#guess who’s my favourite: extremely hard mode

[henryfondler]

12 angry men antagonists as comments ive gotten on tiktok…. I love them 🥘🥘🥘

[sonicfanthenightfury5099]

Hello hello!

If it’s not too much to ask, may I please request some fluff/comfort reactions with Thomas, RZ Michael, bubba and whoever else you wanna add?

It would be about the reader going Into their room and ask the boys if they can spend the night with them because they experience real bad panic attacks at night. It sometimes get so bad that the reader fears that they will lose oxygen as they panic. (As someone who experience those regularly, it’s terrifying, so having our favourite big boy’s comfort would be great)

That’s pretty much it! :) hope this is okay❤️ thank you so much if you do get to this request, I love your writing so much!

As someone who also had panic attacks in High School I can see some of the boys spending the night with Reader.

Sorry this took so long to write this, I tried to figure out what write. I juggle alot in my head example I'm currently working on a rough draft of my future Webcomic

Enjoy this

Slashers Spending the night with You

Summary: You ask your boyfriend to send the night so they don't go through a really bad panic attack during the night.

Characters: Michael Myers (OG, RZ, and Peepaw), Jason Voorhees, Thomas Hewitt, Bubba Saywer, Brahms Heelshire, and The Sinclairs Brothers

CW: Cuteness from the boys

Michael Myers RZ

When you ask him if he can stay home for the night, he gave you one his head tilts

He would usually go out and you stay home, but trying to sleep is hard

You tell him you get really bad Panic attacks at night, which have you scared of not be able to breathe

Alright I'll stay for the night

He seeing people having Panic attacks at Smith's Grove, especially one passing out from a attack

Wrapped in blanket and something warm to drink

A old monster movie playing on the TV as he puts his arm around your waist

Thomas Hewitt

Automatic Mama bear mode when you tell him you get really bad Panic attacks at night and have a fear of losing Oxygen as they panic

You can hold on to him like a teddy bear

Back rubs

You'll be falling asleep with him holding you close

Vincent Sinclair

Like Thomas, Mama Bear mode active

Warm blankets wrapped around the both of you in his bedroom

Candles lit to make it comfortable for you

Bo better not cause you to have an Attack

Brahms Heelshire

Before he showed himself has seen you have attacks at night (Brahms being Brahms) holding on to the doll

He eventually showed himself when you have a really bad episode

One extremely confused about a guy just came into your room, and Two who is he? Is it Brahms? You where told he died a long time ago

"Brahms?" You asked, he nodding as his reply

"Could you stay with me tonight? I need some comfort." You ask. "Yes." He replied in his child voice

He's holding on till the sun comes up

Michael Myers OG

Much like RZ Michael, your going to get one of his famous head tilts

Michael would just leave you home and when he gets back your still awake waiting for him

So that's why you stay up waiting for me, when you explain him about your Panic attacks at night

Guess he'll wait another night to hunt

He has became your weighted plushie in bed

He fell asleep afterwards

Bo Sinclair

Don't we sleep in the Same bed darlin?

He was going to check the gas station for a bit

"Is that why you have trouble sleeping?"

How about this, you can wear one of my shirts, I'll go down to the station and we can do anything you want

He comesback and your making popcorn while wearing his grey tee on

Watching a Documentary on the TV on Penguins

You fell asleep after that and he carry you to bed

Bubba Saywer

Relatable

Blanket Fort in the bedroom with some snacks

Watching a rerun on the TV in the bedroom

I recently watched the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre on the anniversary day

Lester Sinclair

"Oh my they get that bad?" He said when you told him about your really bad night Panic attacks

He normally doesn't go out at night but sometimes his brother ask him to come to the gas station to help out it

But tonight he can say in and listen to the radio

Snacking on jerky till you fell asleep

Jason Voorhees

Oh you poor bean

Much like Thomas and Vincent, Mama Bear Mode active

Warm blankets and warm drinks while having a Fire lit in the cabin

Eventually falling asleep next to the fire

Peepaw Michael Myers

Old man Head tilt

"Please stay in tonight Michael, I dont want to be alone tonight." You said to him

Putting on a old cheese romance movie to ease your nerves

He gags at some of the parts which makes you giggle

His turn, an old monster movie The Fly from 1958

He rubs your back while started to fall asleep

He carried you to the shared bedroom to sleep cause he started to get sleeply too

[aihoshiino]

Professor of Hoshino Aiology, I need thy wisdom since you understand Ai so well, what do you think Ai would act like if she were to be in a relationship? Her likes, dislikes, what she might like to do with her partner during free time, do you think she'd ever be jealous over something etc

every time you guys address me as professor of aiology i get the most vivid mental image of myself at a pepe silvia board. i need to get art of that.

BUT.... WELL GOSH ANON SINCE YOU'VE TWISTED MY ARM… [<- trying to act like they aren't basically wagging their tail at the prospect of rambling about this]

I've rambled a lot before about what I like in Ai ships in particular, but I think in any scenario, romance with Ai is necessarily founded on deep, bone-marrow-deep trust - she has so, so much to lose on just about every level that romance is a massive risk for her. So I think any romantic relationship is, by necessity, the result of friendship (or just extremely palpable mutual pining lol) and trust developing into deep, deep love. Because of this, I think she's not really the jealous type…? Not only because she has to be 100000% secure before being in a relationship to begin with, but because she's just so resigned to abandonment and being left behind by people who should love her.

Once she's actually IN a relationship tho, I think she really blossoms - just as she does with Saitou and Miyako, two people she clearly has a pretty secure relationship with. She looooves banter and teasing… she has a really cute and cheeky sense of humor and she likes to affectionately and playfully bully the people she likes, so someone being able to give as good as they get and banter with her is one of her favourite things… but she also enjoys when she can get under someone's skin and get a good reaction out of them. She's so annoying. <3

For other things she likes… I think she likes height/size differences, which is good because she's so tiny and petite they're built in whether she likes it or not LOL. She's also pretty aware of people's hands just because of all the handshake sessions she does - she's also suuuuper touchy and cuddly because she's so starved for like, genuine meaningful touch and intimacy. So things like someone gently setting a hand on her back or taking her hand make her go so so sooooo soft.

Her dislikes, she kind of talks about in 45510: she doesn't like people who nitpick or get hung up on or overreact to her mistakes. Ai herself isn't really the type who gets super hung up on small details, so someone who's really particular and high maintenance would be difficult for her to vibe with. People who don't emote super well (and are thus harder for her to read), too… I also think she really, really can't handle people who have a temper and get riled up easily just because of her own experiences growing up as an abuse victim. When people get mad at/around her, she tends to lock up and go really hard on People Pleasing Fawning Mode as a kneejerk survival reaction.

UM THAT GOT GLOOMY… so on a lighter note… couple activities…!!!!

I definitely think Ai is the type who values just being able to spend time with her SO chatting about everything and nothing… she's the kind of girlfriend who is legitimately on cloud nine just sitting with the person she loves and listening to them infodump about something LOL. I think she also really likes… hm, how to put this… typical 'couple'-y date activities? I guess? So much of her life is about being denied normalcy so I think there's something really special for her about getting to be a 'normal girl' enjoying normal, mundane happiness with a person she loves, even if it's just something simple and silly like going to a theme park together or checking out a restaurant they both think looks good.

[manysmallhands]

My Favourite Songs of 2023 pt. 3: 20 - 11

Carrying on from yesterday’s post: may the penultimate countdown commence!

20. pinkpantheress - Capable Of Love

While Boy’s A Liar was by far the bigger hit, Capable Of Love was the single that captured pinkpantheress at her best this year, combining her sad girl tales of romantic doubt with a beat that goes hard enough to give you a paradoxically huge lift. While i can't help but worry about how terrified she sounds, her super sweet garage pop is a solid favourite of mine and I'll guess I'll just have to reconcile that with my conscience.

19. Jeff Rosenstock - FUTURE IS DUMB

This year’s HELLMODE album saw Jeff in a slightly more reflective mode than usual but FUTURE IS DUMB was a nod to past glories, setting his frustrations about the modern world to dayglo punk pop played fast enough to comfortably sever your head from your body. While the takeaway - “the world doesn’t owe you” - seemed somewhat nihilistic, the general feeling of one man trying to make sense of a collapsing society was as relatable and moving as ever.

18. Black Thought /El Michels Affair - The Weather

On something of a roll after last year’s album with Danger Mouse, Black Thought uses the El Michels band to full effect here as the pair speed up and slow down in perfect coordination on this summeriest of street scenes. Leon Michels works up a blissed out soulscape as the Roots star rhymes with intricacy and precision, by turns laid back and fiercely intense.

17. Aoife Nessa Frances - Fantasy

Grandiose in design and epic in scope, Fantasy (not the Mariah song) takes Aoife’s moody psychpop template and gives it an extraordinary makeover. Decorated with orchestral fantasia, it sounds like the kind of music you might find in a high class opium den and that’s before you even get to Aoife’s velvety swoon of a voice. I honestly didn’t think she had this in her.

16. Billie Eilish - What Was I Made For?

Billie’s second number one was a grower, a pristine piano ballad that managed the tricky business of projecting deep sadness without veering into mawkishness. Bille is ostensibly talking about Barbie (duh), but the lines seem to blur into her own commodification and the notion of becoming “just something you paid for” cuts uncomfortably close to the bone.

15. Caroline Polachek - Dang

While the best songs from the "Desire, I Want To Turn Into You" album were actually from previous years, Polachek finished 2023 with a flourish, issuing a single that was an improvement on every last one of them. Built around a sample that sounds like a cat being strangled and a flash of old Hollywood melody, Dang sounded strange and glitchy but alway compelling. One of the best examples yet of her idiosyncratic vision of pop.

14. Palehound - Route 22 

Palehound’s Eye On The Bat album was their first to really make a dent in me, and Route 22 is both typical of its strengths and a standout on its own merits. Ellen Kempner’s bleary country rock ballad explores the lines between loving someone and the need to be appreciated, with its honesty all the more touching for the beauty of its setting.

13. Wednesday - Chosen To Deserve 

“I was here first!” I cry as I brandish my old Wednesday albums but it’s still a nice feeling to watch the world catch up, as well as interesting to see bands find themselves exalted who wouldn’t have gotten the time of day a few years ago. “Chosen To Deserve” itself is a sweet natured country rocker powered by a bone crunchingly fierce riff, as Karly Hartman’s tales of misspent youth skirt the line between humour and something more uncomfortable.

12. The Mountain Goats - Fresh Tattoo

Jenny From Thebes is an album that requires a little patience but its second single found The Mountain Goats at their most immediate and effective. While it starts life as a breezy narrative ballad, Fresh Tattoo feeds off of its momentum to make a convincing shift to anthemic territory by the last verse. By turns warm, witty and extremely memorable, this is as good as they've ever sounded.

11. Olivia Rodrigo - Get Him Back

Inescapable for months on Radio 1 (where it even had its own jingle), Olivia's love/hate anthem manages to indulge all her best instincts, especially her theatricality and love of 90s guitar rock. Powered by a surprisingly good rap/rock delivery, it’s filled with immensely quotable lines from top to bottom but be sure to seek out the clean version to hear the best one, cos everyone knew that guy was missing a screw!

[panicsimss]

I was tagged by @duusheen !! tysm! :)

1. What’s your favourite sims death? I'm gonna go extreme and say death by flies. on a related note, in sims 2, I cheated and killed the college mascot with the fly death because they were pissing me off so bad. and then I placed the urn in front of my sim's dorm room as a warning lmao

2. Alpha CC or Maxis Match? maxis mix!

3. Do you cheat when your sims gain weight? ehh no. I guess it depends on the sim but most of the time no, I don't.

4. Do you use move objects? y e s.

5. Favorite mod? MCCC and wonderfulwhims

6. First expansion/game/stuff pack you got? Get to work and Get together!

7. Do you pronounce “live mode” like aLIVE or LIVing? I've always said it like LIVe mode, like living

8. Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? unsurpisingly, Poppy

9. Have you made a simself? yeah, tried to anyways. my simself is my current pfp :0

10. What sim traits do you give yourself? lazy, geek, and creative.

11. Which is your favorite EA hair color? I love the green swatch but I never use it

12. Favorite EA hair? uhhhhhh I think that one braided/pony tail hair form eco lifestyle is pretty neat

13. Favorite life stage? young adult!

14. Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? I enjoy building, but I wouldn't consider myself much of a builder. I used to build shit for hours and never actually play the damn game so here's the artistic representation of that:

overall though? starting a legacy on simblr is what made me enjoy gameplay again.

15. Are you a CC creator? definintely not lol

16. Do you have any simblr friends/a sim squad? I love my simblr mutuals <3 <3 if ur reading this, mwah

17. What’s your favorite game? (1, 2, 3, or 4) 2 and 3 for the absolute chaos and depth of gameplay, 4 for mods and build mode. it's hard to choose just one when they're all fun in their own ways!

