#like none of it is real. i think that’s my biggest gripe with it all it takes so much time and energy and it is literally all empty words

[mediapen]

i just don’t think a media ecosystem in which traditional media consists effectively of the monday sports section of newspapers or websites that produce what i hope* is ai-authored clickbait, and in which social media is purely team-authored bts/thirst content and what the fuck ever fan response drivel the comments section can produce, and in which still somehow every spare minute these guys have is spent doing ‘media,’ is very healthy for anyone. never mind for a sport in which the drivers have rapidly been commodified and hardly know how to respond besides having an ineffective union and very occasionally a personal youtube channel

[cineflections]

You know, if there was one manga that would be adapted to live action and succeed, I never would have guessed it to be this one.

I'm ofc talking about the One Piece Live Action on Netflix

A whole day binge right after release, I was READY, and thankfully, I was not disappointed. There are cuts and streamlining of the story, characters coming in earlier than in the manga/anime, and some of the emotional bits don't hit as hard as in the original. Still, I can feel the love the production team has of One Piece. The characters are goofy and lovable, but they are also serious and straight-faced.

One thing that I noticed throughout was the constant close up to faces and sometimes straight on, as if almost breaking the 4th wall. The very first scene with Luffy is like this, but there he DOES look into the camera directly, but the pov of the camera is revealed to be a newsbird. It's like a statement that they know this is a silly pirate romp, they know that some people will not take this seriously, but they will not do 4th wall breaks silly, but in-universe silly. Does that make sense?

I laughed at several points in the show, big and wide smile on my face and pointing at the screen several times...

But I do wonder how much of my laugh was on the show's on merit or if I was only calling back on the the source material. At times I did feel the straw hat crew not being as iconic as in the manga/anime. The extreme reactions, the over the top noises and actions, at the same time I realize that real people generally don't act like that.

I appreciate the show runners attention to details. Putting stuff in to tease future arcs, adapting some cover stories, some of the complete unhinged behaviors of characters (Garp I'm looking at you!).

This show adapted Romance Dawn, orange town, syrup village, baratie, and arlong park.

There are so many moments that are almost scene by scene taken from the manga. Luffy in the barrel and meeting Koby. Alvida with her giant spike club. We got to see some pre-captured Zoro moments (particularly him killing a baroque works agent!), Nami being a sneak.

Then we meet the one and only clown Buggy! They hammed him up, they made him a showman and a real clown (with a real bulgy nose as well, props!). I loved Buggy. Goddamn what a show stealer. Excellent casting, his devil fruit was show cased so well and it looked good!

Usopp's introduction is the most changed. The kids are gone and the Black Cat pirates never call in the entire crew or Jango. Instead of the fight on the slope by the beach it's instead in Kaya's house from which they cannot escape. The actor for Kuro nailing the mannerism and hand movements, altho his "teleporting" looks a bit wonky.

With Baratie we are finally introduced to Sanji! Who's British now 😆. And Mihawk's introduction tho! Badass and just so over the top and goofy. I love him so much! This is where we got the biggest change where we instead get Arlong and crew coming in smashing the place up (a tiny bit). Arlong may not be as tall as he should be but I love the practical approach instead of CGI, which means he actually feels present! All the fishmen we see are guys in costume and prosthetics!

Arlong Park felt a bit more rushed than the earlier parts, but I do think they nailed *that* scene tho.

If the bar for live action adaptation was below the ground, I would say now there's a new bar, which is on the ground 😅. I think it's a solid show but it might be my bias talking. I do have some gripes tho.

One thing that was constant in East Blue Saga was how much village people hate or are scared of pirates. I think they got the marines right, and the pirates, but they failed to really have the village people be a character in their own right. In the manga and anime the villagers are mostly a monolith who will think and act alike in situations and be part of the happenings either by watching or fighting. We got just about none of it here, except a mention in Arlong Park. They did some really good and cool world building with lots of people populating the sets in the background - but that's it, they're just extras to fill out the screen. There are ofc a few exceptions but I felt it was not enough.

I wish they had Luffy be more agile when using his gum-gum powers. Whenever he springs a pistol or a whip is stands in place, which I found boring (and they did so well with Zoro's fights!). I do think the explanation is that they decided for Luffy to be coming into his powers as we go. That we will learn with him all the things he can do (him not knowing he can blow himself up like a balloon proves this). I hope that in season 2 (please netflix!) they show the growth in his fighting!

But to end this long post. I just wanna say how much I fucking love the dude playing Mihawk. Goddamn he's so fun. MVP.

For the straw hats, I would say that Usopp feels the closest to manga version, and Luffy feels the most distant from it. But I don't dislike this, and I think the actor for Luffy has so much potential to really make the role his own.

It will never be "just like" the manga and anime, but that's ok! It's a new adaptation (in live action) made by people you can tell loves the source material and really really tried to make it work! I respect that, and I respect this show. Please watch it on Netflix! It's a fun and silly time, just like it should be!

[remylebeaugambit]

So, I decided to wait a little to think this show over. As a Gambit fan I’m still pretty much bitter about it all. However, as an X-Men fan, I can say I understand why people love the show. But I also believe there’s an exaggerated amount of praise due to the fact that we’ve been starving for good X-Men content. 

I was going to write a much angrier version of this text (I actually outlined an angry rant but there were too many fuck yous), however I’m trying to be reasonable here. The animation is mostly impeccable (don’t like the way the women are drawn, but that’s a minor complaint), it’s colorful and vivid and fluid. The action scenes are mostly awesome too. So, yeah, there’s a lot of good in it. Having said that, there’s tons of problems as well and the great majority of fans are willingly blind to them because of, you know, the good and the lack of content for years. 

I want to be bluntly honest and say I’m glad that the showrunner had been fired. I wholeheartedly don’t believe he is deserving of all the praise he’s been getting because my biggest issues with this show come from the writing. It’s amazing and exciting to see scenes from the comics being brought to life in beautiful animation? Yes, definitely. But it’s not enough when the writing is rushed and lacking.

First, I thought I was biased because I hated what they were doing to Gambit, but now I really, truly don’t think this show that amazing. The first half of the season was mostly decent, there were things I didn’t like but that wasn’t enough to called it bad. Episode 5 was when the show peaked (although to be fair Gambit wasn’t in it much, it was the way he went down that made it memorable) but after that it just went downhill.   

All the plot holes, the playing favorites, the inconsistencies, the rushing through storylines, the terrible pacing, the loose ends, the weak motivations, the terrible character development, the retcon to characters’ relationships (so Ororo and Jean are sisters now? Ororo was way closer to Rogue in the original cartoon, but, you know, Rogue had to be isolated for her disgusting retcon and inconsistencies of character and decisions to work out. Newsflash asshole: they didn’t. Rogue was character assassinated. And though I love her in the original show, I wouldn’t be this angry if it hadn’t directly affected Gambit the way it did), and, of course, all the foreshadowing of Gambit becoming Death left to be (hopefully) resolved in the second season. That means there was no payoff. I repeat: the show was mostly curveballs and no real payoff. With a cast that big, you don’t expect all the characters to have satisfying character arcs but in this case if you aren’t a Jean, Scott or Magneto fans you’re left hanging. 

