#hilarious bad explanation of plot

[angelzash]

Holy crap this made me laugh so hard!

Pt I good omens but i've never watched it

i've never seen good omens but it's all over my tumblr dash so this is what I've gathered can someone please confirm if i've got it right

there's a demon named crowley

there's a biblically inaccurate angel named aziraphale but like it's very sexy when the demon calls him 'angel'

the demon and angel have been married for 6000 years and they still keep looking at each other all sappily

Neil Gaiman is somehow involved, I think he's the writer but also he's on tumblr (uh, @neil-gaiman) and people keep questioning if he's real

is neil gaiman like a fandom inside joke why is everyone asking if he's real

there actors are called michael and david and amazon prime thought they were the same

there is a bookstore and crowley is sad

they kiss and it is very nice and desperate and crowley says we could have been us. i have no context for this. someone is going to heaven i think.

there is a god, i'm not sure if they're good or evil though

the demon wears sunglasses

it's a comedy but for some reason everyone's crying after whatever the last season was, are you guys okay

things are on fire

they are very gay

there was a book and at one point they switch bodies

more fire and crowley screaming

they are called ineffable husbands i dont know what that means

they fight crime or they do crime or they fight crime by doing crime i really cannot remember which

gay

[hyperlexichypatia]

Even if I weren't philosophically a psychiatric abolitionist, I think I would still hate the way fiction uses psychiatry and pop psychology and "mental illness," because it's just lazy characterization.

Fiction has the potential for rich and illustrative exploration of character motivations, desires, influences, inner lives, values, decision-making, and you went with... "a brain disease made them do it"? Really?

"Why did this character try to kill his own sister?" "Because he knew that she would recognize their grandmother's coin collection and would figure out that her brother was the one who stole their uncle's inheritance." ^This is interesting! What a conniving, manipulative character! I feel rewarded for investing in this book!

"Because he's a Malignant Narcissist Sociopath." ^This is boring as fuck. I read this whole book and the explanation ends up being "ontologically bad person disorder"?

Occasionally it circles around to So Godawful It's Hilarious, like Batwoman, which centered an entire season arc around "The Bad Guy is Bad because of a magic brain science button that switched his brain to 'evil' and he needs another magic brain science button to switch his brain back to 'good.'" Literally borrowed the plot of Bart Simpson's evil Krusty doll. And I don't care about creator intent -- according to me, this is an absolutely hilarious parody of psychiatric culture. Yeah, that is the logical conclusion of "brain disease made them do it" bullshit, good job!

I started to compare it to the "devil made them do it" trope, but that's unfair -- there are a lot of interesting, nuanced demonic possession stories, and the idea of a "devil" can be used to explore the nature of morality, free will, forces beyond our control. I don't believe in literal "real" (inasmuch as "real" is a meaningful concept) demonic possession, but at least it's an interesting fictional lens. Neurobullshit isn't even interesting.

I've seen criticism lately of stories where "the characters talk as if they've been to therapy", and sure, that annoys me too. But I've also seen this criticism applied when characters just have a modicum of emotional awareness or expression, and... do you think therapy is a prerequisite for having feelings? Even in a real-life context, I've seen people say things like "She must have been through a lot of therapy to get to that point" when a person, like, stands up for themself or expresses their wishes. Do you think no one did these things before therapy was invented? Once I saw a story written in the 1940s praised for its depiction of the main character's grief at his best friend's death, because it was "remarkable for a time before post-traumatic disorders were widely understood." Do you really think no one was writing about grief and loss before modern pathologizing terminology? Do you think people were all emotionless robots until someone invented feelings in 1995?

Psychiatry is an inaccurate way of conceptualizing human emotional experience; it's an oppressive way of conceptualizing human emotional experience; and it's also an incredibly boring way of conceptualizing human emotional experience.

[maitter-of-creepfell]

Ok, so let's list them, my babies which got cancelled cruelly and often without an explanation, with my random commentary:

The Bastard Son & the Devil Himself (Half Bad) (gif) - witchy, dark, gay, big potential for a natural polycule, excellent chemistry among the main three characters, I am so mad.

Castlevania - need I say anything?

Dead Boy Detectives (gif) - supernatural, horror, funny, gay ARE YOU FKING KIDDING ME YOU CAN'T JUST CANCEL IT WE ONLY JUST GOT IT

Dead End: Paranormal Park - a trans main character? Cute animation? Supernatural stuff? Hello???

Fate: The Winx Saga (gif) - so much fun, great acting, good soundtrack, good plot twists, childhood throwback, I want my Winx back.

First Kill - LESBIAN MAIN CHARACTERS in a classic trope of a monster (vampire) x monster (vampire) hunter forbidden love? The acting, at first, might not have been what I'd call great but I think it was more of the script's fault.

I Am Not Okay with This (gif) - dark, horror, teen, another lesbian main character, cute as hell, cancelled at the worst possible scene.

The Imperfects (gif) - a bit fucked up plot-wise, tbf, but all the more fun for it. Cool twists and abilities. And Rhys Nicholson as Dr. Alex Sarkov is hilarious. Also, a spin on an ace succubus. Lol.

Lockwood & Co. (gif) - the books were the slowest of slow burns and had the least reliable narrator of all time (Luce. I'm looking at you. Anthony Lockwood is also looking at you.) and the TV series chose the protagonists SO WELL 😭 I loved it. I want more. So much more.

Mindhunter - psychology of serial killers, this had SO MUCH potential for a tonne of more content.

Sense8 (gif) - different cultures, action, an evil old white man, explosions, martial arts, gayness, transness, LOVE CONQUERS ALL, BITCHES. Technically, it's finished, but it was rushed.

Shadow & Bone (gif) - wonderful fantasy! Try not to cry, cry a lot.

Spinning Out (gif) - actual believable representation of a mental/neurological illness (bipolar disorder) and stunning figure skating shots?! Cancelling it was a criminal offence

And just because I'm in the wailing part of my evening:

Stargate: Universe (gif) - why yes, cancel it at the biggest cliffhanger ever.

Our Flag Means Death - 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

[baldursgate3tempobsessed]

Please let Astarion meet Tav's family and have a younger sibling like 6 be like im gonna marry the prince points at Astarion.

Tav : Sorry, im married to the prince

NO IM GONNA MARRY THE PRINCE

That's so fucking cute kill me. But I just realized AFTER I finished it I read this wrong 😭😭 I read it as "marry" instead of "married" so whoops now it's an asking for your hand in marriage fic.

Also, I'm going to make this a weird little, unofficial, alternate reality, off shoot of this fic to explain away why Astarion can be in the sun without ascending because I am ~lazy~

Quick summary if you didn't read it, Tav serves Selune, gets a blessing for all the good work, and uses it to cure the anti-light issue of the vampirism (but not all of it). It's not a literal extension of that fic but I'm stealing my own plot explanations. That's it! Now here we go:

~

Astarion wasn't nervous per se. He was just... on edge. And the two-week journey it took to get here wasn't helping things, not when it gave him so much time to ruminate in his thoughts. He never expected to be in the position of "meeting the family," let alone in anticipation for asking for someone's hand in marriage.

Astarion wasn't even quite sure how his life got here. He had always fantasized that a life without Cazador would be one of selfish hedonism, not one where he would be legitimately concerned about a damn six year old sibling's first impression of him.

But then you came along, effortlessly shattering all of his grandiose plans with a batt of your eyelashes. Perhaps the entire journey of falling in love was more complicated, but it felt like it was that simple. In hindsight, he never stood a chance against you, but it was hilarious that there was a time he ever thought he did.

All of his prior dreams and fantasies felt like nothing in comparison to just being with you. It had been a year since you both saved the Sword Coast, a beautiful, fantastic year. That had ended with him somehow more in love with you now than when he first confessed. Selune's blessing had certainly helped with that he was sure. He still couldn't quite believe that you would use a god's blessing on him of all people, but gods, was he appreciative. Because being able to walk in the sun again meant that he could live the life he wanted, with no restrictions. He could be the partner you deserved, the kind that a father would happily say yes to when asking for your hand.

Which brought him back to his current dilemma. Perhaps he hadn't seen any of your family members in the time you'd been together, but he had heard plenty. You loved them all to death, especially your little sister. You wrote to them constantly, the mere sight of a letter from your parents enough to put you in a great mood for the rest of the day. He was aware that your mother was supposedly a saint, a fact that your own father had instilled in you often. He knew that they had a wonderful, loving marriage and were both higher ups in the Church of Selune. A fact that Astarion didn't particularly enjoy.

As grateful to the moon goddess as he was, he was aware that you were an expectation to the very normal belief that vampires were bad. And that marrying one was one of the stupidest things you could ever do from an average person's perspective, let alone a Selunite.

Why you hadn't done the smart thing and lied about what he was, Astarion would never know. But he did know that the thought of their rejection over his admittedly sordid history was putting him in a tailspin.

"They're going to love you," You said for the hundredth time, giving his hand a squeeze as you led him up the steps to your childhood home, "You have nothing to worry about sweetheart. I promise."

Astarion highly doubted that, but you were already knocking on the front door before he had a chance to argue. The door instantly slammed open, a beaming child already launching themselves at you before Astarion could process what was happening.

But you were more prepared them he was. You effortlessly caught them in your arms, laughing at their excited shouting, "Titi! You're late!"

So this was the famous Arabeth.

"No, I'm not!" You laughed as you settled her on your hip, "And what happened to my little girl's manners huh? You haven't even introduced yourself yet."

The child glanced over at him, like she was just realizing for the first time that someone else was standing over there. She looked a little shocked at the sight of him, staring at him with wide eyes. Wide enough for Astarion to start to wonder if something was on his face.

He gave her a little wave only for her to bury her face into your shoulder, peeking out at him with her lips pursed. Which was not the best start to the whole making his darling's family actually like him plan.

"Well, as you've probably guessed this is Arabeth. She's just a little shy," You reassured as you stepped inside, muttering a quick invitation inside under your breath. He appreciated that, he didn't need the whole house to be reminded of his... limitations.

"But she'll get over it soon enough," You continued as you called into the house, "Mom? Dad? We're here!"

And just like that they were rushing into the room, acting just as excited as your sister had been. Your mother wasted no time in smothering your face with kisses while your father swept you up into a hug. It was a rather impressive display of coordination, considering how they hadn't managed to knock you and your sister to the floor in the process. Astarion was pretty sure they were both saying something along the lines of We missed you! But it was hard to tell with all of you so tangled up in each other.

