#just a little. my main drive is still 'i think its funny to make those kinda shitty deadbeat background guys fuck'

[mozzarellamint]

real old man yaoi heads know whats up (alt below the cut)

[diminuel]

Ok back to the main stories.

All i can think about is the aftermath of Croco vs luffy.

I imagine when he was younger Ace got into an argument with croc or dragon and he tried to run away thinking they didn't want him anymore. Which upset luffy but que big hug session with everyone. And they tell ace and by extension luffy that even if they get mad at each other even if they fight that they will always love them.

So just after luffy takes the win he runs up to croco and gives him a kiss on the forehead and tells him he loves him before running off with his friends.

Epilogue: croco crying cause he is so proud of his strong little shit of a good son.

To a lesser extent very funny family fights when the kids are older and hitting those grumpy tween years where they all have yelling matches that end with them storming off before coming back a second later to shout "I LOVE YOU!" Then storming off again cause they still agny. Or instead if the "I HATE YOU!" Angst trope its "I LOVE YOU BUT YOUR SO FREAKIN ANNOYING LET ME LIVE MY LIFE!" Or something like that.

Strong silly family bond for the win

Ps if Ace still joins white beard i like to imagine him calling white beard grandpa instead of dad cause he is like i have a dad but you can be grampa cause my other one super irritating and i like you better

Pps white beard quietly adopting dragon as his son cause why not

(Too many ideas cause your so talented it cause idea landslide)

(I'm glad my silly AUs are inspiring you to come up with such ideas!!)

I do love the thought that they do always make sure to tell each other they love each other and that even if they find each other annoying at the moment, it's a thing that they'll get past.

I think that it might lead to tension when Ace starts questioning himself due to Roger's bloodline to be so reviled that it caused a lot of innocent people to die in the crusade to eradicate it. And maybe it doesn't matter how many times Dragon and Crocodile tell him that he is loved, he still struggles and that might lead to an argument that drives Ace away? Like he was most likely doing some sort of self-sabotage where he believed that he must be hated and that his parents secretly hate him too and that if he pushes enough they'll get angry and that will then be the proof that he is unlovable and shouldn't have been born. (;w;)

And now I'm thinking about the Alabasta fight. I can imagine Luffy, seeing Crocodile defeated, has a moment of terror and softy calls "I love you?" And Crocodile, even tough the hit was hard enough that he's hanging on to consciousness, says it back. Because if he can't Luffy can't go on.

And then when he's on the marine vessel on the way to prison he's so proud of his damn kid even though everything is falling apart around him.

Well, his son's out there and he's going to be great.

(And *lol* at Whitebeard hearing what a shitty dad Garp was and thinking "well, if you don't want him I'll take him". Not sure Crocodile would like that, whatever the history between them is *lol*)

[erial-c]

WEDDING AUDIO BAYBEY‼️

ohh bare with me this live reacting was all over the place

UGGHH SAPPY DAVID IS SO CUTE  . i may not be the biggest shaw pack fan but his character development will never cease to kill me

asher panicking 😭😭 AND CALMING HIMSELF DOWN because he didn't realize today was the day

baaabe being dressed already?? that's ao fucking funny they fr just let ash sleep (also a little bit of personaloty for baaabe  . the crowd cheers)

asher please your mate is already dressed  . dear god

i love that darlin out of all people wanted to make it so that the mates won't see each other until the ceremony . i know it's mostly because they wanted to drive the listener groups aka the "fun group" as they call it (listeners are bffies CANON!!!) but it's much funnier to think they hold onto that tradition for some reason 

"we're fun too, right?  ...right???" yeah asher whatever you say🤞

YEAASSSS SPEAKER BANTER I LOVE THIS SHIT SAOW MUCJ

"i don't even want to imagine what chaos those four are getting up to" THW SILENCE IN THE CAR???? erik was giggling and kicking his feet putting this in the script huhhuh

darlin being the one to make sure neither of the mates are peeking LMAO  . and sam calling them beautiful too. kill me actually

milo calling out asher's hair "are you trying to look like you got married in a wind tunnel?????? david don't let him walk out like that!!!!!!" further proving the headcanon that milo is the most well dressed of the shaw pack 

milo's nervous as shit  😭😭 i forgot he was gonna be the fucking officiant bro id be sweating fucking bullets too

"just maybe.. cuss a little less" great advice to tell milo out of all people  , sam

serious talk with the alpha and beta .. shivers

"why did you pick me?" asher  . asher  please.

"take the chance of saying something that's not perfect, if it means you get to really say what you feel" crazy  . i love angel (they are a listener character)) (they have no voice)) 

"you're the other side of my coin. you always have been" DAVID  . DAAAVIDDDD.

its good to see that david understands that while he know he made the right choice, he still understands the heavy responsibility he put on ash in assigning him to be pack beta

"you're too hard on yourself too" "well we had to have something in common other than destiny and smash bros, right?" KILL ME. stop being cute you loser

big three shaw pack hug  . ill kill myself

"i'm going to be up there lookin this good, people are gonna be confused on whose day it is!" "are they gonna be able to see you? do we get a step stool for behind the podium?" MILO DON'T LISTEN 2 THEM MY SHORT KING🤞🤞🤞 also beta boy😭😭😭😭😭

the effortless switch from banter to being all sentimental and emotional is crazy  . i hate these guys (lie)

RAAAAGHHH CEREMONY💥‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ YEAAASSSSS

yaknow while i did expect a few side characters/guest VAs to voice side characters , i don't think the audio feels that empty . it's just focused on the main characters and honestly im actually ok with it

not the laugh track😭feels like im watching a sitcom this is so funny

im assuming all the guests are empowered/informed  , because milo is calling the couples "mates"

YEAAAASSSSSSSSSSSSSS THE VOWS‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️ HERECOME THE WATERWORKS (mine and theirs🤞🤞)

girl nevamind the silence for baaabe's/angelangel's vows r still so silly

"the- the pairs of you. to each other. not all together. uh- congratulations  . uh- clap, everybody. now" no actually we're a polycule neow . canon because i said so

[abrisaber]

Full Moon kinda sucked :/ (Another HB Rant - Spoilers for Full Moon)

I hate to say this but I think Vivziepop has finally lost me. Now I'm not saying I'm no longer an HB fan, JMI was geneticlly enginered to get me addicted to whatever he's in meaning I could'nt stop watching HB even if I tried. However I am starting to doubt Vivziepops talents. I have no idea what happened between the first half of Season 2 and the second half but this kind of seasonal rot has to be studied in a fucking lab.

I want to like the episodes after "The Circus," I really do. I don't even hate Cherubs, but aside from Oops and the Mid-Special, every episode following The Circus has ranged from disapointing to awful compared to S1.

It's not even like I hate the episodes after The Circus either. Seeing Stars was okay for the most part, Exes and Oohs tried to do something, even Unhappy Campers introduced a potentally intresting character (and thats it). But these episodes have so many glaring flaws in my book that it's hard to grasp.

In my opinion, Helluva Boss was at its best during the balk half of season 1/The beginning of Season 2 (Truth Seekers-The Circus) and the decline in writing quality started at around Seeing Stars.

I made a long post that explains what about Truth Seekers I like so if you care even a little bit about my opinions, you can suffer through that rant, but to shorten it here, Truth Seekers is my favorite episode of the series because it balances the comedy and the drama expertly imo. Truth Seekers feels like Helluva Boss had finally stuck the landing at what kind of show it wanted to be. It showcased how Blitzo felt about his past relationships and his current one, it gave Moxxie a chance to be heard outside of his flaws (before the show decided they wanted to retread the same fucking plotpoint a couple more times), and it was pretty funny (comedy is subjective tho so feel free to ignore my feelings on comedy from here on out).

Ozzies is a good episode because, well, Asmodeus, but also it does more for Blitzo's character. It contrasts with Truth Seekers via two of the three halucinations calling him out on his shit, and it starts to build upon how he views his relationship with Stolas.

While I don't really like The Circus, what it did at the end for Stolas and overall how it setup the relationship for him and Blitzo was genuinly good imo. How it started with Blitzo initiating the one sidedness of their relationship and whatnot.

Notice how I'm talking almost exclusively about Blitzo as my reasons for enjoying these episodes more than others. And thats because Helluva Boss is at its best when it treats Blitzo as its main character. Even from the beginning he was the real star. Obviously you have characters like Stolas and Moxxie also getting focous, but even in those episodes, Blitzo still gets development, because Blitzo is the main driving force for the show. He's the Helluva Boss. He's the center, the emotional core. HB should be about HIM and HIS relationships to others.

Some of the worst episodes are the ones where Blitzo isn't really the main focous, I'm not saying that Blitzo automaticlly makes the show good or that he should be the only one get focus, but when you pull back and look at the series, almost every beloved episode have him (or him and Stolas) at its emotional center.

To keep this already long post from being absurdly long, I'll skip ahead to why I really didnt like the newest episode, Full Moon.

