#eva plays heroes

[fore-seer]

i don’t think global devastation qualifies as a silly little prank, grima

[cadybear420]

Choices Secret Pal December 2023, edits by me

Here's my creation for the Choices Secret Pal event by @choicesfandomappreciation!

For @stars-are-within-me, I've made some edits of their couples in formalwear for a masquerade ball! Astra (BOLAS MC) and Nia, Carina (COP MC) and Trystan, and Eva and Maya (Hero MC)!

Well except uh... yeah Eva and Maya kinda got caught up saving some people earlier and were kinda rushed to get to the ball ahaha

Well as fun as it would be to start a new fashion trend... first rule of superheroes is keep your double identity secret. Let's just hope the others don't make a big deal outta it later...

Masks off!

Eva and Maya go back to crime-fighting after the ball... except it looks like they were a bit rushed trying to get there too... oh well

I really enjoyed making these! Thank you to @choicesfandomappreciation and @stars-are-within-me for giving me this opportunity! <3

[alanalover]

it's december 2024 is there anyone left that would entertain my post-canon estela x eva delusions..!!!!!!? initially morally neutral characters with soft spots for their families and dead/departed alien girlfriends :eyes:

[frenchtwistresistance]

Match Game ‘79 Episode 1433

The question: How a secretary can get a raise: 1. Be on time. 2. Work real hard. 3. _____ the boss.

I protest strongly. There are a lot of women who have lawsuits about sexual harassment on the job. I’m one of th—oh no, never mind.

No, first of all, the question is very dangerous because we’re assuming the boss is a male. Everybody assumed that. So I said,

“Kill the boss!”

[love-hold]

20 moments to recap AO25

(all singles moments i’m sorry)

1. carlos alcaraz (or rather buzzcutcaraz) debuted his new victorbarber haircut and was tomatoed for lack of a better word, causing his fans to crash out two weeks into the new season.

2. danielle collins made herself an enemy of australia (or at least of the crowd at her R2 match against hometown hero destanee aiava)

3. AO’s YouTube channel premiered AO Animated, a free livestream that cartoon animated RLA matches and captured moments like this.

4. laura siegemund knocked out AO24 finalist zheng qinwen R2, which doesn’t help how much people dislike her already after her match against coco gauff at USO23

5. 18 year old, ATP next gen champion joao fonseca battled through qualifying and knocked out 9th seed andrey rublev R1. for 24H he was praised as the next hot thing, claimed as part of the next big 3 along with alcaraz/sinner (rip holger rune). unfortunately, he was knocked out R2 by lorenzo sonego, teaching an important lesson on how we shouldn’t make these comparisons so hastily because that kind of expectation is anything but beneficial. leave the guy alone! (btw no hate to joao, i’m excited to see his career flourish!)

6. sunflowered naomi osaka—after being handed quite a draw—took revenge on the last two players that kicked her out of 2024’s hard court slams: the c/k-aros, caroline garcia and karolina muchova

7. lucky loser eva lys reached R4 and achieved her career best performance at a grand slam. the craziest part? she was notified 10 mins before her R1 match that she would be playing. i love a fairytale run!

8. 19 year old, next gen ATP finals runner up learner tien beat the 5 set, 2 AM chaos match specialist himself, daniil medvedev. one of the best matches of the tournament, learner kicked out AO24’s finalist in R2 with a dramatic fifth set tiebreak. he continued to rally himself to R4, the youngest player since 2005 nadal to do so.

shoutout to alex michelsen who defeated AO23 finalist stefanos tsitsipas and karen khachanov, and jakub mensik who defeated casper ruud. next gen!

9. jacob fearnley shut nick kyrgios up

10. novak djokovic refused to do the typical on-court post-match interview with jim courier in an act of protect against the comments of channel 9 host tony jones who heckled his fans and called him overrated.

11. oh AO kits. you were pretty underwhelming. nike hit another low—i can’t believe that tank top dress made it to the women’s final. in both colors. but there were positives. once again, coco and naomi: gorgeous. esp naomi’s sunflowers! ON finally changed their gradient colors. purple BOSS shirt! (unfortunately, didn’t see much of it) and i really loved destanee aiava’s story behind her kits. but jannik’s denim custom fox...this is what you give to the world number 1?

12. iga’s bakery opened again, dishing out a scary number of bagels and breadsticks. in fact, while the ATP had its ugly five setters like usual (jack draper playing 3 in a row), countless players from the WTA gave out 6-0’s and 6-1’s this tournament

13. kei nishikori lived up to his reputation as the five set king, defeating thiago monteiro R1 from two-love down

14. janholger delivered the chaos we expected. alpine-boy, sickly victorian child, jannik sinner practically melted on RLA, taking an 11 min MTO. holger then decided to take his own MTO, 5-3 on jannik’s serve. if that wasn’t enough, jannik decided to break the net, delaying the match another 20 mins. also, there was this point.

15. more “surprise players” (draw wise) reached the second week: nastia pavlyuchenkova (QF) belinda bencic (R4), olga danilovic (R4), paula badosa (SF), lorenzo sonego (QF), gael monfils (R4), elina svitolina (QF), ben shelton (SF), and madison keys (more on her later).

ALSO ben became the first active american man to reach the semis of different 2 grand slams.

16. elina and gael were true tennis power couple goals, knocking out #4 seeds jasmine paolini and taylor fritz R3, hours after the other and reaching the second week (shoutout to gael at 38 years old, still delivering entertaining five setters)

17. the projected novak djokovic and carlos alcaraz QF did happen to the joy of most tennis fanatics and to the horror of carlos’ fan base. the end result? carlos’ dream of the career GS slam was crushed once again, and novak’s thigh became equally injured, leading him to retire in his SEMIFINAL MATCH against zverev. he was boo-ed off the court. jfc.

18. world #1 jannik Winner defended his AO title in straights without giving up any break points, extending his match streak to 37-1 from oct. he only dropped two sets: the king of hardcourt, completely untouchable.

19. adding even more humiliation to the loss, zverev’s history of domestic violence (given the fact that said history has been blatantly ignored by the ATP) was publicly called out during his losers speech

20. and last but certainly not least MADISON KEYS DETHRONED 2X DEFENDING CHAMPION ARYNA SABALENKA, FINALLY EARNING HER WELL-DESERVED GRAND SLAM AT 29 (AT THE TOURNAMENT WHERE SHE MADE HER FIRST SLAM SEMI AS A TEEN), BATTLING THROUGH SABALENKA (1) SWIATEK (2) SVITOLINA (28) RYBAKINA (6) COLLINS (11). absolutely insane.

————

I 100% missed many other moments, tag below for your top picks ;)

honorable mentions (that I can think of)

-adm reaching the QFs!

-taylor donating his R1 match earnings to help the LA fires

-keys v swiatek SEMI (including the shadow hitting/serve clock drama)

-novandy

[venussaidso]

𝐀𝐬𝐡𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐢 𝐍𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐬 🖊️

in video format to hone in my points.

more notes.

ashwini moon native troy baker voiced loki in multiple medias, including avengers assemble and lego marvel super heroes.

tom hiddleston's version of loki uniquely emphasizes this aries + ketu theme of ruling through conquest and trickery (thor (2011), avengers (2012) & thor: the dark world (2014)), setting him apart as a direct "lord of war", rather than being a jester.

similarities between loki and hela:

both feel entitled to the throne of asgard, harbouring resentment and anger when it is denied to them (ketu and heirdom themes).

their relationship with thor is marked by rivalry and attempts at dominance (uncertain of thor's astrological significance to be caught in conflicting positions with a raven-haired sibling, twice, who has ashwini influence ��� could be a coincidence).

they have daddy issues. their father, odin, is played by a mula moon native. interesting, as mula is the one who sees those whose roots are pure or not. though debatable if he's a terrible parent, loki's roots had been highlighted as monstrous and hela was a sociopath. this could go back to ashwini's association with serial killers, contrasting mula's inherent force of goodness and ashwini still finding itself (acting out selfishly and destructively for the self, 1H themes of identity are more prominent with loki though).

both possess a ruthless desire for power and control, which is vampiric and draining on a massive scale (causing literal genocide — ketu is the great destroyer and mars is the great conqueror).

loki excels in illusion, shapeshifting, and deception (already touched on this through other ashwini characters of the same abilities). his deceptive and trickster nature, again, linking back to ketu. the mcu character agatha harkness is a trickster who is played by an ashwini moon native, and has been compared to loki as she is infamous for her backstabbing, mischievous tendencies.

both loki and hela struggle with feelings of abandonment and loneliness. they quite literally live in the shadow of thor, who could be played by a possible uttara phalguni moon native (which explains loki-hela being shadows of the sun, which would be thor. ketu is darkness and ignorance, while sun illuminates and wards off darkness. thor could be interpreted as a solar native. sun nakshatras are very kingly themselves, after all).

both commanded terrifying armies, solidifying their roles as forces of destruction. hela's army were skeletal, zombie-like soldiers while loki's army were fearsome chitauri alien creatures. army = war, battle. battle and wars = mars. loki and hela both make the most sense as aries characters, especially ketu with their association to beastly creatures as they were commanding them under their war-like force (aries, again again again *thinking of ARES, THE god of war*).

