#but on a more meta level. Hm. Big Hm.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Your spilled milk theory makes so much sense. Plus, how in the small update 'move barnaby' can be taken as like a command for him to move out of the way. (Maybe from the show entirely?) Which would make sense that maybe something will happen to barnaby!

hmmm well That im skeptical on, purely because Wally was following an instruction - the whrp were just asking random things. though. though. i think there could be some merit in it being foreshadowing - storytelling isnt purely on-purpose-in-universe...

[vermillioncrown]

i'm still so enamored with finishing dpnf w @rozaceous, i want to point out a thing w one of the themes being "we live in a society, no one needs anyone to complete them but we make each other better"

where it's obvious that tim helps the alien twins with growing less enmeshed and more secure in their relationship (not only with each other, but with others), it sounds like a no brainer that tim grows, too

it's not as overt as the twins' development, and a big part of it gets played off as a funny gotcha---nadia.

before i get to her, i'll start with tim developing but not really recognizing that. he's more engaged with people, even if it's just to study the twins, he's responsive to them and their asks in a way that brings him away from his previously perpetual stick-bug outsider position. i don't think tim's been ostracized growing up because he has a level of comfort doing things that means he didn't have to question that much of himself, but there are bits where it's like. hm no one paid you that much attention when you needed it.

and as meta commentary, you do get used to being on the periphery. being on the periphery can grant you angles to observe people that are impossible to achieve within the crowd, but it's still isolating. you develop strange baselines. you run into the risk of thinking you're the only sane and reasonable one, too, which further isolates you.

but back to tim, he's used to being on the sidelines, and even moreso in this au bc no robin. he has the twins recognize him, but that's still very isolating bc the twins are actively seen as outsiders, too. so, the fact that nadia calls him out at the party is the first shock to him and his stick-bug-hood in a way he'll never be able to articulate (thus it falls to his authors to do it)

nadia basically tim's him. tim's him the way he did to allie, the way he would have done in canon to dick and bruce---being seen and recognized. and the hints of how nadia figured him out is both lol funny, internet-poisoned leaps of illogic, but it's also in what she says. sarah, a friend that tim dismissed as not that close, knows enough about tim to talk about him. thinks him salient enough in her life to mention his habits and hobbies. he's not some anonymous stick-bug, meaningless unless he forces himself into other people's lives---he's meaningful on his own, too

(and the fact that everyone comes together for his belated birthday and actually make the day about him---you could probably flay the skin off tim drake before he'd admit exactly how touched he felt about that and why)

and a big part of breaking out of social isolation is cracking the warped self-perception that you let develop as a coping mechanism. the warping doesn't have to be extreme like the alien twins---just minor distortions that build up over time, reinforced by your circumstances and methods of adapting and surviving. because at the end of the day, people need people to grow and thrive, we're social creatures

[duckapus]

If Mario Was in Sonic Heroes (...Sort Of)

We begin with what's left of the SMG4 Crew, Cubot, and Marcy already sneaking through the streets of Robotropolis, heading towards the overgrown Eggman Base that Metal Madness is attached to. Floating high above the metallic blue skyscrapers is the airship, shielded from view with an invisibility spell by Kamek and Sig.

Soon enough, they're in an alley only a street crossing away from the base, and Cubot starts looking for something on the wall, "Okay guys, there should be a side entrance just across from us, and with any luck Metal's been too out of his mind to bother changing the access codes. All we've gotta do is get past the guards."

At that, he points up at a nearby watchtower, where a mechanical Toad looks out over the dark streets. Another robot, this one a pink-and-white knight with a basketball-patterned faceplate, swoops down to address him for a moment before resuming his patrol.

4 winces, "good thing Toadsworth isn't here to see that."

Cubot manages to spot the entrance, and as soon as the group sees an opening they make a break for it. There's a brief scare when Mario accidentally kicks a can (why is there even litter when everyone is in a robot hivemind) and catches Mecha Franky's attention, but thankfully the side of the base has plenty of alcoves to hide in, and a few more "civilian" level robots happen to walk by at the same time.

As it turns out, Metal Sonic really didn't bother changing the access codes, so Cubot's current status as leader of the Eggman Empire gets them in without issue. When they get inside, 4 realizes something pretty important.

"Uh, do you have any idea where they'll be keeping the Seed? 'Cause this is a pretty big place and I really don't thing wandering aimlessly would be a good idea."

"Well, the base is pretty different from how it was the last time I was here, but based on the structure there's a few spots in particular that would make sense. Plus the scanner's still working," he waves the tablet a bit for emphasis.

With that out of the way, the group keeps going, doubling their efforts at stealth now that they're this deep into enemy territory...and also doing their best to keep the more chaotic members of the group from getting distracted by the various robot-related memes they encounter along the way.

As they're moving, Root notices Tari scratching at the elbow of her Meta Runner arm, "Are you okay Tari?"

"Hm? Oh, yeah, my stump just started itching a bit. Haven't really had a chance to take my arm off in the past few days. I'll be fine."

"It comes off?"

"Yep! Just because I didn't get a prothesis the normal way doesn't mean I don't have to take care of it like everyone else."

"Oh, that makes sense. Just, make sure you tell somebody if it starts getting worse, alright?"

"Of course. Sorry if I made you worry."

As it turns out, she's not the only one having slight problems. Lil Coding's got a slight headache that's causing a bit of static on the edges of his hearing. Or...is the static causing the headache? Eh, either way it's probably not a big deal, so he doesn't bother to mention it.

Eventually they reach a dark room that seems as though it used to be a command center, with some sort of containment unit on the other side from the door.

"Well, according to the scanner this is the place. I'm betting the seed's in that thing."

"Mario's on it!" immediately he grabs Meggy by the legs (she's got a deadpan "oh not this shit again" expression but dutifully goes into a T-pose) runs at the container with intent to Smash, "Here we GOOOOO!!!!"

Unsurprisingly, this doesn't work, and he drops Meggy and shrugs, "Well, I've done all I can do."

The rest of the group just rolls their eyes, and Cubot floats over to the main console, "I'll handle it."

It takes a bit to find the right program, but soon enough he finds the controls for the containment unit and opens it, revealing a yellow Wonder Seed.

"Alright!" 4 walks over to grab it, "Just two more and-" Suddenly the room is bathed in red light, and the central monitor changes from Eggman's desktop to a mechanical-looking black-and-red eye.

"Did you really think it would be so easy to steal from me?"

The group quickly backs away from the monitor, 4 remembering to grab the still-accessible seed in the process.

"Fortunately for you, that trinket matters little to me. Still, you are intruders, and intruders must be either converted or destroyed."

While most of the group is shaking in fear, Marcy scoffs, "And how do you plan on doing that? There's no weapons in this room, and if your troops were close enough to catch us before we were ready and able to fight our way out they'd be here by now."

"You are correct...for a few more seconds, at least."

"What do you-" She's cut off by the rippling colors and chime of a wonder effect, and the group turns to a horrible sight, "no, not them..."

The mechanized Lil Coding points his claw at his stunned and horror-stricken father, "PRIORITY_1: ELIMINATE_INTRUDERS."

Mario pulls SMG4 out of the way just before Mecha Coding can hit him with a powerful energy blast, "RUN BITCH, RUUUUUN!"

And so the group books it back the way they came, their roboticized friends hot on their tail and Badniks and other conversion victims closing in around them, with Mario still having to drag 4 along.

Eventually they manage to get outside, where they see that the Airship, now in full view, is heading right towards them with pursuers of its own. They thankfully all manage to grab onto a hastily dropped ladder and climb up to help the crew fend off the robot army in their mad dash to the mercifully-nearby barrier between Robotropolis and the next Zone.

Unfortunately, their luck runs out, as Mecha Desmond appears high above them and uses his Galacta Knight powers to summon dozens of Heart Spears, which rain down and tear through the ship. It ends up crashing down just barely on the wrong side of the barrier, and the main group comes to in the flaming wreckage, robots closing in on all sides and the assorted minions and badniks all either unconscious, trashed, or beginning to convert themselves.

Desmond stands before them, eyes locked on Meggy's prone form because of course he'd be just cognizant enough to remember hating her, and in the blink of an eye lunges-

Only to be stopped short by Toadsworth's cane, the old toad shaking with the effort and half-metal already, but smirking up at his adopted grandson, "Come on my boy, I know you can move faster than that! This conversion nonsense really isn't doing your training any favors, is it?"

He looks back at what's left of the group, "Go on then, get out of here! We'll hold them off for as long as we're still ourselves!"

True to what he says, all the other half-converted characters jump into the fray, many fighting several full robots at once. Bomberto's among them, "Just like old times, eh?"

"If this is "just like old times," then you and I remember those times very differently, old friend."

Not wanting to squander this chance, the group follows Toadsworth's orders as soon as he gives them and runs for the barrier, which apparently when approached personally at ground level like this is opaque with a similar shifting rainbow color pattern to the unsprayed versions of the Super Mario Sunshine level portals.

They burst through with a bit of resistance, and then it's just SMG4, Mario, Meggy, Root, Marcy, Sig, Kamek and Cubot collapsing to the ground...and into deep snow, in the middle of the night, with a few errant bits of the ship half-buried nearby and the muffled sounds of the battle they just escaped behind them.

[inimitablereel]

For the Ask a Vidder meme, 5, 1, 16!

5. Hardest vid to edit?

Hm depends on how you define hardest...

I think the biggest technical challenge I've had, which was entirely self-inflicted, was trying to get rid of all the zillions of stupid hallmark channel logos on my hallmark hanukkah vid with absternr, which was very fussy and also unsuccessful and something I volunteered to do while absternr was away from a computer because I like fiddly technical things for the first hour of them... BeatriceEagle's cleancredits program was really great for getting rid of the simple hallmark logo! It was surprisingly easy to get rid of just a white circle with an H in the middle. But they also stuck this big countdown to Christmas thing on the bottom of some of the movies that had a mistletoe border and was kinda faded in and I tried a bunch of different mask options and all of them looked awful... Anyways this has been an unnecessary rant about something I did 100% for fun.

From more of an artistic perspective I think a little wicked was the hardest vid to edit, partially because looking back on it I have pretty mixed feelings about it. I had some pretty specific things I wanted to say about the character but also the way she was being treated in the shows at a meta level and I was trying to make one unified statement about who the character is like and how she's treated in these shows across 3 shows and a movie where she has different amounts of screentime and is treated differently by the narrative.Like I opened with a shot of a badass moment and a moment of her unnecessarily falling on her face from each show but in the one movie, she actually only loses when it's appropriate (e.g. fights with superpowered oponents) and I was sorta faking it with a shot of her falling down in a fight that she eventually won, and in one of the shows I had to work really hard to find those shots of her being badass. (Which is why I wanted to make the vid in the first place - if you have a female character who dresses cool and is verbally said to be badass and in charge but you only ever have her falling over and getting undermined on screen that says something!)

What program do you use?

Davinci resolve! I guess if we're being comprehensive I've also used avidemux a bit for clipping as well as as using ffmpeg/someone's python script to run ffmpeg for multiple clips from a spreadsheet. (Resolve freaked out on my old computer with more than a handful of whole episodes of a show and tomb shows are too many episodes not to clip regardless.)

16. Favorite thumbnail for one of your vids?

I've gotta admit I've always gone with one of the default youtube provided options (though I try to choose whatever one of those is not actively misleading?) Pulling them up, my vimeo thumbnails are way better because vimeo just lets you choose a shot from the video (which is to say they're still just whatever still looked good). I have not uploaded all that many of my vids on vimeo. But maybe I should! For example this is the youtube thumbnail for Emerald City

It looks okay! It's a shot of a car on the infinity train, which is the VAST majority of what's in this vid so you'd think that it'd be very easy to get, but going in to edit the video the other automated options for thumbnails are more focused on characters and it's hard to see what's going on with the train car, which was the focus of the vid. I get why youtube's algorithm thinks that people should be in a thumbnail, it's just wrong with this one.

In contrast this is the vimeo one which I'm pretty sure is just the beginning of the vid. It's still not great! I could have actually made a title screen! But it is a focus on scenery and I think it's fun to have the thumbnail for something titled "emerald city" as a shot of a green room.

Anyways this didn't really answer the question... This one from love is an open door is pretty good - the thumbnail is kind of the ship manifesto for this one (which is real character Wu Xie, who has in other shows in this universe been played by Zhu Yilong, serious actor/the random side characters made up for him to have someone to do exposition with in this 10 episode show) - look at them! they have weirdly a lot of chemistry for how little there is in the character of the guy on the right! (sometimes a "good thumbnail" can be me going I still think this ship and my vid is funny)

[missingn000]

hi!!!! for the ask game - 10, 19, 20, 25? hope you're having a great day💗

hi hi!! omg you're so sweet ok here we go

this got long so answers below cut!

10. How would you describe your writing process?

A HOT MESS. no but actually, it's more like...hm. i usually have big ideas/main plot points that go in an overall outline for the story. then once it comes time to write a new chapter, i'll pull everything in my outline that fits there: dialogue snippets, major events, interactions, etc. then i spend some time brainstorming expanding those with more dialogue, scene changes/connection points -- i like going on drives listening to music to brainstorm!! it's...very effective, at least for the creative process and not my gas tank x___x then i'll flesh out the chapter, i prefer writing in the evening though since it's the summer and my schedule's more flexible, i've been writing during the day more too!

19. Is there something you always find yourself repeating in your writing? (favourite verb, something you describe ‘too often’, trope you can’t get enough of?)

trope....found family lol but we all knew that. as for words, i feel like i use the word "even" a lot?? maybe it's just me. caught myself doing it a few chapters ago and have tried to cut back since then but ehhh. as for descriptions, i'm trying to expand past just body language in dialogue-heavy sections. i think i've been better at it lately!

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about (symbolism you’ve included, character or relationship development that you love, hidden references, callbacks or clues for future scenes?)

OK THIS....i could answer in a lot of different ways and i actually love doing meta analysis posts when people ask me about specific themes, so i'll keep this one on the shorter side (though i would def be open to writing a longer post about this if people want!) the way the phrase "the strongest" is used in tpg is extremely nuanced. primarily, the phrase is used because it represents a superficial, surface-level understanding of a character: people called gojo "the strongest" because they refused to look under the surface, nanako calls getou the strongest in her intro chap because she has a very narrow view of him, and naoya calls toji the strongest because he only values him for his strength without caring at all about who he is as a person. in 27, the strongest is mentioned in a slightly different context: from a framing of being the best at what you do and how others will isolate you because of it. still that notion of superficiality, but the speaker is aware of those limitations and directly addresses it in his commentary. you'll see!

25. What part of writing is the most fun?

BRAINSTORMING!! the aforementioned drives and listening to music is just SO fun to me. i love thinking of scenarios. damn. that's the good shit

thanks for asking!!

[schnozzbun-art]

for the commentary thing - I'm just going with my two favourite moments from ASAL

[She felt a light tap on her shoulder.]

to

[“There’s a man out there called Rando,” he whispered. “He’s powerful. Lives very far away. It would be a dangerous trip, but if we got his help you wouldn’t live underground anymore. The four of us could be safe there.”]

in chapter one, and [“Fine.” Buddy sheathed her sword. “I won’t kill you, yet. But I will.”]

to [“...Let’s find those caves,” Rando said.]

in chapter 2

Ask Game: Pick any passage of 500 words or less from any fanfic I’ve written, and I’ll give you the equivalent of a DVD commentary on that snippet!

/Oooh, some very generous selections! Hot damn let’s see how I go, especially cause I haven’t read this stuff in a whiiiiile./

============ ASAL Chapter 1 ============

She felt a light tap on her shoulder.

Buddy flinched awake. Sticky was lying across from her with a finger to his lips.

“Hey Buddy,” he whispered, barely audible.

“Hi,” she whispered back.

