama interviews in such a mature way idk. I feel like sometimes Oscar sees himself as only existing as one of the drivers once he's actually in the car. he's never found that footing of becoming one of the F1 personalities the way that even Logan has (thank you Williams and thank you Alex).

a lot of the time you could confuse Oscar's presence in the garage and the paddock with another engineer. and tbh when you consider how much of an online meme he was in F2 and F3 and how strong his twitter game was it definitely feels like he's intentionally suppressing his personality to maybe ? just get through his rookie F1 season with as little drama as possible. I've gone on and on and on abt how Prema Oscar would have made the perfect fan favorite dynamic with Lando the same way he was with Arthur or Robert. but Oscar's personality has only come out on camera a few times and otherwise he just watches Lando or stiffly gets through his own parts.

that's why I had to compile these instances of Andrea seeking Oscar out and being so incredibly tender with him. Lando is the always beloved child at McLaren and he absolutely earned that. but he was also definitely thrown by Oscar choosing to go so quiet and under the radar - I don't think in a bad way, but I will be interested to see the clips from DTS that haven't been chopped to hell so we can get a better glimpse of that.

but someone in higher authority than Lando needed to go out of their way to regularly remind Oscar that yes, he's One of The Big Boys and yes, McLaren is his home now. he has as much right as the rest of the drivers all feel to stand up and ask for what they want and speak for themselves and even cause a little trouble if they feel they need to. an F1 grid are always drama queens to some degree because they're basically the lead singers of a band. they had to as Lando rightly said "be fairly selfish" to get to their rarefied position. not that they're bad people at all, just that they have to treat themselves as of utmost importance in order to achieve the performance and mentality to even get a shot at F1. but not only is Oscar not naturally like that (his forms of self-care involve sleep and seeing friends lol) he certainly wasn't going to stir things up anymore than he already had.

but! what Oscar does have is incredible courage, unflappable calm and towering competitiveness. like I said once he gets in the car his focused self-belief overtakes everything else. the amount of times his rookie season it was down solely to the car or to other drivers that resulted in taking him out of a race or knocking him down the grid as opposed to pure rookie error or personal mistakes is amazing. and guess who said that back in August:

"For us being in this journey with Oscar, it makes it even more exciting, because it was very clear right from the start – the level of talent.

“Even the analytical behaviour, looking at things, trying to learn, and at the same time always remaining very calm. He is able to absorb things, execute things, always staying very calm, which I think is a strong point of Oscar.”

and guess who gives us some of the best insights to the kind of driver Oscar is when no one else can? (apart from sexy daddy Mark ofc)

“I think the quality which, if you want, maybe one of the key enablers [of] why he can grow so rapidly is just the man beyond the driver,” Stella told GP Blog. “He’s so calm. He’s so good at keeping himself in a status in which he can use the best of his talent.

“I don’t have that quality, I have to think very actively about ‘What am I thinking? What are my emotions?’ I have to think about my psychology to actively keep myself in the most productive state. For Oscar, this seems to come quite naturally. That’s the main enabler.

“I think he, potentially, has a natural gift. Or, maybe he worked throughout his young career through that. I don’t know. But, certainly, he’s remarkable. And even when I’ve seen great drivers currently or in the past, all of them sort of sometimes underperformed because they don’t stay in the status in which they give their best. I think, for Oscar, this is quite natural.”

oh and guess who also tells us the most about the fact that Lando has taken his role as established driver and leader seriously wrt Oscar and how well they've complemented each other?

“So Lando can say ‘ok, we can do this in this corner’, and so on. And likewise, obviously, for Oscar with Lando. The second element, which is remarkable this year, is how similar the comments are between the two drivers.

“And this is not only in the off-line debriefings, but it's also when the drivers come back after they run the first run during a session. They actually use the same terminology, like it looks like they are in communication before reporting their feedback.”

papa is giving his boys their props!! they did him proud and he's not going to hold back on telling the world!

and I even love how Lando and Oscar both choose Silverstone without any hesitation as their favorite race of 2023 and that Lando said how much Oscar deserved to be up there with him. that's exactly what Andrea had instilled in them and shows his values have fully sunk in.

you're absolutely right anon, we should never forget that Andrea is the one who went to Oscar when Oscar needed it and that Andrea established the team culture that has let someone like Oscar thrive at the same time as someone so different from him like Lando.

.

.

articles sourced:

[eerna]

Hii wanted to bring this up to you because i love your tfota discussions(and other fandoms as well). i've noticed that a lot of the target audience for this series is very superficial and don't really appreciate and understand the series in its entirety but you always have great points.

so anywaysss with that being said. something that sort of made me side eye tpt a little was jude and cardan. obviously characters change overtime and i think the fact that jude and cardan sort of started to resemble each other in indirect ways is a nice little detail but i felt like some of their interactions were very unnatural. it felt like hb was feeding into how a lot of the audience sees them which isn't terrible but it feels the slightest bit out of character. like what did it for me specifically was in the end when jude excuses herself by saying she was going to go yell at people. i mean jude has always been very sarcastic and witty but it seemed weird for her to say that, it felt like one of those incorrect quotes. like yeah she probably would be yelling at people but would she really say that? like basically it's just very small things that seem like fan service more than intentional writing ya know? now don't get me wrong i love them and i shamelessly enjoyed all of their appearances i also think they were still pretty consistent as characters but it's basically that it seemed like things they said were only there to please the public which fed onto the whole superficial view the general audience has of them.

Hiiii! I definitely miss a lot of stuff so I wouldn't dare claim I get an entirety of anything, but I am very glad you enjoy my discussions nevertheless~

I get what you mean! For me it was that Jude "knife wife" line, and Cardan complaining about the snake thing. Knife-wife could have been funny if it was written smarter and not literally quoting a fandom meme. If we wanted to have a comedic moment where Cardan complains about something gross and Jude shuts him down, it could have been a new thing instead of an event that happened ages ago that we've seen on-page. It reads like a parody, the self aware "haha"s are so awkward. HOWEVER. In theory I wouldn't mind them being written as funnier than they used to be. Like you said, they are a decade older than the last time we've seen them, and they've solved most of the issues that made them not want to joke around during the trilogy. And it's also amusing bc HB said she had problems figuring out what an almost-thirty-years-old Cardan would be like, so the fact that she settled on "clown uncle" is hilarious.

Which leads me to my main problem with it: The things that make them fun aged-up epilogue versions of themselves also make them worse main characters. Jude and Cardan in their late 20s are by default much less interesting than Jude and Cardan in the middle of their young adult angst unsolved trauma roller coaster. They should join Roiben and Severin in the lineup of side characters that are still plot relevant, but no longer the center of attention, which would make their shallower presentation less noticeable.

[greetingsfromuranus]

I love your art! Do you jave any tips ondrawing in the EENE artstyle?