It was heartwarming to see, in all honestly. Of course such a loving person would come from an equally loving family, what else would he expect?

Though he certainly hadn't been expecting for your mother to throw her arms around him next. She brought him into a tight hug before looking him up and down, "So you're Astarion huh?"

She turned back to you, grinning ear to ear with her hands set on Astarion's shoulders, "He's so handsome! Selune help us, do you remember the last boy you brought home? He had a nose the length of my arm-"

"And that's enough of that," You said with a strained laugh, pulling your eccentric mother back a few inches, "And we've talked about the impromptu hugs. What happened to asking for permission?"

"Sorry, sorry!" She said with a wave of her hand, "Let me try again. I'm Seliras, and this is my husband-"

"Marcoul," Your father interrupted, putting his hand out for Astarion to shake, "It's been awhile since we've met a boyfriend."

"He's a little more than that," You said with a sigh as everyone exchanged pleasantries.

"We'll be the judge of that," Marcoul said with a sharp but friendly grin, the grip he had on Astarion's hand briefly tightening before he let go, "From what we've heard, you're quite the character aren't you?"

Ah, so the interrogating was starting early then. It was nothing that Astarion hadn't expected. Besides, turning up the charm was his strong suit, even when he was uncharacteristically nervous.

Astarion smiled back at him, "You've heard right. And I'm more than happy to answer any questions you might have."

"Oh gods please don't say that," You groaned, but it was too late. Your parents were already leading him to sit, rapid-fire questions coming out of their mouth.

Where are you from? How did you meet? Are you serious about our Tav? What's your religion? Where's your family? What are your plans?

But Astarion answered them all, with only mild censorship for the child's sake. The child who suddenly couldn't stop staring at him. It wasn't exactly easy to sell himself as a future husband when he was a vampiric ex-slave, but he made do.

It was an overwhelming experience to say the least, but not necessarily an unpleasant one. That was one good thing about trying to marry into a family of zealots, it was a lot easier to convince them of your virtue when you received a personal blessing from their goddess.

By the end of the night, they were all throughly appeased, enough so to get off the topic of him for a moment.

"You look a little young to have a thirty-year old child," Astarion said to your mother. He was actively trying to compliment her for obvious reasons, but he was also genuinely curious. She barely looked a day over 40.

"Oh we breed young," She said with a laugh, "We had Tav in our teenage years. Arabeth came much, much later. Our favorite little surprise. Gods, I can't think of a single person in our family who didn't have kids young. Our little Tav is the only exception to the rule."

"But maybe not for much longer, huh?" Marcoul added with a grin, yelping when you lightly smacked him over the head for the comment.

"Do not start the kid talk again!" You hissed out, cheeks red, "We've talked about this!"

Astarion couldn't help but grin at your reaction, charmed by your embarrassment. Though... the idea of the two of you having children together sure was an interesting thought.

Astarion felt a tug on his sleeve while you were distracted arguing with your parents. He turned, smiling when he saw your little sister standing there, still staring at him with wide-eyes.

She took a deep breath before blurting out, "You look like a prince. Are you?"

"Not exactly," Astarion said with a small laugh. That couldn't be further from the truth, "There's no blue blood in my veins."

She frowned, cocking her head at him like he wasn't making any sense. But then an idea obviously struck her as she excitedly asked, "But if you married a princess, then you'd become a prince too. Right?"

"I suppose?" Astarion answered with a shrug.

"So if I become a princess, and I marry you, then you'll be a prince?"

This conversation was quickly becoming out of his depth. But luckily enough for him you were swooping in to save him.

You laughed at her question, turning your attention back to the two of them, "No offense Bethy, but I'm going to be the one marrying this particular prince."

But Arabeth wasn't having it. She crossed her arms, looking at you like she was the one talking to a child, "You can't. Because if I don't marry him, he won't be a prince. So there. I have to do it."

She looked so serious, her facial expressions incredibly similar to your own. Astarion was holding back a loud laugh as you tried and failed to reason with her, "I can marry him without the royal status-"

"No! I'm marrying the prince!"

Your parents were doing a much worse job at hiding their reactions, both of them opening giggling behind their hands as you came up with a compromise.

"Okay, okay," You said with a sigh, kneeling down to look the small girl in the eye, "How about this? I marry him first. But only until you become a princess. Then he's all yours. Sound fair?"

She thought about it for a moment before nodding to herself, "Sounds fair."

Well Astarion wasn't going to get a better set-up then that. He turned to your father, his nerves coming back for a brief appearance, "I'm assuming now might be a good time to ask what I came here to ask. Though I do promise I only intending on asking for one of your children's hand in marriage."

Marcoul nodded slowly, his face unreadable as he spoke, "I mean no offense when I say this Astarion, but you aren't exactly who I imagined for my daughter."

"Dad don't-"

"Darling, let him finish," Astarion gently interrupted, his eyes still locked with your father's.

He took a deep breathe before continuing, "That said, I've never seen her so... herself with someone else before. So yes. The two of you can marry. On one condition."

"Anything," Astarion said instantly, nearly giddy at the fact that he was so close to the official yes, "Just name it."

"You have to have the wedding here," Seliras answered for him, a massive smile on her face, "No ifs, ands, or buts."

"And I get to be flower girl!" Arabeth chimed in, her past indignation completely forgotten as she climbed all over you, "And there has to be chocolate cake!"

"Oh gods, help us," You groaned, but Astarion was already nodding along. He couldn't give less than two shits where it happened or who was involved. He could scarcely believe that it was happening at all. But that was the last thing he had needed.

He already had the ring, the most amazing person he could ever fathom being with. Who actually wanted him back.

Now all he had to do was ask.

[matchalovertrait]

The day after Caruso posted his video, Dulce responded with one of her own to disprove his false claims about the "stolen" recipes. She brought up her extensive list of culinary experiences and screenshots of everything related to the cookbook when it was in progress. However, the damage had been done. Too many people turned their backs on Dulce. As everything came crashing down, she slowly stopped responding to her family and friends. Of course, everyone was alarmed. You can't just not respond like that out of the blue, especially when you're overseas! Now that Ángel and Esperanza have come to save the day, Dulce is looking to sue Caruso for defamation. I did say to never get into legal trouble with her! This marks the rebirth of Alegría v. Caruso!

Note: I am getting political here. As Election Day in the United States is around the corner, I urge people to fact-check everything. I'm seeing too many people on other social media platforms not doing the proper research. They see a video of one thing and take it as the sole truth. It seems like people have forgotten how to use Google, which is right at our fingertips. Make sure you're looking at reliable sources!

Start from the beginning (Gen 2)

Previous | Next

Transcript:

Dulce: I swear! That better not be him. A lot of people didn’t believe me or they didn’t bother to watch my explanation video. How am I supposed to recover from this?

Ángel: Dulce!

Dulce: Ángel and Esperanza?!

Ángel: Why haven’t you been answering anyone’s phone calls or texts??? It’s been 2 days.

Dulce: My career is over. My numbers are plummeting. People are crossing out my name on my cookbook and writing his name instead. Clients are canceling bookings with me. His crazy fans are giving me fake bad reviews. I’m through.

Esperanza: So what? It hasn’t been that long. Things can pick back up, Dulce. Why don’t you get your chef friends to vouch for you?

Dulce: I don’t want to rope anyone into my mess..

Esperanza: [Sighs] You know what? It’s sad to see you like this. Aren’t you going to plot something?

Dulce: I’ve done enough harm as it is! What do I do??? Sue him??? Oh wait, I already thought of that! I looked into it and no good lawyer wants to take the case. They’d rather represent actual stars like Judith Ward. I need to take this as a sign and finally grow up.

Ángel: C’mon, you know you want to do it.

Dulce: You’re encouraging it...? You don’t want to teach me a valuable life lesson like always?

Ángel: I think you learned your lesson. Make him learn his now.

Esperanza: My dad and Hilary both said they can help you pay for a REALLY good defamation lawyer. I think Hilary was freaking out the most about you not answering.

Ángel: Well, we all kinda were. You had Ama worried sick. But we didn’t file a missing person’s report because your friend came by and saw you well alive through your window.

Dulce: Oh, man. Dani probably got nervous and ran off. She never came to knock on the door.

Ángel: She’s a skittish one, isn’t she?

Dulce: Yeah, I have to apologize to her for not responding to her texts either. She knows about everything, but she might feel like she’s annoying me because I haven’t answered.

Esperanza: Wait, isn’t she a paralegal?

Dulce: Oh my gosh, you’re right! How’d I forget that? She might know someone who can help!

Ángel: Looks like we have a plan, then.

Esperanza: Um, I think part of this plan should be helping you clean up this place. Go put detergent in the washer, Ángel. I’ll get the clothes.

Dulce: My clothes??? Oh, no. They’ve been washed and dried. I just haven’t put them away. The only mess here is in my mind.

[queenpiranhadon]

A/N: I find it hilarious that this is Bakugou x Reader and he's not even in like 1/3 of the series LMAO Big thanks to our resident beta reader @cashmoneyyysstuff srlsy dunno how she thought I was cool enough to follow ily 😭 Here's the masterlist!

Warning(s): Cursing, reader is the daughter of Aizawa, Shinso and Eri are biological siblings, Shinso is a year younger than reader, reader is 20 years old, afab!reader, reader's mother is dead, medieval fantasy setting, reader cries a lot, reader started sword fighting at age six, reader passes out from crying, reader drugs her family (JUST HEAR ME OUT LMAO- I DON'T CONDONE STUFF LIKE THAT BUT ITS FOR THE PLOT), bad explanations of anesthetics, reader's nickname is Cactus and Warrior, slight spoilers of the actual show/manga, mentions of crossdressing (it's probably inaccurate, idk man I'm not really experienced with this sorta stuff lol).

Pairing(s): Katsuki Bakugou x Reader

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴏ: Bruises

“I have bad news.” 

In that moment, you’re pretty sure you felt your heart stop. 

You sat there, frozen, unable to move as everyone else at the table starts talking immediately, asking your father was the issue was. 

Yet his eyes remained on you, inky coals transfixed on you, unwavering, boring into your soul as if waiting, watching to see what you’d do next. 

