#major spoilers for the game duh!

[l-in-the-light]

The Otherworlds merging... or is it something else? (spoilers for Silent Hill 2!)

Remember when James said this line to Eddie? Kinda ironic, considering the scene below...

Remember what he did just before he killed Mary? He tucked her in bed, kissed her goodnight (on the forehead), and then stared into her eyes for a good moment... turned his eyes away, then back again to hers, and he snapped immediately after.

"You can't just kill someone cause of the way they looked at you..."

"You see it too? For me, it's always like this"

Why is James able to feel the heat of Angela's Otherworld and the coldness of Eddie's? Why is he fighting Angela's monster? Why does Angela mistake him for her mother?

I don't think their Otherworlds are merging just because they have spend a lot of time with each other (they really didn't, it was like three meetings each in the original). They definitely couldn't have bonded to the point that James can understand Angela's pain and see her trauma personified.

Nobody can understand another person's pain and suffering, we're all different people with different experiences. Understanding that is the first step towards showing true empathy for someone.

If Abstract Daddy/Ideal Father looks the way he looks because we see him through James's eyes and through his life experiences/trauma, then why is it also Angela's monster and why are we fighting it? Does it suggest that James and Angela share similar (but not the same, it can never be the same) experiences in this particular case? Does James have traumatic memories related to his own father, Frank Sunderland?

Of course James also just wants to help Angela, to save her. James seems to have a saviour complex, which might be the result of Mary's illness (he wanted to save her but couldn't, because the disease was untreatable and fatal, there was no way to cure Mary and he could only watch her dying. He failed her).

But there's another side to this, if we consider that Silent Hill is a reflection of character's own personal traumas and creatures might represent personal triggers...

"Even my mama said it. I deserved what happened"

"You fat, disgusting piece of shit! You make me sick!"

"Well, what are you looking at? Get the hell out of here!" / "I was so angry, I struck out at everyone I loved. Especially you"

Angela, Eddie and James. They all share one theme in common in those lines above: being on the receiving end of emotional/verbal abuse.

When we look at the design of James's monsters, they share something in common: emphasis on the mouth area. Lying Figures early design had a very distinguishable mouth, the final design instead sprays "vomit" on you, which is said to represent Mary lashing out verbally at James. Bubble Head Nurse has a red square covering her mouth, like to seal it shut. Flesh Lips is the boss that is a lump of flesh with detailed pair of lips. Abstract Daddy actually follows this design trope as well.

It's James's monster, it represents him suffocating Mary, the memory he repressed. The monster wouldn't look this way if it was Angela's. Abstract Daddy doesn't represent what you think it does! It would look completely different if we saw it through Angela's eyes and it would look most likely like her father, not two people having intercourse on a bed. In other words, it was never depicting intercourse. It's supposed to be surreal representation, not *literal*, and if you think it's intercourse then you're going for the most literal interpretation ever, not symbolic. The "James suffocating Mary" might not even be the final interpretation of it either.

Why did they all met in Silent Hill in the first place?

Angela wanted someone to save her but also wanted to find her mom, Eddie had enough of the abuse but was a coward, they don't seem to have much in common, besides this: they both experienced lifelong abuse, lasting ever since their childhood, and at least big part of it was emotional/verbal abuse. If the story in Silent Hill 2 is told through parallels, then it suggests Mary wasn't the first time James experienced abuse either.

It makes sense. That's the reason why he couldn't bring himself to visit Mary in the hospital. She lashed out at him, it triggered him, but he didn't understand why he's reacting like that, why he has such a hard time going back to visit her, why he starts to hate her. Finally, he succumbed to alcohol to deal with the anxiety of resurfacing past trauma. Eddie btw did a similar thing, but he was overeating instead to deal with his triggers. Food calmed him down, even though it also made him gain weight and caused the bullying to intensify (most likely).

James forgot what he did to Mary. He shows signs of dissociating in many moments of the game (especially in the remake, like when he first cries after Maria died and then leaves her behind emotionlessly). His behaviour fits behaviour of someone used to being verbally abused as well: his quiet withdrawn behaviour, him shutting up immediately after someone lashes out at him (for example when Eddie screamed at him), never defending himself (Angela calling him names and he was just standing there quietly). James seems to remind Angela of her mother. In a family with history of abuse it rarely affects only one person. Her father was probably abusive towards the mother as well and if he lashed out at her often, she was probably a very withdrawn person, never defending herself, speaking in low quiet voice etc. This might be exactly the part which reminded Angela of her mother when she saw James, because that's how he always behaves as well.

He thought Mary died three years ago, because that's when Mary's disease started, and with it the verbal abuse as well. Maybe it wasn't even his first blackout experience either. When Laura locks him in the room, he has a really strong reaction, even begs her to let him out (despite not wanting to beg at first), and after Flesh Lips fight we have this weird sequence of staring at the ceilling, hallucinating Mary's voice, and James wakes up in a completely different place, doesn't know how he got out of that locked room. My guess is that was yet another of his dissociative blackouts.

You didn't want her around anymore. Admit it!

No...

You probably found someone else!

NO!

(this is literally the only moment in the game in which James assertively stands up for himself. Through the rest of the story he simply lets Maria, Laura and Eddie trashtalk him)

I wanted you out of the way. The truth is, I hated you *shakes head*. I wanted my life back.

If that's true...

Despite saying it so clearly before that he wouldn't want Mary out of his life and searching so desperately for her (I just want Mary back, I can't go on without you anymore), at the end he admits Angela was right... or was she? She didn't actually know him much. Mary, on the other hand, knew him probably the best in the world, and she claimed that what he said is not true. But if it's not true then why did James say that?

That's because he doesn't understand why he did what he did. He killed her most likely while experiencing a blackout or he snapped after reaching his breaking point, while triggered, and only later experienced a blackout. The only thing he remembers is the feelings he felt for Mary after she lashed out at him (hatred, helplessness, self-loathing), which weren't his feelings for Mary, but his reaction to the verbal abuse he experienced. But he couldn't seperate the past traumatic event from the trigger he was experiencing in the present. Vivid flashbacks and feeling like re-living a past trauma in the present moment are all signs of PTSD. As the result, a person might avoid meeting other people or situations that can even remotely remind them of their traumatic experience. Sounds like James avoiding to visit Mary in the hospital, to me. He of course didn't understand why he is behaving like that or why he feels so overwhelmed, so he ended up blaming himself and thought he is a bad partner as the result, as many people suffering from PTSD would, even though what they're going through isn't their fault.

I'm not saying that what James did was good (it definitely wasn't, and that's not the point I was trying to make at all). I'm just trying to point out that James shows signs of PTSD, just like Angela and Eddie do as well (is it a good depiction of PTSD? Definitely not perfect, but not too bad either. Could be better without the murder plotline). Silent Hill 2's story at the heart of it is actually a tragedy, not a murder story.

I wish we could know more about James and his past...

[pop-philosophy101]

Sprawling Immediate Thoughts on Agatha All Along Episode 5 (spoilers duh)

Well, so like obviously that wasn’t Agatha’s trial, right? Like, so sorry, but the 80’s sleepover goosbumps aesthetic doesn’t exactly scream Agatha Harkness to me. You know who it does scream? Billy Maximoff, a boy born in his mother’s 80’s sitcom creation. Even the decorations on the walls of the cabin say “Westview” and “Eastview.” Agatha sure as hell doesn’t give a damn about Westview. This isn’t the trial adapting for her, it’s adapting for the newest member of the coven. Teen finally got his bonafides as a coven member once he exchanged brooms with Alice. (Put a pin in what Agatha said about the brooms representing selflessness).

Then when solving the trial there is major structural changes. In the first trial the key to the solution was tied to Jenn’s fall from grace. The trial is essentially calling her out for her terrible morals in business because she feels powerless since being bound. She feels like nothing she does matters anymore, so who gives a damn if there’s petroleum in the Goop. Then in Alice’s trial the entire solution was embracing her mother’s love and sacrifice, something she’s been rejecting out of fear and anger. In this trial, there is no solution for Agatha. She can’t go back and change the past, she can’t reason with her mother, she can’t fight back. Agatha has no recourse with a woman who believes she was born evil. Agatha is powerless; she’s a puppet in this game. You know who does have power in the episode titled “Darkest Hour/Wake Thy Power”? TEEN!

Furthermore, I don’t think this trial is over. We know that when Agatha has siphoned power it becomes purple, she even says to Rio “Let me get my purple back.” But we see when she leaves the treehouse, Alice’s power is still orange. This indicates to me that the power isn’t actually Agatha’s, this is all still part of the trial.

Obviously part of the episode is about Agatha confronting her past, because that’s what the whole show has been about. But even more specifically this episode was about Teen/Billy finding his power. Back to that pin about the brooms symbolizing selflessness now. Teen confronts Agatha outside asking her if this is all witchcraft is. The hunt for power and the selfish pursuit of desire at the cost of everyone else. Sure, that could be about Agatha, but you know who it fits better? Wanda. Even without malicious intentions, Wanda did enslave an entire town in a torturous mind prison so she wouldn’t have to confront the reality that Vision was dead. Even after realizing this, she’s tempted to keep Westview this way so she can keep her perfect life. In MoM she is willing to destroy anyone in the hunt for her children. She let’s her rage guide her to cruelty and destruction. Wanda is meant to be the hero, but she knowingly traps Agatha into a mind prison with no escape for over three years. When Agatha goads Teen into finally revealing his true identity we see he gives in to his mother’s own worst instincts. He controls those around him when he feels like he can’t control his own life. He is calmly cruel to enemies and allies alike. I think the end of his trial will be rising above Wanda’s worst impulses and becoming better and more selfless than his mother.

Keep in mind, the trial was ouija. It is all about communing with the dead. And who’s murder trial did we begin the season trying to solve? Not Evanora, Death, or Nicholas’, but Wanda’s.

TLDR: No way in hell Agatha’s trial involves Lycra and ankle warmers, something is afoot here.

[uhohdad]

Can’t wait until the aftermath to come out!! By any chance can you give more headcanons on König and reader?? 👀👀

well duh darling i’ve only been waaaaaiting for y’all to ask

‼️ ⚠️ MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE KONIG X READER HUNGER GAMES AU BELOW⚠️ ‼️

• Konig hated the whiskey. hated the taste, hated the smell, hated the way it made his brain foggy. he only drank it on the train bc he thought it would make Reader think he’s cool 😭

• another reason konig didn’t want to go on the balcony is because he’s afraid of heights. he only did it to hang out with Reader

• seeing Reader in a jacket in his size ahbsbxhahhzxb he was so nervous to offer the jacket to her and seeing her drown in it was making him feel some type of way. you’re so small.

• in addition to watching her sleep the night before the games, he also stayed up late on the balcony to watch Reader sleep. felt like a straight creep he did.

• Konig always sits so far away from Reader because he’s terrified of making her uncomfortable, especially after getting turned on when her leg was on his. Also why he was so fucking baffled when Reader had her leg pressed to his on the train. He so badly wanted it to happen again but he didn’t want to push it. And it really speaks to the true elation he felt it when she was still alive at the end it literally brought him to a sprint to pull her in a hug that was tighter than it should have been.

