#holy shit both of these are incredibly op

[lostrealities0]

I honestly have never understood why this line is so hated. I have seen people use it to villainize Ford. I would like to say that I agree with all of your points. It was completely wrong for him to project his relationship with his brother onto Dipper. He definitely has convinced himself that his and Stan's relationship has always been bad.

We don't know much about how it was in the past. However, it seems that they were always grouped together as a pair. It was always Stan and Ford. Additionally, Stan gives off codependency vibes during the incident, while at the same time, Ford seems very independent. He has zero issues with the prospect of going to a university across the country.

I believe that this dynamic probably caused some issues. While I doubt teenage Ford thought of their relationship as suffocating, I'm sure he got annoyed and/or frustrated at times. He was never seen as his own person; he was just part of a pair. Stan probably loved it, maybe even encouraged it. Remember, it is not wrong to want to be your own person!

Again, I'm not saying that it was right in any way for Ford to say this. At least not to Dipper. This is very much a conversation he needs to have with Stan. What I'm trying to say is that I believe that there is a valid basis and some truth behind that statement and shouldn't be judged point blank.

I think so much about Ford's line "And isn't it suffocating?" when Dipper says he's never been away from Mabel. Side barring how insane it is to project onto a twelve yr old boy, I think it really shows how Ford's perception of his and Stan's relationship has perverted over the forty years they were apart. We know they were close at Mabel and Dipper's age. But Ford's convinced himself that it was always bad, that his brother always had poor intent for him, always held him back, because if that's wrong, if his brother really did make a mistake, then it means he doubted the brother that loved him and he loved in turn.

[nope-body]

.

[tossawary]

Looking up some things has turned into reading the last 100 or so chapters of the "Naruto" manga for fun, because why not. Some random assorted notes so far (as of finishing Chapter 661):

This end fight is so fucking long, there are so many characters, and the pacing is bordering on excruciating. There's some stuff happening here that's delicious, but there's a lot of messy back and forth of the narrative focus that I personally am not fully vibing with. I cannot imagine trying to follow this split story weekly. This is common enough to a lot of big shounen mangas.

I generally like the basic artstyle here (the use of white and black especially), but the quality of page composition, panel composition, and scene clarity generally is obviously suffering heavily from these chapters being pushed out too quickly. I can barely tell some characters apart and some panels are just messes of lines. This is also common enough among mangas, so eh, it's also whatever.

It's kind of funny to me how Hashirama and Tobirama and Minato suddenly become major characters for like a solid 30 chapters or so. Like, yeah, I can see why Founders Era fic is popular. The flashback chapters themselves are pretty short, but Madara is one of the main villains in this fight, and the undead Senju brothers are suddenly here to kick ass on a level apparently far beyond most other characters. The grudges and betrayal here are delicious. These are also the people who founded Konoha itself, the main location of the manga for hundreds of chapters now, honestly not that many generations ago. It also helps that the Founders feel like they have nicely complete tragic arcs and lives to work with, instead of the relatively open-ended narrative mess that the main Naruto characters live in.

Also, Hashirama can definitely act the idiot and I think some of his choices / opinions are stupid as hell, but he's obviously a very clever and observant and ruthless person. Tobirama went on to become Hokage after his brother and will not hesitate to forcefully give his opinions, but it's also clear in some scenes that Hashirama is still the one in charge between them. Tobirama seems to fairly naturally fall into a very useful support role to whoever he's fighting with, including Minato and Naruto.

I like both Minato and Tobirama because I have a weakness for characters who engage with their magic systems to make new things. Minato improved on the Flying Thunder God technique and Orochimaru improved on the Edo Tensai technique, but Tobirama invented BOTH of those things? PLUS Shadow Clones??? All of which are basically carrying a significant part of the battle right now? Like, damn, Hashirama has his Mokuton, and Tobirama was stubbornly like, "Not being left behind. Fuck you."

So, yeah, the "Hashirama versus Madara", "Tobirama versus Madara", "Minato (plus Naruto & Tobirama) versus Obito", and "Kakashi versus Obito" are probably my favorite parts of this. Not knocking on Naruto or Sasuke or the large background mob of characters here, but they just do not have the same personal, ugly, emotional history in this fight, so I don't really care as much.

Ino can forcibly link hundreds of unknown minds together so Shikamaru can broadcast battle plans??? Holy shit??? The vibe I'm getting is that she was using the link apparently created by Naruto's chakra to do this, but still. Both Ino and Sakura have the potential to be incredibly OP badass characters and they are generally just... Not Allowed to take the spotlight here.

Shikamaru had this big dramatic chapter about surviving to become Naruto's future advisor someday, and I had to repress the urge to holler, "Gaaaaay!" at the screen. I do love the inherent homoeroticism of a right-hand man. (Also, *waves a hand vaguely* Gaara's whole everything.)

To be honest, though, I'm not even sure what Sasuke has spent the past fifty chapters doing. He's there! He sure is there! I think he just got stabbed, so now he gets to be emotional motivation for Naruto again. As far as I understand it, not being sure what Sasuke is actually doing sums up basically everything he does in the manga. There are too many characters here.

On that note, the vibe I'm getting from Orochimaru is that he's also mostly just here to spectate. Like, yeah, I know. Characters like Orochimaru and Sakura and Tsunade are keeping everyone alive with their bare fucking hands right now, but also, give Orochimaru some opera glasses and an alcoholic beverage and it wouldn't feel that out of place.

I'll probably have more to add at some point, but these are the (not that serious) notes off the top of my head.

[alpacadream]

1 <<< 15 / 16 / ?

Oh boy.

[the-way-astray]

Hi-can I ask for your opinion on Alden as a person?

Not Aldella-though that's a very nice ship, possibly the purest one in KOTLC (apart from Dex's parents and Grady and Edaline)

I mean, just Alden as a person.

Like........he's a good father figure to Sophie and co, but I've also seen people saying that he unintentionally pressured his children to be social stars, which meant he kind of abused them because they were traumatised in some ways. I've heard people say all of this, and honestly-

I don't care about that. Like, yes, that is bad, but you know the one thing I care about?

He wiped Sophie's human family's memories-he ripped their lives away like they were nothing more than, I dunno, dumb animals or something. To make it worse, he's the one who suggested the idea (I think ) and Sophie's family had to suffer and had no autonomy in the choices because he didn't refuse to do this.