/You know this sequence reads as mildly creepy in retrospect XD I think my logic at the time was since they’re in the dark and have very limited visibility, and also talking to someone in the dark is such a wildly intimate and immediate thing (big ‘staying up late at a slumber party energies) I think the lack of dialogue tags helps the pacing soar quite quickly. Also poor Sticky on a meta level is no stranger to having his intentions with Buddy misinterpreted, be it by the characters or the reader/player fdkjah. If I had written this today I maybe would have put an extra sentence of Buddy understanding that Sticky’s gesture meant he wanted her to keep quiet, but hm that might have been hand-holding the reader too much. It’s always a tricky balance/.

“It’s been a while.”

“Yep.”

Buddy was instinctively aware of how close Brad was. He was barely a yard away from her, a huge brown mass of cloth and hair that rose and fell as he breathed. She could tell by the clipped words and the shallowness of his breathing that Sticky was aware of it too.

/Whoops, that last sentence is broken lol. If I had written that today I would have said “She could also tell by Sticky’s clipped words and shallow breath that he was aware of it too.” Because Brad was the last person I talked about, the reader is prepped to assume Buddy is still describing Brad, rather than the fact she’s now talking about Sticky, WHOOPS. Genuinely considering editing that line cause it’s so jarring to me now, huh./  /Also the way I dehumanise Brad here in my language is very intentional. Buddy is so alienated from Brad she’s struggling to see him as a person and more like an animalistic collection of parts. “Huge,” “mass”, “brown”, “hair.” Kind of like she’s sleeping next to a dozing bear, and not the cuddly kind./

“What is it?” Buddy said.

“Just wanted to check on you,” he said. “How are you?”

/Sticky’s dialogue is deliberately a bit stilted here. He knows the danger, he also wants to keep his tone light so he doesn’t scare Buddy. It’s interesting to think about how adults consciously change their tone/diction when they want to broach something difficult to a kid, and I wanted to prep the reader a bit to be like ‘oh something’s going to happen here.’/

“I’m okay. I’m ten, I guess.”

/Not to pat myself on the back too hard but I always thought this line was pretty fun. Kids are great at dry humour, man, especially when they don’t realise how dry they’re being./

“Are you happy here?”

The question was as subtle as a boulder crashing into a lake. It felt like Sticky had just plucked something private and blinding out of her mind and dropped it right in front of them.

/Buddy has felt SO isolated and SO alone in her feelings, it’s unfathomable to her that someone would be so razor sharp in pointing out her unhappiness, even though it’s, probably extremely obvious to anyone looking at her.../

Buddy pretended not to understand. “Today was fun. I’m happy being with you right now.”

“But are you happy here? In this place, with Brad?”

Buddy fell silent. She opened her mouth but couldn’t make any words. Brad’s breathing roared in her ears. He was too close.

Her heart hammered in her chest. Achingly slow, she rose to her hands and knees and crawled across the ground until she was above Sticky’s face. She was so close she could smell the whiff of liquor and expired make-up on him. /Can’t give Sticky too much credibility XD Also I wanted to hint that maybe Sticky’s lips are a bit looser than normal due to the alcohol at Buddy’s party, leading to the fatal anecdote he shares about Dusty later./  He didn’t move. She lowered her face and surprised herself at the sharp simplicity of the words which poured from her mouth into his ear.

“No. I hate it here. I love you all but I hate being by myself alone. I feel like I’m crazy. I feel like I’m going to die. Sometimes I can’t tell when I’m awake or asleep. I want to leave.”

/While we’ve been feeling Buddy’s misery living underground, this is the first time we hear her voice them in her own words. It really is such a task finding the words to describe when you’re feeling so monumentally awful. The inability to articulate it, the fear that you’re admitting something wrong, the shame. Little Buddy is being very brave here! I also really wanted to put into perspective how, you know, Buddy has been living in what is essentially solitary confinement in her prime developmental years. Brad’s intentions aside—this is killing her./

Buddy’s throat closed. A grasping hand in her conscience forbade her from saying anything more. She felt light-headed with relief and terror. She didn’t know what would happen now. Didn’t she know better? Wasn’t today proof enough that wishing for something was just an invitation for disappointment? What if Brad had heard?

/I really wanted to push how much Buddy is genuinely, genuinely afraid of Brad. It’s something we see continually throughout Painful, and something when I was writing this I didn’t think enough people discussing Buddy really talked about. So much of Buddy’s actions in Painful aren’t motivated by spite, or anger—but fear of Brad./

But she trusted Sticky. He didn’t goof off like Cheeks or fuss like Rick. And most importantly, he wouldn’t crack under Brad. For Buddy it was worth the fear of getting into trouble if it meant she could talk about how she felt. It made it feel real. It made her feel real. If she couldn’t confide in Sticky, she had nothing left.

/Oh Buddy ;v; Also my Sticky bias is shining here XD But hey! Painful shows he’s the most resourceful, or at least physically resilient, of the uncles. I felt like this was a feasible angle to take for his character./

Sticky remained still as Buddy crawled back to her spot. Once she did, he rubbed his hand over his face and breathed out. “Okay, Bud... Okay, okay.” From the setness of his jaw, it looked like he’d made a decision. He inched closer to Buddy.

/I wanted to give the impression that this was something Sticky had been mulling over for a long time. Also something I’m surprised no one has called me out on is how the hell Buddy can see all this considering there is absolutely zero light, not even from the sun/moon cause they’re underground XD Listennnnn it’s a storyyyy and it’s fanfic. If I was charging money then I would have come up with a better explanation or fitted the prose to only describe hearing/scent/sensation. But listen I think stuff like this has it’s place. I’ve read stories that never explained things that were much more jarring but didn’t let me get in the way of enjoying it, so I hope, dear reader, you extend the same grace to me./

“There’s a man out there called Rando,” he whispered. “He’s powerful. Lives very far away. It would be a dangerous trip, but if we got his help you wouldn’t live underground anymore. The four of us could be safe there.”

/Firstly! Credit where credit is due, the idea of Sticky being the one to pitch to Buddy leaving for Rando was directly inspired by the fic Buddy. It’s a really good read and it ended up being an extremely foundation platform when I was writing chapter 1.//I just loved the idea of being able to actually see how Sticky pitched the idea to Buddy. As I said, I think it makes sense that it was Sticky’s choice to leave, and the one who seems most fascinated by Rando’s cause, seeing that in Painful he is the one that integrates so fully into the Rando army, donning their clothes and knowing how to fight, while Rick and Cheeks don’t. Like, Sticky is not the focus of ASAL at all he’s more of a plot device/exposition guy functionally BUT in my mind his arc really centres around actively taking responsibility for past foolishness and irreverence in a want to make something of himself and make a positive change for once (even though we all know his intentions were just as misguided as Brad’s...)/

/Also what a way for Sticky to plant the idea. Not just for Buddy to be free and with her uncles, but voicing the unspeakable, getting away from Brad. It feels so sacrilegious! And Sticky is very much trying to gauge Buddy a little, but his gut instinct is right, she doesn’t want to be near Brad anymore, or at least she doesn’t right in that moment./

I was also so excited to start cultivating the Rando mythos. Something I really want to tease out in this fic is how much Rando has become exalted into this superhuman figurehead. It sets up Buddy being so disillusioned when she does meet him, and also sets the foundation of stuff i want to explore with Rando’s arc about identity./

============ ASAL Chapter 2 ============

“Fine.” Buddy sheathed her sword. “I won’t kill you, yet. But I will.”

Rando nodded. “You will.”

The corner of her mouth quirked downwards. He was too accepting, too consenting to it.

/Part suspicion, part resentment. Buddy is TRYING to live out her little power fantasy to make up for how hellish her life has been and these terrible men aren’t falling in line!! 😤 This is mostly suspicion though. And Buddy has full right to be/ 

Buddy crossed her arms. “So you promise to do whatever I say?”

“To the b-best of my ability.”

Buddy glared.

/I still love how much of a teen Buddy acts in this section. I don’t say this to belittle her, so much as like, we’ve all been there XD I feel like people shy away from that part of her too much. Yeah she’s a teen with a sword, but she’s still a teen!! She’s gonna do teen things like cross her arms and call you a dumbass. I love her./

Rando inclined his head humbly. “Yes, B-Buddy, I will. P-Promise.”

Buddy closed her eye and nodded. “Good,” she said. “I want you to throw me.”

“...Excuse me?”

“You’re strong. I want you to throw me. Up there.” She pointed to the top of The List.

Rando followed her finger, then looked back at her.

“B-But your, um. Your foot.”

“You better not drop me then. Now—” She raised her arms with an air of ‘I’m waiting.’

/I could not tell you whether I was purposefully referencing that one sheldon meme or not, but what I can say is that I find it stupidly funny and reading this always makes me think of it and now I am plaguing you with my visions./

With no further protest, Rando gingerly picked her up, balancing her back and legs on both hands.

Rando raised her up and down, testing her weight. Then did a few light throws in the air. The rock face loomed over them. It looked three stories, at least. Buddy kept her hand clasped around the hilt of her sword, gaze trained on the top of The List, playing the action in her mind.

/I like the description here. I think now with my style of writing I tend to go a little more specific on the setting details, but I think the simplicity of the description here works well at letting the actions speak for themselves and reflects the matter-of-fact perspective Buddy has on her tasks. I think it’s definitely one of the most cinematic sections of the chapter. /

“One…”

Buddy braced herself.

“...two…”

A sharp inhale.

Then.

She soared up, up, up with breath-snatching speed. /You know that moment when you lower the window in a fast-moving car and the rush of wind takes your breath? I assumed ‘surely this would be like that’ when I wrote this./ Wind rushed through Buddy’s hair and ears. The speed wrung a tear out of her eyeball, but she didn’t let it sway her aim.

Time slowed. The throw had been superb. Just before she ran out of momentum, in a perfect arc, her sword shot out from its scabbard and slashed Rando in half.

/Very symbolic. Meant to make any reader who is any way endeared to Rando just a smidge nervous./

/Whatever happens, on the most essential level that matters, Rando isn’t making it out of this alive./

/Also this part was just very fun to write. Anime as hell in a way I feel you can only really get away with in fanfic, ha./

There was a moment where she stopped. A peaceful moment at the zenith where her body was suspended and still, as if gravity was deciding what to do with her. Her mind’s eye inscribed something in the rock.

Buddy, written in bold uppercase at the very top, all the names below scratched off like tallies in a childhood dresser. One horizontal line to warn Olathe. To let every man know the new height she’d reached. She’d show them. She was going to be big.

/Editing this chapter last year when I realised I could draw a link between the height marks on Buddy’s dresser in chapter 1 to her scratching the name out of the warlords, I did SUCH an excited little dance. It’s the way that Buddy’s quest, even though extremely understandable and brutally logical for what she wants to achieve, is still very much funnelled through this very childish perception. To Buddy big = STRONG. She wants power in the most brutish definition possible. It’s the classroom fantasy of turning 12 feet tall and terrorising your bullies, except the stakes could not be higher for Buddy’s case./

She fell.

/A prophecy like Icarus? Who can say. (I mean, I can, I know how it ends. But y’all will just have to wait >:3c)./

She didn’t think about how foolish she was. How the ground was hurtling towards her at breakneck speed. How Rando could just take one step back and watch her head crack open like an egg. How she was just one person, one kid, one girl.

/The way I like to write, description and especially internal emotions are always focalised through the POV character rather than an all-knowing narrator, and the classic rule is that the more a character denies something in prose, the more likely that there’s a good chance the opposite is true. I think one of the most important things with how I write Buddy is the fact that she does experience quite a bit of doubt. The odds are so colossally stacked against her, and she knows this. But to live in that despair is to die, and Buddy refuses to live in fear. She thinks it’s shameful due to how Brad’s parenting beat any trace of cowardice out of her, and also bc she can’t afford to be scared! She can’t let her guard down, she can’t succumb to fear, cause if she does it’s very likely she’ll die :( /

/The separation between ‘kid’ and ‘girl’ is also very purposeful. Besides Buddy of course being at a disadvantage due to being a child, she has also ruefully internalised these notions of being the “““““weaker sex”””””. Lot of resentment here./

She was wrapped in the bliss of being in the air, of the wind whistling through her ears, of her hair fluttering like bird-black feathers, of the outline of her path to freedom being just within reach.

/I’m very purposeful in how I link bird-like imagery with Buddy. Is it a cliche to associate birds and flight with freedom? Absolutely. But does it fit well and is it cool aesthetically? Also yes. I am vibing leave me be. Also while ‘bird-black feathers’ is a cool image I still see her as brunette in my head XD/

Rando caught her.

/Despite Buddy’s dark intent, despite how much Rando’s life is on the line—he still catches her. Without saying too much, it’s setting up a dynamic I am very very keen to explore in ASAL./

Buddy gasped as the rush of air left her and her stomach lurched to position. /That ‘stomach plop’ feeling you get in rollercoasters. Horrible but electrically thrilling./ She looked up at the two inscrutable holes of Rando’s mask beholding her, and stared right back. /Buddy and Rando are sizing each other up here. Both of them really get in this moment, with different levels of trust/reservation that “This person is 100% serious about their role in this, huh.”/ There was a quiet telepathy. A silent comprehension between them which understood: No turning back.

“...Let’s find those caves,” Rando said.

[soundsaboutrighttumblr]

Okay, meta of the scene in ep 5 between Shu Yi’s Dad and Shi De.

Shame on me, because I have to digress at the very beginning even, because that piggy back scene reminded me of something Sam said in an interview, and that is that Yu’s body felt soft to the touch, like a cat’s, and that it is totally a good thing. In the way he molds himself to Shi De’s back, and later slithers off him into the bed, I must say, I totally see it, what he means, and I am loving it. He’s probably very good at winding himself out of your hold when he doesn’t want to be there, and fitting himself to every part of your body when he wants to. Bendy, non-resistant, viscuous, long, warm limbs, I can just imagine the morning stretches. And yeah, I would totally try to pet him, even at the dangers of scratch and bite.

Back to topic:

That scene with Dad. I laughed out loud several times, it is amazing, but also heart wrenching and a psychological roller coaster of course, but I loved how the acting toed the line between serious and comical at times. How Shu Yi’s Dad seems so much like Shu Yi in some moments, when he angrily stalked over towards a wide-eyed Shi De – with Shu Yi on his back-, or later the end of the scene, his impulsive face journey, and how you can see where Shu Yi got his bearings and mannerisms from. Great choice of actor, great acting, I laughed so hard.

On to the psychological ride that is this scene:

So, we’re still digesting the piggy back ride with Big Cat Shu Yi, and there he comes, Dad, dorky and enthusiastic and overbearing, already in Shu Yi’s apartment, with food and presents, but so happy to see his son.

And he comes face to face with a doe eyed, clumsy looking, caught in the act-mannered Gao Shi De, and of course that phallic symbol in Dad’s hand has to be broken for effect (You know, the phallus shaped snack that Shu Yi really likes, that Shi De will take to him later?).

And the music and all plays into the comedic aspect, but also into the role that Shi De takes on here, which is to a point calculated, I believe. It’S the playing weak he will be accused of later. He still tries to win Dad over by playing a more submissive role, not offending his pride, but allowing for his authority, still trying to maybe appease him for Shu Yi’s sake, to make him maybe come around without having to play hard ball.

Dad prowling over menacingly, shushing him, only to take the shoes… yeah. Laughed. His priority is his son, even if he is misguided about what he needs to protect his son from. A thought: The relatives, not the love of his live. But, of course, that is easier said than done, because Dad, too, is entangled in family and corporate webs.

But first things first, Shi De takes his big cat to the bedroom, and this time the statue and rabbit on the window can look on, because nothing scandalous is happening, the snow globe with the Statue of Liberty seems gone, no more freezing American secrets to disturb, it seems.

And is this the look of a man wo just decided that he wants to marry the one sleeping in front of him, again, and over once more? Yes, it is.