• Konig’s not one to jump to violence, especially after the incident from his past - but when One called Reader a dog he had his fists clenched fs You’re his weak spot dude he’s always ready to throw hands for you. He feels like it’s his duty, especially since he feels the need to repay her for standing up for him. It really shows in (aside from literally killing for her) when he spoke out of turn to Price - something he would never do if it wasn’t concerning Reader. He really gagged the whole dinner table.

• Konig is especially awkward with Price. and vice versa. They don’t really ‘get’ each other. Konig still respects him and his opinion of him, though. He’s much closer with Ruby.

• god he is just so. enamored with Reader. he is just so happy that they have good banter. he just thinks everything she says is the most charming thing ever.

• I don’t think I can stress enough just how jealous our boy was when Titan was flirting with Reader. Nauseous. He had a whole ‘that’s so raven’ day-mare about you and Titan. The thought of him laying his hands on you. And knowing he had just upset you made him believe he just pushed you right into Titan’s arms. So relieved when you started talking shit on him.

• aside from being devastated that she was upset with him about considering allying with the careers, watching reader handle weapons did something to him.

• He feels so lost when you’re upset, and he has a tendency to blame himself and not the whole ‘being sent to your death thing’

• During Konig’s interview, he was sure Reader knew he had a crush on her. He thought the jig was up.

• I almost made Pluck have a full on moment after the interview, the night before the games - like throwing chairs, breaking glasses, and destroying the suite, but it didn’t end up making the final cut it just didn’t seem to flow with the story.

• It took hours for Konig to work up the courage to go to Reader’s room the night before the games - and he still chickened out.

• Konig was just as haunted if not more by Eleven. He could feel his neck snap.

• I’m screaming, crying, throwing up that I can’t give y’all more games fun facts since I don’t wanna spoil The Aftermath

• y’all ain’t gonna like this one but the TRUTH? Konig was sneaking mad looks at Reader at the waterfall when she wasn’t looking. felt like such a creep.

• felt like the luckiest man alive getting to carry her through the desert. what a simp.

• Konig is the love that cannot be reasoned with. Reader is the hate that cannot be reasoned with.

• Konig sacrificed himself because he couldn’t stand the thought of her not living, period. He truly believed she deserved to live more than him. Reader sacrificed herself partially because that was always the plan - but her motivation in regard to Konig was because she didn’t want to live without him. Her motivations were selfish while his were selfless.

• Reader’s spite was her downfall after all. Price warned her not to let it get the best of her and she ended up taking her own life because of it.

‘We’ll see who wakes up tomorrow, Konig.’

more TGWCM fun facts :)

[cosmic-nebula356]

Random personal headcannons i’ve jotted down for the 3 main kits. The majority of them are meant for my universe for the kits 😵‍💫 so- be prepared for that

🍁Aki:

- was and has been bullied by Haru to some extent

- he’d love chuck e cheese.

- was more of a mischievous child even back then

- he was extremely jealous of Haru specifically, while being more afraid of Fuyu.

- has some self conscious problems that he chooses to keep to himself🫂

- he would smell like pumpkins and cinnamon

- he frustrates his Clan Advisor, like a lot.

- has snuck out of the Autumn clan numerous times to go have fun.

- He’s the kind who would love going to a trampoline park and diving head first into a ball pit.

- he keeps a personal marigold flower in his room that was gifted to him by Natsu. Even now, it’s still blooming.

- he likes many candies from both the spirit land and the living land

- in his Autumn clan, he would jump into a pile of leaves he requested his servants to collect and build up.

- has tried to trap Santa before

🌸Haru:

- is more up to date on modern technology than the others (since he has social somehow)

- he likes blonds (totally not because it reminds him of Natsu)

- he smells like cherries and strawberries/Cherry Blossom or daffodils

- if he were a dad, he’d be a daddy’s girl.

- definitely knows 80s songs both English and Japanese

- he’d love Chappel Roan!

- if he ever feels sad or relapse back to grieving, he listens to Mitski

- while in the game he pet names you as ‘Gorgeous’, I wanna believe he’d give you a petname based off of a flower he associates with you. For example: In my AU with the kits where he first fell in love with Natsu before Natsu died, he called him “Marigold” for his scent of marigolds, as well as the color of his hair being yellow like a marigold.

- he can handle being called a slut or a whore, usually laughing it off even if it is true (during the past before meeting the MC of course). But will not tolerate anyone calling his mother that.

- he got all of his looks entirely from his mother. Practically looking like a full on genderbent version of her even.

- if he shape shifts into his female form, he’d look just like her.

❄️Fuyu:

- when he was younger, down to when he was a baby kit around 6 years old, he always found wonder in the other clans, in particular with the Summer clan.

- he doesn’t have a much of a scent, but the closest to it would somehow be pine trees and snowdrops

- he would have to stay a lot under the shade when travelling to the warmer seasons, with the summer one in particular

- he has a negative opinion on the spring clan in particular.

- despite the cold, he secretly loves the feeling of warmth.

- he was close to the previous summer clan leader: Yugūre before he ascended up into the heavens

- despite growing in a winter environment, he’s never went sledding before until Natsu came around

- he’s familiar with skating, but not to the extravagant extent like how Stirling is

- in the present, he will accidentally download 20 viruses into your computer

- has broken a computer before, maybe even twice

- acts all tough and scary when he got the hang of playing Mario Kart, but actually still struggles with figuring out which control does what

- he road rages even in Mario kart

- Has hit the pause button numerous times before

- has broken the switch at some point

- found himself enjoying some classic shows like The Golden Girls

- Obviously he’d love broadway musicals, duh!✨

- is disappointed in the modern generation 😔

- when summer comes around, he hides away indoors and claims its because of how its too hot for him

SPOILERS FOR UP AHEAD

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❄️

❄️

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- when summer comes around after his redemption arch, he will choose to stay out in the sun as much as possible for it’s warmth.

And that’s all for now so far 👀

[davidisnotmyname]

okay I do think that the adrenaline coursing through my veins while reading the comic for the first time has somewhat faded, and the rose colored glasses I was wearing have turned into normal colored glasses cuz my vision still sucks regardless. Anyways I wanted to actually share my opinions on the story of the comic and how it was handled. As you should be expecting by now, major spoilers for the seventh comic ahead:

First off, I want to make it clear that any criticisms I have are not meant to be a dig at the artists and writers. They could have easily left the project as dead, but they decided to give us all closure after seven years. The comic team is chock full of incredibly talented creatives, and I have only the utmost respect for the time and energy they put into this project. I am incredibly grateful for that. Additionally, I am not an expert on storytelling, nor do I claim to be. I’m just a neurodivergent kid who feels insanely strongly about this game and fandom, and I felt compelled to share my personal feelings. Anyways, yeah here’s what I think:

I am… a bit upset with how they managed the characters in this comic. Not in terms of mischaracterization, they did a fine job with that as per usual. However, it really feels like the mercs got totally sidelined in the comic about the game that they’re literally the main characters of. Most of them had barely any lines (if I am recalling things correctly, Medic did not speak once(obviously pyro doesn’t actually speak, but there wasn’t any mmph-mmphing to be seen anywhere either), Demoman and Sniper had like one line each, and even the mercs who did have more significant line counts felt largely overshadowed by other characters). In my personal opinion, the only merc who had significant contribution to the plot through his lines was Engineer and maybe Spy (soldier and heavy talk quite a bit, but it feels like soldier is only really talking for exposition and to connect to the time skip, and heavy is there to save his ass from the Korean mafia).

They were treated more as background characters than anything. A vast majority of the scenes involve the mercs just standing in the general vicinity of characters like Pauling and Admin as the actual plot happens. It’s disappointing since this was kind of a last hurrah for official lore and characterization regarding the mercs. This was already an issue in the previous comics (with characters like pyro being largely ignored and just hanging out in the background), but it’s increased tenfold here.

also, I cannot express my sadness enough about how we got basically no detailed interactions between the mercs other than spy and scout (duh) and heavy and soldier (double duh). Tf2 is such a unique circumstance in regards to its characters. They are exaggerated and cartoonish in their personalities, but they’re still fueled by their own motivations, fears, and emotions. They’re really fun to watch interact with their world and each other, and that opportunity kind of got chucked out of the window.

A prime example of this would be Medic and Heavy. And no, before you start saying “oh you’re just upset that they weren’t made canon,” I’m not talking about shipping necessarily (although it would have been really nice to have a canon queer couple, especially after so many years, plus their romantic dynamic is really enjoyable at least for me, but hey, it would be kinda out of left field if they were suddenly explicitly). Let’s take a look back at the previous comic, shall we?

in that comic, the very climax is centered around their relationship. Medic dies and goes to hell and Heavy beats the shit out of the Classic Heavy, quite literally stating he didn’t care if he died as long as Classic Heavy suffered. Keep in mind, they haven’t seen each other in months, and they’ve only reunited for like five seconds maybe before Medic is killed. Their bond is explicitly depicted and is used as a tool to move the plot forward. What do we get for the final comic?

uh… well, they certainly stand next to each other multiple times.

ALSO, even simple interactions between the mercs contributed so much to the story, even if it was just the humor of it or just small glimpses into their characters. The whole conversation between Medic and Demo about his eye, Sniper and Spy mildly beefing but ultimately sharing cigarettes while they’re both severely wounded, Heavy and Scout’s conversation on the motorbike. These brought so much life into the story, but in the seventh comic, they took like two dynamics (soldier with heavy and spy with scout) and just ran with it. I wish we could have seen the mercs actually do shit, to basically sum up my incoherent attempt of making a point or two.

[mhut7]

I KNOW I'M LATE(because I pay no attention Whatsoever)BUT AAA THE KID AT THE BACK IS BACK AND I SWEAAR #1 hyugoo my boy AAHSBDBDC

HE SLAYS and damn talk about sweet and sour JEEZ LOWEEZ

#2 goshdamn because Sol may be a stalker and a yandere buttt he's also husband material I swear won't spoil but HEAR ME HE'S PERFECT and he loves horses 😭🤌 he's so baby girl

#3 day 3 probably won't come out for a while since something business blah blah blah some shit that made me mad that I didn't exactly read well enough to remember or realllyyy carteee about so yeah 😞😞😞😢😩😭😭

#4 actually I changed my mind so MAJOR SPOILER ALERT in the game you skip class with the babes (Sol and hyugo) and go to the movies because the new Sherlock Holmes movie came out and hyugo really wanted to watch it you get the choice to go with Sol to the arcade or with hyugo to watch the movie I went with Sol and if you do you too go to the arcade blah play games blah blah blah then you run out of tokins and Sol goes to the counter to get more like the husband material he is and leaves you with the couple coins left you play a claw machine to try and get a stuffed toy (I chose the horse for Sol duh) while you wait and blah blah blah someone slaps your ass you run out of the arcade almost get sexually assaulted Sol to the rescue ❤ hyugo with him bbg breaks the guys nose crys over you y'all walk back together and drop off Sol so he can calm down small rebuttal but he leaves you walk to your apartment with hyugo you get there he tells you to stay safe because people have been going missing lately AND THE LITTLE FUCKLING STARTS BEING SUSPICIOUS and tells you to take care of Sol for him like BITCH anygays he leaves you go inside ignore the fact the lock on your window is broke eat some leftovers while watching TV pore a glass of orange juice then go change and go to bed AND GUESS WHO BROKE IN you guessed it the best boy Sol turns out he drugged you (sleeping pills) he watches you sleep kisses ya then fucking leaves and that's the fudging end. 😃

[keywhole]

radio waves.

okay i toss this to the wolves. i've only seen like 1/4th of the game so if u tag this w spoiler mentions pls add that theres spoilers bc I Will Read Every Tag.