SPOILERS AHEAD

First things first, the Cherubs and Dhorks fucking suck ass as antagonists. They're annoying, they're not funny, and just like Crimson and Striker in Oops, they serve zero narritve purpose outside of being glorified cardboard cutouts for the main characters to fight. They are everything wrong with B-plots in media. Their only existence is to create artifical narritve throughlines that makes artifical suspence to keep the audience engaged like babies watching those baby sensory videos. "Oooo look its the Cherubs from the most nothing burger episode of Season 1. Oooo it's the Dhorks that are easily the most forgetable aspect of Truth Seekers. OOOhhh isnt it sooooo fucking hilarous how the Dhorks killed a bunch of children? Ohhh aren't you so invested to see these characters that mean absolutely nothing to the plot that Vivziepop is trying to sell the show with? DONT YOU JUST LOVE THESE KEY JINGLING ASS CHARACTERS YOU FUCKING BABY-"

I got a little carries away there, but my point is that Dhorks and the Cherubs are worthless slop that should be removed from the plot entirely.

Usually I wouldn't even care since 2/3 instances where useless villans show up to be useless, the main plot not involving them is really good (Refering to Oops and Truth Seekers).

But the main-plot in this episode is just as bad, if not WORSE than the B-plot.

Regarding my previous rant again, I was an avid defender of Stolitz up until maybe Western Energy, although in that case with the aftermath of Ozzies being handled mostly offscreen is more me being skeptical about Vivs pacing and writibg style. I didn't have a problem with the actual idea of Stolitz yet, just with the execution.

In actuality, my problem with the writing started in The Full Moon.

Even with me being an avid defender of Stolitz, even with me analyizng and disecting Blitzo's mentality and reasonings and emotional trauma, even with me trying to justify BOTH sides of this toxic relationship with no real abuser,

THIS does NOT come off as Blitzo begging to keep Stolas in his life because he cares about him and wants to be with him. I'm sure theres some of that in there and I still have faith that Viv try to put more of that into the execution going forward. But no matter how many times I watch this ending scene and the scenes before it, no matter how long I sit and think and think and think about this dynamic, this scene does NOT feel that way to me.

To me, this scene looks like a lower class citizen begging on his knees to the person whos essentaily employing them to let him keep his job to be able to feed his family and keep his colluges/close friends in work.

This feels like a man whos society is stacked against him trying to keep the one thing he has afloat.

I don't feel this way towards the entire scene. When Blitzo tries to avoid the whole conversation by trying to keep the transaction going, thats when I see more of the emotional side, but it still doesn't sit right with me how the dynamic is being represented.

Stolas explains it pretty well in the moments after. He says "This transactional thing we have, its not right anymore. It hasn't been. It never was. And now, all I can see is how wrong it is to be teathered to someone in such an unfair way. And not know how they feel."

To me, this finally feels like Stolas coming to his senses and realizing that he and Blitzo's relationship is unbalanced. He sees that Blitzo's reliance on him is unfair, so he works to end it.

My problems start to arise again when Stolas reacts to Blitzo trying to play it off again as Roleplay.

I can understand his side of the coin, how he feels that Blitzo only wanted him for sex and nothing more, or how he believes that Blitzo doesnt really care for his feelings and only stays for the book, and when giving Blitzo the option, he chooses to ignore it.

But I still cannot get over how icky this scene makes me feel. Blitzo has made it clear how he thinks Stolas feels about their relationship. In the Just Look My Way music video it seems that Stolas somewhat realizes that Blitzo is hurting in some capacity. When Blitzo vents his frustraitions, Stolas says "I didn't know you thought so lowly of me" which doesnt make any fucking sense in response to what Blitzo is saying.

Again, its that image of a person mistreated by society begging someone who is privlaged to let him keep his job. I cant stomach this idea that Stolas got his fucking feelings hurt over someone he indirectly played with for his own pleasure and to escape his marrige venting their frustraitions about how THEY feel about it. HE HIMSELF admitted that the relationship was unfair, so when Blitzo says "You treat me poorly and expect me to believe when you suddenly express your feelings for me? Can I get a minute to actually process what you said," its litteraly just parroting what Stolas was saying.

Stolas knows how Blitzo feels. He knows Blitzo is hurting. And yeah past relationship trauma isnt an excuse to be shitty, but it's not like Stolas made it very obvious that he did actually care about Blitzo's emotions.

Up until this point the relationship has been one sided on both sides. Both parties think the other doesnt care or that the other is just using them for something. Both sides caught feelings and didnt want to admit it, and Stolas was the bigger person for trying to initiate that discussion. But with the ending line Stolas says and all the promotional matreal being released for the upcoming seasons, the show feels like its going to make Blitzo out to be the one in the wrong when he isnt. Blitzo did the same fucking things Stolas did, so why does it feel like the next few episodes are just going to be "Blitzo sucks and we hate him." Like are you fucking serious??

Maybe I'm reading the whole thing wrong, who knows at this point.

[fujii-draws]

Just found and read your chatot rant and I'm curious. How would you rewrite him to be a more understandable/likable character?

Anon you are the light at the end of the tunnel.

I wouldn’t change a whole lot about him. Personality wise I think he’s funny/well-rounded. It’s more of how many times they made him do needlessly cruel stuff to h/p that’s never addressed again.

I say, let Apple woods stay the same. Like I said before in my rant, I enjoyed the conflict there. My problem only stems from the fact that??? He doesn’t have any real reason to distrust them???

Give him a reason. Show that h/p were fucking up a lot of jobs when they first joined the guild- and chatot (begrudgingly) took their excuses because they’re new. And he gives them a lot of chances despite his callous demeanor.

THEN, let the incident in Apple woods be the moment where he finally decides those two had enough second chances. And doesn’t hear them out. And other than that I’m alright w/ chapter 6.

NOW… CHAPTER 17…

Ughhhhh man. I already made my grievances known with this chapter but I genuinely hated how they handled chatot here. Will start off by saying (again), I LIKE that he’s distrustful about majority of what partner said. The future, Grovyle being good, The “magical hidden land”, etc. IT MAKES SENSE LMAO. ITS SO OUT THERE.

What pissed me off was how he immediately tried to play off that he trusted them the whoooole time. And it’s called out as a JOKE. And never addressed again. I’d do either 2 things here.

1. Let Chatot actually test the guild’s trust in h/p.

Do you know how awesome it would’ve been to have him IMPROVE from Apple woods? Have the entire guild that once had your back— now distrusting our main duo? And have CHATOT be the one to actually stand up for them there???? And HE be the one to point out Dusknoir grabbed those two in broad daylight? (Further emphasizing him as Wigglytuff’s right hand man(bird) and how much more competent he is than his pink leader? LIKE MAN THAT WOULDVE INSTANTLY REKINDLED MY LOVE FOR HIM. But what we got in main game was so much more disappointing.

2. Chatot doubling down on what he said.

Okay this MAY sound weird but hear me out. Having chatot still be distrustful until Brine cave would’ve, in my opinion, also been EONS better than him going “oh lol I trust them hehehe!!!!! I’m so silly!!!!” <<(accused two Pokémon they lied about the traumatic ass experience they went through.)

Have him still not trust a word they said. And that in turn comes with some actual consequence. (Like Wigglytuff being upset/disappointed in him and it driving a wedge between the two until Brine cave) Have him suffer some kind of consequence. Not some off screen rant he had w/ Team skull. Not some random sacrifice that’s disconnected with the stuff he done. A consequence that actually makes him realize “wait am i being an ass” before he continues to double down.

(I’m a sucker for characters doing bad things as long as they get consequences or try to make up for it.) (doesn’t have to be both at the same time.)

AAAND THATS PRETTYYY MUCH IT! I love Post-Game chatot a whole bunch and If I’m being honest???? I still like Chatot when he’s not being a colossal jackass.

I love that he’s stressed and snippy. I love that he’s trying his damn hardest to keep the guild running. I love that when h/p fail the graduation fight— he’s the one smiling towards them like a little shit. I love that he regards h/p in a positive light and acknowledges the good they did for the guild in the rare few moments he’s being honest with them.

It’s why I liked him at the start and near the end. The middle was just waaay too rocky for me. But on my replay of the game I’ll try to keep an open mind for the bird. I wanna give him a chance.

[louis-quatorze]

watching the Amsterdam episode now

ongoing thoughts

- why are they even playing Ajax. what level are Richmond at. when is this. if this is the international break why is Ajax playing. you’d assume Richmond would also have internationals (Sam at least, right?). god the actual football in this show drives me fucking insane. (I know the answer is “Sudekis and Hunt wanted to go back to Amsterdam on Apple’s dime” but still)

- this is exactly how all Dutch sports journalists talk and it is so funny to see non-Dutch people deal with it 

- graag gedaan

- Jamie’s Facts of Amsterdam

- Rebecca the bike lanes are obvious. Get out of the red! (Also most canals in the center don’t even have those)

- you can swim in the canals but I wouldn’t in the city center (out of it, though, or along the Ij is often fine)

- Johan Cruyff is, indeed, that cool. I miss him

- hehehe herring

- it is extremely funny that Jan’s suggestion is going to Groningen which is extremely Groningen of him. but also what is Martin Garrix doing up there

- if it’s Museumnacht and also possible to see the Northern Lights it’s the wrong time of year for a tulip, sorry Dani. they can probably get you one of those wooden ones though.