18. Do you have any sims merch? nah

19. Do you have a YouTube for sims? I have posted 1 single speed CAS video. my youtube is just for dumb stuff I make

20. How has your “sim style” changed throughout your years of playing? it was super maxis match and lacked any real detail that could have made each sim unique, but nowadays I think I gravitate toward adding so many skin details and going for more of a maxis mix type of look. I love the subtle realism

21. What’s your Origin ID? it's a secret

22. Who’s your favorite CC creator? softerhaze, awingedllama, simstrouble, clumsyalienn, and sforzcc to name a few

23. How long have you had a simblr? my goldfish brain can't remember. uhh since around 2020-2021??? i'm not sure

24. How do you edit your pictures? take screenshots with gshade and edit them in canva

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack do you want next? bands, more apartments, more hobbies in general. NO HORSES.

25. What expansion/game/stuff pack is your favorite so far? seasons, get together, vampires

i'll tag everyone reading this (jk)

[sunshades]

HELLOOO 🍁 for tiare, marcus, and persnaps even rovi if u want :3c can be in terms of actual season and/or eladrin season for funsies

[oc asks]

OMG... babe wake up The Controversial Eladrin Question is here...

🍁 what is their favourite season? why?

(👑) well that's gotta be spring no question! (EXTREMELY LOUD INCORRECT BUZZER AND THE LIE DETECTOR GIVES ME AN ELECTRIC SHOCK) okay. actual answer: considering the main real world ref for brasidas maybe they too have a winter that lasts all the way to march... and it'd bother them as a Concept, how it lasts so little and doesn't do nearly enough to change the place. u want it to make the whole place green and warm but it doesn't. symbolically: it was kalan's season and they're trying So Hard to be that kinda person who is unbothered and joyful but they just aren't. NOWWW in season terms. and in eladrin terms. summer is about Action and strong emotions that are sometimes Bad AND it's about the sun being annoying as fuck. and mimi's at a summer point in his life. burning light reflecting off the water and limeade that needs more sugar 🍋 and. he'll learn to like spring again probably. in the eladrin sense of letting themselves be happy bc they feel like it and not because It's The Way I Should Be and also in the literal sense of: they need to go to a big flower field in the middle of spring and see the snow thaw and see that maybe SOMEONE was right and even their home can bloom in its own way and there is something good and worth saving in it. look at it all with brand new eyes. then it'll be spring.

(🍊) oughhh my boy... having barely really met anyone with even a drop of elven blood i def think marcus doesn't really have the... cultural baggage? about seasons that tiare has, which is a little bad and a little good. as we have previously established: he's mostly been autumn all his life literally because he's Like That and hasn't really… been feeling things that deeply, in a sense. not to be always quoting that ask polly post but yk "it's the strongest emotion you've ever felt and you've convinced yourself it's your destiny". actually another: the fucking conan gray song that goes "u don't have to act like all you feel is mild (...) u don't really like the sun it drives u wild" something like that going on. been too long by himself and it's like he's forgotten that he too is... just some guy and can feel angry or attached to someone just like anyone else and there's nothing wrong with it. so that is marcus' lack of eladrin baggage 🧍‍♂️ but similarly to mithra! i think rn he likes spring a lot, all the bright colors that feel so different from him, but he'll probably grow to like autumn as a Thing later on. spring being a symbol of rebirth but autumn too as a sign of a slower change, and a time to value your memories rather than just looking for something different. the backyard covered in brown and orange leaves and his mother's hands red with pomegranate seeds.

(🏞) ROVIIIII ok actually. despite having drawn em wintery to signify that in current times they're not doing well. they actually like winter a lot! they aren't winter a lot because they're just. not pensive and reflective enough, or haven't been most of their lifeSARFDTGHDSF genuinely don't think she has much baggage about it (i'm NOT lying, unlike for the marcus answer) which i guess is the positive point of having grown up in the feywild! they've always been used to change, it doesn't seem to bother them. anyway. i think the season roviere's most aligned with (and probably my favorite color palette for them also DCGHJD) is spring for sunlight til late in the evening and good winds perfect for seafaring. ideal conditions. but if you asked them: summer because they think they're hottest as a blonde. fall is probably nonio's favorite because the red to blue gradient is pretty and to him it means they're not Hyper Spring Mode so maybe they could sit down to relax together. so rovi likes it too by proxy.

[risu5waffles]

Ten-10 for Pen-pen

Got another 10 in the pike for y'all. Which, to think of it. Why pike? Who puts anything in a fish? Aside from fish food? i guess?

Talked about this a few weeks back. Short. Sweet. Well, mostly sweet? It's mostly just short, to be honest.

There are some really nice set pieces in this one, yeah. Loved all the giant zombie-ghosty things. The castle, itself, is a really nicely done environment, tho' i feel like the cameras are really a touch to herky-jerky at times. Gameplay was fun enough, even if a few bits don't totally gel; that bouncy floor bit really didn't quite work for me. The major fly in the ointment is the "This Is Halloween" or whatever it's called playing on loop the whole damned level. Even if it were a good song (and this version of it definitely is not), it just can't sustain 7minutes about of gameplay.

It's funny how you'll never hear of a creator, and then you blink and suddenly they're everywhere? And they're actually really good? This one is not a perfect recreation of Skulldozer, but it approximates it quite well, while putting its own spin on the proceedings. i am always a little bit wary of the Temple as a level kit, 'cause it feels a little bit of a kind of way towards Indian (subcontinent India, that is, not Native American) folx? i don't know. It's not my place to get angry about it, but it does tend to ping my "is this going to be gross?" radar. Anyways, Joja28 has a tonne of levels, and they all seem to have come out fairly recently, and they're all pretty good. i hope i didn't make that sound suspicious, because it isn't really. Sometimes folx just get on a whole tear in create mode.

This is another one, like the Snake Temple level above, that got picked up for a Team Pick right after i recorded, but before the episode went live. Hate that. This one's really fun to look at, but not quite as much to engage wiv. If you get out of the score bubble sections, it's really difficult to get back up, so you're just stuck on the boat forever watching the level go by. But the level does, at least, look nice, and it has a lot of character; it just feels really long when you can't engage wiv it.

The first of Chronos' Neon Dimension series, and already just strong right out the gate. Can we step back and appreciate this was made 12 dang years ago? Chronos was just a wee babby. And he just throws this together, like, oh, yeah, i just had this in my back pocket. i remember playing this the first time and thinking how cool it was that the level just kind of put itself together as i went. That was my benchmark for "is this level really special" for a couple of years when i first started reviewing, and it came from seeing it the first time done well here.

i think this might be my favourite "HARD" levels, tho it doesn't really bill itself the way those ones do (seriously, a lot of them just have hard in all-caps right in the title). This one's really tricky, and some bits take a fair amount of finesse, but it never feels unfair, and it never feels like it's rushing you along before you're ready. Add to that an excellent presentation, an extremely chill vibe, and a great choice of music, and you've got a real masterclass in level design. i tell you, no lie, i was so proud to beat this one way back in the day.

Yooo... what is this even? It is so fluid! The animation, it's like, i know it was done in LBP3, but i don't think i've ever seen anyone pull off something that looked quite as good or as well-done as this. The creator said on the title page they might or might not have gotten around to finishing it, but they were publishing it anyways just to have what was completed out there. i'm not familiar wiv the song, so i can't say yay or nay to that; but what we did get is honestly really special.

We're not also posting this to the subreddit, so i can say more honestly how i feel about this level. Fuck this level. Fuck it right in the ear wiv a big metal dick. Gods. This was actually anti-fun. It actually went out and removed fun from the world. It probably shit on a baby's ice cream while i was playing it, powered by my deep frustration and loathing.

There are some cute touches in this one, even if i don't feel like it really needed to be as long as it was. i really liked the skiiers and their bits of animation. The setting had a bit more pop in colour than we usually see in snow-themed levels, and i appreciated that as well. But, to be honest, there isn't really too much that sticks out in my mind either? i know that's kind of shitty, but there you go.

Tell you what, i was not expecting this level to be like this. Like, i've played LaDIDa72's levels before, and they can be tricky, but they always felt tricky in spite of themselves, you know? Like, a little playtesting and polish and they'd work better? i guess i didn't realize that street goes both ways. You can take wonky bits and polish them to be harder. This has got some of the fiddliest, most bullshite platforming i've played in a while and i loved it? It never felt unfair, just always just barely not do-able, and that makes all the difference. Plus, there's little that's dependent on things outside your control, and that, i feel like, is super important to keep players engaged wiv this kind of level. Make someone feel like the fuck up is on their end, and they will beat their heads into the wall trying to get past it, but let them think for a moment that the fuck up was on you as a creator, and they will bounce right out. It super helps this level is pretty as fuck. Like it is just super pretty. Which is half the reason i wasn't expecting it to be a hard level. A lot of times those are just dogshit ugly. Fun fact! i can't watch this video on my own YouTube channel thanks to Song 2 being in the level. Thanks a fucking lump Sony Music Japan! You're total fucking peaches!

---------------------

So that's another ten off the top then. Your usual mix of good, bad, and ugly, but alright enough for all that. It feels like it's becoming my day off refrain, but i got stuff done today, but not what i needed, and not what i wanted. Well, a few things i needed, but not, like, needed-needed, you know?

[yuzu-all-the-way]

Prologue Hachinohe Day 3 (live broadcast) - impressions

It's been more than 12 hours and I thought it's time I write down my thoughts and feeling about the last day of Prologue - both an ending and beginning.

Generally, Prologue was definitely a success and it surpassed my expectation by far. I never doubted Yuzuru and he delivered. This time, knowing what to expect in terms of emotional damage, I was not as phased by the video edits, but, inevitably, I teared up during SEIMEI, screamed during Change, Otonal and Etude - after a short respite when he talked and I was desperately trying to understand (and obviously failing) why he was talking about SEIMEI, quad jumps and triple Axels - back to tearing up through R&J 1.0, screaming and feeling great during A Fleeting Dream, and finally, tearing up again during Haru, Yo Koi. Emotional rollercoaster is an understatement.

(Sorry for the long sentence, but there really was no breather during Prologue, so neither is one here.)

It felt like he had much more energy than in Yokohama Day 2 and I appreciated that he paced himself enough that Yuzuru was able to complete the ice show clean! I genuinely don't know when about 2 hours passed - I was so engrossed into the show that I simply did not acknowledge anything else, just Yuzu skating... and talking ... and wearing a hoodie ... and laughing... and skating ... skating ...

Truly, best experience ever - the only thing that can top it is to see him live in a freezing arena.

I'm too lazy to add photos here, I already put together the majority of which I found in the Prologue Hachinohe MasterPost.

Anyhow, the show itself was not surprising, it was simply engaging and worthwhile - I was happy to not be overly emotional. But theeeen...

Parisienne Walkways, but like, extreme Hoochie Coochie Man mode was, as it happened in Yokohama, a hard whiplash, yet it got dethroned by the BIGGEST whiplash the Yuzu's fans ever experienced (at least, from the general reactions, it seems like it).

A short From Russia with Love encore, small Yuzu on screen and big Yuzu on the ice, lights out, then a video... 26.02.2023... Ice Story, GIFT.

Yeah, that was definitely the surprise of the year (my year starts with 19th July, I guess). Nothing could've prepared us for the major news about ANOTHER one-man ice show EXCLUSIVELY for one-night at the Tokyo Dome. Yuzu's life feels like a movie and we are the audience who can never guess the plot twists.

Because of this exciting news, I don't even feel sad that Prologue has ended. I'm normal - because I know we'll see him in 2 months and there's no longer that pressing question "What next?" because we already have the answer.

Yes, Prologue was the perfect beginning for Yuzu's pro career, it also proved that he is a mastermind and capable of engaging hundreds of thousands of people around the world for 2 hours (or more) straight (the stream I was on had about 60K people watching and I bet there were many more watching through other means).

I have to give it to Asahi TV, they gave us performances from previous days, too - we still want the full show, or, at least, I do, but this is a good start. I never imagined I'd love seeing Yuzuru skate again to Somebody to Love nor that I'd watch the Mission Impossible skate on repeat because... he's just so cool (biased, I am).

Otonal, seeing it twice (I think it was from today's broadcast the 2nd time around, too) healed my tiredness and made me so energetic. Definitely my favourite Yuzu SP.

Now, onto waiting for GIFT and for Yuzu to update his YT channel.

[tomtenadia]

King for a day

I apologise for the horrible title...

Rowaelin month - day 19 

It was a nice autumn day and the castle still lay quiet. It was still early and most of its occupants were still in bed.