Thank you!! The best advice I have is to study, study, and then study some more lol. Look at something, try to replicate it, trace over the original to see the underlying shapes, draw the shapes on your own page and replicate it like that, freehand it w/o reference, just see what works! i know it sounds like general advice, but the EENE style, especially once you get to later seasons,is very stylistically and technically complex! You're gonna have to see which aspects of it are intuitive to you, and which ones you'll have to sit down and make yourself learn. I primarily use Raven Molisee's art (lots of stuff on Deviantart and Poshmark more recently) since with his sketches you can see a lot of the underlying shapes and processes! But it would be a good idea to also check out stuff from the rest of the art department, such as Scott Underwood, Jim Miller, and Cory Toomey (you can find a list of em here: https://ed.fandom.com/wiki/The_Creators). Instagram account dawn_of_the_eds has a lot of good references!

You can also study screenshots of the show, especially if you're trying to replicate the colors/linework/movement/etc… I would recommend @ededdneddy-artrefs, as they have a nice tagging system for finding anything specific, but its also a good idea to just look at your favorite EENE clips on YouTube and go thru them frame-by-frame! It helps with understanding how the characters move, talk, express, etc… and you can really nail down the stuff you'd only get a vague idea of from watching the show at a normal speed.

For me, it took me months (minus some breaks) to get to where i am now with drawing the Eds. Someone more studious and hardworking could easily do it faster, but the point is, it takes practice! Practice combined with active, intentional learning! My progress with drawing the Eds has several phases marked by a sudden jump in skill (usually caused by me finally going out and studying some more art, and internalizing what i learned), followed by healthy stagnation, where i get comfortable with the new knowledge and just do the same stuff for a while. If you really wanna get good at drawing them, you can study much more than i do, or have shorter stagnation periods! It's ok to calm down and get comfortable with the characters, have some nice, easy, art making time, its important to not get too stressed or burnt out! But when you're feeling motivated, absolutely take advantage of that!

Some things to remember:

While the characters do have consistent design elements and basic underlying shapes, these are NOT hard rules. REMEMBER AND INTERNALIZE SQUASH N STRETCH! I've tried assigning hard rules to how I draw the eds, and it's VERY difficult. It's definitely important to write down/point out as many design quirks and reoccurring themes/shapes as possible, but just remember that the Ed Edd n Eddy style is extremely fluid and dynamic - and the guidelines you may have thought were 100% true can be shattered at any point. Basically: all rules are optional! Don't draw something because the "rules" say so, draw something because it looks good! Sometimes one rule looks good, sometimes something else looks better! I'll use the teeth as a visual example:

(art in 1st image by Raven Molisee)

Sort of a continuation of the last point - Before EENE, I had a tendency (and still kinda do) to use more symbolic drawing process, the kind of design language you'd use for logos or graffiti, or the kind of style you see in shows like Dexter's lab or Total Drama Island or something - where you get good at drawing the same shapes/lines over and over. The EENE style, especially in later seasons, does not follow the same process as these sorts of styles. For example, I used to look at Edd and say "ok, His head is THESE TWO SHAPES!" And then there would be another, I'd say "okay, 3" and then another, and another and this will keep going on and on and on. Sometimes his ears are at the corners of whatever quadrilateral his head is (like in Molisse's art), sometimes theyre on an edge (like ive seen in Underwood's art), and sometimes you just can't see em! You have to accept that the characters are a lot of things at once, and different things at different times! Like Eddys head is usually a sort of bent pentagon - but is his mouth is enough he's more like a tin-can - but from a more top view he's almost a triangle - you can do this cycle forever.

you can think about it like this: the eds designs (especially their faces) are sort of a collection of features, and the shapes holding them together than be molded and distorted as you please!

Remember that the eds often exist with 3D underlying shapes, not just flat ones! I would highly recommend studying 3d shapes in extreme perspectives specifically. Draw bent cylinders, twisted stretched out cubes, any sort of shape at the most extreme fish-eye perspective you can manage, just absolutely take advantage of them. Bend and distort and break those shapes, dig your foot into their backs and and pull at their corners like you're ripping the arms out of their sockets. Extreme visualization, I know, but Ed Edd n Eddy is a slapstick comedy - there is immense force and stretching and distortion present, you really have to get that energy into your art to replicate the style (even if I'm not great at it yet, it's something I know I must learn).

Specific tidbit that's important & I sometimes forget: The characters limbs can be as long as the pose calls for! They will be fine! If they're holding something above their head, their arms are going to stretch out much longer than normal and it's ok! You can always sacrifice the "accuracy" to the model to get a strong pose/silhouette. Though one thing I've noticed is that their clothes often don't stretch the same way their bodies do! If you stretch double D's arms out 3 yards, his sleeves are gonna be about the same length as always! Except for when it looks better to break this rule, of course :3 basically imagine their bodies are like stretchy rubber, while their clothes are not

(note how his arms are stretched reeeal long in the gif, the look of the action holds higher priority than "correct" body proportions)

Apologies on my lack of notes on Ed specifically, I've drawn him good a total of One time and haven't been able to do it again lol.... Sometimes his head is an upside down triangle, but its bent in a way that i cant find a good pattern to remember it by... though sometimes his head is a square but the bottom stretches downward to become his neck. He's weird as hell, one day ill figure it out!

That's all my advice for now :3 If i think of any more i will add it!

[thewertsearch]

Asks Comp 4/8

The thing is, Davesprite's situation is more complicated than an unfulfilled time loop. His timeline isn't an irrelevant offshoot - in fact, it's integral to the existence of the Alpha Timeline, and presumably always was. Davesprite forms part of a weird, fully intact time loop which spans multiple timelines.

And since this is a future Dave, you have to assume he knows about Bro. The two clearly had a complicated relationship, but he's surely shaken by his death - if nothing else, it's a sign of how serious things have become.

That'll be a fun thing to check out when I've finished the comic! It reminds me of those Hunger Games simulators that were doing the rounds a couple of years ago.

That's true. Dave knows how strong the Underlings have become - and yet, he's still confident that Jade can stand up to them. Presumably she finds some sort of workaround for their First Guardian powers?

Sunslammer is so good! A standout song, even in a comic with as many bangers as this one.

Honestly, part of why I'm dragging my feet on the album reviews is because I want to hear these songs for the first time in context. If I'd heard Descend before watching Descend, I feel like it would have robbed the song of some of its dramatic weight.

I assumed it was just because witches are associated with frogs.

That would have explained why they're part of her Land, but I'm pretty sure that Kanaya's glitched planet was also a frog Land, and she's not a Witch, so...?

*The rest of Sal's response has been redacted, lest we fall once more into the Frog Theory Black Hole.*

I'm pretty sure that's a statue of Echidna, the mother of monsters and Jade's Denizen. Dave's probably close to LOFAF's Palace!

The Seer sees all - and sometimes, she understands the implications before we do.