Storm, who has been friends with Gambit, simply didn’t even mention his death. The excuse was that ended up on the cutting room floor, but don’t be fooled, there was enough time for Ororo to smile and hug Jean and later tell her platitudes (what a boring, cheesy speech!). There was also plenty of time for all those insufferable Magneto moments. “You killed more people than the Nazis? Awwww that’s fine, cause you’re family.” 😉 None of it was cut, right? That leads me to my biggest gripe with his show: fucking Magneto. I hate that took so much space and was unironically written as an old man who groomed a teenage girl (they can lie all they want and say she was an adult. She WASN’T. She was a teenager with serious emotional issues), manipulated her, gaslighted her, isolated her and told her pretty things to bang her. I guess that’s what’s called romance nowadays. I mean, the show runner didn’t even try to hide his fetiches for the old creep. All those plot contrivances and conveniences to accommodate someone’s wet dream. 

Ok, so, I don’t want to go ad hominem on the show runner here, but to be fair, he’s been dishonest with us fans this whole time, he’s lied straight-faced, said a lot of stuff that hasn’t panned out, given dubious answers, manipulative and evasive comments, asked for our trust, even though he’d been lying and giving us false hope (trust is earned, dude; I stopped trusting him after the first lie, if ever), and there are people, Gambit fans, still being hopeful and taking his words at face value. Fucking seriously? THAT dress was just another spit in our collective faces. Wake up!), also he’s self-indulgent, and pathetic in his comments about being the master of magnetism (ok, I lied. So what?).        

All in all, I don’t think that show is as good as so many people are making it out to be and I’m way too happy about the firing of the show runner. To him, I say, thank you for tainting the legacy of something dear and pure from my childhood. Good riddance, please, don’t ever come back, sink into oblivion and go fuck yourself (ok, I needed at least one fuck you, he’s had it coming). 

Ps. Romy fans, mark my words, the old creep will be making passes at Rogue and since she has no personality in this, we can expect the worse, like little Charles next season or anything else that is just as irreversible. I’m mean, an old man fucking a teenager is already irreversible to me. But that’s me. 

[destinyc1020]

Okayyyy....So, I FINALLY got around to watching this "Don't Worry Darling" movie a few nights ago lol. Everyone kept saying how HORRIBLE the film was, and how bad Harry's acting was in it lol, so I'm sorry, but my curiosity just got the better of me and I HAD to watch it and see for myself. 😅

My Thoughts:

The Good:

I LOVE films that have a little bit of mystery like this...I love trying to figure out and guess what's really going on in a film, so this one was right up my alley.

Right off the bat, I kind of already suspected that what I was seeing was not what was real. I even questioned if they were really in that time period right off the bat. Like, something just seemed waaay too "perfect" about that little town. Immediately, I found myself thinking:

"This film reminds me of 'The Stepford Wives' and the 'Surrogates' movies". If any of you have seen either of those films, then you'll know exactly what I'm talking about.

Can I just say? I love Florence as an actress. Everything I've seen her in so far has been great acting by her. She does an American accent fairly convincingly well too... I didn't pick up on any "slip-ups" like I usually do when most foreigners fake American accents for films lol. 😅 I can't wait to see her in "Dune: Part 2"!

Also...LOVED seeing Chris Pine as a villain in this! And can I just say?? He was ZADDY! LOL 🤣 Something about him in this film was doing things to me lol.

Oh...and I LOVE LOVE LOVED the costumes, and that house! I love styles and fashion from the 1950s and 1960s. Everyone just always looked so classy and put together. People really took pride in how they looked back then lol. I loved vintage styles honestly. 😊

That home was to die for too...loved the architecture.

The Bad:

Honestly, the main gripe I had with this film was that there were just SO many plot holes! 🥴 It was annoying! Like, the movie teases you and teases you, and you're hanging on along for the ride, and then.... It just.... LEAVES you HANGING with sooo many UNanswered questions at the end! 😤

What was up with the airplane crashing in the distance that Florence's character saw?? 🥴

What was up with the mini little earthquakes that everyone was just used to? Was it trains? Was it leakage from the "real life"?

Why did Olivia's character know what was up from the get-go? Who told her? How did she find out? Did she ALWAYS know?

Why does banging your head against the glass cause you to get out of the VR realm?

How did Harry's character get his wife to be able to undergo the VR life? Was he drugging her? Were ALL of these husbands drugging their wives? Were some of these dudes just choosing random women to be their VR wives?? Like, what on earth?

When did Chris Pine's wife know that he was a fraud?? Like, was she always suspecting? OR did that ONE phone convo that she over heard do something to her?

Who were the men in red jackets? Were they all under VR simulation as well?

Why does killing you in the VIRTUAL WORLD kill you in the REAL WORLD, when everything that's going on is just FAKE anyway?? 🥴 That was the BIGGEST mystery to me lol. Didn't make sense AT all.

You almost felt like you watched the entire movie for no good reason when none of these questions were answered lol. I can see why so many people didn't like this movie.

OVERALL:

Overall, I didn't HATE the movie. The movie actually started off very promising in fact! I actually didn't even mind Harry's acting? I mean, he's not really an "actor", so for a singer trying to act, I actually didn't think he did THAT bad y'all lol. �� And as Olivia's film debut (is this her first directorial film?) it actually wasn't THAT bad.

I just hated all of the plot holes!

I also felt like actress Kiki Layne was SEVERELY UNDERused in this movie. I would have liked to have seen how she was before she became suspicious. I was actually interested in her storyline as well, but they kind of treated her character as an afterthought.

Anyway...I think people overexaggerated though how much they hated this movie. It wasn't that bad honestly. It was just something fun to watch on a Friday night while eating my dinner lol.

But boy did this movie have plot holes galore! 🤣 It didn't have to end so abruptly either.

Too bad this movie had so much drama going on with the cast lol 😆 It didn't get such a great press tour due to all the drama going on lol. 👀

[olberic]

ok first real veilguard spoilers here

in every other dragon age game ive (re)played the big choices have been really easy bc lev (warden) & hawke & teolin (inquisitor) were all really established in my head. like they werent decisions i had to make bc i knew what my characters would do. burning amaranthine? drinking from the well? easiest choices of my life. but so far novissime (rook) is really hard to characterize for me, like to the point its one of my biggest gripes about the game. i have their backstory and concept but none of the dialogue choices really feel like theyre establishing any sort of character. yknow?

anyways. im at the “which city to save” option. i personally think i like treviso more but novissime’s a shadow dragon. they came into this wanting to do as much good for tevinter’s lower classes as possible. and leaving them to die while a potential power struggle means nothing but further loss of life of the most vulnerable ppl in the population is just something they cant do. they have to save minrathous. now if the game would let me do anything to solidify their character about that thatd be great.