In the royal chambers Rowan’s eyes popped open and in that instant he sensed the distress in the person sleeping at his side. His fae senses alerted him through the bond that there was something wrong with his mate. She lay curled in a foetal position, her hands clutching her stomach.

“Fireheart?” His voice thick with fear. Was it a nightmare? Was she ill?

It had been three years since the war had been over but the healing process for all of them was taking much longer than expected and he knew that Aelin some night still woke in the grips of panic and the horrible feeling of still being in that damned coffin. And in those nights all he could do was to hold his mate in his arms and let her know she was safe, and free and that he was at her side. It broke his old immortal heart.

“Aelin?” He called again, pulling her to his chest and as of on instinct she buried her face against his chest “are you okay?”

She whimpered and Rowan almost screamed. He could not bear to have her in pain. His lips peppered her forehead with kisses “what is it?”

“Cycle.��� Was all she said and Rowan knew. Since her transformation into full fae her body had been changing as well and adopted all the traits of the race. He had learned that her cycles were not regular and when they happened, Aelin would be in extreme pain for days. She had also inherited the difficulty for fae to procreate. They had decided to try and have a family for over a year now but it has been proving very hard and he could not stand the hurt in Aelin’s face when it failed once again.

It would happen, he kept telling her, the last piece to that happiness they had been trying to find since after the horrors of the war. He had dreamed it, their family, they just needed patience.

“Is there anything I can do? Do you want me to call the healer?”

She shook her head and snuggled closer and Rowan tightened his hold “I guess I can play king consort for a day and deal with politics.” Aelin looked up at him.

“You hate that stuff.”

A gentle kiss “I do, that’s why you are queen and I am just the pretty male at your side,” he joked “but I guess that for a day I can deal with Darrow and the council men.”

“I am the queen,” she said with a tired voice, forcing herself to a sit position “I can’t stay in bed all day. I have a duty.”

“Aelin,” his strong hand brushed a strand of hair from her face “even the queen needs a day off when she is not well.”

Once they had started working on their kingdom they had reached the agreement that she was the one dealing with the political side. Rowan had preferred to throw himself into physical labour admitting that helping rebuild was more into his chords than dealing with courtly bullshit. Aelin had joked that he just hated to dress up for court.

She tried once more to protest but Rowan was in full fuss mode and pushed her back down in bed. He grabbed the thick blankets and covered her “now you stay here. I will go to the healer and ask for your tonic.”

Aelin watched him stand and leave their chamber and as soon as he left she ducked under the blankets ignoring the pain spreading through her lower body.

Rowan came back ten minutes later and found her hiding under the blankets. He pulled them back and helped Aelin to sit up “Drink. The healer assured me this will help.”

She took the goblet and drank under his watchful eye and once she was done Rowan grabbed the empty goblet and pushed her back down “now you rest and sleep. Would you like a book?”

Aelin shook her head. She was not feeling well enough to concentrate on a book.

“Or we could just cancel the council for a day and you could stay in bed with your wife all day, keeping me company and holding me in those strong arms of yours.”

Rowan flicked her nose “we can’t do that.”

“Not even if it’s your queen who orders it?” She looked at him hopeful that she had hit the right spot that convinced him to dismiss court duty and stay with her. She appealed at his male duty to look after his mate and a glimmer of hope flickered into her when for a brief instant he seemed to consider it.

“For as much as it pains me to leave you alone when you are distressed, alas, I am the king consort, which means that is my duty to deal with politics when you can’t.”

Aelin huffed disappointed “at least bring me chocolate when you come back from your duties.”

“As my queen commands.” He leaned over to kiss her deeply and pushed her once more under the blanket and then pulled away to get changed for his boring and long day with the council.

Ten minutes later he was pushing open the heavy doors of the council room all dressed up in his best tunic, breeches and polished boots. 

“Good morning, gentlemen.” He greeted as he sat at the head of the table where Aelin would usually sit.

“Your majesty.” Said Darrow, bowing his head in salute. Rowan hated to be addressed so formally, hated all the frills of court. He was a warrior, he was used to a much simpler way of life. But being married to the queen had that unpleasant downside. But for her he’d do anything. Even deal with people who still looked at him as a brute with no right to claim the title of king consort.

“My queen has asked me to convey her deepest apologies. She is currently indisposed and had asked me to attend to her duties for the day. I hope the lords here present will not be offended to deal with such a brute like me.” A smirk spread on his face. Let them know that he knew exactly what they thought about him.

“We are sorry to hear about her majesty’s being unwell. We wish her a speedy recovery.” Replied Darrow ignoring the jab about having to deal with him. 

“So,” he started grabbing some documents. He might not actively deal with politics, but he knew exactly what Aelin was doing. She would discuss her plans with him and update him after every council session.

“The first item on the agenda is the requests from the merchants guild…”

It was far too many hours later when he was free once again. Once out of the room he unclasped the first three buttons of his tunic and felt like he could breath once again. Quickly he ran back to their chambers. The bond had been quiet and he felt little distress from Aelin meaning that the tonic had effect. Leaving her alone had gone against every single one of his male instincts but he had responsibilities and their kingdom mattered a lot to both. So he put his male fussiness aside and just went on with the day job.

Once back in the royal chamber he found Aelin deeply asleep and the worry in his chest loosened a bit. He quickly got changed in a more comfortable attire and then slipped in bed with her, pulling her body to his chest.

As soon as she was in his arms Aelin awoke and gave him a sleepy smile.

“My dutiful king is back,” she said in a tired voice.

“Yes, and Darrow is unpleasant as always.”

Aelin gave him a low chuckle.

“How are you feeling?” He asked as his hand gently massaged her lower back.

“Now that you are back, much better.” Her face disappeared in the crook of his neck, inhaling the scent of pine and snow that was so him.

“Did you sleep the whole time?”

Aelin nodded.

“Good.”

“Did you bring me chocolate?”

Rowan chuckled and stood to go to his desk and grabbed something. A moment later he joined her back in bed with a box of her favourite chocolates.

“Such a dutiful king.”

Rowan sat with his back against the head of the bed and pulled Aelin against him in a semi sit position as she ate some of the chocolate delicacies in the box.

“Nothing like eating chocolate in your mate’s arms on a sick day.”

Rowan chuckled and tucked her head under his chin “just don’t eat too many or you’ll find yourself with a different kind of stomachache.” He took the box from her hands and pulled the blanket up to cover them both.

“I am here now,” he whispered against her hair while his arms surrounded her “sleep a bit more.”

A few minutes later Aelin was asleep once more and he relaxed.

She was his life. His everything.

And for her he’d even sit in endless meetings.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

There are a plethora of things I found distasteful about the very final chapters of GK, most of which were a culmination of the wrong turns I felt the story took especially around the Goryokaku arc. However the thing I struggled the most with wasn't the death of a character I liked, but the survival of two: Sugimoto and Tsukishima. Especially Sugimoto. Do you feel the same or do you disagree completely?

Do you think the story could have been -well, not fixed, but elevated someway by the death of those two?

Hum...

First of all, WARNING to all the readers.

As you can guess by the ask this reply isn’t one that’s going to shower Noda in praises for how he handled things. If you can’t handle seeing his work criticized, I recommend you to hit the back button and forget this post.

Now back to the ask.

It’s really hard to tell because what really decides the quality of a story isn’t really the elements you decide to include in it but how you narrate it.

For example you can decide to write a self insert commedy filled with metaphors in which whose with whom you disagree with you are punished and whose who agree rewarded and you leaves for a quest given SOLELY to you because you’re just that special and get to be with your favourite celebrity and your teenager crush and it comes out worse than “My immortal”... or it comes out as the greatest work ever of your country and everyone studies it or at least have heard of it and, thanks to it, you even gain the nick of Sommo Poeta and people built statues of you and names streets after you because your “Divina Commedia” was just that great.

Long story short, Sugimoto and Tsukishima dying or living probably wouldn’t have made the difference if the narrative were to keep the same quality level (rushed, ruled by easy mode, with plot contrivances, retcons and with actions that have no real weight/consequences and what else) while them surviving would have felt really good if the narrative had been better.

Despite all this however I’ve hear a good part of the fandom being lead to wish for their death despite Sugimoto and Tsukishima being beloved characters (they were respectively 1st and 3rd in the character pool).

I can’t speak for them, I don’t know why they feel this way but I can tell you something else. If you’re used to read my meta you probably know I was in teh camp of people expecting them to survive... however I found their survival extremely unsatisfying because poorly constructed.

Overall the final part of the endgame of the story felt to me as if the author has a precise idea for where the characters has to go... but just couldn’t make them go there by their own power in a way that was meaningful and needed to forcefully push them in that direction.

To go back to Umeko and Sugimoto’s confrontation, Noda wants Sugimoto to go back to Hokkaido with Asirpa... but the way he lead this to happen is by removing all the obstacles that would stop Sugimoto from doing so.

Sugimoto seems to find absolutely easy to show up again in front of her, Umeko feels no smell of death from him and is already healed, so it’s not like he has to care for her, and married, so it’s not like he can marry her and somehow Sugimoto doesn’t care about all this because he has somehow stopped wishing to marry Umeko and started longing for going back to Hokkaido with Asirpa.

Basically there’s 0 emotional effort in the scene from Sugimoto, Noda has already removed all the obstacles and retconned him so that he’ll do as Noda wants even though before he couldn’t do it and he claimed to love Umeko and never said he wanted to permanently live in Hokkaido but, at most, only until Asirpa would be satisfied with how the incident ended.

And this applies to his survival as well.

Noda gave him a series of wounds that should have been fatal (from Ogata stabbing him in what looked likes his intestine to Tsurumi pinning him through the chest to the train) and then he ends up in what seemed an heroic sacrifice in the sea with the train. But Noda wanted him to survive so... Noda saves him. How we don’t know beyond the implication Shiraishi might have fished him up (but this wouldn’t have magically fixed his wounds).

The result is that what could have been his ‘heroic dead scene’ feels more satisfying than the fact he was saved because... there’s no a ‘salvation scene’. His, apparently effortless, survival, as far as I’m involved, cheapens the previous ‘almost death scene’, which, credits when it’s due, was instead emotional and Noda put some efforts in constructing it.

Sugimoto ended up pinned to the train because HE saved Asirpa, leaving himself exposed and and because TSURUMI took advantage of this and pinned him to the train. And he fell into the water and couldn’t attempt to free himself because HE and TSURUMI were busy fighiting up until a moment before falling in the water.

If we really want to see Noda’s hand in this, we could blame it in how Asirpa conveniently almost fall off the train in a pretty unclear scene... but it’s a small plot contrivance that you might blame to the train shaking so as to cause her to lose balance in her concern to retrieve the land deed.

Overall the characters are the ones moving the plot and they’re facing consequences for their actions, Tsurumi getting shoot and Sugimoto getting pinned and ending in the water and... and then all this is destroyed when the next chapter solved the cliffhanger in which chap 313 ended by... handwaving it.

It’s not that Sugimoto deserved to die... it was that his salvation needed to matter as much as his almost death scene. If we had seen the characters’ efforts in saving him, if we had felt their hardship in saving him, we could have emotionally partecipated and rejoiced for his survival. Like this though, the story counts on us to be happy Sugimoto didn’t die solely because we should want him to survive, but offers for his survival none of the emotional investment we had when we saw him almost die.

The same applies to Tsukishima.

Noda clearly wanted him to 'be saved’ by Koito and become his right hand man and remain ‘the good heart of the 7th’... but the way this happens required 0 effort from Tsukishima.

Tsukishima needs to be saved by Koito so doesn’t decide to leave Tsurumi on his own and so, up until the end he’ll do all he can to support Tsurumi, even considering to sacrifice himself to kill Ushiyama.

What’s more, his fight with Ushiyama, is tied to various things Noda wants to happen but at which the characters are unwilling to contribute.

Tsukishima has to remain on that train so Ushiyama somehow refuses to toss Tsukishima off the train, which can work only for so long after we saw him doing so with way too many soldiers. It’s not that Tsukishima avoids being tossed out in some way, it’s just Ushiyama doesn’t do it because Noda doesn’t let him do it.

Tsukishima has to hand the land deed to Tsurumi... so no matter how hard Ushiyama beats him, Tsukishima doesn’t loose consciousness and remains able to walk around. He’s actually not even that badly injured.

Ushiyama has to have a heroic death protecting Asirpa so as to traumatize her further... but Tsukishima can’t toss the hand grenade at her, counting on Ushiyama to try to protect her and die in the process because Tsukishima has to stay the good heart of the 7th in fact, even when he shoot Ariko, Ariko has to survive with 0 effort (Tsukishima actually didn’t hit him because he conveniently shoot Ariko’s knife, which stopped the impact of the bullet so that Ariko was unhurt), so Tsukishima wouldn’t dirty his hand with it

So what will happen?