- seriously though why are you bringing drugs to the Netherlands the best drugs are here and we’re proud of it

- the himbos are the only part of this show that are still a comedy

- the Dutch is funny though (including the not-translated bits) and hearing Jan talk it is also funny

- niet gezellig, hé

- Jamie’s cute in his little Grealish hair

- hey it’s Prik! I have spent a decent amount of time in that bar considering I don’t even live in Amsterdam. it’s a cute bar, good crowd, my friend used to work there. it’s not on the main street of gay bars, which probably makes it less intimidating to Colin. 

- gezellig

- Boat Guy is extremely Dutch (positive)

- oh here’s where they’re using Zij gelooft in mij. It’s cute!

- lmao at Jamie getting some “used bikes” off a junkie on the street. you don’t see that much any more (particularly where they were) but when Hunt and Sudekis used to live there it was pretty common

- everyone’s said this but it is sweet that Colin and Trent’s conversation is at the Homomonument. (also not far from Prik even if you stop for beers.) 

- just realizing that this is a very dry night in Amsterdam, not common

- everyone has such great Facts About Amsterdam. good job being the Amsterdam tourist board, cast of Ted Lasso

- what strings did Ted have to pull to get a Museumnacht ticket at random

- Richard is right, they should not try Dutch food, it’s bad. note Jan was not suggesting it. (seeing them all pile into a FEBO would be funny though)

- extremely sweet that they manage to get a discussion of the word “gezellig” into this. if I didn’t already know that they were fond of the Netherlands, that would do it.

- hey it’s Derek! He has lines! (He’s the waiter Ted takes a pen from.) That’s actually pretty exciting, he wasn’t sure he would actually be in the show, it’s his first TV role

- there are American-themed restaurants here and they are often like that and it’s extremely funny. I’m obsessed with all of them

- Hunt showing off his Dutch. I didn’t realize until this episode that he was here for 10 years, that’s pretty serious

- if Beard had got his drugs in the Netherlands they wouldn’t have been duds you know

- Roy is a lot braver than me, I tried riding on the back of a bike once and it sucked ass

- in the end, this is a pretty sweet tribute to Amsterdam - you can tell that they’re affectionate towards the city and the Dutch and wanted to show that. I’m charmed by how much they clearly just wanted to showcase the city and its charms, and I think they did a good job of it. 

[flutishly]

As the daily rewatch of NMTD gets going (avoiding the actual phrase/tag, per my previous post), I'm finding myself discovering parts of the show that I never actually knew/processed. Logically speaking, I knew that there were Tumblr accounts and I think I was even following them from some point. But I never followed them at the beginning of the show's run (I only discovered it a few episodes from now, and don't recall going back to fill in the transmedia blanks) and certainly never processed that Ursula's "Vox Pops" video was actually the first (chronologically) of the NMTD-verse.

The first episode of NMTD is naturally Beatrice's first vlog. I still find it immensely watchable and engaging. Bea is funny, approachable, and bursting with a liveliness. She feels realistically teenaged and Harriett Maire's acting makes Beatrice seem entirely real, particularly in the way she shifts between different performance styles as she introduces herself and her family. I've long adored "And So It Begins..." as an excellent example of how an episode manages to cram its background in without seeming like it's trying too hard. It's also just... enjoyable to watch, and this is again purely down to having such a charismatic lead.

If we then loop back to "VOX POPS" (don't ask me why I wrote it normally earlier but am now stylizing with caps), there's a sense that Beatrice belongs to a whole, rich world. In "VOX POPS", she's hardly the main character, which is of course the point. Watching these videos in their chronological - rather than logical - order makes the show feel a teeny bit wider from the start. But it also begs the question why Beatrice is vlogging at precisely the same time as Ursula begins uploading her "artsier" videos. This is answered to some degree in "And So It Begins...", by the fact that Bea's life has undergone major changes of late and she's figuring herself out. Would it have made some sense to have an in-story inspiration from Ursula's videos, in that first episode? Maybe! Then again, this is one of those things that necessitates some degree of suspension of disbelief, when asking why webseries characters begin (or stop) filming videos when they do.

Both of these videos are just introductions... and of course, there are several more introductions to come (not just in terms of characters, but distinct channels/styles, like the Watch videos and Ben's vlogs). NMTD is one of the best shows I've ever seen when it comes to having a full, ensemble cast, which I think is beautifully illustrated by "VOX POPS" being its "accidental" premiere. Yes, Beatrice is the show's main character (and she is, both in terms of plot-centrality and driving the presentation/performance of this story), but she never feels like a character who sits alone at the top of a pedestal while other characters revolve around her. She doesn't change based on who's filming her, but her centrality does. It's something that I still think NMTD did best out of so many webseries.

There's not much to write at this stage, given how little of the story has unfolded (and knowing just how much plot is still to come. So far, I'm mostly surprised by the transmedia (which I remember being fairly thin and far from NMTD's strength, an assessment I stand by so far... it's not bad, but it's clearly supplementary) and by the instant worldbuilding.

So it begins, indeed.

[itsdappleagain]

hell yeah baby backstory time

it is time for the boston tea party caper!!

notes under the cut assss always

this episode is a bit of a mix-up for me. i like it but not my favorite all things considered. i'm still excited though- some of the moments in this episode are GOLD

HQ!!!

JHSGHSD "hey red hows san diego" "not great" "im not talking about you girl"

"i thought he lived in the cloud"

player looks so unamused pls

PLEASE "though i am hearing voices again" HOW WAS THAT RELEVANT. WERE U HEARING VOICES BEFORE

shadowsan is the best character here he's so funny

THE "THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT"

if they vowed to use their "superpowers" for good and ivy hotwired that car later on i guess maybe they used to steal cars and then decided to go straight maybe

ivy is so cool

OH hey also by the way their younger designs. SO GOOD carmen should have gotten a dorky in between phase we were robbbbed

small

not trey and his butt chin

i like how the screen glitches when its paused on trey. new headcanon this is a powerpoint presentation they threw together right then and there

you dare knock LYDIA

"i got this" zack says with the confidence of a man who just ate taco bell learning they won't see another restroom for eight more hours on the road trip

the talking through the race kills me every time 😭you can't hear each other

man this racetrack has an overhead drone keeping exact pace with the leading car

zack had a chase devineaux phase too once

carmen sandiego: oh no no we're rated for seven year olds!! the boston tea party caper: the mafia boss who lent us money threatened to put a hit out on us if we didn't commit a robbery for him on a suspicious front for a money laundering operation for the mob

the main reason i dislike this episode and need for speed is because zack doesnt ever get to learn. he was impulsive and it was bad in duke of vermeer, he was impulsive and it was bad in boston tea (okay fine, it shows us his younger self! fine with that) BUT THEN HE IS IMPULSIVE AND ITS BAD AGAIN NEXT TIME. FOR THE SAME REASONS whyyy wouldn't they take duke of vermeer as an opportunity to show his growth instead of making him out to be some angry no control childish idiot who sacrifices untold amounts for a little payback. and drags ivy down with him EVERY TIME

there's something so cool and sinister about ivy smiling, reassuring him, and then slowly pulling down the ski mask to hide any emotion. ivy and zack seem like they could have been prime targets for VILE recruitment- they could have gone down a much darker path

shadowsan was so invested

carmen's puberty crammed in those few months between the boat and the boston holy shit

player accidently saved zack and ivy's asses by turning off those cameras jgjsgkd

the second perspective of zack crashing into the wall kills me every time pls

here goes carmen with "its for your own safety" who taught her that phrase

i love how z and i immediately think that this person couldnt possibly be...i dont know. an employee or a manager or someone who works at the donut place. she's gotta be another thief. i mean they are right but like why

the giant ass green vault behind the fridge door 😭

WE'RE FOLLOWIN THAT LADY FOLLOWIN THOSE BREADCRUMBS TO THE DOUGH

wait didn't they arrive in a truck parked on the other side of the building

carmen ALSO had a chase devineaux phase

???? isnt that truck she just stole the one they got there in???

