#character design unit fucks tbh

[cassiopea-ornata]

holy shitttttt oc drawings for animation class??? i love my dumbass girlypop

[signed-sapphire]

The Fallen Star ✨

A Wish rewrite

Cielo design 💛

The boy is here! The most ever! The Fallen Star’s very own Starboy!

So I lied and don’t have the finalized designs for King Maggie or Queen Ams yet soooooo *throws confetti at you* take this Starboy reimagining in the meantime!

Eugh boy the name gave me trouble. I didn’t want to use Aster since that’s the name of a a couple popular Starboys already (@annymation/@gracebeth3604/ @mythartist21) and while the Greek name is cool, I wanted something a bit different.

SEE-EH-LO, for anyone wondering. He/they pronouns <3

I was heavily considering choosing Estrella and making Starboy a Stargirl, and then we’d have a gay romance. But this is supposed to be SOMEWHAT of a homage to early Disney. This may not be KoW, but… idk. Cielo is a gender neutral name. Literal manifestation of light. Go ahead and draw them as a female-presenting figure and it’s still TFS!canon~

Aaaaaaanyways. Here’s the actual rewrite!

First of all! Cielo is NOT the Northern Star! He’s a baby star like… in the bottom right

However, the Northern Star? Evangeline? Yeah, she’s gonna be in my rewrite

But Cielo is NOT her

For now I’ll just say Evangeline is sort of a mentor-figure to Cielo and leave it at that

So not all stars are wishing stars, and similar to Kingdom of Wishes, a wishing star is born when first wished upon

Once a wishing star fulfills their first wish, they become Stars (capital S), and are free to help anyone that needs it

The more wishes a Star fulfills, the more powerful they become

Idk maybe it’s like a Rise of the Guardians thing, where the more people that believe, the stronger your magic is

Sparkles and hope and glitter and shit

Until, as explained in my rewrite… the Stars grew bored and started simply granting wishes

Then people grew lazy and started demanding wishes

And all this belief made the Stars go overpowered

Basically it became Wonderland, everything coming true, kingdoms burning and villages destroyed

Yeah. So Magnus god rid of them eventually

Though who would suspect that it would be the king’s own daughter that would bring back his greatest fear?

Yep, Asha brought Cielo down

Not purposely, but even if she had done it purposely, she wouldn’t have chosen Cielo

He’s a little baby, a dwarf star maybe

Only ever gotten one wish in his life…

Huh never seen that before *side eyes KoW*

Personality traits

Optimistic

Very Anna-coded

Probably ADHD tbh (autism x adhd duo unite)

Stubborn

HE’S the quirky Disney princess

Although more Flynn than Raps

Backstory

Fuck around and find out

(And by fuck around I mean wait for my rewrite to come out bc I haven’t slept in two days and I’m too tired to articulate their story accurately)

Design

Due to popular demand, Cielo now has the Charlie Morningstar cheek thingies

Also @gracebethartacc got an ask about canon!Star being marketed with a star over their right eye so… vitiligo mark, anyone?

Yeah I don’t have many colored refs but basically Cielo’s star eye mark and cheek thingies turn into vitiligo marks when in their “human form”

Uh take this

Ye sort of like this^

Heart shaped face! His part is also supposed to resemble a “V” shape to make the top of the heart

My sister said they looked like Viva and I’m crying but too late to take it back

I guess they’re both Spanish? Ajdjajhsjajajs

Thin slutty waist. Imagine Lucifer from Hazbin Hotel bc Jeremy Jordan is Yes.

Like I’m obsessed with that wet cat of a character I’m thinking about Cielo’s voice being Jeremy

Although his younger VA days as like Varian would better suit Cielo…

ANYWAYS

Design by @mythartist21 save for the Trolls hair and cheek thingies! Those were my additions

Uhhh pointy ears, poofy sleeves

Idk is the star eye mark AND the cheek thingies too busy? Lmk and I’ll try to post a colored ref of that helps

[jack-kellys]

k so yall voted to see my 2023 final essay for a class called london in performance. which wasnt too serious. basically i compared the national theatre's phaedra [which i did not like that much tbh. one of the lines in my paper is "to truly send the criticism home, compared to the white critics who praised the play with four stars, Polish editor Andrzej Lukowski and Pakistani critic Arifa Akbar are the ones to only give two stars on the story that centers an illegal immigrant (The Stage)." just saying] as an adaptation of a classic greek play to the west end's general cash-in commercialization. and then my argument was that the center of that pendulum is somehow fucking newsies @ the troub im so sorry.

HERE ARE THE HIGHLIGHTS:

first of all i got to cite myself as like. an expert which was SO funny

"To preface, because of my five years of close knowledge about this subject matter, its multiple stagings, scripts, and casts, I am well aware that this musical as a whole is quite average."

importantly, my definition of a revival in this paper is "creating something accessible to a modern audience for the sake of improving and adapting an original source material into a performance". if it doesnt improve and/or adapt it then it fails imo

"Lines [in the script] that hold weight are sort of dropped, in favor of keeping the show hopeful at all times. The reflection lies in the younger generation taking hold of a new age, rather than in workers rights, child poverty and abuse, and unification.  Newsies at Wembley Park, the first professional revival and first iteration of the musical outside of the United States, flips this as a performance."

i called newsies 2012/livesies staging "left-right up-down" like a video game combo lmfao

"Wembley Park’s revival inserts viewers into the action of the city by default, but also the events that befall the newsboys.... Two police officers stalk in front of the audience as a scene with a new sense of impending doom plays out on the stage. The strikebreaking battle is... level with many of the audience’s seats, and boys escape officers and grown men through the aisles helping each other stand upright while shouts of “Move, move!” are called out .... as a pair hurry away up a ladder behind my aisle seat."

"The expansive take on staging (since as I said before, the musical itself is average) almost takes the place of design. ... Pulitzer’s desk resides on top of a platform of newspaper stacks, emphasizing his position in the hierarchy over the children selling those papers especially as the newsboys push it on with much effort. The towers are made to look like black metal with rust and peels. The lighting is white and natural during scenes. The ensemble’s costumes look more similar to each other, making them appear more unified visually compared to Broadway. The design is in the ensemble’s interactions, dance, and fluid movement through the city of the show, letting the performance and the dancers speak for themselves."

then mandatory michael section:

"What struck me the most watching it had to be Jack’s casting, and new character positionality within the context of the story. Never before has Jack Kelly been a Black newsboy union leader, not in any professional production. Played by Michael Ahomka-Lindsay, Jack’s role was much more electric. His fear of leading the strike became more personal, his baggage with the reform center gained more onstage intersectionality, his relationship with Katherine became even more complex and out of reach. It changes many of those past dropped lines, it made me hear lines differently than I had used to. It’s a more effective reflection that makes the events in the story a bit more tangible to an audience that could have initially been caught up in the grandiose dance numbers- not to mention the performance opening amidst strikes nationwide."

best part:

jack-kellys. "Welcome to..." Jack-Kellys, 23 Jan 2023, 3:46AM, this-is-what-i-mean-by-five-years-of-close-experience. 

[riagraie]

EOTE HEIGHT HEAD CANNONS FOR THE NINJA!!!!

Ok so a while ago I was doing my best to design Hanna and I eventually got sidetracked and made a whole ass height chart for the ninja. Note: the silhouettes I used for everyone except Hanna are traces and solid color fill ins of someone else's art. I forget who made it, but the only one that is mine is Hanna's.