That Noda will have the hand grenade fall, by accident, near Asirpa so Ushiyama will have to die to protect her.

Since Tsukishima has to remain loyal/obsessed to Tsurumi, he’ll refuse to not follow Tsurumi even when Koito grabs him and tell him he’ll die if he does it... But Tsukishima has to survive so how can Koito keep him alive? Noda has Tsukishima faint (along with Koito who also had to survive) because somehow the hand granade from which he was far and should have been shielded from when Ushiyama tossed himself above it, wounded him more than all the beating Ushiyama gave him so that neither Sugimoto nor Hijikata nor Nagakura will attack him (or Koito).

And the epilogue continues in this vein, Tsukishima is still searching for Tsurumi because he didn’t change at all and someone has to mourn Tsurumi, but then Koito tells him he needs him and so Noda has Tsukishima drops everything and follow Koito.

The both of them were actually willing rebels who committed lots of crimes but all is handwaved because Koito has to become the leader of the 7th and Tsukishima his right hand man so, although Central is likely not pleased, Noda makes sure there’s basically no repercussion on their careers and Koito can become the leader to the 7th with Tsukishima as his right hand man.

Yeah, maybe they put an effort to deal with Central but since this is, for time reasons (we’re at the epilogue), never shown, it felt as if there was none and they effortlessly went away scot free.

I was invested in their arc because I assumed it would be THEIR arc, instead Noda saved the day for them because they didn’t struggle at all.

Things go in Noda’s way not because the characters actively fought to get that result but because Noda orchestrated things around them so they couldn’t ‘escape’ to that result.

Let’s compare it with previous arcs.

For example let’s pick up the Sakamoto and O-gin arc.

The goal of that arc is, basically, to give Tsurumi a tattooed skin and to deliver a fake tattooed skin to Hijikata. It has, as bonus, that it drives parallels between kids loved by parents and kids who aren’t.

The whole arc is totally moved by the characters’ actions and goals which overlap with Noda’s.

In order to get a tattooed skin TSURUMI sets up a trap using a fake skin. In this case if the one that falls into the trap manages to escape nothing is lost and this spread the confusion TSURUMI wanted.

KANTAROU and KAMEZOU as well as SAKAMOTO and O-GIN want the tattoed skin so take the bait. KANTAROU and KAMEZOU understand joining forces with Sakamoto and O-Gin would be advantagious for them so they lied in order to impress them. SAKAMOTO and O-GIN accept because... to quote, they’re both fucked up in the head.

THE 7TH traps them SAKAMOTO sacrifices Kamezou to escape upstain meanwhile O-GIN has KANTAROU pour oil on the stairs so no one can reach them.

TSURUMI sets the building on fire so as to force them to come out in the open KANTAROU uses his knowledge to find a way out the building, SAKAMOTO escapes from another way to distract the soldiers.

TSUKISHIMA and NIKAIDOU wound him but he still manages to escape because he’s strong and faster than them. KOITO tails him because Koito is the sort that acts without thinking. Meanwhile TSURUMI prepares another trap for him and when KOITO can’t keep up with Sakamoto he still signals his position to TSURUMI who shoots him. An already wounded O-GIN who was searching for Sakamoto, sees the scene and decides to die with him because that’s the sort of person O-Gin is so O-GIN attacks Tsurumi but KOITO, whom we know was close by, cuts her head off.

This is not a super important arc or a super emotional arc but, you see? All that happen is because the characters decided to do it. There is no ‘coincidentally’, there is no ‘something outside every character’s control happened so they were forced to do it’, there is not ‘something convenient and/or unlikely like a bear getting on a train happened’, there’s not ‘they gave up but someone rescued them who knows how’, there is no one that goes out of character so as to allow something to happen.

And the same works for plenty of arcs... except the train ride in which most of the situations are solved not due to the characters’ decisions but due to luck or retcons or handwaves so that things that seems problems do not matter anymore.

And all this reminds me of how, when I was in the “Umineko” fandom this was one of the complains tied to certain specific scene in episode 8, and how Ryukishi heard his readers’ complains and rewrote the scene for the manga transposition so that, although the result was always the same, it became emotional and beautiful and meaningful as it ended up carrying part of the themes of the story (and 2 chapters long instead than just a quick handwave of the whole problem combined with character retcon).

So, well, I’m in the camp that the problem wasn’t the survival of those two... but how said survival was written... in the same way as how I don’t think the problem is that Sugimoto doesn’t remain with Umeko... but how their last meeting was written.

In fact I actually expected Sugimoto and Tsukishima to survive to the end of the manga but when I read how they survived I can’t say I was pleased because I guessed right. It felt like their survival didn’t matter at all.

And previously I wouldn’t have worried because I would have believed Noda would fix the scenes in the volume version... but now the volumes are meant to be so packed with chapters that would require so many changes to be improved that I honestly don’t know if it’s possible to fix things. We’ll see.

Thank you for your ask!

[hazard-queen]

Fight and reconcile (riddle, leona, idia,azul,malleus x reader)

Riddle rosehearts

• What have you done! You (by mistake) broke one of rules that you shouldn't break, and you just didn't break it anywhere but just in front of riddle! You didn't mean it anyway and you stood there normally like you did nothing!

• (Y/N)!!!!! You heard riddle yelling your name angrily, you jumped from your place and ran to him

• According to the rule no (any number they are alot anyway lol) you shouldn't have done what you did and you should be punished!

• You accepted the fact you broke rules and also the punishment but you couldn't handle how riddle is treating you! He's totally ignoring you and Don't pay any attention to what you're saying and leaving you while you're speaking to him, trey and cater tried to speak to him about that but he's not listening to them

• You decided to make him a strawberry tart with the help of trey of course, you took a deep breath brfore knocking the door of his room, "come in"

• You entered the room almost scared with trey, he wasn't looking to you, you reached your hand with the tart to him shaking, but instead to accepting it he pushed your hand away dropping the tart from your hand to the ground, both you and trey gasped at the same moment, it took to much effort and love to make it and now it's smashed on the floor

• Tears rushed from your eyes, you were wiping them with your hand and covering your crying face, you were sobbing, riddle's heart broke into a million piece when he saw your crying form, what should he do?! He can't go easy on breaking the rules or they would say that's only cause you're his beloved!

• He couldn't take it anymore! He bent on his knee and took a piece from the tart on the ground, "riddle no!" You said trying to stop him

• "It tastes good.......don't do this again ok?" Said riddle looking at you with a soft smile as he reached his hand to wipe your tears and you of course agreed smiling with teary eyes puff cheeks and red nose "i won't"

Leona kingscholer

• You looked for leona almost everywhere! He's of course sleeping in a calm place where no one would step there to wake him up

• You were looking for him and suddenly you felt you're stepping on something and sooner you heard a loud growl! It was a tail! You looked down to notice that you not only stepped on leona's tail but you also woke him up in a bad mood

• He looked up at you angrily but he drunk it up and refused to say a word but at the same time he went back to sleep!

• "Leona! You won't believe what happened today!" You said happily to him who gave you totally no answer, "leona, I'm speaking to you...you know!" You said as you started getting mad!

• "Oyeah and i don't want to listen! I'm enough in a bad mood!" Said leona not even looking at you!

• "Fine!" You said as you were rushing to leave but you felt a strong hand grabbing your dress and pulling you in a different direction which made you fall to the ground immediately

• "Why have you done this!?" You said to leona, tears could be spotted on the corners of your eyes

• "That's a repay of the favour!" Said leoma smirking but his smirk faded as he saw you struggling to get up! You fall on your feet and your ankle got sprain! "Awwwww" you cried as you reached your hand to touch it

• Leona sigh as he stood up and carried you pridal style " guess we will be heading to the infirmary!" Said leona taking you there as you wrapped your arm around his neck

• "I'm sorry Leona!" You said with a cute pout, tears still can be noticed, he looked at you and a small smile formed on his lips, "anyway why did you come from the first place?"

• "I got a full score on the exam" you said smiling

• "That's my herbivore" said leona sticking his nose to yours with a grin

Idia shroud

• It was a bad day literally, you felt upset and at the edge of crying, what shall you do? You found yourself automatically going to ignihyde looking for idia

• He was playing a game, the final battle is on and it's on extreme mode! If he won he's going to complete the event and get the reward! He was about to win till you dashed in the room and started sobbing and rushed to idia, you wanted him to contain the situation but he's not even looking at you

• "Idia!!!" You yelled at him and then he got distracted, he looked at you then quickly looked back to the game and unfortunately he lost!

• Idia threw the gaming console and for the first time he got mad at you for meking him lose and how hard he tried to win but it had to be you interrupting him then making him lose!

• You tried to hold back tears but you couldn't no more, tears rushed from your face in front of idia, you left him and went back to your room crying

• For a second idia was mad, the "you lost " on the monitor was bad but not worse than yelling at you, why did she come here like that? Why she was sad frustrated from the first place? And instead of listening to her you just ignored all of this and not that only but also you made her cry, good job idia! " What have i done?"

• You were crying and sobbing in your pillow until you felt a hand wipe your hair and pat your head, you looked up to see idia setting by you strucking your hair and looking at you in concern, he pulled you into his embrace " I'm sorry my dear" whispered idia in a low voice, all you did was sobbing into his chest, "shhhh don't cry, i will always be here by your side no matter what" he said placing a small kiss on your forehead

• You looked up at idia still crying "and I'm sorry you lost i didn't mean it! But you're the only one i was thinking of when this happened", you told idia what happened and he of course listened to you this time

• You know if your facing any problem you can always come and tell me! I will ditch whatever I'm doing and do all i can to help you! And if anyone dared to bother you only tell me and see what i can do! I can shut up all the sounds of the underworld souls! You nodded as you burried your face into his chest now with a smile but a question poped in your head

• " But idia! How did you get here?!" You said surprised as you realized that idia left his room finally

• "Oh it's a long story!"

Azul ashengrotto

• The twin came to you running, you greeted them with a smile but they seemed worried, they don't know what's wrong! Azul suddenly called for you without telling them why!

• You followed them till you reached, azul told them to leave and angry wasn't enough to describe how he was

• "Where is it?" Said azul to you crossing his arms to his chest, "what is it?" You asked worried, "don't try to play stupid!!!!" Said azul almost shouting at you made you jump in your place

• "I don't know what are you talking about!!!" You yelled at him, he came close to you and grabbed your arms capturing you "the contract i left on the office! You're the last one to leave yasterday!!!"

• You looked at him in disbelief, shocked.....did he just accused you in stealing?! , you didn't say a word , you were just looking at him

• "I trusted you! How could you?!" Said azul with a bitter expression on his face, he called for the twin to capture you or do whatever! As they came in they tried to calm him and know what happened

• "Contract? You mean the one was on the office yasterday? Didn't you tell us to sign it with the customer instead of you cause you felt tired !?!?" Said floyd as he perked an eyebrow

• At this moment azul's face turned pale, he remembered it, how could he forget such a thing? How could he accuse you? His face softened as he looked to your eyes, they were full of tears that refuse to fall you collected your strength and was about to slap him but you left silently

• You avoided him for a full week! The twin did their best to make forgive him but you still mad at him until one day he came to talk to you himself, you're weak towards him and you know how hard his life was before.

• "You stole something that i want you to give it back to me!" Said azul to as you this time was ready to slap him , "now what?!" You yelled at him,"it's my heart! Please give it back!" He said this in a soft tone and a blush , yes you were mad at him but you can't stay like this for longer!

• "But you broke mine!" You said with a cold expression

• "In my whole life no one was close to me or tried to even know me well, i had a hard life on my own, i could trust no one, i understand if you don't want to be with me anymore!" Said azul with a bitter expression on his face, you know what he went through

• "Fine then! I will keep your heart safe and sound and in return you have to work hard to fix my heart that you broke!" You said to him in a serious tone

• "I agree!"

• "Where to sign?!"

Malleus draconia

• You had a fight! Your yelling could be heard in all over diasomania, even lilia couldn't do much there, malleus was mad! Why? He wanted to talk to you but you were with your other friends and when you're finally free you're not even listening to what he's saying

• You secretly had a bad day, you heard some students talking bad about malleus and then about you cause you are his girl! Also lilia and silver,sebek heard them too and knew about this all but you begged them not to tell malleus a word.