I'm not blaming Sophie-I'm blaming Alden for this.

Actually, why I'm sending this is because I read one of @cynicalclairvoyantcadaver's posts and they have a rant about the terrible thing that he did and I went back and read the first book and HOLY SHIT THEY'RE RIGHT.

So what's your opinion on Alden as a person? (Saying this as someone who loved the Anti Keefe rant) No pressure to do this immediately

ah, that post. i saw it, but figured the op wouldn't want a fight.

but first, to clear things up, i personally don't see aldella as a pure ship. it's pretty nasty. fucked up in all sorts of ways :)

so the argument seems to be that sophie's human parents did not have any autonomy, and that they'd have been better off thinking sophie was dead over having their memories wiped and being relocated. (and quick clarification: he was not the one who suggested it. that was sophie. alden was for killing sophie off in her human parents' minds, and in fact tried to talk sophie out of her decision.)

anyway, i really, really disagree that sophie's human parents would've been better off thinking sophie was dead. later on in the book, you can see sophie describe to marella how heartbroken her mom was when her grandma died. she was in a really bad place and incredibly emotional over it, and was thinking all sorts of devastating thoughts. sophie has seen her parents deal with the grief, and that's why she suggested to alden that they shouldn't have to be put through that unnecessarily.

as for alden, it's very clear to me that the reason he eventually backs down is because he realized he'd be putting sophie's human parents in the same position grady and edaline were in. if you read the line right before alden agrees to sophie's proposal, it's sophie saying something to the effect of "this option is better than them thinking their daughter is dead". then there's some line about alden realizing something, though at that point, sophie doesn't have the information necessary to piece together that it's about jolie. but it obviously is.

in fact, just in the line before the one i mentioned, the one about sophie saying it's better than thinking their daughter is dead, alden himself brings up op's main point: that they'd lose their jobs, friends, and home. he's well aware, but he has seen the exact kind of grief he knows sophie's human parents would have to live with. he knows exactly how they'd be affected, as someone who's close with grady and edaline.

there was no perfect solution there. like, fully nothing they could have done would have been a pure thing to do, there's no option that was indisputably good. there were just two options, both with some level of dark areas to them, and they picked the one that would cause the family less pain. or at least, that was the idea. obviously it didn't go according to plan. but that's because of a completely different flaw of alden's which i shall not delve into at this exact moment. so that's what i say to the notion that sophie's human family had their autonomy ripped away. like, yeah, but also there really wasn't a better option, as far as i'm concerned.

the entire situation falls under the category of morally ambiguous in general, but i've always been of the opinion that situation doesn't dictate a character's moral grayness, if that makes sense. a morally good individual will do the best thing morally they can given any situation, even if that decision is a bit morally gray. but what else could they have done? the situation only allows for morally gray choices to be made, meaning if the person makes the best moral choice from a series of morally gray choices, that actually makes them morally good, not morally gray. it's only when a character has free reign to choose between good and bad choices and chooses to pick a morally worse option that they are morally gray.

but in alden's case, as i've said, there was no perfect choice. there's no way he could've made a perfect morally good choice given the circumstances. he was backed up against a wall. he made the best moral choice from his options (in my opinion at least, for the reasons i've given above), which actually does mean he's morally good in this particular scenario.

i do personally see alden as a tiny bit morally gray, because of one thing he does at the beginning of nightfall. but that's a different thing entirely. when it comes to this particular situation, i do see him as morally good. i really don't see how a better moral choice could've been made.

and about the pressuring his kids, there's actually no evidence that he did that in canon. that's a fanon trait that's frequently given to alden in fic, and, if i'm understanding correctly, it's because people like to explore fucked up vacker family dynamics in fic. but as far as canon goes, there's no evidence he's ever pressured his children to be perfect, even unintentionally. i personally headcanon (and it's actually backed up by canon, so it's not even really a headcanon) alden and della to be fantastic amazing spectacular perfect parents, except they just have a fucked up relationship with each other. this doesn't affect their parenting abilities, only strains their relationship with one another.

anyway. the point i'm trying to make is that a lot of people seem to think alden pressured his kids (even unintentionally) in canon, because i do think that these fics have influenced fanon, which in turn has influenced the way people see alden. which is fine. but people do really need to admit that, as far as canon is concerned, there's no evidence to suggest alden did any, even unintentional, pressuring of his kids. there's in fact evidence to suggest the opposite, as we can see from the way he treated keefe in the flashback memory. he wanted keefe to take a break and wanted his father to stop pushing his so hard. i think (and this next part has little-to-no canon basis, but it's extrapolated from canon, so) that alden would actually go out of his way to make sure he was not subtly pressuring his kids because he'd seen the way keefe was affected by his father. i think alden's aware of that whole cassius-thinks-he's-doing-everything-for-keefe-out-of-love nonsense, and he'd be worried that he's accidentally doing the same thing with his own kids. so i really do think he'd go out of his way to make sure that he's not pressuring his kids at all, even accidentally.

[velvetvexations]

For two, I want talk about TRANSMISOGYNY to actually get taken seriously. I want to talk about how so many stereotypes of trans people as a whole come from shitty caricatures of trans women that THEMSELVES come from shitty caricatures of both "perverted" men AND "hysterical" cis women. I want to talk about how everything that is transandrophobic has a transmisogynistic flip side and vice versa. I want to talk about tokenism and the superficial support that vanishes the moment a trans woman isn't the "positive" caricature people made her out to be - and how the trans-specific version of that is only one example of a template that was codified against trans women but oh boy does it get applied to all trans people, see previous points. I want to discuss these things and have them taken seriously, WITHOUT people jumping on it as an excuse to just shit on transmascs and "theyfabs" and otherwise just take the path of least resistance by taking it out on another scapegoat minority. And I especially hate it, because the more I think about it, I'm pretty sure a lot of tumblr's most homophobic memes (e.g., twink (derogatory)) really did solidify right around the time that "homophobia" was damned near only being used to shut down ace people, and holy shit I do not want people to use this environment to do THAT.

I really feel the same way. I almost always have my hopes dashed when I see a really good post about transfem issues I really relate to and then it turns out the OP fucking sucks.