To break it down:

Nya is Five feet Five inches, or 165.1 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. I didn't think Nya was super duper short but I didn't think she was super tall either so I made her just a bit above the average.

Jay is Five feet Eight inches, or 172.72 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. I made him shorter than the others bc I firmly believe he just is shorter. And yeah ik that 5'8" isn't short but more like the avg but I say he's short bc he's standing next to the others who are literal giants.

Hanna is Five feet Ten inches, or 177.8 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. She is a tall girl because of her Harmonizer (not human) genetics, plus her dad is also freakishly tall so girlie got the tall genes.

Kai is Five feet Eleven inches, or 180.34 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. I also feel like Kai is the type to say he's 6ft tall even if he's an inch shorter just because he wants to.

Lloyd is Six feet One inch, or 185.42 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. Yes ik the fandom says Lloyd is short bc of the tomorrows tea thing in Childs Play s2, but tbh, bro is literally part Oni and Dragon. Those sons of bitches are hella tall. So respectfully, fuck anyone who hates me for making him tall.

Zane is Six feet Two inches, or 187.96 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. He's a nindroid. That's all I have to say.

Cole is Six feet Four inches, or 193.04 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. I am with the fandoms head cannon of Cole being a big guy, it's clear from the show he's the oldest (technically) and that he has natural super strength. Plus in s8 when we see how Wu found Cole prior to the Pilot Episodes bro already had a six pack WITHOUT training. And then the beach type episode in s2 bro had an 8 pack and continued to have one through the entire show basically. So, my Cole is a buff as fuck giant of a dude who looks like he could kill you but is actually a cinnamon roll.

Oh, and there's some extras for the side characters below. Slight spoiler warning.

I'll probably do a part two of the Height Head Cannons which includes the characters from Dragons Rising. Send me asks or comment/repost this to ask me to give my HC for any characters I missed :D

PIXAL is Five feet Nine inches, or 175.26 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. I just feel like Borg made her tall but not too tall.

Wu is Six feet on the dot as an old man, or 182.88 centimeters. But in his prime, like the adult Wu we saw in s9 (Hunted) was Six feet Three inches, or 190.5 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. Idk why I chose this specifically, I just did.

Misako is Five feet Five inches, or 165.1 centimeters like Nya. I just like this head cannon. Idk why.

Garmadon is tricky:

Sensei Garmadon(Old Garm from s3 &s4 plus a little bit from s5) was Six feet Two inches or 187.96 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. He doesn't hunch as much as Wu does in my mind, so he's Zane's height.

Lord Garmadon from the Pilot Episodes was Six feet Four inches, or 193.04 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. He grew some in his transformation from human to partial Oni but not much.

Lord Garmadon from s1 and s2 was Six feet Seven inches, or 198.12 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. He grows so much because he gained two arms and shifted into mostly Oni. I say mostly Oni because it's my HC that Garm didn't have only the Oni genes being expressed until Harumi resurrected only that side of him.

Emperor Garmadon from s8 and afterwards was Seven feet Five inches, or 226.06 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. This is his Oni expression height, but not the height of his Oni form.

Oni Form Garmadon from both S10 and s16 is Nine feet Four inches, or 284.48 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. Ik Oni height, according to Mythology can range from 8 to 14 feet (243.84cm to 426.72cm) and I would've made Garm taller but you also have to remember his Oni genes are mixed with Dragon and Human. Oni Garm's horns are eight inches tall, making him Ten feet on the dot or 304.8 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units.

Oh and, Adult Human Garmadon was Six feet Five inches, or 195.58 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units.

That's all for Garmadon lmao.

I'm saying Harumi was Five feet Seven inches, or 170.18 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. I'm saying this is her height in s8, s9, and s16 bc she and Hanna get into a fight where Hanna quote, "Towered over the ex-girlfriend causing her to feel chills of intimidation crawl down her spine." Lol. Hanna's scary.

Lloyd's Oni Form is Nine feet Two inches, or 279.4 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. Again, would've made him taller but the show so obviously has it to where Lloyds otherworldly genes mostly expressed are his Dragon heritage, not his Oni side bc he stuffs it down. This height is only to his head, his horns add another foot making him Ten feet Two inches, or 309.88 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units.

Hanna's Harmonizer form is Seven feet Six inches, or 228.6 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units. I'll drop Harmonizer lore at some point that helps explain this. Her antlers/horns give her another five inches making her Seven feet Eleven inches, or 241.3 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units.

ANNNDDDF FOR THE EXTRA SIDE CHARACTERS:

Vinny from NGTV news is Five feet Ten Inches, or 177.8 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units.

Gayle from NGTV news is Five feet Four inches, or 162.56 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units.

Dareth is Five feet Ten inches, or 177.8 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units.

Ronin is Six feet Two inches, or 187.96 centimeters for those who don't use freedom units.

[dcawritings]

Let's see if I can remember these right... for any of your AUs!

🌛✔️💕

Ask me about the DCA and my AUs!

🌛- Do you prefer the DCA in your AU to be biblically accurate or blorbofied?

Oooh that's a hard one, actually. I think it really depends on a lot of factors—I think having them blorbofied makes it a LOT easier to handwave things, but Biblically Accurate is a FUN challenge since they’re so limited on ways they can express emotions outside of tone and body language.

I think in all the AUs I partake in and the couple I’ve thought up I prefer the blorbo style, but for The Color of Your Eyes (TCoYE) I will likely stick with Biblically Accurate for a good while since I love the restrictions it brings—and one huge theme for that AU/story is how love and affection is expressed in a multitude of ways (both to the self and to others), especially when the reader discovers that they are not quite as human as they once thought :)

✔️ - Tell us a random fact about any of the characters in your AU

For The Color of Your Eyes:

The reader is the manager of the Superstar Daycare and has been working there for as long as they can remember! Their first job, in fact, though it’s odd that they don’t seem to recognize other people who have also been there for years… huh, that’s a little odd, isn’t it? Well, at least Sun and Moon really enjoy your company c:

💕 - Time for a shout-out! What are some of your fav AUs from other creators in the fandom?

Star-Crossed by @solar-synapse is a beautiful AU that I will never suggest enough of tbh, if you want a wild ride and some excellent character writing then check it out!

Abyssal Lights by @phoenixdaneko is a classic Mer AU with a neat twist—the reader is a mer themselves! Phoenix does a lovely job in pulling you into the events and I’m always weak to Mer AUs (there’s also several other fics by her and they are EXCELLENT so definitely peek around when you’re done)

The Personal Care Unit series by @justaduckarts is so cute and adorable where Sun and Moon are personal caretakers for the reader and it’s so fucking cute. The link is to what is already posted—smut, but delicious smut—but I’d definitely subscribe to the AO3 to be alerted for more!

Oh oh and I also must mention Lost in the Astral Seas by @cosmicfleurs, it’s another Mer AU but the designs for the boys are so good and I’m not sure if there’s a fic yet for it (please correct me bc I must read it immediately) but I absolutely suggest taking a peek at those gorgeous designs and giving a follow!!