18+ for heavy gore. also. trigger warning for gore.

sanmos deimos/sanford lil hurt/comfort bc deimos has adhd/autism it's true he told me himself also ty @sparrowchute for editing this bc i would never 4.8k words enjoy

——————————————————————————————————

Hearing the alarms on the rooftop had sucked ass, but in the sewers? Oh, Deimos wanted to kill himself.

The sound pierced directly through his headphones as if they were made of clay. They weren’t. They were a good sturdy pair of a headset; Deimos just kept them a few sizes down for them to be pressed into his head. For something he found as a joke, his dumbass trademark had become a lifesaver. He never understood the phrase “so quiet you can hear a pin drop,” until he found these. And, well, after Doc fixed them up a little, but even before that they were perfect. He could finally hear and not hear at the same time. Instead of hearing every single creak of metal or wood, pounding enemies a dozen feet from him, with stomping footsteps behind, he just heard the footsteps. Instead of being in car crashes and hearing every sputter of the engine, every shriek that the windows made as they broke, he just heard Sanford asking if everyone was okay, Hank complaining about an illegal left, and his own laughter. It was like he was a radio, and the dial finally found a sweet spot.

But somehow, those tall ass dinner bells had shot right through the shells. The headphones were no match for the blaring sound the towers bellowed, and they didn’t stop. It started out as just an annoying ringing in his ears, fine, nothing he hasn’t dealt with before. But they really didn’t stop. Deimos and Sanford were careful, duh, but zeds weren’t. Little tiny pebbles that touched a goddamn pixel within their range weren't careful. Sure, yeah, it was pretty much par for the course for the two of them, but it sucked ass. And then sucked more ass. 

Every ricochet of drops hitting the sewer water echoed in Deimos’ ears. The water simply moved and bounced in his eardrums and never stopped, because that’s how water works. The old metal creaked inches from age and what lived behind the bars, and even with their sneaking and stealthy footsteps, they sounded like slams against the ground. The feeling of it too was louder to himself because it was, y’know, himself, and Deimos wanted to punch through the side of his head and close his eardrums by hand. He had considered if that would be beneficial in the long run, but they didn’t have enough bandages for all that jazz. He was in hell, and he’d have to deal with it for now. Deimos had done better with worse.

It still SUCKED MAJOR ASS though.

Especially when Sanford had simply explained a plan for once they get out of this place, and Deimos just had to find a dick joke in there, and moved his hand slightly too far to the left and set off an alarm. The same constant ringing that ripped through his skull, except it was amplified by the tunnel of steel encasing the two of them. A shit-fart of a cacophony. It got to the point where he couldn’t tell if it was a zed’s skull or his own cracking in half. The latches of the gate audibly flaked rust as they wailed open, letting a disgusting amount of sludge that pounded against the water beneath it, all combined with the swampy zeds treaded forward with footsteps that sounded like they belonged to moist giants. Not only that, but one of them (if not both) had been pushed into another alarm, which doubled the process.

In case it needed reminding in the last five hundred and eighty-seven words, Deimos wanted to kill himself.

The fights weren’t exactly a big deal physically. The second wave sort of (literally) swamped them, but it wasn’t anything the two of them couldn’t handle. Sanford was slashing his hook through skulls, using various heads as surprisingly useful hammers. Deimos switched between his gun and his bat, but he was off his game. Sanford was there, and his guard over both of them around zeds made up for it, but at some point Deimos couldn’t take it anymore. He took out his gun, and didn’t let go of the trigger. The noise was worse, the recoil creating a sound that not only shot outside his body, but inside, too. But, hey, if his ears were going to bleed, he had to do some of the damage himself. Go big or go home, and the latter didn’t have much meaning for him. So he flooded his ears until he felt Sanford pull his wrist aside.

Deimos’ head was pounding. Luckily, Sanford took a second to scan their surroundings to inadvertently  give the other a chance to compose his face. He pinched between his eyes, not a single beat in the air dropping. Everything was at a constant state of screeching, despite the outward danger being nill. He was about to consider busting his head open and ripping out whatever part of the brain registered sound when Sanford turned back around. He knew Sanford was scanning him to make sure he was okay, and at least it seemed Deimos could keep it together on the outside, in the dark. Sanford quickly gestured for him to follow, hugging the wall a bit more. Deimos knew that also meant to parrot his movements and follow him carefully.

“Up ahead there seems to be a dip in the wall,” Sanford said whispering, though it hit the other like he was speaking in his normal volume, “We should be able to at least breathe for a second.”

“Gotcha,” Deimos whispered in a desperate amount to not say anything more. He was talking as quietly as he could, an attempt to not even be able to hear it himself, but he still did. It received a nod from the other, so at least he knew he was keeping it together at the moment. They shuffled, and he put up with it, his head on a swivel as natural. His face was constantly twitching in discomfort. 

The ringing didn’t stop. It didn’t even start to ebb off.

Luckily, the little dip had been just a small, closed off alley-sorta thing. The two of them checked it out for any ironic traps, but Deimos called it quits far before Sanford and sat himself down. His ass hit the ground and his hands immediately flew up to press his headphones deeper into his head. It muffled some of the water, but the metal was loud.

Sanford wasn’t looking.

One of his hands was pressing against the edge of their little hiding hole while the other was gripping at the handle of his hook. His head was jotting around as he scanned the surroundings. The exit was in sight, but it was still quite a few tip-toes away. There was little to no telling of what was behind that door. Of what Sanford could remember, he could work out some kind of probability, but it’d be a long shot. And with shots on the mind, he thought back to how Deimos just let it rip with his gun. The coast seemed clear, but Sanford didn’t turn around when he sighed.

“You didn’t have to drop all that lead, y’know?” Sanford couldn’t be too mad, because he had spread the bullets out to save him the trouble of being tackled down, “I have no idea when we’ll be able to stock up again.”

“Hey, Sanford.” Deimos' voice was a bit out of breath, but not enough to be concerning; there was a small laugh in it. He tried for it to not sound too forced, because Sanford would notice immediately, so he kept thinking about that time Sanford blew himself up with a grenade. It had been really funny. No one had time for Deimos’ drama, and he knew that, but he wanted to peel his flesh off until that was the last resort. “Be quiet for a sec, ‘kay?”

Sanford knitted his brows. His sense of sight was more focused than his hearing, but he at least gathered a decent idea that his partner definitely needed a break. He couldn’t lie, he wouldn’t mind one himself, but he knew they didn’t have the time for his sore muscles. He didn’t like zeds. He really, really didn’t. It’s not like Deimos did either, he knew they both wanted to get the fuck out of here, but they can’t take a short rest while they’re in initiative. With his back turned, Sanford had no idea of the actual state his partner was in, but with the super funny joke he had made earlier that set off the alarms had him adverse to the idea of him taking him too seriously right now. It’s not like he was mad— no, the joke had been super funny and worth it— but again, they both wanted to get the fuck out of here.

“Deimos, this really isn’t the time to fuck around, we—”

“Sanford, seriously,” Deimos sounded annoyed, but that same rhythm was practiced in his voice, “Shut up for a second.”

Okay. Okay, that was a bit weird. Surely Deimos wasn’t doing the thing where he hides something tying him down under jokes— oh, Sanford felt like a fucking idiot for even considering the possibility that Deimos wasn’t covering something up. They still seemed safe for the time being, at least. He turned his head around to look at the other, confused and concerned.

Deimos was reaching his limit. Usually, when they found a spot they could sit, they had a quiet moment while Sanford jotted some things down and Deimos did fuckall (mostly sneaking in a cigarette) and took an actual second to themselves. This wasn’t one of those moments. His hands kept pressing and pressing and pressing his headphones closer to his head. He didn’t know if that was helping, or if it was making his circulation fucked up enough to cover up more sound. He didn’t want to be a dick, he really didn’t, but if Sanford didn’t give him a minute of silence Deimos would have to be getting his ears sewn back on when they got back. Or bash his head in with a nail bat until he could pick his own brain out; whichever would be faster, either were inevitable. Sanford was walking over to him. The only eye Deimos had opened twitched over to him for a moment, seeing only concern in his face. Despite trying to keep that feeling away from him, he found comfort in the care. He couldn’t comprehend that right now. His skin was buzzing with the reverb of every sound. Sanford’s shoes scraped against the ground in a sound that made his skin burn and sent bullets straight into his brain. His ears couldn’t stand it. The usual soothing gruff in his voice sounded like static squeaking. Deimos knew he was only trying to help. The part of his mind with sense had instantly regretted not asking for it in the first place, but Sanford didn’t shut up, let alone shut the fuck up, and the care didn’t make sense next to the rattles of metal, or the groans of rusted gates, or the sheet of crashes sewage water created. 

“Hey, what’s wrong? Are you hurt? I have some—”

Deimos opted to push his headset against his head until the plastic was digging into him. One of his knees dug into his forehead as he killed his own ears himself. Once again, Deimos had to stumble into an alarm.

“Sanford I need you to shUT THE FUCK UP!”

Oh. Oh, shit, something was wrong. Sanford’s shoulders fell. He didn’t turn around fast enough.

The yell was loud enough for some attention to be drawn. Dammit, if Sanford had just noticed Deimos was struggling earlier he could’ve used that very convenient spot to actually help him. The gates behind him opened with moans of familiar fuckers, and another slab of guilt stacked onto Sanford’s shoulders when he realized he’d have to turn his back again. But he had to take care of this before he could do anything for Deimos, so he tugged the rope on his hook for the handle to be back in his hand. With Deimos’ hands still clutched to the side of his head, he still moved his elbow towards his gun before Sanford put out a hand. Unfortunately, he had to talk.

“Don’t— I got this, just stay here.”

He hopped out of their ratting spot and hooked the closest zed by the legs. He flung it against the wall, hopefully buying himself some time to spread the zeds farther away from Deimos. Being in the middle of it all would be a bit of a risky move alone, but he’d find a way to make it work. Deimos hadn’t looked injured (but, then again, goop thrown up on him from a sewer creature could probably cover up blood) but he looked in pain. Either way, something was wrong, and he hadn’t realized. Sanford was so good at noticing his hints, but Deimos was just as good at faking it.

