#i think it would be very cool if we got to see which element each person on the server has an affinity for

[felassan]

Shinobi602 comments on ResetEra:

"If Anthem was a runaway success, you'd be seeing a very different BioWare right now who'd be all in on the live service model. They're running uphill because they've got goodwill they need to earn back after the fact, but its failure (plus Fallen Order's success) is what allowed them to pivot right back to what they're good at: single player character driven RPGs. Silver lining but still." [source]

User: "I don't think its unreasonable to have hoped that a Dragon Age game would have similar gameplay to previous Dragon Age games." Shinobi: "Veilguard does have similar gameplay though, just not the exact same gameplay." [source]

"Open world doesn't automatically mean better. Inquisition's open world zones were basically Bioware's response to Skyrim and anticipating that's what players wanted. The big zones were cool but they were also bloated and full of uninteresting quests. Andromeda also took Mass Effect to huge open world zones and they had the same result. It was ass and the game benefited nothing from it. It's better for Bioware to stick to what they do best which is tighter, more structured play spaces." [source]

"they'll do what they think they're good at. Inquisition was highly rated, but the big open areas were also flawed. If they felt that's not what they'll excel at, that's fine. There ARE larger open areas in Veilguard though. If that's your very strict definition on what will make the game good apparently." [source]

"If you're sole definition of a Dragon Age game is that you can take direct control of companions and a tac-cam, it's understandable. But I think it's completely false that this is somehow unrecognizable as a Dragon Age game. There are tons of different aspects that define the series outside of that." [source]

"It's been evolving and changing for over a decade." [source]

"They did say there are some "killer cameos" they're keeping secret. My mind's going to several different possibilities..." [source]

User: "Yeah, they need to wrap up this story in this game. I'm already a little annoyed that we are getting another "the veil is torn and demons are wrecking havoc" story. They cannot stretch that to a third game." Shinobi: "It's a lot more than that. It's not a repeat of Inquisition or anything." [source]

"This might genuinely be the most in depth CC in a mainstream RPG that I've seen." [source]

"Yeah this is more like Inquisition, though you could still change out companion helmets in that one." [source]

"They did confirm tavern songs are back so that's good news, and The Swan (Minrathous tavern) has a bunch." [source]

"Yeah there's a good amount of veterans working on Veilguard. Though I always find that to be such a weird qualifier, and it seemingly always comes up with Bioware in particular. As if there aren't tons of talented non-Bioware devs from across the industry who could join the team and still write and design a great game. Like nah, it can't be a good game unless it's got people who've been there for 20 years! 😄" [source]

"There are also rune items you can equip that provide different effects and act as their own abilities basically, plus ultimate attacks for each class specialization (so 9 total), plus finisher moves and things like elemental combo detonations for extra damage." [source]

"there are definitely 'open areas' you can explore around in. It's not more linear than ME2." [source]

User: "Is my reading of "mission-based" it being like ME2/3 correct?" Shinobi: "Yeah, in that regard, it's more structured like Mass Effect, which I think is to its benefit. DAI just suffered way too much from open world bloat. I think the tighter, handcrafted structure works a lot better." [source]

User: "How big are the areas? Like the first game where you open the map and pick a location?" Shinobi: "Don't know exactly. But that's what I was told. There are several open ended areas that are explorable in the story. Plus a hub area." [source]

"I think if fans have been yearning for a quality Bioware game like they were used to before, this is that. Tight design, great character models, environments, animations have gone next level, combat fluidity, etc...it's all here. I compare it to the jump from ME1->ME2. [re: the jump in quality/fidelity/presentation.] This isn't a spoiler, as Game Informer said, it's a full on action RPG, and you can still pause and issue commands. But this is not DAO. Preferences put aside, Bioware's moved on from that ages ago. This isn't BG3 at all. But they've put a huge emphasis on making combat feel good to play. As in engaging the player, more real-time, more Mass Effect. It's a meaty, single player RPG with lots of systems going on inside. Also, like they said, this is the prologue, the beginning of the game. Keep that in mind if you don't see everyone's powers unlocked or intense pause and play. If you keep all that in mind, I think you'll really like this." [source]

"But it's a big jump for Bioware. [re: animations]" [source]

"[rogues are] flashy, jump around a lot, etc." [source]

"Party members can definitely get knocked out in battle" [source]

"It's important to note that what was shown was completely level 1 combat, and likely on easy mode for demo purposes. There is way more to it in more advanced battles. When it opens up with way more abilities, unique momentum attacks, ultimates, and other...things they haven't shared yet, on higher difficulties, it will look and feel way different." [source]

"It'll be rated M. It's got its share of nudity lol." [source]

User: "should we expect a comparable level of dialogue role playing as we had in Inquisition? I don't mind the changes to combat but there seemed to be more auto dialogue here than I remember from Inquisition or Tresspasser." Shinobi: "Yeah. That was just the intro. They just like to keep the pace going for a big start to the game." [source]

"This isn't accurate at all though, and it keeps getting perpetuated. Yes, there's been departures like Casey Hudson, Aaryn Flynn, Mike Laidlaw, etc, but I could easily list dozens of people at Bioware right now that have been there for 10-20+ years, some even longer. Do they just...not count for some reason? The entire core team building Mass Effect right now were OG leads on ME1-3, been there for over 20 years. And even outside of that, like, does this really matter? Do you know one of the game's premier VFX/lighting designers worked for ILM? Or one of the cinematic leads is an alum from Blizzard? Or one of the creature animators was a senior creature animator on Horizon Forbidden West? Talent is talent. And if we look at the industry through that lens too, sure, tons of studios are just "X, Y, Z studio in name", in many ways. There's no studio in the industry that holds on to their entire team for 30-40 years." [source]

"They do have that data. And I think even this thread would be shocked at how tiny of a % of players took direct control of other companions. Or went into tac-cam. Not just Inquisition but the whole series." [source]

[zer0expektation]

I've never actually gone out of my way to like, actually watch 9-1-1 myself, and thus just about everything I know about the show comes from twitter discourse, gay fanfiction, and random clips and edits that i come across on tiktok, and yet I have decided that ABC desperately needs to let me become the new showrunner, and thus;

Things I would do if I suddenly got to replace Tim Minear as showrunner (even though I'm not 100% sure what exactly his job is past deciding on storylines):

The first episode is the entirety of the opening emergency - doesn't totally matter what specifically it is, but there are actual like serious civilian injury and casualty, Athena and Chim have to work closely together for this one and one of the larger groups of injured civilians is this group of middle schoolers and one of those kids even younger brother. it's the opening of the season so we probably shouldn't do anything too horrific to the kids, but they're hurt and it's just a little too close to being bad for for Athena or Chims comfort. At the end of the day Chim says that he's headed home to hug Jee and the baby, and Athena asks if she'd be welcome to visit as well. there's a scene of chim, Maddie, and Athena hugging jee, then chim goes to take her to bed or smth while Maddie takes Athena to see baby robert in his crib - Athena smiles down at him and says "hi bobby," and for a moment we cut down to her pov over the crib of the baby stirring, but right as his eyes open we hard cut to an overview shot of Bobby nash, alive, waking up on a table, he doesn't look particularly surprised just tired and miserable. and thats how we end the episode 🎉

jee still thinks that baby Robert is her sister. no matter how many times someone tries to correct her, no matter the fact that his name is Robert, she insists that that's her little sister. it's an unending recurring bit through the entire season

there's a whole episode where buck finally just decides to binge watch glee (possibly after getting injured and put on temp leave), and one of the characters thats only in like two episodes of the first season that looks disturbingly similar to chim. like, that's literally him. and buck goes on this whole crazy conspiracy about chim having a secret twin or clone that is also an actor, before chim finally just tells him that he was on the show bc he was friends with someone that worked on it at the time and had extra vacation time and thought "that might be fun" - buck goes slightly crazy at this information

eddie gay realization scene is something silly and dumb. like the thing that finally makes it click in his head is so small and absurd that he starts to think back on all the things that should have tipped him off and goes "Oh my god I'm a fucking idiot" –> it's something silly like,, he watches brokeback mountain for the first time bc buck wanted to see it, and while he's crying at the end he just goes "oh my god I'm gay 😭" and buck goes "what." and he goes "wha? 😥" and doesn't even realise what he'd said - or that he meant it - until like 30 minutes later while buck spirals next to him

Buck actively calls himself bisexual. thats all.

tommy and gerard stay gone, DONT CAAAARE 🙂‍↕️😋

Ravi and Karen mains

a whole plot line about Karen's job - I dunno what specifically about but it be fun and I need it tyvm

more random plot lines that really skirts the line on whether supernatural elements exist or not, for funzies

Ravi centric stories - we learn more about his trauma, his relationships, his parents who are actually cool chill people (to which, the rest of the 118 are like "wtf, why doesn't he get parental issues like the rest of us???")

adhd buck canon 🙂‍↕️

once Bobby finally returns he retires and gets to have nothing but silly background plot lines - i.e. Athena shows him twitter fandom, and now that he has so much time off he gets like Way too into it, Athena thinks it's very fun until she finds out that they've blocked each other on Twitter over ship discourse

an entire episode from Chris's pov - it's majorly shot differently than the rest of the show, and has a different narration style. honestly, after the end of s8 I just think we deserve more of Chris's perspective on everything happening around him, thanks

buddie canon by the middle of the season, I dunno how specifically, but yeah - secret relationship for a few episodes which then leads to;

bottle episode in the firehouse - everyone is violently bored and causing problems about it, theyve even tried saying the q-word but it just wont work, buck and Eddie keep trying to sneak in some alone time but everyone is in such close corters and aware of everyone else that it's fucking hard, finally they get a moment but chim walks in on them and is horrified. they manage to convince him that he needs to keep it secret at least for a little while (they're guilt trippy as fuck, you'd best believe) - he's struggling the entire rest of the episode, and honestly buddies made peace with the fact that everyone's going to find out today anyways, so they're not particularly upset or surprised when he finally blurts it out infront of everyone. everyone else though goes deathly quiet, glancing between chim and buddie, and finally buck goes "... it's really quiet right now." and Then the bell finally rings for the first time in 10 hours

buck and Eddie run into father Brian while they're out (pre buddie canon, me thinks) and Eddie is kinda embarrassed while he tells him that he was totally right and blahblahblah. meanwhile, buck is right beside him about to pop from jealousy at Eddie giving some credit to this guy for his gay realization - even when he realizes he's literally a priest, he cannot stop being weird about it, and Eddie just thinks it's soo funny of him

Maddie becomes an emergency medical director for dispatch: she directs people on what they should do during medical emergencies until help arrives - she kind of already does this, but I think having her take on this particular role would be a good move forward for her character and career

hen, karen, Maddie, Eddie wine nights. they gossip and talk shit and get tipsy. plus Maddie Eddie interactions finally

and probably more things but this is long already and I need to do homework

[bethanythebogwitch]

Digimon 2024 tier list

Like last year, I'm doing a tier list of how much I like each new Digimon released this year. My tiers will be A for Digimon I really like, B for Digimon I like but not as much, and C for Digimon I'm not enthusiastic about. There will also be one S-tier for my favorite of the year and one D-tier for my least favorite of the year. Also I covered Tlalocmon last year, so see that post for my thoughts and I'm not covering the Monster Hunter tie-in mons since they're not in the reference book.

Digimon Liberator has given us a flood of new Digimon so let's start with the mascot's line. Yolkmon, Fluffymon, Pteromon, Galemon, GrandGalemon, and Zephagamon. Yolkmon is my new favorite baby Digimon. A living egg yolk with an eggshell hat is brilliant and adorable. Fluffymon is also a good design. I find it hard to get invested in a lot of the baby Digimon because they're usually just bouncing heads, so having these two stick out of the pack is great. I'll give Yolkmon an A and Fluffymon a B

Pteromon is a great mascot Digimon. It's got that classic mascot look while also looking distinct from all the Agumon expys we tend to get. Archaeopteryx is a great inspiration and we finally get a theropod dinosaur Digimon with feathers, like the real raptors had. A-tier. I'm not as fond of Galemon (B-tier), but GrandGalemon is great. It's a great fusion of the bird/raptor elements and humanoid warrior elements. The armor and weapon look cool and it being one of the vortex warriors (which, as far as I know, were previously only ever mentioned in MedievalGallantmon's reference book entry) is a cool call-back and it even has an indirect connection to Witchelny. An Excellent Digimon deserving an A. Sadly, I can't say the same for Zephagamon. I can't fully explain why I don't really like it. Maybe it's the skinnier design that drops a lot of the bird elements, or its weapons not being as cool as Zephagamon's mace (swords are overdone), or just being tired of Digimon becoming armored humanoid warriors in their final stages, but I can't help but be a bit dissappointed by Zephagamon. The name is also not my favorite. Maybe they went with that to avoid dub name confusion with Zephyrmon/Shutumon. It's gonna be a C-tier.

