#miko is one of my favorites by design alone

[solrin]

I'm so fickle. The new Toyosatomimi no Miko MAGA parody event in Lost Branch of Legend kind of makes me want to not shill for the game, at least for a while.

[2baddiesfanfics]

Pretty Please?

Pairing: Ei x Miko

Tags: Teasing, Hot Springs & Onsen, Vaginal Fingering, Oral Sex, Alcohol

Summary:

Miko has arranged for a special date at Aisa Bathhouse for her and Ei after pulling some (morally questionable) strings. As the two spend some much-needed alone time together, Ei cryptically reveals she’s been reading one of the kitsune’s newest light novels…and isn’t pleased with some characterization. Instead, she gives the owner of Yae Publishing House some inspiration for the next book in the series. (Note: If you haven’t read the in-game light novel Pretty Please, Kitsune Guuji, you may want to take a quick look before reading this fic!)

Read on Ao3

The kitsune pranced up the path that meandered between the Inazuman merchant booths. Citizens quickly lowered their gaze in an attempt to avoid the familiar but frightening sensation of her amethyst-colored eyes staring into the depths of their souls. As she crossed the bridge, Yae Miko caught sight of the violet-haired woman she was searching for standing under the designated Sakura tree, its light pink petals still lingering in the strands of her hair.

“Oh! Miko! There you are,” Ei exclaimed.

“I hope you haven’t been waiting long,” Miko purred while gently pulling the flower out of the other woman’s tresses.

Clasping it in her hand, Miko brought it close to her chest and closed her eyes. Slowly opening her palm, she blew out a light puff of air and watched it dance in the wind. Ei raised an eyebrow out of curiosity.

“Just making a wish,” Miko laughed as she linked her arm with Ei’s. “Come now, we have a much-needed day of relaxation ahead of us,” she said as she led them to Aisa Bathhouse.

“G-guuji Yae! L-lady Ei! Welcome,” Aikawa Susumu stuttered. “You two are in l-luck. You have the entire p-place to yourselves.”

Miko rolled her eyes at the owner of the establishment as he tripped over his words.

“Really? The entire bathhouse?” Ei asked in shock.

“Y-yes, thanks to Guuji Yae here,” he responded.

“Oh, it was nothing, Ei. Really. It’s much deserved and it’ll ensure nobody will interrupt us as we…discuss important matters,” she insisted.

As she walked past the owner, she growled under her breath, “You better guarantee we’re not bothered, lest your wife happens to learn of those spicy harem light novels you’ve been purchasing behind her back.”

With a hesitant smile, he muttered, “Of course. Right this way.” He showed them to the private room where they could leave their belongings.

“You may leave us now,” Miko gestured. The two disrobed and wrapped themselves in the soft, warm towels they’d been provided. Ei approached Miko from behind, sliding her hand through her hair.

Miko released a quiet purr. The shogun’s elegant fingers moved to slowly unhook the weighted earrings that typically kept the kitsune’s ears lowered so they’d be less noticeable. “Since we’re alone, we can get rid of these temporarily. I’ve always found your ears quite adorable,” Ei said, massaging them as each one popped free.

“Mmmm, Ei, we have plenty of time. Let’s not get carried away now, hmm? You know what you do to me,” Miko hummed as she pulled her hand down, interlocked their fingers, and led her toward the bath.

The two sat in the steamy water taking in this rare moment of downtime. Miko rested her back against Ei’s chest, and Ei wrapped her arms around her slim waist.

“What should we order for an after-bath snack?” Ei asked as she kissed Miko’s cheek.

“You’ve always got food on the brain, hmm?” Miko chuckled. “Whatever you want, love. It’s on me.”

“Let me see…do you think they have Butter Crab on the menu?” Ei asked as she watched Miko’s ears twitch back. This was not the answer she was expecting. Dango would have been far less surprising.

“Um…I’m not sure, but we could definitely ask,” Miko replied cautiously.

“Yay! Butter Crab, my favorite!” Ei exclaimed.

Miko gulped, her hands busying themselves. “There’s no way she knows. It’s just a coincidence,” she thought to herself.

Ei tightened her grip around her. “Oh, yay, Miko! I am so glad we get to spend this time together. Since I only spend most of my days with someone who has fluffy ears and a teasing voice. Yay for spending time together!”

Miko stiffened against her touch as Ei kissed her shoulder. “You want me to keep saying ‘yay’? I recently read somewhere that it’s my signature line,” she said as she licked up Miko’s neck.

“I-I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Miko stammered.

Ei slid her hand between Miko’s thighs, her fingers sliding and swirling against her clit. Miko’s head snapped back against her shoulder as Ei nipped at the exposed skin on her neck.

“Ahhh Ei,” Miko whispered as she bit the back of her hand to stop herself from moaning.

“Seems someone has been a naughty kitsune. Writing me in such a way,” Ei taunted as she continued to rub her sensitive bud.

Miko grabbed the shogun’s wrist with her other hand to try and still her movements. “Ah, ah, ah. You’re going to take your punishment,” Ei murmured against her neck.

The kitsune’s legs shook as she bit down harder to prevent any sounds from escaping her. As she was about to reach her peak, Ei abruptly stopped and pulled away.

Miko’s ears shot up in surprise. “Ei! I-I was almost there! What…why?” she whined disappointedly.

“You can wait until we get back to the room. Oh…and I forbid you from finishing yourself,” Ei commanded.

A growl rumbled through Miko’s chest as the two resumed their quiet soak. She tried to ignore the throbbing need for release and knew she was going to have to explain herself when they got out.

After what felt like an eternity, they finally got out, dried themselves off, and made their way back to the private room they were about to share for the night.

———-

After donning the light yukata provided by the bathhouse, the two women sat at the small table where a variety of snacks and drinks had been laid out for them. As Ei partook of an onigiri, Miko simply picked at some Sakura mochi.

“What’s the matter, Miko? Not hungry?” Ei inquired.

“Not particularly. Why?” She responded in a cool tone.

“Oh, no reason. I just wanted to make sure you…hadn’t caught a cold.”

At this point, it was clear: Word had gotten around about Pretty Please, Kitsune Guuji? It was a current best-seller at Yae Publishing House, and Miko should have known Ei’s curiosity would get the better of her.

Miko looked up guiltily. “Ok, you’ve caught me. So what? Are you mad about the light novel? Or did you just want to tease me about it?”

Ei smiled softly. “I’m not angry in the slightest. Well, I’m not exactly thrilled about how I’m portrayed at the start, but I was impressed by how accurately you captured my feelings about how I see you versus how I perceive others,” she explained.

Miko’s ears dropped. “Ei, I…”

Ei held up her hand in a gesture that begged her to let her finish. “‘Just think about it: thousands of people putting on the same face in your presence.’ With how sarcastic you are, there are times when I’m not sure if you truly understand the weight of being in my position. But it’s clear to me now that I’ve taken you for granted.”

The kitsune heaved a sigh of relief before she heard Ei clear her throat.

“However…about the last portion of the story. Miko, what were you thinking? Anyone with a brain is going to figure out these characters are modeled after you and me. It’s far too suggestive. As you so aptly wrote, you know people revere me. I don’t want them to perceive me as weak, or worse yet, taking advantage of you and your position, either.”

Miko scoffed. “Ei, dear, don’t be ridiculous. The ending is completely up to interpretation!”

Ei was done playing games. “Up to interpretation!? Miko, does ‘She feeds me the Rainbow Aster in a way that I'd never dare to imagine’ read like it’s up to interpretation to you?!”

Unable to come up with a retort, Miko remained silent. Ei sighed in resignation. “Fine. You want to play dumb? Let me show you how I interpret this scene,” she stated in the tone she used when she was about to prove someone wrong.

Among the food set up at their table was also an incredibly expensive (and incredibly strong) bottle of saké. Ei carefully grabbed the ornate tokkuri flask and poured some of the liquid into one of the small cups provided. Bringing it to her lips, she drank but did not swallow. Miko’s eyes widened in arousal as she realized what was coming next.

Ei’s hand came to rest on the back of her neck, her fingers grasping the fine hairs at her nape. Miko felt her grip tighten, and a low groan escaped as their lips met and warm saké dripped from Ei’s mouth into her own.

The alcohol burned as it traveled down her throat and hit her stomach. Heat immediately ripped through her body and she could already feel it start to mess with her head. She was a big talker, but between the two, Ei was the one who could actually hold her liquor.

When the shogun finally pulled away, she noticed some of the saké had dribbled down the side of Miko’s mouth. Her tongue darted out to lick it up and Miko’s breath caught in her throat.

“I believe the line you’re looking for is, ‘Why does it feel so sweet at the corner of my lips?’” Ei teasingly murmured.

“Why don’t you show me what happens in the next volume of the series? I could always use new ideas for my writing,” Miko said as she took Ei’s bottom lip between her fangs. She knew very well what effect this had on her, and the response was as she expected.

Ei roughly shoved her down on the tatami flooring with a snarl. The belt of Miko’s yukata had started to come loose, and her exposed skin only drove her desire deeper.

“Hmmm, yes…let me think. Since readers are already talking, why not give them more of what they really want? The Rainbow Aster drink you mention in the first volume is so boring. I’d much rather have your juices lingering on my lips,” Ei retorted. Her hands reached down to pull what remained of the knot in her belt loose. Miko sighed as her legs fell open willingly.

Slithering down her body, Ei traced the taught muscles of Miko’s toned stomach with her tongue.

“This would make for an…awfully explicit light novel, Ei…” she panted, trying to make it seem like she had the upper hand.

“My dear Miko…you’re telling me you don’t want to continue the story? Think about how disappointed your readers will be…” Ei chastised as she nudged her shoulders between her thighs. Looking up at her, she instructed, “You’re going to have to look at me if you want to properly capture the details in writing.”

Miko glanced downward, her head spinning from the effects of the alcohol now in her system. “You talk too much, Ei. How about you give me something worth writing about, hmmm?”

Never one to back down from a challenge, Ei took one languid lick across her folds. Miko let out a moan that made her extremely thankful the hot spring was empty - she’d never be able to save her reputation if not. She could feel Ei smile against her skin, and it sent a shiver across her entire body.

Ei’s slurps and personal sounds of arousal added to the sensations that now built her toward release. Miko’s hand darted down to pull her in closer as she rode her face, unsatisfied with the current taunting pace the shogun was maintaining.

“Ahhhhhh Ei! Fuck…please…”

“I think you need to say ‘pretty please, almighty shogun.’ That would be a much better title, don’t you think?”

Before Miko could come up with a snarky retort, she shrieked as she felt her orgasm shutter through her core.

Ei left a trail of kisses as she ascended Miko’s body. Stopping when she reached her destination, her mouth crashed against the kitsune’s.

“Oh my…still that eager, are we?” Miko gasped as she pulled away to catch her breath. Guiding Ei to lean back, she crawled on top and straddled her. Her thumbs rubbed in gentle circles against her thighs as she leaned forward and licked between her breasts.

“Miko,” Ei exhaled.

With a hum she acknowledged her response, swirling her tongue on her nipple to get it to rise. One hand made its way to the other breast as she slid another between the archon’s wet entrance.

Ei could feel her hovering over the spot she desperately yearned for her to touch. Grinding her hips against Miko’s in anticipation, she felt her smirk against her chest as a finger slowly stroked up and down her folds. Miko continued to ghost over her sensitive bud before continuing her teasing.

“Ahhhh,” Ei whined as she thrust her hips back and forth, urging the kitsune to move quicker.

Pulling away from her breast, Miko looked up at her mischievously. “What’s the matter, dear? Don’t like being teased back?” She kissed up to Ei’s neck, her lips latching onto bare skin. Her sharp canines pierced the area and she began moaning to add to the sensation. She felt Ei’s arousal pool around her now slick fingers.

“M-miko…p-please,” Ei begged as her grinding against Miko’s lap intensified.

The kitsune inspected her work, a bright red bruise already forming at the mercy of her lips. “You know what I need to hear you say before I allow you to come,” Miko taunted as her violet eyes pierced Ei’s own.

Ei wasn’t the type to give in so easily - she was an archon, damn it. She kissed Miko back in retaliation, their moans reverberating against each other’s mouths, their tongues colliding together.

Static sparked against her skin where Miko was toying with her chest. Her body shook with excitement when she felt small jolts of electro energy pulsing through her nipples. Miko’s hand hovered over her clit as she waited to make a move.

“Pretty please kitsune guuji, make me come,” Ei breathlessly groaned.

“There now, was that so hard?” Miko inquired as she slid two fingers across her clit. Ei panted as she felt her adding pressure between her thighs. When Ei sped up her thrusts, Miko inserted two fingers into her entrance.

“Ohhhhhh, yes!” Ei screamed when Miko hit the spot she knew so well. Moving her fingers in time with Ei’s reckless hips, she felt Ei spasm around her. She heard her shout her name and clutched her close as she rode out her orgasm.

Ei leaned against her, both of their bodies now dripping with sweat from the exertion of their nightly activities.

“You know, we do have the hot springs to ourselves for the rest of the night,” Miko murmured against her ear before taking it between her teeth.

“You’re insatiable, you know that, don’t you?” Ei replied with a bemused chuckle.

A look of mock offense appeared on Miko’s face. “Ei, you wound me! I’m only suggesting we clean ourselves off a bit before settling down for the evening.” Running her hand through Ei’s violet locks, she continued. “And this is what I wished for at the Sakura tree earlier, after all. Just time together, you and me.”

“Hmmm…maybe I’ll agree - if you ask me nicely.”

Miko’s mischievous laughter resounded through the room before she whispered, “pretty please?”

[onewingedsparrow]

8, 10, 12, 17, and 19 for the ask game!

(They’re all amazing; it was hard to narrow it down. 😂)

Thanks for the ask, Nova! <3 Lol yeah I loved all the questions too :D

From this ask game!

8. Which tf character has the most different personality from you? Uhhhhh that’s a good question. Maybe RiD’15 Drift? He’s very rigid and not likely to have fun for the sake of having fun. Also most iterations of Shockwave are far more logical than I like to be. Sure, logic is important, but Shockwave seems to go overboard in my book. 10. Which tf character do you think you’d get along with really badly? Probably Starscream, any continuity. He's such a backstabber and I value loyalty; he's super narcissistic and people like that are quite annoying to me. Plus he's generally not very fond of humans and talks down to them, and I'm very feisty so our interactions would probably go much like Miko's and his in TFP. Many insults, mutual disgust. I can appreciate his character in a show but I know I could not stand him in real life haha. 12. List a piece of art not from transformers that you think fits a tf character! Hmm this took me a bit of digging...there wasn't one that came to mind instantly, but it was interesting to consider! Reposting is BAD kids(TM) so here's direct links to artists’ works instead! ;)

First off: this beautiful ocean art by Kazami is really inspiring to me. Most people probably don’t think of the ocean when they think Transformers, but...put simply, it reminds me of the ’Waves ;) I have AU versions of Shockwave and Soundwave occupying my mind, their designs inspired by the sea. And the depth in this particular piece is absolutely gorgeous. The brighter colors are reminiscent of neon, which also makes me think Wavebros, and the darker colors add to the ominous, frightening feel of the deep ocean, ever fitting for those two Decepticons.  Oh! You’d probably like this as well! There’s a Fire Emblem character whose design I am absolutely in love with. He’s so spooky!!! His name is Líf and I haven’t reached his chapter in the story yet, but I’m so looking forward to that day because his design alone intrigues me. 💜 What does this have to do with Transformers? Well, he reminds me of Soundwave the most, but his “lightning antennae,” lol, remind me of both Soundwave and Optimus, which is a very interesting combination. Líf’s design gets me thinking about the uncanny ways Soundwave and Optimus are similar, something I hadn’t really considered in depth before. It’s quite fun. Here are some cool Líf fanarts so you can see his vibe! - By Lynarc (my absolute favorite that I’ve found so far) - By Bhai Kun - By Kalkkopf - Screenshots from a trailer (?)

- Bonus: Official art from the wiki because they’re all just so cool

I really like this dude in case it wasn’t obvious by how many of these I’m sharing 17. Which piece of music from a tf media is your favorite? I'm so glad you asked this question!!! I was hoping someone would 😊 This would have to be, hands down, "Did You Forget Who I Am" from The Last Knight. The Bayverse is full of terrible, terrible elements, but Steve Jablonsky’s score is not one of those. All the soundtracks are incredible. And this scene from TLK is so iconic that, every time I listen to the music, I can hear Optimus' voice fill in that beat of silence with the mighty, chilling line that Peter Cullen delivered so well. 💙 It also has a special place in my heart because...I can’t help but see a connection to my faith :) This scene and therefore this song are good reminders for me when I’m having a bad day. Side note: The fact that this song surpassed the TFP theme to become my favorite Transformers piece of music really says a lot about its impact. 19. Which depiction of cybertron in a tf media do you most want to live in? Does the answer vary depending on if you’re human or cybertronian? Lol okay so gut reaction would say "G1 Cybertron" because 1) humans can apparently breathe up there without issue (and not be harmed by acid rain, so that's a huge plus), and 2) while the Autobots and Decepticons were bickering on earth I could just go hang out with Shockwave, who's all alone just chilling 😂 But if oxygen wasn't an issue? Definitely post-Predacons-Rising Cybertron. I would love to rebuild the planet along with Team Prime and listen to their stories as they began to heal emotionally from the long conflict. I would also love to see what elements of the planet they repaired true to the original design, and which elements they rebuilt completely to start off on a blank slate, and the implications of each decision. It would be cool to live in a revitalized Cybertron and watch refugees return and new sparks be forged gradually over time until the planet was bustling again. And if I could show up a bit earlier and be present for Bumblebee's Warrior knighting ceremony that would be pretty cool too. 💛

[trinketprince]

All the Youkaimatsus so far

JExcept sets that have all of them as the same youkais (Nekomata, Tanuki and the various Kitsune sets from Tabimatsu)

Pinup Poster from the Osomatsu Character Book #6 (July 2016)

A classic. The very first iteration of Youkaimatsu. Kind of hard to find since it was a bonus poster from the character book, so unless you were actively looking for the book, you wouldn’t find this.

Osomatsu - Kitsune (unknown how many tails he has but is often depicted in fan artworks as 6 or 9, 9 meaning strongest/wisest a kitsune has been, Spirit Fox)

Karamatsu - Karasu-Tengu (pun on Kara, Bird Man)

Choromatsu - Dodomeki (usually a woman cursed with long arms littered with many bird eyes because of greed. Most popular one imo)

Ichimatsu + ESP Nyanko - Nekomata (Two-tailed cat, legend says that cats who live longer than a 100 years gain a second tail)

Jyushimatsu - Rokurobi (available in two flavors. Long Neck and Floating Head. He is the former. Theorized to not actually be a youkai but created for entertainment. Also used as a literary device for a wandering soul.)

Todomatsu - Yukki Onna (Also a joke on Todo being scared stiff. Yuki Onna pull tricks on humans that usually end on the person’s death via cold. Has a harsh and soft side)

Youkai Units from The Great Youkai War event from Hesokuri Wars (November 2016)

Most popular Youkaimatsu set, this baby could get milked for miles, but for some reason isn’t. Has a lot of variants (Awakened, Darkness, Snow, Sakura and Hyakki Yagyou) and connected to a lot of other sets: Denki Mystery, Colorless Overalls, Mononoke and a bunch of others. She is the top DOGG set.

Osomatsu - Shuten-Douji (Oni Leader with a penchance for Sake, literally carrying a big ass bottle of it on his back, since he is the leader of the sextuplets and the one seen drinking beer the most)

Karamatsu - Aoandon (Summoned after 100 supernatural stories are told. Originated from the blue (ao) paper lanterns (andon) that were sometimes used to give a chilling atmosphere)

Choromatsu - Daitengu (Great Tengu, Tengus were theorized to be ascended souls, but also has its origins in a Dog Beast that looked like a comet. For some reason Dog Beast turned into Bird Man. The bird man’s beak is often anthropomorphized into long noses. Tells humanity to behave by throwing invisible stones at them)

Ichimatsu - Nine-tailed Kitsune (So wise. So powerful)

Jyushimatsu - Inugami (Dog God that possesses people)

Todomatsu - Bake-Danuki (also known as tanuki, mischievous spirits, mostly known in pop culture for their BIG FAT NUTS)

Dayon is a miko, a shrine maiden. Hatabou is an Onmyoji, an exorcist, Dekapan is a kannushi, a shrine priest. Totoko and Iyami are regular civillians

Youkai Hyakki Yagyou merchandise from Animate Girls Festival (September 2017)

One of the lesser known sets, considering that it’s just designs for a line of merch but their designs are so good? Why don’t people use these designs more often.

Osomatsu - Karasu-Tengu

Karamatsu - Nine-tailed fox

Choromatsu - Shuten-Douji (A possible reference to Season 1 Episode 2 where he gets the most drunk?)

Ichimatsu - Mizuchi (Legendary Water Serpent/Dragon)

Jyushimatsu - Kamaitachi (Beast that rides on dust devils. Cuts people using it’s scythe-like nails. The wounds are sharp but painless)

Todomatsu - Ungaikyou (A haunted mirror that can be used to trap spirits. The spirits in the ungaikyou can manipulate the reflection shown on it’s reflection.)

Kitsune Servant Set from Tabimatsu (September 2017)

Ok I know I said I wouldn’t cover the Kitsune sets from Tabimatsu since there are like 5 different Kitsune sets, but this one is noteworthy cause they have secondary Youkai traits other than the regular kitsune traits.

Osomatsu - Oni’s horns

Karamatsu - Tengu’s wings

Choromatsu - Orochi around his neck

Ichimatsu - True Kitsune (Or Nekomata’s paw?)

Jyushimatsu - Wanyudo (Flaming Wheel)

Todomatsu - I don’t know, but there’s something around his neck?

Japanese Youkai set from Shimamatsu (January 2018)

Shimamatsu was such a good game, what a shame it ended so soon. The 3D models were so cute. Edit: The two designs are from before and after evolution!

Osomatsu - Enma-san (A wrathful god in charge of judging souls in the afterlife. Resides over hell)

Karamatsu - Yamato no Orochi (Eight headed and Eight-tailed serpent/dragon)

Choromatsu - Kamaitachi (wields an actual scythe)

Ichimatsu - Youkai Catman or a Bakaneko (Catboy, furry)

Jyushimatsu - Yobuko (lives in the mountains, repeats whatevers shouted into the mountain, explains the phenomemon of Echos)

Todomatsu - Yuki Otoko (Snowman, a Yuki Onna basically)

“Inn” Osoma and Choroe from Osomatsu Season 2 Episode 17

A BUNCH OF PEOPLE REMINDED ME AND HOW COULD I FORGET THE BEST YOUKAI EVER. Osoma baby,,,, I’m so sorry..... Srsly, this skit was so good, I hope they make more skits like this where they make entirely new characters out of the framework of the sextuplets.

Osoma - A Zashiki-warashi, child spirits who live in store rooms or extra rooms, they died buried in their homes. Pranksters but meeting one is said to bring good fortunes to families. Osoma gets crossovered a lot with the other Youkai sets in JP fanart. A popular pairing is Dodomeki Chorosuke (from Denki Mystery) and Osoma also Kitsune Osomatsu (from the poster) and Osoma.

Choroe - Not necessarily a youkai, in fact in the episode she’s presented as just a regular human. But is theorized often to be a Yama-uba. An old woman banished to the mountains. She provides shelter to weary travelers (in the myth it’s just a humble shelter but you know. an inn is also considered a shelter) before eating them. In one story she eats the recently birthed baby of a woman who had to give birth in the mountains. 

Mononoke from Hesokuri Wars (May 2019)

Technically they are all the same type of being, Mononoke, but they look different from each other. Mononoke can posses individuals and cause suffereing and even death. And technically they aren’t Youkais but Onryos, vengeful spirits. But Onryos can also be used to refer to youkais and truthfully I just wanna include this set cause their designs are so cool looking. This set’s attacks contain glimpses of units of other sets. 

Osomatsu - Bear themed

Karamatsu - Wolf themed

Choromatsu - Rooster/Chicken themed

Ichimatsu - Spider

Jyushimatsu - Boar

Todomatsu - Bull or Ox

Edo Rock The Great Youkai Harvest Festival from Tabimatsu (October 2019)

This set is interesting cause rather than youkai alone, they are also musicians. This set also has another set like Hesokuri called The Great Youkai NEET which is basically the awakened versions, properly showcasing more of the youkai traits.

Osomatsu - Shuten-Douji (Again, we need to stage an intervention for you damn)

Karamatsu - Karasu-Tengu (Again)

Choromatsu - Mizuchi (actually riding said serpent)

Ichimatsu - Black Kitsune (Hot Topic, Goth version)

Jyushimatsu - Frog. Just. Frog. (could be a reference to the legend of Jiraiya, the ninja who could shapeshift into a frog/ride big frogs. His mouth is cover just like a ninja is too.)

