#might as well post for the 1 year anniversary of the game lol

[arinakaard]

"arina i got you a hat so you can match noisey and i we're all gonna look sooo cute together! ✨"

[basil-does-arttt]

DMC Questions Anon here!

As we all know today is the 23rd anniversary of the first Devil May Cry game, and the series as a whole. So I want to hear you talk about DMC 1, what you love about it, headcanons you have about it, alternate scenarios you want to share, anything DMC 1 you want to talk about.

Hello again! This is gonna be a long post i have a lot to say lol

DMC 1 was my introduction to the series way back when as a little kid, when i watched an older cousin play it and eventually tried it out myself. This was also the PS2 version, and i was gifted the disc + console as well at some point.

The Alastor cutscene stuck in my head for literal years after i first saw it as a kid, that and DMC 3's mission 20 arena. Every so often it'd pop into my head as a memory, untill recently when i decided to get back into DMC fully rather than just occasionally remembering it.

DMC 1 holds a very special place in my heart because of that, its a huge nostalgia thing for me and is my favourite game in the series.

I love the setting and tone of the game, its so unique compared to the others, of course all in thanks to DMC 1 starting out as RE4. That whole gothic castle, almost horror vibe is something you dont really expect from hack&slash games these days, and even though it made for some real clunky and annoying moments in game (cough cough Nelo 2 and Griffon 2 cough cough...) to me, the good far outweighs the bad.

Oh and the soundtrack! Its so good, every theme works so well in the scene it's used for, even the abient tracks. I will say however, the bg music got real messed up on the HD remaster which is very dissapointing. (it sounds flat and doesn't have any echoing anymore, specicially the divinity statue room and Phantom's church arena in the start of mission 3). It may not be noticable to some who have only played the HD release, but i noticed it immediately coming from the PS2 version oof. I guess i have to be greatful that a HD release exists in the first place though, and it is a very old game. Still.

The combat also, (and this might not be an opinion shared by everyone which is fine) i feel is the smoothest out of any Dante in any game. All the attacks are so responsive, and although you're limited, you can still style on enemies pretty easily.

Finally the bosses. Arguably the best lineup of any DMC game, every boss is fun in it's own way and brings something new to the table in terms of mechanics. Phantom is a lot of timing correctly, Nelo pushes your fighting style to be more agressive and direct, Griffon challenges your dodging skills, Nightmare is a puzzle solving boss, and Mundus is all three. The designs are also amazing, and most of the arenas are perfect. Griffon 2 and nelo 2 aren't so great arenas but their 3rd arenas more than make up for it.

Okay enough of me gushing about how much i love the mechanics, some HCs i have for it!!

1/ That motorcycle Trish bust the door down with (and then throws at Dante) wasn't hers, right? We see it in the into cutscene before it cuts to Dante at his desk. Well, its my HC that was Lady's bike (she was not happy).

2/ (aside from gameplay mechanic reasons) The reason Dante cant use DT at the start of the game, despite having awakened it in DMC 3, is because Dante wants to push away from embracing his demonic side even more so now after his brother has been "killed". He always disliked being part demon and preferred not to tap into his demonic abilities because of that, demons are evil creatures after all and Dante is far from that, but that hate is even further exemplified after Vergil fell into hell.

3/ When Trish split off to fly solo as a devil hunter, she kept the name "Devil Never Cry" for her business. People do often confuse her for Dante's "Devil May Cry" especially when the names are abbreviated. Dante finds it mildly annoying, Trish finds it hilarious. (Sometimes she'll direct clients to Dante out of pity too when they call her number asking for Devil May Cry rather than Devil Never Cry, instead of convincing them she's the right person. Dante however always sends them over to Trish if they've called the wrong number.)

4/ Dante probably knew Trish was trying to lure him to his death on Mallet island, but he went anyways to avenge his family's death. We know he'd been searching for Mundus ever since DMC 3 (it says so in DMC 5's "history of DMC" cutscene), and he knows that finding and killing Mundus wouldn't be nearly as easy as Trish made it seem. Wether he came back or not, he was going to kill Mundus, or at least try.

As for alternate scenarios, i dont have much in mind. Maybe it would be interesting to see a scenario where Trish never betrayed Dante, and instead she tried to help him during the nightmare fight. It still would've ended the same way for her, but maybe also Dante wouldn't have gotten so angry with her when he saved her.

Ugh i just love DMC 1 so much, like i said before it holds a special place in my heart. I hope that answers everything :> <3

[manonamora-if]

July Check-In

Welp... I'm late. Also it's already the half-year mark and I don't have my usual Mid-Year recap review, so we're doing this for now, and we'll see if I can squeeze a proper MYR later this month.

BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I FORGOT LAST MONTH????

Celebrating my 3-year anniversary of publishing Meeting the Parents, my first IF game ever. I wanted to do something special and then... I FORGORRRRRR ; _ ; I'm buuuuumbed about it :((((

Anyway... Onto the usual index:

Recap of last month’s progress

Plan for the next month

The mega to-do-list tm that hasn't really changed.

Still long post under the break. If you want a mini version, head on over to itch.io as usual!

May Progress

Pulling out THE LIST from last month and checking the progress:

Play more games ✅

Well, that's always a check, because there's no month without a @neointeractives jam lol. Anyway, June was Neo-Twiny Jam month, so was mainly that (unfinished thread). And of course, I finished the REALLY BAD IF jam (Review Thread and Ranking). But, I didn't manage to play more than that.... :(((

Almost 700 reviewwwwssssss. Dang.

Code Chapter 6/Endings❌

I've done another round of comment with MelS, but we're still missing a branch before I can code it. But I'm not too worried about that bit, since Chapter 6 will have pretty basic coding.

Fixing an older games. ❌

Lololol, listen... I tried, but only managed 1/3rd of the Tomato game to be done.

Write the next Chapter/Scene of a WIP❌

Lololol pt2 The writing of Exquisite Cadaver stalled this month. But I picked it up again.

What else happened this month????

Wayyyy too many distractions this month. First IRL (which is good). But also... events.

This months, we had the Neo-Twiny Jam (@neo-twiny-jam) which we are wrapping up, and I've been reviewing, and also participating in. There was also the Nouvim3000 (so I don't forget how to write in French), and a bunch of smaller jams which I jammed into some entries.

So, what does it look link in terms of releases:

The Lady with the Camellias (NTJ - Infrom 7 - prototype)

L’Incombustible 3000 (Nouvim/Marmelade - Twine -FR)

machina caerulea (4 jams - Twine)

Bon Dieu ! Et une lessive aussi ? (NTJ - Moiki - FR)

I've been looking back at previous releases of mine, feeling a bit nostalgic. Thinking of writing some stuff (post-mortem) about them. I don't know...

So... I didn't stick TO THE PLAN AT ALL. Which is a big bummer... because the stuff I wanted to do in July will need to get postponed again. I'm not happy with myself about that. Even if I think I made some killer tiny games this month and played some hella dope stuff... But, it's done. I can't change the past... So I'll try to do better in July instead.

Also, I did have some great relaxing days where I essentially napped or walked outside all day, and just... not being online. That was v nice!

The PLANtm for July

Obviously first is to wrap up the NTJ properly (admin), and start off the SingleChoice Jam and the SeedComp! again. The Anti-Romance Jam is ending soon as well, and the IFComp has just started. So, you'll probably see me on the IntFiction Forum more this month for all of that. And the next two weeks I still have some IRL obligations.

BUT, here's THE plan for the month:

Play more games: Which will be done v easily: 30+ NTJ entries left to review, the Anti-Romance Jam, Love/Violence Jam, the Nouvim, and the ParserComp also just ended. So that's a bunch!

Code Chapter 6/Endings: I don't think we'll be able to code that last chapter, because MelS's July is packed, but if we can manage another round of edits, it would be great!

Fixing an older games. I'm 1/3rd to 1/2 done with Tomato Tomato. I'm trying to finish fixing it for the FIX IT JAM. And if I can manage some proper progress for Exquisite Cadaver, I'll be ECSTATIC!

Write the next Chapter/Scene of a WIP. And if I could manage to write one more game round for EC, I'm buying myself some cake!

I may or may not have sent an intent for the IntroComp... So I might send something. Puzzly probably.

Progress... I can do that... I think... I hope... We'll see/

~

The 2024 To-Do List:

LOLOLOL June just decided to avoid all this.

The hopefully maybe easy to handle To-Do:

fix the bugs in EDOC (FR waiting for Adventuron)

fix the bugs of TRNT + find a way to add the missing pieces

fixing the interface of LPM and the popups + check animal interactions

figure out the One-Button JavaScrip/jQuery issue...

edit the loading screens of the completed tiny games to include the program/format logo at least.

The 'Need a Bunch of Content to update but it's planned!' To-Do:

Update my website (bunch new title - also I don't think the logo clicky thing work...) + redo my itch page (un-stricking cause I need to update it)

Finish TTATEH (MelS dependent)

Finish Exquisite Cadaver (half-way mark by this summer - manif)

Finish P-Rix - Space Trucker (main path at least)

Update CRWL (it's been almost two years... I'm ashamed)

The Unlikely But it Would be Dope To-Do

Finish The Dinner as it was planned (and translate)

Finish In the Blink of an Eye as it was planned (and retranslate)

Finish The Rye in the Dark City

Fixing TTTT (at least fixing, maybe try adding some storylets)

And finally The 'It's impossible, but one can wish' TO-DO:

Remaster SPS IH (if I managed to start this after completing the rest... I'm going to eat a whole sheet cake).

Start the IFComp project (I think ST 2025)

[galactic-glamour-girl-posts]

My Rosalina Wishlist for the Nintendo Switch 2 era

In order of what I want the least to want I want the most:

For her to make appearance in (at least one of) the RPGs

Maybe they could connect her to Geno, or to the pre-established star lore of the RPGs, maybe there's another copy of the book Paper Mario takes place in in her library, have her interact with Starlow (another being who uses star power), you could do a lot with her. She's already one of the most fleshed out in the mainline games, she'd flourish in the RPGs, games which specifically aim to develop (most) of the cast as characters.

Give her a Power Up band

Technically this (and one more addition later on in this list) is not a Nintendo Switch 2 related thing but if this were to happen it would likely be during the Switch 2 era, so it's relevant enough.

Years ago I predicted that her, Toadette, DK and Diddy Kong would get power up bands based on a leak. Since then, it's been confirmed that Donkey Kong and Diddy will be getting power up bands to go alongside the Donkey Kong-themed expansion of Super Nintendo World. I still think Rosalina (and Toadette) could get one, especially if they do a Galaxy-themed expansion. It would be nice to have one in time for 2027, Galaxy's anniversary, but that's not likely given that we'd probably know about it being built by now. It could still happen not too long after it. A space-themed expansion would definitely be popular (Toadette is part of the Toad Brigade, who debited in Galaxy 1, so she could get one during this supposed expansion too).