It'd certainly be interesting. I just reread that conversation, and the biggest takeaway would have been that the kids were going to befriend the trolls, and get involved in their personal drama. This would certainly be consistent with the tone established by an Act 1 Hivebent!

Yup. Vriska was only able to 'create' Perfect Jack because Becquerel didn't object.

Really, he could have prototyped anything he liked, no matter what Vriska did. Even if she tried to shut the Entry down by incapacitating Jade, he could simply have activated the piñata himself.

I mean, that's basically what happened!

If any Aspect is geared around survival, then it's Feferi's. There's no breath left in her body, but our girl is still in the game!

Getting back to the trolls will be interesting, especially since - I assume - we'll be zipping back to when Feferi was still alive. The Veil is a much less friendly place, now - but does Feferi know this? What, exactly, is about to happen to the trolls?

I suppose. I guess there's no reason for every Carapacian to be created with knowledge of the Rings.

Actually, Sburb might not want them to know - Jack's probably not the only one who wouldn't respect the Ring's rules. There could be potential ringwielders out there who are far more dangerous.

Thank you! I feel like I've been doing a lot more character analysis in Act 5 versus previous Acts, where most of my speculation was about the lore. It's a fun change of pace.

Damn, I didn't think we'd actually be explaining these!

It's moments like these which really enhance the comic for me - justifications for things that I genuinely thought were just nitpicks on my part. It's really gratifying, honestly.

@thelegendofgreg asked: Here's some commentary from the jade enter flash, theres uh. alot to read but its all neat stuff "I talked about this way back, maybe even in an earlier book? Well, here I go again, so hold on to your ass. There are four entry items: Apple of knowledge, Bottle of wine, Crow's egg, Dog piñata. A, B, C, D. All of them are related to new life or new beginnings. You bite the apple, you fall from grace, enter a new world, begin this wild journey. You smash a bottle to christen a ship. An egg hatches, creating new life. You break a piöata to celebrate a birthday. Each involves breaking or puncturing something. Each involves a form of sustenance, or something to consume (piñatas have candy inside). Two are vessels for the substance (bottle, Piñata), two are the food items themselves (apple, egg), and one arguably counts as both (egg). Two of them drop from the same basic tree template (apple, piñata). They ramp up in complexity. John's is a simple test: bite the forbidden fruit. Not much to it. A single unit of departure, almost conceptually elemental, like an apple, as Rose goes on about later. The challenges get trickier. Rose has to break a bottle. Easy enough idea, but things go wrong, and she has to take a blind leap to get it done. A sacrificial gesture, and one of faith in a friend (Jaspers). Dave's is even more obscure. A simple test of patience, but one that's not clear. He isn't told what to do and just has to wait. Non-action is the key, and in a way it's another gesture of faith under dire circumstances. Finally, Jade's challenge incorporates a lot of these elements. It's another "blind faith" situation. She has to take a shot in the dark. There's a sacrificial gesture, but instead of risking herself (like Rose), Jade must symbolically sacrifice her friend via effigy and cannot complete the sacrifice without help from that friend. (Bec must redirect the bullet. There's no way this works if he doesn't.) It is also a signifier that the pet she knew as a friend her whole life is about to, in a way, become her enemy. Like a good dog gone bad, who now must be put down."

So they are all intended to be foodstuffs! And, apparently, alphabetical - although I think 'Crow's egg' is a bit of a stretch.

There are also themes of sacrifice and faith that I didn't really think about before. Choosing to enter Sburb at all, knowing the stakes, is absolutely a leap of faith - and it's a game which sacrifices your whole planet. Skaia's been telling us the score this whole time.

Homestuck absolutely deals with dark themes - but they start out buried under the surface, and even now, are still in the process of revealing themselves. This makes sense for Homestuck, a coming-of-age-story whose protagonists are slowly coming to terms with some dark truths about their lives.

Awful Hospital, however, immediately says: here's our protagonist. Her baby is dying. She just woke in a strange room. She doesn't know how she got here. Her baby has been stolen. There are monsters inside her brain. By the way, here's a quip, because this is actually a funny comic. It just felt... dissonant, and not in a fun way. I don't really know what it's going for, tonally.

Don't take this as a negative review, though! I only read a couple dozen pages, so I'm really not qualified to rate the comic - I just wasn't feeling it at the time, so I shelved it. I enjoy a lot of Bogleech's writing, and Awful Hospital's lore sounds pretty interesting, so I'll probably give it another shot at some point.

Not for the most part! I'm super into time travel stories, though, so I'm well-Primed to understand their intricacies.

So there might be intermittent stages between the four we've seen in the kids' session? That'd be interesting - I'd love to see the intermediary stage between John's 2D chessboard and Rose's 3D cube.

There are, at this point, too many awesome songs for me to pick favorites. Umbral Ultimatum and Sunslammer are excellent, but what songs aren't, at this point?

I can't imagine what we're in for when we reach the Act 5.2 finale...

Ooh, interesting. Considering how many accidental references Hussie seems to make, it's honestly up in the air whether that was intentional.

That said....

Jack is looking awfully divine these days.

I suppose Tavros has probably logged the most rocket-hours, yeah.

I'm sure all Breath Players probably learn to fly, unless there are some oddball classes which don't let you interact with your Aspect.

Anonymous asked: forwarding this message to you from someone who doesn't have a tumblr account. ~DJ "Important fact. Dave and Aradia both use musical instruments for time travel, but different ones. Aradia’s is a music box, it has a single prerecorded music, the only way to “play” it is to turn it so it plays the music that was always in it. Dave’s is turntables. They contain a preexisting music, but what you do with them is to jump, cut and shuffle this music, creating something new, having full control of it. - RM"

I like it! As Time Players, they both follow the set path of the Alpha Timeline - but Dave gets a little funky with it, multiplying himself with a complex series of time loops.

Aradia, ever the fatalist, instead turns to doomed clones for reinforcements. I don't think we've ever seen her make a stable loop.

[cloangi]

Get to know me 🔥

**Post may be updated every so often to change wording, to add/delete things, etc

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Part 1 of Bio - Information for starters⤵️

Fine to interact:

Under my age (15)

A bit over 18

A furry (not the gross kind though. Just the ones who dress up for fun)

Part of LGBTQ+

Overall everyone is welcome‼️

Do NOT interact (I seriously dont want any sort of conflict here):

Homophobic

Transphobic

Racist (if you're going out your way to harass people and be an overall bitch that is)

Phobia against any religion

Into sick activities (you already know what I mean by this 😐)

Against the military in any way (We get the whole propaganda stuff, but don't hate people who are active duty, in the reserves, etc. If someone wants to join, don't hate on them and spread death threats, its sad to see some people sre actually like this)

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If I see any of yall tweaking out or being problematic over some shit, don't be surprised if I block your ass from here 💀🙏. I'm tryna keep this a "good vibe" type place. And keep in mind that I tolerate most types of behavior, and I literally never block people (very high and bold emphasis on "never").