Todomatsu - Kamaitachi (could be a reference to season 1 where Todomatsu wields a scythe)

Iyami - Oni (not sure if he’s any particular oni but he does have the horns and metal club)

Atsushi - Ibaraki-Douji? (White hair and singular horn, most imporant servant of Shuten-Douji)

Promo Merch from Sega Cafe collab (September 2020)

Edit: Thank you @zenryokubatankyu for notifying me! Another set of promo youkais! You can get them by random by ordering a drink or meal at the now-defunct Sega x Osomatsu collab cafe. And the return of F6? Damn I haven’t seen you since Season 2!

Osomatsu - Oni

Karamatsu - I’m not exactly sure but he seems like a Mizuchi, a water serpent/dragon. He also could be another legendary serpent/dragon though.

Choromatsu - Kappa

Ichimatsu + ESP Nyanko - Karasu-Tengu

Jyushimatsu - I’m not sure, at first i thought it might be a crab youkai judging from the legs, but upon closer inspection he has spider webs on his robes, so they may be spider legs instead. Could be a Jorogumo, a youkai that wields fire breathing spiders with it’s spider legs

Todomatsu - Bakaneko (I think? The veil could be the napkin a bakaneko puts on it’s head)

Ayakashi Sextuplet’s Retro Halloween Cafe merch from Web Kuji (October 2020)

Thank you @gradelstuff​ for telling me about this! Ayakashi are Youkai that appear above nearby bodies of water. Although the youkais they’re dressed up as (or are?) aren’t really what you would call ayakashi? Although it’s cafe themed, it isn’t actually from a cafe collaboration. These designs are merchandise meant to be won through lottery. So if say you really love Kara and Choro’s designs (I do), then tough luck buddy!

Osomatsu - Oni

Karamatsu - Now you may think he’s Dodomeki since he’s covered with eyes, but turns out there are two other eye-relateed youkai! Mokumokuren is a youkai phenomenon where eyes appear from torn paper walls and tatami floors, initially i thought this was it given the checkered pattern he was wearing. But he might actually be a Hyakume, a youkai covered head to toe in yellow eyes specifically. Underneath those eyes is a body of flesh roughly in the shape of a man. This Youkai isn’t particularly malicious, only detaching one of it’s many eyes to follow you and survey you for criminal activiy. He might also be a BackBeard, a youkai allegedly from the US, err that would make him a cryptid I guess? A Backbeard is often characterized as a shadow with a Yellow eye with a red iris in the center. Note: Backbeard’s true origins are not known as there doesn’t seem to be any cryprid called a Backbeard, it first entered the Japanese public eye as an antogonist in the show Gegege no Kitaro. Although ever since then this “yokai” has appeared in other media and games in Japan.

Choromatsu - He isn’t exactly dressed as it (only themed as it) but the youkai he represents is the one he’s holding, a Kasa-obake, One of my favorite youkais and it’s literally iconic. Thought to be a Tsukomogami, an object that gains a spirit after it turns 100 years old.

Ichimatsu - Edit: I’m not sure but he might be a Kuchisake-Onna. In the description attached to his teaser, it makes mention of specifically his wide smile, his dos dagger and his beautiful shirt. A kuchisake onna is a yokai that wanders in the street covering her face with a mask (skull mask for ichi) and a sharp object (his dos dagger). TW GORE DESCRIPTION: She asks you if you think she’s attractive and depending on your answer she muders you with her scissors, plunging it into you OR she takes off her mask showing her wide smile, her mouth slit at the corners to her ears and asks “how about now?” and depending on your reaction she cuts you in half with her sharp object OR she slits the corners of your mouth to look like hers. END DESCRIPTION. Ichi has the mask, sharp object, wide smile and “attractiveness”. Obviously it would be inappropriate to portray ichi in the same fashion as the kuchisake onna so he was probably given the internal organ tattoos to represent the gory yokai. (internal organs usually = gore in japan). This is speculah and he might be another youkai but this is all i can think of rn.

Jyushimatsu - sailor themed Jiangshi. Jiangshi are basically Zombies originally from Chinese culture. They hop around, and crave for life force. this little jyushimatsu has taken to tomato juice instead. (Bonus: the zombie that osomatsu is in the zombie set in hesokuri wars is also a Jiangshi)

Todomatsu - Kitsune (sly fox)

“The Night Path” Youkai from Osomatsu-san Season 3 Episode 6 (November 2020)

The latest and what sparked me to make this post tbh. This set reuses the Rokurobi design from the very first Youkaimatsu iteration! Full circle yo! I like to think of this set as an addition to the original youkaimatsu, since they’re both from the primary sources.

Jyushimatsu - Rokurobi (Again)

Totoko - Amabie (mermaid with three legs? prophesized about either good harvest or an epidemic, trivia: “Amabie” trended when Covid 19 hit the world)

Hatabou - Azukiarai (a youkai that originated from the sound of something like beans being washed near a river, anyone who comes near will fall into the river)

Dayon - Nopperabou (Faceless spirits that take the form of humans. They are harmless usually, they just scare humans)

Dekapan - Kappa (Mischievous River spirits)

That should be all of them! 

Recap: 

Osomatsu has been a Kitsune, Shuten-Douji (twice), Karasu-Tengu, Enma-san and an Oni

Karamatsu has been a Karasu-Tengu (twice), Aoandon, Kitsune, Yamato no Orochi and a Mizuchi (?)

Choromatsu has been a Dodomeki, Daitengu, Shuten-Douji, Kamaitachi, Mizuki and a Kappa (No repeats!)

Ichimatsu has been a Nekomata, Kitsune (twice), Mizuchi, Bakaneko and a Karasu-Tengu

Jyushimatsu has been a Rokurobi (twice-ish), Inugami, Kamaitachi, Yobuko, a Frog from Jiraiya and a Jorogumo (?)

Todomatsu has been a Yuki Onna (twice), Bake-danuki, Ungaikyou, Kamaitachi and a Bakaneko

You can definitely see a trend (lmao), I’m looking forward to more Youkaimatsus from Osomatsu-san!

bonus:

Osomatsu-san cameo from Yokai Watch!!!

[mirkwoodshewolf]

Time travel rescue pt.3; 11th Doctor x teen reader ft. Queen

*Author’s note*

Alrighty now the next part will be the last one for awhile till I get around and finish writing pt.5 so you all will have to be on hiatus for a bit till then. But I’m happy to see people taking notice of this new mini-series crossover. Trust me this was really fun to write, but we get into a serious note. So here are the warnings for this specific chapter.

Warnings: Parent abandonment, gang activity, drugs, violence, knives, attempted murder, but I SWEAR NO ONE DIES IN THIS PART I PROMISE!!! So if any of these things make you uncomfortable, just skip this part, you won’t be missing much, (plus all this stuff get at around the middle of the fic and the end so you can read the beginning and then skip the middle, trust me you’ll know when one of the warnings begins)

Taglist:

@psychosupernatural

@plethora-of-things

@ixchel-9275

@waddles03

@platawnic

@bensrhapsody

@queendeakyy

@kairosfreddie

@geek-and-proud

_________________________________________________________

I arrived at the Hammersmith Odeon and snuck past security using my own psychic paper that the Doctor had given me (in fact this is the first time it’s worked with just me alone so I was praying that it did. Thank god it did).  I told him that I was a new volunteer to Roger’s assistant called in to help check in and make sure his drums were in tiptop shape.

Thankfully security at the time of the 1970’s just let anyone come in and out, not as fully overprotective as they are nowadays. I walked through the doors and soon came onto the stage and I just took it all in.  I myself had never been to the Odeon theater, but I knew every square inch from the concert footages Queen did every time they performed here, and I couldn’t believe my luck that I was actually here, here.

As I walked closer to the stage, I was in awe to see Roger’s drum kit all set up and ready for rehearsal.  I couldn’t help myself as I walked right up onto the stage and stood right before his drumkit, my eyes immediately catching the Queen logo on it designed by Freddie Mercury himself.

“Hello gorgeous.” I whispered as I very slightly stroked one of the crash cymbals.  I walked around the back and couldn’t help myself but sit down and I stroked along the floor toms where Roger was most known for pouring his beer on at the time to make it go really high once he hit it to make it theatrical and rock-n-roll.

I then noticed his drumsticks sitting on top of the one of the two middle toms and I couldn’t help but grab them.  Just touching them felt like I was touching something created only by the gods of drums themselves.  I twirled one of the stick very skillfully in my hand, much like how Roger does and I thought about what to play.

  I knew I couldn’t risk playing any of their future work (which is a shame cause not to brag I could play a mean Hammer to fall) but there were still plenty of choices to play that involved the guys’ early works.  

So I decided to try my hand at playing the solo I knew he would play at the live performance Christmas eve, because besides the solo at Montreal 1981, the drum solo he did here for the Christmas eve performance at the Hammersmith was one of my favorite drum solos for Keep yourself alive.

I heard the tune in my head and did my best to replicate each of his movements that I saw him do time and time again every time I would watch that concert.  I hit the bass drum when needed, the middle toms and the cymbals were the ones that got struck the most, I played the cowbell when it called for it, and I rhythmically beat down on the floor toms when needed.

I’ll admit there was a slipup here and there (cause hey I hadn’t even reached my five year marker from self-drum lessons). When I knew the drum solo ended I struck the cymbals one last time before grabbing them so that the echo wouldn’t last long.  

Already I felt winded cause it’s been awhile since I drummed with my own kit since I was so busy with the Doctor.  But I was shocked when I heard four separate applauses. I turned around and there stood Freddie, Deacy, Roger and Brian all with impressed smiles spread across their faces.

I smiled nervously and set Roger’s drumsticks back to where I found them and stood up and lightly curtsied before them.

“Well that’s it Rog we’ve found your replacement.” Joked Fred.

“I wouldn’t go saying that. I’m mediocre at best compared to Roger Taylor.” I said.

“Oh don’t be so modest darling, if you were any more modest you’d be Brian.” Brian looked at him before turning to me and he asked.

“So how long have you taken an interest in drums?”

“Only a couple years now. I was like—14 maybe 13 I can’t remember. My nana actually bought me my first drum kit.”

“Did you take lessons?” asked Deacy.

“Oh no we couldn’t afford drum lessons. I’m—kinda self-taught. I taught myself to play the drums by listening to different records. I know it sounds weird and a bit risky but—nana always told me that I had a keen ear for music, especially the harmony section. She caught me banging on the table with two pens and she’d name the song I was playing.”

“With skills like that I would’ve thought you’d been playing for at least 7 years.” Roger spoke up as he handed me a cup of water. I thanked him and took a sip, “And yeah there were some mishaps that I heard but maybe I could teach you how to properly strike the drumsticks in order to get the perfect sound.”

Oh my god. Did I just get offered a tutoring session with my hero? Roger Taylor was willing to give me a drum lesson? Holy shit nobody pinch me because I better not be dreaming.

“You’d—you’d really do that?” I asked.

“Absolutely. Hardly do I ever see a female drummer and you definitely got the skills love. In fact I’d be honored to teach a worthy student such as yourself.” I blushed at his praise.

“So (y/n) what other songs can you play?” asked Brian.

“Well mostly your stuff is what I first learned to play but I can play some other songs.” I stated.

“Do you know the opening to our song Liar?”

“Do I? That’s like my favorite live performance song you guys do. Well next to Bohemian Rhapsody.”

“Well let’s hear it lovie.” Roger told me as he held his drumsticks out for me to take.  I took them in my hand and twirled the sticks again before playing the opening note with the cowbell.  I heard the opening in my head and then immediately switched to the high and middle toms before going down to the floor toms and alternating both floor and middle toms.

But what I was shocked to hear next were the joining sounds of Brian’s Red Special as well as Deacy’s bass, even Fred got involved with the tambourine.  Roger stood behind me to observe and he would occasionally point out where to go next or whisper a brief tip on how to strike either the cymbals or the floor toms.

Once the intro was done, I exhaled and wiped the sweat already coming down my face and rubbed my hands.

“Well I guess it’s my horror to say that you’ll put me out of the job love.” Roger teased with a grin.

“No, no, no Rog. Like I said I maybe good but I’m nowhere near your speed.”

“But you are getting close. Looks like I better watch my back.” He said as both his hands came on top of my shoulders and he massaged my shoulders which made me rock back and forth.

“And once she surpasses you we can replace you. Maybe she’ll have some sense and not lock herself up in a cupboard like a child over a song.” Said Deacy. Whoa wait a second that actually happened?! I thought that was just a rumor.

“At least my song is worth more than yours was. ‘I’m happy at home’? What the hell kind of rock and roll lyric is that!?!”

“Children please. It’s already set and stone and Deacy’s song is a hit single in America.” Freddie said trying to tone down the heat before the flame got worse.

“Whatever Fred.”

“Alright well we’ve only got an hour for lunch, what do we say we head out and get us something before Reid or in worse case Paul comes in and tries to make us rehearse before we even have the chance to eat. I had to skip breakfast this morning.” Brian said.

“Well then you shouldn’t have slept so late Brian.” Deacy said.

“I hate mornings Deacy, not my fault.” As the boys went ahead it was just Roger and I as we got on our coats.

“So how did the search go? Did you find him?” he asked me.

“No.” I said solemnly.

“Do you have a number that you can call him on?” I mean I did but it was in my cellphone and I’d really rather not show it to Roger because wireless phones weren’t even invented yet, not till like 30 years from now.  And even if I could try the Tardis number from memory, there’s just too many numbers for me to keep track of all of them.

“His line’s been down lately. Bugger always has it off the hook for whatever reason. Roger I’m really worried about him. He can be—a bit eccentric and—jumpy after something like this.”

“Hey, it’ll be okay. For now let’s get some food in that belly of yours then after rehearsal I’ll help you find him okay?”

“Or—maybe I should stop trying.”

“Don’t say that love, okay? I promise we’re going to find your friend okay?” I looked into those deep blue eyes of his and I just felt this warmth, that everything Roger had said was true.  I nodded and that’s when he leaned his forehead against mine.  

Our noses softly touching each other’s and we just stood there with our eyes shut, drawing in each other’s strength.

We got lunch at a nearby pizza joint and I was told tons of stories about the guys.  Things that not even the fans of the future on tumblr even knew about (but to respect their privacy, I will not disclose any of that).

Freddie told me about how he and Mary first met each other and how he and her have a flat together.  He also told me about his precious furbabies and even showed me a photo of them that he kept in his wallet.  I awed at the pictures and he pointed out each cat in the photo; Tiffany, Oscar, Tom, Jerry, Lilly, Miko, and Romeo.

Deacy shared a little bit about his marriage with Veronica and the birth of their first born son Robert.  Aww so Robert was born around this time.  He even allowed me to see a picture of them, it was a recent picture taken around 2 months ago and he shared that his boy was now 5 months old.

He said he was a handful but Veronica and him loved him to pieces.  And I know for a fact he did, I mean I’m talking to the one Queen member who ended up having 6 kids all with the same woman.

“Is that why you dedicated your song to her?” I asked.

“Well it’s only partially true.” I looked at him confused.

“See while I did dedicate it to Veronica, I also kept thinking about my son while I was writing the song. I just imagined playing catch with him in the front yard, teaching him to ride a bike, just—being there for him. So it was both for her and my son that my song is dedicated to.” Aww why couldn’t my damn alcoholic/drug addict of a father be like Deacy?

And the same was said for both Brian and Roger. I got to learn so much about these guys that it felt like I was somehow becoming a part of their little group, their family.  Which was a feeling that was quite alien to me (no pun intended since I am technically friends with a timelord) but I liked it.

After lunch, I got to watch the boys rehearse some more till it was nightfall and currently Roger was giving me that drum lesson that he promised.  Ohhh I can’t believe I get to say that I got to have a drum lesson with the Roger Taylor of Queen.

“Okay so when it comes to playing Keep yourself alive, you always must keep hitting the bass drum in order to keep the tempo. The drum is like the heartbeat of the band. If it’s all out of sync, then we just sound like rubbish.”

“Okay so when it comes to the first opening note, I can go either cowbell tempo or the high toms?”

“Yes I mostly prefer to use the high toms as the main intro but once you commit to one thing, you gotta follow through with it.” I nodded.

“Now when it comes to playing Now I’m here, do you just find yourself going crazy cause I’ve tried to play it and all I end up doing is act like I’m having a seizure.”

“Yeah it can get easy to just let it all go, and sometimes I find myself doing that for the intro. But the way I remember is just go from high to low on the drum kit. The cymbals, to the high and middle toms down to the low toms. But mainly keep the rock out on the middle and high toms.”

“Okay.”

“Okay let’s see what you got. Start with the double cymbal. I’ll lead you in.” I nodded and twirled his drumstick around. He then began singing Freddie’s part and I nodded to the tempo of the song as I could hear it in me head.  When he got midway through the intro at the “Now I’m here/there.” I slammed the cymbal twice before catching it so that the sound would go silent.

Then when Roger sang the “I’m just a” line right before the rock out came on, I did as he said.  I went from high to low on the drum kit as Roger kept singing.  Once that was done, I caught the cymbals so that they ceased their ringing and Roger clapped.

“Phenomenal lovie, you are truly the best drummer I’ve seen.”

“Thanks Rog. I couldn’t have done it without all your teachings.”

“Well with the speed you’re going you won’t need my teachings for very long.”

“Oh my word. Never did I think I’d live to see the day when Roger admits that someone is better than him at the drums.” We looked up and Deacy soon came in but it wasn’t him that spoke out, it was the woman next to him.

She had long, dark brown hair and a beautiful face even without makeup on.  In her arms she held a tiny baby boy and judging by the way Deacy had his arm around her, this had to be Veronica.

“Ronnie, so good to see you. Still seeing your husband’s painted me to be a dick.”

“Hey now no swearing in front of the baby Roger.” She warned him.

“Right, right sorry Robert bubbies.” Roger cooed down towards Robert and he lightly began tickling his tummy which made him coo and laugh.  I couldn’t help but smile at the adorable sight and that’s when Veronica turned towards me and asked.

“And who’s this talented young lady?”

“Veronica love, this is (y/n). (Y/n) this is my wife Veronica.” John introduced us as he went ahead and took Robert off her hands for a bit.  Veronica held out her hand and I shook it.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too.” We both greeted each other with a soft smile.  God she was beautiful, just like the pictures I’ve seen of her.  Sure she was older in the pics because like her husband, she preferred to stay out of the limelight but she still supported her husband through and through.  Which is why in the real world, they are my OTP.

“So how did you meet my husband and his friends?” she asked me.

“Well I first ran into Roger the other night.” I explained.

“(Y/n) here got jumped by some arseholes.” Said Roger taking his break from playing with Robert.

“Oh no you poor thing, you okay?”

“Yeah I am. Thanks to Rog and his friends.” I said as Roger came up to me and he playfully gave me a noogie.

“So where are you staying?” she asked me.

“She’s staying with me for now. She had a friend with her that night and we haven’t found him yet. I’m hoping to help her tomorrow since we don’t have as long of a rehearsal tomorrow.”

“Well you know (y/n) if you’d like to take a break from these guys, you’re more than welcome to stay with me at the hotel I’m staying at.”

“How far is it?” I asked.

“Oh it’s just a mile from their hotel.”

“No Veronica how dare you try to take my roommate from me!” Roger exclaimed as he wrapped his arms around me tightly almost to the point of smothering me.

“Rog don’t smother the poor girl.” Said Deacy. Roger released me from his strong embrace allowing me to breathe.

“Besides I know what hanging around you guys for too long does. At least let her hang around someone whose sane and won’t start an argument every five minutes.” Veronica said.  Deacy looked at her accusingly and she said, “John you know I love you but let’s be honest, you can be a bit bitchy.” Roger softly laughed before looking down at me.

“Well (y/n), do—you want to go with Veronica for the night?”

“I—well I don’t want to impose. Especially since you have your son.”

“I wouldn’t mind, in fact I could use the extra hand since my love is pretty much busy for the next few days.”

“I promise I’ll try to be over by tonight though.”

“I know you will.” She said as Deacy cupped the side of her face as Veronica nuzzled against her husband’s palm.  Gahh I can’t take seeing them together it’s just—so kawaii!

“Well—if you don’t mind. Then I could spend a couple of nights over at your hotel.” I said.  She smiled and said.

“Now worries (y/n), we can leave after we all get some dinner.” And that’s what happened.

Soon Veronica and I arrived back at her hotel room.  She insisted on helping with my bags but I told her that she needed to take care of Robert and that I could handle everything myself.

Once I got unpacked and changed into my pajamas, Veronica was putting baby Robert to bed.  As I watched her look down at her son with loving eyes, I couldn’t help but just feel envious of Robert.  They were the perfect parents to Robert who gave him nothing but love and attention and he wasn’t even a year old yet.

She was reading to her son a lovely bedtime story while sitting in the rocking chair.  Baby Robert cooing as he leaned against her chest trying to fight off sleep, but the sound of Veronicas soothing, motherly voice as she read to him made him fall asleep.

I couldn’t help but turn away and try to hold in my tears.  I buried my face into my hands and bit my lip to hold in any sobs that tried to come out.  Damnit what I wouldn’t give to have parents like Deacy and Veronica, instead my parents cared more about their next fix rather than their daughter.

I was a means to an end to them, when they really did notice me it was before they could sell me for drug money.  I could’ve been sold off, molested by drug abusers, hooked on drugs and probably died by 5 years old from malnourishment. Why didn’t they love me?

“(Y/n)?” I looked up to see Veronica standing over me looking at me concerned. “Are you okay sweetie?” I sniffled and wiped my tears.

“Yeah. Yeah I’m fine….I’m fine.” I choked out as I turned away from her still wiping my tears.

“You don’t have to lie to me.”

“How can you tell?”

“You and John do a similar thing. You refuse to make eye contact with me whenever you lie. So come on out with it. What’s going on in that mind of yours? Is it your friend?”

“No, no. I—god you’re gonna think I’m a horrible person when I say this.”

“Try me.” Wow she’s such a sweetheart.  As she rubbed my back comfortingly and handed me a box of tissues, I dabbed my eyes of the tears and I said.

“I—envy your son.” She looked at me confused and that’s when I continued, “I—I haven’t even told Roger the entire truth but uhh—my parents were…..drug addicts. Hell my mum never even knew she was pregnant till she gave birth to me behind a dumpster. I was—merely a coat to them. They only noticed me when they wanted to. Then when I was 3 they—” I trailed off and shook my head.

“You don’t have to explain anymore (y/n). God I—I cannot even begin to think what you went through. You poor thing.” She tucked a strand of hair behind my ear and I said.

“I always believed that—all parents were like that. That’s why I also denied authority in my younger years. But then seeing you and Deacy speak and treat Robert like that it—” more tears spilled from my eyes and that’s when Veronica took me in her arms and proceeded to rub my back comfortingly.

“Ohh (y/n) I am so sorry you had to go through something like that. But think of it this way, even with a sad and troubled upbringing, you’re still this beautiful, talented, charismatic young woman. Who I believe one day is going to change the world.”

Wow—I mean I read on biography information that she was sweet and down to earth but this—it was just completely mind boggling. I mean I’m barely an acquaintance of her husband and she’s already treating me like I’ve known the boys for years.

“Thank you Veronica.”

“You’re most welcome love, do you feel any better?”

“Yeah I….I’ve never really had the chance to cry about my past….at all really.”

“Well I’m always here to offer a shoulder to cry on, or if you want to get away from the boys.” We both chuckled and that’s when she got up and actually made me some hot chocolate as a comfort drink. As I sat there for a while, I saw Veronica going through Robert’s baby bag when she said.

“Oh darn it.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I thought I packed enough diapers for Robert but I guess I used the last of it just before his bedtime. And I can’t ask John to run the errand for me because his hotel’s 20 blocks from here.”

“You can go get the diapers, I’ll watch Robert.” She looked at me wearily.

“Are you sure? And I don’t mean this in a crude way but do you know how to take care of a baby?”

“I’ve dabbled here and there with some neighbors around my nana’s place.”

“Are you sure you can handle it?” she asked worriedly.

“Hey Veronica, trust me I’ve got this. Besides it’d be better than driving with a baby boy with a wet diaper to the nearest store, get the diapers, come back here, change him and put him back to bed.”

“You’re right okay well if you insist. His bottles are already made and in the fridge. Just warm it up for about 30 seconds in after putting the water in for the same amount of time. Uhh if he drops his sea turtle in the night just put it back in his crib. I should be back in a few minutes so you won’t deal with him long okay?”

“We’ll be okay Veronica now go. Go get those diapers before a store closes for the night. Especially with the holidays getting closer.”

“Yeah you’re right. I’ll be back in about 10 minutes if not 5, think you can be in charge for that long?”

“No worries you can trust me Veronica, now go.” She nodded then grabbed her coat, purse and keys and headed out the door. I went to take a quick peek over at baby Robert to see that he was still asleep which put me at ease so I went back into the main room without a second thought.

I managed to find a random fashion magazine probably given by the hotel management and just browsed through it. Now I’ll admit some of this stuff that came out during the 70’s I’ll admit were super stylish and I kinda wish we kept them around. And yeah call me an old soul but hell I’ve been everywhere far, wide and in between.

