#my weakness is also annoying x edgelord

[bumnyv]

two losers caught in 4k

[demonsfate]

as much as i love shipping hwoarang x steve, as a jin main i can't help but feel like a loud minority of them seem to really hate jin. i remember someone on this site said like "they clearly get along better than Hwoarang ever did with Jin". like they think jin is a rude bitch who constantly trash talks hwoarang. when jin has shown throughout the series (especially tekken 3-5) he actually gives a fuck about hwoarang. unlike other "edgelord" characters like say sasuke or vergil (especially the former, who is such a jerk bastard that constantly calls naruto and sakura "annoying" and tries to kill them multiple times on his own volition), jin never intentionally hurt hwoarang's feelings or downplay his strength in any way. jin straight up apologizes to hwoarang for breaking a promise in tekken 5, and also says he's busy with family issues at the time. if jin really was a rude person, he would've called hwoarang "an annoying weak nuisance who is nothing compared to him". jin also saved hwoarang's ass in tekken 4 when he was about to get arrested by the military, jin could've easily just left hwoarang behind but he decided to help instead. in his non-canon tag 2 ending, jin clearly enjoys going on a motor bike race with hwoarang. jin also actually smiles when he is around hwoarang too, which means he is happy around him and actually appreciates his friendship with him. the only time jin "tried to kill him" was in tekken 5, when he lost control of his powers and hwoarang got hospitalized. jin is only distant towards hwoarang because of his fucked up family starting shit and his devil gene which he couldn't control at the time. he doesn't want hwoarang to get into the cross fires. it's thanks to tekken 6's existence where jin kazama was OOC as fuck in that game we get takes like this in the community.

like i said earlier i LOVE hwoarang x steve, i enjoy looking at fanart of the two being shipped together and i have so many bookmarks of them as a gay couple on ao3. i wish hwoarang and steve got to interact more often in canon outside of tekken 5 intro, tekken 8, and street fighter x tekken. i love watching hwoarang's character relationship with steve fox. but i get so angry when they hate on jin for "being a stupid kazama/mishima getting in the way" of their ship just like how so many damn SNS/SasuNaru shippers hate on literally every female character in Naruto (I hate both SNS and Sasuke with a burning passion). I enjoy reading HwoSteve fanfic, I just hate seeing my main being basically a victim of yaoi sometimes lol. (T＿T) hope you have a good day, been enjoying your blog so far.

surprisingly i don't care much for the steve x hwoarang ship. i dunno why! maybe due to their lack of interactions outside the stuff you mentioned? (not that that's ever stopped me before haha!) but i do see the potential in it. and well, jin, hwoa, & steve are my brot3.

the funny thing is, outside of tk6 and awful crossovers that were affected by tk6's virus, jin is usually nicer to hwoarang than hwoarang is to jin. usually hwoa tries to instigate jin, much to hwoa's failure. actually, it's not like jin is any "meaner" to hwoa than steve is. in all their official interactions, they tend to fight or insult each other lol.

i find it funny that there's a big belief that kazuya was influenced by the devil gene and is truly a Fine Guy, but when jin was genuinely not in control (devil nearly killing hwoa in tk5) -- everyone still blames jin and uses that as ammo as to why he's truly a Bad Guy lmao.

really and sadly, many shippers tend to hate any one that "potentially gets in the way." i know i used to argue with jinxiao shippers who would go as far as to deny jin & hwoa even being friends just because they can't stand the idea of the "hwoajin" ship getting in the way. even though i'd only say they're friends not lovers -- which is true! they are CANONICALLY friends, it's so silly to deny that.

LOL, can't say i share your hatred of sasuke tho just 'cos i've never watched / read naruto! i probs won't ever just 'cos it's too long for me to hold interest in lol. but thank you! i hope you're having a good day, too.

[scope-dogg]

Mobile Suit Gundam Seed: Final Impressions

I went into this series fully aware of its reputation. It’s become a byword for poor quality not only in Gundam but amongst the genre at large. Now that I’ve finished watching it, do I think it deserves it?

Eh, not entirely, but mostly.

The two big things to discuss regards this are the story and the presentation, and I’ll cover them in that order.