i mean carmen. girl. you kicked them out of their own robbery and then stole their car did you expect them not to follow you

carmen's devineaux side coming out <3 also completely shameless carmen cant drive comic plug

there are so many car accidents literally everyone could have died in for these two (this and need for speed) episodes. credits roll as the paramedics show up to carmen who just CRASHED HER CAR INTO A FUCKING HOLE HEAD FIRST

they had to make sure to show us that carmen was literally the worst driver possible to justify zack being there

i love zack immediately getting super friendly with the random woman who just stole their car, crashed it, and then stole it again with them inside

carmen: haha suave quip zack and ivy, the two most neurodivergent bitches on the planet: IN THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR

also carmen looks hilariously uncomfortable wedged behind this shipping crate. she's experiencing her first infodump

the loaning money joke is actually very funny

i kind of like how awkward carmen still is in some areas. she still talks like a VILE operative- she reports her every move to player, she simply responds with "understood." because thats the only way she knows how to relate

ANGY

ivy: oh no camera: zooms out to show the most outraged face the animators could draw

screenshots of all time

can you imagine your weirdgirl little 16 year old classmate dips and you see her a few months later and she's turned into this trenchcoat wearing 5'7" long haired adult woman whose only goal is to make your life a thousand times harder

not quite sure how this episode said "oh yeah. her classmates who knew her as a kid constantly call her by the wrong name and disrespect her despite constant corrections. and also her mother figure, seeing the new her, disowns her with the proclamation that this new person killed her child when she took this new name and betrayed her" and made it not transgender

le chevre was so cool about everything for like three minutes

HEY okay my favorite detail of the show is that when carmen runs in this episode she gets way out of breath because she isn't in shape yet i LOVE that detail

i have never heard more emotion from gina than when she went "YOU GOTTA BE KIDDING ME"

THROW HER OVERBOARD

el topo is also cool about things for like three minutes

zack and ivy bounce constantly between dumb orange cat energy and golden retriever who would jump into the ocean for a guy who petted them once energy

legend has it carmen still manages to throw el topo and le chevre in the water every time they are within a mile of it

i love le chevre backing up and running away from her because he's like oh shit. wasn't she like the best in our class?? is she going to kill me or something?? why did she leave VILE what the fuck im booking it nah

YEAH I NEED THE ROPE CARMEN IS SO MEAN IN THIS EPISODE ITS SO FUCKING FUNNY

IVY RESPONDING TO THE ASK FOR "MUSCLES" WAS A UNIVERSAL LESBIAN WIN FOR EVERY SINGLE PERSON ON THE PLANET GOD WHAT AN ICONIC SCENE. MILADY. ALL SHE HAD TO DO WAS KISS HER HAND GOD

its never brought up ever again that ivy's "shirt" is actually a blue undershirt and a black vest and that is criminal we needed a gay vest. something

the slomo kick is so hot

LE CHEVRE STEPPING ON HER HEAD

those plates must have hurt so fucking bad

okay well. you DO commit crimes

"the police have no idea they exist" okay. TELL THEM

SEE? VEST.

"got any room for us on your next job?" "you know what? sure! come along and help me take down this global criminal organization. uhhh what are your names again btw?"

yall i dont think eddie is going to want to see you for the money

A FLYING CAR he said yeah zack that was smart

i love how offended by literally everything the bostonians do shadowsan is

THEY MADE SHADOWSAN GET IN THE BACK BEHIND THE SEAT HAHAHAHHJHD

that hq wont be so wasted when you die of hypothermia! good luck carmen

alrighty, thats the beantown caper all done! only two more to catch up on before I'm on time again for my favorite episode this saturday >:)

[songoftrillium]

1, 7, 15, 20? :3

1. How are you feeling right now?

A mix of things. I'm planning a camping trip for the first week of November to celebrate the book launch, and its been really fun putting together stuff. I've been the usual blend of anxious handling fine details on the book, but still happy to be working on it. Definitely looking forward to it being finished!

7. What's something you love about yourself?

I think I have pretty eyes.

15. Do you have any piercings/would you want to?

Yep, I have/have had a couple of piercings. Both of my lobes, of course. I also have a single helix piercing. I used to have a labret piercing, but I get MRIs often enough that I can't keep it open long enough to heal, so I let it close up. I used to have a junk piercing before GRS, and I kind of want to do it again. The quiz doesn't mention tattoos, so I'll volunteer that I also have some stick-and-poke tattoos. I want more.

20. Do you believe in luck?

I don't. At least not in the sense of predetermination. Statistical luck where an outcome is positive and random? Yeah, a person can definitely be lucky. When you drive on a highway, you shouldn't respond to the car in front of you as much as you pay attention to the vehicle that's 3 cars ahead of you so you can anticipate the car's actions right in front of you.

I take that same approach to living, at least as best I can. I think a significant component of luck lies in recognizing circumstances that can fall wildly out of control as much as in identifying and seizing the opportunities life offers. A person can also get 'stuck,' where they can no longer help themselves out of a situation, which on the outside also looks like bad luck. Still, I think it also lies in recognizing those existential one-way roads out there and learning what a bad scene looks and feels like.

Funny enough, I think that ties into spiritualism, too. It is like the main symptoms of things like 'a demon has come into your life when your bread no longer rises.' It sounds a little silly on the surface, but consider it was made for people who make bread by hand daily, using muscle memory that requires very little thought. If you consider what a 'demon' means in folk legend, at its core, it represents danger and how to recognize when to avoid and when to partner with a particular demon. Things like 'don't sing in the woods at night' (a highwayman may hear you and come rob you) and 'making a flower crown and floating it down a stream to find a husband' (the flowers are themselves medicines and reflect one's ability to navigate the woods and find medicine), et al. are all indicative of not just a supernatural element but real-world practicality as well. If something in your life is so disruptive that your daily routine is suddenly no longer working (your bread won't rise,) it means something is possessing your intention, and you need to start looking around for problems.

In short, I think we make our own luck (or lack thereof.)

I'm answering random questions! Askbox is open!

[bikwin5]

more pikmin 4 thoughts

previously i made another post when the trailer in february dropped and finally now we have another major release of information about pikmin. i have a lot to say about a game releasing a month away

Plot details- so first off one thing i was right about is that the main focus of the game is collecting castaways in caves. it doesn't seem that all of them are in caves but i would assume most are. i thought treasures would be like pikmin 3 where they extend your time limit but it seems that collecting enough of them unlocks new areas. when i first heard that they "fix the spaceship's radar" i thought that was weird until i saw the new screenshots on the nintendo page store:

do you see that very carefully in the botton left? that's SPARKLIUM!!!!! HEY! PIKMIN IS CANON!!!!!! FUUUUUUUCK YES!!!!!!!!!!! ok maybe not canon but it's funny they took that mechanic from the 3DS game of all things. now i just need metroid prime 4 to include the mechs from federation force and my dream will be complete.

Gameplay- there are more plot details to get into later but i want to talk about the screenshot above for now. we finally get a proper look at the UI where pretty much everything has been overhauled. first of all nintendo still has an obsession with that font they've been using since miitomo. second the day timer is now totally overhauled to be in the top left instead of stretching along the top. this is a surprising change but i suppose they wanted less UI obstruction due to the new camera angle. there's also no day counter, suggesting you have unlimited days. then there's the pikmin stuff, health bars, and brand new is an objective window and sparklium/gem count. i noticed the latter two things aren't in some gameplay screens and there might be an option to turn it off.

looking at the health bars it seems the dog pretty much does act as a second leader in this one. oatchi has its own health, can be controlled, and i think it can do pretty much any action a leader can, plus more. there's even a screenshot of him throwing pikmin:

and as seen in the trailer you can level up the dog using "pup drive"??? seems to be some kind of points you unlock somehow. anyway the fact that oatchi can do all this while the main character doesn't makes me wonder what the advantage of not being oatchi is. is this a scooby-doo mystery mayhem situation where scooby is objectively better than shaggy because he can fit into tight spaces and shaggy can't? sorry if that's not the most relatable comparison but it does include a dog and a human.

another upgradable feature is various suit upgrades such as the rush boots, scorch guard and all the other stuff you could get in pikmin 2 and 3. it seems those blue gems on the ground are "resources" you can collect and use to get these upgrades. i think this is a pretty neat way of doing it!!! instead of tying it to treasures this makes these upgrades most likely optional and you can obtain them at your own pace instead of the awkward way 3 did it. you could even forgo certain upgrades as a challenge or because the rush boots are so annoying i dont like the pikmin 2 rush boots they just make all the pikmin slow.

The Pikmin- i wrote several paragraphs about pikmin without mentioning pikmin. from what it seems all 8 types of pikmin are available in the story mode which is neat! we got to see a little bit of purple, rock, wing and white near the end of the trailer, and there are night time exclusive pikmin too. i'm flipping between the trailer and the website info a lot so bear with me, but there's a pretty significant bit of information on the site that wasn't touched upon:

that last sentence suddenly makes a lot of sense with what we've seen, like how blue pikmin were never seen alongside ice pikmin. it makes sense that there's enough overlap with different pikmin abilities and oatchi abilities that they would do this. but i fear having only 3 types at once has the potential to make the game more tedious but it really depends on how changing types works. is it from the onion? the ship? can you do it in the middle of a cave? it raises a lot of questions but it could add another layer of strategy to the game because now we have more of a party building factor. purple pikmin might not be as OP as they were when they take up one of your 3 precious types.

small addendum to this, the site also has a "meet the pikmin" segment in a weirdly arbitrary order-- it goes red, blue, yellow, ice, glow, purple, rock, winged, and finally white. is this the order you actually get to see them in game? blue pikmin might finally no longer be the last type you get, and white pikmin being so late might explain their small presence in the trailer. let's hope they don't end up like blues in 3's story mode.