So if I do happen to block you, you done messed up.

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General things about me:

15 years old

I'm AROACE 🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

ENTJ personality type

Only do art as a hobby (so no money taking or commissions people)

Art consists of my fandom fixations

You can refer to me as either my username or the names Baaz and Keegan. Either one works, I don't care.

Extra: Besides posting low quality drawings of my fixations, I mostly reblog art or anything I can find of the fandoms/fixations I'm in (or know a bit about), such as art, memes, and such. Or you can find some random art that isn't related to any fandom reblogged on here.

(Adding onto the paragraph above): You can find a lot of my art (at least right now) in the "#cod ghosts" tag and the "#r6siege" tag. So if you wanna get a taste of my work you know where to do

I am fine with people + mutuals sending me DM's‼️ Just don't make it weird (you already know what I mean by that 💀)

Also, please do send me asks 🙏‼️. I enjoy responding to them and sadly never get any 😔

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Note: You can make offensive + dark humor jokes (at least with me in the ask box or DM's) I'm into that shit. Can be racist jokes, sexist, sexual in some way, or whatever. Insulting me in any way doesn't affect me in the slighest as long as it's a joke. The more offensive the better—so go all out (not S/A though, that's something that even I'll never joke about).

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Social stuff:

Quora Account - [Place where I've spent most of my time online, around 4-5 years or so. I post random things of me yapping of all topics or things I've found/seen].

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Part 2 of Bio - Fixations⤵️

The list below is color coded based on the fandoms I'm fixated on, or I just like

Orange = Fixated

Green = Like

Rainbow 6 Siege - Don't have the console to play the actual game so I watch it instead.

Call of Duty - Certain campaigns in it, mostly COD Ghosts though (Yes, I have played the OG versions of some of the campaigns on the old ps3 we have, and I do play MP Cod Ghosts).

Hell Divers 2 - Like R6S, I don't have the actual console itself to play it but it's on my wishlist and I really like the concept of the game, plus the community seems pretty fire.

Eddsworld - Used to have a HUGE fixation on this fandom, prob for up to 1-2 years (shit had a strong grip on me)

My Little Pony - I'm surprised this fandom is absolutely booming now. Watched the entire show (forgot everything though 💀), I love the art the fandom makes though, including the AU's.

Saiki K - Started to rewatch it again since I forgot the whole storyline 💀🙏

The Amazing Digital Circus - Caught up on all episodes

Demon Slayer - Watched all seasons

The Amazing World of Gumball - Havent really watched it much, but I really like it including the fan base

Into the Spiderverse - Have never read the comics, but movie-wise I like it

...Damn, you still reading? I mean if you're interested go ahead and drop a follow to this thing (you're likely gonna forget this account anyways, so free follow for me mwhahaha).

[weebsinstash]

I sent an ask responding to the Izuku parts that I hope you got.(if not fml)

But I figured I should send a separate ask to talk about Miguel.

So like my thoughts have been centering on this scenario where you're his secretary or assistant because he is the CEO. He's a beta and you're an omega.

You guys have a purely professional relationship, tbh half the time he doesnt even realize you got you're heat and just finds out you called in when you dont respond. Really the only thing he cares about is you doing your work, getting it done on time, and not half-assing it.

But then he gets the spider DNA and everything goes to shit. Not only does the spider DNA give him extra abilities and enhanced senses, but it also gives him some alpha traits/tendencies.

He goes in to work thinking it'll help distract him and get him back in the rhythm of everything only to just get fucking hit in the face with your scent. Queue him rushing past because it takes everything in him not to just pounce on you.

But as I said, he only got a few alpha traits. He didnt actually become an alpha. So while he's out here wanting to just pin you to his or your desk, knot and claim you....he's completely incapable. His body is completely incapable of performing those actions and it only leans into his yandere behavior and tendencies.

I've also been think like(depending on how one writes abo), sometimes betas dont have a sent or if they do its extremely faint. Yandere beta miguel who cant even smother you in his scent because he basically doesn't have one, meanwhile you dont even realize he's changed at all because you cant smell it.

Though because he doesnt have a scent he would absolutely sneak into your house/appartment. Its basically the only upside in his eyes.

Also anytime you go into heat and have to miss work? He is immediately taking your seat from your desk and huffing it while he touches himself. Then at night as spiderman will come just close enough to be able to smell you but still not lose control of himself, absolutely getting off on your scent and sounds of pleasure from you using a toy.

God this shits been living in my brain rent free for like the last week and wont go away 😭

I got the Izuku ask :) trust me when I say I am simply dogshit awful at getting back to people and being consistent

Picture if Reader is actually a really competent employee of his at Alchemax but Miguel like BARELY pays any mind to you because, you know, he's got all sorts of shit constantly stressing him out and occupying his mind on top of migraine, and suddenly you're going into work and bringing him his preferred coffee as usual when, he tries to make small talk? You've worked for this man for like at least a year, basically only speaking when necessary, and one day you lean over to put a coffee or some papers on his desk and that brings you just close enough for him to take in a breath of your scent which instantly helps alleviate his headaches

You're basically done giving him what he needs and you're literally about to leave the room when he suddenly calls out (almost in a "wait I need to catch you before you leave" kind of urgency) and you pause and look at him with those big eyes of yours he suddenly can't stop staring into when Romeo hits you with "so .... how are you?"

And you're just kind of stunned for a few moments because this is a man who basically doesn't speak to you unless he needs something, even when you go to him to pass along a message or something or other about his schedule and your secretarial duties it's typically just a sort of "got it, thank you" sort of response and you're sent on your way again, or given another task, so in ao forth. You basically can't get a good read on the man's personality because he simply doesn't talk to you enough or at least about anything other than work

He officially enters the Goo Goo Eyes Zone where when you like someone almost everything about them is so cute and had more meaning than it actually does and is basically finally seeing you for the first time. He FINALLY notices what kinds of perfumes/body mists you like to use to smell nice even if it's something you've worn for ages, the ways you prefer to style yourself, which little accessories or rings or whatever may be your favorite, little mannerisms you may have like clicking pens or singing little songs when you think you're along, like when you're doing something and it's you're just like occasionally singing, like he finds you washing a coffee cup in the break room all "--and its doooOooone!"

