#it’s just a complicated subject matter because the character is fantastic

[frmulcahy]

I have to submit my proposal for my final essay in this class in a couple days and I just have So Many Thoughts and none of them coherent

[aletterinthenameofsanity]

Feelings about Bringing Back Moffat For RTD2 + Other Writers I Think Should Get the Chance

Whelp, just found out that Steven Moffat is going to be writing an episode of Fifteen and I'm just like...eh? about the whole prospect. Like, not as terrified as I once might have been but like...hoping he grew as a writer. Because even though I vastly prefer his one-offs to his overarching season ideas...let's not pretend that you couldn't see the warning signs looking back. The focus on either women as mothers (Doctor Dances) women companions as operating in service/deference to the Doctor (Empty Child/Blink) or women as the Time Traveller's Wife (Girl in the Fireplace, Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead). Empty Child/Doctor Dances, Blink, and Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead are all fantastic episodes and I think Blink is the strongest one-off (though let's all remember that the ending was suggested by Gatiss, not Moffat) though I will adore Empty Child/Doctor Dances until I die (though let's not forget that Jack Harkness was an RTD invention).

I really hope he learned his lessons through writing latestage Clara and Bill as companions, but I'm honestly just as scared of his racial undertones as am of RTD's. Let's not forget that both of the black companions under Moffat (Bill&Danny) were both dehumanized/turned into Cybermen in order to service Clara and the Doctor/Missy's arcs (though Bill's ending is far better handled in terms of giving Bill her own ending than Danny's, imo), just as RTD really callously handled Martha's treatment, especially in historical episodes. That is not to say that I don't have some hope due to how Bill's race was handled in Thin Ice, but let's just say I'm cautious about getting super excited like some people are.

All of which is to say...I want Toby Whithouse to write a one-off in the RTD2 Era. Or many. I want his examination of the fucked-up and complicated psychological aspects of the Doctor/Companion relationship and even the Doctor themself (I mean he is the one who wrote School Reunion, God Complex, A Town Called Mercy, Under the Lake/Before the Flood, and Vampires of Venice).

ALSO more women and writers of color. I want to see what kind of new voices in sci-fi can be brought to the table and explore more aspects of their experiences, especially as it pertains to historical/future episodes. I'm done with pretending that Demons of the Punjab wasn't one of the best episodes of Doctor Who, and that was specifically because an Indian writer (Vinay Patel) was brought in to write it. (Also, can we see Vinay back as well? He also wrote Fugitive of the Judoon which was another banger. He's also really good at exploring character feelings/implications of time travel/memory.) I also think that Joy Wilkinson, who wrote the Witchfinders, could be a fun choice as well. I really liked the Witchfinders and I'm curious to see how she might tackle a subject matter like that again.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - a new #1 for me from Thailand

Nov 2022 Wk 4

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. Organized by which ones (in each category) I’m enjoying the most.

Ongoing Series - Thai

609 Bedtime Story (Fri WeTV) 1&2 of 11 - Apparently VIPs get the next episode early. So I watched both. It’s a good story and a great set up and it opens with one of my favorite under appreciated Thai actors: Plustor (as Vee) in a side bartender romance with younger Game. Sunshine bisexual himbo + older tsundere = YES! Gimme! Main character, Mum, is your bog-standard player. (I weirdly love how they translate clubs & bars as “pub” in Thailand - and yes, I get that it ties to the history of the area.) Kinda fun street fight. NO SINGING. Game is BL’s new bisexual king! I will brook no arguments on this matter. Omg kisses already? This is a well paced story! OhmFluke man, can’t knock the visuals, their eye connection and sympathetic chemistry work is good. I never believe they wanna bone but I do believe them falling in love. ALL HAIL QUEEN MINT. 

Between Us (Sun iQIYI) 4 of 12 - This is such a fantastic show. I’m so glad they got OhmFluke back to play sides and support roles, it’s really making the found family aspect shine, especially in contrast to Win’s real family. This one is very complicated and deep and kind of modern. Very much the opposite of UWMA but in a good way. WATCH ALONG HERE.

My School President (Fri YT) 1 of 10 - it’s Love Sick + Korea and Japan's influence. Yes, we’ve seen it all before, but this is me: I never met a high school BL I didn’t want to grant a fair shake. At the very start we get self with a whistle and NO SINGING. Yay! Fantastic beginning. Our tiny music club president/idiot is definitely giving me Noh vibes & our suave student president definitely giving me Phun vibes - bonus this time no girlfriends! It moves this out of Love Sick arena, which was all chaos bisexuals, and into just completely gay. I’m happy with that and I like the dancing and the marriage on his mind. New candidates for one braincell friendship group from GMMTV (they love this archetype). Tinn is already pining and so completely gone. On a completely different aside, I really want a lesbian romance between Gun’s maa and the principle. I have a tiny ship sailing off to one side. 

Ai Long Nhai (Mon iQIYI)10 of 12 - holy crumbs outta nowhere, Batman. Lots of relationship chat not enough shirtlessness, but since I’ve been binging Oh! My Sunshine Showering Night it’s no problemo. Also yes, Nahi does look and act a lot like Joanan, Ai totally ended up dating his mother. 

Remember Me (Sun Gaga) 8 of 12 - Champ’s storyline is dull, although I like the actor. Yay, JaFirst got together!! Cute line, “can we skip being friends and just be in love instead?” LOVE THEM. Please can we take Mean out of that wig now? Why are the straight’s so boring? The Name stuff continues to upset me. 

I Will Knock You (Fri Gaga) 3 of 12 - When these two are sweet together, they are really very sweet and I actually kind of like it. I think Noey uses ter because he’s younger, and doesn’t want to use phi. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

My Tooth Your Love (Taiwan Fri Viki) 9 of 12 - while 609 and Between Us are v good, this is currently my favorite BL airing by a mile. The conversation between the young one and the bar owner made me hoot with laughter. “Are you trying to speak the language of adults?” probably one of the BL’s best put-downs. All the dialogue really: “Are you gonna make him tie himself in a red bow and send himself to you?“ “That’s nice. Can I choose another color?” It’s so fucking cute. The courting with food, and everybody taking photographs of how happy the dentist is. I can’t even with this show. Add the cutest smiles kisses, this is GREAT. I did in fact clap. 

Choco Milk Shake (Korea Strongberry Tues YT) 9 of 11 - Man, this show really makes me laugh so hard. Especially the cat character. I love how they called out the fact that they actually have customers for a change. Jealous Milk made me cackle so hard it scared the actual cat on my lap. How are they going to end this happy? In Strongberry we trust. Just repeat the mantra ABL, just keep repeating it. 

Eternal Yesterday AKA Eien no Kino (Japan Thurs Gaga) 7 of 8 - It takes me a lot to work up the courage to watch this show on Fridays. It’s so sad and traumatizing. But it’s also so good I can’t stop. I have to watch Tooth on either side of it to comfort myself. All that to say, it’s as we all expect: Michan is holding so hard onto Koichi that he has anchored him from death through shear force of will. Also… SWITCHES? Although, does it count if it’s necrophilia? Asking for a friend. 

Oh! My Assistant (Korea Thurs Viki) 1-2 of 8 - This has a very JBL feel (including the title), don’t get mad if I get confused. Anygay, this is a very silly show that acts like it comes from a very silly yaoi. Out gay younger seme (we stan) pretending to be tsundere is smitten by chaos bi uke puppy. And they gave us a very interesting new take on crash into me. It’s racy but in that way Korean does racy, like Love & Leashes. Cheeky racy. 

Happy Ending Romance (Korea Thurs Gaga) 3-4 of 8 - This is such a complicated show about profession, ego, reputation, safety, and trust, but not much about romance. Maybe it’s because I’m so used to Leo portraying evil (see most of his guest MV’s and half of VIXX’s) but I can’t trust his character, and I’m not sure if I’m meant to. Is that the romance? Or is this a romance about an editor’s love for a writer’s work? Or for the writer himself? And is there a difference? Meanwhile, I’m getting a bad feeling about the ending of this one. And yet... How much did I love the dialogue around love and possession? So much. 

It’s Airing But I’m Not Watching It

War of Y (Thai Gaga) 20 eps - it’s just all too much for me.

2 Moons 3 (Thai Mon ??) 10 eps - Possibly a future binge watch. Rumor is it’s banal.

Love Bill  (Vietnam Sat YT) - Bah Vinh is back but I’m too distracted. Also there’s a lot of fund raising stuff going on. I’ll wait and binge.

The Star Always Follow You (Vietnam YT) - same Team RL peeps we have seen before (Sunshine, Stupid) 

Till the World Ends (Thai YT) 10 eps - ?

Why You... Y Me? (Thai Weds YT) 10 eps - It's not primarily a BL, but another meta show about BL shipping, with side BLs. @heretherebedork is watching it, ask them about it. 

In Case You Missed It

To Sir With Love AKA Khun Chai (16 eps) seems to have ended HAPPY! This is a soap opera so next time I have a day off I may binge and trash watch.

GAP the series (Sat YT) is a classic office set romance. WATCH IT! It’s GL and this studio needs our support! I’m enjoying it but not chronicling my journey. (Also, the stairs are back!)

I decided to binge watch Oh! My Sunshine Showering Night. What a wild ride. 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Dec 9: Semantic Error movie (Viki) - the repackage, rumored to have some added footage

2022 still to come?

Dec 19: Chains of Heart (movie? theaters?) trailer Suspense thriller about a forest ranger, smugglers, memory loss, and lost love. Stars Haii (Cirrus in TT2) and Poppy (Porpla in YYY). Adapted from a Y-novel of the same name by TJ Tommy. I don’t know if this is still releasing or if C19 impacted it. Delayed until Feb 2023.

This Week’s Crimes Against Fashion

Between Us punishing their crumbs. 

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

I LOVE HIM. (609) 

I love them! (Between Us). 

Magic crumbs (Ai Long Nhai) 

Truth (Ai Long Nhai) 

Cats.

Me.

Also me. 

(last week) 

[rei-caldombra]

Shimeji Simulation Manga Review- A Strange and Sentimental Story.

This is a hard manga to talk about. Not because it's bad or anything, in fact I think it's fantastic. It's just hard to describe what it's about and put my opinions on it into words. And I actually think this hard to describe feeling perfectly mirrors the tone and subject matter of the manga. There will be direct spoilers for the story. 

I first got into Shimeji Simulation after I watched and subsequently read Girls Last Tour (GLT). I absolutely love GLT, so I had to give Tsukumizu's other work a shot. By the way, to my knowledge Tsukumizu's gender identity is not confirmed by them so I will be referring to Tsukumizu as they.

The style and overall tone/vibe of Girls Last Tour carries over into Shimeji Simulation. Both stories focus on two young girls trying to find themselves in the world.

Tsukumizu's art style has not changed since her work on Girls Last Tour. I love this style. The faces of the characters are very simplistic but super cute. There is a lot of portrayal of buildings and structures, with them being incredibly detailed. I love this contrast. There is also a great sense of scale. Characters can go from looking small to large based on how they’re drawn. The style also has the look of rougher sketches. Like you can see in the thumbnail, lines are uneven, not always fully connected, etc. Hard to explain but I really like it. I think it fits the subject matter and something about it just looks very nice.

Shimeji Simulation is a true slice of life. The main focus is the girls just living their lives, with the world they are in being a very strange one. It's got a laid back but weird atmosphere. Things can be nonsensical at times, then very normal and casual. There's a lot of philosophy and poeticism. Topics can include the meaning of life, what people mean to each other, humanity, what objects can mean. One scene I really like that touches on this tone is the scene where Shijima and Majime talk about plushies. This also serves as an example of the manga simply being very cute.