Debuting alongside Pteromon's line is Shoemon's line. Shoemon is an amazingly adorable Digimon. A patchwork mouse plushy living in a shoe is a cute and very Digimon concept. I love how it uses a sewing needle as a weapon, too. A-tier. Too bad Shoeshoemon isn't as good. A roller-skating plush squirrel should be a fantastic Digimon, but I just don't like the way it looks. It honestly give me Sonic the Hedgehog vibes and I don't care for StH. The name is also really clunky, especially when Skatemon was right there. That being said, it would have been hilarious if each of Shoemon's evolutions just added an extra shoe to the name until we ended up with Shoeshoeshoeshoemon. C-tier.

While I don't care for Shoeshoemon, Chaperomon is another story. A violent little red riding hood doll with a knife, molotov cocktail, and basket-mounted minigun that hunts big bad wolves and turns them into shoes is not only an amazing concept, it is peak Digimon. It may be early in the list, but Chaperomon is my S-tier. Not only is this my favorite Digimon of the year, it is one of my favorite Digimon of all time. Cendrillmon is ok. I do like the design in a vacuum, but I don't really like it as a final form for Shoemon. It loses the patchwork plushy and doll appearance that I like so much and it doesn't really have shoes anymore. I do like the simple yet elegant design and the army of doll familiars. I think if Cendrillmon was introduced as an evolution for a different Digimon, I would like it a lot better. B-tier.

From the web novel side of things comes the new Impmon evolutions: Punkmon, Loudmon, and HeavyMetaldramon. Punk rock variants of the Guilmon line were not something I knew I needed in my life all. They're also a callback to the early planning stage of Digimon Tamers, where Impmon was planned to be the main partner Digimon. I also appreciate the final form being based on Megidramon instead of Gallantmon. Too many Digimon lines end up humanoid at the end. And wings made of electric guitars? Chef's kiss. A for all of them.

Last year, the D-Brigade got an upgrade after years of just being one evolution line, and this year the Royal Base got the same treatment. It was a good choice, too, as cyborg bees is a fantastic concept. ForgeBeemon the construction worker is a great interpretation of worker bees and Vespamon is a much-needed pre-evo to TigerVespamon. It's weird how many times we've gotten an XYmon years before getting a Ymon. Those both get A. QueenBeemon I'm not as fond of. She loses the cyborg elements and just becomes a woman in a bee costume. It's also weird that like half of her reference book entry is dunking on her like she was one of the bad evolution Digimon. The weaponized throne is a cool idea, but I can't give QueenBeemon higher than a B, which I suppose is appropriate.

PolarBearmon and Skadimon are really fun. I like them as a reminder that not all high-level Digimon have to be ferocious monsters, armored warriors, or women in their underwear. Some of them can be cute and friendly. For Frontier fans, am I wrong in thinking that PolarBearmon with its snowball artillery and being a bear looks way more like a proper unified spirit of ice than Daipenmon? Skadimon actually being a mech suit piloted by what looks like a YukimiBotamon is a fantastic design concept. A for both.

Dinomon kicks absolute ass. Dinosaurs are cool, fire is cool, so a dinosaur on fire is extra cool. This thing is the closest we have to a Digimon Godzilla and I love Godzilla. Plus a new mega for Tyrannomon that isn't DinoRexmon or RustTyrannomon is much appreciated. RustTyrannomon leans a bit evil for a heroic Tyrannomon and DinoRexmon looks too silly for my tastes with that giant claw. A-tier.

Elizamon is too cute not to love. A hot pink frilled lizard in a bowtie is adorable, and its contrast with the edgelord Owen Dreadnought is fantastic. Dimetromon is also really cool, being based on one of my favorite Permian animals, but I feel like it loses some of the frilly feminine traits that Elizamon has and the evolutions will have according to the shadowed shots we've seen of them in Liberator. I give Elizamon an A and Dimetromon a B.

MarineBullmon and Ryugumonbeing nudibranchs makes the marine biologist in me happy. I love nudibranchs and more people being exposed to these spectacular sea slugs is a great thing. Of the two, I definitely prefer Ryugumon more. It's elegant design and referencing Japanese mythology is inspired. I'm going to give MarineBullmon a B and Ryugumon an A.

Espimon has needed a full evolution line for a while. It was always weird that it never got an evolution based level 4 given that it technically is a main protagonist partner in Ghost Game. Oblivimon is a fantastic evolution, doubling down on the spaceship design of HoverEspimon and working in UFO stories with how it abducts Digimon to examine them before releasing them with memories modified. The Kuramon drones are also adorable. A-tier. Sadly, after the highs of Oblivimon, it all comes crashing down with Invisimon. Why, why, why did this line of UFO-themed Digimon have to end with a superhero? I am so tired of Digimon lines ending up as humanoids when the rest of the line isn't, and it's especially bad here. Invisimon sticks out like a sore thumb against the amorphous, spaceship-based, stealth and non-combat elements of the rest of the line. The stealth plane thing is neat at least. I get that Invisimon works with the Liberator Espimon's partner being superhero coded, but it fails as an evolution in any other context. If Invisimon wasn't supposed to be the final form of Espimon, it might be a C or B, but as is, this thing is my D-tier.

As for the new Sunarizamon evolutions, I'll admit that I initially didn't like Landramon, but it's grown on me. I really wanted Landramon to be the land counterpart to Airdramon and Seadramon as a serpentine dragon instead of the silly pile of sand. Once I got over that, I came to enjoy the silliness of Landramon and it is a very fitting Sunarizamon evolution. I'll give it a B. Proganomon is not my favorite and it's another case like Invisimon where I'd probably like it more if it was part of a different evolution line. It's just so out of place in the Sunarizamon line having no sand elements and using technology. I think it would work much better as a Tortomon evolution and a pre-evo to ElDoradimon or even JumboGamemon. I think I'll give it a C. I don't hate it, but I'm not all that impressed either. Pyramidimon, on the other hand, is amazing. It looks like a badass Yu-Gi-Oh monster from when the franchise was still themed around ancient Egypt. I can see it being a great fit with other Egyptian Digimon like Pharaohmon and Anubimon. Pyramidimon almost dethroned Chaperomon's place as my S-tier, putting it as an easy A.

The other big source of new Digimon this year was New Century and it's a crime that game hasn't been released outside of China yet. I covered Takutomon last year and wasn't impressed. I found it visually uninteresting and the armored human is an overused design. Takutomon Wrath Mode has a more interesting design, but I'm still not that interested in it. I think that humanoid armored warrior Digimon have to do something really interesting to stand out from the her and this one just doesn't. He also loses his little Appmon pet. Maybe that's why he's so angry. I'm also surprised that the reference book art is somehow better than the New Century art, which is angled so that most of its body is covered by its leg. C.

If a humanoid armored warrior Digimon has to do something interesting to stand out, Erlangmon does that well. The idea of the warrior fighting alongside a flying wolf head is very unique and fun. Plus, spears are underused as weapons, so it's nice to see one here. Erlangmon is also a shapeshifter, which could be a lot of fun to work with in stories. I have a fanfic in mind that I might use Erlangmon in. I give it an A. Unfortunately, while Erlangmon soars, Erlangmon Blast Mode crashes and burns. Turning the wolf head into a part of the armor loses that cool factor and makes it look so much more generic. Down to C with you.

Nezhamon is also fun. There's a lot of references to the original myth, like turning the wind fire wheel into tires on the ankles and having Nezhamon look young. The merging of the mythology with modern machienery makes for a very Digimon design. Plus, he has a spear and I'm a sucker for weapons where one part floats instead of being attached. I'll go A.

The last New Century Digimon is Jougamon and I like how this one is based on the same moon rabbit origins of Dianamon while still having a totally unique look. The gold coloration looks nice and I love the giant crescent moon blade and dancing fighting style. I'll put it as a strong B.

Our last new entry for the year is Cernumon. Well technically Callismon was added to the reference book this year, but that's not a new Digimon, it's an escapee from V-Tamer jail. Cernumon is such a creative design. A musical instrument, foresty deer god is both very fun and very Digimon. Cernumon comes from the horned Celtic god Cernunnos. Digimon had the opportunity to just make Cernumon a deer man and I'm very grad they decided to get more creative. A-tier.

Here's the final tier list. It's heavily weighted toward the A-tier, which is a good thing. I'm glad that the majority of new Digimon are so cool and likable.

S: Chaperomon

A: Yolkmon, GrandGalemon, Shoemon, Punkmon, Loudmon, HeavyMetaldramon, ForgeBeemon, Vespamon, PolarBearmon, Skadimon, Dinomon, Elizamon, Ryugumon, Oblivimon, Pyramidimon, Erlangmon, Nezhamon, Cernumon

B: Fluffymon, Galemon, Cendrillmon, QueenBeemon, Dimetromon, MarineBullmon, Landramon, Jougamon.

C: Zephagamon, Shoeshoemon, Proganomon, Takutomon Wrath Mode, Erlangmon Blast Mode.

D: Invisimon

[b0nten]

IT’S YOU AND ME AGAINST THE WORLD (THE CRUEL ONE I’VE DRAGGED YOU INTO)

[SYNOPSIS] ˚⁀➷｡ kakucho takes you to meet his family. or, the closest thing he has to one, besides the one made by you two.

[NOTES] ˚⁀➷｡ FIRST KAKUCHO FIC WOHOOOOO. timestamps may be a little off so yeah. sorry4dat. anon i hope you like it!

today is the day.

straightening your clothes with your palms, your eyes scan your body in the mirror.

“i thought i told you something casual was enough?” a shirtless figure emerges from down the hallway of the apartment, toned muscles flexing as he stretches.

“and i thought i told you you should ditch the blue and go natural, kaku.” you sarcastically answer, turning to him.

he’s got an amused expression painted across his face, eyes softly laid on you and mouth corners sewn into a delicate upward smile.

“so you really hate my aegean blue hair that much?” he jokes again, and, as if teleporting himself, emerges from nothing next to you.

“that’s not true, after all, this aegean blue is the one that charmed me the second time around, but your natural hair color is beautiful, and you know that!” by fake-punching his chest you earn a laugh, “i’ll dress casually when you stop dyeing your hair!”

“alright, alright,” he muses, “are you ready to go?”

“shouldn’t you get dressed first, princess?” you question back, stressing the second word and inspecting his ‘outfit’. “you look handsome like this, gotta give it to you, but i’d like ti think i’m the only woman that gets to see you like this.”

“shoot, you’re right.” he laughs as he grabs the neatly laid out shirt from a nearby chair, “what would i do without you?” he asks, awarding you with a forehead kiss.

“go to work half-naked, apparently..” you fake a disapproving head-shake and make way to the door. “i’m gonna wait in the car, try to not be late, please.” you warn, jingling his car keys in your right hand.

“yes ma’am.” kakucho fakes a military greeting rushing to the bathroom to brush his hair.

✣ ✣ ✣

looking at the high building in front of you, you let out a shaky breath.

“you ready?” kaku asks, blue hair shining in the hot summer sun.

in response, you only hum a weak ‘mhm’, accompanied by a slight nod. you ponder — are you really ready? — you know what kakucho does for a job, he’s a mafioso. not only that, but he’s the no. 3 of japan’s most feared crime syndicate. if every single one of his coworkers is as serious as your kaku is whenever he talks business on the phone (which happens very rarely, as he values his time at home and with you more than drug deals and murders) then you’re screwed, to put it lightly.

“hey, c’mon,” he looks at you, face contorting into a goofy grin, “you really don’t have to be nervous. they look scary but each one is dumber than the other, i promise you. you’ll like them, and they’ll like you.”

his reassuring words tug at your heartstrings a bit, and warm your worry-frozen heart just enough to get it to pump blood again. so, you take a deep breath and nod again, only this time, confidently.