Also, because I hate the number 4 and also bc it’s a team effort, the Digimon AU between myself, @solar-synapse, @armoondrop and @phoenixdaneko is just so much fun—in the planning stage mostly, but I just wanted to shout you guys out for this awesome concept c:

Please know this is only a FRACTION of the amazing fics and AUs I’ve seen shared on my DCA discord server, so I got plenty more to suggest

[outivv]

to other anon star rail revenue suffering compared to previous months is because they for some reason decided to put some of thee most skippable units(from fanbase perspective)back to back after firefly like jade only really shines in one game mode and that’s straight up not good enough for most people(unless you’re a desperate blade main because he’s suffering rn)especially when 1.x units can still clear in all modes fairly decently(well like..except blade LOL😭😭)

and she came right after firefly who probably made hsr closer to 120+~mil if we go by sensory towers method ie “we dont have access to android,pc and console revenue so we let you do calculations to see what the revenue earned this month MIGHT have looked like if we did have access to these”(another side note eek but gawd as someone who used to play hi3 i mourn the fact ff got a miles better kit than hofi kiana yknow the character hoyo openly calls their daughter😭)

Yunli while good is literally just clara but a slight bit better which while we dont know how much she made yet acheron and firefly very much so have affected how people will look at new dps because of just how broken they are so(the genshin equivalent of this would be neuvillette and mualani where shes maybe looking to be around top dps wise but shes not at his level so a decent amount of people automatically disregard her)

Jiaoqiu while not as bad as people made him out to be is still not a must grab either and is more than likely going to be skippable to meta slaves and the casual very limited amount jades players so already at a disadvantage esp with leakers constantly going “oh oh MAYBE sunday will be in 2.6 oh oh maybe he’ll be in 2.7🤭”so unless hardcore fans,people who roll for any man in the game because they are in a drought compared to 1.x days ,or just anyone who’s that desperate for a support clutch it star rail is going to drip back into its usual revenue unless they decide last minute to make feixiao broken or decide to roll out the red carpet for sunday sooner rather than later

(anways lol sorry tgis is so long i nerd out when it comes to these things)

Totally cool I love when people nerd out cause then it gives me an excuse to be a fucking nerd too BAHHAHAHA

Jade is genuinely garbage I am not even gonna lie. Her design isn’t that good, her character? Racist BAHAGAH, her kit? Bro she’s not even like sparkle where she’s like a terrible character but her kit is suuuuper good, she’s just like not very good all around, so that does make sense as to why she’s just… no one spent on her unless they were gooners tbh

Blade is suffering so bad… like omfg- I used to main blade and holy shit he just can’t. Like he cannot do the dmg he needs to unless you run him with jingliu imo because of how she takes hp away, and blade’s main dmg source is from his fua cause it’s an all hitting attack. Hope blade gets some kinda buff or something with a character like jingliu who takes hp away slowly but is actually a buffer- ooooo.

I think yunli is relatively good, I’ve seen my friend who’s got a very f2p build on her do like 1.5 mil with her, but that’s also cause of their own insane supports BAHAHAH. Idk what most meta players think of her, because personally I don’t care about the meta. Bitch I main Argenti and Boothill, I do NOT care about meta. But, yunli like you said- is still just slight better Clara, and I believe most people have Clara cause she was soooo big in early stage meta, so it’s like… why get yunli is Clara already does the job, unless you just like yunli which is fair cause she’s a cute character.

Jiaoqiu feels like… like like like- topaz kinda. Like I feel like he’ll be great later on, and while he has uses now- especially for buffing the FUCK out of Acheron, I feel like they’ll be like “look at this specific meta we’re making so now Jiaoqiu is more useful :3” cause he just feels so strange now, even if he’s quickly become one of my personal favs 😔

But most people are skipping him, I know I am- and I’m skipping him for feixiao cause from what I’ve seen of her she’s stupidly broken ☺️🫶

Like STUPIDLY broken; fuck- fucking imagine her with Robin? Stupid dmg, but we don’t know her scaling yet, she just looks actually abysmal AHAHAH especially when paired with Moze (who I’m hella excited for :3)

Sunday has been confirmed by leakers to likely not be in 2.6 or 2.7 and if he were to be in either patches (this is my opinion) it would be 2.7 I think, since either 2.7 or 2.8 will be likely the last patch of 2.x and then it’ll be 3.0 so even more reason for people to save, since 3.0 is pretty much right around the corner :P

[myersesque]

hey can you info dump about hobie to me please :D

hello!!! sorry this took me a while to get around to, i got SO nervous that i'd get smthn wrong n an army of comic book dudebros would emerge from hell to smite me down - but then i remembered that i don't care and hobie is fun to talk about, so hello!!!

[quick note before we start: hobie will be referred to as either "hobie" or "spiderpunk", for the sake of not being confusing, since there are 47385783643 spidermen in existence. yes, he prefers "spiderman" and initially took spiderpunk as an insult, but as of his latest solo run, the battle of the banned, he really could not care less n actively refers to himself as spiderpunk. i'm noting this now so i don't get 50 people correcting me in the replies lmao. i also don't hyphenate spiderman because i'm lazy]

you didn't ask for anything in specific so i'm gonna just Keep Going until i lose steam, hope that's alright!

first things first: hobie isn't an original character created to be spiderpunk! he's actually a variant of hobart "hobie" brown, earth 616's prowler, which i think has a LOT of interesting potential for btsv, if you catch my drift:

why did they choose to make him a hobie variant rather than make up a new spiderperson? who knows! could be that they saw how painfully fucking close hobie was to his "capitalism is the real enemy actually" breakthrough before deciding to become a supervillain about it; maybe it's easier to get comic book nerds into new stories if they're vaguely familiar with one of the characters involved. who knows. i can't actually find any source on this one.

(interesting sidebar: in the spiderverse movies, peter b parker is from earth 616, and intended to be a direct page-to-screen adaptation of classic comic book peter parker - which makes me wonder how he reacted to meeting hobie for the first time. i doubt we'll ever see that first interaction, but it's cool to think about!)

spiderpunk's design actually originated as concept art for spider-UK, as drawn by olivier coipel (the punk movement is often credited as having started in the UK - more accurately, by black british punks, using elements of jamaican reggae - so it makes sense that they explored a punk angle for spider-UK at some point). they felt it didn't fit the character, but still loved the design, and so they wrote an entire character to fit around it! (that's also why hobie is often portrayed as british despite being written as american in the comics - his whole concept is essentially a love letter to black british punks, and tbh even when i'm reading the comics i pretend he just ended up moving to new york from london bc i cannot imagine him as an american lmao sorry)

a lot of people who learnt of hobie from atsv seemed surprised that he's genuinely punk and not just using the aesthetics - but, like, he's genuinely punk, guys. he lives in a fascist dystopia (the spider that bit him was irradiated from all the toxic waste the government illegally dumps) where norman osborn is president of the united states (and referred to as "ozzy osborn" lmao) and also a massive fascist dickbag (and venom's current host!). he then proceeds to beat said fascist dictator asshole to death with his guitar! by which i mean quite literally hit him so hard his organs come out ✨

(like - i saw someone theorising that hobie would be the twist villain of btsv and actually just using miles for his own benefit, and i had my own little "he would never fucking do that what the fuck 😡" moment before realising that they were probably just some 14 yr old kid who's never seen hobie before and is trying to come up with a dramatic twist. so i'm not taking it to heart! but please know that it was very bad and incorrect, hobie is a real one and would never 🫶 /lh)

if you get a chance to pick up any of his comics (or, uh, discover them in alternative ways, wink wink nudge nudge capitalism is a prison but seriously please consider buying them from small local comic book stores if you do - that way your money goes to an actual local business & the writers rather than a massive chain store corporation) then i highly recommend - not only are they super fun, but they're gorgeous,