They simply talk about plushies, like why Majime likes them and what nicknames she has for them. But you get this feeling that there is something deeper you can take out of this, even if you can’t quite put your finger on it. Shimeji Simulation’s writing strongly encourages people to think more deeply about normal things. To consider the meaning of objects and concepts. Shimeji Simulation is adept at making you think about and contextualize the world around you. And this theme is expressed and reflected directly through the story. 

When it comes to the story it’s also hard to describe. It starts out with Shijima exiting her closet and getting to know people and the world. Some time passes and they meet someone who's kinda like a god. Then Shijima’s scientist sister alters the fabric of reality, making it so everyone’s imaginations directly change the world. What truly makes this story special is that this is not something that is a horrible issue that the story makes clear needs to be fixed. The characters have to live with this. You see the characters adjust to the new way the world works. Some people like it and some people don’t. And the world does not immediately descend into chaos or anything like that. The people change and keep living. Even in a world where reality can change with a thought, life ends up being pretty simple. There is something so special and grounded about this. I think this story is a beautiful representation of the mundanity and simplicity that makes up much of the human experience. While also bringing up how complicated our feelings and places in the universe are.

Later on, reality basically falls apart, melding into this strange amalgamation of everyone and everything. You truly don’t really know what’s going on, as do the characters. The girls get separated, stuck in their own mindscapes. You see how their worlds are very different. But what they both want is to see each other again. They do end up finding each other. But reality does not get fixed. Their wish and what all of this meant is not clearly defined. In the end, all that really matters is that Shijima and Majime end up back together. And what you make of that and everything that led them to that point is up to you. 

There are a lot of takeaways you can have, particularly about what life means. I think life in this story can simply refer to being with the people you love. Life can dramatically change and throw things at you that make you uncertain and afraid, but you can push through it by sticking to what is important to you. Shijima and Majime’s love for each other allowed them to find each other amidst a chaotic world and be able to find happiness. As said before. I believe the manga encourages you to reconsider how you view yourself and other people. Everyone sees things from different perspectives and has unique ideas. We see this in the reality controlled by imagination, where everyone has different living spaces, objects, even bodies. And people generally seemed happy. Shijima is able to find Majime by exploring many different places in their world that are dictated by different people. By gaining new experiences and world views, she is able to recontextualize her own. Which enables her to realize her own feelings and get in the space that Majime is in.  

I feel this is one of those stories where you can really feel the author's feelings and personality in the work. And despite that, it doesn’t feel like it’s trying to convince you of any particular worldview. Rather it encourages you to look inward and come to your own conclusions. I would love to hear how any of you have taken from this story.

To conclude, I really like this manga and highly recommend it to anyone who wants a bizarre story that encourages deeper thinking while also making you smile with wholesome antics. It truly is a unique read, there is nothing else quite like it. I really hope you check it out if you haven’t. I don’t think this is a story that gets ruined by spoilers. It seems like Tsukumizu has another project in the works, so let’s look forward to that together (I hope the next one continues the trend of the previous protagonists showing up in noncritical ways. I want to see our potatoes, mushroom and egg again). Thank you for reading!

[spockandawe]

Translation.... is a fantastically complicated, demanding, and difficult task. And it feels like it's sometimes gotta be pretty unrewarding, because no matter what you choose, someone will be mad at you for doing it wrong. And I'm no purist, I skew hard towards preferring a translation to capture vibes (a subjective and squirrelly thing) over a literal one-to-one, I appreciate an artistic use of best judgment even if I ultimately disagree with the decision made. I've got so much respect for translators!

BUT.

That being said.

I feel like especially, especially in the context of something like a dramatic high fantasy novel, tone and register are so important! No modern terminally online transmigrators to muddy the waters! I'll make an exception for something hilarious, and I don't have a highbrow sense of humor, 'absolute unit' still makes me cackle. Something like "yea" (not 'yea, verily,' this is 'yeah,' said often, always without the h) may set my teeth on edge, but I can understand why someone might do that to me. "Tho" is more infuriating, but I can still.... logically understand how we got here.

But why on earth would you interrupt the build to a dramatic, tragic, intense scene by having our main character angrily call a crowd "newbs." I'm no longer in the moment, I'm staring into the middle distance and wondering why not just use the full n00b if it was going to go there. Sure, he's not talking elegantly, I get that. He was raised uneducated, not on 4chan. And the moment last night when I was reading and a character in ancient fantasy china proclaimed "Jeebus," I was filled with such incandescent rage that I immediately knew it was time to put the computer down and go to bed.

Jeebus.

[grimmmviewing]

S1E13: “Three Coins in a Fuchsbau”—C+ (Watched 3/12/24)

“Damn, I know this place. Bought my second engagement ring from this guy.” – Hank (just in case we ever forgot he’s been married multiple times)

While the title of this episode has some heist-y, Coen-brothers-film-like energy, most of what we get here is much more lore/series plot related. It’s not that this stuff isn’t also interesting—or that there aren’t some fun standalone moments in the mix—but just that this is a less whimsical or charming episode than the title suggests and that feels serious in ways that even previous episodes with darker subject matter didn’t.

I haven’t really talked performances too much in these reviews, but Titus Welliver as Farley Kolt does a great job handling some of the more critical elements of this episode’s plot. He has a lot of information that he needs to convey with gravitas—about the seductive ancient coins at the heart of the story and about Nick’s background, which is closely tied to the pursuit of the coins. Welliver manages to make it all feel important and believable while coming across as someone with a lot of confidence and secrets. He really sells this character who’s meant to dance on a knife’s edge between trustworthy and untrustworthy. Among the other details, we learn a smidge more about the power Grimms wield (resistance to the coins), which is nice, given that so far it’s been kind of a question mark, apart from seeing Wesen as they are and maybe some nebulous sense of extra strength.

Using the coins to explain historical events like the disasters that befell Roman emperors is a fun, ultimately harmless bit of fantastical worldbuilding, but the reveal that Adolf Hitler was A) in possession of the coins and B) a Wesen creates… complications. It’s a lot harder to accept this bit of history being dressed up with Grimm fantasy than the stuff about Rome, in part because it just feels closer/more modern and also because it offers what amounts to an excuse for Hitler’s actions: He was under the influence of the coins, which makes him not entirely responsible.

Making Hitler a literal monster further undermines the reality—that he was a man (a human), aided and abetted by still other men, who did horrible things. “Evil” is perpetrated by humans, and the way in which Hitler has already been as good as mythologized as some sort of unique case is part of why more contemporary instances of authoritarian or genocidal behavior aren’t taken seriously, I think (I’ve heard other people say in the past). We’ve been conditioned to see that sort of evil as something titanic and aberrant to the point that it could only ever be recognizable as what it is, but it starts somewhere, sown from perfectly unremarkable human actions, and by the time it’s in full flower, that’s when the problem has gone on too long.

I think 2012 was a different time, though, when white nationalism and conspiracies were still seen as fringe elements of American culture—the former being powerless and the latter maybe just fun(ny) and not to be taken seriously. Over time, of course, the climate has changed. White nationalism is on the rise, and both it and conspiratorial thinking feel more mainstream and dangerous than they have in my lifetime. I never thought I’d see anti-vax sentiment be such a widely-held conviction, for example, but here we are! Obviously, Grimm is, at most, being kind of problematic here. I don’t want to oversell it as some sort of affront in and of itself. It’s just a lot harder to indulge in the “what ifs” these days. When I first started this project, I was actually shocked at the reminder of how long Grimm had run. It was only six years, but between 2011 and 2017, it feels like so much changed about the American political and cultural landscape. It started during the Obama years and ended under Trump, what feels like a titanic shift in what constituted our “normal.”

Leaving aside any real-world discomfort, though, I still think the full Hitler reveal on the old film at the end of the episode feels like too much. It’s meant to be this ominous image—perhaps a look at where Renard could have ended up if they didn’t get the coins away from him, or even just a generally chilling thing. Instead, it feels a bit too goofy. Leaving it as a brief mention from Kolt probably would have worked better. I think the far more emotionally impactful moments come before this: Nick with the dying Soledad Marquesa (more on that below), Nick seeing just how rattled and desperate Renard is when he finds out he’s lost the coins, and Nick confronting Kolt one last time to take the coins back into a Grimm’s protection. This sequence of character- and coin-related moments was perfectly strong enough to end the episode on.

Back to Marquesa: Nick grabs the mortally wounded man—this individual he’s only just learned was responsible for the deaths of his parents—and demands more information, but Marquesa doesn’t even seem to be aware of who Nick is or what he’s suggesting about the way their lives have intersected before. Instead, he just pleads with Nick to let him hold the coins one last time as he dies. It’s emotionally impactful for how it denies Nick information about his past and for how it shows the power the coins hold. (It’s also narratively convenient for delaying further reveals for the time being.)

Marie coming back into story via Kolt, this heavy focus on Nick’s parents—“Three Coins in a Fuchsbau” doesn’t feel like a continuation of the previous episode like I thought it might (given that Nick and Juliette seem fine here), but it is a very direct continuation of the earliest episodes of the season. What does feel like an extension of “Last Grimm Standing” is Renard’s story, where his mysterious leadership status plays into the allure of the coins. I kind of love that he is so affected by them given that he’s been characterized so far as this secretive, powerful, calm mastermind sort of figure. His dream of power after he takes the coins home is very striking and a very BIG visual for the show—He advances through his darkened apartment as we hear the roars of a crowd, and when he looks out onto the city streets below we see them completely filled with people waving flags, all loyal to him. The scale is surprising.

The medical examiner Dr. Harper also gets a surprising little plot of her own too. She’s the first one on the team to be attracted to the coins after finding them in the old shop owner’s stomach, and her somewhat more subtly “off” behavior is foreshadowing for the more extreme stuff from Hank and Renard. She also gets targeted and interrogated by Marquesa, giving her a more active role than usual. It’s always nice to see the other character do their own thing away from Nick.

[idkaguyorsomething]

Why you should read Cowboys and Indians

Despite what the title might indicate, this isn’t an AU or western. This is a story about identity, friendship, and one of the best reinterpretations of the Twilight Saga ever written.

Who It’s About: the story centers on, of all characters, Leah and Jasper. Seth and Edward play some minor roles, but most of the story is about the surprisingly heartwarming friendship between those two.

Why You Should Check It Out: this is one of the only Twilight fics I’ve read that actively confronts the shitty racial implications in its source material (Leah’s experiences as an indigenous woman and Jasper’s confederate background) and it makes a really compelling story out of it. Jasper in canon is probably one of my most hated characters because of how little development he gets and how his backstory of having fought for the confederates in the American Civil War is completely glossed over. Here, the author manages to make him into a likable, complicated man, one that you can look at and think “yeah, if vampirism enhances your human traits, he’d get emotion powers” and has him confront his past in a really interesting journey. And Leah gets her due!! If you, like me, hated how canon treated her, then it might be worth it just to check this out because watching her form bonds and open up feels truly cathartic. A lot of how growing up on the reservation shaped her is explored, and she gets some awesome moments. Even if you don’t like these characters or think that a friendship between them sounds unlikely, the writing is so good that by the end you’ll be totally invested in both of them and their friendship. There’s also a sequel oneshot, The Star Quilt, with Alice in a more prominent position where Leah gets a happily ever after.

Reasons You Might Want To Avoid: this fic heavily discusses racism and the history of the USA south, so if you’re not in the mood for either of those or are unfamiliar with the latter, this probably isn’t for you (though I’d heavily encourage you to engage with some form of discussion of the racial undertones of Twilight anyways, there is a lot to be said there). It’s also partially non-chronological, so if you hate that kind of storytelling then this might get under your skin. All-around, it’s really a great story, and the closest thing to any serious flaws this fic has is that it doesn’t have much in the way of a plot. The author goes into detail about why this is in their notes, and the story is more about the development between Leah and Jasper than defeating any kind of an antagonist or finding a Macguffin. Technically, the plot of Twilight is going on in the background the whole time, but it doesn’t really affect the story in any meaningful way, so that’s that.