The need to learn more about you escalates because suddenly he's like "wait I've known them for all this time and never noticed all these things, what ELSE don't I know?" And it really is an obsessive infatuation. You live in a high rise where you don't really have to worry about closing your blinds or anything which is perfect for Miguel "don't you know i have enhanced senses" O'Hara to watch you from the roof of the next building over. You never lock your windows because, what's the point? He starts learning your schedule and meticulously taking all kinds of notes until it's the level of him outright entering your apartment to snoop through all of your things and potentially plant bugs and cameras

One day you're opening your window and kind of poke your head out to look at the city and you notice weird sorts of, almost gouges in the wall outside? What are those from? (Well sweetie, turns out, when you were going to town on yourself last night to relieve a little stress, he was the equivalent of like 10 feet away, clinging to your building, listening to and potentially recording every little gasp and finger flick)

But he gets SO frustrated when you're, you know polite, but, not exactly as receptive as he's hoped? When in reality he's still being awkward as fuck and you're still kind of adjusting to him paying attention to you, and it probably feels good to have him seemingly recognizing your efforts but like, you don't wanna. date him??? At least not so suddenly or anything, so he's trying to court you, but, it's becoming harder and harder to be around you at all, let alone when your heats start coming up. He could never tell before that your scent starts changing when That Time is coming around, gradually shifting and becoming something he finds differently hypnotic, something that makes him want to bury his nose in your neck while also, being buried in you period

He'll grow the balls to be more direct with you eventually, but he justifies everything by telling himself he just wants to get to know more about you, and that the stalking is just him trying to get to know you a little more, so when he sees you face to face he can win you over and make you his mate treat you better, obviously! He'll... he'll ask you out to dinner next week, he promises! But for now, he's just gonna, stay right here perched under your window, seeing and hearing and smelling everything

[maybemoonout]

if you were to put together a milex starter pack, what would be the top moments you’d include?? love your blog btw! 💗

Hi there anon! I'm so sorry it took me so long to answer this, there's just a lot going on right now for me so I only really found the time to answer this now! I hope you don't mind and still see this T_T

A starter pack sounds like such a fun idea! I want this to be sort of a bite sized post that allows new people from the fandom to find a little bit of everything they need to know. I think that's a good idea, so I decided with that!

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To get started, I wanted to link this post by @i-m-a-leaf-on-the-wind who made an AMAZING full blown post proving milex and it's wonderfully detailed and full of interview moments that start from the true beginning. A GREAT read if you need something to get you started!!

Some of my favorite moments that I got from that post are:

— Alex Turner on ‘Hot Press’ (x)

— Miles Kane, Les Inrocks Magazine 2016 (x)

And many many more from that post, it's also a great place to collect gifs since it has a lot, just remember to credit @i-m-a-leaf-on-the-wind !!

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Another GREAT post to read about their relationship is this post by @paperlovesadness that discusses Miles and Alex's relationship as the definition of Twin Flames. It's INCREDIBLY detailed and has sources for all the interviews mentioned. It's honestly such an interesting study, the definition of twin flames, even outside Milex, so please do give it a read!!

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More great reads for this fandom are song analyses! You can find tons just by searching, but personally I have read all the song analyses of @yellowloid and @paperlovesadness, and I love them A LOT. I also have a few of my own, just check out my #ask !!

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@puppetsspace started a Milex Timeline of events but it only ever made it to 2007, I don't know if anyone else made a bigger timeline but this is still a great blog to check out for the early timelines! My favorite one there has to be this post where Miles sees Alex for the first time and he looks in awe. Very sweet!

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@yummilexhub created a full blown collection of the entire EYTCTE Tour!! A great place to get sources and clips!! please check it out here!

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Now for some more fun stuff, if I had to choose my favorite moments it would be really... difficult. I have A LOT in mind and I honestly can't pick just a few so I'll try limiting it as much as I can.

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1. The Iconic Øyafestivalen 2016 hug

Need I say more? Miles HIMSELF posted this moment, so it's not surprising everyone loves it, including meself.

2. The Iconic Coachella Kiss

This is honestly my favorite for 2 reasons:

[edited] I was unfortunately a slave to the internet but I originally said here that they were really banned but really its just a rumour!! I hears the guy handling coachella really wasn't happy with the whole thing thoigh, still funny lmfao

It was the one of the few moments that were the closest to a kiss, there are a few others but this one is the most popular and most iconic because again of said reason in #1.

3. Sharing Clothes

This ones not really a moment but a collection of moments. I find it EXTREMELY FUNNY that whenever people do those "boyfriend style" things on Alex, you see the regular array of ex girlfriends or current girlfriend, and out of nowhere, it's just Miles HAHAHAHHA. LIKE IT'S FUNNY AS HELL. I find it kinda sweet that Miles is somehow the... consistent out of all of the styles, like no matter the era of Alex there's gonna be a moment where he shares clothes with Miles, compared to the others who obviously only ever share with him in one period. I guess that's the perks of being the best friend?

Some examples:

Striped Shirt

Leather Jacket

Fred Perry Cardigan

4. The Albums being called "their baby"

This one is a little more of a stretch because I've only ever seen it one time. In this interview Alex says "for the past 8 years we've considered...trying for another baby" then they both start laughing hysterically. It's funny and cute :)) If anyone ever sees a different moment where Alex and Miles call the albums their babies, please do let me know!

5. I Want You (She's So Heavy)

These gifs explain themselves I think

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I honestly can't think of more on top of my head right now, if anyone wants to add more please do! I'll definitely add more later but for now, this is my starter pack!

I hope this is a good little collection of stuff for you guys to see a little bit of everything!

[risingoflights]

Hmm, you don't feel comfortable talking about it unless someone asks your opinions? Then this is your official ask!

I've never played the critically acclaimed- er, you know. And I have no idea what the Ilsabard Region is or what its story and tone are.

So! What is it, and how does it compare to what you've experienced of Rebirth so far? What do you get from one that's missing in the other? What are the strengths and weaknesses of each narrative, and which do you feel, at this point, will have the most replay value?

(Plus anything else that's crossed your mind!)

ah friend, you should know better than to ask, but thank you for asking <3

leaving xiv out of this for a moment, i can tell you exactly why chapter 7 specifically of rebirth is the one to have caused me to openly gripe.

and, as you might expect, it's to do with hojo.

i was always going to judge the entirety of this game by its handling of hojo, and so far i've been sorely disappointed. standing by what i said in my previous post about nostalgia and fandom goggles, i still believe there was more written into hojo in og than, say, scarlet and heideggar. and since remake did a decent job rounding out president shinra, i was hoping hojo would get similar treatment. so far though, it seems like they've gone the opposite way.

i try not to make too many comparisons to og because many characters are pointedly deviating away from their og characterisations (rufus seems a standout so far), but this point in og was importantly where hojo started shaping up to be more than the trope he began as. it was crucial that as soon as sephiroth reappeared, hojo abandoned shinra. in fact if memory serves, someone (heideggar or rufus?) even points this out in og - hojo's 'disappeared'. then when you see him in costa and cloud asks why he's there, hojo admits 'the same reason as you'. cloud was chasing sephiroth, so was hojo. and he was doing it without shinra because finding sephiroth wasn't on shinra's agenda - at least not at that point.

i was actually so hopeful and happy at the end of remake where the camera pans across the executives lined up in front of rufus, and hojo is decidedly missing - off laughing to himself...! excellent! that defiance seems to have led nowhere in rebirth!