It is also the look of a man, who decided to try and win over his fiancé’s dad once more, because even if he knows Shu Yi will stand at his side against him, the happier future he wants for Shu Yi would be with Dad on their side, because despite it all they are close, so close they share mannerisms and face journeys.

So, he showers, in Shu Yi’s space probably owned by Dad, washing off past mistakes, preparing to be his best self when meeting Dad downstairs again. Also? Making Dad wait for him, what a power move, Shi De is capable all right.

When he finally comes down to meet Dad, he takes on the role of a more submissive junior again, polite and respecting authority, because he is the one who asks something that Dad thinks it is his to give, and thus hehas the disadvantage, or at least wants to appease Dad by making him feel that way.

He plays along Dad’s rules, apologizing for breaking a promise that was a set up from the beginning, and he knows.

He presents the documents of his ‘worthiness’, humbly apologizing for them to be lacking in Dad’s eyes. Dad keeps eating, not paying back any of the respect he is shown, still to caught up in his entitlement.

Dad’s remark of it being the betrothal presents is meant to ridicule Shi De’s efforts and love.

Shi De gives him one last out, when he overlooks the tone, and just says yes. You can see it as my dowry, being totally honest and unoffended, as a move of power.

And Dad falls into his trap, out of arrogance, out of underestimating Shi De. Ridiculing something, that is not his to judge, laughing. Entitled: You are never getting into my family.”

Edit: for further intricacies about dowries and betrothal presents in Asian cultures, go here a post by @noona96n​ that gives more sense to it. I’ll leave my take before reading here nonetheless, because the gist is there, lol. But that reading of the beginning of the scene with the documents and the dowry and dad’s entitlement makes more sense. 

And that is when Shi De changes course.

Leaving the submissive pose behind, sitting down at the table, an at least equal partner at the bargaining table.

And what he says, that he can let Shu Yi into his own family, because they are accepting him with open arms? It is a strike that is powerful, proving that equality, if not superiority.

It reminds me of when Shi De said in their first encounter after America, that he will accept the deal, because he knows Shu Yi will never be happy without his father’s approval.  Dad should have seen it then, maybe he did and forgot, and underestimated again.

Shi De is a psychological menace when it comes to bargaining and debating, and don’t you make the mistake to underestimate that. Now they are playing hard ball.

Because he brings Shu Yi’s happiness into it, something he knows is something Dad cares about deep down, even if he is misguided how it should look like. It also plays into parental duties and responsibilities and being a good parent, supporting your child and accepting and loving him for who he is.

He appeals to Dad’s guilt over that, all the while putting him in his place, because he, Shi De has that love that loves Shu Yi unconditionally and wants what makes him happy, he has parents that will love him and may take Dad’s place if he does a job that is lacking.

t’s also a hit to Dad’s fear of losing Shu Yi, that he admitted to in the bar, when saying not only daughters can leave their families. He treatens to take Shu Yi away into a new family.

Shi De builds himself up as Dad’s equal here, with a love that is true for Shu Yi, and also one that chooses Shu YI’s happiness. He’s saying, if they are to be competitors for Shi Yi’s love, Shi De might just come out winning, so Dad should rethink his course.

And Dad realizes then, that he has underestimated Shi De, he has leaned back in his chair while Shi De leans forward. He’s not laughing anymore.

Shi De is very confident in enunciating the syllables, leaning forward, no cowering in his eyes any longer. Everything about his posturing is dominant now. Demanding respect, not asking for it any longer.

So much that Shu Yi’s Dad is backed into a corner, offense his only defense: Are you threating me?

Now it is Shi De who is laughing. What a terrifying opponent in a negotiation. Business man and alpha males through and through… ah, alpha, wasn’t that the project that Shi De… anyway.

Shi De’s reaching out an olive branch, trying to soothe the situation for politeness sakes. All instruments in the psychological engineering of that scene.

And Dad has to give that credit, even if he gives it the tone of an insult.

“You played weak before.”

I am not sure if he means Shi De portrayed himself as weaker than he was, or if he meant play dirty. In any case, he misjudged Shi De. Edit: I think it means playing dirty. Which dad has done, too. Edit’s Edit: Although @noona96n post on the japanese subs ead in me into an iterpretation of playing weaker than he is again... I am torn. both, both is good.

And Shi De again pretends not to hear the tone, just takes it as face value, not letting Dad getting personal. But also, Shi De delivers a lethal blow:

Reminding Dad again, that yes, Shi De played that game for Shu Yi’s happiness, thus having the moral higher ground, but also reminding him that yes, he chose to play the game that way, dirty if he must, with all the capabilities he now proved to have, and that he is not afraid to sacrifice on personal levels, or his pride, to get what he wants, which is ultimately a happy Shu Yi.

Also reminding him of the emails, how dirty he COULD play, leverage that Dad until now maybe thought he still had, but that Shi de now holds over him.

You can see how Shu Yi’s dad doesn’t have anything to set against that. So, he just turns to an insult, trying to put Shi De down again.

But Shi De twists it in his mouth, taking it as confession, just to rile up Dad. Then calling him Dad/Father-in-law, to remind him that with how things are looking now, this is the foreseeable outcome of their future, one where Shi De gets his way and Dad doesn’t.

Edit: @noona96n‘s post on the japanese subs and marriage and family in Asian culture led me to believe that Dad’s scolding of calling Shi De an ungrateful creature/child, as if he was in fatherly position to do so, made Shi De trap him with the question, if he had accepted the marriage/Shi De as his child, and he calls him Dad. I also think that Dad was really impressed by Shi De’s negotiation Skills, and maybe because of that slipped up like that... For those interested, sometimes we have interesting conversations in the comments and notes, lol.

I correct myself; I think that was the lethal blow, lol.

And Dad can only turn to blind rage, lashing out with anything that comes to mind. How the incident in the company still might cost him that future with Shu Yi. Hm. Sus.

You know, the incident, where someone maybe paid a lot of money to destroy/test Shi De’s company and future, by stealing the title alpha, ahem, project alpha from him, only for Shi De to rebuild what alpha means from the ground up, out of his resources, to present it to Dad’s company? Yeah, am I getting this right? Metaphors and all?

Anyway, Shi De has his capabilities and team and support to trust he will resolve that matter, so he is not in the slightest intimidated by that veiled threat.

He concludes by turning back to politeness, thanking Dad for his criticism/warning and paying back some respect to his authority, by bowing and promising to not let him down. Being the bigger man and all.

Then he steals the food Shu Yi likes, that Dad brought, out from under him. Because he CAN.

Yeah, that frustrated face journey by Dad is everything.

But. Maybe someday, when he gets over his pride and anger, he will even be impressed by his future Son-in-law, because yeah, Dad just met his match on a psychological scheming business war-fare level. He got his a... handed back to him.

He HAS to see how that will be good for Shu Yi to have in his corner, eventually.

Edit: After reading @noona96n ‘ post on weddings and family in Asian culture, I believe that interpretation fits the beginning of the scene better, but I do think once Dad rebuffed Shi De’s ask to marry into the family so harshly, Shi De really went into ruthless negotiation mode, to prove to Dad who thinks him unworthy of his world, that he can scheme and negotiate with the best of them, it is not a negotiation of Shu Yi’s future as much as they are pithing their negotiation skills against each other, and I believe Shi De succeeds in impressing Dad, which leads to Dad’s slip up in scolding him like achild, also maybe letting slip he knows of the stolen project, even though everyone has signed confidentiality agreements.

[peterxwade24]

“Maybe, someday.”

Maribat March day 2 prompt First time.

Following the events of “Of Ladybug Spots and Robin Feathers”, Dick is feeling a little put out by Marinette and Jason having secrets with each other that they don’t share with him.

Dick remembers the first time Marinette looked at him as though he’d stolen her breath. He remembers the first time she looked at him as though he’d hung the moon. He also remembers the first time he asked her about the ladybug spots on his upper torso and neck.

---

“Hey Mari?” Dick called, confusion clear in his voice.

“Yes love?” Marinette called back, her voice sounding from the kitchen.

Dick walked towards the kitchen and took a moment to take in his wonderful other half. “What’s up with the spots?”

Marinette froze, her eyes going wide before she turned to look at him. “What, uh, what do you want to know about them?”

“Why are you represented by ladybug spots?” Dick watched as Marinette appeared to shut down, he watched as she turned back to the meal she was preparing.

Marinette dumped the last of the ingredients into the soup before giving it a quick stir. “I think I’m going to stay at Jason’s tonight. You just have to stir that every so often for the next twenty minutes. You can refrigerate the leftovers.” Marinette wiped her hands on the towel she’d slung over her shoulder before discarding the towel on the countertop and striding out of the kitchen, still closed off. She made sure not to bump into Dick as she collected the projects she’d started for her friends and pulled on one of Jason’s leather jackets before she slipped on a pair of shoes. She didn’t look at Dick as she walked out of the apartment, she didn’t press a kiss to his cheek (like she normally did) for the first time in a long time.

Dick watched as she let the door slam behind her, something she didn’t do as she simply didn’t like it.

---

Dick remembers the first time he asked Marinette why his brother was covered in scales.

---

“Hey Mari?” Dick’s voice seemed to echo around the apartment, he was just thankful she’d only spent a week at his brother’s apartment after she’d walked out. He crossed his fingers that she wouldn’t walk out again.

“Hm?” Marinette was working on a project for Selina, a new top, in the living room while House M.D. played in the background.

“What’s up with Jason’s scales?” Dick’s voice was gentle, hoping that he wouldn’t scare her with this question.

“It’s not my place to share personal information about your brother or my friends.” Marinette was short and to the point, not giving him any wiggle room. “If you want to know about his new scales, ask him.”

---

Dick remembers the first time his brother hid something about his own soulmate from him.

---

“Hey, Jaybird.” Dick jogged to catch up to Jason before he went deeper into the cave to put on his suit.

“Yes Dickhead?” Jason waited for his older brother to catch up. “What do you need?”

“What’s up with your scales?” Dick didn’t beat around the bush, wanting to know what was up with his brother, his brother’s soulmates and his own soulmate.

“Is this still about why Pixie is represented by ladybug spots on your torso and neck?” Jason sounded strained, as though he knew something but wasn’t telling.

“Possibly.” Dick sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck in response. “Is it so bad?”

“If you want to know you have to ask her and she has to want to tell you.” Jason shook his head and turned on his heel. “I forgot something in the kitchen. You go on ahead.”

-*-*-*

Jason leaned against the island in the Wayne Manor kitchen, his phone pressed to his ear as he worried his lip.

“Hey, Jay. What’s-” Marinette answered on the other line.

“I know Dick has to reach friendship status level fifteen to unlock your secret, but what will it take for him to know about the other you?”

“Jay. You know your father’s stance on magic users and metas. He’s accepted Luka’s meta abilities because they’re passive. My kwami given abilities aren’t passive. If you spend more time with Roaar, you’ll get some sort of ability.”

Jason sighed and glanced up at Alfred when he heard his wingtips approach. “I know. I’ll grab them when I get home. Do you mind if I give the phone to Alfred?”

“I’m always up to talk to your grandfather.” Marinette sounded joyful, something Jason hadn’t heard from her since the day she walked from Dick’s apartment to his.

Jason passed the phone over to Alfred, watching as the older man seemed to come alive talking to the one person who could reconnect him with his old friend. He turned to the stove, grabbing the tea kettle and filling it up with water before putting it back on the stovetop and turning on the burner underneath. He pulled a pair of mugs down from the cupboard before pulling a box of earl gray tea out of the cupboard.

He busied himself with making tea for himself and for Alfred and by the time he had placed a mug of tea in front of the older man, Alfred had placed the phone on the counter on speaker.

“-’s coming over soon so I have to hide the fact that my soulmate doesn’t know about my other personality.” Marinette sighed and clothing ruffling could be heard. “I don’t know what to do Uncle Alfred.”

“Pixie. Tinker Bell will love you and support you while telling you how stupid you are for not telling him.” Jason took a sip of tea and looked at Alfred. “You know you’re welcome at mine whenever you need to get away.”

-*-*-*

Dick returned to the cave after patrol, grumbling about the notable lack of Jason to anyone who would listen. He stripped off his suit, dragging a heavy hand through his hair before shaking out his shoulders.

He was going to stay the night at the manor, his other half was hiding something from him and he needed space to figure out if he could live with not knowing everything about his soulmate.

---

Dick would always remember the first time he met Chloé Bourgeois, and the first time he was face to face with the fact that he didn’t know what had happened in Paris. He would always remember the first time he was introduced to a Kwami.

---

Dick walked into the apartment, a gentle call of “Mari?” the only sound he made as he hung up his jacket and slid off his shoes.

Dick rolled his neck on his shoulders as he walked deeper into the apartment. He had just turned into the living room when he caught sight of a head of blonde hair. “Mari? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

“This is my friend Chloé, from Paris.” Marinette smiled brightly, her body angled to hide something beside Chloé.

“Hello.” Chloé called with a wave.

Two vibrantly coloured beings appeared just over Marinette’s head, one yellow with black bumblebee stripes while the other was red with a big black spot on its head.

“What are those?” Dick’s voice raised in pitch at the end of his question.

Marinette glanced at what he was looking at and sighed. “Tikki! Pollen! You weren’t supposed to reveal yourselves like this.”

---

Dick laid awake, his arm curled around Marinette where she was tucked against his side. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

“Jason jokes that you have to reach friendship status level fifteen before you can unlock my tragic backstory. I just, I was betrayed in several past friendships and I have a hard time trusting people. And Tikki and Master Fu drilled it into me that no one can know I’m Lady-, that I was Ladybug, heroine of Paris.”

“Will you tell me about it someday?” Dick carded his fingers through her hair and hummed. “Will you tell me about being Ladybug, the heroine of Paris?”

“Maybe, someday.” Marinette pressed a kiss to the closest ladybug spot on Dick’s neck. “Probably.”

@maribatmarch-2k21

[itsbenedict]

I didn’t post about everything I played this year, so here’s my opinions on the stuff I played that I didn’t make a rec post for:

Raging Loop 

Raging Loop is one of them twisty meta Zero Escape-y branching-path visual novels where an ensemble cast is trapped in a mysterious circumstance where people are dying gruesomely, and you have to find out what’s happening and stop it by looping a bunch. 

I can’t wholeheartedly recommend it, because... it tries to have its cake and eat it too with the supernatural elements. Clearly magic is real and has important impacts on the scenario, but then other parts are trickery you’re supposed to see through, and it’s entirely uninterested in cluing you in to how that trickery was accomplished. Not exactly a fair play mystery, in that regard- you have to kind of just be along for the ride, rather than try to figure it out.

That said, it’s a good ride- pretty strong character writing, and the central conceit of the Werewolf/Mafia-style murder scenario creates really interesting drama. It’s more concerned with making itself feel clever than letting the player feel clever, but it’s still well-paced and gripping and has a pretty decent resolution.

Detective Grimoire

I recommended Tangle Tower, the sequel, pretty strongly- and this one, while obviously a little rougher around the edges with the art and mechanics (the suspicion tracker system is a total dud; I didn’t even realize it existed until I realized I was missing an achievement for using it), it’s still pretty darn good. Really fun character designs and animations, fully-voiced, and a solid whodunit backing it all. Plus- while the two are more or less self-contained, the continuity threads with Tangle Tower raised some really interesting questions.

Contradiction - the all-video murder mystery

This one was pretty fun, largely on the strength of the actors. The main mechanic of interrogating people on evidence and using their own statements against each other was some good stuff, too. Definitely had that Phoenix Wright quality to the deductions, and Jenks is a really fun character. (Had a few points where progression was just linked to standing in a certain previously-abandoned area of the map where a clue was suddenly there for no reason, there- good thing it had a hint system.)