loki’s green-and-gold and hela’s black-and-green armours are interesting. another highlight of the colour green is in the character morgana. although, green is exclusively associated with mercury. but, green is said to lessen anxiety, evoke a sense of renewal, hope, and new beginnings... literal ashwini themes. ashwini = rejuvenation, healing, freshness... all the energy which green possesses.

artemisia in the film 300: rise of an empire also wears gold-and-black, much like loki did in thor: the dark world. she's played by ashwini native eva green. this is all a coincidence but a funny one. gold makes far more sense too, as the ashwini kumaras are the golden armoured horse headed twins. speaking of horses, loki is the parent of sleipnir.

in the mcu and norse mythology, both hela and loki are figures associated with or commanding wild beasts — a major ketu hint. hela is the master of fenris, a gigantic undead wolf. in norse mythology, fenris is instead ruled under loki – which just signifies the ashwini influence. loki is the literal father/mother of some of the most terrifying beings including fenrir, jörmungandr (a large serpent) and sleipnir (an eight-legged horse) and hel herself who is beast-like too.

there is an interesting connection with serpents and aries (and ketu, as ketu is the tail of the serpent or dragon), as the serpent is the sacred animal of ares, the god of war. the serpent was a symbol of rejuvenation to the ancient greeks because it shed its skin — and ares has a lot of animal symbolisms!!! ares was also associated with famous dragons: the ismenian dragon and the colchian dragon.

a bit random but not quite, but in the young adult film through my window, the character ares is portrayed by a mula moon native. mula's animal yoni is the dog and young dogs were sacrificed to ares. the character ares is quite literally compared to the greek god, too, being portrayed by a ketuvian.

(source, left: LOKI - The Hell's Children by tomzj1 on DeviantArt; source, right: vikingtrinkets)

loki's 3 terrifying animal children in norse myths, and one of them being hela's pet in the mcu (ketu, again again again again).

loki's redemption arc is interesting, as i already explored such a theme in my sun dominant themes post. there, i touched on ashwini as well, and talked about renewal and new beginnings, and how these themes further support the sun's exaltation in ashwini. loki's redemption arc is literally representative of a new beginning from his infamously backstabbing, trickster nature.

I'm still learning; this is just me laying out the obvious for myself. I might come back to this as it's laid foundation of my thoughts regarding this nakshatra. It's nothing much for now.

[dramaticallytotal]

For Your Entertainment

Oh my god, another TDWT au???? Whaaaaaat?

Yep.

I will not apologize UwU

This au will feature Chaos Gremlin Noah. We've seen in canon he genuinely enjoys chaos and drama as long as it's not involving him, and I wanted to focus a whole fic around that. In this one, he is way more apathetic than in my other aus, and he is really only friends with Team E-Scope and Owen. So he really doesn't care what happens to anyone besides his friends in the competition.

Him being a little Chaos Gremlin is why he has managed to be Chris McLean's longest standing employee ever. They get on like a house on fire. Chris is arguably a king of chaos, so I just love the idea of him emotionally adopting little chaos gremlin Noah and bonding with him. In this au, Chris does tell Noah about having to fire him, and of course, they plan to stage it while Noah helps budget and take inventory of everything they will need for the new season. He is also publicly helping with the fake show, so it looks like he has no idea about the new season. There are some interns and crew who would love to snitch to the producers on him and Chris if they caught wind of their plans.

Noah is the one who selected and approved Alejandro, being the newest competitor as well as one of the fake stars of Dirtbags. If anything else, the guy will stir things up and make things entertaining for Noah while he pretends to be lazy and useless. But Noah and Chris agreed that he would embrace his original marketed title as Schemer. And he's all for it, as long as it keeps him entertained.

A bored Noah is a dangerous Noah. Chris found this out the hard way. (He never thought he would have to talk a teen out of actively blackmailing a very successful producer in the company, but well, life is full of surprises).

Noah knows all the challenges because he helped plan some! He was very proud of himself. Oh, he made sure things were safe but just barely, I mean, he doesn't want to end up hurt or dead in these challenges, so he had to make some safety features and everything. It's weird, but Noah actually feels...excited about the new season. Oh, and he left Chris some of his blackmail material in case they producers want to change anything or are being assholes. They had been planning on buying out the company, and Noah thinks this is the perfect chance. Chris will run the show how he wants, and when he gets complaints, some anonymous "interns" will leak the messages, emails, or calls and show the viewers just how fucked up and corrupt the producers are. This plan has been a year in the making.

Which is a long time for one of Noah's plans to take off, but they want to do this right and come out the winners/heroes.

The day of the plan dawns, and Noah is practically trembling in excitement, but he's had a lot of practice pushing down his real emotions (thanks, Mason). He played his role perfectly all up to the bus rescue. He thankfully was able to get Eva to stay by pretending to fall asleep, but he knew she knew he wasn't sleeping. The trust she has for him has him feeling all warm and fuzzy. He loves Eva. She's basically his ninth sister. Beth ended up staying, too, because Lindsay wanted to paint her best friends nails, and that absolutely could not wait.

The rescue happened, and finally, they were on the bus to the plane. Eva wanted the window seat, and Noah would give it to her since she stayed. Plus, the aisle seat was perfect for observing everyone and seeing what was going on. It looks like Harold and Leshawna were off again, which was not surprising, which would mean a small amount of entertainment for Noah. Then there was the whole Gwen, Courtney, Duncan thing that had Noah holding back a smile. That whole train wreck would bring him so much entertainment.

But who really had his attention was Mr. New Guy. Oh, he knew his name, Alejandro, but he had to pretend he didn't. He could already hear the giggles from the girls who thought he was attractive, and he could already hear the boys grumbling. Noah made sure to give a comment or two about he hoped Mr. New Guy wouldn't just be another Justin, which made some laugh, and Courtney glared at him. Oh yeah, he forgot those two were friends. He also caught the slight smirk from Alejandro before the boy suppressed it.

The competition began, and Noah was surprised that Ezekiel made it, but with Duncan up and quitting (goodbye love triangle drama), it made sense that they had to even out the teams. So, the first challenge became a reward. Boring.

He saw the way Alejandro had flirted with the girls, specifically Bridgette and Leshawna. Which probably meant they were his first targets. Oh, that was fun~!

And he could help move things along! And if, by doing so, he got rid of Harold, even better! So he made sure to make comments about Leshawna falling for Alejandro when he was close to Harold. Or he would make sure to act disgusted at the cultural insensitivity (yes. Noah will always be responsible for Harold's elimination XD). It got the ginger right where he wanted.

Then Harold was gone, and Noah knew it wasn’t all him given he had witnessed Alejandro talking to Harold a lot, and he caught on to the subtle manipulations. That guy was good!

Then the Yukon happened, and he knew he didn't hide his glee at seeing Bridgette stuck to a pole well, given the look Alejandro had given him.

"Good work." He whispered with a snicker to Alejandro.

"I'm not sure what you mean mi amigo." Of course the guy would play dumb but whatever.

"Hmm. Whatever you say." He tried to be blasé but the wide smile then kept growing on his face was probably a dead giveaway of how he felt.

And maybe that's what shot him in the foot because the next day, Alejandro was flirting with him. Noah was pretty confident it was because Alejandro was scared he figured him out (he did) and was going to expose him or something. Like hell! This was the most fun he was having on a season. And if him acting coy or shy or flirting a little back with Alejandro had most of the females mad at him, so be it. It just made everything all the more entertaining to him.

He did hurt his ankle in the Yukon (this will always be canon to me), so pain medication was a must but he had been stubborn in not taking it because it either makes him drowsy or puts him right to sleep and he doesn't want to be voted out (and miss out on all the drama and fun) because he couldn't contribute much to the challenge. But Izzy, Owen, and Alejandro made him take the medication.

So, the next challenge, he was a little out of it, but Izzy or Owen carried him when there was running or walking. He was able to climb the rope at least, and he volunteered to be put in the baby carriage, which was fine by him. He fell asleep, which was not a surprise.

No being swapped with a baby, though, because Alejandro made Izzy guard Noah. Heather had planned on doing something but couldn't because even she was not crazy enough to go against Izzy.

It was a reward challenge, which was great! What was not great was the challenge in Germany! Noah wanted first class! He craved it! And he knew they had it in the bag the moment he saw Alejandro flirting with Leshawna again. He made sure to have discussions with Izzy when Leshawna was around and made it seem like he didn't know she was there.

"I mean, it's honestly pathetic. How obvious Heather's crush on Alejandro is." He drawled.

"Izzy knows!!! Girl has got it bad! I didn't think you'd notice it, though NoNo. You're not usually one to notice these things." Izzy gossiped as she tried to put Noah's hair into pigtails. She knew what he was doing and was all for it. He's her chaos brother!

"Normally, and this kills me to say, but normally you'd be right. But it's so obvious that even Owen has noticed, and that's saying something."

"I don't know, Owen is pretty good at knowing when someone likes someone."

"Agree to disagree."

"Is this about him trying to set you up with that-"

"We are not talking about that!" Well, no acting there was necessary. He did not want to talk about that disaster of a date. Ever.