TL;DR Cowboys and Indians is a fantastic exploration of a lot of the subject matter that Stephanie Meyer never did anything with, giving us a surprisingly powerful emotional bond between two unlikely characters in the process. Extra recommended for any fans of Leah Clearwater!!

[wistfulwisp]

Nowwww for my thoughts on the second season of good omens 👼 (generally not including the ending)

So, going into season 2 I definitely was not expecting the dramatic change in tone and pace, but it was definitely welcome after the supercharged pacing of the first season. Going into season 1 I had known, having read the book, the general beats of what was going to happen but had no idea what to expect for s2 since it wraps everything up so well. So I watched it and uh 🤠

Yeah, subjectively speaking I liked the second season a LOT better than the first. That’s more because it’s more my style — less of a frenzy but still keeping the same charm as the first season. All the character development between Aziraphale and Crowley was fantastic, pitch perfect writing. The amount of depth Gaiman is able to cover with these characters is again inspiring to watch, and the topics he’s able to take a look at (from the religious trauma and abuse suffered from both of these characters to their shared love of humanity and each other and everything in between) was such a great pleasure, and it’s stuff like that that makes this show such a place of comfort for me. The quirky antics of these characters make them likeable and the depth of them make them believable. It’s easy to see myself in either of these characters and it’s easy to see how others would connect with how fleshed out they are.

This is also the first time that I truly felt the weight and seriousness of this project, and how passionate Gaiman is to continue this story and see it through to the end (Amazon be damned). You get the sense that this isn’t just a “funny little LGBT comedy” but also carries with it a sense of importance and of privilege to be able to portray such complicated ideas and do them justice. This is also present in s1, I just didn’t think much of it then (which again makes s1’s re-watch quality all the better). These two elements, and how slow, gentle and romantic it was is what truly carried the story for me. It makes you take visual media and storytelling all the more seriously in everyday life, and that’s something I’ll treasure that this show gave to me. More on this later.

However, there’s some things I’d change.

I said before that SUBJECTIVELY I found this season better. But, there’s an analytical part of me that gets the sense that objectively speaking, s1 is the stronger season. This isn’t just a matter of “less plot” — I’m kind of the opinion that you don’t need a grand plot or a plot at all if you have characters that are interesting enough to follow, which this show definitely does — but what is lost is the cohesion I mentioned earlier. Every beat in the first season felt important, even if I didn’t always gel with the characters. That’s because I knew it was all leading to some higher purpose or theme. Now, with this season a lot more is kept in the dark from viewers — why does Gabriel have no memory? What’s the significance of the record? How do Maggie and Nina play into everything? And a lot of this isn’t fully explored until the last episode, which to me felt very disappointing. I know why they did it! The last ten minutes felt like being punched in the solar plexus in the best possible way (we’ll get to that). But, you give and take when you do that. Yeah, you give the audience a more emotional punch at the end, but you lose the continuity of the narrative. Think about it, all we really get from the Gabriel storyline until the last episode is a fly, a matchbox and a record. That’s it, until the ending. I felt as though the mystery elements of this storyline fell so flat for me, and when Aziraphale went off to Edinburgh to find clues, it really felt like a plot device to either have an episode in Edinburgh or get him away from Crowley for an episode. It didn’t really feel like I was invested in the mystery until the end, which is a shame because I felt as if these elements had been sprinkled throughout we could’ve had a more fleshed out version of the message this season is trying to give (what if we had a talk with Beelzebub and Crowley where she’s absolutely furious, absolutely desperate to get Gabriel back? She’s throwing things and setting fires and cursing, and later we learn that it’s because her plan to keep Gabriel safe has gone askew and not because she’s a BAMF demon lord. What if we had a talk with Gabriel and Az that went beyond the “world feels better around one particular person”? Unfortunately these aren’t things that are explored as time goes on.)

Maggie and Nina also kinda felt like a missed opportunity. They’re super great and intriguing characters and are obvious reflections/foils of Crowley and Aziraphale and their love life, which I an absolutely, 100% PARTIAL to the character foil. Absolutely divine, love it. Wish it had been explored more! We get one very brief conversation where Crowley has that Revelation talking to Nina, and that’s just about it? Again, it makes the ending more impactful, but wouldn’t it have made the story stronger if we had those moments sprinkled throughout the six episodes? It may have been a little less subtle, but I think it would’ve been more impactful as a storytelling narrative. I’m here for more queer relationships though.

The first time I truly felt something drag in this show, other than the Gabriel storyline, was the 1941 date night episode. Yes, it’s was cute, yes, it fit the theming and vibe of the season. But did it really tell me something that I didn’t already know? We know Crowley will do whatever Aziraphale asks, we’ve established the “shades of grey” theme several times already in much more subtle ways. It’s basically seeped into all the decisions these two make together and how they justify them. I liked it, but I couldn’t help acknowledging that in a six episode season when you have one episode that doesn’t give you many new things to work with, it’s significant. I dunno, what do yall think?

That being said, I loved the final scene with Bildad a LOT. Imagine if we had more of those quiet moments intertwining all of these storylines together?

So, objectively I’d probably say s1 is stronger. But, s2 combines my love of little gay men, charming quirky shows, and deep dives into character struggles that I’m absolutely here for moreso than the first season. It acts well as a bridge between the two seasons (1 and 3) but there are some issues with it that does make me wonder where the continuity went.

[hyperfixasian]

Just some general random thoughts/review about BP:WF since the last time I saw an MCU film opening weekend was Thor: Ragnarok in 2017. And this is without consuming most of the prerelease material

Spoilers under the cut I suppose...

Cons:

Movie was ridiculously long. I’m not a fan of anything that almost taps out at 3 hours, and it only ever happens with action flicks. If you need 3 hours to tell a story, most of the time you’re doing too much

Shuri being the next Black Panther was ridiculously drawn out. We knew it was going to happen but it wasn’t even acknowledged by the narrative until like 75% of the way in

Related to the pacing, the conclusion wrapped up far too quickly for a conflict that was drawn out for like 60% of the film. Personally thought it was great for Shuri to choose compassion over vengeance but my god this huge conflict with much bloodshed was suddenly over in like 10 seconds

Thought the plot with Riri/Ironheart was kind of awkward... Even as we’re going into the MCU’s 300th movie, I’m always bothered that these people who exist in this universe just get scooped up out of their lives and then they go back to living, and this is just a thing that happens with no protocol in place

Hated every time Laura Dreyfuss’s character was on screen, and thought Agent Ross was poorly used in the film. I don’t know how they could’ve integrated him better but every scene with the American portion of the film took me out of it

Did they ever explain the sonic siren attack or is that something the Talokanians can just do?

Pros:

A fantastic homage to the late and great Chadwick Boseman. Respectful and loving but not placing too much focus that detracted from the story or made the tone too sorrowful

Black Panther remains one of my favorite film series within MCU because of the wide array of strong female characters from leaders, warriors, and scientists to mothers and teachers

Shuri’s arc was fabulous. Her character is a tragic one, much like Thor, Wanda, and Peter before her and yet she still finds her own specific way to grieve. You can see her tackle each stage of grief but what makes it special is that she doesn’t even have time to finish mourning T’Challa before her mother is taken from her, and you can see her, still in the anger phase, multiply that rage exponentially

The city of Talokan was sooo beautiful, and I love that it and its citizens appeared to Shuri just as much as Wakanda did. I love that the narrative remembered that the Talokan were not just a warring army, there were thousands of citizens who lived happy and peaceful lives just as the Wakandans. Would’ve shortened that scene but it was skillfully used

Nakia/Lupita looked sooo beautiful every scene she was in, I could not look away

Love that Black Panther always knows the tone it’s setting. There are plenty of moments that had my theater roaring from laughter, Agent Ross, Okoye, and Riri especially. But the sorrowful moments of mourning Chadwick were respectful, and the serious moments focusing on colonization/war profiteering/racism/imperialism were always taken completely seriously. None of the jokes ever felt out of place, and I appreciate it for a film series tackling very serious subject matter

Neutral:

The post credits scene??? Ummmmm... T’Challa and Nakia had a whole ass child (looks to be like 4-6 years old so I’m wondering how that fits in the timeline) and they just kept it a secret??? And Ramonda knew but not Shuri

Idk why my girl Okoye has to go through some shit every film. She’s a complicated woman but I feel like the story likes to punish her very often when she is just sticking to her principles

Love that my man, Michael Bae Jordan/Killmonger, got to show up a little, was a pleasant and almost scary surprise. Did they explain why he showed up in the ancestral plane rather than Shuri? Is it because she didn’t believe and that’s why he was called to her?

Probably have more thoughts but this is all my 11pm brain can produce. Would love to hear anyone else’s thoughts on it! All in all, I loved the film and can’t wait for it to be released on D+ (just wish it was 30 min shorter for my ADHD brain)

[gascon-en-exil]

What are your 5 favorite FE maps? Be it for story, gameplay, or anything else.

That's quite a difficult question, both because there's so many of them to choose from and because it can be hard to compare maps from different games especially when there are different design philosophies, ex. how most of FE4's maps are a slog to play through but are fantastic in terms of laying out the game's broad narrative. Still, in no particular order:

Genealogy of the Holy War Chapter 5

On the subject of FE4, the atmosphere of Chapter 5 absolutely sells it, full of mounting dread and a sort of fatalism that one rarely sees in FE or in a lot of video games for that matter. The massacre of the knights of Leonster and Quan and Ethlyn's deaths play out as a part of regular gameplay, with no way for the player to intervene in time, and the chapter hits you over and over again with every conquered castle and anxious character conversation and the inevitable barbecue that Sigurd is marching toward. The pacing slows to a crawl in the middle because desert maps are terrible, but like I said this is mostly about the story and atmosphere. Chapter 5 is the one that makes me most skeptical of IS remaking FE4, because of how much it conflicts with the philosophy of never allowing the player to feel too bad. Watch them add an Avatar who figures out Arvis's plan but sticks around anyway until Sigurd sends them to follow Oifey and Shannan at the last minute, paving the way for them to be playable again at the start of Gen 2.

Fates Revelation Chapter 21

Revelation's numerous gimmick maps miss more often than they hit, but this one is fairly interesting with tiles that shift enemies between promoted and unpromoted forms. There's some fun tactical potential here, especially as you can use a Dragon Vein to swap the tile effects, and it's more memorable fun than the route's awkward attempts at platforming or a stealth mission lifted from Path of Radiance or...God, that snow level....

Blazing Blade Chapter 26x (Eliwood)/28x (Hector)

Sonia is one of my favorite FE antagonists, because she's just so delightfully evil even as I'm fairly indifferent to her woobie of an adopted daughter. This map is sort of a take on a water dungeon concept, with platforms that sink and rise every few turns. It can be a headache to navigate, especially as Sonia is one of those bosses that spams long-range magic, but it's generally not too difficult to figure out unless you're actually trying to use Nino. The ending is great too, with the reveal that Sonia was a morph all along and didn't realize it.

Three Houses Crimson Flower Chapter 17

FE16's map design is overall unremarkable, so on the basis of character work alone it was either this or the non-CF battle in Enbarr for its Ferdibert boss conversation. This one took the prize though, because 1) that boss conversation requires me to be using Ferdinand, whereas the Dimidue death scene can be triggered by anyone, 2) that's just one line, and while it does provide the energy for the ship's Wicked parallel that the voice actors took advantage of that's nothing compared to a dialogue scene that's so gay that it had to be laid over a black screen because any visual would completely obliterate all attempts to no homo Dimitri and Dedue's relationship, and 3) unlike every other instance of optional character moments in battles I can think of in this game, getting the Dimidue death scene actually makes the map easier as you don't have to fight Dedue as a Crest Beast. That's some good gameplay and (very gay) story integration right there.