Your mind tries to wander, briefly remembering the last time your father said that, the slight pain in his seemingly empty eyes and his strained tone of voice. The last time those words were uttered, your mother died. 

No. 

Now wasn’t the time for that. Now was the time to protect your family, like you always have. Your feelings weren’t important now.  

You notice your father rub his index finger against the underside of his thumb, a code you knew to mean retreat. In this case, he wanted to go outside to talk to you, alone. 

The table goes silent as you stand up with a word, worried glances being sent you way. Smiling reassuringly at them, you make your way around the table to the door, spinning around to squeeze Ejiro’s shoulder as he was the closest to you and make eye contact with your brother.  

“Toshi, you’re in charge in the meantime- make sure everyone has enough to eat alright?” you ask, and he hums in agreement, but narrows his eyes, a look that means you’re telling me everything once you’re done. 

You chose to ignore that, turning around again to exit your home to meet your father who was waiting for you outside.  

Shutting the door behind you, you see him staring up at the starless sky, covered by clouds and most likely smoke from fires made to provide warmth with the coming winter.  

You join him on the steps of your porch, staring up into the night sky with him. It was poetic in a way, the loss of the stars in the sky reminded you of the man by your side.  

Shota Aizawa was a swordsman, and one of the finest in the kingdom of Bellorant. Since you were six, he used to teach you, much to your mother’s annoyance. She didn’t want you near anything of the sort, especially when you returned one day covered in bruises, saying "Shota, she’s six! She needs to grow to be a lady, not a soldier or a fighter. She doesn’t need to grow up around violence.” 

Yet he still taught you, teaching you ancient sword techniques and sparred with you on occasion, but you never won – unless he let you. Every time, he would stop you at the most spontaneous moments, you could be in the middle of a heated spar when he rubbed his index finger against his thumb, retreat. It was like he had a sixth sense, knowing exactly when your mother would be home, and when she walked through the front door, you would be helping your father with preparing dinner.  

It was your secret, only for the two of you.  

At least for four years. After your mother had passed away, your father basically fell apart, refusing to teach you as an unspoken promise to your mother following her death.  

He could barely look at a sword the same way after he lost both his leg and your mother, like the starless sky - you knew it was possible, yet it seemed wrong. Your father was as empty without his swords as the sky was without stars. 

“What’s wrong?” you ask, your voice betraying you, coming out as a shaky whisper.  

The raven-haired man sucks in a breath, refusing to look at you, not saying anything, The silence was deafening and suffocating, as waves of anxiety rack your brain and your heart rate picks up.  

What in the world could be so bad that he can’t even look you in the eye?! 

“I’m being enlisted into the army. The roundup is tomorrow at dawn.” 

Time stops right then and there. You feel your heart drop. You couldn’t lose him, you couldn’t. Sending him out there was suicide, and he knew it.  

He couldn’t do this to you, not after losing your mother. You needed him, he was all you had left to prevent you from tearing yourself apart from the inside. He was the loose string in the fabric that held everything together but was easily able to be pulled away in the blink of an eye.  

You didn’t realize you were crying until a rough hand comes up and brushes a few tears from your face.  

“You have to be strong my warrior.” he whispers softly, the name hitting you harder than it should’ve.  

He hadn’t called you that since the last time you trained together.  

Words fail you, but he understands, holding you tight as the dam breaks, unshed tears falling as years of suffocating pain and stress release you in the form of salty tears that drip down your cheeks and soak into your father’s shirt.  

You were going to be all alone again.  

Just the thought brings even more tears to your eyes, heaving sobs so powerful that you can’t breathe, there’s just too much and you can’t take it anymore, but you have to.  

You have to, for Hitoshi and Eri. If nothing else, do it for them.  

*** 

You’re not sure when you passed out, but you come to lying in your bed, your dad probably carried you.  

Your throat feels dry, and your eyes burn. Shivering and burying yourself in your blankets, your heart sinks as the situation dawns on you. 

Taking in a shaky deep breath you think, like you always have. Thinking about how to fix a problem that seemed so big that you could never fix it.  

But there was always a way.  

You tried to remember the last time enlistments happened. It wasn’t the first time your father has been in a war, neither had it been for many of the men in your village. But the rest of the village wasn’t battling a severe disability and trying to cope with even more severe mental health issues.  

As per the crown’s decree, the terms for enlistment were the oldest able-bodied man from each household would be sent to join the army out of loyalty for their country.  

That didn’t make sense- considering that your father was far from able bodied...shit.  

The alternative would’ve been HItoshi. Your father, knowing this, probably created a loophole, saying that the makeshift wooden prosthetic Chiyo provided from him considered the man able bodied, saving Hitoshi from the hardships of war he’d have to endure either way.  

Bastard. You curse mentally, somewhat towards your father but mostly at the situation at hand. Shota Aizawa was an intuitive man, and knew exactly how to manipulate a situation to get what he wants. This trait, both helpful and infuriating was one that was passed down to you, which explained how you could read people well enough to know their intentions.

But you knew that right now, what you needed was both your father and Hitoshi, at some, safe.  

And for that to happen, you needed some third Aizawa son to step in and take the burden from them both.  

Then it hit you, maybe there was.  

Cross dressing wasn’t a completely new subject to you- you remembered when you and Ochako snuck into a pub one night, dressed as two boys so no men would try to make a move on either of you.  

Maybe it would work again.  

Creeping out of your room, you see that everyone’s gone to bed. For once, you’re thankful that you do all the chores around the house, tip toeing into the room where you washed and dried all your clothes, spotting the basket of unfolded clean clothes that needed to be put away.  

Sifting through its contents, you find what you were looking for: a yellowed white tunic and some thick black pants that belong to your brother.  

Perfect. 

This was all going according to plan.  

Depositing the clothes in your room, you go into the washroom, finding the medicine cabinet where all Eri’s concoctions lived.  

You wince, knowing this was technically drugging your family against their will, but you get to work, finding the balm used for sleep. 

Sneaking into Hitoshi’s room first, you take some of the balm, rubbing the substance against your fingertips before rubbing it gently against the skin that covered his temple, herbs that were said to have magical properties allowed a light dosage of melatonin into the neural system.  

You felt his body relax, all the tenseness gone from his frame, and you kiss his forehead softly, a tear pricking your eye. 

You might never see him again.  

“I love you Hitoshi.” you murmur, stroking his hair before doing the same for your father and sister both sound asleep, and they would be for the next twelve hours.  

Fingering the paper in your hands, you bring it up to your lips, a final blessing from you before putting the letter addressed to your family on the dining table.  

It was almost dawn, grabbing the roll of bandages from the washroom and wrapping your torso with it to make your chest flatter. You felt like you couldn’t breathe, but you persisted, knowing that it would only be a minor inconvienience in the long run. 

Slipping your brother’s clothes on, you tie your hair into a wolf’s knot, a hairstyle that your father taught you himself, the mark of a warrior. Slipping on Hitoshi’s shoes, you grab the worn picture of your family ten years ago, looking at it, your mother’s face, and your father’s happy one. Now he’d at least be alive to have the chance to feel like that again

You put the photo in your satchel, along with the dagger you used to train with, and the diary Ejiro gifted you when you were thirteen. It was very thick, enough to only be half filled from 7 years of your living, but then again you never really used it back then. Well, that was going to change now, determined to leave your family and friends a little more than a rushed letter if you die.  

Holy shit.  

You could die.  

The thought had never properly struck you until now, and yet, you didn’t feel dread. You just understood the grim truth that if it wasn’t you, it would be Hitoshi or your dad, and it were more than happy to put your life on the line for them.  

You see the sun’s ray start to peak out of the horizon, eyes sweeping your home one last time before closing the door, hand staying on the doorknob for a split second longer than you should’ve, as it trying to subconsciously memorize how it feels. 

One step by one, you make your way down the steps of your porch, the same ones you sat on the night before where you cried your heart out in your father’s arms.  

That seemed so long ago, yet only a few seconds ago at the same time.  

You make your way down the cobblestone path, down to the center of the village, spotting men from the imperial palace with their scrolls condemning their people to death.  

You swallow down the pit in your stomach, taking a deep breath and joining the crowd of men that gathered around.  

Goodbye, home.  

Taglist: @andysdrafts @starieq @nemisimp @missa-archdevilme @coquettefoxxy

@032loe @icedemon1314 @fta1ask4 @iam-thevillain-of-thisstory @cuppalevi

@touyasprettydoll @slayfics @yeehawgiddyup13 @notjustanotherextra @frvv

@naoyasbby @sweetblueworm @isentsworld @bkgpackets @moonnm

@bkgrl @satoruyes @eyesforbkg @juicyfingers @aejabba

@noodleryworld @yui-aya @ashiblossom @rv19 @wheezdostuff

@yannvi @liluvtojineteyam @ah-mya @surprisemodafakas

@kksmush @sagejin @cax-per @kit-katsukii

[theheirofthesharingan]

Do you have an explanation for why Sakura fans can only give points to their fav by bringing down other characters? They're always trashing other characters in an attempt to make Sakura look flawless. I've seen lots of stupid whispers on Pinterest (I advise to stay away from that app as it's dominated by Skuratards and Sasusakutards) I'll give you examples of what I've seen :

1. I swear I've seen them trying to convince this fandom to acknowledge Naruto as the real annoying character of the series. (it must really hurt to have a fav who's constantly called annoying inside and outside of the manga lol)

2. Naruto gets hate for acting like a perv, the beating he gets is justified in their book, but when Sakura says she wanna see Sasuke peeing they suddently turn blind and deaf. (I know it's some kind of japaneese humour but I could never find that shit funny. If the genders were switched and the guy hits the girl we all know no one is gonna laugh at that)

3. Sakura fans who double as Sasusaku haters always blame Sasuke for the terrible writing of that ship. He is called abusive, he's a violent guy, he's an absent father, Sakura deserves better, Sakura is a closted lesbian who should've been with Ino or Hinata, bla bla bla.... (as if it's all not the consequences of her own actions)

4. Hinata... where do I even begin? I'm sure we've all seen Sakura fans desperately trying to pass the 'useless' title to Hinata. No to mention criticizing her for simping over Naruto as if 90% of Sakura's character didn't revolve around Sasuke. BOTH were simps! Yes Sakura did other stuff but she STILL was a simp! And calling her a simp is STILL a fact and one of her biggest flaws!!