But as the minutes ticked by, I kept getting this itch that something wasn’t right.  It reminded me of being back in the gang when a standoff would happen and next thing we would know, BANG! BANG someone got shot in the head or heart.

So I went back to check on Robert to see that he was still fast asleep in the pitch black room, but there—there was just the feeling in the air that someone else was here in the room.  I thought I heard the chair rock but I was nowhere near it, I carefully and slowly reached into my back pocket my 6 inch tiger claw knife.

I actually caught sight of these when helping out with a weapons trade when I was around 12.  I saw this knife along with the tiger-like claws along the handle and I thought ‘damn this is a badass weapon’. So I swiped it and no one suspected a thing.  I readied it on my right hand and decided that anything I would see move, I would attack.

Because I’ll be damned if anyone attacks Robert.

It was then I saw a shadow quickly go past the door and I sprung out and immediately attacked the person.  I stabbed them repeatedly and all I got in response was an animal-like hiss, a very familiar animal like hiss.  The thing and I rolled on top of each other before I kicked them out towards the living room and there I saw it.

It was the fish-humanoid creature that had somehow gotten on the TARDIS, however it wasn’t the exact same one that pushed me out.  This one was more strongly built and had a more greenish tone than the previous one. But those eyes, webbed hands, claws and teeth were still the same.

I stood guard over the door holding and skillfully spinning my tiger-claw knife that I wasn’t gonna let this beast get by me without a fight.  It snarled as it stared at me pacing back and forth but I kept my eyes and would adjust my stance following it’s every move so that it wouldn’t sneak by me.

But then I saw it smirk at me before it suddenly morph it’s shape into a more human form.  The claws shrunk to fingernails, the skin became slightly more tan and long blonde hair began to grow out of its head.  Soon standing before me was none other than Roger.

Oh shit. What if—what if this thing was some kind of a siren? I mean it would make sense, fish-like creature, able to turn into a handsome person whether male or female.  But there’s one thing this siren didn’t really include, I may love Roger but not in the way it thinks I do.

So I literally had no problem with lunging right at it and pinned it against the wall.  I got a knee right where the sun didn’t shine before getting a few good jabs in.

“Nice try, but our love is different you bitch.” The siren eyes shifted from Roger’s famed blues back to its pitch black as it’s teeth and claws came back out and it lunged for me again.  It tackled me against the counter and proceeded to try and take a bite out of me but I held it back with as much strength as I could before finally taking a stab at it through its shoulder.

It hissed in pain before taking my wrist and twisting it to the point where I heard the bone break.  I let out an agonizing scream as it then grabbed me and threw me towards the table which broke the glass top and I lay there groaning in agony.  It’s eyes glared at pure hatred towards me before it turned its attention back towards the bedroom.

It suddenly turned to water and it drained right towards the bedroom. Oh fucking hell you don’t!  I tried as best I could to get up and crawl towards the bedroom. I saw it’s shadow standing over Robert’s crib and it took my knife out of it shoulder before admiring it and turning down towards Robert.

No, no, no, no, no, no! That bastard was gonna point the blame on me for killing John and Veronica’s first born! It grinned maliciously at me before pointing the blade right down to Robert.

Suddenly a high pitched sound came out of nowhere and the siren dropped my knife to the floor.  It held it’s ears in agony and hissed an echoey type shriek as it’s form kept reverting between it’s true form and Roger’s.

I took this as my moment to take my knife back and tackle the damn bastard down to the ground, but in that process, we had actually knocked the crib over and the next thing that echoed through the room was Robert’s crying.

I trailed behind the siren until I managed to corner it behind the rocking chair and the drapes.  I pinned it down with both my legs and stabbed it repeatedly in the back roaring and crying out before finally slicing it’s neck which stained the corner of the room with it’s blood.

Robert’s crying softened as I came out from the corner of the room and collapsed exhaustedly to the floor covered in the siren’s blood.

“Do you have any idea how worried I was about you missy?” I could hear Robert’s cooing and I heard the voice say again, “Yes, yes she did save your life. And she was very brave at that too.” I turned around and smiled and chuckled softly.

“Doctor.”

[hilarymp]

PET SEMATARY (2019) REVIEW

SPOILER WARNING! This review contains spoilers for Pet Sematary (2019), Pet Sematary (1989) and the novel.

    I’ll admit straight out of the gate that I went into Pet Sematary (2019) with a negative attitude. For whatever reason (one that I am still struggling to comprehend) the studio decided not only to make a rather large divergence from the source material’s plot, but to also spoil this “twist” in the trailer and promotional material. That alone was enough to convince me that this remake/reboot/reimagining/whatever the fuck you want to call it probably wasn’t going to win me over. So let’s discuss that first and foremost.

    I am not at all opposed to film adaptations making changes. Case in point, 2017’s new IT. IT and it’s miniseries predecessor are among some of my favorite horror films of all time, despite the fact that they were not 100% faithful to the novel, especially the more recent installment. For me changes are totally fine as long as they a.) maintain the spirit, themes, and tone of the original story and b.) make the film more frightening.

    With those rules in mind the change prominently displayed in the trailer for 2019’s Pet Sematary, the fact the Creed’s eldest child Ellie is the one who is killed and brought back from the dead instead of toddler Gage, already failed at rule b. Don’t get me wrong, any reanimated evil corpse is going to be scary, but why on earth would you deny us an evil murderous baby just to give us yet another creepy little girl. The ‘creepy little girl’ trope in horror is so tired and overused it makes my head hurt. The Ring, Orphan, The Exorcist, Silent Hill, The Shining, Alice Sweet Alice, The Bad Seed, Let the Right One In, Hereditary, Sinister, I could go on and on and on. The use of the trope isn’t inherently terrible, but why would you go out of your way to use it when something less used and much scarier (a straight up homicidal TODDLER) is an option? The simplest and most likely reason, in my opinion, was for convenience. Is directing a 2 year old more difficult to direct than an 11 year old? Yes, of course, obviously. But it’s definitely possible, as Mary Lambert proved while directing Miko Hughes as Gage in 1989. (Honestly, to this day I can not believe the performance she got out of that little boy.) So to me the change is not only a disservice to the film, but also an indication that the filmmakers were unabashedly lazy.

    So now that you know why I had set myself up for disappointment to begin with, let’s break down what the film succeeded at and how it failed.

    Whatever problems I have with the film, at least I can say that I loved the cast. John Lithgow was extremely endearing and likable. His performance as Jud was a refreshingly grounded and heartfelt departure from Fred Gwynne’s high camp in ‘89. Jason Clarke was as engrossing as ever. I always enjoy Clarke’s performances, and he often brings extra depth to characters that would have otherwise fallen flat (Dr. Price in ‘Winchester’ being a prime example). And Jete Laurance was nothing short of incredible. You would never expect that this little girl could transform into something to sinister so effortlessly. Her performance in the first half of the film is filled with such sweet sincerity, that her turn into undead Ellie is all the more frightening. Not as frightening as being terrorized by a little ankle biting toddler, mind you, but enjoyable nonetheless. ESPECIALLY compared to Ellie in the 89 film. Do you remember her? My God, she was so annoying. 

    Speaking of annoying, Amy Seimetz as Rachel was the only weak link in the cast. Instead of being deeply troubled and complex as Stephen King wrote her, Seimetz’s Rachel is so one dimensional that by the third or fourth time we see her crying, I wasn’t just unmoved, I was borderline irritated. ‘The weepy mother’ role in horror films are never especially fulfilling, but in this instance Rachel was meant to be much more than that. And the cheapening of the Zelda subplot doesn’t help matters either. 

    To me Zelda, Rachel’s late sister who suffered from spinal meningitis, was hands down the scariest part of the book and original film, so I was extra disappointed here. I’m fully aware that the character of Zelda is extremely problematic and portraying her as a monster is ableist as fuck. (Let’s be real, 99% of all Stephen King’s works are problematic but if we pull on that thread we’ll be here all day.) But the in the new film she is completely under utilized. Her appearances have been shrunk down to generic Conjuring-like jumpscares. Like most horror movies these days, the film relies on quick cuts, loud bangs, and obnoxious music cues to startle us instead of showing us anything particularly alarming. There is one prolonged sequence of incredible suspense, as Louis slowly walks through his basement in search of his daughters reanimated corpse, that filled me with so much dread that I was finally genuinely scared. Alas, *sad trombone*, it was undercut with a cheap jumpscare just like all the rest.

    On top of uninspired jumpscares, the filmmaking as a whole was ‘meh’ at best, especially the production design. The houses nearly hidden among the picturesque dense woods are definitely more visually interesting than the ones presented to us in ‘89. It also makes the danger of the nearby highway much more palpable, with the road being both closer to the house and more believably prone to accidents, with the thick foliage hindering the drivers’ ability to see. And the ‘pet sematary’ itself is serviceable enough, not much different from what we’ve seen before. But once we are taken beyond the dead fall to the cursed burial ground, the scope of the film shrinks drastically, making everything feel cramped and cheap like a paper mache Haunted house, even with cheap smoke machine effects to match.

    There are a lot of loose ends in the film as well, though it’s hard to tell if they were caused by the script or the editing. For instance, when Jud is explaining the burial ground to Louis, he mentions the wendigo that is suspected to be the source of the land’s power. But… that’s all he says about it. He doesn’t explain what a Wendigo is, what it does, or why it does it. If you’ve never read the book, or have never heard of a wendigo before, the word means nothing. Why bring up the Wendigo at all if you’re not even going to tie it into the lore properly. They could just have easily just said ‘cursed Indian burial ground’ (it in and of itself a tired trope, but still) and we would have just went with it. Another example is when undead Ellie is terrorizing Jud, she turns herself into Jud’s dead wife, and mentions that says something along the lines of “Your wife is “n hell for what you did to her before she died”. What? What the hell did he do? Why the fuck would you even put that out there with zero follow up?!

    Oh and let’s talk about Pascow. His role in the film is minimized so much, they might as well have left him out entirely. If I’m remembering correctly, late in the novel Pascow appears to Rachel urging her to come home. In the first film he appears to Rachel instead, who tells Rachel they need to come home. But in this film he appears to Gage. A toddler. Who can barely speak. Now as disturbing of a notion it is to have a very small child being haunted by such a gruesome image (and you all know how much I love disturbing shit), it’s also kind of pointless and dumb. If Pascow wanted to get Rachel to come home, why would he appear to Gage who, again, can’t talk, instead of just appearing to Rachel? One could argue that Gage’s crying and saying the name Pascow freaks Rachel out so much that it makes her want to go back, but you could just as easily say she left to get away from her memories of Zelda in her parents house, or the fact that Louis wouldn’t answer his goddamn phone

    We’re also missing out on some crucial motivations to explain Louis’ terrible decision making. No scene of Louis and the grandfather fighting at the funeral, no Louis being blamed for his child’s death, no knocking over of the casket. I might be biased since, for me, that sequence is one of the most upsetting moments of the 89 film. But on top of a missed opportunity to shock, it also takes away the debilitating guilt that motivates Louis to resurrect his child, despite knowing it won’t go well. The guilt is still vaguely implicit, but sometimes horror films need to explicitly illustrate cause and effect, if for no other reason than to keep the audience from screaming “Why the fuck would you do that!?” at the screen for 2 hours.

    Speaking of motivations, what are Ellie’s? What even is Ellie for that matter? The film can’t seem to make up its mind. Undead Ellie has Ellie’s memories, remembers how she died, and holds grudges against her parents for both her death and her resurrection. So there must be some part of the real Ellie in there, right? But when Rachel says “You’re not my daughter” undead Ellie agrees with her! So if it’s not really Ellie why does she keep trying to guilt and punish her parents? If she’s just an evil demon or spirit possessing Ellie’s corpse, you’d think it’d be glad that Louis was stupid enough to bury her up there. Free meat suit, hurray! The spirit clearly wants more bodies buried up there, seeing as it takes out the entire family just to bring them back like she was. Surely she just wanted to kill them all for funsies, right? Who the fuck knows. The screenwriter sure doesn’t appear to.

    Another super obnoxious thing about this film is it’s cheap fake-outs. It’s one thing to change iconic moments from the first adaptation, but constantly calling attention to it is another. Like the ominous close ups of Jud’s heel and him kicking the bed before Ellie gets him on the stairs. Yeah we get it. ‘The old movie had Gage under the bed, but watch out, we’re mixing stuff up in this one!’ Yup. Got it. Thanks for the reminder. Or the whole ‘Gage almost being hit by the truck’ fake out before Ellie is actually hit. This one is especially stupid since you already fucking showed us in the trailer that Gage isn’t going to die. Why even try to fake us out like that when we already know you’ve changed that too? You have successfully irritated and underwhelmed me, movie, no reason to draw more attention to it.

Here’s a quick list of some other petty little things that bugged me. These aren’t even necessarily the movie’s fault, some just come from the book itself.

If Rachel is so traumatized and adverse to talking about death, why the fuck did she marry an ER doctor?

You expect me to believe that Louis, pragmatic Louis who doesn’t even believe in an afterlife, would just follow Jud over the deadfall, through the woods, across a swamp and up a bunch of mysterious stone stairs, with zero explanation? No questions asked? I’d be asking “What the fuck are we doing?” about every couple of yards.

Why in god’s name would Rachel’s parents not only still live in the house where their daughter suffered and died, but also KEEP THE DUMB WAITER SHE DIED IN?

Why don’t movies ever address the fact that when you’re buried your eyes and lips are sewn or glued shut beforehand? And the scene where Louis is bathing Ellie and he sees the staples in her head and is all freaked out - wouldn’t she have huge fucking staples all across her chest and down her abdomen from the funeral home too??

    Despite my complaints, Pet Sematary isn’t completely devoid of entertainment value, not by a long shot. It’s not bad, it just could have been so so much better. Pet Sematary is riddled with missed opportunities,  and if you‘re an overly analytical jaded horror fan with a devotion to Stephen King like I am, they are much more obvious. I’m not mad, Pet Sematary, I’m just disappointed. To quote Tyra Banks, we were rooting for you, we were all rooting for you! You had so much potential, you just dropped the ball. Just like losing a loved one, there’s a mourning period that must be observed. Time to cope with the loss of what could have been. But rest assured, by the time you come out on blu-ray, I’ll be ready to try again.

[xtremedespair3d]

Happy New Year 2019 - 2018 Review: My Worst Year Yet

The end is near...

The end of the year and almost the end of the decade, we’re going to be at least one year away to enter 2020.

This was a good year, but as the title implies, there were some severe downs, but before I talk about my really long story about my experience with 2018, let’s start this post with the good old top 10s, but this time, I’m finally going to start from 10 to 1 because I’ve been doing the other way around for years and that’s not how it works. Not everything will have comments because I almost have no idea on what to write in some entries and don’t want to make more repetitive and simplistic than some of the entries of each list are.

This is indeed my longest Tumblr post yet, so I hope you enjoy:

Top 10 Best Anime: This list was honestly really difficult to make compared to the others, mainly because I watch a lot of anime and can’t choose which ones I really liked the most except for the final top 3. I would have liked to extend the list to Top 20, but I want to be consistent with the other lists (Sure there are shorter lists but I don’t want to go over 10).

10.- Toji No Miko: I’m highly indifferent with this series overall, the characters, the universe, the world building, etc., at least this was successful enough to spawn a game and now a spin-off series for Winter 2019 (Looks like they could be shorts but who knows), not the biggest franchise in existence but it’s got potential.

Despite my mild interest, my jokes that this looked like Kancolle (Because it features one of the character designers) and Touken Ranbu (just sword wielding) had a baby will live on.

9.- Fate/Extra: Last Encore: Another controversial Fate “adaptation” in recent memory. Yes, I was surprised and yelled like crazy in confusion with the changes from the game on the first episode alone, but despite this series turning tables from the game but still following how things went linearly, it’s not worth the hate or anything.

Some people have called it confusing, which... parts of it were but Last Encore is not worth the hate. It’s not by any means bad, you have to understand that it’s its own thing and what not.

Fate/Extra is probably my only Fate/Type-Moon media I got into before even getting into their anime adaptations, which I’m happy for it.

 8.- Darling in the Franxx: Alright, call me out on this one, but it did nothing wrong!

When it first started, there were mixed feelings for its fan servicey start with naked Zero Two, in the middle of the series, everything seems like it was going fine and I liked where the story was going, but then there was the Bitchigo controversy, it’s probably not the series’ breaking point, but at that point it looks like the hate was carried until the end.

Why do people hate Franxx? As if people were expecting too much on how should the story be or anything.

Trigger and A-1 may or may not sound like an interesting combo, but it looked like it was more A-1 than Trigger. As a Trigger fan (I’m more into their originals, adaptations don’t work for me), I really hope people don’t hate Trigger forever for Franxx, but who’s actually to blame here?

 7.- Steins;Gate 0: This one is a little controversial to add considering there was a lot of hate on it, I don’t get why, if the first season is considered a masterpiece, how could Steins;Gate 0 fail to follow the formula? (I’m an animeonly fag, what do you expect?)

 6.- Zombieland Saga: This one gets a big seal of approval as a birthday gift of mine (it came out on October 4th), and one of the best originals too.

Really hoping for a second season. (Don’t care if it’ll be as shit as Rage of Bahamut: Virgin Soul)

5.- Cells at Work! / Hataraku Saibou: This one wasn’t on my Summer 2018 radar until I saw the first two episodes and I immediately loved it.

Seems like those Osmosis Jones/Ozzy & Drix jokes got to convince me to watch it. (I actually only grew up with the Osmosis Jones movie, I never saw Ozzy & Drix in my entire life ;_;)

4.- My Hero Academia season 3.

3.- Devilman Crybaby.

2.- Pop Team Epic.

1.- Today’s Menu for Emiya Family / Emiya-san Chi no Kyou no Gohan: Another one of Ufotable’s visually departive series (Meaning that they’re different from their usual productions (God Eater also comes into this territory but not as visually different than Himuro no Tenchi and Emiya-san. Sure, Ufotable had different and the common solid color visuals back in the 2000s but nowadays seeing Ufotable taking this direction is amazing).

Since it’s a cooking show, I would definitely love to copy the recipes as told in the show (wonder if they’re good enough to make the food actually taste good), and I also had this tradition with a mutual of mine of watching every episode when they came out monthly (it’s a monthly series).

Honorable mentions:

Yuru Camp

B: The Beginning

A.I.C.O Incarnation

Golden Kamuy

Aggretsuko

Castlevania season 2

Touken Ranbu Hanamaru season 2: Since Winter 2018 feels like a long time, I genuinely forget this existed. 😂

Violet Evergarden

Dagashi Kashi 2

Overlord II, III

The Ryuuou’s Work is Never Done! / Ryuuou no Oshigoto!: I haven’t seen this Day 1, but I binged it a few months later.

Citrus

Lupin the 3rd Part 5

Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card

FLCL Progressive, FLCL Alternative

Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs

Senran Kagura: Shinovi Master Tokyo Youma Hen

SSSS.GRIDMAN

Ace Attorney season 2

Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san / Gaikotsu Shotenin Honda-san

Goblin Slayer

Gakuen Basara

High Score Girl

Top 5 Worst Anime:

Caligula: I always didn’t like the game, haven’t played it myself, but looking at it, the art is unappealing, the characters, the universe, pretty much everything, not even Persona 1 writer Tadashi Satomi would make the game any favors. (That’s mostly on the game, anime may differ but I just don’t care at all.).

Grancrest Senki / Record of Grancrest War: As someone who’s not really into the fantasy genre, but let’s be real, this one’s probably the most boring fantasy anime I’ve ever watched in my life.

Parts of it, like the political drama, was great, but everything else? I felt like I didn’t care at all, well, not always super ignorant, I dunno, it’s just that I wasn’t the biggest fan of this show.

Persona 5: The Animation: This one may be the worst Persona adaptation yet, the pacing was all over the place, animations on the fight scenes are weak, a gratuitous ending to the base series leading up to the special for New Year’s.

What about the surprise the director teased a while before the series began?

P5A was bad, but it wasn’t offensively bad, I’m not mad at it for being bad.

The time when the OVA, Dark Sun has come out, apparently they decided to announce ANOTHER OVA for March 2019 to conclude the story... Seems like there’s no end.

I’ve also been waiting for the surprise the director teased for so long and I don’t think as of the writing of this will ever get paid off.

Junji Ito Collection: At first I was intrigued on how they would capture the Junji Ito horror, but weeks later, as I kept watching it, it was feeling a bit boring, like it feels slow. Then I heard that it’s one of the worst anime of 2018 so far, that’s... actually quite exaggerating, well, it’s bad but it’s not THAT bad.

Tokyo Ghoul:re: Pierrot once again ruined Tokyo Ghoul, no surprise, but maybe even worse. From the obvious rushed story to the lackluster fight scenes, even the first Tokyo Ghoul season had better animated fight scenes.

Top 10 Best Movies:

10.- The Shape of Water: Technically it was 2017 film but it came out in Mexico like in January 12th iirc, I thought it was a good film, I’d need to watch more Guillermo Del Toro films, particularly the Hellboy films now that the reboot is coming out next year. 7.5/10.

9.- The Cloverfield Paradox: Quite optimistic that there’s a new Cloverfield movie since the original (over 10 years) and 10 Cloverfield Lane (2 years ago), but it turns out that it’s quite a flawed movie, It did nothing wrong! 7.5/10.

8.- Aquaman: Definitely my favorite DC film yet (GTFO Wonder Woman with feminism and everyone complaining on the final fight scene with overuse of CG (if it hurt the film that badly, then the film is not worth a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes), I definitely loved the VFX on Atlantis and the final fight with Ocean Master. Speaking of Ocean Master, I love that they animated his helmet eyes a la Deadpool. 8/10 - Rank: A.

7.- Overlord: Whether this would have worked as a Cloverfield movie or not, I love me some World War II zombie film by JJ Abrams. (Speaking of non-Cloverfield film, I would have liked to watch A Quiet Place.) 8.5/10 - Rank: A.

6.- Mission Impossible: Fallout: My first interaction with the Mission Impossible franchise was with the first film when I was at the English school I used to study, I would have liked to watch Rogue Nation when it came out in 2015 but I haven’t developed my habit of absolute moviegoer until 2017, now that they announced Fallout and will have Henry Cavill (with his mustache, the main reason for the Justice League mustachegate), I would not hesitate to see it.

Even if I have only seen the first film, this is already the best Mission Impossible film yet, definitely felt the thrills for the action and it make me like Henry Cavill more, especially the fucking arm reload.

Too bad August Walker died, but I couldn’t help to say “Superman died again but permanently.” Now I’m definitely looking forward for more Mission Impossible films. 9.5/10 - Rank: S+.

5.- My Hero Academia: Two Heroes: Since MHA is so popular, even in Mexico, there was always bound to be quite the mouthful fanboys in my theater, may be the most annoying experience yet but I wasn’t really annoyed as much as the next entries.

Just a heads up, the loud crowd in my cinema don’t really ruin my experience on seeing the movie. 9/10 - Rank: S.

4.- Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple: Our second anime movie experience and the one time we get to see an anime film on the afternoon because with My Hero Academia and Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel have been on the night.

The best thing about Bungou Stray Dogs: Dead Apple is that it came out exactly on my sister’s birthday, August 25th.

My sister hasn’t seen Bungou Stray Dogs but she didn’t mind and accepted my request to go see it together, and I couldn’t be happier to see it on her birthday.

Not much to add on the loud crowd but the loudest ones were a bunch of fujos fangirling out at this Dazai x Chuuya scene and this part where the Shibusawa fight from the end of the film ended, someone sneezed, another guy replied “bless you” loudly and everyone else laughed. Didn’t ruin my experience, but come on... 9/10 - Rank: S.

3.- Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel I. Presage Flower: Like The Shape of Water, Heaven’s Feel I was a 2017 film and came out in Mexico in January 2018, but that aside, it was the first film I’ve ever seen in a cinema and seeing anime visuals and animation (especially Ufotable’s) was pure eye candy and it was a dream come true.

This kickstarted our (my older sister and I) hobby of seeing anime movies to the cinema with the previous entriesI (sorry but we won’t allow our mom to watch anime with us, we’d rather have the annoying people in the cinema than hearing her whine about every bloody scene she sees). 9.5/10 - Rank: S+.

The second film, Lost Butterfly, was supposed to come out, but it got delayed until January 12th, damn, so close, so I think I had a perfect chance to watch the first film this year because at the time I didn’t trust much the disributor, Konnichiwa Festival, for bringing anime films I’d like to see the most, or anything from series like My Hero Academia and Bungou Stray Dogs (They also brought A Silent Voice and Your Name).

(For some reason I’ve always been typing “Passage Flower” instead of “Presage Flower”, in what universe have I made that up?)

The fact that the second film comes out on January 12th is almost exactly like about the same time the first film came out on Mexican cinema on the 19th, that’s quite an amazing (or disturbing) coincidence.

2.- Ready Player One: I’ve been optimistic about this movie and heard a couple of good things about the book and its concept, but it was full of controversial hate, but... why?! IT DID NOTHING WRONG! The film did well, whether you’re a bookfag or not, but even some bookfags didn’t like how the film turned out, but who cares? It was still fun. 9.5/10 - Rank: S+.