Radiant Dawn Part 3 Endgame

Desperately needs the option to skip enemy and NPC phases, but it's got a feeling of dread and inevitability similar to FE4 Chapter 4 thanks to the ominous counter in the corner of the screen that goes up whenever any unit is defeated. It's complicated and sprawling and I've seen this map play out in all sorts of ways based on what the AI decides to do, and the enemies can be quite difficult too and make it tough to rush ahead and treat this like a rout map. Then the counter gets to 80 and the map just...ends, and so does the world sort of. The first time you play through it without knowing what's coming up it can all be pretty jarring.

[canadianramen]

30. Power Rangers Samurai (Season 18)

Power Rangers Samurai bottoms this list and it's not even close. Right away something about this season feels really off. The acting is just flat and lethargic and the dialogue is terrible. You can tell it's the writing and direction because Jayden shows up in later seasons (we will get to that later on) and he sounds and acts like a normal human being which makes me question what the hell happened. It makes this season extremely painful to get through and that coupled with poor writing and characterization is what pushes it all the way down here. It's so SO hard to watch and was an absolute slog to get through.

The New Saban era is pretty rough overall and is probably the worst in regards to consistency and quality out of the 4 Ranger eras (of which I will get into more detail in later entries).

Antonio is an absolute delight and Power Rangers deserves props for portraying a homoerotic and queer character in a serious light, he's hands down the best character in this season. There's no actual confirmation of his sexual orientation in the show but there doesn't need to be. This seasons demographic is clearly a younger audience, the nuances of sexual identity is a complicated subject matter and it doesn't need to be explored thoroughly in this show in order to have good representation. He's a very flamboyant and at times androgenous character but he's taken seriously, the other characters aren't laughing at him and the rest of the team accepts him because he's a damn good Power Ranger and good person, even though he's "different". And this is all the way back in 2011, 4 whole years before Caitlyn Jenners influence would change society as a whole to be more accepting of the LGBT+ community, I got to give the writers props. Antonio has some of the best character moments in the show "Unexpected Arrival", "Room for One More", "The Blue and Gold", and "Boxed In" come to mind. This is queer representation done relatively well (in spite of the poor writing of this season).

You'll notice throughout the rest of these posts that I am generally not a fan of comic relief side characters that contribute next to nothing to the plot. There's one or two in every season. Sometimes they're genuinely charming, and other times they make me want to put my forehead through a window. Bulk and Spike are the former. They are both equally hilarious and charming and seeing Bulk again is both nostalgic as hell and a nice reminder that this season exists in the same world and continuity as the other seasons.

(It's already timestamped if you're on pc so you can just click play but if you're on mobile the theme starts at 16:59. For some reason if you're on mobile the embedded link doesn't care that I added a start time.)

The suits and overall aesthetic of this season are absolutely fantastic. I think the production teams absolutely nailed it in regards to the overall presentation of the show. It hits with just the right amount of nostalgia. The opening theme is also fantastic and hits nicely with some good nostalgia sprinkled throughout.

Jayden is a perfectly fine red ranger and over the course of the season gets the most development out of the Samurai rangers aside from Antonio. He goes from a closed off arrogant asshole and over time softens and learns to trust his team but never has any standout moments after the first couple of episodes. He's not the gold standard for Red Rangers by any means but he's just fine.

The team as characters overall are forgettable in this season. Each of them aside from Jayden gets maybe one episode if we're lucky of actual development, other than that they are the exact same person from the start up until, and including the end.

Where this seasons gets complicated is the villains. I don't understand why Cole Ev- I mean Deker, isn't the main baddie. He's a far more interesting villain than Master Xandred. The relationship between Deker and Xandred wasn't explored enough in either Samurai or Super Samurai even though it was very compelling. Props to the concept artists who came up with Dekers design. He is hands down one of the best looking villains in the franchise and I want a Death Battle between him and Yoshimitsu from Tekken so badly. But that's the problem, Deker isn't the bad guy. He's in 21 episodes across 2 seasons (12 in Samurai, 9 in Super Samurai). He's got a compelling look, ironically stands out because he has okay acting in a show where all of them feel like they have AI generated actors and lines. Xandred on the other hand is a one dimensional psychopath who just doesn't do anything. Samurai is a season that suffers from having goons be far more interesting than the main villain, given that this is the first season of the Saban Era, and the 18th season overall, it really should have learned from previous mistakes.

In closing, aside from the production quality, Deker, and Antonio, it wasn't hard picking Samurai as the bottom of the list. No team-up, a confusing and one dimensional main villain and a plot that feels like it's never moving forward, all work together to bog this show down. However it's the acting and writing that truly cement it at the bottom because it genuinely makes it unbearable to watch. If those two things were a lot better, Samurai's other mistakes would be a lot more forgivable and you would probably see this season shoot up a few places.

[bmpmp3]

So this weekend I'm just gonna go right into it, today we're talking about Toa's Patchwork Staccato (ツギハギスタッカート)!

A decade old classic, such a sweet sounding and uplifting piano-heavy instrumental that almost leans into the sound of a children's song game, a song that aurally really makes me want to play hopscotch outside LOL which contrasts beautifully with the lyrics and subject matter of the complicated and frustrated feelings of a shitty relationship, complete with ghosting and all!

I adore the instrumental work with all my heart, I'm a sucker for piano-led tunes so this is to be expect - but the vocals in the original are nothing to sneeze at either! VocaDB lists the vocals as Miku V2 Soft although I'm unsure if that's accurate, she sounds almost V3 Soft or Sweet to me, but there's hints of the V2 transition noise so I really couldn't tell either way. For a long time I didn't think much of the tuning, but looking at it closer now, 1) similar to sound design, unnoticed tuning is usually a mark of great tuning LOL but also 2) those throat clearing noises are unreal. How did Toa do that. How did they do that.

First cover I want to point out is a big one that doesn't need my help promoting it LOL the Project Sekai cover:

I've mentioned this before but I don't play the game because I'm bad with gacha games and it doesn't run on my phone, but I still follow the music despite not knowing the plot or characters because Fururin and Tomoriru voice characters in it LOL Love Live fans are insane like this, if you voice a character in that franchise there's a good chance I've ended up as a dedicated fan for life without either of us realizing it. You KNOW when they release a solo ver. album with the pink hair girl's versions I'll be all over that shit SHKFJKFSD

Anyway, I like this cover because the Fururin solos are fantastic (she's doing a character voice obvs but I'm a fan of both her natural voice and her skill at singing with character voices, she's very talented!) and the other singer is nice too, and despite the jank of the early Miku NT voice, I think it actually works really well in a song like this. Her weak and sort of wobbly tone helps for a song that keeps itself quiet and gentle, I think. Fun cover! Some of the instrumentation changes sound a little odd to me, maybe it's the mixing too, but overall I like it!

Another extremely popular cover that doesn't really need my introduction if the 2 million view count is any indication, but here is ePiaeon's version with all of Hatsune Miku's voicebanks!!

Iconic, it's just a really fun, well tuned piece that also serves as a great timeline and comparison between the sheer amount of voicebanks this blue anime girl has gotten over the past 15 years. This cover is from 2020, so Miku NT was still in beta and I don't think her appends (soft and whisper I think?) were out yet, but still thing it works great comparison-wise since Miku NT has been a bit MIA in the past three years anyway. When will NT return from the war... ANYWAY I love this thing, it made me really appreciate the V3 banks again especially, I love the tone of V3 Vivid!

This cover was so popular it started a very small trend of other's doing a similar bit with other vocal synths with multiple releases to this song, here's a few interesting ones:

Namine Ritsu version by rubeeish

Kasane Teto version by Teto Kasane-Chan

a Gekiyaku version by Akiroo

These UTAU ones can be so fun because there are a lot of UTAUloids who just have an absurd amount of voicebanks LOL probably because it's free and conducive to passion projects! Of course, Ritsu, Teto, and Gekiyaku all now either have or are getting commercial voicebanks in other software as well, but its wild how even just within one software we can have so many already, plus the sheer variety of them all! Gekiyaku's whisper bank is a standout to me, she genuinely sounds like she's whispering!! It's wild what UTAU can do.

There's plenty more out there, search up "all voicebanks patchwork staccato" on YT sometime and have some fun! And of course people do the same bit with different songs as well, ePiaeon also did a Melancholic cover with all the Len and Rin banks which is very fun:

I'm a sucker for a good product timeline what can I say!!!!!!!!! Maybe someday I should make an "all voicebanks" style cover of a certain favourite vocal synth character of mine too, a certain guy who's name rhymes with benbu... hmm...

Anyway, '"all voicebanks" cover tangent finished, back to the topic at hand - but this leads well into a cover I really enjoy: Omotelie's Genbu cover!

Just a really lovely and soft cover - one thing I've been really enjoying about Genbu specifically (although it's also audible in other standard-style SV banks too) is how when you turn up his breathiness and/or use his softer octaves/phoneme groups is how the program almost seems to like, double his voice in his aspirations, if that makes sense? It's more noticeable in his Lite and you can hear it clearest in his "ka" sounds and such, but it gives his voice this husky and sort of moody dimension I really enjoy. You know, I would love a full Genbu AI singing bank someday (we're getting close with Voicevox Humming!) but if that ever happens my pipedream would be them finding a way to mimic the raspy tone from his standard in like a vocal mode or an emotion style LOL

That's the funny thing about vocal synths, sometimes the so-bemoaned engine noise (and by engine noise I mostly mean audio artefacting and distortion as a result of the software's methods of resampling or reconstructing the voice) is a feature not a bug <3 Flower is a notable example, I quite like the 2.0 version of Ci Flower, but I do get why people prefer vFlower over her: she's still husky and a bit androgenous sounding in Cevio, but that extra husky-growly tone, flatter tone in the concatenative process of VOCALOID4 is just really unique and fun LOL sometimes engine noise is the noise you want, I guess!!

Anyway, engine noise sidetrack over, back to the very nice Genbu cover, I also wanted to mention that that I love the adlibbed harmonizing bits a lot, really fun and pleasant to listen to!

ANOTHER COVER I want to point out is this cover by the voice actor, singer, and I believe vtuber, Hazuki Saki (葉月さき)!

I knew them from her utaite days as Hazuki Yuu, if I remeber correctly her brother is the utaite Touyu? Lot of talent in these siblings LOL but I love her singing here, her voice is high but you can also hear this sort of deep nasal tone especially in the first verse and the chorus, it's like fuzzy and nasal but I wouldn't call it a full head voice nor a chest voice (<- not a musician, I am talking fully out my ass LOL) it's like... sound that feels near the sinuses and back of the teeth. This is a compliment. Am I making sense. I love voices and sounds. Anyway, very nice cover!

AND one last cover, I tend to keep the covers I listen to the most often for last and here's another one: 96Neko's (96猫) cover!

96Neko is a very popular utaite known for her sort of androgynous voice that, at the time when she started, often got slotted into a sort of "Len" type voice. We used to do that, describe utaite by what Cryptonloid they sound like HDGSKJHJDS Anyway, I really love her take on this song 'cause she uses both her higher range and her normal deeper ranger while also cramming so much emotion into these softer parts here and there... the way she says "mou iya da na" is wonderful, she uses bits of vocal fry here and there to make a real "singing" style sung performance... I am aware I am getting more incomprehensible by the second. To be honest I was holding back in the first few cover-remix weekends but I am going to talk about voices how I think about them now so watch out. I am going to get weirder. I prommy <3 Anyway, what I'm saying is, listen to this cover now!!!!!!! It's very lovely :)

That's all for tonight, partially because these were the main ones I wanted to talk about but also partially because I just discovered Tumblr has a 10 video per post limit. Future posts may be multiparters, watch out LOL anyway, thank u and goodnight! (you break up with me by phone and i die on impact)

[draftingteacups]

Okay this came to me as more of a thing Soni does to warn TWST world at large with her National Pokémon Geographic thing, but imagine her talking about the various Evil Teams in her world and pointing out that considering how many there were, they really should be wary of one forming here. They use Team Rocket as a least destructive example, and Team Galactic and Flare as most. Because Team Galactic wanted to recreate the world into one without spirit, knowing it would kill everyone in the previos world, and the Spirit is Willpower, Knowledge, and Emtions so yeah, and Team Flare just went "You know what we want to do? Commit actual genocide on everyone not a part of our group!"