(i know that the covers are always rendered differently to the actual comic pages but i just needed you to all look at these images, please, especially all the intricate details on the second one. i literally paused midway through reading my comic to stare at that cover with hearts in my eyes. he's so cool i adore him)

and they're also full of lyrical references to punk music, such as these (the first two off the top of my head - there are TONS more):

and they're pretty dang diverse, too! including, like, explicitly and undeniably queer characters (note: there's been a lot of misinformation spread around - hobie and karl (captain anarchy) aren't explicitly confirmed to be anything but platonic friends. karl DOES have a boyfriend whom he is explicitly romantic with, but it's not hobie! he's still totally queer though and nobody can convince me otherwise), which is pretty neat.

this isn't really relevant to hobie in specific, but it's part of his universe and i'm a massive daredevil fanboy, so i NEED you to witness his daredevil variant, mattea murdock:

tumblr isn't gonna let me add any more images (sob) so i'm gonna try n wrap this up fairly quick !!!

lightning round of just. fun and unfun facts, i guess:

hobie's homeless and lives in a community centre with the rest of his band

iirc "spiderpunk" was essentially his equivalent of "spidermenace", which he eventually adopted for himself because, well. they aren't wrong. (he got the name for the obvious reasons of his style and politics etc, but also because he can be quite brutal when he needs to be - see norman's very bad no good day above.)

his band is referred to as both "the spider-band" and "the daredevils" (after meeting mattea), which made my little daredevil fanboy heart soar a little ngl

in spiderverse specifically, hobie took 3 years to animate due to all the specific ways they stylised him and his movement! i am not an animator and cannot put it into actual technical terms so here's a tweet of one of the animators discussing it for anyone who's curious :]

he has a van called the spider-van, and sings the spiderman theme song at it sometimes ("🎶spider-van, spider-van, driving cross-country as fast as we can!🎶") which is ADORABLE. i love how cool he is in atsv but i need you to understand he's a DORK he's a NERD

another one for the dork point: he doesn't swear unless he's yelling at fascists (he's instead prone to a good "frick" "heckin" "motherlovin" etc). which i realise is probably just comic book censorship and them only being able to get away with a certain amount of tastefully censored swears and gore before someone gets in trouble and/or has to bump up the age rating, but also it drives his bandmates INSANE so i like to think he just does it for a giggle tbh. again, massive dork

and finally, to end things on a fun note: his current solo comic writer, cody ziglar, made him an official spiderpunk playlist so maybe we can stop having pointless playlist discourse and let people have fun!

i hope this infodump was alright and didn't disappoint fjdnfjfn!!! i definitely forgot (and/or ran out of space for) a bunch of shit but that just means i get to do this again, so :]!!!

[direwombat]

Hi! I hope you’re doing good! I got a couple questions for you!

1. What is your favorite part about writing

2. What’s your favorite bit of OC lore

3. Adelaide, Joey, or Butch Jacob, who’s strap game comes out on top?

one of these days i'll be better about responding to asks in a timely manner orz i'm so sorry

hello!!!!! sorry it's taken me so long to respond! I'm doing quite alright, thank you for asking! i hope you're doing well yourself! and oooooooh these are such fun questions!

my favorite part about writing will always and forever be the plotting process. the only thing i love more than thinking about my character's actions is the consequences of those actions. i tend to view anything i write as an elaborate domino design or rube goldberg machine where all it takes is a little push to get things chain reacting. i love figuring out where little details can become incredibly plot relevant later on; for example: in katc, the first time jacob captures syb, he has a tracking chip implanted under her skin (without her knowledge) so he can keep track of her, and later on that tracking chip leads him to her after she gets shot with a bliss arrow but is swept away by the henbane before the chosen can take her in. i love figuring out how each scene builds off the next and figuring out how they fit together like a puzzle. the unfortunate part about this is that i tend to throw myself into outlining so hard that i lose steam to work on a project because...well...i've essentially told the story to myself...sometimes it's hard to actually put it into words in a cohesive way lol

and omg. ok. so. it has absolutely zero bearing on her story whatsoever, but i always imagined that syb would have loved sailor moon. she had a hard time making friends during her school years, and while she would have been 11 when it started airing in the united states. she wouldn't have been allowed to watch it at home, but i feel like she probably had at least one friend who tape the broadcast so they could watch it together. baby syb probably took one look at haruka and was like "i wanna be like her!" without completely understanding why. also i think she fantasized about having superpowers so she could defeat the villain in her life (her father) and craved the strength and connection of having a group of friends (rather than the one or two she had.

and 3 is going under the cut because of nsfw headcanoning :)

hilarious question. i'm obsessed with it. but i'm gonna say, in order of best to worst it's

adelaide. she has decades worth of sex and orgies under her harness. she for sure knows her way around a strap. and knows how to make her partner feel good using one. she's 100% pegging xander so good that the single braincell he has is rendered completely useless.

joey. what she lacks in adelaide's experience she makes up for with technique. she is all about precision and trying to find the spot that makes her partner's eyes roll back into their skull. it's maybe a little awkward to begin with; some trial and error while she's experimenting with different angles and depths, but once she finds the spot that makes her partner's moans go up an octave, she is fucking them so good that their legs start trembling.

(cis) butch jakey. sorry, but i'm a jakey (jackie?) is bad at sex truther. she understands the mechanics of it well enough (the dick goes in a hole) but her technique is. mmm. well...it's befitting. it's either all long, rough, hard strokes with little regard to her partner (because that's how men do it right?) OR she's just laying back and having her partner do everything while she just watches ("c'mon honey, if you want it so bad you're gonna have to work for it"). it's a dominance thing but also. she's a lazy domme. she wields the strap with the finesse of a club :/

sidenote: ngl i love thinking about butch4butch jakesyb because tbh? absolutely nothing about their dynamic and very little about their sex life would change <3 (same applies for t4t jakesyb)

[tmos-time]

re: tag game, you’re right to be unsure since i don’t really have a designated blorbo lol. so given that, i love that you were able to name some of my fave gen 5 pokémon! i love gen 5. you’re also a volcarona lover iirc (excellent taste)…

can you list a pokémon from each gen that you really like? (also, optional: a blurb about why you like them!)

VERY understandable lol, those pokemon were mostly the ones i remember seeing you talk about most with the underdog polls! gen 5 enjoyers and volcorona enjoyers unite <3

as it turns out! VERY hard to pick a single favorite pokemon from one gen, and doing the ultimate favorite pokemon picker to try to narrow it down did NOT help lmao; going to pick a main one and then HOPEFULLY not pick too many extras after that fact

gen 1: snorelax, high sentiment from having a stuffed one i sleep with at night lmao (else if: lapras, shiny purple + machoke, that one time i caught like 3-4 female machokes and now the pokemon is a butch lesbian to me)

gen 2: kingdra, the shiny is purple and reminds me of eridan <3 (else if: crobat, cute purple little guy <3)

gen 3: sharpedo, the shiny is purple and reminds me of eridan <33 (else if: exploud, purple and one of the first pokemon i remember seeing due to the anime LOL)

gen 4: gliscor, just generally stood out since i was a kid, dubiously purple depending on how you look at it (else if: toxicroak, also stood out + purugly, reminds me of my character mulysa)

gen 5: zoroark, coolest fucking thing when i was 9-10 and it still is <3 (else if: volcarona, same sentiment as zoroark tbh LOL)

gen 6: dragalge, genuinely the most eridan-y pokemon i dont know what to tell you <3 (else if: noivern, big giant cool bat w/ purple)

gen 7: xurkitree, like a moth to a flame the erisol shipping eridan kinnie looks at the most sollux-y ultra beast and goes "oh sick, for real? man thats kinda cool" (else if: marshadow, just a little guy <3)

gen 8: toxtricity, purple and yellow and simply cool as hell (else if: obstagoon, simply sick as hell right up there with toxtricity LOL)

gen 9: tinkaton, reminds me of my dnd character jolee :) (else if: clodsire, simply so fucking shaped + ceruledge, frankly should have been the violet box legendary in my heart LOL)

[lunaefall]

Rosetta's Underrated Beauty

Copy pasted my hyperfixation reaching from my Tumblr danhengsimping, so you all have to bear with it as well.