Even if that didn't happen, Rosalina does make an appearance at the park via the VR binoculars, and she was recently given a new plush made specifically to be sold at the park, so she's already one of the most likely candidates to get a band next.

A new Rosalina-owned Mario Kart stage

Not much to explain here. It's been over a decade since she got one, and that was her first (unless we retroactively count Rainbow Road).

An appearance in a Mario movie sequel

If not as a major character, then at least as a post-credits character. After a Luma was in the first movie, it seems inevitable that Rosalina will appear in the films eventually, I just hope it's sooner rather than later! Even if it's for a short time, I think they could fit her in movie 2 somewhere. Literally just show Lumalee going home or something. They might save her for movie 3, but that would probably also happen during the Switch 2 era (I could see it releasing in 2029 or 2030, the Switch 2 would've only been out for about 4-5 years by then).

Another appearance in a mainline Mario game

I'm welcome to it being a 3D game, but I'd prefer for it to be a 2D one because she has yet to make an appearance in a 2D game.

Bonus points if she's playable!

Her own solo adventure game

Even putting my bias aside, I genuinely think this could work! She's one of the most popular characters in the franchise, it would be a good chance to find out more about her origins or at least give a Mario-adjacent game a deeper story than usual, and outer space is almost always a cool setting for any piece of media. If it were to happen (I know it probably won't, but a girl can dream), I hope it's not essentially just "Super Mario Galaxy 3, but you play as Rosalina". I'd love it if the game had a genre the Mario franchise either hasn't touched yet or hasn't done often (I still think a Kingdom Hearts-esque action RPG would suit her very well).

Although if I had to order these from most to least likely to happen during the Switch 2 era, I'd say: an appearance in a new mainline Mario game, a new Mario Kart stage, her power up band, an appearance in the Mario movie sequel, an appearance in the RPGs, and finally her solo game.

But hey, prove me wrong Nintendo! Watch how I jinx it and none of these happen lol

[bacondaddy]

Here's a part 2 because the Anniv event started and you're gonna get a SHIT ton of Blood points Event Related: THIS IS A SEPARATE QUEUE FROM NORMAL (Reddit already has the "why cant i see the invites" shit, theres 2 queues. Everyones on Masq.) All items can be used well after the event is over, and I rec you keep 1 of each event item just for the bragging rights (I say this, staring at 150+ of each masquerade items and terrormisus from last year lol) The event items are just fancy-skinned toolboxes, medkits, and flashlights that spray confetti when used. But they're sparkly reskins lol. Also, you can find event items in chests around the map as well, in case you're a hoarding goblin like I am. Do the event tome. There is 1 killer only challenge in the current level, and that's just to hook people. (I'm writing this guide under the assumption that people are survivor mains)

Survivor event effects: You can go into "Quiet mode" which just makes you silent, you can achieve the same effect by using Light Footed (Ellen Ripley) and Iron Will (Jake Park) You can create fake pallets that do break upon being thrown, but time it right and you can still stun the killer. You can block vault locations, much like the killer perk Bamboozle, for a few seconds. So far I use Quiet Mode as a quick way to get away, then again I also use Sprint Burst (Meg Thomas) for a quick prerun. Killer Event Effects: Remote Hooking, which is exactly what it sounds like. You can hit Q to remotely hook a survivor on the nearest hook. Yeah you might be wondering "But if its nearby, why not just hook them manually?" Cause there are some survivors who will body block or use perks to fuck you over, and running a trial as a killer you want those few extra seconds to restart a chase, or try and get another down. Endure Stun, which is just Enduring (Universal killer perk) to endure a stun and make it 50% shorter And Remote Destroy, which is the same thing as Remote Hook, just to break walls or pallets

You can use these effects by finding invitation pillars around the map, or waiting for some time depending on what "trick" is active right now. Here comes the fun part. There are tricks that activate during the game, and I'm just gonna take from the wiki because I genuinely didn't know all these effects until I researched for this post.

The Bag of Tryks is a literal mixed bag: granting both good and bad effects to all Players in the Trial, as well as possibly a neutral one. You're Invited! Grants +1 Token towards the Twisted Skills to all Players. Move It or Lose It! Grants a +30 % Haste Status Effect for 60 seconds to all Players. Party Totem! All Dull Totems are converted into Anniversary Totems, glowing in a festive blue and gold tint. Successfully channelling an Anniversary Totem applies the following effects to the Player:

Grants bonus Bloodpoints.

Grants a +30 % Haste Status Effect for 5 seconds.

Reveals their Aura to the opposing side for 5 seconds.

Failing to channel an Anniversary Totem by interrupting the interaction only grants bonus Bloodpoints.

An Anniversary Totem converts back into a Dull Totem after granting its gift. Party Chest! All unopened Chests are converted into Anniversary Chests, glowing in a festive blue and gold tint when within 8 metres of them.

All Anniversary Chests automatically open in an explosion of festive confetti after 60 seconds and apply the following effects to all Players who are within their Aura-range at that moment:

Causes Survivors to scream and suffer from a -25 % Hindered Status Effect for 4 seconds.

Causes the Killer to be stunned in place.

Opening an Anniversary Chest before the Tryk expires guarantees a random Anniversary Item. Zzl Zilch! Nothing happened, you got Tryks! No Invite for You! Removes -1 Token from the Twisted Skills of all Players. Peekaboo! Reveals all Player Auras for 8 seconds. Heal You, Expose You! Causes all Survivor to heal by +1Health State or become Mended when suffering from the Deep Wound Status Effect, but then causes all of them to suffer from the Exposed Status Effect for the next 30 seconds. Wait, Where...? Suppresses the Terror Radius of the Killer and the creation of Scratch Marks of Survivors for the next 30 seconds.

The event runs from June 13th to July 4th So if you need perks, play. The bloodpoint bonuses are so insane I've spent almost 6 million BP today alone (I had 4m saved from rank reset and BP cap) What I would recommend, and what I wish I had known this time last year, is to use your BP on any survivors/killers that aren't your main for their perks for the first week or so of the event. P1 at minimum, but if you wanna get to P3 then godspeed my friend! Also, just about every character has some form of discount active right now. The characters I rec you buy with the discounts active are: Feng Min Technician mutes the generator explosion when you fail a skillcheck Lithe makes you sprint faster for a few seconds after vaulting Alert shows the killer aura (If not undetectable) whenever they damage anything. Pallet, gen, boop we see you. Note, if the killer is undetectable, Alert will not show their aura. Kate Denson Windows of Opportunity shows you all pallets and vaults, great for learning loops! Though it can be overwhelming on the Game. I won't spoil it but there's a reason the Game is called Pallet Hell. Dance with Me hides your scratch marks after fast vaulting (The kind that makes a lot of noise). Pairs well with Lithe. Boil Over makes you wiggle harder, and hides hook auras within 16 meters. You caaaan manipulate this in certain maps, but killers hate it and will probably slug you if you try to run to a dead zone to abuse BO. Jeff Johansen Aftercare: After healing or unhooking anyone, that person's aura is sown to you, and yours them. Breakdown: When hooked, when you are rescued, the hook breaks Distortion: If the killer has any aura reading perks, this perk consumes a token to hide your aura for 10 seconds. Tokens get replenished by being in the killer's terror radius. Honestly I use Distortion frequently myself, it's a great perk. Jill Valentine (Licensed, auric or $$ only) This is an honorable mention but Blastmine is so fucking funny. After repairing 50% of any gen, you can plant a fucking bomb on it for a limited time. If the killer kicks that gen, they get blinded. Honestly I might start writing more of these info dumps cause this is fun

Finally playing dbd instead of watching it

[marengogo]

BANGTAN MYTHOLOGY - 1: Careless Whisper …

El Toro - by Bonobo  [Black Sands]

[Music is a very big part of my life and I’m MOSTLY INCAPABLE of writing without music, so I just thought I'd share what I am listening to while writing this]

–🐺–🐺–🐺–

Welcome, Welcome,Welcome! 

Welcome to the first chapter of this new series, which I cutely like to call 「Tanogy」 (short version of Bangtan Mythology). A series where we will take well-known or I-had-no-idea “Jikook Myths”, and through thorough research, conducted by yours truly Marengo, who has a certified research fetish, not even gonna lie at all, educated guesses, and careful speculation where necessary, we will try and figure out if this Myths are “Nice, Keep Going!” (aka they are real facts), or “... Poison Apple” (aka they are NOT real facts), or even “Who, Are, You?...” (aka we still can’t tell if they are, or not, real facts). All clear? Perfect, so …

The first Tanogy is a Jikook one and it’s the following:

I’m sure we’ve all … read this before. Read because I couldn’t find any auditory proof of this ever being said, even though in the only piece I found where someone provided some sort of non-reliable source, said source was said to be a radio interview, hence, you’d want to at least hear it.

This particular “Radio source” tweet was from November 8, 2017, one of Jikook’s most famously believed anniversaries or simply GCFT for others but with a little bit of research you will see this sentence appear in many years, months, days all quoting the same sentence but still nobody really knowing where it came from. So, as I kept digging and I found out that the quote I screenshot at the very top, like the following, and many others all was posted on May 21, 2016 and were all reblogs from a blog named: 95HYYH.

95HYYH - They made their post on May 19, 2016:

Needless to say, being this the only seemingly relevant clue I had as I started my trail, I found this fact very interesting and decided to run with it probably being the main source of where the rumor started. Because of the 95 in the handler name I assumed that they might have been VMIN biased but still maybe thought jikook were a thing? Like many of us do with all our different biases. I was right on that, however as I still couldn’t find any actual reason, or source, on their blog I began to wonder “what happened on May 19, 2016?...”.

So I went on the bird app, which is usually bad for many things but I find it unfortunately excellent with regards to impromptu info of the time, it a basically a history book of seldom fact but mostly BS and besides BTS being spotted all over Norway/Sweden, for Bon Voyage 1, there seemed to be a bit of crumbs for VMIN very cute ones, but didn’t research their veracity and indeed Jikook … but it had nothing to do with our Careless Whisper.

VMIN crumbs on May 19, 2016:

JIKOOK crumbs on May 19, 2016:

That Jikook selca made the rounds that day and as I was reading through all the posts I found this one, of someone translating a PD who had described how this pic came to be. I thought it was really cute, so following is the link if you are interested:

So all that was, well and good, but I reached a halt and to be honest with you I was ready to call it a day considering 95HYYH the person that started it but not knowing why. Yet, as I am an insufferable perfectionist or at least i like to think my self as such, TRUST, I’m hella sloppy me all around I decided to make a one last, deeper, research and I found the following tweet dated June 23, 2015. … The game was afoot yet again LOL! 