“let’s do this.” with the corner of your eye, you see kakucho smile proudly, before stretching out his arm, allowing you to loop your’s through.

you enter the building: the lobby is cool and and feels so much better than the scorching heat of the outside. the decor is nice, it brings a certain richness to the place, with accents of gold and spanish oak and baroque elements here and there. it’s not flashy, and certainly not like any other japanese office tower interior you’ve seen before.

your heels smack against the macael marble as you allow yourself to admire the interior.

“ran redesigned this whole place when we bought it.” having observed you until now, kakucho chimes in with some fun facts.

“he really has the eye for art.” you add, and watch his eyes light up as he presses the elevator button.

“and he’s quite the snob too. god forbid we touch his montblanc pens or he goes apeshit.”

“oh, kaku…” you can only sigh as he bursts out laughing. “i really don’t know what to expect from you guys.”

he calms down his laughter before entering the lift, “and that’s just the beginning.”

the elevator ride is long, their offices being the second to last floor, which is not so bad as kakucho gets to tell you more about the guys.

“the pink mullet with the piercings is sanzu. he’s quite… eccentric, sometimes.. even uhm..” kaku swallows, uncertain if he should say more, but sure enough that this slip-up may cause you some fright.

“sometimes what, kakucho?” you urge him to continue his sentence.

“well, he can be scary or creepy sometimes. but just sometimes. other than that, he’s a dumbass.” your boyfriend scratches the back of his head, almost relieved. “he’s also no. 2.

as you know, I, your handsome boyfriend is no. 3, while the advisor is takeomi, sanzu’s brother. he really likes trench coats for some reason, so he’ll probably be wearing one today. he’s got a long scar on the right side of his face. oh, yeah, and sanzu also has two scars at the corners of his lips.”

“two down, five more to go, including montblanc guy.” you comment, leaving kakucho somewhat surprised.

“ye— wait, how do you know?” confused, his head darts in your direction.

“by paying attention to your phone calls, during conversations and doing some simple maths.” you reply, sarcastically.

“oh, my beloved einstein.” he kisses the crown of your head gently, “yeah, we have montblanc guy, ran, and his younger brother rindou. ran has short hair, black and pink and rindou also has a mullet, blue and purple. and they both have the tattoo on their necks.

then there’s mochi. well behaved guy, but his beard almost makes him look like an npc or the daiso version of a pimp. he’s the guy with the jumbo dumplings i told you about!”

“oh, that’s mochi! good to know, good to know!” you reply, just as excited as he is.

“and last but not least we have koko. he’s got really long blonde hair and a… unique hairstyle. his tattoo is on his head.

i think that makes them all.”

“are you not forgetting someone?” you quirk up a brow and kakucho mimics you. “maybe… that mikey guy? your leader?” you finally ask, long pauses between each word.

“it’ll be easy for you to see which one’s mikey once he enters the room. but don’t be fooled! he’s tougher than he looks.”

you nod and run through the information one last time before the elevator light pings and the door opens. you step onto a soft carpet, kakucho right next to you, eager to explain more about his workplace.

“we each have our own offices but usually meet in the conference room, where we do most of the work. for separate tasks we use our own spaces, tho. mine is… right here!” the turns left and points to a black door. it’s not hard to see it’s his thanks to the nameplate.

“across from mine is sanzu’s and the one behind us is mikey’s. over here is akashi takeomi, just beside the elevator is mochi, across from his is the conference room, and then there’s kokonoi’s, and the haitanis’ offices towards the end of the hall.”

you would’ve liked to see how the offices looked, being sure kakucho’s was just as neat as he keeps the one at home, interested in the older haitani’s the most, to be frank. you could’ve bet money he also took charge of the floor’s design, this time more simple and elegant than the ground one. muted colors, different textures and simple paintings; the guy really seems to know what he’s doing, maybe he should ditch organized crime and do interior design.

“let’s get this over with.” you turn over to kakucho, who’s just looking around, as if it’s also his first time visiting the place. when he hears you, he smiles, and takes small steps toward the conference room, hand still looped through yours.

you un-loop your arm from his, resting it on his shoulder as he opens the door. he enters, aegean fringe bouncing with every small step. you come in just behind him.

analyzing the room, you really can’t believe these are japan’s most feared:

ran is filing his nails. next to him, legs propped up on the table, is his brother, playing a video game on his phone, occasionally hissing as his eyebrows twitch in frustration.

across from them is sanzu, pink mullet covered by a long white towel, dripping on the wool carpet. just beside him is his older brother, takeomi, wearing a tan trench-coat. he’s reading — you rub your eyes to be sure you’re seeing everything exactly as it is — a guide to becoming a multi-millionaire through bitcoin.

mochi is doing paperwork, and koko — god have fucking mercy on their souls — is reading the same book as takeomi.

“can you close the fucking— ” the younger haitani bangs his fists against the table in a fit of rage, freezing completely when he sees you. “oh my god, it’s the lady whose picture he keeps on his desk! KOKO GIVE ME MY FUCKING MONEY YOU MOTHERFUCKER HE HAS AN ACTUAL FUCKING GIRLFRIEND!” he grabs his hair while pushing past every chair to get to the mentioned, disturbing ran in the process.

“rindou, try to look whenever you’re running around like a wild boar, i hurt my nail when you pushed me!” his brother accuses, but rindou is long gone.

when he gets to koko, he’s met with a book in his face.

“i’m not giving you jackshit, bitch!”

“come on man, you can’t go back now! we had a bet!” he whines and pleads, but koko is nowhere near turning his decision around.

all of a sudden, rindou kicks koko’s chair, sending him flying into mochi.

the bearded man looks up from his papers distraught, an evil look in his eyes.

“do you even know how long it took me to convince this corn company to deliver corn directly to my house?” he asks, and both shake their heads no. “do you have any idea how long it took me to write this goddamn ‘thank you’ letter?” he asks again, and they both shake their heads again. “THEN ARE YOU TWO GOING TO WRITE IT AGAIN FOR ME BECAUSE YOU JUST MADE ME THROW AWAY A MONTH’S WORTH OF CALLIGRAPHY CLASSES?” this time, they nod.

from the left, sanzu groans.

“CAN YOU FUCKERS STOP SCREAMING? MY HEADACHE IS GETTING WORSE.” he roars, ripping the towel off his face, ready to jump out of his chair. thankfully, takeomi holds him back.

“i think you should all calm down. this is no way to greet the lady.” he says as he closes his book and stands up, bowing to you from afar. “akashi takeomi, bonten’s advisor. nice to meet you.” he says, smiling slightly.

“thank you takeomi.” kakucho starts “this is y/n, my girlfriend, just like rindou has correctly observed.” he shoots the man a judging look, “we’ve been dating for a little shy of, what? nine years now?” he looks at you and smiles, and you give an approving note, signaling he has gotten the time right, “she wanted to meet you all, so i brought her here.”

he steps forward, stretching out his hand toward you. you take it and follow him, nearing the guys on the left side.

“y/n f/l. nice to meet you, everyone. i hope we can get along well. i heard lots about you.” you take your turn and bow, looking at every single one of the guys as you speak.

every one of them continues with the introduction, except for takeomi, since he had already done it while lecturing the guys.

kakucho pulls a chair out from under the table and gestures you to sit. he sits down next to you and surprisingly, the boys are all eager to talk as soon as they get the possibility to.

rindou and koko apologize for their behavior and you just shrug it off with a laugh, reassuring them smilingly that it was funny. you compliment ran’s interior design skills to which he seems very grateful and laugh with mochi, hinting that you know about the jumbo dumpling incident. sanzu compliments your ear piercing setup and asks you about some more jewelry and you offer to go with him shopping sometime, and bond with takeomi over your shared interest of the sengoku period, finding out that he shares the same birthday with his idol, samurai akechi mitsuhide.

everything is going smoothly, when all of a sudden, the door flies open, every one of the executives jumping up in an instant, with you closely behind. when they bow, you do the same, although you didn’t get to see who came in.

when you all pull your heads up again, the short blonde who has entered looks at you puzzled.

“who are you?” he tilts his head to the left, analyzing you carefully.

“mikey, this is y/n, my girlfriend. i brought her to meet everyone!” kakucho explains instantly, and watches him approach you.

“you… you’re the one … that makes those cute bento boxes for kakucho?” he asks, serious look plastered on his face.

unable to control your excitement for your work being recognized, you beam up, hands clasping each other happily: “yes! that’s me!”

as if he wasn’t the ruthless leader he is, mikey’s eyes widen with the childish love for food he’s had forever.

“do you think…,” he starts off shy, unusual for him, “but only if you have the time, do you think you could also make one for me?” the head of bonten inquires, eagerly awaiting your response.

ever so flattered, you smile so hard you can barely see anymore, screeching out in a delighted tone.

“of course!” you’re amped, ready to cook fifty bento boxes because of how happy you are, “do you have any allergies or themes you like?”

as if having been offered a million dollars, mikey answers you enthusiastically, “i don’t like spicy food, and… i like omurice, and if you could add a mini- flag on top, please…” he says, hands meeting behind his back.

“of course!” you affirm, high on the rush of dopamine and continue asking mikey about how he’d like his bento boxes. he himself feels like a kid in a candy store.

the rest of the guys are left dumbfounded, kakucho’s mouth having hit the floor long time ago already.

he picks it back up when mikey interrupts his own conversation.

“i’m sorry to cut it short, y/n-san, but we should start the meeting. we can discuss after it more, if you want!” he apologizes, subliminally saying he wants to talk about these upcoming bentos more with you.

“that’s alright, and of course!” you smile again, “kaku, i’m heading to your office!” and turn around to face your red-faced boyfriend.

“of course, i’ll see you there after we’re done.” he smiles, nodding, assuringly.

“kakucho, does she know where your office is? are you not gonna walk her?” mikey intervenes and before kaku can say anything else, he offers himself to guide you to your lover’s workroom.

“take your places, guys, we’ll start when i come back.” the blonde orders, closing the door behind him.

“looks like boss is gonna steal your girl, kaku.” sanzu teases his subordinate, while ran makes kissy noises and coos ‘kaku’ in the background.

“wait…” rindou interrupts abruptly, “you said you have been dating for nine years? that means.. koko! do the math, please!” he orders.

“you’ve been keeping her secret ever since kanto manji!” the blonde gasps in shock.

“you bastard! you kept her hidden through that— ” mochi is just as angry.

“and tenjiku too?!” kokonoi, having redone his math, is in utter disbelief.

kakucho tries to drown out the sound of the guys accusing him of treachery, thinking about the end of the meeting and heading straight for his office to get you home and spend his time with you, alone.

[sunshades]

Kind of a dumb thought but something just hit me: What if Heathcliff got a bit of Book!Cathy's personality? Book!Heathcliff wasn't really very violent or temperamental but *Catherine* in the books was. Do you think that's true?