1.- The Incredibles 2: I’m happy The Incredibles 2 is finally here, continuing the cliffhanger from the first film and everything, my life is complete. 10/10 - Rank: S++.

Top 6 Best Marvel Movies: I always tend to make my normal movie lists a bit Marvel heavy, because they’re all so good, so I decided to make a separate list of their own.

5.- Black Panther: It’s probably a bit more popular than Avengers: Infinity War for its cultural impact and everything, but it was still a good movie, to say the least (I’m probably the more big team-up type than standalone). 8.5/10 - Rank: A.

4.- Ant-Man and the Wasp: It’s still worth watching, but I feel like it’s the least relevant MCU movie of the year, except the quantum realm stuff and... the post-credits scene. My sister and I lowkey laughed our asses off that Hank, Janet and Hope vanished from the snap. 8.5/10 - Rank: A.

3.- Deadpool 2: Worthy sequel, and pretty weird for Fox to release a PG-13 version, Once Upon a Deadpool, just when people were skeptical that Disney with the Fox purchase would PG-13′d Deadpool when Fox themselves are the ones doing it first, but for a good reason...

(I made this image myself)

Well, that too but most importantly... THE X-MEN AND THE FANTASTIC FOUR IN THE MCU!

Speaking of Once Upon a Deadpool, it will come out on Mexico on January 1st but I’ll go see it on the weekend. Anyways, the score for DP2 is: 8.5/10 - Rank: A.

2.- Venom: The best movie birthday gift I’ve gotten, AND IT’S NOT TRASH, OKAY?! I’ve seen plenty of fan arts and they make up for the fact the film is trash, and it also represents people just simply like shipping Eddie Brock and Venom. 9.5/10 - Rank: S+. (Want to fight me about the score?)

1-B.- Avengers: Infinity War:  YES! Infinity War is everything I wanted! I love the film to death, and I’d really love to own the Blu-Ray like I do with Civil War. Too bad THERE HAS TO BE SOME PEOPLE WHO DISLIKED THE FILM!

Some people complained about the plot structure for being hard to follow, some for the CG, and some simply because they were like “ehhh, I didn’t like it.”, BUT..... RRRRRRRGGGGGGGNNNNNNNHHHHHHHHHH!!! 👀💢 

IT’S A BIG MOVIE, THE ENDING MAY HAVE BEEN SHOCKING BUT IT WAS MEME-TASTIC AND EVERYTHING, IT’S SILLY FOR HATE TO EXIST ESPECIALLY WHETHER FROM CASUAL MARVEL VIEWERS AND SUCH.

THE PEOPLE WHO DIDN’T LIKE THE FILM, THEY DESERVE TO BE SNAPPED BY THANOS. QUE SE VAYAN A LA CHIN--

Alright, enough rambling, I loved the movie, I was definitely shocked by the ending (It’s not a bad ending that would ruin the film, don’t even dare to say that, please), but it’s a good set up for Avengers: Endgame. 9.5/10 - Rank: S+.

But... I gotta admit that it was my #1-A movie of the year, but there’s one movie that absolutely dethroned Infinity War...

1-A.- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse: This film... THIS FILM, THOUGH, this is legit the best Spider-Man movie ever, with really awesome animation style, reminiscent of a comic book, the best easter eggs and everything.

Also, at the Stan Lee parts, from his cameo to his quote and a thanks to him and Steve Ditko, I legit cried at thiose parts for a small bit. I don’t even want to think about it. 😭

Some random notes before even seeing the film include buying a lot of the promotional items from my cinema (pictured)...

Out of all these items, I got...

...This cup when my older sister and I went to see My Hero Academia: Two Heroes on November 30th.

I did not hesitate to buy a keychain, let alone TWO (one for me and another one for my sister), there was a different keychain, the one with just Miles but I prefer the Spider symbol because I love symbols.

This popcorn bucket. I had a Spider-Man 3 plastic bucket, but it seems like I can’t find it somewhere in my house, sadly. But at least we needed a new bucket.

Along with the bucket, I also bought this cup (which I forgot about to take a photo of it and took it at home as you can see here).

So I got two of the three cups pictured way above, I also wanted to buy one of the wristbands but my family wouldn’t let me and it was too much to buy, they even told me I wouldn’t even wear them all the time. Oh well, at least I’m satisfied with the keychains, the cups and the bucket.

Happy to hear that there’s a female spin-off in the works, so my body is definitely ready to see more of the Spider-Verse with animation this beautiful. 100/10 - Rank: S++. Sorry Avengers: Infinity War but GTFO, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse has easily won my heart and it’s my #1 movie, not just for this list, it’s my definitive #1 movie of 2018!  👑 (Yes, I know I put The Incredibles 2 on the other list, consider it as #1-C)

Since it came out on Mexico on December 25th, it’s the best Christmas gift I’ve ever had in my entire life. (next to my new Huawei Mate 10 Lite, I needed a new phone really bad)

There’s an all-female spin-off in the works, so my body is definitely ready to watch more Spider-Verse related films with this beautiful animation (if there could be a different visual style than Spider-Verse, I’m probably fine with it, but it seems unlikely to happen (please don’t, the visual style from Spider-Verse looks damn fresh to change))

I’m still in awe from what I just saw...

I really need the Blu-Ray to come out faster like Venom did two months after it came out theatrically so I can own it and watch it a billion times! PRONTO!!!

(Also, to any critics or haters, get the fuck out of my sight, please)

Top 10 Best Movies (Definitive): I may have mixed things up by making two separate lists, one for Marvel and another one for movie, so I had to make a PROPER list of my movies of the year to avoid inconsistency.

10.- The Shape of Water

9.- The Cloverfield Paradox

8.- Overlord

7.- Mission Impossible: Fallout

6.- Aquaman

5.- Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel I. Presage Flower

4.- Ready Player One

3.- The Incredibles 2

2.- Avengers: Infinity War

1.- Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

Top 10 Best Games:

NOTE: I honestly don’t like making the best/worst games lists because it’s all based on “experience” and there are so many games released every year and I don’t have the money to buy every single one, and most important of all, I have neither a PS4 and a Switch, nor a powerful PC. I still make this list anyways because I like acknowledging some of the games I’m the most interested for their existence, I still wish I can play them, but they’re there. Enjoy the following entries:

11.- Fate/Extella Link.

10.- Valkyria Chronicles 4.

9.- BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle.

8.- Soul Calibur VI: I’m not really much into Soul Calibur but VI has picked my interest mainly because of the character customization and every tweet I’ve seen of it, and 2B.

7.- Persona 3: Dancing in Moonlight / Persona 5: Dancing in Starlight: At first I wasn’t really fond on the idea of Persona dancing games since Persona 4: Dancing All Night, but when both P3D and P5D were announced, I redeemed myself on the concept.

6.- Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

5.- Girls’ Frontline (English and Japanese versions): My only disadvantage with the EN version is the censorship and that really bothers me so bad. I hate the topic of censorship in general. Too bad I haven’t been playing a lot of it lately, and I feel bad for it, haven’t even picked it up back with my new phone... But I can still appreciate the cosplays and fan arts.

4.- Dragalia Lost: I played it for like a week but I stopped because I ran out of space in my phone. This is my biggest problem with Nintendo mobile games, they’re always constantly asking for mobile data and they’re space consuming. It has potential to become Cygames’ next big franchise, though.

3.- Deltarune: Haven’t played Undertale myself and this was an excuse to get myself into it, even if it’s some sort of an alternate universe or whatever the many people who played it just experienced. And the game is free to play, so there’s nothing about money to worry about.

2.- Persona Q2: New Cinema Labyrinth.

1.- Spider-Man PS4.

Yes, I included two gacha games. What? You don’t think gacha games are “games” and instead they’re just money making machines? I can tell you’re making fun of my decision, and it’s true, but they have rights to be games whether you decide to spend your money or not. I don’t have much time to rant about gacha games and stuff, so let’s move on.

Honorable mention:

Detroit: Become Human: Call me out on this one because I gotta talk about this game.

Sure, David Cage may be a divisive developer among the gaming community but there’s something about Detroit that I’m hearing praise from the media and other YouTubers and then there are my “friends” who definitely hate him and his games.

This is one of those cases where I really can’t even bother to choose a side. (but I’d definitely be one of those who do like Detroit, I mean, the fan arts of Connor and his actor himself can make up for it, besides, I still got my copy of Heavy Rain)

Worst Games of the Year:

I mentioned that I don’t have the consoles to play most games, there are games that are so bad even to look at that are exceptions for me to play:

4.- Radical Heights

3.- Fallout 76

2.- The Quiet Man

1.- Metal Gear Survive

Everything mentioned this list are 0/10 - Rank: E-.

Artists Of The Year:

Ogata Tei: Finding this artist was like fate. I first found Ogata on Pixiv with this illustration on December 2017, and at first it was like any other artist I follow, I have to check their gallery and if it’s good enough, they deserve a follow, but when they started doing the Childhood Friend series (pictured below), I feel like my life has changed.

For safety reasons, I tend use Chapter 0 as a better way to show everyone the start of the Childhood Friend series without using the very first tweet, because... I don’t know what to make out of it, it’s not too graphic, but take a look for yourself. It is chapter 0 after all.)

The moment the reservations of the doujinshi went live in June, I did not hesitate to ask my older sister to buy it for me and finally received it on December 6th (technically it should have been on the 5th because the mailman came home but my mom wasn’t there to sign the package, but we do not talk about that part of that day ever again. The reason why is that the mailman thought I looked too young to get and sign a package (I hate my genes)... That is until Ogata decided to open reservations for the sequel the moment I got the doujin ), it was a long wait but it was worth it... That is until Ogata decided to open reservations for the sequel for C95 the moment I got the doujin, worst timing ever.

To be honest, this series is the only thing that makes me happy, ever, everything else I love is always being ruined by assholes and their heartbreaking traumatizing opposing opinions. Thankfully there’s no hate in this.

This series is very dear to me, I really hope it keeps going because I occasionally get scared for the series to end and I’d be forever sad if it does (I’ll eventually move on but my heart won’t change).

Maybe the saddest thing about the series is that I’m the only one who makes fan arts and a Custom Cast/Custom Order Maid 3D2 recreation of the Childhood Friend character. It’s a good thing that I show my pride for the character and all, but it’s only me and I can’t be the only one with that pride, I’d love to see other people do shit, even some of the artists I follow that are friends with Ogata.

Souryu: Not the first thing (have seen a bit of his pictures on Pixiv before), but I was brought to this artist more with this web series I also love to death. (NSFW)

I’m also happy to see his manga, Machimaho, has an English release now.

Sakiyamama: The list was originally going to be just Ogata but I wanted to include Sakiyamama because not only his recent bunny pictures (as of the writing of this post) are really really good, he’s actually a really fun person to talk with and he’s gained my respect more than I already have. MAX!

(Would Sakiyamama be a good candidate to make a cover for my novel? Maybe, maybe not...)

Song Of The Year:

Casey Edwards - Devil Trigger: Even for a 2019 game like Devil May Cry 5, Devil Trigger just rocks. Now, when DMC5 comes out, we all can’t wait to pull our devil trigger.

The following part is my really long review of 2018, if you don’t care about what happened to my life in the year and my personal problems, you can skip to the very end until you find the following sentence: “You’ve reached the end of my long review of my 2018 experience.“

Now, let’s talk about why did I consider 2018 the worst year yet. Everything continues with the same problems as last year and some new ones that are even worse. This year was full of disappointments and few ups which either matter or get ruined.

Starting with what’s essentially the most horrifying experience I’ve ever been in my life and it’s all got to do with my older sister. First off, on February, we were hanging out with my aunt on a shopping mall, we were eating ice cream and for some reason, my sister and my mom were arguing and something made my older sister rage quit the plaza we were. We slowly followed her where she was going, later we returned to our house, my sister later came back home and everything went normal.

Then, comes the worst of her moments yet, two months later, everything was going fine on home, until I heard my mom calling me and I started hearing my sister’s very creepy yelling, my mom was holding her on the floor and she ordered me to call my aunt and ran to go buy medicines, my aunt came home to hold my sister down with my mom to give her the pills I had to bought, etc. A lot has happened in that afternoon. Even my mom has called the cops.

A few hours have passed, the cops came home just for a talk about the situation, and I guess that’s about all I witnessed because I didn’t do nor payed attention much on there other than shaking a cop’s hand.

I really wish I shouldn’t discuss about this on a wide public like the internet considering that my mom told me I shouldn’t tell this to anyone... “ANYONE”. Not even my BFF classmate on WhatsApp (at the time when I was at school), not even on Twitter nor Discord, which I talked about what was happening at the very moment and that made me feel like a genuine social media addict, tweeting and telling my (not-so) friends on Discord as if social media has become my life journal or something.

As for what I told on my classmate, I told him afterwards that I shouldn’t have told him about what happened with my older sister when my mom told me not to tell about this to anyone, at least he kept the secret.

Speaking of school, the situation that we went through, my mom decided I wouldn’t go to school for a week.

I think at the moment the cops came to our home, I heard that my sister has depression, and with that, my sister eventually started going to the psychologist.

Then on October 15th, it happened again, except that my mom straight up sent me to my aunt’s house to sleep there for tonight because my sister was going crazy again, hopefully I didn’t get to witness her meltdown... Except the next day, early in the morning, when I arrived home on taxi, I saw my sister’s right arm with blood and a few hours later, her arm is full of scars, ouch. (Her arm is probably healed by now because I don’t see the scars lately).

Aside with all of my sister’s creepy anthics, I’ve had a few share of problems, mainly at school.

The problem is that I harmed two girl classmates in different occassions, I know I wouldn’t hurt women and I normally wouldn’t be the type to hurt women, but Mexican schoolgirls are just the worst. One instance was that I was being yelled at because I wasn’t into the teamwork enough and hadn’t done anything and I just went all out, I was gonna choke and even bite her neck off. The other one was where I was gonna slap a chubby one but I slapped another girl next to her unintentionally and we were arguing about it.

After a while I forgot about it but now I dare to bring these school memories again...

Anyways, I think that’s the end of the stories of my older sister’s madness, even I get flashbacks of those moments and I everytime I typed everything down, my head always twitched, and done with my brief stories about my problems at school.

You may have already gotten sympathy for what I’ve been through, but it seems like I’m about to ruin the moment.

Now, let’s move on with my problem with personal opinions, again. Yes, I know you may be sick of me talking about this topic over and over, but trust me, I’ve been given enough tips and some of the same ones, so let me give one last rant so I can get my last laugh on my friends, this may be like a rewritten version of this post I made last year (make sure to read it before reading this, if you like), but this one features recent events and a better conclusion. Time to end this by going all out. Enjoy.

My 2018 in a nutshell.

Where do I begin? This entire year was still through my usual problems with my obsession with personal opinions, but I can’t tell if it’s equally bad or worse than what I went through with 2017. I think it’s the latter because it all comes with the “Franxxgate” (That’s how I dub the hate around Darling in the Franxx as a whole) and it’s probably one of my few breaking points this year.

Pretty much every anime “gate”, from the Apocryphagate from 2017, to 2018′s Franxxgate and even FLCLgate from a group of friends lead by a certain person with a P on their name I interact with (while there’s the opposing side of the fandom where Toonami-fags still love watching FLCL), completely breaks me. (Everything needs a “-gate”, okay?)

With that being said, in late September, I jumped to the conclusion that anime in general has become my most sensitive topic yet, and I wish I wouldn’t talk about anime with anyone, and I also declared to fuck anime as a whole. I mean, let’s be real, what’s even the real point for anime adaptations to exist? For the money? (I’m using this excuse to every industry or even art itself), Most adaptations don’t even work, and they don’t get fans or something.

If you’re really THAT badly disappointed by these shows or anything else in general, the first thing that comes to your mind is deleting them, right? but before you do that, you should at least consider what would you do to rewrite those shows, like, how would you make them good? If you’re a heartless cunt without any soft spot for the creators and intentions (unless they really make some outrageous shit), then delete is indeed your only option.

I’ve always seen these sorts of situations as “Aw, the performances and the music (and occasionally the well written characters) are so good but the overall story SUCKS.”

Also, if I answer what do you like and you come up with “good”, don’t come up with such bullshit at my face, it’s impossible for anything to be “good”, define “good”. I don’t want subjective answers, try to give something more detailed.

Anime aside, let me talk about how people criticize in general, based on experience.

I just never understood how there are people who are fans of something but dare to say some flaws despite saying that they like it, that it’s great, etc. That’s fucking ironic and downright stupid!

For example, there’s a guy who likes, uh... Game X, but they find like a couple of problems, but they still think they like it and what not, fucking ironic.

(I probably would like to use Persona 5 as a proper example instead of “Game X”, but it’s too much of an offensive example for me to use, to be honest...)

I saw this tweet that says “It’s okay to criticize things you love.”, and while it’s true, and there are times I criticize things I love, for example, the MCU for lack of crossovers between the TV shows and the movies (probably my biggest problem would be the Marvel Netflix shows, they still reference the Avengers, I see no relevance for their existence), but most of the time, I never give a fuck about the flaws from everything I love.

One of my friends replied me that it is and proceeds to talk about his “tough love” for Dragon’s Dogma. Keyword: Tough love, this is one of those words I’ve honestly haven’t heard in a long time, but applying it here is not something I asked for, I just don’t have tough love for everything, I’ve mostly never been the type to spot flaws and criticize them, I’m the type of person who blindly praises or hates anything, without having to explain in detail what I like or hate (occasionally), I’m never going to be a critic like you, I’ve always been a blind fanboy and will continue to be, whether you like it or not.

Speaking of critics, I never liked people who are still being critics, they could bring fair points but at the same time what they say it’s always clichéd, they throw words like “predictable”, “clichéd” and stuff like that.First of all, I can’t even tell what’s predictable, well, there are times that I know what’s going to happen next, but I actually have fun guessing rather than criticizing, it’s actually good for me, same goes for clichéd, I have no idea what are people even talking about when they say “clichéd”. Sure, people may use tired tropes, whether for seriousness or satirical purposes, it all depends on the execution, for the better or for worse. If you’re looking for some form of art that’s not predicatble, that’s not clichéd and everything, it’s impossible to find one because every single creator makes the same mistake of making their series with, you guessed it, tired tropes. Hell, I may even do the same mistake too, because why the fuck not? Whether for seriousness or for satirical purposes.

(I always have the guilty pleassure for everyone to hate me mainly because I’m a blind fanboy and accuse everyone and calling them supremacists or something. I saw this Comicbookcast2 video a long time ago titled “FUCK BLIND FANBOYS” or something. The video has been deleted, and when I saw it, it was offensive for me, but I actually want to watch it again. Sorry for being political at the supremacy part, but that’s how I always feel. Speaking of supremacy, despite my anger at everyone’s opinions, I’m never right and don’t have the power to change their minds, fucking weak-ass knucklehead me.)

The point is, there’s a game/show/movie that you’ve been excited for it for so long, and in general it turned out to be a really great product, you try it yourself, you think that it’s really good but then you come out and explain that there are some severe flaws and everything else to criticize either some aspects or the entire product, do the flaws really ruin your hype? Does it ruin how you wanted it to be? Pathetic.

Okay okay, I know I know, I get that nothing is “perfect”, I get that a lot, but if you want to be like a true fan about a particular product or even a franchise, without all of the ranking from best to worst and vice versa type, don’t give a shit about their flaws, just ignore them, just enjoy everything that’s going on, that’s my definition of a true fan. That’s my motto I’ve been following for a long time. But alas, this definition of “fan” is dead, and the meaning has never been this way.

Well, there are times that I even say the same things, I can detect some flaws too, but most of the time, there are things that I care about in my life that I tend to ignore their flaws all the time. I can’t criticize, I can’t hate some aspects, I almost just don’t know how to do these things.

There are times that people tell their opinions as if they’re facts. There’s that same dude who told me about tough love, he started that sentence with “It is.”, he also told me those same words a few times. But still, I don’t fucking care if something is trash, I don’t care if even if it’s your opinion or if it’s an actual fact, don’t try to brainwash me or even anyone with your bullshit!

It’s like people don’t know how to enjoy things anymore, well, it’s always been this way but I’ve never been this deep with this level of hypocrisy, cynicism and intransigence. With people not appreciating art sometimes, I can even go far to think that Art is Dead. (I’d write a blog post about it but I mainly would love to write a book about it and point out every single types of criticisms I can gather from experience and memory)

This isn’t about toxicity, SJWs or anything, some of them must be intellectual people who think they’re “right” on what’s bad, it’s bad.

My biggest problem is that I ALWAYS happen to start a topic and let everyone bring their worst opinions possible, I always takes opinions by heart and I always go compusively defensive about everything and try to justify what happened while having a “Oh, I get how the creators feel about this, I feel connected” kind of mindset or something.

I just happened to be sensitive about everything, even the slightest negative word, once I hear words like “okay”, “bland”, and everything else, I lose brain cells, always.

Even WORSE is that I′m friends with some people with the worst opinions possible. (Probably would like to call them out here, publicly on Tumblr, but nah, whoever reads, I’ll tell them.). Talking with these people has been my largest waste of time I’ve ever had. I’m sick of talking to you, you disappoint me.

Everything I’m saying is pretty much beyond autism, bipolar or multiple personality disorder material, I’m genuinely like some criticism censorship madman, please, accept it.

Everyone always told me “it’s just their opinion” and everything but it’s the same thing when I got bullied, everyone always told me “Just ignore them.” and ignorance was never in my motto, I just want everyone to stop. I also get told a lot that I need to tolerate and respect them, I kind of do that but at the same time I always get headaches, like my brain is always going to explode, I’m always trying to resist the pain like this. (This video also depicts my procrastination on writing my novel). Even if I were to ignore their opinions, their words are stuck in my head and can’t stop thinking about them, it’s like I’m a magnet, like I’m traumatized by your words.

This is also going to affect my life as an author, sometimes I’d definitely consider taking feedback on plot points, characters and writing mistakes, but when I get comments like either my works or what I’m doing in the future flat out suck, things could get complicated.

I could rant about how “creative freedom” is dead, from trying really hard at complex narrative and “original” ideas to even sexual content, by always being ruined by negativity and I almost don’t believe criticism can’t help but it’ll be for another post, if I actually can depending on my mood.

Suddenly, on September 18th, I found a video talking about the personal opinions by SrPelo, not only it was really hilarious, it actually depicts pretty much everything that’s wrong with me.

(There are English and Spanish versions of this video, but I recommend the Spanish version, it’s funnier. There are English captions, though.)

But has the video taught me anything? Kind of, I got some of the points but eventually I’m still defensive.

Going back to the topic of fanboy-ism (Not fandom, it’s a specific thing), what happened to the passionate people and their rage when I say something like “I’m not into Franchise X.”, “I don’t care about it.” or anything? Why won’t YOU be mad at me when I say such things or some worse shit? Actually, that doesn’t matter, because that’s into toxic territory, you do have a sense of “I don’t have a problem with people enjoying what they like.” instead of “Why do you have to enjoy it? Don’t.”, at least you do have some mental stability unlike me.

Okay, this has been really convoluted, I ran out of ideas and it feels like it’s getting nowhere that I lost you, so let me jump to the conclusions:

PLOT TWIST! PLOT TWIST!

It’s time to confess that nothing in life convinces me anymore, there’s a lot of things I see and when I finish, I always say “I liked it”/”it was good”, but in reality, I feel nothing, NOTHING. I can’t simply say “It was okay” nor even “I didn’t like it.”, I just feel neutral about everything, I’m indifferent and shit.

When I see new things I might get into, I experience it, some say that it’s bad and stuff like that, I’m always neutral in the end yet unnecessarily defensive, well, I am defensive for their existence in “art”. I’m just someone who always defends art by thinking that every creator put their efforts into. (Of course, it doesn’t mean “every single” creator in existence, there are some who are absolute assholes.)

There are things that seem new to me, sometimes I got high hopes to like them when I experience them but at the same time I’m kind of neutral about it, I probably don’t have that much high hopes to become part of my life compared to my existing interests, if there’s something really interesting from something I really care about my life but some may be getting hate from it, I get really triggered. I don’t get disappointed in most things, sometimes I can’t really tell if I actually like them or hate them.

There are also things that normally aren’t part of my life, or stuff I don’t care but may intrigue me someday or in a different Earth, yet I’m gratuitously defensive on their place in art.

What have I been gaining from all of this? Power for being right myself and be capable of shut your mouths off. But, like I stated, it’s not like I could brainwash everyone with my own words based on experience of offending people sometimes.

I’ve had this sort of existential crisis for 2 years and I don’t think I’m ever gonna stop, no matter how many times people tell me to stop.

Before I go detailed with my resolution, let me say this: Either people should say something that don’t (indirectly) piss me off or should I not take their words by heart ever again.

(Crowd yelling at me for what I just said)

Okay, it’s a little weird but it’s true.