The story setup comes really close to UC, only this time, Zaft, the Zeon standin, are comprised entirely of a race of super-duper meta-humans called Coordinators. Evolved humans are nothing new to Gundam, with Newtypes in UC and X before this, and Innovators after in 00, but Seed is the one that runs hardest with the concept, to the point where it’s the crux of the entire plot. The conflict between Naturals (ordinary humans) and Coordinators seems like a really unsubtle allegory for racism, and it kind of works sometimes but it’s undercut by the fact that Coordinators are shown to be just better than Naturals at virtually everything. They try and play it off like the two are actually equal later on but it falls flat on its face. Other than that, in the first half the plot follows the original Gundam beat for beat, and it feels incredibly lazy. Most of the fights during that first half are dull and inconsequential, and not enough happens, with a journey to Jaburo Alaska making up the bulk of the runtime. There’s simply not enough going on either plot or characterwise during this segment, and the fights that take place during this timespan are just unsatisfactory for reasons I’ll explain later. I legitimately hated my time with the show during this period. It makes up for it by ramping up the stakes and the tension after the halfway point, culminating in a second half and conclusion that honestly was pretty good. It’s hardly the most compelling or subtle, but it actually felt like the stuff taking place on screen actually mattered in the big picture, which was a welcome change.

This inconsistency carries over to the characters. Protagonist Kira Yamato is infamous for being a poor Gundam protagonist, and I can’t say I disagree. He’s not annoying or repellent personality wise like some others I could name, but he is incredibly boring. He’s a Coordinator, and the writers use that to handwave away any potential obstacle that could pose a challenge to him. He’s the superest-duperest pilot there is, capable of doing ridiculous shit like rewriting his Gundam’s entire operating OS in about 5 seconds mid battle. His character arc is basically “I don’t want to fight, but I need to protect my friends!”, and then after he cheats death decides that he wants to become Space Jesus and stop all war, changing in personality to an unrealistic degree. It’s incredibly bland and uninteresting. The supporting cast, meanwhile, is kind of hit and miss. Murrue and Natarle, the commanding officers of the starship Archangel, have an interesting semi-rivalry going on, and Mu la Flaga is an affable and likeable presence throughout. I quite liked Athrun, Kira’s rival and eventual ally - it feels like he actually got some moderately good character development, albeit not the most compelling, and his squad of fellow Gundam pilots manage to be mostly entertaining and likewise get developed decently well. Rau le Creuset, the show’s resident Char clone, might actually be one of my favourite characters fitting that archetype. He doesn’t actually do a great deal over the course of the series, but he’s suitably schemy and nefarious, and he feels great to have on screen, especially at the end once his backstory’s been unfurled and his plans are set in motion. The other main villains, Chairman Zala and Azrael, on the other hand, feel like cartoon villains, both hell-bent on utterly exterminating the other side with their weapons of mass destruction. In the original Gundam it eventually transpires that neither the Federation or Zeon are really  the “good guys”, and they do the same here, but beat you over the head with it, to the point that all the soldiers and officers on either side feel like psychotic fanatics, it basically takes the intricate politics of UC and strips it of all its subtlety. Finally, the show heavily features one of my least favourite characters in Gundam to date in the form of Flay Allster, who seemingly serves no purpose other than being an annoying thot with her tits flopping around in the OP. I felt like at points the show wanted me to sympathise for her, but it completely failed to do that to the point that I actually enjoyed her suffering.

So far I’ve described a show that’s bland but servicable, even if it is beset by heavy flaws. What downgrades the show from mediocre to outright bad in my eyes is in the presentation. First, let me talk about the parts I liked.

I think the show actually has a strong soundtrack.

I liked many of the mobile suit designs - in fact, some of them I loved, especially the Duel and Providence.

That’s all. Otherwise, this show is a visual disaster. Tekkaman Blade previously held my record for most egregious abuse of stock footage, but Seed honestly blows it out of the water. You will see the same shots, again and again and again, episode after episode. Stock footage that was used as early as the first five episodes rears its head all the way through to the conclusion, with barely any changes made. This even carries over to plot moments - the show figures that if a major plot moment is worth showing to you once it’s okay to show it to you a dozen more times in flashbacks. I don’t know if it’s done to pad out episodes’ runtime or if they think that the audience has the attention span of a goldfish, but either way it’s not acceptable. I could forgive it if the show was visually appealing in general, but honestly, it’s not. It’s extremely janky, to the point where it looks like it was animated by dragging around jpgs in MS paint at points. Barely anything in the show looks right, everything just looks off somehow. I can’t put my finger on any one thing, but a few things I noticed were the lines used to draw most of it were too thick, shading was either absent or just poorly drawn in, and the artists who designed most of the tech and settings just seem to have a poor grasp of appealing colours. Character design is pretty unappealing. Any character who’s not an adult looks like a stick insect. The end result is something that’s rather ugly even disregarding the poor animation quality. It totally ruins almost every battle and even offsets the strengths of the mechanical designs. Take a look at something like the Strike Gundam in Gundam Breaker 3 or Gundam VS and it looks great. However, whenever you look at it in the source material there’s a 50/50 chance of it looking okay or looking like shit. With that said, the mechanical design isn’t entirely great either. Most of the designs are good, but they break out some garbage too. The trio of edgelord gundams in the shape of Calamity, Forbidden and Raider all look like trash in one way or another. It also hurts that the only real powerful and memorable designs were Gundams in this show. Everything else is a jobber grunt suit, with designs that are so close to the GM and Zaku from the original Gundam that it makes you wonder why they bothered. Obviously Gundam is in the name and those are always going to be the focus, but there was nothing in this that was like the Zeong, or the Sazabi, the Tallgeese, the Qubeley or any other of the cool mobile suit designs over the years that aren’t Gundams but still capture people’s imaginations. The one notable exception is Zaft’s four-legged, doglike BuCUE and LaGowe, which felt like the show’s one real flash of originality, but even that had already been done in Zoids.