Gonna ramble about Rosetta because she's one of the best built up characters in PGR as a playable unit, and honestly deserves more appreciation as a character. She's my 5th fave for a reason.

Her design is just so unique in gacha games in general, I love the centaur inspiration mixed with her being a Construct leading to something pretty unique.

Also her boss fight is one of the most viewed pre-GLB launch vids for PGR on YouTube, you can tell they really sold off their combat in general as a great appeal (and that doesn't even hold a candle to the new bosses legit).

The way she also showed up in the first event Frozen Darkness and was built up since then as a character, so there was a lot of hype. I remembered seeing that she would be playable and wanting her instantly due to the unique playstyle and design.

Also she's SUCH a sweetheart who doesn't even have a grudge against those who hurt her in the past. And God she REALLY went through shit as a child, I just think that's a strength in itself and should be appreciated more. She's so kind and likable as a character.

The way she didn't want to kill Amberia but had to fucking BROKE me. That EX chapter was so good, I was really emotional playing it. It just made me want her even more, man. She's got a lot of strength to shoulder so much shit in her life, actually.

Anyway yeah, this was kinda motivated by the recent . . . disaster 💀 but tbh I wanted to make a Rosetta appreciation for a long time cause she never gets talked about outside her meta in PHYS teams. Her story, character, design and combat style are all amazing.

[yodellinggoat]

Small re:zero rant (spoilers for LN) that are just an accumulation of things I haven't been able to rant about but gotta get out

I'm on the LN volume 18 right now and I'm so happy with the way re:zero is going after volume 15 (where the anime ends.) I was kinda dreading the whole ohhh nooo Subaru gets stuck and we gotta repeat a whole segment for the 4th time (not one of the times before did it annoy me but it gets tiresome after a while) but nah, my guy refuses to die and now he has a very fucked up black dragon leg. The relief I feel when the guy gets fucked up and just passes out and lives on instead of looping over and over is great, it's nice that the characters are also getting their own arcs because of it to (e.g. Garfeil's mummy issues ((almost made me cry tbh)) and it wouldn't have happened or would have gotten undone if Subaru kept resetting).

Ngl I took a reading break cause the start of the arc was very slice of lifey and while I enjoyed it there wasn't enough going on to make my dyslexic ass put in enough effort to get past it, but now everytime I read shits going on and it seems to have potential to get really good.

Alsoalso I know that at some point some shit happens to Subaru where he has some shit to do with wrath (I've tried to stay away from details as much as possible) and I'm very excited to see what happens with that and how they do it, especially since the archbishop of wrath is one of the enemies rn

Alsoalsoalso Subaru and Julius are sooooo fucking gay, why is every interaction so fruity??? How were they not meant to be written as bfs like their dynamic from a romantic perspective is so much more interesting than any relationship Subaru has with anyone else (I'm fine with like Emilia/Rem and it makes sense why they like him but like it's boring I'm sorry). Also I know the story is written in 3rd person and the descriptions aren't actually Subaru's direct perspective but it's just so funny to me how often Julius is described as a really handsome man and no one else is. I like to imagine this is Subaru's demons (bisexuality) coming out.

I do have issues with it (mmmm some designs ESPECIALLY the archbishop of LUST LIKE CAN THEY NOT) and sometimes they say some annoying ass horny shit which is always a :///. Also it's understandably gotten to a point where everyone loves Subaru as yk he's kinda saved everyone but it's just made many dynamics boring now. Like they don't have to dislike him or whatever but I think it would be cool if characters had more complex dynamics with eachother and the group wasn't just united by 'yea we all love Subaru!' (Beatrice kinda gets an excuse of she literally shut herself off from everyone and she's that close to Subaru because he saved her and is the only person she's let herself trust thus far, but also I hope she has more of a relationship with those around her)

BUTT other than that I'm enjoying the series (so sad the LN only goes up to 22 in english what am I going to do after I catch up

[gojuo]

Who are your favorite bosses in elden ring?

MALENIA BLADE OF MIQUELLA MY NUMBER ONE GIRL MY ANGEL 😭🫶🩷 FREE MY DAUGHTER FROM THE MASS HATERS SHE DID NOTHING WRONG!!!!!!! "It's an unfair fight, life steal is too op, waterfowl is broken, hyper armor, blah blah blah" dawg literally just git gud lmfao 😂 I love her fight so much, I mean it's an endgame area optional boss fight, of course you're gonna have a hard fucking time. That don't mean that I repudiate the valid criticism of her gimmicks, it just means that idgaf and that her boss fight gave me joy like no other lmao. Above all, I love the feeling of a perfectly executed dodge or parry, and that's what Malenia's boss battle is aaaaall about! Also I'm a dex gworl so dex gworls unite <3 !! I'm always rocking her full outfit + double Hand of Malenia's + a little bit of Faith to use the buff incantations bc I luvvv my girl she's the best out there fr

Second fav fight is the Godfrey WWE takedown. Like my gaawddd is that fight so good... The absolute panic you felt when he turned into Hoarah Loux for the first time and came at you full force with his bare hands still drenched in Serosh' blood... The double face slam... The comedic timing of it all.... "I've given thee courtesy enough." .... GOOSEBUMPS !!!!! GOOOOOOOSE .. BUMPS ... !!!!

Third fav gotta be Maliketh. Like I said about Malenia, it's the perfect dodge gimmick that you gotta master that I love so much in this fight. His transformation from Gurranq to The Black Blade was fuckin badass and Maliketh's character design is out of this fucking world too, like it's so fucking cool. I also really love the Destined Death skill and how beautiful it is plus his fast moveset keeps me on my toes the entire time and never bores me. I really love how he never stands still and how quick you gotta be to land an attack or dodge his ones. Makes me sad how his health pool is so little I think it needs to be bumped up tbh :(

Man I wish ER had a boss rush mode cuz I love those late game boss fights so much 🥲

[stamplerfag]

things im too cowardly to say off anon

am so glad i found ur tumblr again after your got sussed

your dndads art on twitter is what introduced me to the series and piqued my interest enough that when i saw it mentioned one (1) time on tumblr i was like "oh yeah i should check that out" and fell in deep

i looooooove ur willy takes, willy's one of my favorite characters in the series and i nod to your opinons

willyscary is absolutely my dndads otp and seeing you post about em had me doing a little run around in my room, fucking love those two. yes be horrible to your step-granddaughter. manipulate her harder. did you know that he canonically says "you can call me daddy" to her and she canonically jacked off the day she met him. im not joking the sauce is Rich and Delicious

stamplerfreaks AND oakfreaks unite

YOUU. IM GLAD YOU FOUND ME TOO IT WAS. perhaps not wise of me to post my art here. shame. im looking at it as a chance to restart my shit, anyhow..... (ill find somewhere to host everything eventually -__-)

that makes me so happy to hear?? i have a few persistent people to thank for getting me into podcast as well and every time i think about it in retrospect im like "oh my god im so glad i followed through, this thing is my heart and soul." lifechanging, no joke. continue to spread the gospel...... i need more perverts to talk abt dadson w........