Keeping my calm, I was excited AF I began to check through the bird app to see if something relevant to Jikook had happened on this particular date, but NOTHING, NADA, ��んでもない, ZILCH had happened that was relevant to the Careless Whisper and before I could finish asking myself another questions, the proverbial Newton’s Apple hit me in the head and I was brought to think of this moment:

LIGHTING BULB MOMENT part 1 Visual Kings who? I only know Min Yoongi:

LIGHTING BULB MOMENT part 2 (different angle):

This moment is often used in many jikook edits and it comes from SINCHON (신촌) FANSIGN which happened May 15, 2015. 2015 is what triggered this memory, also the fact that they were talking about sleeping probably whispered to the synapses in my brain that if anything, it would have been connected to this period in time. 

… Now before we move on, during my search of the 2015 SINCHON fansign I found the following “jikook”, cause really it is JK and JM is also there, clip, which I found so cute, so I am sharing with y’all 🥹🥹. For the record, I could find any upload of the full fansign, there is a lot of HQ pictures but I’m guess that at the time people were not yet invested/capable rightfully so to fully film ANY BTS fansite:

Getting back on track, as I found nothing with regards to our Careless Whispers on the May 15, 2015 though I could have continued with my other trailed which would have eventually given me my solution 😬 I thought of looking through interviews prior to 2015 and found nothing. Then I’m not sure why I decided to look at the bird app feed between May 15, 2015 and June 23, 2015, but I did and following is a bit of summary of how it was in that almost month:

Still nothing as to where it all generated. Knowing the answer now in hindsight, I wonder if I couldn’t get to this answer earlier because I was trying to find it confirmed or because I didn’t know the actual whole sentence until I found that 95HYYH and then believed it was a conspiracy or most likely I felt like i was a spy in some mystery and didn’t want the search to end so quickly. So back I went to my original trail and you guessed it; a couple of searches later, I found the answer. The originally tweet that started it all back in January 16, 2015:

And so it is that I am confidently going to declare our first Tanogy as:  

“... Poison Apple”.

NGL, this was hella fun, as I also got to know things of the Jikook of the past that I actually didn’t know. That aside, there is something fulling about going in search of truth and getting results regardless of them being what we hoped for or not; the truth is the truth and if you keep looking for it hard enough WHILE KNOWING YOUR BOUNDARIES, NOT OVERSTEPPING PEOPLE’S RIGHTS TO SAFETY AND RESPECTING EVERYONE’S PRIVACY eventually you will find it.

Always respectfully yours 💜🫰🏾,

Marengo.

[dreamboundedstar]

More Zekina Headcanons (Mostly Romantic, Some Are Just Headcanons for Them as Characters)

1. Zeke eats a lot of food with garlic in it to prepare himself for a vampire strike. (side note, the fact that vampires are one of the things Zeke dreads at night ((revealed in "Y Tu Ga-Ga Tambien")) is interesting when you think about "Vampire Disco Death Dance". That boy dreads vampires, but he's still the first to finally get himself and the others to finally watch the movie with Tina. That's just really sweet to do despite his fear. Though I suppose he would probably still watch vampire movies because of the thrill of being scared, he just doesn't want them to be real.)

2. Tina loves vampires but mourns that she probably could never have a vampire boyfriend if they were actually real because she doesn't want to give up garlic bread. So she'll just stick to zombies and other monster boyfriend options.

3. Zeke calls Tina, Sweet T every now and then along with his usual TBird and Tina Girl when they start dating.

4. Tina is not really good at pet names. The last time she did one she was teased for not knowing what a thunderbird was ( My first Zekina headcanon posts for context). So she usually leaves the pet names to Zeke. Though she can take pleasure in knowing she's one of the few people that Zeke is okay with saying his full first name, Ezekiel. Though, every now and then she will call me Kiel when she's feeling spicy (look up the definition of "keel" and you'll know why it's spicy especially if you know my headcanon of Zeke getting a captain's license XD)

5. Zeke reads poetry and classic literature every now and then when he's lonely at home. Tina is impressed by his interest in poetry and classic literature because it contrasts so much with his personality. His interest in poetry helped build his creativity so he later could write songs with Jimmy Jr or Gene.

6. Zeke graduates from air guitar to actual, acoustic guitar because I say so. LOL

7. Before dating (but after she's officially over Jimmy Junior), sometimes Zeke would purposefully try to start competitions with Tina because he loves butting heads with her when she gets very competitive and trash-talky in a game setting.

If he's not ready to get serious with Tina then he might as well have some fun and goad her into a competition of who can create the best puns, that being one example at least.

Tina doesn't realize this is another one of Zeke's ways of flirting with her until much, much later. She just assumes he's being an annoying butthead that wants to get a rise out of her. (I just want more of their competitiveness from "Friends with Burger-Fits", it's so cute and funny!)

8. It takes a while for Tina and Zeke to go anywhere with their relationship because both are so comfortable being friends. Zeke isn't subtle about wanting to date her but never seems like he takes it seriously as a defense mechanism, so Tina always assumes he's joking. Tina takes a while to be ready to admit to herself she's attracted to Zeke because he looks nothing like what she usually goes for in a guy aside from growing taller in his later years and his accent.

9. Tina is the first to confess she like likes Zeke but Zeke is the one who asks her out. (Technically Zeke was the first one to confess he like liked Tina, but he never really made a serious move so Tina is the true confession that helped Zeke get serious and make his move seriously)

10.  Zeke gave Tina wildflowers (a step up from just weeds XD) on their first date to make up for the fact he couldn't afford a store-bought bouquet on top of all the other stuff he planned to do with her. He continues to give her wildflowers every now and then until their first-year anniversary. For their anniversary he surprises her with a bouquet of white gardenias, red roses, and lavenders. (Gardenia because it's Tina's favorite flower, lavender because it's the smell of the candle Zeke was holding in "Tina and the Real Ghost", and the red rose because that's what Tina received from Jimmy Jr. in "The Gene & Courtney Show". Just Zeke casually making up for never giving Tina a carnation in that episode XD)

11. Once Zeke made a love song for Tina about bumper cars just so he could say the phrase "bumper to bumper" after finding out Tina liked it when the traffic updates said it. Tina was really into the song. He couldn't do a song specifically about the traffic updates because it was too boring for him. lol

12. Tina tries to be as supportive of Zeke as he is of her and become his hype woman. She's not great at it, but she's trying her best and Zeke will always appreciate her for that.

13. Tina often fears she isn't giving enough in the relationship because Zeke gives so much by comparison. Part of it is to make up for the years of never giving him a chance as well as being hostile to him at the beginning. Zeke tells her she doesn't need to run herself ragged to prove to herself the relationship is equal. She's already enough on her own for him. He doesn't hold it against her for how she acted when she was 13 and neither should she for herself. Heck, they probably wouldn't even have a relationship if she still held onto all the gross or naughty stuff he did at 13. She'll never understand how he can be so darn understanding.

14. When they watch scary movies, Zeke holds onto Tina acting like he's comforting her when in reality he's just hiding he's the one that needs to be held and just holds onto Tina to remedy it. Tina is very much aware of this and simply lets Zeke be the tough guy protecting his girl for his sake. It's not like Tina is completely unaffected by scary films anyway, so she does appreciate the embrace. She tries to remember to return the favor and embrace him back when he embraces her. However. sometimes she enjoys the embrace and immerses in the moment too much that she forgets accidentally.

15. Zeke is the first to say I love you to Tina. (I have no idea how it's going to happen. It's either going to be super casual by accident or the most obnoxious thing in the world on purpose. I will settle for no inbetweens! XD)

16. Zeke proposes to Tina on Halloween with his late grandma's wedding ring. He originally wanted to reenact what Tina did in "Tina and the Real Ghost" (because that was the day he realized he had a crush on her in my headcanon) and surprise her. Things get out of hand when Louise decides Zeke needs help to make the proposal more memorable and add some more zombie spice. Louise gets Calvin and his carnies involved to make it seem like Mr. Fishoeder started a zombie apocalypse for free labor and now is going to pull a Frankenstein on Tina and Zeke by killing them and using both their parts for a new body. That way his brain can live on in a new, immortal, stitched-up body that could always be in control of his zombie carnies.

Zeke was able to catch on none of it was real once Mr. Fishoeder said the words that copied what Zeke wrote in ketchup in the mausoleum,

Tonight you will depart from this mortal state.

To be reborn as one, this is your fate.

Tina was a mix of trying to rationalize everything because she knew zombies weren't real and also thinking this was something she wouldn't put past Mr. Fishoeder doing. While Zeke was going to have a few words with Louise later, he just went along with it and kept his fingers crossed that Tina would be into it. He intended to shock her a bit before proposing to her, not full-out scare her into thinking a real zombie apocalypse was happening.

When he finally asked her to marry him, the zombie carnies stopped moving toward them, music started playing (you pick what song it is. I assume it's from Gene because I think the Belcher family is hiding in the background of the cemetery somewhere lol), and the zombie carnies dance. They also moan to the instrumental of the song as if they were trying to sing it.

Tina says yes but also has so many questions about all that just happened. Zeke credits everything aside from the ketchup writing in the mausoleum to Louise. He told her not to do it because he didn't want Tina mad at him for making her think her life was in danger just for a proposal. Zeke assumes that Louise took it as a "wink-wink-nudge-nudge" no and did it anyway, thinking he meant he just didn't want to be blamed for it.

Calvin also confirms that even if he wanted to go to Frankenstein on someone he would of went after way sexier people for his new body and the couple was so not on his sexy list. Calvin and the carnies, now acting normal leave the pair alone in the cemetery so they can go home.

Zeke tries to apologize to Tina for the chaos but is cut off by the intense passion of her lips.  After the deep kiss, Tina tells him it was the best Halloween, zombie-themed proposal ever and she couldn't imagine a better way to be proposed to. Zeke got over his anger with Louise pretty quickly after that.

The Belcher family hops from their hiding spots and runs to go hug and congratulate the couple on their engagement.

(On that Halloween, Zeke went as Frankenstein's Mobster and Tina went as Frankenstein's Mobster's Lich or Frankenstein's Lich for shortening's sake. Just don't make an acronym of the longer version XD. The idea is that Frankenstein's monster found a lich, got together, and they formed a zombie mafia where they're both the bosses)

Anyway, that's it for my Zekina headcanons for now. I have no doubt I will probably make more in the future. Especially if I get some good character interaction between Tina and Zeke in "So You Stink You Can Dance" on the 23rd. I really hope they work together to support Jimmy Jr. in that episode!