you could argue that in rebirth, hojo decided to continue using shinra resources to go after sephiroth and he's still playing his own long game. doesn't change the fact that rufus was openly out to kill sephiroth now - so what did he tell hojo to make him stay, if hojo had wanted to leave? i mean, you could argue a lot of things to make things make things deeper. and maybe things will get deeper - i'm only halfway through rebirth after all - but rebirth hojo was still on the beach to capture the robes and study them. that single-minded drive and obsession with sephiroth just isn't present. it felt like the icing off the original cake. the bikini girls fawning on him, really fun! him throwing off-handed remarks about recruiting them for his sephiroth breeding program, noooooot... as fun! the whole shinra bigwig come to town, johnny being made to carry his briefcase and push crowds on the beach out of his way? ish! sort of a... dazzling superficial picking of what that scene originally was? did i laugh? yes! was i let down? also yes!

the other thing that really grated on me was the optional aerith dialogue, but that's no surprise - the whole aerith situation has been one big headache for me so far and promises to continue to be so. talk to aerith on the beach and she says a bunch of things about hojo culminating in 'i hate him'. oh. oh, like we really needed this explicitly said? you know, what i really loved about og here is twofold - 1. hojo doesn't appear to even remember aerith's name, which is such a good demonstrating of him not registering her as worthy of ifalna, compared to rebirth where hojo literally yells this at her during battle. this was one of the neat little consistent touches about og hojo - he didn't give a shit, but passively and dismissively - like, it's not so much he deliberately chose to harm others as he just didn't even register harming others as a concept, which made the few people and times he did choose to be sadistic stand out more. and 2. og aerith, instead of... any of the ugly things she could've said to and about hojo, asks him about her lineage and connection to sephiroth instead. how loaded does that make their relationship? that no matter what he did to her and her mother, she still registers him as a source of knowledge and felt pressed to ask him despite the subject being a particular sore point for her?

og aerith probably also hated hojo - i mean, that just makes sense. but the way that scene played out really sets precedent for more questions... what more? what else? which. i guess summarises a lot of the issues i have with rebirth so far. that whole sense of wonder is just not there. the game likes to hand you everything, tell you exactly what to think. this is often done at its detriment, because real complexity simply cannot be spoonfed! BUT - i have to keep reiterating - nostalgia and fandom goggles. they're grafted to my face and i can't take them off.

....so after all that, would you still like to hear about ilsabard? i realise i've just completely failed to answer all your questions but, thank you for allowing me to vent a little!

[duhragonball]

One thing that bothers me (and probably only me) is that Shin and Kibito just... have different color palettes now?? Not just their skin but their uniforms too, its so weird and I have no idea why they chaged their colors and *only* them. Their skin colors here are vaguely closer to the colorized manga, but I think their uniform colors were the same in the dbz manga and dbz anime. Its a weird change and not a good one imo, bc now color wise they look too similar.

It kind of bothers me, but I've come to accept that this sort of thing just happens now. My guess is that it's the same deal as Future Trunks' hair color changing in Dragon Ball Super, and perhaps all of the color changes seen in Super Hero.

As far as what that deal is, I suspect it's the animators trying to respect Toriyama. Like, he drew a color picture of Future Trunks back in 2016 or whenever, and the hair in that drawing was blue, so it's like everyone went out of their way to make sure he had blue hair in the show, and all of the flashbacks to Future Trunks in DBZ were sepia-toned to avoid the contradiction, even though Kid Trunks still had purple hair.

At least that's the only thing I can come up with to explain Blue Hair Trunks. They never acknowledged it in the show, and no one ever explained the change to the fans, and apparently no one ever tried to push back against the decision. So that leads me to suspect it was because no one wanted to defy Toriyama on this issue, even though I'm pretty sure he would have been totally chill about it. He probably never insisted on Blue Hair Trunks in the first place. He just drew some promotional art and Toei decided it was a sacred edict. At least, that's my theory on it.

So the Supreme Kai and Kibito in Daima are probably the same deal, since Toriyama probably drew models for those characters for the new show, and he gave them the colors he gave them, and no one at Toei was going to suggest that it's inconsistent with the palettes used in DBZ. And with Daima, that's fair, because so far all the flashbacks to Z have been reanimated from scratch, and it's not like Kibito is constantly hanging around his alternate timeline counterpart who's still red.

Ultimately, it just doesn't matter, because Dragon Ball was a black and white comic in the beginning, and a lot of the color choices in the original anime were chosen for whatever reason they were chosen. Blunks and Super Hero and Daima all seem to represent this effort to conform to a supposedly more "authentic" color scheme, although I'm not sure what makes it so.

It reminds me a lot of the conversation about Giorno Giovanna's clothes in the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime. Fans were accustomed to the black/dark blue school uniform he wore in the colorized manga, and then the anime version had him in this hot pink number. The truth is that the colors in the color manga were simply chosen by the publisher, possibly to make the comics easier to read on smartphones or whatever. Whenever Araki did color pages in his manga, he would often use radically different palettes, so there was no single color scheme for anything. As I understand it, anime Giorno got a pink uniform because they actually asked Araki and he chose pink. I thought this was all kind of arbitrary, but the other day it finally hit me that Giorno's a year younger than Josuke was in Part 4, and the uniforms are color coded by year. And Kurama form YuYu Hakusho had a pink uniform too, and he was also 15 like Giorno, if I remember right. Not that anyone seems to wear a pink uniform in Japanese schools that I can tell, but whatever.

Anyway, it feels like Toei has felt a need to take more input from Toriyama about these details, and maybe that sense of obligation has overridden any need to give these shows a consistent look. But in the end, I think it's probably inevitable that these kinds of changes would pop up over time. After a few decades, a franchise like Dragon Ball is bound to get a makeover once in a while.

[hermitw]

Tengen, Kenjaku, + Sukuna - relationships and history (my guess at them, at least)

Sukuna's eye piece resembles a tree. It seems to move on its own, like it's breathing or something - Tengen's head does this as well.

In the exchange event arc, Kenjaku says that you can think of Tengen like a tree.

This might draw on a relationship between Sukuna and Tengen.

Sukuna doesn't seem to know much about his mother - maybe she was starving, she was pregnant with twins but Sukuna ate the sibling (which might have begun the cannibal rumor - we never see him eat anyone but his own mummy. When Sukuna did try other foods (popcorn and soda) they didn't even include meat. Anyway, it seems more like Sukuna absorbed his twin in the womb, they sort of fused together, and he came out with extra arms and 2 faces. (this is a post for another time, but I suspect that Sukuna has dissociative identity disorder, which is caused by childhood trauma. I'm only mentioning this because maybe sukuna had both souls, but I'm not theorizing in the 2 souls thing - if anyone else goes that route, I'd love to read it though.

Sukuna was an unwanted child, a cursed child, one that should have never been born (this is how he describes himself, and I'm certain he learned that from the way adults spoke of and treated him).