5. The 'terrible freind' title. Sasuke gets hate for leaving the village and breaking poor Naruto and Sakura's hearts, but when Sakura ends her freindship with Ino for no damn good reason it's absolutely fine. Her fans love to claim that she did it to grow and become independant wich is really hilarious btw, since when do freinds get in the way of growing and finding one's true self? Lmfao

6. Karin. I've seen A LOT of Sakura fans hating on Karin and trying to pass the 'obssessive' and 'simp' titles to her. Okay, Karin is a freak alright, but again, Sakura has the SAME flaws! She too was obssessed with Sasuke and wouldn't take a no for an answer. Some of them want Karin to become the most hated female in the series so bad it's pathetic. Karin has a deep respect for Sakura and said that she considers her a close freind, and she's still grateful for when Sakura saved her life that day, she also accepted Sasusaku and even helped Sakura safely give bith to Sarada. I thought Sakura fans would really like Karin after all that developpment but nope, I was wrong. They keep spreading the "normalize hating this disgusting mf" everywhere.

7. "Naruto cries too". Now I don't see anything wrong with crying but Naruto always had valid reasons for doing it. Sakura on the other hand cried the most in the series when she had one of the best lives out of the whole cast.

8. "Sakura is hated more than the actual villains of the show." So now we should hate Pain, Madara, Obito, Itachi, Kaguya, ect... and love Sakura just because she wasn't a criminal? Most of the bad guys in series, if not all, were complex and written very beautifully compared to Sakura who's just a boring medic who likes to punch the ground from time to time. How did her existense exactly affect the plot or entertain the viewers? To this day I fail to see what was so interesting about her. She had no story, no backstory, no depth, no philosophy, no arc, no plot twist, no nothing! She just did her job and healed people, why in the world should I be hyping that up?

There are two reasons, in my opinion:

The unreasonable hate she gets from the fandom.

The ship wars.

What Sakura gets isn't criticism. There is criticism too, but a lot of what she gets is mindless hate and being called "useless", when that's not true at all. And if the fandom did care about uselessness it wouldn't be going dewy eyed over Hinata, whose only personality is doing "N- Naruto kun 🥺🥺👉👈" throughout the series. But she doesn't get the same treatment.

So, many of Sakura fans want to get back at the other fans and their favorite characters by showing how she isn't as bad. And many people are just childish and stupid, and don't actually care because they aren't going to have any consequences. So, they abuse this anonymity internet provides them.

The second one is obviously because of the ship wars. SS are canon, and a lot of people dislike the ship for the right reasons. I personally feel shippers don't care for logic or reason as long as they can justify their ship.

If anyone threatens their ship, they become defensive and aggressive towards them. Characters like Karin are seen as a threat to SS (imo). Hinata is probably hated because she is a bland character but still gets a pass while Sakura gets hate.

All of it is stupid, because you see this toxicity only if you're not a part of the ship wars. You'll find all the fanbases hypocritical, some more than the others.

I absolutely agree with you on the "Villains get love and Sakura gets hate" though, because I don't love those villains because I agree with their morals, but because they are interesting to watch. They add things to the story. Something Sakura doesn't do at all.

I would personally love to watch things featuring Madara or Pain than Sakura.

[reccyls]

Would you be able to give us a review of azels route after you’re done?? With spoilers if possible

Thank you!!!

I've now finished both endings of Azel's route so here's my review of it + answering a few other questions that I've received about different aspects. This will have a lot of spoilers that will impact a blind experience of his route, so do bear that in mind

So briefly, some questions out of the way:

Who falls first, Azel or Emma? - I think Azel does, but it takes him a really long time to even begin considering love as a possibility given his prior experiences. Emma also takes a while to come to her own realization about what her feelings really are but she's much more decisive about it than Azel is once she does realize. This is definitely a slow burn route, you're going to be waiting until chapter ~20+ or so for things to really start coming together in the relationship department.

Which ending do I prefer? - Romantic for sure. It actually portrays a couple of things that were just implied/mentioned in the Dramatic, and has more callbacks to earlier moments in the route, namely: Azel's eldest brother who had been exiled, the true identity of one of Azel's attendants, Obsidian's involvement in Tanzanite, the significance of some mentioned side characters, how Azel actually faked his death. It also answers a bunch more questions like why Azel respects Silvio so much. I also think it has a more emotionally satisfying resolution to some other aspects of the story. Also it has some hilarious moments too. The emotional whiplash I got going from chapter 24 to 25 of the romantic was something (I mean this in a good way).

Which do I find more realistic? - Hmmm, well, both of them do go into quite fantastical territory. Azel can just visit people's dreams apparently and that's not really given an explanation. All in all I would have to go with Romantic I think, mostly because it relies less on the Acolyte's semi-hypnotic incense as a plot device.

How spicy is it? - Quite tame. No smut in the route itself (it's offscreen in dramatic route, and only kissing in romantic). There's the start of some smut in the epilogues for each route, but still not a lot, mostly just the foreplay is described.

Things I liked about Azel's route:

Azel's really cute. I love his dynamic with Emma. He's the most obvious kind of tsundere and it's so funny to see him backpedaling furiously after Emma catches him being nice to her or accidentally admitting he likes her or thinks she's cute. The pinching cheeks thing is adorable.

The side characters. The route's equivalent of Cyril/Cyran, Roderic, etc. There's one in particular that is so much fun but you have to play the romantic end to really get the most out of it: Kamal, Azel's eldest brother. He initially appears as one of Azel's attendants, posing as a mute woman because he had to hide his identity. He drops the disguise in the romantic end and gets to interact with a lot more characters--Emma, Silvio, Azel, and Enis--and it's so much fun. (As a note, Kamal is an okama/onee-san archetype character, so you could interpret him as nonbinary/bigender/genderfluid/a man who just likes crossdressing/etc as you like. The one thing I don't think he is is a trans woman because he never protests at being called Azel's brother, but hey, headcanons never hurt anyone!)

Emma and Silvio's friendship. This was so unexpected but they bounce off each other so well, it's really nice seeing them with each other.

Angst, I love angst. Chapter 24 of the romantic route was a masterclass of angst: it ends with Azel dying on a stage in front of pretty much all of Tanzanite, and the attire story is basically everyone in mourning as Emma has a flashback to the last night they spent together. We as the readers who have seen the ending CG previews and/or know that Cybird won't really go there know he isn't actually dead, but Emma doesn't.

The overall conflict and plot I think is quite predictable, but I don't mean that in a bad way. The hints that are dropped everywhere build up to a coherent whole and come together in a satisfying way. The value that Azel places on free will and the ability to think for oneself is very obviously leading to a plotline where Azel seeks to end Tanzanite's dependency on him and his prophecies, and the hints we get scattered around everywhere are leading to exactly how he intends to do that: there's been a bunch of fortune tellers who have been attacked because their fortunes go against Azel's proclamations (Azel has been deliberately telling false fortunes to break people's faith in god); Obsidian has been trying to smuggle in shipments of weapons to help destabilize Tanzanite (Azel uses a gun to help fake his death); Azel's room has books of all sorts scattered around everywhere including books on astronomy (the prophecy about Tanzanite losing its moon refers to a blood moon + eclipse, Azel has been studying from astronomy books to calculate the precise time to pull off his plan), etc. The foreshadowing works quite well imo, though some hints admittedly do come up quite late (like the existence and exact text of the doomsday prophecy only becoming known around chapter 18/19)

Things that could be iffy for people:

Azel's backstory and a lot about his situation is pretty blatantly sympathy bait, but I think that's par for the course with Ikepri. It worked really well for me but it may not work as well for other people.

If people didn't like Motonari calling the Ikesen MC a slave, this crops up a lot in Azel's route with him frequently calling Emma his slave/indentured servant due to the debt that he blackmails her into

As I mentioned a little bit above, there are some supernatural/magical elements that just remain unexplained and are never really brought up again. Azel's dreamwalking ability being one of them, and probably the most egregious. It doesn't really have plot importance as far as I recall, it's just there at the very beginning and the very end of the romantic route. Also aphrodisiacs are a thing (they happen once early on, and also at the very end of the dramatic route), but there's no dubcon because of that.

It makes sense in the context of the story, but the message may not sit right with other people: Emma's epiphany about true love is "to wish for the best for someone else, even if it hurts you" in the context of letting Azel go through with his plan of committing suicide for the sake of his country, vs the Acolyte/Azel's dad wanting to stop Azel from dying (so he could remain in control of Tanzanite's people by brainwashing them essentially). She had tried to convince him otherwise, or tried to think of ways to fake it, but in the end she relented when she realized that dying was what Azel really wanted to escape the caged existence that being Tanzanite's god put him in, and was he thought was the best path to get Tanzanite to stop relying on divination for everything and to start making their own future. We know that Azel never really did intend on dying for real, but in the moment, that is not really a great message to send.

I'm not great at separating my bias from how I perceive something, so I'm probably being very charitable towards Azel's route. But I really did like it! I think it's revived some of my interest in Ikepri because I really am curious about how Azel and Emma's relationship develops from now on (I'm going to die during this year's June bride/proposal event......)

[pipperoo]

i was reminiscing on the era of tgwdlm livestreams and the build up to the show which reminded me of some of my favorite videos ever, in general and i realized that maybe some of you don’t know these exist.

as part of their kickstarter goals, starkid released six videos where most of the cast of tgwdlm tried to explain and sing musicals to the best of their recollection. and i’m telling you that they are fucking hilarious.

they introduced the concept in the livestreams and i think they continued doing it into the starkid homecoming/black friday ones if i’m not mistaken. but basically they pull a random musical and even if they’ve never seen it, they have to explain the plot and sings some of the songs. it’s great and kills me every time they do it. that’s a bad explanation, but you’ll get the gist when you watch one

so if you are just learning about these now, watch them!!!! you won’t regret it!!!!!!

the frozen one is the first of the six (but there’s a bunch just in the livestreams)

[chopper-base]

@shadestepping

Ok, that was honestly more like 15 minutes, but whatever. I did not edit this at all. I just basically word vomited on the page and this shit came of it-

"...organic chips."

"Yup"

"...implanted in our heads."

"Mhm."

"...to control us?"

"Precisely."

Fox rubbed his temple, already feeling the headache forming. "And the Chancellor is responsible??"

Fives nodded, his arms crossed. "He told me himself because he's gonna try to have me killed."