I’ll make a list of my worst features that you still may or may not interact with me ever again at a later time too, if I feel like it, but in conclusion, let me say this:

I’m a self-centered person who refuses to listen to anyone’s opinions on certain things (or pretty much everything) and refuses to accept the reality, the facts, and has a distrust agenda (or I claim to say that because I still trust some people), doesn’t have identity of his own and relies on others, doesn’t feel bias and can’t share the same logic, thought-process or even common sense (?) than you have. I just want to have my own opinions, my beliefs and everything but I’m feeling like I’m surrounded by opposites.

But even if I hear a different group with one unanimous opinions and another one with an opposing unanimous opinions, I can’t choose sides nor I would like to do so. And I’ve never been on your side nor would like to be in it. (This goes back to my brief discussion on Detroit: Become Human).

Let me tell you something: When you have a conversation with a friend you respect the most but comes up with opposing opinions, that they don’t like aspects of them, etc., your first instinct would be respectfully disagree and talk it out, but that aside... do you know how it feels like?! I’ve been through that pain a lot! And not a single time I could learn to get a grip on such conversations!... At least the one thing I can do is boycotting conversations where opinions and criticims get out of hand for my views.

Let me give you a life lesson: You should have a digree of distrust, everytime you ask one person that they should try X and they give their own opinion, you don’t need to buy it 100%. You have to learn to investigate things yourself, and when you see the general reception for the X you’re seeing, you should be unsure and should check X out yourself. When you hear different sources saying different things, you shouldn’t trust any of them and investigate yourself, that’s the basics of my life experience.

I may sound like I’m manipulative, like I want people to be exactly like me or that I want to meet new people like me, basically forming a legion with similar mindset or something, I can confirm and deny on wanting to achieve such goal. It’s really strange that I can say yes and no to something I don’t really think about.

The thing is, I’m just loyal to art, attached to everything, well, not 100%, there are things that do look like trash trash, when there are things look good but people say they’re trash, I’ll never forgive them, depending on their attitude based on experience, I’m never gonna forgive anyone.

Also, (this next part may go into artist (as in illustrator) territory, but still), let me tell you this: I HATE criticizing artists! I’m not the type of person to mock or downright criticize anything they do! Well, I do have rights to express mixed feelings about some things they post online which I don’t feel convinced from a previous picture I was heavily invested or something, but I can’t say those mixed feelings in front of their faces and I should reconsider! I have absolute pride for artists no matter what they do. And if you dare to make fun of them, comically or not, you can shove it.

I’m not always supportive of “every” single creator out there, there are some who are scumbags or corporate bullshit.

I’m also optimistic, unlike you. Not at everything, but there are things that sound intersting, but too bad there has to be some haters. I know I’d have to adjust my eyes to take a proper look but there has to be some sort of potential somewhere.

You think you’re critics? On a Gordon Ramsay/Master Chef kind of scale? I’ll tell you what, try to put on a creator’s shoes, or try to imagine a different Earth where you’re an artist (illustrator, writer, etc.), even if you tend to criticize others, and when you create something, I won’t hesitate to Gordon Ramsay you’re ass off.

Whenever you bring negative comments from something good, I always, ALWAYS, want to counter your opinions very offensively like this, but sadly I can’t, but I think it’s fine because I am scared of getting blocked or banned from a Discord sever. (Discord has ruined my life lol)

But alas, with all of the bias people show, mainly negative from something I find interesting, seeing this happening everyday and telling right at my face, I happened to become a broken person now, no thanks to you, yes, as ridiculous as it sounds, even indirectly.

I’ve had this thing with personal opinions and trying to bear them up my ass. I’m just tired, I’m sick of everything. Either everyone needs to stop or better, I should stop because I’m always the one to start causing trouble by a disagreement.

One way I would like to stop what’s happening to me is to break up with the people I talk with (mainly Discord severs because they’re the worst), or even better,  retire from the internet for good, but I don’t think I’d have the ability to do that. Perhaps the only way is just to have some more mental stability myself, to learn to actually calm myself.

People have even told me to take a break from the internet but I just can’t, there’s lots of good things I don’t want to miss.

Here’s my final strike to end this long rant to relieve my 2 year long stress once and for all (hopefully):

You all must be good at parties.

At last, that’s the end of my life experiences, sorry to make you read through that pain that was my emotional ride you wouldn’t even care because, while it starts creepy at first, later it just fell apart with my obsession with opinions, let’s move on to some other negatives from 2018 in general and let’s go with the ups.

There’s no shortage of celebrity deaths and yet it managed to be worse than 2016, the one death that got me hard was Stan Lee. That instantly made 2018 much worse than it already is.

Without Stan Lee, there’s not gonna be any more Marvel movie cameos and I wished I could meet him in person one day, now my dream is dead.

Stefan Karl, Stephen Hillenburg, even the youngest musicians, many more.

With Stan Lee and Stephen Hillenburg both passed away in November, it reminded me of Roberto Gómez Bolaños, better known as Chespirito, which he passed away in November 28th 2014, that made me think that November is a cursed month.

This shit is really sad.

Now that we’re done talking with the negative, let’s talk about the positives, sorry it took so long with the negative, but here we are to change the mood.

The best thing that has happened in my life that I can think of is that I get to travel for the first time, I traveled to Irapuato, Guanajuato to meet my uncles (relatives to my dad), and the place itself was great. We stayed with my uncles’ for a week, the week of E3.

When we first arrived, the weather was cold, even at summer, there was a really nice shopping mall and it had a restaurant with genuine ramen we ate, everything was great.

The worst part of the trip, and by sleeping at my uncles’ house was that my body was always itchy and I couldn’t stop scratching and always put mosquito repellent.

Another best moment of my life, well, it may sound dickish that I did it, but I didn’t get to go to study to a new school after I ended preparatory school. Mainly because I wasn’t entirely sure what to study, I needed a break from my underwhelming experience at the prepa and because my mom wouldn’t pay us, my older sister and I, both schools for like hundreds of thousands of pesos.

Next year I’m gonna start studying plastic arts, maybe I’d like to learn more about drawing than my current skills, I just want to improve but at the same time, to be honest, I don’t really feel motivated to study art at all, mainly because I want to focus on outlining and writing my novel for real.

There are minor complaints I had this year and it’s got something to do with the TV side. Right at the end of watching every show from Agents of SHIELD to Westworld, I’ve been a little burnt out on watching TV shows, so after Legion and Westworld ended, I wasn’t feeling like watching TV anymore, not even the Marvel Netflix shows (let’s be real, they’re all super boring anyways, they even put me to sleep; but I feel bad for some of them being cancelled, though.).

Despite my lost interest on watching TV now, I’m still going to watch Agents of SHIELD and The Blacklist when their seasons 6 come out.

You’ve reached the end of my long review of my 2018 experience.

FINALLY!

Let’s finally talk about my resolutions and we can end this year once and for all!

Some of the resolutions are like last year’s and some may be new but I hope, I REALLY HOPE, to achieve them, and after that, we can finally talk about what I’m looking forward the most in 2019!

Resolutions: I may have fulfilled like at least one of the resolutions I made last year, well... half of it, and it’s going to the gym, because, I really need to get in shape before I turn 20. I’m not fat, it’s just I got the belly. I gave up on the swimming part because I wasn’t interested and motivated, especially at this weather right now.

Anyways, that gym talk aside, I really haven’t fulfilled my resolutions at all, the worst offender being my resolution of writing my novel because I had a year long writer’s block (yep, that long). As for the “try not to be a jerk”, from what you read from my long rant, I hope that should be the last time.

Let me rephrase my resolutions and then add some new ones, I really hope I could have the mental energy and the will to fulfill them all.

If I can’t fulfill at least one, most or even all of the resolutions, I’m pretty much fucked.

Write my novel for real: I’ve been wanting to write my novel this entire year but I’ve made little to no progress at all, I was struggling on finding a way on what kind of story I would make, but my bigger problems were that I was focusing on wanting to make a pen name for myself use that to start my social media accounts and everything, I did it but I felt like I wasted it. I may give up on the pen name idea and use my real name, unless my family or anyone else would find a perfect pen name for me and hold off until I get my novel written halfway.

I also need money ready, have a PayPal and a Patreon, the money to pay for stuff like cover artist, domains for my website, ec. I’m still waiting to get my hands on a credit card so I could make money because I haven’t gotten any.

I didn’t enter to a new school right now so I could have had the time to write my novel, but I just wasted that opportunity.

I also got this fear that I may run into identity problems or something, when it comes to my edgy shitposter self and my author self, I don’t want to run in the same problem James Gunn did, I want to become separate entities (that sounds like some sort of multiple personality disorder like I lowkey have (not really)).

Even worse is that I had at least one person who I’ve been talking and talking about my dream project, the characters, headcanon-ing(?) random events and everything for YEARS. I also had different people who I talked about the project, but not as much as that one person who I’ve been doing it for a long time. I would ask the people I explained about my project and everything for a while to forget about it, but it seems like it’s such a harsh request, maybe keep everything I said a secret would be better. Speaking of which, that’s why I tend to be secretive about what I want to do and everything lately, this goes full circle to the previous paragraph about identity. The one person also went far commissioning art of my characters, while I was honored for that, I feel like it’s a little too soon... Well, if it’s like a normal artist commissioning OCs and stuff like that, it’s fine, but the problem is that I’m making OCs with the sole purpose of them existing into a real novel and everything, and it could be dangerous.

I got lots of ambitious goals and ideas and I can’t really explain everything, I’d love to handle everything by myself, I can find my own innovative ways to market my novel and everything.

One thing I can say about what I want with my novel is pretty simple:

I need my stories to exist: Commissioned fan arts of my characters aside, I want my stories to exist for real, I just can’t leave my dream universe to collect cellular dust and simply use my imagination, occasionally draw those ideas, etc.

Money: No surprise, that’s quite an obvious thing to do, but depends on how much royalties do I get with Amazon or I simply make my money with PayPal and/or Patreon.

...Did I say Amazon? That’s right, I’m planning to self-publish my novel with Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.

Wanting my novels to becomea franchise: Okay, this is a little too much, and there’s a weird pattern I noticed that if you say “This is going to be the next X franchise” or “I want this to be huge!” or something like that, you’re bound to fail, and if you say “I don’t think I might make it” or similar statements that you wouldn’t be successful or anything, you’re bound to succeed. I know I’m escalating things up but it’s what I want the most, but I don’t want it to be adapted into Hollywood and that kind of shit, I want it to be adapted into a video game series, which I originally planned to make this into a game series, but since I would never figure out how would I study game design or anything, I gave up on the idea and chose something easier, writing a novel.

I wasn’t kidding that I have ambitious goals and ideas...

I don’t have a lot of motivation to write my novel, the only thing I’m motivated to write are Tumblr posts...

I’m always like “Gotta write” and I just can’t. There’s something about trying to structure sentences something that always throws me off, it’s just hard.

I haven’t been in the mood to continue trying to outlining the plot and the characters, I’m waiting for the right time to continue, and that time would be starting 2019.

I don’t want any more excuses and I need to find a way to motivate myself to write, I need to write for real, I don’t need to worry about writing garbage words or anything, I just need to write. X_X

Anyways, moving on to the next resolution.

Change my behavior (for the better or for the worse): After I made you read through my psychosis (If you read all the way through the end, good job. If you skipped it, why would you do that? It’s important), it probably should be time for me to change because even I get tired of the way I’m acting right now.

What do I mean to change for the better or for the worse? In one hand, I do want to act like a good person, I need to be more understood in a few cases and try to be more honest, but that honesty sometimes could be rude. As you can see, sometimes I could rude, I tend to make insulting comments and sometimes I delete them because I’m scared that I might end up being blocked and/or banned, even if I intended to make jokes. Basically I’m not gonna delete my comments, as rude as they may be, I really hope anyone won’t take them very seriously.

If I can’t manage to be more respectful towards others’ opinions and be a good person through the entirety of 2019, you pretty much know that I’m quite an angry, trigger-happy person like I’ve already been this year. Or maybe I can be kind of a tsundere, right! I sometimes even I was a bit of a tsundere this year! :3

Despite my good behavior and actions, I’m still going to have my trust no one motto. Sure, I can still understand some people’s opinions, but sometimes I can’t 100% take them. Sometimes you just gotta find things out by yourself when you hear different sources with different opinions, that’s the basics.

(God, talking about basics make me sound like I’m Genjou Kakouton from Ikki Tousen)

I dunno why but I’m already imagining that my behavior change would feel more like personality disorder (why am I so obsessed with personality disorders?), anyways, I really hope I could definitely change the way I am and everything, hopefully.

(Be nice with me or else we’re done, okay?)

Draw very often: I’ve pretty much given up on drawing at this point, and I’m even going to enter art school soon and, to be honest, I don’t feel like I’m really interested in art school at all.

On one hand, I do want to learn to draw better, but on the other hand, I really don’t feel like going to school right now... even I don’t know why my head feels like it doesn’t want to do shit.

I just lost patience in drawing, I really struggle on how should I do the roughs and my inking always go wrong. Don’t even get me started on digital art, that one’s my absolute worst nightmare. Layers, brushes, brush sizes, everything about digital art drives me crazy now.

Drawing has always been my favorite hobby, it’s not like I got a slump, I can randomly do sketches of my OCs or even my favorite characters, the problem is the willing to draw.

I’m 19 years old and I expect to draw better right away...

I was originally going to make an Infinity Stone variant New Year drawings, with each stone representing a character from their colors, I realized that I wasn’t going to have the patience to do everything right.

Besides writing my novel, I would like to draw very often so I could improve. I’m more on the traditional side, so learning about digital might be a pain in the ass but it should be worth it. Well, maybe I don’t need to draw literally every single day because I could get carpal tunnel, but that’s the point of learning to improve your drawing, by doing so everyday.

Anticipations: My favorite part of every New Year is talking about what I look forward the most. For the most part, I’ve seen plenty that will come out next year, but maybe not everything will come in 2019, so delays would eventually happen, but in the mean time, we can acknowledge some upcoming things.

Anticipated anime: When new anime seasons come closer, my anticipated anime will always differ, depending on what announcements I see, they’ve always gotta be in the same year or next year (2019), but alas, here are some of the biggest titles I have in mind:

(Note that some of the titles mentioned here are from Winter 2019, so close and I already addressed some of them on my previous post, but I feel like rewriting what I said here in case if you don’t want to read it all)

One Punch Man season 2: This one I’m genuinely cautiously optimistic, or perhaps I’m 50/50, I don’t have the highest hopes to be good (at least visually), but I’m strangely happy to know if it’s going to look like crap because I want to see it burn and everything (I’m a little insane), I’m never going to forgive the studio change shit move.

On December 21st, the first trailer has finally dropped, and even with the little animation shown, but the main thing that matters to me is how it looks, and it looks... not really what I expected but it could be a mixed bag.

On one hand, it still looks a bit like the first season, which I’m happy, on the other hand, they added filters and the character designs (especially King’s) look a little off, even if it’s supposed to have the same character designer from the first season, but I thought the designs may differ from animation or something.

I saw a comment that OPM S2 appears to be made by the Prison School staff, while I’m not entirely sure if it’s true but I figured since Prison School is made by JC Staff, no wonder why OPM has similar visual filters or something.

(Can’t properly upload GIFs to Tumblr and the GIF button sucks)

Madhouse’s animation style will always hold a special place in my heart, and as I previously stated, it still looks okay, may change when it comes out. Can’t give a seal of approval yet, but there’s potential.

Mob Psycho 100 II: Unlike One Punch Man, I’m glad Mob Psycho 100 is handled at better hands and I’m happy season 2 is happening. I still wish OPM S2 could have been aired on Winter 2019 with Mob Psycho 100 S2 to have a ONE combo but OPM S2 being on Spring when MP100 ends is the closest I could get (I’m never going to stop repeating this, because it’s true)

Enough OPM talk, looking forward to MP100, I’m still wondering if it’ll go two-cour a la My Hero Academia to adapt every chapter until the very end or it’s still one-cour and wait until a third season gets greenlit and then it’ll adapt the final chapters.

Kemono Friends 2: Like One Punch Man season 2, I extremely don’t have the highest hopes for Kemono Friends 2 at all, especially after you know what happened.

Whenever people see something Kemono Friends related, they can’t help but always, and I mean, always spam “No Tatsuki No Tanoshii” or a difference sentence but with the theme of “bring Tatsuki back” or something, from the two trailers and even some things that are not intended to spread the hate. (Seriously, why would you do that? It’s just the artist, Mine Yoshizaki, drawing, why even go with the “No Tatsuki No Tanoshii” mood into something innocent as this?)

Speaking of the trailers, the second one is the worst that has come out, besides from the thousands of dislikes, to no one’s surprise, the worst offender has got to be the new human character, Kyururu, immediately leading me to believe that Kaban-chan got retconned... That is until I got an anonymous message that she wasn’t retconned, she was referenced at some points or something, based on screenings of what I assume to be the first episode, don’t know any more of the screening stuff, but let’s wait until the first or later episodes to see if it’s true.

Perhaps Kemono Friends 2 could be a prequel? One of my friends told me it could be a soft reboot after I showed them the message, but it doesn’t seem likely. And the fact that it’s another prequel would cause any sort of problems. For one, there’s already a prequel, which is the Welcome to Japari Park anime series (not to be confused with the manga of the same name because it’s completely different...?), it may not show much but there’s Mirai and Caracal, unless it could be a sequel to Japari Park after what happened to Mirai or something, who knows.

Despite all the negative press that it’s getting, I’ve been seeing a lot of comments that express excitement, which I don’t mind, actually. I’ve also seen comments that the animation looks better than the first season’s, while it may be true, but it’s a bit disrespectful for Tatsuki.

Once it comes out, let’s see how it’ll go.

(Wow, there’s S2 after S2...)

Kemurikusa: After Tatsuki got fired from the Kemono Friends franchise, I wonder what would his future be, and it appears that he started making shorts and posting them by multiple parts on his Twitter, which is fine, but what about any full fledged anime series? Well, that actually happened, and it happens to be a remake of one of his old web series.

I don’t remember when have I scrolled through Tatsuki’s old CG movie portofolio, but I’m sure it was definitely when the initial teasers for Kemurikusa (or simply known as “Tatsuki’s next anime” series at the time) on Comiket were revealed.

I’m still wondering if this is an all-new reboot, a prequel or a sequel of the original web series, but the answer lies until I see it.

Kimetsu no Yaiba: I’m so looking forward to this one, Ufotable’s next big TV anime project, and it happens to be a Shonen Jump series, which makes things much more surreal than Katsugeki: Touken Ranbu.

Yeah, I’m pretty much a big Ufotable fan right now. (though the only disadvantage being Girls’ Work nowhere in sight)

My Hero Academia season 4: I’m surprised to hear that it’s going to come out on the Fall season compared to the usual Spring release. And I was immediately begging for it to come on my birthday but I realized that My Hero Academia is a Saturday show and the first Saturday of October is the 5th, which is sad for me.

Azur Lane anime: As much as I love the game, I’m definitely excited for the anime, I even went so far to make a predictions post, but at the same time, since I rambled that adaptations are worthless of existence if you’d prefer the source material way better, I’m scared that it may turn out mediocre (maybe as or not as much as the Kancolle anime (which I dunno why I started developing mixed feelings since I liked it when I saw it back in 2015 ;_;))

It may or may not be a 2019 release, depending as time goes on and see if there are any new trailers or any announcements over the course of the year.

When the anime comes out and it becomes subject of a disappointment, I feel like it could be kind of an understatement, either from people who don’t play the game or the ones who do, I dunno, I’m relying on my beliefs on how it’s going to do for the moment, it’s a strange situation where I would like it at first but I get mixed feelings eventually.

Fate/Grand Order Babylonia TV series / Fate/Grand Order Camelot movie: Sometimes I forget which of the two FGO anime projects are a TV series and a movie. Anyways, I’m looking forward to these, but I feel like no one is accepting these Fate adaptations lately and it’s making me angry and sad.

As to why are Babylonia and Camelot the most popular chapters in FGO, I asked on a Discord server I frequently interact with, and they said that the previous chapters are bad and forgettable, I was like really speechless and turns me off, I mean, real talk: Why does FGO got a bunch of chapters and you either like none of them or the entire fan base agrees that every chapter before Babylonia and Camelot are... bad?! You can’t do that, they’re... there! If so, what’s even the point of these chapters to exist?!

Alright, that’s enough rant and I ran out of ideas.

Anyways, I’m more curious on the Camelot movies because if they’re released theatrically, I really wonder if they would come out internationally too, especially in Mexico. I really wonder if there are plenty of people who play FGO like my sister and I, either the Japanese version, the North American version (which seems unlikely because it’s region locked). I’m also curious about the releases since it’s a two parter, if it’ll be yearly release, it’s fine, but if it’s like the K Seven Stories films which come out months and months, I’ll definitely run out of money (not much than the game (if I had any money for the game)), but if it’ll be TV films, that’s much better.

To be honest, I can’t really see the appeal as to why are Babylonia and Camelot good in terms of writing because I haven’t looked up on translations and I don’t play the NA version at all... I hate Camelot so much because it was so god damn hard, Babylonia not so much iirc. And I’m lazy to look up said translations or even watch videos of the NA version.

NOW, WHEN THEY COME OUT, DON’T YOU DARE TRASH TALK ABOUT IT, PLEASE DON’T BE FATE/APOCRYPHA 2.0 TO BRING IN THE HATE OR ELSE...

(Source)

Anticipated games: Even if I still haven’t owned a PS4 and a Switch, I’m stll looking forward to the games, nonetheless, though I’m sad that there’s plenty of games that came out for years and I’ll never get to play them all, especially since we’re getting into next-gen console territory. Anyways, here are the biggest games I’m looking forward:

Devil May Cry 5: I’m happy to see there’s finally a new Devil May Cry game after 10 years since DMC4 came out. I only played DMC1 and DMC3. With the reveal at E3, the song Devil Trigger is the second best thing to come out of it (the first being the reveal itself) because I couldn’t stop listening to it for like a week and occasionally a couple of days, etc.

Every gameplay footage I’ve seen of the game and it’s looking damn fresh. I’m also happy to hear that DMC5 is taken place after DMC2 in the timeline, that’s one of the things from the DMC lore I always wanted because I didn’t want prequel after prequel.

Seems like my sister is really thirsty to get a PS4 to play DMC5 (because she was the first one to get into DMC after all, and when she asked me to play DMC1 for a little bit, I played the rest of it (and she never got to play DMC1 again and DMC3, unless she gets to play the HD Collection)).

Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes: I genuinely have mixed feelings for Travis Strikes Again. In one hand, I’m happy there’s finally a new No More Heroes game after a long time, but in the other hand, it’s not No More Heroes 3, like I always wanted, which that’s part of my disappointments with this game.

The more I look at it, the more I started to feel like I’m not really fond of the direction Travis Strikes Again is taking, particularly the one element I like the least is all of the indie game stuff. The game doesn’t even look good too, for a game made in Unreal Engine 4, looks like crap.

The biggest thing that completely hurt me is that Robin Atkin Downes is NOT reprising his role as Travis. He tweeted about it on September 2nd, 2017, a while after the game was revealed. Although, based on newer footage, it seems like Travis does sound like Robin Atkin Downes, if my ears can’t deceive me, but I can’t jump into conclusions 100%.

Suda has also stated that there will be No More Heroes 3 if Travis Strikes Again is successful, but given the timing of the release, January 18th, that’s a week before big titles like Kingdom Hearts 3 comes out, even if it’s a week, Travis Strikes Again probably won’t succeed in sales, if it indeed happens, there will be no No More Heroes 3, seems like my hopes and dreams are shattered. Travis Strikes Again will have similar problems to The World Ends With You: Final Remix, which sold poorly and a sequel is now unlikely.

I think I started to hate how developers always bring these “We’ll make a sequel if our product does well.” excuses, they don’t know if their product may turn bad critically and financially.

Despite my skepticisms with how the game looks and everything behind it overall, I’m ironically still rooting for Travis Strikes Again, I still want the game to succeed somehow and to live up my No More Hero spirit. I want it to either make or break a good comeback for a series I love the most.

But gameplay aside, my main priority is the story, it may or may not answer a few things about what happened to Travis and Santa Destroy in 8 (or 9 as it’s released in January 2019) years since No More Heroes 2, I JUST WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING. I may have high expectations from said things, that aside, even if the story is crap (or rather the whole game) is crap, it seems like Travis Strikes Again could be my biggest dealbreaker ever, if I’ll be 100% sure about that. (Like how Danganronpa V3 brought one of the worst plot twists yet, I’m not 100% sure if I should be disappointed or just deal with it despite having mixed feelings).

I can’t hate Travis Strikes Again, I can’t feel disappointed on it, I want to like it and everything on it, etc. (Since I’m an indecisive person, I can’t even decide which feelings should I choose?)

While I don’t own a Switch (yet), I may watch some playthroughs if I can, but this is something I’d really love to play the game myself, I wouldn’t mind reading spoilers, but at the same time, I’m conflicted on what to do.

Anyways, it’d better be successful or fail, if it fails, say no more to No More Heroes 3, my hopes and dreams for a real NMH3 will be forever shattered and lose faith in Suda51 for good, and I poured tears of joy (I legit cried) from the Travis Strikes Again announcement from the Switch reveal in January 2017 in vain.