As a mystery, it could use a little work- most of what you end up finding out is sequel bait (for a sequel that never actually came together, unfortunately), and the actual whodunit is just sort of hiding in the cracks of all that. And... cornering the culprit just sort of happens out of nowhere once you’ve got your hands on the right piece of evidence, without much fanfare. You’re following up on leads like usual, you find a little lie in someone’s testimony, and then- oh, shit, they’re just confessing everything! Unlike all the previous times you questioned them and they were super evasive like everyone else! And then the game is over. 

All in all, it’s pretty meaty and entertaining and I’d recommend it, but unfortunately the creators have moved on to other things, so there’s not going to be any follow-up on the stuff it left unresolved.

Ikenfell

Ikenfell is a tightly-designed RPG about kids at a magic school, with Paper Mario-style action command mechanics and a battle system that makes a big deal out of careful positioning and movement, which was really enjoyable. The difficulty’s a little high (I recommend always always always speccing into max damage because killing things before they kill you is worth more than any amount of defense, speed doesn’t work, and healing is cheap), but I found it really satisfying.

There’s... something... off? About... I don’t know how to put it, it’s... doing that “yes, everyone is queer and mentally ill, deal with it” thing, which, sure, okay. But for a lot of them it’s such a background thing, like... half the playable cast is unambiguously nonbinary, but like... I don’t know if it’s trying to make some statement on how there are no rules to being NB and you can 100% perform a particular binary gender presentation but still count, or if they wrote the whole story and then changed the pronouns of some of the characters for Representation Points, or what. Probably the former? I dunno, it just feels weird. Maybe I’m just not woke enough to Get It.

(unrelatedly: why the heck is the official art they use everywhere so... off-model? none of them look like they do in-game- they look like the creator commissioned someone to draw a group shot with one reference image each and didn’t tell them anything about the characters. how much you wanna bet they commissioned a friend and it came out wrong but they were too polite to say “sorry, no, this is wrong, can you do it over?”)

Trails of Cold Steel IV

Hoo boy. It’s... not great, and it’s not great in a pretty predictable way for an even-numbered entry in the Trails series. It happens every time- first there’s a game in a new engine with new characters and a new world to explore, and it’s really nice and does interesting things... and then it ends on a cliffhanger, and then there’s a sequel game in the same engine with the same characters and the same world, reusing as many assets as possible. Also the League Of Generically Evil Anime Supervillains is there causing trouble for reasons they refuse to explain, and the plot is a storm of magicbabble and macguffin-chasing that makes little to no sense. 

Cold Steel IV is that for Cold Steel III, full stop. Welcome back to all the same places you visited last game, except this time there’s some stupid magic apocalypse happening (not that it stops you from taking the time to do random sidequests constantly, of course). The whole “oh, the evil curse mind controls people and that’s why they do stupid bullshit that’s in no one’s interest” plot point is leaned on super hard, and it’s just a big yawn the whole way through.

It’s still really fun, though, because the battle system remains really well-designed. (The same battle system that was just as fun in Cold Steel III, mind you, but it hasn’t gotten old.) And- though they’re struggling to square it with the dumb mind control apocalypse plot, the NPC dialogue continues to make the world feel believable and lived-in. They don’t slack on the parts that make Trails good- it’s just the parts that make Trails bad are making themselves more evident than ever.

did finally get to date Towa though so that’s a win

One Step From Eden

OSFE is... uh. It’s fucking hard is what it is. It’s sort of a deckbuilding roguelike, and there’s this combat that takes place on a grid, and- wait, it’s like Mega Man Battle Network, it’s exactly like Mega Man Battle Network. Man, I forgot about that, but the mechanical influence is extremely obvious. It’s MMBN meets Slay the Spire.

Except it’s super duper hard as hell, because unlike MMBN you can’t pause and swap out chips or anything- everything is just always happening so much, all at once, everywhere, and you have no recourse but to git gud and learn all the enemy patterns and the behavior of your own spells and develop the twitch reflexes necessary to not fucking die from all the shit that’s on the screen always.

(What’s the story? Uhhhh, there was some kind of magic apocalypse, and some anime girls are trying to reach a city for some reason that doesn’t really get explained ever. The game doesn’t really care to build its world at all- it’s all mechanics plus a little token character dialogue that doesn’t say much.)

The point is it’s really frickin’ hard but I am an epic pro gamer and I got ALL THE ACHIEVEMENTS, MOTHERFUCKER. If you’ve played it, I expect you to be really god damn impressed with me, okay???

A Short Hike

This one was really relaxing! It’s a platformer where you explore an Animal Crossing-y island of cartoon animal people, collecting mobility upgrades- but like, mainly it’s about straight chillin’. The flight controls are fun and there’s lots of little secrets to find and it’s just a nice time that doesn’t drag on too long. Not too much to say about this one.

Pokémon Sword

Ehhhhh.

I’m not here for the hot takes about how Dexit is good actually. Development hell happened, they had to make cuts for time, I get it. It’s disappointing and makes the game a little bit worse, but it’s not the end of the world.

Apart from that... perfectly serviceable? The Wild Area could’ve used a little more technical polish (as could most things in the game, really) but was a step in the right direction, giving the player a wider array of early-game team-building options than ever before. No HMs is good. Story and characters were kind of nothing, but that’s par for the course. “At least this time they’re not shoehorning in some kind of stupid evil-team-wants-legendary-pokemon-to-destroy-the-world apocalypse plot”, I thought to myself before they managed to shoehorn one in at the last minute with zero buildup- but, hey, beats wasting half the game on it.

It’s nothing special and it’s missing a lot of polish, but its problems are mainly due to being rushed, and presumably next gen they’ll be able to reuse a lot of the models and animations (maybe even improve the animations so they’re not so boring??? a man can dream) and make something interesting. SwSh seem like they were testing the waters for something else, and not taking too many chances in the meantime. 

(yo why would you sell all these cosmetic items and then turn them all off during gym battles, though) 

Hades

Hades is- oh, who am I kidding? Everyone knows Hades, it’s the game of the year, greatest thing since sliced bread, Supergiant are heroes, yada yada yada. I’ve played almost 300 hours of it and I’ve completed everything except all the Resources Director levels (currently a Sigma Wraith), it’s extremely fun and you don’t need me to tell you that.

Petal Crash

It was that thing the Paranatural creator helped on? It’s, uh. It’s a block-sliding puzzle game thing, sort of in a Puyo Puyo vein. It has fun character designs and some good dialogue, like you’d expect from Zack’s involvement, but it didn’t really leave an impression otherwise (besides how got dang infuriating some of its Turn Trial puzzles can be.) The story is... kinda heartwarming, kinda didactic, kinda childish, not especially deep or interesting. Hard for it to be, when it’s told through little bits of fluffy character dialogue that exist to set up a puzzle battle as quickly as possible. Not super recommended unless you really really like block-sliding puzzles.

Hollow Knight

Man, why’d I sleep on this for so long? It’s a metroidvania platformer with heavy Dark Souls inspiration, in terms of tone and difficulty and death mechanics and environmental storytelling. And it’s... apart from all that, just really good as a game, with tight controls and juicy movement and great animation. Progression is linked as much to mastery as it is to upgrades collected- I found myself in lategame areas facing down things that would’ve killed me ten times over at the start- not because I had the best gear, but because I’d learned the game’s language and understood how to move in ways that wouldn’t get me killed.

(Usually. Sometimes I’d walk into a room and sit on a bench and suddenly there’d be a boss fight and I’d get slaughtered. Ain’t that just the way it goes?)

Anyway, on top of all that it’s just charming as hell, with a really unique and well-realized world full of little bug people. I love how, like, your character is clearly some kind of eldritch abomination, but it’s small and cute and so everyone (besides enemies that attack you on sight because they’re possessed by some kinda evil mold) is like “awww, who’s this little guy? want some help, little guy?”

(except Zote, who is just an ass hole. i love him.)

[austarus]

Harry Wells x Reader Amending Past Actions

**A/N: The picture/edit/gif does not belong to me. It belongs to @moonymartell

*Set Post-s4 but before s6, with the revelation of Harry’s cube message that Cisco and Caitlin had found in s6. I think that makes sense. Anyway, just humor me ok? I miss my grumpy and soft scientist.

Word Count: 3350

“Dad, we can’t just let that meta get away with Syberon Labs’ technoscope.” Jesse spoke in a hushed manner as to not let other wandering ears to hear her their conversation. The undergrad had trailed right behind her father as the taller Wells made his way to his office. Harry pressed his thumb on the fingerprint scan against the wall beside his door, unlocking the system to reveal an intricate pass-code sequence as well. Harry mused to himself that it’s a miracle he managed to re-learn and memorize the security code. The dark-haired man had to ensure that no one except him, you, and Jesse were able to enter his area of isolation and Time Vault if there were to be maliciously rampant around the city like Zoom. The young speedster paused until they had fully entered the office and closed the door. The dimness of the room brightened up due to the motion-sensory had had installed years ago. “We have to let the board understand the amount of damage that meta can cause even if the tech isn’t linked to their powers.”

“Jesse, while I do appreciate that you keep me around for your meta-hero work, in this case my hands are tied. I can’t speak on behalf of the science anymore.” Harry replied as he pulled off his bag from his shoulder to set it beside his desk. Long legs moved to take a seat at his workspace, Harry unbuttoned the black buttons of his suit jacket. He had an earlier demonstration pitch to make with speaking to him in his ear for the science-y parts. The not-so-genius CEO inwardly sighed at the amount of proposals on his desks. “I’m not what I once was.”

“What if you could?”

Blue eyes ceased scanning the stack of papers he held in his hand. Harry gently laid them back down the cool glassy surface. “… What are you saying?”

Jesse took a step forward in front of her father’s desk, taking a breath in to resist the urge to accidentally speed-talk her lightbulb moment whenever she got excited. “What if we enhance your neural firing up to the intricate speed that it was once at in each your nervous cells? Therefore, amplifying your neural functions to compensate for cognition and analytical/systematic processing within certain parts of your brain. We’d also have to certify that other areas of your brain are also matching the same speeds before the Enlightenment accident so that we don’t get an overcompensation of neural stimulation. If we increase the firing rate to the adequate speed without causing your body to overstimulate or overwork itself biochemically then we should be able to get your mind back to what it once was. That means we’d also have to know your body’s precise neural chemical levels to see if we need to inject increments in order to compensate for the firing rate values while balancing the fact that we’d have to scan your brain for any traces of dark matter or sub-particles. I’m sure you’d documented your initial firing rate along everything else before you did the tests on the Cerebral inhibitor back on Earth-1.”

That’s my Jesse Quick. Harry had watched his daughter with wide eyes as she spoke confidently. Pride swelled in his chest even though he found himself nodding to the gibberish that came out of her mouth. I should have been able to understand all of that… “Honey.”

“Yeah?”

“I love you-

“-I love you too, dad-”

“-but, and I can’t believe I’m saying this- but in English, please.” This is probably how Joe feels every time Barry and the others spoke with me about science and physics and all that.

“We’re going to speed up your brain back to what it once was.”

“No.”

Jesse blinked at her father’s sudden response. “What? Why?”

Harry stammered before responding, running a hand through his unusually groomed hair. No longer unruly without the anxiety from problem-solving each meta incident or the next big bad. “I’m not- I can’t do that again. Something’s going to go wrong and… I can’t put you through that like I put (Y/N) and the Team. I lost myself, Jesse. I can’t go through all of that- that helplessness again.” Jesse watched her father with a pained expression before casting it downwards, the subtle guilt of not being at her father’s side when all that had gone down. I could have prevented his pain. Was the one thought that rang within the depths of her mind each day.

“Dad, I refuse to accept the fact that there’s nothing that we can do.”

“Jesse-”

“(Y/N) will even be here to monitor your neural and physiological vitals. She’ll be the green light if things go smoothly.”

“Jesse-”

“Just let me try. I can fix you.”

“Jesse!” Harry slammed a hand down on the desk, the harshness of the impact caused a picture frame to fall and shatter. The older Wells rubbed his face before massaging his temples. Don’t give me hope from what I had sorrowingly lost. “Stop, please. It’s not going to work. I’m fine with everything as it is now.”

“But are you content?” Jesse asked with pleading eyes. Harry looked up at his daughter before tilting his head off to the side. Finally, his gazed locked back on her.

“It’s better than being a blank slate or dead.”

“But are you content, dad?” Jesse asked once more, stepping over to pick up the fallen and cracked picture from. It had been of him and you and Team Flash last Christmas. His first Christmas with them. She handed her father the frame with a sigh. “I’ve seen you… stay up late at night wandering the labs, picking up your old notes, and trying to rework things at home until the early morning. There’s nothing wrong with wanting your intelligence back.”

“My intelligence doesn’t define me, Jesse. You need to understand that. I’m balanced now, that’s good enough for me.” Is it though?

“It doesn’t define you, but it’s something you value, dad. You’re my dad. My badass dad, who fought in the War of the Americas. Who jumped breaches to find a way to save me from Zoom while trying to keep the others safe by dropping hints. Who’s stubborn and prickly but ended up making friends on Earth-1 that you now consider family more than ever and met the one other person you’d sacrifice everything in life for. (Y/N). Your skill, intelligence, and determination brought you up to that point. Brains and brawns always win the fight, brawns can’t do it alone. I just-I just want to make you happy.”

“…”

“Dad, do you trust me?”

“You know I do, Jesse.”

“Then let me try.”

“Okay,” Harry grumbled as he leaned back and cracked his stiff neck, he adorned a serious expression on his face. “But we keep this between us. I’m already receiving backlash from your hero group as it is just being present at my own Labs.”

“Don’t worry about them. Oh, and one thing.”

“Hm?”

“Did you tell Cisco and (Y/N) about my team?”

“Yes?”

“Did Cisco come up with a name? Did (Y/N) approve?”

“Are you serious?”

“Yeah! So did they?”

“He might have rattled off a few names. One of them was probably Jesse and the Quicksters.”

“Not bad, I like it.”

“Don’t get any ideas.” Harry lightly scolded Jesse, who cheekily grinned at him.

“I won’t, I won’t,” the young speedster observed her father carefully as he moved past her to a desk space. Unlocking it, the Earth-2 Wells pulled out various notes and finals a blueprint model. Jesse padded over to stand across her father as she eyed the papers. “What’s this?”

“These,” Harry started, “are all the notes and things I had with me about the Cerebral Inhibitor. The blueprints are of mine and Cisco’s as well as the ones I snagged from Marlize after she had left the labs, who made readjustments to regain my intelligence.”

Jesse had already picked up the up-to-date notes by Marlize then the blueprints. She wasn’t even going to ask her father why he even had those in his possession because some part of her felt that he had been contemplating this too. “This is some A-class sloppy work, no wonder you weren’t able to fully get everything back.”

“Think you can outdo her.” Harry quirked a playful eyebrow at his daughter, who only returned the gesture. Jesse’s mind already had been making mental notes on the kinds of improvements that needed to be done.

“Hell yeah I can. I’m a Wells after all.” The speedster grinned up at her father, taking a seat on a spare chair and already sifting through the baroque equations and mathematical language.

Nothing lifted Harry’s spirits more than having his daughter beside him, their relation had been sewn back together. Harry left his daughter to jot down and hypothesize the necessary medications needed. Knowing my daughter, she’ll want to create the Cerebral Inhibitor from scratch. Harry took a seat at his desk once more, taking up paper after paper and analyzing the business proposals sent in. He may not have his intelligence anymore, but that does not necessarily mean he can’t run the business side of STAR Labs. Jesse was currently managing the science and analytical research side. But is this really going to work?

***

Harry covered his yawn as he set down the paper packet and pen in hand. Glancing over, he noticed that he had been working away for nearly 3 hours. The war veteran reclined back on his comfy leather chair as he stretched his limbs. His eyes wondered over to Jesse hunched over, speedily working through the notes as sounds of furious scribbling filled the silent void of the office today. With every intention of getting up and taking a walk through the Labs to get the blood flowing, Harry stood up and loosened his collar.