Fox locked eyes with Fives, trying to search his expression for a hint of a lie. He found none. He knew Fives had a habit of pranks and jokes but the ARCs face remained deadly serious. "Surprisingly," Fox shrugged, placing his hands on his hips, "I believe you."

Fives mouth fell open, his arms dropping to his sides in disbelief. "Wait, YOU DO?!"

Fox threw his hands up in defeat. "It'd explain a lot. The random memories missing, the bad osik I apparently do and then don't even know about til Thire mentions it." He turned, running his hand down his face. "...I hate that this makes sense but I do enjoy the extra excuse to hate the Chancellor."

Fives cocked his head, a look of confusion on his face. "Wait. You already hated the Chancellor?"

Fox had to laugh, shaking his head. "With every fiber of my being. Don't even get me started."

Fives put his hands up in surrender, not questioning it further. He dropped his hands, watching the Commander as he slowly paced the small room. Fox was racking his brain. They couldn't exactly just march up and declare that Palpatine was orchestrating both sides of the war to the senate or even the jedi council without some sort of proof. The most they could prove was the chip's existence and he was sure the Kaminoins would come up with some Banta osik to explain it. The Commander refused to ignore it though, knowing his brothers lives and entire galaxy were at risk. He knew what the Chancellor had planned to do with being able to control every clone in existence.

"...Fox?"

Fox turned to Fives who was looking more anxious by the minute. The ARC was practically shaking in his boots. Most of the Coruscant Guard were searching for him. There were orders to capture him but Fox knew the moment anyone found him, he'd be dead not long after. That was Fox's first glaringly red flag. Why would the Chancellor order the entire Guard to search for one clone? The only explanation to Fives' supposed rampage was he attacked the Chancellor which Fox had to force himself not to laugh at. He'd dreamed of doing the same thing and knowing one of his brothers beat him to it was honestly kind of hilarious.

"We can't just march up to the senate and declare the Chancellor is responsible for the entire war. We'd probably both be shot on site. We need proof."

"The only physical proof we have is the chips themselves and we both know the Kaminoins are going to cover their shebs." Fives explained, pointing to the scar that now decorated the side of his head.

Fox sighed deeply. "The only thing I can think of that'd stop this is killing the Chancellor and that's not exactly an option."

"Why not?"

Fox took a step back in shock, staring at the ARC. "Why n- Fives! He's the kriffin Chancellor! What'd you think would happen if we marched up to his office and but a blaster bolt between his eyes?!"

"...we'd solve the problem?"

Fox turned away, letting his face fall into his hands with a groan.

"Okay, maybe not just march up there but if he's the head of this plot, killing him would stop it!"

Fox couldn't get himself to turn around to face the ARC. Opting to stare at the wall, trying to keep down the angry bubbling in his chest. They needed proof. Or killing the Chancellor would just open another can or worms that neither of them could expect.

"Fives. You said he admitted this to you, correct?" He turned back around, finally locking eyes with Fives.

Fives nodded. "Yeah, he admitted it straight to my face."

"Did the room you were in happen to have security cams by chance?"

Fives froze, his eyes lighting up. "I think there just might have been."

A grin wormed its way onto Fox's face. "If there were cameras, his confession would give us everything we need."

Fives mirrored his smirk. "See, this is why they made you a commander.'

Fox got ahold of a set of Coruscant armor which Fives had quickly donned, placing the bucket over his head. From there, it was almost too easy to make it past the patrols that had begun to swarm the cool streets of the city. Getting into the security center was even easier, not a soul thinking to stop the Commander.

Fives was on the console in a heartbeat, searching swiftly through the camera feeds. "There!" He pulled up one of the feeds, turning the volume up.

Fox watched, anger radiating off of him as he watched the Chancellor admit to orchestrating the war. Admit to the plan against the jedi. It was all there. He started to download the recordings before the tape had finished, stuffing it in his belt pouches the moment it finished.

"Now can we go kill the son of a bitch?"

Fox smirked under his helmet. "I get the first shot."

They marched their way towards his office, determination in every step. The walk there felt like hours, but both clones held their heads high. Fox didn't hesitate for a second when they arrived, the door opening with a hiss. The Chancellor had barely turned around in his chair when the first shot rang out, hitting him dead set in the middle of his chest. Fox removed his helmet, letting the man who made his life a living hell look him in the eye as he died.

Fives had his blaster trained, finger iching at the trigger. "This is for my brothers, motherkriffer."

Fox couldn't even keep track of how many times Fives pulled that trigger, decorating the Chancellor's chest in so many blaster burn, it looked as if it was on fire. He didn't stop firing til Fox gently laid his hand on his vod's shoulder.

Fives lowered the blaster, taking a shaky breath. He had done it. He'd killed the man that was responsible for this whole war. Responsible for sending all his brothers to die in a battle with no true winner.

They were free.

[arokomaeda]

I finally finished reading the novel that Love of the Divine Tree is based on, and I really enjoyed it! Here's my thoughts I have on the novel compared to the drama.

Things they added to the drama that I like:

- More scenes dedicated to how Mu Qingge took in Su Yishui and treated him in the past, showing how he slowly warmed up to her. I especially love the scene where SYS treats MQG's injury, the scene where SYS first calls her "shifu", and the scene where MQG welcomes SYS home on his birthday. They did a great job adding some extra sentimental value to the titular trees. "Where there is a tree, there is home."

- The abuse and abandonment that Su Yishui suffered in his youth, giving an explanation for why he was a cold person obsessed with power and making it easier to sympathize with him.

- Su Yu's obsession with Mu Qingge and rivalry with Su Yushui. SY plays a smaller role in the novel, mostly only relevant for the palace arc, and he is SYS's uncle who has already become emperor. I appreciated the added layers to his character in the drama - the way he met MQG and his subsequent obsession, his scorn for MRW, the betrayal and scheming between him and his brothers, and his eventual decision to sacrifice himself to stop Dun Tian.

- Scenes showing why Tu Jiuyuan had feelings for Wei Jiu and how they eventually made up.

- Wen Hongshan as a love interest that matures and learns how to move on, rather than a schemer who gets herself killed. She's a very respectable side character in the drama, and her budding relationship with Yan Liangyu is pretty cute.

- Demon SYS, because that hairstyle and those clothes are everything.

Things they added to the drama that I have mixed feelings on:

- The Ice Lotus Technique and the Unfeeling Mantra. I prefer SYS's change in behavior after MQG's death to be attributed to his own grief and self-reflection, not as something he HAS to do to maintain his power (though it is for the purpose of fulfilling MQG's wish, so I don't dislike it either). I liked the angst of SYS being unable to control his emotions and getting the ice backlash, but it also ended up causing this back-and-forth behavior where SYS couldn't decide if he wanted to be near Ranran or not, which I know frustrated some viewers. SYS in the novel is a lot less restrained.

- Dun Tian as a big bad that had a hand in teaching MQG and manipulating SYS. I do like this feeling in the drama that he has been orchestrating things from the start, with hints to his plans scattered all throughout the show. But at the same time, it makes some of his actions less explicable. For example, I can buy that he took in MQG and Mu Ranwu on a whim because they reminded him of his daughters, but then the way he feels absolutely no remorse for trying to kill them later makes this plot point feel less meaningful. Also, his role in directly giving SYS the Spirit Spring sort of changes SYS's development, because you can argue SYS was never really a bad person, he was always a victim. In the novel, DT only tries to manipulate SYS near the end to activate the tower and go back in time.

Things in the novel but not in the show that I like:

- The curse on SYS's face is significantly more terrifying. He's described as having indistinguishable features aside from his mouth and chin, with people shrinking back and even fainting from fear upon seeing his face, which he typically hides behind a veil.

- Xue Ranran has adoptive parents that care very deeply about her. The scene where they pressure amnesiac SYS into proposing to XRR is really hilarious. They even check if old man SYS still has the physical fitness to "take care of" Ranran 😂 (SYS then proceeded to keep XRR in the bridal chamber for 8 days... oh my)

- Yu Tong has a family! She struggles between wanting to cultivate and serve SYS, and wanting to leave Mount Wester to get married and take care of her kid. Both her and her brother, Yu Chen, have more personality in the novel.

- SYS suppresses the Spirit Spring directly with his body, not with the Heavenly Bottle. It's decribed like being trapped in a room with a tiger, always vigilant (I guess this is similar to the scene in the drama where young SYS is trapped with a demonic beast). To me, this makes SYS's spiritual power and willpower both seem more formidable. The funny thing is, in the drama the Spirit Spring only makes SYS forcefully kiss XRR a couple times, but in the novel he is apparently all over her every single night... And he is a lot more of an irritable asshole in the novel as well, it's pretty hilarious.

- MQG once made SYS a lantern before, and he broke it on purpose. The drama only shows how XRR broke the lantern SYS gave her. XRR's jealousy over being treated as a "replacement" for MQG feels more pronounced.

- Besides playing the qin, MQG also taught SYS how to play chess! They must have done a lot of recreational activities together.

- SYS and XRR make a plan where he fakes killing her in order to trick DT. This scene is so dramatic, with SYS shedding tears of blood and everything... I would've loved to see the actors perform this scene.

- The subplot about the relationship between Medicine Immortal and the Dragon Goddess.

- The scene where Wei Jiu dresses as a girl to get close to XRR, and SYS comes in and starts punching him to death, comedy gold!

- The one-off line by Bai Baishan about how SYS's good looks were so renowned that he even had some male admirers.

Things in the novel but not in the show that I have mixed feelings on:

- Pretty much everything that has to do with the immortals. They reveal that SYS used to be a high-ranking immortal that was sent to experience tribulations in the mortal world so he could learn what love is, and how XRR was a divine fruit that wanted to save him from a poisonous snake but got him in trouble instead... I don't think this backstory is really necessary, so I don't mind that they removed it from the drama.

- It's funny how XRR and SYS found a loophole to both survive the heavenly lightning, and I like how XRR was able to experience a bit of what SYS did by waiting for him to reincarnate from the tree, but again, I don't mind that this was removed. Just let them have a happy married life!

- Tu Jiuyuan was apparently one of MQG's fellow disciples, and felt jealous of her. I prefer her character in the drama, less petty and more self-respecting.