WILLYHEADS RISE UP‼️‼️ UMM. HES SO. the fact that he affects me as much as he does is deeply embarrassing. genuinely genuinely obsessed. there are NOT enough of us. i could go on forever if i was allowed. (if you ever have anything else to say abt him please im begging.....) he fucking sucks so much dude i need to suck him off.

i am so fucking. im chomping at the bit to read more willyscary transcripts.... its so fucking textbook and delicious.... theres some part of me thats paranoid abt something s2 related taking up too much space in my brain, like thats a betrayal somehow, (and tbh every time i read about them i. get so excited it makes me manic. this relationship was designed in a lab to make me violently horny) but fucking. the two things that you just said are actually making me incredibly. fluttery about it and i dont even. know what to do oh god VGHHHFJJNGN!!!!! imkicking my feet & squealing !!!!. ive been meaning to draw them i promise........ whenever i feel motivated... i need him to cum on her tits (and many. and a lot of other things aswell)

OAKFREAK STAMPLERFREAK I SEE NO DIFFERENCE...... LOVE IS LOVE... WE GOTTA STICK TOGETHER....... 💋 PLEASE youre always welcome to bring your takes here !!!!!!!!

[letsgomaybe]

Doctor Who The Star Beast

I am revived because Doctor Who is revived

Okay one of the spoilers that I read from people who saw early screenings (before quickly getting off the internet so I didn't read too much) was the fourth wall break lecture at the beginning for the ~recap lecture.~ tbh I did not believe that it was really going to be that

but it is, direct into camera recapping what happened LMAO. To be fair, it was 15 years ago (wow).

DavidTennant_transparent.png standing in the void talking directly at me help

The theme WENT HARD! They also went hard on the visuals for the intro! Very reminiscent of RTD1 but with a twist. I'm hoping that Ncuti will have a different one!

I'm trying not to pause too much to take notes but I did find it funny that they finally gave the Doctor a floaty whooshy transparent screen. It was inevitable

The bulletproof shield sequence took soo long lol

RESONATING CONCRETE YEEEEEAAAAH

How they got around the memory thing was very cute! All the congratulating of the Doctor was kind of... over the top though. Reminds me of what I disliked about the Whittaker era, but tbf there was plenty of that in RTD's original run as well.

Okay I kind of fucking love that they don't just drive to Wilf and that's what kicks off the next episode, so classic

Wow, the TARDIS is looking SHARP! But, uh, where are the chairs? That was like my biggest complaint about the Whittaker TARDIS, that there was nowhere to sit and hang out, which led it to feel awkward when everyone was standing around and it never felt like "home." Here it's even worse somehow

aww the classic hanging of the coat on the railing

NOOO THE COFFEE CUP IT WAS IN THE LEAK DONNA NOOOO

Actually now that I think about it, there's no way they make this giant set and don't also use it for Ncuti. So there's a chance that it will end up like Matt Smith's 7B TARDIS and become redecorated and more homey for the next Doctor. (Also wasn't there a jukebox in the leak? Where's that?)

My verdict: Not the best. Honestly it felt a little on the below-average end. It's an episode designed to set up the next two. Of course a lot of series openers *are* setup episodes, but why does this one feel different and worse? I think it's because they spend so much time reminding us who the returning characters are--it's a rehash for those who actually know what's going on, doesn't add much new, and feels like wasted time. Hopefully the next episodes will have more of Rose and the new UNIT character (didn't catch her name, whoops)

I'm looking forward to the next two episodes but I'm afraid that Wild Blue Yonder has been hyped up too much!

[cuddly-asexual]

My Thoughts on FE Engage

Aight I had all this sitting in a google doc for a while and now that I’ve sat on this for a while I figured I could share what I think about this game. I have A LOT of thoughts so buckle up. These are all just my personal opinions and I’m not some kind of Maddening/Classic player that is gonna analyze how the game is balanced or anything. Spoilers for the whole game btw.

Overall

In general, I definitely enjoyed this game. I think if Fates was only one route then it would honestly be pretty similar to this one.

Game play is fun, characters are amusing, if a bit flat in some cases (but honestly I was a little surprised with some of them). The story is kinda lacking, but some aspects of it were fun and even interesting.

Most of my gripes from this game come from me thinking about cool shit it totally had the set up and then it not doing anything with those cool things. Lots of missed opportunities for a game that has so many references to older games in the franchise.

I do think this game is a step down from three houses in terms of characters and story tho

I played in English with the Japanese audio and wow I’m not very happy with the translation. They leave out a lot of things and even change characterization pretty drastically in some cases (Louis’ “people watching” and Amber/Diamant’s entire support chain as a few examples). The English dub is pretty solid from what I’ve heard though

I didn’t really think about graphics or art design much with this game, but I will say the discrepancies between the in-game and rendered cut scene models was insane (I don’t mean quality, like these characters just look different). Also Sombron’s model was ugly as fuck. Also lots of clipping and also sometimes only one eye would move on a character and that was always a little jarring

Gameplay

Kinda hard to fuck up the basic gameplay in a fire emblem game tbh

My main gripe is that the difficulty difference between “normal” and “hard” is fucking insane. Hard is pretty fuckin’ infuriating, but normal is piss easy, I really needed an in-between difficulty there.

Also it’s really hard to grind characters if you leave them for too long since the skirmishes scale with your main story chapter (I know this is more similar to older games but I got used to being able to grind all my characters okay :p)

I miss the crit cut-ins :(

There’s so much shit to do in the Somniel it’s kind of overwhelming and a bit tedious after a few chapters

No weapon durability, which I personally enjoy

I don’t think the soundtrack is anything special, but there are definitely some cool tracks that I like a lot esp near the end of the game

POG you can be gay with everyone

Emblems

Aight let’s get the big boys out of the way

I LOVE the emblem mechanic. I think it’s super fun and creative. It adds another layer of customization to your units and the nostalgia factor is not lost on me either

Visually I think engaging is super fun, love that the outfits are a version of the emblem’s and the cool hair colors

I think inheriting skills from emblems is a super neat thing, esp if you have a unit that works well with multiple emblems (grinding SP is kind of a chore tho)

INSANE that they wrote three part supports for every character with every emblem, they’re fun I like that you can learn about the emblem and what game they’re from in all of those

I think their choice of characters for each emblem mostly made sense, there were definitely some choices that made me go ???, but I’m fine with them and I’m glad they tried to balance out the genders since a lot of fe lords are dudes

Emblem ring polishing really fucking weird, don’t like the sounds they make oh god, I avoided that shit like the plague

Classes

Big fan of the way they do classes in this game! Rather than weapon proficiency determining what class you can turn into, the class you pick determines your weapon proficiency (for example as a high priest you get access to B rank tomes, B rank fists and S rank staves)

You get weapon proficiencies from using emblems as well, and you gotta use the specific emblem that gives you that proficiency

The classes aren’t as customizable as they are in three houses, but there is more customization than in older games. For most martial classes you can pick what weapon they specialize in (paladins, hero, berserker, etc)

Because of the way weapon proficiencies work your access to better weapons is a little more sparse since they don’t want you buying silver weapons for everyone at level 10, I think they pace it pretty well tho