Me: *Gets an ask about Casual Geographic Soni and crime organizations* Oh, that'll be quick to do!

Narrator voice: And that was a massive lie.

I got so into this idea that I'm just spewing out possible plot points and scenarios with characters that it's like it's a chapter at this point ☠️This took me almost an entire day to write, and I wish that I was kidding about that. I wrote this starting around 9-ish AM and it's almost 8 PM☠️☠️☠️

The plot bunnies just kept coming and they didn't stop- at one point, I just wanted to eat the food I was writing about laksdfjakljadj. Legit, I was serious in the beginning and then it just unraveled into a hangout fic with food like-☠️☠️☠️what did I do?

NOTE: It became a What-If situation really quickly and got more complicated the more I wrote. If this shows up in the main fic, and it is very likely that might be because this situation, in particular, is something that would happen eventually in the fic, I'm going to tag this ask under minor spoilers or spoilers.

This topic isn't something that Soni could release to the public without informing the governments that rule TWST first on the subject matter in the first place.

Soni knows how much of a headache people could be with misinformation about crime groups (a common thing that happened after her Championship for multiple reasons, whether it was to defame her or blame her) and so to make it an official statement as to show how important it is, she tells Crowley to contact the leaders of TWST (do your damn job first you frigging crow man) and ask them for an official audience.

Crowley would be like: "Why would there be a Pokemon crime organization forming here, Miss Monet? Magic is the most widely-used thing on the planet!"

Soni goes, "That's exactly the mentality people had before Team Galactic tried to wipe out the universe and Team Plasma took over the Pokemon League and release all Pokemon from captivity as to control it. You really don't think people with magic wouldn't try and combine their skills with Pokemon alongside them? Don't even get me started on Team Flare and them trying to basically keep everyone living forever while getting rid of the people that didn't align with them in an incredibly terrible way."

Crowley's dealt with the students interacting with Pokemon on NRC and imagines people doing that someplace else, but with nefarious intentions. He does his job (for once) and gets the whole thing started.

Soni is a well-known figure in her world as the Champion with a lot of other deeds in helping her people in the years she's been Champion, so most wouldn't disregard her claims as false, especially with her deeds in defeating Team Flare and keeping Neo Flare as buried as they are now.

In TWST, she's known on the internet about these fantastical creatures and is an internet personality with a definite twist on what was expected in the world, but in terms of connections, accomplishments, and such, Soni's a normal person. You can probably see where that's going.

Like it's canonical that Crowley's terrible at handling things (the event stories, the promise to Grim in Episode 2 about Magishift, freaking Episode 4 with him & his Hawaiian crow-apple shirt leaving for the tropics while we were at the school), but if it's for the benefit of his school (school PR, relationships, money, etc.), so this would be brought up to the other countries ASAP and then slam all the responsibility on Soni (as per usual 🙄) in making the whole thing a success.

It's going to be several days worth of meetings because this sort of thing doesn't seem like a one-day affair, not to mention the amount of time and effort it takes to get to Sage's Island depending on where you live. It becomes a huge international thing and Soni's dealing with all sorts of royals/heads of the countries (that are known to us at the moment) from everywhere. Queendom of Roses, Briar Valley, Sunshine Lands, Kingdom of Heroes, Shaftlands, Coral Sea, and more.

Soni takes everything in stride because she's already got Powerpoints on these things and firsthand experience on these crime groups. We know that she'll prepare herself during this and all the questions that they could ask her. Thankfully, she is excused from her classes during those days to deal with the meeting itself. Her friends are confused while Grim's suffering in the classes alone without her, mostly for his favorite sleeping perch. Grim's told that he can stay over at Heartslabyul during those days, and Grim is hesitant to do so because like heck he wants to wake up and do the weird Rules of Heartslabyul!

Soni pacified him by giving him three tuna cans and he went along with it, although he was still very grumpy about it.

I imagine that the meeting takes place on Sage's Island because it's neutral territory for all of them. Probably in the town on the island with intense security measures. I'm sure there's a big building for those sorts of discussions like a Hall of Justice or something? idk I need a building name alskdfja

Imagine the fanfare on the island though. This was a meeting between rulers from other nations for several days, not to mention that the media's definitely going to be there to try and see if they can get a scoop on the activities.

So yeah, everyone at NRC is just buzzing with activity on why they were coming to Sage's Island. Soni pointedly keeps quiet about it, despite Ace and Deuce begging her for details since it was obvious that she was involved somehow while heckling her for doing more adult responsibilities again after dealing with her stuff at NRC + Overblots.

The whole entrance of the kings, queens, and other rulers of the TWST world is something else as they step on the carpet leading to the Sage's Island Hall of Justice.

Imagine the Queen of the Queendom of Roses to arrive in a flowery fashion that depicts the latest fashion sense in the kingdom while looking regal and majestic. The king might be handling the queendom while his wife is abroad to ensure everything is running smoothly while she's gone.

Imagine the King of the Coral Sea in his human form holding himself well and poised, wearing clothing that depicts his kingdom and its vast history. Maybe he's carrying a trident as well? I'm not entirely sure, but it's likely.

Imagine Soni coming in her nicest clothes (Crewel had a lot of fun with it and Soni suffered from the extensive questions about fashion in her world for the fiftieth time). She's very knowledgeable about the way that nobility can behave towards her, even with her Grand Duchess status, based on her common origins alone. She hasn't revealed her status to them yet, so she dresses formally enough to look good for the presentation with a touch of NRC in the clothes themselves as to symbolize where she's working. She doesn't want to offend any of the more sensitive nobles on proper etiquette. Soni's dealt with that enough from her own world.

She knows nothing about the nobles, aside from what's on the internet, but it's better to be cautious about those sorts of things.

When Soni comes in, she sees a roundtable of important figures in TWST. The Queen of the Queendom of Roses, King Farena of the Afterglow Savannah, King of the Coral Sea, and even Malleus' grandmother as the ruler of Briar Valley came to the meeting.

The kings, queens, and rulers of TWST ask her questions about the topic of the meeting in question. Like a normal teenager would've crumbled under the eyes of various world leaders, but Soni's long since handled things like that even before she was a Champion. She's open-minded to the questioning because they've obviously never encountered Pokemon crime groups before or how they operated on a wide-scale while evading detection. She has, so she had an obligation to inform them of what exactly they were dealing with.

I feel like her calmness is so different in comparison to how a normal teenager would react in front of this many people, especially in front of royalty. It's almost eerie in the way that she takes their words, asks for clarification on the topic, and then answers them with such distinct evidence on numerous past occasions that it'd be impossible for one person to think up of on the spot or even prepared, down to the last detail.

The fact that she comes from another world is inevitable in the meeting due to the strangeness of it all. After all, they've certainly never heard any of this before, and everyone in the room understands that this was serious.

Her role as Champion/Grand Duchess with identification with her Trainer ID as well as the items of proof themselves like her badges is shown to them. Gene's the one that she brought to the presentation as he's very sweet and amiable to the attention that everyone gives him when she explains Pokemon to them in a simple way as to not overwhelm them.

I can imagine how some are fascinated by the concept of battling as to control such fearsome beasts is no small achievement, but the fact that people and Pokemon have been working alongside one another for as long as they did is what makes them more receptive to the idea.

The crime organization evidence that had been copied and put into her Rotomphone for distribution amongst the leaders of the nations. There's no way for her to have these documents and make them so professional in the time that she had with them, especially since there were numerous names of important officials, specific dates, and official seals from numerous organizations that don't exist in TWST that look too detailed for them to be false.

Crime exists regardless of any world. Why can't there be one with Pokemon and magic? People are always finding ways to evolve themselves, why not use the mysterious creatures and put the blame on them too?

Ignoring the problem will only make it worse in the future and allow the organization to grow influence. Handle the situation quickly and efficiently while maintaining the peace of the people. Making specialized forces that are equipped for these sorts of infiltration missions are important.

Certain Pokemon like Electric types can cause wave interference in places like radio towers and such for hacking, it happened in Goldenrod Radio Tower right before Team Rocket invaded the tower itself. What more for magical ones?

(I envisioned that the idea of magic is the same as long as you fine-tune it to the specific wavelength used, so it doesn't matter if it's magically powered or electrically powered. It's just on the same wavelength. idk science really, but that's what my brain thought.)

Eventually, they decided to take the time to see the preparation methods that Soni has made as well as her suggestions into consideration, but that would be another day since it'd gotten late. They take the copied documents with them and Soni's allowed to make her video on it as soon as everything is in place.

I see them wanting to talk to Soni afterward.

King Farena is one of them as he'd heard of Soni from his son and barely a peep from his brother, but he's heard of her nonetheless. As Cheka had been stubborn enough to come for his Uncle and his new friend, Farena brought him along as to get accustomed to dealing with other places, but obviously, Cheka wasn't in the meeting room.

Cut to the sound of Cheka being super excited to see his friend with all the cool monsters, practically Tackling her. She withstands it unsurprisingly and says hello to the little prince.

Cheka snuck away again to see his dad and his new friend rip the guards watching him☠️

Some of the questions that Cheka asks Soni on impact: Did his friend become friends with his dad? Are they friends now? Can he go see the monsters at her house? Can he eat those tasty sweets that she gave him before? He really liked those! The ones at the palace are okay, but he really likes those tasty foods!

Farena wonders how Soni's handling Cheka that well before Gene breaks character as he sees his friend from before, nuzzling Cheka with the same energy that Cheka radiates.

Farena makes the time to ask Soni questions and Cheka does the same because he's watched her videos and he has a bunch of questions about certain Pokemon (he only really watched the fun ones with the Pokemon eating snacks, which is why he asked).

Eventually, Cheka had to be bribed with the promise of dessert after he's had dinner, which makes him sad for exactly three seconds before saying, "Can we have dinner at your house then?"

Soni, imagining the chaos of the missing Prince of the Afterglow Savannah as well as the fact his dad's right there: "Are you sure you want to go there? It's pretty far from here on foot."

Cheka: "Yes! I want to see all your friends! They're really nice! And that food you made me last time was really tasty!"

Soni, trying to think of a way to get out of the situation without making Cheka sad: "Ask your dad first for permission."

Cheka pulls the 'Please dad, I wanna go! look on Farena' and suddenly, Soni's dealing with making dinner for the two royals for that evening because Farena is also just as curious about the Pokemon. He just hides it better than Cheka alsdjflaljl

Like the Hall of Justice is making a food spread for the royals by well-known chefs to suit their palates, but there they were heading to NRC for the meal. Soni's just surprised that King Farena just agreed so easily. Don't worry, they alerted the guards about where they were and all that. It's all good ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

Dior's Teleport is used as opposed to the method of Flying Pokemon for the sake of secrecy and to prevent people from following them. It's also a whole lot quicker than walking or sneaking around.

While Soni's making the menu in the time that she has, Farena's pulling out his wallet to pay for the meal since it was the least that he could do for doing this to her.

Unsurprisingly, the two lions want meat and were alright with vegetables but Soni could tell that they weren't fond of them either. It was better than Leona's outright refusal to eat vegetables. In the end, she buys them a lot of meat to satisfy their cravings.

If you wanna know the meal plan, it's tonkatsu (a breaded pork cutlet that's been deep-fried that's typically served with a side of rice and shredded cabbage) and a side of milk vegetable stew topped with cheese. She picks some sweet biscuits for a quick-make parfait since she's got her Berry farms as well as nicer serving glasses because she wants to make it look nice.