- In the novel, Zeng Yi (and later Bai Baishan as part of his punishment) didn't just lose one arm, he lost ALL his fingers and crafts things with his feet instead. It's more impressive this way, but also I'm glad I didn't have to see the actors picking up chopsticks with their toes 😂

All in all, I really enjoyed both the novel and the drama and I think that both have their own merits. I ended up liking SYS more in the drama, but I liked XRR/MQG more in the novel. I think XRR's thoughts and emotions are more easily understood through the novel than through Julia Xiang's performance, though I think Julia Xiang did a great job portraying MQG's character.

[coffeegnomee]

An analysis of having a rigid character in mcrp vs being swept up into playing a character in mcrp.

I was reflecting on dreamsmp and qsmp the other day and realized they both lost me when the lore shifted to a rigid character of the streamer.

Quackity approached the late-game lore as a cold, calm, businessman, completely devoid of the goofy, unserious charm that is Quackity. And in qsmp he was the alcoholic father. 

I didn’t watch much of qsmp, but I got similar vibes from Celbit and… heck I forget his name. The one who became president. 

Like they approached every stream from a very serious point of view, getting into character before the serious moment happened, not chatting with chat in the lulls between yapping as they journey from one destination to another. 

And they lost me. 

That’s not what the medium of streamed Minecraft rp is about.

What it is about is logging on, bantering with chat, walking around the server, and then other members approach, they take the lore seriously, and subtly change it from a normal interaction with another streamer into something that is moving the plot forward.

There’s two examples from the dsmp era.

Tommy is the obvious one, and doesn’t need much explanation. Especially in the exile arc he would be fine and happy and bantering with chat until Dream showed up. Then the tone shifted. He always had moments where he was his annoying happy self before being drawn into the serious character he was developing. All of it was an act, but he planned to let his character be moved from one emotion to another through the conversations that happened.

But the same happened with Foolish, which I find fascinating since it was widely acclaimed that Foolish doesn’t really lore. Not on purpose at least. He’ll never be the one to overtly plan something, but he’s one of my favorites to follow because he will always get swept up into it.

I followed the Foolish/Leo lore through clips and tiktok, and it was the only aspect of qsmp lore that could draw me in. 

And in the dsmp, the L’sandburg arc and everything that happened at the summer home never had server-wide implications, and yet it captured the charm of the early months of the dreamsmp.

There was a day when Sam joined vc but shifted into the SamNook character and stopped actually talking in vc, just playing the animal crossing noises while writing in chat.

Foolish played along for a bit, and then they both returned to building in the hanging gardens, Sam making a tree while Foolish was doing like material collection I think, talking to chat.

Sam continued only communicating in chat until one moment when it was more helpful if he began actually speaking about the tree instead of being in character.

And I, and Foolish, literally jumped, forgetting that Sam was there and we weren’t talking to SamNook as a real npc.

It was so bizarre. 

We were swept up into the lore of the moment, and kept there through the efforts of the other streamer. 

And again, this happened one day when Bad and Foolish were arguing and Dream showed up in vc as Dreamxd, talking just to Foolish as if he was in his head and Bad couldn’t hear him. The conversation that followed was so hilarious as Foolish had to manage two streamers who refused to acknowledge that they could hear each other.

Without realizing it he was swept up into the lore. And he took us along with him. 

The reason this matters to me is the Lifesteal smp.

In Lifesteal, Zam takes this concept of casual banter with chat and moves it, when the moment arises, into something that is suddenly extremely RP.

In an instant it can go from random conversation into something that is moving his character forward and changing the fabric of the server.

I think we saw it best with the Joker arc. 

Every Joker day began with a threat given to either Minute or Jumper. Something to goad them into lore. 

He had no real plans, just a threat that he would do, a base he would blow up, if Minute or Jumper didn’t do anything to stop him. And he let them do anything they wanted to stop him. 

It was completely unplanned.

And you could hear in his voice the changes from, here’s my silly plan for the day, to, you just unlocked the Joker.

Changing it from a casual stream to something overly lore. Not going into it with a perfect character but using the encounter itself to bring out the character.

Interestingly enough, we all know that the Joker arc landed weirdly in relation to pb&j and how they were swept up into the lore.

And I think, in part, it had to do with the a flipping of roles compared to my above analysis about Foolish.

Zam was, more often than not, the one who was live AND the one who was going to take lore seriously and bring others into it. 

Vs Foolish being live and Dream/Bad/Sam being the one to take it seriously.

It broached a new style of mcrp, one that created streamers/characters who were resistant to doing lore, I think because they didn’t have the stakes behind it of being live. They were there for their recording, but they always knew they could cut it out of their YouTube video and it wouldn’t matter to their characters.

You only have to look at the difference between the Jumper/Zam yap session and Minute confronting Clown and Leo to see the difference going live had on them being wrapped up into the lore. 

Lore they did not expect to be doing when they first went live. 

As opposed to Jumper’s stream where she killed Mappic - she went into that with a plan and a character to play.

As opposed to Ash’s streams when he had a character and plan to execute.

They lost me on those streams because it was obviously so planned out and they entered the moment completely in character and resisted changing in response to anything that was said to them. 

Why does it matter? 

Because a character’s 3dimentionality comes from being fully fledged out. 

And you can make an extremely complex and compelling character when you draw on aspects of yourself. It doesn’t (and probs shouldn’t) just literally be you, but if you willingly draw on who you are as a person, the character comes alive. 

And the medium is Minecraft live streaming. It’s long winded. Time in the story passes by similarly to how real life time passes - day to day something new happens unlike a book or movie where they have to cut things out.

And the stories you create when you approach the medium of live mcrp is substantially different than any book, movie, or video. 

The method of storytelling allows you to explore a character over 100s of hours of content rather than a couple hours. 

And for my money, boiling that character down to something you put on for an hour or two at a time around completely unrelated grind streams, is so much less compelling than if both merged together and you never knew when a moment would turn from casual banter as a streamer into a character moment. 

[rin-hanarin]

The funniest and saddest thing Veilguard has done: it made people retroactively appreciate how solid DA2 actually was despite one cave and one thousand enemies dropping on you from the ceiling. Even the dudest of bros looks at DA2 party banter for instance and goes "That was the shit". Hilarious, 10/10.

And honestly, yeah. I personally naively believed that Weekes's experience and skill in character writing would translate to the entirety of the story, because their characters tend to be good, right? They were responsible for Trespasser, I loved Trespasser! I went from being a downer when I saw that Bioware named another game "Dreadwolf" to cautiously optimistic after they renamed it, because maybe I'm wrong in my assumptions! But instead it was exactly what I thought it was gonna be in many ways, and Weekes just tied every thread to Blorbo From Their Mind with new characters feeling underdeveloped and the lore bits often having shit explanations (did you even read World of Thedas, bro?) It's like if Gaider looked at the ideas for the script for Inquisition and decided to make Silent Grove: The Videogame instead, focused entirely on Alistair and how he's a cornerstone of every piece of lore ever conceived or some shit.

Saying all this as a Veilguard apologist, by the way. I'm not vehemently angry at it because 1) I didn't expect the game to come out to begin with, 2) my expectations have been pretty low since "Dreadwolf" because. Y'know. Don't make sequels about some guy you decided was so beloved and important that every single plot thread ties back to him, even though the setting was perfectly fine without some Singular Overarching Big Bad and every question being answered?

Anyway, turns out every previous Dragon Age has been good and bad in its own ways this whole time. Shocker.

[bum-tan]

So I read the comic "Wanted : Lucky Luke," and I just wanted to pop up here to rant and comment about it.

I'd recommend you read it first if you don't want to be spoiled, but if you don't want to, I'll still explain the plot for context.

The official synopsis:

"Riding peacefully along a western trail, Lucky Luke is suddenly ambushed by an unknown assailant. After a quick gunfight, the cowboy loses his mysterious attacker but happens upon a lone wagon beset by Apache raiders. Another quick fight later, Luke is surprised to find that the occupants of the wagon are three lovely young women! Three sisters on their way to start a new life, and who all find the lonesome cowboy ... quite interesting."

Here is a short explanation of the overall plot for better context :

In "Wanted: Lucky Luke," the famous cowboy finds himself on the wrong side of the law. After being framed for a crime he didn’t commit, Lucky Luke is declared an outlaw with a bounty on his head. The tables have turned, and now, instead of chasing criminals, he must evade capture by both lawmen and bounty hunters. Along his journey, he must clear his name, uncover the real culprits, and help a group of sisters he has encountered on his way.

I'm sure some of you may have recognized the artstyle as it was made by Matthieu Bonhomme; The same person who made the comic "The man who shot Lucky Luke", which is great in on itself, but I won't be talking much about it in this rant.

Regarding the art ? I enjoy it for the most part. It feels very fitting to the world of old western, but I understand the people who may not like it as it's not suited for Lucky Luke's stories that are usually more light hearted.

I personally don't really like the way Luke is drawn in Matthieu's art style. But I digress.

Moving on, here are some of my favourite panels from this comic that I'd like to comment about (please click on the pictures to better see if need be) :

For context, this was when the girls were being held hostage by the criminals, who then forced them to sing and dance. The girls were defenseless against these men. And as they were being harassed, I feared something explicitly bad would happen to them.

Thankfully, this guy (Big Jack) stepped in and stopped the other men. I know he is a bad guy and the only reason why he protected them was because he was enjoying their performance, but still. It was nice to see.

Next set of my favourite panels :

Sadly, I couldn't put all the panels, but basically, this was when Lucky Luke was catching the criminals late into the night, after he managed to escape from them.

It was very entertaining and badass, the way he hunted them down when they were the ones chasing him earlier that day. Doesn't he look so cool ?

Love the colours and art as well, making for an intimidating atmosphere. Very nice.

Now, here are a few sets of panels that I find hilarious:

This was when Lucky Luke was being teased over the wanted posters that were displaying him with a flower in his mouth. Need I say more? Just look at Luke's reaction !

It's especially funny when you consider the fact that the legendary cowboy used to smoke in the past, but now he just sucks on a piece of grass like a bum.

The duality of this man, going from formidable foe in front of his enemies to a lightweight when teased, is just too good.

And finally, these panels :

This was when the comic hit its climax. Everyone was fighting over who could get Lucky Luke, including the outlaws, the Indians, the ladies, and the cavalry. Everyone wanted him !

As expected of our dashing cowboy.

