#name a more underutilized character </3

[edgy-ella]

IDW SONIC READERS, PLEASE READ THIS!!!!

I am begging you. On my hands and knees. Begging. More so than anything else I’ve asked of this fandom.

Please please buy the Fang miniseries when it comes out

Don’t just read it. Buy it. I will admit that I’m very guilty of reading through a lot of IDW Sonic through…less than legal means, and I know I’m not alone in that regard. But I think it’s really important that for this miniseries in particular, you actually go out and buy the damn thing. Show your support with your dollar.

Really think about it for a second—they gave Fang his own miniseries. Fang! An underutilized, underrated fan favorite for sure, but hardly a mainstay of the series. I’m sure that this was at least somewhat prompted by Superstars, where Fang is a major antagonist…but Bean and Bark weren’t in that game, and it already received its own online promo comic prior to the game’s release (notably, with Fang as the star).

Classic Sonic stories have also exclusively been relegated to one-shots in IDW, not a full on miniseries like what Fang is getting. Basically all of the IDW Sonic miniseries we’ve gotten so far have been plot relevant side stories to the main IDW comic that focus on side characters with little to no involvement from Sonic himself. Tangle and Whisper, Bad Guys, Impostor Syndrome…the only odd man out besides this Fang miniseries is Scrapnik Island.

Really think about it for a second. FANG is getting his own focus comic BEFORE KNUCKLES.

And that’s why it’s so important that we buy it.

I think Sega is using this comic to test the waters to see if people like Fang and want to see him in more future projects—be it comics, games, or even cartoons. But there’s more to it than just that.

See, Superstars hasn’t been doing that great. I know I said in an earlier post that people seemed to like it, but I retract that statement. It was damned by faint praise at launch, and now most of the discussion I’ve seen surrounding the game revolves around its flaws (chief among them being the middling OST and that the Steam version stealth installs an Epic Games service along with the game). No sales numbers have been projected as of writing, but it’s definitely been beaten out by Mario Wonder and Spider-Man 2.

So, Classic Sonic games aren’t doing too hot right now (I’m sure that many modern fans are jumping for joy at the prospect). But the classic characters are.

People really like the extended classic Sonic cast, just as much as they love the extended modern cast. From my experience, the two fan favorites are Mighty and Fang. Fang stands out to me in particular for a couple reasons: people were really upset that Sega specifically said no to Fang, Bark and Bean coming back after Ian snuck in a reference to them in IDW Sonic #3 (using their old team name from Archie, the Hooligans), and the fanmade 16-bit remake of Triple Trouble, Fang’s debut game, received private praise from many members of Sega and Sonic Team. People like Fang and the media he’s in, and Sega is starting to take notice. That’s why we’re getting this miniseries.

That’s why it’s so important that the miniseries sells well. If the big boys at Sega and Sonic Team see Superstars’ iffy reception but see Fang’s comic sell above expectations, then Sega will want to continue to use Fang (and potentially other “classic” Sonic characters as well) in more narrative driven projects. That means modern Sonic.

“But Sega won’t let any classic Sonic character into a modern Sonic project!” I hear you thinking. And to that I say, so? Sega changes its mind all the time. Remember that whole two worlds nonsense? That was thrown out with in Tailstube. Characters debuting in Boom and the comics were previously barred from the mainline games, but they’ve broken that “rule” in both Speed Battle and Frontiers. Hell, they’ve even been talked out of some of their sillier comic mandates, like characters not being able to wear different clothing.

For all their flaws, Sega does listen, and money speaks louder than anything. If this miniseries fails, Sega will just assume that people aren’t hot on Fang or the extended classic cast anymore and throw them back in the bar. But if the comic sells well, then Sega might take it as a sign that, hey, people like this character (and his two lackeys), we should put him in projects that fans are more interested in. Mighty and Ray probably wouldn’t be too far behind, especially given Mania’s success. Whether that means comics or games, modern or classic, who knows. What’s important is that it sends the right message to Sega, and they will listen to their consumers. That means us. If we don’t support this miniseries now, we might have to wait another thirty years for another chance.

[fantastic-nonsense]

I have a fun [citation needed] hypothetical for you. Say you have been granted the authority to make FIVE editorial directives for DC comics that will be followed for at least the next five years. What are you demanding?

No company events.

No major events with ten thousand tie-in comics.

No big crossover events.

No big gimmick events.

No event comics.

Okay, I kid, but only slightly. I'm actually going cheat slightly and give you five plus an extra one that needs a bit more explanation:

No company-wide crossover events or gimmick events that derail major ongoing stories in individual books shall be made. If an event comic is published, any tie-ins will be published separately from the character's ongoing/mini (for reference: like the Blackest Night tie-in specials).