"Well, it's not like Heather has realized it yet, which makes it all the more entertaining for us." This is why he loved Izzy. She knew when to drop things, she knew how to roll with his plans, and she liked chaos just as much if not more than him.

"True. I'm more worried about what she'd do because of said crush. Even if she doesn't realize it, she's already snapped at her teammates when he's flirted with Leshawna."

"Oh yeah! She definitely seems like one of those people who would do anything to get someone to back off her crush. Izzy knows."

"Mmm. You would seeing as you're the same way. Normally, I don't worry for anyone, but I can't help but feel bad for Leshawna."

"Why?"

"Because it's obvious Alejandro likes her, and we already established that Heather likes him, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that Heather will so or do something to come between the two."

"Oooooh."

He couldn't hold back his smirk when he heard Leshawna storm off, and Izzy immediately matched his with one of her own.

Then the challenge happened, and he played up not knowing what Alejandro was doing up until the guy purposefully lost the challenge. Once they were back in the plane, he immediately dragged the guy down to the cargo hold to confront him. He, of course, tried to deny everything and tried to flirt with Noah in the same breath. Noah was not having it.

With more strength than he thought himself capable of, he shoved the guy into the nearest wall. He had to look up, given he was only to the guy's chest (short king Noah, my beloved), but he poked him in his abs to get his attention.

"I don't care that you got into Harold's head and made him vote himself off. Mainly because I was getting into his head first. And I don't care that you helped and flirted with Bridgette enough to get her to make out with a pole! In fact, I thought it was hilarious." He admitted.

And just to see more of a reaction than just the wide green eyes he was staring into, Noah started walking his fingers up Alejandro's torso oh so slowly. It got the eyes off of him for a second, and he thought maybe he saw a blush forming, but those green eyes held his attention once more.

"And I even decided to be nice and help you get to Leshawna! I had to let Izzy mess with my hair! But it was all for the sake of getting entertainment, and you, sir, make a lot of it happen. So I was content to let you play your game."

His fingers reached Alejandro's bull necklace, which he wound his fingers around and tugged.

He didn't miss the gasp the boy in front of him breathed out, given how close they now were.

"But I'm not so content when your actions mess with my game. I don't like to lose when I know we had every opportunity to win and would have won had you not thrown. You may not think much of me, I mean, I did get out early in the first season. But then again, I manipulated my way into being thrown off. I was not about to spend my summer in that shitty camp. And so far I've been playing in the shadows this season."

Great. He was monologuing like some cheesy villain. But I mean...he was being paid to play a villain this season, so he might as well go all in.

"I'm keeping you around for my entertainment and amusement. Purposefully losing is not something I find amusing, so the next challenge you better give it your all or I'm going to have to really play and you don't want that." He hissed before leaning back and patting Alejandro's cheek and letting go of his necklace.

"Good talk." And with that, he sauntered out. That was fun!

He missed the absolute heart eyes Alejandro had been giving him.

__________

Basically, a villain Noah au, where Alejandro falls for him so hard. The two create an alliance and dominate the game, all the while Alejandro is trying to get Noah to date him. Noah thinks it's just Alejandro being Alejandro, but he does like him, and he thinks it's very funny that the guy can't handle when Noah flirts back with him.

Boy this got long.

Enjoy.

[causeimcrayzeebee]

oh my god ive been reminded of this time and time again recently so i need to talk about this cause it’s been kinda bothering me this week: i really don’t like when people talk about characters in fangans in terms of their ‘role’.

now first before i talk about it more, i wanna make a disclaimer that this isn’t that big of a deal, and if you happen to do this, don’t worry you’re not a bad person at all. it’s just something that has really annoyed me and id like to highlight, hopefully so at least a few people stop doing this.

i think a lot of fangan fandoms tend to jump to make everything like the original danganronpa series. this criticism applies to people comparing fangan characters to existing dr characters, but i think more people understand that that’s kinda shitty.

to use an example of what i mean exactly, after the eden’s garden prologue released, many people were saying that Wolfgang is the protagonist and Damon is the antagonist— this eventually became people saying the reverse, because that first statement is blatantly incorrect. a protagonist isn’t the “good person” of the story, a protagonist is the person you follow throughout the story, so they seem like a hero bc it’s from their perspective. Damon is, quite literally, the protagonist, even if he’s morally and ideologically different from past danganronpa protagonists. these terms have been warped to fit the kind of people the original games portrayed and lose their actual meaning.

many have also talked since chapter 1 saying that eva is the support, or kai or diana are gonna be the new support, and while it’s not necessarily wrong, as they all can play supportive roles, it just feels weird to me to push everyone into these parts of the danganronpa formula, if you will.

have i fallen into doing this? yes, i have. but now as my interest in mainline dr has faded and I’ve become more into fangans than anything, ive realized how much goes into making these fangans. yeah, it’s based off of the existing franchise, but that’s nothing but a mere prompt to get these incedibly talented people to tell the stories they want to tell! to keep pushing the chapter killer cliches, antagonist/protagonist/support stereotypes, etc, it feels like it diminishes the creativity and originality of many of these games/series/shows. it feels disrespectful to the people trying to tell their own stories- no one wants their hard work to be compared to another game yk?

it’s an overreliance on pushing characters into these roles to figure the narrative out and it doesn’t let them exist as their own self.

in the end, these are completely different stories with different characters and different perspectives behind the creation of it. it’s just unfair to compare fangans to the inspiration.

[perpetualexistence]

I Hunt My Own Way

Here's my submission for Day 4 of Evacember: Fantasy AU! And also some of Day 5 since there's Team E-scope in this too.

It's in the same universe as We Drive Each Other Batty, though obviously Eva-centric. Consider this as a prequel fic to that one.

As per my usual, it's more of a summary fic with a few lines of dialogue thrown in there. But hey it's 4.5K words of Eva, it's what she deserves.

Eva wouldn’t say her time before going to the kingdom of Wawanakwa was that bad.

Sure, there were the harsh winters of the north, struggling for firewood, and occasional Yeti attacks, but that was just life. It hardened you so that you’d be able to handle whatever got thrown at you, and then you just find the little joys in things.

Like traveling bard troupes singing tales of heroes brave and true. Most was drivel, but there were a few that knew how to sing so loud their voices gave out. They enchanted stones to hold their songs. It was a pricey magical trinket, but worth being able to hear it play over and over again. She could only afford the one her parents could get her, but she took it eagerly. 

She didn’t mind that winter being a colder one as a result.

She didn’t get why her parents really wanted to move to where it was warm and all the people were. But she was 12 so she didn’t really get much say in the matter.

Despite having an easier life here, she hated it more. Sure, the warmth was nice, but her parents actually expected her to play with other kids. Do her best to ‘fit in’.

Up north the few kids she did see every now and then were a lot like her. They’d play Slay the Monster and get into tussles. It was fun, and it prepped them for when the real monsters came along.

She loved being the Yeti. Sometimes, when she wasn’t, she’d pick up on attack ideas from the older kids. She hated listening to older kids at first. Her patience was as little as she was back then. But when the ideas worked she began to realize that having someone in charge who knew what they were doing could be really good.

Here, the only kids who were ‘allowed’ to play Slay the Monster were boys. They laughed at her for wanting to play until they very quickly learned why laughing at Eva wasn’t a good idea. 

Eva hadn’t meant to go as far as she did. Once she got started it was just so hard to stop. And they had deserved every bit of it.

It solved the problem of people laughing at her. But it created a new problem of being labelled as a monster herself.

Which of course meant now was when her parents decided she needed more attention than before. Her father stopped asking her to help with hard labor around the house. Her mother tried teaching her things that were more ‘suitable’ for someone her age.

She had no patience for sewing. She always ended up pricking her fingers and swearing at a storm, which just got more looks from everyone around. Cooking she could understand, but didn’t get why you needed to be fancy with it when you could just make sure it tasted good and didn’t kill you. 

Every time she told them that she just wanted something to do with her hands she was given something delicate. Her hands weren’t built for delicate. They were built for strength. Blunt instruments existed for good reason: they got the job done in the most straightforward way possible.

Her parents knew that. They were the ones to teach her. And now they’re turning their backs on it just to make sure their neighbors kept wanting business from them?

She hated it. It filled her broiling with rage, which made people fear her more, which made her even angrier. Taking it out on others meant dealing with the town guard, who knew her well as time went on.

So she took it out into the woods. Danger and beasts be damned, it was the only place she could scream and punch and kick where no one could stop her. The forest went quiet at her rage and Eva cared not for that. She just played her music on her song stone loud to drown out everything else.

If she was a problem then she might as well go all out with it.

She built crude dummies shaped like those she desperately wanted to punch and whaled on them instead. Each time they’d break she put them back together. They were a pile of barely held together sticks but that’s all she needed them to be.

It was only a matter of time that a beast would become bold enough to investigate rather than flee. Just her luck that the beast in question was an owlbear.

A particularly aggressive owlbear.

Not that she would let a stupid owlbear get in the middle of her screaming sessions. If anything, it just gave her a new target.

Raw strength fought against raw strength. Her own roars matched the owlbears. It got some deep gashes in her, but in the end she showed it who was boss. It fled when it realized Eva meant to kill it. 

Eva planned to go hunt it down when an axe buried itself into the owlbear’s skull.