[advancewarsdaysofruin]

Hello life update

Haven’t been on this site in years and I like posting life updates years after I leave a website. Not sure when my last posts were but I got major life updates, sometimes I still think of y’all.

Anyways:

I don’t go by Vince anymore but don’t mind being called Vince still. I don’t ID as a trans guy anymore. I’m agender now. He/they pronouns are good. She/her only if you think I’d be getting hatecrimed in public. I’m a boy in a girl way and I’m a girl in a boy way. Sometimes I’m both sometimes I’m neither.

1 year anniversary of me working full time in research. Turns out I hate research actually and am thinking of switching careers idk when but it will happen. Got a guy willing to help me out with it.

Went to therapy Aug 2021 and it’s been a journey. I stopped going not because I think I’m normal now but lol that shit cost money. Might go again bc for years I’ve been thinking whether or not I have ADHD or Autism or both.

Been learning Korean since 2020 but my 4th semester isn’t certain bc as it stands we probably don’t have enough people available to join the class. Kinda sucks man :/

Still in Overwatch/Splatoon brainrot mode lol this year I’m totally gonna get fucked up playing OW2/Sp3. Ya I still kept my shitty OCs as well as making new ones. I love Overwatch League and stan Houston Outlaws.

I don’t draw everyday anymore. In fact, I hardly draw at all. Sucks but what can you do. I might try to pick back up again.

Got my own (used) car.

Moved out of my folks place in Feb 2022. It’s been very good. Sure I have less spending money but my mental improved dramatically. I was in a really bad spot mentally living with them. 

Gave dating apps a shot and I’ve been on plenty of dates. Rn I’m seeing 3 guys with another one meant just to be casual. Idk if I wanna get married but if I did, it could very well be with one of these 3 guys. I got a thing for engineers apparently.

Met friends on these sort of apps too. Y’all heard of bumble bff?? Met some poggers people and I feel far less lonely in this city now. I basically have plans almost every weekend.

Got my Gaming PC built. I can finally play Overwatch and not mald (as much)

Found a love for badminton lol.

Twitter is: https://twitter.com/AdvanceWarsDS

[self-ships-ahoy]

hi! any 5 of the end of year asks?

end of the year selfship ask game 

Oh- uhh I guess I'll do the first 5 then! Thank you for the ask, Kitty!!

1: Have you gained any new F/Os this year?

Indeed I have! Bruno and Sigma for romantic f/os, and Mic returned to the list as well. I think I also added the "Crush f/o" category this year, adding 3 more f/os to that list.

2: If you did add any new F/Os to your list this year, was there someone who you absolutely didn’t expect would end up becoming an F/O? if so, did it take you a long time to realize you like them, or did they take your heart by storm?

Sigma was quite a surprise. I only got to know him through a friend in a Discord server, and I had vague knowledge of ovw's existence prior to adding him. I really fought it too, seen in my "vague and frustrated ramblings". It was just so strange to me! But I honestly fell pretty quickly despite the fighting. He didn't leave as much of a lasting impact on me as I thought (I was expecting him to one day surpass Medic), but he's still here. 😊

3: Did a relationship with an F/O change in a major way (i.e. you started dating a platonic F/O or realized you prefer a formerly romantic F/O to be a friend, got married/engaged to an F/O, etc)? if so, did it happen more spontaneously, or was it something you had planned for a while?

Medic and I did celebrate our first wedding anniversary! I also dropped an f/o (Vinnie D.akota), finally realizing after a long feelings-testing period that I don't have any desire to date him anymore or any strong feelings for him. However...something might be happening with me and Dai Zong.. <u<

4: Who would you crown to be your “F/O of the year”? (the criteria for what makes them F/O of the year are entirely up to you!)

Medic, for sure. XD The new guys had some brief attention when first arriving, but most of the year went to mein liebe for the second year in a row. He's been the one I thought about the most, drew the most, posted about the most, and just overall held my braincell the longest lol. Also was the first f/o to achieve the honor of being the main f/o for 2 years straight, and the first to make it to a wedding anniversary!

5: Regardless of who you’d pick for the previous question, which F/O would you say you spent the most time with this year (i.e. by thinking/talking about them the most, creating a lot of art or writing for your ship…)?

...Medic! I technically probably have talked about him the most on here, but I've also talked even more about it in the Discord server I'm in; it's become one of the resident favorite ships due to how much I've talked about it lol. And again, I've drawn him the most as well. But that's gonna change soon as I learn to draw more of my f/os for the first time!

This has definitely been his year, even though creating our special au has been difficult, and sometimes I felt like giving up and that trying was no use. But I just love him too much not to try. And I'd like to thank you all for supporting me through it all, all the ups and down of self shipping in general. The f/os are why I'm here, but it's you guys that make it special, so thank you. :)

[fizztapp]

My final Smash Pass DLC predictions are Bandana Dee and Dixie Kong (with a vague prediction of a Mario Character if Dee doesn't make it) and if you would allow me to be insane for a second I will explain to you why

Before we start there is a rumor that would be relevant to some of these points. The rumor is that Steve was supposed to be the final fighter of pass 1 but got shuffled to pass 2 because he needed more time in the oven. If that's true, then when compared to pass 1, pass 2 has been very dialed back so far. Being solely Nintendo IPs, & Sephiroth who's a 3rd party w/ a series in smash already. 

/

/

Here we go!

____________________

1: It is Our Turn

Waddle Dee and Dixie would be as disappointing of an announcement to JRPG fans as Byleth and Pyra were to mascot platformer fans. A bit arbitrary but it lines up! For some reason this point is what really opened my mind to the possibility that these two have a chance LOL.

____________________

2: Advertisement 

It's reasonable to assume we will get a new mainline Kirby game in the next year or so (maybe even at this E3) due to Star Allies being 3 years old at this point. And we know for certain a new DK game is coming, likely to show up at this E3 or in a later direct down the line (it mostly depends on if they want to make BOTW 2 their main showcase/holiday release or not).

Even if these two aren't at E3, they would still be filling the same "advertisement character" role that people accused Min Min/Byleth/Pyra to be.

____________________

3: Anniversary

Nintendo never cares much about anniversaries when it comes to stuff like this, BUT... Imagine we get a Mario character, as a delayed-due-to-covid Mario 35th slot. And THEN Dixie as the Donkey Kong 40th celebration. I know people wince at the thought of another Mario character as DLC, but you know how Nintendo is. Telling Sakurai to add one last Mario character during the year where they promoted/celebrated the hell out of Mario would track.

IF THAT WAS THE CASE THOUGH, I imagine they would have shuffled characters around to at least let this new Mario character take Pyra/Mythra’s spot, so it would still be released during the “Mario 35th” time period. 

(also Bandana Dee wouldn’t get added in this scenario)

____________________

4: Nintendo’s Donkey Kong Epiphany

Nintendo has been going crazy about Donkey Kong and have a LOT planned for the series coming up, as K. Rool winning the ballot really opened up their eyes to how much fans love the DKC RARE games. So while I don't think we NEED Dixie (We already got K. Rool and Banjo, which is insane), I could see Nintendo, or even Miyamoto, giving Sakurai a lil nudge. (Also Miyamoto’s favorite Kong is Cranky... so maybe we’ll get a Cranky drop tomorrow? LOL)

____________________

5: Japan Loves Waddle Dee

Waddle Dee is HUGELY popular in Japan. Hal markets Waddle dee almost as much as Kirby!! And people love it!!! and I get it!!!! I don’t think westerners realize this.

____________________

6: Smash Ballot

Dee and Dixie are both characters which we can assume did well in the character ballot, & are two big Nintendo characters that really feel missing from the roster.

In a big character poll that people always reference to, all of the top 10 characters have gotten in besides THE TWO KIRBY CHARACTERS: Bandana Dee & Magolor. Which I feel indicates that Nintendo would look at Kirby when thinking about new Nintendo characters to add to a 2nd Pass. Again, NO OTHER SERIES had 2 characters in the top 10 besides Kirby. 

Hell, the only other series that have multiple characters on this chart are DONKEY KONG and arguably Mario. And while I mention Dixie, I will point out that out that if we exclude all of the old smash characters from the poll, Dixie is 11th most wanted. Still pretty popular! Nothing to sneeze at (is that the saying?).

____________________

7: Final Characters

Smash character announcements always end on a whimper rather than a roar, and while Dixie/Waddle Dee would be a roar for me personally, I'm aware that people want to see big 3rd parties like Crash and Doom, not Nintendo side characters.

Like I said, it would be another Byleth or Inciniroar to cap off the reveals.

BUT, if the rumor stated at the top of this post is true, and Steve was the final character of Pass 1, that would have been a HUGE final character. But in the end, Nintendo and Smash still have a history of putting underwhelming reveals near the end.

____________________

9: GIRL

Dixie being a girl character might give her a better chance. This is a more speculative point (well, all of these are speculative LOL), but this pass has been giving us more girls to help even the roster more, so who knows! They might be looking for girls since the base roster and the first pass are largely male dominated. 

Min Min, Alex, Pyra/Myth. Girl Byleth if you count Byleth in pass 2.

Also this gives Toad/Captain Toad a foothold too? Toadette alt!

/

/

____________________

In conclusion they are funny and I like them

[phoenix-downer]

Melody of Memory Thoughts

I finished the game yesterday and have a lot of thoughts on it, so I thought I’d stick them all in one megapost. Contains spoilers, for obvious reasons. 

So, going into the game, I knew the plot choices would be questionable/disappointing because a few friends warned me, but I didn’t know the exact details. I was actually relieved things weren’t as bad as I feared they might be—I was worried Kairi would be going back to sleep or going back to Destiny Islands to patiently wait, so at least we did not get that. I think knowing what I was getting into beforehand helped prepare me for the plot points we did get. 

Gameplay

I’ll talk about the gameplay first because that’s easier to summarize. I had a lot of fun with it, and the trip down memory lane with all the familiar music was wonderful. I played with Sora, Donald, Goofy, and then Terra, Aqua, and Ventus, and it was really satisfying in particular to play as the latter three because I always wanted to see them fighting as a team more often. I need to try out the other teams; perhaps I will soon. 

I loved the attention to detail with the character animations and the little loading screens. The main menu scenes were adorable too, and it was nice seeing the characters chatting to each other. Riku’s scene with the Dream Eaters was precious. 

