#from all the other lessons theyve written

[vaugarde]

been talking w lex and man ngl ive been ragging on lionblaze but i dont really like jayfeather either. hes not worse than lion but hes also just so shitty to dove and ivy and also gets abusive to a literal orphan child and is shitty to the other disabled characters. and i hate how he gets a pass on all that bc “oh he breaks the mould and is funny and its internalized ableism”

[lordiavolo]

nightbringer notes

- surprise guests presents are far less often, i think only 3 per day

- intimacy seems to give nothing and has been broken constantly resetting. i dont think theyve given us any apology reward for it either despite it being in a bug update. they possibly give phone calls but again. Games broken

- its easier to quickly earn dp through levels

- there are more daily tasks to do which makes it more gridning to earn daily dp

- item unlocks are now labeled in devils tree

- asmoxsatan has become one sided canon... which is. Great. :/

- asmo seems to be pushing in a non li direction, and has been completely turned into creep who wants to fuck satan. i thought this game was about fixing problems with the original story?

- things are getting retconned such as asmo and solomons pact being formed hundreds of years before it happened in the original timeline. yet solomon tells mc not to mention theyre from the past because it could "mess up space time continium" okay.

- luke is somehow alive

- no one seems to be mourning lilith until like chapter 10. despite it being so hard on belphie he kills mc in the original timeline, thousands of years later

- satan hates everyone

- mc basically is the reason for everyones early character development including introducing levi to tsl, which has somehow already been written, giving the brothers their rulers of the underworld status

- the brothers dont seem interested in mc at all, who kisses them which does raise their affection, however outside of mammon its never mentioned again (yet)

- theres more information on diavolos dad the demon king, michael, and lilith

- ruritunes are fun and easy. much easier than other rythm games as even if you get a nice as long as you dont outright miss the note you will maintain your combo

- while it seems easier to get through battles i fear in the long run it will be the same. as cards are harder to level, see below

- instead of being able to level the full card (minus leveling up skills) with just one card, you can now only 3 ☆ a card before you have to use multiple karma (?) to increase your skill level to unlock each ☆ level. i honestly have no clue how this system works nor do i have the patience to learn.

- it seems that the only way to get the cards (called jokers) needed to unlock skill levels is through raven, which is now nearly impossible to earn lots of. so far ive made 100s of dp playing, but only 19 raven. you cannot buy raven, which makes it seem like youll have to play the gatcha multiple times to get good cards.

- because of this although the game is seen as more easy to progress in than the original obey me, i presume as time goes on the battles will only get harder, and the cards are already incredibly difficult to level up. with the original game although you needed to do a lot of grinding, and battles werent as fun as ruritunes, it was easy to get to the end, so long as you were dedicated to logging in and read battle guides. now its up to gatcha luck and if you are skilled at rythm games, which isnt as easily learned as a original game battle strategy.

- all voice clips are redone, i presume with the same vas, however they all sound like youtubers trying to minic the official dialogue especially mammon, who sounds like a 12 year old boy with a chest cold

- the game is incredibly buggy which makes sense given it was pushed up to be released months earlier than intended (sept 2023)

- ur+s are easier to obtain as you can get multiple pieces from early hard lessons. ur+s no longer contain animations

- the ur+s being easy to obtain makes me suspect they will be releasing higher ranked cards as gatcha games typically do after a while to increase difficulty and gambling

- there are seemingly no longer daily chats

- you are not allowed to record fabsnaps (in game tiktoks) as the screen goes black

- the chats, phone calls, and friendship ap swapping is all in the same place, the decomm app

- you have to unlock the hard lessons to get all akuber locations, specifically you have to go to level 10 hard, which in order to get cards high enough you need the items in akuber (you can do it other ways)

- they still havent officially announced that theyre "decontinuing" the original app, leading to players still paying and grinding for the upcoming lessons thinking that theyll be doing that. they wont

- as i was writing this it told me a new nightmare was avalible. i tried to open it, even restarted the game but it doesnt show up for me at all, its 8pm and this is when they normally release them so i doubt it was a misclick, i just... literally cant see the nightmare

- upon release of the game they already had a 3000dp/160$ usd charge card mission, preying on gambling addicts and new players who think its a good deal

- you have to pay dp to unlock more comment options and emojis for fabsnap

- the 3d models are horrifying

- theres a new video call feature, which is also horrifying

- the fact the wanderers whereabouts episodes are called situations is hilarious to be. put that beast in a situation

- overall, the story is heartbreaking and nerve racking for orginal fans but i guess its fun if youre a new player, since theyre marketing this game to you, and not people who have already spent 100s to 1000s or more in this game

- cards are non transferable but apparently there will be co-events on both games. i have no idea how this will make sense plot wise to people in the original app, or vice versa

- the brothers now wear their demon outfits for the main story, with their casual outfits being up for sale for 300 raven in exchange raven mirroring the original game

- items in exchange raven are now limited, where as previously you could buy as many as you want, now you are limited to so many per month

- the ui is much more slick and futuristic

annnddd thats it at least for now. be sure to rb and add anything youve noticed. i kept it story lite cuz the story makes me literally nauesous but im up 2 date as well

[tonydaddingham]

Longwinded anon from yesterday again:) The thing about Crowley's self-contradictory narratives about his Fall, which are a warning that the viewer/reader should PROCEED WITH CAUTION, is that Gaiman writes all of them in ways that don't just diminish Crowley's responsibility, but also diminish just whom he was "hanging out" with. At the end of the day, there is nothing in canon or in Word of God *cough* to suggest that Lucifer & co. are anything other than evil according to our understanding of the term. God is also horrible--the novel and the series both take the bog-standard theological position "God's ways cannot be reduced to human concepts of good and evil" and push it to the logical conclusion--but "Lucy and the boys" are not an improvement, even though Crowley conceals that by talking about them as though they're random teenagers hanging out on the street corner getting up to random teenage mischief. (Insert my irritated rant here about the "God ships it!" trope in this fandom, which in the moral universe of the novel/series has horrific implications.) It's a revolt in which the revolutionary leaders are at best identical to the regime they're revolting against, and produce an outcome that's just as oppressive.

Crowley keeps trying to pretend that he didn't choose to do anything, but he's in a plot where free will means that it's paramount that you admit you have choices, make them, and then take responsibility for the results. Both the novel & the series explicitly come out and say this, in different ways, during the climax at the airfield. Crowley /chose/ to hang out with some terrible people, even though Crowley himself is not fundamentally terrible. He's just morally flawed like Aziraphale is (and Aziraphale's own journey in series one involves realizing that he has also /chosen/ to be with some terrible people and taking action to remedy that). But if you decide to chill out with [insert horrible political group here], then other people get to ask some hard questions and arrive at some hard conclusions about your own politico-moral beliefs. There's been a summary of the standard Vimes plot in Discworld circulating around Tumblr for a while, in which Vimes screws up, realizes that he screwed up, and decides to stop screwing up, but still has to accept the consequences of screwing up. That's also Crowley's plot, by and large, except Crowley so far has not been so great with step four.

hello Longwinded Anon✨ hope you dont mind the delay but after your first ask, and now this one, I wanted to ruminate on it all a little more in the hope i can respond with my own thoughts perhaps a little more intelligently... rather than you catching me when my feed was going beserk and also having to work in human-being world which was (as impeccable cosmic timing wills it so) also very busy - hence brain at the time being the consistency of melted chocolate icing.

for anyone else reading, the previous ask is here along with my original dumbass reply, but full response to that and this current ask are under the cut (she's lengthy, apologies in advance) (no seriously, a huge post but in my defence there is a lot to unpack from these asks)

first off, i think your reflection on how crowley was written, honestly, is exactly how he should be written, or at least is a very authentic way to write him.

i feel like some writers write characters the same way that one raises a child; the situations and dynamics you expose them to, the lessons you teach them... and what - over time - comes out are decisions, thought processes, personality traits and opinions that one is sometimes shocked by, surprised by, and even sometimes appalled by. this to me is the most truthful way you can make a character come alive off the page; they feel like theyve not just stepped fully formed out of someone's imagination, but have been nurtured into being exactly who they were always going to be, and even then may still have some growing to do.

so this is how i see crowley's character, in the abstract. he is, the same as any one of us, a product of his experiences and lessons. it doesnt matter if he only exists on paper or indeed on tv; any well written character will feel like they are a person that sometimes you will be shocked, surprised, or appalled by. you'd hope that whatever situation they come across, they make the right decisions. and that's why crowley being an arguably immoral character is so fascinating to me, and right, correct, and appropriate. i think he's written exactly how he should be written for this reason.

anyway i digress. i see your point about how possibly an overarching concept of 'political allegory', as you succinctly put it, morphed somewhat into being something way more subjective and personal, and possibly wasnt meant to be. but respectfully (genuinely welcome your thoughts here, i think i might have misinterpreted), isnt that the entire point? whatever kaleidoscope the concept of objective morality - the argument of right vs. wrong, good vs. evil - is seen through, doesnt it all boil down to how we think and act as people on the smallest of scales?

to me yes, crowley's self justification of his actions are very reminiscent of the idea of responsibility in command, in that he effectively appears to wash his hands of said responsibility when there is a higher entity to own it for him. there is validity to the nuremberg defence as a concept, but it has to be rationalised against the result - "do the ends justify the means?", as ive said before - and in many peoples lives, we literally justify our actions because we're just doing what we're told.

hardly the same scale as say the apocalypse or mass genocide, granted. but my point stands; morality to me is a fallible construct, same as anything else. why is what is evil, evil? and what is good, good? who decides that? and when is a good action necessary for the sake of evil, and an evil action necessary for the sake of good? doesnt that by definition mean that the good action becomes an evil one, and vice versa? how far does the stain spread when it makes contact?

a lot of what i do in my own job could be considered immoral on paper in actual physical words (and i wont go into further detail for risk of doxxing myself lol). but who is to decide that, when i can justify what i do because im told to do it by far more significant people than myself, and that accountability is removed from me? and also because i know that i am doing it for a good reason? things that on face value, in black and white, seem questionable, until i told you the context in which i do them?

context is key to morality. someone that gives to charity and promotes for good causes to the point of being awarded prestigious titles and rewards can be found to have essentially done it in order to commit evil atrocities. and suddenly, that evil taints the good immediately... the good even amplifies the evil of that initial action. what was initially evil is now even more evil because the conduit was something good.

context, and full, complete context, is not only key, but it is inescapably necessary when discussing morality.

this is where i come back to my interpretation of not only aziraphale and crowley, but good omens in general. the bureaucratic setting for this story's concept of good and evil trivialises this, and i think its meant to. the sterile nature of heaven/hell in GO is the perfect backdrop because i think it makes you as the reader/viewer misguidedly downplay the concept of morality, when instead as the reader you should be seeing it even more obviously than before.

yes its obviously comedic and very droll - and i love it equally for that reason; most of us have all had shitty office jobs and equally shitty bosses - but to me the main thing i take away from the sterile, efficient nature of penthouse heaven and the messy, filthy chaos of basement hell is that evil has nowhere to hide in the former, and good is practically a beacon in the latter.

crowley to me - for all the things that i love about him - is the character out of our duo that actively warps amd distorts the context. he plainly chooses to remain blind to certain aspects, because, frankly, it suits him. he completely disregards that he is in fact in charge of his actions, and that he alone is accountable for them. "but he loves the earth, wants to save it, he's threatened by hell, he's traumatised from the fall, he just wants a home", yes, that's all possibly true, and thats the context, but all of it is to his own benefit.

(i will add here that the descriptor of crowley as a "proto-Marxist with demon-class consciousness" was - well, to this house comprising of two political history enthusiasts, VERY funny)

he is, first and foremost a demon, and it's not a demons job to be altruistic, that's true. and crowley has moments of kindness yes (debatable book vs show imo), but does that justify his actions? him doing a bad thing (planning to kill a child) for a good reason (save the world) - shouldnt that, by the same logic, stain the good? in my opinion, it does. because he wants to save the earth for his own ends (which to be fair to him- absolutely understandable), but saving humanity seems to be just a byproduct. and in the same vein, just because he is under pressure and is scared, does not mean that he has any moral high ground in tempting aziraphale to kill warlock.

i still cannot fathom how anyone would try to trick their friend (crush? lover? partner?) into committing such an act. antichrist or not, killing an eleven year old boy. in the show specifically, aziraphale evidently displays discomfort with the idea, and abruptly shakes off the temptation and changes the subject. but even when aziraphale is clearly upset by the prospect, crowley pushes. and pushes. silver tongue indeed. to me, and this again would be a separate post, makes me wonder how convenient it has been all along for crowley to be friends with aziraphale. his feelings may have developed since or he may have had an initial crush, I don't know, but how much of that emerging and later established friendship went hand-in-hand with aziraphale just simply being useful to crowley?

theres no apology for the warlock temptation, and this to me is because aziraphale either doesn't realise that he did what he did, or because he's choosing to dismiss it; either option shows the huge amount of blind and arguably naive faith that aziraphale has in crowley (not going over this again, but ive touched on this here, but put it this way - aziraphale really has his faults where faith is concerned, and imo is part of why he and crowley came to verbal blows about how to handle armageddon - aziraphale has real issues with faith and pedestals). and like you intimated, anon, does crowley realise this? take advantage of this, because it suits him? yes, i think he does.

honestly congratulations to anyone who has made it this far (including you, anon), but the party isn't over yet!

so i made a post earlier about crowley's fall, and how obvious it now seems (anon may agree or disagree) that crowley's reason for falling is either complete bullshit, or was concocted by a higher power than himself. now i said jokingly in the tags that i hope its the latter because im a sucker for a It Was All For A Reason trope, the romantic that i am, but of course it may be neither, or even a bit of both. only time will tell, just have to wait and see.

but in response to your point about the difference (or there lack of) between god and the archangels, and 'lucifer and the guyyyys', it too (as i think youre getting at) demonstrates to me the differences in the respective definitions of revolution vs rebellion. a power vacuum that is replaced with an equally shit alternative is not change, progressive or inert; its just an insurrection that only succeeds to change the letterhead on the stationery.

i take it from the next bit of your ask that you consider free will to be a complete, comprehensive concept in heaven; that they are free to ask questions, to hang out with who they want etc. and i completely agree based on those examples; it must exist. but i come back to my previous point on whether (in essence) morality can truly be defined without context, and if so how this works with free will.

so, i appreciate that there must be the concept of fear in heaven if angels are discouraged (forbidden?) from questioning god, but is there any concept of punishment in heaven at this point, do you think?

my understanding is that there isn't; that falling wasnt a concept until The Fall, so what else could happen to an angel that starting exercising free will a bit too far? do you think it would follow the same bit (refrained from the word 'gimmick' here) as heaven being a corporate office; if you ask god a question she doesn't like, do you get stuck on the recycling roster? /j

the archangels are portrayed as being practically morally vacant; is that not similarly punishable? i guess what im leading to is: do you think crowley, at this point, whilst able to exercise free will, even understood the implications of hanging out with these people? would he have continued to do so if he had had the benefit of experience to know why they were a Bad Thing that he Shouldnt Get Involved With - experience of which presumably he didnt have before he fell?

obviously this doesnt invalidate the simple fact that crowley doesnt appear to have learnt from his experiences when he rises again as a demon and up until where his story is now. but if crowley is still mentally and emotionally stuck at the moment in time that he fell, stuck in that moment like a perpetually shaken snowglobe, unable to accept that that was the consequence of his actions, does that say more about his character, or more about whether his fall was justifiable in the first place? or... is that the point?

i hope you don't mind that i barely talked about aziraphale; my mental acuity has dropped significantly in the last two hours, but in any case i hope to see you in my asks again soon, anon✨

[rigelmejo]

In unrelated language stuff. Japanese really is... a mountain. Its a language I try a lot of studying experiments with, for one because its going to be many more years of study so I'm having fun, but also 2 because it has so many hurdles i personally have difficulty with so I am always hopeful some experiment will help things I study click better.