The Caves- i really wanted to see more of these and we got them. i didn't say this in my last post but after watching the previous trailer 10 more times i saw there were these blue lids scattered around that i thought were cave holes, and i was right. and i really like the look of what we saw so far, especially the floor based off of pikmin 3's clockwork chasm and this aquarium:

i don't even have anything to talk about with the screenshot i just love how it looks. it looks like they aren't procedurally generated this time, but then again it might be because if there's anything that's gotten better in the past decade of gaming it's making procedurally generated stuff actually fun to play. i was also wrong about them not having treasures because they definitely do. i get the feeling caves won't take up as much time overall as they did in pikmin 2 but they still seem really expansive and fun.

Night missions- I was very wrong about these. I thought you would play as the rescue corps and have to fend off the big spaceship for the night but it turns out it's just you who goes elsewhere to do... something. i'm not entirely sold on these because the narrator never exactly explains what the purpose of them is. it seems you can choose to go to them from the landing site, which appears to be a hub area with no time limit, i forgot to mention that but that's neat. but aside from having a new pikmin type that does spirit bombs all they mentioned was that you get "valuable glowsap" which is... something??? i can't imagine it's only for extra sparklium, maybe it can be exchanged for special upgrades or whatever. it wasn't really clear whether night missions are even required. regardless the gameplay of turning pikmin into a base defense thing seems pretty cool.

This fucking guy-

i gotta be honest this probably blindsided me the most out of anything-- this and the fact he's the introduction to 2 player battle mode, which seems to imply you can play it against a CPU now? i think it's funny that pikmin is still keeping the tradition of having a tacked on multiplayer mode where you beat each other to death with regular gameplay mechanics. anyway this guy could either be olimar, who died and became a hairy man, OR this guy is just a joker's trick and the real olimar is out there somewhere. the latter seems more likely from nintendo but if they really did want to canonize the bad ending of pikmin 1 than that's kind of wild. it's like making a game where the silent hill 2 alien ending happened.

people are suggesting "split timeline" and i scoffed at the notion at first but then i remembered the short trailer we got earlier this month. it treats olimar crash landing as if it were his first time there, and the rescue corps as the second time anyone has crashed. plus some info on the japanese site suggested olimar had been there for a month and the rescue corps received his distress signal. funny enough, pikmin 1's interstellar radio mentions that it's emitting a constant SOS signal but it would take longer than a month for help to arrive. so i think maybe it's likely his dead ass became a pikmin now???? but they also treat rescuing olimar as the main goal of the game so that makes me wonder what the climax of the story would be if he's unsalvageable. maybe it's about turning him back into a guy, idk.

Misc stuff- There's a handful of other things on the site that were only glanced over a bit. for instance:

it seems there's an ability to rewind not just days but time as well? this feels like their equivalent of a "super guide" option. honestly i hope this means they're not afraid to make a pikmin game that's just flat out mean again.

and on the right side it seems there are multiple landing sites per area. it mentions "each of the expansive areas" so i don't think pikmin 4 is one fully open map but having multiple landing sites is neat. i guess it makes sense because the maps look huge and there are only 2 guys to play as this time.

the site also has confirmation of challenge mode, 2-player battle and story co-op... except it's just mario galaxy style co-op where the second player points at things. like come on nintendo... you made this dog for marketing points and you won't even let the second player be him.

there's a LOT more i could dig into like all the returning enemies and environments and ice hazards but i think this is long enough of a post for now, and probably the last one until i get to play it. there is a demo coming very soon and i can't resist the siren call of that so that will be fun to crack into. ending this post with oatchi and ice pikmin plush

[loathsomespider]

to be clear this is not an attack on you and i enjoy your work. you dont even have to answer this if its too rude or presumptuous in your opinion. but i think its funny seeing your "definitively, if its the source material, they would fucking say that" post while knowing how you feel about the weaker parts of homestuck and also the uh. the epilogues. again this isnt supposed to be an epic own gotcha moment i think everyone is allowed to contain multitudes and shit. im just also a bit mischievous and part of me wants to be the little wondershowzen puppet going "But can we discuss the contradiction"

ah too bad you wanted to be a silly little gotcha puppet but i was thinking about this too! hold my hair back im forming this idea in real time so im about to start just vomiting the fuck up a bunch of half-formed ideas. (this is the second time today ive used this analogy)

the thing is that while i dont like the homestuck epilogues at all, there's no denying that it is largely, in-character, in broad strokes. it's a story which relies on every character being their worst possible self, sure. it is, in a lot of ways, a very public, very messy relapse. it gets at some really ugly parts of what the characters are, and that's just not what i want from homestuck.

it's part of a larger trend of hussie trying really hard to Make Dramatic Art and Tell Stories With A Point that i think really plays against what theyre good at, like. you see this with psycholonials too, just this idea of storytelling where nothing good ever happens and every character is not just flawed, but unbearably, noxiously toxic. and yknow, that's fine too, its literally not an invalid goal for a story to have.

its just not what i really like about homestuck and to a lesser extent problem sleuth. like, as messy as my feelings are about psycholonials, i still think fondly of zhen as a character even if she is the worst person to ever exist.

its like they took "dave being abused by bro came out of nowhere, the rooftop strifes dont really feel textually different from the other guardian strifes" all the way to heart and way overcorrected.

but all that to say, the worst possible self-hood apple hasnt fallen too far from the tree. and that's not strictly an invalid thing to tell a story about. it's just not what i want out of homestuck. and the tangible difference there, imo, is that puts the onus of not liking it on me, rather than hussie, cephiedvariable and ctset. they set out to do something, i didn't like what they did, i had an extended mental breakdown about it that i am still feeling the ramifications of even now, but at some point, the world continued to turn.

i hope you can kind of sense this feeling in bdth - while they aren't really in the running to be main characters or anything, rosebot, pesterquest rose, and candy rose are all real in burning down the house. i may be taking jane in a different direction, but that different direction is still in terms of hs2 jane. hell, tavros crocker gets a cameo in the walkaround

and yeah, this is to emphasize the contrast bdth jane against post-canon jane, but in order for that contrast to mean anything, those parts of the character have to have meaning enough to be rejected, which is the real point im getting at. it sort of drives home that i'm not just *really fucking up* at writing jane, too, which is actually more important than youd think.

ignoring the textual parts of a character you dont like because it conflicts with what you want the character to be (an image that you construct and maintain on your own, unintentionally) is a great way to wind up doing bad characterization of that character.

and yknow, sometimes that's fine! if your reach never gets beyond making an incorrect quotes blog, that doesnt matter. who give a shit. besides me, historys most notorious hater, who will seethe about a bad character take for weeks on end. (but i am the exception, not the rule)

if you're really swinging for the fences as i tend to do, at all times, even when i would be best suited not to, it just doesnt sit right to me to drop bits of a character you dont like just because you dont like it. when youre writing, its there specifically to be played with. and again, "playing with it" here still encompasses rejecting it and doing something different.

and yeah, different authors are going to focus on different parts of a character, but then youre getting out of the scope of this post tbh. but i think its worth remembering that nobody ever wants to make something bad on purpose. even intentionally making something bad on purpose is something you would want to succeed at, you dont want to fail at making something bad on purpose, etc. etc. this is stupid.

tl;dr its not actually that contradictory imo

[deltaengineering]

Spring Anime 2023: It builds character

Yuri is my Job!

I really wanted to like this one. As a noted Marimite enjoyer, as much as I like the stilted, abstract and operatic vibe of Class S, I also always felt that it's also a prime avenue for metafiction that takes a closer look at how bizarre that setting really is when looked at from outside. So this show about a bunch of girls that have to act out Class S gayfabe in a themed cafe seemed to have limitless potential.

There's only two problems with Watayuri: The first one is that it's not that show. It does not really engage with its setting much and is mostly interested in just being straightforward heightened yuri drama. This seems to be a case of the Re:Zeros or Mob Psychos: The writer is intimately familiar with the tropes, but isn't really interested in actually engaging with them beyond surface level, so they just wrote essentially Another One Of Those with a few jokes.

So that's a disappointment, but since this genre is so rare in anime I'd still have gladly taken it if it was good. But... it's not. Not only is it not Metamite, it's not even a bad Marimite; It's more like a bad Citrus. Drama like this requires really good characters, and all the characters in Watayuri are gimmicky and shallow: Hime's base characteristic is that she puts up a fake personality, which is treated with all the nuance an isekai writer exhibits when they make their main character OP via giving them a cheat skill, and she has just forgotten than Yano used to be her best friend. All other drama derives from this bad idea, so none of it really works. I could go through the entire cast but this review is already too long, so suffice it to say, if they seem interesting that only lasts as long as it takes for their drama to arrive.