• "If you don't want to stay with me then leave!" Yelled malleus at you, your eyes widened as you felt like you meant nothing to him, you didn't speak, you were already hurt enough, you took your way and left malleus alone to think

• And this when lilia and silver decided to tell malleus what happened and as he knew it he got really mad at those students, Don't they know who are you? Don't they know what a glare from him could do? But when he thought about what he said to you, and you were defending him his heart broke into million pieces

• He looked for you everywhere, you were in your favourite spot under a certain tree that you both meet there , you sat there with swollen eyes and red nose in your hand a book he gave you! It was his first gift to you , "can i sit by you?" Said malleus, you know his voice so you didn't look up, you just moved aside for him as he sit by you

• "Why haven't you told me what they said?" Malleus asked you and you still don't look at him, you kept silent, "they said I'm a monster didn't they?" He said with a small smile as he continued, "they didn't lie....i really am a monster myself" said malleus as now you were going to speak but he kept on speaking again

• "How silly of me! I told you to leave while deep inside me i hoped that you stay with me the whole life I'm the one that needs you....but all what anyone get from being close to a monster like me is pain!" Said malleus with a bittersweet expression on his face and this when you couldn't handle it anymore!

• You jumped from your place, tears running down your eyes with an extremely angry expression on your face, malleus looked up at you, eye widened as he never saw you like this! Are you going to leave him again? Are you going to break up with him?

• "YOU ARE NOT A MONSTER! AND I DON'T CARE IF YOU EVEN ARE A ONE!" you shouted as you got the attention of all students nearby you,"i i never saw you a momster, malleus!" You said those words as you bent alittle as malleus was still sitting on the ground, tears fall from your face dropping on his cheek made his eyes widen even more

• You whipped your tears with your sleeves but you couldn't stop those tears, "so please don't say this about yourself!" You said hiding your face on your sleeves, "i will always be by your side no matter what!", you said sobbing, malleus stood and pulled you into his embrace kissing your forehead

• "Always?"

• "Always!"

This was long :'> if you have a request just ask :>

[pinnochiro]

pinn reviews - final fantasy xv

a long ramble about final fantasy fifteen that sort of looks like a review, as written by someone who finished the game fifteen minutes ago and needs to get these words out of his head. spoilers inbound.

i'm a pretty big fan of video games. i don't know what my first was, but it was probably either banjo and kazooie or mario kart 64, at my cousin's house when i was very small. i think that video games as a medium are so interesting, since the fact that video games are inherently interactive changes the way that they tell any story. it's a shame that despite loving video games so much, i'm absolutely terrible at them.

i'm absolute dogshit at video games. whenever i boot up something new, i always play on easy mode because. i'm that bad. unfortunately, this means that a lot of video games are simply. impossible for me to beat. that's fine, as at the moment i live with my good friend lizz, who is certifiably Good at Video Games, and so we've been playing video games together for a little bit now. typically this means that she will actually play the majority of the game while i sit with her and watch, but occasionally i'll have a go, but she'll end up with the controller as soon as a boss fight or puzzle or a mechanic i just can't seem to grasp shows up. we recently played through the entirety of the kingdom hearts series together, and this was an absolute blast of a time. i'm glad to say that i adore kingdom hearts now, and it's become one of my hyperfixations, which you might be able to tell from my icon. but we'd finished the kingdom hearts series, and we were left to move onto something else. we'd also played final fantasy 7 remake, so in my wisdom, i suggested that we play another final fantasy game.

we looked through the ff games that were already purchased on our consoles thanks to lizz's uncle, and eventually, we decided that we should play. all of them. however to start, we were going to play final fantasy xv, 15, and work our way backwards through the mainline, single-player games.

i'd heard that xv wasn't very good, but honestly, i was still quite curious. one person who i'd been following on twitter for years was pretty obsessed with the main party members, to the point where i knew their names and what-not even though i didn't have much of an idea what the game itself was about. i remember watching a video by supereyepatchwolf a few years ago about how the game sucked, but i couldn't remember much of the details, and i knew, based on my obsession with kingdom hearts, that xv had started as a different game called final fantasy versus xiiv. i don't know all the details about versus thirteen, but i do know that it was originally helmed by the creator of my beloved kingdom hearts, mr tetsuya nomura, and that after many years, the vast majority of the game was thrown out, nomura wasn't in charge any more, and the whole thing was rewritten and reworked, which sounds like a fairly rough development cycle. but so what, i don't care about gameplay. i want to play the video game with those cute guys that i see fanart of on twitter, and lizz seemed happy enough to play through it with me.

and so we started final fantasy xv. i've been told that since the game was practically dead on arrival, they threw in a bunch of new content and reworked a lot of the early game before i got my hands on it. so my gameplay started with a scene of the four guys fighting some demon dude on fire and they're all old and grotty. whatever, that cutscene ends and we're put into a combat tutorial. that's over and we're on the road in what looks to be central america, pushing a car.

our four leading lads are noctis, the prince of the lucis empire, his best friend prompto, his bodyguard, gladio, and his chef and other things, ignis. i do quite like the main four members of the party in xv. prompto is quite easily my favourite, voiced by robbie daymond of goro akechi fame and with a bunch of fun little animations and quips that make him very likeable. he gets extremely excited at the idea of riding chocobos and has what i considered the best scene of the game, where he and noctis meet on a motel rooftop and discuss prompto's imposter syndrome, since he's only part of noctis' official retinue as his best friend. noctis is a fairly typical main protagonist, he's in love with a woman he hasn't seen in eight years and needs to go marry her or something, i don't care. gladio is a tough macho man with a mullet who wears leather jackets and wields a greatsword, and is apparently only 22, which is at least 10 years younger than i assumed. ignis is a strategist and chef, who takes on the most authoritative role and constantly tells noctis to not drive his car at night. i was not a fan of ignis at the start, but he grew on me, especially with how hard the game hit me with his personal arc. the four boys are off, driving to noctis' wedding in a different country across the desert when their car breaks down. we then run into the first issue of the game.

cindy is a mechanic. she also has her ass and tits out constantly, like your sleazy uncle's shirt with a naked woman was instead semi-alive as a video game person. she fixes your car and acts fairly sexual and it's just like. why do we have to do this. aren't we over overtly sexualised women in video games who have no reason for the way they dress other than the character designer was horny? whatever, i like women as much as the next guy, but cindy's design just. makes me feel so uncomfortable.

anyways you get to do a little driving around with the boys, until you stay the night before catching the boat to your fiance. overnight, you find out that noctis' kingdom has been basically destroyed by an invading empire called niflheim, and practically everyone noctis knows, including his father, are dead. you learn that noctis and his bride to be are also assumed dead, with noctis hearing his own death announcement on the radio. the game has a bunch of added cutscenes that are actually footage from the three-hour-long prequel movie that came out after the game, are extremely hard to follow and honestly i had no idea what i was looking at. anyways, noctis' family is dead, so it's time to do some hunting sidequests.

that brings us to the combat, i suppose. rather than the turn-based or even active turn-based combat that the series is known for, xv opts for more modern action rpg-styled combat. i was, naturally, terrible at this, but i managed to get around it with the fact that. it is almost impossible to die in this video game, provided you have enough items. the game allows you so much time to heal yourself that there's practically no way to have your entire party wipe unless you're doing absolutely terrible, and even then, your party members will probably try and heal you themselves before that happens. lizz tells me that the combat is boring, you just push the same button over and over and then you win. i do appreciate that, for someone like me who is terrible at reading enemy movements, there is a giant button that pops up on screen that tells you when to push the block button, but even then i was prone to fucking it up. whether that's the bad game design or my terrible gaming abilities is up to you to decide. anyways, the game is fairly easy but has annoying combat, your teammates limit breaks will only land about 50% of the time (or never, if you are gladio) and i was still bad at it, so i didn't have all that much fun.

instead of an active levelling system, the game will only tally your character's level ups when you either make camp or visit a hotel. camping is, in my opinion, the only saving grace of this game. each time you make camp, you get to see the characters doing fun little camping activities together and just hanging out, ignis will cook up a new meal in a dramatic fashion and everyone will compliment him and eat it off their coleman's branded plates, it's just very fun. you also get to see what pictures prompto has taken, which is one of my favourite gameplay features. prompto's passion is photography, and while i support him in this wholeheartedly, his picture taking skills are, quite frankly, awful. the game will randomly take shots while you're on the move, which leaves you with a delightful selection of awkward poses, characters hidden behind bushes, pictures taken while someone is half-dead in combat, and snaps where the natural lighting absolutely makes it impossible to tell what's going on. it's hilarious and going through prompto's collection of photos each night is honestly the best part of the game. we managed to wind up with a few shots that, even despite being scripted events, turned out absolutely terrible, and i will cherish those forever.

anyways, since noctis' father and fiance are dead, that leaves him the king of lucis. the only important person to make it out of the capital alive tells you to drive to the middle of nowhere, where he randomly springs on you. hey. go into a bunch of these dungeons and absorb a bunch of swords, this is your destiny as king and how you will defeat the empire. noctis goes, uh, alright i guess, and you're set loose again to wander around for a bit collecting the 'royal arms'. this plot point wasn't explained well but hey, whatever, we're collecting the glowy swords and that's fine.

you're introduced at some point to ardyn, the main antagonist. he's old, kind of groady and wears a fedora. he's a dick to you and talks about his automobeeel. apparently my friend miri thinks he's hot, she is wrong.

i can't remember what happens specifically but you're told that your fiance is still alive and in fantasy venice, and she's talking to the gods on your behalf to borrow their powers. there's a mission where you follow some purple trees that are electric, and you do that i guess. i enjoyed riding the chocobos around, but couldn't care much for the plot at this point. ardyn leads you to a volcano, where you fight a giant lava god. he tries to step on you and i, a denizen of the internet and with an active fear of foot fetishists, was extremely uncomfortable. noctis becomes friends with foot man and a lightning god who lived in those trees, and ardyn steals your car.

very upset by this, noctis and his gang risk everything to sneak into a military base and steal it back. because this is a video game, this works out fine.

there's a little mining city which is all about Girl Power, because all the Women run the Mining Industry like Girl Bosses, and you hang around there for a bit. because all the women are so Empowered, they wear bikinis all the time with overalls over the top. gladio decides he needs to fuck off for a bit, i have no idea what he does since i haven't played the dlc, and then he comes back with another scar. you hang out with his sixteen year old sister, who has a crush on the engaged and 20-year old noctis, and then you drive her to a lighthouse. when she's in your party, she can't really fight, but she gets a pink chocobo and i thought that was very cute. we turned out own chocobo white and lizz named him 'jones' after a mount she has in ffxiv.

eventually, you have a long boat ride over to fantasy venice. this is the part where the game stops being 'fun with a few issues in combat and a rushed and poorly told story.' the open world, which was a main feature with a bunch of little areas to find where noctis can fish, little hunting sidequests and random photo spots where prompto takes touristy photos, is now gone, and it will not return for the entire rest of the game. you can 'go back in time', but the open world was the most enjoyable part of the game, and it kind of really sucks that the main story doesn't let you have any more freedom like that.

after arriving in fantasy venice, you have a talk with fantasy hillary clinton and beg her to let your girlfriend summon a god into the middle of her city. hillary agrees, and you don't get to meet up with your fiance, because even if the game is constantly telling you how much noctis loves her, there is. barely any interactions between the two in the entire game. from what i can tell, they met when noctis was a child and they haven't seen each other in ten years but are still fantasy dog pen-pals. noctis marrying her was supposed to make an alliance or something like that, but her brother has betrayed her to the army. noctis' girlfriend is also an oracle, which means she can heal people, i guess? everyone talks about how important she is and she's constantly telling people that she needs to use her powers to help noctis but she's practically a non-entity.

as can be expected of most female love interests in a game primarily focused on men, noctis' fiance is killed while summoning a god for noctis to befriend. noct gets very mad about this, and turns super saiyan and kills the god back, but his girlfriend is dead and that's super sad you guys. there's a beautiful prerendered cutscene where she says goodbye to noctis but since we barely know her, and we've only been told over and over that they're in love without anything to actually well, show this, it didn't have much of an impact. fantasy venice is destroyed, and ignis is blinded while trying to help calm the giant raging god.

iggy's blindness and how the game makes you account for this and grow to care for him was one of the highlights, in my opinion, as well as crushingly depressing. while i'm not disabled and have no right to say if this was 'good disabled representation' or anything like that, i believe that the game handles it decently enough. the group falls apart as noctis is upset about his girlfriend, gladio is extremely mad that noctis won't care for ignis, and prompto just wants everyone to get along. there's a mission where gladio constantly yells at you passive aggressive things to noctis about how he's a cunt for running, which is obnoxious, but the character arc itself is fairly strong. when you make camp, ignis can't cook anymore, so everyone eats cup noodles in a depressing ass cutscene. ignis remains in your party for the rest of the game despite his disability, and he doesn't magically regain his sight like other fantasy media would do, which at the very least i think is good. i'm not sure what the opinion of actual disabled people is of the character, considering how often disabled characters are either turned into misery porn to make the abled audience be glad that isn't them and if ignis' arc falls into this trap, but i hope that it wasn't handled too poorly, as that would just be another terrible mark in this game's list of bad moves.

the characters eventually make it to the evil empire's capital, which is abandoned and filled with daemons. the characters learn that ardyn is super evil and taught the king of the empire how to turn humans into daemons, which has now happened to the entire city. the 'magitek suits', presumed to be enchanted armour that fights as the empire's infantry, actually house the souls of the human-turned daemons. honestly i like this as a plot point but the game handles it pretty terribly. there could have been more lead up to this, the explanation is pretty lacking, and prompto's Big Plot Twist is. terribly handled. turns out that prompto was born in the empire and was going to be one of those empty soldier daemons, but he was rescued by people belonging to noctis' empire. not that the game tells you that. instead, prompto goes 'turns out i'm one of ... them' and Does Not Elaborate. The game doesn't tell you shit, not about prompto's past, not about how he feels about this, not about how anyone else feels about this either because the other party members just go 'oh that sucks, good thing you're not evil' and the scene ends. robbie daymond tries so hard to sell these terrible, terrible lines, and it almost entirely fails, i'm so sorry prompto. fortunately because i'm a nosy ass, i read prompto's wikia page and knew the plot twist ahead of time, because i don't think i would have even registered it if i didn't.

anyways everyone in the evil empire is dead and ardyn starts talking about how he's immortal and an ancient king of noctis' country but the gods thought he sucked because he's too evil. i missed most of this because the cats got the zoomies and were dashing across the couch right in the middle of his speech so i can't tell you anything else. noctis tries to get a big magic crystal to fight him and instead. gets schlorped inside.