[characteroulette]

I was gonna structure this better but I think these rants express my point pretty well. (Spoilers ahead for aai games and DD)

Here's something that's been niggling at me since I realised it --

Possibly one of the biggest flaws in the new series writer's finales are that they have 2 climaxes. I think that's Trials and Tribulations' fault (it's ALWAYS T&T'S FAULT) (although T&T is the closest example I can think of as to why this happens), but it's also just an issue and I hope SOJ helped him learn to stop doing that.

Like, in T&T, the whole finale climax is when you exorcise Dahlia. Calling Godot out after that is technically part of the falling action / resolution, but I can see how it can be mistaken for a second climax since like, people care a lot about Godot

(none of the other Shu Takumi AA games do this as far as I can think of. They all have very clear climax points and then everything else is falling action)

Compare to the aai games, DD, and SoJ, all of which have 2 climaxes in their finales. Aai1 has the whole Calisto Yew capture (works as a climax), then the climax of catching the leader of the smuggling ring (can't be called falling action because it takes another goddamn 5 hours to catch this man). Then aai2 has the Sebastian standing up to his dad as the first climax, then the whole mastermind thing as the second climax (same problem as aai1 as well, can't be called falling action because it takes another like 5 hours to get there) (and these are both treated as climax and very much not the same as the whole Maya testimony to catch Godot. Like that is very much falling action and has a different feel than these other two things.)

Like sure the smuggling ring has a whole throughline for the entire game, meanwhile Calisto Yew was only brought up in case 4 of 5, but she actually gets better buildup than the smuggling ring?? Probably because of the emotional investment ties she has not just to Kay, but to Edgeworth and Franziska and Badd as well! (And Gumshoe haha)

It's insane how much more I am invested in Calisto Yew than like, the smuggling ring. Or the Phantom, who has basically the same thing in DD (and with somehow LESS buildup despite being a part of the game's story from the first case!!) (…retroactively since the first case, but y'know. DD is a fucking mess hahaha)

Tangent: I have so many gripes with the Phantom, from taking an actually fun and likeable character (Fulbright) and making him the LEAST INTERESTING THING when he could have been cool (master of disguise!! Seamlessly emulates literally anyone imaginable!! Very little emotions!! That's such a cool concept I can't believe y'all fucking wasted it!!) and never actually building him up so that he's an actual presence

He's technically in the story from the first case, but only because. He's the one that detonated the bomb

If case 5-1 didn't happen in-between 5-4 like it did, then he wouldn't be there until 5-4 and it'd SUCK (okay technically he's there since 5-2 because. Fulbright. But Fulbright is straight up a different character from the Phantom so. I don't want to count it.)

It feels like the Phantom replaces Fulbright in 5-4 because of how little they paid attention to placing any hint that he was the Phantom all along. Ugh. As Verse keeps saying, they should have killed Gumshoe, for real

And it's not like this writer does a bad job at Gumshoe!! Gumshoe is one of the better parts of the aai games!! (He has rocks for brains but he's endearingly stupid XD )

Anyway. Back to the whole two climaxes dilemma.

In DD it's the whole Athena and Blackquill thing as the first Climax, then catching the Phantom is the second. This one is interesting because it's two breakdowns in the same case / trial segment, which does happen in DGS! But in DGS it has more time between them and, again, are treated differently on the story timeline feel. DGS has rising peaks and moments of calm that add to the rising action leading to the climax, whereas in DD these are both treated as bombastic climaxes without much differentiation between them. At least, that's how it feels to me?

And then SoJ just straight up has two separate trials in its finale case (which aren't even like 3-2 or 6-3 in which one trial leads into the other) and does better about having two climaxes, but I think all the peaks in the rising action are oddly paced and it has a satisfying ending but the journey to get there is a bit muddled. It doesn't exactly feel like it has two climaxes at least, showing that there has been improvement here, but it's still very messy.

I really hope the writer for AA7 at least learns from all this so we don't keep having this problem. It's funny how much we take writing fanfiction for granted and then see how much skill it actually takes to write something that feels like someone else's characters.

[foxilayde]

I reslly wanna know WHY is there no oscar isaac fan fiction (not oscar’s characters) like real person oscar, I’d LOVE some of those, as much as I’m infatuated with all his characters, he gets the biggest share of my heart.

I can’t speak for other fic writers in the OI fandom, but the common consensus that i have seen is that its creepy/invasive to write about a real person in that way. Especially for someone like Oscar who is married and has children and is relatively private, it might feel wrong for people to cross that line?

I don’t even know if I so much align myself with that stance.. I mean i definitely TALK about it. You’ve seen my tags. But I don’t write or post stories about it. And that’s because the main gripe I have about RPF (real person fiction) is that it is boring.

I write stories about characters. Real people aren’t characters and writing about them in a narrative sense is about as translatable as making a photocopy of a three dimensional object.

Again, I am speaking for myself here and my own opinions.

The reason I think RPF comes off as flat is because of the source material we’re given; That actual person? That celebrity? You don’t know them in the way you can know a character. Everything presented about Oscar is curated for consumption. Everything. Every interview, fan interaction, insta post, etc. It’s all an act to an unknowable and uncanny degree. With the ultimate objective being, likability.

Yawn.

With the source material of characters on the other hand, you see them in states of vulnerability, you get a glimpse at their inner monologues and objectives. You see what they’re like with other people, with themselves, the role they play in the bigger picture and their relationship to the theme and what that says about our own lives or desires (and yes i do realize you might just be talking about PWPs, but i argue that even PWPs need this in order to be readable and enjoyable)

Actors though?? The famously empty vessels who wander their lives as if in a hall of mirrors? Driven by the need to play someone because they feel an existential longing within themselves to express the inexpressible? male actors in particular? Masters of deception!! Subjected to the scrutinization only previously felt by womankind? The vanity? Meeting the incessant observation of the ever present camera lens with eager presentation? Those aren’t any layers I’m interested in peeling back, ion wanna write that.

Yet.

Maybe—if I get into horror.

PS. If you like RPF, that is fiiiine. idc in the least. Life is short, do what makes you happy. None of this is illegal and we’re all going to die and I’m not the arbiter of anything.

[duhragonball]

JoJolion Ch. 71-76

This is the "Ozone Baby's Pressure" arc, but there's also a flashback to Yasuho's childhood hair clip. What dark secret could it possibly hold?

If you guessed "It's another Rock Animal," then congratulations, I guess.