Reblog 5 posts about trans women every time I reblog one about trans men or else I'm bad If I make a post about my own problems, I have to be incredibly clear about how privileged I am and how other people have it worse or else I'm bad If I see a post that's transmisogynistic, I have to actively argue with the OP or else I'm some privileged dude doing nothing with my power and so I'm bad I have to br 100% clear about what my stance is on transcourse in the tags of every post or else I'll make trans women feel unsafe and so I'm bad It goes on and on. Eventually, I made up so many rules that I had to get off the internet bc every time I wanted to post ot reblog something I'd have to compulsively examine the post for days, search through the OP's entire blog, etc etc etc. It sucked! Glad I'm getting treatment! I wanna be clear though that I'm not blaming trans people of any kind for my. LOL! Caught myself!! Caught myself with "having to be 100% clear or else I'm unsafe" compulsion! Anyways, thanks for listening. I'm wondering if any other queer with moral ocd have had discourse affect them like this! 🤔

I'm sorry anon, I promise you don't have to live your life like that. You're not a bad person.

Ehhhhh. They are all those things, but I don't think most of them are former members of or directly sympathetic to 4chan culture. It's just that trans women are the in-group and 4chan happens to be where trans women who used to be (more obviously) problematic hung out the way that's TERFism for transmascs.

I haven't! A lot of things like that are triggering me in one way or another, either because it discusses hate crimes or just the general crushing opposition we face, but I like to read what I can make it through.

Happy to provide, anon. <3

[ashdoesfandomarchieved]

What are your favorite Danny phantom fics, beloved!!!!

BESTIE DO I HAVE SOME RECS FOR YOU <3

Under the Milky Way and Framework (not related and not by the same people, just similar vibes) are the quintessential Maddie and Danny + identity reveal fics. I cannot talk these two fics up high enough beyond PLEASE READ THEM THEY MEAN EVERYTHING TO ME.

Trapped is fun!! Post-reveal/Phantom Planet fic for your fluff/humor needs!!

we are all walking each other home HAS THE VIBES. I love fics that talk about the "otherness" of Danny's ghost self.

Danny the ViewTuber. This series understands the assignment. Basically Danny has a youtube channel where he streams himself doing parkour and other death defying stunts. Its funny as FUCK. I can't say much else without spoiling it, but it's probably my favorite series.

Mortified is a fic I wouldn't wish on anyone because it's 307 chapters long HOLY SHIT OP. I'm kidding tho this fic is absolutely incredible and has so much lore that they made a tv trope page that you should absolutely check out (it's linked in the fic summary). You can tell the author cares more about this show than the show runners did bc everything is so beautifully written and crafted.

Welcome to Danny's. FINALLY A GOOD FUCKING GROUPCHAT FIC. It's a WIP but honestly it's too funny NOT to read.

Phantom of Truth & Shadow of a Doubt are basically a "yeah what if Danny did get captured and experimented on by his mom haha that would be real fucked up" and it's terrifyingly realistic. The aftermath and fallout makes me insane. Truly top ten fics that made Ash eat drywall. Both of these fics were written back in the FF.NET days, so when they got crossposted finally onto ao3 they didn't get tags. Bc of that I'll go ahead and trigger warn for gore, amputation and extreme trauma. These are heavy fics.

oh and after school summons is funny as fuck. Danny gets summoned in a cult ritual lmao.

[braisedhoney]

i. Oh My God??? WHAT??? THIS IS BEAUTIFUL???? i literally do not have words hold on i gotta collect my thoughts gimme a sec for tags

@braisedhoney *汉服-ifies your narrator*

I had no choice, I thought his jacket was like a 袍服 and then my ancestors suddenly held me at gunpoint as I drew

[stepswowdsen]

KuroEne AU: Route Idea where Kuroha baits Konoha using Hibiya

(KuroEne with implied KonoEne)

KuroEne AU rambles. Wrote this a few days ago but forgot to post.

Was just thinking of a KuroEne AU with a Route set-up similar to Manga Route 2 Kuroha/Saeru baits Konoha by using Hibiya, and meets Ene.

Kuroha/Saeru baits Konoha by using Hibiya, and meets Ene. Basically, he baits Konoha on purpose by putting Hibiya (who he's currently possessing) in danger, counting on the fact that he knows Konoha will risk his life for his friends, and then takes the opportunity to jump to possess Konoha's body.

I didn't write KuroEne love/hate sex this time, since these rambles are just SFW, but that'd be fun to write more of, too. Ene should put him in his place!!!

...

I initially wrote these as tags but I'm just gonna copy paste to post them here instead.

My canon-verse KuroEne AU is angsty, but it USUALLY starts more lighthearted and tame then eventually ramps up while approaching the fated date.

But this Route idea really takes the cake omfg

I love writing both fluff and angst… I think when juxtaposed together, they become really interesting. In general, I also think that conflict and tension are the spice of life in ships, so I love writing interesting kinds of conflict and tension and hostility, of the compelling kind.

It isn't KagePro without angst and tragedy after all ^^

But gosh I do think my other ships show how my tastes mellowed out over time cuz my KuroEne AU is so angsty. KuroEne has a delicious set-up and unique context that makes the ship interesting.

While my other fandom ships still have spicy kinds of conflict and tension, they are still very soft and tender and filled with warmth and companionship.

I think KuroEne have moments of tenderness and warmth and companionship, too, but they have the most tense relationship of all my ships due to Kuroha's role and set-up as the big bad evil snake who's the cause of the time loop tragedy.

I put more rambles under the cut, as usual!

Me: (Me while writing for my KuroEne AU)

I love angst!!! And also fluff!!! Yayyyyy!!! 🥰💞

My friends: HOLY SHIT your KuroEne AU is so angst fuel I love it... But you are really so evil for this Sen /lh /j 😭

Context Rambles and Some Thoughts

I decided to add context at the beginning for anyone who'd like to tune into the rambles.

In most Routes, Saeru (Snake of Clearing Eyes) possesses Kenjirou (Ayano's father) and then at the end of a Route (on the fated day of August 15th), the Heat Haze Day, jumps to Konoha's body.

Konoha's body is advantageous for him. Due to the nature of Haruka’s wish to have an “ideal” body to make friends with, Konoha’s body has superhuman strength (ie. Konoha can punch craters into walls, jump across buildings, and heal from fatal wounds).