That was enough to stop her roaring rampage of displaced anger. 

The wielder of the axe was a large, tan woman with bleached blonde hair and the first set of muscles beside her own that made Eva feel envy. She introduced herself as Abigail Paine (though she’s better known as Abs) and revealed that she was a mercenary, hunting down that owlbear as it had been nearing civilization and was getting bolder and bolder. Going so far as to maul a few unfortunate victims who traveled the woods.

Abs had assumed that Eva would have become one of them, and would have intervened. Except she saw Eva go toe to toe with the thing without a single bit of magic to be had. She kept watch in case Eva was actually in danger. 

She has to say she’s impressed. Eva’s got a strong future ahead of her with moves like that.

Anyways, Abs is going to go now since she does have a bounty to collect, and just slings the owlbear over her shoulder.

Eva doesn’t let her leave so easily. She’s never had anyone compliment her in a while. Not since she moved into this stuffy town. And she’s never met anyone at her level before.

There’s no way in hell that she’s letting Abs go that easily.

She puts herself in Abs’ path and reminds her that Eva did most of the hard work, so she deserved a cut. It didn’t need to be money though, no.

Eva wanted Abs to teach her how to be a mercenary. 

Abs thought about it for a moment, as she’d never trained anyone before. And said that if Eva could withstand what Abs considered training, then she’d consider it. Abs would come back for her after dropping off the owl bear. 

Eva wasn’t about to risk losing track of Abs. She didn’t really have anything tying her here either. So she let Abs know that as soon as Eva got some stuff, she’d go ahead and join her now.

So she ran away from home. Just like that. It wasn’t that impulsive of a decision for her. She hated this place, her parents were failing her, and here was someone who could offer her better. Seemed pretty simple to Eva.

Abs wasn’t kidding about the training. Whether it was to try to scare Eva off, or if she genuinely thought it was a good idea to start the morning off with bench pressing an owl bear corpse, it was hard to say.

She climbed barehanded up cliffsides. Dragged large hauls of their kills for reward. Endured each sparring match against Abs.

She lost each time. She had raw strength going for her, but so did Abs and Abs had years of experience ahead of her. 

Yet rather than get mad at her losses, Eva relished in them. Abs respected her enough to hold nothing back. Encouraged her to use her rage at losing to push her even harder.

Turn her rage into a weapon she could use to protect herself and others.

Finally, something that made sense to her.

She longed to just use her fists for everything. She was plenty strong on her own. The problem was some of the beasts they’d come across. Creatures like vampires or werewolves couldn’t be hurt with a fist like they could with a silvered weapon. Not to mention the risk of getting turned.

So she agreed to start using an axe. It relied on her strength to use well, and she could also use it to cut down trees for firewood and the like.

She stayed with Abs for a few years. Although her fighting skills improved, her reputation didn’t get much better. Being apprentice by Abs didn’t help with her.

Which Eva didn’t understand why. She’d seen the woman grab an ogre and toss it halfway across town. Landed right in the middle of a ballroom. Fight kept going and it was as much a screaming match as it was a fight.

It was glorious.

Everyone needed to stop complaining about collateral damage.

Still, for as much as she loved learning under Abs, she couldn’t help but feel as if something were missing. She thought she’d be content punching things so long as it was with someone else.

But she always had to follow Abs’ way. Her rules. Her whims of going after jobs that offered the most pay. Eva wanted to go after things that would be a challenge for her. She wanted the exhaustion of a near death battle to ease her into a peaceful sleep. 

So she set off on her own from Abs. Abs wasn’t happy to see her go. Kept telling Eva that this was quitting, though deep down she was sure Abs didn’t want to lose her. They had one last sparring match, at Abs’ insistence to prove if Eva was ready to be on her own.

It was the first time Eva won. First time she saw Abs cry, too. 

She promised to keep in touch.

Like that, she was off on her own. Her reputation did proceed her, which was both good and bad for her. 

Good in that she didn’t have to convince others that she could do a job. Especially the dangerous ones typically reserved for older mercenaries.

Others just assumed she was an adult from her disposition. She didn’t feel a need to correct them if it meant she could go head to head with ents.

The bad news was that her anger issues were still the thing she was known the most for. Nobody wanted to hold a conversation with her any longer than it took to talk about a job.

She hadn’t noticed it much when Abs was around. Abs made for good conversation and would fill the space while Eva silently brooded or worked out.

Now if she wanted to have someone else to actually talk with, she’d have to do that on her own. With small talk. About something other than violence.

She wasn’t the smartest but she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Even when she did try talking about music first, she could tell the other person was just too scared of her to ask her to stop talking. 

She’d prefer it if they just told her to go away.

But it was fine. She could manage. She’d just talk violence with other mercenaries she met along the road.

Most of which were older men who were just as shitty as the people in her village. 

Which meant she got angry at them and showed them why they shouldn’t underestimate her. 

Which meant word spread that she was a rage monster.

God.

Damn.

It.

She could just try to find Abs again. But that’d mean admitting defeat, so it wasn’t really an option.

Instead she just settled for having a bad reputation, and going back to chopping trees in the woods with one swing.

Her music being one of the only things to keep her calm enough to not just say fuck it and go on a killing spree. It was loud and it drowned out her angry screams.

What it didn’t drown out was a scream that came from above.

Before she knew it, she had a cackling ginger-haired girl landing on her and refusing to let go.

The two tussled for a while. As her opponent was on her, there was no room for her to grab her axe. It was a brawl, pure and simple. The ginger went so far as to just bite her in the arm. Not one to back down from a challenge, she returned with a bite in the shoulder.

The fight still kept going until the other girl finally relented and got off. The only reason Eva didn’t start swinging her axe was because the gremlin had actually managed to tire her out.

The best sparring partner she’d had since Abs introduced herself as Izzy. She was an outlander who went where the winds carried her. Though she usually stayed in the woods. She heard the screaming and came to see what was going on.

Izzy’s also decided that they’re friends now. Izzy wants to start a collection, and Eva seems perfect for it.

Which throws Eva for a loop. Because who the hell would want to be friends with someone like Eva?

It’s how she knows Izzy’s got to be crazy. That or she’s lying. Something like this is too good to be true and Eva isn’t buying shit. Besides, she’s doing just fine by herself, and if Izzy’s not a mercenary looking to partner up, there’s not much use of them sticking together anyways.

Izzy keeps trying to prod at her. Insist on it. So Eva throws her axe at Izzy to prove her point. Given what she’d seen of Izzy, she’d probably be fine.

And she was right, as Izzy dodged it rather effortlessly. Seemed like she finally took that as her cue to go.

Leaving Eva alone with an axe now halfway stuck in a tree. Her strength worked against her as it was wedged in there.

While grabbing at it, she mulled over whether scaring Izzy off had been a good idea. That conversation had been the best one she’d had in a while. Not to mention the fight. Izzy’d seen what she was capable of and rather than balking, she’d leaned into it. 

She never would have thought a sack of crazy would have been good company, but here Eva was.

No matter, Izzy was gone now. It was just Eva, the axe she’d wrenched free, and peace and quiet. 

Lots of quiet.

Too quiet.

Eva couldn’t hear her songstone. It’d been playing in the background, but in the fight Eva had just assumed that it had gotten turned off. 

She went to where she’d last seen it and-

Gone. 

It was gone.

Eva started throwing rocks and branches to the side and gone gone gone.

Eva was going to kill Izzy. She was going to slaughter Izzy. Behead her and crush her skull with her bare hands.

She packed up her belongings as quickly as she could manage.

She was going on a warpath.

Humans weren’t that different to hunt than monsters. They left their own trail. Izzy couldn’t have been lying about living in the woods, because her trail was hard to find.

Unless you knew what you were looking for. And were very determined to not lose a trail.

Every time she thought she was getting closer, Izzy always seemed to just escape her grasp. Eva would lose the trail for a day or two, but with enough threats, people would usually help point her in the right direction again.

She followed Izzy’s trail all the way to the capital. She didn’t have a proper permit to get in, but with enough knuckle sandwiches and trudging forward for her goal, she made her way through. 

And finally, finally after three weeks of tracking her down, Eva caught sight of the little nutcase. Izzy even turned around and winked at her before continuing to run away. 

Eva plowed through bystander and guard alike, all the way to the castle. It took longer than she would have liked to muscle her way through palace guards. She just wanted her songstone back. They were acting like her storming her way in meant she was going to go kill somebody.

By the time she was at the palace proper, she’d lost sight of Izzy. She was about to let a roar of frustration before she heard a very familiar song coming from above. She looked up to see Izzy waving the songstone from a window of the highest tower. Had to be at least 80 feet tall. Bitch was sticking her tongue out.

Dead. She was so very dead.

Eva had no idea how the hell Izzy had gotten up there so quickly. Nor did she care. As far as she was concerned, there was no time to waste. Going inside to chase her up would mean dealing with more guards. 

So she went for the more direct approach.

She began to climb up the tower itself.

It was made of stone, like most of the tower. There were uneven rocks that jutted out only slightly. She used those as her handholds. When there were none to be found, she punched her way into making one.

Up and up she climbed. There were rangers trying to shoot her down, but she use a shield stolen from one of the guards to block them.