I played the songs on various difficulties, depending on the extra challenges. One thing I did notice is that the difficulty was variable even for the same level. Some Proud mode songs I was able to complete, others I really struggled with and gave up on for the time being. I can imagine it was difficult to create a consistent standard of difficulty when the music itself varies so much. I noticed that battle songs, songs with strong downbeats, and songs with syncopation translated better into rhythm games. The slower songs did not, and for a couple of songs I noticed that the buttons were not matching up with the rhythm, which threw me through a loop. Overall though, most of the music matches the timing of the buttons much better than in previous KH games, so I appreciated the improvement there. 

The Memory Dive and Boss Battle system is different from the Field Battle system, so there was a learning curve for me there. KH3 features more Memory Dive segments though, probably to show off the nicer graphics and to prepare you for the final battle. By the time I got the hang of the Memory Dive system, I was enjoying myself a lot. I still wish KH3 songs had featured more, but perhaps they’re planning on a Melody of Memory Volume 2 or some DLC or something. 

Pretty much all of the character themes have to be unlocked. I’ve done Kairi’s, Naminé’s, and Sora’s so far, and the videos accompanying them are really nice. I honestly wish I could watch someone play so I can pay attention to the videos because the glimpses I catch are lovely.

Maybe it’s because I marathoned the game, but it does start to feel grind-y after several hours of playing. It’s the kind of grinding I enjoy doing, but by the time I unlocked BBS and DDD, I stopped trying to complete the extra challenges because I wanted to get to the plot. Speaking of the plot, by the way, all of the new stuff is at the end of the game. Everything up till then is just a summary of what’s come before. I do understand why Nomura went with that, but it does make it a little tiring to get to the new plot because of the sheer number of songs you have to get through first. 

Now that we’re discussing story, though...

Story

I. The Good

1. Kairi is playable (well, this is more gameplay, but it also ties into story). 

I know a lot of people watched videos that cut out the gameplay, but she does get a couple of segments of her own where she is playable and you get to do a Memory Dive-esque segment. The first instance is set to “Stranded Beyond,” the music that plays in the Final World. The second instance is set to the music box version of her theme I believe it was as she gathers pieces of her heart. She did get a render for the game, so I was expecting her to be playable at some point, and I was happy she was. 

2. Kairi puts up a darn good fight against Xehanort. I wish we could have played through this part, but she kept attacking and didn't let him grabbing her Keyblade deter her. She's clearly improved even since the Keyblade Graveyard. 

3. Sora showing up to help her is really sweet, as was her thanking him. 

It would've been nice if we got to do that fight as the two of them or as Kairi herself (and more on that later), but the romance of it all was nice. The boy's not even in the real world anymore, and he still shows up to help when Kairi’s is in danger. At first I thought she'd managed to summon his Keyblade, which is awesome and shows how connected they are, and then he appeared and I was like woah okay guess their hearts really are connected thanks to the paopu fruit. 

 4. Kairi’s going to train with Aqua! Yes! 

The fans have been clamoring for this for years and it's finally happening! And she chose it for herself. Leave it to her to try to make the best of the short end of the stick. 

5. Letting Riku go alone takes a lot of trust on her end. Yeah, it would've been nice if she got to go, but she's also realistic about her own abilities, and that is in line with how she's been in previous games. I think especially after her failures led to Sora disappearing, she'd be hesitant to rush into danger if she's worried she'd be a liability.

6. It was a pleasant surprise that the Nameless Star was the third key (with Kairi and Riku being the other two) and not Yozora. I thought for sure he would be, so I’m glad Nameless Star gets to be instead. She seems like a kind soul and I like her a lot already. 

7. It was nice hearing Kairi's thoughts on Sora's sacrifice for her in KH1. I also love the implication that everyone’s told Kairi their stories, hence why she’s able to tell them to us. The BBS segments especially sound as if she spoke to Aqua in particular about what happened, which ties in nicely to how Aqua’s going to train her at the end. 

8. Alyson upped her voice acting game in this, props to her. Her lines when Kairi was facing off against Xehanort were great, and her voice was very soothing to listen to for the narration. 

III. The Bad

1. Kairi should've been playable in that last battle. I can see why Nomura had Sora show up though; he's the hero and people want to see him, etc. The same issue happened with Riku getting sidelined in KH3, so it's hardly unique to Kairi; it just seems worse because of Kairi’s past treatment. Sora showing up was a cool moment and looked neat visually, but it would’ve been better if he and Kairi had fought together or if he’d encouraged her and then she’d done the fighting herself. Sadly, Sora winds up shining more in this game than Kairi does as a result, and the advertising feels like a huge bait-and-switch. Again. 

I'm honestly beginning to wonder if part of the story for ReMind was written after Melody of Memory, because Melody of Memory seems to follow more directly from KH3 whereas ReMind almost feels like it was written... in reaction to the fanbase being upset about how Kairi was treated? I think Nomura must’ve had his heart set on certain plot points for the story post-KH3, and instead of letting his characters guide him, he’s forcing his decisions on the characters. Which leads me to the next point: 

2. Kairi staying behind does feel like a character regression. It made sense in KH1 and during Blank Points I suppose, but it's disappointing she didn't go with Riku this time. I guess it's realistic though, and so the whole plot point is a mixed bag. It's hard for me to make a final judgment call on this until we see more of the story. Is she training with Aqua so she can be shunted aside, or is she going to be in a game with Terra, Aqua, and Ven that delves into Ven's past or something? Until we know more, I’m not sure how to feel. 

3. If I had to guess, the next game(s) will have Riku, Yozora, and Mickey be playable. Possibly Sora too because Nomura can't help himself lol. This is... about what I expected. I figured Riku would be the one in Yozora's world just based on the secret ending of KH3. I wonder how all of this is going to go down (I know Square has several KH teams now, so multiple games are probably in development right now). 

4. I don’t know how I feel about us possibly getting DDD the Redux + Yozora for the 20th anniversary in 2022. Having another DDD-esque game would not be treading any new ground, and it feels like Nomura wants to do Versus XIII at all costs, the main plot of KH be hanged (hi Foretellers and Luxu, we miss you, you were disappointingly absent in this game). But I do think the Yozora game is next in the cards, and then maybe there will be another game focused on Mickey going to Scala ad Caelum. I really hope it's not just Mickey by himself in that game... And I’d really like a game about the Wayfinder Trio + Kairi...

5. Riku's character is getting worse and worse. His entire character has become about saving Sora, and saving Sora isn't any different than his role in DDD. Feels like a rehash of past plot points, much like Kairi having to train feels like a rehash of past plot points. And at this point it just feels like he’s taking away screentime and agency from other characters, Kairi in particular. David also kind of phoned in the voice acting again on this game. To be fair, he only had a handful of lines, but some of his lines in KH3 also sounded tired and bored. 

6. There’s only a passing mention to Roxas, Naminé, Xion, Axel, etc., and not even by name (they’re just lumped together as the others in Twilight Town or something along those lines). It would've been nice to know what they've been up to; they feel strangely uninvolved in the plot. At least we know Kairi will be training with Aqua, so there's that. 

7. I really wish Kairi had argued with Riku more about going. She did briefly, but it's sad that she gives up so easily and that Riku doesn't really trust her. It's such a huge contrast to how Sora treats her; whereas he believes in her and raises her up, Riku is like, "Nah, you should stay behind, you're not good enough yet, let me handle this." Riku still coddles her too much and treats her like she’s a doll on a shelf whereas Sora invites her to fight alongside him in ReMind and comes to her aid when she needs it. Riku comes out of this looking like a jerk, which I doubt was intended by Nomura, but it is what it is. Especially because Mickey is really worried about him going alone later on. 

8. Kairi's backstory being used only to forward the plot instead of delving into her feelings more is a missed opportunity. Also features retcons galore with Xehanort apparently sending her away to save Radiant Garden all along? That part confused me. And the meta implication that Riku is getting to go on the journey she was originally meant to go on... It makes me wonder if Nomura thinks the implications of his writing through. Riku is literally stealing her role and her plotline now, and neither of them react like two people in such a situation would. I hope Nomura’s going somewhere with this and that it's not just completely unintended bad implications, or worse, fully intended bad implications...

III. Miscellaneous Thoughts

1. It's hard to know how to feel about this game without knowing the next chapters of the story. It does feel like it leads directly from KH3, but it feels like a regression character-wise from ReMind. 

2. I hope Kairi going to train with Aqua isn't just an excuse to sideline her from the plot... again. I have some serious caveats about her role going forward, but I'm relieved she didn't go to sleep again or go back home to Destiny Islands. That was my worst fear, and thank goodness she is taking her fate into her own hands in the small ways she can. I wonder if this is Nomura trying to continue a plot point from BBS Volume 2 that had to be scrapped or something. Let's hope Aqua can actually teach her competently, unlike Merlin...

3. Mickey getting a Melody of Memory render confuses me. He wasn't playable, was he? I didn't 100% the game so I have no idea. Maybe he is playable somewhere in the game and I haven’t gotten to it yet. Or maybe he really will be playable in a future game as a main character. 

4. No one will ever be able to claim Kairi is a Mary Sue lol. She's had an (almost disappointingly realistic) learning curve when it comes to fighting, especially in comparison to the other characters. I hope that by the time KH4 rolls around, Nomura will let her be fully competent/fully trained. It's frustrating that pretty much all of the other characters get to learn as they go, but she is relegated to more training.

5. This game almost makes me more impatient for the next chapter of the story when I was feeling pretty content after ReMind. I guess the game has done its job in that case, but while I feel better than I did after KH3, I feel slightly worse than I did after ReMind. I wish Nomura wasn't so fixated on maintaining the status quo and would stop rehashing past plot points. But again, it'll be hard to judge all this until we get more material, which probably won't be till 2022 at the earliest if I had to guess.

6. The Yozora stuff wasn't as hackneyed as I feared it would be, but I still can't shake the feeling that that whole plot point is sucking up precious screentime from other characters. I think Nomura's going to spread himself too thin again and have trouble wrapping all of this up in KH4. Because now we have the Riku-going-to-Yozora's-world plotline, the Mickey-going-to-Scala-ad-Caelum plotline, the Kairi-training-with-Aqua plotline, the overall-rescuing-Sora plotline, the Luxu-Foretellers-MoM plotline, the Subject X plotline... how on earth are all these plotlines supposed to be connected to each other and resolved in a satisfying fashion?

7. My guess is that the switch to Kairi being narrator instead of Chirithy happened late into development of the game, perhaps because Nomura saw how much the fanbase does appreciate Kairi and wanted to throw us a bone. Unfortunately, what resulted is a bait-and-switch that made us hope we'd get a Kairi-focused game, only for it to... end the way it does. Ironically, I think it might've been less disappointing if Chirithy had remained the narrator. I'm glad Kairi got to be the narrator, don't get me wrong, but I think the way Nomura handled things set us up for disappointment again. I just hope whatever comes next makes this game feel better in hindsight.