Because of this, for him (Saeru), it's the ideal body to carry out the "Tragedy" with.

Ty to the KagePro fan-wiki for compiling sm of the lore and resources 🙏 Incredibly useful.

It's also because as Konoha, Haruka’s body is host-less. It doesn't have a human host, so he can jump from the current person he’s possessing to Konoha’s (as long as his current vessel manages to touch Konoha), and overtake the body with ease, overtake Konoha’s consciousness and possess him.

According to Novel Route, due to the wide degree of knowledge he carries, Kuroha/Saeru can even use Konoha’s Awakening Eyes to “rebuild the body molecule by molecule”

In Manga Route 2, even when he’s crushed by a landslide, he can heal and regenerate, no problem. This guy is absurdly OP as Black Konoha.

His extremely cold and calculated way of thinking and usage of "resources" is interesting to me.

But I also think it makes sense that the being who’s basically the embodiment of “Knowledge/Wisdom” can pull these things off.

I would say that it's because it's advantageous to him.

In most Routes, when Saeru possesses Kenjirou, waits until night to possess Kenjirou so that he doesn't draw suspicion.

Kenjirou is an adult male researcher/scientist, so that means that Saeru can gather funds and resources and influence while possessing him. Saeru overtakes the consciousness of the person he possesses, so they don't remember the things he does while possessing them.

It's within the nature of an Eye Ability Snake to works towards fulfilling their current host's wish, so he works towards his host's goals, while also working towards his own goals.

Iirc, it's because of Saeru's influence that the deaths of Haruka, Takane, and Ayano, who all die on the same day, don't get mass reported to the media.

Because 3 high school students dying mysteriously on the same day would be a HUGE thing, but he seems to take advantage of the body he's using to convince others to keep their deaths concealed so that the news is not wide spread.

...

In Manga Route 2, both of Ayano's parents die (instead of just her mother, Ayaka), but Kenjirou doesn't enter the Kagerou Daze in this Route.

So, Saeru has to possess Hibiya (the youngest MekaDan member at 11 years old), and Hibiya's body is much more inconvenient for him, but he still does fine with hiding from the MekaDan cuz no one suspects him until it's too late, and he kills Momo by throwing her off the rooftop in front of numerous MekaDan members.

KuroEne AU: Route where Kuroha baits Konoha on purpose using Hibiya

Would be interesting if there are Routes similar to Manga Route 2 where Kuroha possesses Hibiya's body in a KuroEne AU

Saeru baits Konoha on purpose by throwing Hibiya's body (that he's currently possessing), knowing that Konoha will try to save Hibiya, his friend, due to his nature (good will and selflessness)

If he's feeling especially cruel, then he just throws Hibiya's body into oncoming traffic as he jumps to possess Konoha's body.

Otherwise, he'll just leave Hibiya's body as soon as there's touch/contact between his current host he's possessing, and Konoha's body, and then jump to possess Konoha

Saeru just lets Hibiya get killed when he leaves the body after baiting Konoha, and jumps to possess his body.

I imagine Ene is in the android body in the real world for this one.

Imagine if there's like a scene with KonoEne before where Konoha tells Ene he's going to go after Hibiya and that Ene should stay put and "get away from here as far as possible" and escape to the cyber world, because he doesn't know if the Clearing Snake will endanger any more people.

Ene tears up and stubbornly says, "Idiot!!! I'm not leaving you alone!!! I can't... I can’t lose you again…!" And just thinks to herself how she can't let Konoha slip out of her grasp just like Haruka did 2 years ago.

She's not leaving him alone to deal with the evil snake, someone so dangerous like that, and clings onto him by wrapping her arms around his waist to try and keep him in place, so that he doesn't go.

So Konoha just gently picks her up and finds a safe place for her to be. He gives her a gentle smile and tells her he'll promise to come back with Hibiya safe and sound, and then starts jumping across the rooftops in search of Hibiya.

Ene doesn't stay put and runs after Konoha in the direction he went trying to find him.

Konoha tells Ene that he'll make sure to "save Hibiya and rid him of that evil, no good snake" and runs after Hibiya. Ene tells him to stop and wait cuz she has a bad feeling about this... She can't catch up to his superhuman speed, but runs after him anyways.

When Ene finally sees Konoha in the distance and catches up to him, Ene can only watch as black spirals start to envelop Konoha, and Kuroha emerges from it.

KuroEne AU: Kuroha and Ene's 1st Meeting in this Route (Dialogue Script Ideas)

Ene: What…… Konoha...! What happened to Konoha...!?

Ene: YOUUUUUU...!!! 💢

Kuroha: Hello... This is the first time we meet, yes? How do you do? (^-^)

Ene: Looks like you’ve finally shown yourself… You evil snake!!!

Kuroha: I've been waiting to meet you for a very long time...

Ene: Fine… Let’s talk, Snake of Clearing Eyes.

(Some snippets I wrote above ^^)

KuroEne AU: Rambles

Ene just thinks about Konoha's words to her that he'll be coming back safe with the two of them, and just mutters to herself that he's an "idiot" for not keeping his promise.

Ene realizes that Kuroha/Saeru baited Konoha into coming after him using his selflessness and love for his friends against him.

Ene glares and growls at Kuroha and he just smirks and says that he "likes and feeds off of the hatred in her eyes, strong emotions solely being directed towards him."

Ene is just like "What are you doing!? What kind of monster are you... That boy was innocent... He had nothing to do with this!"

In regards to Hibiya's death, Kuroha just tells her that a little collateral damage in the process feels inevitable, so why stop it? It's much more entertaining this way.

First time they meet in this route? Yes. But not the first time ever, and he knows that. They've been through this "dance" before.

Kuroha also makes that comment because of the time it takes from the beginning of a Route to get to the present day. This mf seems patient af... Yes, he's been waiting to meet her again.

This is honestly one of the most angstiest ways that they [Kuroha and Ene] could meet in a Route, cuz usually, my KuroEne AU first meetings are more lighthearted and tame in that Kuroha finds Ene himself, and decides to play nice at first (in the beginning stages of their relationship, while getting to know each other).

Though, in my KuroEne AU, Kuroha/Saeru possessing Konoha's body THIS early, does mean that he dumps the body of whoever he was possessing, MUCH earlier compared to canon.