...That is until December 20th, I was watching the Famitsu presentation but my mom turned off the internet 30 minutes later, but when I woke up that morning, literally the first thing I saw on Twitter was a tweet by Grasshopper where they tweeted that... ROBIN ATKIN DOWNES IS RETURNING AS TRAVIS AFTER ALL! Then I saw the Gematsu post about the season pass and HOLY SHIT, SHINOBU AND BAD GIRL!

I’m happy that they both got revealed (and their returning voices, double yay), but I’m more surprised on Bad Girl because ISN’T SHE DEAD, THOUGH?! Ahem, yeah, isn’t she supposed to be dead or there may be some sort of simulation from the Death Drive, I dunno, but hey, at least Badman (which he’s voiced by Steve Blum, which is nice) can get to have a reunion with his daughter... kind of.

There’s also this new character as one of the stage bosses, Brian Buster Jr., I don’t think I would find anything to add to the character (haven’t seen him much at all), and I’m not much familiar with the actor, Greg Ellis, but I checked his portofolio and I am somewhat familiar with his works now.

With all that said, my faith in Travis Strikes Again has restored, but I need to see how would Henry and Sylvia look like after all this years and my life will be completed.

Oh, but when his translator announced that Travis won’t be in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate LIVE, THAT I won’t ever forgive! ¡Pero qué vergüenza que se sirvan de este tipo de trampas!

(This is worse than the FFXV anniversary stream which it was basically a funeral for the DLCs)

Code Vein: I was so looking forward to this one this year, but months before the game came out in the September release date, it got delayed until nexr year, I don’t know why but if they got some stuff to improve, let them take their time. Besides, I already got God Eater 3, anyways.

Azur Lane: Crosswave: If the anime wasn’t enough, there’s also a PS4 game of Azur Lane already. Seems like AL really has escalated quickly.

It’s developed by Felistella and Compile Heart, which the latter is known as the makers of the Neptunia franchise. It’s a love it or hate it kind of situation with their games, though I’ve seen more hate on the Neptunia series from one person (sorry for calling you out if you’re reading this) than... Erin Fitzgerald’s Noire, but that won’t stop me from trying to play Azur Lane: Crosswave.

However, some of the games from their portofolio may be mediocre at best, I may expect AL: Crosswave to also be somewhat mediocre or maybe even New Gundam Breaker level garbage (okay, my expectations are outlandish), but I still hope it’ll turn out to be a good game.

I definitely like what I’m seeing so far, especially the character models because it feels nice to see the shipfus brought to 3D.

They also teased that there are two original characters, they haven’t revealed them yet, and when they do, I’m sure they’ll look great, they may be exclusive to the game, but that won’t stop me for wanting them to appear in the base game. (It’s a similar situation on how I want Charlamagne from Fate/Extella Link to appear in FGO eventually)

Unlike the anime, this one is indeed planned to release sometime in 2019, though a delay may eventually happen, but we can still count it as a 2019 release for now.

By the way, both Granblue Fantasy and Azur Lane are getting console games when Fate/Grand Order hasn’t gotten one yet. ;_;

Anticipated movies: When it comes to anticipated movies, my top picks are always Marvel movies, because why the fuck not? As in for anime movies, my top pick would be Fate/Stay Night: Heaven’s Feel (the FGO Camelot movie too but if it would be a theatrical release, which matters for me the most), but there may be other non-Marvel, non-DC movies

Avengers: Endgame: At last I’ve been waiting for trailer AND the title for the long called Avengers 4. Really hoping for Endgame to top Infinity War.

Spider-Man: Far From Home: Still waiting to see the trailer right now, but it seems like it would create problems of spoiling Avengers: Endgame or something, for the moment, the synopsis and the trailer description from CCXP are enough for me to get hyped for the film...

...Give me the god damn trailer, Sony, Marvel, whoever (certainly not Disney).

Between Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, I’m debating on which one of these films are gonna be my #1 film, it’s the same problem I faced on the last minute before seeing Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, I was like “which one should be my #1? Infinity War or Spider-Verse?” and it turned out to be Spider-Verse, no surprise.

Captain Marvel: This one I feel like I’m the least hyped for Captain Marvel compared to Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home, but I’m still gonna see it, anyways, I just want to see what happens to Carol Danvers to not be around in the first Iron Man movie and The Avengers.

Dark Phoenix: I wonder if this could be the last X-Men movie made by Fox because of the Disney-Fox deal, depending on the success.

I’m also surprised that they dropped the “X-Men” on the title, but it’s still being used internationally (including Latin America).

Not that I think X-Men: Apocalypse was bad, but I do acknowledge that it was bad, I hope Dark Phoenix could be better than Apocalypse.

New Mutants: It still baffles me how would Fox drop the first trailer of New Mutants ages ago and then delay the film for a full year.

I heard they would capitalize on IT’s success and I feel like it would be copying someone’s success and it could fail very badly. I still want New Mutants to be succesful, somehow.

Speaking of IT...

IT Chapter 2: Just want to say definitely looking forward to Chapter 2.

Joker origin movie: It’s a movie coming out on my birthday! This time, coming out EXACTLY on the 4th, instead of the 5th like Venom. I’m really interested to see how will Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker would be like, he certainly looks way better than the Jared Leto Joker.

Also, I thought the one DC movie coming out in 2019 was Wonder Woman 1984 but then I realized it’s coming in 2020, so in 2019, I got the Joker movie and I also forgot this one was coming out too...

Shazam!: There isn’t much I would talk about Shazam, though, just that gonna see it, I don’t have much thoughts on the film itself. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Star Wars Episode 9: After The Last Jedi and Solo, I really hope Star Wars could win fans back, sure, they did part of it with the revival of the Clone Wars series, but the hate still lies around the movies.

The Last Jedi sure caused a lot of backlash, maybe everyone has been relying on fan theories way too much to be disappointed on how the film turned out, even if it’s not that, then who knows how the backlash came from. Solo, sure, kicking Phil Lord & Chris Miller was a dick move from Disney (but firing James Gunn was the ultimate dick move), but the final film turned out decent enough, sadly it’s a financial failure, though (like I care about financial successes or anything).

This is one of those cases why I hate fandoms so much, contrary to what critics believe that TLJ is a great film, with high scores and everything, and then everyone else just call it an ultimate disaster.

I’m not that passionate with Star Wars to believe if I like TLJ or I hate it (I’m sure there’s an Earth where I do hate TLJ when I’ve been a life long Star Wars fan), despite having a bit of history with Star Wars (with the cartoons and even got a Lego; I’ve never seen the films ;_;), I’m indifferent with the franchise, but I’m on a mission that I’m going to watch the new films starting with The Force Awakens, I’m just liking the newer films without having to pay attention to the entire lore and everything (don’t worry, I do watch videos about easter eggs and references). I’m not the type of person to hate TLJ.

There hasn’t been much Episode 9 news lately, but by the time being in 2019, there will be trailers and everything.

Glass: Split was probably like my very first M. Night Shyamalan film, or maybe I’ve seen parts of The Last Airbender but in the form of promos or something, I can’t remember but Split was definitely my first Shyamalan film.

I really loved Split, and I heard that it was a sequel to Unbreakable, which I got to see it recently, which now I’m ready to watch this interesting trilogy.

Despite having a rough year, having a lot of issues, being an asshole, and everything else, I still had a lot of fun. I also made a lot of new friends from Discord, sometimes they can be tolerable, other times can not, not just my friends, anyone else too, but that’s just me.

I really hope to achieve new things, obtain new interests and habits, I’m going to do everything leading up to become 20 years old. Though, I’m still expecting a genetical change like I’ve always been and nothing happened, but I’m sure I’ll kickstart a new life starting at 20.

Let the new year begin, 2019, also known as the year set in Akira, Blade Runner, The Running Man and other few movies taken place in 2019, but the previously mentioned are the biggest ones. We still don’t have the technology that’s straight out of the future, but it’s getting close.

Thank you for the support, I love you all and let’s have a great 2019 together.

Twitter: @HKomaeda.

Discord: XtremeDespair3D#8157.

[comicteaparty]

August 16th, 2018 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party chat that occurred on August 16th, 2018, from 5PM - 7PM PDT.  The chat focused on Raison d'Etre by Cloud Fourteen (Funari and Leigh).

Featured Comment:

Chat:

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

COMIC TEA PARTY START!

Good day everyone~! This week’s Comic Tea Party is now officially beginning~! Today we are discussing Raison d'Etre by Cloud Fourteen (Funari and Leigh)~! (http://raisondetrecomic.tumblr.com/) For those new or in need of a reminder, discussions about the comic are freeform, so please feel free to bring up whatever you wish. However, every 30 minutes I will be dropping in a discussion question to help those who would like a prompt. These questions are totally OPTIONAL to answer, and you can pay them no mind if you wish. If you miss out on any though, they’ll be pinned for the duration of the chat once they’re posted~! Remember, constructive criticism is allowed, but the primary focus here is to have fun and appreciate the amazing comics that the community makes~! All that being said, let’s get started and have a great discussion!

QUESTION 1. What is your favorite scene in the comic so far and why?

snuffysam

my favorite scene is the scene where inada gives yukina the journals, but only on a second reading. "hey tante, can you help me research-" "what's that? you wanted my sister's diary? you wanted my big sister's deepest, darkest secrets? you wanted to learn the most intimate details of your mothers' lives? that's what you wanted?"

Funari

Mueheheh~ Yeah, we love putting in stuff like that. Seemingly innocent comment at first, but during a reread? BONUS!

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

in the retrospect i can only suspect inada was saving them for blackmail O_O

Funari

Little siblings...they can be such brats ;P

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

lets see, lets see. i think my favorite scene is when yukina is in the shadow place because i really like the tension of shit hitting the fan, the visuals, and then the comedic end where yukina and rie just wind up in a pile.

Funari

Ah, yes. Chapter 5 was when Leigh started putting in her two cents more into the story. I don't recall who came up with the exact direction there BUT that was a good one. It kinda encompasses Raison's story style as a whole - can get serious but then it has its comedic moments just kinda "whoop!" right back

A roller coaster of emotions

snuffysam

i really like that comedic aspect too

like in the story being told about miko and sachiko rescuing nozomi

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

I'm pretty bad for being able to figure out relationships unless they're spelled out in black and white myself. Even the big reveal of "Kaa-san", I don't remember how long it took until I clued in to there being two mothers.

snuffysam

i think "oh, she's their daughter" was the first thing i thought of, but the way the characters' talked threw me off

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

LOL. i guess thats fair though. not sure how much anime you watch cause if you dont watch anime, yeah, kaa-san would probably just go right over.

Funari

Leigh: The "rescuing Nozomi" story was one of the first stories I was asked to help with back in Part 1. I've looked forward to that scene finally playing out, and was not disappointed!(edited)

snuffysam

i like how japanese mom is kaa-san and french mom is maman lol(edited)

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

My favourite scene was actually pretty early on. It was when Kregor was going after Sachiko saying something to the effect of "this should be easy" only to have Miko disarm his dagger and get into a whole fight.

Funari

Leigh: Made life a little easier as far as trying to write for these idiots ;p(edited)

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

In a sense it helped set up his other flailed attempts.

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

another scene that i really liked was when yukina learned about the ascendent and decided that perhaps she should stop hiding and all that. i feel that was portrayed in a powerful direct effect of reading the journal.

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

(Yes, I meant flailed not failed.)

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

any scene with kregor is a classic because kregor is that right mix of overconfident and screw up

Funari

Poor Kregor~

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Rebel: I watch anime. I got the reference, I didn't put two and two together that Miko and Sachi were married.

Funari

Leigh: I'm working on a page with Kregor at this very moment. So he's not going anywhere soon!(edited)

snuffysam

it's the first thing we learn about them math!

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Snuffy: I did think that was clever about the two language mothers.

I have the mind of a goldfish!

Rebel: Yeah, that whole ascendent thing was good. I liked the side story of her with her mother too.

snuffysam

"eh, i just sort of forgot about this canon f/f ship" - math, 2018

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

We were in the future though!

Funari

A little something from Maman, and a little something from Kaa-san ;p

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

I'm used to seeing them younger and courting.

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Hello!

snuffysam

hey sj!

Funari

Hello there :3

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

(I'll be a bit in-and-out with my 2 month old, btw.)

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

hey sj~!

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

I see you're one of the creative talents responsible for this comic, @Funari

Really nice efforts ya got here!

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

well the important part, math, is that you figured it out eventually and saw that those ship sails moved at full force.

Funari

Thank you :3 I created the universe and the basic plot and some of the cast. Leigh created the other half of the cast and has helped string the plot together a bit better since chapter 5 :3

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Ah okies!

Always appreciate a good team effort.

Also was not expecting that four year timeskip

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

yeah i have to say the timeskip surprised me too. not that it was unwelcome, mind you, just something that made me go legasp

Funari

I don't think anyone was, according to folks over at the c14 server or anyone who's commented to us besides one friend lol

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

lol

Funari

Ever since Leigh started contributing more, it made twists even more likely. Sometimes she'll suggest an idea and smirk at me from across the room and...oh boy.. xD

snuffysam

yeah i was figuring part 2 would begin with the gang immediately going to rescue them but nope

it was a cool twist!

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

lol XD

AV-chan

Hi, just dropped by to join the Raison discussion party here Favorite scenes? I think it's mostly the ones with Miko and Sachiko especially when they were in their teens

Funari

Leigh: smirks

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Also just wanted to say this is a really good suit https://78.media.tumblr.com/ea04508234ff49e7d6b78458cef47714/tumblr_inline_nal653HGRk1r87x2y.png

Funari

Hey AV! :3

snuffysam

but yeah @AV-chan , i absolutely agree

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Hello AV!

snuffysam

seeing miko and sachiko interact as teens is just the best

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

welcome @AV-chan ~! thank you for coming!

AV-chan

Hiya everyone

snuffysam

they're so perfect together!

AV-chan

I know right, it's just so cute seeing them get together

Funari

Leigh: I do love a woman in uniform @Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

miko and sachiko have a really nice and fluffy relationship so seeing them together is a happy thing :3

Funari

Awwww

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Women in univerm are always so awesome

especially the battle-ready ones

Funari

Leigh: Heheh~ YES! Sword Wife!

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

A good sword wife

AV-chan

Totally

Funari

It personally makes me gush that you guys love the SachiMiko interactions x3

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Sweet to hear~

AV-chan

Maybe soon with Yucchan too but that's probably not gonna happen any time soon I think

Funari

Leigh: Smirks

snuffysam

i seem to recall on some page where yukina's mom (not sure which) called to her from off-screen, there was an author comment that went something like "i have no idea what her parents' designs will be lol"

that was a nice touch

Funari

laughs

AV-chan

I think it's mostly cause how I somehow witness the development and changes to your OCs Funari that makes me very interested in them as well

snuffysam

though to be fair, we hadn't seen what miko and sachiko looked like as adults yet, so that wasn't necessarily a lie

Funari

Leigh: I knew that Nari had been hanging with me for too long when that popped up!

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Oh yeah, then it was a hat hiding things. Was that an accident?

Like, saying that?

Funari

That's the point! @snuffysam xD

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

speaking of designs tho, i really do like the adult designs for them. especially how sachiko has this sort of grizzled look now cause of the eyepatch

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

https://78.media.tumblr.com/bc036315fd6b663afa1ffaffa11a5e89/tumblr_p9i9zvvI3w1tzfltho1_1280.png Wow, the future sure looks... different.

Funari

Don't quite get what you mean there @MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑 Just want to be sure I know what you're talking about before I answer

AV-chan

A traditional house in the future?

snuffysam

people have traditional houses today, don't they?

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

QUESTION 2. Throughout the comic, we continually see the appearance of Kregor who is out to cause a lot of harm at the behest of his boss, Lady Elianne. What do you think is so special about Sachiko’s blood? Does it have something to do with Allie or is something else afoot? Why do you think Lady Elianne targets Sachiko specifically and not anyone else in her family? Do you think Lady Elianne will ultimately succeed, or will everyone be able to stop her? Who even is Lady Elianne? Outside of Sachiko, Kregor also hunts Yukina’s friend Rie at the behest of the Tanuki Brothers. Do you think the initial failure will deter Kregor from trying again? If Kregor doesn’t try again, do you believe the Tanuki Brothers will leave Rie alone? If Kregor does try again, will he succeed or will something else stop him?

Funari

Stuff has happened to both between their teenaged years and when they're moms. Meta-wise, we're also not fans of works where adult forms of characters almost look exactly the same as the young forms but with smaller eyes or the like

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Yes, we do

snuffysam

it's clear that there's something important about the nakamura bloodline

Funari

The idea behind the Miyamotos' house is that was to hammer down the idea that they were pretty traditional. At least since Nozomi got married.

(and there are still traditional homes in Japan today ;P )

AV-chan

Ooh that's true

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

aah, alright X3

snuffysam

plenty of houses that are around today were built centuries ago, and plenty of modern houses try to imitate houses from centuries ago

AV-chan

That part with Sachiko being hunted has always piqued my curiosity in a way, like what's gonna happen next

Funari

Oh and my reaction to Question 2? ohhhhh that's pretty much what Part 2 is all about! So I'll just keep myself "quiet"

snuffysam

well we know what did happen next

Funari

And Leigh is saying she's just gonna keep smirking, so not much input from her either lol

snuffysam

lost her depth perception, for one

gained a shadow friend

Funari

True, very true...for the depth perception bit

Shadow friend? Ohhhhhh that happened sooner in her life

AV-chan

An interesting twist there

snuffysam

i mean "next" being after the latest journal entry that yucchan read

i don't think we've seen allie in any journal entries so far?

Funari

Nope, not in journals, though there is a Special comic that shows a specific moment in Sachiko's life relating to that

https://imgur.com/a/Q4J7v

snuffysam

i bet everyone is super jealous of yucchan's three moms

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

"How do you even get three mommies?"

snuffysam

japanese mom, french mom, and shadow mom

Funari

Leigh: Hey, I'M jealous of her moms!

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

so in respects to the question, i recall elianne referring to the thing as a curse and how its killed her ancestors. but im starting to wonder if its not something on her mother's side but something on her father's side. because nobody on her mother's side seems at all bothered by any sort of curse and what not and it fits why kregor is targetting sachiko and not say her brother.

AV-chan

That's an interesting way to put it

I forgot if Sachiko's brother had a different dad

snuffysam

he did

Funari

He does!

Also BOOM! Good catch, @✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨ !

AV-chan

Ah that most likely it

Funari

Hayato was born through Rin's marriage with Japanese businessman Daichi Nakamura. Sachiko was....well, by all means, an illegitimate child from a guy in France that Rin knew

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Back, sorry @Funari ; I think what I was wondering was were Yukinas parents always decided from the start, and it was how they looked in the future that gave rise to the hat, or was the scene with her parents evolving as that scene began.

Funari

@MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑 Yukina was always intended to be Sachiko and Miko's kid. Her meta-conception was pretty much that basic idea

But, ahem, yeah. Something's going on with Sachiko's paternal blood that's related to Elianne. Some big stuff

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Oh yeah, Sachiko's dad is actually the head of some other huge NKP department or something... that's probably the reason the hit was put out on her?

Funari

The Rin (Favreau) side of things is mostly just "Oh, this family is one of the famous clans in the NKP!"

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

i wonder if sachiko's dad knew about this so-called curse?

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Lady Elianne is Sachiko's step-mom.

Don't want her getting the inheritance.

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

oh no the mom count increases to four now

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Mum's the word.

snuffysam

what's with men not telling their partners about their bloodline stuff lol

Funari

That was Leigh. This is what I put up with when she inks pages

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Hah! That's funny. Nice heart for penache.

AV-chan

Haha

Funari

Also, Math, you are NOT the only one who has mentioned a theory that Elianne is related to Sachiko like that

I can't say yes or no though

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

it seems plausible given elianne keeps saying the blood belongs to her. and thats usually something ppl say when theyre blood-related

and theyre evil that is

snuffysam

that's also the sort of thing you say if you're evil and want blood

like in general

AV-chan

Inb4 something like Elianne is the mother of Sachiko's dad

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Or they're vampires.

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

or both

elianne is sachiko's vampire granny

AV-chan

Yeah

Funari

Leigh: Isn't that the usual plot twist nowadays?

AV-chan

It's still a good twist

Funari

Elianne is....SOMETHING!

Leigh: She's a real piece of work. A real PAIN IN THE PATELLA

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

I wonder

Doesn't anyone else in the roster have badass suits?

AV-chan

Wanna see Yukina in that suit soon

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Speaking of Kregor - does the guy have good lawyers, or what? He keeps getting banished to be tried for his crimes, and he keeps getting off... sometimes even portaling away before he can be banished. Who is paying his legal fees?(edited)

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

it is a nice suit

Funari

The most we got right now is this

AV-chan

Elianne maybe?

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

elianne of course

assuming she doesnt just bust him out of jail by other means

Funari

It's Elianne :P

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

She's a rules lawyer too then.

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

speaking of kregor though, i do wonder for real if rie is still in danger. cause didnt kregor already get paid?

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

"You didn't inflect properly, so my client goes free."

AV-chan

That long hair... Yukina grew her hair?

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

its bad assassin form to take the money and not finish the job

Funari

Rie is out of danger

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

dat suit

I'll take it

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Rie's mom might still pay a ransom.

Funari

Elianne has been working on something that's far more significant than the Rie thing and when Kregor told her he missed and hit Sachiko and Miko instead with her spell, she was like "Oh. OH. NEVER MIND ABOUT THE TANUKIS."

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

"Ship... out of danger?" "You saved the ship." "The needs of the many..."

Funari

Kregor would do anything for Elianne by the way

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

He would do anything for love. But he won't do that.

AV-chan

That thing huh

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

That thing with the strawberries.

Funari

Also, Nozomi is on HIGH ALERT for Kregor to show up, so even if he tried to finish the deed, he's not gonna

Nozomi...is a tough little firecracker

With a crossbow

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Lol

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

i feel like this is gonna put them on the tanuki's shit list though then? cause id be pretty mad if i paid an assassin and then they were like "sorry bro my lady says we got better shit to do peace out."

Funari

Leigh: Tanuki vs Elianne. Round 1 (ding)

snuffysam

no refunds!

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

FIGHT!

Funari

Leigh: No, for real, they're welcome to try it

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

true i dont imagine theyre actually a threat XD

but they could at least go around spreading ill founded gossip

the horror

QUESTION 3. Chapter 6 of the comic is a four year time skip after Lady Elianne inadvertently captures Sachiko and Koyomiko. What do you think Yukina has been doing for the four years? Has she been in France the whole time, or do you think she came back to Japan at some point? How do you think Yukina has been coping with her missing mothers, and what do you think she intends to do about it? In regards to other characters, how do you think they’re doing? Is Rie okay, or has something happened because of her grandmother’s heir? Do you think Rie’s mother is doing okay as captain, and what do you think the state of her marriage is? Are Sachiko and Koyomiko alive still, and if so, why haven’t they escaped? What, in general, do you think is going to happen now?

snuffysam

they'll hit lady elianne where it hurts - her wallet. leave a bad review, and nobody will hire her again.

Funari

As I read this question out to Leigh, she got this HUGE smile on her face

I think she likes this question :P

snuffysam

and yeah i think things aren't looking great for nozomi. a guy kidnapped her best friends in an attempted kidnapping of her daughter, all because her husband didn't tell her anything

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Probably stayed in France for two years then came back to Japan the final two

Just having a four year-long vacation

Funari

An interesting theory

Also @snuffysam - If that all happened to me, I'd be pretty angry and stressed out, that's for sure!

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

And that's why you need a vacation

to get all that stress off ya

and plot your comeback

Funari

Nozomi needs a vacation like no one's business

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Yes

Funari

Considering what we know of Nozomi's personality, and that the Captain in the NKP is the leader of the whole group...

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

i think it largely depends on whats happening too. if its business as usual i think nozomi would be fine, but if crime shot up or something thatd be a diff story. albeit im sure stressed. especially if on the side shes been trying to inquire where sachiko and miko be at. and losing all the sleep. also wondering when rie's destiny will come knocking at the door

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Perhaps

Funari

We plan to do a special comic about Rie's grandmother finally showing up

Because Rie turned 18 within the 4 year timeskip

snuffysam

oh snap

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Oh snap!

Double Snap

snuffysam

hey total non-sequiter. how old was rin when she married mr. nakamura?

no wait i did the math on hayato's birth year totally wrong. ignore me.

Funari

Oh, okay xD

I was about to pull up my notes

But it's cool :P

snuffysam

np np

Funari

Oh by the way, I DID actually cover this question in a way. Theorize :P

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Oh my god

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

old enough to marry, but not old enough to recognize a potentially bad partner when she sees it

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

That looks really nice

And lol

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

ah sweet the cat thing whose name i forgot found a friend

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

I’d talk about what I would do if I found out that my partner was less then desirable but this isn’t life tea party so

snuffysam

he already had one though ):

Funari

Do not forget about Miko and Sachiko D: His first friends/family

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Oh...

snuffysam

yeah, exactly

Funari

And, as we can see in the drawing, yes, Nozomi is stressing hard during the past 4 years

snuffysam

he had a friend

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

well okay, cat thing found a new friend. to combat the lonliness but probably more likely to get in elianne's way.