To be fair, Rock Animals are still a new-ish concept, since we've been dealing with Rock Humans all this time, until Ryo Shimosato brought a Rock Animal to the last arc. Now that they've both been defeated, Yasuho realizes that she's encountered a similar creature before, and she tells Rai Mamezuku about this hair clip she bought when she was 13. She thought it would make her look cute for when her dad came to see her. Her parents were divorced, you see, so she takes these weekend visits very seriously.

Unfortunately, the clip was actually a weird parasite that somehow made her see all these terrible misfortunes. First she thinks all her friends hate her for forgetting a classmate's birthday, then she starts having terrible dandruff and flaky skin, then she thinks she's lost her hair clip when it seems to have been hidden in her hair the whole time. Then she sees her father, who tells her he won't be visiting her anymore because he wants to spend that time with his new girlfriend.

I'm not clear on how much of these things were truly real. Her "father" is clearly shown to be an illusion or dream produced by the creature. The dandruff and flaky skin might have been genuine, since Yasuho went to the pharmacy to get salves for it, and they seemed to have an effect, but I don't know. The same with her getting hate messages from her classmates. The Rock Animal couldn't have been responsible for that, but I don't know for sure that it could make her see that sort of thing. My guess is that it just triggers anxieties in Yasuho's brain, and her mind fills in the details from her own doubts and insecurities. I assume that whatever was going on here, the Rock Animal was feeding on this in some way.

Yasuho became so despondent that she attempted suicide, but she was saved by none other than Dr. Holly Kira.

Then Holly says some cryptic stuff about Yasuho needing to keep an eye out for what's important in her life. If she only looks inward, she may not be able to see it. What could this possibly mean?

Well, as soon as she leaves, her son Yoshikage steps in to apologize for anything weird she might have said earlier. According to him, this is Holly's last day practicing medicine, and it's pretty clear that her mind is beginning to experience the symptoms of her disease. Kira also apologizes for stepping on Yasuho's hair clip. I'm guessing this is a pure coincidence, since Kira doesn't know about Rock Humans or Rock Animals either, but he inadvertently saved Yasuho from the source of her troubles.

The point of all of this is that Yasuho had forgotten Holly and Yoshikage before all this JoJolion stuff started, but she now realizes why she pulled Josuke up from the hole he was in. She hesitated at first, worrying more about the dangers of touching a nude stranger, but she remembered Holly's words. "I grabbed onto his wrists, but the one who was pulled up was me." Yasuho declares that her motives are the same as Josuke's and so she's as much a part of this case as the rest of them.

This convinces Rai that she's not a liability to their cause. Yasuho knows what's at stake, and she understands the priorities here. She had already earned his respect for helping Josuke figure out how to defeat Ryo, but now he's convinced that she won't be in the way.

Meanwhile... whatever this bullshit is. The Higashikata Family sucks. The biggest gripe I have with JoJolion is how the story keeps trying to play this family off as basically good and worth saving, but then we see them doing vapid shit like talking about whether fish sausages are getting smaller. Jobin is actively a villain in this thing, Joshuu and Daiya are creeps, and Hato is barely even in the story at all. If they all died at the end, it wouldn't bother me at all. Josuke could attend their funeral and then go off to start a new life with Yasuho.

By now, Jobin has buried Poor Tom's Stand, Ozone Baby, in the family orchard. Poor Tom is a Rock Human who contacted Jobin and proposed this plan to keep Josuke and his father from getting the Rocacaca Fruit. But why? Well, we get this flashback to when Jobin and Norisuke went to a baseball game together, and Jobin can't enjoy it because he wanted better seats. He thinks the stadium should have arranged this for him, just like that restaurant they went to the other day. Norisuke doesn't get it, since all you have to do is make reservations ahead of time. Jobin thinks that's bullshit. Their fruit parlor is a big friggin' deal--at least the way he sees it-- and their contributions to society ought to be acknowledged with special treatment.

So I think it's pretty clear that Jobin is an self-entitled sonovabitch. He already gets to eat at fancy restaurants and take in ball games, but that's not good enough for him. He wants to do those things whenever he wants. Like, just walk up to the stadium and get a great seat automatically. Or just have a table at the restaurant always on standby for when he shows up. And if he can't get those things, then that must mean the fruit parlor has lost its power and influence in the community.

Jobin has ideas to "restore" the fruit parlor's standing, but these involve importing other products that have nothing to do with the core business, like dressings, oils, and less-expensive processed fruit. Norisuke flatly refuses, since the whole point of their business is to sell premium fruit, the kind that people give as gifts. If you dilute your wares with cheaper or unrelated products, then it weakens the brand. Put simply: "A fruit shop doesn't need to be powerful." Jobin's ideas are only to boost his own ego, not their business.

Norisuke leaves Jobin to stew in his own bitterness. Did he just leave the game, or is he only getting up to take a whiz? This is how much I despise baseball: When I went to games, the piss breaks were something to look forward to, because I could get up and do something anything else. Baseball stadiums are boring, wretched places where fun goes to die, and the fact that Jobin turned to the dark side because he can't attend baseball games harder is probably the thing I hate about him the most.

Like... does he even care about the games anymore? He seems way more annoyed about not having a better seat. Maybe the problem here is that Jobin's in his mid 20's or so in this flashback, and he's lost interest in baseball, but he can't quite bring himself to admit it. This is where nostalgia-fueled bitterness stems from. The game didn't change, you changed. The novelty and wonder of it is lost to time, and rather than recognize that, you try to find some way to get back that old feeling you had as a child. "Well, I'd enjoy this more if I only had better seats". That kind of thing.

Jobin's frustration here is embodied by his like "How is that fun? That's no Summer Vacation!" And I'm like... what does summer vacation have to do with not having to pre-order ballgame tickets? Jobin's like a big dumb kid, that's his whole motivation, so he's always trying to have as much fun and be as carefree as possible. The whole point of summer vacation is that you don't have to go to school, and you have the whole day to do whatever you want. Maybe Jobin's problem is that he's had that luxury for so long that he no longer knows how to enjoy it. Or maybe he's just gotten old enough that the charm of "summer vacation" no longer exists. I mean, I'm 47 and I sure don't give a shit. I'm taking a day off from work as I write this and it's great, but it's not some funderful experience like it would be for a little boy. I think Jobin wants more than a day off, he wants to recapture the way a day off must have felt when he was a kid. And it doesn't really work that way.

Anyway, this was the day he first met Yotsuyu Yagiyama, and presumably this was how Jobin got involved with the Rock Humans' Rocacaca smuggling business. He saw this as a way to improve the standing of the Higashikata family, although it's still not clear just how he expected this to work.

In the present-day, Rai and Josuke are on the Higashikata property, where Rai points out the branch to Josuke and applies some moth larvae that will improve the branch's health. They'll wait a few days to harvest the fruit, I guess, and that'll be that. Yasuho isn't with them, but that's just because she's gone home to investigate the Rock Animal that used to be her hair clip. Rai tells Josuke that she kept the pieces after Kira stepped on it, and she thinks analyzing the remains will give her some insight into how silicon-based organisms work.