Overall, I was able to glean some enjoyment out of this series, but it felt like I had to make an effort to do so and that I would have preferred to be watching something else. The story does eventually get kind of good, but I had to endure more than twenty episodes of boredom and mindless, repetitive fighting to get there. It’s easily the weakest Gundam series I’ve seen and one of the hardest modern series to watch in general. Even other weak Gundam series I’ve seen like Iron Blooded Orphans and Wing have aspects that make them easy to recommend ahead of this. There are silver linings here that might make this barely palatable if you’re intent on watching this out of curiosity or if you believe you have to because you want to watch every Gundam series, but otherwise, just skip this.

[tastygoldentaters]

From A to Z

fandom meme

well… here we go:

A - Your current OTP(s)/OT3(s)/OTX(s)

Schubeto, obviously.

B - A pairing you initially didn’t consider but someone changed your mind

Schumotes (I blame you and your fic, @camsuki​ )

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will (be nice)

b e t o m o t s u (spaced out so it doesn’t show in the tag but also to express my exhasperation while trying to be nice)

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t (again: be nice)

the same as before, but that’s only because they get a shit ton of fics and I’m jelly i-i

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom, if so, what

I’m… not sure? I have some ellaborate headcanons about Beet’s penguins but I have only shared them with a couple of friends, I don’t think that counts.

F - What’s the longest you’ve ever been in a fandom

uhh… I’d say 10+ years?

G - Do you remember your first OTP, if so who was in it

I’ve always been a crazy shipper I shipped my friends with each other when I was a kid I suck I know but the first time I really cared about a pairing, it was Draco x Ginny from Harry Potter.

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., tv shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)

I have a weak spot for videogames, mostly because I just LOVE seing gameplay features being incorporated to text.

I - Has tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why

Ah, yes. Superwholock made me tired of Supernatural (although the show could have done that on its own), mildly annoyed at Sherlock and it made me drop Doctor Who after five episodes.

J - Name a fandom you didn’t care/think about until you saw it all over tumblr

Yuri!!! On Ice

K -Say something nice about someone in any of your fandoms

hey @ardwynna​ your fics give me life!!! seriously though best written sephiroth i’ve seen

L - Say something genuinely nice about a character who isn’t one of your faves (chars you’re neutral on are fair game, as are chars you dislike)

Genesis Rhapsodos is a great character. If he weren’t he probably wouldn’t annoy me so much.

M - Say something genuinely nice about a ship that you don’t ship (or its shippers, or anything related to you)

The Sefikura tag has a m a z i n g  fanart, holy shit, how do you guys do it???

N - Name three things you wish you saw more or in your main fandom (or a fandom of choice)

I wish Classicaloid had more meta, more fics, and that more artists were on tumblr so I could reblog all the cool art I see on pixiv!

O - Choose a song at random, which ship or character does it remind you of

Here Comes a Thought, from Steven Universe, feels like it would really suit Clerith, even though I don’t really ship them.

P - Invent a random AU for any fandom (we always need more ideas)

Final Fantasy VII Pokémon AU! (really I just want Aeris wearing cute pokémon trainer outfits and Sephiroth being an overpowered edgelord and Tifa KICKING ASS WITH HER FIGHTER TYPE POKÉMON)

Q - A ship you’ve abandoned and why

I kind of liked Zerith, but Crisis Core made me drop it, I just didn’t feel it anymore.