I'VE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS BEFORE TOO!

i remember laughing my ass off back in part 1 when hindley talks about losing the manor to her because that was like. wait. she wasn't lying she really is heathcliff 😭... then we find out it was Literally Heathcliff who physically ran that con, but it felt purposeful to have catherine be the one behind it, even if it was with nelly and n corp.'s help. book!cathy is impulsive, gets carried off by her feelings, while game!cathy has a much cooler and more calculating demeanor, even when literally getting overwhelmed by the despair of countless lifetimes (very heathcliff!). the way she explicitly sees the marriage as a means to an end in particular to me reads as closer to book!heathcliff's own view than to her book counterpart, who is instead the coping and suppressing queen 🔥

ON the other hand those traits fit heathcliff much more, i think particularly the way the reasoning behind it- cathy's is a reflection of how hindley has raised her, used to seeing that violence, always on edge and ready to snap at the slightest provocation. that's incredibly close to game!heathcliff, where a lot of the violence seems to come specifically from being insulted or looked down upon (hi S.E.A). it's a very different brand from book!heathcliff who, while also violent, is much more calculating about when and how to use it, working in tandem with his status to force others to respect his superior role as the patriarch. we see this trait in the erlking instead, the whole system of "whoever i kill belongs to me" which is cool as fuck btw.

also (<- guy who always has to make it about how theyre gen2) it's fun because some of these traits are then shared by the gen2 characters theyre based on too- catherine's more gloomy personality, the kind of fatalistic way of talking is in line with book!heathcliff but with catherine linton as well, with both of them getting described in mythical terms as a way to insult them (heathcliff is called a vampire at various points, cathy l. is called a witch) which checks out with game!cathy being described as frightening.

on the other side heathcliff's short fuse is close to book!cathy, but also to hareton, and both of them are also very empathetic (yeah even cathy. the if she made you cry she'd keep you company (and cry as well) from the early chapters as well as the whole each of his miseries speech) in a way that heathcliff shares, but not his book self. which is also a fun thought because book-wise heathcliff seeing catherine in her daughter is very obvious, but he also absolutely sees her in hareton which is so interesting.

there's also the factor of the post canto vi identities which is really huge. the narrative focusing on that theme of an empty life really connects heathcliff back to the catherine from the book- the repression of her feelings for heathcliff, the attempt to fit into a life she admits is not right for her, the idea that just forgetting about him would allow her to be happy. all ideas that both game and book nelly strongly believes in! and the outcome is SO similar to what happens to the heathcliffs of those worlds where she doesn't exist anymore. denying those feelings never truly allows either of them to actually suppress them. he ends up much like cathy falling into her delirium- asking whether he's going to come back for her, seeing him in the shadows, knowing something is wrong and something is missing even if you can't put a name to it.

ofc then their feelings corresponding and overlapping is part of the plot and the big reveals of the canto, but when comparing them to the book selves it definitely feels like the switching around of many elements of their characters was purposeful. as the spread of the traits they share and the points where they differ was really well balanced, the outcome is a dynamic that's fresh while still being recognizable! very tasty!

[science-lings]

Batfam Monster Poll 8: Duke

*for the purposes of this au any nonhumanoid creature is implied to have a human form. no one is being a reptile 24/7.

Part 1: Bruce (ends 3/31/2025)

Part 2: Dick (ends 4/1/2025)

Part 3: Jason (ends 4/2/2025)

Part 4: Cass (ends 4/3/2025)

Part 5: Tim (ends 4/4/2025)

Part 6: Steph (ends 4/5/2025)

Part 7: Damian (ends 4/6/2025)

More info and thoughts below

Glossary-

Chrysomallos-

Fun fact, this is the backstory behind the constellation of Aries, magic golden flying ram is kinda sick if you think about it. In the myth he's sent to save people (and we will ignore the rest of it). Theres also a lot about it being very shiny and glowy which is very Duke, but a big ram still has horns bash your face with so that's important.

Chalkydri-

the head of a crocodile and the feet and tail like that of a lion, each having twelve wings, and are empurpled like the color of the rainbow. Both the chalkydri and phoenixes are referred to as "flying elements of the Sun". At sunrise, all the chalkydri break into song with their counterparts, alerting the birds of the world for a new day to rejoice.

They're both angels and dragons and that is cool as hell.

Carbuclo-

Descriptions of it vary, from a luminescent small dog, a luminescent bivalve, a cat with a luminescent lock or tuft under its beard or a greenish-red fiery light reminiscent of fireflies. Variation in color has been explained as the creature's property of taking on the color of the metal or treasure it is guarding

I love a confusing and yet ultimately intriguing creature. Especially one that glows in the dark. Is he a Totally Normal kitty cat with something glowing mysteriously through his fur? or is he a mysterious light in the darkness? There are Options.

Other thoughts-

Okay, here me out, Dragon Duke. The kind of dragon that can see into the future and knows things it shouldn't and is real vague about it. They've got that natural armor, an iconic signal feature, and he's more batlike rather than birdlike on the dichotomy of batfamily member types. They can also make light if you count spitting fire as conjuring light. What is fire if not light that hurts you.

[glamorousgirlbulge]

something that i think gets lost in discussions of YJ sexuality is that bisexuality basically didn't exist in the USA in 1996

i don't mean that bisexuality wasn't seen as a real thing by mainstream America. I mean that bisexuality wasn't recognized as real by many if not most gay people. bisexual men were gay men that didn't want to admit it, or who were soft-launching their gayness and would come out as homosexual in a few more years. bisexual women were just greedy, indiscriminate straight women who loved the attention and the orgasms so much they didn't care who it came from.

this is a key element to understanding the sexuality and perceived sexuality of... all the girls, really, but most specifically Shauna. if Shauna had gone to Tai and Van and said "I think i'm bisexual", the odds are very good that one or both of them would have laughed and said "that's not a real thing."

in the modern day (especially in fandom spaces) it's so easy to say "maybe you're bisexual". But Shauna is legitimately attracted to men, which means that 16-year-old Shauna knows she can't be sexually attracted to Jackie because she's straight. Attraction to men = straight, and straight = not attracted to Jackie.

Jackie's own sexuality is a whole other thing, driven primarily by But I'm A Cheerleader stuff and further complicated by the way we don't know if she was attracted to men. (Not enjoying the first time you have sex with your high school boyfriend is not an accurate predictor of homosexuality.) But again, the binary nature of her understanding of sexuality removes the obvious option or at least the interstitial step of saying "what if I'm attracted to both?"

i think this is what makes the joke about "do you think she makes Melissa wear Jackie's clothes" especially significant, and heightens the whole Van thing of "this bitch that's been snuggling my girlfriend is GAY?" It's clear that they see what Shauna is oblivious to in her relationship with Jackie, but AFAIK they don't reference it until they know Shauna is fucking Melissa.

This part is just my own guess, but I bet Van and Tai have long asked each other "do you think she's got a thing for Jackie" but then, when they find out she's been fucking men, they assume she's straight and therefore her relationship with Jackie was just your typical high school "platonically obsessed with cooler BFF" thing. And if she's straight then it's cool with Van that Tai and Shauna keep having these very intimate private moments together and so on. But when she starts fucking Melissa, I think that changes to "oh she was definitely into Jackie, do you think they ever fucked" and suddenly her intimacy with Tai is a threat to Van and Tai's relationship.

And like I said, that just a guess. But it would perfectly explain the awkwardness of Shauna's "Van and I aren't friends like that." We know this sentiment is entirely one-sided, because Van refers to Shauna as "our friend" only a few minutes later. I think what Shauna really means is "I know that Van was suspicious of my relationship with Tai, and I don't know how much she still holds a grudge, and that makes it really awkward to call and ask her for a favor."

[lurkingshan]

Every You, Every Me

The Final (Real) Story (Part 1)

I am far too distracted by Top’s arms in this tank sweater thing to pay attention to this conversation about Pun and Inn's breakup.

Okay, I did catch one part, though, which is that Pun really doesn't want to do this job anymore but he's worried about how Inn's career will be affected. This feels very meta given some recent Thai BL pair bust ups. Not sure why he chose to break up their romantic relationship but try to maintain the acting partnership in the middle of a project, though. How was that ever going to work??

We've gone a bit back in the overall timeline, I think, because we're watching them film scenes we already saw for Sian and Blue.

I do not like this tall man Pat who keeps scheming. But hey, we get to watch a workshop!

These two are so weird, breaking up one day and flirting on the phone the next. I feel bad for everyone who knows them, they must be exhausting.

This workshop scene is so cool. I love seeing them practice a scene together, and this challenge exercise from the coach is very cool.

HA, take that, Pat! I don't get why the show wants me to care about him and his acting partner, though.

SCREAMING, this scene of Pun and Inn discussing their relationship and how it changed through each pair of characters they performed together is exactly where I hoped this was going. As suspected, the way each set of characters interacted was informed by the state of their real relationship: they had just met and were stiff with each other for the first film, had started flirting and getting more comfortable in the second, began dating by the third, and were in a relationship that was falling apart in the fourth.

Otto, what is with these faces you're pulling, my guy. Please don't tell me you like Pun. Oh buddy.

I'm glad that Inn got to be mad about hearing all this stuff about Pun's career change secondhand, because it really was shitty of Pun to run around telling everyone but his actual partner what he wants. I still don't understand why Pun broke up with Inn if this is what's driving him, and I get why Inn would interpret it all as an excuse to get away from him.

I'm so curious to see how this ends. While the setting for this story is a series of bl film sets and there are clear meta elements here, it doesn't really feel like commentary on or critique of the industry is the point. They simply found a unique way to explore a love story between an actor pair working in the industry, and some of the dynamics that would come up in that situation. I think the ending will be about Pun and Inn's relationship more than anything else.

[alexissara]

The Best Ships of 2024

If i’m anything I am a lover of love. I pretty much only engage stories with some kind of sapphic love element with some rare exceptions for strong ships I've seen, particular cool women with no love interest, or my partners wanting me to check something out. So as always strap in for a collection of sapphics at the very top tier of great to imagine having little dates and shit because this year was a really packed year for amazing women I wanted to to kiss each other. 

The list is not just new ships from 2024 media but any ship that I just happened to get into this year or had something to reinforce it in my life.  If you like you can see last years list https://www.tumblr.com/alexissara/739778084236050433/top-10-ships-of-2023?source=share and if you enjoy my little top 10 lists and want to see the lesbians I make ahead of everyone else go to my patreon https://www.patreon.com/AlexisSara.

10. Falin Touden and Marcille Donato [Delicious In Dungeon]

One of the most canon non canon ships of all time. One can hope that the anime rectifies the manga and has these two kiss in the end. This ship was one of the biggest ships of the year and while I am a contrarian and a hipster I am not immune, I really love these two, their sweet, cute and have a really strong dynamic and a sense that they truly love each other and would do anything for each other as well as a strong sense of attraction to one another. These pretty white women simply are delightful and worth every bit of hype and love they got this year. 

9. Velvet Crowe and Magilou [Tales Of]

I hated the of Tales Of Berseria but I love both these characters so much, they are so much fun and their like just a perfect dynamic. The extra goth edgy girl who eats people with her demon hand and the silly traitor clown girl mage who is always just treating life like it’s a game make for this really fun dynamic. Women deserve edgy OCs and they deserve those Edgy OCs to kiss a cute little silly lil clown girl. I just don’t know what else to say, their just kinda perfect together you know? 

8. Ayaka X Hiriko [Ayaka is In Love With Hiriko]

So this book and show is called Ayaka is in Love With Hiriko so you know it’s about these two doing a romance but the thing is that Hiriko is a stupid ass loser boss and Ayaka has to put her whole pussy into getting this girl to fuck her. I don’t totally love their we need to be in the closet at work kinda deal I think it’s weak to a lot of the other themes in the story but Ayaka and Hiriko genuinely are loaded with charisma and are actual lesbians textually in the narrative which is just rare even for stories with explicit sapphic relationships it’s not normally said out loud as a word and so Idk these two are special to me and their really funny too. 

7. Olive and Callie [My Dragon GF]

This is a ship that could be on a list every year really, since My Dragon Girlfriend debuted Olive it’s been a top tier ship but this years My Dragon Girlfriend gave us a very delicious date chunk of time focused on Callie and Olive doing a date and it was such a fucking cute date so here they are. Trans girl vampire and her cat girl GF it’s just perfect, I don’t know what to say, shy dorky trans girl vampire with her confident cat girl GF and the little ways they interact and feel the life and stuff. I just love them. Every time Courtney puts up little a little smut comic of them or draws them or whatever I am excited, I want these two girls to just ya know be married or whatever, they are the stars of the show to me. 

6. Tama X Koko [Sword Of The Necromancer]

I fucking love these two so fucking much. There is just nothing that beats a woman going to the depths of impossibility to revive the woman she loves no matter the cost, the toll of the consequences, dammit this woman is going to live, that’s not how her story ends and she will save her. That energy, that drive to just say “A World Without Her Isn’t A World Worth Saving” that is the kind of energy that immortalizes a piece of art to me and we see that energy from Tama but then we see Koko’s perspective and she has that same energy. Both of them see each other as this important part of the world, something worth giving up everything for and it’s so special with one of the worlds most amazing payoffs in a game. 

5. Emilia and Valentine [Sunset Phoenix]

Oh to be a magical mob boss with a little butch spy in your pocket who maybe also wants to betray you. These two are a very complicated relationship but ultimately bail each other out of awful situations again and again and again. These two are not dead yet but every piece of the world wants to fucking rip these two to shreads and it’s amazing how they endure everything going on in the plot and how their dynamic shifts over the time of the story. I can’t wait till the second arc of this story and to see if these two get together or not but their gay and their great and it’s so action packed and fucking great. 