Finally, she made it to the window. She threw herself inside and took quick stock of the situation.

Izzy was nowhere to be found. Surrounding her were a bunch of books. There was a desk with papers strewn about in a bunch of different languages. Some weird shapes on there too. A cot with a ton of blankets in the corner.

And then, in the middle of the room, her precious songstone, singing its siren song.

In the hands of some guy with dark robes and a giant forehead.

Without thinking twice, she threw herself at the guy.

As she moved towards him, weird shapes appeared on the stones underneath her. They touched her shadow. Black tendrils suddenly erupted from her shadow and wrapped around her. They were trying to pull her to the ground, but she refused to be brought down by anything. 

It was a struggle to stay on her feet, but she was still managing. She could do nothing to free her arms though, try as she might.

She screamed at the dark magic as if that would do anything. It held firm.

The guy in front of her also screamed, whether from her lunge or from her presence she couldn’t tell.

Shadows danced around his arm as he took on a rather pathetic fighting stance. The form was all off. He’d clearly never seen a physical battle in his life. She’d think he wasn’t a threat if not for the fact that he was the one controlling whatever magic kept her still.

As much as rage had carried her up to this point, there wasn’t much it could do when she was stuck. The exhaustion of hunting someone down for days on end was hitting her now that she was forced to take a break.

Her struggles slowed, though her anger still carried through in her voice as she demanded that this guy give her songstone back or she’d find a way to kill him.

She wasn’t expecting him to pause.

“You…want to kill me over the songstone?” he asked. “Yeah. Give it. NOW.”

 “Real convincing argument you’ve got there. Seriously, magic isn’t raising any red flags for you?”

Magic would explain things, now that Eva was actually taking the time to think about it. “You could be a demon for all I care right now. Give me the fucking songstone.”

“Tell me how it got here. How YOU got here. Then we’ll talk.”

“The hell do you mean ‘how it got here’? Izzy stole it from me because she has a death wish. One I’m gonna deliver to her, and to YOU if you’re working with her!”

At this, the other teen groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Of course it was fucking Izzy.”

Turned out that Eva wasn’t the only person that Izzy liked to screw over. She was a professional thief who loved taking things just for the sake of causing havoc.

Noah, as he introduced himself, would often find things stolen despite all of his wards. And then the next day, Izzy would come strolling along offering things to sell. Including his own. 

She’d get away before he could get them back by force. Leaving him with the humiliation of buying his own things back. 

The only thing that made tolerating her worth it was that some of the other things she’d stolen were pretty useful to Noah’s studies. 

He could still do without buying back his own stolen property.

Her anger quenched, towards Noah at least, Eva explained her own situation. After agreeing to not pummel Noah into kingdom come, he released her and handed back her songstone. 

Eva hugged it and kissed it. She had no shame. She silently dared Noah to say anything about it, but he seemed rather unfazed by it.

Although she had her songstone back, she still wanted revenge on Izzy. She could tell Noah was just as pissed at her, though he settled for giving up rather than deal with her.

She had no plans to give up on this. With what Noah had managed to do to Eva, she figured that together they could track Izzy down again and take her down.

Noah looked at her like she’d sprouted a second head when she suggested it. Of course. One decent conversation would change shi-

“You seriously don’t care that I’m a dark mage?” he asked.

That…wasn’t how this conversation was supposed to go.

“Are you gonna use any more of that magic against me?”

“If I have to.”

“Yeah, sure, that’s self defense 101. Whatever. If I don’t hit you first, you’re not gonna attack me?”

“Sure, let me go ahead and sign my own death warrant. Got a quill?”

“Fuck you. Point is, we’re good. Are you in or not?”

Noah agreed, though he still seemed cautious about it. Something about the conversation felt off to Eva.

And then it hit her. For once, it wasn’t her reputation that was the problem here. It was Noah’s.

She didn’t know what he could have done wrong to think that she was going to kill him for the sake of it. 

…Then again, she’d never really done anything to make people not want to talk to her. Her anger issues were a problem, sure, but a lot bigger than other people made it out to be. Yet they still haunted her and everything she did.

Huh. She never thought she’d meet someone else who knew the feeling.

Still, there was revenge to be had, so the two started planning. 

After Noah convinced the guards that eventually made their way up to the tower not to immediately send Eva to the dungeon. Apparently he was the king’s royal wizard. 

Well, made things easier for her. As much as she liked fighting, she was exhausted from it.

It was an ordeal to figure out what to do with Izzy. First to track her down again, though it wasn’t too hard as she was apparently deciding to not leave the castle. How to take her down was the bigger concern.

After some humiliating trial and error, they finally made a plan that worked. Noah enchanted a spear that would release a magic net over whoever was under it when it flew. It was Eva’s job to throw it hard and fast enough to catch Izzy in its path.

They both cackled in joy when it finally worked. All the blood, sweat, and definitely not tears were worth seeing Izzy tangled up.

Working with Noah on this had been rather fun. First fun she’d had since Abs. Different, though. When they weren’t talking about strategy, they didn’t just talk about more fighting. 

Conversation turned to other things. Like making fun of people for being stupid. Complaining about others. Talking about music and having someone who, even though he didn’t get it, would still listen.

It sucked that it would have to end now that Izzy was caught.

Just as she thought that, and the two were congratulating each other for having finally caught her, Izzy decided to say her own piece about how fun this had been. Everyone else were boring to run from because they’d give up too quick or were super serious about it.

These two were much more fun to watch and play around with. She was glad she’d made them her friends.

The two were baffled by the idea that this was what she thought friendship was. It got worse as she slid out of the net that Noah swore by everything unholy was supposed to be impenetrable. 

And she just left. Promised she’d be back and just ran off. They chase and tried to track her down, but this time she was untraceable. 

After some choice words, the two didn’t have much choice but to admit that Izzy had bested them. 

Noah was sure she’d make her way back to them one way or another. There was no telling when, so there was no point in Eva sticking around if she didn’t want to. 

Eva could even keep the spear. Noah definitely wasn’t going to be using it. He had no idea if the enchantment would last or not since he wasn’t used to casting permanent magic on weapons. But hey, if something he made saw a bit more use, he could at least be happy with that.

Even if he made it sound like she was doing him a favor, this was still a gift. Someone else liked her enough to just give her something. Nothing needed in return.

…Fuck it. She didn’t want whatever this was to end. And Noah had just given her an idea for how to keep it going.

She admitted that the magic he’d done on the spear was pretty cool. She’d seen mercenaries who had enchanted weapons, but they were few and far in between. Magic was expensive as hell. 

She’d pay him to put more magic into her axe. Instead of giving her gold, she’d get whatever shit he needed to make his magic happen. She didn’t care what he used the magic for. 

She made sure he knew that she didn’t care about the kind of magic it was used for. Or how fucked up an ingredient he was asking for was. She’d kill any kind of monster she had to for the shit he could make. 

Just let her know what to go hunting for now, and she’d come back with it.

She grinned as he accepted the offer.

Their friendship continued with that excuse for a while. Izzy kept her word in coming back again and again. Eva just accepted that Izzy wasn’t malicious as much as she was just Izzy. She knew better than to go after Eva’s songstone again, at the very least. 

Hanging out with them, whether on the road or in the city, just became routine that broke up her hunting. And it felt fucking amazing to have something like that outside of her hunting.

Yeah, she could get used to a life like this.

She couldn’t wait to tell Abs about it when the two crossed paths again.

[centrally-unplanned]

Wasn't sure how to search for the other 18 rants about Eva not being about his depression, mind ranting again or linking me to a past one?

Oh, I don't think I have written it with any coherence at any point (maybe I have, I have been here for a long time after all), I was being cheeky. To quickly summarize, Anno's own mental health is certainly not irrelevant or anything, I was exaggerating for comedic effect, it isn't some truly-false statement. After all, depression can mean a lot of things! A generalized sense of struggling with one's place in the world? Oh sure, Eva is about that.

But Eva wasn't intended to be about mental-health-style depression and "Having Depression" is probably not how Anno saw himself? The themes of Eva are coming a lot more from genre commentary and discourse around otaku identity, and far more universal than the depressed. And while Anno did have a pretty famous bout of capital-D Depression, it was after the making of Evangelion, a bit of a "what do I do now?" kind of deal.

A lot of this is sort of a lost-in-translation across time and culture deal. Like you see this being said all the time (Shinji's wikipedia page):

Neon Genesis Evangelion director Hideaki Anno was depressed for four years before the series began production.[4] After the failure of Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise's sequel Aoki Uru, Gainax began planning a new series. According to Gainax co-founder Yasuhiro Takeda, ideas from Aoki Uru were borrowed for the new project, including the concept of "not running away".

And here is the source quote:

They say, "To live is to change."  I started this production with the wish that once the production complete, the world, and the heroes would change.  That was my "true" desire.  I tried to include everything of myself in Neon Genesis Evangelion-myself, a broken man who could do nothing for four years.  A man who ran away for four years, one who was simply not dead.   Then one thought.  "You can't run away," came to me, and I restarted this production.  It is a production where my only thought was to burn my feelings into film.  I know my behavior was thoughtless, troublesome, and arrogant.  But I tried. 