8. I’m not entirely sure what to make of the whole “unreality”/fictional worlds thing. I guess I’m having an easier time accepting it than I thought I might, but it still feels like the whole plotline was introduced just to shove Versus XIII into the KH universe. I sympathize with Nomura for having his baby taken away from him in the first place, but I worry both it and KH will suffer as a result of combining the two. 

IV. Future Speculation

1. If I had to guess, Kairi is probably not going to be very involved in the Yozora game(s). It'll be focused on Riku, Yozora, and possibly Mickey and Sora too. Yozora and Nameless Star will probably be instrumental in bringing Sora back "to the real world,” and then Sora will come home just in time to have to face off against the Foretellers and the Master of Masters in KH4 (which, I'm gonna make a wild guess and assume we'll get in 2025 or 2026 at the earliest).

2. I do hope Kairi plays some role in bringing Sora back, and honestly, I think it's possible she will. Nomura, I would imagine, is setting up her reunion with Sora to be Big and Important™️, so it wouldn't surprise me if he wants to save it for KH4. I think a part of Sora’s heart might be inside Kairi or linked to Kairi, and that will be the final key to bringing him back. The whole scene where Sora appeared reminded me of when Ven briefly manifested when Sora was facing off against Vanitas, and Ven was inside Sora’s heart at the time. 

3. We know from past covers that the current cover actually foreshadows future events in the story. KH3's cover depicts parts of Tokyo and then Sora wakes up there (oh excuse me "Quadratum" lol nice one SQUARE), the KH2 Final Mix cover depicted The Final World, so maybe MoM's cover is meant to depict future events as well.

4. Sora being unable to speak in Kairi’s dream when he faces off against Xehanort has me intrigued. Why can’t he speak? Is it because his heart is in the unreality? All I can think about is The Little Mermaid when Ariel lost her voice because of Ursula’s curse “deal” with her. 

5. I don’t think the person Kairi and Sora actually fought was Xehanort. Why would a dead Xehanort care about where Sora is? It would make more sense to me if it was the Master of Masters (hinted at by the acronym for the title, MoM), and that he was using Xehanort’s image (and then Xemnas’s, and then Ansem SOD’s, and then Apprentice Xehanort...) to manipulate Kairi. It would fit his whole “puppetmaster behind the scenes” vibe I get from him and his previous manipulation of Xehanort. I think he was trying to locate Sora’s heart in this game, and Sora stepping in to help Kairi allowed him to pinpoint Sora’s location. Now he seems to know where Sora’s heart is, so mission accomplished, I guess? Ooooph, Sora walked right into that trap if that’s the case.

V. Final Thoughts

Fun if uneven gameplay and some questionable story choices dragging down the good stuff. I’ll hold my full judgment till we see what happens next though. 

Congrats if you made it all the way to the end of this, haha. I’d be happy to hear your thoughts! 

[macaronnya]

So I just saw the announcement about the EN server shutting down or at least dicontinued (hopefully just for now) and I might just burst into tears 🥲 I want to put my thoughts or rather feelings of the journy up until now on here to come down but maybe also as some form of comfort for anyone who needs it? It's very long and might have some broken english as it's not my first language so do keep it in mind please 😅

Anyways, I started A3! last year on march 7th because I saw a youtube video of people cosplaying Sakuya and Sakyo. At taht point, I already knew of A3! somewhere in my distant memories back when it was JP only. I decided to try out the game since I was getting bored of my current mobile games and the few reviews I could find of it were relatively positive. I had no idea just what a big part of my life this game was about the become 🤧

Btw I'm listening to some A3! songs right now, specifically Sakuya's 2nd character song, and it's not helping me 😢 So at the time, lockdown just started 2 days ago, which left me with a lot of time playing it and, I kid you not, I gulfed the main story down like it was the last slice of cake at home. I have 2 siblings. I think I finished it in a week or so despite it being only unlockable through leveling up, and if my memory serves me right, you need to be around lvl 75 to unlock all 4 episodes. As one can see, I was VERY invested in the story. It was just so....nice? I don't know how to exactly describe it but I was surprised by how likable everyone was. Of course I didn't hold such strong feelings for everyone back then as I do now but I was intrigued enough back then of nearly everyone, which is kind of rather rare in such types of games, no? At least for me it is, although I haven't played terribly a lot (Love Live, MLQC, Mystic Messenger).

I really like how the story actually continues through the events and how it alternated between stories exploring certain characters more (show events) and stories focusing on just them having fun. Getting to know everyone bit by bit and seeing how everyone grows closer to each other, not only within their respective troupes but the whole theater, makes me really all warm and fuzzy and it's found family, what more could you want?

Also, I really like Izumi, our dear MC 🥰 Even though she's supposed to be our self-insert, I found myself really enjoying reading her thoughts, observing her reactions to other characters' shenanigans (like her 'I do not see' to the members plan of faking their identity to bail Citron out lol) and just....her personality. Trying not to digress here but she has a lot more personality than other MCs in these joseimuke games and it makes her interactions with others not only bearable but even enjoyable. I'm not saying that this is what a perfect MC looks like or that she's superior to bland self-inserts. After all, it depends on the story, gameplay and other things. It's just a nice bonus I'm very grateful for. I mean, I got really emotional when Izumi performed with the other staff members all of the plays the actors have put out so far for the first anniversary. Her realizing she gained a new dream for her lost one just really took my heart, broke it in thousand pieces and then mended it again.

I also love A3! songs ❤ I did wonder how they would work in this franchise since it's not about idols but actors, though I guess there was nothing to worry about. I really like the duets because it's always a different duo and hearing them singing together, harmonizing with each other, complimenting each other, just fills me with undescribable joy. Of course the songs also slap pretty much every time. Even by limiting my options to 1 troupe, I still wouldn't be able to pick only one favourite (I like the majority of Winter's song tho, like Shoutai is just 🤌 and my sibling blasted Unmasked non-stop so I can't get it outta my head anymore). Gosh, I was so excited for 'Double Solitaire' since it would complete trilogy of the Hyodosakas singing together. I was really looking forward to getting all the songs and I was even saving up for Summer Troupe's 6th play.

If I had to describe the game A3! in one word, it'd be "charming". Coming to game itself, there are so many little quirks, that on their own aren't anything groundbreaking or big but together give the game its own flair. Live 2D is pretty common to see nowdays in games because it brings the characters to life through movements like 3D models. But I think A3! is able to illustrate it just as well, if not even better with their 2D sprites. Citron moonwalked by flipping the image over and sliding across the screen, Hisoka appeared out of nowhere by coming from above the screen, they do a little jump when they're happy, they go down a bit when they're sad. And that's just things with their whole sprite. The little drops when Tsuzuru finds himself in an awkward situation or is worried, the little note when Sakuya is happy, the hearts when Kazunari is lowkey flirting with Izumi, it's so cute! Or Omi's O.O face, Taichi's crying face (the usual one, not his face when he cried out of guilt of betraying Mankai), Yuki's done expression, H O M A R E AHA! They each have at least one personalized expression and also quote. Can you hear Kazunari's Yoropiko~☆, Citron's humming, Taichi's loud ass whining and scream of terror, Tsumugi's awkawrd laugh? It's brimming with life.

But also the UI (?how it looks) is joyful. The main screen's background cascading shapes changes depending from which Troupe your current character is from, the loading screen has sakura petals and a bird, the colors are very bright and saturated fitting to the overall color palette of the whole game, the little notebook during practice showing all the necessary infomation and a little sketch by the characters. It's just really charming.

As frustrating as it was, not getting halloween Tsuzuru after 110 pulls or Valentine Omi after 120, it was my first time ever understanding why gachas are called hellholes. Through my strong connections to the characters, their cards automatically appealed to me more. But the art is also so good???? Azuma is always looking flawless obviously but Omi's unbloomed Wolf card, where he is standing in the sunset looking at his camera or Kazunari's Shinobi card, unbloomed all concentrated on his panting and bloomed all shiny smiling like the fireworks in the background? Breathtaking everytime. I also appreciate it not needing multiple copies to unlock the whole backstage story.

I think I'm slowly running out of things to say, which might be good for whoever managed to come this far. I have to say though, A3! helped me through the pandemic. Being a perfect distraction to the world's chaos and more importantly my crushing schoolwork and worries for personal future. I'm a very pessimistic person but seeing the characters overcoming their hardships through the help of their to-be "family" and just being happy doing trouble, gave me a little hope and light for a bit every day. I came to cherish everyone, even those I like the least. I haven't felt like this since Mystic Messenger, which was also a game, that helped me through a difficult time. I can only wish to a shooting star, that it's not the end for the EN Server yet. While yes, the JP server is thriving and I could just switch to reading fantranslation, through my experience, my enjoyment considerably sinks playing like that and I wish to fully enjoy A3!.

Anyways thanks for reading (maybe again). Sorry for all the possible errors on the way here. I'm writing everything directly without too much thought. If you want, you can also share your experiences in the comments. It's always nice to share good memories with others.

Edit: I accidentally posted it already but I wasn't actually done 😓 When I said I had a lot to let out, I meant A LOT

[excelsi-or]

just a little sweeter (pt. 14)

No recs from me this time. I can’t consume content that fast LOL. I’m trying for one post a day. After this one there might be five (???) parts left? I haven’t decided if I’m going to include one that I did. I think I need to rework it a little if I decide to post it. 

Anyway, enjoy this really fluffy, really cheesy, I don’t know what I was thinking kinda part. 

w.c. 1.2k (fluffy, fluff fluff; I’m trying to rot your teeth with the sweetness)

pt.1; pt.2; pt.3; pt.4; pt.5; pt.6; pt.7; pt.8; pt. 9; pt. 10; pt. 11; pt. 12; pt. 13

Jihoon pushes through the door and immediately hears giggling. He’s had the longest day in the world with one day blending into two. It is now almost 34 hours later, and he just wants to go to bed. Considering, it’s almost 8, Eunha should be winding down for the night. Gone are the days when his baby used to sleep when he slept or slept in his arms while he worked.

Mochi scampers up to him, skidding slightly as she loses traction on the hardwood. Jihoon scoops the puppy up and lets her lick his face in greeting. After taking the puppy to the groomer and getting Mochi properly cleaned, she turned fluffier than either of them had expected. The groomer said that she’ll get fluffier with more cleaning.

Jihoon leaves his bag in the kitchen so he can’t see it and heads to the living room. What he finds in his living room can only be described as a fort.

“What in the world is going on?” Jihoon demands. He was going to use the word fuck, but he recognizes his daughter’s giggling inside.

She pokes her head out the top. Her hair is up in a messy bun and her glasses emphasize her makeup that has started to smudge. “Building a fort.”