Blue eyes widened as a breach opened. Jesse’s ears had instantly perked up and, like the speedster she is, she raced to be beside her father in a defensive position. Spluttering sounds emitted from the breach as a very disoriented Wolfgang Wells stumbled out and onto the ground. Jesse looked thoroughly confused as did Harry. The doppelganger cowered on the ground in fear as more spluttering sounds signaled another emerging traveler. Harry watched you pop out of the breach.

“Hi,” You sent a friendly wave to your boyfriend and his daughter along with a cute, innocent-looking smile.

“(Y/N)?”

“One sec,” you held out a hand to them before yanking Wolfgang up by the back of his collar with all your might. Instantaneously, you twisted the German man’s arm back tightly behind him and locked Wolfgang in place adorning a threating sort of smile on your face. Harry blinked a few times as to what the hell was going on while Jesse crossed her arms and observed in amusement much to Wolfgang’s chagrin. “Ok, so let’s try this again. What do we saw when we’re wrong about judging others and their misfortune?”

Wolfgang sneered at you when he had tilted his head make eye contact with you, “You’re joking, rechts?” Your smile dropped astonishingly at his response. A darker look in your eyes as you kicked the back of his knee causing the older man to yelp and fall to bend uncomfortably. Harry ‘tch’ed and winced at what he witnessed. Jesse covered her mouth and hid her laughs at your chosen course of action. “It was wrong for me to do that.” Sie wird mich töten!

“And?”

“Und vhat?” You kick the back of his other knee and dug your fingers in the pressure point of his shoulder muscle, allowing the man to succumb on the ground on his knees. He groaned out in pain. “Und I’m sorry for kicking you out of the Council.”

“What. Else.”

“I shouldn’t have laughed at your face for losing your intelligence. It was a horrible thing for me to do. Können Sie mich jetzt gehen lassen?” Bitte, erbarme dich.

“Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?” You grinned a bit sadistically at him, letting him go and pulling the Breach Extrapolator. Once it was open you grabbed the flinching man and shoved him back into the breach to his Earth.

You turned around and your sweet disposition had returned, sunshine and all. As if the menacing persona you had adorned vanished in a matter of seconds when that breach had closed. Throughout the entire exchange Jesse had spared a glance at her father to literally see him making heart eyes at you and a gentle smile on his face. Harry won’t even deny that your entire gesture had warmed his heart with one thought running through his mind. That’s my wife. That you had gone through the trouble to do all of that for him. Harry’s twinkling eyes never left you and Jesse just rolled her eyes at her dorky father. A smirk had bewitched its way onto his face as he stepped away from his daughter and towards you. You felt heat crawl its way to your cheeks at the hidden look behind his eyes. His arms instantly wrapped around you, holding you tightly to himself as you reciprocated the gesture of affection. You kissed the side of his head, your insides ballooning to maximum capacity.

Pulling away, Harry couldn’t help but tease you, “To what do I owe the great pleasure of Persephone coming all this way to visit my humble abode.”

“I’m so telling Cisco that you’re using his nerdy mythology reference for us.”

“Humor me this one time, will you?”

“You do know that Persephone means Destroyer of Light, right?” You gave him a quirky look, your arms loosely wrapped around him.

“I know, but it seems like the Destroyer of Light has a particular soft spot for a man like me.” Harry just wiggled his eyebrows at you causing the both of you to giggle like dorks. You leaned up and rubbed your nose with his.

“Ugh, you guys are gross. Sickeningly cute, but still gross. Just kiss already so I can give hugs.” Jesse pipped up with a gagging expression. Harry chuckled with pink cheeks and leaned down for a quick kiss, much to your disappointment before Jesse shoved her father away from you. You gave the young speedster the biggest of hugs because you truly did miss her presence and enthusiasm. “(Y/N), that was badass. I didn’t know you could even get that angry. And like, not just anger that my dad normally has when he gets frustrated that something’s not working- silent anger. I’ve been told that’s the worst and most malevolent kind of anger.”

You rubbed the back of your neck when the both of you had turned away, a sheepish laugh falling off your lips. Music to Harry’s ears obviously. “It usually takes a lot to get me that made.”

“Remind me to never get on your bad side. I may be a speedster and everything, but ‘hell hath no wrath than a woman scorned’.”

“I don’t think that’s really possible for you to do, Jesse.”

“Jesse?” Harry interrupted before the speedster could go on rattling off, wrapping an arm around your shoulder.

“Yeah?” Her father gave her a pointed look before signaling with his head simultaneously towards the direction of the door. “Right, yes. I have to go… review a few projects for class. 3 Majors and all- Anyway don’t do anything I wouldn’t do and always use protection kids-” You blinked, and Jesse was gone in a flash of yellow-green lightning. Your cheeks as well as Harry’s lit up at her last statement before she left the office.

“Man, I really wish I had superspeed,” you sighed at her rushed exit, leaning into Harry’s side. He rubbed your arm gingerly.

“Really?”

“Well yeah, think of all the things Barry normally gets done.”

“Yet, he still manages to get his ass handed to him by metas. Every time.”

“True.”

You moved your gaze up and locked eyes with those beautiful azure ones. “You breached over just in time.” Harry took your hand gently and brought you over to the couch. The dark-haired man dimmed the lights in the room, mentally knowing that he deserves a break right now and obviously he wasn’t going to waste time working when you’re currently in the same vicinity as him. You sat close to one another, just automatically cuddling together in each other’s arms on the couch-bed. Harry took one of your hands once more and kissed the back of it before moving to peck each fingertip on your hands. You raked your teeth over your bottom lip as you eyed him with a half-lidded gaze. “We need to talk, babe.” He whispered softly.

“You think so? If anything, I also think I came at the right time. I actually get to see you in a suit again.”

Harry paused with a confused look. “You don’t like my usual casual look.”

“No, I do. I love it, really. I’m just…”

“Just?”

“Really I think you’re sexy in a suit but in reality, you’re handsome in literally anything you wear especially when you roll up your sleeves when you work on something and all that jazz.”

Harry blinked a couple of times, trying to process your rapid-fire rambling response. A soft smile graced his face and he shook his head at you. “I assume that my suit shirts will also be on the list of things you steal from me this time around before leaving to Earth-1.”

“I don’t steal. I borrow.”

“Uh huh. Then can you return those sweaters that you borrowed.”

“That depends, will you actually be sleeping over at my place this time around?”

“Well, that depends on what’s in it for me.”

You kissed Harry’s nose before winking at him. “I was thinking of cooking dinner together. Jesse included as well and- I don’t know- go out for a walk in the city and then we can come back home and do stuff…”

“Do stuff?”

You nodded shyly under his smug face, before switching the conversation. “What did you want to talk about?”

“Jesse believes she can fully restore my intelligence. Not just basic necessities to be a functioning and thinking human being.” Harry ran his fingers through your hair. Confusion crossed your features momentarily as you pulled back to fully look at your boyfriend. You opened your mouth, but Harry beat you to it. “Don’t ask me about the details but- She thinks she can speed up my brain to properly retain its normal function. Before Devoe…” Harry trailed off and you saw the pain flash through his eyes.

You took in a breath and contemplated your next words. “If this is what you want, then I will be here. Every step of the way. If Marlize couldn’t do it, Jesse can.”

“You think so?”

“I know so. I believe in Jesse, she’s your daughter after all. Brilliance, character, and tenacity.”

His strong jaw had softened as his lips turned up into a beautiful smile with mesmerizing blue eyes. The sight caused your heart to beat harder in your chest. “You really are the Persephone to my Hades.” You felt jittery under his heated gaze.

“Harry, I would eat as many pomegranates just to stay by your side, oh great kind of the Underworld.”

“Is that your way of saying ‘yes’ if I were to propose?”

You held your breath in the tender moment before breathing out your response. “Yes.”

Blue eyes sparkled at your response. Harry peppered your face with kisses as giggles left your lips and small acts of adoration were exchanged. “Then as long as you’re in my life, I will be content.” You cupped his face and planted a sweet kiss on his anticipating lips. Harry smiled against your mouth and nipped gently at your lips. The tiny dark velvet box didn’t seem to bear as much weight as it initially had a few months ago in Harry’s pocket anymore.

German Translation:

Rechts?- Right?

Sie wird mich töten - She is going to kill me!

Bitte, erbarme dich. – Please, have mercy

[alittlebitmaybe]

making concessions

so i, uh, maybe wrote the nichest, dumbest cracky au ficlet in the world. i blame @yoursummerfrost who is possibly the sole audience for this. i hope you’re happy.

anyway, this is what i described in this post, aka “Geralt and Jaskier meet at a Magic: the Gathering tournament that Jaskier has no business being at but somehow he beats Geralt and then they try to have sex in the bathroom”

featuring a complete disregard for like, legal cards or real decks or any actual knowledge of MTG tournaments beyond living with someone who plays it a lot

rated M for like frottage and marking and stuff

--

“Fresh meat,” Yen mutters, perched against one of the folding tables, knees spread. She punctuates it with a snap of her bubble gum.

Geralt folds his arms across his chest, eyebrow raised. “This is a low-tier Magic tournament, Yen, not a grade school playground.”

“Doesn’t make him not fresh meat. He’s gonna last five minutes, tops. Someone is gonna OTK that poor bastard.”

“We’ve all got to start somewhere.”

“That kid, Geralt,” she says, “is starting nowhere.”

The man Yen calls that kid does look more like he should be at Coachella than at a Magic: the Gathering tournament—bandana, loose tank top, cuffed jean shorts, and all—but, Geralt thinks, clearing his throat, he’s definitely no kid, not with the definition in his arms and the chest hair and the light scruff along his jaw. He is, though, going around and asking people to show him their decks, which he takes from them and riffles through clumsily while oohing and ahhing.

“Good for me, at least,” Geralt adds. “One less actual competitor to knock out.”

Yen punches him lightly in the shoulder. “Sure, if you can keep it in your pants. You just went all googly-eyed. Those baby blues suck you in already?”

He drags his gaze back to her. “He’s alright. If he touches my cards like that I’ll kill him. They’re worth more than his life.”

“I know, dear. I know. Well, gird yourself, because if you both win your first matches you’re against each other.”

Geralt smiles. “No problem. I’ve been playtesting against every meta deck for weeks. My win ratios are favorable against almost anything. This whole thing is mine.”

“Nerd,” says Yen.

Geralt tugs at the hem of her vest, and she kicks out at him with her boot heel. “You’re literally a judge here. You’re certified.”

“Exactly. I’m in a position of power, but you’re just here to show off. Nerd.”

“Keep it up and I won’t share the prize.”

“Half the prize money would barely buy me dinner at Applebee’s, but thanks anyway, darling. You can keep it, I think I’ll manage.”

And well, that’s fair, actually.

“It’s not about the money,” Geralt protests.

Yen snorts. “Obviously, or no one would be here. We all just bow to the whims of MTG. And thank them. And hand over our credit cards.”

Coachella man has dropped someone’s deck all over the floor and is apologetically gathering the cards back into a haphazard pile. The spectacle has drawn stares.

“Who’s the fool, really?” Yen asks. “Him, or us?”

“Hm,” Geralt replies.

--

“Geralt,” says Geralt. “Bant ramp.”

“Jaskier,” says Coachella man, smiling brightly and taking the proffered hand as he settles himself across the table. “Was that last bit English?”

“It’s…my deck,” Geralt explains dubiously. “Bant ramp? Green, white, blue?”

Jaskier pulls an impressed face. “They’ve got names for things like that? You really know your stuff, Geralt.”

“Uh,” says Geralt, nonplussed. “Yeah, thanks. What are you playing, then?”

“Oh, I’ve got this great deck! It’s got all the colors because I couldn’t pick just a few, and all the cards have such pretty art, you know? I had to put in the best ones. A few of ‘em are even shiny. She’s treated me well so far, this deck. I love her.”

Geralt scans down the list of players on his tourney pamphlet. Next to Jaskier’s name it says only Five color aggro???

Geralt huffs out through his nose. That is nonsensical, and—most importantly—not something he ever playtested against. But no matter what is in that deck, Geralt’s got this in the bag. There’s no way this Jaskier guy has the land base needed to support five colors. Especially if he chose his cards, apparently, based on the art.

Jaskier begins slowly pile shuffling his deck of utterly unsleeved cards. Not even inner sleeves, much less double sleeves. Geralt’s blood pressure ticks up.

“So, uh,” he begins, “you’re new to this, huh? What got you into Magic?”

“Ah, my friend Essi plays here and there, she mentioned this and it seemed like it’d be a lark. New experience and such. And hey”—Jaskier looks up and grins—“maybe I’ll win!”

Geralt thinks about the hours and weeks and years he’s spent studying cards and losing games and analyzing pro matches. “Good luck,” he says.

“Thank you, you’re sweet.”

Jaskier continues placing each card meticulously on its own stack. Geralt shuffles his own deck again and again as he waits.

“Do you want me to, uh.”

Jaskier looks up and says, “Oh, would you? That would be so helpful. I’ve never quite got the hang of the—,” he makes a riffle shuffle gesture, “—whole shuffling thing.”

--

He loses the coin toss, which, he realizes a few turns later, is not an auspicious beginning. But even with Jaskier on the play and him on the draw, certainly it won’t make that much of a difference. Not when Jaskier has to squint at his hand like he’s reading all the card texts for the first time ever. At one point he even goes “Oh, that’s an interesting one,” as if surprised. It cannot make that much of a difference to go second.

And it doesn’t. Because he can’t draw shit to save his life.

While Geralt draws white mana after white mana, Jaskier throws down creature after creature, ignoring effects and the stack entirely in favor of big numbers and building a “board aesthetic.” Whatever the fuck that means. He drops a land on every turn and his mana costs curve out perfectly, despite the stretch over five fucking colors. It’s nothing short of miraculous.

Finally, Geralt is staring down a board of attackers against the lone creature he’d managed to play, and Jaskier says “Ooh, I’ve got enough of the land thingies to play this fella!” and drops—of all fucking things—a Craterhoof Behemoth. Like Geralt isn’t already nearly dead on board.

Geralt eyes the board wipe in his hand that—for fuck’s sake—requires blue.

A single blue mana needed, and a stack of Plains in front of him a mile high.

“It resolves,” he grumbles.

“Woooooo,” says Jaskier. “I mean, that’s good, right?”

“Yes,” says Geralt. “For you.”

He’s got one more draw step to try to dig for an Island. One fucking Island, a fetch land, a mana-producing artifact, anything. He’s spent way too much money on his mana fixing for this to happen.

On his draw, he takes into hand a worthless green creature.

“Fuck!” He scrubs a hand over his face, drops his hand onto the table. “That’s the game. Good one.”

Jaskier looks confused. “What do you mean? You mean I win? But I didn’t get to, you know.” He mimes pushing his attackers across the table like an advancing army. “Kill you.”

“I’m dead on board and have nothing.”

“But I wanted to attack with my big fella!”

Geralt sighs and faintly hears Yen laughing her ass off down the table. And they play out Jaskier’s turn. In which Geralt immediately dies.

As Jaskier celebrates and gathers his cards, Geralt levels him with a tired stare. “Look, be straight with me. Is this a fucking hustle?”

Jaskier laughs brightly. “What, didn’t think I could play, eh?”

“You can’t,” Geralt says. “Obviously. Unless it’s a hustle.”

“No hustling here!” Jaskier then wiggles his eyebrows lasciviously. “Unless you’d like to hustle me later. If you catch my drift.”

Geralt does. “That is not a real come on.”

“Sure it is, since you know I’m coming on to you.”

“Let’s just play out the match,” Geralt says with finality.

He’s down one, but he just needs two wins. Two wins against a deck that will, eventually, be inconsistent and impractical. He shuffles his own deck—tested and massaged until its consistency holds up to real life statistics—four times, just to make sure.

Then Jaskier holds out his deck and Geralt begrudgingly shuffles that, too.