And speaking of the outlaws, I was pleasantly surprised to see some of the iconic villains, from the original comics, make their apparitions to do Lucky Luke in.

But I was pretty disappointed that the Daltons weren't included amongst them. However, they were still mentioned by a character named Dick Dalton, a distant relative of the Daltons. Which I originally did not like, but his presence ended up making for quite a treat.

When the outlaws caught him, Dick felt strangely familiar to Lucky Luke, who unconsiously stared at him. But he didn't care much about engaging with Dick, even after the guy spilled out his story.

It was later revealed, near the end of the comic, that Dick was the one who put up a bunch of wanted posters of Lucky Luke, to make him suffer and hand him over to Joe (who is actually individually mentioned by name, unlike his brothers !) so Dick could be recognised as a Dalton.

Coming up with a plan like that, it's on brand with the Daltons. However, Luke is simply unimpressed and condescending to Dick. He calls him nothing but a pale imitation, clearly implying that Dick could never be at the same level as Joe Dalton.

Which I find fun as hell.

The next thing that I'd like to talk about is the sisters' interactions with Lucky Luke. More specifically, with Cherry (the blond one).

Because you see, in his journey of trying to hide from his enemies, Lucky Luke encounters and saves a group of 3 sisters (Angie, Cherry, and Bonnie), who need to reach the nearest town with their herd of cattles, all without being scalped by Indians.

Of course, Lucky Luke volunteers to help them. And obviously, the 3 sisters end up being interested in him and are aiming for his heart. Competing with one another.

They all attempted to flirt with him, naturally with no success.

So far, no suprise, until a tangible romance subplot seemingly formed between our hero and Cherry !

I initially kind of disliked that development. Especially how there seemed to be a reciprocated attraction on Lucky Luke's side.

Because it doesn't fit with his character, as in the comics and cartoons, he never shows any interest towards women or their advances.

However, as I kept reading, I realized it made for a compelling storyline, as well as a good introspection on our beloved hero. Explaining why he may be the way he is.

One of the many reasons why Lucky Luke is a lonesome cowboy who won't form long-lasting connections is because he has never received love in the past. So he doesn't know how to receive or give any back.

To me, this panel could be interpreted as him also wanting to learn how to love from Cherry, but he refuses to give in because of his convictions.

And since he has never known love, how could he know what it's like to be in love with someone?

So while she may harbor love towards him, he appreciates her in return, but it's more of a friendly admiration than romantic love. Because he could never reciprocate her kind of love.

In the end, he still ends up leaving, choosing independance over love.

But at least, now he knows that there are people who do love him.

All in all, I quite enjoyed this comic and I recommend any Lucky Luke enjoyers to read it as well.

P.S :

-I think the name of the comic is "Wanted: Lucky Luke," not only because he was being hunted down, but also because there are people who love him. Meaning he is quite literally wanted. Or maybe I'm just reading too much into it.

-The whole Dick situation shows how irrelevant he is to Luke compared to Joe. And if i'm not reaching, this also implies how much Joe wants Luke, to the point of being mentioned in a story about wanting Lucky Luke without even being present !

So fun ! So yeah this is all pretty neat.

[thecarnivorousmuffinmeta]

You mentioned in another post about Dumbledore's "protection" being seriously lacking (for people like James & Lily). Can you expand on this?

I suppose it's time.

What the Fidelius Charm Does

The Fidelius Charm involves three parties: a location to be protected, a secret keeper, and the caster of the charm. Upon completion, a location is perfectly hidden. It can't be accessed physically even if someone knows it must be there (e.g. Grimmauld Place disappearing between numbers 12 and 14 with no explanation of the missing building in between), cannot be plotted by wizards, and can't be accessed magically either.

To enter the location and even be able to access it properly, a person needs access to 'the secret' which is granted by only the secret keeper. Through this person, they then have access to the location on a full-time basis (it is not a one-time ticket and seemingly cannot be revoked).

Those who are not granted 'the secret' cannot enter the location no matter what they might try. This makes it, on the surface, a highly dependable security measure.

Alright, What's the Problem

There's a few problems right away with the spell.

The first is the known one from canon, it relies on a 'secret keeper'. A party has to be trusted to grant access to the location. If this is a third party, they have to be able to reliably white list those seeking entrance and cannot afford to make a mistake. If this party is compromised or is nefarious then the charm is rendered completely void with no warning to those being protected or the caster.

The second is that, upon the secret keeper's death, there's no next in line but the secret instead defaults to being kept by everyone on the whitelist. In canon we see this with the death of Dumbledore (secret keeper for Grimmauld Place). Upon his death, everyone now has the ability to give access to Grimmauld Place. This includes Severus Snape who is a presumed Death Eater, meaning that Grimmauld Place is now completely compromised. This is very very bad.

The third is part of the above, once you're on the whitelist it seems you can't be removed. They discover Severus Snape is a Death Eater, Dumbledore dies and everyone's now secret keeper, they can't seem to revoke both secret keeper status as well as his presence on the whitelist from him. The best they can do is set up a hilariously terrible jinx to protect the building if he tries to enter (it is uh very ineffective).

The fourth is that your status on the whitelist never expires. Once you're in, you're in forever. You don't get just a one-time pass or a session with an expiration date where you have to reapply for access. Now, perhaps this is convenient as it means you don't have to seek out the secret keeper again (and in that sense secures the secret keeper's identity) however it means those who might have flipped sides later have access forever or else people now always have access to the location even in unwanted hours/if they were there for just a meeting.

These are just the weaknesses baked into the spell by nature, it gets worse when we consider how it's implemented for Godric's Hollow.

Alright, What's Wrong with the Godric's Hollow Implementation

This is where things start to look nefarious.

The above, I wouldn't expect wizards to necessarily be thinking about. While at this point asymmetric key encryption is taking off in the Muggle world and has been for decades, it's a recent Muggle invention and not one that even ordinary Muggles pay attention to let alone wizards (who would then have to consider how to implement this in a magical form and what use cases it'd have for them). What the wizards employ, while bad, is not out of line with how ciphers and things worked for much of Muggle history. You have a key you have to protect, if you lose it you're fucked, no way around that. Which means that passing the key to those who need it, making sure you can trust them, is the largest weakness of the system. The Fidelius is very strong in that it seems you have to have the key to break it, which is the case with all encryption, and the issue then is trying to keep the key as safe as possible (which is always a hard task).

Basically, looking at that, I don't think they could have done much better than the fidelius in terms of security in and of itself (there's other options they could have taken but we'll get into that below).

But then we look at Godric's Hollow.

The issue is who do they make secret keeper. They suspect Lupin of being a spy, someone has been leaking information to Voldemort including the Potter's location (which is why they had to go under Fidelius in the first place). At this point, they're already fucked.

They try to get around this by announcing the secret keeper is Sirius but in secret making it Peter, so that everyone will go after Sirius instead. The trouble is that James only has three friends. One he thinks is a spy, that leaves two.

Even had Peter not been a Death Eater, Peter knew who the secret keeper was. If you know who the secret keeper is, that's effectively knowing the secret itself. All Voldemort has to do is find the first person among the Order who will either talk, or slowly pick his way through Potter's associates and friends until he gets the secret or else kills the one who turned out to be the secret keeper.

Not to mention that all Voldemort has to do is imperio those who have access to the secret and send them to murder the Potters in his stead.

Sirius, Peter, and Remus would be the first on Voldemort's list, and everyone knew that.

It would have been a matter of weeks, had Voldemort actively pursued this, before Voldemort gained access to the house.

And here's the thing. We see that Dumbledore can be both the caster and the secret keeper from Grimmauld Place. Dumbledore, reportedly, is the only person Voldemort is scared of and is the strongest wizard by far in the Order. Why didn't Dumbledore offer to be secret keeper? Why didn't he insist on it? Why didn't James and Lily ask him to do it, especially when they suspect Remus of being a spy?

While James might have picked Peter out of a show of loyalty, Dumbledore could have insisted for their protection. Instead, it seems like Dumbledore purposefully let them take this option and never gave an explanation as to why.

Maybe, Godric's Hollow Was a House of Cards

We also have James. James, canonically, snuck out of Godric's Hollow while it was under protection to hang out with Sirius and the gang. Dumbledore confiscated his invisibility cloak for this reason, something Lily notes in her letter to Sirius.

The thing is, while Dumbledore takes the cloak, that's the only thing he does to stop James from sneaking out. Perhaps it's not his place to do more, but on the other hand, this does nothing to stop James from sneaking out and James (having access to the secret) could easily be imperioed and sent back to murder his family.

Instead, he makes it look as if he's doing something, but is taking an item he greatly wanted as it is.

With that prophecy, where Harry or Neville are the only ones capable of defeating Voldemort, it's starting to look like Dumbledore wants James and Lily to be found. He wants to set up just enough protection that, at a glance, it looks very secure and as if they're putting their all into hiding them: except that he doesn't want it to hold.

Godric's Hollow is a trap intended for Tom, to lure him into a confrontation with the child, when he's the only one who knows the full prophecy and the last few lines that Tom doesn't (as it is, I'm not sure even we the readers know exactly what the prophecy says or that Snape learning the prophecy wasn't a set up).

My theory is this: Dumbledore purposefully chose this method of protection (versus sending Lily and James out of the country with Harry), purposefully chose not to be secret keeper, and set up Godric's Hollow as a means to lure Voldemort into a trap and vanquish him with James, Lily, and Harry as unfortunate collateral damage.

[fortune-maiden]

The Hundred Line: S.F. Route

And your reward for looping through the game over and over in search of the perfect Happy Ending...

I still like Box of Blessings' endings more

(Open spoilers for the entirety of 100L, and also some grumblings about Zero Escape)

Okay more accurately, I like Box of Calamity's Ending 39 best, but most of BoB's Good Endings still fit the "satisfying ending" criteria.

The Overall Thoughts

I think one of the big questions in this game on a meta level is what makes a "Good Ending". In this game of 100 endings, where the creators claim that you can stop at any time once you find the ending that satisfies you, how does the player decide what's satisfying? Why is an ending like 2nd Scenario's phenomenal despite everyone dead, and the Comedy Route endings just whatever, despite everyone sans Eito alive? What is the stopping point?

SF is a route that promises you that golden Everybody Lives ending, that no doubt most people want after 2nd Scenario, but what does it mean for the SDU that reach this ending to be different from the SDU that reached 2nd Scenario, and is that okay? Fundamentally they're still all the same people aren't they?