Like. Conjugation was hard to me in french, and there were english cognates to lean on, it is a fairly regular language conjugation wise (japanese has more exceptions i tend to forget how to conjugate). Then in japanese, everything being a very different word order combined with the information dense conjugation makes me even more confused.

A few things worked quite well for me in japanese study. One was nukemarines LLJ memrise decks, which after 2 years of studying other things, i crammed in 6 months and went from 300 words known from Genki and maybe 100 hanzi from Heisig RTK (yes i really didnt learn much in 2 years) to 1000-2000 words recognized and basic grammar and able to read Yatsubo and play Kingdom Hearts 2 in japanese (granted i know the game very well in english). Ever since then, ive been able to read manga and look words up to learn, or follow roughly a lets play of a game i know. I can never focus on anki long, but i recognize its use, especially when i was using the LLJ deck which had hanzi, common words in sentenced, and grammar. Since then, i havent used as organized of a resource. So i squander a lot more time, trying to figure out what to study.

Then I did Clozemaster sincerely for a couple months once in japanese. I think i only got through like 1000 cards. But it FINALLY helped me understand stuff like される られる word endings. Tragically, i forgot what they mean. But forca solid 6 months after my rime with Clozemaster cramming, i finally understood a lot of the grammar that had been confusing me. I desperately need to refresh that knowledge (if anyone has any good quock grammar explanation notes theyve seen). I only remember teimasu is like "ing" doing verb ending in english.

And I did japaneseaudiolessons, and the old glossika cd lessons, on and off. And each time i use audio for a while, i do make good progress. I seem to learn very well from audio. In particular, hearing so much japanese FINALLY got me used to the word order. So i struggle much less to follow sentences. Whereas before the massive listening practice, i would often lose the object or subject by the time i heard the verb. So i could not figure sentences out before, unless they were written, since id forget so much while trying to keep track of which word was which function. Lots of listening to audio lessons really helps me get into this rythm of intuitively knowing the order of the words and remembering the grammar through the whole sentence. Thats partly why i keep trying to study with more audio: its rhe biggest leap in terms of being able to understand japanese more instantly, to comprehend AS i hear or AS i read later (after audio study). I just cannot find another way to get my brain to internalize the word order, except LOTS of listening. The audio lessons have helped my reading skills SO much, all of my japanese listening skills so much, because now when i see eords i know i can comprehend what theyre doing in the sentence without thinking about it. And if i hear unknown words i can tell immediately if theyre subject object adjective verb time or a helper word like very/suddenly. I do plan to switch to reading study next, once I feel my vocabulary is solidly more than 2000 words (ideally 3000-5000 but lol im not sure ill find audio lessons that truly teach that much).

So yeah. Im studying japanese and chinese, on and off, as usual. And its always funny and frustrating when it hits just how much more I understand chinese. I took a 6 month ish break from studying ANY language. So ive been listening to audio lessons to review things i knew before, in Chinese and Japanese right now.

In chinese, i listened to maybe 4 hours of audio lessons review, and 2 hours of SCI mystery audiobook (i did not follow too much but hearing so many words helped jog my memory). Its been a week since starting review. Now? Well first of all, if i look at a chinese webnovel the READING skill comes back within 1 chapter and comes back before i eben did any purposeful reviews this past week. My reading skills in all languages seem to break down/be forgotten/get rusty the least. Second: now that I've reviewed for a week, I can understand almost all words in The Untamed (and the eordw i dont know i have been quickly google translatkng just to realize ITS WORDS I KNEW I JUST FORGOT THEM. Like 鬼 i cant believe i forgot gui its one of the first words i learned! Its in a lot of stuff i read and watch lol! Or 放手 i really forgot fangshou existed, i swear my brain just held onto hanzi as images fine but when i just HEAR a word i dont recognize it until i review it again... hence why SO much listening stuff im doing right now). I listened to 默读 audio drama last night and for the first 20 minutes i followed everything. I would guess i know at least 90% of the words (if i havent forgotten some - as with 镇魂 i knew over 95% of the words 8n most chapters right before i took my 6 month study break, and i also could read modu extensively at that point and get the main idea... since i knew thw english translation to guess bits). To be fair? With the audio drama, i did have the aid of knowing the plot already. But ive known modus plot a LONG time, and in the past i struggled to follow the audiodrama anyway, because compared to the audiobook it had less details forcme to use as a crutch to figure out what scene i was hearing. So me listening to rhe audio Drama yesterday, and following so much? Great. Ive also been listening to the mdzs audiobook, which has been brain frying as i started a week ago before realizing i needed to review the sounds of words lol. But also brain frying because the opening monologue words confuse me In Text form, so in audio form it took me 4 listens to realize they were saying the jiang jin nie lan clans fought wei wuxian etc etc. I heard meng and just completely forgot it meant clan, so my brain kept doing things like "is Xmeng a word i know?" It took me 2 listens to realize the next part was Wei Wuxian in mo manor, and 4 listens to realize mojia was MO FAMILY because id been going "mojia sounds familiar, do i know that word?" The last few listens lol. I also forgot fuchou! How! Anyway. Its an accomplishment. I have never had as much success listening to a BRAND NEW audiobook in chinese of something i havent read before, and been able to understand this much. Its not a lot, im just grasping a lot of phrases and the main scene ideas. And i do have my knowledge of The Untamed plot to help me guess. But its going better than listening to audiobooks used to go. And i see a Huge improvement in dialogue. When people talk now (except the guy who tells exposition stories), i find those words are easiest to recognize and quickly remember again. I think part of it is just: dialogue tends to be more direct communication of ideas, whereas descriptive narration can get creatively phrased and meander and discuss details in phrases i havent heard as much as ive heard conversational phrases. Like when i listened to SCI audiobook last weekend, i could follow some of the dialogue portions great, like at crime scenes, arguing, with their boss, it was the descriptions in between where id get lost for a while.

Its just sort of frustrating and sad how much stusying japanese is like hitting a brick wall and learning tiny chip by tiny chip as it wears gradually, and also grateful my mind clicked with chinese because im so over the moon i did NOT have to struggle as much with chinese. For chinese i thankfully could pretty much do exactly what i did when learning to read french, and i improved on that old study plan, and as a result chinese improvement went by faster than when i initially studied french and floundered for a while. I was reading priest novels by the end of year 1 of study (with a click translator like Pleco). The study plan was simple, worked fine. The confusing parts of grammar clicked with enough reading (after maybe 100 chapters of things), and now (likecwith french) my main grammar issues with chinese are learning to produce them right in speaking and writing. But in reading it just clicks and i know what it means immediately. I dream of the day ill finally get whats going on with japanese verbs and grammar ;-;

[oathofkaslana]

Kiana Kaslana for the ask game

YAYAYAYYAYAYAYAYAY ty <3

ask game here

My first impression: oh a lot of people seem to like her? she seems very silly.

My impression now: the things i would do just to see her again oh my god i miss her so so so much my everythinggirl..... every part of her story is so poignant to me and i feel like it only wouldve been elevated if they lingered a bit on points theyve already brought up (ex: her complicated feelings w siegfried)

Favorite thing about that character: aourghourghourgh.. her being sooooo stubborn. its super endearing and gets her into trouble all the time i loveeee when a quality is also a flaw <3. in terms of writing i really like hi3 changing her to be a clone since it provides suuuch a fun deviation of the chosen one trope and makes her resonating w the cocoon of finality so much more satisfying

Least favorite thing: early hoyo writing where kiana was written as a pervert sucks a lot esp since the jokes often relied on her not obliging by boundaries :/ it doubly sucks bc like. they were young teens then thats so fucking weird.

Favorite line/scene: EVERLASTING FLAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! kind of a cheat answer but i love it so so so so so much. chapter 25 in general god. i loeveee kiana being put on trial by the herrscher of dominion and the layers of this herrscher defined by a collection of puppets and a belief in humanitys inherent worthelssness challenges k423's beliefs about herself as a clone and has her stubbornly refusing to believe in the worst in people :'''')

Favorite interaction that character has with another: ough there are so many i dont think i can choose dear god. im just gonna list various ones w different characters. this ones really small but w siegfried theres this one page where he falls asleep on the floor and kiana puts a blanket over him and curls up next to him and he wakes up, putting the blanket on her insteda (she is still on the floor.) its so so sad to me he's a pretty shitty dad to her at that moment especially but :(((( another strong contender is when he meets theresa again and starts asking abt donghua and theresas lambasting him about not even asking about kiana and he admits that he cant or he'll get distracted im going to fucking cry...... lament of the fallen is such an easy one for mei so ill say them in chapter 32 :''') kiana opening up abt her talk with himeko and audibly choking up when she talks about it i feel sick dear god. both telling each other how important they are to each other and the hope they give each other :' kiana grabbing her hand and telling her they'll go home togteher OUGHHH w bronya its definitely their goodbyes to each other. the fact that bronya is so sad that she makes an excuse to leave early because she doesnt want kiana to see her cry and schedules them for video game nights so kiana isnt lonely dear fucking god. another contender is ofc in everlasting flames where she defends kiana and uses the HoR powers to tie her hair up i feel sick theyre soooo sisters to me himekos also really really really hard bc both final lesson and chapter 25 exist but i think final lesson takes it for me. ive said it over and over again but himeko actively not wanting to die but choosing to anyways because she doesnt want kiana to die (even though this goes against the protocol shes been living and teaching by) and that ultimately being the thing that keeps kiana going OUGHHHHHHH. also fuck. the lyrics to nightglow. w sirin its of course that part of graduation trip who would i be if that line wasnt there. fuckkkk. her putting her hand back to align with kianas too :(

A character that I wish that character would interact with more: CHEWING ON MY WALLS. SO MANY PEOPLE. primarily i wish we got to see more of her with like. bronya, theresa, sirin, bianka. i know we got a lot of bronya and sirin alread ybut. consider there couldve been more..

Another character from another fandom that reminds me of that character: this is so fucking humiliating. bruce wayne. he doesnt struggle w his humanity the exact same way as kiana does but they both struggle with/are motivated by feelings of guilt and love of humanity. also. arc city kiana. i rest my case.

A headcanon about that character: aurgh ok sm i havent posted about before. man. i just think she has such complex feelings during her st freya days. i think she'd stay up late and think about her dad or think about days where she was didn't have the domesticity she has now and feel so thankful for it. i think st freya dorms was both hard and easy for her to settle into. i think she and bronya have spent some nights staying up together playing video games because they both feel that.

A song that reminds of that character: i'm still here by the john rzeznik o7 its soooo himeko and kiana to me.

An unpopular opinion about that character: i don't think i have any unpopular opinions about her actually skjhbdfbhd

Favorite picture:

these two :''

[my-lunaberg]

Okay, Im pretty sure Ive reached the point at which I originally stopped watching so. yay

To celebrate this occasion I thought I should talk a little about some of the complaints Ive seen about the finale in my for you tab because yeah, I just cant resist looking at it so Ive been spoiled pretty severely and also been dealt a good amount of psychic damage. But hey, its about the journey, not the destination and Im already in Advanced Therapy for my mental illnesses anyway

The two most complaints Ive seen are, it wasnt cathartic and it sends a terrible message. Now, I cant comment on the catharsis bc I havent watched it yet and also Im not even sure if that would be a deal breaker for me. Like, anti-climaxes can be very powerful, Schlatts death is one of my favorite moments in the entire dsmp düfor that exact reason. But that all depends on the execution so I'll save my more detailed thoughts for after Ive actually watched it

The complaint that I wanted to talk about in more detail now is the one about it 'sending a terrible message'

I spend a lot of time watching and analyzing kids shows specifically on the basis of "is this a good show for kids?" Like, kids will watch anything you put in front of them bc they dont know any better so I think its important to put something in front of them that encourages creativity, critical thinking and sends messages of compassion good and other things I cant think of off the top of my head. When analyzing kids shows like this its very important to keep that target demographic in mind because what kids like and need is often different from what teens and adults would consider well-written and thats fine. Theres plenty of kids media that can be enjoyed by teens and adults as well, but its perfectly fine for kids media to only cater to kids and even be actively boring for older demographics.