Jihoon lifts an eyebrow. She’s likely built the entire thing on her own. Eunha would have been absolutely useless. “Isn’t that a ltittle childish?”

She tips her head, her gaze dropping down briefly. A smile breaks out on her face as she presumably looks at Eunha. Then she meets his eyes again. “Does that mean you don’t want to join us?” Her head disappears back into the fort.

Jihoon waits a moment. He puts Mochi down and even his dog bounds into the fort, causing another burst of giggling.

He moves to stand in front of the TV and squats down. He finds Eunha already showered and dressed in her pajamas, cradled in her arms. The two girls look up at him and she makes a point of cuddling Eunha closer, showing off his cute baby and just how cute she actually is. When he searches for Mochi, he finds his white puppy already dozing underneath the bend in her legs.

Jihoon can’t help but smile, still shaking his head in mock disapproval. “Move over then.”

Eunha squeals in excitement as they move over to make room for Jihoon on Eunha’s other side. Jihoon listens while she reads Eunha a bedtime story. They’re reading the first Harry Potter, which isn’t quite scary yet, though his daughter has proven to have an affinity for scary things. One of her favourite games with Seungkwan, Seungcheol, and Jeonghan is to try to jump scare him.

She reads just until Eunha’s entire body goes limp. She adjusts Eunha so that Jihoon can hold her before stretching down to scoop up Mochi.

“You look exhausted,” she comments.

Jihoon hums. “Your reading almost put me to sleep.”

She reaches her free hand to Jihoon’s hair. “Why didn’t you?”

“I haven’t talked to you in a few days,” he hums. Her hand through his hair has the same effect as it does on Eunha and Mochi.

“You stressed out?”

“Not really. The album’s coming along.” He yawns. “Just a lot of stuff going on.”

“What else is wrong?” She chuckles at Jihoon’s cocked eyebrow. “You only force yourself to stay up and talk to me like this when there’s something you need, my love. So, what is it?”

“Can you pick up Eunha from my parents in two weeks?”

Her smile falters slightly. “You’re going on tour?”

“Yeah. Yeri’s parents are going to watch her for two days and then my parents will pick her up and take her to Busan.” Jihoon makes a face. “My mother might also be trying to find a way to talk to you without me around.”

She nods. Jihoon’s mother is nice. She has the sort of cut-throat attitude and blunt way of speaking that she’s found in Jihoon.

Jihoon digs around in his sweater pocket. He pulls out two plane tickets. “And if you wanted to come to Tokyo for the last stop of the tour…”

Her eyes widen in surprise. She stares at the tickets in his hand and then meets his eye. They’ve been together for nearly two years now. Eunha’s presence has made the relationship go faster, but also settle faster than any of her previous relationships. But considering that Jihoon performs constantly, she’s never seen him perform. Since Jihoon’s never brought it up, she assumed it wasn’t important to him.

Apparently, she was wrong.

“You want me to come?” She takes the tickets out of his hand and reads the information. “You want me to come to your concert? And bring your baby?”

“If bringing Eunha is too much of a hassle, I’ll tell my parents that Eunha will stay until we get home.”

She blinks. “This is just for me?”

“Eunha’s been to a lot of my concerts.” He pushes hair out of his baby’s face. “And you’ve never been. I want you to see it.”

She leans across Eunha to kiss him. Mochi stirs in her hands. “Sorry, baby.” She turns her attention to Jihoon. “Yes, I’ll come.”

Jihoon’s expression is of someone who didn’t expect a yes. “You can just take off from work like that?”

“If no one will open, I’ll close the café in the mornings.” She looks at the ticket. “Since I’m apparently being invited for a weekend.”

Jihoon nods. “If you’re willing to join me, I’m going to extend my stay. Mingyu, Wonwoo, Coups hyung and Jeonghanie hyung, said they were willing to stay to help cause some…” he tips his head both ways, “diversions, if necessary.”

That statement causes her to laugh in disbelief. “Wow. So, I can have you for a whole weekend.”

“They’re also willing to baby sit for a while, so if Eunha does come, we can still spend time together.”

She throws a hand up in faux frustration. “Well, Jihoon, how could I even think of not coming? You’ve planned it all.”

He chuckles. “Happy anniversary, jagi.”

She pouts. “One, we agreed anniversaries don’t matter. Two, we agreed no gifts or stuff if we remembered them.”

“You already take care of Eunha when I can’t. That means more to me than you could ever understand.” He nudges her with his arm. “That’s gift enough.”

“You adorable piece of,” she lowers her voice to say, “shit.”

Jihoon grins. “The members were mentioning that I’ve never invited you to a concert. And Seungkwan reminded me that it’ll be another year next week.”

“We have not been together that long, have we?”

“Well neither of us actually knows, so I believe him,” Jihoon says with a shrug.

“How exciting though,” she hums. “Shall we sleep?”

“What?” Jihoon looks around, “in here?”

“Well, unless you want to take down the fort and make the beds for us to sleep in, go ahead.” She snuggles down, Mochi now asleep half on her shoulder and half on the couch behind them, and Jihoon’s grip loosens as Eunha rolls over to cuddle into her.

Jihoon’s not going to ruin this adorable image, so he settles down next to them.

[horistans]

Please explain the detective au to us!!! I can’t read Japanese!!!! Thank you!! :)

Alright!! I'll Do My Best! I’ll be translating all the tweets released so far (from Nov. 20-26), but I’m not that fluent, so please be patient with me >.<;; I’ll also be taking some liberties to make it easier to understand in English so these won’t be direct translations. There may be multiple translations, so I welcome anyone else to also try to translate this! Mikoshiba also tweets in very casual speech, with lots of slang, so it’s possible I don’t properly translate some things.

To start, on Nov. 20, 2020, the Mikoshiba twitter surprised everyone by tweeting the following!

Nozaki told me to advertise our company on Twitter. I wonder there’ll be any effect from advertising like this is.

Well, I guess I’ll start next week, so look forward to it!

Employee Mikoshiba 

The same day, Mikoshiba tweeted a photo:

The photo was tweeted with the text:

For today, here’s the doorplate

The Kanji on the door plate read: Nozaki Detective Agency

The twitter then went silent for the next two days to build hype and curiosity to what’s going to come! And on the third day, Tsubaki-sensei finally gave us some context.

We’ve started preparing for Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun’s 10 year anniversary project for next year but... I was soberly shaken, saying,  “What...? 10 years...?“

What.... Wakamatsu hasn’t figured out the Lorelei mystery even after 10 years...?

That’s why the relationships have been slowly moving forward recently!

I’m realizing this after writing this, but Sensei says, “ ローレライのナゾ ”, literally the “Lorelei Mystery” or “riddle”... Maybe the AU will have something to do with that?

After this tweet, she RT’s the original Mikoshiba tweet for more explanation!!

Ah! That’s why, after 4 years (4years!?), Mikoshiba’s twitter is being used again.

This time it’s a Detective Parallel universe, So instead of a “Future Timeline” it’s a “Nozaki, somewhere in a parallel universe” story!

The project hasn’t started yet, so I might move some things around. Please take care of me! (or even Please be patient with me/look forward to it!)

(If you look at the time stamps, Tsubaki-sensei’s tweets were actually posted after the following tweet, Mikoshiba’s third update, but just to prevent confusion, I wanted to include the context here!)

This response is exceptionally long, so I’lll put a Read More here.

Since there’s still a year until the 10 year anniversary project, Sensei will probably continue world building through the Mikoshiba twitter... But there isn’t a set schedule or story line yet.

I was thinking about what to tweet about, but I think first I’ll introduce our employees.

Mikoshiba actually says, “I was thinking about what to advertise”, but I think “promote” or even “tweet” (because that’s more general) makes more sense here.

Either way!! After this, we’re introduced to the Nozaki Detective Agency Employees!! (Which is where that Hori photo came from :D)

First off is Nozaki!!

Representative Nozaki Umetaro.

23 years old. Manga artist-detective. His manga penname is “Yumeno Sakiko”

... Yeah... “Manga artist” and ”detective”. I don’t know what that means.

After reading a detective novel he thought “Detectives are cool!” or something It seems he started this office but still admires novels.

The last half of that was... really hard to translate (lol)... But hopefully it makes sense!

“If I solve a case, maybe someone will write a novel about it,“ he said, glimmering (hopefully/excitedly) No one is going to write it! (That’s not how it works!)

So then he said, “Ah, then I’ll draw it myself!” and started drawing manga. In this month’s issue, the heroine and her boyfriend had a date...

Huh? It’s a RomCom...?

So: Nozaki read a detective novel, thought it was cool and started an agency, then decided he also wanted to draw manga! So in this AU, he’s still a shoujo mangaka, but his day job is a detective (I guess LOL)

The next day!!! Is Hori-senpai!!

Employee 1: Hori Masayuki, age 24

He and Nozaki first met in high school, where he was his senpai. He’s generally really capable so he’s been a huge help after coming to our office!

The last sentence is... too hard for me to translate correctly (primarily cuz of the verb is kinda weird and the sentence subject has kanji I don’t know how to translate aa....) 

But with my shipper heart, I personally read it as:

He often finds himself bickering with the one he likes, one of Nozaki’s guys! Ridiculous!

This may just be my own wishful thinking though, so please don’t take that as accurate lol

**EDIT** I asked someone else, and this is what they said

So a better, more accurate translation:

In Nozaki’s case, he only gets involved if he’s interested in it! Ridiculous!

In a similar fashion to Nozaki’s, he responds to the original tweet with more dialogue!

I’ve recently gotten used to talking with him but Why does he compliment my face so much?

He sometimes tells me, “It’s too bad“ What does that mean...!?

Up next is Waka!!! Here we start to deviate from what could be a potential future timeline, to a parallel universe (like Tsubaki explained)

Part-timer Young Wakamatsu, Age 17

He’s a high schooler living in Nozaki’s neighborhood. It must be fun working part-time at our company.

Seems he recently tried horseback-riding. How bougie! ...I wonder what happened to the flower arranging class I used to attend...

Wakamatsu’s name here is actually written as  “Wakamatsu-shounen” (lit. Wakamatsu-boy) and I just considered removing the last half, but remembered how it’s handled in BNHA lol

Even in this AU, seems like Waka’s a rich boy!!!

also forgive me for translating that as bougie I couldn’t resist

And today’s tweet! Features Mikoshiba!

Employee 2: Mikoshiba Mikoto, Age 22.

This is me. I met Nozaki in college and somehow... it’s become like this. At the agency, Nozaki, Hori-senapi, and I are in charge of different requests.

Thinking about it, they’re all kinda feminine.

Wait, I still attend group dates! Even last week, I met with 3 women!!