It's really a shame, because even with these simplistic, unlikeable characters you could have made an entertaining, (early) Kaguya-ish comedy — which is why the few instances where they do exactly that save the show from being worthless. But still, having to admit the best episode in the entire thing is the one where the new uniforms make Yano's breasts look too big really points out the problem here. 5/10

Skip and Loafer

Skip and Loafer does raise a profound question: Can a show be so much of a 6/10 that it becomes a 5/10? I'm honestly surprised how little I enjoyed this show, because there's nothing really obviously wrong with it: it's lighthearted, cute, amusing, relatable, etc., and I've enjoyed many a banal Kiraralike in the past. But in the end, I think the reason is that there really isn't anything substantive to Skip and Loafer. It's bland and inoffensive to a fault and devoid of anything even remotely edgy. It's not funny enough to work as a comedy, it's not a romance because it really doesn't commit to that, and we'll get to the "drama".

The only really driving factor (and the show's biggest asset, as it were) is Mitsumi's tryhard but good-natured personality, and that can only get the show so far, especially since all the character development she gets is to become more normal and boring. As an aside that doesn't really fit anywhere else: I also really dislike hearing the clipped, stilted way Kurosawa delivers her lines in this show, which is weird because she's usually a very good actress. Shima is just boring from the start and has no chemistry with Mitsumi, and when he imports some contrived crazy ex drama into the show at the end it's eyerollingly stupid, but hey, that's as close to "something happening" as the show ever gets. Not that it matters with how inconsequential it is. The supporting cast is generally mildly amusing, but they're just sort of there and don't offer anything meaningful besides their presence.

Sure, none of those issues are close to dealbreakers, but what's lacking is a deal in the first place. I can understand why someone would like the show and I would not recommend against it, but it's just way too shallow. Even for me. 5/10

Jigokuraku

If you want to know what's bad about Jigokuraku, here it is: Glacial pacing, an intense amount of jargonbabble, flashbacks in the middle of fights everywhere, running commentary by bystanders on everything that happens, random powerups galore, and no ending.

However, I would assume that nobody saw the first episode and went away thinking "oh boy, sure hope this isn't an extra edgy shounen fighting manga". It most definitely is what it is, but with expectations duly adjusted, Jigokuraku is... fine, actually. It's got cool visuals, good production values, a fantastic OP (if nothing else, the show's a good excuse to listen to that song once a week), and most importantly really good characters for a show like this. None of them are particularly deep, but when they're just there to:

Be mammals,

Fight ALL the time,

Have the purpose to flip out and kill people,

I'm already content if they're more interesting than the ISO standard Shounen Jump (i.e., Dragonball Z) cast. It's just fun seeing Sagiri fret over whether she's really good enough at beheading people, or Gabimaru doing everything for a wife that may or may not exist, or Yuzuriha getting out her... well, let's stop this here. This show is cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet. 6/10

Otaku Edomae Elf

I was pretty skeptical of this one at the beginning, because self-serving otaku jokes tend to get very old and also because the author uses RPG Elves as a shortcut to "immortal ancient being", which isn't a sign of high ambitions, especially nowadays. And while the elf part doesn't really matter one way or the other, the majority of the show is indeed Elda being a nerd and doing nerd things. It's not a large majority though, and the rest of the show provides an interesting thematic framework to hang the jokes on. The real core of the show is the odd couple relationship between Koito and Elda, with the former desperately wanting to be an adult while the latter has been around for practically forever while still being completely immature. It's very cute and sweet, and it's even better in the occasional moments where it becomes bittersweet because both of them are well aware of the only way this can end up. Skip and Loafer take note: you don't have to have much, but you have to have something.

It of course helps that Edomae Elf (the name that I prefer, for obvious reasons) is well made; It's very expressive and has good comedic timing, which are the key factors for a sitcom like this. I'll also note the OP; it goes unreasonably hard and is possibly even better than Jigokuraku's. And even if otaku jokes are a low-hanging fruit, the show usually does a good job with them. The exactly one (1) legally obligated history lesson per half-episode feels a bit too forced though. And that's pretty much it with this anime, it's not the most ambitious but it's very charming and moderately thoughtful, even if its structure is holding it back somewhat. 7/10

Heavenly Delusion

Very rarely do we get a TV anime where the main artistic impulse just seems to be "we don't give a fuck what you think, lol", but here it is: Heavenly Delusion is mostly just wild. Sure, postapocalyptic roadmovies aren't exactly a new idea, but I usually like them, so that's a good start, and this one in particular comes with an interesting setting and a bunch of great characters. But what really elevates Heavenly Delusion is its command of tone, or in particular, its ability to run circles around tone issues. This show can snap from comedy to drama to mystery to action to horror unpredictably and quickly, and it's a marvel that any of this works at all, but on top of that it has a fondness for exceedingly touchy subjects and each episode could probably come with its own unique set of trigger warnings. It really reminds me of a Fire Force without the shounen bullshit, and that's high praise.

Clearly the writer has a lot of skill, but the anime direction and production takes it to the next level. Heavenly Delusion has great direction and movie-level production values throughout, and then does flexes like getting a bunch of KyoAni guys in to make a mawkish KyoAni episode that's better than anything KoyAni has made in years, and later getting a bunch of TRIGGER guys in to make a wacky TRIGGER episode that's better than anything TRIGGER has done in years. Ya love to see it.

But given all the hairy stuff this show attempts, it can't have a 100% success rate, right? And no, it does not always succeed. It's not even a surprise that it happens, it's rather a surprise it only happens so late, at the ending – where it hurts the most. For starters, it doesn't really have an ending. That's to be expected from an ongoing and long manga, but it's still a bummer. But more critically, said abrupt stoppage happens right after one of the grimmest arcs in the show. This is sadly the one point where the tone falls apart; they didn't want to end on a down note, but it just doesn't work to go from ultra rape o'clock to "our fun adventure continues, bye :D" in one and a half scenes. The show has dealt with heavy material before and it has proven it can pull off the swerve off, but in that instance it just runs out of air time before it can actually do it. So while it's unreasonable to expect the show to be several times as long as it is, it would at least have sorely needed one more episode to uncompress its ending. I guess that if you consistently play with fire, you get burnt eventually, but at least there were pretty lights. A second season would be much appreciated. 8/10

The Witch from Mercury

Back when G-Witch started its break, I said that "all they have to do was not mess with a good thing". Obviously, they messed with a good thing and Sulemio cuteness was replaced with them both suffering alone for the majority of the second half. So now what? The plot in this second half is best described as "messy". Notably, it's lacking in throughline: First it's all about opaque machinations and corporate backstabbing, then lol jk that doesn't matter and everyone pulls a Death Star out of their ass, and then that gets resolved with the Power of Love™ and vague Newtype mysticism. Gundams gonna Gundam, I suppose. Towards the end it also obviously runs out of time, and everything needs to happen very quickly, yet it still keeps on piling on subplots for various reasons — be it corporate franchise mandates like "we made a Schwarzette toy, now deal with it somehow", some thing that was set up ages ago that now has to pay off somehow no matter what (like Notrette's whole deal) or just the pure mechanics of shuffling pieces into place for something that never needed to be this complicated in the first place.

However, despite this large-scale jank G-Witch still ends up a very good show purely based on its writing detail. It doesn't really matter all that much that scenes barely fit together and are jammed against each other without connective tissue when the scenes themselves almost always deliver on their own terms. In particular, G-Witch consistently has great character moments no matter how weird the route to get to them is. That dumb Lauda subplot that's only there to sell HG Schwarzettes? Its true payoff is the best Felsi moment in the show when she just walks in and aborts the misbegotten plot tumor. Was it really worth it making a whole "Guel stumbles into Iron-Blooded Orphans" episode when the show desperately needed more time to wrap up its main plot? Maybe not, but Guel getting told by random ass mercenaries that he needs to man the fuck up before him doing exactly that is just an extremely satisfying moment no matter what.