Keeping the fact that kids media should be analyzed differently than more mature media because its written differently, I dont think it controversial of me to say that, unlike kids media, media for teens and adults doesnt need to teach anything. The way I see it, kids media has messages while adult media has themes. Obviously theres a bit more nuance to this, but Im not trying to write an essay here, Im trying to complain about fandom shit

And I know this might be a hard pill to swallow for some people bc this is the internet where 7 year olds and 17 year olds are basically the same because theyre both "minors" with absolutely no nuance, but teenagers arent children and theyre not so impressionable that seeing a character in a minecraft roleplay be sympathetic towards their abuser is gonna suddenly make them forgive their own abusers if they didnt want to do that before or make them blind or to IRL abuser or whatever man, I dont even really know what exactly the concern is. Like, idk how to tell you this but the line between fiction and reality is not that thin and if the media someone consumes affects them that much theyre either very young or there are some underlining issues that storytellers are not obligated to account for.

Not to mention that dsmp is a story told from a bunch of different perspectives by a bunch of unreliable narrators who are all varying levels of shitty. Like, in kids shows the protagonists and the non-anatgonist supporting characters are role models and vehicles to teach messages, that doesnt fucking apply here, theyve literally made jokes about everyone being an unreliable narrator i dont know why anyone would think this is the kind of series where theyre actively trying to impart some kind of lesson, its literally Fucked Up Shit Happens feat, Fucked Up People: The Minecraft Roleplay

To end this weird long rant, Id like to say that I do understand why people would be upset with the ending (from the details I was able to gleam anyway) and as much as I think complaining about the 'bad message' is invalid and frankly kindof weird, being upset is still totally fine and valid.

Also, if you'd like to discuss this with me I'd appreciate it if you didnt spoil me any further. Like yeah, I already know the broad strokes but I'd still like to have a semi-'organic' experience watching this yknow

Anyway, have a nice day

[mihotose]

megumi invited kaho and sayaka to a cafe thats said to be the best photo spot in kanazawa since high school girls need to keep up with trends

all of the members are helping out at this cafe and the poster girl is megu-chan! ☆ since they helped out at the ryokan theyve been receiving more requests like this, so theyve been helping out to revitalise the area

the real reason megumi was visiting cafes was for research! she wanted to make the best photo spot in kanazawa, or even hokuriku! plus it totally counts as studying!!! sayaka and tsuzuri are on sweets duty, kozue is on drinks, kaho and ruri are on interior decoration, and megu is the general supervisor ☆

sayaka feels she has received so much from hasunosora. since theyre out in the mountains and there isnt much entertainment the sports clubs form leagues to compete against each other and they invited sayaka to join in in june. she feels shes gained a lot of friends, and shes been laughing more than she did when she first enrolled

tsuzuri can stand. shes pretty good at it. shes really glad to be able to work at this cafe. being needed by somebody is to "stand" by them. she feels relieved when she can do that. when someone says goodbye she feel like molten lead is stuck in her chest. but when she sees that customer again that feeling leaves out of her mouth with the thanks she puts into saying "welcome back!"

ruri's always wanted a quiet cafe like this. its always nice to relax as a customer but its not like the maids can zone out...

ruri thinks everything is fun in autumn. loads of people arent good at marathons and sometimes the atmosphere of the class feels like the seven circles of hell but looking back theyre fun. plus the fish are great this season!

clumsy maids do appear in stories a lot and kaho did almost drop a parfait just now... but shes totally not like that!! shes a big sister and helped out at home this was absolutely a coincidence!!!

what was most difficult for kozue to adjust to when she moved to the dorms was bathing. they each have a limited time to use the baths but kozue has long hair and it takes a while to wash and dry it. however when she talked to everyone else it turns out she wasnt the only one with this issue

kozue has been to the cafe theyre helping at before but its normally a lot quieter than this... it seems the service industry is similar to streaming, so it makes sense that the club fits in here

megu's favourite food from the hasunosora canteen is the tamago kake gohan

cotton=utopia tsuzuri: wait! don't leave me behind! i don't want to just watch your back because im not good enough... (her feelings about sayaka in episode 13)

birthdays are meant to be happy things but they make tsuzuri feel like all the air trapped in her lungs is coming out of her mouth with a sigh. she wants to take a step forward from last year, when she couldn't do anything, because now she knows she can do something!

kaho is the type to instantly forget her dreams but the other day she had a dream that stuck with her. she dreamt she was on a big stage like the one she performed on in tokyo recently, and kozue-senpai was next to her and she looked beautiful. everything was the same as normal but on her other side was someone else!! she's been thinking a lot about the open campus recently, that's probably why

mirakura park have become school idols who work hard every day to bring fun to everyone! well, megu-chan is already perfect, so ruri is the only one working hard...

ruri likes playing games when cleaning the classroom, as long as its clean in the end its fine!

after the open campus one of kaho's friends told her she looked like benkei. but she really wanted their live to be a success!! since she's the senpai of everyone who came to visit, right?

kaho says tsubasa la liberté was written by "our senpai's senpai." she thinks its really cool to be able to write music... she wishes she had asked her mom for piano lessons... but she wouldn't have been able to go to lessons much as a kid anyway. its not too late though! she wants to be able to tell her future kouhai that she wrote a song!

now that kaho has finished a november where they performed at the open campus, in tokyo, in aichi, and the fes×live her first week of lives when she first joined is kind of embarrassing... they werent even lives she was just singing songs she knew... but now not only is she doing much longer lives than back then but she's also much more satisfied with herself!

showing future kouhai around school made kozue nervous at first but really, shes always teaching her kouhai. it was just like being with groups of lots of kaho-san, sayaka-san, and rurino-san, cute

kozue says tsubasa la liberté makes her feel like a kind light is blessing the club's future

oogami sachi- sachi-senpai taught kozue many things. what a school idol is. after all, if you just want to sing you can just be a singer. she found the answer from her days spent with her senpai, the stage created by coming together as one with her friends and everyone supporting them. but even in the process of their simple everyday lives is a brilliance... kozue's stubborn heart was changed over time. they will fly, with this song that sachi-senpai gave them in their hearts, to their next stage, love live!

sayaka thinks she understands people who love the moment the rain stops now. that day, when the rain cleared, she saw sachi-senpai's face when watching tsuzuri-senpai's performance, like she was spreading her wings

the way back from the performance was fun. there were so many puddles that sayaka ended up stepping into one while trying to avoid them, and it made everyone laugh. she hadnt seen tsuzuri-senpai smile in a while, and it reminded her of the time kozue-senpai told her how beautiful tsuzuri's profile is. sayaka likes when the rain stops now

tsuzuri finally figured it out. but it took so long. even though shes happy, shes frustrated. even though shes frustrated, shes happy. she only vaguely understand what was so good about the sky after the rain but she still loved it. the answer was the sky. its always been something shes never been able to reach but its been the same sky all along. she never thought to reach out, she didnt notice it, she couldnt admit it, she'd given up on it. but shes different now. the sky told her she has wings. her wings told her theyll always be with her

tsuzuri started running because she felt she would be left behind. it was her first time, so she fell, and it hurt, but she wasnt alone. she was able to get back up because kozu and megu supported her, and kozu and megu also had a reason to get back up. thats why she kept running. saya was waiting and told her to do her best and run. because she was so angry at sachi, she believed it. and shes glad. because she finally figured out that she can fly!

working as a tour guide was tough for ruri. she didnt want to make any mistakes and she didnt want to disappoint. she hadnt used this much battery in a while... sorry megu-chan... but it was fun! ruri wanted to make it fun and she did!

as soon as she heard it ruri knew tsubasa la liberté was a song for when the rain had stopped. and it had to have been written by someone who knew megu-chan and the other senpai last year really well. its the first time megu-chan and the others were performing it, so ruri and the others had to be their wings! carry them out of the difficult period last year and carry megu-chan to the fun stage of this year! ruri is going to carry megu-chan, the whole club, and everything on her back! shes going to fly

megumi knows shes not a good person. tsuzuri always says that she is, or that shes nice, but its not true. shes moody, selfish, and selfcentred. tsuzuri only thinks shes good because tsuzuri has a good heart. tsuzuri should be like that forever

megumi's glad tsuzuri seems happy now. megumi always says what she has to say, so when shes mad she lets everyone know, but tsuzuri isnt like that. shes like an egg without a shell and she gets sad easily. it can get annoying but theyre friends. megumi says a girl like tsuzuri deserves to always be smiling

by the way, oogami sachi is a total liar! she said she was fine when things were not fine, and when they got really bad she just left without saying anything! she kept saying she couldnt write music or lyrics so megumi spent all of last year listening to mostly traditional songs!!! so she had to swallow her pride and ask kozue to teach her how to write music. oogami sachi! youre watching this aren't you? listen to this! next time you see megumi tell her the same thing you told tsuzuri! and tell her you love her! then she'll forgive you!! for quitting the club. sachi-senpai, your cute kouhai is waiting ♡

when kozue, tsuzuri, and megumi joined the club their only senpai was a second year. sometimes she'd stare off into the distance. kozue thinks when she did that she was remembering her own senpai who had graduated. it seems she had been quite loved by those third years (*99th)

as usual, kozue said some selfish things and wasnt always good enough. she might not be getting anything from santa this year. but its alright. she received so much from everybody already. if she asked for anything more than that she'd end up on the naughty list for sure

when kozue was a child she made friends with santa at the otomune family christmas party. he gave her a present for being a good girl and he liked the ballet dance she did for him. so she didnt understand when she heard people say santa wasnt real; he comes to her party every year! she'll be busy with love live this year though, so she hopes santa won't be lonely

the hierarchy at hasunosora is pretty lax, except for in the laundry room. its always busy no matter what time it is, and it feels like senpai get priority. megumi didnt care, but tsuzukozu respected it. it was nice having sachi-senpai with them at times like that though, anyway

the megu-tou must be megu's santa, since they support her so much! in that case, could they give her a ticket to the love live finals for christmas...? joking! when she said that kozue scolded her and said theres no point if she doesnt win her place on her own merits

kaho's favourite place is the spot on the way to school where sasanquas bloom, and she always stops to look at them. she likes how they bloom in the cold

kaho still gets excited about christmas when it turns december. it reminds her of childhood christmases where her parents didnt get mad at her for staying up late and bought her cake and books

where ruri was studying in california it didnt snow. she really likes the feeling of snow falling onto and melting on her skin, and it makes her sad when she hears people viewing the snow as a nuisance, maybe because she left japan. when she came back she liked it more than when she left

ruri likes watching the snow through the window, especially when you get snowed in. kaho thinks its boring to stay in all the time but ruri likes it, especially when theyre in a special place. kaho wants to make the time spent inside fun so ruri wants to make looking outside fun for her

the petite pâtissière outfits were megu-chan's idea of course! ruri was worrying about if it suited her but megu-chan insisted she did

ruri has been gaining confidence lately. since everyone has been telling her the super cute outfits megu-chan has been picking out for her really do suit her. when she told megu-chan about it she decided they should go shopping!! now that theyre in high school the two of them have been going shopping a lot together, but this time they were especially happy and time passed super fast!!

what megu-chan likes about her outfit are the ribbons and the strawberry patterns and that the hem looks like whipped cream! and she matches ruri-chan!

recently ruri-chan has been getting more used to wearing cute outfits. megumi always had to tell her she'd look cute in them before. thats why its important to repeat it! it took a while to get hari-chan to shake paws as well!

ah, hari-chan is megumi's dog. short for harino. the other day she went to her parent's house with ruri-chan, and when she wasnt looking ruri-chan went to talk to hari-chan! "um... i was megu-chan's best friend first. im not saying you have to return her but how about we share?" isnt ruri-chan so cute for having to stand up against a dog?

ruri is starting to get christmas cards from the friends she made in california. theres a lot happening with the club at the moment, but the cards are giving her energy

tsuzuri's family lives in the area, so she likes christmas because she can spend time with her family. they dont often celebrate on the 24th or 25th, but they do hold christmas parties

tsuzuri wont get down. no matter how hard it is, she'll do her best. she's always looking for something she can do. compared to last year, this is nothing

as christmas approaches, another special day approaches for the club. the love live hokuriku regional tournament. its a stressful time, so sayaka thinks they should come together and support each other. and please support them yourself! your expectations for them are their strength

to help against the gloomy atmosphere at school nowadays megumi has decided on a christmas live! she may not be able to do much, but she can do this! cute poses in cute outfits with a cute ruri-chan makes for a cute live!

the other day megumi was walking down a corridor when a girl called her "fujishima-san" and handed her a letter before running off. a fan letter! it said, "i support you. please do your best as a school idol."

actually, megumi gets a lot of fan mail from other students. whenever she does a live they leave them in her shoe locker. obviously shes pleased but she wishes they told her directly!! maybe because everyone here is an ojou-sama and thats too embarrassing? or are they scared of her because she always has to do extra lessons?

link to the future is a song created by all six of them, but at first they couldnt get it done because they had so many things they wanted to do. so, they decided to use dream believers as a guide, a song thats been passed down for generations

things that cant be achieved alone may be done if one connects to make two, three, or even more. kozue isnt good at asking for help from others, so its an idea she couldnt have thought of on her own. she was able to perform link to the future because of everyone's support... and kaho. that girl shines as bright as the sun emerging from behind a dark cloud. she will surely continue to brighten the school idol club

everyone helped write link to the future, and they spent hours working on it, trying to figure out how three units could participate as one. december was like a storm. kozue won't be able to forget this winter

they did it! ruri did her best! and if it doesnt work out then they should all go on a trip somewhere! alright... it seems like megu-chan and the other senpai were worrying it would go wrong more than ruri did. obviously ruri did her best, but she hopes she can help out until they get the results. she, kaho-chan, sayaka-chan, they all worked so hard. no matter the results, she wants everyone to recognise their hard work

actually, ruri's nervous about the results. but if she gets too on edge she'll totally ruin the vibes of the clubroom! so she's going to be all smiles, okay!

megumi already knows she and ruri-chan are the best so she thought she'd help out cerise bouquet and dollchestra by lending them her power! no, theres no other reasons! and its not the other way round! whatever, as long as everyone enjoys themselves

mirakura park loves having fun! and kaho's idea sounded fun so thats what they decided to do! well, megumi thinks that if they hadnt kaho and ruri wouldnt have enjoyed it. especially ruri-chan. she'd have probably been stuck in bed if mirapa had made it to the finals and refuse to perform. kaho's idea saved megumi's partner, so she owes her one. well, she helped everyone get here too, so its mutual!