As the shopping's happening in the Mystery Shop with Sam being happy with the customers that Soni brought in, Cheka's holding Gene in his arms, very content with his buddy and not running around so he doesn't trip over and hurt them both. They have mini conversations with one another in the meantime, looking🥺💖

Cheka's involved in the cooking process by picking the Berries on her farm with the assistance of her Pokemon like Combee, Nimbus, and the Cottonees making sure that he was safe. Farena is amazed by how she was operating the farm and asks her how many people were running it.

Soni: "Oh, I'm the only one. My Pokemon help me maintain it as it is. That, and the Wild Pokemon come to help me out."

Farena: "Is there anyone else around your dorm to assist you?"

Soni: "I do have Grim. He's technically my magical half as I'm attending NRC. Other than him, the Pokemon, and the ghosts that were former students, we're the only ones here."

Farena, a bit concerned: "Are there no adults assisting you at this dorm, Miss Monet?"

Soni explains that she was a part of the staff originally before she was made into a student, so she's technically the supervisor of Ramshackle, thus the adult. That does not help Farena feel better about the situation.

Cheka shows up with his basket of sweet Berries and is very pleased with his assistance.

While the meal is being cooked by Soni and the three ghosts assist her because they all collectively agree that she should be resting up, Cheka and Farena have a bonding experience with the Pokemon. Granted, it's already rather cozy and warm with the blankets that encase Cheka's being, but being surrounded by Pokemon makes it even better. Meanwhile, Farena's recording the scene on his phone to show his wife after the trip was over as well as sending a text to someone.

Then, Leona comes into Ramshackle and wonders what the heck they were doing in here and why his brother texted him until Soni announces dinner was ready. Cheka just hangs from Leona in a hug and just does not care about his uncle's grumpy looks.

Soni: "Oh hey, we're just about to eat dinner."

Leona: "Why are you feeding them? Isn't there a fancy dinner party at that meeting for the next few days?"

Soni: "At first, Cheka wanted to eat my sweets and it evolved into me making food for the both of them. It's fine if you don't wanna eat, but I'd make the decision quick because the tonkatsu will cool off."

Needless to say, the three lions enjoyed their meals, although Leona had to be nagged into eating the veggies in the soup and ate a whole lot of meat in the process. Cheka was delighted by the taste of the soup and got two extra portions along his tonkatsu, his ears moving with excitement. Farena asks Soni if she used anything different from normal since the taste was rather delicious, which she follows up by saying she has Pokemon that produce milk and the taste is popular in her world.

Dessert was just as delicious: a mixed Berry parfait with Pecha Berries and Oran Berries layered with Alcremie cream and the biscuits from earlier that were frozen quickly using Mila's Ice Beam. Farena had to stop Cheka from eating too many parfaits alksdlk; the little lion got through two cups already in the span of three minutes

After bringing Farena and Cheka back to the Hall of Justice, Leona is still unhappy at the fact that his brother and nephew came and only stops when Soni tells him that she'll hand him some of the leftover tonkatsu for both him and Ruggie to enjoy in the comfort of their dorm.

It did not escape the other royals' that wondered where the Afterglow Savannah royal family went last night, but when they got told it was a family meet-up and remembering how Leona was at NRC, they didn't question it, although they did question how they got up there without being detected.

Soni's just pretending like she didn't know shit in the corner like 🧍‍♀️

That day was briefing them all on Pokemon themselves and that's a huge undertaking. Thankfully, Soni's got experience from doing it on her Casual Pokegraphic (idk about names, so I'm just going with this) videos as well as her friends and others asking her constantly. They were more receptive to her than the other day, which was good.

Gene is used as an example for evolution and she shows how different Pokemon can change form depending on the circumstances. They were intrigued by how many that Eevee could transform into, especially the Fairy type, Sylveon.

Malleus' grandmother is intrigued by the Fairy types that are in Soni's world and asks her about that. Cue a long explanation of how the Fairy type had been a recent discovery in the last few years in her world and how the Pokemon world was constantly rediscovering and learning more things about Pokemon. After that meeting, Soni steps outside last of the royals and is approached by Malleus' grandma.

She might be the one to ask her "How old are you really?" because she just has something off about her that isn't completely human, but not anything of fae-blood in her features.

Soni says that she's 16, and the fae woman says that Soni better not be lying.

Soni vaguely says that she encountered a powerful Fairy type that changed her as a way to not outright say her status as a Blessed because that's a sensitive topic. Malleus' grandmother nods in understanding since she knows how fae tends to be and how they can be towards humans.

When Soni goes back to NRC that day, Lilia and Malleus' grandmother as well as Mr. Horns himself are talking to one another while enjoying the pleasant company of the baby Pokemon that Lilia tried to steal again until Malleus' grandmother showed up to question what exactly he was doing. Sebek and Silver are alert, ready to fight any attackers, even though there were other guards around the vicinity of Ramshackle Dorm.

Happiny's just chilling on Malleus' lap, very happy to be surrounded by friends while Malleus enjoyed the precious time that he was spending with his family and his little happy friend, Happiny. Malleus' grandmother seems rather amused by the Pokemon that stopped to greet them while they worked until she spots Soni coming back. The guards get wary of the human who approaches them, unsure of who the heck this random human is.

Happiny just squeaks at the sight of Soni, asking to be picked up and laughing in joy when Soni does.

Malleus asks Soni if she had any of their usual snacks as he wants to share them with his grandmother. Thankfully, Soni still had leftover parfaits the previous night, thanks to Farena's efforts. Granted, one of the guards tastes it for poison (which makes Soni remember that oh, yeah, that was a thing here since they didn't know Pecha Berries cured the Poison status or any poisonous substance oops) and clears it for consumption.

Malleus looks unhappy at the suspicion, but he can't refute their fears. They did not know his Child of Man like the rest of them did. His grandmother didn't seem to have that same suspicion thankfully.

They all enjoy the cold treats and Lilia spoonfeeds Happiny on the treat, much to the delight of the Pokemon. Lilia can't stop cooing at the expression on Happiny's face. Soni has to stop Lilia from feeding Happiny too many sweets since that would make Happiny restless for the rest of the day. The ruler of Briar Valley is pleased by the cold treat presented and is intrigued by the Berries while Malleus, feeling happy, tells her that Soni grows them for her Pokemon as well as makes items with it to sell.

That leads to Soni explaining how the Berries used in the desserts were used for certain things other than eating. For example, Pecha Berries were for getting rid of Poison and Oran Berries were for healing minor wounds, which leads to making more sweets for them to sample as that interested Malleus' Grandma.

Soni, Silver, and Sebek have to stop Lilia from cooking alkdsfjaslk

Soni decides to make malasadas with Berry Syrup of their choosing.

If they wanted, she could mix up some milkshakes for them to go along with their malasadas. Cue Mila's Ice Beam being used to speed up the ice cream process with a special process. Mila's Milotic form is pleasing to the eyes and captivates all who watch it.

Soni made a big batch of malasadas as she wanted to send some over to Ruggie since she was sure he'll try to steal some later. He always knew whenever she made them for some reason. Probably because of Morpeko. Most likely Morpeko.

Anyways, during the wait time for the dough to settle down, Malleus talked about his experiences at NRC to his grandmother. While many were still afraid of him, he is glad to have met Soni as she didn't care about him or his status as long as he was her friend, which he repaid in turn when he learned about her being a Grand Duchess/Champion. Lilia is just enjoying his time playing with the baby Pokemon while the guards are still alert for any intruders. Silver was resting against Nimbus' fluffy body while Sebek tried to make sure he didn't fall asleep.

When the desserts were fried up and ready to be served, it was glorious. The malasadas are piping hot with Berry syrup on the side for them to use or not and cold Moomoo milkshakes for their consumption. It was delightful to enjoy these treats after they got cleared by the guards once more for poison.

I have the headcanon that Malleus' grandma also deals with extreme heat in their throats due to being draconic fae, so the milkshake was ordered twice over for her, the same for Malleus. Soni made sure to make a whole bunch of ice cream for all of them.

Happiny enjoyed the malasada, nibbling on it as she relaxed with Soni settling down after making the food. The guards are given the chance to sample the food, although they kept their faces stoic as they ate.

I feel like one of the guards would want to fight Soni when she mentions how Malleus didn't want to tell her his name before due to the fear most people have of it, thus calling him Mr. Horns since Soni had no clue of who the heck he was.

M.G (Malleus' Grandma): "Mr.... Horns?"

Soni nods, feeling the glares intensify: "Yep, although I wasn't the one to name him. I actually asked my partner, Grim, for help with the nickname. It was the one distinctive part about him that I could see in the dark when I first met him and he did say that I could call him whatever I wanted. It just stuck ever since."

Malleus is amused by the story and the memory of the first time that she called him that nickname, but one of the guards thinks that it's an insult. Malleus had already told Sebek to not admonish her over her for it since it was given with his permission, and Sebek conceded with that.

Cue a match that is watched by the Diasomnia crew and Briar Valley's ruler as they sipped on milkshakes and ate malasadas on the side.

It wasn't a long fight as Aegis quickly takes down the guard with very little effort, looking incredibly miffed at the insult towards his Trainer before Soni calms Aegis down. The other guards get to fight with Aegis as well. Dinner rolls around by the time it's all finished up. As much as Malleus' grandmother wishes to stick around, she needed to go and have dinner with the other royals.

Lilia offhandedly mentions how delicious Soni's meals were and how she was able to accommodate them, despite showing up in the evening, citing one incident where Sebek and Silver ate so much of her food that they couldn't eat his that day.

Cue sweating from the two mentioned as Soni realizes oop, she gotta cook again.

Just like Farena, Malleus and his grandma pitch in with the expenses and Soni asks them what they want to eat, light or heavy meals, and more. She also makes food for the guards because she kinda felt bad for them, although they seemed to enjoy the sparring with Aegis.

She whips up an assortment of tempura (veggie and shrimp) as well as a salad paired with a light dressing and grilled salmon with a simple teriyaki sauce since M.G. needed to eat for the dinner that evening. Even though the guards were puzzled as to why Soni chose to grill the fish outside, Soni set up an outdoor table for all of them to enjoy their meal under the stars with some Berry juice to enjoy alongside their meals. It was light enough to feel satisfied. Soni gave M.G. the leftover ice cream to enjoy back home at Briar Valley, something that made the old fae smile.

I'm imagining Malleus in the background looking sad because Soni gave him the leftover ice cream, but he said that it'd be a good gift for his grandma to enjoy as well since he could just go over to Ramshackle while he still could. When it was time to go, this scene would most likely take place.

M.G. turns to Soni: "Thank you for taking care of me this evening."

Soni: "It's no problem. Wait, here's the leftover money." *hands it over*

M.G.: "It's fine. You should keep it for all the hard work that you put forward for these meetings."

Soni has flashbacks to her Granny saying that fae don't usually do things without having something else up their sleeve: "...Are you sure? I feel kinda bad if I just keep it."

Malleus: "It's fine. We're both thankfully for your kindness this evening. Not only have you given us a part of your world, you also let the guards experience the power that they wield."

Soni thinks to the guards who looked tired and battered, wondering if they felt the same: "Okay..."

She decided to make backup sweets just in case something happened tomorrow because she was sensing a pattern emerging. With an icebox cake and mini Berry tarts complete with the assistance of the ghosts, she went off to bed.

The next day, Soni has the floor once more, discussing the matters and some of the ways that crime organizations might hide their activity through the use of Pokemon.

This came with a wave of ideas from everyone, giving examples of what crimes with magic committed would be like. They discuss this for a good while as they come up with several prevention plans as well as making laws to ensure that Pokemon and people would be able to live alongside one another in harmony. That latter portion would take a while to implement, but it would be seen through to be established.