Now, for a weak argument I will say even without any context it should be notable that he doesn't say depression - this is more like feeling like a failure. The stronger argument is that Anno runs his fucking mouth all the damn time. He says bombastic and cryptic and tortured artist shit all over. When he asks Miyazaki to take his dick out and show the world his erect penis in Princess Mononoke, does he actually want that? Is that, you know, an authentic, unfiltered expression of his true emotion? Or is he playing to the crowd? He does this shit, its great, but, you know, you gotta read the tone.

One of my favourite quotes from Hiroyuki Yamaga is when he delicately called him a faker lol for the (Post-Eva, to be clear) depression:

On Anno’s severe depression, his “crisis of the soul,” as a motive in the development of Evangelion. YAMAGA: Well, I think Anno may have appeared in the Japanese media as you suggest; he’s made comments about wanting to die, and so forth, but at least from my perspective, things were never as serious as they appeared in the press. [LAUGHS]

Anyway, the far stronger argument is that this statement is false. He did not do nothing for four years! Nadia shut down production in 1991, and in 1992 Gainax began working on Aoki Uru, a sequel to their film Royal Space Force, with Anno as the director. Then funding fell through, so Anno himself goes to King Records and hashes out a deal with producer Toshimichi Otsuki for a new anime, with a focus on artistic agency and in particular rejecting funding from toy companies (standard at the time in the long tail of the Gundam boom for something mecha-esque) as he thinks they are a creative straightjacket. They put together a funding structure, and he writes the Evangelion Proposal which is finished in 1993, two years before the show airs. In that proposal are most of the core themes of Evangelion, the same depressing tone and otaku-commentary stuff. Work begins in earnest in 1994.

I have no doubt this was a stressful and harrowing time for Anno, I am just saying A: he does not mean these comments literally, he was in fact doing a lot and quite busy at this time. And B: this comment is about creative freedom and the future of the anime industry. Anno is depressed about anime, otaku, stagnation in the field, commercialization, things like that. Nadia was a gigantic fuck-up in his mind due to studio meddling, he is responding to that - it is an external and artistic struggle that he is referring to here. And these "universalized" themes are more like what he was putting into the work. And this makes sense because in Japan at the time you wouldn't really express things about mental health in the western, "capital-D Depression" way.

But since that is how it was expressed in 90's & 2000's America, the Prozac Generation, when these comments went to press in America that got put through that lens. These interviews are summarized in our media with the word depression - it comes up far, far less in Japanese sources at the same time (not zero of course). As an example, take the famous Hiroki Azuma Evangelion essay, "Anime or Something Like It". Depression is never mentioned - instead the societal lens is the focus:

According to Anno himself, this change of attitude came about while creating and producing the work. "Evangelion" was received enthusiastically among anime fans. He said that in noticing that autistic, enthusiast reception, he thought he should changed the entire conceptual structure of the work, and in the end that's what he did. After all of the episodes were broadcast, in what looks like a self-tormenting, auto-destructive critique of anime fans that ANNO would repeat many times in radio interviews, specialty anime magazines, etc., he would clearly reiterate the personal intellectual history of MIYAZAKI and OSHII. All three of them isolated themselve from "anime-like things" owing to their hate of the autism after they achieved overwhelming success among anime fans. 

Lol for openly expressing a hatred of autism, it was 1998 don't cancel him okay. I like its emphasis on the lineage - Anno's themes are not tabula rasa, instead in conversation with others, things western sources didn't pick up on.

Anyway, I am just presenting the negative case here, certainly depression is a part of Evangelion. That reality is just often stretched into a sort of "Eva as Anno's therapy" lens that I think is not justified by what we know of the production. (Not to mention it was a joint production, not Anno's work alone, but I have gone on long enough)

[fore-seer]

SHE’S SOOOO SILLY I LOVE HER SO MUCH

[romance-club-daily]

Romance Club Books's recap! while we wait for the new update~

November/2024 | Credits to: @nvta_rc on SpoilerAreWithUs (Telegram)~

DRACULA: A STORY OF LOVE Istanbul is enveloped in darkness. The heroine and Mehmed, who has taken her, play a game: they eat lukum and answer each other's questions when they find a nut. So the girl learns that Mehmed is the same sultan from the past, he did not die and was not reborn. Then the heroes go to the mosque, where Mehmed leaves the girl, and soon after she is found by Noe. Then we are transported to the past and see how Vlad by cunning and with the help of dark forces defeated the much superior Ottoman army and almost took Mehmed's life, but at the last moment he was stopped by Radu. Then, once again in the present, the heroine realises that in the here and now Vlad could not control his anger and went in search of Mehmed…

HELL AND HIGH WATER Fortunately, the team manages to avoid mines located right on the water. Without deviating from their course, they continue their journey - they talk casually, cook and even meet an orca. But the cosy evening does not end well: right in the middle of the night the protagonist is awakened by the uneven movements of the yacht and the wind moaning outside. Hastily dressing, the girl hears Chand's warning shout, and then the power of the entire water element falls on them. The waves overtake the ship time after time, until finally the terrible thing happens - the element takes away one of the crew members, the dearest to the heart of the heroine, finally and irrevocably. The search continues into the morning, but is unsuccessful, and the coming morning brings no relief. The night storm leaves a salty and corrosive wound of irreparable loss on the heroine's soul…

SONG OF THE CRIMSON NILE Ramesses tells everything he knows about Saamon: he is a very powerful oneiromancer who can kill in his sleep, is close to Pharaoh and is probably hiding in the palace right now. In a strange coincidence, Livius's mentor has a certain Saamon working for him. It is also strange that Pharaoh is afraid of oneiromancers and keeps only necromancers in the palace. But there are no shesmu practising two directions at once. Livius writes a message to his mentor, asking about Saamon. At that moment Seth returns and says that he knows how Eva can communicate with the dead Isman - she needs to get to the Duat. To do this, she will need the help of her friends…

CHASING YOU 2 The protagonist and Sam arrive at the royal treasury from where the tiara was stolen. But no serious evidence, except for rat droppings, is found. Rachel learns that not long ago the commander of the guards got drunk in a pub with two handsome guards. In the evening, the heroine goes at Ezra's invitation to a closed men's club, where he, along with the entertainment collects information. Ezra knows about the kidnapping of the Queen's tiara and encourages the girl to chat with the poor in the slums of London. On her way there she meets the twins and in their company she finds a poor thief pretending to be a dead man, and among his stolen goods is the Queen's tiara. Sensing a catch in everything that has happened, at night the heroine goes to meet the twins, who suddenly start talking about the death of the police commissioner...

W: TIME CATCHER Praevius moves all of the Conductor's power into Nova and partially into Shen, who tried to save her. After that, they lose control of their Presence. Getting out of the Vatican is impossible even after Lucien appears. A fight ensues with the hunters, among whom is Grigorov. He shoots the heroine and at that moment she is covered by Renato. At the last second, Shen still manages to teleport everyone, including the wounded Renato, out of the Vatican. The Alliance, along with the Archivist, immediately set about rescuing Nova and Shen - the Guide's power is placed in a secure facility. The team then returns to the search for the Source. The heroes determine the next place of research - the castle of Catherine de Medici, Blois, but at this moment Vesper brings sad news - right now Renato, never recovered from his wounds, dies…

KALI: FLAME OF SAMSARA Devi has a strange vision of Clara Swinford choking on her own blood. In an attempt to learn more about herself, she turns to Ram - and the latter performs a ritual, putting Devi into a trance where the girl sees scraps of memories of her past lives and the India-British wars, where constant and horrific sacrifices on India's part were in vain. Devi is pulled away from thoughts of her homeland by current affairs - de Clare and the entire Indian delegation have the honour of being invited to a ball at Swinford Manor. After a long assembly and the first dance with her fiancé, the heroine manages to slip into the depths of the estate, socialise with the guests and learn that the Swinfords are among the largest importers of opium. Doran and Kamal are also busy ferreting out English secrets - they illegally sneak into Swinford's study. Eventually, something draws Devi to a virtually empty wing of the estate, where she meets Clara. A brief altercation, the glint of a knife in the moonlight… and Devi's vision comes true. Clara is dead. The maid, a girl from India, helps Devi hide the evidence and mentions Samsara in the conversation, and Devi hears the voice of the newly alive Clara Swinford behind her back. Alarmed, the heroine runs out into the fresh air, where she meets Saraswati. Their conversation is interrupted by eerie screams from the direction of the estate; Sarah begins to speak in a voice that is not her own, her eyes lighting up red. A frightened and uncomprehending Devi suddenly notices drops of blood on her hem and realises that a murder has indeed taken place and that Clara Swinford is dead….