YEAH BOY THEY BROUGHT BACK THE AWAKENING 2ND SEAL TRICK

Some of the outfits for classes are kinda... (looking at you sage and warrior)

Kinda crazy that all the royals have their own special class. I like it for flavor obvi, but it’s funny since they’re a big chunk of your playable characters

Maps

Pretty good in general

I think some more variety in winning conditions would have been fun, almost all of them were “Defeat enemy commander” and then there were two “Escape” maps. The last 5 chapters or so all did something fun so I’m not too beat up about it really

Lotta dark maps on this one, more than we’ve had in a while I think

Mostly a me thing, but I’m mad you can’t rotate the map 360 degrees anymore

FUCK CHAPTER 17 UGH

THE EMBLEM TRIALS ARE SO FUCKING COOL OH MY GOD, maps that look like iconic maps from their original game?? Dude fire emblem fans are EATING (don’t even get me started on the music remixes AOUGH)

The last level is piss easy if you’re over leveled and I think it makes it less impactful because you can skip the fun unit thing it has set up

Combat

The addition of Break and Smash mechanics was pretty neat, I think they made the combat a little more dynamic

Weapon advantages matter even more now since you can break an enemy with them

Smash is cool since you can wack enemies around the map, I will say tho, you often do so much damage with the great weapons that you often kill the unit before even pushing them

Also depending on the unit, the fact that you have to tank a hit first can deter you from using them

Somniel

There’s so much shit going on on the Somniel and thankfully you can skip a decent chunk, but it does get more monotonous than three houses I think since you go back a lot more often

I wish there was a thing i could click that would gather all the items lying around for me, I’m lazy, make Sommie do it

Characters

I was pleasantly surprised with the characters in this game. I was expecting more of them to be boring and one note, but there’s a surprising amount of depth with some of these guys. Depth that was not shared equally mind you, but it’s there.

This game has a bigger cast than it needs I think, but it’s not bloated like Fates.

Supports/Interpersonal Dynamics

This is also a story flaw that I’ll get into later, but there’s not really any interpersonal conflict going on in this game, everyone’s pretty nice to each other and where it would make sense for there to be conflict there is none (and sometimes there’s random superficial conflict that doesn’t need to be there, read: white bitches being racist to Fogado)

I’m not saying I need characters to hate each other, but there’s very little character growth or reflection going on. Like the game makes a point to show you that each of the four kingdoms have very different values and ethics, so you’d think that would come up more, but tbh it only really does with the crown royals and their supports

Also Alcryst having beef with Ivy, but not Hortensia was a choice

I also think more people should have been upset with Veyle, like I think it would have been cool to see them have to overcome their feelings since the evil Veyle was quite literally someone else and they had to come to terms with that in some way.

Instead it all comes from Veyle being like “oh god I’m so sorry please let me atone somehow” when literally everyone is like “oh no sweat we’re chill”

EVERYONE IS OBSESSED WITH ALEAR PLEASE GIVE ME ONE PERSON THAT DOESN’T LIKE THEM IMMEDIATELY. AAAAAAA

Yo why doesn’t Alear act like they’re from a thousand years ago

Story

Setting

The world is pretty typical for a fire emblem game I think. You got a handful of kingdoms, one is kinda evil-ish, one is super peaceful and there’s probably a trade based, “free” kingdom, and another one rolled at random on a list of kingdoms, in this case one that’s obsessed with strength.

3 of the 4 kingdoms are allies/neutral and of course it’s just the “evil” kingdom picking fights, which I think is kinda stale esp since they’ve been at peace for a while. Not saying there needs to be a war or anything I just want more political intrigue and tension

Elyos has also been ruled by dragon gods since forever, never elaborated?? Where did normal people come from? Were they the same?

I’d love to learn more about what happened during those thousand years tbh

Also what was the world like a thousand years ago? I wanna know more about Gradlon, did people live there? How was Sombron as a king? What about the mage dragons?

Plot

There’s not much in the plot of this game that sets it apart from older fire emblem games

Like a good chunk of plot beats are very similar if not exactly the same as fates

MC is dragon child with mysterious past and everyone loves them immediately

Mom dies in your arms by jumping in front of something purple to save you within the first 5 chapters thrown by a hooded figure

You fight a resurrected version of your mom who is now a little evil and actively obstructing you

Evil kingdom king was controlled by evil dragon

You turn out to be the child of the evil dragon

Evil dragon is some bitch from another world

The antagonists are pretty comically evil until they die and then the game tries to redeem them or make them seem like round characters, but I don’t think you really get enough of that side for any of them. And it’s not like the pacing felt rushed, you were definitely just dicking around in there for a few chapters in the middle, those could have been used to flesh out the antags

They faked you out and made you think Alear was evil in the past, but oops nah he was nice then too

It was pretty obvious from the beginning that you were Sombron’s kid, and Veyle’s sibling, her evil reveal was pretty neat tho

Chapters 21, 22 and 24 went hard I will say. They had a lot of cool shit happen in there and even some stuff I wasn’t expecting! I’m still mad Alear wasn’t evil

COME ON SOMBRON’S FROM ANOTHER WORLD? AND HE’S JUST EVIL CUZ HE WAS A PISSY LONELY BITCH THAT MISSED HIS GHOST BF

Last level was equal parts cool and disappointing. I guessed correctly that Sombron would bring all the past antags as emblems which GOD IS SO FUCKING COOL, but they’re just like generic hooded figures which is so LAME. Like come on you’ve already put in this much to have a nod to the older games you can make a few more assets :/

Fell Xenologue Thoughts

Gonna be real I liked this vibe a little more than the main game’s vibe. No dlc is worth the money, but I at least didn’t regret buying this one.

Also the plot made me more emo than it should have gonna be real

THE FUCKING MUSIC GOES SO HARD. They only added a handful of tracks but they all slap

All the extra writing they did for the royals when they meet themselves or a retainer holy shit dude, some of those hurted

Setting

The setting is much more grimdark in this (as much as this game can be anyway). Just having conflict baked into the world does a lot for the vibe

The world is very bleak and filled with animosity, grief and pain but also those who would try to persevere despite that

Very fun seeing all the vibe swapped kingdoms even if they were quite superficial. Love the mirrored map too

Plot

Aight I think one of the themes for this dlc was love and aaaa I think that’s so sweet

Familial love between Nel & Nil/Rafal + Four Winds

Romantic love between Nel and her divine dragon

The distinct changes in the relationships between all the royal sibling duos I think also kinda focuses on the lack of familial love they share in this world vs your world

Also just how Rafal has just been searching for validation and meaning (i.e. love) and not getting it through his thick skull that everyone around him love him until the end

The twist villain was fun, I saw it coming, but not cuz the game was obvious I’m just too genre savvy (in fact I think a little foreshadowing could have been cool)

I think the Nel evil fake out was cool, but it was resolved way too fast, esp because they teased it in the trailer, but didn’t really go anywhere with it

I really liked the ending!

Nel saying she knew Rafal replaced Nil all along but still grew to care about him all the same

Nel saying she can’t bare to lose another sibling so instead she’d die to take Rafal’s pain away

Rafal refusing to let Sombron’s “curse” on the dragon stone dictate his actions. He was a shitter all of his own choice, he doesn’t regret it and he’d do it again

Not getting to tell Nel his true name before she died

Saying he’ll stay with her for a thousand years until she wakes up

Alear saying they are invited to come over to his world and Rafal in response saying no, but also that 1000 years is a long time so maybe that could change

THEM BEING THE LAST TWO PEOPLE ALIVE IN THIS WORLD

I get why, but I wish we didn’t get Nel and Rafal as units, because after having that whole emo ass see you later and knowing Alear has to wait 1000 years to see them again is so bittersweet, but then you literally get them back after the end credits because whoops I guess time moves differently there now

Characters

I like the dragon siblings a lot actually. They have interesting personalities and their dynamic is insane, especially after the thousand years when Rafal was able to reflect.