the fear of losing something is scarier than never having it at all. tsuzuri doesnt want to lose the school idol club, so shes going to do her best. shes going to dance, because she cant bear to lose everyone watching

tsuzuri will always be chasing after her dreams. fun things, happy things, amazing things. shes going to wish for the fun of today, for tomorrow. if you pray for it for today, it wont come, but thats okay. when she prayed the day before yesterday for yesterday, it was fun. thats why shes chasing after her dreams for tomorrow, today and the dreams for the day after tomorrow, tomorrow. she wishes tomorrow will be more fun than today

to them, this stage was more than a reflection of their achievements of the past year, and it was definitely a big success. the view from the wings was beautiful. originally sayaka had been scared of reflecting upon her performances, and they feel like a long time ago now. but thats why she can look back now and be glad she did her best

prism echo DR lore

you, the traveller, have reached the world tree village. it has no inns, however

kaho is the shrine maiden, and is the only person in the village who can hear the world tree's voice. she was born in the outside world, but was orphaned and was then adopted by the village, who treat her like their own

a kind goddess lives in the world tree, and when kaho becomes good enough at dancing, she'll make the village bloom with flowers!

when kozue was still a sapling, a kind fairy built this village-- indeed. she is the world tree, though the cute shrine maiden calls her a goddess

sayaka is the village chief and the leader of the fairies

the village does not normally invite people to stay permanently, besides the shrine maiden and a fairy that arrived recently. tsuzuri-san... rolls around her room, eats her food, and shakes off the gatekeeper to play at the top of the world tree. but she dances the most beautifully of them all

dance is very important to fairies. they dance to calm natural disasters, to bless the world tree, and to grow their food

tsuzuri had travelled a long time through mist before reaching the village. she didnt count the days because she knew it would make her feel bad. she was so happy when the village told her she could stay. it had been the first time she'd been told that

there are many groups of fairies, all with different values, and if you dont understand what they value, you get kicked out. what this group values is the world tree, and even though tsuzuri doesnt really understand the world tree, they still said she could stay

ruri is the gatekeeper. if any strange people arrive its her job to sort it out, but shes very selective with whom she lets enter! squirrels come to play all year too

at first ruri thought being the gatekeeper was a boring job. dangerous people rarely come and the squirrels run up and down her all day. but she realised that she gets to be the first person to meet new people to the village with this job

sometimes a girl comes and hangs out with ruri to kill time because she doesnt have a job and she gets away with it because shes cute

in a village like this there isnt much to do so megumi just sleeps all day. she likes it though. and the gatekeeper works hard! her job seems to be praising people who work hard

actually listening to the hasu card voice lines now

vivid phrase tsuzuri and grace phrase kozue are the outfits they wore to promote the school idol club where kaho and sayaka first saw them perform!!

i have no idea how to take those early mirapa cards. are they just. fantasising about performing together. ruri literally is not even in the country at this point in the story

megu talking about editing a video before trailing off and saying "kozue and tsuzuri are so pretty..."

megumi rented out a photo studio for her megunyan stream??

kaho saying she probably wont be as competent (as kozue) when shes a second year herself <- shes a second year now!!!

tsuzuri's "i want you to know me" to sayaka(?)

「運命���ったのかもしれないわね。どうしてかしら、花帆さんを見た時思ったの私はきっとこの子と一緒にスクールアイドルをやっていくんだって。まだまだ長い道のり、これから先も何が起きるかわからけれど、それでも私は花帆さんを選んだ。蓮ノ空女学院に進学すると決めた時のように ね。その選択を絶対に後悔なんてしないわ。初めて一緒にステージに立ってみて、隣に立って笑う花帆さんを見た時に胸の奥が暑くなった気がしたの。春は出会いの季節、それに恋の季節って言うでしょ？もしかしたら私は花帆さんのスクールアイドルとしての笑顔に恋をしてしまったのかも」

kozue: maybe it was fate. i dont know why, but when i saw kaho-san i thought to myself "im definitely going to be a school idol with this girl." theres still a long road ahead of us, and i dont know what will happen in the future, but i chose kaho-san, just as i chose to go to hasunosora. i will never regret that decision. when we stood on stage together for the first time, and i saw kaho-san smiling next to me, i felt a warmth in my heart. they say spring is the season of new encounters and the season of love, right? maybe i fell in love with kaho-san's school idol smile

the voice lines for the card of sayaka waking up tsuzuri for school are so long like a full minute longer than the others. its mostly tsuzuri saying how thankful she is she has sayaka standing by her and that she worried sayaka wouldnt know How grateful she is. so she gave her a nice acorn she found and sayaka gave her a cookie back

*tsuzuri gave kozue and kaho acorns as thanks in the main story too for making her realise everything sayaka was doing for her

they (ceribou + dollche presumably) all came up with the kunpuu no shirabe outfits together! the translucent fabric layer on top was kaho's idea

while kozue was making the kunpuu no shirabe outfits kaho kept leaving practice to check how she was doing and kozue thought she was like a puppy before thinking that wasnt appropriate for her to think as her senpai (lol)

sayaka (and kaho?) made the stage for scapegoat (and ouka ranman?)

tsuzuri often feels (felt?) lonely after a performance and it makes her want to do another show to feel the same emotions. kozue had to stop her from doing it the fourth time

sayaka saying she obviously cant know fully tsuzuri's greatness but she does want people to know the tsuzuri that she knows, and shes annoyed she wasnt able to properly convey that to kaho when they were talking about how much they love their senpai

tsuzuri didnt recognise herself in the photo of she and kozue from last year. she doesnt really remember her face since she only sees it in the mirror

tsuzuri said something about memories remaining in a form such as a photo, that when she tries to pull them out she can feel it in her chest along with other memories attached to it. so she knows that they happened. yet she cant remember her own face. if she doesnt pull the memories out theyll accumulate and get stuck. but if she keeps doing it she worries theyll fall apart and disappear

there are some memories she wants to disappear but even the ones she doesnt are at risk of disappearing. so she wants to make lots of memories that she does want to keep

sayaka's tragic drops card is probably happening the same time as tsuzuri's!! shes watching her stream :-)

tsuzuri: im not good at streaming but i know people who are, so i used them as a reference <- i knew it

[actualbird]

when and how each of the nxx team first drank alcohol

written by somebody who hates the taste of basically all alcohol except soju mixes

wc: 1.2k

luke pearce and mc: teenage shenanigans

when theyre both 16 years old and luke is but a month away from moving out to study at Central University, luke sneakily buys like 2 six packs of beer. how did he buy that when hes a minor? well, everywhere on the planet has at least one convenience store that honestly couldnt give a fuck about whos buying what. cashier probably looked at luke pearce, a very nervous gangle of a teenager, and decided not to call him out lest he spontaneously combust

so hes got beer!!! and when mc's parents are out of town for a weekend, he suggests they drink for like, cool kid creds. or maybe so that both of them know what "type" of drunk they are in the safety of home with a trusted friend. or maybe mc finds the beers and is like "luuuuuke, whats---" and luke immediately bursts into apologies he just wanted to see if he could get some so that they could have a cool fun drinking night!!!

whatever the reason, mc agrees and thus they both get sloshed.

both of them discover that theyve got a pretty regular alcohol tolerance. the main issue is that mc IMMEDIATELY verbalizes that "wow this tastes like SHIT!" and luke whos still trying to play it cool says "not really!" when in fact he also thinks it tastes like SHIT.

still, they both truck on and equally finish the beer which normally wouldnt be enough to knock a person out unless theyve got a low tolerance, but mc and luke are teenagers who did not know about Pacing or Getting Some Snacks Into Ur System While Drinking So That The Alcohol Isn't Just Having A Party With Ur Stomach Acids. so the night ends with both of them hurling into the toilet

theyre clingy tho, they dont wanna leave each other, so they like, take turns in the same toilet.

really forges a friendship like no other

-

vyn richter: well now he can't drink THAT exact flavor...

hes been tasting wine since 12 years old because that was the same age i hc he got into wine making because [vyn backstory/cn server spoiler] i assume thats some kind of requirement in royal lineage lessons??? i (jokingly) imagine vyn's childhood to be like the movie Princess Diaries but instead of being fun, it just Sucks Most Of The Time, but yes theres just a vague mixed bag of bougie lessons going on in his younger days like in princess diaries and one of em is winemaking

and also winetasting because thanks to new info i learned from my gf and also frantic googling; theres so much complexity and layers in wine flavors much akin to how perfumes and colognes have a core scent and then undertones.

(sidenote: vyn and marius talking about wine be like

vyn: this is a favorite of mine in particular; dry but with dessert wine undertones and just a hint of---

marius: it tastes like grapes

vyn: shut up, that is not what it---

marius: it tastes like some OLD ASS GRAPES

vyn: //stopping himself from bashing the wine bottle over marius' head.)

vyn, a lover of knowing stuff other people dont know, quite enjoys the study of winemaking and tasting even if he does find it disgusting that when hes gotta taste several wines in one go, he has to spit it out so he doesnt get drunk at the class (REAL THING THAT HAPPENS IN WINETASTING CLASSES, AMAZING). like, gross, he thinks! but he'd also not rather be a drunk tween stumbling thru the estate, he gets it.

the issue arises when his dad who is also rlly into wines tries to make a casket along with vyn as a bonding activity. vyn is NOT interested cuz wow, u decided to pay attention to me only now and only when it's something you also enjoy? he MUST roll his eyes. but still, against his wishes, vyn looks forward to it. they both try to recreate this one great vintage from years ago that they both like, they slap it into the casket to age, and theyll get back to it after like 10 years

and then they never do! cuz vyn leaves! and now in the present when ANY wine gets close to the flavor that that wine was trying to recreate, it always just leaves a bad taste in his mouth...

-

marius von hagen: ok just a small taste----

i dont know why---maybe it's me projecting my questionable but hilarious family happenings onto the von hagens---but austin (dad von hagen) seems like the type to see marius, like 8yrs or something, curiously staring at the glass of whiskey on his desk and hes like "would you like a taste? it's quite strong though, i must warn you." and marius is like WELL IM STRONG TOO and takes a sip

and goes BLEH BLEGH BLEEEEEEGGGHGHGHGH

for many years, even when studying abroad in italy where theres SO MUCH WINE AROUND, whenever hes offered alcohol hes like

marius does get into moderate drinking (mostly for PAX business and like, social functions etiquette and whatnot) when he returns to stellis though, and as long as it isnt whiskey, hes fine with drinking whatever alcohol

just not whiskey. he has flashbacks of the sheer BLEGH

-

artem wing: preps for the worst (and he is the worst)

he has his first drink when hes 21 years old. technically, drinking age in Stellis is 18 but artem was REALLY NERVOUS so he made sure to wait for the age where itd be legal anywhere in the world

and he makes it a whole Event of sorts, it's an Ordeal, it's a Serious Undertaking and please, neil, celestine, stop laughing, hes TRYIING TO EXPLAIN!!!

cuz he calls neil and celestine and tells them he needs their help on a certain day and this will all take place in his apartment and whatever happens cannot leave that premises or be told to anybody else.

neil and celestine are stupidly worried cuz he gives no further details until the day itself when artem finally explains whats actually going on

artem: in the future of my career, i can foresee that social functions involving alcohol may happen, so i need to be prepared for it but also ive never had alcohol before. if i get drunk to the point i can no longer remember things, promise you'll take note of my behavior please so i can study it later

neil: JESUS, KID, THATS IT??? I THOUGHT SOMEBODY WAS DYING. OR THAT U KILLED SOMEONE

celestine: I WAS READY TO GO GET A SHOVEL

artem: WHAT KIND OF PERSON DO YOU GUYS THINK I AM??

but yeah neil and celestine think hes overthinking this but then he starts drinking and theyre immediately glad he did call them cuz

one drink and hes gone

and they both have to wrangle him

and take notes bc they DID PROMISE

artem, sliding off of his narrow minimalist couch as he cry-rambles his insecurities: i feel like theres a small child in my mind thats also me and everyday he screams "unloveable! unloveable!"

celestine, taking a seat on the floor and giving artem a sidehug once he finally falls off of the sliver of a couch: there, there, buddy, youre plenty loveable

celestine: //whispering to neil? how many drinks did he have?

neil, in a tone that betrays how weirdly impressed he is: One.

[racketballz]

OMG THIS AU SOUNDS SO COOL I WANNA HEAR MORE ABT IT

Oh yeah I wrote a whole thing about it I was gonna do a comic but I did perfectly imperfect first(second dead baby) because people wanted that first but it’s just like freaky Friday basically because the girls were fighting over who’s leader during a mojo city take over and mojo( I don’t know if it would be mojo but it seems right because who else has ~rays~) hits them with a ray which like seems it didn’t work and then gets his ass beat the girls go home and they fight and argue some more they go to sleep mad the girls wake up and they appeared to have switched personalities professor is like okay okay calm down we can fix this but don’t let anyone know (I didn’t have a reason to why they had to keep it secret but it is more entertaining if no one knows) so they all went to school as eachother. Professor(lecture noises) is like maybe you guys can learn a lesson to be in eachother shoes~

Day one was bubbles inside blossom, buttercup inside bubbles, and blossom inside buttercup.

This was awful for all of them ofc. First thing bubbles does as blossom is kiss boomer on the cheek and then she to compensate for a VERY STRANGE ACTION that blossom wouldn’t do to boomer she kisses both butch and brick which makes blossom who is currently inside of buttercup almost die lmao OKAY SOOO days starts off with Bubbles had like a month-versary with boomer (that she had forgotten about) and boomer walks her(buttercup) to class and kisses her and buttercup blows a gasket and she breaks up with him out of spite claiming he was being clinging and annoying sending boomer in a spiraling mess. Bubbles on the other hand in blossoms body is trying her best to be as studious blossom as possible in the end I think she finds out something like blossom is be controlling under the table stuff (like to teach her sisters a lesson that was preplanned before the switch) and bubbles is like ☺️💢 and as a “favor” tries to get all cozy with brick and asks him out a few times and confesses her undying love for him . He says he’ll think about it but basically giving him a heart attack (poor guy) . And then blossom in buttercups body buttercup has a test to take and blossom said she’s gonna give her a B- at best buttercup punches the air but the thing blossom does out of spite (these are spiteful girls I know) is she wears a pencil skirt and everyone is afraid to approach her and butch says a bunch of questionable things because he feels something is off gets kicked in the nads and then he’s like ah maybe she’s normal. But he basically is like watching her closely the whole day. Little things like buttercup is a leftie blossom is right handed and her penmanship is all neat now and buttercup is studying??? and reading??? Books??? and suddenly has good posture and butch is like what the HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU but blossom gets away with it bu running but butch is highly suspicious.