TEN YEARS LATER

yes then ten years actually pass while noctis is asleep. the game shows this by switching the head on noctis' character model to have a beard, but that's it, no changes in animations or whatever. the sky is permanently night and only one human civilisation remains, the rest destroyed by daemons. as a plot point, this ends up feeling. extremely worthless. why was noctis asleep for ten whole goddamn years? so we can wake up and go 'damn it sucks out here'. but it's barely even a like, incentive to fix everything, because you have a long talk with a former child you were friends with where he talks about how humanity is still going fine and everyone's okay and the world has moved on without you. it feels. pointless. when you meet up with your party members, they are exactly as you left them, only with slightly different character models. there is no change in the voice performance, the character's movements or how they talk to show that they've been without you for ten years. they barely mention it. i'm just. so confused as to why they decided that a ten year timeskip was the way to go? since nothing really changes, couldn't you have made it like, two years? one year? six months?? have the characters react a little more? something??? at least if it was only a year or so i wouldn't have to deal with the fact that noctis looks like norman reedus with his shitty facial hair now.

anyways after that there's a bunch of long and boring boss fights. you fight some dead kings for some reason, your party members get a little bit to talk about how cool they are and how much they love noctis, and then you meet up with ardyn. there's another boring boss fight and god this was only a few hours ago but it's already gone from my head. you summon the gods and the old kings to beat the shit out of him after you both go super saiyan again? there's incredible music but it feels barely earned and just kind of eh. anyways, noctis dies, which was the price of using the crystal of light or whatever the fuck. his ghost marries his fiance's ghost finally, and they smile as they look at one of prompto's pictures. you can pick any picture you want to go here, and then the credits roll, showing all of the pictures you saved of prompto's shots. showing me all the pictures at the end is honestly lovely, but it really only served to remind me of how much more fun the game was in the first half. and that's the end, of final fantasy xv.

so what did i think of the story? it's terribly cobbled together and struggles to get you to feel anything and play out all the plot beats. you feel awful for the countless employees who spent years working on the beautiful cutscenes only to have them be in this game, which sucks and the story barely gets through. there were parts that i enjoyed, mostly the thing about the daemons being people, but honestly the rest of it is a mess. it's hard to follow at the best of times and just awkward and terribly written at the worst. the ending is cheap, and it doesn't feel like you've actually accomplished anything. i left that game feeling numb and empty, sad that i'd wasted so much time to end up with such a colossal failure of a conclusion.

i had fun with the game when it was my four little guys running around doing sidequests and camping together. after the midway point of the game, there's none of that, and you're bogged down into a plot that just pushes you from point a to point b and boring overlong bossfight to boring overlong bossfight. the character moments between your party are a lot of fun, but the second you hit fantasy venice, everything is pretty much on rails and you can't do anything except what the game tells you explicitly to do.

should you play this game? no lol. if anything i've mentioned about the story interests you, you'll be better off watching a lore video or reading the wiki. if you do want to play it after all that, just don't proceed after the myrthril refining quest, it's pretty much all downhill from there. will i play the dlc? unlikely, i think lizz and i will just watch a cutscene movie of those.

this game left me feeling empty and numb and not in a fun way. i wanted, so, so hard to like this game, and it all crashed around me in a beautifully overproduced and confusingly written cascade. i love you prompto, but even your cute little freckly face and terrible photography can't save this trainwreck of a game.

tl;dr - final fantasy xv sucks. i hope that 13, our next ff game, will be better.

[number-1-kuaidul-fanboy]

Punch Out Wii Boxers Ranked

Thought I’d give my opinion on this since I’ve already expressed biases towards/against certain characters. I will be including Donkey Kong and Doc Louis but not Little Mac (because he is the objective best). The list will go from 15: the worst, to 1: the best. Before I start, I’d like to say that all of these characters are good, well-crafted characters, it really just comes down to personal bias who you prefer. And with that, let’s get started:

15. King Hippo

King Hippo is barely a character. Everything he “says” (there are apparently translations) just boils down to being hungry and he has no personality outside of that. I don’t hate him, but I don’t really care about him. His fight is also pretty boring all things considered. The contender fight is pitifully easy once you know what you’re doing and his title defense fight can go on for a long time and get very monotonous. At least his music’s kinda cool.

14. Super Macho Man

As someone who lives in America, I hate Macho Man with a burning passion. It’s not because I’m “patriotic,” it’s actually kind of the opposite. I’m not offended by his stereotype because it’s mean, I’m annoyed by his stereotype because it’s accurate. I deal with people like this on the daily: in the news. His catchphrases are obnoxious (except sometimes when they’re cut off. That’s kinda funny, admittedly) and he’s egotistical even compared to some of the others. He’s the type of person I actually want to punch in the face so I thank Punch Out for giving me that opportunity but I still hate the character. His match is fine. It’s a bit too easy in both contender and title defense compared to Soda and Bull but hey, at least they tried. His music’s alright.

13. Donkey Kong

Don’t get me wrong, I love Donkey Kong’s inclusion in this game. I think it’s amazing that Nintendo made a match for one of their most famous characters and the fight against him is very unique and challenging to win by KO. That being said, I never really played Donkey Kong so I don’t really have the connection to this character that others do. So yeah, great cameo, not one of my favourite fighters.

12. Bald Bull

Sorry, Bald Bull fans, but I’m not the biggest fan of this raging lunatic. In fact, he kinda creeps me out. People make jokes about Great Tiger being a furry (which he is), but Bald Bull straight up acts like a bull to the point of literally assaulting the poor referee. It’s kind of gross. To that same point, he is also completely shameless about his horrid anger issues which is personally not fun to watch. I get that he was driven mad by the paparazzi (or whatever that cutscene was trying to convey) but it’s still pretty over the top. I’m also not a big fan of his fights. It’s not too terribly difficult in contender mode (except the stupid bull charge) but it’s downright ridiculous in title defense. I firmly believe that his title defense match is the hardest in the entire game, yes even more difficult than TD Soda and TD Sandman. I cannot express with words how much I despise the star punch gimmick. Getting the star punches is frame perfect, making it feel like luck, and getting hit once makes you lose them all. And you need those stars to even knock him down. Seems a bit extreme for the middle fight in the world circuit, doesn’t it?! I was at this fight for hours and was over the moon when I finally managed to beat him. Also, his music kinda sucks. However, I put him over Macho Man because despite everything I just said, I don’t actually hate Bald Bull. I hate his fights but I don’t hate him personally like I do with obnoxious american.

11. Soda Popinski

Oh boy, Drunk Man. I don’t really see many reasons to like him but not any to hate him either, apart from his stupidly difficult fight, that is. I actually find it pretty easy in Contender. There’s a lot of strategies to knock him down really fast and his pattern is pretty basic. As for title defense, did they really need to make it that ridiculously hard? Yeah, there are tricks to make it easier and he has a set pattern but getting into the rhythm of that pattern is incredibly difficult and one slight mistake sets you back to two stun punches. It’s beyond frustrating. And yet the game deems him and Bald Bull to be easier than Macho Man. Why? As a character, Soda is just kinda there for me. It’s fun to make jokes about his steroid soda at least. Also, his music is for some reason one of my favourites tracks in the game. It’s just so epic.

10. Bear Hugger

Alright, now we’re onto the characters I actually like. Bear Hugger is a fun character. He’s one of the more exaggerated stereotypes though I can’t really say for sure whether this one is accurate or not but I’m guessing the maple syrup and hockey stuff at the very least is. I also love the squirrel. It’s implemented into the fight kind of oddly, but it makes his title defense fight pretty enjoyable. It’s a difficult fight but not one I’ve lost recently. The contender fight is fun too, it’s definitely one where I get to spam a ton of star punches. His music is good too. Not much to say on Bear Hugger, he’s fun but I like the other characters more.

9. Disco Kid

Kinda sad that the Wii version only introduced one new character to the roster but at least it was a fun character. Disco Kid’s matches are not a challenge. Contender mode, title defense, he’s one of the easiest fights in the game. He makes up for that by being incredibly over the top flamboyant and cocky, this time in a fun way. I like that he dances throughout his whole fight, I think it’s cool when every little aspect of someone’s match ties into who the character is. Disco Kid is a flamboyant dancer and that is perfectly shown through his mannerisms in the fights. I especially love how in Title Defense, he’s not really bitter or determined to beat Mac he’s just like, “Oh a dance club? This is cool, might as well work this stuff into my boxing routine.” It’s pretty excellent. I’m not a huge fan of disco, but his theme music is pretty good.

8. Aran Ryan

If there’s one thing I’ve seen since joining this site, it’s a lot of Aran Ryan. People on here really love this guy and even many of the YouTubers I’ve seen play this game say he is one of if not their favourite character in the game. Personally, I think he’s a little overrated. However, I do still like him and see why other people like him. He’s sort of a “love to hate” kind of character with him being a complete psycho that’s probably a sadist and a masochist considering how he seems to enjoy being punched and beating the hell out of everyone. It’s fun in a twisted way. His fights are also both pretty fun. Everyone really likes the cheating aspect and yeah, it’s pretty ridiculous that he can literally bring in a weapon and get away with it. However, it also makes his fight stand out from the others. He’s so horrible that he’s just fun to beat up. It’s also the only world circuit fight in title defense that I don’t hate with every fibre of my being. So yeah, fun character, with excellent music might I add.

7. Glass Joe

Here’s another favourite here on Tumblr. To be honest, the fact that people on here liked Aran Ryan didn’t surprise me at all. In fact, it seemed perfectly in character. However, it did surprise me to see how many people liked Glass Joe. I thought he was kind of underrated before but now I see that he’s getting the love he deserves. I love how even though Glass Joe is in every way a french stereotype, he also directly defies the stereotype of the french being quick to surrender. He lost one hundred times and still didn’t give up, becoming determined to defeat Little Mac after earning the headgear. It’s unironically really admirable. Glass Joe’s fights are never a challenge. Contender, title defense, champion’s mode, motion controls, he’s always kind of a joke. However, he is meant to be a tutorial fight for new players and this game gets much more challenging as it goes on, so it’s understandable. They did do a good job at making him more challenging in title defense, but it was still pretty easy at least in my opinion.

6. Von Kaiser

Von Kaiser’s a little underrated in this fandom. Maybe I’m speaking from bias, since I have so many headcanons about him but I really do think he’s a good character. He is just as much of a coward as Glass Joe and isn’t a much better fighter (his contender and title defense fights are both incredibly simple) yet Von Kaiser has a significantly better record than the rest of the minor circuit and even Bear Hugger, with 23 wins and 13 losses. He must’ve gotten those wins from somewhere and I doubt they were all from Glass Joe. That combined with the fact that Kaiser is the oldest boxer in the game (42) makes me think he was once a great boxer but has now passed his prime and refuses to give up, sort of like Glass Joe, but a little more tragic. Regardless, it’s fun to speculate. And I feel kinda bad for Von Kaiser, I mean the dude gets beat up by kids and basically goes mad after being beaten by a seventeen year old boxing newbie. Also, his music is pretty intense despite the fact that he’s treated like a joke by the game. Like Glass Joe, they did do a good job of making Kaiser more difficult in title defense by giving him a one hit KO and plenty of fake outs, though I don’t particularly struggle with either of those.