Once that had been settled on, Soni was caught by the King of the Coral Sea as well as the Queen of the Queendom of Hearts who heard interesting things from M.G. who offhandedly mentioned how she was good with making food and desserts. M.G. was nearby, nodding her head in agreement before she suggested coming along with them.

Soni sees the growing crowd of people and inwardly just goes, I'm just glad to have made those sweets from the other day.

After telling the guards what was happening to prevent panic (for the third time in three days; rip the guards), they teleported straight into NRC.

Trey & Riddle are there at Ramshackle, both of them inwardly panicking at the sight of the Queen of the Queendom of Roses right beside Soni. Not only her but the King of the Coral Seas as well as the Ruler of Briar Valley!

Trey and Riddle communicating with their eyes at Soni: What on Twisted Wonderland did you do?

Soni remembers how she kept everything quiet and just being blank-faced as possible: IDK they wanted to eat my food and see my Pokemon. What do you want me to do? Say no?

Trey and Riddle are so confused by the lack of context but they just rolled with it because they had royalty before them. Of course, they greeted them accordingly, and I think the Queen knows of Riddle's parents because of canon, so they say their pleasantries before the royals are shown around Ramshackle.

The King of the Coral Sea finds the Pokemon that live in the trees fascinating, especially since they were rather friendly as they came over to greet them. When he sees Mila swimming by the lake, he's enthralled by the graceful aura that she radiates. He immediately goes swimming beside Mila, never invading her space and respecting her enough that she allows him to swim beside her. The guards try their best to bring the man back to the shore, but he was way too far for them to reach, even if they shifted to their merform.

The Queen of the Queendom of Roses finds the fluffy Pokemon to be adorable. If there were Wooloos, the Wooloos love the affection and huddle around her. She also sees Primrose and is so curious about how such a creature could exist as the Pokemon brings the flowers around them to bloom. Nimbus attracts her attention as the cloud bird was sweet enough to brush the ends of her dress that were gathering dirt with its white wings.

Malleus' Grandma gets along with Dior and has been enjoying watching over the others' reactions as it was quite similar to her own while she wandered over the dorm. She had felt like she had stepped into a different world as she wandered around the area filled with Pokemon. The Pokemon that were Fairy type gathered around her and greeted her happily, which made her smile a little at the interaction.

Meanwhile, the three students as well as the guards are setting up a lakeside table for the royals to enjoy their desserts. The teens ask Soni if she has anything prepared and she tells them about the mini Berry tarts as well as the icebox cake, but Soni is unsure that it might be enough. Riddle and Trey help her out with the possible missing desserts. Riddle offers the tea in Heartslabyul for Soni to use.

As the king finishes up with his swimming and turning back into his human form and the Queen of Roses is beginning to feel peckish, Soni managed to cook up some simple egg sandwiches as well as the mini-tarts. The drink served was cold milk tea that had mixed Berry syrup and chopped Berries at the bottom, which was perfect for their current outing as a refreshing drink. Of course, the guards did a taste test for poison, but M.G. didn't wait for them to give their verdict and ate the food.

The King of the Coral Sea asked Soni if she had anything more filling than the egg sandwiches, which were delicious, as he was pretty hungry after swimming. Soni used the pork cutlets from a few days ago and made some tonkatsu sandwiches that all three monarchs ate with content. Soni pointedly ignored when the Queen of Roses swiped the remaining sandwich with fingers so fast they were nothing but a blur, looking as poised and graceful as ever behind her fan.

Out came the desserts with the ice box cake being a part of the show. Thus the royals enjoyed themselves with the sweets until it was dinnertime and they left for the dinner party that evening.

Riddle and Trey just ask Soni what the heck was she doing and how she ended up in this situation and she explains it. They both help her out in making sweets since they all felt like this was only going to happen again. Trey and the three ghosts helped the manual labor aspect with the help of magic while Riddle helped with organizing the ingredients in place with the Alcremies from Heartslabyul helping out in the sweets. Dior helped out immensely with Psychic with the other Pokemon in the dorm helping out as well.

This time, she was prepared.

Simple Alcremie Cream Berry cakes of common Berries like Oran, Pecha, Mago, and even sour Berry cakes to offset the sweet cream from the Alcremie depending on the Alcremie. Honey Cheri Berry tarts were made. They even made a whole bunch of ice cream as M.G. earlier had asked her if she made some that day, despite Soni thinking that M.G. still had the ice cream that she gifted her.

nope, M.G. ate all of it at the evening party with her dessert alkdsjfas

Soni even made side dishes that could be made ahead of time and made a lot of them, just in case there were any other surprise visitors coming along like today. Soni was starting to feel more and more like she was cooking more than she was making discussions. It wasn't great to be put on the spot for this, but at least she was prepared this time around. Soni made sure to give them sweets or pay them back, Riddle and Trey said that if it was for the kings and queens of other countries, it was fine and said good luck.

This day was where they were narrowing down the possible methods that they had proposed the day before from short-term methods like temporary monitoring of activity for companies to more long-term plans like making Trainer IDs for owning Pokemon, which would be handled by a committee that they would have to create as an international one.

Despite the fact the meeting ended with the final preparations to be done tomorrow, there was almost something unspoken in the air. Soni didn't feel right to be the first to leave, so she waited until a majority of the people left. King of Coral Sea, Queen of Roses, the Ruler of Briar Valley, and King Farena of the Afterglow Savannah were still in the room when she did.

Little did she know that they were all talking about who was going to Ramshackle Dorm that day. Unfortunately for them, someone else beat them to the punch.

Soni immediately used Teleport straight into Ramshackle and found Jamil at her dorm, looking like he pitied her.

Soni: "Is it someone who wants to come and see me?"

Jamil: "Yes. Kalim's bringing them inside as we speak."

Turns out the Ruler of the Scalding Sands overheard from the King of the Coral Sea as well as the Queen of Roses about their excursion to Ramshackle and the lovely time that they spent there.

Feeling left out, he wanted to enjoy the Pokemon that he's heard so much about over the past few days. So the Ruler of the Scalding Sands and his wife had come to visit, which sent Soni into a state of "Welp, this is happening."

The couple was very warm and accommodating, similar to Kalim's sunny demeanor. Every time a Pokemon popped up from somewhere, they would both go into a wide-eyed state and point it out, which led to Soni giving a short description of the Pokemon as they oohed and ahhed over it. Kalim and Jamil, along with the guards and servants that were brought along, kept up with them.

Then came Swanna.

The wife was in amazement over the beautiful bird, but Soni said that Swanna was the more temperamental of the Pokemon and that they couldn't approach it unless Swanna did so first. Surprisingly, the White Bird Pokemon did so, very curious about what these other humans were doing around the lake.

The wife found Swanna to be beautiful and told it so, making the Pokemon puff up in pride. After getting those compliments and spending time being cooed over, Swanna got tired and retreated back onto the lake.

Then Kalim brought up the possibility of going on a Pokemon for some flying around. He went into detail about his flight with Soni and how different it was, compared to the carpet and brooms.

That made Jamil and the guards go, "Why would you bring that up?" while the couple was instantly attracted to the idea because that was something that was from the legends of the Magic Carpet in the age of the Sorcerer of the Dessert.

In the end, Kalim brought out his magic carpet with Jamil while the guards were riding on broomsticks in case something went wrong. Soni was on the back of Charlie who could catch them if something went wrong while the couple was on the back of Nimbus, wearing safety gear and multiple rigs in order to keep them safe.

As they soared into the sky, she could see some of the students on campus looking up at them like they couldn't believe what they were seeing. Soni was sure that Deuce saw her as she saw someone stumbling on the ground with a familiar dot of pink beside him. As the sun began to set, Soni could hear the couple singing the praises of the Pokemon that allowed them to see the sight before them and how wonderful it was to experience this sort of thing.

When they asked about the food after the flight they had, the servants wanted to prepare the meal, but the couple trusted Soni to make it. They had the condition of making a dish that she enjoyed for them to get the full experience. Soni told them that her foods weren't really the full food repertoire of her region, but this specific dish was her favorite since it was simple, filling, and delicious while having flavor.

She made them Spicy and Sour Clauncher and Vegetable Stew with some Pecha Berry milk tea on the side with syrup on the sides for more color. One of the servants had given her the package when she asked for help on getting some tea brewed. With the help of Jamil, she got the food served to them.

There's a part of me that sees this as an opportunity for some drama as the tea that had been used was poisoned, but because of the Pecha Berry, that poison had been negated entirely.

Primrose had found that out as she pointed it out due to her Poison typing sensing the familiar spike of poison in the drink. After finding the criminal trying to escape, the Cottonee that were hiding in the trees released Stun Spore to keep them in place. The Scalding Sands ruler was furious that someone would try to poison them but was very thankful for the Pecha Berries that saved their lives as well as the Pokemon who helped them with the criminal in question.

Soni decided to notify the Headmaster of the incident who would update the guards on the situation to tighten security and background checks on everyone who came and left the building. She also gave the couple some Pecha Berries to use should something like this ever happen again. She told them how to grow them and gave some notes on it to them and they thanked her for her service.

When the last and final day of the meeting was upon them, everyone had been notified of the incident and things were tense. Everyone had the first laws put down at that table with plans set in motion to prevent things like this from happening again.

I see this incident where someone tried to frame Soni (as a scapegoat) on the neutral territory for poisoning the two royals, only furthered by crime happening at the Night Raven College where it was supposed to be safe. Thankfully, because of how swiftly everyone reacted as well as the countermeasures (like the Pecha berries), no one was hurt. From what the criminal said, it was to get rid of the person who made a mess of their plans AKA Soni.

This meant the danger with crime organizations and criminal use of Pokemon was very real. Even with that hanging over them, they made sure to solidify their plans, the to-be-made laws, the short and long term goals, and the future committee to be formed as the International Pokemon Protection Agency with smaller branches spread out throughout the world.

With that said and done, the meetings were over. Just as Soni was beginning to leave, she was stopped by the call of the kings, queens, and rulers that she'd met over the past few days as well as the few that hadn't introduced themselves yet to her.

Turns out that they all wanted to hold their meal at Ramshackle Dorm because, despite the incident, they'd never felt safer with the Pokemon doing their best to protect them from the sidelines as well as Soni making sure that they were well accommodated during their time there.

Soni remembered the sweets that she made two days prior as well as the side dishes that she prepared. She realized that she needed more and that was honestly going to be a pain in the butt, but she called in her reinforcements in the form of the Heartslabyul Crew for desserts. Ace and Deuce were annoyed by the fact that she'd been doing this for the last few days and didn't tell them, but also just amazed by it too. Grim was in detention for "accidentally" sleeping in class again.

Getting the poor cook that was honestly confused by the sudden change in the menu, the meal was set near the lake around the center of everything on Ramshackle grounds. It was in an open space with plenty of sunlight and there was shade provided by the Berry trees, along with some guards bringing some large umbrellas.

Cheka had been bouncing off the walls at the fact that he got to hang out with her again so soon, so he just stuck to her like glue as she did her work. Farena told him to be a little less energetic, but Soni found it fine as Cheka just oohed and ahhed over what was going on.

Little Cheka wasn't the only person that was enamored by the whole thing.

The Queen of Roses showed off the Grass types who diligently worked near the Berry fields as well as the fluffy Pokemon who were curious enough to come over and were petted. Nimbus had been keeping up with the Queen of Roses, gently dusting off her dress at times before pulling back.

The King of the Coral Sea raced with Mila who found herself competitive while the others greeted the numerous Water types that lived in the lake as well. He also found the Fighting type that Soni had to be quite the fighter as someone had decided to spar against it in hand-to-hand combat. The one that she called Aegis had also fought against the Diasomnia guards and it was spectacular swordsmanship from a sword being.