Like he leaves the body he was possessing earlier prior to meeting her, but NOT right in front of her (so she's blissfully unaware). Like he shows himself, and introduces himself to her as Black Konoha.

The Eye Ability Snake acts as a surrogate life for those who've died and obtained Eye Abilities, so him leaving the body just straight up kills the person

[bellybiologist]

Don't Mind me. Reminiscing~

Really fucking enjoying the Super Mario RPG remake, and it's really making me think about to how influential it truly was.

I lived in Maryland and was 6 years old when I first played Super Mario RPG for the SNES. My parents rented it for me from fucking Blockbuster.

See, I didn't know how to read at the time, and my parents picked it up because they were like "hey, this is a Mario Game," recognizing it because both have played and are familiar with arcade stuff. My late mother LOVED tetris, atari games, galaga, etc and i remembered fondly when I was age ~3-4 where I played co-op Ms. Pacman with her on our Sega Genesis. And I spent those ages playing Sonic the Hedgehog games and the Gameboy Donkey Kong on this:

However, JRPGs werent really a thing anyone except my uncle played at the time. But yes, my unable-to-read ass played this game and didnt know what the fuck was going on. The game had an approx. 75% complete file on it already (People didnt always erase their files on rented games), and i just fucked around on that. Didnt know what i was doing, BUT Super Mario Rpg was a very easy game and baby trans-girl verzi was 10000% enamored with ANY game that allowed The Princess to be a playable, and BOWSER too???? holy shit!! UNprecedented. WHY WAS HE A GOOD GUY??? IDK who the fluffy guy is, but I fell in love with the Cool Blue Dude Too. He had lasers and made Cool Rainbow Beams Smash down from the sky.

But alas, we only kept it for a couple days, and my dad returned it. I had him re-rent it later, but!! it was a different copy!!! It had NO save files, so I was forced to do a new one.

Needless to say, I had a rough time. I had to guess which decisions were the right ones cuz Couldn't Read, so i got stuck in Toad's explanation loop for a while. and my inability to reliably get the action commands meant I kept getting killed by THIS fucker.

Alas, I never got past the first area, and baby verzi was MAD cuz i wanted to use the PRINCESS and throw BOMBS at people with her. So!!! Baby Verzi used this drive to learn how to fucking READ. She asked her parents to buy this game (and they did) and she learned her reading, finally learning how to PLAY THIS GAME. With newfound Literacy, I was able to figure who Mallow was, and learned that Geno was a Cool Star Dude possessing a Doll which was incredibly rad to me at the time. His intro scene is burned in my brain, and seeing it in 3d today was incredible. I've beaten this game so many times that I know exactly what's happening when and where.

It really set the bar for me when it came to JRPGs, since it was legit my first one. My 2nd ever JRPG, Breath of Fire also for the SNES, had me baffled cuz why COULDNT I do more damage if I timed my attacks??? wtf. (Love that series too. BoF4 was also another Formative Verzi Game).

This game meant/means a lot to me and I'm a sucker for any media that referenced it, or built off of the groundwork it set (like the paper mario and Mario&Luigi games, and hell, Sea of Stars!!! It has!!! SO MANY MARIO RPG REFERENCES). So I just wanted to ramble a bit as I dug up memories, as we old folks are won't to do.~

[therwriter]

Feeling both kind of ashamed and weirdly proud of this one. Ashamed because I caved pretty early (at about 380 points) and had to look at someone else's clear to go with a core of Dorothy, Ceobe, Virtuosa and Ines (knew I needed Ines but not where) (this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxAs8XHWfIs), but weirdly proud because it was a 4-op clear with all of them at E2 Lv. 90 so while I got the initial placements down it took a bunch of work to make it work with my E2 Lv. 60 ops, even if I still had to break out a bunch of busted meta ops. Anyway I should really have clocked the Ceobe and Ines positions but holy shit Dorothy snaps this map over her knee holy moly do not mess with Jerboa. Her global range with mines works amazingly on a 5-deployment limit.

In terms of additions, Mumu and Bagpipe were mainly there for their passives, though Bagpipe also did double duty as a meat shield/seeds of withering remover. Goldenglow S3 worked fantastically for removing the Dublinn Evocators, hitting Withering Collector Disciples later in the map and generally helping Dorothy out on an incredibly busy and chaotic map. Eyja was there to put big dents in the Disciples on each pass, while Texas S2 and Skalter S3 were used to melt down the second swamp rover immediately, making life much easier for the rest of the map. Virtuosa S1 used as helidrop to hit Disciples for massive instant necrosis damage. Gladiia was... just kind of there in the final clear and didn't do anything, could easily be swapped for another fast-redeploy or merchant, something with a low redeployment time so they can be useful.

Overall just didn't manage to click with this map initially so I really hated it, but once I got a core to build something on it was kind of fun actually, maybe I should start defaulting to Dorothy since that's how I cleared the last one too lol. Though those withering collector disciples were super annoying and basically came down to how much burst can you put out at the end, oh my god invisibility suuuuuuuucks

Tl;dr: TAKE MY DOROTHY SHE'LL BE S3M3 IN ABOUT 6 HOURS

[crehador]

brother crab's winter 2024 parting thoughts: mashle s2 and shangri-la frontier

lumping these together because i watched both final episodes while in bed last night, staying up way too late to boop mindlessly and relentlessly

mashle is still pretty fun! though i can see why the manga ended without going on for like one thousand chapters, this doesn't feel like the sort of humor that could go on for ages and ages. i imagine it'll be a full adaptation eventually...? and i'll definitely keep watching if/when it gets renewed (admittedly, that's mainly for the absurdly stacked cast)

and speaking of the cast holy shit kobayashi chiaki please. please boy. your work-life balance YOU WERE IN EVERYTHING THIS SEASON

tl;der mashle s2 was still entertaining but i don't think it'd say it was much more than entertaining, just a fun enough time! easily op of the season tho thank u creepy nuts