“You have nice hands,” Jaskier comments, following his fingers on the cards. “Big. Strong. Capable.”

“Shut up,” Geralt mumbles, and pretends to ignore it when Jaskier says, Yes, sir.

--

He loses the match on game two, and it’s his own damn fault, this time, because Jaskier drops an infinite combo and doesn’t even realize it until Geralt opens his dumb fucking mouth.

“There it is,” he groans, resigned, as Jaskier lays down the last combo piece. “Lucky draw.”

“Eh?”

“You comboed out?”

“Eh?” Jaskier says again, fingers still on the card like he’s thinking of taking it back, face utterly perplexed.

“You—holy fucking Christ.” Geralt throws his hands in the air. “You don’t even know you have that combo, do you.”

“I—do not, per se, know that, no.”

“That effect will untap your artifact, which lets you—oh, who cares. Fine. You win. Congrats.”

Jaskier’s expression brightens. “I win? Really? But I didn’t even attack!”

“You win. Really.”

Geralt wants a beer.

“Oh!” Jaskier is now beaming. He glances at his watch, a gold-trimmed gaudy thing. “Well, that was quick. We’ve got some time before the next round, if you wanna—uh—”

“Yeah,” sighs Geralt. Heat curls in his belly alongside the mingled anger (shame? embarrassment?) and disappointment. “Whatever.”

Might as well.

--

Geralt shoves Jaskier back against the bathroom door as he locks it, and Jaskier promptly wraps his legs around Geralt’s waist. Without a moment of hesitation Geralt leans in, biting at Jaskier’s lips, feeling arms circle his neck and hands weave themselves into his hair. Their bodies align perfectly and when Geralt thrusts forward, Jaskier gasps into his mouth.

“Yeah,” he breathes, “yeah, like that.”

A growl leaves Geralt in response, frustration with this stupid, clueless man bubbling up within him. Jaskier tastes like red Gatorade and smells like that body butter Yen keeps on her bathroom counter.

It’s less off-putting than it should be.

He keeps going like that, not because he was told to but because it’s infuriatingly good, Jaskier’s body warm and firm and pliant against his as he rolls his hips.

“Oh, God,” Jaskier groans on a thrust that results in a particularly good drag, which separates their mouths enough for Geralt to redirect his attention. With one hand he drags down the idiotic bandana tied around Jaskier’s neck and starts to suck harsh marks into salty skin. Jaskier keeps up a noisy litany of gasps and muffled, bitten-off encouragements. “Oh, that’s—good, fuck—your mouth—like it rough, don’t you…”

Geralt doesn’t particularly like it rough, actually, when he hasn’t been fucking hustled at his own game, but Jaskier still doesn’t seem to have caught on to the part where Geralt is sort of fucking furious about this whole situation.

Instead of explaining himself, he just bites down on Jaskier’s pulse point and curls his hand around Jaskier’s waist where his shirt is rucked up, nails digging in.

“Yeah—” Jaskier says, and tugs at Geralt’s hair, and then there’s banging on the door.

“We can hear you, assholes. There’s a line out here and we gotta piss,” an angry voice calls from the other side.

“Use the ladies’!” Jaskier yells hoarsely. “There’s never anyone in there. This one’s occupied.” Geralt moves against him again. “Oh, that’s—more.”

“No,” says the angry voice. “No more.” Another round of banging. “We’re calling property management. They’ve got a key.”

“Shit,” Geralt says, dropping Jaskier, who makes an indignant noise. He unlocks and opens the door.

There is, in fact, a small crowd around the men’s room, headed by a red-faced man half a foot shorter than Geralt.

“Can’t you mind your own business?” Geralt says.

“Can’t you keep it in your pants?” the man sneers back.

“Technically,” Jaskier pipes up, straightening his bandana and swiping at his hair, “nothing ever came out of any pants.”

“Jaskier,” says Geralt, “don’t help.”

An official-looking group of people rounds the corner, accompanied by Yen, who spots Geralt and nearly falls to the floor in a mirthful fit. He rolls his eyes.

The officials don’t like that at all.

--

A few months later, Jaskier kneels on the other side of Geralt’s coffee table, considering his hand. He licks his lip and taps a few lands to place an enchantment, which Geralt promptly counters.

“You and your fucking—control decks,” Jaskier sighs. “Let me play one some time.”

“Make your own,” says Geralt. “You can use my collection.”

“Ah, maybe I will, and then you won’t be able to play anything at all, ever, and how would you like that?”

“Do you have anything to get rid of my flyers?”

“Unfortunately, no, Geralt, I do not, or I would have played it by now.”

“Then you should probably concede.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” He picks up his cards, sleeved properly, and slides them over to Geralt’s side. “Shuffle please.”

Geralt shuffles them.

“Shame we can’t go to the tournament today,” says Jaskier wistfully. “Banned. What rot. We didn’t even get off that day. Rudely interrupted.”

“Yeah, well, someone had no business being there, anyway.”

“I still think I could have gone all the way. Beat you, didn’t I?”

“Haven’t since.”

“Only because you learned my tricks.”

“Jaskier, you don’t have tricks.”

“Exactly.” He smiles, and Geralt can’t help but smile back. When he places Jaskier’s deck back on the table, Jaskier’s hand rests on top of his. “I am, though, Geralt, absolutely thrilled that we met. Whatever the circumstance. Or consequence. If it needs saying.”

It doesn’t, but Geralt meets his eyes and says, “Yeah, me too.”

[pianoperson]

Ikerev Army Boys Playing Twisted Wonderland

After reading @valnyte’s HC with Ikevamp, I wanted to do one with Ikerev too.

Alice introduces the boys to Twisted Wonderland and is shocked to get them all hooked into the game. Let’s say they all understand the game.

*just want to say, the strategies I typed in these HCs are actually legitimate strategies I’ve heard from people, and if you have the cards for it, I suggest you try them out

Black Army

Ray Blackwell

He’s in mainly for the story.

F for him, his fav character is Che’nya.

He claims Heartslabyul is his favorite episode because it has the best story out of the currently released episodes so far, but the Black Army isn’t falling for that.

He’s not wrong though, in my opinion. Heartslabyul, along with Octavinelle, has the best story.

He had to make it a rule that no one should spend the Black Army funds for gacha after the one time Seth spent 10k lin for gacha.

He does assemble his team but only bases his assembling on favs and a bit from Sirius’ advice.

He can’t help but smile fondly at Ace and Deuce’s shenanigans and dumbassery; they remind him of him and Fenrir.

Sirius Oswald

Oh he’s gonna have fun with the strategizing part of the game.

He will write down in a notebook all the card information he has attained and would ask from other soldiers for their cards if he doesn’t have a certain card so he can note down their stats at max level groovied, their magic skills, their typings, their buddies, and even how they perform in battle.

He’s the first and only one in the Black Army who scored SSS on tests. Everyone was floored.

Listen, he probably discusses these strategies at dinner especially because some people ask him how he scores ridiculously high in tests.

“Fairy Leona may be a defense card, but if with Kalim and Rook, who are his attack buddies, his attack stat will increase to 5k+. If you have SSR Kalim, who boosts your ally, his attack stat will increase further, and it’s even better that Kalim’s attack boost is magic 1 and he is Leona’s duo partner, therefore strengthening Leona’s duo magic. If limit broken at a certain level, he can deal 10k damage per hit with duo magic. The only other SSR who can inflict the same amount of damage is Riddle dorm and even then, you need to have Cater on your team with max buddy to even experience such a boost.”

He may not have superb gacha luck and he is an f2p, but whatever cards he possesses, he can somehow make them work in his favor.

He has a spiritual connection to Trey Clover.

Luka Clemence

Hello, may I introduce you to Luka “I have 7 SSRs only, it’s not that much” Clemence?

No, I’m not kidding. This guy has insane luck as an f2p.

He snagged 7 SSRs in two weeks and when Seth was crying about his gacha luck, that was the only time Luka realized 7 SSRs was a lot?

“I JUST WANT AN SSR SO BAD, I ONLY HAVE MY TUTORIAL PULL ONE”

“Huh?¿ How can you only have one?”

“BECAUSE I’M THAT UNLUCKYYYYY WHY HOW MANY DO YOU HAVE”

“I only have 7...”

Seth’s screams could be heard from Red Territory.

Ok but Seth has every right to freak out. Luka has ALL dorm leader SSRs, biggest tank of the game SSR Trey, and tweels.

Luka dislikes Riddle and Vil for the fact they both bear similarities with his brother. He has mixed feelings with the former, though, due to his backstory.

When it comes to rhythmics, he laments about how he’s a musician yet he can’t get the timing right. Poor fingers are slow.

Rip him in hard mode, especially for Octavinelle’s and prologue 14. They’re h e l l.

Seth Hyde

Rip Seth, he just wants an SSR

His initial SSR was Ruggie and he was crying when he learned from Sirius that he could have rerolled.

His favorite character is Vil and he wants him to come home, but only his Rs arrived.

It’s a wonder how 10k lin wouldn’t bring robe Vil and lab Vil home.

And he still has less SSRs than Luka LMAO

He’s cried at almost every OB backstory except Leona’s.

His favorite rhythmic is the paint the roses one.

Fenrir Godspeed

Luck in battle? Yes. Luck in gacha? Who’s that?

Fenrir spends money on the game but he uses his family’s wealth. Don’t worry, he knows how to manage his savings, but that’s mainly because he accidentally inputted the wrong birth year when he first put it in, so it listed him as a minor.

He loves Ace because he felt like he could relate to him so much.

His first SSR was Riddle, so he really wanted Azul’s SSR when his banner first came out. He hit pity pull and got duped by Floyd.

It’s ok Fenrir, I feel your pain, except I never hit pity.

He loves the rhythmics. Often, he’ll be singing the tunes out loud.

He’s gonna sing the Magift rhythmic songs when he’s training with other soldiers.

Red Army

Lancelot Kingsley

It took him weeks to figure out where alchemy classes are.

He has 4 SSRs who duo with each other, so that’s lit af.

He doesn’t know why he keeps losing in certain battles, though.

He also spent money on gacha oof

Riddle makes him chuckle. He has such a huge resemblance to Jonah, after all.

Trey makes him think of Sirius too often.

He ends up laughing at the thought of Sirius being Jonah’s helper.

I mean hey, they could have at least been friends if things played out differently back in school.

His favorite is Malleus, though, for the fact that he is powerful and lonely.

Jonah Clemence

He didn’t touch on the game at first because he thought it was ‘a waste of time’. It didn’t help that Edgar teased him for having the same voice as Riddle. It was only when he found out Lancelot plays the game and looks so happy with it that he decided to give it a try.

He was surprised at how similar he and Riddle are, and he liked the little queen even more for his birthday, being the same as Luka’s.

He will never admit he likes the game, though, but the soldiers catch him humming some of the songs sometimes.

Another thing he will never admit: he felt a lump in his throat when he read Riddle’s backstory, but when he got to Azul’s, he cried for an hour. He found himself most impressed with Azul’s voice acting prior to the overblot, but the story about Azul’s past had hit him hard. They experienced the exact same thing after all (being bullied) but it was interesting how differently they both turned out afterwards.

Jonah isn’t too big on the meta gameplay. Sure, he strategizes, but he mostly takes into consideration the stats of a card, not so much with the performance of it in battle. He won’t ever say it to Edgar, but he does take Edgar’s advice into consideration, even applying it if he has the cards for it.

Jonah scoffs at spending on gacha. Ultimately, they’re just JPEGs. Why spend on something that can’t be touched? Anyway, he has 5 SSRs and several good SRs such as robe Jade, robe Vil, and lab Trey. He can manage.

He loves the rhythmic section of the game. He may not be the best in the battles, but he’s talented in the rhythmics. Sure, some rhythmics were difficult, but he always scores SS on one or two tries regardless of difficulty. His favorite songs are the fairy gala songs and he’s caught humming them.

Edgar Bright

Just like Sirius, he has fun strategizing in battle. He will blab to Lancelot, Jonah, and Zero about the different strategies he’s come up with.

“Did you know you can make SSR Jade an attack SSR? His magic 1 raises his attack stat, and if you max it, hm will it exceed 5,000? I forget. And if you put Trey in the same team as Jade, he will further boost his attack, and if their buddy level has been maxed, hm perhaps you might reach 6k+ for Jade’s attack stat?”

“Did you know Azul’s attack stat can surpass even Floyd’s attack stat? If you max his buddy with Jade, he can be as strong as Riddle dorm at lvl80.”

“I’m sorry, but after testing out fairy Kalim, his SR cards are still better performance-wise.”

He’s the first and only one to have SSS and just like Jonah, he aces the rhythmic section.

He finds himself most amused with Jade for his shadiness and is probably the one who goes, “Jade, don’t you just want to go apeshit?”

Kyle Ash

He tends to miss lessons often either because he has a lot of patients or because he’s hungover, so he tends to complain about how weak his cards are.

He doesn’t care much about the meta gameplay and plays by favorites. Somehow, he manages to use the good cards and hits rank S.

He doesn’t join the events and doesn’t understand the woes of gacha since he always manages to get the cards he wants.

Luckiest guy honestly, and some of the soldiers jokingly beg for his luck.

Zero

He also strategizes but he mostly follows Edgar’s advice since he tends to get to it first before Zero.

Zero doesn’t play too often because of work, but the game is addicting enough to make him catch the restored AP every 2.5 hours. Anyway, even if he didn’t want to, Alice would have tried to get his workaholic butt off of work.

Poor baby has given up on prologue 14 hard mode rhythmic.

His favorite character is Jack for his good boy nature and he found himself liking the Octavinelle chapter for his presence and rationality. Beans Day event was also fun for him because of Jack.

[elyvorg]

“Well, they’re more like a mom and dad who have a... hands-off approach to parenting.”

“That sounds... awkward. I don’t know if that’s better or worse than never knowing your parents at all.”

“Yeah... me neither. I’m lucky to have my uncle, at least.”

“...Hey, Kaito? You’ve been quiet for a while. Is something wrong?”

“Hm? Oh, nah, it’s nothing. Just spaced out for a bit, that’s all. My bad.”

“You know, Kaito... you live with your grandparents, right? And you never talk about your parents. It... it might not be any of my business, but I couldn’t help but wonder... are you... like me? Or... perhaps a bit like Maki, and you don’t even remember them?”

“Huh? N-No, it’s... neither of those.”

“I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t have to—”

“Hey, it’s fine. I... I guess I don’t mind telling you guys. They... my parents died in a car crash when I was ten.”

---

@trainingtrioweek Day 5: Family

Instead of an art today, some rambly thoughts that this prompt gave me the perfect excuse to bring up. (If you’re finding my blog through this event: as well as arts, I also do quite a bit of meta and not-quite-meta rambling such as this kind of thing on here, usually still about the training trio!)

It’s only especially relevant in non-fiction AUs such as UTDP where everyone’s families are actually real, but – can we talk about the fact that all three of the training trio, in very different ways, are lacking in parents with both the qualities of being alive and being decent parents?

Shuichi

Shuichi’s parent issues are only mentioned briefly in one of his FTEs and don’t get nearly as much focus as his detective-related issues caused by that one case that traumatised him. But it’s possible that they could actually explain quite a bit about him.

It seems to be only in fairly recent years that Shuichi’s parents moved to work overseas and he was sent to live with his detective uncle. However, his bitter comment about his parents’ “hands-off approach to parenting” (that part of the line I wrote here was taken directly from his canon FTE) implies that they weren’t particularly there for him even when they were his primary caregivers.

He also mentions in this FTE that he became an apprentice to his uncle “as thanks for looking after me”. Which, like… that shouldn’t be necessary? Having someone take care of you is a basic human right for a child. But apparently, being properly looked after is not something Shuichi takes for granted, to the point that he feels like he needs to repay the person who does it for him. Ouch. Poor Shuichi.