Tengen only smiled when Yuuji asked “why do you look like that?” coupled with Tengen saying “I'm more like a granny” and Kenjaku thinking that Tengen is starting to resemble Sukuna (and at first I thought sukuna was eating Tengen's true body, not his own mummy, so the resemblance is rly there - and Sukuna seemed surprised to see a mummy, which made me think that wasn't his own body. Because the clothing etc tells us that Sukuna committed to self-mummification, a Buddhist ritual that was eventually outlawed as suicide.) and I've come to think that Tengen is Sukuna's grandmother.

What about Kenjaku? The way Sukuna (and Uraume) acts around him screams trauma. We know that Kenjaku is a long-term plotting manipulator, master of coercive control. It really seems like Kenjaku and Tengen had some relationship… I wonder if Kenjaku was a bad influence on her. If the way he used the dead bodies of other people to inhabit himself normalized such disrespect of autonomy, or if Kenjaku insinuated that erasing (as Yaga put it) the star plasma vessels (middle school girls, as far as we know) was the only way to preserve Tengen's humanity as she ages.

There's also the fact that cursed energy, spirits, sorcerers, are only so prevalent and strong in Japan compared to the rest of the world because of Tengen's barrier - which is very suspicious, making the fact that Tengen strengthens the barriers utterly meaningless to me.

Is kenjaku a relative of Sukuna? I'm not sure. But in the end of this post I noted some possible references to Marilyn Manson (it's been 10 years since I've read his autobiography, interviews etc) in Sukuna's character - most heavily supported by Gege choosing Sa(i)nt as his song (side note, Manson has claimed to have DID). Anyway, the most disturbing part of that book to me was his grandfather's basement. He and his cousin used to pretend to be spies, and sneak into their grandfather's private room, and he still has nightmares about it (pretty sure I do too). I won't go into it here bc I'm not interested in throwing up. And I don't remember whether he feared his grandfather, but I'm pretty sure that punishment methods (which have now been classified as torture, i think) were mentioned - I think from both grandparents idk. Anyway, Sukuna said that Kenjaku does the grossest things (genuinely between Manson’s grandfather and Kenjaku, I can't tell who is more disgusting) which hints that this is no surprise, consistent with his behavior 1,000 years in the past.

Edit to add another thing that is... In the manga, Sukuna double jumps in mid-air, and we never get an explanation for that. In the first episode, Yuuji jumps 4 stories before eating the finger (his athleticism is usually close to the world record iirc, so this is too much imo). There's also Yuki Tsukumo's gravity CT (I think that she and Todo are also kenjaku's kids, but none of them are aware of it, not even him). Anyway. The point here is that maybe this is a sign of Sukuna being Kenjaku's child in some way, as well.

Back to Kenjaku - what the hell is his domain's effect?

I'm making the case here for age regression. Tengen only became fetus Tengen after being removed from Kenjaku (you could say this is for convenient transport to Sukuna, but I don't know). Often, responses to trauma, awareness that a relationship was even abusive, only set in after spending time away from the abuser. And then regression can set in, like suddenly missing social skills, going nonverbal, feeling a total loss of personhood etc. Given the metaphor for SA that I find in another character (if you caught up on the posts mentioned from the earlier link, you already know what I'm talking about - the yap (part 1 part 2) that goes way deeper into the references of trauma, especially sexual abuse, infringement on autonomy, prevalent in jjk, involving more characters. With that in mind, I feel supported that Kenjaku's thing is age regression). When Tengen and Kenjaku were together (whatever kind of relationship that was - what I mean is, when they were in close proximity, at least) kenjaku might have prevented Tengen from aging (in the evolution sense. I also wonder if Kenjaku's age regression thing could prevent himself from aging, as well - despite being a thousand year old brain, he certainly lacks emotional maturity, indifferent at best to the suffering he causes). I imagine that if Tengen and Kenjaku separated, then Tengen would continue a cycle of abuse, or just enact the same sort of behavior that Kenjaku didn't think twice about, to preserve herself. Maybe there were other ways to go about this - like a pact??? The most obvious answer here.

There's also the way that Tengen, the star plasma vessels, and the six eyes are all tied by fate (ngl I'm still wondering what this could mean so please elaborate if you have any ideas).

[weareweirdpeople]

not a vent but diabetic shit because why not I want to share my experience

I have diabetes. I've had diabetes sense i was an elementary schooler on the way to middle school. Diabetes fucking sucks and it runs in my family. Because of this, and the fact that my family refuses to call it a disability despite it literally being a chronic illness, it has taken me a while to realize I do infact have a disability.

in hindsight, I am "lucky" that my mom raised me restricting lots of "unhealthy snacks" (non health foods. My mom viewed fucking cheezits as unhealthy and she came from a family that was even stricter with 'healthy' foods.) This meant that when I got diagnosed with diabetes, I would be prepared for the fact that now they weren't just rare treats my mom was learning to be ok with. Now they were aparently dangerous to my health and I could almost never eat them again.

My uncle has severe type 1 diabetes and my mom used to try to help him manage it, but he's a grown man whos never taken good care of it and does what he wants. So now that I had diabetes she was going to are sure I definitely didn't end up like that. This means that even if he himself brought all the kids a sweet treat, depending on my blood sugar I wouldn't even be allowed to have it. Most of the time she didn't want me to have it. This all went down with covid and I got to live with my diabetic father. The plus side was that the restrictions where pretty much gone, and I just needed to manage my sugar. The bad part is that I was fucking terrified of pricking my finger. It would take me hours to pick my finger, and my dad would be pissed. It slowly became very normal. I also had to learn how to take pills and open a pill bottle.

A while later now that I'm living with my whole family, I still have great care over my diabetes. I say great care as in how my family views it. I have the best a1c, I have the most consistent blood sugars. Personally I'm happy I can do that while having major depression but it makes me sad at the same time. It just pisses me off. Anytime my sugar is high I'm asked "what did you eat? What did you eat today? What was your sugar this morning?" I have an anxiety disorder. The doctors and google have told us that stress and anxiety can heighten blood sugar. Every time its about what I at. If im super sleepy? What did I eat? Whats my blood sugar? If im super anxious? Whats my blood sugar? Is it low? What have you eaten today?

My mom has always been focused on my diabetes. I low key hate it.

But in hindsight some of her ideas and things she let me do were so bad that its actually funny. Like holy shit mom, that was wild.

She at first wanted me to count all of my carbs. Every time I ate. All the carbs. She wanted me to check my sugar everytime I ate and then based on that it would determine what I was allowed to eat.