I don't think this ever gets paid off later in the story. I'm pretty sure we don't see Yasuho show up with a computer printout and she breathlessly tells Josuke that the Rock Humans are vulnerable to Dijon mustard. Part of the problem here is that the characters kind of already know everything they need to know from the last seven Rock Humans they've defeated. Their main power lies in their Stand abilities, and fighting Rock Human with a Stand really isn't any different from fighting any other Stand Battle. Poison, fire, drowning, getting hit by a bus... all of these things will kill a Rock Human or a Rock Animal, so what more needs to be established?

I could see Yasuho wanting to confirm that the hair clip really was a Rock Animal, since all she has right now are suspicions, but it's been dead for six years. What difference would it make now?

So I think this was just a way to write Yasuho out of this next leg of the story. Before, she would get pushed aside by circumstance, or because other characters didn't want her involved, but now she's fully committed to seeing this through, so the only way to keep her away from whatever Josuke is doing is to have her pursue a different lead. That's a good thing, but this lead is pretty much a dead end.

I think the idea here is that no one saw Josuke and Rai on the orchard because Jobin was burying Ozone Baby in the orchard at the same time, and he had turned off the security cameras as a precaution. If he'd just refused Poor Tom's proposal, he might have been able to find the branch when the cameras caught Josuke and Rai fooling around with it.

As it is, Tsurugi saw Jobin anyway, and he wasn't even trying to spy on him or anything. He just wants to know if his dad did anything bad, since he knows Jobin was once in league with Yotsuyu Yagiyami.

Jobin tries to justify his actions as being for the good of the family, but he doesn't really explain what he's done, probably because he doesn't really know himself. I mean, the Rock Human smugglers probably made him a nice offer, but he had no idea what the consequences of that would be, and they've already tried to attack the family twice. As for Ozone Baby, Poor Tom assured Jobin that its ability would keep everyone away from the orchard, but Jobin didn't know how it would do this, or what its effective range would be.

Turns out, Ozone Baby affects the atmospheric pressure within a 100 meter radius. If you're indoors, the pressure gradually increases until it becomes deadly. Outdoors, the pressure is decreased, so if you go outside, you experience decompression, which will kill you that way.

This is kind of a bullshit ability, but not anywhere near as bullshit as Urban Guerilla, which only instakills people when it's convenient to the plot. Ozone Baby's problem is kind of a baseline issue with JoJo, where characters will experience some effect like fire or cold temperatures or rapid aging, and the effects are depicted as drastic and intense, but the characters will still be able to cope with it like it's some gradual problem, and they have time to endure it while they seek out a solution.

I mean, it makes sense that the pressure changes would hurt the characters, and you can just take it for granted that the pressure change is just enough to be dangerous without being immediately lethal. But Jobin's bleeding from his eyes, so things look much, much worse.

Jobin uses Speed King to heat bleach, which produces oxygen bubbles for Tsurugi to breathe. I don't understand why that's helpful, since Tsurugi experienced rapid decompression when the door was open. Also, the pressure inside the garage is increasing, so he's got that much more oxygen to breathe.

I'm nitpicking, but what makes this arc much better than the Urban Guerilla fight is that the Stand abilities are secondary to the story of Jobin's folly. In his desire to keep Josuke away from the branch, he teamed up with the Rock Humans one more time, and once again his family is put in deadly danger. Poor Tom's Stand will keep everyone out of the orchard, but it'll also kill everyone who's already there, including everyone in the Higashikata house. Tom's plan is to wipe out everyone in one stroke, so that way he can search for the branch at his leisure.

At this point, Tsurugi is genuinely trying to understand whose side his dad is on. Jobin assures him that all he wants to do is to get the Rocacaca and cure Tsurugi. If that was his true objective, though, then why wouldn't he just cut a deal with Josuke? Oh, wait, I just realized, that'd be like pre-ordering tickets to a ballgame. Jobin doesn't want to share the Rocacaca fruit with Josuke or anyone else.

Anyway, he convinces his son to team up with him, but they can't leave the garage, and Poor Tom must be miles away waiting for his Stand to finish them all off. So Jobin resolves to defeat Poor Tom without leaving the garage. He does this by combing his heat powers with Tsurugi's origami powers, and they set the orchard on fire. Then he calls Poor Tom to tell him, so he'll have to come to the orchard to save the branch.

This probably says a lot about Jobin's character, where he keeps digging himself into a hole and his only solution is to dig deeper. For all of his high talk about doing whatever it takes for the Higashikata Family's prestige, his big plan is to burn down their property. And just like Poor Tom's Stand, the fire isn't going to magically spare the house.

So where are Josuke and Rai in all of this. Well they were inside the bunker near the mansion when Ozone Baby's power kicked in, and when the fire starts, Josuke decides his only choice is to go retrieve the branch before it burns. That might give away its location to the enemy, but it's the only way to save it. He can't leave the bunker, though, because the pressure differential, but he reasons that if he surrounds himself with a Soft and Wet soap bubble, that will maintain his "indoor" pressure while he steps outside. Rai agrees with his logic, but insists on being the one to secure the branch, since he's better qualified to protect it from further harm.

But along the way, he spots Poor Tom, who's just arrived to dig up his Stand so that the fire department can put out the fire before the branch burns up. Rai siezes him and the branch, but...

Tom reveals that he can control his Stand more directly now that he's dug it up and holding it. That means he can increase the pressure inside Rai's bubble, and kill him before Rai can break his neck. See, this is what I'm talking about. Rai is literally being crushed to death by the pressure, but he's still alive and conscious.

But Josuke counters by launching bubbles containing yew berries. These are extremely toxic, and Josuke knows this because apparently Rai was telling him about this earlier. Apparently the orchard has yew trees, and Rai is relieved to find that Kira and Kujo didn't graft the Rocaca branch onto one of those trees, since it would lead to the fruit becoming toxic as well.

Why do the Higashikatas have poisonous fruits on their orchard? Well, Rai pointed out that their leaves and branches are used in Shinto rituals, so maybe it has something to do with this. Remember, Norisuke's business model is about selling fruit as gifts, not necessarily as food.

Anyway, once the bubbles are close enough, Josuke lets them pop, and the explosive decompression sprays the toxic contents into Tom's mouth.

But Poor Tom manages to defeat Rai before he can succumb to the poison. He does this by using the sheath of a knife, which he closes around Rai's cords, and that makes them "inside", which allows Ozone Baby to apply even more pressure. I guess it kind of makes sense that Rai could survive this, since his powers allow him to turn his whole body into wires, which is sort of like Jolyne Kujo's power to turn into string. I mean, how do you crush a rope?