A fist flew its way through a zed’s stomach, making it fall to the ground with a gross squelch, leaving Sanford nothing but a bloody fist. He lifted his boot to crush its head, his foot soon flushed to the ground as if he stepped on a rotten pumpkin. If pumpkins had a lot more blood, at least. His less bloodied arm swung his hook into the throat of another, throwing the freak into another zed to buy him time. With said time, he ended up getting punched in the face and grabbed by the arm. He fought them off with a decent amount of effort before he loosened the rope on his hook to return the punch he owed, and kicked the other zed in the chest to send it down. That same leg stayed up to kick against the standing zed’s shoulder to give him the leverage to grab the thing by the sides of the head and twist its head off. Its bones let out a crunching sigh of relief, as if they had been begging to be free of the rotting meat they were trapped in. It fell towards him, which he dodged right back to the two zeds that were standing once again as they were still held together like a fucked up shish kabob. Sanford pulled the rope tighter to his hand as he lunged himself forward and stomped on their chests. His arm ripped the blade forward, short enough for a flick of his wrist to hold the hilt in his hand. It slashed against the zed’s faces with a rough, wet tear. Good.

There was a tug at the back of Sanford’s leg that led to an instinctual kick. He spun around to see a zed with no legs reaching towards him, its spine poking out of its body. His free boot sent a quick kick up into its open mouth, easily knocking the top of its head off with a swift movement, leaving nothing but a forgotten bottom jaw. A few more surrounded him, green foam bubbling from its mouth. This wasn’t going to be easy with a single weapon. His eyes jotted down to the dead legless zed, the spine writhing out like a larva trying to escape. Sanford ripped it out of its body, feeling it creak and shatter under his hand like spikes of wood. He slammed it into the side of another zed’s head and pierced it through and through. The head stuck on the barbs of the spine kept the thick sludge of a head stuck to it as Sanford whipped around once again and scratched another zed’s face before shoving it down. He used the other, splintered end of the spine to stab another in the face, the movement causing the stuck zed head to drop to his fear and roll around the other corpses. 

It wasn’t long until most of the heads were bashed in, but there were always, always ones that still got back up. Sanford gripped his hook as he threw it forward, giving its rope some slack. He didn’t have time for this. Something was wrong with Deimos.

“Just stay the fuck down, you chu—”

With precision and instinct Sanford hopped to the right to avoid a litter of bullets heading straight towards a zed’s head. It went down immediately, and Sanford couldn’t help but turn his head. Deimos was laying on his side with a cheek pressed to the ground with his gun matching his line of sight. His cheeks felt wet, and he was really hoping it was just miscellaneous goop and not tears. In Deimos’ mind, firing a few shots was the least he could do. In Sanford’s, it instilled another set of determination. He was hurting, but still at his back to help him. Sanford gave him a stern look, but his smile was sweet; a very “this stupid, stupid man” smile.

Deimos could only fire so many bullets. Partially because it was making him go insane, and he wasted most of his ammunition in a fit of rage. Still, it sped up the process of taking the rest of them down, but even with the extra hand Sanford eventually gave him the signal to stop. Deimos didn’t know why, but he did, because his aim was getting worse with disorientation swarming his head. Sanford must’ve noticed that. Or maybe Deimos’ aim had been fucked up enough to graze his arm— he didn’t know, and as long as Sanford wasn’t screaming in pain, it didn’t seem like he had to care.

The scariest part was making sure Sanford could creep his way back into the pair’s hiding spot without attracting further attention. Deimos really couldn’t care much, as long as Sanford was okay. His feet kicked their way to the back of the wall and had his shoulders fight to climb its way up for him to (lopsidedly) sit up. With his back against the wall, he finally had his hands free to push the padding against his ears closer. The pressure on his head was uncomfortable, but so were the bullets pelting their way into his brain through sound. The protection of the headset began to press into his skin more this time, the pads flat against the sides of his head. He could feel the plastic sewing its way against his skin. Was this the last resort?

Sanford stepped back into the tiny ally while looking in each direction. 

“Safe,” He said, mostly to himself, and turned around to run to Deimos and ended up skidding on one knee to meet his level, “I’m here, I’m here, what’s up?”

An annoyed groan ripped its way through Deimos’ tired, overworked lungs. How is Sanford not getting it? With great dramatic effect with his elbows, he pressed the muffs closer and closer and harsher against his head. He could feel the plastic scrape against his skin.

That’s when it all clicked. Sanford felt as if he failed a test for not realizing it sooner.

It was pretty common for certain sounds to cause Deimos to say his ears were ringing, but they always seemed to pass. Or, at the very least, was bearable enough for him to seemingly ignore it, but this one had been constant. They had been careful, yes, but shit still happened, because they were Sanford and Deimos. When the first alarm was tripped, he thought the majority of Deimos’ aggravation at it was the surprise. But adding on the fact that a few more went off— Hell, Deimos was probably still hearing the first alarm screeching in his ears.

Sanford crouched down in front of Deimos. His face was twitching with discomfort, and his chest was rising in panic. Slow enough for Deimos to stop them, he moved to be next to him. His arms laid around his shoulders at the same speed. Deimos didn’t stop him, but he also didn’t loosen up on the force of his headphones. Sanford tried to lower his voice to a point where he could hardly hear it himself, but he didn’t know how loud that was going to be right next to Deimos.

“I’ll keep an eye out, just try to breathe.”

And then, finally, Sanford shutted the fuck up.

His hands gently laid around Deimos’. He wished he could stop shaking, but the weight of Sanford’s arm was enough to hold him a bit more in place. Sanford’s fingers laced with his and gently tugged them away from the casing of his headset. They gently lifted his hands up, only a little, so that the blood coming from the small cuts on his head would slow at some point. Sanford applied the pressure with his wrists, an amount that kept it from hurting him, by gently guiding his hands off carefully. Deimos let him. The pressure slowly released, and blood suddenly felt normal throughout his body. Sanford’s wrist still kept down the pressure while he let his hands be peeled back. Sanford was still keeping an eye out. He could breathe. Deimos’ hand relaxed against his palms. He finally untensed his own wrists, but the muffling of sound was still there with Sanford’s help. One of his arms was around his shoulders.

Deimos closed his eyes and leaned a bit more against Sanford’s arm. The light blanket of quiet that attempted to cover up the overwhelming noise of everything ever was now in his hands. The warmth, and sticky-icky shit from fighting off icky-sticky zeds, was something Deimos could focus on. Everything was still there, threatening to overwhelm him to the point of crushing his own skull with his headphones, but the small bit of reduction was now thanks to Sanford. Deimos lifted his fingers to lay over Sanford’s as much as he could. What was left of a comfortable volume was easier to focus on with the outside comfort. 

Thankfully, their hands only moved to adjust to the position of Deimos turning his head to look up at Sanford. It hurt his head and his throat when he cleared it, trying to find the right way to talk with the least discomfort while he still had time.

“Sorry,” He sheepishly said in his anxiety riddled smile, “I didn’t mean to, to uh, y’know, yell at you. Not really.” 

Sanford shook his head. He turned his body a bit more to face Deimos, his hands holding the mittens around his ears in a firm but not intense force, but his arms were relaxed.

“I know, I know— it probably hurt you a lot more than it hurt me. I get it now,” Sanford whisper-talked(?) in a way like he was trying to turn a dial on the radio, trying to find the sweet spot, “Don’t worry about it, okay? Is this helping?”

He gave Deimos more time to breathe. His hands shakily reached up and placed themselves on Sanford’s biceps, taking a deep breath in, and a long breath out. It still felt as though if the two of them lifted their hands his ears would start spewing blood, but it didn’t seem like either of them would be letting go anytime soon. Right now, Sanford’s hands were keeping that overwhelming static that threatened to incase his senses at an almost bearable bay. When he looked up, the worry and care in Sanford’s face made him glance away. That part of sense in his brain that wanted to reach out for his help before? Yeah, it's at the forefront of his brain now. And it made his chest warm, and his face hot, and a bit more guilty for accidentally yelling loud enough to make Sanford lose whatever recuperation time he had in this spot. More sensations for him to focus on.

“Yeah,” Deimos admitted when he looked back at Sanford with a hint of a smile, “A little.”

A little while ago, Deimos had been writhing in discomfort, when he could laugh with broken ribs. But the moment Sanford’s hands could take their place beneath his, Deimos was giving him an embarrassed smile. A dopey grew on his face. He pressed his forehead against his. He could hear Deimos’ smile in his laugh.

Sanford pulled back with a huff. Now he knew what the problem was and, luckily, found a temporary fix. “Okay, how’re we gonna keep this right until we can take a look at it and see what we can really do?”

Deimos grinned. “I don’t have a fucking clue.”

Sanford was already nodding before Deimos even answered, because he already knew he had no fucking clue. Not only because he just knew him, but he knew how Deimos also couldn’t think when everything sounded like pot pans being slammed together. He hummed in thought, before he sat up. Softly, he reversed his hands with Deimos’. He made sure Deimos’ palms weren't pressing down too hard once they were placed on the shells, before he (reluctantly) let go. He reached into one of his side pockets before motioning Deimos to put his head down. With a confused look, he did so.

He heard the sound of fabric against the shell of his headphones. The fabric pulled tighter, similar to the added weight Sanford had applied. He felt Sanford securing something on his forehead.

“Okay, let go, see how that feels.”

Slowly, with genuine fear, Deimos lifted his hands. He blinked. It wasn’t as filtering, but it was similar. It was bearable. He moved to touch his forehead, feeling a knot with little, messy bits of fabric sticking up. “What’d you do?”

“I ripped a bandana a few days ago and kept the scrap, just in case,” Sanford said as quiet as he had been, “It’s not enough to cover up much but, hey, looks like it came in handy. How is it?”

Deimos adjusted it. He moved the fabric to the middle of his muffs, tightening the knot a bit. The creaking of the metal wasn’t as taunting. The water sounded farther away. There was only one test That could really see if it’ll work at all.

“Uuuuuhhhh,” Deimos adjusted to the sound of his own voice before he looked up at Sanford, “Say something.”

Sanford smiled. His hands moved up to hold Deimos’ shoulders. “Hi, Deimos.”

The soothingness of Sanford’s voice was back. Everything else felt like needles trying to use him as a pincushion, but needles were better than bullets. In two little words, Deimos was melting with a silly smile, finally able to straighten his vision and being held by what he saw. “Hey, Sanford. You smell like shit.”

Sanford’s snort was a happy chime in the musky air. “Yeah, because you smell any better. Works?”

“Yep, I’m just a drama queen.”

Sanford huffed. He shook his head, his hands falling down Deimos’ arm to his hands as he started to stand up. His grip wasn’t tight enough to force Deimos to stand; it was his choice to make. He took it. They didn’t let go of each other’s hands. “You’re not a drama queen. Next time, just say something, okay? Yeah, we’re in a crunch here, but there’s time for you.”

Deimos bit the inside of his lip. If he hadn’t been crying earlier, he came pretty close to then and there. He gently shoved Sanford’s shoulder, but put a hand on his bicep to keep him from actually moving. “Dammit, dude, don’t get so sentimental.”