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

I wonder, what if the timeskip was only one year

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

i really wanna know why elianne specifically referred to the cat as a renegade

Funari

Leigh: Well, he's done it once. What's not to say he'll do it again?

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

the timeskip wasnt only one year tho?

Funari

Koneko the Renegade~

snuffysam

well, this may come as a shock - but i don't believe koneko was born on earth

Funari

Or, if you've read the most recent pages, Ozadarr :P

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

Koneko is the real hero of the story

snuffysam

and we don't know how old he is at that. it's possible he's been a thorn in elianne's side since before miko was born

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

that is the impression i got

that theres tons of past history here

and koneko is a sneaky sneak

Funari

Leigh: No one really knows how old Koneko is. Except us, of course

Funari

Koneko is very much a sneaky sneak!

And even besides the Elianne thing, consider that Koneko looked exactly the same between the 2000s-era journal flashbacks and Yucchan's present time...Red flags

snuffysam

plenty of cats look the same across, like, 30 years

not weird at all

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Mmmm

Very sneaky~

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

but speaking of not koneko, im gonna be optimistic and assume sachiko and miko are alive and just being held prisoner. since elianne cant do the evil without memories or something apparently. meanwhile koneko fled to mexico or canada. O_O cause thats where all the criminals in popculture flee.

Funari

Those memories....they're pretty important

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

4 years of prison.

Sounds like hell

snuffysam

i don't think koneko's running away so much as looking for help

and hey, at least they have each other?

Funari

4 years of prison while suffering from amnesia!

Just imagine looking to the side, and there's another beautiful woman and you have NO idea who they are, and they're giving you that same look

snuffysam

at least when they get out they'll know for sure that love at first sight is a real thing?

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

elianne is at least being nice if she puts them in a cell or something together.

Funari

Leigh: I like that remark! @snuffysam

They're in exactly the same place you saw them in the Interlude

So...sort of a prison?

Not the bars and concrete kind, but they're trapped in that weird bubble in a strange dimension (though the beginning of ch 6 mentions what it is in slightly more detail as a passing comment...)

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

QUESTION 4. By Yukina’s time period, Sachiko and Koyomiko are pretty legendary. What do you think happened in the past that earned them such notoriety? Is it something to do with catching Kregor, Koyomiko’s Ascendant Rights work, or just everything put together? Speaking of the past, do you think Koyomiko repaired the relationship with her family at some point? We also see a brief flashback of how Sachiko lost her eye, so what do you think are the circumstances that brought that about? Aside from the past, do you think reading the journals about Sachiko and Koyomiko has helped Yukina in ways besides offering her a new perspective on them? Do you believe they will help Yukina find her raison?

snuffysam

"And for almost catching Kregor for good no less than sixty times, we give the medal of bravery to Sachiko and Koyomiko!"

Funari

The Kregor Katcher Award

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

(A half hour of crying baby later... )

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

poor baby :<

Funari

:<

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Regards the prior question, obviously the reason Sachiko and Miko haven't escaped yet is because they don't have their memories and don't know where to escape to. It's a fun Catch-22, because if they had their memories, they'd be put to death.

(Baby's had a bottle now. No, not the weird one, the other one. And not with the cold formula, the other stuff.)

Funari

Leigh: Right on the money

Leigh: There's a few more complexities involved, but that's the gist of it

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

That kinda seemed obvious to me.

(Am I making up for not realizing who the mothers were?)

Funari

Leigh: It wasn't supposed to be particularly hidden lol

Leigh: You're forgiven. For now

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

it was pretty obvious but ya never know when someone might have an interesting theory

like elianne gave them part time work and theyre like "sweet this pays way more than min wage"

Funari

Yeah, no that makes perfect sense. But, in this case, we weren't trying to hide anything extra there

We'll be adding more details in the next few updates actually

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Seconding Rebel

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Also regards the prior question, I feel like Yukina's been trying to train herself in France so as to (1) Not ask stupid questions like what's going on when in the middle of a tense situation, and (2) Learn from Cassandra about what to do to avoid flipping out after freezing at the end of said tense situation.

Funari

Thank you for remembering that Cassandra exists :3

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

LOVE the Cassandra angle. Gotta go to her for Ascendant issues.

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

i was wondering if we were gonna see cassandra again

Funari

VERY soon

snuffysam

i wonder if Yukina'll meet up with her grandfather?

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

I mean, she could be in Scotland, but she did speak French. shrugs

Funari

We're both very fond of Cassie

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Training during a break seems like a good idea. Especially for four years

Never skipping leg day either

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

As to the NEW question, perhaps they're legendary for their looooove. It was even pointed out how everyone in school knew back then.

Funari

Cassandra's well-traveled. She knows French, German, and a bit of Japanese thanks to having Miko as a very close friend

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

omg math. that would actually be hilarious if true. theyre legendary because no matter the trial their love was unconquered

Funari

WELL, in a personal sense, that may be true!

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Does Yuzu + Miko = Suzaku no Miko? (hashtag Fushigi Yugi...)

Funari

Leigh: Certainly, when everyone who was at their wedding remembers them for their bond!

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Rebel: True love did kind of conquor that darkness spell that hit Sachiko.

(I mean, it wasn't a kiss, but still... we can imagine that...)

Funari

heheh

Their love is pretty darn important!

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Actually, maybe Sachiko's already conquered her evil step-mom? Could be someone other than Elianne, maybe that was the big deal.

Losing the eye was probably a prophecy... darn those prophecies...

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Never underestimate it

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

i am curious why sachiko didnt seem to block kregor in that flashback. like theres a point id think shed stop freezing up with fear, but maybe it was not at that time i guess

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Actually, kind of interesting that in 2031 they don't have a prosthetic for that. Unless Sachiko wears the eyepatch as a badge of honour.

Funari

It was an incident related to Elianne. No prophecies this time, just some crazy stuff.

Sachiko definitely has a problem with freezing up

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Rebel: Maybe Miko was behind her.

Funari

The wound isn't natural

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

hmm thats interesting it isnt natural

which makes me think man, that must of hurt even more

Funari

But yeah, deep down, Sachiko would prefer to solve things without violence. Miko's the more violent-prone one

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

As to Miko's family... I kinda doubt it? The way she referred to her mom and everything back then? The ascendancy stuff becoming mainstream might have helped, but I kinda doubt it.

Funari

Conferring with Leigh and

Eh, may as well just say it

No

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

The wound isn't natural... it's artificial. Sachiko's been a clone this whole time.

Gotcha. Probably why Miko wants to do things better with her family though.

Funari

Miko's mom's attitude never changed, so Miko never made up with her. Even Tomoko eventually moved away from her, though she still has a sort-of connection there. Sort of

Oh yeah. That's how she reacted to the abuse. It helped that she had folks like Sachiko and Rin around to show her what family can be like, and her dad WAS an okay man, but he was married to....that. She always wanted to be better than her mom

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Actually, if anyone's a clone, it's probably Kregor. Explains why he was vanquished 60 times.

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

I man, how many people stride to be better than their parents? Just curious

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

haha i suspected. making up with ppl is difficult if it can be done at all in those cases.

you cant clone kregor

kregor is one of a kind

O_O

Funari

Leigh: personal experience

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Hmmm, if Miko had both Sachiko and a clone of Sachiko to spend time with at once...

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

math plz

theres already a threesome with allie in the mix

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Always room for one more.

One for the shadows, one for the daytime.

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

A foursome?

Sign me up

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

anyway, idk if the journals helped yukina find a raison or purpose, but im sure her moms getting kidnapped certainly helped

Funari

(was trying to make this quick. It DOES seem like Kregor's got fans!)

snuffysam

"gee yukina, how come you get to have FOUR moms whenmmmmghg-" gets kidnapped by kitsune grandma

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Oooh, title drop. (Yeah, I was surprised that with all the French nods, Funari's not part French that I can tell...)

Funari

omg

Leigh: I think Rie would say that one mom is plenty, giving who HER mom is!

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Kregor's the villain you love to hate.

Funari

And in regards to @✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨ - we're definitely moving towards a moment of recknoning for Yucchan

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

So here's a question I wanted to ask before we run out of time -- have we seen Pan in the future?

Did I just miss it?

Funari

Not yet

She's in the little "How things have changed" drawing, and there are plans, but officially not yet

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Ooooh, hmmmm. As long as she didn't turn to the dark side.

Funari

No, we can confidently confirm that Pan is still on our side ;p

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Lol

What about the light side

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Mr & Mrs Daggers?

Funari

fjfjgjfj

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

i have wondered where pan has been too. i think from the time skip im most interested in seeing what rie's dad is up too given for all i know nozomi kicked his butt out onto the street into the gutter(edited)

snuffysam

good

Funari

OOF

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Okay since we're running out of time here I just wanted to say good luck on the rest of the comic and hope it all goes well, there's some seriously good reads hidden in there.

Funari

Thanks much :3

Any other quick questions?

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Yeah, funny thing is, I can kind of see why he'd bow to the pressure of not telling his wife about Rie. The thing I don't get is him not telling about who he was before the marriage, that's the weird transgression to me.

Funari

Leigh and I have certainly had lots of fun tonight! Glad you all have enjoyed what we've done so far!

Leigh: Mmmhmm (too secretive for his own good)

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Does "Cat" have a human form too?

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

You're welcome!(edited)

Funari

TECHNICALLY yes

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Hashtag catgirls?

(Or catboys, whatever.)

Superjustingo of ✨Time🕑&Space☄✨

Funari

Catpeople

But yes, technically he does, but we won't see it any time soon. There are Reasons

raisons

Elianne's gonna do a huge exposition dump in the next few pages

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Cassandra's mother was secretly a catgirl.

Funari

She is...preparing for it

MathTans the super Pun 👑Prince👑

Anyway, good job! It'll be interesting to see what happens as comic looks at other planes, as seems to be happening in the new pages.(edited)

(Or just people from other planes hiding out in ours.)

✨🐱 RebelVampire 🐱✨

COMIC TEA PARTY END!

Unfortunately, the scheduled Comic Tea Party time is now up~! Thank you everyone so much for reading and joining this week’s chat~! We want to give a special thank you to Cloud Fourteen (Funari and Leigh), as well, for making Raison d'Etre and volunteering it for our reading queue. If you liked the comic, please be sure to support Cloud Fourteen (Funari and Leigh)’s efforts however you’re able to. All that being said, if you would like to continue discussing this week’s comic, we highly encourage you to do so~!

For next week, Comic Tea Party will focus on Pathways: Chronicles of Tuvana by Elaine Tipping. As always, please use the next several days to read as much of the comic as you would like. We hope to see you next Thursday on August 23rd from 5PM to 7PM PDT for the chat~! Until then, happy reading~! Comic: http://pathways.smackjeeves.com/

[fates-end-does-vns]

Nogi Wakaba is a Hero: 2/2

Wͪ͂̃h̀̇ͬa͌ͣ̽t̒͒̔ ͑ͬͧt͑͡͝h͋̔̌ę̷ͤ ͛͌ͩfͩ̉̚uͭ̏̂c͗̇͌k̓̔ͬ?ͪͫ̑ ?̨͚͢?̙̻̹?̺͜͜?̵̧҉̜̭͖?̵̥͡?̘̜͠

>She then silently placed her hands together while ruminating over the contents of the diary-- oh we really are going deeper

>A fight seems to break out among the underground mall dwellers just about every day. Oh, did they end up killing each other rather than the vertex?

>Since food is limited, some ruffians try to use violence to hoard it all to themselves. """ruffians"""???

>The corpses of the dead are gathered in a designated area. Leaving them where they died would be both a hygienic and mental nightmare, after all. Ahh, it's like I'm writing about corpses as inhuman objects, huh. Maybe my senses have started going crazy too. it's really starting to look like this, huh.

>An adult got irritated at her crying and told me to kill her or put her outside. yikes

>The people advocating leaving to the surface unilaterally destroyed a barricade. It's the same pattern as before. Nothing more can be done. I wasn't entirely right, but I was close.

>The area around the station and beyond was covered with countless giant egg-shaped objects. So the Vertexes are... breeding? Are we sure they aren't just aliens?

>Despite Tamako's in-the-moment personality, she too knew full well the risk of using trump cards. Looks like Tamako might be where they got that data on fairy possession from.

>What came out was... a hoe. And a folded letter. Another apocalyptic log, huh?

>--Shikoku was at risk of a crisis once more. oh boy my favorite

chapter 11 end

Oh, is this some sort of sidestory about dead girl?

>As Utano continued to work hard without ever losing hope, one by one, the residents began helping her. Some cultivated the fields with her. Others provided boats so they could fish in Lake Suwa.

something something Varda Rhaplanca.

>The guardian god of Suwa was a god of war, a princely god of the earth. It was said that this god once used a wisteria vine as a weapon in a battle against another god. Imbued with divine might, his wisteria vine was powerful enough to crush the opposing god's weapon of iron. oh hey it's kanako

>The whip that served as Utano's weapon was imbued with the same spiritual power as that god of war's wisteria vine. 

hmm...

Well, I guess they're both player 2...

>However, even heroes had their limits, and the waves of Vertexes kept growing in size. In response to the intensifying attacks, the local god had scaled the barrier down in size to scale it up in strength. Now in 2018, the harumiya and akimiya had already been destroyed and only the area to the southeast of Lake Suwa remained protected by the barrier. froggod is getting tired, I guess.

>At times like these, Mito felt a feeling she couldn't quite describe. Her heart would stir, and she couldn't calm it.

man, they're not even trying to hide it anymore, huh.

>Both Utano and Mito could tell that the power of Suwa's local god was weakening.

>So Suwa was a decoy to let Shikoku prepare for battle. Utano and Mito had vaguely noticed that fact, so it was no surprise. Sacrifices, sacrifices, sacrifices. It's all about sacrifices, isn't it?

>"... The world? You mean the whole el mundo?!" >"Excelente!" why

end

>Thanks to the investigation of the heroes and miko, the Suwa area was confirmed to be safe. propaganda, propaganda, propaganda.

the problem with lying so hard about everything is that eventually people are going to figure out the truth and it's going to be worse than if you'd just been honest.

>It's just... ever since I used the fairy's power during the expedition, I guess? My body's been feeling kind of funny... looks like I was right

>Despite having that discussion, since the battle royale would be for practice, they obtained permission from the teachers and the event was settled. I guess this might turn out interesting?

>Hinata looked at the smartphone she held in her hand. On the screen was a picture of Wakaba doing combat training during lessons yesterday. Normally during hero training sessions, Hinata would undergo miko training in another room, and thus she had no opportunities to take pictures of Wakaba training... ah, bribery.

>Instead, it slammed into Tamako's forehead. I was wondering how the two of them were going to settle it.

>"W-Wakaba-kun... I'm sorry, but there's someone else that Tama likes..." oh no she's FiW twilight

>Wakaba and Yuuna were wearing male uniforms. you know what I would actually like to see this.

good. not as good as I imagined, but good.

>"No, your movements were clearly weaker compared to when you fight against Vertexes." yuuna's protagonist power still shines through

>The next Vertex invasion had yet to happen. in anything else that line would be ominous but you've ended at least like four fucking chapters with "oh no big vertex invasion incoming".

chapter 12 end.

despair? grief? lactic acid?

>Supernatural phenomena like seances and spirit possession have existed in human culture from time immemorial. Shamans. Blind spirit mediums. Animists. Polytheists. Such practitioners would evoke the inhuman into their own bodies. >Polytheists. 

 excuse me? 

 >In the classroom the next day, Tamako and Anzu discussed holding a flower viewing party with the others. 

does this book actually have a plot

>"Okay, then once our next Vertex battle's over, let's go flower viewing to celebrate! I suddenly feel pumped up!" tempting fate.

>For flowers' lives were short. tempting fate.

>If any evolved Vertexes were to appear, Tamako would surely use the power of the fairies to fight it. I like that she's thinking this stuff through. Too bad it won't help.

>"I think it's more like a scorpion... Takashima-san..." Scorpio?

>At that signal, the other girls began activating trump cards one by one. welp

>In other words, this scorpion-type Vertex had more stamina than all of the heroes currently had the power to combat. Huh. That's unexpected. What else can they do, blossom?

>The needle then skewered Anzu behind her as well. They're just both going to die then? Or are they going to pull something out at the last minute? They were really telegraphing Tamako being the first person to show the symptoms of possession.

>What came out of Tamako's mouth the next moment wasn't a voice, but copious volumes of blood. And not just from her mouth, but from her eyes, ears, and nose. Blood spilled. Perhaps due to the poison, she experienced bizarre symptoms that could not be explained by the stab wound alone. that went from realistically dark to silly in two seconds flat.

>A fairy particularly feared by the Taisha, and thus a fairy the heroes were strictly ordered never to use-- Yuuna would now unleash that fairy's power. of course yuuna would

chaper 13 end.

another blank chapter start. joy.

she punchch

>After sweeping way the Vertexes, Yuuna had lost consciousness and even now had yet to recover. sounds familiar

eyyyy it's leo

>But Yuuna's face twisted in agony. The smooth transformation that normally came with using a trump card was nowhere to be seen. this is a reaaaaly bad idea

>Wakaba and Chikage were unable to do any damage to the giant Vertex, and Yuuna, the only one with any means of effective attack was out of commission. for the first time, they're on the retreat.

>Within Chikage's eyes ignited the dark light of hatred. I mean, she wasn't exactly stable to begin with, but I don't think the fairy thing helped.

chapter 14 end.

Is it all just whiteout now?

So it looks a lot like she's crazy and on the side of the vertexes here.

>However-- voices of anxiety cried up throughout the population. Crime and suicides rose. Public order was collapsing. Wouldn't be as bad if you guys had been honest in the first place.

>Chikage suddenly heard a voice by her ear. She looked up in surprise. That the fairy?

>After leaving her house, Chikage unsheathed her scythe and walked down the road. there we go

>So why must they criticise us...?! If this is what it all comes down to... then there's no point in fighting, no point in protecting people...! None at all! how very Live-a-Live

>To be suspended and have her hero system revoked. So now there's only two heroes left and only one of them can fight, huh?

Chapter 15 end.

>"In about a month and a half, we will reach the fourth anniversary of the tragic 7/30 disaster." A big speech, huh?

>Wakaba had been popular with the people of Shikoku, almost to the point of worship. The crowd listened so intently, they forgot to blink. Well, they haven't lost their faith in her, at least.

>Wakaba wrote a rough draft for the speech, but the content was entirely rewritten by the Taisha. Figured.

>The Koori family was granted a house in Marugame where Chikage lived with her mother and father. That sounds like an awful idea.

>"...I've lost... everything... Everything... was stolen from me..." This is all really uncomfortable to read.

>Chikage took out her phone and began typing out a message to the Taisha: If they believe this, they're idiots.

>The Taisha had fast-tracked Chikage's reinstatement due to the danger of having Wakaba fight alone. ugh.

>And the next moment, seven Chikages appeared, surrounding Wakaba. yeesh. I can't really see a way for this novel to end that isn't awful. This is a really hopeless story/

>But immediately, her hero outfit itself disappeared, leaving Chikage standing in the Jukai in her school uniform. Divine intervention?

>In Wakaba's place, Chikage became Vertex food. Yikes. I guess that's one way to clean up a loose end.

>Chikage smiled and closed her eyes as if to sleep. Okay, this one kind of got me, not gonna lie. Chikage's situation was awful from start to end.

Chapter 16 end

>She could hear Yuuna sobbing from across the other side. welcome to the suffering show

>The Taisha would not tell them when the funeral service was to be held, nor what sort of service it was to be, leaving the others unable to even mourn for her. trust the government to be bastards.

>"Those ones have pictures of all of us." oh goddamnit it's one of these :(

>"Wh-what?! What on earth is this majesty?! It's a tamashock! This flavour is a 30 kilotamashock!'" fucking udon

>"...It's the diploma we all gave Gun-chan together..." fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck

>"Koori Chikage was a genuine hero!!" fuuuuuck it took a while for this story to move me but god damn it

>Only two heroes remained. and there's the traditional "things are gonna get bad" marker.

end of chapter 17.

Descended from humans?

>But according to the Taisha, as long as humanity could overcome this next attack, they would be able to prepare two countermeasures to keep the enemy invasion in check. Which of these countermeasures involves murder?

>The will of the Shinju-sama aside, I would prefer that forced cancellation not occur. I implore you to put your trust in us.-- Her request was accepted and the hero system was updated. Guess that's why Tougou was able to do what she did.

>It was Yuuna. She took one look at Wakaba and Hinata and froze for just a second before beginning to gently close the door. Wawawa wasuremono~

>Wakaba wore a baseball cap and jeans, accessorised with oversized sunglasses covering her eyes, a large surgical mask enveloping her mouth, and her sword in hand. where's that picture with sonoko

>Yuuna smiled and spoke somewhat nervously, as if introducing herself for the first time. You know I think this is the first time we've seen Yuuna really talk about herself. In any time.

>Her vision grew dark. I guess that goes to show just how much weaker they are than the modern heroes, that that was all it took.

>She had only lost consciousness for a fleeting moment. Yuuna isn't like the others, after all.

>(Shinju... sama...? Am I... going inside... the Shinju-sama...?) I'm guessing that's why she's still around, somehow.

Chapter 18 end.

divine era, huh.

>But I'm sure the three of us can go there someday. now, though, there's only two.

>"Huh... n-no... no... Everyone... died...? No heroes survived... except... for me..." bring on the despair.

>In addition to the colossal Vertex, there were also several developing large Vertexes scattered around here and there. Large Vertexes identical in appearance to ones defeated in the past were reemerging as well. welp.

>Wakaba and Hinata couldn't tell what it was, but there was something inside those hollow shells... oh right, the, whatchamacallit, the souls.

>The heavens-- were falling-- guess that's the world ending right there.

>"Any possibility of a comeback for humanity... has been crushed, hasn't it..." yeah basically. say what you will about madoka, but this permanent status quo might be even less hopefull than it.

>"This was our first attempt, but it was a success. We have named this divine ritual the offering fire festival." oh wait is hinata going to be one of the girls sacrificed?

>"The Taisha held a festival. Outside the wall... They spoke to the heavens and prayed, asking for amnesty from invasions on the condition that we no longer leave this land." so is the reason the Vertexes started attacking again in the present because someone broke the deal?

>"But I played my cards right and excluded myself from the selection. I didn't want to die. I'm such an unfair, cruel woman." oh. well, at least wakaba won't be alone.

>If we remain in these lands and abandon our hero powers, we will no longer be attacked." or maybe that's the part of the deal that was broken. there's still the fact of the people who were divinely empowered to do terrorism, though...

>"Indeed. Despite how I might look, I am angry. Let's make sure we recover. Once we lose the Shinju-sama, we lose Shikoku as well, but the Shinju-sama should have a lifetime of hundreds of years. Let's use that time to find a counter strategy." so how's it still around and fine after 700 years?

>Lost lives do not come back. they do when they're yuuna, apparently.

>"First, we will rename the Taisha from 'grand shrine' to 'amnesty' as a self-conscious reminder that we have been granted amnesty and live modestly as human beings." so it is the same organization.

>We'll just bide time and wait until then. apparently you didn't wait long enough.

>The last survivor of the Vertex invasion dies of old age. That's... not very old.

>reverse clapping ?????

>are given the name "Yuuna" by the Taisha in reverence to the legendary hero Takashima Yuuna. Yeah, I'm not buying that. This Yuuna and that Yuuna are waaaaaay too similar. And the weird way Yuuna's been acting? Nah, they're the same person.

Chapter 19 end.

>And I'm not just talking about simple firepower enhancements here. I'm talking about adding mental health support systems, too. I don't think it's that easy.

>"That's right. But if we used artificial... that is, pseudo-fairies, there'd be no harm done, don't you think?" How would that even work?

>Hinata felt as if she could still hear voices like that. gah don't do that

>"Yeah. We'll be together forever. Even after we graduate. Even after we grow up. Even after we're old ladies, we'll be together." gaaay~

>"I've lost so many precious friends myself. So please, don't make your precious ones go through the same thing I did. Swear to me-- swear to them-- that you'll make it back--" arrrgh not a gain this story is so depressing

>"That Hero Record was censored in black, but there were also red censors, too. So it was probably censored twice. And the second round of censorship... erased almost all of it." graaah so they probably don't know most of the stuff in the story

>But nothing lasted forever. As generations begot generations, as time passed by, change happened. and ultimately, their attempts to keep the Taisha free from corruption were in vain, huh.

epilogue? end.

oh hey.

chikage's name's censored everywhere it appears...

yuuna's eager to use the fairy she's been explicitly told not to use.

and anything written by chikage's gone too...

:(

And this was completely wiped away...

Nogi Wakaba is a Hero: End.

[inunanna]

Inukag week 2017 Day 4 - Family

This is a list of my headcanons about Inukag’s family and fanbabies, Enjoy!