Thinking on this, it feels like Shuichi’s distant parents could be a big part of why he grew up so anxious and insecure, and why he instinctively seeks out people he can depend on wholeheartedly and latches onto them when he finds them, like he did with Kaede and Kaito. And most likely with his uncle too, for that matter.

I can definitely imagine Shuichi managing to pick up on the clues about Kaito that suggest things aren’t great regarding his parents, and quietly wondering if they’re the same – maybe even sort of hoping they are, so that he’d have someone who really understands. And, well, turns out they aren’t quite the same after all, but nonetheless, knowing that Kaito’s gone through something similar and can relate on some level would still help Shuichi feel less alone with this.

Kaito

Meanwhile, what happened with Kaito’s parents probably also played a bit of a role in shaping him into the person he is, but in more of a positive way.

I’ve seen some people assume that the deal with Kaito’s parents is that they’re shitty parents kind of like Shuichi’s are, and that this is why Kaito talks himself up to be so super awesome all the time, out of a desperate need for the validation that he never got from his own home. But I don’t think that fits. While the stress of the killing game and his illness begin to really get to him and gradually break down his self-worth, it absolutely reads to me like Kaito’s confidence in himself at the beginning of the game was completely genuine. I don’t believe – at the start – that he needed validation from anyone else to know that he was the awesome person he said he was.

So, I believe Kaito’s parents must have been great and supportive parents. They’d need to have been, for Kaito to be able to grow up with so much real confidence, so unashamed of being bombastically himself all the time even if everyone else thinks he’s a ridiculous idiot. But then, if those lovely parents had died all of a sudden when Kaito was young (young-ish, but old enough to properly remember)… that would also have helped shape him into the Kaito we know, in that it’d make him even more determined to live his life to the fullest and not waste a moment of it.

[There’s more than just these general unsubstantiated feelings about Kaito’s overall character that make me sure his parents died, though – there’s also a few canon lines that I believe are deliberately subtly hinting at it. If you want to see which lines and what I think about them, I’ve compiled them in a section at the end of this post.]

Of course, Kaito losing his parents would have been an incredibly difficult and painful experience at the time. But with his grandparents’ support and his own natural resilience and optimism, Kaito appears to have dealt with it as well as any kid losing their parents could be expected to. He’d be determined to use it to push him forward rather than let it hold him back, and it definitely seems like he succeeded.

(Even so, it’d still hurt sometimes. He still misses them, even if he mostly does a good job of not dwelling on it or letting it get him down.)

Unlike most of his other “weaknesses”, Kaito wouldn’t ever try to outright hide or lie about what happened to his parents. He’s come to terms with it by now, and he’s not and never was ashamed of it – every kid’s expected to grieve for their parents, after all – so I don’t think it’d quite set off his hero issues and make him afraid of letting his sidekicks down if they found out.

But still, I imagine Kaito wouldn’t bring it up unless specifically asked about it. No matter how much he tries to focus on the positives and assure people that he’s okay with it now, it… tends to make people feel sorry for him, and he doesn’t like that.

However, after being prompted to talk about it during this conversation with Shuichi and Maki about their parent situations, Kaito would come to realise that maybe that’s not such an issue with them. Maki and Shuichi each have their own painful lack-of-parents problems that they’ve had to get used to, so they’re not going to be unconsciously pitying Kaito for his. That’d make a refreshing change from most people.

Maki in particular must have known some kids at the orphanage who’d been in Kaito’s situation, in that they used to live with their parents and had to go through the grief of losing them. From this, she’s able to tell that, while it’s partly because he was lucky enough to still have his grandparents, Kaito really does seem to have dealt with losing his parents remarkably well. Kaito already knew that – his grandparents would have told him how proud they are of him for coping so well – but it’d help to know that someone from outside the situation thinks the same thing.

(He still wouldn’t quite bring up the moments where it still hurts and he finds himself missing his parents terribly, because that’s weakness, isn’t it? But at least, knowing that his sidekicks understand this kind of pain, albeit in a bit of a different way, would help it hurt just a little less whenever Kaito can’t help but feel like this. He wouldn’t tell them, but he’d be really glad to have that.)

Maki

Maki’s probably actually the least interesting one to talk about here, because she grew up in an orphanage where not having parents was normal and never felt like the odd one out, and she never even knew her parents to have any feelings about them in particular. It seems she had more just a general fantasy of what having parents would be like which she could share with the other kids there – she talks in one of her FTEs about how she and her best friend played House in the role of the parents and just had to make it up. Then, of course, Maki gained much worse things to be dealing with and shaping her into the person she is than a simple lack of parents.

Still, being at Hope’s Peak (or whatever other school they’re at together in this non-fiction AU) and suddenly being surrounded by other kids who constantly talk about their parents like it’s normal… it probably feels vaguely alienating for Maki, on top of every other reason she has to feel like she doesn’t belong.

But at least Shuichi and Kaito understand, in a way. They know what it feels like to hear the other kids casually talk about doing things with their parents while only being able to wish that were normal for them. Maki’s not so much of an outsider, not when she’s with these two.

And in that same way, Kaito and Shuichi would feel less alone in this regard when the trio are together. All three of them have learned to live with their situations and not complain, but it must be nice to have someone else – two someone elses – who know the kind of feeling they’re going through and can relate, even if it’s rather different for each of them.

They’d be able to bond over this – and not just as hero and sidekicks, but as equals, because this is something even Kaito isn’t completely okay about. They are friends.

(Or, maybe, they’re also like a found family? Shuichi and Kaito are certainly the closest thing to a family that Maki’s had in a long time.)

  ---

[appendix: why I’m sure Kaito’s parents died]

First off, there’s the possibility that Kaito’s grandparents are the subject of his motive video simply because he never knew his parents at all, a bit like Maki. But that can’t be the case, based on this line from his second FTE:

Kaito:  “When I was a kid, I’d go to my gramps’ place to play sometimes…”

If he considered it his “gramps’ place” at the time and only went there sometimes, he wasn’t living with them back when he was that young. So apparently, his parents were still around at that time.

Which means that something else happened with Kaito’s parents to make his grandparents the most important people in his life. There are pretty much two possibilities for this: that Kaito’s parents died sometime after those stories he told in his FTEs, or that Kaito’s parents are just assholes and so he prefers his grandparents to them.

With regards to the possibility that his parents are assholes: aside from how I don’t think that fits because Kaito’s confidence is too genuine until the killing game beats it down, there’s also one line vaguely relevant to this topic that suggests they aren’t. In UTDP, in a scene where he’s being pestered by Kokichi:

Kaito:  “You’re still like this at your age? Doesn’t it make your parents cry? Do you even visit?”

Kaito automatically assumes that Kokichi’s parents care about him, even though it could potentially begin to explain a few things about Kokichi if they didn’t. If Kaito’s own parents sucked, you’d think this’d make him likely to consider the possibility that Kokichi’s might do too. Instead, though, that option doesn’t cross his mind, so it seems like Kaito unconsciously sees parents being decent as the norm.

Meanwhile, there are a few subtle bits throughout the story that indicate Kaito might have some experience in dealing with grief prior to the killing game. At the end of trial 1, after suggesting Shuichi visit Kaede’s lab to help come to terms with her death, he says this:

Kaito:  “Understand? There’s only one way to get through this awful feeling. No one’s gonna be able to console you if you’re just sitting here alone. If anyone’s gonna help you, it’ll be her… in your memories.”

This really reads to me like Kaito is speaking from experience – that he’s saying this because he found that something similar helped for him when he was going through a similar kind of pain.

Then there’s the part in trial 3 where he’s encouraging Himiko to face up to Tenko’s death:

Kaito:  “Our only option is to face her death head-on!”

Himiko:  “…Nyeh? Face her death?”

Kaito:  “Himiko… I understand what you’re going through.”

It’s a little oddly specific of Kaito to say that he understands what Himiko’s going through when he hasn’t personally lost anyone he was especially close to in the killing game like she has. And Kaito is absolutely not the kind of person to lie or exaggerate about something this serious and personal to somebody else – this moment is about Himiko and her feelings, and Kaito knows that and wouldn’t try to artificially make things about himself. So this strongly suggests that Kaito does in fact have some idea of what Himiko is going through and is thinking about a loss he suffered outside of the killing game. Facing it head-on sounds like just the kind of thing Kaito would have tried to do for his own grief, doesn’t it?

Then, only a few lines later in that same conversation, Kaito says this:

Kaito:  “Abandoning someone who died and only thinking about your own survival… That’s just as bad as a hit-and-run! I won’t forgive something so messed up!”

Which would be an extremely weirdly-specific thing to say in this situation… except that it makes perfect sense if you assume, based on his earlier lines, that Kaito was already thinking about how he felt when he lost his parents.

So, yeah. When I wrote that Kaito’s parents died specifically in a car crash, that wasn’t pulled out of nowhere either. I really believe that’s what the writers had in mind as the truth about Kaito and deliberately hinted at here.

(It does make sense that Kaito would have lost his parents to an accident like this rather than to something like illness. It’s statistically more likely that he was raised by both his parents, and if that’s the case, an accident is something that could take both of them from him at once where illness most likely wouldn’t. Plus, if he’d lost his parent(s) to illness, spending the days and weeks leading up to their death(s) knowing he was going to lose them, you’d think Kaito would have ended up better at psychologically dealing with his own deadly illness than he actually is.)

There’s also a few lines Kaito has here and there about making the most out of the time you’ve got:

Kaito:  “If you’re not going to get yourself in gear now, then when!? Now’s all you’ve got!”

Kaito:  “Life is short! I don’t have time to waste loafing around here.”

…which, granted, is a very Kaito-like sentiment in general. But it does suggest that he might have learned first-hand that life is short, like he could be thinking about how his parents’ time got cut off abruptly when he’s saying this kind of thing.

The only part of this idea I pulled somewhat out of thin air for this post was that the accident happened specifically when Kaito was ten, but I think something around that age range seems right. Based on the fact that it’s so relatively hard to spot the signs of this in Kaito’s behaviour, it feels like losing his parents wasn’t so recent that the wound is still raw, and also not so early on in his childhood that it would have left a huge, noticeable scar on his psyche. Kaito’s long since managed to come out on the other side and develop a healthy, positive way of dealing with grief that he can try to pass onto both Shuichi and Himiko during the game, such that doing so is the only real noticeable sign that he even went through anything painful himself at all.

[mochuelovelli]

Lilith for the character ask?

Oh boy, a controversial character! Gotta say, I stan James Charles /J

How do I feel about this character?:

On a real note, I do like Lilith as a character. When we first meet her, she's pompous and proud. Oozing with entitlement, she's easy to route against and you like to see her get worked up and "brought down" to Eda's level as the wild which so eloquently put it. Later on, but not too much later that it feels disingenuous, we really get to see her show that she cares for her sister. One might believe it is *Eda* being ridiculous, as far as the audience is aware, Lilith's offer holds little downsides. Eda would be cured and be afforded the luxuries of the upper class AND keep her magic. All she had to do was be the Emperor's soldier.

As to not get off track by talking about Eda, (im sure Lilith herself would loathe that lol) Lilith's reveal to have cursed her sister over a spot in the emperor's coven was...controversial to say the least. I don't think it's unpopular to voice that, yeah. It could've been communicated better to the audience since I saw plenty of commentators and regular fans themselves either thought Lilith cursing her sister was *needlessly* petty and not at all thought out (which yeah it kinda was).

From where I stand on that issue is, yeah, Lilith's whole reason to curse her sister could've been avoided by just talking to her sister and asking her to let her have this. BUT, I think a lot of people forget that the Emperor's coven would want to limit the number of powerful witches in their coven. Sure, Belos would want to be protected by a bunch of loyal soldiers, but he wouldn't want too much of the population to ever have a much power as him. So limiting the number of members in not just his coven but possible in the other major covens, would aid in controlling that population.

This might be pure hogwash but like, there are a ton of other "lesser" covens. So in my mind, it's more likely that the general population of witches gets sorted into one of the various miscellaneous. If you think limiting yourself to only practicing Illusion magic sucks, imagine only practicing whatever the fuck the "swag coven" does.

Lol gonna add a page break this shit is getting too long

Romantic Ships for this character?:

Hm, it's only s1 and we haven't seen her interact w/ many characters outside of her fam/Belos/actual children. I kinda jokingly ship here with Steve lol. Kikimora and her also have a funny dynamic but in all actuality, I don't ship her w/ anyone rn.

Non-Romantic Ships for this character?:

Her and Hooty lol. I mean Eda is an obvious answer but like, Hooty fucking with Lilith is too funny to not want to see. Her and King would be great too, probably get some good B plots out of it. It would be a good contrast since they both can be petty but in different ways and I think that would help flesh out their characters a bit more and maybe cause some introspection (at least on Lilith’s end lol)

Unpopular opinion about this character?:

Lol. I feel like she is such a divisive character in general that most opinions about her aren’t too out of the main stream. I guess a more meta take is that when she’s portrayed in fanworks, usually fanfic but not exclusively, very...one note lol. She’s usually a pretty flat, boring character in an attempt to highlight the contrast between her and Eda. She’s the straight-laced, “responsible” sibling who has a chip on her shoulder. In fanon, that equates to her characterization to either be like, completely and utterly apologetic to the point where it becomes unbelievable for any person to do. Her apologizing or making amends is usually quickly forgiven by Luz/and or Eda. Sure, Luz is very forgiving person naturally but like?? She’s wasn’t mad in canon too much about THEIR well being (almost getting impaled), she was specifically pissed about Lilith betraying Eda. 

So, if Lilith is a big part of your story (and it’s working in the realm of canon), then this should be a problem which doesn’t get resolved by just ONE big action. I also feel like her being on better terms with Eda would come BEFORE Luz since Eda’s main gripe with her would be about her being annoyed by Lilith’s controlling nature and the fact that she didn’t trust her enough to talk about her feelings back when she was first cursed (also her using Luz against her but I feel like that would probably be a hurdle that wouldn’t really be over come until Lilith in turn would be willing to sacrifice herself for Luz while also making an effort to care for Luz as a person not just see her as a “pet”). Hhhh this section is so long and its kinda bleeding over in the next question so-

Something I wish will happen or would have wanted to happen in canon?:

yall if you are still reading I am so sorry sksk

I want Lilith in general, not to be forgiven by either Luz or Eda. Eda probably early on stating about how she is unsure if she could EVER forgive her sister for what she has done. BUT, critically, Eda would see that Lilith is trying and she is willing to work with her (with a unhelpful dose of teasing) because at the end of the day she still loves her sister. For the relationship they had before everything with south, for knowing her side of the story even though she believes it doesn’t justify her actions. She understands and sympathizes, she’s grown a bit softer thanks to Luz, which is very funny since I want Luz to be the one who is the hardest to convince Lilith actually had a change of heart but more on that later. 

Before I move on to what I want her path towards forgiveness with Luz looks like, I want to bring up a parallel that I haven’t seen many people make. Fans always talk about the parallel between the Clawthornes and Luz/Amity, and rightly so because there is a lot to extrapolate there, but I think another interesting dynamic that might be interesting to see in s2 would be an episode that focuses on lost friendship/sisterhood with the Clawthornes and Amity and Willow. It’s kinda funny that Amity and Willow’s friendship was ruined because Willow was too “weak” while Eda was too “powerful”. In a potential episode, it can show the progression both Eda/Lilith and Willow/Amity are making in rekindling their relationship with each other. For Eda and Lilith this would be a lot more rough around the edges since it both be either the first or one of the first attempts at doing so while Willow/Amity would maybe be further along yet still have some major/minor hang ups with one another. With Willow/Amity, their relationship would either be rounding the bend of fully moving past the “idk how to feel about you stage” or it is stated outright that Willow forgives Amity, (and by forgive, I mean in the “we both know what you did, you’ve actually changed. we won’t have the same relationship that we once had but I’m okay with trying again”). In contrast, Lilith and Eda would reach a understanding and come up with some ground rules on how to handle each other (Eda’s main take away from this “episode” would be what I previously stated in the last question), ones that will be more like guidelines cuz its Eda lol. Also what separates the Clawthornes conflict from the Willow/Amity one (besides the obvious) is that the Clawthornes both know how the other works. Which buttons to push and all that so both of them are going to have to learn to resist doing that, at least a bit, in order to actually progress. 