Tom grabs the branch, but he still has to get away from Josuke (and the fire), so he can get medical attention for the yew juice he swallowed. Josuke launches this series of bubbles, one inside the other like a nesting doll, and that worries Tom because it must be some cool new application of Soft and Wet's powers.

Ultimately, Tom gets desperate enough to cancel his Stand's effects. I think the idea here was that Josuke's multiple layers of bubbles would allow it to get closer to Tom and still withstand the pressure changes, so Tom canceled Ozone Baby to keep the bubble away. But it turns out it was just a bluff. Josuke continues to advance toward him, and Tom tries to make a break for the nearest ambulance, which has arrived along with the fire trucks.

Tom believes that his allies are aboard the ambulance, because they know about his ability and they wisely kept he windows closed when they pulled in. That seems kind of specious, since most people would keep the windows closed while driving. I mean, for the air conditioning, if nothing else.

It doesn't really matter, because he gets shot before he can make it.

Well, at least I think he got shot. The thing is, it looks like someone would have had to shoot him from inside the orchard, and that seems unlikely. This might be another Stand that hasn't been introduced yet, but we're getting close to the end, and there aren't many Stands left for that. We'll see.

Anyway, a pair of shadowy figures are inside the ambulance, and they were Tom's comrades, and they do grab the branch before they drive away, but it turns out it's not the right one. How the hell did Tom screw that up? And what happened to the real Locacaca branch?

Jobin and Tsurugi have it. Jobin's plan was to use the fire to draw Poor Tom out and cancel his Stand ability, but it also forced Josuke and Rai to reveal the branch's location. Soon after, Tsurugi used his Paper Moon King power to confuse them all so they wouldn't be able to tell the real branch from a phony.

As we see in this flashback, Tsurugi was able to send origami cranes into the orchard, where they managed to touch Josuke and Tom without their noticing. The Stand took effect and made them both mistake a common pear branch for the Locacaca branch.

Presumably, once Ozone Baby was disabled, Jobin could just stroll onto the grounds and claim his prize. Tom is dead, and while Josuke and Rai survived, neither of them know what became of the real Locacaca branch, which gives Jobin the inside track. All he has to do now is graft it to a cactus (?) and keep it hidden from everyone else until it's time to harvest. Jobin convinces Tsurugi that he can't tell anyone about this, not even Norisuke, whom Jobin considers too weak to succeed in this venture.

So... Jobin wins? If it seems unlikely, that's because it is. The remaining Rock Humans are frustrated, and Josuke is despondent over his failure, but it won't take them long to realize who tricked them. Jobin's plan, much like his other schemes and goals, are too short-sighted to pan out. For all he gripes about his father's weakness, Jobin's hubris will be his downfall. I mean, he thinks he can just grow this graft in a flower pot for two weeks, in his house, with no one else finding out about it? This stupid mansion has been infiltrated three times already. They still haven't exposed Kyo Nijimura, as far as I can tell. It's all just wishful thinking. Jobin wants to believe he's a big deal, but he just doesn't have what it takes.

[zhongrin]

my biggest advice when it comes to hsr, from someone who’s been playing since launch, is to not be afraid to use character guides. once you get the hang of building them, you don’t need them as much, but for beginners i recommend going on youtube or reddit. the characters rely a lot on one another and having a more “structured” team is more important than in genshin. my biggest recommendation is probably to have a healer, idk which ones you have but for early game i think bailu and natasha are pretty good, and then building a team with perseverance tb! and a dps + sub. i mainly got through the first world by having bailu + trailblazer and altering between characters (mostly welt + seele since i got her early but if you have bronya then i rec her>>)

yep i noticed it's pretty strict on teams, which is my main gripe about the combat… and i did look at some guides (i use them for genshin all the time too), altho i usually don't go to youtube or reddit! i just google "genshin/hsr [char] build" and usually gamerant/game8 pops up, but even so… ok, here's a real experience from me yesterday.

so, i built dan heng-bronya-natasha-march team, right. while for robin, i just switch bronya-dan heng with robin-herta (these 2 are my only 5* characters so i try to center my teams around them)... but you know what? none of these elements can break cocolia (especially the echo boss because at that point you don't get the fire trailblazer yet)!!! so i had to suddenly grind for leveling up asta and research again about what team is good for her. so it's like… "uh…. ok…. well fuck….."

and then!!!! at the boss fight, i discover the trailblazer turns into fire element.

………. :D

truly, i felt like a total clown.

(no like seriously that was so annoying to me. it felt like a slap in the face. i would have rage-quitted if the boss fight was hard and i died)

but then again, i mean, what am i supposed to do then, spoil myself for the next boss and do my research to prep for that fight? even if i didn't major in game dev, that doesn't sound like a good game design...

anyway. yeah. i'm building the fire trailblazer... we'll see how it goes....

having more 5 star characters in your account, especially a healer/shielder in the beginning, helps a lot, i think? atp i don't mind buying the monthly pass, but i'm going strictly f2p on my account because my priority is just to get through xianzhou arc. i'm most probably going to switch account starting penacony because my brother abandoned his, and he has jing yuan 2 built teams and he already grinded lots. i just have to either exchange for bailu once we collect enough passes to reach that 300th pull, or wait for a luocha rerun… and blade heheheheheheheheh- /smacked. granted, his dps-es can't really clear all the content these days because they're not meta anymore, but i don't really care about that at the moment!

[greenvillainredemption]

I just saw the movie adaptation of Matilda the musical, and I absolutely loved it. I know everyone is gonna be comparing it to the 96 movie — and yeah I highly prefer it too — but purely as an adaptation of the Broadway musical, it’s incredible and everything a musical adaptation should be. I highly recommend it if you’re familiar with the musical or just want a slightly different adaptation.

I do have some issues with it though and since this is my dumb little blog I’m gonna ✨complain about em✨

- I can’t believe they cut Loud. I mean I can since it’s overall not important to the story, but the actress playing the mom was just so good from the very first moment, and her costumes were so good, I just feel like she needed more screen time and more to do. Aaaaaand Loud is my favorite song in the entire show so yeah I may be just a liiittle biased.

- I love Emma Thompson as Miss Trunchbull, she’s hilarious and her energy is perfect, this criticism is nothing to do with the actress herself. BUT I do kinda have an issue with the way the character is styled. Other people have said this better than I can, but there is an issue with movies making villains unnecessarily ugly. She’s not supposed to be a “pretty” character, but in this movie there’s so much making her look different, like a more square jawline and bigger nose and grey hair. In the 96 movie she’s just an average looking woman with none of those “villainous” traits. The only defining physical trait she really has is being big and strong. I think the biggest thing to me is that in 96 Pam Ferris still looks like herself. Like the casting people actually got a real life bigger average looking woman to play the character, whereas in this one they gave her all these “villainous” traits, including aging her up for some reason?? Is that really necessary?? Idk it just feels weird. And I’m not saying they shouldn’t have cast Emma Thompson or anything, I love her performance, but they could’ve made her look big and strong without all those extra “ugly” traits, right?? I mean the very first we see of her is a close up of the hairs on her chin which is soo scaary and eeevil on a woman right. It’s just a very outdated image of a villain imo, especially a female villain.