R - A pairing you ship that you don’t think anyone else ships

Reeve x Aerith

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

Beethes is a huge Star Wars nerd, and became a die hard fan of John Williams. He was as hurt as Obi-Wan when Anakin turned to the Dark Side.

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending, about anything at all (gender identity, sexual or romantic orientation, extended family, sexual preferences like top/bottom/switch, relationship with poetry, seriously anything)

Cloud! Strife! Is! A! Slytherin!!!

U - 5 favorite characters from 5 different fandoms

Minerva McGonagall (Harry Potter)Peridot (Steven Universe)Pippin (Lord of the Rings)Obi-Wan Kenobi (Star Wars)Botan (Yu Yu Hakusho)

V - 3 OTPs from 3 different fandoms

Remus x Sirius (Harry Potter)Éowyn x Faramir (Lord of the Rings)Terra x Edgar (Final Fantasy VI)

W - 5 favorite ships and 5 kinks you like best for said ships

Aerith x Sephiroth - knife playSchoob x Beet - praise kinkBach x Beet - D/sAerith x Tifa - bondageCloud x Tifa - pegging

X - top 5-10 characters who are yoUR PRECIOUS BABIES AND YOU WILL DIE DEFENDING THEM

BEETHES ! ! !

SEPHIROTH IS MY SON

Vivi from FFIX is Good And Pure, Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice

IF STEVEN UNIVERSE GETS HURT I SWEAR TO GOD I’M FLYING TO AMERICA AND BURNING CARTOON NETWORK TO THE GROUND

KEFKA WILL ALWAYS BE THE BEST FINAL FANTASY VILLAIN AND ANYONE WHO DISAGREES CAN FIGHT ME

Y - What are your secondhand fandoms (fandoms you aren’t in personally but are tangentially familiar with because your friends/people on your dash are in them)

Everyone I follow seems to be into Gravity Falls I swear to god

Z - Just ramble about something fan-related, go go go (prompts optional but encouraged)

I adore everyone who draws Aerith with darker skin, thicker eyebrows, smaller breasts, and wider hips, you are the true heroes in this fandom and I wish I could buy all of you a cake. 

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen Rambles About Tales of Berseria

AKA Allen’s Ramblings XIII, but I can’t really tag the fandom with that title now can I? 

So yes, I’ve gotten in roughly 18 hours of Tales of Berseria and I loved just about everything in it so far. It’s been quite some time since I’ve gotten so engrossed in a game that I’ve played it for hours at a time like this. After dropping Tales of Xillia 2 and Tales of Zestiria because of some issues I had with their core mechanics I was a bit worry this game wouldn’t be worth it and just bought out of loyalty alone. 

I’m glad to say I was wrong. 

This game has been fun so far and nothing has made me frustrated or want to walk away from the game save for me taking a break. If you didn’t like Tales of Zestiria and were hesitant to buy this game because Berseria is basically a prequel to that game’s canon I can assure you Berseria is leagues better, and you don’t even need to know about Zestiria to enjoy it. Now I’m just gonna’ start rambling about all the reasons I’m liking this game so far, so... be ready for that.

The Good Stuff

60 FPS

Now I’m not the type of gamer to care about having high frame rates. I’m a console player, I'm not really able to care too often since frame rates are locked for me. However, the thing that kills my interest in a game the fastest is frame rate drop (looking at you Drakengard 3). Tales of Zestiria had a few moments of it, at least in terms of combat gameplay, but nothing glare. However, Tales of Berseria has kept a constant 60 FPS throughout, and it’s glorious. Everything is just so damn smooth and so damn fluidly. Even the fields are in 60 FPS and damn does it feel good watching these characters move in cutscenes and combat. I haven’t seen any major drops in framerate, so that’s good sign. Hope it continues.

Cristina Vee The Voice Cast

So I was going to just gush about Cristina Vee for, like, five paragraphs, but I think I should talk about the voice cast as a whole and keep this simple. 

The first thing I should say that Tales of Berseria has both the English and Japanese dub available from the get go. Glad to see Namco is learning from NISA and having dual audio be a thing for their games. That said, I’m more of a dubs-over-subs kinda’ guy so I have nothing to say about the original voice cast. In terms of the English voice cast everyone sounds great, believable, and in character. Okay, Laphicet sounds a bit iffy in the beginning and Bienfu... well, he’s no Teepo and I’ll leave it at that. I’m... not exactly an expert on acting or voiceover so I won’t say more than that. 