4. Honey Trap and Rapid Rabbit [Superwomen In Love]

I finally finished Superwomen in love this year after years of following the series from it’s early scanslations to now and it was even better than I would have expected. These two girls are utterly perfect for each other, their happy ending with explicit love confessions and them raising a kid together is just super sweet and I mean when girls fuse together it’s always a top tier ship. The Kamen Rider fun is great even for me who doesn’t do a Kamen Rider and has no interest in it. Their dates are fun, their desire for each other is fun, their little struggles don’t feel based on just misunderstanding and I really enjoyed the little short body swap story they added too. Their just so damn cute and I love them and I wish there was more of them to enjoy. 

3. Harlivy [The Strange Case of Harleen and Harley Quinn]

Okay, so I didn’t want to repeat any ships this year but there was a new version of Harley and Ivy in the utterly brilliant The Strange Case Of Harleen and Harley Quinn and what am I supposed to do when a brand new version with new origin stories in a YA setting that still lets the characters be radical and cool criminals and be in love since they were teens but gives them a little bit of mess despite a younger audience comes out!  Harleen and Harley both have great dynamics with Ivy, it’s nice to see the different ways they try and support her and also each other. Unlike a classic Dr. Jacklet and Mr. Hyde story the pair of them aren’t really portrayed as “good and bad” side of someone or a “Civilized and wild” side but instead just like alters that live together in the same mind and body. They are different people that have different skills although they draw from similar experiences. Pamala is already in love with Harleen at the start of the story but she falls for Harley right away too even before she realizes they are separate people.  These two are amazing criminal GFs and I love them in every universe basically. 

2. Syliva’s Sapphic Polycule [Potionomics] 

Potionomics put out their Masterworks Edition update and it made it where Sylvia could romance every single character in the game at once if she wanted and therefore making this one of the few games in the world with actual sapphic polyamory possible. While you don’t get to talk about dating other people with each other it’s still a cut above so many other games that simply don’t let you date other women once you’ve locked in.  Syliva’s got chemistry even with the guys in the game but obviously if your a lesbian like me your probably gonna just have her date all the girls and their all fucking fantastic relationships. Sylvia’s gonna keep herself busy between running her shop and kissing all the girls she is dating but she deserves the fun and joy they all bring into her life. All of their little romantic arcs are great and I love how the relationships feel very two sided where you grow through mechanics cuz your relationship with them and they grow in the arc not just being in a relationship with you but growing to some new place in their life. 

1. Sevika X Jinx [Arcane]

Sevika is one of my favorite characters of the year and Jinx is one of my favorite characters just in general. While neither will show up on my best characters list it’s because I didn’t love Arcane Season 2 so I just felt weird putting them there when I have up and down feelings on how they were handled yet, I can’t deny they are here on my top ship and a lot of that is carried by how cool they are. The way Jinx prioritizes getting Sevika her new arm she made for her over saving her own dead brother’s goggles, the way Sevika is willing to risk her life to fight enforcers so that Jinx can finish what she wants, the way Sevika believes in Jinx and wants to see her do things in the world, the way Jinx trusts Sevika without needing to say anything to her, these two are just so good and it really is a relationship between equals which shifts Sevila from her normal dynamic of being under someone. Every scene these two were in together was just a delight, an utter tree and honestly, they wree the heart of this season to me that felt neglected by needing to big up another region of the worlds lore and set up these magic giant stakes that just weren’t needed. Long live Zaun, via la revolution, the people deserve more than one seat at the table.

[homestuckreplay]

dave's gonna be pissed!!

(page 339-343)

I love when a story introduces a few separate and seemingly unrelated elements, and then gathers them all together in a neat conclusion that's even more satisfying because it's kind of unexpected. Homestuck does this on a really small scale - for example, the Sassacre book crushing the smoke pellets on p.96 bringing together John's sylladex accidents, the father-son prankster's gambit, and the two previous mentions of the Sassacre book's ability to crush things. But this is my favorite example yet.

A pattern is established with John and Rose that each character gets a command formatted as [strange noise/action] like a [creature] and [bodily function] on your [furniture]. Neither of these are relevant.

Dave's command is 'Bleat like a goat and piss on your turntable'. (p.315) but Dave 'would never consider allowing any fluid even remotely resembling urine to touch your beloved TURNTABLES.'

John gets a Little Monsters movie poster for his birthday and messages Dave about his favorite scene, where a monster pees in a kid's juice.

Later in the story, we see Dave find the bottle of apple juice in his closet that he found at the same moment that he was inspired to message John.

The Sburb Beta discs are established early on as a coveted item in the world of Homestuck, its importance increasing until it becomes the only item that can save the world.

Dave, who had a copy of this game before its true importance was established, reveals that he has lost it, and that 'its a stupid story and id rather not talk about it shit be embarrassing yo' (p.294)

All this comes together very delightfully when Dave finds himself unable to drink his unopened bottle of apple juice, unsettled by John's suggestion that a monster could reseal the bottle after pissing in it. He puts the juice back in his sylladex and immediately picks up another item, which forcefully ejects the juice, explaining the story of how Dave's game discs got damaged and fulfilling the prophecy of allowing a fluid resembling urine to touch his turntables.

This comic is basically engineered in a lab to be like one of those photo galleries of tiles that perfectly interlock and candy that's arranged in a perfect color gradient, it scratches the same itch. It's a storytelling technique that has infinite potential, but only works if it's spot on.

The Dave characterization here is really striking. Little Monsters is a movie where monsters under kids' beds are 100% real supernatural entities that make use of weird spatial/dimensional rules to play mean pranks on kids. Despite his obvious coolness and mastery of irony, and how dismissive he is of John's movie based interests. Dave can't shake the part of his brain that's like 'but what if monsters are real, what if there's one under my bed too'. I think he's like Rose in terms of meticulously constructing a personality that feels more 'adult', but their more childish aspects still slipping through the cracks (and nothing shows this better than their conversation on p.333 where they sound like they're rehearsing dialogue for the stage).

I've been thinking about John embodying characters from all his favorite movies, but maybe Dave is actually the Brian Stevenson parallel, right down to the sunglasses.

[zarathelonewolf]

I cannot for the life of me figure out something about the Angel in Gachiakuta.

It seems to be Tamzy Caines, right? That's what was revealed. However...

Why would he "rescue" Amo, give her the boots?

Why????

I mean, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I have read people say that Tamzy may have volatile feelings (maybe he wanted to share the cake but then something in his head cackled hysterically and he chose not to), but he seems almost always cool and collected to me. Not the way Zodyl is, but still pretty calm, and he can hide his fears and homicidal tendencies very well.

Why. Did. He. Help. Amo. That. One. Time.

Why.

Is it part of a bigger plan? Here are my theories. They aren't necessarily separate and independent, maybe there are true elements in both of them.

Theory 1: Don't bite on more than what you can chew

A hypothesis I have is that Tamzy had given the Watchman series Jinki to various people: one Jinki for each of them.

If my theory is correct, Regto was killed because he had the gloves... AND the book. Maybe he wasn't meant to have the book and that's why Tamzy DID take the book, but didn't take the gloves away from Rudo: the gloves WERE supposed to belong with Regto and whoever he chose as family.

Perhaps Amo received the boots because, much like Regto, the man who held her in the tower after their "marriage" (blegh) had stolen the boots... and she hadn't. I also think she had a greater potential to cause harm, so Tamzy chose her as a more suitable owner for the Watchman series.

When she failed... when she wasn't violent anymore... Tamzy attacked her, and segregated her.

Notice that I am speaking about violent tendencies. I am doing so because Rudo, according to Semiu's, Tamzy's own observations and those of other characters, has something dark growing within him. Maybe Tamzy wants people like these to own the Watchman series. That's why he "allows", in my opinion, Zodyl to own the coat, why he allowed Amo to own the boots, Regto the gloves.

But, here's the thing! Regto wasn't a violent individual at all during the moments we see him. So maybe Tamzy didn't simply attack him because he had the book, but because he wasn't a suitable pawn anymore, as well.

Theory 2: Stairway to Heaven and Hell

A theory I have is that the Watchman series itself gives someone the potential to cross the border and live. Not an absolute guarantee that you're gonna cross it, but it can increase your chances. It may or may not be connected to what I have just observed, about someone's "aptitude/level of violence desired" for the role of Watchman-series-custodian.

The theory comes from the fact that Tamzy was able to cross the border, just like Rudo, even if they did so by going in opposite directions; and while Rudo certainly had the gloves on, we don't know if Tamzy had the book with him.

When Tamzy went up, it was months before he killed Regto. Did Regto notice that Tamzy was looking at Rudo suspiciously? Did he steal the book, or ask to receive the book under a false pretense? Did Tamzy realize that it was to try and keep him from Rudo, so he killed Regto for that reason?

When he has the book, Tamzy returns to the surface. But not before. Amo doesn't seem to hint at seeing the Angel more than that one time when she received the boots. Which makes me assume that Tamzy stayed on the Sphere for a while, saw Rudo, was antagonized by Regto directly or indirectly due to his twisted "love" (supposedly because he had found the perfect match for a piece of the Watchman series, and possibly the rest of them), killed Regto, got the book he had lent back and then went back to the ground.

And after that, he stopped moving in order to monitor Rudo.

There is a creature that guards the border. Maybe Tamzy serves it. But it seems to me that he was born on the Sphere, which the Manga says he hates, so a possible allegiance with the creature may have come later, instead of Tamzy being it's simple offshoot. It could otherwise be hypothesized that the creature is worshiped by Tamzy, who considers people that survive meeting the being "blessed" and worthy of consideration, of "love".

... I lost myself halfway in this ramble. Ignore it if it's too confusing.

[jinjojess]

Jess's Post-First Scenario Hundred Line Thoughts

Okay, I’ve beaten the first scenario, so let’s talk about Hundred Line.

The tl;dr is that I think the game is good overall, and if you can get past some of the weaker bits and Kodaka Being Kodaka (in the annoying sense), then I’d recommend trying it out.

The big caveat is that it’s a demanding time commitment, so if you are not someone who enjoys DanRon, or if you are burnt out on DanRon, you might not have a great time. 

Also since I’ve only seen a portion of the game so far it’s hard to give a full-on critique of the entire thing, so I reserve the right to revise my opinion in the future.

Anyway, continue below for in-depth, spoiler-laden talk.

Let’s get a couple things out of the way before we start.

First, I am playing the game in Japanese. This means that certain details might differ from the localized versions and it also means I don’t know what the hell anything is called in the loc. I debated looking it up, but I don’t really want to spoil myself accidentally, so we’re all just going to have to do the best we can to understand each other. (It’s thematic!)

Second, as frustrated as I get about the hallmarks of Kodaka’s style that annoy the shit out of me, I am not rooting for him to fail. In fact, I have bought every single TooKyo game either when it came out or shortly after it came out, at full price. The only properties of TooKyo’s I haven’t experienced at this point are Akudama Drive (because Tsutaya is being systemically eradicated over here meaning I would have to commit to buying a blu-ray to watch it instead of being able to rent), and Tribe Nine, because I just haven’t had time to check it out (plus it’s again an anime on YouTube and a FTP gatcha, so I feel like "support" in this case is more incidental).

Hundred Line is a lot more DanRon than the other games I’ve played so far from the studio. Rain Code was overwhelmingly Fine in my opinion; there were some ideas and elements there that I thought were cool or interesting, but overall it felt very run-of-the-mill, 6/10 type fare. Aside from Harara, I didn’t really care about most of the characters, and while I sometimes enjoyed solving mysteries in the moment-to-moment gameplay (especially in the first couple chapters), my resounding feeling on it was just “meh”. Not bad, but not great. 

Compared to that, I’m way more invested in Hundora (I’m going to use the Japanese naming convention going forward because it’s shorter and rolls off the tongue). I don’t know if I can clearly articulate why I feel that way, but I have suspicions, one of which is that I’ve had enough of a break to no longer be burnt out by my disgust at DR3’s ending and V3’s epilogue. Hundora manages to capture a lot of the same feel of a DanRon, but without a lot of the inherent setbacks of a DanRon, which I’ll outline a bit later. It’s structured differently, and has different pacing and focus, and I think that works to its benefit by making it at once both familiar and novel.