@inukag-week   I finally made one prompt in time!!!

I have different headcanons and depends of what kind of story I'm thinking about the headcanon may differ. That is why there may be incompatible ones XD

About starting a family:

They didn't plan their first they just didn't take any measures to avoid making one.

They didn’t talk about how many or if they wanted one. Kagome assumed he wanted to have one because he never said otherwise and Inuyasha did the same, afraid to ask because of her possible answer.

Kagome thinks something is weird with her, but being new to the “sex” stuff she thinks is her body adapting, not only to sex but at her new life.

Inuyasha smells the change in her but doesn’t know what it means. By the second one he knows and tells her.

Kagome is very happy to start a family. The village is cautious about it, thinking she will lose her powers.

They both want a big familly. And it’s a good thing because they are not good at planning or spacing them. At least not during the first years.

Inuyasha fears their child will be born looking more like a dog than a person. Kagome tells him they won’t. He still has nightmares about it until the baby is born.

Since he knows she is expecting he starts building and carving things for the baby. He even learns how to make baskets for the baby to rest in. The tells him about baby products of her time and he comes with ideas for toys.

He refuses to go on trips when she is pregnant, and even more when the baby is born. It takes him a while and a lot of convincing from Miroku to leave his family.

The only time he goes on a trip when she is pregnant is because he is so nervous about everything that she needs some space.

On said trip he buys--through Miroku-- every baby and children's toy and product he likes. He brings the softest cloth she has ever seen.

Kagome starts to saw baby clothes very excitedly, Inuyasha watches the whole process. He asks to try it and turns out he is better at designing clothes and faster too.

That year he over-prepares for winter. Too much wood, too much salted meat, too many blankets and even pelts. He is terrifies about not being able to provide for them on that winter.

Shippou is like an older brother for the kids. His relationship with the firs baby is complicated because he doesn’t know how to behave around something so small. But he is the one teaching the baby how to interact with other children. He has his room in Inukag’s home.

About their kids:

If it’s a girl first. He is wrapped around her finger from her first breath. There is nothing that can convince him his baby girl is not perfect. She looks like Kagome but with his coloring.

If it’s a boy first. He is terrified because he doesn’t know what he can teach him, how is he supposed to lead him to adulthood. Kagome tells him it will come natural to him, he is not convinced.

All their kids have his ears. (I know genetics says otherwise but this is fiction XD and I love his ears).

Some of them have his powers, some others have spiritual energy. They teach them how to defend themselves with the powers they have.

Each kid has an unique personality and they know it. And respect them.

The first two girls are named after their mothers, the first son after her father. And every other name is chosen after something the baby reminds them of or about their temperament, The sun, the rain, strong, delicate. Gentle.

At one point they have twins (maybe more than once XD).

The kids that more resemble Kagome physically have a temper that resembles Inuyasha and vice versa.

(this one is common, I just discussed it @vixenfoxpaws recently) The kids sometimes dream they are chasing something, and they run in their sleep, even giving low growls. Inuyasha thinks it’s adorable and play with it. He only needs to whisper “Look! A rabbit” to the half sleep child and they go into “hunt mode”. Kagome laughs at it but tells him to let them sleep. Inuyasha calls it their “nightly jog”. Even when they grow up he keeps doing it from time to time.

Kagome wants all her children look like Inuyasha. Inuyasha wishes they look like Kagome. Starting on the last trimester of their third pregnancy they start to make bets about who “this one” will look like.

The kids love to rescue hurt animals and strays, everyone helps to get them clean and healthy, they become unofficially theirs, coming back from time to time. Inuyasha loves cats (even if he never admits it) so usually he tells one child where one cat is alone and they bring it to Kagome. 

Daddyasha:

He loves his family above anything else.

He grew up without a family but he soon learns he is a family man. They are his priority and not even Miroku’s teasing can make him change his mind.

He is part of his children’s playground. They can play on him, use him as an obstacle. Be part of their game as a monster.

Their children are the only allowed to brush his hair. Not even Kagome is allowed to make him “pretty”.

He loves how naturally they touch him, hug him, cling to him, and play with him. He marvels constantly about their existence.

He has a box where he saves all the presents his kids give him. Even when Kagome tells him that they will rot in there. He is going to save the tokens!

When it’s cold outside his kids use him as a heater. They climb him, or hug him, sometimes they throw a blanket over him and all of them lay down touching him. And he is “grumpy” about it saying how he cannot do the rest of the things he wanted because of them. But he loves it, and they know it’s only show.

He cannot resist their “puppy” eyes. He caves easily. When he knows they need a “no” he says “ask your mom”. They whine, it’s a sad doggy whine, when he says that.

Inuyasha loves to have let them fall asleep in his arms. He doesn’t mind carry them around all day. He holds them and stare at them lovingly as they start to blink one eye at at time, enjoying how they cling to his clothes, how the nuzzle and nestle finding the right spot. Listening to their heartbeat as it slows down, listening to their breathing slowly changing. Revelin in the immense trust that is needed to sleep that soundly, the way that he couldn’t for most of his life. Smiling softly, tracing their features, touching their little hands and feel... Just taking his time to feel them.

He is really good with house chores, and he teaches the kids how to help when they ask. It turns out great because they have quite a few and they need that extra help.

He is in charge of bringing them home at the end of the day. As each kid has a favorite place to play in their free time, Inuyasha goes and pick them up.

After they have children and people in the village see him playing with them so happily he finds himself surrounded with a bunch of children around his kid’s age that want to play too.

He is firm about using their abilities against people or each other. He does not condone the use of that in any case that is not formal practice or self-defense.

He likes to tell them about the times “before mom” as he calls them, to let them know how other people can treat them and how fortunate they are.

Kagomom:

Kagome is the queen and the center of her home. She is the flame that shares the light and warmness.

She is incredibly protective of her children. I mean “What did you say about my child?” “Nothing? That’s what I thought!” kind of protective. She doesn’t allow any kind of discrimination.

She is very strict about what kind of behavior is not allowed and she puts her foot down. No bs in that house.

Her children know what once she says “no,” it is “no”.

She loves to smother her children with kisses. And loves to do it even when they hit the awkward phase of “Mom! Don’t do that!”

She thinks all her children are perfect, and she would do Anything for them.

Kagome can feel their auras around her. It comes natural to her, since they are born. Later on as she gets trained as a miko, she becomes better at finding auras,. But She has to focus on finding them, with her children it is different, she always feels them around.

She loves having a baby in the family, even if she feels tired all the time she adores that stage of their development.

Kagome goes to work with the smallest of her bunch. On their sling on her back or chest, taking breaks to feed the baby and play with it. The only reason she leaves the baby with Inuyasha is when he wants to spend the day with the pup or when she is taking care of a person with an illness.

Her kids learn to speak faster than others of the same age, she thinks it’s because the is always speaking to them, and making conversation with the cooing baby. Inuyasha first think it’s funny when she uses the cooing and the squealing as answer to her questions but later she finds him doing the same.

The thing she misses everyday is a camera. She wishes she could take pictures of all her kids since birth to adulthood.

She comes up with a baby diary where she documents every milestone and funny anecdote about them. Later on it’s useful because they start to mix up who did what when babies.

She teaches her kids to learn and write along with Miroku and Inuyasha. Inuyasha has a beautiful handwriting.

Kagome stays as the priestess of the village and the villagers are impress by her powers and knowledge, more than one of her children are interested in at least being a healer and they follow her everywhere with questions. 

She knows that taking them with her to pick up herbs helps her finish in one tenth of the time. Their abilities and senses are amazing.

She is the one that has to tell their kids they cannot sleep in their bed all the time, Inuyasha just looks at her with a panicked expression unable to say no.

I have so many more, but I want to finish before tomorrow arrives. (I’ll come back to edit and fix the grammar mistakes)

If you have more about this adorable family you can add them!! 

[long-mao]

Kasen

HELLO YES IT IS TIME FOR MY SHAME

003 | Give me a character & I will tell you

How I feel about this character: Kasen has pretty much all of my defining character traits, combined with my love of pink hair, my love of animals, my love of plants, and my love of qi lolita. From the moment her design was first revealed, on aesthetics alone, I knew she was going to be my favorite of all time. Kasen is the pinnacle of touhou. 

All the people I ship romantically with this character: Suika, Reimu, Komachi, Miko

My non-romantic OTP for this character: KasenxACTUALLY BEING A HERMIT AND NOT INTERACTING WITH PEOPLE

My unpopular opinion about this character: I adore how cruel she can be. I think its really interesting and adds a new dimension to her. Of course I don’t condone animal abuse, but its storytelling and conflict is interesting.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon: Show up more, you precious angel. 

My OTP: KasenxReimu is the cutest of her ships, but its mostly just... because of the training, their powerbalance is off, and the age difference makes it kinda weird... Its cute as long as its innocent/fluff. 

My OT3: KasenxSuikaxYuugi could be interesting if I had to pick, but I really am not big on shipping her.

[operationrainfall]

Title Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo Developer City Connection Publisher NIS America Release Date February 18th, 2020 Genre SHMUP Platform Nintendo Switch Age Rating T for Teen – Fantasy Violence, Suggestive Themes Official Website

I wasn’t originally planning on reviewing Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo. Not cause it looked bad mind you, far from it, but because I’m not an expert at the SHMUP genre. I enjoy it, but it also regularly kicks my ass. While Steve did a great job of tackling Psikyo Shooting Stars Alpha, he’s also closer to a veteran of these games than I am. But since I’ve always been intrigued by the Psikyo games, I figured I’d give Bravo a shot. This collection brings together all three Sengoku Aces games (even though they’ve tweaked their original titles), as well as two Gunbird entries and a very strange puzzle game. Was Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo my introduction to the hardcore SHMUP genre? Or did I go down in flames?

For simplicity, I’ll cover the games in the order I beat them in. I started with the Sengoku (Samurai) Aces games – Samurai Aces, Samurai Aces II: TENGAI and Samurai Aces III: Sengoku Cannon, then tackled Gunbird followed by Gunbird 2, and closed things out with Gunbarich. Pretty much every game in the Bravo collection has large elements of fantasy, as well as nods to Japanese culture aplenty. There are giant Daruma dolls, mecha samurai, assorted demons and all sorts of crazy elements. They all play almost identically, with a few exceptions. Some are inherently vertical SHMUPs, while others are horizontal. Some only arm you with bombs and regular gun attacks, while a couple of the entries here have charged sub attacks. And even though the games are technically pretty simple, in execution they are all quite challenging. While only some of the games here would classify as bullet hell, none of them are easy. At least not on the Normal difficulty I played them all on.

Visually, the entire package of Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo is quite attractive. Even my least favorite entry visuals-wise, Sengoku Cannon, still has some diverse enemies and complex artwork. I loved the hand drawn portraits in all the games, and even found the tiny models to be impressive. There’s tons of things generally happening in the games, humans running, machines gearing up, bullets flying and more. Tons of credit goes to the massive and evolving boss designs, and flashy and bombastic visual effects. Musically, each of the games does what’s necessary, and adds a bit of flourish. I like the audio retorts found in some of the games, such as shrieks of victory or screams of defeat. Though all the games are great musically, my favorite is TENGAI, especially how the soundtrack shifts when bosses are near, adding drama. Overall, the Bravo collection has fantastic art and sound design.

There were a couple minor quirks I encountered while playing Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo. One happened when I first booted up Gunbird. I picked Marion and started playing, only to find there was no music whatsoever. There were sound effects, but no tunes. That only happened once, but it was a bit strange. Worse by far was the first time I played Gunbird 2. Though I know for a fact I picked Normal difficulty, the entire game was dialed up way harder. I barely got through the first stage, and was sweating bullets the entire time. Subsequent playthroughs were fine, but this was still an odd blip in an otherwise smooth experience. Also, while this isn’t a glitch, I really found it unfortunate that the Bravo collection had no compendiums, galleries or music boxes. I would have died for some behind the scenes insights into the development of the games, some artwork and the ability to listen to tunes. I also would have appreciated a gallery showing the endings I’d collected so far. The lack of these doesn’t make this collection horrible by any stretch, but it does prevent it from getting a perfect score from me.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Apparently all the Samurai Aces games take place in Feudal Japan, and revolve around stopping a cult before they can resurrect their demonic god. I say “apparently” since it’s hard to get much plot from any of the games in the Bravo collection. The first Aces game is enjoyable. It features great and complex artwork, lots of moving parts and big foes. So long as I could hoard my precious bombs and powerups, I did pretty well. Having said that, I do feel the game can be a bit unbalanced in some stages. More tricky is that in all the games in this collection, the stage order is randomized. You’ll only play so many stages each playthrough, meaning sometimes you’ll be able to avoid the harder ones and others you won’t. All in all though, the original Samurai Aces was a fun romp with some really quirky characters, including a bald monk, tomboyish shrine maiden and even a dog. Don’t ask how that last one works, it just does.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

While the first Samurai Aces game was a vertical SHMUP, the second one, called TENGAI, switches things up. Not only does this entry move the Aces games to horizontally focused mayhem, but it also introduces sub weapons. Once you’re powered up to a certain level, you’ll be able to charge and unleash more powerful shots from your spectral familiars. My personal favorite is a fire breathing lemur companion. I actually loved this game the most of all in this series, and felt it was both the most well balanced and also had some amazing bosses. Not that the first game had horrible bosses, it didn’t, but I appreciated how modular the ones in TENGAI were, shedding parts and evolving into strange and dangerous new forms as you fought. This game also introduces the concept of recurring mini-boss foes that hound you, and even engage in some banter before battles. Oh and fun side note, the tomboyish Miko, who is also known as Koyori, gets a hell of a makeover in this game. Let’s just say with her newfound curves you can’t call her a lean tomboy anymore. But she’s just as arrogant and spunky as before.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The third Aces title, Sengoku Cannon, is also the strangest. You could tell they were trying to make use of newfangled polygonal graphics in this game, and it actually hurts it quite a bit visually. Most stages are empty space filled with angry foes and quickly moving background landscapes. Worse was that the bosses are just floating humanoids that assault you with all manner of projectiles. Oh and did I mention, this is the first true bullet hell in the Bravo collection? That said, once I got past my dislike of the graphics in this particular entry, I really grew to enjoy the unique mechanics. This one played similar to the other games, but introduced a secondary Cannon attack which seems key to the score received at the end of stages. It also sometimes turns all enemy projectiles into coins when you kill enemies, which I’m a bit perplexed by. Though the bullet hell takes getting used to, it’s also mostly pretty fair. I grew to anticipate and avoid streams of bullets the more I played, and started to even get a little cocky. That is until the latter portion of the game, where the developers show us what they’re really capable of, and flood the screen with all manner of annoyance. It’s rough, but thankfully all the games in the Bravo collection allow you to tweak the parameters, giving yourself more lives and continues. Suffice to say, I dialed my lives up to 9 and continues to 3, and was thus able to beat all of the games in Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo. The only exception is the last game, but I’ll save that for later.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It was a special treat to play through the Gunbird games, since I had actually bought one of them individually months before. I hadn’t thought I was capable of beating it then, but I found the first Gunbird to be pretty well balanced the more I played it, at least on Normal. When this and the other games in the collection loop after you beat them, it seems as though the difficulty also ramps up significantly, making things much more hectic. So while that did prevent me from getting an uber score in the games, I still enjoyed them. Gunbird specifically had some really strange characters, including a Witch, a mechanical man, a cloud riding beauty, and even a very odd carpenter. Though this one does play quite a bit like the first Samurai Aces game, it has a bit more cartoonish spunk and humor. There’s some 20+ endings in this game alone, and they all depend on how you choose to spend a wish granted by a feline genie. I didn’t realize how important that decision was until I beat the game, decided to beat the genie mercilessly, then was trapped as a replacement genie for my sins. Yes, this is a bonkers game, and I really loved that about it.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Gunbird 2 was the most visually impressive game in the entire Bravo collection, and it was also the most relentless. While it doesn’t quite go the route of consistent bullet hell that Sengoku Cannon does, it is really, really challenging. It also features chargeable sub attacks and modular boss battles with multiple waves, and a really odd final boss. If you like recurring side characters, those are here too. They’re a team of naughty pirates that reminds me a lot of Team Rocket, just a lot more competent and armed with dangerous mecha. Also, the endings in Gunbird 2 are even more insane than those in the first Gunbird. While the first game revolved around finding mirror pieces to open a path to a genie’s wish, here you find elemental vials to develop a potion that will grant your greatest desire. My first ending was as Alucard (yes, that Alucard) who turns out to be utterly bald. His wish grants him an amazing afro that he completely hates. Another one has a rotund man on a flying carpet get a makeover. Honestly the insanity in both Gunbird games were what I loved the most about them, and that’s why it’s worth your time to beat the game again and again to find all those endings. Just be ready to suffer through Gunbird 2, cause it’s pretty brutal. Though not as tough as I found the last game I played, Gunbarich.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I can hear you saying that I shouldn’t have had trouble with the one puzzle game in this collection. And sure, Gunbarich doesn’t appear to be that rough. It’s a brick breaking game in the vein of Breakout, and you can control recurring character Marion the Witch, amongst others. The tricky thing is, each stage requires you to break every block and do so in a limited time frame. If you fail, you’ll lose a precious life. Or if the ball gets past you, you’ll also lose a life. Which starts to add up as enemies spit balls back at you, or try and paralyze you with other attacks. And though you’ll find powerups here like in the other games, they don’t explain what these do at all. There’s even boss fights, and though they’re not as rough as those found in the rest of the Bravo collection, they are far from easy. And this particular adventure seems to be the longest too, so you’ll have to really work for that ending. I ended up turning my continues to unlimited just to beat Gunbarich, and it was still a rough ride. Don’t let the candy coated aesthetic fool you, this one is hard as nails.

All in all, I really enjoyed playing through Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo. For $39.99, you get 6 distinct, entertaining and challenging games. Though I didn’t play it in TATE mode or multiplayer, I had a fun time. Thankfully, you can tweak things to make the experience more palatable to your tastes. While I miss features like galleries and sound tests, I still would highly recommend this collection. I spent probably 5 hours playing through all the games, though there’s plenty of replay value to get all those endings. The name Psikyo is legendary for good reason, and this serves as a wonderful tribute to their legacy.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”4″]

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

REVIEW: Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo Title Psikyo Shooting Stars Bravo

[crystalelemental]

A bit of talk about my favorite casts overall in Touhou, because I'm kinda fixated on it today:

MoF: My favorite cast.  Sanae, Kanako, and Suwako would carry this team on their own, but then you get Aya who is great, the Aki sisters who I really love despite them not having a ton going on, Hina who is interesting to me, and even Nitori who I've come around to liking through repeated exposure.  The only real detriment to the team is Momiji, who hasn't done anything wrong, I'm just constantly pissed at how unreasonably popular she is.  How the hell did this character with no dialogue ever manage to break top 20?  How did people decide she was a top favorite, much less a stronger character than Kanako and Suwako?   To each their own opinions, and I'm not about to fight anyone over it, but this is the single most confusing thing about fan perceptions to me.

SA: If anyone were to say that my pick for best cast is dumb and that it's obviously the SA crew, I'd probably concede immediately.  I can't think of a character in this game that isn't great.  Chireiden is especially fantastic, bringing in some of my favorites overall.  Half the cast typically places around top 20 for me, and I think that alone shows how great they are.  The only truly low-ranking one is Kisume, who just...doesn't have anything to work with, really.

TD: I love the TD cast.  I wish I could fully articulate why, I just appreciate them. Seiga is delightfully wicked, Miko is awesome, Futo is a lot of fun, and even Tojiko has just enough presence that I want to know more about what her deal is.  Yoshika and Kyouko are a bit lower for me, but are still solid enough characters.  Then there's Mamizou, my third favorite character overall.  In the game, she seems pretty good, but it's another situation where the more I see of her, the more I love her character.  It's a shame the extra stage is so frustrating to me.   If I sat down and actually applied myself, I might be able to clear it...

PCB: Prismrivers are A+ characters, I don't care what anyone else says!  This game also brought in Alice, who is top-tier, as well as general fan-favorites in Yukari, Yuyuko, and Youmu.  This is one situation, at least, where I agree with fan perceptions.  All of these characters are great.  The only one I don't have strong opinions on is Letty, which is a shame because she's a Yuki-Onna, and those are awesome creatures.  I guess they can't all be winners.

LoLK: I just feel like this is where they should go.  I love Junko, Clownpiece is great (especially in the manga), Sagume and Hecatia are fascinating, and I really like Doremy.  If anything really holds them back, it's the game itself, with its kind of awkward resource collection system, and the ridiculous difficulty set up by the PointDevice mode (which I really dislike).  There are some really great characters floating around, but I just can't get as attached to them.  Maybe it's because they mostly will never show up again.  Maybe it's because the game is such a pain that I can't be asked to experience the characters again by playing it.  Whatever the case, I think "above average" is a decent designation for the cast as a whole.

HSiFS: Tentatively putting them here.  May wind up going above PCB, but I'd be surprised if I wind up feeling that positively toward the whole cast.   Really, I think this is where they'd belong.  Close to average, but a little above, largely based on the few standouts and some personal attachments.  Eternity and Narumi are the two big standouts, while Satono and Mai are the ones I have personal attachment to, for reasons involving wanting to see more of their history.  Okina's also incredibly lore-significant, which is hard to ignore, even if I'm not her biggest fan right now.  They're a good cast.

UFO: And now we come to by benchmark average.  UFO is not a cast I am particularly enamored with.  I really like Kogasa, and despite never directly meeting her in-game, I love Nue's concept.  Byakuren and Nazrin are also particularly good, but the mid-game cast of Ichirin, Murasa, and Shou don't really appeal to me much.  They kind of all even out to a solid average cast.  By contrast...

IN: this cast is mostly just average.  There's really only two standouts, but both are standouts because of subsequent games and manga.  Those two being Kaguya and Mokou.  I feel almost nothing toward the rest of this cast.  Kaguya manages to be one of my overall favorites, based on her presentation largely in Inaba of the Moon/Earth, and Mokou jumped significantly based on her interactions with Futo and Sumireko in ULiL.  Reisen is also growing on me, though I wouldn't call her a favorite.  I think what keeps this one below UFO is just that the majority of the cast feels very bland to me.

EoSD: "Steve, you fucking hypocrite, they're not even last place."  Look buddy, I have only ever stated dislike for this cast based on my inherent contrarianism, and I think we all know this.  So, to kinda make my case, we're going to factor out fanon, because I could complain about fanon interpretations of this crew being the absolute worst for literal hours.  I'm serious, I've done it before. Anyway, on their own, the cast is not bad, I just have virtually no interest in them. Flandre, by all accounts, should be one of my favorites.  I love that archetype. But for some reason, she just doesn't resonate as much with me as she ought to, and I often wonder if that's because I can't separate out my contempt for fanon interpretations coupled with how high-ranked she always is.  Patchouli is excellent, and I largely adore her because of her association with elemental magic, which is a favorite of mine, though she still ranks below other magicians because she's kinda plain in that regard (Alice's dolls are way more interesting conceptually, and Marisa is far more organic in her application of magic).  And that's where the positives stop.  Remilia and Sakuya can have some good moments, but I ultimately don't appreciate them as much.  Cirno is a character I have long not liked, who is only recently starting to be appreciated with manga appearances (as a side character) and her role in HSiFS.  The rest of the cast ranges from complete disinterest to disdain.  Meiling and Rumia just aren't interesting, Koakuma gets a few points entirely because Koishi's Heart-Throbbing Adventure made her best villain, and Daiyousei is in eternal contempt for doing nothing ever yet outranking excellent characters like Kanako and Mamizou somehow.  They're a mix of disinterest, dislike, and not as interesting as they should be, which leads to a particularly low ranking.

DDC: Of course, if we're being fair, the EoSD cast is not my least-favorite. Fanon certainly makes them the group I complain about the hardest, but my most disinterested feelings go to DDC.  I struggle to think of a single character in this game that stands out at all.  Let's get this out of the way: Seija is a fascinating character, but I don't like her.  I mentioned this with Okina in another post, but I can find a lot of characters interesting while still disliking how they are.  And that's the big issue.  Seija's usually the one that would pull this team for people, and she has, hysterically, the opposite effect on me.  Sukuna is similarly not that engaging, and unlike most characters added to the fighting games, her presence in ULiL did nothing for me.  The first three stage bosses are all just smallfry who show up ready to fight with the social upheaval thing going on, but ultimately fail to have particularly unique traits, and...honestly, a mermaid and werewolf are a bit too western for me?  I have the same kind of issue with EoSD, where the western stuff feels a bit too familiar, so I can't appreciate the novelty of a character's species if there's nothing else to go off of.   Which means that the Tsukumos kinda get the favorites spot (I told you about the contrarianism). They're associated with music and storms, and you fight them in the middle of a thunderstorm.  As far as coolness factor goes, they win, hands down.  I also just like their designs best.  I know everyone else in the world seems to like them least, but I think they're the strongest entries.  You know, despite still being somewhat bland overall.  They're no Prismrivers, that's for sure.