GARDEN OF EDEN MC and Minhyuk are baffled by a phone call that is answered not by words, but by a piercing melody played on a violin. But MC can't devote herself to solving the mystery, as her every day is packed to the minute. After a difficult conversation with Castiel's father, who insists on stopping any relationship, even a friendly one, between his son and Jiyun, the heroine has to go to the filming of the series, record a new song with Leah and have a fun cam. Only Eden does not let anyone go so easily - right during the meeting with the fans a young man with terrible scars on his face threatens the girl on behalf of the club. But she won't be intimidated so easily and MC starts to try harder than ever to get an invitation to a mysterious restaurant that is rumoured to be connected to Eden. Castiel makes a new suggestion: maybe Eden is just a revenge on Cas for the fact that he once managed to escape from them? Then MC, as Castiel's only love, is definitely in danger. The girl demands heavy security from the agency, but right on the stage, while taking part in the show ‘Queendom’, she notices in the front row the very crazy man with creepy scars. Meanwhile, Lin, under the influence of medication and following Eden's instructions, disrupts her own band's concert. Is this really the end of RK3? Lin is led away from the stage, but that doesn't stop him from breaking into the agency and attacking MC in front of Donghyun. The former RK3 leader is led away by security, and then the same classic tune that was on the phone found in Miyeon's possession comes out of the psychologist's laptop….

SOULLESS Vincent, Threxio(a) and the protagonist fly to the ancient Starling Archive. In the abandoned village in front of the magic-sealed entrance, they meet Xanthea, who also wants to enter the archive. Vincent allows her to join them, before binding her with a blood oath. Xanthea finds a piece of crystal in the archives, combines it with two others and obtains the powerful Abyssalite artefact. But her actions are a violation of her oath, and Xanthea burns up in front of everyone, then is reborn from the ashes. It turns out she is the Primordial, a demon who creates other demons. And she also created the protagonist, but the latter is a mistake because she can feel and is able to infect other demons near her with her feelings. And Xanthea's enemy, who needs Abyssalite to fight her, is the Veil itself. Xanthea leaves, locking Vincent, Threxio(a) and the demoness in the archives. The company finds Vincent's ancestor's secret room, takes all the records from there and, using all their powers, teleports home. A few days later, we meet Elliot, who says that the heroine's last client has gone missing, and charges her…

HEAVEN'S SECRET: REQUIEM The squad makes it to the train that takes them to Oxford. The heroes finally get to the Adam base and meet Donovan. From Ian's words, the pastor in the church on the base may know something about the Order and the heroine goes to talk to him. At night in her room she wakes up from a noise in the corridor and discovers a sign of the Order on the door and the inscription ‘We know who you are’ made in blood. Based on information from the pastor, the girl learns the approximate location of an estate where a man with ties to the Order used to live. The squad heads there. On the way, the car is attacked by the infected. Trying to help Lester, the heroine finds herself in danger, but at the last moment she is saved by a mysterious demon hunter. It seems that he is the very person connected with the Order….

ASTREA'S BROKEN HEART The heroine meets the bosses, and they send her with the team to exorcise a demon, so that she can fully familiarise herself with the real work of ‘Astrea’. David conducts a rite of exorcism, but the possessed girls can not be saved. The appraiser returns to the agency, where she meets Raphael and realises that she begins to get used to him little by little. At night she continues to have nightmares, and in the morning she finds bruises on her neck and arms. Taking it for auto-aggression, the girl hurries to Malek to give her a hypnosis session and help her remember what she has forgotten. In a state of trance she remembers everything, and also, without knowing it, gives the professor information about her purpose. After that, together with Felonia, the heroine goes to the victim's sister from the club, and then meets Mikael, who confirms the fact that Raphael is an angel, and also tells that David, Felonia and Cassiel are demons, and Mikael himself is an archangel. The tired heroine goes to bed and has another nightmare….

7 BROTHERS The heroine talks to Jasper, trying to trick him into finding out where he gets his drugs to sell. He calls her to a club to introduce her to the supplier, and after the show he invites her to his new loft for a party. The address shocks the girl, as it is her and Ray's former home. When she returns to Rosewood, the heroine finds the door to her room broken down, her belongings scattered and all her underwear missing. Later it turns out that this is the work of bitchy Sophie, who later tries to make the heroine look bad at a pool party. There she finds out that Jasper is taking drugs to sell to people from Father Grant's drugstore chain. At night she goes to Ray's house, but before she gets there, she witnesses an attempt to shoot a man. Hoping to get away from the police, the heroine says that she works for the FBI, but the information is not confirmed. The whole next day the idea that the agents are not agents at all, and her brother is in danger, does not leave her head. Carter makes contact from an unknown number and reports that he is in Seattle, where he was brought by force in a truck. While contemplating how to help her brother, the girl suddenly finds herself pinned to the ground by a real jaguar…

AND THE HAZE WILL TAKE US Vereya, who appeared in a dream, shows MC the stone hidden deep in the forest and tells her to find it. In the morning, the whole village gathers at the border with the fog, because Vereya's murderer has supposedly been found - it is Milon. He is driven out of the village into the mist. The heroine turns to Volot with a request to teach her priesthood. Together with the apprentice, all the priests and the magician go to the ancient bones of the gods. Ozar tells her dream - the village is destined to burn. Returning after her apprenticeship, the girl sees her deceased sister in the window of the house, which is also clearly seen by Hanna - looking at Vereya, she utters: ‘Mo-rock (I don't remember what was the word for this on english version)’. The heroine tells the priests that she sees Vereya's spirit. Everyone goes to the forest to perform a ritual to exorcise the spirit, but instead something from the mist briefly takes possession of the heroine's consciousness. During the night, a thunderstorm begins, and a dead man's hand appears from a boarded-up hut in the cemetery…

THE THUNDERSTORMS SAGA After a fight with a dragon rider, an elven woman kills him and then discovers his magical bracelet on her arm. After a cold night in the gorge, she is found and rescued by Sha'arnez, who brings her to the palace of Emperor Ro'od. The girl barely has time to recover and clean herself up before she is thrown into the dungeon. The brother of the deceased comes to see her, and the elf comes to realise that this is his revenge. Having gone through beatings and humiliation, the young noblewoman still appears before the ruler of the Ro'od Empire - Foelh ea Eini Lono Ved Vain Firkain, who sentences her to death. The girl is saved from execution by Prince Tai, asking her father for her. In the evening, after inviting the heroine to his chambers, the prince explains his act by saying that he wants to use the girl to make peace between the Ro'od Empire and the Eshai after all, making the Eshai a dragon rider. As she contemplates her conversation with the prince, the noblewoman wants to go for a walk, but instead the guards take her back to the dungeon, where in her former cell lies the disfigured corpse of the guard who tortured her….

SHAKESPEARE'S CODE A few years ago, magic awakened in a girl who was sent to be executed. At the moment of her ejection, an ancient creature also awoke, which became for the heroine not only a Master and mentor of magic, but also a curse. Now the witch receives a task to get into a closed hospital for the nobility - St. Bartholomew's Hospital. There serves a descendant of a Protestant priest who years ago shared M's memories and imprisoned her in artefacts. At the same moment, the girl is hired for service by Lord Dudley, directly related to the Queen, asking for help in investigating the murders of young boys near the asylum. However, arriving at the place, the heroine is attacked by a dark phantom at night, and the morning becomes a witness to another murder…

[blazinghotfoggynights]

Fandom is wild! I love it.

Also, I'm just thinking and those thoughts are wandering out of my fingertips. This is just me wondering "aloud".

Tommy Kinard shows up for 30 seconds, after comments about Buck going on a self-discovery journey, and BOOM we have a new relationship and portmanteau in less then 60 seconds.

After last season, I have zero expectations for this season. I can honestly say last season was the most disappointing of the show for me. That ending was awful.

But back to the speculation and messiness. Okay, let's assume for a minute that Buck and Tommy start messing around. I hate to break it to the general public but it isn't as uncommon as you may think for people in their 30s, 40s, and even older to realize they may not be the sexuality they thought they were or to say, "I don't give a damn", and start exploring different avenues.

Personally, I think Buck has been bi-coded all along. But, that's just my opinion. I think he just hasn't dated any man since he began working at the 118.

As for Eddie, I think when they were on Fox, that character was written to appeal to the...ahem...Fox demographic. He's a macho, muscular, handsome alpha male type: good old southern boy, religious, war hero, badass, survivor who loves his family and country. No way was that character EVER going to be anything remotely other than completely heterosexual.

I also believe that as long as the show was on Fox, no white male lead would be anything other than straight. (Look at the history of the major or recurring gay characters on the show. Hen, Karen, Michael, David, the first guy Michael was dating, Eva, and Josh. Note the ratios and how almost stereotypical Eva and Josh are written.)

With a move to ABC, I think there is a chance for a more...diverse spectrum within the LGBTQ characters; however, I am not sure ABC is willing to write both the male leads, I know Bobby and Chim are strongly written characters, but let's be real, Buck and Eddie are arguably the most popular characters, as possibly bi or gay and put them together. Why are they, and not Bobby or Chim, the most popular, especially with that coveted demographic of women 18-49? When you answer that you have the reason both networks might be hesitant to put two men who live in each other's pockets and co-parent a child together.

In business and marketing, how race and sexuality are approached is still quite influenced by the vocal majority and how they think it works. It isn't right. It silences the voices of those who aren't TPTB. The people who are members of those groups aren't listened to, but that is how it is.

My heart will always beat for Buddie endgame. (And write Buddie fanfic when I have time.) But I have seen how media, marketing, and corporations operate and they will always feed the people holding the wallets keeping them afloat. That is why there is a part of me that believes Buddie is probably only going to exist in fanfic.

Buck, and Buck alone, may be given a bi arc while Eddie is written as 100% heterosexual and permanently paired with a woman, while being supportive of Buck and his partner.