Now, this could obviously change as the game goes on; if somewhere in there is an ultimate ending similar to V3’s cop-out epilogue–the best part (and only part I unabashedly respect) of V3 is the fiction twist and the characters’ decision on how to ultimately resolve the conflict, so undoing the latter part of it in the final moments of the game is just something I will never get over. Sorry. 

(I’d also be less mad about the Akamatsu thing if we actually got a go-getter, highly motivated girl as a protag somewhere else, but I’m beginning to just accept the fact that Kodaka does not have it in him to do that. Ah well.)

But let’s stop this aimless musing and be a bit more organized, shall we?

Presentation:

In a vacuum, Hundred Line is not that impressive graphically. I think it looks fine, but I also see people pointing to what I think are fairly decent graphics and calling them shit, so I don’t know if I’m the best benchmark to judge that type of thing for anyone else. It’s not difficult to notice things like sprites hovering off the ground, some artifacting here and there, and the models aren’t blazing any trails in terms of detail or animation, but I’ve always been a champion of art direction over fidelity to realism, so I actually think the look works well.

There’s an intention to using the 2.5D style of 2D sprites in a 3D rendered environment (chief among the intentions being invoking DanRon’s aesthetics), and the “cheapness” feels less like a budget limitation and more like a choice. I’m also genuinely the type of person who wants shorter games with worse graphics by well-paid devs, and I am happy to put my money where my mouth is on that. While Hundred Line obviously isn’t a shorter game by any means, it’s very obvious that the budget went into the variety of art assets and into the script, and I think that’s great! I’m happy to have games that prioritize other aspects over just how it looks.

Similar to DanRon, the 2.5D approach makes everything feel like you’re in a little diorama, which has a way of evoking claustrophobia even as you spend a lot of this game outside and even away from the school for sections. I suspect this is intended as a purposeful juxtaposition to further the themes. 

Music:

The music in this game is kind of unnerving in a way. It’s so resoundingly DanRon bgm that you just kind of settle into it, but then they’ll throw something at you like the Aotsuki boss fight song, Rumble, and you’re left stunned. 

For like 90% of the game so far, if you like the music in DR up through V3, then you’ll probably like the music here.

Rumble read to me as a bit of a mess to start, but after listening to it a few times, I’ve come around to liking it. My girlfriend says it feels very purposefully composed, with disparate elements coming together over the course of the song and finally settling into a harmonious unity in the final minute or so. Obviously this is a pretty good metaphor for the characters in the game and the situation they find themselves in, so I applaud that.

The lyrics feel a touch…unsubtle, but to be fair, they share that with other songs that I’ve been wanting to listen to a lot lately like Packtion’s 1985, so I can forgive it. I do think it’s funny that Persona-esque English usage is so prevalent, though. 

If there’s more weird stuff like that in here, I’m down for it.

Gameplay:

This is the elephant in the room, I think, when it comes to getting people on board for this game. Guys, we saw how this went for Digimon Survive; if people are coming to Hundora for the tactical gameplay, they are going to be disappointed. And then they’re going to get annoyed at all the people online who insisted this was the next Fire Emblem or Devil Survivor. (Real things I have seen people say, insanely enough.)

Is the combat fun? I mean, I guess, sometimes. It makes for a nice little break from the back-and-forth between characters, but it’s nowhere near as inventive as what DanRon was doing with the trials, and it gets stale pretty darn fast.

Nate remarked on this when he played Another Episode, and I think Hundora suffers from the same issue: it’s too easy. I didn’t notice it in Another Episode because I’m not good at 3rd person shooting games, but I am competent at tactical rpgs, and Hundora’s battles are just not it. Once you understand how the mechanics work, which doesn’t take particularly long, you can crack most fights in record time. Even quicker if you abuse certain mechanics like items. The enemy AI seems okay, often rushing to attack your squishier backline fighters, but there’s a number of ways to deal with the AI without having to think too hard about it.

The only fight that’s given me trouble so far is the final boss fight against Aotsuki, and even then I got him on the second try.

I don’t know, maybe I’m missing something? Maybe the fights ramp up later on in the game in other scenarios? Unsure. 

Besides the difficulty issue, the tactics are pretty straightforward. There’s really not too much you need to juggle, and while I do like the Certain Death Finisher mechanic where when somebody’s HP gets low they can do a big attack that takes them out of the fight until the next wave, it’s lacking the depth of other strategic rpgs. You can’t choose what roles your units have by selecting some skills over others, they don’t get stat gains, there’s no equipment, terrain basically doesn’t play a role at all, you can’t do combined attacks using positioning, and you don’t get to choose who to bring or where they start on the map.  

All of that is fine, because the tactics are not the main point of the game anyway, but I do not get what the people praising the gameplay are talking about. It’s a great visual novel with some light tactical combat gameplay! You don’t have to try to sell it as something it’s not!

To me, Hundora is less like a tactical rpg with all the genre conventions you might expect, and more like a grid-based combat puzzle. You have to look at the units you’ve got, what they can do, how they can cover each others’ weaknesses, etc. That is also fun, but it’s not what I was expecting when I heard “SRPG” in the description. 

I also suspect some of the difficulty in the boss fights comes from not having any clue what the boss is going to do beforehand, in a similar way to how a run of a pokemon game can be challenging from not knowing the gym leaders’ teams and moves ahead of time. Is this Captain going to hop around the map? Are they going to beef up the surrounding troops? Are they going to mess with your perception so you have to pay more attention to what you’re doing? I’m interested to see how this might evolve as the game goes on and you’re already wise to the approach.

Anyway the tactical RPG segments are Fine. They’re there, they do what they need to I suppose, but they can get a bit tedious after awhile, especially when you’re out exploring the ruins or trying to grind BP at the VR machine. It’s definitely not a draw, at least for me.

I suppose the other main gameplay mechanic is the choice system, but I’m not too deep into that at this point. As always, I respect a game that will give me an ending for choosing not to play at the start, though that goodwill got a bit rescinded when the game asked me if I was going to time travel and then essentially told me I had to when I tried to say No both times.

Right now it’s kind of a wash, lol.

Characters:

Oh, you thought the last section was long? Well, buckle up. 

This is mostly just going to be about how I feel about the characters and their roles in the story so far; I’ll get out a different post with stuff like their personal pronouns and how they address people, and I’ll definitely rate how dumb their names are, because HOO BOY there are some real good ones in here.

Sumino Takumi: Sumino is the quintessential Kodaka protagonist–a normal boy, who lives a normal life, who is a bit more chill than the average person. I’m pretty meh on him, and his protag powers are sometimes egregious (let me give Aotsuki’s blood to Kako! She’s the one who won the fight!), but he leans more Hinata than Naegi or Saihara, so I find him personally less annoying than the latter two. I guess he’s had a bit of character development over the first scenario, though his raison d'etre is still the same at this point. I can forgive that because there’s a lot of room for him to still grow in the other scenarios, and he’s doing an okay job as the audience stand-in. Not much else to say about him, really.

Aotsuki Eito: Whew, thank god the cloying togetherness stuff turned out to be a ruse. He was fine enough during the first scenario, and towards the beginning I thought it’d be interesting if he became the leader instead of the player, but I like him infinitely more as an embodiment of misanthropy. The fact that we have to still deal with him in every timeline makes for an interesting conflict point, and I’m excited to see what happens there. 

me when the work meeting goes over time

Yakushiji Takemaru: This is one of those archetypes I just enjoy: the tough, buff guy with a heart of gold. Outside of his training for Ginzaki and his rivalry with Shizuhara, he isn’t super prevalent in the story as a driving force, but that’s okay. Hoping he gets to really stand out in other routes, since he’s one of the characters who shows a lot of his relationship to people outside of the player. 

Amemiya Darumi: I feel like she’s intended to be annoying, but I dunno, I didn’t really have too much of an issue with her. She really stuck to her guns about going against the grain, and she’s the self-insert of the DanRon fan: a pathos-lover of questionable mental health. She injects a lot of needed levity in places, and some unneeded levity in other places, but she’s also the most genre-savvy of the group, which lets her fill the spot Monokuma normally would. (She was also integral in me beating Aotsuki at the end of scenario 1, and was a reliable unit for the entire game, so there’s that, too.) So far I feel like if you don’t enjoy her you can avoid her pretty easily.

Shizuhara Hiruko: This is my bitch, right here. I was cursing the game out when she promised to tell the truth of what’s happening the following day, because I knew that would mean she would be punted from the story. I’d be more upset about this if there weren’t more routes to play, but since there are, I dealt with it. Anyway I love a lady who’s cold, intelligent, competent, and badass, and the fact that it seems that she’s carrying a heavier weight to protect the others adds some humanity to her. Haven’t read her side story yet; will likely do so after finishing the game.

Kawana Tsubasa: I have very fond feelings for Kawana that are completely emergent from how useful she is in battle. Well, not completely. I do like that she’s got a skill that she uses often for the good of the team, and her personality is upbeat enough to offset some of the less genki folks in the cast, but she often can play the straight man well to other, goofier characters. Plus her design is adorable. I hope she gets some more chances to shine in the pathos department going forward.

Maruko Gaku: While I don’t dislike any of the characters, Maruko is probably my least favorite. You’re obviously intended to dislike him early on as he’s rude and cowardly and shallow, and he shows more of a likable side as time goes on. He’s probably the one I have the most “well, he’s nakama…” feelings about, but he can be amusing and I’m open to him having more depth in other routes. 

Ginzaki Shouma: At the very start of the game I could not stand his self-deprecating schtick, but once you instill fighting spirit into him and he starts taking care of the captive, he becomes a lot more likable. By the end of the first scenario, I actually really appreciated his more gentle approach to disagreements, and I like to think about the kind of relationship he has to the other characters. Hope I get to see that side of him more going forward. As a side note, his skill of being incredibly tough is also lifted wholesale from the main character of the delinquent manga Kodaka was involved in, Guren Five.

Tsukumo Ima: The trick to getting me to like your Ogata Megumi-voiced trickster twink is to make him care about a character outside of the protagonist, apparently. (I was also humbled recently when a friend who’s playing now told me last weekend that Ima’s speech pattern of using っす “reminds her of me”.) Ima’s great; he’s less annoying than an Ouma or a Komaeda because he’s not constantly underfoot, but he’s sarcastic and cutting enough to be interesting. He’s clearly a kid who is confident but also visibly desperate, and I’m all about that.

Tsukumo Kako: I really didn’t like Kako for quite a while, until she started to have more of her own personality. I love that she’s trying to play detective and I love even more that she’s not especially good at it. At first she was reserved and shy, but as time goes on, she has pretty keen insights and is one of the few characters who doesn’t fall into the trap of going all in on just one possibility. Her becoming unhinged about Ima’s death was also fantastic. Kako feels a bit like she could make a compelling bid for protagonist, honestly. My turnaround on her was a real 180.

Oosuzuki Kurara: Man, I love Kurara-chan. Even when she’s starting a fight for no reason, I love her. She’s mean, funny, and absolutely integral to me getting S ranks in battles. Why does her mask emote? Who knows? Who cares? I want a recipe for her curry. Her relationship to the other 2nd School folks, Nozomi in particular, is so juicy and multi-layered. I have mixed feelings about her “real” personality being a shy crybaby, because while that adds some fun psychological elements to how she sees herself and her relationship to the responsibilities her lineage puts on her, it’s also kind of doesn’t sit super great to imply that the ideal personality for a girl is to be demure. 

Omokage Yugamu: I like him a lot more than I thought I would. Even from the jump, he’s a fascinating, somewhat menacing presence, and the way he thinks feels reminiscent of Hijirihara from Killer Killer, but less masculine. I can’t hate a guy that says 殺れ殺れ in a textbox! That’s a hilarious bit! Again, like with Kawana, he’s got some real world skills that come in really clutch for the team, so there’s a fun, somewhat fraught relationship between him and the other characters.

Magadori Kyoshika: I said this on Twitter, but Magadori has that good Chabashira energy: she’s dumb, but she’s trying her best. It makes her immensely charming, and I love every time she’s on screen. One of the goofier characters, I love that she’s allowed to be so damn funny. That one cutscene where Nozomi is having a horrible realization about being mind-controlled in the foreground, and Magadori is being prevented from committing seppuku in the background had me rolling. I love her. I hope there are more routes that break her emotionally.