NOW AS FOR SLF WHAT IS THERE TO SAY THAT I HAVE NOT ALREADY SAID

THIS SHIT WAS PHENOMENAL AND I AM SO STOKED WE ARE GETTING ANOTHER TWO CONSECUTIVE COURS IN OCTOBER

i'm still completely stunned by how good it is, and how fun it is to watch, and how much i care about the characters and their shenanigans even though it is "just" a game

i will say that the eps after the wethermon fight were a bit... like they absolutely weren't bad, but the wethermon fight was SO PEAK that it's just really hard to follow that. i almost wish they'd stopped after the fight (maybe with just 1 or 2 episodes for a post-fight wrap up) then did the rest in the second season, but alas it was not meant to be

genuinely though that wethermon fight (AND THE BEAUTIFUL DOOMED YURI SUBPLOT HELLO???) was absolutely epic, easily one of THE best battles in recent anime to me, both in the story around it, the build up, the actual battle, and holy shit that animation. incredible

tl;dr even though it's not technically an anime of this season SHANGRI-LA FRONTIER ANIME OF THE SEASON

[mycomicbox]

Random Thoughts on Persona 4 Golden - Part 2

(for context, I'm up to 11/13 and I just rescued [SPOILER])

<<< Part 1

I like how there are a lot of moments where the Investigation Team hangs out together outside of the context of the main story, like the fireworks scene and the concert performance. It really makes them feel like true friends.

Not my favorite fishing minigame in the world, but it's serviceable.

You ever drink coffee so good it knocks you the fuck out?

The Death Social Link may be in my personal running for one of the best Social Links that isn't a party member or side character.

I was honestly kinda blindsided by Mr. Morooka's murder.

They did it. They made a character who's both a bear and a twink.

Mitsuo's dungeon and boss fight were cool as fuck, especially with the 8-bit remix of I'll Face Myself. I'm a sucker for that retro aesthetic.

Since I played Persona 3 Portable immediately before this game, I loved the Tatsumi Port Island field trip. It was really nice to see something familiar. Chihiro shows up and briefly mentions Mitsuru, Club Escapade plays the opening song for Persona 3 FES, and the gang even stays in the hotel where SEES fought one of the boss Shadows. Wonderful.

Speaking of Club Escapade, how did Rise and Yukiko get drunk again? Naoto mentions that the drinks were non-alcoholic, so were they just acting drunk?

...They did Naoto so dirty. That part where she said that she "shouldn't strive to live as a man" gave me the ick. Her dungeon literally has a Transition Surgery Machine, and she continuously wishes that she was born a guy. Like I said in my last post, the story feels like if a queerphobe and a queer person were fighting over who got to write it. It would've been nice if Naoto's arc revolved around accepting that she was transmasc, or better yet, rejecting the concept of gender entirely.

Speaking of Naoto, she's honestly kinda OP. I heard that she was buffed from the original Persona 4.

The Cultural Festival was... holy shit, where do I begin. The whole beauty pageant segment was incredibly awkward (except for the bit where Teddie stole the show, that was pretty based of him), and the hot springs scene was even worse than the one in Persona 3. And don't even get me started on the scene immediately after.

The scene on the night of 11/1 was awesome. The suspense of Nanako's kidnapping was elevated by how likable she is, especially if you finished her Social Link beforehand (which I did). I was also wondering when Dojima would find out about the protagonist's involvement.

It's probably been said many times before, but WE WERE FUCKING ROBBED. As I found out, there were unused voice lines for Yosuke (in both Japanese and English) which imply that he was going to be a romance option, but it was cut in late development. Not only would it have been nice to have an actual bromance in a Persona game, this would've been a great character moment for Yosuke; it would've recontextualized his homophobic remarks as the result of denying his own feelings, fitting perfectly with the game's intended themes.

(Also, happy launch day to Persona 3 Reload. This is a Persona 4 post, but it feels weird not to acknowledge it.)

[sinkableruby]

So, how did you end up stumbling into Monogatari as a series? And who would you say was your Favorite character before Ougi filled that spot? I'd love to ask more about Ougi but, y'know, personal spoilers and all.

oh oh oh yes i have an answer for this one

actually the answer to both is nadeko!! you are right that ougi is my all time fave but nadeko was acc my fave before them and still holds my second place slot!! talking about it below with spoiler talks of otorimonogatari

similarly to you i stumbled upon it in my teens like a while back. my first impression was like the memes and stuff of course with renai circulation and what not. which led to me seeing a comparison video of renai circulation and mousou express, which is super interesting and cool even without context. and scary for that matter mousou express is kind of terrifying. it leaves an incredibly lasting impression, and it certainly did on me back then. of course it helped that i like the songs too. i also saw a clip of her in medusa form which was intriguing (and also i love the design of it). this on its own though was not enough to get me to watch. actually no wait i think i tried to watch it but the order was so confusing that i started with like nise by accident somehow and i had no idea what was going on so i quit lmao. but i was still curious about the series partly due to nadeko and partly bc it was like one of those big shows that you hear about yk

then fast forward a while, i hear the kizumonogatari movies r comin out so im like fuck it lets watch even tho i have no context. luckily they turned out to be prequel stories and my experience was not totally ruined by this move lol. of course, they were really good, those movies are amazing. so now i was like more invested in the story, but only by a little bit more. the final push i needed to actually try to watch (again) was ultimately because i was so curious about nadeko. tbh she was also the reason why i finished the series in the first place. monogatari on first watch for me was overwhelming and very dense (i mean, its a dense show), and before otori i actually wasn't enjoying it like a LOT, especially not with all the weird bits the series likes to throw at you. not to say that i disliked it, it just wasn't like amazing to me. of course now i feel differently and love the early parts of the series very much too, but first watch was slightly rough at times and took me a while to complete. learning what was gonna happen with nadeko was a big motivating factor for me.