Aaaa, Mikoshiba’s casual speech is hard for me to translate, so I apologize if this is wrong as well.

Eh...? What...? I got caught....

It was a game!! A depressing game!!

Employee introductions are now over I’ll tweet if anything else happens!

(Although, if there’s crunch time for Nozaki’s manuscript, I’ll be out of reach)

And so, that’s all the updates we have so far :) I hope it makes enough sense!

for TLDR; In preparation for GSNK’s 10 year anniversary, Tsubaki has started using Mikoshiba’s twitter to run a Detective AU! We haven’t seen any of the girls yet, but so far Nozaki, Mikoshiba, Hori, and Waka have been confirmed as the main characters/the employees at the Nozaki Detective agency.

Given context clues, I’m guessing the “mystery” will be the mystery of Lorelei, but that’s just speculation.

If you want to keep up with the tweets, I recommend following Mikoshiba on twitter (@/mikoshiba0214) and turning on notifications! We’re also talking about it often on the fan discord~ (link in my Updates tab, or you can add me on Discord and I’ll send you the invite directly)

[bananban-feature]

Seventeen: Hoshi

(It took me a while to write this because... I’m also not sure. There’s a lot of ideas here and there and my mind is all over the place. But here it goes.)

Hoshi appreciation time! I’m here to talk about another one of my biases in my bias group that I love so much, Seventeen. Hoshi is incredibly talented and creative, fun with an extremely loveable personality! Now, where do I start?

Talent

Dance - This talent is pretty obvious as he is the leader of the performance unit, which is equivalent to the team of the main dancers of the group. (Other Seventeen members who aren’t part of this unit are already really good dancers, so this unit is really something.)

Stage Presence and Energy - A big part of what I like about Hoshi’s performances is not simply his dance - it’s his energy and attitude. I especially like it when he performs with intensity, like his Fearless intro dance with the drums (GDA 2021). I remember watching a clip of their Ode To You in Manila concert on Youtube and seeing Hoshi  made me really wish I was there. (I only became a Carat after this, during quarantine.) It’s like he’s a ball of energy that hypes people up. 

His duality is INSANE. He knows how to use his facial expressions and charisma that would make you feel the intensity of the music and fall for him on stage. And yet irl he’s absolutely adorable.

Singing - With Hoshi being such a main dancer already, you wouldn’t think he would have good vocals, but Hoshi is actually a lead singer too! In fact, in Performance unit, he is the main vocals. He has a powerful voice!

Rap - Hoshi is the main rapper in their super fun sub-unit BooSeokSoon. (Sure, he’s not actually the best singer or rapper there is in all of kpop, but he really has the talent for it.) There are many songs only a few people can pull off but he does. His energy and attitude in “Just Do It” by BSS and “Bring It” is next level, and absolutely necessary for the song to be successful.

Songwriting - This hasn’t been much (you know, as much as Woozi), but Hoshi has also participated in writing some of their songs, and even composed some with the help of Bumzu/Woozi! He co-wroteThanks with Woozi and Bumzu.

In general, I just also love Hoshi’s confidence in his talents. He knows his strengths, he isn’t afraid to showcase all the good things he can do, and he recognizes when he performs well. Confident, but not bragging. He’s just so real and so passionate about performing.

Performance Unit Leader & Choreographer

I have a lot to say about this because the first thing that really struck me about Seventeen is the absolutely beautiful choreography and incredible synchronization. It is the reason why I really checked them out in the first place after seeing a video of them dancing to Don’t Wanna Cry in x2 speed.

Choreography - Hoshi co-choreographs the Seventeen performances with a choreographer hyung/noona, and also with the help of the performance team. (I am not disregarding the work of the pro choreographers, who in fact, did such an amazing job, but I’ve seen some people dismiss Hoshi’s contributions to these. Hoshi himself doesn’t brag about it, and ALWAYS mentions the choreographers that helped them.) There are a lot of records of him working on the choreo and formations, and there are interviews with Seventeen members, Hoshi himself, and even the choreographer hyungs that talk about his work. There’s a lot of hard work involved in this, especially when you have to think about 13 people’s positions in each scene. It just requires a lot of brain power! To add to that, Hoshi is incredibly creative! He is able to take inspiration from random objects (such as street lamps), and turn it into story-telling choreography (DWC example, skip to 1:32, this is an amazing video). I really love Seventeen's choreography, and I think they have one of the best choreographies in kpop! They are my all-time favorite in this area.

Leadership - (Obviously, they practice these dances also with the help of the choreographer hyungs too, but Hoshi really leads the whole group in terms of the performance.) Hoshi is strict and particular even with the tiniest details, angles and timing. I definitely think this is one of the biggest reasons why Seventeen is so good with their dance and are called Kings of Synchronization. Not only do they practice a lot, but I think they all really work hard because they’ve developed this sense of meticulousness in choreo that Hoshi imparted.

***Hoshi said himself that he’s a quick-tempered person. The members have actually shared their accounts of how Hoshi was as a performance leader - strict, not very patient, and has a tendency to say harsh words when they did not meet his expectations. (He’s the opposite of Minghao in Idol Producer. Normally, this impatient teaching style would get me pissed, but Hoshi as a teacher to Seventeen is different. Unlike the ordinary teacher-student relationship, Hoshi has a very close friendship with the members like family. Even when there are hurts and arguments during practice, they are able to talk about it, fix and overcome it.) It seems Hoshi has changed from this harshness though. And now the members are able to talk and laugh about it freely as memories from their earlier years.

Personality

Hoshi is so talented, but what really drew me into him was his outstanding personality. People who only look at Hoshi on stage might get shocked because Hoshi in real life is like a cute crazy hamster. (Oops, I meant “tiger”, horanghae!)

Hoshi is hilarious and adorable at the same time. It’s almost like a toddler in a grown man’s body. He says the silliest things and acts the silliest way! What makes him funny is not just because he tries hard to be funny by making jokes. He’s just naturally funny - the definition of chaotic comedy, major crackhead energy! His overhyping is hilarious. And his randomness will make you laugh. I love that he is unapologetically himself, accepting himself in all his weirdness. And no one can stop his tiger agenda.  🐯 🐯 🐯

Don’t Lie I & II are two of the first episodes I watched in Going Seventeen. I was so in love with Hoshi, especially after Don’t Lie II. He was so chaotic and crazy, but also very intelligent! It really was a successful game because of his incredible deduction (with the help of Seungkwan, of course). And my gosh, the way he copied Seungkwan (and even Vernon) in their 5th Anniversary is legendary! That’s both talent in comedy and talent in acting!

Despite being this comedian, he is often seen being very sweet to the rest of the members. Honestly, unless they are in the practice room or when he needs to protect the members, Hoshi is one of those who’s often like a fake maknae in the group because he’s so cute. (Okay, except Woozi always rejects his hugs. lol) He’s also sweet to the fans and interacts with them a lot.

Hoshi’s Visuals

He may not be an official visual but nowadays, I am really appreciating his looks. I’ve always found him cute (like a child-like cute). Even in his old videos as a rookie, he has a cute and fun visual. But he really has a face with nice proportions. Honestly, he’s growing more and more mature each day. And recently, I’m just loving his visuals so much as a handsome guy.

Like...look at this beauty?

///Update, March 2021: As I predicted, Hoshi has been showing his handsome boyfriend look more and more.

A better look of the last photo, whew:

*** update done ///

This post is waaaaaaay longer than I planned it to be. There’s just too many things to appreciate about Hoshi.

Anyway, here are random things I found you also might enjoy:

Article on Hoshi as a dancer/performer (The title is misleading, but this is actually a great compilation of amazing Hoshi and Seventeen dance things.) 

Reddit thread on Hoshi’s talents

IDK, random Hoshi YT compilations (1) and (2)

The Leader Line

I’ve written about my top biases right now: Woozi (previous post) and Hoshi, hard-working members for the team. In general, I really appreciate the leader line. At a young age, they led a group of teens to rise to the top of a very demanding industry. This is real life leadership with real life issues and pressures. They had a huge responsibility, it wasn’t playtime. (Great job to S.Coups, too, for being able to handle the crazy kids and keep them in order together. Imagine having to think about the individual issues of 13 people!)

Anyway, hopefully I’ll be able to talk more about them soon in my Seventeen members general appreciation post!

[sarcasm-is-my-native-tounge]

Meet the blogger

I was tagged by @flames-bring-a-ton-of-ash because yall love tagging me in these and i love it lmfao

1. How/why did you choose your URL?

Idk it came to me one day and i thought it was fitting. Then after i changed it i realised the last word is spelled wrong and someone else has the same name but spelled correctly lmfaoo

2. Any side blogs? If you have them, name them and explain why you have them

Nah I am 100% on mobile and i dont have the energy for that shit. I just have the one dumpster fire and that's all

3. How long have you been on Tumblr?

I recently had my 9 year anniversary for this fuckin thing. Holy crap.

4. Do you have a queue tag?

Pfft fuck no lol. I'll que a couple things here and there for date-specific shit but thats all

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

Hell i dunno i was in high school and a bunch of my friends were on here. I never had steady internet acess until about 3 years ago so i never did much on here until recently

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

It's just my face. I never had this as a fandom-specific page so i figured might as well.

7. Why did you choose your header?

It fit with the url and i still like it today. Used to be James Hetfield from Metallica there for a while lol

8. What's your post with the most notes?

Oof uh i think a TWD one i made during an episode of season 9? I dont remember what it was and im on mobile so fuck if I'll be able to find it.

9. How many mutuals do you have?

Ballpark 10-15 i think? 8? I dunno

10. How many followers do you have?

Uuuuh 335 or so. I block all bot accounts but if I didnt it would be pushing 2k probably lol

11. How many people do you follow?

Wow only 120 jeez no wonder my dash is so dry sometimes. If you're reading this far reccomend me some cool shit

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

Hell probably. I don't post stuff that often really, i just reblog stuff i like

13. How often do you use Tumblr each day?

I usually use it to wind down at night or read a new chapter of a fanfic (shouts out @letsby for these primo Tony Stark fics lmao) so a couple hours a day or so. Used to be a lot more but tiktok is stealing my soul i stg

14. Have you ever had a fight/argument with another blog? Who won?

No. I dont care enough lol

15. How do you feel about "you need to reblog this" posts?

I hate them. Idc how much i agree with the post, the moment i see that "i don't care what your page is about, you have to reblog this" I specifically will not out of spite.

16. Do you like tag games?

Heck yeah. I get 2 notes per but i dont care lmao

17. Do you like ask games?

Eeh, i dont see them much anymore and i never got any myself so I don't really care

18. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

👀

Tagging @tortoisesforhire and @araviixi because why not.