The other three however, Zelestia, Gregory and Madeline, I don’t like that much

They essentially took these villains who had fun quirks and were somewhat interesting, but sanitized them and made them SUPER boring.

I get what the devs were trying to do. They made the villains sympathetic and then created a way for you to have them on your team in some capacity. The thing is, these three are so different they are basically different characters, so it doesn’t even fulfill that want

Added on the fact that they don’t have supports with anyone outside of their squad so we don’t even get to see what other character’s reactions are to seeing people who look like the Four Hounds but aren’t them (not that there was much of a reaction anyway since according to Madeline they were all welcomed easily)

I think they should have just found a way to redeem the Four Hounds OR bring their other world counterparts but have the other world counterparts be more or less the same, but maybe fighting on the “good” side still with the dragon sibs

As for the personality swapped royals, I found some of them quite interesting like Alfred, Celine, Hortensia and Diamant. Alcryst was also fun but he was just quite literally a true opposite to himself. Fogado was fun but WHY was he like that. The game doesn’t tell me soooo. Timerra and Ivy were just funny, I’m sorry.

I think what they should have done is instead of just trying to make everyone a true opposite (still not over the Timerra being vegetarian and hating music) they should have taken one important part of the character and changed it, but then kept everything else the same.

Take Timerra. Keep the fact that she’s more stoic and less flexible in this world but maybe she still loves music, but doesn’t have time for it or it has less priority in her life

Stuff I Think Would Be Neat

This is just my “oh what if they did this?” section, it doesn’t really have much to do with my opinion on the game

I think if evil emblems talked this game would have been so fuckin juicy. Like you have fused with these people, they know everything about you, if they were evil they could tear you apart and I think that’s fuckin metal. I just want Marth to be evil and mean as a treat

Past Alear being actually evil would have been super interesting, esp if after dying a second time they only retained their evil memories and briefly turned on their allies

EVEN BETTER: if they made it a gameplay mechanic! Like Alear is red and fighting on the enemy phase

I think limiting the units you have on each map on the xenologue to the relevant royals and retainers would be good too. Since everyone is a default class anyway you don’t lose anything and it invites you to get all the special dialogue with the royals and retainers

And that’s all! If you made it all the way through this, wow thank you for reading all of my rambles. I really love the fire emblem franchise and even if this game wasn’t the best I still enjoyed myself while I played it. Until next time!

[depresseddepot]

watching alien 3 for the first time

why doesn't she just explain to the doctor??? he seems okay if a little intense at times

i can't believe they just threw bishop away :( i heard his death gets retconned but tbh i don't actually know what that word means

the vibes of this movie are way different than the others lol the dark cement structures, the religion, the weird emphasis on ripley as a sexual figure

poor pubby :(

the doctor is the only normal and sane person on this fucking planet

RIPLEY WHY ARE YOU FLIRTING WITH A MAN ON A PLANET OF PRISONERS. YOU CANNOT BE THAT HORNY. WHY DID THEY TURN HER CHARACTER INTO THIS. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE VERY SUBTLE VIBES BETWEEN HER AND HICKS

DID SHE SLEEP WITH HIM??? girl. i am too asexual to understand this behavior. and i still don't understand why she won't tell him. also i assume he isn't an android if they fucked because otherwise i DEFINITELY would have heard about it

I'll admit, it is very refreshing to have a character taking these sorts of pathogen/mysterious deaths seriously. ripley has always been very clearly unsettled when she's talking about the xenomorphs and nobody ever seemed to take her seriously

JAGSHSJJAHA "listen to me you piece of shit" WITH THE CUT TO CLEMENS POLITELY DRINKING COFFEE W THE POSH "I'm sorry I don't think I understand"

I'm starting to get worried about what exactly clemens "did" lol, he's on a planet of rapists and I don't really want to spend the whole moving kicking my feet about a professional, polite british man who turns out to be a rapist

bishop :((((

there isn't ACTUAL sexual violence in this movie right. right?

OH LITERALLY SECONDS AFTER I FINISHED TYPING THAT THERE WAS ACTUAL SEXUAL VIOLENCE

"i gotta re-educate some of the brothers. we have to discuss some matters of the spirit" calmly says the man with a bloodied steel pipe

this is such a bizarre setting for an alien film lol. it isn't BAD i guess, like a shift from the norm isn't automatically bad, but it's very unexpected. like when I think of a high security WY prison planet I don't really think of concrete walls and religious fanatics. more like......hospital? with mostly synthetics as the staff

BISHOP!!!!!

"I'm just a glorified toaster" BISHOP I MISS YOU

"I'm home" "It's very dark here" interesting. So he reads the flight recorder unit sort of as if he can visualize it?

I'm excited to watch andrews die. what a bastard.

clemens you are starting to quickly become an obsession of mine. you cannot put a polite doctor with a british accent and a subtle layer of snark to everything he says and not expect me to jump him. you better not disappoint me.

oh he's even got TRAUMA

aaaand he's dead. okay I guess I should've expected that. that one feels MEAN though

sadly adds another fictional dead british man to my list of favorite characters

so i think i know a little more abt this than i thought. The xeno didn't kill her because she's got the parasite right?

the scenes of her running in the hallway are really cool tho

did I miss why aaron doesn't like being called 85? oh it literally answers that less than minutes later okay LMAO

wait DOES ripley have a parasite? she isn't really behaving like she does like why is she flexing her hands like that

so there's a specific queen parasite ? i sort of thought one BECAME the queen because how else would they cause an infestation

he wouldn't kill her 🙄

the cgi (if that's even what its called when the alien is basically photoshopped in) on the xeno is not good (it is very 2004 so I'm not sure if it's just a sign of the time) but the scenes from the xeno POV in the hallway as they're baiting it is pretty cool to watch

it...survived?? that feels inaccurate

IT EXPLODED???????? that also feels inaccurate

also very convenient that ripley's parasite has taken so long to gestate

BISHOP????????????????????????????

oh he's a human creep. okay. also who the hell designs an android that looks exactly like themselves. he definitely wanted to fuck that robot

also the way the subtitles call him "bishop 2" THATS RIGHT MOTHERFUCKER!!! HE AINT THE PRIME BISHOP

okay final thoughts: if this WASN'T an alien franchise film, ie it was a different universe w a different monster with different characters, it would have been pretty good. It had some cool cinematic moments but it was all negated by the fact that they completely discarded what happened in the second film and made ripley's character really odd. If it had been a random family in cyrosleep that was boarded somehow and then crashed, it would've been much more intriguing than making this an alien franchise film. I don't think it was horrible as a film but it was a horrible alien sequel to be sure.

Also given how dynamic a character Clemens was, I find it really fucking weird that he wasn't the last survivor. They did so much to set him up as an intriguing character and then they just killed him, meanwhile the last survivor was MORSE OF ALL PEOPLE. They could've had a sequel to the sequel with Clemens studying the xeno and they wasted it. I think this was all a bad dream ripley had and she and hicks and newt are going back to earth.