Though I’ve got to admit I’m surprise how well the woman that plays Noel Vermillion, Mio Akiyama, and Kotori Minami is the same woman playing this female Edgelord so well... then again Cristina Vee also voices Killua from HunterxHunter so...

Anyway, the cast is great.

Combat is Fun

This is kind of what killed my interest in Zestiria, the combat just... didn’t feel right to me. I felt too dependent on Armatization for both fighting and healing myself, and the element section for some characters was very lacking to me. It... wasn’t fun. And Xillia 2 basically made playing as Ludger a requirement since he could use all three physical damage types. That... wasn’t fun either since I mainly played as Alvin and Leia in the first game. Berseria’s combat is a little like Zestiria’s without the Armatization, which makes it a lot more fun me. I can customize my skills and moveset a little to cater to certain enemies, and everyone can more or less fight at both close and mid range. Also, up to four people can play this game again, which is great. Armatization didn’t really allow for 4-player coop in Zestiria, so now I can play this with Infall and Ninjaweeb when we get the chance to met up again.

Story and World Building is Compelling (so far)

I gotta’ say, I didn’t think they’d stick with the whole revenge plot this long. Most Tales Of games usually go from going a simple, but believable semi-medieval quest of justice, to stop the apocalypse and second coming of the Daedric Princes about half way through. In Berseria however, we still have the revenge plot going, it’s just that how we’re getting their and the reasons for Velvet’s revenge are getting more and more... confusing? Morally debatable? I mean, save for Velvet herself, everyone is pretty apathetic to her cause. The world building is sort of giving Velvet some justification for off the “big bad,” but... eh, it’s kind of hard for me to explain. 

Speaking of the world, this game does world building leagues better than any Tales Of game I’ve played since maybe Symphonia... okay, Xillia. I’m really learning a lot about the world through the side conversation and the optional text they give. This game actually makes them worth reading through (and the voiced areas help too).

No Bad Camera Angles (Thank God)

They were a thing in Zestiria, they aren’t a thing anymore... thank God.

The Characters

Like every Tales Of game the characters in the main party are definitely the highlight. Velvet’s Edgelord personality surprisingly meshes well with the rest of the cast. I don’t want to post any spoilers to the game so far, but I’ll just give you the quick rundown of every character.

Velvet is a female Edgelord without the angst and is socially inept at times.

Laphicet is the precious cinnamon bun of the group that surprisingly never hinders the party despite being the child of the group.

Magilou is... Magilou. I think her character trailer says more about her than I ever could.

Rokurou is Brokurou and I think that basically sums up his character nicely.

Eizen is the voice of reason that helps add some more world building with his knowledge of... the world, being a well versed pirate and all.

And Eleanor... I’d be spoiling the first fourth of the game if I said anything about her, but she fits into the party surprisingly well.

The Not So Good Stuff

Okay, so... I’m just gonna’ list off all the not so good stuff of Berseria now. These are mostly nitpicks, but they’re still worth discussing. Keep in mind I’ve been playing Tales Of games since Symphonia, so I might come off as an elitist when I start listing off these points.

While the combat is better than Zestriria it’s still a little too simple for my taste. It basically boils down to mashing the X button once you’ve customized it to fit enemy weaknesses. It works, it’s engaging, but Tales of Hearts R and Tales of Graces F did it a bit better.

The game feels like it wants you to play as only Velvet. She can heal herself quickly by spamming her claw attacks, and her aggressive playstyle fits the general combat flow of Berseria better than most of the other characters save for maybe Eleanor.

Playing spellcasters like Laphicet and Magilou doesn’t really feel as fun as playing Cheria and Malak in Graces F or Beryl in Hearts R... I dunno’, I think that’s just me, but its worth saying.

There isn’t a main healer in the party (so far). Eleanor, Magilou, and Laphicet all have some healing artes (one healing arte each really), but not enough to really keep people alive during the harder boss fights for me.

The game feels like it really doesn’t want you to grind. Being low leveled in an area isn’t too bad so long as you know how the combat works and can sidestep effectively, but at this point I’m roughly level 25 and I’m in an area with level 32 enemies so... my luck/skill is starting to run out.

Duel Boss Fights are hell and I swear the AI cheats... that’s not a nitpick, that’s just my opinion.

I don’t think anyone has artes that effectively attack human enemies, and that makes those duel boss fights a pain sometimes.

This game still only has 4 main elements and its annoying... but more manageable than Zestiria.

So yeah, save for some nitpicks, this game is great and if you haven’t gotten it yet... I’d still wait for a price drop since I don’t like spending more than 50 bucks on a game.