And while the epilogue is a bit flat on the plot side, it has to be said that while cheesy as hell it takes the time to send every character off properly and gives everyone a happy ending (Sulemio paying off in the end isn't much of a surprise since I don't think that Ookouichi wants to spend the rest of his life in the witness protection program). That is pretty much the show in a nutshell, ultimately it's less well constructed than it sh/c-ould have been and it's held back by being a Gundam show after all, but it's always entertaining, and that is what matters the most. 8/10

Insomniacs After School

While I don't know why I dislike Skip and Loafer, I am also not quite sure why I love this show so much. The concept takes some suspension of dislike right away, because I am extremely skeptical of "sadboi stumbles into magical girlfriend that's prefect but only compatible with him in this one specific random way". But boy, once it gets rolling it nails the whole "first love, also big seishun energy" in a rare form that we haven't seen since Tsuki ga Kirei. It's all in the characters once again, and Ganta in particular is exceptionally well constructed. He seems whiny and self-centered at first, but as it turns out, yeah, he's supposed to be like that (his first big character development milestone is him realizing that other people have problems too and that his woe-is-me attitude isn't helpful), plus he has a very understandable reason. He still has that attitude, but now we know he can't help it. It's the rare case of "relatable" and "backstory drama" done right - the drama is there, but it's in the past, can be established in a tiny amount of time and doesn't suck the enjoyment out of the present. And then you can drag it up and swiftly deal with it when the story calls for it — The point is not to have maximum drama onscreen, but to motivate the characters. Magari has this going too (even if I think she still ends up being a bit too "perfect" for my taste, to be honest), and even Yui, someone we know almost nothing about, ends up feeling unique and well rounded, so I think it's fair to say that Skip and Loafer's lacking characters are just a skill issue. Add to that a more one-note but enjoyable supporting cast, and you have a banger of feelgood, wholesome and yes, monumentally cheesy puppy love about a bunch of cute dorks that you can't help but grin about. The production values don't always quite hold up, but who cares when it knows what it wants to be and goes all in when it needs to, and yes, it does have as satisfying and ending as you can expect from one of these. Grand fromage avec compétence is probably not the palate cleanser for everyone, but it's my blog so skill with it. 9/10

[caestusvulpes]

part flexible summary:

alrighty! sorry for the mild wait on this post! I got a few people wanting some backstory beyond what I have in my carrd ( of which I'll link this post in there for any future readers out there ) and had max and river encourage me to make it.

this is a post that summarizes the plot, events, and mechanics of a long-running plot ( spanning since early 2017 ) of our JJBA roleplay server. It began on tumblr, has been on discord for years, and I thought it would make a good addition to bring over here again due to the plot elements actually making interacting with characters from different parts ten times easier, as seen with kay and nora's parts 7 & 8 muses ( if you're reading this you two hi hello ily ). I don't have to make like 10 different verses or variations of verses and good chance hikari'll reference tumblr-based events in the discord. Might share some funny snippits of the discord server here as well <33

That being said, let me lead you on this fucked up and bizarre journey that spans 6 years in the most succint way I can possibly put it.

First off, read this. This PDF was put together by Max, and actually summarizes most things in the chat along with a few side jokes. Duplicate muses are explained as timelines folding into a main 'anchor' timeline ( the one of the original Stand user Conner MacCrimmon written by Moody ), with distinct enough variations on one person becoming seperate entities, and those that don't variate much just fold into their 'main' incarnation with a few new memories and experiences. There are three 'over heaven' muses in chat as a sort of 'pantheon', being Aster ( a version of Star Platinum seperated from a Jotaro ), 'Johtaro' ( a version of Jotaro ), and Cohnner ( a version of Conner who's the driving force behind timelines getting folded in-- originally loathed and tolerated, now with people being chill with him )

This also has the symptom of characters from other universes getting mixed the fuck in, which gives us the excuse to play muses from other franchises that are adapted to the world of JJBA completely. Shadow the Hedgehog? Who's that? Don't you mean Foundation Agent Shadow who's totally human and for his neutral special wields a gun? A few other characters I'll be mentioning in threads are Hoshi ( Foundation Archivist ) and Astrid ( Sees Everything ), written by Sci who y'all know already because they're amazing, Ollie and the aformentioned Shadow, written by the same mun of Aster who I linked above, Conner and Moody's other awesome muses, Avdol, Risotto Nero, and a few delightful OCs from the mind of Jules, as well as characters written by Athena, Kris, Rijolt, Kheti, Rani, Chickie, Viala, and Sun! Way too many to list here the cast is Very Colorful. But if you hear Hikari talk about another character in an internal monologue or something, good chance she's thinking about her buddies at work.

Now you may be asking me: clover, how in the goddamn does time travel work into all this?

Well, you may have read that bit at the end of the slide presentation about 'appearing anywhere' if you think about a place hard enough for ease of travel. This fluidity in spacetime has some caveats. Let me explain.

When first starting out in 2017 and lining all of our characters up, Hikari was actually the eldest character among the starting group of 5 muses. Cut to now and while she's aged normally ( at 24 now! ), Kakyoin is in his 40s, Astrid is in her late 20s, and iirc Yukako slipped in time as well. But to answer this, we need to talk about parallel universes.

kidding. kind of.

sometimes cohnner's weaving gets a little wonky and threads of time slip from the tapestry. This causes characters to slip out of time until its weaved back in. For these characters, life continues somewhat normally-- the Foundation may still be there, although people like Hoshi and Hikari and Astrid aren't, and until the fold mends, they're stuck in that timeline, aging normally. The holding record for character with the longest dip in time is both Tenmei Kakyoin and Aster at a whopping 12 fucking years.

To the main timeline, they were only gone for about a day. There was no real way to get back until the stars just happened to align, and the man jumped from late twenties to his forties in the span of 28 hours.

Existentially terrifying, right?

Well, with timeline explanations out of the way, I'm obviously not going to godmod and Hikari assume or know your muses, nor know the history if she happens to be stuck in a part that's in the past ( bt as in her non-bt verse, phantom blood, sdc, or golden wind ). She doesn't read those files anyway, and if she did I probably would go with her not knowing jack and/or shit. In the server its a different story, but I'm not gonna give Hikari multiversal knowledge.

There's also some mechanically different stuff, such as fusion as mentioned in the slide. Here's a slide in a similar style I made like a year and a half ago. Fusion is canon as per both DIU ( Stray Cat and Killer Queen ) and Jojolion ( something something oranges and lemons something something wall eyes something something josuk8 ), so naturally we all built something off of it and this was born after a bunch of workshopping. I'm so normal about fusions i'm so so incredibly normal. Extra body parts applies and there's some tongue in cheek references to su and dragon ball, but inherently its its own thing. Yes there's a ton of fusions with Hikari as a component in the list section shut up.

Currently, Hikari might be investigating strange events that coincide with Stand phenomena. She uses her side gig as a groundskeeper to hover around Morioh and gather info by ear. In other situations, she might slip into parts 7 or 8 due to them being entirely different universes due to being naturally around spacetime irregularities. Y'know, funstuff.

As always, I want to stress that if you do not want to work with this canon, you're absolutely free to tell me. We can do something entirely seperate from this. This is mostly background shenanigans that explains some of Hikari's thoughts and actions, and won't really come into play unless its plotted out, and due to the ease of working Hikari into threads using this as a basis, that's why its my part flexible verse. These aren't hard rules!

Thank you for reading!! If you want more clarification on anything stated here, pleaaaaaase send me an ask-- box is always open <33

[soyezheureux]

my hometown is known as a small town. it's not really having “WOAHHH 🥹” tourist attractions in terms of nature or culture. it's just (a fairly) quiet little town with its own special charm.

whenever someone asks me, “if i visit your place, what should i check out? any recommends?”. i always find myself struggling to answer. to me, my hometown just feels… ordinary, you know? hahahaha. i find it easier to hype up cities i’ve visited than the one i actually live in 🥲

oh, one thing that kinda makes the town stand out is how the train tracks just casually slice through the main road. i mean, there's no railroad gate at all. you’re basically driving or riding or walking alongside a train like it’s no big deal.

warning: if you’re riding a motorcycle, you better really watch yourself when crossing those tracks. they’re like the unofficial slip n slide for bikes. i swear, it feels like at least one rider eats it on those “iconic” tracks every day. i'm not quoting any official stats, of course. just a gut feeling hehe. so yeah, maybe i’m being a dramatic. but heyyy, it adds to the charm, right? hahaha.

ok, so let me tell you a funny little thing about my hometown, myself, and the people who’ve been "somewhat" connected to me. ((for context, these people are mostly girls i've had good relations with, like.. exes, almost-somethings, or that “just friends” kinda vibe 🤣)). they’re all from out of town, which is why they’d ask me for recommends on where to go if they ever visited. and that train tracks are the place i often point to as the answer.

now here’s the kicker. every single time one of them actually gets the chance to visit my town, we’re already… done. like, the connection’s over, we’re not talking anymore. they end up exploring and figuring things out on their own 😂

and yeah, call me delusional. but i like to think that when they’re here, they get this tiny moment of nostalgia and think, “that place? oh yeah, that guy" HAHAHAHAHAHA

even if it’s not always a good memory (probably not 🥴), at least i’m still there, somewhere in their thoughts 🤡 tbh, i've heard that the worst feeling is being forgotten by someone you’ll never forget. and me? bruh, trust me. i never forgot them.