Time Loop stories tend to be popular and beloved, but whether intentionally or not (I suspect not), The Hundred Line seems to kind of deconstruct what makes them click, and what makes their endings click

While SF was the final route for me, it's never actually built up as an Grand Finale and only really has 3 prerequisite (although a 4th one is also critical to its events). You can actually play this route before 2nd Scenario if you wanted. Despite the work you have to put into getting this route, once you finally get it, it's not treated any differently from any of the other non-2nd Scenario routes in the game. And that's... interesting?

Also more hilariously, it's not even the only route where we reach Day 100 without any deaths.

The Good

Despite a lot of headaches, this route does actually do some things well, and is a reminder that Uchikoshi does know how to write some fun story beats and twists.

The first 10 Days of this route are excellent! The mysterious parallel world leap, the conversation with Hiruko & Sirei, the mystery of Eito escaping his cage, the calico cat gift... everything here that leads to the first plot lock sets the foundation for an excellent story!

This Route primarily serves as an answer mode to several other routes in the game, especially Slasher. The moments where Hiruko & Takumi leap to the other timelines and fill in the gaps that existed there were great! We even got an answer to the Nozomi path of Slasher and it was one of my favorite parts of the route! Easily elevated Slasher to a Top 5 route for me

The Livor Mortis stuff is still beyond stupid, but it did at least provide for some interesting plot events. I loved Hiruko creating a route split so she could having an additional Takumi & Hiruko to help them gather Livor Mortis codes, and how the Livor Mortis stuff eventually plays a role in the finale, providing an alternate method for stopping the missiles that does not require going up against the Intercept system. Despite everything, it was a cool finale.

Hiruko's penchant for abbreviations is cute

Hiruko's Terminal-Bad-Decision-Itis has a plot explanation now (in my opinion). I'm choosing to believe that between all the looping and leaping, the bloodspace did erode her ability to make rational decisions and these are the consequences.

I mean what else do you call BoC!Hiruko unleashing Kako-G onto three timelines and fucking them all over irreparably?

I've seen others call out that Hiruko deliberately refusing to fix the Serial Killer timeline because of Day 98 is a plot hole when she says that meddling in other timelines doesn't actually erase the original branch, but I'm willing to defend this one. For one, this is her theory and not something we have any evidence for. In fact, we have counter evidence for it given that Takumi can only ever remember versions of the other timelines with SF interference, and there's not much on Hiruko's part to suggest she can remember other variants. But for the main reason, whenever we leap to other timelines, we only seem to be able to leap to the specific versions we meddled in. So while I do think that Hiruko does believe in her theory that SF interference creates a distinct timeline from no-SF interference, I don't think she can remember those versions nor leap to them. And I think because Serial Killer Day 98 is so fundamental and important to her, she can't bear to risk losing access to it, whether physically or in her memories. It's tragic and hypocritical of her and I think that's why it works so well for her character. Your memories and experiences are what make you you. It's one of the pain points of time loop stories where the versions of the characters we grow to love and root for are erased when the loop resets and the versions that escape the loop may not end up facing and overcoming those same struggles. Hiruko bears the curse of remembering everything and (maybe) has the ability to erase those memories - that she would be hesitant to do so is understandable imo.

Weird pivot, but Eito eating the book was hilarious.

Also after everything Slasher put me through, getting to be the one to chase Takumi with the power saw was very cathartic. I don't even care that it caused a bad ending. It was the best bad ending of the bunch anyway and the final mystery to the Slasher Route.

The relationship between Hiruko and Takumi had it's issues but it's also the highlight of the route. The isolation, the fears, the two of them determined to end the loop and protect everyone once and for all... the way they really care about each other for better or worse is beautiful

Coming-of-Age got to be plot relevant! :D

I do also appreciate that the best ending is still one where we stop the missiles. Because it's not a good ending if we don't save Futurum!

Overall this is a route I enjoyed more than I didn't (probably). BUT...

The Bad

Sigh... let's rip the bandaid off. This is very much a Takumi interacts with one other person and everyone else is background fluff route. Despite what the first 10 days set up, the rest of the SDU really doesn't do anything in this route. Hiruko fixes the Tsukumo twins' tensions offscreen, Eito is cured of his cognitive disorder and proceeds to become the Route 0 Eito without any hangups, Nozomi's regression symptoms don't exist, Sirei never questions her presence on the team. Everything is fine and dandy, and the closest thing we have to a conflict in this route is the particle bacteria, and everyone just becoming snappish with each other for no reason besides cabin fever after 60 days together.

I feel like there is some narrative purpose to this - Hiruko has entered a fragment where she's rolled all sixes and thinks she finally has a chance so she is determined to keep things as conflict free as possible. Which does mean stamping out all sources of conflict immediately such as the Tsukumo twins and the dangers of an imperfectly brainwashed (or killed) Eva. After 40 years in the loop, Hiruko has already seen and learned enough and just wants to escape the loop with everyone whatever it takes. The conflict between humanity & the futurans is completely beyond her now. And that's fine for her, but it also means that the versions of the SDU that get the happy ending and a future, are a version of the SDU that never engage with the game's core plot or mysteries, that never get to struggle and grow as people. They just need to fight their battles and survive, just as Sirei wants. And I'm not sure how to feel about this?

In fact - all other routes with no casualties, Romance & Comedy - also do not involve the SDU ever going against Sirei or trying to learn more about their situations

Hiruko at least seems to remember 2nd Scenario so probably knows the truth but she's at the point where it's not her problem anymore - escaping the loop is - but this version of Takumi never learns it either since he only remembers Slasher, certain branches of BoC, and KG...

This is also the version of the SDU that has a really annoying post-battle cheer. You people really don't feel like you've earned this closeness...

But I think that's often the problem with time loop stories. Where the versions of the characters who struggle and grow aren't always the versions who escape the loop, and the idea of having to befriend everyone again and go through the same conflicts.... It just feels extra frustrating with this version of the cast because of how much we've seen them grow in other routes...

Eito gets cured. Funnily enough I'm not too annoyed with this since there's more than enough evidence in other routes that Eito wants to be able to understand humanity and form genuine connections but the cure for his cognitive disorder ends up being a program that Sirei had all along (which is also the cure for G'ie data). What. Why wasn't this ever considered before? We tried to brainwash Eito in CoA but all along we had the ability to just fix this cognitive disorder???

We also brainwash him again though because sure. Why not.

And despite being built up as a major character in SF as the only other person to know about the time travel, Eito becomes the same background fluff as the rest once he's cured. Sigh... Eito plot relevance used to mean something...

POOR EVA! I get why Hiruko thinks she needed to be super extra brainwashed even if I despise it, but can we just. talk about that extremely off kilter "joke" on Day 21 where the entire SDU is all for killing her then turning around and going "SIKE! Silly Takumi, we got you good!" Setting aside how NOT FUNNY that is, WHY WOULD YOU DO THIS IN FRONT OF POOR EVA???? Even Shouma & Nozomi had no problems behaving this way. It's really gross.

There are just so many diabolus ex machinas at play in this route... several routes dead-ended by Kako-G. Kako-G massacring the Tails branch. Kako-G conveniently only killing the characters who survived Mystery so the rest could escape to Mystery for that terrible ending. Hiruko, despite knowing how particle bacteria works, never checking the escape pod in SF. The Artificial Satellite having a SPARE BABY to power up the missiles in the Hunt route. (Sure it made for a cooler finale but REALLY?)

Kako-G in general being so unsatisfying as a villain. She wreaked havoc upon FOUR Routes. And we never really got a satisfying showdown with her (though SF resolution for her was still better than Mystery's!)

The G'ie in general felt like they would be so much more important to SF, but they weren't.

We also never get an explanation for them in Slasher route

Killing Game makes even less sense after SF.

But I sure hope for Eva's sake that Kamyuhn did survive that particular branch of it

But also that finale.... that was literally Zero Time Dilemma's finale only without the moral quandary. And still feeling less earned.

Also I am still mad that apparently Darumi's completely black mummified cryptoglobin-drained corpse still had a neatly visible Livor Mortis code. There was a perfectly usable Darumi corpse in Slasher guys!!!

The Who Needs Setup of Payoff

Despite being a required ending, and revealing a secret weakness of the G'ie, Ending 36 plays no role in the plot at all. No one is angrier about this than me.

It makes me wonder though if it's actually Ending 86 that was meant to be required because that one is actually super important and it's just generally weird how Killing Game isn't required despite how important it ends up being.

We're really not getting an explanation for the particle bacteria? You can't just call it "bad luck" Uchikoshi, this needs elaboration! Why are only Hunt-Mystery & SF affected by this? Why is the bacteria only an actual threat to the rest of the school in SF?

The mystery researcher. This super convenient researcher who takes Kako-G away and also gives Hiruko a program that allows for horizontal movement as well as vertical. You can't just conveniently introduce this person and this program at the last minute without any explanation! My personal theory is that she's a future Hiruko from Ending 55 who finishes the PLM to allow for full time & parallel world travel and who makes it possible for Takumi/Hiruko/whoever to eventually go back to Slasher and cure Takumi-G before he murders anyone and open the way towards Comedy Route, the sole Dead Eito route that has happy endings.

(Let's not think about how opening the door to this route actually results in the death of SF Takumi. Maybe that's another reason Hiruko refused to do it.)

But you still can't just do that Uchikoshi! Actually with how Uchikoshi is generally great at gameplay/story integration, I'm surprised that the parallel/vertical time travel didn't have a bigger role in the story considering that the player does have the ability to travel to any day in any timeline at any time.

(I still say this should have been another dead end ending for SF - you do fix Slasher Takumi-G, and pave the way for a happy ending in the Dead Eito verse, but at the cost of your life.)

Also we just... don't get an explanation for the other Hiruko & Takumi in the CoA timeline. Sure.

The ARE YOU KIDDING ME UCHIKOSHI???

A METEORITE????

A Meteorite.

I can't even call it plot convenient because WHAT PLOT?

It appears for no reason in a single branch and when it's no longer needed, it's gone without any explanation or side-effects.

It's almost like he forgot there was already a built-in plot convenient reason to have that specific character out of commission.

Oh wait, he did forget. That plot convenience never comes up here at all.

Conveniently.

I am never getting over this freaking meteorite.