- Now that I’ve wrote it, this feels like more of a gripe with the musical itself and not just the adaptation, but: I don’t like Mrs Phelps’ role in this. I feel like she kinda lessens the impact of Miss Honey, who’s supposed to be like the first positive role model in Matilda’s life. Plus the story Matilda is telling her seems kinda out there? I love how the end of the story reveals itself in the end, but the characters’ circus jobs just feel out of place. I feel like the beginning of the backstory could’ve been more realistic, especially since the ending is so real and grounded.

[burnin0akleaves]

I finished Arazan's Wolves and I really liked it! I have some critiques of course but honestly, none of what I heard from others was as bad as it sounded when given context in the book.

This is mostly non-spoiler review but if you don't want to know anything about the ending, skip this post.

The pacing was weird at times, the tone change of supernatural involvement felt sudden (which makes sense in context I guess but I still think the narrative should have eased its way into it) and it suffers from the typical "For the love of god Flanagan let me see the heroes go back home and tell what happened to others." syndrome. But also, most of these are things all of Flanagan's work suffer from so it wasn't unexpected.

I feel like the positives far outweigh any of the negatives and there were so many small scenes that were perfect. I loved Will's characterization in this book. I loved Maddie. A certain scene made me call Arazan "mommy" so you can imagine I liked her too.

My biggest and probably the only real gripe with the book is not getting to see everyone else's reactions to everything that happened but again. Flanagan. I'm used to it. The book could have gained a lot by being a bit longer to both give more time for the reader to get used to the magical stuff and also to give a more fleshed out ending. I mean its not a very long book anyway.

But again, there were so many stuff right up my alley that I can ignore the pacing issues. Will actually remembers he has trauma and its written suprisingly well. Also both Will and Maddie get a lot of moments to shine.

So yeah, I really liked it! I have so many fanart ideas already and it definitely reignited my passion for RA stuff

[resolvedbrunette]

I think my biggest gripe about college is that I'm paying to be here. I'm paying for numbers on a screen that hopefully put ink on a page that hopefully gets me more money in a job five years from now. None of this actually has any real benefit, financially. This is not work, where my sweat equity and my false cheerfulness gets me unnamed $ an hour after taxes, and I can put it all away in a place 13 minutes from where I sleep. No. I bring it all with me. My back hurts from everything I carry around. The best part of my day is the five minutes where my brain finally begins to shut down so I can sleep, all for this to repeat endlessly. Even the weekend is just maintenance on the car so that I can continue to hopefully drive this thing someplace. They say it gets better when you're not in the general weed out classes anymore, but I am still feeling like I don't belong here. still. I think I'm hungry.

[crypt1dcorv1dae]

Honestly I think my biggest gripe with scarlet and violet gameplay wise is probably how some aspects are way too easy, like how the ability to just auto-battle to level up makes it so you really dont feel like actually battling for real, since theres a much easier option! But then. Nobody tells you that the auto-battle don't give you any EVs, which means while your Pokemon ARE getting stronger, they could be MUCH MUCH STRONGER THAN THAT if you actually battled properly...

And then other aspects are super difficult or confusing and just never really explained, like the evolution method of so many Pokemon!!! Like it took me forever to evolve my ceruledge cus I just had NO CLUE HOW, and apparently the only way is to talk to ONE RANDOM PERSON in the entire game to get the evolution item!!!! And that is far from the only confusing evolution method in the game!!! Like how the hell was I supposed to know that to evolve this stupid fucking dung beetle I had to RUN AROUND WITH IT FOR LIKE 1000 STEPS like????? I would have never assumed that!!!!

Hell, maybe they teach you these things if you take some of the classes at the school, but who the HELL wants to play Pokemon just to.... Go to school again? Like why would I do that? I never even went back to that school until I spawned back in there after becoming champion it was absolutely nowhere in my brain to do that. So who knows!!! Maybe there are ways of learning these things!!! But none of it is... Natural or organic feeling at all. Also some of the Pokemon are locked behind the wall of HAVING FRIENDS TO PLAY WITH, not to mention paying for the damn Nintendo online subscription (I detest this fucking function so much)

Plus like the game runs so slow already why would I risk playing with more people and crashing my damn game 😞

I say gameplay wise specifically cus my ultimate gripe is how clearly unpolished the game STILL is because they were so rushed to finish it, and just the graphic style in general??? I really hate most of the textures on Pokemon with fur/hair... There's just too much detail that does not need to be there, and then to compare, all the reptilian and fish-like Pokemon have too LITTLE texture, they all look like plastic toys...

The only textures I like are like. The rock/metal/wood textures, like I love the texture on ceruledge armorouge cus you wouldn't EXPECT that level of detail, idk

[pterodactylterrace]

I think everyone is entitled to their opinion on HOTD, but I think there’s a lot of people missing others points and it’s becoming very toxic

I don’t mind missing points. Misunderstandings happen, and we can figure out what went wrong so it hopefully doesn’t happen again. I mind when people become openly hostile and start slinging insults the second I chime in with anything. I was called names and had my parenting questioned over my opinions on a FICTIONAL show, and that is toxic. I also had someone circumvent a ban just to continue harassing me and calling me names. That’s toxic and kinda creepy.

Honestly, it would be so much more relaxed if people would just stick to the story and stop dragging personal shit into it. It’s a FICTIONAL show. It’s bonkers to resort to calling names and insulting someone over a fictional story.

Example:

Me: Rhaenyra is a horrible mother.

TB: You’re a horrible mother!

(Paraphrased, but an actual example)

❌ No. My real life is not up for discussion, and quite frankly none of their business.

Me: Rhaenyra is a horrible mother.

TB: I don’t agree, because of these reasons.

✅ Yes. This sparks a discussion and, most importantly LEAVES REAL PEOPLE OUT OF IT.

That’s been my biggest gripe with the black stans. They can’t just keep it about the show. They have to drag people’s personal lives into it.

I had someone ask about my chronic illness, and I was hesitant to respond because for all I know, it’s someone else from TB that I blocked fishing for something to throw in my face.

We don’t all have to like the same things. Not liking the same things isn’t a reason to be hostile and insulting, imo 🤷🏻‍♀️

[dearaliya]

Fourth Wing: We're so back!!

Dear Aliya...

OH MY GOD!!

I know I was the one to put you onto this book, and I know you devoured it long before I was able to, but now I have come to the end and I have many many thoughts! With the next book in the series due soon, I'll have to get them all to you soon!