Sanford smiled. There was his stupid, stupid man. He couldn’t help but chuckle, which made Deimos snicker under his hand before he took a step back. Unfortunately, he did have to reload his gun, because they did have to move. Sanford still kept a watchful eye out. Once Deimos was standing at the ready, Sanford couldn’t help but smirk. He flicked one of the loose pieces from the knot around his forehead. 

“If you’re a drama queen, is this your crown?” Sanford teased.

With a flushed face he waved away Sanford’s hand, the two of them in hushed laughter. Deimos shook his head, and this time Sanford knew he was fine. The playfulness in his voice was real. “I’m mostly good now, but maybe you should still shut the fuck up.”

Sanford laughed as Deimos started to walk to the opening of their hide-y hole, quickly stepping to his side. “What? Should I carry you, too, your Highness?”

Deimos groaned into a flustered laugh as Sanford grinned, gently nudging his way in front of Deimos to guide him out in the best direction. His arm still brushed against Deimos’. 

He smiled up at his partner.

“C’mon, get a move on,” Deimos said, “I still wanna get out of this place alive."

[fraudulent-cheese]

OK OK OK SO MY BRAIN HAS BEEN GOING INSANE ABOUT AMICUS CURIAE SO I NEED TO RAMBLE ABOUT IT!!!!

Spoilers for the fic under the cut (duh), link to read it is here, goooo do that!!!

OK SO. The main conflict am i right

Right now we are in a fluff sweet spot where most of the teams are on friendly terms and the main 6 aren't in conflict. However considering what the author has posted to their TD blog recently, it's definitly not staying that way.

Hell even in the current chapters it's probably not staying that way, considering Courtney's 100% caught on that there's something going on between Noah and Alejandro, and in return Alejandro's detected Courtney's crush for Emma.

So yeah! Im predicting that's gonna be the cause of the big rift that happends between the best friends; both of their feelings are going to get in the way of the win eventually in a big way. Maybe Courtney will get distracted by Emma or Alejandro's going to try to keep the Pros in the game in a way that handicaps the Best Friends for the challenge, and it'll blow up in their face, and past events are gonna be brought up and they're gonna get HURT.

I think Courtney's main reasons for being annoyed at Alejandro and Noah's friendship (outside of Courtney would like to win thanks) is her wanting Alejandro to not get hurt; Noah's already betrayed him (from his perspective), she wouldn't want him getting stabbed in the back again. I dout he'd do that, but Courtney doesn't know that!

Also whenever she'll figure out it's romantic, she's certaintly going to discourage Alejandro to go for it during the show. Dating on Reality TV is not a good idea, they both have negative experiences with it, Courtney especially. Neither would want to go through that again, so conflict arising from it makes sense.

Also also, Courtney might be afraid of losing Alejandro,,, she's lost friends due to relationship drama in the past, hell she's still struggling with the after-effects of her trust being broken so many times. So seeing Alejandro be genuine with someone else? Yeah she's not gonna react well. Im basing this off the line "Alejandro's supposed to only be genuine with her" Because it says ALOT. To me.

This is 100% aromantic projection hour but Societytm constantly pushes romantic relationships as more important than platonic ones, an impression reinforced in media and especially tabloids - Courtney and Alejandro have already been mistaken for a couple in this fic by one of the main characters due to their closeness - so i wouldn't be shocked if either had internalised this and fears losing their one actual friend because they're crushing on someone else.

I don't think Alejandro's expressed much derision for Courtney's crush on Emma yet? So im not sure the conflict on his end would come from that. I think his main issue is trying to push himself too much out of a sense of obligation to be performing at his best all the time (especially now at the final 8 teams and non elimination rounds being pretty random so far) + his guilt over previous performances in challenges. It's 100% going to bite him or Courtney (because i dout she doesn't have similar over working tendencies) in the ass in a MAJOR way in an upcoming challenge. That and their respective competitiveness is probably gonna hurt them in a major way.

FINAL NOTE: I have no fucking clue how this can happen if the final POV's not Courtney but it would be so fucking cool if the closing lines of Amicus Curiae were a parallel to the "This is a terrible idea" that Courtney kept repeating in chapter 1, you know bring it full circle and stuff.

God this post is long

[mintakablue]

cool details i noticed + things i loved in across the spiderverse

spoilers ahead!

i think the stylization of the different spiders was even more distinct in this movie than the last one! i like that when the camera is focused on certain characters, you get their aesthetic “bleed” into the world (e.g. gwen’s painterly strokes in her silhouette bleeding outwards, miles and his family having chromatic aberrations in theirs, manny’s chunkier outline, etc.)

i LOVE that the spot is miles’ nemesis for a couple different reasons. he aesthetically opposes how colorful miles’ world is, he is a “villain of the week” that peter parker originally faces off against rather than miles, the major inversion he gets (becoming black with white spots) kind of feeds into the underlying theme of asking who the good guys are--especially when we learn that miles would have been prowler in earth-42! obviously also the fact that he and miles are both anomalies is great. i also think it’s good meta humor to have made the bagel guy become the spot.

there’s also a bagel billboard above the spot’s apartment. in some ways very fortuitous that everything everywhere all at once related bagels to the multiverse.

the stylization of three side characters really stuck out to me--pavitr, ben reilly, and of course, hobie! i love pavitr and mumbattan, i think it was a good choice for the trailer and stylistically a really strong and complementary style to bridge miles’ transition into this aspect of the spiderverse. ben reilly’s stylization i love because it evokes the mobile spiderverse game that introduced a lot of people to some of the more obscure spiders. and DUH i love hobie’s style, you can really tell that they incorporated tons of actual britpunk influences in there. also let me not forget margo kess! she’s so cute in this i genuinely like that she’s a VR spider. i hope to god they make jokes about her being on the web. please.

on that note i do like that the prop design also retains obvious notes of which things belong to which spiders! hobie’s is obvious, but you also see it with gwen’s items. also i like that each spider has a different way of swinging through the air that’s more obvious in this one! gwen and pavitr both have an dancerlike quality to them, hobie’s is a little more erratic (anarchist), and miles of course is still figuring out how to nail some of those more tight swings, but he’s way cooler with being in freefall than any of the other spiders. also miguel using his claws instead of swinging and jess using her motorcycle were very cool! lots of aerial play in this one that i’m excited to watch again and follow the eyetrace for.

good moments with miles and his family! i almost always hate the moody teenager plot because it’s like. you don’t see why they even Should care about their family or the family is so overbearing you start just siding with the teenager, but this movie struck a really good balance there for me. also i just really really like that there are scenes where miles and his mom just speak spanish with each other :’) the rooftop party was so real to me. i am not Latine or live in ny, but i am Filipino and i have been at one million parties like that with my family. and those pink cake boxes from a small bakery that your parents like is iconic.

i genuinely enjoyed the commentary on faking the struggle to get into school LMFAO i think that’s very real for a subset of poc, but especially more affluent Black and Latine people.

OH YEAH miles cracks a joke about ATM machines and then pavitr (my king) cracks the same kind of joke about chai tea and naan bread. a bit of an old joke but hey the movie has been in production for 2.5 years and i do think it serves to highlight the way that spidermen crack the same joke. especially when after in the spiderverse HQ a ton of other spidermen crack the same kinds of jokes about spotting The Spot. across the spiderverse, spidermen are the same

pointing spiderman meme is terribly funny i will stand by that forever

more funny meta commentary about donald glover being people’s pick for miles’ voice and not becoming spiderman, so he’s the prowler--in the same way that miles, had he not become spiderman, would have been the prowler. more obvious is his appearance in mcu spiderman, but i still think it’s fun foreshadowing!

on foreshadowing, i think this movie does a great job of laying out a lot of those bits of information. starting off with highlighting earth-42 and making sure you know that sticks in your mind (and it’s also impossible to choose the number 42 and not evoke the cultural memory of hitchhiker’s guide lol), having the spot talk about how the spider came from a different earth, getting another glimpse at it, seeing miles’ earth number right in the splash screen, saying that the big spider device sends you back to your universe via DNA analysis + margo seeing the big EARTH-42 instead of earth-1610 on the screen. and then even in earth-42, the color palette is really different from 1610! 1610′s opposing color for miles is like a deep blue color (opposing his red suit accent), so 42 having a primarily green palette opposes the prowler’s purple accent!

not to mention that when miles pulls into his bedroom, you can see that he doesn’t have a drawing desk up (or his sashimi/supreme poster). i think it’s a sad little detail that the movie seems to imply that his mom didn’t notice a major change in his appearance (having a short afro instead of braids) is because she works so much she doesn’t see him that often :(

fun sound design in this movie! in the scene where miles-42 gets revealed as the prowler, you actually hear that growling sound effect first when miles-1610 gets tackled and then again twice: once we see miles-42 in shadow as the prowler, then when he says his name!

in fact there’s actually tons of fun sound design details! miguel gets a futuristic sting, gwen has like a full on leitmotif, miles has a short leitmotif which i believe is part of “what’s up danger” (i would need to go back and watch the movie a second time to really pick up on it), pavitr and hobie have their own musical instruments associated with them... and even the spider from earth-42 has its own sting! i might have misheard, but i actually also think hobie and pavitr’s “thwip” sounds are a little different than the standard ones!

i love when those little notes show up in the lower corner. very comic book! a lot of those details make me smile, i really feel like they cared a lot about evoking some of the writing styles of different spiderverse writers there

aesthetically and tangentially related, i like the sketchiness of some of the characters! it’s most obvious in the spot and the alternate universe vulture, but it’s such a neat visual trick. it also serves to give the spot an almost “unfinished” look while also giving him better volume. very excited to see the behind the scenes from the riggers/animators/3d artists

the idea of canon events is such a good one for spiderverse--i think it’s great! one of them that i’m almost certain they’ll bring up in the next one is that. um. gwen usually dies when spiderman is trying to save her. straight up i actually thought they were going to pull that one instead of officer singh dying after gayatri is falling! after all spider-gwen almost got shot, plus miles straight up almost drops her after he glitches out in mumbattan. sony please don’t break spider-gwen’s neck...

genuinely loved all the calls to different spidermen too! there’s like one really prominent shot of paperbag spiderman that made me and my sibling giggle. here’s how the fantastic four can still win

in that vein, i have at least Some prediction of what the spiderverse resolution will be? i can imagine that because miles is an anomaly, his canon event breaking might actually be permissible to some degree... perhaps only if he returns to his own earth? truly truly i cannot IMAGINE that they would make us watch his dad straight up die onscreen because like MAN we already watched his uncle die. that would be way too devastating... but obviously miles-42 and miles-1610 have a lot to say to each other about watching an older man in your life that you love die. i’m a little back and forth about the idea that miles was “destined” in some way to become the prowler in an alternate universe but i’m gonna put my faith in the team to not make it weird ykwim. seeing as they already slipped in commentary about the fact that like Yeah it’s partially because miles’ family has money in 1610 that he is even able to “stay out of trouble” i think there will be an interesting conversation to be had about class dynamics between miles-42 and miles-1610! i am like wildly excited for the next one, i have a lot of hope that it will be even more gorgeous than this movie was and will have the same depth of writing/foreshadowing!

lastly and i know i’m just saying this because to ME spiderman is a very trans character. but peter parker from spider-gwen’s universe was just taking his testosterone okay. and spider-gwen having that painterly pink blue and white as she was saying essentially “i want to live my life fully in my identity” was so... happy pride!!!