They go home and they’re all like hm =_= I think I did okay so let’s just get through this and turn back and they hear boomer with a boom box outside their house crying and sobbing to take him back and then all the mess that they did is revealed buttercup(as bubbles lol) then says that she’ll get back together with him if he stfu and went home, and that they did. They go to bed upset AGAIN. But this time

DAY 2 blossom is is bubbles body, bubbles is in buttercups body and buttercups in blossoms body

The boys (not poor boomer tho he has no idea what’s going on) grow more and more suspicious with the girls because they’re being strange Butch is like I’m on to you but /this/ time it’s bubbles inside of buttercup and as payback for breaking up with boomer, she is like overly affectionate with butch and tries to feed him and hug him and stuff and he hates it he doesn’t understand and stays far away from buttercup(bubbles) as much as possible because she’s more terrifying than she’s ever been. Boomer is still sulking about being broken up with so blossom (as bubbles) takes him back but HOLDS OUT HAND NO KISSES for the time being boomer complies but to compensate says a bunch of very CRINGEY CHEESY THINGS that make her into a blushy mess that she almost breaks up with him again (she doesn’t she’s trying to be nicer since she hurt bubbles feelings for the under the table controlling thing) unfortunately for buttercup inside blossom she has a speech to tell the study council it goes oddly smooth and was well received even tho she was being very aggressive and blunt but uh oh she doesn’t s approached by brick he suddenly is all in her face about going on a date and if she was being serious about what she had said yesterday and buttercup doesn’t respond to this positively and bricks makes a face and then she agrees to go on a date with him and then realizes she set up a date with THE BRICK JOJO (face palm) . They go home a little more satisfied with what happened with the day as they report it (leaving out the toxic bits) no one too suspicious right?! Perfect time to switch back!

Day 3 I stopped there lmao so I haven’t written it but maybe a triple date?? because they suddenly realized they have all set up dates with a respective rrb.they haven’t switched back but they also haven’t switched again so maybe theyve made some progress?? so they have to watch eachother struggle on a triple date lmao I think that would be fun :3

[iridescentides]

i watched the ep twice bc i didnt take notes the first time BUT. hsmtmts 2.04 thoughts under the cut

gina first. my favorite part of the episode was when she admitted that she feels out of place living in someone else’s house and that she wanted a bigger part in the play. i was SO worried they were gonna just let her happily sideline herself in a “yay she learned her lesson about not being the center of attention” kind of way bc i would not be able to handle that two seasons in a row. let her be angry!!! she has a lot to be upset about

the gina/carlos conflict was awful bc theyre making carlos unreasonably annoying this season. last season he was nice, he was enthusiastic, not competitive and just rooting for other people. idk why they needed to flip him so drastically to being spoiled, rich, selfish, pushy, and bitchy. and on top of that i have not been vibing with the pieces of dialogue theyve been giving him this season just to score woke points. its so unbearably obvious that even though hes a brown gay character, he was written by a white gay person who thought, on some level, that he was giving the gen z kids the #hashtag representation they wanted. his delivery of every line that screams “remember, im mexican” is so awkward, it doesnt land well, and im begging them to stop. they want so badly to commodify his character and parade him around as a “look how diverse our show is!” thing and im so so sick of it bc you can tell, with all the surface-level pieces of dialogue, that they dont actually care at all

(”look around, theres not a lot of me at this school” we GET it, this show wants to be glee so bad)

im honestly starting to slowly ship rina less and less. in season one i loved seeing someone make gina happy, especially since she had no friends before opening up to ricky. but now its just a whole mess and i wish she would love herself a lil more to realize that its not worth all this stress. he made a choice and no amount of conflicted moments of eye contact is going to fully take that back. im not necessarily against love triangle plots, but i HATE the whole “women wait around hopefully while male character, whose decisions have already hurt multiple people, makes up his mind” bullshit

that being said, gina handled the situation like a CHAMP, im dying over how quickly she was able to mask her pain and make the joke about the twix bar. im love her

we were absolutely ROBBED of an ej/big red performance this episode!!! i am at my LIMIT we better get gaston next week or i will riot

on the ej train, him not getting into duke was extremely predictable. we all kinda saw that coming and knew that would be his main point of growth this season. im glad they didnt wait super long to do it. now please @ writers i am BEGGING you to give my man more screen time than one scene per episode

its very odd that they keep making mr mazzara have emotionally tough conversations with the students. i will do a parallel gifset of those once the season ends. i liked his convo with ej for the most part, but he really didnt have to beat him over the head with the “youre an emotionless robot” thing again. its clear ej is gonna throw himself into av club or whatever (even though at the end of last season that was supposed to be big red?) and discover that he has a lot going for him. because he does, he literally has everything going for him, thats why they had to make his “problem” not knowing himself. bisexual ej caswell ftw

i love the parallels between ej and nini this episode? i think since the beginning ive felt that there was a lot about them under the surface that was similar. it was interesting seeing ej tell nini about duke first, instead of the obvious choice of ashlyn. i wouldve loved to see how that scene wouldve gone with ricky, gina, carlos, or big red though bc each reaction and attempt at comforting him wouldve been so different. i didnt love that nini had to be pulled away from the conversation, but im glad they can still talk to each other after everything that went down. and i love the juxtaposition of ej’s convo with mazzara directly following nini’s convo with miss jenn bc theyre essentially the same.

speaking of, i loved miss jenn in this episode. her stories are always so funny, but i loved seeing her care so much for nini and guide her, like a teacher. i loved how she pointed out that everyone who loves nini just wants her to be happy

im glad nini is leaving yac bc there was no good way to keep that up honestly. but im pretty annoyed that they were so obvious about it? like, they immediately made it the worst place in the world without exploring it very much. the place is super unrealistic, ive never been to drama school but im sure it wouldnt be like that. no creative arts place for KIDS would be so impossibly limiting. plus the weird bluish coloring in comparison to the nice warm tones of the rest of the show was, again, a dead giveaway. why send her to the school at all if it wasnt even gonna matter?

even though im glad nini left yac, im NOT looking forward to the way miss jenn is about to bend over backwards to put her in the play somehow. she plays obvious favorites and im so annoyed

(sidenote: nini just? decided to leave yac without consulting her parents??? ummm)

granted is a very good song, one of my faves so far

ricky deciding to tell nini he wants her to stay was stupid. what did he think that would accomplish? who in their right mind would drop out of a good school for you?

i loved when nini said yac was missing something, and miss jenn said “ricky” and nini said “you.” that was so so sweet and cute

i think the kourtney/howie thing is gonna grow on me. i hate amatonormativity so im not a big fan of them introducing a whole ass character exclusively so kourtney can have a love interest, but i loved the gesture he made of bringing her the pizzas and her flashcards. i feel like kourtneys love language is acts of service, and she was literally this meme when he did that for her:

i liked seeing ashlyn try to be there emotionally for gina! i want more of them together

overall this episode was okay. not enough songs, and i wish they were spreading out the emotional conversations through the season instead of packing them all into literally one episode, but what we did get was pretty good.

after watching the preview i see that next weeks episode is gonna be about carlos’s party, and i love party episodes. BUT i hope that after that ep we finally get an advancement on the north high stuff! i dont give too many fucks about lily, but i wanna see my son asher angel

[dmcofficial]

i really love how dmc approaches the relationship between human and demonic selves, especially in the light of it acting as contrast to how regular, average people struggle to accept parts themselves, the beautiful, the ugly, the parts that are both. dante has the most development simply bc he's the longest running protag of the series but also he's had games entirely dedicated low-key to his developing relationship and eventual acceptance of his human and demonic sides, even tho i think his are more clear cut (dmc1 & dmc3) meanwhile nero (dmc4 & dmc5) and vergil (dmc5) have more subtle and almost cramped development in a way

[ranting abt dante, vergil, & nero's character development throughout the franchise under the cut bc this also got rlly long,,,]

dante is interesting post dmc3 just bc he's both written 2 b a continuous character w no real conclusion to his character in order to continually write him into dmc games and content, BUT he still reaches SOME conclusions to character arcs in dmc1 and dmc3, and afterwards we see how those conclusions have aged with him— aged is the important word there, because changes in dante's character are both from the perspective on nero (his villainous aura at the beginning of dmc4) and the simple fact that where a lot of characters don't actively age and mature the same way real people do, in video game media especially, dante DOES and this changes how we would expect him to react in games liek 4 and 5

i think part of the reason the dynamic between vergil and dante has shifted by dmc5 is not only bc of vergils speedrun development in the same game, but also because you could reasonably say that while vergil expects a fight w him similar to their past fights, you could argue he is also a little bit unsettled with how dante's changed in the time theyve been separated. because despite how they tend to mirror each other as children and their journey thru dmc as a franchise can be framed as the same One character put thru different yet similar traumatic events, vergil even remarks about it at the top of the qliphoth, that difference here is that by dmc4 and DEF dmc5 dante has evolved past that where vergil is just beginning to really see it.

dante has had the time to process it. he went thru all this development years ago. it's had time to sit with him and age and ferment. dante is now tired, almost apathetic. he's disinterested with life and the cards he's been dealt with. at least in dmc4 and between dmc1 and 4, the anime too, he was sort of. rueful and upset about it? but he's seemed to move past that at this point. he is a character who has done everything there is to do. there is nothing and nobody who can challenge him, and even the concept doesn't catch his full attention. vergil is a trigger topic, it sets him off instantly, probably because vergil is the only constant in his life that will live as long and is as impossibly stubborn as dante is.

he doesn't chase vergil because he's necessarily hurting people with the dmc5 red grave massacre or trying to end the world in some great fashion and dante will have fun or at least get a thrill from defeating him or dying trying— cutting thru urizens forces are a pain in the ass and a waste of time. he wants the main course. he wants to be done with it. not to say he wouldn't have fun fighting, but he doesn't get the thrill he does when he's younger anymore. he wants to end their feud, seeming to be with the intention of making up with him even if he's come to terms with vergil's pride being what will force dante to kill him in the end

fighting with vergil in the underworld afterwards, having someone like him to keep him company, to share those experiences with, it's everything he needed and more i think. the repairing of their relationship, the new partner in a life none can truly relate to. i mean, both brothers treat nero like a child, he's the closest either of them can get to someone who understands, but nobody will understand truly like they will

vergil meanwhile, decides very young that power is all he needs and it will solve all his problems. and you know, at the time maybe it does. but eventually, when forced to admit it isn't, when put between dante and more power despite it being a hollow motivation, he chooses power and the end of dmc3 to the events of dmc1 happens.

dmc5 is unique in that v is forced to retrace vergils steps. they're put through the same paces: he is put in a position of fear after his 'birth', he chooses life, and then goes hunting for power to keep himself alive afterwards. but not only does he have his familiars to balance him out in a way vergil never had (and that dante has in trish and lady,) but his demonic tendencies can't overwhelm him, he has room to grow and accept and come to realizations he can only reach as a clear headed human. he is able to actively use empathy and sympathy, even against his will. he realizes that power isn't everything. that the atrocities he's committed in the name of his own growth in power are just that, atrocities. that he feels regret for what he has done. that he wants to find away to atone for those actions.

he is forced to accept the strengths and weaknesses of his humanity, but also the same coin's other side, the horrible things he's done in the past, the horrible things his demon self is currently doing unchecked, and v resolves to change that even at the cost of his human outlook, even at the gravity of his actions being leveled against vergil in all their horror. he learns to accept that part of himself, both parts, everything bad he can commit with his two hands, but also with nero, nico, his familiatr, the good that can be done. the weeds that can fight to grow through the cracks.

nero spends dmc4 learning how to be a demon. hes force to learn how to deal with and manage his demonic changes. for a few weeks he has his demon arm, when he previously believed himself to be entirely human, and is then forced to come to terms with his yamato trigger and all the changes that brings. he even promises to himself, having grown up on a hyper religious island that loathes demonkind and reveres sparda, that even if humanity learns to hate him and fear him, he will still stick to his steadfast morals, his drive to achieve his goal of saving kyrie and greater fortuna. i also think a lot of dmc4 is nero becoming comfortable with his true nature. he comes into himself in dmc4 as a mouthy, demonic-warped demon hunter with a bad attitude in contrast to the bored, slightly tempered teen who broods in church even as kyrie attempts to wrangle him at the beginning of the game

dmc5 i think is nero's human game in the sense that he's forced to relearn how to be human. he spends five+ years as a demonic freak of nature, powerful on an island of human people with no demonic power. he's downright untouchable. after losing his bringer and his powers, he's forced back to square one, human again. i think dante believes nero is deadweight in the sense that nero is weak again, without any kind of demonic power and will get himself killed easily fighting urizen despite his hybrid resilience that still lingers. nero is angered by this— by his weakness, by the fact that he promised dante to keep the yamato safe and had it stolen from him, by his lack of agency. dante wasn't even going to tell nero, v, some random-ass goth, had to fetch him. he feels he isn't enough anymore, and dante's words are poorly timed— they sting particularly hard i think, considering he is nero's only unofficial family at the time, and family is his soft spot.

i also think nero coming to terms with vergil and dante being his father and uncle respectively takes up a lot of this arc of his– he is forced to grapple with what family means to him, what he is willing to do for family, when his only relationship with family has been his experiences as an orphan with strange white hair and a bad attitude in fortuna of all places, fostered by kyries parents who seemed to only take a liking to him at first for how much he resembled the Savior™. kyrie and credo were his only family after they died, and it's kyrie who reminds him of his own beliefs, in his own love and stubborn, headstrong dedication and determination for the well being of his found family, even as that found family suddenly includes actual blood family. he also has to try and understand dante and his perspective, who hid this from him. maybe out of fear of disappointing him, maybe out of concern of how he would take it, maybe because he thought nero was better off with the family he found than with the knowledge of how much bloody weight he carries, the heavy history of their family, didn't want to give that weight to him.