Kirifuji Nozomi: This is exceptionally funny to me because my girlfriend and I have a Kirigiri/Junko lovechild OC named Nozomi. But anyway, I like her. I like how she has alliances and feelings for people outside of just the player, and I am a fan of people who will stick to their principles. She’s ready and willing to throw down and sacrifice things, and she’s a woman of action, not just words. Nozomi would make an excellent protagonist, but it’d be harder to conceal key plot points from the player, so I get why they didn’t go that route. The fact that she’s out there fighting at a lower strength than everyone else, without the ability to regen, is really metal. Hell yeah, girl.

※ Will put my thoughts on Kashimiya Karua here too, I guess. I could be wrong, but I don’t actually think that Nozomi and Karua are the same person. Regardless, here’s what I think of her. I did not feel positively toward Karua at the start of the game because I do not like wilting flower, pwease pwotect me!-type damsels, but in Sumino’s memories she’s a lot more quirky and interesting. My frustration is that she just seems fated to be a motivator for the main character in that really forced Combat The Falling Birthrate way, and I can only hope that we get a Spire in the Woods-level self-awareness ending out of it.

Mojiro Moko: I liked what I saw of her? I love a big, bombastic personality, and she’s not the conventionally attractive girl archetype so that’s always nice. In a DanRon game I’d be pissed the noble buff character sacrificed herself before you even meet her, but since there’s other routes I can hope that she’ll actually get a chance to, y’know, exist. Open to more Mogojyan.

I don’t have much to say about Sirei and Nigou besides the fact that it makes me so mad that they decided to use Hepburn romanization for the latter but not the former. 

In summary, the characters are all pretty good! Even the ones I was feeling more negatively toward in the beginning grew on me over time. I think this is a nicely balanced cast that blends well.

Story:

I’m not too far into my second run, but I think the premise for Hundora is really interesting and worth doing. I can’t say I enjoy the half-joking self-aggrandizement Kodaka is putting out as part of the marketing campaign, but I respect the sheer scope of the undertaking. Time will tell if it really lives up to fulfilling the promise Distrust originally made or not, but regardless I will always tip my hat at a dev team taking a maximalist approach to game design. 

One thing I can say in Kodaka’s favor is that he usually does a good job of setting up a hook to get the player invested in learning more about what’s going on. Here, since Sirei gets taken out so quickly, you’re dealing with way less info than usual, and there are smaller twists that happen throughout the duration of the 100 days to keep the player guessing and pull them forward. There’s enough time between when certain concepts are introduced and when they’re answered, such as the traitor, to be less obvious. (That said, I was kind of reminded of the Sailor Moon Abridged skit where they’re like “Who do you think the MOON princess is, Sailor MOON?” what with Aotsuki’s name and the fact that he’s Nozomi’s major opposition right before the climax.) I don’t think they needed to bring up the Karua dad funeral again before the reveal of the surgery scar, though. I’d have appreciated Kodaka having a bit more faith in the audience to remember that when it came up.

I had guessed that what was in the defense room was going to be a time machine, or something more meta like a pen/keyboard, and in a way I suppose I was right? I will admit that while I did sniff out Aotsuki as the traitor, I did not anticipate him eating a baby right in front of everyone, so good job getting me there.

One of Hundora’s biggest strengths is that for all the similarities, it breaks the usual DanRon formula. While you know going in that there will be 100 days, there’s no “usual murder pattern” to give any meta hints on what might occur. Thanks to this, the turns that happen in the first scenario feel better foreshadowed than some of the things in, say, V3 or DR3, since there’s no existing template to use as a cheatsheet. It lets things unfold in a more natural way, though there are some places where you can see the invisible hand of the author guiding it (e.g., Kawana spraining her ankle the night before the big Ima rescue mission so the player can participate). 

I’m not sure how I feel about the length of the game; on one hand, it’s a good way to really give the story some room to breathe instead of having everything crunched into a couple of weeks, and you can get some nice character moments and interactions in there. On the other though, I think 100 days might have been too many. Maybe two months would have been preferable? Hard to say. Obviously you don’t live through every single day in its entirety, and I am giving the benefit of the doubt here that they’re doing a Yoko Taro thing here where the player’s suffering is part of the thematic expression of the game, but still I would have liked a bit less fluff.

While it’s good that you can have your fill of putzing around doing free time activities, I started to lose steam around the 50s or so. Feels like a waste to not use the opportunity to have small chats with the characters, do the board-game excursions, make presents, or grind BP to level folks up, but at the same time I think there’s just a touch too much of it. You’ve got days that feel like they go on forever (Day 87, looking at you…) and then just long stretches of nothing in particular for several days. 

I assume that since they allow you to keep your character upgrades in the new timelines (with the slightly clumsy diegetic explanation that Sumino time traveling is resonating with everyone’s weird blood), you can feel less and less obligated to fill all those hours without skipping some, but we shall see. 

Another common issue with DanRon games is that you always inevitably end up with characters who get less screentime and attention, because they get removed from the story early on. Having multiple routes here means that you get a lot more chances to know the characters under various conditions and circumstances, which for me is a big plus. 

The first scenario ends up landing on a place that I respect, though it’s in some ways ideologically opposed to my own outlook on life. Whereas I think the intended message was “Don’t be idle; be the change you want to be! It’s never too late!”, the material reality of the circumstances is a bit more muddied and can read as: never sit with your regrets–just go back and change them! My personal belief is in not having regrets–not because I’m ignoring anything I regret, but because I want to use what I learned for future decisions, and to grow and move on. Obviously I don’t live in a reality where I’m a conscripted child soldier with magic blood powers, so there’s obviously different issues at play, but ultimately, if you want to look more into the thematics of what the story is trying to leave the player with, I think you need to grapple with it. That perfect Golden End might not exist, and I think the story will be weaker overall if it does.

This messaging about taking action and not just accepting your role as a pawn, of course, makes a lot of sense for a Japanese audience: people who culturally are less likely to want to rock the boat for fear of what might get worse, but to be honest it feels just as targeted at any society, the U.S. included. I won’t go into a lot of detail here, but yeah. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck their friends, and such.

This kind of brings me neatly to my next point, which is more a hope for future routes than anything else. The game uses a lot of iconography and visual cues that are very Showa-era-coded, which leans into fashy aesthetics. The fact that they’re called the “Special Defense Unit”, echoing the “Special Attack Units” (i.e., kamikaze) of WWII really hit me hard when I heard it for the first time. The Eternal Flames call to mind the ruins of firebombed Tokyo. There are air raid-style emergency sirens. The key to victory is a horrific weapon that wipes out life indiscriminately. Characters must don their very gendered, extremely Japanese school uniforms, complete with geta boots for the guys, in order to conform to the Look. They’re literal teens who were conscripted (aside from Nozomi, supposedly) to fight a war with extremely high stakes, manufacturing consent by dangling the safety of loved ones in front of them and pretending there are no other choices. The blase attitude toward death because of the regen machine is thrown into sharp relief as killing your own units becomes one of the most effective tactics in a battle.

There’s a narrative dissonance going on with what the story is trying to say and what it is depicting, and I’m enjoying it a lot. If it turns out it isn’t intentional, then well, shame on me, but for now I want to believe that this is being done purposefully. I want it to be a modern take on the black comedy Nihon Igai Zenbu Chinbotsu (a short story from 1973, which was adapted to a film I adore that released in 2006), which itself is a critique on the overly dramatic, Nihonjinron-soaked 1973 novel, Nihon Chinbotsu and its associated media (including that anime that came out in 2019). Won’t get into the weeds here, but essentially, what I am hoping for is a scathing critique of how Japan sees itself and its own history/culture. 

Clearly there’s a lot more to go, and as I said before, my feelings on this may change as I progress, but for now I think there’s some good set-up here to say some interesting things. Some subversive things, even.

Other Stuff:

This is a mishmosh of other thoughts I had that didn’t fit anywhere else, really.

As I mentioned earlier, I do not think that Karua and Nozomi are the same person. That explanation is too simple and is too close to big twists we’ve had before (same reason I don’t think Nozomi is Karua’s long-lost twin). What I think is happening is that Nozomi is Karua’s daughter. Maybe she’s a clone daughter, hence the extreme similarity, but regardless I just feel like the comment about Sumino holding her the way he does when she’s dying makes me think that he was a friend of the family, or maybe even the “dad”, who knew her as a baby or young child or something. Since it kind of seems from that weird comment on Day 2 where Sumino is giving himself the mirror test that he might not be the OG person (expels a long sigh and says the line from The 6th Day), it’s possible he and the others were cloned as meat sacks for the iketsu and cryogenically frozen until they were needed, which happened to be when Nozomi was around the same age. She doesn’t remember an attack on the Tokyo Danchi, perhaps because she was coming at this from the current day and not the past. (That is, if the attack happened at all, and wasn’t a hallucination to manufacture consent in the conscripts.) She also doesn’t recognize the name Karua, so either she wasn’t as close to her mom as we were led to believe, or Karua maybe changed her name to hide her real identity. 

I love the way the characters will gaslight themselves into some course of action, repeat that they can’t do anything else, or that this must be the case, only to almost immediately be proven wrong. It’s so funny every time, and it’s obviously downstream from the cultural programming they’ve all had.

Adore the scene where Sumino, who’s been running around in a hoodie with English on it this entire time, looks at Aotsuki in confusion and goes “What’s a foreign language?” (My headcanon is that the official language of humanity in this universe is a pidgin blend of mostly Japanese and some English.)

I want Nozomi and Moko-chan to make out, and then I want Kurara to be jealous about it.

Few things in this game made me laugh harder than the CG of Aotsuki lying evilly under Sumino’s bed. Just bug the room, my dude!

If one of these routes isn’t the death game Amemiya wanted, I will be very disappointed. 

Sumino at the end of the first route being all “wah, I have nothing left to go back to!” when we met his mom in the opening. I guess that’s very accurate to how a 17 year old might feel in that situation, but I did roll my eyes. 

Speaking of, I can’t help but notice that Sumino Mama has an ahoge…

I don’t think they’re on earth at all. I think that given the Imperial Japanese look and feel going on, the characters are colonists, and the shinkousei are the real natives to the planet. 

Does the rocket coming back with the recorded message from the other characters getting got (happy space journey everyone) indicate that time travel works in a Homestuck way, where the doomed timelines will wither and disappear, or does it indicate that this is just a parallel reality that will persist but not be visitable by anyone else?

Me, fighting Aotsuki in the gym early in the second loop, watching him give himself a defense boost despite that I have an armor piercing move: Use defense curl all you want, Squirtle, I’ll win this the old fashioned way.

I’ve been referring to ghost boy as Benedetto until he gets a name. Yes, The Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favorite books.

—---------------------------------------

So yeah, that’s about it. Long-winded, but I think that’s most of what I was intending to say. 

Like I mentioned, there will likely be some other posts soon about dumb names and stuff like that, but for now I’m gearing up for another week of work.