[lunar-wandering]

Please share all the star child headcanons! I love them

rubs my lil hands together buncha Collector headcanons lets goooo,

i thought a LONG time about how they only had freckles on one side of their face. eventually came to the "uh, duh!" conclusion that it's like that because stars are only visible at night and the freckles is on the side of their face that represents the night. I 100% think that if you got them in a completely dark room the other half of their face would suddenly gain glowing freckles too though.

autism.

eyes canonically glow when angry? = they have laser eyes they just didn't use them

all the toys in the scenes with the games and the lil space the Collector had Luz, Eda, and King trapped in either had a sad expression or were damaged; I personally think this is because the stuff the Collector was creating/the general surroundings were reflecting the Collector's emotional state

his species doesn't grow up slowly over time, instead they evolve like pokemon under certain conditions... I can't state what those conditions are cause they're major spoilers for my fic hsldkfjsldkfjs

the Collector tries to physically make a plushie to give to King at some point, as in, he tries to sew one instead of just snapping one into existence. it ends up a lil lopsided

Luz introduces the Collector to the pokemon card game and there is no going back. this kid has pokemon cards falling out of their pockets they have so many

The Collector is very physically strong even without magic and could win most fake-fighting wrestling matches that siblings do, however, if one of the others manages to get him into anything resembling a hug, he just goes limp like a kitten. can you blame them though really they were trapped in a space without touch for like MILLENNIA they need more hugs

The Collector is the youngest of their siblings, however, one of the Archivists is actually the Collector's twin, who "grew up" without them

[redflagfan]

"Him, The Smile & Bloom" / Hanakare Review

I just think it's funny that my first review on this blog, called redflagfan, with a Yang layout, is the most wholesome game

Please note that I am following MintLip's rules for publishing content. This review contains some light spoilers!

The Game

Hanakare is based off a series of drama CDs following four men who work at a flower shop called Fill Flower. Each love story focuses on a different MC, so each LI has his own MC. They also each have their own flower which the story revolves around.

Basically...this game is a super trope-y slice of life story. There's no common route, just a brief intro, and each of the four stories (Hokuto Ichige/Anemone, Wataru Tori/Tweedia, Ginnosuke Sugawa/Mimosa, and Tenya Minami/Nandina) don't really have any serious conflict or drama. It's a very fluffy, cozy romance!

The Routes

I started on Hokuto's route, because I love Makoto Furukawa hahaha. There's no recommended route order. As each LI has their own MC, there's no spoilers or anything really, and nothing is locked. This is how I played: Hokuto -> Wataru -> Ginnosuke -> Tenya. I have no strong feelings on that order; it's just how it happened for me. Feel free to play as you wish!

"Now that I'm in love with you, I'm going all in. I hope you're ready."

Anemone: Fuuka and Hokuto have been friends for more than 20 years. Fuuka has been in love with him for a long time, but Hoku only sees her as a little sister. She’s determined to change how he sees her. 

I started with this route because I love Makoto Furukawa and I was not disappointed! I also love the childhood friends trope and this delivered and more. Their relationship was so cute. It was so funny that everyone else saw how clearly they were in love but Hoku didn’t. Both Fuuka and Hoku are a little stupid, but it works for them hahaha. Their lack of communication was a little annoying but they worked it out. I loved how Hoku’s protective “big brother” nature flourished as Fuuka’s boyfriend and I loved how Fuuka was lowkey toxic as hell in high school lmao. 

Also…the spice in this route was everything! The FuruMako moans seriously had me blushing and giggling! Wear headphones or just be entirely alone for that scene…just…hnngh!!!! It made all the money I spent on this game and the length of time it took to arrive physically worth it. Just for that sweet FuruMako goodness alone. 

Also I had no idea there was a flower called anemone til now! But then I looked it up and found out they also go by windflower which then I was like, duh, I know that from Animal Crossing! So…who says video games aren’t educational?

"The one I want to see smile the most, and the one I want to make smile, is you."

Tweedia: Serina is a full time employee at Fill Flower. She has a chance encounter with 19-year-old Wataru - five years younger than she is - and he quickly falls in love with her (seriously, he confesses the second time they meet, lol). He begins working part-time at Fill Flower and takes every chance he gets to tell his senpai how he feels. 

I did not expect to love this route as much as I did! This is pure, unadulterated fluff. There’s no major conflicts or drama. It’s just wholesome and cute! Wataru is so insanely charming, it’s impossible not to love him. He’s so enthusiastic about working (and pleasing his senpai!) and he’s so earnest and open about his feelings. He definitely wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s a lot like Nayuta from VariBari, if Nayuta actually had self-awareness.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the great job Ryohei Kimura did voicing Wataru. He infused so much charm into the character that made him impossible not to love. Major golden retriever energy - no wonder Serina is always calling him cute and giving him headpats. I don’t think he would’ve been as lovable without the amazing work of KimuRyo. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just the way he spoke was so adorable! But I do love Nicola Francesca and Gill Lovecraft so I’m probably biased lol. 

"Can you hear my heartbeat? It's pounding so hard it's almost funny. You're the only one who makes me feel this way."

Mimosa: Ami is a young interior designer who gets assigned the refurbishment of Fill Flower. Ginnosuke, aka Gin, is the “poster boy” of Fill Flower, known as the prince of the store who attracts all the young ladies to come in. He’s also the playboy type, who isn’t interested in serious relationships. 

Okay, I really had no expectations going into this route. But I loved it so much! The progression of Gin and Ami’s relationship felt so natural to me. It was so cute to see how she had crushed on him two years ago when he delivered flowers to her workplace, and then found out his more true self, which is pretty blunt lol. His “prince” self and his self with Ami felt kinda gap moe to me which is probably why I loved it so much. It was so cute how bad he was obviously crushing on Ami and she had no idea. He made the cutest flustered noises. 

Gin is also a very thoughtful boyfriend and I liked how the two of them set healthy boundaries after some (kinda irritating lol) miscommunications. His possessive side was also very cute. Also…this is the horniest route! The kissing sounds were straight up OBSCENE. And Gin just can’t get enough of Ami! Ugh…they’re so cute and sweet! This, surprisingly, ended up being my favorite route!

"Today I love you more than yesterday, and tomorrow, I'll love you more than today. Every day I grow more love for you."

Nandina: Tenya and Miku were high school classmates who had a significant chance encounter that impacted both. Now, seven years later, aloof and quiet Tenya is working at Fill Flower, while anxious Type A Miku has just returned from two years working abroad in Canada. The two reunite after another chance encounter. 

The moment I saw Tenya in Hokuto’s route I knew I’d have to save him for last because I was looking forward to his route most. I love him! This route was so captivating. Tenya, the bad boy and popular guy at school, having a crush on class president Miku for so many years was so adorable. You thought Wataru was crazy confessing his love on their second meeting - once Tenya and Miku reunite he immediately asks her out and tells her he loves her!

And Miku was such a relatable MC for this route. She’s anxious, she has low self-esteem, she overthinks everything. She was my favorite MC in the game because of this. I just loved the two of them together. They suited each other so well. And there’s something about the quiet guy who’s so devoted to his lover…it makes me go crazy every time.

Overall, each route was enjoyable in its own way, and I loved them all! I guess my ranking would be as follows: Gin > Tenya > Hokuto > Wataru. But they were all great!

What I Liked, What I Didn't 

My favorite thing had to be the “Flower Book” system. Beautiful art of the flowers with adorable chibis, and fun information too! I love glossary type things in games and this was no different. I loved unlocking new flowers and getting to see them! Plus, I actually did learn a lot about flowers!

Speaking of art, Yuuya is such a talented artist. There were a great number of CGs with tons of variations in them. It was amazing! And the sprites were great too. I loved how many outfit variations the boys had!

On the flip side, I wish the girls at least had portraits on the side of the dialogue box. That’s just something I prefer personally. It helps me feel more engrossed. 

And I wish they had voiced lines for the girls’ default names, too. I don’t self-insert so I like hearing that stuff! 

My biggest concern going into this game was the translation. And it was…eh. I’m super nitpicky about this stuff because I literally write and edit for a living. I don’t think it’s enough to like, say you shouldn’t get the game, but it’s something you should be aware of. 

The translations were really inconsistent. Sometimes it seemed straight up machine translated while other times it felt like a human was definitely involved (one route used the phrase “read to filth,” lol). Wataru and Gin’s routes had a lot of dialogue that felt very stilted and was poorly translated, with incorrect pronoun usage and Wataru’s last name being spelled like three different ways. On the other hand, Hokuto and Tenya’s routes made more sense in English and were translated better. 

To be honest, while it was annoying, it didn’t really impact my overall enjoyment of the game. The errors weren’t egregious or anything. You could still understand what they were trying to say. So, irritating? Yes. But it wasn’t unreadable, so it’s just something to keep in mind if you’re interested in this game. 

Final Thoughts

I'd say this game was an 8/10 for me. I just finished playing Olympia Soiree, while also flipping between Piofiore and Bustafellows. So taking a break to play Hanakare was definitely a breath of fresh air! If you're looking for a game that's romantic, fluffy and super cozy, I definitely would recommend this one. It's the perfect refresher between playing more heavy games, plot-wise. It was also the perfect game to sit back and relax with after a difficult day at work. I can definitely picture myself replaying these routes when I need a break.

To purchase Hanakare, you need to either buy it digitally from the Japanese E-Shop or import it online to have a physical edition. I got the Special Edition via PlayAsia!

Thanks for reading! :)

[graveluvr]

🏵️ for daan... 🌷for ur golden wind guy!! n 🪻for u as well....

Hayy Adam.. guys folloaww my friendd 😊before i start ALLL my self inserts use He/She pronouns causee.. gueswat guess whatt... Also spoilers for jjba golden wind i gueesss.

🏵️-How did your ship meet? What were their first impressions?

Daan and Angel met the same way the majority of people in Termina did, which was getting off of the train and everything. Not creative, I know... I DON'T CAREE...

Originally, they weren't too fond of each other, not to the fault of Daan, it was really Angel who was pretty prickly. I imagine it was because of when everyone is introducing themselves... If you've ever played Termina yk, that Daan just... doesn't say anything. It probably rubbed Angel the wrong way, kind of "Who does this guy think he is?" deal... Daan isn't unkind, but he isn't going to poke and prod at someone who clearly doesn't like him, so at the beginning they were painfully awkward.

-----

🌷-When does your self-insert come into the story? Is your selfship established before the events of the source?

I'm going to answer the last bit of the question first... I don't really have a grounded storyline for when my character gets together with any of them, but yeah, duh... If he even gets together with Illuso or Risotto, it'd have to be prior to GW because both of them just....... die in the story so... hay .. 