ANYWAYS, I also want Luz to be the one to regard Lilith the coldest. Luz refusing to let Lilith teach her anything despite probably having more practical/book smarts knowledge on magic theory than Eda because she doesn’t trust her. If they are gonna use that masked dude as a spy, I want Luz to assume Lilith is somehow a coconspirator. This plot thread doesn’t have to be going at 100% the whole time, (in fact I would want it to be a temp thing maybe lasting a couple eps at most or like, just something that is hinted at but not dived deeply until the second half of the season). Really, Lilith has a hard time because Luz straight up doesn’t give her the opportunity to really express her regret/remorse. Lilith probably won’t at first give her a ton of reasons to forgive her as she usually attempts at coming back at Luz’s snide remarks with her own quippy comebacks. Sksk a really angsty end to an attempt could include Lilith saying something to Luz after going on a small talk with her (where yeah Lilith has improved but still needs noticeable work) that she “reminds her a lot of Eda” and Luz bites back with something like “Oh yeah? You going to curse me too? You want another person you can force to do what YOU want?”. 

Hell maybe “parental problems” could have Lilith poke at, either on purpose or accidentally, Luz’s feelings about going back to the human world and Camila. Lilith reminding her, maybe unknowingly, reminds her a lot of her mom and that causes her to blow up on her. Luz would hate that comparison, thinking about how similar her mom and Lilith are to one another. That because she still has such a strong dislike of Lilith, it bleeds over into how Luz views Camila and vice versa. In that, both Camila and Lilith value respect, an adherence to the rules, have a great sense of wisdom (arguably for Lilith lol /hj), and (eventually for Lilith once she gets to know Luz better) a genuine want for Luz to succeed and belief in her even though they are critical of her actions at times. Sure Eda reminds her of that more, motherly protective kind of love, in which she would do anything for her to be happy and healthy. Lilith can be the other side of that, the worry and slight doubt. That familiar way they each go about trying to understand and get close to Luz yet not quite getting it yet would still do whatever she’d ask for her sake. Luz at first would take Lilith being disappointed in her actions as an accomplishment. As they grow closer and the more Lilith reminds her of her mom, it becomes scary. The disappointment hurts and in an effort not to feel like that again and to not want to think about the comparison between Lilith and her mother she will snap back at her. Eventually Lilith would then have to change again and reassure her that she cares and by extent, her mother cares to. It is here Lilith is willing to let go of being so constantly controlling and learns to encourage first (or do some form of the compliment sandwich) and Luz comes to peace with her feelings about her mother and understands her position better. To be able to love herself even if she knows that she will always try to do her best. 

oh my fucking god you made it im so sorry i guess i had a lot of thoughts. fffffff

[atlas-the-worldbuilder]

Final thoughts on Pokemon Sword/Shield

So in case you weren’t aware (which is most of you, I’m sure), a few months ago I started a Pokemon Shield blind Nuzlocke Run.  And recently, I completed the main portion of the Nuzlocke by defeating the Champion.  Having played through the game, though, I thought I’d give my final thoughts on it as a Pokemon fan, a gamer, and as a storyteller.

The Story & Characters

In all honesty, I rather enjoyed the main story of this game.  The Pokemon League has always been presented like a professional sport (at least in the anime/cartoon), so it’s fun to see the games taking that perspective and rolling with it.  It felt like an actual tournament/championship, to compete for the title in an officially organized manner, rather than just running a gauntlet of preset combatants.

In addition, I liked how they incorporated both the gym leaders and our rivals into the league story as not only combatants, but also as individuals with their own lives and aspirations.  Marnie and Team Yell are adorable, Hop is... mostly tolerable, thus far, but by far my favorite rival character has been Bede, the Psychic/Fairy trainer.  His haughty and prideful demeanor make him a delight to defeat, and his arc is a wonderful story to see unfold.  I’m really curious to see what he gets up to in the after-story! The Gym Leaders are also fun to meet and battle; the Pokemon games as a whole have been gradually attempting to give more and more character to each of the Gym Leaders you meet, beyond just trials to overcome on your journey to victory.  And while I always have a soft spot for the Hoenn & Sinnoh gyms, I like that they opted to have the Gym Leaders return in place of having more Elite Four members to fight  I only wish I could get more opportunities to get to know them better, cuz there’s some standout leaders from this batch which I truly enjoy!

My biggest complaint with Sword/Shield’s story, though, has been the “Heroic Quest” plotline which has become increasingly common these days.  I like the character of Sonia the researcher, and Oleana is satisfying to watch lose, my biggest complaint has been the pacing of the plot; the first 2/3rd’s of the story are us teaming with Sonia to gradually get the backstory revealed to us, and then in the last half hour, right as the Tournament’s getting underway, all the villains suddenly crawl from beneath the floorboards and run amok while you have to chase them down!  There didn’t feel like there was a proper buildup explaining why the villain wanted to summon the legendary Pokémon, especially one which we heard next to nothing about! This brings about an interesting idea, however... what if instead, they had completely forgone any Legendary-Summoning stories until after the league?  Honestly, I was way more invested challenging the gyms and fighting the champion than I was stopping the literal POKEMON APOCALYPSE from happening... so what if for future games, they saved those for after you became champion?  As a sort of test of your skills, to prove your worth to bear the mantle you have taken!  Maybe it wouldn’t have meshed well, maybe they needed to show of the game mascot more, I dunno...  it’s just my thoughts.

The GamePlay

THEY FINALLY LET US TURN OF THE GODS-FORSAKENED TUTORIALS!!!  PRAISE THE ALL-FATHER!!!

Ahem... In all honesty, I think I’d grown a bit too used to the 2nd screen of the DS-series games, but after a couple days of getting used to the mono-screen style again, I am pleased to say I found it very easy to settle back into.  Though there are still some features I wish would make a return (the HM moves as opposed to public transportation, poison’s effect while walking, wild double battles, etc.), there are alot of fun mechanics introduced and remedies to older problems that have been introduced!

I think one feature which hasn’t had much said about it is the introduction of the Poke-Jobs system; this system allows you to send your Pokémon out on timed “away missions” to gain both experience and items.  In the old days, if you wanted to passively level your pokemon, the only real option you had without introducing a second player was the Daycare center, and they could only raise two pokemon at once... and you had to pay for it.  With Poke-Jobs, though, I can send anywhere from 5-10 teammates out for whatever amount of time I want them to be out for, and then come back later to see them lively and with goodies to show for their work! At first, I didn’t think I’d get much use out of this system; I, like many players out there I’m sure, prefer to guide my pokemon’s training personally, honing their movesets and guiding their levelling and points the way I want from them.  But as I progressed further in my Nuzlocke, and as my daily life became busier and busier, I found myself sending my backup teammates out on jobs to keep them on par with my main team.  Given that the Move Deleter/Tutor and Name Rater are now services that have been rolled into the Pokemon Center, yet another good thing this series has done, I found it much easier to keep my reserve Pokemon prepared in case I needed a substitution. Some Nuzlocke “Purists” may call that taking the easy way out, but... frankly, I don’t have the willpower to do that much grinding.  I’m here to play a game and have fun doing it, dammit.

The Wild Area is another thing I’ve wanted to see from Pokemon for a long time - taking more steps to make the regions seem like an open world, with vast sprawling environments full of pokemon and secrets to uncover.  I’ll admit, though, the execution is... not entirely perfect.  While open expanses are fun to explore, the Wild Area did seem a bit... flat to traverse.  And while the weather mechanics translating into battle are fun to deal with, the same sets of wild pokemon appearing did start to wear me down.  I think what the Wild Area really needed, in the long run, was a system similar to how Black/White/Black2/White2 did - having seasonal progression ingame, where different pokemon would show up during different seasons, making the different places unique and novel all over again throughout the year. And for the record, many of my gripes with the Wild Area were addressed in the Isle of Armor’s expansion island.  VASTLY superior, and much more fun to navigate and traverse.

...I’ll openly admit this: I was not a fan of Mega Evolution when it was first introduced in X/Y.  I felt it was fine enough to see Pokemon battling without power boosts or “digi-volving” or whatever you wanna call it.  When Sun/Moon Introduced Z-Moves, it felt like a step in the right direction, but at the same time, I ended up not using it very often.  If I had to have a power boost to my pokemon, I would want it something that couldn’t be used as a crutch when the going gets tough - something that has a limited usability, and offers benefits specific to the time it’s being used. I say this because I initially approached Dynamax the same way: as just another power boost to level the playing field and shake up the battle meta which I don’t keep track of.  However, after barely surviving all 8 gym leaders without using a single dynamax pokemon, I decided to give it a chance: after having completed the Isle of Armor’s subplot and gaining access to the Max Soup, I fed it to my Toxtricity Spike, and started running dynamax raids.  As I started using it more and more, I started gaining a certain appreciation for it that I hadn’t before; this was something written in to being a unique cultural effect!  This literally is imagining Pokemon as Kaiju!  And for the most part, it works! While I still feel mega-lvl-power-boosts in pokemon are a huge waste, at the very least I can say Dynamax didn’t leave me with too bad a taste in my mouth.  I do hope, however, that Dynamax stays a Sword/Shield exclusive power; given it’s cultural importance in Galar, and how Mega-Evolution was in the previous generation, I think having power boosts specific to regions works better than having the same stuff used across the board for every meta onwards,

What Do I hope for the Future?

I can’t say for sure if they’ll release a sequel game for Sword/Shield, but if they do... I would want them to make these minor changes:

Hold off the Heroic plot for after the League plot; devote the main first half of the game to just the gyms and league story like was done here, and then save meeting uber-god-tier Pokémon for after you’ve claimed the title of Champion.

Having said that, fix the pacing of how the Eternatus/Darkest Day subplot feels as it’s being played out.  Offer us more insight into Rose and Oleana’s mindsets as they go about their business, and give us more coherent exposition from our field trips with Prof. Sonia. 

Fix how the Wild Area looks - give it more variations for each sub-region and offer more varieties of habitats, like in the Isle of Armor.  Or, alternatively, try to implement a seasonal mechanic to make the same areas change over the year, opening new paths and new avenues to explore!

Let Bede defeat Oleana.  Give my boy some closure.

Allow us to see and interact with the Gym Leaders outside of the gyms more.  I had, like, barely 2 lines of dialogue with Nessa, and even less for Milo.  Not asking for a whole lot, just a bit more to tie us into who they are as people.  Piers is best big brother.  <3

That’s all I had written for now.  If y’all want a biography of my champion team for my Shield Nuzlocke, let me know, and I’ll scrap a post together! <3

[komatsunana]

Hey could you please write a little meta of Hachi's character or link it if you've already written some? I just love her and your metas so much!

Thanks! I love Hachi sm too!! It was kind of shocking for me when I looked at my Masterlist to see what posts I already have for Hachi I didn’t find any solely on her.  Yikes! To be fair, there is a lot about her relationships with other characters as well as comparing parts of her character with Nana and sometimes Reira.

Anyway, this’ll just be a stream of consciousness meta.  Meaning anything I say might not be headed anywhere and no conclusive thought.

Hm, let’s see… Where to start?

Ai Yazawa’s works tend to place a lot of emphasis on fashion and styling - which of course it does, she did initially start in fashion.  In particular in NANA there’s a lot of representation of counterculture fashion - primarily with Mai in lolita and all of Blast too - not just wearing punk but 80′s and 90′s western punk and grunge style particularly in Yazawa’s choice to put them in a lot of Vivienne Westwood and bondage pants.  Yazawa’s styling choice really flavors these characters and tbh Hachi is no different.

Look at her! A fashion icon.

Now I’ll be honest and say that even though I’ve watched every episode and season of Project Runway I’ve learned virtually nothing about fashion history (lol) but look at all the vintage silhouettes!! I’m especially seeing western 60′s and 70′s here (some other decades as well, but especially those 2), with the mod dresses, 70′s wrap dress, kerchief scarves and bandannas, and the 5 strand pearl necklace.

Her choice and desire to work at Sabrina, a vintage store, just brings it all together.  I’d be SUPER interested in if someone else, with a better grasp on fashion history, would talk about her styling choices, because I think it says a lot more about her than any thoughts that I might have, especially if I wanted to take into account feminism and the history of it Japan in particular.

Fashion styles have varied through the years though and especially in the last century we can see where women’s rights effects the clothes than women wear in their decade.  The styles say lot about the goals and desires of the women of their time and I can’t help but feel that, at least on a meta-narrative level, it says something about Hachi for the decades she most often dresses in - especially that outside of the prologue, Hachi is rarely ever seen out of pants.  This choice for Hachi to always be wearing dresses and skirts really defines what Hachi’s definition it is to be a ‘woman’ in this manga that is about the friendship between two women - especially combined with her future as a mother and wife and often seen wearing an apron and then contrasted with Nana who dresses in punk and doesn’t want to be a mother.

Additionally, it really highlights that Hachi is a bit of an outsider herself, dressing outside her time at the start of a new millennium.  I can’t find exactly where I read it, but I do remember reading that Hachi herself didn’t really have any friends other than Jun in high school (in addition to her many crushes lol). Part of Hachi’s charm is that she is a normal girl with an ordinary life and is friendly with everyone she meets, but she’s also someone that isn’t friends with everyone, only with a select few - which is interesting that she so easily accepts Nana and the rest of the band into her life.

It might be a little bit because of her being a middle child, but there is a lot of emphasis that she had a happy childhood and family in the series, so it’s more likely that this part of Hachi is something that is entirely her and for no deep rooted reason, but ordinary human loneliness and the desire to be seen and loved as special by someone who is special.  Perhaps it’s her ordinary, happy life that she’s rebelling from - she’s ordinary and everyone she loves in extraordiary compared to her. From all her high school crushes (all having the mystique of being older), Junko (independent and self-processed with goals from a young age), Nana (beautiful rock star), and Black Stones and Trapnest in general for their talents, Hachi looks to them hoping to be seen as special in return.

Hachi is a woman of contrary things - she’s seen as needy, cries and gives up easily, struggles to hold down a job, and in the start of the series, she struggles to accept responsibility for her behavior, instead blaming a fictional demon lord on everything that goes wrong in her life.

And yet in the big moments, Hachi is able to do hard things all on her own.  From helping out Sachiko when she cut herself to spray painting mean graffiti about Nana to tracking down Nana’s mom to volunteering to do an interview with the press so they wouldn’t hound Nana, Hachi steps up and does what needs to be done to protect those who she loves.  Hachi really transforms from the start of the series, when she blamed everything on the Demon Lord, to being a hero that gives Nana rescue breaths when she needs it.

Another interesting part of Hachi’s character is her interest in movies that we’ve seen from the very first prologue. She prefers to see them alone - another interesting juxtaposition of hers since she is someone that feels so lonely and craves companionship and comfort.  There are only 3 movies that I can remember Hachi mentioning seeing and all of the are western movies.  Sid and Nancy, which she tells Nana that she watched early on.  Additionally her calendar in November marks down when a Harry Potter movie came to theaters as well as Amelie (a French film).  Her movie preferences are really interesting, other than Harry Potter, suggesting her passion in watching foreign movies and not necessarily what’s the most popular movie.

... Idk I’m losing my train of thought lol.  I’m sorry this was such a messy meta, but I think I’ll leave off there for now.  In the future, I love getting meta prompts and it does help me, particularly with main characters, to get a specific narrative aspect you’re interested in hearing my thoughts on.

Also I’m serious that if anyone else is a better fashion history buff I’d be really interested in reading about Hachi’s vintage fashion in more and better depth!!