By keeping one canonically straight and making the other canonically bi they can straddle the fence. They can play up the chemistry between Buck and Eddie, teasing a what might or could be situation, while keeping them apart.

I could also be totally wrong. Maybe when Eddie realizes Buck likes men, he decides to add more rainbow to his preferences, give in to the very dirty, and locked down like a bank vault, fleeting thoughts he's had about his best friend over the years, corner Buck alone, tell him drop Tommy or whatever man is d-ing him down, and do the d-ing down himself.

Hey, ABC! You are welcome to use the last paragraph for inspiration!

[gamer2002]

Project Eden's Garden Chapter 1 review

Like I’ve said in the demo review, it is very professionally done. Expect the shmup minigame. Fuck the shmup minigame.

I could live with the random attack patterns causing the attack that forces me to move away being used alongside the freaking all-around barrage that forces me to stay in a very tight area. I could live with the final attack of pursuing missiles happening on a pure chance and then, once used, being reused over and over again constantly.

But I cannot live with my focus gauge being used and drained ever so sometimes when I did not intend to use it. This bs must be fixed. Until then, I cannot recommend trying the highest difficulty.

I think gachapon was also bugged with it duplicate rate, though this time for my benefit. I got 50-80% rate and I was able to still get unique presents pretty constantly.

Anyway, the murder mystery was surprisingly complex and twisted for the first case. Though, around the body discovery I was close to figure it out. More in spoiler section. But, during the Class Trial, I was surprised that Tozu was completely silent through it. Monokuma constantly throws the cast off balance and delivers black comedy, but Tozu just was sitting on his throne. And that was seriously disappointing. He's the character that is supposed to OWN every scene he is in. He did that before the Class Trial, but during it he just... stays silent all the time.

The main draw of the fangame is that we're essentially playing Byakuya type of character. Still, my criticism towards Damon stands from previous review. An anti-hero like him requires a backstory that explains his way of thinking. Why does he think highly of his talent? Why is he jaded and cynical? Why he stops being jaded and cynical during the trial? Why he returns to being jaded and cynical afterwards?

It is interesting to have a protag who, after Tozu reveals there’s a chance to find an advantageous secret, wants to be the one who finds it first. But he doesn’t and doesn’t change much the way of his thinking, so he is a static protagonist. And I begin to feel apathy about him. And I feel apathy about the game.

What I’m afraid the writers do not understand is that DR works as a roller-coaster of emotions, not just by bashing the player with despair. The chapter 1 ends on a negative note with no positives, and Damon also has no development into a better man. How was it in official games?

Further explanation in a spoiler section. But, 7/10. It is a very well done and professional fangame with a very well done opening mystery. But it clear work of amateurs who had neat ideas to do something different and something unexpected here and there. And, because they are amateurs, the didn’t think things through, because they don’t grasp the DR formula to its core. Not when it comes to handling the characters and cast.

Now, I’ll explain why in the spoiler section.

Some thoughts on Eva first…

First of all, Eva had such a lackluster motive and was generally pathetic. The back and forth between being intriguing and pitiful was great, sure. But this all fall apart because it is just so stupid and immature to be ashamed of being a mathematician. And so were stupid and immature those who were making fun of her for being a mathematician. I mean, I can understand mocking somebody who lied about being an Ultimate Liar to add themselves a mystique, but it was such a dumb thing that I hoped that it was going to turn out that Tozu screwed with her by lying about her not being an Ultimate Liar.

Rally, an Ultimate Liar who wanted to be honest about herself but got screwed over by the host lying about her talent would make Eva and Tozu much better characters. Not to mention, she managed to fool the Ultimate Gamer about being a fan of a niche game, so it’s inconsistent that she goes back and forth between being and not being an Ultimate Liar.

I was able figure out early that it was either her or Diana because of that out of place game fan thing being obviously there to get trusted into the room with access to the crime scene. And then Eva giving it away when she pointed out that everyone in the room had alibi. And then Eva cementing it by downplaying the importance of the cord. But Diana did a good job at being a red herring. And, comparing to DR1, 2, and V3, this honestly was a harder first case to guess, despite not using Nagito type of character. So, I have no complaints against her as a killer.

But for a person intelligent enough to come up with such a complex crime, it really was stupid she couldn’t shrug off kids making fun of her for being a nerd and get herself a job at NASA or something. And then she was dumb enough to lie about being an Ultimate Liar. Back when they still could believe there was a reasonable chance of escaping and the other students finding out the truth about her anyway.

Sure, the direction her character took was surprising. Her crime was good. But her character makes no point beyond complaining about everyone being awful. Well, they are, but so were you.

No hope, no despair, just apathy

I consider Makoto and DR1 the weakest protag and game in the series, but they had a good start. Makoto gets manipulated by childhood friend turned star and becomes thorn about her ultimate feelings towards him. But he also gains the respect of Kirigiri. Hajime gets screwed hard by Nagito. But he gains Chiaki and others. Shuichi loses Kaede. But he becomes a man and gains respect of Kaito. Bad shit happens to them but also does the good stuff to balance it out, which is why we are interested in seeing their stories further. Because the players aren’t masochists interested in just watching bad stuff happening to characters. Which is why Kodaka was throwing us some silver lining after the opening case.

Damon gets screwed by Eva and decides to be disgusted at the character he could bond with over the case. There’s no silver lining. Everybody mocks Diana for wanting to become the silver lining.

And it is especially irritating after Damon stood up for her when nobody else did. He was moved by seeing her crying, this is what his narration told us. He displayed a sign of empathy and this made him reconsider the situation. But Damon doesn’t develop from this and he’s just pissed at Diana for still idolizing the man who died in front of her eyes.

At the end of the day, Damon goes though the Chapter 1 of his game and his character makes no development. Unlike all DR protags, he is the exact same character he was in the prologue. It’d fine if he ended up shocking the players with being more heartless than we thought, but he was sympathetic for Eva, then did stand up for Diana, and then was crying at the end of Eva’s execution. So, he displays emotions contradicting with his jaded and cynical character. But those are just moments that seem more like inconsistent writing than proper development towards anything.

Same goes for the cast. They are just as selfish as DR1 cast, pretty much. What I give them is that they aren’t just as stupid. There’s a fine amount of intelligent people among them. But Mark-Jett is the only memorable side relationship here. Grace should have a one with Wolfgang, but they don’t share enough of screen time to establish them properly. Cassidy and Wenona also should be more at odds, due their contrasting believes. I’m honestly surprised they didn’t talk with each other at all, they have infinite potential for conflict.

I like their attempts at organizing themselves and prevent killings, but Kodaka knew what he was doing when he wrote heroic speeches at the end of first case in 2 and V3. Yeah, Wolfgang was full of shit, but you can be both sympathetic and sensible. Desmond, Ingrid and Jean are that, but even they couldn’t back up Diana at the end.

So, everybody is awful. I feel no hope for them. I feel no despair for them. Just apathy.

[worstgirleva]

LULLABY OF THE LAST DAYS is a premade scenario where you play as fantasy heroes working to stop the end of the world. This setting and more are part of Burniung Hearts Forever, currently on sale for 65% off at

[cocogum]

My take on the Yumalia couple if these two officially got together.

(and why it thoroughly differs from Tristeva)

Yugo and Amalia strike me as that one couple who would never marry and never stay in one place since they would explore the world together while being aware that they are both perceived by people to have an ambiguous relationship. I pretty much believe they’d be a peripatetic couple.

Because let’s be honest here, Yugo is NOT an ideal suitor for a princess. (and neither is Amalia for any royal but this speaks more for Yugo than for her)

He’s a protector first and a hero at heart. He’s also an adventurer and loves to move around different places so why should he stay put and act like he can perfectly have (and want) a normal life?

During his adventures, he would most likely give Adamaï or Nora the responsibility of supervising the Eliatrope kingdom while he’s not here. Amalia, on the other hand, won’t even have to rule her kingdom because Armand has already gotten the position (and proper diplomatic) skills for it.

And no, unlike Eva and Dally, Amalia and Yugo won’t be having kids (even if i have a specific au for that. i’m sryyy! even though i’ve been thinking about it, I still can’t picture them having a kid in canon 😭) but Amalia will play somewhat of a role as a (guardian/mother?) figure if Yugo decides to wake up his other siblings (like Mina, Phaerys, Glip, Balthazar) or if she gets to babysit Chibi and Grougal for a temporary amount of time (shit will get wild if she gets to do that. unlike Alibert, she’s gonna lose it 💀).

So in other words, Yugo and Amalia’s relationship is a lot more different than Dally and Eva’s for the reasons below :

Dally and Eva: Made a family, stay in one place, take care of their family, would rather live a normal life rather than go on too many adventures, have some fluffy moments, train and teach their children, family game nights, always got guests around like Goultard and Poo, etc.

Yugo and Amalia: Have NOT made a family, do not stay in one place for very long, go on many adventures, risk their lives, save people daily, sleep in inns or forests, babysit Chibi and the other primordial eliatropes who hatched from their dofus, takes care of each other during their adventures, cuddle sessions, etc.

To be honest, I love the idea that the two couples are opposites from one another cuz it canonically works! 🥰💕💕