For the first part of the question, Uhmm.... She's part of Unita Speciale so she's fucking innn there bro. I always imagined that he would show up on their ride from Sardinia to Rome after Risotto and Abbacchio died. Like everyone in Unita Speciale, the boss was like "you need to kill these guys, I'm not even joking". He was like okay!! Without a second thought because, hey money money. Haven't thought beyond that.

-----

🪻-Wild Card!!! Info dump about anything!!

I don't know WAAHHTT to talk about, I'll just ramble on about my funger self insert for the fiirst game.

He's just a blacksmith... A regular blacksmith who was kind of falling on hard times, meaning that nobody is buying shartt from them and, obviously, you can't really live if you don't have money... Eventually, she heard about this dungeon and of the weapons that were down there. No doubt it had some good stuff she could scavenge and sell them, or they could study the craft, so to speak. (Not to mention if they find Le'garde... money money, though it isn't exactly a priority....LOL) ((I'm noticing a good amount of my self inserts come off as money hungry I'm not even like dat idk..)) 

When I first got into f&h and created my self insert I came up with quirks they could do or somethangg, considering f&h doesn't have a system for weapon upgrades. The blacksmith would..... probably be a good candidate for doing that,, whether you're playing him or you have him in your party, if you can find an anvil and if you have certain materials they can upgrade your weapon, though like most things in the game, it relies on a coin flip... Failing the coinflip gives you a small, small upgrade, while winning the coinflip gets you a pretty good... or as good as you can get in that damn game... ughh....

[ybblue]

Lowkey, I'm so glad to read the history of YB. I really enjoyed the content I was able to find of him with the game, Day 1 & 2. It was hard to find info about this game at first, so I read the wiki of course. I saw the traits of a wholesome yandere, if such a thing could exist. A yandere who wasn't violent with their target. That sounded like my jam!

(My Commissioned Art by @Two_Leaf_Cl0ver on twitter, feel free to use it for whatever!)

So I supported the Patreon cause I wanted to see how far along the game was and to play it for myself, because nothing beats personal experience.

I want to lay my thoughts out as I process why I like YB and what disappointments I've come to have with the game and maybe what I would like to have seen done instead. I'm not a game dev, so I'm coming at this without knowing everything involved in making a game.

[SPOILERS BELOW, DUH. I mean for ALL currently playable days.]

[Also HEADCANON stuff.]

(Source: Wiki, not my art, pretty sure its Fuboo's)

Day 1 is pretty sparse, but I likened it to being a demo of what to expect. Since YB said things like "I'm your boyfriend. Isn't that why you're here?", I took it to mean he was aware everyone who downloaded the game wanted him to be their boyfriend. However, maybe Y/N is sentient in their own world and is mostly like wtf is going on with this dude. It would also explain the "mixed messages" he says we are sending him when we reject his advances. I thought he might have even chosen to approach Y/N that day because he could see we, the player, were inhabiting their body.

In short, I was pretty thrilled to play a weird meta yandere dating sim. Moving forward, I am treating Y/N as an entity separate from myself. They are my (likely very unwilling) vessel, and even though I can influence how they behave, they obviously have their own will. They don't seem to know I'm possessing them either.

Day 2 has more dialogue and such, introduces the other characters, but I still find it doesn't feel like there is as much content as I would have liked. All answers that day basically led to the same way the day ends, which I find to be really weird. It makes me wonder if dev isn't sure how to do branching paths so that Day 3 can start exactly the way they need it to. Based on what I know about YB, it felt like he was in character in all routes until the very end when he just attacks. It's especially out of place when playing along with him.

As a side note, Y/N's personality has the biggest divergence in this day. If you are mean to YB on Day 1, then you are a complete asshole to everyone around you. This route is called the abuse route, I think, because YB will abuse you? However, I think of it as the abuse route because Y/N is really abusive to everyone around them and YB just sort of runs with that energy. (I am saying here: the player is influencing both Y/N and YB to be assholes, so we are basically the assholes in this route? I'm not trying to victim blame Y/N, but rather, I'm saying Y/N and YB are our victims. I would say Y/N is always our victim regardless...)

Day 3 is when shit hits the fan for the story in many ways. For Y/N, they just lost someone they knew, probably. TK or Lucy (who both seem to come off as potential love interests) or the Landlord/Don Williams (who doesn't read as a love interest at all to me, maybe I'm just oblivious as fuck) will die. Or, if you played Day 2 a certain way, a random person will be murdered.

My gripe with this is mostly that it comes so quickly, so soon, just a random murder of a major character. With how little content I feel there is in Day 2, I feel like I barely formed any attachment to TK, Lucy, or Don Williams, especially from the perspective of only having played the games.

This isn't to say they aren't great characters, because I think they are.

In fanon.

The fans have really taken these characters, the random snippets we know about them from various sources (the Tumblr and Wiki) and ran with them. Though these characters don't receive the same level of love and attention as YB, I feel like they have really enhanced any attachments people could form with their own skillful writing/observations.

Of course, I would be remiss if I didn't also point out how Peter comes off out of character on this day. He's pushy, demeaning, and outright abusive towards Y/N.

A part of me wonders: is he just pissed off because Y/N is in his way of getting to us, the players? Or is he actually not aware he is in a game despite what the creator said?

If he is aware he is in a game, and this is supposed to be out of character for him to behave this way, does that mean the game is forcing him to act like this?

But then he admits to grinding against Y/N at night when he sneaks in through the window. He doesn't just watch Y/N sleep, he touches them. That's not consensual for Y/N at all. I thought he was just a guy who was peeking at worst (still not great), but he actually sexually assaults Y/N. (Not to kink shame anyone, but outside of fantasy obv that is not okay.)

It really left a sore taste in my mouth. I thought this game was about a meta yandere guy who loves the player so much he is trying to take advantage of the game to talk to us through Y/N. Obviously, this is me building up my own expectation for the game, but I would have accepted any other way the game turned out as long as it was still meta and vaguely wholesome in his actions, at least with regards to him never hurting us, sexually assaulting us, or berating us.

But instead, it's just a simple "he's just Y/N's stalker" and makes no further attempts to speak to us, the players. It all just feels disappointing.

Day 4, I won't say much since the creator doesn't want much to come out about it, but I will say it gets a tad better, though its gross inside the context of Day 3.

YB returns to being a sweetie cutie pie, mostly because he finally won. Depending on how your route has been going so far, you can experience the 'erotic' part of the game. Currently, there isn't much CG to it, its a still image with smut. I'm not going to complain about it. I will point out you can tell him to stop and he will.

Which is really out of character for how he acted on Day 3. Does he respect our consent or not? Does he care about how we see him or not? Day 3 he's acting like a huge douchebag, and Day 4 he is like 'uwu okay i'll stop.' It feels inconsistent with the narrative of the game.

I'll stop discussing day 4 here.

Right now, I feel like this game is missing so much. I feel like the game relies on the player to find lore about YB on their own, rather than include it in the game. The characters don't have enough screen time for me to miss them when they are killed or absent from Day 4.

It seems we are supposed to meet a new character on Day 4 who is a friend of YB, but it seems REALLY LATE to be introducing a new character. This character has been known to die hard fans for like over a year, but we don't know ANYTHING about him aside from a short list of bullet points.

Then there is the mysterious Greta. YB's therapist or some such. Supposedly this person is encouraging Peter's behaviors. Why would they do this? What is going on? Will this character make an appearance in the game at all? If they do, why so late?

There's a chance that a completed Day 4 and 5 (aka a finished game) will tie this altogether, but unless more is added to Day 1, 2, and 3, I don't see it coming together in a satisfying way.

I'll still play the game when it's completed, and I'm staying in the fandom, because I love YB and the fan content for YB. I love the YB we have all collectively imagined, the one who is a yandere stalker, but isn't hurting us. The YB who is sweet and thoughtful, even if he's stupid enough to think stalking is okay.

Here's some fan content that I really enjoy and is what helped me build my own personal head canons about YB, the game, and what it all means:

Sugar Gives Me a Toothache (SGMATA) - This is a fanfiction on AO3 and its a masterpiece. In this, the game's Y/N is called MC, and the reader is a Y/N that stalks YB (Peter). There is so much longing, pining, sweetness, bittersweet, and just... I LOVE IT SO MUCH.

Game Over - A comic both on Twitter and Tumblr. It hasn't been updated in a long time, but it's still soooo good, and the art rocks.

And just all the random comics people draw for YB. Him being goofy and stupid. Him being a lovesick puppy. Him being a dangerous animal only Y/N can tame. All the memes and jokes. All very inspiring.

I guess in short, I really love YB more than I love the game, and I think YB might end up being something that transcends his own creator and becomes something that belongs to the fans.

[thornlock-obey-me]

Tales Through the Rose's Eyes:

Disclaimers & Warnings!!

This is a story that will go through my Obey Me MC’s childhood/past. Each chapter will start off with a moment of their past (before the events of the game) and potentially end with it flipping back to the in-game time.

So on to the disclaimers, starting with a warning for general spoilers as well as canon diverges! Major game moments likely will or did happen (including a lot of the game lore), but might have happened differently or I add more to the lore. Basically this is my take on the game, the characters, and adding Eden as a more interworked character.

With that my interpretation might be a bit dark for the canon characters. I say this because I like seeing the demons being just that: demons! So if you only want to see versions of the characters that cuddle and give the best, or at least try, advice to Eden for their problems… probably don’t read. If you don’t want to hear about questionable demon morals, don’t read.

Again, I do view the Avatars of Sin as “brother in arms” more than actual brothers. I don’t think that will come up in this story, but it may be mentioned or hinted at. Sort of similar to how Asmo always makes those comments in-game about the others. Either way here is your second warning on the matter, if you continue reading and are surprised… well I told you and I will tag it WHEN it actually comes up.

Which leads us well into trigger warnings: I will do my BEST to tag and put at the top of the chapter all possible warnings! Both because my take on the characters being potentially morbid AND because Eden’s childhood/backstory is dark! They did not have an all happy childhood, so Eden alone means I have to make many warnings. BUT incase you miss things later and for my own ability to point you all to the right direction, I will list some of the things that might/will be mentioned in the story:

Religion… Duh, and religious trauma on basically everyone’s end, including Eden.

Self-harm (on various characters’ ends, including Eden)

SH Scars (specifically for Eden)

Physical Abuse, Emotional Abuse, Verbal Abuse… a lot of abuse

Character Death (Lesson 16 as well as other things)

Suicide (Attempting and wanting but never successful)

Murder (Again Lesson 16, but also it has something to do with Eden’s past)

Eating Disorders (Eden has anorexia, Asmo has been hinted to have the same)

Cheating (one of Eden’s parents. And this seems… tame compared to the rest of this list)

Sex/Suggestive themes will be mentioned only (all consenting) but it will not go into details, if you want that it will be in a separate work

Potential reference or mentions of “demoncest”

More to be added as I actually write this…

Last quick disclaimer: Eden is genderfluid and has a curse that physically changes their anatomy every few days. That being said I will mostly refer to in-game Eden with They/Them. BUT in the parts of their past, they will be referred to with generally She/Her because it is not a story Eden is physically telling another character. It will be written as if it is happening right then and there. Their name will also be different, instead of Eden they will be called Rosie/Roise Grace.