but then when i acc got to otori i was like HOLY SHIT ITS ME lmao. i mean id already liked nadeko the best from the very little id seen of her and the fuzzy spoiler memory of vaguely what was going to happen in her arc. but man otori was so good and resonated with me so much, every single moment of it was so gripping to me. i loved the stark contrast in nadeko's perspective from araragi's (esp noticeable in how she sees her classmates), how it's already set up at the very beginning as a story where she Gets Worse so there's a feeling of profound dread surrounding it, her outburst at school (my jaw actually dropped at the "shut up!" i was so shocked and then hyped lol), just like everything about kuchinawa, the incredible ost (not to mention that op of course). ougi actually did contribute to the enjoyment bc she brought up such interesting ideas at the beginning and is generally such an enigma, but shes not the focus here right now i just cant help but bring up ougi in any situation. but yeah otori hands down one of my favorite arcs, one of the ones i still go back to rewatch frequently for the profound effect it had on me and the comfort it brings

its like what you were talking about with hanekawa. nisioisin truly did an incredible job with his characterization to make so many very true-to-life and nadeko is absolutely no exception, she is very relatable to me. i've got a lot of experience in life being shy, quiet, socially anxious, generally anxious lol (although not anymore!), and as 'the sweetheart who can do no wrong', so it's very much nadeko's specific brand of avoidance and like... 'outward-facing personality management' that resonates with me, if that makes sense. i was completely aligned with her during that whole watchthrough of otori in terms of feeling how she felt. i was seeing myself reflected back at me from the screen lol. of course we have lots of differences too but the similarities were really capturing to me on my first watch through and kinda catapulted me to finish the rest. her later appearances only added onto my appreciation of her too. i'll leave it there though since you don't know so much about that yet. when u get there ill probably have more to talk about. but shes a wonderful character love her very much.

also. ghh. i wish i could say more about ougi. you have no idea. im so curious to see what you will think of them. im practically vibrating with how much i want to talk about them (a constant state of being for me). but i wont say anything yet. i will be Hush...

[chidoroki]

Tokyo Revengers S3EP1

aka: city wide brawling

So the OP song is the same as last season but the visuals changed? I'm not too bothered by it but I would've loved another great song. The boys already looking so good too. Very excited to see more of Smiley and Angry and hopefully I can learn their names properly now.

Aww, Emma looked so pretty in that one shot.

Oh, that one captain of Toman whom I dunno the name of.. does he switch sides? That scene of him getting up from the chair with that pissed off look on his face ain't giving me good vibes.

I'm like 95% certain that Inui eventually cooperates with us while Koko doesn't and that moment with the both of them with the former disappearing from the latter's side sorta reinforces that idea in my mind.

Oh, yup, that Toman captain (Yasuhiro. I was good and looked him up) joins Tenjiku, with Sanzu right behind him too I think. I guess I should've seen that coming, which means Toman loses its fifth division captain and vice captain.

This fight looks insane already. My boy Chifuyu putting in work, Inui looking so unbothered while kicking ass and Kakucho nailing Takemichi with a heavy hit oh my god.. and that moment of Izana running up on Mikey with crazy eyes is definitely creepy.

I try my best to avoid spoilers, honestly, but Mikey and Izana have some sorta history, don't they? like, family related or whatever. And I'm so not looking forward to what may happen with Emma, if it happens this season.

Anyways, lemme actually start this episode.. and we're starting right where we left off, thank god.

“Takemichty, your mind can't even begin to fathom me.” Bro, my mind can't comprehend you either and I hate it. How can Kisaki just jump around to different gangs and reach an authority status so easily, like the hell is so special about you dude?

Hanma riding in on a bike sporting purple leopard patterns.. what an icon.

YO! Mochizuki! Can you not drag my precious boy like that?? And toss him through the air like a sack of potatoes?? I hope Chifuyu kicks his ass during the upcoming battle.

Tenjiku is already brawling with Toman's second division somewhere else? That's Mitsuya's division, yea? Oh dear.

Ain't no way the twins come rushing in by running over all the Tenjiku members with their bikes!! Seeing Smiley all happy like that is hilarious!

Angry doesn't play around, holy shit, his punches are deadly!

Okay okay, so Angry is Souta and Smiley is Nahoya, but if even their intros call 'em by their nicknames I just might do the same, although that'll just lead me to forget their real ones quicker.

Ah damn, so the twins had beef with Mocchi way before their Toman days huh? Alright, either one of them can get revenge on that dude. That's fine.

The twins are insane but I love them already. Well, I know they've been around since the first season, but finally seeing them more is great.

“What if Kisaki can also travel through time?” I'm not completely certain about him but I do know Takemichi isn't the only one capable of doing so at least.

Oohhh Takemichi is through playing games. That's such an angry and determined face!

I know it won't ever happen, but the fact that killing Kisaki has never been brought up as a viable option to stop this chaos is incredible.

Yuuupp, I knew Mitsuya was involved in that brawl happening far away, but at least he's landing a couple nice hits on Mocchi.

Okay what the fuck Ran?? Knocking Mitsuya down with a damn cement block. What cheap stunt.

“Sorry about the cheap shot.” OH well at least he's self aware!!!

I've seen how loved the Haitani brothers are so I'm interested to find out why, though I don't think causing harm to Toman is ca contributing factor..

Mhhhmm I know nothing about Shion aside from this little scene that was teased in trailers but he's intense.. and apparently he was the ninth gen leader of Black Dragon. That's terrifying.

I got a feeling the info the twins forced outta those two Tenjiku dudes was just bait, because if Kakucho is there then that's certainly not good.

I mean, it's nice he sent the swarm of Tenjiku guys away, but I doubt Kakucho is gonna struggle fighting a 1v4 either.

“First Division’s Captain means you’re the toughest of all of you, right?” “Uh, actually, that’s not really true. He fights with his kindness, not his fists.” Glad Chifuyu said what everyone was thinking.

Crazy to think all these fights are happening everywhere between Toman and Tenjiku while Manjiro and Inaza are just chilling by the sea..

So.. they didn't already know each other? Odd. Perhaps they don't remember one another?

That punch of Takemichi's really knocked down Kakucho so hard he's having a serious flashback.. or Takemichi is anyways.

Wait a damn minute, they knew each other in second grade?? Hello???

“You were my hero.” Another one huh?

“Beware of a traitor.” Well thanks to the OP I got a hunch on who two might be. Maybe.

[rocksrntpeople]

MCU Rewatch - The Incredible Hulk

There are many people who are begging for a proper go at the origin story for the Hulk. The Incredible Hulk shows how Bruce Banner, a brilliant scientist, got wrapped up in his own hubris (and the U.S. military), had a horrible accident, went on the run (from the U.S. military),  and finally ended up in Brazil where he got a job and anger management training. All in all, a pretty good introduction for the Hulk on paper. On the screen? This all happens within about 45 seconds.

So you watch this intro and then see Banner sipping a drink and taking a deep breath, and it just feels like the movie is staring you right in the eyes, whispering, Fin.

WHAT THE FUCK.