[tayne-dot-exe]

I almost never interact with anyone on here but I want people to be able to Know me, so I'm trying to get into actually blogging and just spilling my thoughts and what I'm up to… its kinda weird cos I use to pretty much only have online friends and discord chats were like my main spot but I'm just not really checking servers as much and most of my friends I'm no longer at the place where I'm telling them every thought I have anymore? I want those kind of connections which is why I'm still putting it out here in case anyone here wants to go from parasocial to social, but most of it has started to feel like, not interesting enough to message any person or groupchat in particular, so I have started to prefer just waiting until the next time I see someone in person and having a long catch up chat, letting the conversation go to whats been on my mind. But thats prob due to actually going out to do a lot more social activities and trying to HAVE people I do things with irl, even though it's still pretty frustrating that I feel like I can't find the kind of person I want to build like a super codependent friendship with…

Like I think I've been trying to make friends the way that people date where I'm just meeting up with someone from lex or bumble, and I keep finding new ways that things just Aren't Working for me, I have started trying to just be pragmatic about it…. It's one thing to try to find people who are interested in the type of activities I want to do with people- thrifting and nature walks are like sooo general, but I'm going insane from people saying they want to do something and then having so many logistical problems actually going… I know I'm super privileged that I'm just free after 4pm and have a car but like… I'm tired of doing sooooo much to accommodate hangouts just cos I want someone to go to things with like driving 40 minutes extra each way to you to pick you up…. or like if you can't tell me it's gonna be another hour before you're ready to leave your house…. I live in the suburbs of a super big city and there should be gay people everywhere but I can't find anyone within 15 minutes of me who is not too ADHD to actually make plans??? And then on top of just being willing AND able to go do the stuff I wanna do you're telling me I have to build a 1 on 1 rapport with people and sometimes we're just gonna find each other annoying??

Anyway I've actually joined a ton of groups that I'm pretty happy with adding a bunch of stuff to my calendar to just run into people and at least trying to find these connections irl if everyone on lex is a bum. Biggest thing is master naturalist where I've been going to tons of moth nights and bioblitzes and making friends with educated older women, kinda funny this parks and wildlife guy who is like the cult leader of the area keeps talking to me about on cinema at the cinema cos my inaturalist is also Tayne. And I found a new lgbt social group that has some interesting people but I wish was better at posting their casual activities cos I wanna just meet people at the things that are not video games and support groups. And I wanna get a little more involved with this climate action group I did a book club with. And I found a place where I can do Tai Chi actually guided by Chinese people, and that the place also does language/culture classes for adults so I will probably sign up for that in the spring. I'm even giving "the club" a try since we have one of very few lesbian bars in the country, but I think I'm just not interested in drinking with strangers where it's hard to converse and I don't care about most of the music (love dance music but even if it was my music idk how much I care about hearing it in it's natural environment), I'm giving it my best shot but I really don't have the clubber's spirit, I like the idea of dressing up for the club more than actually going… (honestly i think most ppl I've been trying to take to nature walks like the idea of being someone who goes out in nature more than actually going too)

But like its kinda crazy I'm obsessed with making lists of stuff I want to do, and for a long time it was creative projects that I dread having to actually do but I want to be finished, and during quarantine I started thinking like, what are the things I would do if I didn't feel like I had "homework", like if I was free from the stuff I was putting pressure on myself, and I've already done and have lined myself up to do a bunch of these now… I'm very happy with the adult I've settled in to being, and I want to meet other people who are too. I've found that I am such a busy body and love having things planned where I get to go hang out and meet people!

[chimeragirldick]

BIG LONG SPARE PARTS UNORGANISED RAMBLE AFTER THE CHAPTER 3 UPDATE

before i go into the main bit of this post, if you've come across this without knowing what spare parts is i implore you to check it out. the first chapter is free on itchio, you can find 2 and the chapter 3 demo there as well they are worth the price. if gay robots and gay humans being very funny and dealing with complicated emotions sounds like fun to you go read it, i will sing the praises of spare parts until the day i die and return to the dirt as dust.

<big>my general thoughts</big>

my FUCKING FUCK i love this FUCKING viusal novel. it's able to balance its comedy, drama, tension and horror amazingly and all of those aspects are absolutley amazing. i can laugh hysterically one moment and feel intense dread the next and it flows so naturally. the character writing, mystery, drama, everything has caused this thing to latch itself onto my brain and not let go i can't stop obsessing over it.

i love how robots are dealt with in spapa. the analyses of the human condition and the ways we are programmed, the limitations we face, the comprimises, risks and hardships we must face to live our lives how we want, or at least as close as we can get is amazing. the character and background art is also fucking beautiful. i love all of the characters designs and their mannerisms, the small little reactions characters give sometimes i also really like. the stand out ones for me are probably 01's. the music is also amazing, in general it just sounds beautiful. but when that music wants to make you feel tense by god it fucking does.

the data shards also really help add to the story and mystery, giving the chance to have a look into things that otherwise wouldn't necessarily fit in neatly and work much better as a kind of chapter ender. i also love the tips and how they show character change. something i love is when, games especially, establish a pattern or have something be somewhat assumed and then flip that on its head and the tips do it really well. initially i thought the stats wouldn't change, so the first time they do has a big impact. as well as that chapter 3's occasional changes to the likes and dislikes format is also really cool and i think really helps give a forefront look into what's on the characters minds.

<big>chapter 1 & 2</big>

the comedy is in full force in chapter 1 and it's great. i think it also really helps, as it does with the rest of the chapters, to really let the tense moments stand out. while it has far less intense scenes that future chapters that bit at the end with melanie, the way it makes you feel terror and tension even if you already know they're robots and she's fine. chapter 2's ramp up of the drama is very nice. you can feel the raw emotions of the characters, especially with that visceral scene of lucy and melanie arguing, the end of this chapter also being the first change for characters stats i think also really helps emphasise the impact of the chapters events.

<big>chapter 3 (demo)</big>

AHGHGHHGHHGFHAGHGAHGFGAHGHAGHGF. GOD THIS CHAPTER IS FUCKING GREAT. i am excited for whatever comes next, both for this chapters conclusion and whatever comes after. i feel this is where the emotional tempest inside each characters mind really begins to increase in intensity severley and i love it. the whirlwind of many different emotions having to contend in their situation, especially with 01 and lucy, their love coming to the forefront and wanting desperatley to pursue it with circumstance and awkwardness getting in the way, leaving their thoughts, feelings and desires to only continue to swirl. it's very good for them that they are able to express their feelings to eachother, but there's still that loose thread of properly discussing it. all their thoughts are so messy and unorganised and complicated and it drives me insane /pos. giving 02 and somewhat violet their chance in the spotlight was very good and really helped to develop my feelings toward both. 02 can be very hateable but the more you spend in her mind, watching as violet manipulates her the harder and harder it is. it quickly becomes a case of wanting the best for her. violet too is very interesting, this chapter gives more elaboration to her horrible deeds, but does give a deeper look into her thoughts. violet may not have an ei core but there are still times when she seems confused and curious, in all she does violet is simply following her programming and there's nothing she can do to stop that. violet's actions still can't be excused, but there's a little something below her surface.

i like the further focus on damien too. it's really nice to finally get to see things from their perspective after having one a long while with just small inklings of their feelings. especially the fact we get to see their thoughts. it's heartbreaking to see how the others drift away and then how violet creeps in afterwards to take advantage of the vulnerable situation they are in. the mystery in this chapter is also incredible. it's probably more emphasised as the chapter is being released in parts so it presents a lot of mysteries without giving answers, which i love. as a fan of shows like gravity falls and the owl house i love the mystery side of spare parts and especially with this recent release it's given so much to speculate on. how is hanne connected? is the person 02 keeps seeing her sister? i'm pretty sure the flower on her coat is a magnolia like hanne's first name. did hanne know what would happen when she called 02 petal? is karina also connected somehow? what's that mystery job karina has? are they the benefactors nova mentioned? when karina called 01 owen in this release after previously calling her 01 was that because karina misheard the name owen as 01 or did she really know 01 was a robot and it was a slip up, cause if i remember she was never corrected to call 01 owen so why does she do it now? am i looking to deep into this? maybe? but i don't care my mind is racing at light speed thinking about what everything could mean. also something i'm going insane over is that after chapter 11 i think it says the tips updated and i can't tell if i missed something or if it was a mistake cause i swear they did not update. i also think the creator has done a good job pacing things out, i know she said she wanted everything together and that each chapter was written as a full package and is splitting it up out of necessity. but i think she's done a good job with it, the chapters ended on feel like good end points, there is enough lingering in the air left unanswered that the intrigue remains, but it doesn't feel like it cuts just before something. plus i enjoy the long period of time for my brain to rot with theories and thoughts and just spinining the fictional gay people i'm obsessed with in my head over and over again.

<big>final thing</big>

this was probably very unorganised and rambly and poorly worded. i am typing this up right after finishing chapter 12 of episode 3 after spending the past few days slowly getting through it and it's been a little bit since i played the other chapters of 3 and 1 and 2 so they're a bit less clear in my mind. i just needed to get something down to get this energy out. spare parts has grabbed onto my brain and refuses to let go and i am fine with this.