Then there was the point in time where she let me run around outside all day without eating lunch and sometimes even breakfast or any water until my sugar dropped crazy low and I was dizzy and shaking, and then id go outside again right after it went up. She doesn't like me reminding her of this because she says it makes her feel like a bad mother and that she was distracted. Im pretty sure the only constant meal was eating was dinner.

one time during Easter when we did an egg hunt my siblings got eggs fully of candy like normal. But my mom was running late on candy shopping so instead of giving me candy eggs, she made me get the special eggs she made, thinking they had zero sugar candy. They were fuckkng almonds. Unsalted Almonds. What. The. Fuck. I have never let her live that shit down, because who gives their kid fucking almonds as a treat??? Diabetic or not, unsalted almonds???

I was very very upset that year to say the least. My mom has always been stingy with any candy of any sorts. Even before we knew I was diabetic I was only really allowed 1-3 prices of candy from a holiday at most, and only after dinner. My Halloween candy especially would either go bad or she would eat it as well and I would not get much of it.

And after diabetes? Keto everything. My mom wanted to find as much keto stuff as possible, and I get it. We have a diabetic household, but she didn't do that shit until I got diagnosed with diabetes. I am happy that by now shes pretty much stopped all her restrictions and the keto stuff, she's still really diabetes focused when it comes to my mood and doesn't consider it a disability but that's okish.

Hilariously j don't have type 1 diabetes. Or type 2. I have a genetic mutation, and have had to convince multiple people that no I don't just have type 2, no I didn't not get diabetes because of my eating habits have you fucking seen me I am a god damm stick and even if I was fat that doesn't mean shit, no I cannot just eat fruit instead of candy that's not how diabetes works you peice of shit.

Long story short, i don't get a CGM or an Insulin pump. I actually make too much insulin, and dont really absorb it all and a CGM is to expensive... that means I just have to watch my sugar and take my pills indefinitely and I can't check my sugar too much because then I'd have to wait for my refills to get done because American health care fucking sucks ass.

lol diabetes sucks, stop being assholes to people with diabetes.

[kideternity]

Okay now i've finished Adventure let me write up my full thoughts about the season. This will be less structured than the Tamers review and I apologise for that, I just kind of had a different watching experience with Adventure and thus sort of format my feelings about it in a different way idk. Whatever the case, here’s my full review of Adventure under the cut, and if you don’t care about that, then here’s the TLDR;

I liked adventure! I had a lot of fun watching it. It’s not a perfect season, but nothing is, and whilst I am going to take a break for now, I'm excited to start Digimon Adventure 02 in the foreseeable future.

-First, I do want to highlight things I really enjoyed. I really loved the animation and art style- I know its seen as very cheesy and dated and not the best animated (Most notable example that comes to mind is reusing the animation for special moves) but IDC, I love the cartoony style and I've always been very endeared to older styles of animation and how they make use of the medium.

-I liked the kids! I liked the kids a lot! They’re good kids! The cast of adventure is absolutely a highlight, and I can see why Bandai always goes back to them for use in future projects, whether or not that’s ultimately a good thing.

-Whilst I personally prefer the more Urban Sci-fi / Fantasy settings of Tamers and Savers, The Isekai approach lends itself to be a good way to immediately show off the digital world and the creatures within it, and to start exploring the worldbuilding within. I like the worldbuilding of Adventure! It felt kind of more purposely vague then Tamers and Savers, but it’s an interesting world they set up, and I'd like to see more of it explored

-I missed the global aspect of Tamers and even Savers. Though I can’t really fault Adventure, being as it was literally THE first season ever, for staying strictly in Japan. I just personally enjoyed how large and expansive things got in Tamers, and how people from all over the world were involved. I will say, I did appreciate Adventure also having more unorthodox or complicated family dynamics- such as Yamato and Takeru being the kids of divorce who aren’t able to 24/7 be around each other, or how Koushiro is adopted. It’s always a breath of fresh air to see media, especially for kids, tackle these sorts of things with nuance and grace.

-The soundtrack was absolutely gorgeous. Probably my favourite out of all of the soundtracks so far- there was just so much passion and emotion packed into each musical piece.

-Tone and themes were fairly consistent throughout, mostly due to the fact that Adventure doesn’t really have any sort of grand overarching messaging like Tamers or Savers did. I would assume, due to being again, the first season of anime, it cared more about plot and characters than trying to Say anything too radical. Hence, the themes follow pretty standard “good versus evil” tropes, as well as the power of compassion and community and optimism and hope that digimon usually utilises in each of its different stories across mediums, instead of anything more complex, like Tamers attempts at dissecting morality and violence, and Savers discussing the inherent value of lives that aren’t humans and trying to understand those not like you. Adventure plays it safe, and doesn’t get burned because of it, which I can’t fault.

-The villains are. Eh. They’re entertaining but none of them are necessarily very well written. The most well written villain was Pinochimon, and ignoring that i'm a biased party, most people seem to agree with me on this. Vamdemon was definitely the most intimidating and well built up antagonist. Apocalymon has a really cool and sympathetic concept, and I wish he had been focused on more. Generally, due to the nature of Adventure's “good versus evil” tropes, a lot of the villains aren’t really allowed any sort of nuance or are portrayed in a “They're Inherently Damnable Let's Kill Em” sort of way, which is unfortunate. Only Ogremon top of my head really gets any sort of minor redemption at the end without dying for it, ala Wizarmon, Gottsumon and Pumpkinmon.

-Like Tamers, Adventure is much more open to the idea of making horny jokes and talking about romance, which I do not enjoy, and it was by far the worst one when it came to that in my opinion. Why were there so many jokes about masc digimon hitting on Mimi. Stop that right this instant.

-Generally, I would say plot and character writing is a mixed bag. None of it is necessarily godawful, but you can tell that Adventure was very haphazardly and sloppily written. There’s a lot of inconsistencies in the writing- a lot of new characters or story elements are sort of abruptly added out of nowhere with no real build up and which sometimes ultimately don’t really matter all that much. It has definitely the worst pacing out of the seasons I've seen so far- Again, Building up momentum to then just suddenly stop and spill exposition on you. Savers and Tamers had issues too, but their handling of the plot was usually much tighter and the writing much more concise. Whilst I love the kids, and they do definitely get their own character arcs, none of them are written equally in that regard and often times it leads to situations where some characters get their arcs finished early and then stay stagnant for the rest of the season (Sora and Koushiro) whilst others only get major character writing near the very end (Yamato). It also definitely played favourites with some of them lol. Random things will interject in pivotal moments and the arcs for each different villain all have entirely different vibes to one another. Truthfully, it does come across as a much of mini stories hazily slapped together in an attempt to create a Larger Grander Narrative. Which, again, it was their first attempt ever creating an anime for Digimon, so I suppose I can’t blame them too much for this. It’s a miracle this took off so well in the first place.

Again, there’s definitely stuff I'm missing that i'd have wanted to say, but as a whole, again, I like Adventure! It’s not my favourite season of the digimon anime, and I can definitely understand the frustration for Bandai constantly milking it as a cash cow for the nostalgia points. But, I do think as a whole it holds up for the most part, at least for a kids anime from the late 90s, and Again, I don’t regret having watched it.