What the fuck else am I supposed to watch now? You just told me all of the interesting bits, minus the interesting part. I felt like Mason in Black Ops, just getting flashed with images that I just know mean something, are part of something I heard about long ago, but I just can’t tell what it all means.

So this movie begins with visual torture and is immediately followed up by about a hundred questions that are way more interesting than anything that’s actually part of the plot.

What was the incident that happened 158 days earlier? The lab, or something closer to Banner’s current location?

Who the hell is his trainer? Does he know he’s the Hulk? Did he find him after an incident?

Matter of fact, how long has it been since he ran away?

Who is that gorgeous chick??

Literally none of these questions are answered. There are different implied timelines for the initial incident, with both 5 months and 3 years thrown around. My guess is that his initial incident happened 3 years ago and 5 months earlier was whatever happened that got him in Brazil. It’s honestly not even worth Googling.

After you’ve been pumped through the first, and most engaging, half hour of the movie, suffering from story whiplash and generally confused as to where the movie thinks it's going…

…you’ll finally arrive at the point where the movie begins to beat you over the head with the fact that Bruce Banner is Hulk.

Yay.

Where Iron Man was perfectly orchestrated to amplify everything about him through small details that really fit his personality and his world, The Incredible Hulk manages to mirror Banner’s slapped-in existence in some random ghetto. 

I mean, how many Hulk-green pieces of cloth are actually hanging in the world? Because I think at least half of them are in this specific Brazilian slum. I mean, even the fucking soda being bottled is god damn gamma green. I bet the producers were like, “Oh yeah, that looks sick with the blood in it; just like how Hulk happened probably!”

And honestly, the rest of the movie is BORING. Holy shit, this is a clear example of what superhero movies were before Iron Man. Both movies were in production at the same time, as they released within months of each other, so it seems pretty clear that the whole Marvel team weren’t sure how this whole, “just make it like the comic book” thing was gonna work out with Iron Man. 

Probably shouldn’t have countered with one of the least relatable characters in Marvel who’d also just had a horrific flop of a movie less than ten years earlier, huh?

I mean, obviously some people are going to enjoy the rest of this movie. I’ve mentioned before that I’m actually not a huge fan of action movies. They’re boring. I see why people watch them; it’s the same reason I still love isekai anime; but they’re all the same:

“Omg, some military guy is doing something horrible and one guy is simultaneously wrapped up in it and the target of this military guy, and since this is an action flick, literally no one on the planet — no law enforcement, no governments, no other high-ranking military guy — can stop them except for this unassuming guy who, again, helped (or at least failed to stop) the military guy be evil in the first place.”

The Incredible Hulk does all of this and then has the added bonus of trying to redeem the military guy who almost kidnapped a man and threw him in a hole because he refused to commit crimes against humanity.

Yep, they find an even eviler guy who wants raw power to combat Hulk and lead a new age of super-soldier slaves that definitely would never be approved by anyone and would definitely violate the Geneva convention.

Also, can we talk about the “raw power” trope. Who the fuck wants raw anything?! Even fucking raw dogging ends up with a disease or a kid half the time, so what the fuck is with this “raw power” shit? Does anyone actually think that if they were the strongest person on the planet, but looked like a horrifying monster, that they would be able to do anything significant besides get killed? What’s the end goal there? You become all-powerful, a horrifying monster, win everything and then…go to Disney? Guess what fuckwit, you’re too big to even get through the gates. Have fun with sex too; you weigh like 3 tons now, so hopefully they make car sized fleshlights. Oh, and don’t even ask how much you have drink and smoke just to get a quick hit of vertigo.

This is the kind of shit that completely takes me out of action movies, but not out of superhero movies (because they often answer these kinds of questions, or at least don’t ignore them! We’ll talk about this more when Thanos shows up). And it’s this kind of shit that makes The Incredible Hulk incredibly bad.

On top of all of this. On top of all of the in-your-face symbolism, the dual villains who have completely lost touch with reality and how the world works, the lack of ingenuity and originality, and the missing origins for this origin story.

This movie was horribly cast.

Liv Tyler, William Hurt, Edward Norton, Lou fucking Ferrigno — it’s tough to see how this cast could fail, but they managed it.

Honestly, their acting wasn’t bad, it just totally didn’t fit…with anything! There was no chemistry between any characters, good or bad. The most human interaction we see is when he’s quietly working in the bottling factory. Even as he’s being interrogated and threatened, Norton doesn’t look anything but confident that he’s going to have lunch with Hurt later.

Overall, this movie was plagued by fear. Fear that people didn’t want another Hulk movie, fear that Iron Man would be a total misfire, fear that without big names behind the film nobody would be willing to watch it, fear that the origin story of the Hulk had been overdone.

In truth, Hulk’s story was essentially perfected in the minds of millions with the TV show from the 70’s. Even though many of us are not fans, when this movie came out that’s all anyone was talking about (we had societally agreed not to discuss Hulk); it’s part of the reason they got Lou Ferrigno again, to garner trust with the fans. But, it’s tough to beat perceived perfection, as we will all probably find out when they start trying to remake these movies in a few decades. Tbf though, they could have tried a little harder.

In addition to this, the unreasonably-angry-and-overbearing-military-guy trope is on its way out. It’s just totally unrealistic and annoying to have so much power being put behind such blatant disregard for diplomacy, money, and the most basic sense of humanity, plus of course they always have to throw in a woman to be verbally/physically abused by this character archetype and that’s just not fun to watch (it never was).

While I now agree that Hulk has been done dirty by the MCU as far as origins go, there’s no way to go back now. A new origin movie would flop almost as much as the Black Widow movie and have about as much substance. We can always hope for a redemptive movie for Hulk; there are only about a hundred reasons why the Hulk should not have a standalone movie at all.

My verdict: 2/10 

If you want to stay true to the MCU and/or if you have someone in your life who isn’t into superhero movies but likes action films, watch The Incredible Hulk as part of an MCU rewatch. If you aren’t doing a full rewatch, just watch the first 2 minutes and you’ll have a better experience.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Next week is Iron Man 2. We do see him at the end of The Incredible Hulk, where he mentions “putting together a team”, apparently inviting this military guy? But not really, because why the fuck would he even be in cahoots with a big weapons enthusiast?? Also, spoiler alert: this general is not in the Avengers.

.

.

.

Anyways, I truly remember nothing about Iron Man 2 so…

I’m sure it’s fine.