[jewishcissiekj]

hi let's talk about her

Honestly I have so much to say about her. so much. so here's some of it

-Asajj (NOT VENTRESS THAT'S HER LAST NAME ISTG PEOPLE JUST HATE USING HER ACTUAL NAME AND IDK WHY I GUESS IT'S A COOL NAME BUT ASAJJ IS ALSO A COOL NAME AND)

-Asajj was last seen in canon in the Dark Disciple novel. Where she died. I would never recommend that book to anyone so if you haven't read it yet please don't. In short, after becoming a Bounty Hunter in The Clone Wars she grew out her hair, got a cool yellow Lightsaber and for some reason teamed up with Quinlan Vos to try and kill Dooku. They didn't manage to do it. And Asajj died (was fridged) trying to protect Quinlan. The Bad Batch will not contradict that, as was said by the creators. So this is just a summary for anyone who hasn't read it because I wholeheartedly believe that book is bad

-I have not watched a single Bad Batch episode in my life. As a disclaimer. I started the first one, watched their TCW arc and saw memes screenshots clips and spoilers but I do not know this show. I will watch it now that Asajj's there tho

-She does not have the same outfit anymore! It's a change, and we haven't gotten a clear look at her new design so idk how to judge it yet. Might be to look less recognizable, but it has a very different vibe than any of her prior outfits. There's a leftover shoulder pad and probably some other stuff from her last design but I feel like they kinda clash with the new one and tbb's design language in general. The Bounty Hunter look has a very TCWish feel to it and this one is a sharp turn in another, much more casual direction. I'm not inherently against it but I guess we'll see how it looks in action soon

-In my opinion the hair looks like shit. I don't think she should have hair ever. I don't understand why she can't be bald. Why is she bald when she's evil and has hair when she's a padawan (good) and when she is "redeemed"? guess we'll never know. It's a leftover from the cancelled Dark Disciple TCW arc design (and the Dark Disciple cover and promotional material ofc) and it's bad if you ask me but to each their own and if you like it good for you

-Her Lightsaber!!!!! Same case as the hair in terms of irl development but I like it so much better. The yellow just fits her character and it's pretty. Would love for her to find another one and get back to dual-wielding (I know that won't happen)

-The bag and pouches make me so happy as a design element do you think she carries a (tooka) cat in there

-Now, visually she looks great and the animation style is smoother and nicer than TCW (as is the quality), but what about the direction the character's going in? I didn't like her being dead before, but I felt like it was somewhat better than her being shoved into being a cameo character in new content. If you can't touch her after a certain point, you also can't mess her up. But I do wonder where they're going with her. A few questions:

-Asajj in canon is a directionless character. Also, a partially nonsensical and inconsistent character in her choices and storylines. I've talked about it a lot but in short she just feels messy. What's her purpose in life? Her motive? Her origin story doesn't really make sense, even. She's a Bounty Hunter, sure, but why? If all she wants is revenge on Dooku and maybe money (which was pretty much the case in Dark Disciple), what's she doing after the Empire? And more importantly, why?

-Obviously, the question I haven't asked yet because I don't like it: How the fuck is she alive? Nightsisters have a weird relationship with death but seriously, how?

-She's a Force User after the Rise of the Empire now, so what does he do about that? Is she founding The Path? Fucking around and finding out? Making a not-Jedi-not-Sith order with other force users she finds? Is the Empire after her? Do they know she's live?

-What about her girlfriend? Is Latts Razzi safe? Is she alright?

-Why is she in The Bad Batch show? Are we making her into a cameo character or is there a purpose? Why'd they bring her back? For fun? What is she doing after the show? Floating in dead space? Cameo-ing? Will we have a book?

-OK enough for tonight but if we see Quinlan Vos in the show I'll become violent (/neg). We probably will (he might just get mentioned idk).

[majorproblems77]

Sacred realm update! And We have LORE!

Hello!

We get the information on what that carving is! And I love it! Lore is my fave and I am just buzzing to get my teeth into this because oh man yes lore.

Alright, now for the important stuff! Sacred realm belongs to @zelda-the-sacred-realm, and all art from the comics belongs to the comic artist. I've got their permission to do these! I love the comic so much its so good and so well done!

The link to the update can be found here! You should go reblog it, it's great, give it some love, please? [but remember this is its own Zelda comic, so please tag it as such! <3]

Now, Get some snacks and a drink, and lets go!

Link is literally me, exactly my thoughts my man exactly my thoughts.

Oh? That's interesting! So my theroy on the last update was incorrect, i like this better come on then Time,

Leans forward - Tell me everything.

He calls him Birdbrain

I repeat

Time calls Sky birdbrain

Time calls Sky birdbrain i love it so much Oh my god these guys know each other from something 100% you wouldn't call someone who you've known for like 5 minutes that.

Also more innocent Cinamon roll link alert. This isn't a drill

Oooh cool spell! It appears to appear from his amulet.

Time also appears to embody an Ice/water element. A pure opposite/neutraliser of Fire.

You know I think I can see more why Sky and Time might not get on as much. there's friction between them And I see these elemental powers as not only their source of power but as a metaphorical representation of relationships.

Time dosent appear to like Time, and Fire dosent like water.

[This is another theory that I need more information about before I can talk about it more. But when we get it I shall share more.]

What a fascinating explanation. Ice is wack and really cool. But you know what Ice also does.

Hides.

And I think Ice, is used deliberately, Let me explain.

So When I think of Ice I think of two things, small crystals and Icebergs. Small Ice does something very specific, but is also VERY detailed.

[I have a science background so I won't go into too much detail, but I will say, the structure of ice, Is VERY pretty. Just think about a snowflake, they are just ice crystals.]

Then on the opposite end, you have these MASSIVE structures of ice which are even larger under the sea. This information we have here to me could just be that initial bit we can see. As Time says It has "Numerous facets, each different from the others."

Time even says that what we have on this wall, are only the main ones.

Something to think about.

Do you mean like that realm covered in water where you fight Demise in Skyward Sword? That's the vibe I get from this.

Maybe when Sky feels better we should speak to him about this?

So we all can see fierce deity here. And that other guy, now that I think about it looks an awful lot like someone we know, no?

He looks like the Black knight

I went looking for information on the black knight and found this page (black knight information from the artist)

So like The black knight and Fierce Deity are brothers?

Cause if I've understood that right, and that's correct. This changes A lot of what happens next. And we are going to need Time and Sky to get along to be able to fight it. You know, As they've both fought gods. And are the most experienced to do so.

Is that where our big bad from RIGHT back at the start of the comic lives. It would certainly make sense.

Have I ever mentioned how much I like Hylia's and Fierce Deity designs in this AU cause I love it.

Well we know what happens to Fierce, at least at the moment we can assume he's safely secured inside the deity mask that Time carries.

Hello not friend

who are you? what are you doing

Did Fierce betray this mystery figure, or did this mystery figure betray Fierce? I have so many More questions!

Why are you laughing?!

Oh man

I hope you enjoyed my rambling! And that you have as many questions as I do because I have so so so so many questions about this new character.

Hope you have a good day! :D

[aunteutis]

so, thoughts on this episode (biiiig text post, spoilers for season 2, etc):

a lot of pieces moving around the table, so it looks like end of season is going to be HUGE.

also, i think the change of direction was noticeable, but appropriate: after all, a transition episode where characters are placed around for a big finale shouldn't be too flashy - otherwise it takes away from the big moments. and while personally i'm a fan of whenever electric guitars start raging, this quieter tone with a big focus on variations of the main theme suits this particular episode so much! and so great for the intense acting moments, or those short bits (helly's "what the fuck" made me cackle). ooooh how i love when shows understand pacing and know what they are and what they're doing. so, props to Uta Briesewitz there!

we didn't get a Burt+Irving in the end, and i was sad. but i guess that's the beauty of tragedy - maybe even foreshadowing?? after all, Burt is right: they HAVE TO separate and can never see each other again because Lumon is everywhere (big Orpheus and Eurydice vibes, hope this doesn't happen to Gemma and Mark). in any case, we got Radar moments. yes, i wanted them to run away together too. give my boy some treats, he just lost one father.

i feel this episode payed Dylan more attention, both innie and outie. my dude be having the roughest identity crisis and fighting HIMSELF for his own wife! crazy. and the fact that the revolution ENTHUSIASM ((not anger)) he used to have has been taken away from him to the point of resignation and effective suicide is worrying, because it has sort of happened in the background - although i do believe being rejected by his own wife was the last straw. while we as an audience were focused on reintegration, Lumon turned someone invested and ready to fight into an apathetic mess by putting what he's always wanted (knowing about his outie life, having a loving family) just out of his grasp. in between all the big plans and goat conspiracies and action, he's been sort of the show's middle child; and much like in real life, now we are jumping straight to the consequences, trying to go back and thinking "wait, when did he turn this way?". also, what the fuck was that elevator thing, they better not send him to the deeper basement.

as for Mark... he's like a beaten dog at this point. lmao. such a wet cat, a perfect little meow-meow both innie and outie. i'm SO VERY GLAD they are giving him a support network like Devon and even Cobel to get him to do stuff when he would probably go back, or freeze in anger. because let's face it, while the sci-fi element is so cool and new, Severance's success is the real, believable humanity of its characters. they're written in such a real way!! i care deeply for all of them!! and at this point, the most unbelievable thing for Mark to do would be to suddenly find the hero's courage and go get his wife and be decisive. my guy's a depressed, barely functioning alcoholic. he needs these intelligent, action-oriented ladies around, these certainties turned people to keep him on the right track. just as any of us would. so, very cool.

i'll keep Helly brief: she's been taking over Irving's revolution-leader role during the last two episodes, which i think suits her. and she's so right. what the fuck, indeed.

(also, it's been winter for two seasons now, and i feel like Jame Eagan's revolving is near. if it's something similar to my bringing-Kier-back-via-Eagan-consciousness-upload theory, it would be very cool for them to start season 3 during spring, with all that implies).

and laaaast but dearest MR. MILCHICK. YES. YEEESSSS. always going to love him. no matter what. because he has tried SO HARD to be the perfect Kier follower, the perfect Lumon employee. he has changed and betrayed every aspect of himself that he was proud of, and followed every directive, and delivered so many pineapples!!!! and for what? he has finally realized he is just an employee, and will likely never be more than that. he's not afforded any respect by his superiors, or his inferiors. i'm sure there's a race reading there, but i'm no expert or know enough, so i won't get into it. instead, my take is that he serves as THE example that following the rules and protocols will always get you the shorter end of the stick, because he will never reach a position where he's allowed not to do that. and the main reason for that is that he's neither an Eagan or the inventor of Severance, and he's willing to morph himself enough to lose himself in the company. and the tragedy is, he has been trained specifically to follow and treat these rules like gospel. while Irving had acquired religious fervor, Milchick was set to fail from the start because he was shown the other side. he was in on the joke just enough to get it, but never allowed to kick it with the big guys. so, seeing him refuse all of that was so... satisfying? endearing? especially after the whole ordeal with Ms. Huang, he was just SO DONE with everyone and everything. so perfect.

the only thing i wouldn't like to happen is him, Helena and/or Cobel getting a redemption arc. like, vengeance? anger? sure, maybe even believable. but conscious betrayal of your own god, religion and culture? helping Mark liberate Gemma? yeah, no, something very big needs to happen. Lumon has systematically brainwashed and stripped them of all normal morality and goodness, and now only mild discomfort and Kier's mission remain. they opted out of humanity with every step.

so! that was my review, i guess. if you read aaaall of this, get yourself a treat and a glass of water - i get too into it sometimes, and that was a lot (sorry). at the very least, it's out in the void now. the THEORY void.

kieers!💖

[cute-little-fly]

what’s your prediction for the release date of the first short of the year since the end of s2?

also what are ur predictions the shorts will be about! :)

Hi!! Thank you very much for the question ❤️!

My delusional heart wishes a short for next week valentine themed. But I am not sure that will happen honestly 🫣. This more than a prediction is my wish.

I think that if Season 3 is far away they are going to try to extend the period before the shorts as long as possible, so that when they come out Season 3 is not far away from being ready and they can release several shorts faster to increase the hype and engagement before the premiere of Season 3. So, I would say that between march and May. Hopefully in March at least ❤️.

Themes for shorts !!

Honestly, if there is a valentines one the short wouldn’t need to be about Stolitz being already romantic but more about them pinning to each other and like not knowing how to handle it, or featuring other characters. However, maybe they are saving this for the future.

I honestly wish we could have a Vassago short, maybe to give some backstory to him and lay some ground to the Goetia family future plot. I know usually shorts don’t have plot or lore elements, but they could have more context about relationships like Helles Belles, so I think this one is a possibility.

I think that at least half of them will be of IMP just doing some jobs for clients with foreshadowing to events of Season 3, like the short of Emberlyn did in Season 2. This ones will also include some Stolas, I hope! Also, is very likely that we will get at least one short about Stolas adapting to the office life and work, and also bonding with IMP. We could even have one with him and Moxxie.

A short featuring Loona would be awesome too!! We never see much of her life and friendships outside her family and IMP, so I think the shorts are perfect to explore that; now that we know she got friends.

Lastly, I don’t think the shorts will cover a long time period, because the Millie pregnancy plot is going to happen inside the season and that issue is probably going to scalate in a few months.

So, there is a possibility that they are going to cover several characters and that a bunch of them are going to be IMP missions, which I think it would be cool.