I also imagine the characters’ appearances differently and have been drawing their redesigns. The changes aren’t rather subtle, so their main physical traits are the same.

[pyxilatezero]

Azure Override: The [Fan] Sequel to Scarlet Nexus that Nobody Asked For or Cares About

I’m writing it! If you want to read it (probly not ngl) I’ll release it on AO3 in a week or two. The fanfic will include the following:

the POVs throughout the story of Akairo (Aka)2/ Murasaki, Aoi Murasaki, Kasane Randall, and Naomi Randall.

Detailed description of character mechanics if they were part of the game at the introduction to the fic

A trailer released on YouTube that will likely be released at the end of the fanfic

The resurrection of Naomi Randall and Nagi Karman

A love interest for Kasane (Akairo). If you aren’t a fan of wlw stories, avoid Aka’s path, where her crush on Kasane is a much larger plot aspect than in the other three.

Kyoka x Arashi (I had to add my favorite Scarlet Nexus ship propaganda here I’m very sorry, also, we should totally call it Double Speed imo. And again, if wlw isn’t your thing, avoid Kasane and Akairo’s paths, where this ship is much more prominent)

Major character death (shocking, I know)

Angst (it’s a Scarlet Nexus fic? You can’t live without)

Time travel (duh)

Mind control and emotional manipulation (This might be a touchy subject for people. I will warn you ahead of time when this is about to occur in a chapter)

Original characters & Ships

Interplanetary travel

Aliens

Zombies

Zombie Aliens

Planetary Colonization

Heavy Combat

Betrayals

Nagi x Yuito (if mlm ships aren’t your thing, avoid Naomi’s path, where this ship is much more prominent)*

Hanabi x Naomi (if wlw ships aren’t your thing, why are you reading this fic? I am a lesbian. I must preach.[I’m not trying to ‘indoctrinate your children’. It is just my preferred way of telling a story. Also, I am in high school. Cut me some slack please] But avoid Naomi’s path, where this ship is much more prominent)

Villain POVs (Aoi)

The introduction of new powers

Twisty plot twists (they’re very twisty)

And, of course, spoilers for Scarlet Nexus.

Surprise character POVS

*Aoi’s path is the straightest, if you simply want a heterosexual relationship as the endgame. This is in no way to depict heterosexual people as a villain. It just happens to veer away from the main cast of the story, and so it winds up being straighter, as Aoi’s love interest is .

The fic will be rated T, for Teen, and will include the warning tags ‘Graphic depictions of violence’ and ‘Major character death’. It will be posted under the Psued ‘DreamsAreNightmaresToo’, but will show up on the account profile as ‘Pyxilate’ (my AO3 account). It will have ‘Gen’ for its relationship tag. I may post it on Wattpad in the future if it gains enough traction.

!!! THE FIRST POV BEING RELEASED WILL BE AKA’S, THEN AOI’S AND KASANE’S. NAOMI’S PATH WILL BE LAST !!!

[risingshards]

I finished Jedi Survivor and have to talk about it and nobody I know has it WAHHH

MAJOR SPOILERS FOLLOW

My thought as the catharsis of finishing settles is that I think it's one of my favorite Star Wars things like ever.

For reference, my tippy top tier of Star Wars is the OT (duh), KOTOR series, OG Battlefronts, Mandalorian (particularly S2), Visions (especially The Twins which is maybe my favorite #1 SW thing because I'm so obsessed with Am and it's like Star Wars I love distilled into half an hour), TFA, and some particular TCW and Rebels arcs. There's probably more that I'm forgetting I tend to do that. And of course the Jedi series.

My Jedi series history: I remember at Celebration 2019, one of the best experiences of my life, I left one of the meet and greets (I met Ian McDiarmid and Billy Dee Williams!!!) and my partner at the time and I looked at the main stage and were like "wait what the fuck is Ian from Shameless doing here?!?!" Because we were in lines all day, we didn't see the announcement that Fallen Order was a thing.

And then the first one was a great time. Maybe a bit too hard for my game ability, but with difficulty turned down I was able to handle it. I loved how they just let Cal be kind, just a sweet good dude, like the true spirit of what a Jedi can be is in him, BD-1 is one of the best game companions ever, the supporting cast of Merrin/Cere/Greez was REAL good, loved the main villain and made sure to get her figure and Cal's, and the failure is not the end scene made me ugly ugly cry and is one of my favorite (I'm talking favorite a lot which I think is a persistent theme for me playing this series). So I was excited for Survivor obviously.

And it was very very good. There are a lot of things I can't stop thinking about in game, I had trouble sleeping one night (not cuz of the game it was just one of my "well we aren't sleeping tonight" nights and spent most of it just like "wow what about this thing in jedi survivor" which is the sign of a game I either supremely cared about or was supremely troubled about (for example of the latter, I legit lost sleep after finishing Mass Effect 3 LOL).

I loved how big the opening was and how well it told the themes of the story and Cal's journey, weary from fighting the Empire and weary from losing friend after friend.

The inciting incident of Cal finding the frozen in bacta Jedi from the High Republic era Dagan Gera was my like "YES. OH MY GOD YES. RESPAWN YOUR VISION FOR STAR WARS IS JUST LIKE THIS IS WHAT I WANT!!!" Something about this angsty anime boy villain had me like "RELEASE THE ACTION FIGURE FOR HIM ASAP PLEASE HE'S COOOOOOOL." And the High Republic thing had me excited for Cal to get a new story that was his own deal that wasn't just Cal vs. Empire (well. didn't get that entirely but the main thrust of the story was the High Republic adventure which was fun.)

The family aspect was handled really well here too, with Cal's family being separated and you gradually reunite with them. Greez is like the lovable grandpa uncle, Cere the new parent/guardian figure to Cal after losing his previous one, and Merrin as the scary gf. BD-1 of course the loyal best friend pet, I have a small dog so like BD 1 and Cal's friendship hits so hard for me.

I thought the moral of the game would be like "you don't need to have this big mythical home in Tanalorr to go for, you have one to establish in Koboh" but they twisted me similarly to Cal breaking the holocron in Fallen Order. The Jedha battle with the crazy walker thing was amazing, and Cal and Merrin are so sweet together that I dug the kiss a lot.

The story felt like it halted for a bit after that and before getting to Dagan at the observatory, with the beautiful force vision duel with Dagan feeling like a "well the game COULD end here and I'd be pretty satisfied" moment. Then things went into high gear with Bode's betrayal leading to everything falling apart. Playing as Cere was amazing, and I did lose my mind for Vader showing up (love the parallel to him being in water for the first game and fire here, third game he'll be in the air or the dirt for the elemental trifecta). I definitely got emotional losing Cere, and thought that was really well handled, dealing with the tragic sense of "this couldn't end up any other way with Vader wanting revenge on her" well. As they said later, she got to go out winning her battle against the dark side and that's beautiful.

The last act of the game is mostly focused on dealing with Bode's betrayal. Cal's dalliances with the dark side are super interesting, because nothing is the same once he gets that first taste. Even the pause menu is tainted afterwards, as if a part of his soul is corrupted by just tapping into that incredible energy once. Mechanically it was a bit clunky to make tapping into the dark side a forced thing like in the last boss fight, and a bit of a clone of Ghost of Tsushima's ghost stance but Sucker Punch ya won't make Sly 5 so I'm not gonna judge if people take stuff from ya. Bode was gone by the end and willing to physically hurt his own daughter so like I didn't feel bad about Cal tapping into the dark side to defeat him (when Bode hit BD-1, that was his "oh there's no coming back for this guy is there" moment). I really loved the ending with the pyre funeral for Cere, Cordova, and Bode. It felt like a movie ending, and Cal talking to Cere about being so afraid of failing, of losing himself to the darkness was beautiful and probably the closest the game got to the failure speech in terms of making me bawl from the first game. After finishing, I felt like I had just finished watching a movie, like the same cathartic feeling of finishing a big Star Wars movie.

My bigger downsides: 155GB for a console game is fucking absurd. That stretch of time where it was just gameplay with the story being light was a bit of a drag (those sequences of just wave after wave of enemy were BS), and it felt like there weren't a lot of planets total (unless the side missions add planets because I just played the main story, that'd be cool if the bounties sent you back to old planets from the first game). I REALLY wish Dagan Gera had more to do and wasn't in the same role as Taron Malicos where he's the like sub-antagonist that gets offed relatively easily because I feel like there was so much more potential with a reawakened High Republic Era Jedi who immediately falls to the dark side. Like Second Sister, I do wish there was more with these super interesting villain characters before they get somewhat anticlimactically killed off, but cool as fuck villains getting somewhat anticlimactically killed off is basically Star Wars tradition.

I think it's a downside of the time period that at the end of the day the Empire has to be the big bad looming over everything. I'd love to see Respawn get a blank slate (there are a couple teams I'd love to see get a blank slate doing their own Star Wars from scratch, like Respawn, the Clone Wars team...) where they aren't beholden to have things fit into a timeline. But the Jedi series has been fine about that so far and nothing's felt like too hopeless or too crunching into a timeline. It was kind of cool in a video game-y way that you can be like "Oh it's the sequel so the formula is setting in, oh here's the sub villain, now we beat them, oh here's a surprise Vader appearance, etc. etc." I was excited for the Raiders led by Dagan to be a new threat for Cal and co., but because it's the Emprie reign era the Imps end up taking the main villain focus, which makes sense ofc, but I'm a slut for new factions.

Another downside that's not the game's fault: I'm streaming the game for a friend, and they guessed the entire plot immediately and I'm so mad at them about it because I hadn't pieced anything together when they did LOL. 30 seconds into Bode's appearance they were like "he did it. traitor. he's a spy for the empire and killed everyone there. i bet vader shows up too" and now I'm like I HOPE YOU DIDNT READ SPOILERS AND ARE JUST ACTING LIKE YOU PREDICTED THIS CUZ THAT'S A LITTLE TOO SPOT ON but I know they're just a genre savvy type. usually I can guess the immediate traitor which is a trope of games but I was just like "bode's voice actor voiced kotallo and charles :) " Part of me is thinking of ways to convince them they're wrong to mislead them as revenge but I'd have to act really well to pull that off and that'd be mean lmao.

What I'm hoping for to close out the trilogy assuming it gets a third game: I don't want Cal to turn to the dark side, but I do trust this team to handle his battle with it well. In a galaxy of tragic endings, there aren't many I want to have a happy ending more than Cal so that's my main hope for the third game. I hope Cal and his family establishing the hidden path is their way out of avoiding a fate of just "vader and the empire wipe them out because canon dictates it so." They've done so well so far that I trust this team to handle wrapping up Cal's story well, so I'm mainly just excited for what's next.