nero sort of learns here that seemingly good people do bad things for the right reasons. sometimes bad people do bad things because they think it's the best of the shitty choices. sometimes bad and good people just don't exist, and there's no good choice. he learns unwavering forgiveness, unconditional and true. all of these lessons he's lost between dmc4 and 5

[nijimurakyo]

polnareff NEOOOOW >:)

🚽 POLNAREFF ⚔️

sexuality headcanon: my milky creamy white boy who I love so much is bisexual............

gender headcanon: let's see if I can hit him with my transgenderification beam >:) *misses by a long shot* NOOOOOOOO I'm sorry if it makes u feel better he's the only cis man i trust 😔

a ship i have with him: I BELIEVE IN AVPOL SUPREMACY THEYRE FUCKING PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER HELLO???!!! ISTG THEYVE GLOMPED EACH OTHER MOST OF THE TIME even if it wasn't a tearful reunion polnareffs just like that I'm pretty sure at some point kakyoin gagged and placed a hand on abduls shoulder and said he was so sorry and polnareff burst into tears. that's his weenie man!! girlboss abdul and malewife polnareff........

a brotp i have with him: jotaro and kakyoin are the meanest when they're together at him but kakyoin alone is just his evil little brother (I'd say bunso but that title goes to sherry......) as I've said before they remind me of me and my kuya bc he does love me but is just utterly confused with the shit i do while I'm sometimes too mean to him. Polnareffs the one crusader who isn't an only child so he's just the group kuya clearly

a notp i have with him: again couldn't think of anyone but i just know the ships he has other than abdul are gross

a random headcanon: most of his swordsmanship came from him playing with sherry as a kid, they used any long object (like a branch of the toilet paper core) and duked it out!! their father eventually gave them fencing lessons and i just remembered he also had his stand since childhood........ i guess he uses silver chariots rapier and told sherry "it's an invisible sword!!"

general opinion over him: he's so funny but also like the other crusaders a well-written genuinely likeable and great character whom I adore with my heart. listen as much as I love objectifying men and him which is funny ppl rly will reduce his character to himbo even though he's not!! stupid!! u all know that post that's like he's raised his little sister he grew up in countryside france and knows how to cook sew and clean like he knows how to take care of himself or else he wouldn't have survived a long time ago!!!! fuck that's my kuya guys

[oscar-isaacs-number-one-bitch]

“How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” Movie Review

It’s been 5 years since our screens were last graced with the presences of Hiccup and Toothless, the dynamic and impossible not to love duo of the How to Train Your Dragon films. At the end of How to Train Your Dragon 2, audiences were left off seeing Toothless taking position as the alpha of the dragons, and Hiccup accepting the call to be chief of Berk, as his father had wished him to be. With the beginning of The Hidden World, Berk has become the world’s first-ever dragon-Viking utopia, and Hiccup and friends conduct raids on armadas of ships, freeing all manner of dragons from captivity all across the world. But with the presence of a new night fury dragon, as well as a new enemy called Grimmel, Berk is once again in danger, the relationship at this series’ center is tested, and both Hiccup and Toothless must learn that eventually, some things must come to an end, as we learn to let go.

I’ve talked ad nauseum about the How to Train Your Dragon movies and what they mean to be both as a film lover and as a visual storytelling junkie, and I will continue to talk about them until the day I die. The first film is my favorite animated movie of all time (and rightfully so) with a brilliant script, astounding animation (especially for its time), one of the greatest animated film scores of all time, and a narrative that’s both sharply plotted and perfectly paced. The second HTTYD movie followed that up with a story that was more mature, if not quite as naturalistic in its dialogue and pacing, with animation that had advanced during that four-year wait to the height of its capabilities. The Hidden World, then, aims to be that rare trilogy capper that takes the series out on a high note, and for the most part, it does. I just wish the rest of the film, the stuff that wasn’t part of the finale, held up as well as the finale (and the other two movies) did.

See, I did like this film, but I wanted to love it. The adventures of Hiccup and Toothless are some of my favorites of all time, and while with that legacy comes (understandably) a lot of weight that may be difficult to hold, I’ve seen this series hold that weight before with ease. Those first two films have some of the most perfect pacing in any animated features, so the fact that the first two acts of this one are actually kind of dull apart from a handful of moments shared between the light fury and Toothless, as well as a barely 5 minute segment within the title location, is disappointing regardless of how well-animated the action and lighting is. Your mileage may vary on that front, but for me, things just seemed a little bit off what with the intro not including the usual title theme, or “this is berk” introduction by Hiccup until about 6 or 8 minutes in. Those two elements are not necessarily huge missteps for the film, but Dragon devotees like myself will notice their absence. Don’t get me wrong, I’m far from one to endorse pure fan-service as replacement or non-tertiary strengthener for narrative storytelling, but The Hidden World doesn’t quite have as many callbacks to the first or second films as it probably should when considering it’s meant to be the closer to a trilogy nearly ten years running.  

In addition to this, whole swaths of the movie go by where not much actually happens at a plot level. Yes, the friendship between Hiccup and Toothless is tested, and Hiccup’s role as chief is challenged somewhat, but both of these things barely have any effect on the overall narrative as it stands. The large driving force of the plot is that Grimmel presents such a huge threat to Berk that they’ll have to relocate, and maybe the dragons will have to relocate too, but the threat he’s meant to represent honestly isn’t all that compelling. Grimmel’s character is not only under-written, but generically so, and doesn’t have anything quite as affecting to him on a character level as Drago being a fellow disabled person because of dragons in the second film. The script tries to do something with him that parallels a real-world anti-immigration allegory, but while the effort is notable, it ultimately feels underwritten, like they introduced the idea, but then didn’t really know where to go with it, and so it just fades into the background.

In fact, this movie has a character development issue that was bothering me for most of its runtime. Hiccup grows and learns something, but virtually no one else does. No one except Hiccup changes at all from the beginning to the end of the film, and while that’s all well and good that he undergoes a transformation (albeit only in one spoiler-ish respect) this time around, one of the greatest strengths of these movies is that most of the supporting characters change along with him, learning their own lessons along the way. The supporting characters in this movie, though, are relegated to small roles usually designed to deliver a low-level joke one too many times or scout something or tell Hiccup he’s better than his self-doubt. They’re no longer characters in their own right; they’re crutches by which to tell the story (apart from a couple of sweet Stoick flashback scenes) and move the plot along, which is sad considering how richly detailed they’ve been in the last two installments.

There is enough to like about the film, however, that despite being kind of let down by it overall, I still had a good time watching it play out. The animal courtship between the light fury and Toothless is one of the strongest aspects of the movie, and plays out in often simultaneously hilarious and adorable fashion. There are some new things she teaches him that come in very handy during the film’s thrilling (if a bit generic) final sequence, and the results are truly marvelous to behold. While she remains unnamed for the entirety of the film, she will be one of the characters audiences walk away remembering the most. The movie is also fantastically animated, and while The Hidden World plays it pretty safe in terms of shot selection (seriously, where did all the rest of the wide shots and flying intensity go?), what’s up on screen is incredibly detailed and looks gorgeous in its coloration and lighting design, particularly in that 5 minute title sequence. The hidden dragon world is a stunning piece of animation that will go down as one of the greatest ever committed to film. It may feel a bit strange to say that about an animated feature, but if you’ve seen the other two films, you know I don’t exaggerate. Some reviews are also touting John Powell’s score as a major strength, and while it does feel weaker than the other two overall (and doesn’t really enhance the film much), I can almost tell what they mean when listening to it on its own.

The Hidden World’s greatest strength, though, is its finale. Sure, the first two acts may be a bit dull and underdeveloped, but once this movie decides to turn on the emotional gauge, it dials it up to 100 and never looks back. Despite feeling like the overall movie wasn’t quite as good as the first two, this finale is by far the best since the original. Writer and director Dean DeBlois has gone on record several times as saying he never wanted to make anything more than a trilogy for this series, and for that level of integrity, I respect him immensely. Film trilogies are quite rare in this modern, franchise-crazed movie landscape, and to get a finale that makes it so hard to say goodbye to these characters and this world despite its gradually diluting quality, is something truly special and remarkable. (Yes, I was absolutely in tears by the end, and you will be too.)

Overall, How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World is a heartfelt and sincere, but somewhat flawed finale to what remains a great motion picture trilogy. While I found the supporting cast underwritten and the villain uncompelling, I still had fun watching the friendship between Hiccup and Toothless be tested, and seeing where the characters ended up. The first two acts are really just fine (if not super affecting), and it may be the weakest of all three so far, but this trilogy conclusion also has some of the best moments of the whole overall set, not the least of which is its grippingly emotional finale.

I have loved getting to watch these movies over the past 9 years. I have loved growing with them and re-watching them in anticipation of each entry. I have loved taking this journey which has brought me such joy, laughter, and at times, wonderful sorrow. It is bittersweet for me to say goodbye. Farewell, citizens and dragons of Berk. It has been an honor watching you.

I’m giving “How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World” a 7.8/10.

[a-baleful-howl]

This is Not a Love Story: part 2

Check out or refresh with Part 1 here.

To tell a good love story on screen, scenes, dialogue, camera angles and shots are important. Usually you have lots of quiet "get to know you" moments. Or single shots showing one of the love interests reactions. You need to give obvious and believable reasons for them to be falling in love. Television caters to the lowest common denominator for exposition. Usually its the big plot twists and mastermind moments that are subtle little easter egg hints.

When you compare the scenes between Jon and Sansa in S6, to the Jon and Dany scenes in S7, there is a big contrast. And the audience picked up on it, and thats why we now have a lot of Jonsa shippers after S6. People speak in body language, and movie language helps audiences to pick up on that. If you surprise your audience with a romance that wasn't well built up, you're audience will be colder to the idea and it will not feel believable. Or, the love story will not be the main focus, instead perhaps the conflict and the repercussions of it will be. It would not be a love story.

I am not sold on really anything right now. Ive said it before and I'll say it again. Im not sold on undercover!Jon. I'm not sold on horny!Jon. I'm not sold on Jon being in or out of love right now, either. It could go so many ways. But, after months of doing research on how to write romance for my own books and stories, I know when I see a well written romance vs a bad one. And I sure hope this badly written romance isnt the victim of a rushed season or cocky writers.

I definitely got the feeling from S6 that Kit was given direction that he was slowly falling in love with his "sister" and super conflicted about it. I know Kit can do it. I know he can - so why are we not seeing it here? He could be fighting against the idea of a relationship because he has bigger things to worry about (See: Night King) but what would he be falling in love with?? Right now, the only conceivable answer would be "her looks" - which is just....infuriating. Enraging. Just... jaw droppingly maddening.

Looks can be a starting point - yes. But once Jon sees more and more of who Dany really is, theres just no way he would fall in love. They have totally separate goals. Old, pre-crow Jon would have looked at Dany and just laughed.

So have the scenes theyve shared so far shown us how they would possibly fall in love? Let's see.

Directly after the power-struggle cave scene, we have Jon and Dany exit the cave onto the beach where Dany gets some bad news.

She flips out. Jon and Davos stand awkwardly by while mommy Dany and daddy Tyrion fight at the dinner table. When Dany turns around to bite Tyrions head off, Jon steps several steps back. She is frightening everyone else on that beach. This is a display of Dany's temperamental behavior. She is angry and turning against someone who was supposed to be her most trusted advisor. Her loyalty and diplomacy is hanging by a thread. She is not as calm and level headed as everyone would want you to believe. She will turn against anyone, at anytime.

She accuses Tyrion of being too attached to his family. Who else thinks family is super important? Jon, of course. He sees Dany basically say "fuck family" and threaten Tyrion, her hand, for putting family over her. Apparently, the only one allowed to be sentimental towards family is her?

She is worked up in such a rage over starting to lose her war that she immediately goes into the "dark place". Fire and blood. Tyrion tries to calm her down but she bites his head off more.

Emilia says in the BTS, "Every time that things go wrong, more Targaryen comes out. More fire comes out."

She's being rude to Tyrion, embarrassing him in front of others, disrespecting his advice. We have seen this in the past - Dany DOES NOT like being told what to do. More often than not she completely disregards her advisors advice, does what she wants to anyway, and it comes back to bite her in the end. Every season highlights a direct piece of advice she ignores and how it fails horribly. Why hasnt she learned her lesson by now? Because she never admits when she fucks up and learn from her mistakes.

Then she turns her attention to Jon when Tyrion doesn't tell her what she wants to hear.

Dany has shown Jon little, if any, respect since he arrived. Being cold, distant, imprisoning him, not calling him by his appointed title, only offering to help if she gets something in return, etc. So why does she ask him for his advice? Its surprising and makes little sense. And Jon does not want to get in the middle of this. This isn't his war, thats not why he came, and he just saw how she treats her advisors. But she's insistent. She wants advice from someone different.

Back to the dragons. He uses them to take a stab in the dark about how/why she has so many followers. He makes that great speech that boils down to "don't be more of the same. Be different." He's also taking a little bit of his own story here. He came back from the dead, did something impossible, and is trying to be a different ruler for his Kingdom than what they've seen before.

What's odd is that Jon visually calms her. She doesnt bite his head off for saying pretty much the same thing as Tyrion. She's a little more receptive to his advice. She already likes him more than Tyrion. Her eyes soften, she doesnt yell.

But as we see later, she didn't really take the advice to heart. Yes, she didnt storm Kings Landing with her dragons and kill thousands of innocent people - but she does go off immediately to kills soldiers, burns loot and frightens people into bowing to her. Thats not what Jon said to do, either.

So we see Dany softening to Jon. He made it about her dragons - and *whew boy* is that a way to get to her heart. He praised her to be this savior she wants to be. So, this is another hint that Dany is coming to like him and respect him. But where are the signs for Jon feeling the same?