5. Sandman

Sandman is scary as hell. None of the other boxers really intimidate me, even the one with ridiculously difficult fights, but Sandman is a different story. Everyone else in the game has some kind of silly quirk even when they are serious but this guy is deadly serious about boxing. I mean, they introduce him by showing him beat the shit out of everyone you just faced before, some of which the player may have struggled with. It’s a great introduction for a final boss. His fight in contender is certainly the hardest in that mode and while I didn’t struggle with his title defense fight as much as TD Soda and TD Bull, it was still incredibly hard to beat. And unlike TD Soda and TD Bull, he actually has final boss vibes, so he does deserve his rank (unlike some other characters). Similar to Aran Ryan, his fight also requires the player to be more on offense, at least in my experience.

#4 Doc Louis

Doc Louis is severely underrated in this fandom and just in general. I love how encouraging he is to Little Mac even when he loses repeatedly, I love his silly tips that more often than not are cheesy dad jokes or puns. He’s just a good wholesome dad that loves his chocolate. I love him. Sadly, I have not played Doc Louis’s Punch Out so I don’t really have a perspective on how the fight is apart from videos online but it does look pretty fun, and it’s freaking Doc Louis. How can you not love him?

#3 Piston Hondo

This guy is also kind of underrated, maybe because he’s a bit vanilla? I don’t know, but apart from Sandman, he is undoubtedly the most serious about boxing. It’s actually a bit scary. I mean, this dude can catch a sword in his bare hands and outrun the bullet train, he could easily become champion after Little Mac retires. In fact, for me at least, his title defense fight is the most challenging fight in the major circuit for me. Yes, harder than Bear Hugger and Great Tiger. Those fake outs and speedy Hondo Rushes kept getting me. So yeah, very dedicated to boxing. He’s also just very respectable in general, keeping a calm demeanor throughout the fight and even bowing to show respect. He also doesn’t laugh at you when you get knocked down like literally everyone else does. (Apart from Don, but he still taunts you by asking if you want more.) Yeah, he gloats, but he’s a good sport. It’s nice to see someone who plays fair amongst a crowd of cheaters.

#2 Don Flamenco

Yet another character I’m surprised doesn’t get more attention in this fandom. I dunno, maybe my opinions are just weird. That being said, Don Flamenco was always going to be one of my favourites as he is the only foreign speaker in this entire game I can understand without subtitles. Though even if you don’t know spanish, Don’s character is still very clear and very amazing. Like, I’m sorry, but his contender intro is the best sequence in the entire game. You know immediately what he’s all about and it’s just so beautifully over the top to see this try hard dance his way into the ring with a rose. Actually, “beautifully over the top” is a great description for Don Flamenco in general. He hits every note of the “Spanish man” stereotype in the first few seconds you see him: being a bullfighter, getting all the girls, dancing the flamenco, and just being handsome in general. I don’t know if that last one is an actual stereotype but it’s undeniably true. And none of that is a bad thing. He is a positive figure, if a little cocky, and all of these things that the game could make fun of him for (the NES version certainly does), are actually shown in a positive light. I’m not too fond of bullfighting being shown in that light but it is very popular in Spain so… eh. Also, I do like that Don Flamenco fights like a bullfighter in the ring, baiting you into “charging” or attacking before countering. It’s a nice detail. However, it does make the fight a little too easy. In contender mode, even without doing the infinite, I barely have any trouble with him. He’s easy to get stars off of, his attacks are not that hard to dodge or counter, and if you do the infinite combo, you can destroy him in seconds. In title defense, he is more difficult for sure, but he’s the easiest fight title defense fight in the major circuit. That being said, holy cow is he amazing in title defense as well. He was already over the top in contender but in title defense, after one loss might I add, he acts like it’s the end of the world and becomes completely emo. This could’ve been completely obnoxious or stupid but in my opinion, it makes him very entertaining. He’s just so fun to watch in general, I love his epic music, and I love this angsty telenovela character. Amo al personaje Don Flamenco. El es tan entretenido y guapo. Necesita más amor. Because I mentioned that I know spanish earlier and the first first thing people always ask me is to speak some so there you go. Onto number one.

1. Great Tiger

If you’ve seen my other stuff here on Tumblr, you probably knew this was coming. My very first post on Tumblr, as well as the second, was about Great Tiger and I have tons of pictures of him in my likes. I guess I just have a thing for charming arrogant divas. Seriously, while he’s not as over the top as someone like Disco Kid or Don Flamenco, Great Tiger is a total diva and kind of a show off. He’s always using his clones to glorify himself or taunt you, which would normally be annoying but for some reason, it’s not in his case. And it’s not because I don’t know what he’s saying, the inflection in his voice makes it clear enough that he’s trash talking (and I’ve looked up translations). It’s because Great Tiger has a sort of cold determination, like he is ready to destroy you first, glorify himself after, probably the reason he doesn’t have a taunt, unlike nearly everyone else in the game. He is completely focused on the match and very cool-headed as well. He’s very respectable, even when he’s literally telling you to go drink your mother’s milk. On a side note, I looked up those translations as a kid and I still can’t get over the fact that that is something he actually says. Like, what on earth Nintendo? Still, it’s kinda funny to me. Anyways, I love Great Tiger’s fights. His contender form is fun and I love that intermission scene where he switches places with Doc, showing what a likeable douche he is but his title defense form is my favourite in the game. I really love the magical element, what can I say? The flashing jewel is like a game of Simon put to boxing, I love that he teleports all over the place, the Magic Rush is gorgeous bullshit, and the fight keeps me on my toes but not to the point of being impossibly hard. It’s also fun to experiment with certain elements of the fight, because it can be incredibly varied depending on what you do. just really fun. Whether I do the special knockout or play through the whole fight, I have a fun time fighting Great Tiger. It also helps that his music is spectacular, my favourite in the game. I dunno, those bongos just feel so good on the ears. Great Tiger is also just really interesting in general, and I feel like there’s a lot of unanswered questions about him. How does he have magic? (I know the NES version has an explanation for this but the Wii version does not and is substantially different.) What is the extent of his abilities? Is the jewel the source of his power? It seemed to be directly linked to his corporeal clones in title defense. Is he even of this world? I don’t know, but damn it’s fun to speculate on. I’d love a story just about his backstory, how he got his magic, how he became a boxer, I care about that stuff. So yeah, Great Tiger is the most interesting character in this game, and that’s why he’s my favourite. (I also low-key crush on him, but that’s subjective :)

Anyways, hope you enjoyed my list, it was kinda long, but I have a lot of opinions on this game and this is a good place to put it.

[mimicteruyo]

Yo guess who replayed all the mainline Windows Touhou games to see if their opinions had changed/evolved

To begin with, I should say that all my opinions are extremely subjective and more based on vibes than anything else. With that said, the things I usually look for in these games are the following, in no particular order:

Characters/Story

Atmosphere/Seasonal rep/Sense of identity

Music

Gameplay (less scoring and more things like general difficulty level, resources, gimmicks, the aesthetic beauty of the patterns etc.)

Even then, a game can be great in three of these departments and still be something I don’t really enjoy playing (*coughs* LoLK *coughs*), and a game that only really hits the jackpot in one can still be precious to me.

EoSD (Normal, ReimuA, 1cc just barely)

I'm always surprised by how much this resembles Mystic Square, but hey I'm on the record as someone who really likes MS. I recalled the patterns being both denser and faster than they really were, but tbf I played Crimzon Clover like an hour before I played EoSD so that may have influenced my judgement. I don't play this one much, but I'm not gonna front: I really enjoyed my playthrough and the soundtrack is a classic.

PCB (Hard, ReimuA, choked with 25 seconds on the final timer lol)

When I list my favourite games of all time, PCB is the one which gets to represent Touhou as a whole. And yup, I still love everything about this game (except Charming Domination Who Done it? whoops). For a while, I thought I had finally gotten sick of playing it, but turns out I was only bored because I was playing it on Normal for some stupid reason even though I have already 1cc'd it on Hard. Beautiful and atmospheric and great fun.

IN (Normal, Border Team, guess)

Hard Mode actually kicks my ass in this one lmao. Stage 4 Powerful is still one of the most fun stages in the series, and the Extra Stage is a personal favourite (yes, even with Fujiyama Volcano). In general, it basically does everything right. Even then, it's not usually the first game that comes to mind when I think of my favourites, but I have a great deal of respect for it.

PoFV (Easy, Reimu [usually Normal + Yuuka but meh])

I... don't actually like playing this one that much? In fact, if I have to play a Phantasmagoria game for fun I'm probably going to pick PoDD. With that said, the story, characters, the atmosphere and music in the later stages, and all the additional fluff are so much my jam that I still cherish this game deeply.

MoF (Normal, ReimuA, 1cc)

For all that this game has a reputation for being easy, I have a terrible track record actually beating it (in fact, my previous clear was from 2015, which... wow.) However, by utilising such cunning strategies as "actually looking at the screen" and "using bombs sometimes" I made it through with just two misses. This game captures autumn the same way PCB captures winter a.k.a. really well, and in general has a unique beauty to it.

SA (Normal, Reimu + Yukari, Utsuho blasted me into outer space)

Love the atmosphere, love the soundtrack, love the characters and especially how well the spell cards in this game support characterisation. Punishes mistakes harshly and doesn't offer that many resources, which means I stink at it lol. Still a personal fave.

UFO (Normal, SanaeB, choked on the final card)

Similar to SA except not as much my cup of tea. I really like the characters and think that the soundtrack may even be slightly underrated. Generous with resources, which is nice since I desperately need them all, but the UFOs are still kinda a pain. I actually did well against Murasa this time, but Shou slaughtered me and Byakuren finished me off.

TD (Hard, Sanae, multiple continues)

As a proud member of the PoFV/SWR/TD Character Niche Hell (yes that's a thing now and yes that's what it's called), it's likely a surprise to no-one that I love the characters and atmosphere in this one. Normal is too easy, whereas my sucky skills at resource management guarantee that I'll never 1cc it on Hard. With that said, the patterns and gameplay feel really good and rewarding on Hard so I still prefer playing it on that.

(As an aside, I also played this on Lunatic to re-unlock cards for practice. Basically everyone after Yuyuko gave me grief... except for Futo, who was still easy. Futo what r u doing?)

DDC (Normal, SakuyaA, 1cc)

So much fun! I was lukewarm towards the demo back in the day, but nowadays I like all the characters, and the back end of the OST is just a banger after banger. The gameplay really shines in this one.

LoLK (Legacy Mode Easy, Reisen, 1cc)

Basically I like everything about this game except the part where you actually play it.

HSiFS (Normal, Reimu + Winter, destroyed by Satono and Mai)

I still don't really like this one. Sorry. I think I'm sleeping on some of the characters (Aunn and Narumi especially seem like characters I could appreciate more), and Crazy Backup Dancers is an absolute banger of a track, but the difficulty spike that is the Stage 5 bosses and my general lukewarm feelings towards everything else made me think I was over Touhou.

WBaWC (Normal, Reimu + Otter, 1cc)

...yeah, no, still not over Touhou. Another game where I basically love everything and I'm still shocked that I ignored it for so long even after Ephemeral Unnatural Balance proved I wasn't just old and crusty and unable to appreciate new games. Still in the process of warming up to the characters, but that's nothing new. I should probably move onto Hard Mode pretty soon: my first crack at it took me to Stage 5.

UM (Demo, Normal, Sanae)

Feeling optimistic.

[radramblog]

Innistrad 3 (Part 1) Previews

I’m nearly a month late to this party in particular, but spoiler season never ends. I mean, I guess we’ve had like three weeks off, but you know.

I have some general thoughts about Magic’s inevitable return to return to Innistrad before I get too into it. I’m a little concerned, basically. First of all, while both previous Innistrad blocks were multi-set endeavors, the game hasn’t done something like this- a twin pair of standard sets for the same quarter- ever, to my knowledge. It means that we’re on 5 entire standard booster sets this year, on top of all the other stuff.

Second, I’m worried about what postmodern Magic design is going to do to the plane. Take transform, one of the marquee mechanics of both Innistrad and Shadows blocks- Those cards could tell a story on such a small piece of cardboard, and were extremely fun despite their somewhat unwieldy modes of play. Werewolves are one of my favourite creature types in the game, not because I’m a furry (Pokemon profile picture notwithstanding) but because I fucking love how they play. And I’m worried they’re going to make those beautiful designs into much less interesting modal DFCs.

But none of that is relevant to the handful of cards we’re going to talk about today, so don’t worry about it! All we have is 7 new cards to evaluate, how nice.

I’m going to go in WUBRG order here. There aren’t any white cards around, though, so uh…Blue!