Farena was enjoying his time at the dorm, sinking into the fluffy Cottonee and Wooloo that wandered up to him. He could sense a feeling of irony at the fact little sheep were cozying up to a lion beastman like him, but he found it too comfortable to really think much else of it. He might stop by later to Savanaclaw, but he was sure that Leona wouldn't welcome him at all.

The ruler of Briar Valley herself was the same as she was with Dior once more in the shade of the Berry trees. Even though there had been a close encounter on these very grounds, due to the plans put in place, the damage had been minimal. Although it was not good to completely disregard the incident, morale would've been low in making this plan work. By seeing the positivity and goodness that these mysterious creatures could bring, only then would they be able to progress further.

Even though it'd been yesterday, it was like coming to a wonderland as the ruler of the Scalding Sands walked around the flowers of Ramshackle with his wife. The small Grass type Pokemon called Cottonee greeted them both with a cheer before floating away. In his mind, those two had helped in capturing the criminal. He'll definitely donate money to the repairs of Ramshackle Dorm for all that had happened, especially with the fact that Soni had saved the both of them from a terrible fate and had done so without even really knowing it existed. She'd almost been framed for it as well. For there to be Pokemon to be useful in those situations, he was very glad to know they're here now!

As the tables were set up, the meal was to be made. If I had to describe it, it's basically the set-up of a Korean BBQ.

It wasn't anything fancy with set-up meals and such, but BBQ on a nice sunny day was enjoyable. Using the side dishes and putting it onto the bowls that had been brought over from the dining room from the Hall of Justice, the conversation flowed as everyone enjoyed the smell of BBQ being made. Soni went around the tables, describing what the side dishes were, and saw the revelations of taste that came across people's faces at the different combinations that she'd showed them.

Cooked rice bowls, Spicy & Sour Clauncher and Vegetable Stew were sent to the tables, and more were given out. The Heartslabyul students were exhausted from running around trying to keep up with everything but finally enjoyed themselves as they ate. Soni was sitting with them as well, relaxing after all the stuff that had been going on for the past few days. Showing them how to eat the BBQ with the lettuce leaves and a mixture of the side dishes, everyone else around them did so as well.

Cheka was by his dad's side, stuffing his face with BBQ. Although he didn't like veggies, these ones were tasty. Farena now has a way to get his son to eat veggies, thanks Soni👍

When the desserts came out, it was a wonderful end to the whole meeting session. The sweetness of the Berry cakes with cream was a huge hit as well as their sour counterparts.

Honey Cheri Tarts were devoured by Ace who nearly choked on one. Soni handed him a glass of water that he gulped down.

Ace: "I can't believe that you managed to do something like this. How the heck did it happen?"

Soni just shrugs: "I don't know. It just happened."

Deuce handles Happiny who sits in his lap as she's fed little bits of BBQ and sweets. "I'm pretty sure something like this doesn't just happen randomly."

The King of the Coral Sea had asked someone to buy some alcohol for the BQQ and was very satisfied with everything that was served after that. The Stew was his favorite while the Cheri Berry Tarts were delicious. The Queen of Roses was elegant, but she was quick to pick up the meat and seemed to be enjoying the different tastes presented to her. The parfait was her favorite. The Scalding Sands ruler and his wife loved the whole thing, enjoying the different flavors of the BBQ as well as the variety of things that they could eat by mixing and matching. They loved the Alcremie Cream Cakes, the sweet ones, as it helped with the spiciness of the Spicy & Sour Clauncher and Vegetable Stew.

Malleus' grandma was in bliss as she drank her milkshake, although that did not show on her face as she was poised in doing so. At the discovery that there was ice cream, the other royals had asked for some ice cream too with their desserts. M.G. was doing her best not to crumble at the idea of having no ice cream to take home laksdjlfkaj

At the end of the meeting, everything drew to a close and thus the beginning of a new era began to rise over the horizon.

[bonesandthebees]

TOP FIVE DSMP FICS I NEED RECS

OHOHOHO ok a lot of these are gonna be ones i've recced before if you're asking for my top 5 of all time but oh well (also these won't be in any particular order it's just like top 5 overall wanna clarify)

unlikely events by Nymphii - literally just. some of the best crimeboys out there right now. I get so excited every single time this updates, i absolutely adore Nymph's writing style and I think she does an amazing job at taking the plot of DBH and adding to it to make it feel unique and the progression feel natural. her characterization of both wilbur and tommy is spot on and watching their relationship develop has been so satisfying this fic deserves so much more attention than it gets please go read it

ritual purposes by thanotaphobia - roxy my beloved has done it again. they're such an amazing author in so many ways and I seriously love this fic so much because of how natural and calm it is. you can tell there's so many personal bits of experience with it, and it's such a niche subject matter that's so interesting to learn about through the story. there are so many little bits of interaction that I just love seeing and I adore the whole thing

i love you till the day i die (so don't die today) by IHJTMQ - some of my favorite dsmp!crimeboys i've read. i usually don't read a lot of canon-verse fics but I go back and reread this so many times. i just love the way this author writes wilbur and tommy and their interactions. it doesn't feel out of character but it's so heartwarming it's such a comfort fic for me

I can feel your heart beating under my skin by Drhair76 - i'm a sucker for medium/psychic stories and this one is so soft and has such amazing atmosphere. i love how the environments are described and the emotions as well it's just so sweet and i literally reread it this morning for like the umpteenth time it's so nice

His Curse of Binding by bari_astralis - I love so many of bari's works and was so close to putting lethe runs golden here instead but his curse of binding was the fic that introduced me to them as an author so I had to put it here. if you haven't read it, do yourself a favor and go read it. it's so well written, bari is one of the funniest goddamn authors in this fandom but also manages to balance the humor so well with the angst. all the sbi interactions are fantastic and god it just hits so well

(also fuck this i'm adding two more because I can't not put them. devil town by hoorayy and coup de grâce by greyquills. dt is an amazingly written small town horror story that has such complicated character dynamics and it's written so well that it even got me to read techno pov which is a VERY hard thing to do. cdg is a star wars au that's been one of my fav crimeboys fics forever, grey is a fantastic writer and i'm a sucker for dark side stuff so this just hits in all the right ways for me)

[romicat]

It's weird to me that there are still people who defend the homophobic writing in the parahuman series.

Like, the author themselves apologize for it, and then actually showed mayor improvements in how he handles these stories. Something very few writers do. I don't think I would've enjoyed Pale nearly as much if Wildbow hadn't actually made an effort to improve on this front.

I mean, there was that weird stumbling early at the start with Avery and the Glamour, but other than that, Pale has been pretty good at how it handles LGBT characters.

It makes them complicated and sometimes morally questionable without making it feel like I'm reading a Chick Tract or a weird censored anime porn game.

The main issue with the stuff with Amy, Kenzie, Alec, March, and so on wasn't that people didn't want to read queer characters as anything other than pure beans who don't have serious issues, or were fucked up in some ways. It's how they were written and how the story treated them and just everything else about it like the execution not just the content itself.

It's like how the same people who criticize GoT for how badly it treats female characters and handles rape also praise Jessica Jones and Furry Road for handling the same kind of subject matter. It's not that Worm/Ward did X that is the problem, so much that it was done horribly.

Like, coming from someone who wants more stories about predatory and abusive characters in queer spaces (because it's a real issue that doesn't get talked about much), the way Worm and Ward handled it was just plain terrible.

And it doesn't have to be. I feel like you could pretty easily fix the Parian/Foil, Marche, Alec, and Kenzie stuff without much issue.

The Amy and Victoria plot, on the other hand, is just too much of a tangle messed. I keep going back and forth on if it's better to try and rewrite it so it's not executed as terribly or just to cut all together.

But yeah just like, Tiger's Daughter, Dread Nation, Locked Tomb, and Malice all have casts full of complex fucked up queer characters, including some with some sexual and/or physical/emotional abusers and they are all fantastic.

If you want to read a good versions of what Worm/Ward tries to do, go read those instead.

[pigeonclaw]

Big ramble ahead but, okay. It kind of bothers me when people say Cinderpelt was forced to become a medicine cat. That language would seem to imply that she was forbidden from becoming a warrior, when that just... wasn't the situation.

After breaking her leg, she couldn’t walk properly. Travel became slow and exhausting for her, and as a result, everyone was worried that she couldn’t be a warrior. Up until this point in her life, becoming a warrior was the path basically everyone took, and if she couldn’t physically handle warrior duties, she feared that she was useless. But Yellowfang appreciated her company in the medicine den. She started giving her tasks to help her feel useful, and Cinderpelt began to regain some of her self esteem. After she had been helping out in the medicine den — not as an apprentice, but as a friend — for some time, Yellowfang made it clear how valuable she was as an assistant. When she eventually offered to take her on as an apprentice, Cinderpelt was overjoyed. She loved the crabby old cat and the work she did for her, and she was very dedicated to both.

I think the idea that her life was a tragedy because she switched to medicine cat training comes not from the first arc where her story actually takes place, but from Power of Three. When you’re years removed from a narrative, it’s very easy to think back on it and recontextualize it to fit into your own mindset. And that’s exactly what Power of Three did to her. In that arc, we do have a disabled protagonist forced to become a medicine cat (which is an even more complex topic), and Cinderpelt’s reincarnation of sorts as Cinderheart for the purpose of living the life she was supposedly meant to have. It’s... a bit of a tricky issue, because the notion that her life was a waste because of her disability is... troubling, to say the least. And the interpretation that her life was a waste because she didn’t cling stubbornly to the warrior path isn’t much better.

The reason this bothers me is because I feel, based on the books she's actually alive in, that she lived a full life (or would have, had she not died young). Cinderpelt wanted to be a warrior, yes. Her entire culture glorifies being a warrior more than anything. After her injury, she had to give up on that dream and pick up another. And she was a fantastic medicine cat! Before she was even officially made Yellowfang’s apprentice, she was praised for her enthusiasm, good memory, efficiency, and trustworthiness. It’s pointed out that she’s a quick learner and good with patients, and we see this regularly too. She was very determined, always going out of her way to do the right thing, even when she wasn’t allowed to. And this, combined with her medicinal skills, allowed her to touch so many lives. Cinderpelt didn’t accomplish the things she planned for when she was little, but her potential was not lost.

I’m not claiming that Warriors isn’t ableist at times. But I notice a tendency for folks to reframe every disabled character’s life as a sad tale of someone being forced to give up their dreams and live a worse life because no one believed in them — even when that isn’t really the case. Disability is a very complicated and sensitive subject that needs to be written with more care than it often is. But for a character to face limitations due to their disability, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad writing and/or the abled characters around them are terrible. For a character to lose something as big as their dream, their goals, their ability to keep up with their peers... I don’t believe that alone is unrealistic or cruel. What matters far more for me in a story is how the disabled character handles their limitations and where they go from there. Please understand, also, that sometimes handling limitations is not the same as overcoming them. Not everything can be overcome. What’s important is what you do with what you have.

I may not have a twisted leg, but I do have a neurological disorder that has impacted every area of my life at one point or another. My spasms have been severe enough to injure me many times, and for years I couldn’t learn to drive because I was too afraid (and often rightly so) that it would be unsafe with my condition. I eventually had to give up on my education and dream job because of my failing health in general. For a long while, I was afraid I could never amount to anything because I couldn’t do any of the things I’d been aiming for since childhood. But with time, my situation has changed. I aimed for more realistic goals, bearing in mind that my disorder is made far worse by stress and exhaustion. My symptoms are less severe these days because I’m no longer stressing myself out trying to force my way through a career that my disability is simply not compatible with. Things aren’t perfect. But I’m figuring out a better way to proceed.

I think you get the picture. What I’m trying to say, and what Cinderpelt’s story means to me... is that having to give up on something doesn’t mean you’ve wasted your life, it doesn’t mean that you’re worth any less, and it certainly doesn’t mean you’ve been defeated. When bad things happen, you may not be able to return to how life was before. And maybe that’s okay.