He is frightened of her when she has her tantrum. He only answers when she insists. He wants no part of this. He sees her basically say "fuck family", turn on her most trusted advisor, flirt with a dark place and do what she wants anyway. Not attractive qualities for Jon. They are still opposites. She is still preoccupied with her quest for power.

She flies off, and then we see Jon and Davos walking around on Dragonstone, probably relaxed because Her Grace is gone for the moment.

Davos makes a comment about how Jon has been staring at her "good heart."

1. What have we seen yet, that would make Jon think she has a "good heart"? Shes been cold, uncooperative, prone to anger and entitled.

2. When have we ever seen Jon look at her boobs? In the cave, he keeps his eye line at her face/eyes. On the beach they were too busy backing away from her yelling to even look at her chest. In the throne room, any attraction he might have felt when first seeing her was eclipsed by her personality and attitude.

3. This is weird exposition to try and force the audience into thinking Jon is attracted to her. You should not have to spell out a romantic attraction. Looks and camera angles and dialogue should do it for you. We're watching film, not listening to a radio show.

Maybe this was a way of the writers spelling out why Jon is avoiding an attraction? "Theres no time for that". He is single-minded with the fight against the Night King. He's not open to the idea of romance.

Then, Jon reenforces this idea that he doesn't trust Dany at all. He is hesitant to believe she respects her subordinates because that is the opposite of everything he's seen so far. He's a King and she has imprisoned him against his will.

But Missandei's response gives him a little bit of insight into why people love and follow Dany. He had not seen it himself before Missandei spelled it out for him. He's been imprisoned, he's seen her be cold when he asked if she believed him, and he's seen her turn against Tyrion. He doesnt necessarily believe it, but he listens to Missandei.

This is why his speech on the beach made no sense to me. Why have him give that speech before he talks to Missandei or another one of her followers? Where did he get that speech from? Its almost an identical speech to Missandeis. And if he believed that, and came to that conclusion before talking to Missandei, then why is he doubtful of Dany's "good heart" in letting Missandei leave or Dany giving hope to her followers?

It would have made more sense to have him talk to a follower first, before his speech on the beach about Dany making "impossible things happen." Unless he came to that conclusion on his own - but then why ask Missandei? Why look so reluctant to open up to her? It makes no sense.

Immediately following is the Theon scene. Honestly, the more I rewatch this scene, the more I realized I love it more than the LF crypt scene. Oh god, the nuances. Jon's quivering rage voice. His dead eyes, which are more expressive than we get to see lately. Holy crap I love this scene.

But this, I guess, is also important to show Jon what kind of rag-tag gang Dany has as her allies now. Theon was such a little shit - growing up and when he betrayed Robb. It speaks to the type of person Dany is that she has this guy on her side.

Kit says in BTS "I think he's willing to forgive anyone if they are willing to help fight against the Night King."

But Jon explicitly says he is only sparing Theons life because of what he did for Sansa. Theon helped her escape. He sacrificed himself to save her - to take her away from that awful place. I'm sure Sansa and Jon have had many conversations since her escape about what Theon did. And not only did Theon tell Sansa that he didnt kill Bran and Rickon - that he murdered two innocent farmer boys, instead - but they got the proof in Rickon on the battlefield and Sam seeing Bran beyond the wall.

But Theon still did horrible things. He's still a slimey person in Jon's eyes. And here he is, on Dragonstone, fighting for Dany. What does that say to the company she keeps? That shes allied with morally questionable people? Or that she's a forgiving person, with a weakness for "cripples, bastards and broken things"? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Theon asks where she is, and Jon does not look happy or okay with the answer.

So far, we're in episode 4 of 7 and there is no reason for Jon to be attracted to Dany. He has seen bad sides of her. He has given her a few chances to show any good side, and she doesn't.

Dany is intrigued by him. He's kind and different. She asks for his opinion. His advice seems to calm her. He's played to her good side. So we can see her starting to soften.

But Jon is not really intrigued by her. He wanted to go home. He's been held against his will. She is stuck on this quest for power. She is hot-headed, selfish, and short sighted. He has seen very little redeeming qualities to warm up to her. He just wants his dragonglass and to GTFO. So far, she has only agreed to help IF he bends the knee. She wont help simply to save people. She wont help because of her "good heart". She wants his power and his kingdom in return. Not what he was hoping.

So then we have Dany coming back to Dragonstone after scaring people into bending the knee. The Tarlys dont, so she burns them to a crisp. She aint playing around.

Jon is just standing out on a cliff, in his cloak, probably brooding some more? Waiting for her? Welcoming party? Why is he out there?

And then we have a moment between him and her dragon. This is a moment ONLY between him and her dragon. Dany is just a spectator here.

He is frightened of the dragon, but YOLOs and faces his fear. He is literally facing his fear. Testing his own courage. Proving his own strength to himself. This moment has nothing to do with Dany, but everything to do with him.

He is awestruck. Dragons were a thing of legend. And now he is connecting with one. His adrenaline must be off the charts. Its a magical moment.

Now Dany is very attached to her dragons. She believes she is the only one with a connection to them. Most people would scream or run away. Her dragons have reacted violently to those who have ever threatened her or wished her harm in the past. They are one with her. And here is Drogon, a dragon which is aggressive and unpredictable, acting so gentle and different towards Jon. And shes just an outsider to this moment.

Another check mark that would make Jon attractive to her. Her dragons didn't scare him. Her dragon liked him. And Jon seems to like the dragon. Thats different. Thats new. Thats on the same level as her. He's surprised her yet again.

Now, Jon looks up at her as if "this is yours? This magnificent beast is yours?" But as soon as she comes down, he's all business again.

His moment with her dragon warmed her up to him a little. She wants to talk about her babies with someone else who probably has the same unhealthy admiration for them like she does. But he's not quite on the same page. Now, what word was Jon thinking instead of "beautiful"? Frightening? Terrifying? This sets off another one of Dany's "fire and blood" looks which scares Jon back into submission. She's a firecracker just waiting for a match. Dont want to get on her bad side. She's mama dragon - and hes seen that quite a lot.

Now, here is The Look(TM). Arguably the only time Jon seems to really look at her without thinking. In the scripts, the stage direction is "He watches her watching her dragons and wishes that he could keep looking at her and forget about the world events weighing on his shoulders." And dear god, was the impact lost.

In contrast, look at how Jon gets lost staring at Sansa in S6.

honestly, this scene is just ripe with Jon looks.

Focus shifts, single shots, close ups, and lingering on him lost in thought with no context. If you want to point out a look or reaction - THIS is how you do it. There are focus shifts, to highlight Jon's face. To bring attention to it. You can't miss it.

Him watching Dany in 7.05 is actually so subtle you might miss it. Its not the focus. We arent supposed to be honed in on his reaction. If it was oh-so-important, there would have been a single close-up, or a camera shift for us to see that he was distracted watching Dany.

Also, this is related to her dragons. Her relationship with those dragons is important to Jon. Jon only seems to show thought and softness when her dragons are involved. And it is over before you know it.

Back to business. He brings up what she left to do. And it's not good.

He's conflicted. She did the opposite of what he hoped she would do. He can understand why, but it's disappointing. Not a turn on. Not an attractive quality. Not something that is winning him over. Another chance she had to show him she was good, and she chose not to.

She has dragons. And shes not afraid to use them.

Then we move on to the talk and walk. He is still acting reserved. Shes in charge of the "get to know you" talk again. Shes standing closer. She's warmed up. She's talking much more like an equal and not like a cold ice-queen.

And she grabs his arm. But there’s no close up. ;)

Then she tries to get more acquainted by asking a more intimate question, in a more intimate way. Why is she so stuck on this knife in the heart line? And why is he still so insistent on not telling the truth? He still doesn't trust her. He is still on the fence about her. He lies to her face. And she just wont let it go.

This is not level playing ground. This is not "getting to know each other". Dany is trying but Jon is resisting her getting to know him any better. Why?

It looks like its about to get uncomfortable - that he is upset by lying and she might press the issue. But thankfully Jon is saved by Jorah. Dany looks so happy she might cry. Jon is confused by her sudden change in attitude. Who is this guy shes much more agreeable towards? Thats not the Dany hes seen in his time there.

Then she introduces him. Jon knows who he is.

Now, some say Jon looks "jealous". Um - why? Why would he be jealous? He trying to avoid a connection between them, as evidenced by his lie right before. He's simply clicking the pieces in his head - figuring out her relationships.

He sees her embrace and welcome this man who he was raised to think as a traitor, a bad man. Someone who his father had sentenced to death for doing unspeakable things. A coward who ran from his sentence. And here Jorah is, acting noble and completely loyal to this girl who has been cold to him and her other advisors the entire time he's been there. He sees more of her misfit rag-team, first Theon and now Jorah, and how she treats those who are loyal to her.

He's only clicking the pieces and starting to figure her out. His "good heart" line would have fit better after this scene, too. It made no sense where it was before.

This is the first time we see any hint that Jon might be able to warm up to her. The way she cares for her dragons. The company she keeps. How warm she really was to Jorah. But thats overshadowed by her action towards her enemies. Her look when he almost dare speak ill of her children. The fact that he still wants to keep his own secrets from her, whatever his reasons may be.

Its now episode 5 of 7 - and just now his side starts to come into play in this "supposed epic love story", and it's shaky at best. He is still wary of her.

Jon is staying very mysterious. Honestly, ever since he showed up in Dragonstone we are not shown much of his POV. We see a lot of Dany's POV - her talking with her people a lot. Her talking in her war room with Tyrion. We don't see a lot of Jon talking with his people, or talking about his wants and plans. He is staying a big mystery. Davos and him talk a little about how "theres no time for that." Jon and Theon have a Sansa moment. Gendry and Jon have a bonding moment. But do we ever see him talk about his plan for bringing Dany to his side? We really only see his actions through Dany's eyes or someone else's.

These non-focused looks are very mysterious. Why does he get lost staring at Dany? Why does he keep lying about dying? Theres no exposition. Which is really odd, because Dany has quite a bit of it.

This romance is shaky, forced, rushed and confusing at best. I mean, it helps explain the backlash and the disappointed fans. How viewers are confused by this outcome. Why everyone is desperate to think there is something else going on besides "true love".

I think everyone can agree that this relationship is doomed in one way or another. But the big question right now is - does Jon actually love/have feelings for her? What evidence is there for that? What has been shown on screen to support a mutual romance? Not much, so far.

I'll do the rest later. Tumblrs mobile update might ruin my current work (it only lets me tag one hashtag at a time because I have to use the mobile browser- blah) - but I'll get onto it! These take a lot more work than I'd expected, and coding from a smart phone is a bitch. Part 3 and (maybe?) Part 4 coming soon.

xoxo

edit: and it keeps fucking up on me. T.T I hate formatting on Tumblr so much...

[rqs902]

wow im like 2 mins into the first round and they’re introducing fruit planet and im already convinced tencent did a better job at making this finale ep than youku did for snzm LOL 

oof these questions hit home right away. wow xiao zhi changed a lot to become the leader he is today, someone who wants to see his band grow together. you can tell youzi has done some serious reflecting too, to call himself too unrestrained before. ughhh you can just see how much they love runze and how much he loves them. i love parents. xiao zhi really gave runze the confidence he needed and they all gave qiang ge the encouragement he needed. im surprised the suo na worked as well as it did with the disco song and im so happy to see how happy they were on stage. 

LOL muji is the real one to rein in szb and is harsh on him bc he needs it. the way muji says hes not afraid to get on people’s bad side and be the bad guy kinda reminds me of huang enyu

hope hyt and xiao xiong have really learned through their growing pains (same to ljt and szb) does that mean fruit planet is the only group where the main duo’s main fight wasn’t against each other but tencent? lol i cant imagine xiao zhi fighting any of his kids? wow i still find it amazing that zhao ke can so proudly say that 熱帶低壓 was his happiest times in front of the rest of 氣運. like thats legit love he feels for 熱帶低壓 and they respect that. wowowowow hyt’s “i can be strict towards myself, but i gotta let go for them” is like the ultimate lesson for micromanagers and he’s learned to believe in and respect his teammates and not feel like he needs to control everything. good for him.

maybe im just biased but the pitchy-ness of 氣運’s singing (xiao xiong and ma zhe /cough) just bugs me so much ugh it makes me sad bc the song is nice and id like to add it to my playlist otherwise, but i cant listen to this without frowning at the vocals. to be totally transparent, I didnt like the 午睡 song much at all (sorry ljt TT) and disco is not my style (sorry fruit planet) but at least the fruit planet perf was fun. im just kinda disappointed by these perfs in general :\

tencent putting the order as fruit planet first and 午睡 second and 氣運 last is a sign they already know 氣運 is gonna win... bc fruit planet was first place last week but if they go first that puts them at a disadvantage aka no one will be a match for 氣運 lol 

lol wat is this intro video.... the plushie fruits hanging from their suits LOL im gonna have to go look up footage of their busking!! watching this second perf... this is a song i will add to my playlist :) i just love seeing xiao zhi jamming out like hes enjoying it from the beginning to end, and i esp like the contrast when wsh switched to his drum set and the part where youzi sang! his vocal tone is such nice contrast to yrz’s. and i love how theyve figured out how to incorporate qiang ge’s suo na into their music. i will say it was kinda messy in terms of runze’s rhythm and they messed up some of the lyrics but for the amount of time they had to prepare im happy with this last perf :’) 

aw idk how i feel about ljt voicing that he’d rather do a band than be a soloist... but LOL MUJI a gentle but cruel real talker lol okay. who came up with these intro videos wtf???? 