I'll be honest, it had been a while since I'd read a proper book. I'm talking paper, turning a page, needing a light source of some description, the whole shebang! I'm delighted to say that this is a very easy book to read and a terrific pathway back into demolishing books like the good old days.

The worldbuilding is decently rounded out and the plot points are relatively paint by numbers and predictable (which I'll get to).

Shall we dot point? Thank god I'm not spoiling this for you!

Violet Sorrengail She's got all the traits of a YA fantasy heroine and then some! However special she might end up being, there wasn't once a time I thought that things were just a bit too easy for her, which sometimes takes the fun away. Don't get me wrong, she is very special with her two dragons and duel-toned hairstyle and legacy family, but it never felt like it was getting to the point of complete absurdity which is a fine line to walk.

Her disability (Ehlers Danlos, though it isn't called that in the book) was extremely well written, naturally due to the author's experience. It's a part of her, one that she's fully come to terms with and handles on the daily, no song and dance drawing all the attention to this one big thing making it her entire personality. Rare!

It provided great growth for her as well, accepting that sometimes she isn't like everyone else (not in that way) and sometimes she needs that little bit of a helping hand was a great big step! It's a struggle to accept that sometimes you need accommodations, everyone wants independence and to concede it certainly hurts.

Xaden Riorson Speaking of independence, let's discuss my- everyone's- favourite character! Now, is he my favourite because I think that he is a very good boy who treated Violet very well and did everything he could to prepare her for the realities of fighting a war so she wouldn't have to rely on anyone?

Obviously not, she thought he was going to kill her and I swooned!

Call me predictable, my head will turn xx

I think, beyond me having a crush on him, Xaden was quite genuinely an interesting character to follow. None of the mysteries are particularly deep, but I'm hardly Sherlock Holmes and they were more than enough to keep my attention. Bit by bit, he went from generic bad boy number whatever to an actual person with thoughts and a world-formed view. He's lived in this world, before the events of the book, and you can tell from his actions, sublime!

Dain Aetos Broooooski I was foaming at the mouth. Forgive my language, but brother was on my nerves and FKN stayed there!! Look, to have someone who wants to protect is one thing, but to do that by implying incapability? Violet better than me for real, I might have told him to stick it.

Every party needs a pooper and that's why we invited Dain.

DRAGONS What's this? The biggest draw in of the book? I think so!!!

Ever since I've had eyes I too have loved shiny things and Andarnaurram is right there in my heart with all the other sparklies. She is highly baby and if anything ever happens to her you will find me face down, ugly sobbing, inconsolable.

But enough about me!

I was a fan of all the dragons and how they interacted with their riders. Everyone had fun and interesting personalities that bounced well off their human counterparts. Otherworldly? Yes. Just buddies in big scaley skins? Also yes! The different colours were cool, but the different tail endings were cooler, it's a way of differentiation I'd not seen before but you're welcome to correct me.

Other, more spoilery thoughts By other, I mean some gripes. Now, I'm a picky bitch so these aren't experience ruiners but more nitpicks.

You remember how I said paint by numbers? A LOT of the plot points were telegraphed mere moments before they occurred. Violet bonding to Tairn and Andarna, Jack's allergy to oranges and the book of fables all come to mind as clumsily dropped into sentences or entire chapters. It felt a little tooooooo hand holdy, I almost expected a kiss on the forehead once we got to where the foreshadowing wanted me.

Murder was just a little too easy to get away with. Jack was straight evil to begin with, there's no way he should have remained in the fighter quadrant. I understand the explanation, strongest prevail, yadayada, at some point maybe you should kick the dude practically HALVING your cadet pool out of the quadrant? Sure, he got scolded for killing someone in a sparring match, but any leader with half a brain would have known that numbers in a fight also matter.

Nothing more comes to mind, so I appreciate you listening to my thoughts. I'll see you next time, stay well!

Hannah xx

[maverickbackalley]

i need to hear you talk about krisnix

What why? I'm totally normal about them ahahahahahhaha..haha.. 😞

Okay so I don't waste hours of my time (Future Mav: LIAR) and yours: I love them, your honour. It's not a relationship anyone should put up with in real life so there is a shock and appeal to their dynamic that none of the other main ships can offer. Krisnix ooze venom, animosity, and this indescribable tension that's fascinating to see blossom in these two powerhouse attorney's dynamic. The pair is just so damn diabolical, manipulative, and ideally comes with so much psychological horror that makes you question your own sanity and realise how quickly you would lose the game if you were swapped out with either of them. Underneath it all though, Krisnix is basically a pathetic pissing contest between two cunning individuals and that's stupid enjoyable for me to watch from the sidelines. I love how many different routes people can take with their actual romantic relationship too. Is it all an act? Rivals with benefits? Do they care about each other? Are they just keeping their enemies close and maybe at some point took the saying a little too literally?? Are there genuine feelings there after 7 years and one or both of them absolutely hate themselves for it??? So many possibilities and it's so riveting to think about. Like, 7 years is a LONG TIME to put up with someone purely out of spite. These idiots routinely ate dinner together in canon for crying out loud! Neither of them seem the type to happily put up with that with zero gain or case development for that long. (For my own reference: My longest relationship was almost 8 years and while it feels like no time at all looking back in the present, if I sit down and truly dissect it so much positive and negative change and development took place during that timeframe that it's actually quite jarring. I think that's one of the things that makes it hard for me to believe that nothing happened between them.) Kristoph is such an enigma and so full of sinister potential that his clash with an established bleeding heart like Phoenix is so compelling. I honestly have a hard time describing their appeal and always feel like there is more that I just.. can't quite put into words. So hopefully even an ounce of this makes a lick of sense outside of my head.

On the flip side, I will say I'm not the biggest fan of every portrayal of the ship. I feel like some people lean too heavy on physical domestic abuse (not talking BDSM. I don't want it misconstrued that I see these as one and the same since I believe there is also a large chunk of BDSM!krisnix out there) and completely neglect the brilliant minds at play. Or focus too much on making Phoenix an absolute pushover like he's too dumb to catch on to even the bare minimum attempts of Kristoph manipulating him. To be honest, some of these feels like throwing Dahlia-era Phoenix at Kristoph and it's like.. hmmm.... noooo. He's not that same person if you're writing for Beanix. I think that would probably be my personal gripes with the pairing if I had to be critical of it. There is a fine balance to their dynamic that's hard to capture, in my opinion. Like I don't even feel I could properly do them justice outside of memeing it up. Which is partially why I haven't done any real art for the pair despite them being one of my personal favourite and being all too aware that they have little to no content. They are like the definition of "It's Complicated" and I love canonically knowing how the story starts and ends. But that 7-year gap is just a juicy wealth of knowledge soup that I and others can throw whatever the fuck we want into it and boy does almost every spoonful taste delicious.

...Well that was more than I expected to write. ENJOY. Feel free to let me know your krisnix thoughts as well!