So this is just Opt but better. Not strictly better, because sometimes bottom of deck or the action of scry matters, but 9 times out of 10 this beats Opt. More importantly, it’s another one mana cantrip at instant speed, which further allows for the division of cantrips in other formats- do you want the speed of Opt and Consider, or the depth of Serum Visions or Preordain? Or a mix of both?

Obviously the card isn’t exciting. Cantrips don’t excite me basically at all, but by and large they aren’t really meant to be. Consider is just a role-player, and a good one, and one that we’ll probably see for a long time. I’m just happy it’s a Common, because it’d end up like a dollar if it was Uncommon.

Triskaidekaphobia was one of the more interesting cards out of Shadows over Innistrad, and this one continues the plane’s unlucky 13 theme by having someone who’s apparently really into that number. As an alternate wincon, this card is actually quite spicy- it’s hard to protect, being a small creature, and as such trying to save it is going to require burning through the cards in hand it wants you to have. At the same time, with the amount of draw you can get up to in Blue at Instant speed, actually reaching 13 in formats like Commander or really, really slow control decks in Standard isn’t out of the question.

The other application I’d like to point out is for cube, funnily enough, because I know some people are still going to be playing Azure Mage. And unless you don’t allow rares in the cube, this card thoroughly trounces that one outside of niche aggro where the two power matters. It’s a better statline in the kinds of decks that want this effect, and it has two limited but occasionally relevant upsides. You’re probably not ending up with a third of your deck in your hand, but at the very least this lets you FoF or Pull from Tomorrow with impunity.

Oh ha ha, very funny. This Innis-dad joke of a card might be the one-drop Zombies needs to get a foothold in multiple formats, though the options are much more expansive than they used to be. This isn’t just fighting Diregraf Ghoul anymore, we’ve got Stitcher’s Supplier, Dread Wanderer, Cryptbreaker and Carrion Feeder now.

Despite the name, I don’t think the Zombies deck this would go in looks all that similar to the Humans deck of its namesake. Part of why Modern Humans is so good is because so many random very good and disruptive cards- Meddling Mage, Kitesail Freebooter, Mantis Rider, Noble Heirarch- happen to randomly be Humans and thus benefit from the support. What Zombies would lose in disruption (though you could run Thoughtseizes) it likely gains in recursion, through things like Gravecrawler and Relentless Dead, and Champion of the Perished sure does support casting the same zombo over and over again. We will see, I guess.

Oh. Yknow. Fuck Power Word Kill and Heartless Act, I guess. There’s a new 2-mana removal spell in town, and it hits anything. Except these days, the “or planeswalker” line on cards like Eliminate make them so extra valuable that this ends up being more of a sidegrade than a straight upgrade.

Part of the issue with targeted removal like this is the limited utility it has against midrange and control, since midrange decks are built around 2-for-1s that targeted 1-for-1s aren’t good against and control isn’t going to have an awful lot of targets for it. Infernal Grasp has an added downside against Aggro, where that 2 life is super relevant. I’m not saying the card is unplayable, far from it- I think it’s going to be an EDH/Cube staple- but it’s not as nuts as it first appears. Magic has changed a lot since Doom Blade.

Speaking of upgrades. Apparently they asked “what interesting cool cards should we put in our initial set preview?” and somebody was like “what about 3 slightly extra role-players? That sounds good.”.

There isn’t really a better Shock in Standard right now than this for aggro/burn, but control decks won’t care about this and Frost Bite is still in the format. In more eternal formats, Burn’s not playing this over any of the Bolts, and red control definitely isn’t touching it (Unholy Heat still exists!). I think this card will have somewhat of a place in Standard and other Arena formats, and might shift some numbers around in Cubes and things like Canadian Highlander, but beyond that? Meh.

If Wrenn and Six is so good, why isn’t there a Wrenn and Seven? Well, uh, here it is. Trading a colour and insane playability in multiple formats for a 3 mana bump and an extra ability doesn’t sound incredible, but planeswalkers are typically very difficult to evaluate.

Wrenn7 is kind of an interesting walker, seeing as most of the Lands ones we’ve seen have been Nissa, who interacts with them on a different angle than this. Their -3 protects themselves well enough by making a beefy dude (that unlike Nissa doesn’t put you down if it gets killed), and their +1 and 0 have synergy that can ramp real hard, if slowly. The ultimate takes a while (4 turns assuming you don’t minus) and while it’s a lot of value it’s also extremely slow value. Slow is not something you really want on a planeswalker, considering how vulnerable they often are.

I’m not sure if I’m trying W7 out in my UG Superfriends list, seeing as they don’t really do a lot for it. Honestly the card strikes me as pretty specific as to what type of deck wants it. But like I said, walkers are hard, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if this ends up being pretty solid. It’s never going to be Wrenn and Six, though that card was kind of a mistake.

Okay so aside from people making references to a movie I haven’t seen, Join the Dance compares pretty obviously to one card- Lingering Souls. At the same time, this card is very much not Lingering Souls. It is much, much worse. Part of what made Lingering Souls good is it getting cheaper when you discard it, making doing so an actual upside, whereas this gets much more expensive. Also, the tokens don’t get flying!

Look, this card is fine. It’s okay. Human decks might like to try it out, and if a generic go-wide Standard deck happens it might feature a few of these. But it’s far from a staple. I think the flavour text on this card is much more interesting than the actual play object.

And that’s the lot of them. I was going to discuss the full-art lands but like

I don’t have much to say about them other than that they’re gorgeous. And I kinda feel like doing a deeper dive on those later because it’s an interesting topic.

Part of the reason I’m hesitant for Innistrad: Midnight Hunt is ultimately these spoilers. A few of them are cool and interesting, and the other ones are boring and powerful- two of my least favourite things in Magic. Triskaidekaphile is probably the one I’m most into at the moment, but we haven’t seen any Werewolves yet, so who knows.

They really didn’t put any Werewolves in their Werewolf Set Preview, huh?

[discotreque]

Disco 3.04: Forget Me Not

The way Doug Jones delivered “Previously, on Star Trek: Discovery” this week—audibly out of makeup, almost entirely out of character, and over the super-intense footage from 3.02 of Disco plummeting helplessly to a shattered ruin of a planet—in such a brisk, cheerful little chirp had me laughing so hard I was wheezing. I could see his little mannerisms and everything 😂

I slept like a brick last night, so I’m a little too disoriented for much of a preamble. Let’s get right into it. Spoilers ahoy:

REPAIR ROBOTS!!!

Prop watch: the “salt-shaker” medical scanner Culber uses during his opening voiceover is by far the most elaborate we’ve ever seen on Star Trek. Try to fit that into the top of your tricorder. (I guess it’s connected to an iPad now...)

Adira has amnesia too? Literally a mystery wrapped in a mystery, lol.

Stop calling it a squid! It’s an ankylosaur! (ˈaŋkɪləsɔː)

Michael asks Adira on the bridge if the planet Trill looks familiar. Not to be a planet-racist, but don’t all Class M planets kind of look alike from orbit? I’m not sure I could reliably recognize that much of Earth, especially under so much beautifully rendered CGI cloud cover.

I’m going to be praising Doug Jones a lot this season—he’s not just playing Saru as captain, he’s playing Captain Saru in an interesting and distinctive way. He’s not the babysitting big brother anymore—now he’s their dad, and he’s still visibly getting used to the role. It’s played so sweet and subtle and I’m really loving it, and the way the show as a whole is leaning into the “family” vibe this season.

The holographic version of a red-yarn-string conspiracy board that Michael is using when she talks to Culber is one of those acceptable sci-fi breaks from reality for me. It looks super cool and futuristic, but imagine actually working like that for a few hours. Your arms would get exhausted. My neck hurts just watching her crane around. And the eyestrain of focusing on glowing shit, in mid-air, at various distances, with no backdrop whatsoever? Fuck off completely with that. But it’s simple and tactile, so the audience immediately understands the general idea of what she’s doing, and it’s literally see-through, so we can simultaneously know how she feels about it. And if you’re not a total weirdo like me, you won’t be thinking about any of this, except maybe “oh, neat!” when Culber first walks in—it just helps establish Michael’s state of mind at the beginning of the scene.

OKAY SO TWO EXTREMELY IMPORTANT THINGS ABOUT MICHAEL’S QUARTERS. First, she decorated!!! 😭😭😭 Last season they made a point of (repeatedly!) contrasting her uhhhh “minimalist” living space with Tilly’s more personalized and homey side of the room, and now they explicitly note that Michael either brought her 32nd-century knick-knacks over from Book’s ship or replicated a bunch of new ones for Disco, and frankly either scenario makes my heart want to scream into a pillow.

THE SECOND THING IS THAT SHE’S STILL LIVING WITH TILLY??? ARE YOU ACTUALLY KIDDING ME WITH THIS SAPPHIC SHIT. I WAS READY TO BID MY SAD FAREWELLS TO MYLVIA AND HOP ON THE BURNBOOK TRAIN AND YOU DO T H I S??? YOU’RE PLAYING WITH MY HEART, MICHELLE.

I thought it was unfair that people were criticizing the last episode for not like, fully developing every single one of the plot points it was obviously setting up to play out over the rest of the season—but fair or not, I was genuinely surprised when they came back to Michael’s insecurities around leadership, so I guess this show is still working on winning me over too.

“Post-traumatic growth... can inspire us to evolve, to live our lives in a different way.” Well, fuck 😭😭😭😭😭

This is going to sound like either rank sarcasm or damnation by the faintest of praise, but it’s actually a genuine and heartfelt compliment: I did not expect this show to ever even approach the emotional depths of the recent She-Ra reboot on Netflix, let alone include a conversation that directly evoked one of the most powerful moments of that entire series for me. “You know what I love about you most? You’re a responsibility hoarder” has the exact same energy as “You’re worth more than what you can give to other people,” and it sucker-punched me right in the goddamned heart. Let 2020 be the year all our overly self-sacrificing heroines learn to let themselves accept the same love and support they give so freely.

AND THEN SHE JUST LAUNCHES INTO BIG-SISTER MODE WITH ADIRA??? Put me in a photon torpedo and shoot me into space while Scotty plays Amazing Grace on the bagpipes because I am D-E-A-D dead. (Also any time SMG lets her accent out a little bit I just fucking swoon, and apparently that accent is an integral component of her big-sis persona, so 😍😍😍😍😍)

I have been waiting my entire life for a Star Trek character who stuns first and asks questions later.

No. No WAY. THIS is how the Disco computer becomes Zora??? Basically the same way Data created Moriarty, except with a boost from the sphere data, and driven by Saru wanting to heal the crew’s emotional trauma? Holy SHIT.

I’m not sure I realized how many gaps existed in Trill lore until now. We knew a lot about Dax’s specific experiences, but I never had a good sense for how “typical” Dax actually was, and I feel like I learned more about Trill in general in this episode than I did over seven seasons of DS9, which is cool.

Listen, Saru, if you want to have family dinners with the crew, sometimes they’re going to turn out like family dinners.

The closed captions when Michael was arriving in the Trill dreamscape or whatever said (ambient warbling), which is also one of my favourite genres of music.

“I know you’re afraid, but you have to let them connect with you.” OKAY, STOP, JUST STOP.

I guess it wouldn’t be Discovery if every other character didn’t have a grotesquely tragic backstory, but Adira and Gray’s managed to cram about half a dozen of my favourite romantic tropes into a few fleeting moments of screen time before crashing into my heart—much like an asteroid crashing into the side of a generation ship that really should have solved the “random asteroid collision” problem at, like, the blueprints stage—so this one hurt even more than usual.

(Looking forward to blocking all the cis people with ~scorching hot takes~ about Adira and Gray this week. If you’re not trans, then your feelings and opinions about this are literally meaningless to me.)

One of Tal’s previous hosts is seen in a circa-2399 Starfleet uniform, which unfortunately doesn’t fit him any better than it fit anyone on Picard. We also get a (presumably fairly contemporary) admiral’s uniform on Senna, but there’s a lady on the far left with a different style of uniform but the same “post-canon” oval-backed delta concept for the combadge, and I wanted to see more of that one.

AWWWWW, STAMETS ACTUALLY DID STOP BEING A JERK, GOOD FOR HIM <3 (And if I’ve learned anything from science fiction, it’s that dark matter can do literally whatever the writers want, so this seems like a promising road of inquiry!)

Is Gray going to live in Adira’s head like a non-toxic version of Six and Baltar on Battlestar Galactica? Because I am into it.

...and that’s four in a row that ended with a goddamned tsunami of feelings. It’s still finding its feet, but this new version of the show—this slower, softer, sweeter version of Discovery, and the things it’s even attempting—you could say it gives me hope.

Next week: we finally get to see Starfleet in the 32nd century, who are as friendly as everyone else has been so far, and I’m going to have to figure out who’s playing the admiral who talks to Michael in the trailer, because he’s such a “Hey, It’s That Guy!” I got whiplash.