OMG I CANT BELIEVE THEYRE DOING “I WILL MISS YOU” ARE THEY ALLOWED TO DO THIS SONG??? omg omg thats such a attack in the feels tho wtf this is such a throwback ugh i still remember this song from when zyx and ljt performed it on the first mrzz and now ljt’s bringing it back? omg but it has so many memories from the first mrzz kids and wow idk how i feel about this. i mean i know its HIS song so he’s perfectly entitled to perform it but its wild bc this song is so mrzz1 its kinda strange to bring it back for mrzz4. like does it feel like the mrzz1 kids are being replaced? or maybe i should take it like ljt is singing it in their honor and bringing it back to where he began. lol like zzn and mby know the lyrics bc theyve performed this song themselves before :’) okay so the beginning was a tiny bit pitchy but ljt is the best singer compared to everyone else!! the way he sings 揮揮手 with such power is so oof and i still just love his vocal timbre. one thing i like about 午睡 in particular is that none of them are trying to fight ljt to be a vocalist, which is unlike the other two group, and i think its nice that he can just be trusted to handle the vocals and it keeps it cleaner bc hes a capable vocalist on his own. im happy to see muji on bass too bc its cool he can be so versatile. LOL LJT introducing everyone in the middle of the song i love him hes so funnn. i will say, the arrangement of the song felt a little frame-heavy? idk if that phrase is the correct way to describe it, but i felt like there wasn’t enough sound filling the song, but jym is really jamming out in the background (im so happy whenever i see a glimpse of his drumming smile) and ljt is carrying with the vocals in the foreground. maybe its just bc im not used to this arrangement so it sounds strange to me. AW ljt going to zzn and mby to get them to singggg and AWWWWW muji running to yingge, sam, tyler, ruiyang they look soooo happy to hug him aawwwwwwww i love roommateesssss and also i still see them as this crowd of misfits who dont really fit in but can find solace in each other. can you imagine what wouldve happened if 太空餐廳 had stayed in this race? wild, i feel like they couldve made it to the end too. LOL ljt really treating this like a finale on a concert, such a pro LOL. OMG IM SO HAPPY TO SEE MAOMAO TALKING AND LJT TALKING BACK, i looove their friendshippppp awwww

wait i just had a random thought, but are the clothes they’re wearing like their own clothes? bc some of these 氣運 kids have a flashy wardrobe if so LOL 

omg xiao li’s written 78 songs for 氣運????? LOL CAN WE TALK ABOUT THESE INTRO VIDEOS BC 氣運 ‘S WAS SO NICE WTF HAHAHAHHA its so biased???? like wtf were the first 2 intro videos nonsense, and then you get to 氣運 ‘s and theirs is all artistic and pretty and dramatic and nice???? what???? hahahhahaha oh my goodness they even shipped hyt a drum set in the middle of a freaking grassy field wtf

okay i honestly think xiao li is the best singer in 氣運, maybe im biased but even he started a tiny bit pitchy but he adjusted quickly and his voice is just so nice and he puts a lot of care into his vocals even while playing piano! 

unrelated to the music, but honestly i thought i liked xiao li with short hair better but i do like the bangs he has framing his face here. i just prefer the back of it to not be so long LOL 

WOW i said all that about xiao li’s voice before xiao xiong started singing (and i immediately wished xiao li would sing again.. oops sorry to xiao xiong, but he gets off key easily when singing soft and low contrast pitches) and then xiao li SANG THE CHORUS AND WOW his voice is so nice i like it so much!!! i really hope he feels satisfied with this perf, as its their last perf and hes said before that he couldnt face their songs straight-on yet. wow i just have to go back and listen to him sing the chorus again wow the way his voice sounded on "傷心" OOF. 

what is zhao ke looking at when he raps? lol i feel like hes always looking off in a random direction but maybe im just not remembering correctly. but also the vocal effects they put on his mic make it hard to understand what he’s saying? but he also sounds like he has an accent. I dont know much about zhao ke like where he’s from or anything, but im curious if thats just bc of the vocal effects or he actually has an accent. 

UGH im sorry but then xiao xiong starts singing again and hes still off key and im still cringing..... i mean id noticed he was pitchy in previous episodes but this episode seems particularly noticeable?? im not sure if its bc they did any autotuning in the past but idk xiao xiong’s kinda not doing so great today :\ also the transition from zhao ke’s rap to xiao xiong’s singing was weird??? okay xiao xiong is fine once he starts projecting and puts more strength behind his voice, and then his vocal color is pretty nice! but prior to that.... 

lol am i think only one who thought it was weird that they recorded the guitar solo instead of having someone play it live? was it xiao li that played it on the recording? also zhao ke outside of rapping is basically a accompanying bass vocalist at this point lol 

im happy to see hyt being so happy jamming out back there, but his drum set is legit WILD. 

i know xiao li isn’t super popular but i wish people could acknowledge that 氣運 would be nothing without him. ugh he does so much for their music and sound, look at how much he was involved with in the credits for this song gosh. 

thank you to nana for voting for fruit planet, even tho we could kinda guess she would. but honestly not voting /cough/ is basically voting for 氣運, because everyone knows theyre gonna win the popular vote sooooo 

XIAO ZHI IS A TOTAL DAD NAMING HIS KIDS, staking his claim to xiao xiong, runze and tyler L O L its cute that he told them they dont need to grow up 

also can we talk about how xiao zhi said fruit planet wouldnt be here without youzi.... yooo their friendship is so real 

LOL xiao li yelling at hyt REPEATEDLY that hes a flamingo LOL 

im really torn about his hair length, still thinking about whether i actually like it.....

these are the superficial side thoughts that are going on in my head as i watch this show, yes. 

OOF qianye saying qiang ge is 優秀, not just his suo na aww i love seeing qiang ge laughing at pengpeng’s yelling at him and getting all this love and encouragement bc it feels like its taken him a while to open up but im glad he really seems to have

i like this yelling segment, will have to go look for more clips of it

wow this last performance really giving a visual demonstration of the group splitting is kinda sad for 銀河 bc they dont get to show up until the very end and theyre not even one of the last groups standing oof but also gives you a visual representation of how it’s been especially difficult for qiang ge, muji, and zhao ke, and also the others who had to go through group splitting. 

muji and sam smiling at each other at the end is all i need to see to smile. 

LOL ZZN’S WELCOME TO WJJW IM CRYINNGGGG rip 

aw im kinda surprised (but not) that fruit planet came in third loll what can i expect from tencent. but also its nice but also sad to see them cheering for themselves. i think they knew they wouldnt win but i think they deserved better

lol the fact that they had a banner for 氣運, and 氣運 won by like a HUGE margin, lol everyone already knew who would win 

lol can we just talk about how all the kids and teachers are just like in their own world talking and hugging behind the kids giving their winning speeches LOL they give no effs to this live broadcast LOL 

LOL IS THERE ANOTHER EPISODE NEXT WEEK BASICALLY?

LOL THE THIRD ANNOUNCEMENT IS LITERALLY A PLUG FOR MAOMAO’S CONCERT HAHAHHAHAHHA THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH 氣運, BUT OKAY HAHAHAH 

well its over. now i can go watch the recording of yingge’s livestream from sunday without fear of spoilers LOL

honestly looking back, this was a good show. i started it not really thinking id get invested bc i was also simultaneously watching snzm and since snzm is an idol show i knew id naturally get more invested in that. BUT these mrzz kids have really grown on me. theyre good kids and theres lots of talented kids among them. im curious how wjjw will deal with having 3(?) bands to promote now, but who knows, im just hoping to see more of fruit planet, ljt, and xiao li’s music in the future. i went into this show for ljt, and i came out of it with more music on my playlist (which is always great) and a high appreciation for xiao zhi and xiao li. hoping to see more of them in the future! 

[shewritesforgod]

Six "Must-Read" Short Stories

1. A Rose for Emily

It was written by the American author William Faullkner and was first published in 1930. It starts with the tale of a rich single woman, Emily, who is a mysterious recluse, frequently thought about but little-seen, living alone in a big home, rarely socializing. An old black woman is her only friend. Emily fails to have a street address when the position is first established in the community and refuses to pay taxes; a former mayor has formally released her of her tax obligations, but younger officials want to impose them. Occasionally, those who walk by her house see her on the ground floor, and she seems to have sealed up the top deck, but for certain, nothing else can be told. The protagonist is a part of the citys council, one of many suspicious people who come to snoop as Emily passes away. In the funeral-goers, the old black worker, now very dead, lets softly and then leaves. The stuffy, moldy, grand old house is visited by the writer and other officials and a single upstairs door is closed. Forcing the entrance, they discover inside a bedroom that looks like a gentlemans occupants, with discarded suits, a hairbrush, cufflinks spread out to be put on, but all corroded by time and coated in a dust film. The story kind of reflects how people perceive happiness. Some wanted to relieve every moment that made them happy to somehow feel that kind of emotion again. Sometimes we felt like the things that made us happy are also the things that make our lives worth living. Emily cannot be blame for she just wants to be loved and feel contentment. At the end of the day, letting go and accepting what is present would still be based on our decisions. It is only ourselves that could decide what will really give us genuine happiness.

2. The Cask of Amontillado

It is about a man make revenge on a friend who, he believes, has insulted him. The storys narrator, Montresor, tells an unspecified person, who knows him very well, of the day he took his revenge on his friend, Fortunato. Because of numerous insults and injuries. Montresor plots to murder his friend during Carnival, while the man is drunk and unconscious. Montresor tells Fortunato he has obtained some rare vintage Amontillado wine and lures him into a private wine-tasting excursion. Montresor brings the drunk Fortunato into his family catacombs. He chains Fortunato to a wall deep in the catacombs, then bricks up the opening. Fortunato screams for release, but Montresor only mocks him. Fortunatos body remains undiscovered for fifty years. The story is told by Montressors lips, the murderer who seeks revenge in the near future. From this angle, I appreciated how Poe and many of his others approached this research. To achieve his goals, the reader gets to see how the killer is thought, preparing, and organizing. Nevertheless, the more credible source is not Montressor. Although I believe hes frank with his actions and thoughts, he never addresses how he doesnt really seem to want to keep up with his challenge once hes trapped his buddy fully. We can see some of Montressors reluctance in paying back Fortunato, but it never emerges from the conscious thoughts of Montressor. The in-depth look at the reflections of Montressor helps connect the reader with the uncertainty about the future of Fortunato

3. Hills Like White Elephant

It is about a man and woman drinking beer while they are waiting for a train in a train station in Spain. The man is attempting to convince the woman to get an abortion. The man tries to to reassure the woman that the procedure is safe and promise that hell be right beside her the whole time, and it is the only solution to their problems. The girl tries using the things around her and the landscape on the other side of the tracks as a metaphor for the life they could have as a family. The man still pretends to be supportive, and tells that he really wants abortion, until the girl commands him to stop talking. Momentarily silenced, the two drink their last beer before the American carries their bags to the platform in preparation for the train soon on its way. Ernest Hemingways short story Hills Like White Elephants explores the polemical issue of abortion through a wandering young couples character development. Even though the word abortion is not mentioned anywhere in the novel, Hemingways strong use of atmosphere and meaning is irrefutably known. Originally, the narrator known only as the American exploits the meeker and soft-spoken Jig before she utilizes her feminine guiles to outwit him. The use of sarcastic sarcasm, subtle conversational style and verbal intelligence by Jig demonstrates her dominance over her male partner. Going further into the White Hills meaning, one can picture the hills reflecting the womb of a pregnant woman in a metaphorical way. On the other side of the valley, the hills are situated that can only be seen from a distance. The reflection of the remote hills may suggest that the girl finds it a distressing choice between the dry country and the hills. The dry land with the guy is also an abortion, and the hills imply conception, leaving the man. Its also clear that the guy never sees the slopes. He ignores the idea that it is impossible to choose abortion. Finally, the white color in this tale symbolizes the purity of the unborn child.

4. God Sees the Truth, But Waits

The story revolves around a man who was sent to prison for a murder he didnt commit. It implies a general theme in lined with faith and biblical message about what you need to do when the world is up against you. Ivan Aksionov is falsely accused and got imprisoned for 26 years for a crime he did not commit but he still puts his trust in God and still surrender everything and what will happen in His hands. The main character, Aksionov, was innocent in his prison life. What I like most about is that in every circumstance he has faced, he chooses to pray. Putting him in jail renders him godly. He didnt try to run, either. I might tell that Semyonich, deep inside him, lived his free life with remorse. In the first place, I believe Semyonich wants to kill Aksionov because hes jealous of being wealthy. I love the story like that. The occurrences are obvious from the very beginning of the story as well. The title means that, from the very beginning of every case, God knows everything that happens, but he is waiting for the right time to reveal the truth of what actually happened. We just have to wait for the right time to realize what God is actually doing for us. The intentions are not to harm us, but to educate us about lifes ideals. I was born as a Catholic not to keep hate in my bones, but only love and forgiveness. While it is valid that a person cannot step forward unless he / she forgives, in this tale I cant help but feel the injustice of life. It seems that only God can know the truth, it is to him alone we must appeal, and from him alone expect mercy. The only thing we can do in the midst of suffering caused by evil is to appeal to the mercy of God and believe that God knows and is in our suffering with us. The suffering of God with his people in Jesus Christ on the cross is one of the great truths and great mysteries of Christianity.

5. A Father

It is about a father, Musatov, who is blessed to have a kind hearted and dedicated children. Musatov is a drunkard and always asking money from his sons, and these sons always lend him with what he asked. His children indulge their father, Musatov, continually, even though he doesnt deserve it. Anton Chekhov (1860-1904) was a Russian novelist and playwright, regarded by many as one of the best short story writers in literature history. Chekhov was also a successful doctor, but his true passion was to write. He was quoted as saying Medicine is my wife and my life is literature. A tragic parent, Old Musatov, is fortunate to have children that are very committed. Musatov is a drunkard who continually asks for money from his family, which they offer him over and over again. Musatov expresses drunkly to one of his daughters, Boris, the gratitude and admiration he experiences for all his children, while at the same time admitting his own shortcomings. The children tend to indulge their dad. This short story simply shows how a father loves his children unconditionally despite of him being an alcoholic and imperfect as a father. This could give the readers a realization that it is not only our mothers that we appreciate more but we must also show appreciation to our fathers as well because at the end of the day they are still the ones thatll protect us at all costs, we will still run back to them if we get and hurt and they are also our number one fan.

6. The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World

It is about the changes brought by a dead man on an entire village. It implies the lesson of how a great person used his power to change others, to inspire them to be better, to make them want be the person theyve always dreamed of. The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World frequently examines one dead mans transformative effect on a community as a whole. This claim that a really nice person can change people, motivate them to be different, make them want to be exceptional. It is important that the change of the villager originates completely from within in this novel. After all, the dying man is dead, which ensures that the people are themselves accountable for the changes they make.