Institute a lore consistency team within the Archives department. Mandate that every single creative team MUST read and utilize a character/story bible before writing any scripts. The scripts will be looked over by a member of the lore team as well as the book editor before being approved for publication.

The Young Justice generation is finally allowed to grow up and, where necessary, get new hero names. In particular, Tim Drake finally gets to age and stop being Robin. He picks 'Blackbird' as his new name, gets a cool new red-and-black costume, and stars in a rebooted Young Justice book alongside his friends.

Barbara Gordon has to formally retire from the Batgirl role and become Oracle full time again. This is handled in a way that is respectful of her character and her disability. Cassandra Cain will be Batgirl full-time again while Stephanie Brown goes back to Spoiler; Cass gets a Batgirl solo ongoing while Steph would join a rebooted Gotham Knights team book that includes her, Kate, Helena, Luke Fox, and Jean-Paul Valley.

Wonder Woman's established lore is acknowledged, respected, and re-emphasized. Diana is a clay baby again, Cassie is Zeus's daughter again, The Return of Donna Troy is acknowledged as the definitive explanation of Donna's multiple-choice backstory (while the fire origin stays the definitive origin), Artemis gets her original origin back, etc. Full acceptance of the Rucka Rebirth retcon to reset Diana's origins and childhood back to the post-Crisis status quo. No references to the Zeus origin or the New 52 Amazons are allowed to be made except in context of Rucka's "it was a lie" explanation.

In priority order, those editorial mandates probably fall out to be something like 2>1>5>3 and 4 in a tie; 3 and 4 are kinda interchangable since they collectively would fix a wide swath of what's wrong with the Bat books right now.

My "extra" mandate would be that writers must utilize existing characters where possible for their stories. No new "major" heroes are to be introduced unless a writer can prove that a book needs a new character to fill an identified gap. Prioritization should go to a) characters who used to be used on a regular basis in a given book but have not been seen in 10+ years and b) characters introduced within the past 5-7 years.

I'd want this one for two reasons: one, there's a ton of pre-existing characters who used to be staple or regularly recurring characters who have failed to get regular appearances since 2011, for a variety of reasons. Forcing writers to use them instead of creating new characters would allow DC to rebuild some continuity, bring back old favorites, and provide closure to lingering storylines that were cut short or never followed up on. Two, there's a hell of a lot of new characters have been introduced and discarded without actually building them out properly the last few years. I would honestly only put this one in place for around 3 years...long enough to force DC to actually flesh out the underutilized newbies and provide some closure and new beginnings for some old favorites.

[worldseer]

Who are your top 5 (or top 3) favorite characters from JJK? And why you loved them? And your top 5 favorite moments from the series? Thanks.....

I admit, most of my favorite characters from JJK I somewhat thirst over but I'll try to keep those thoughts out of why I love them (because I do have some genuine reason besides thirst for liking them). 1. Toji Fushiguro

First and foremost, I like his calm attitude yet snarky way of talking. Also he's just a badass. We all all saw him kick ass any time he came on screen. His physique and strength is something to envy ngl (which I had big muscles too). And yes, not the best dad but I KNOW this man was the best fucking husband he could be. 2. Kento Nanami

HE DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER! It's obvious he cares a lot about people, especially young sorcerers. I like to believe that while he hates how Jujutsu Society operates, he tries to make the small changes necessary to make it better (aka not having child soldiers die and get traumatized like he did). Plus I fully agree that both aspects of life (living as a sorcerer or working a normal job) sucks too.

3. Ryomen Sukuna

HOLD ON HOLD ON HOLD ON BEFORE YOU ALL STAB ME TO DEATH CEASAR STYLE- He's genuinely an interesting antagonist to me. He has layers, I think that's apparent. He's cocky, but for good reason. And there have been moments where I near shat my pants watching him (we all saw that Jogo vs. Sukuna fight and those jumpscares he did. Also both VAs did amazing cackles). His true form from the Heian Era is also so cool to look at as well, and I think may inspire me to be more creative with my own character designs in the future.

4. Suguru Geto

HOLD ON, HOLD ON- Once again, I love a layered antagonist and HOLY SHIT HE HAS LAYERS! Like- ok- I get what his goal is. I get what he wants. And frankly, if my lover best friend died, came back to life, and close friend I was meant to protect died as well, yeah I'd be kinda fucked up so see people celebrating and not batting an eye. Yes, running a cult and committing literal genocide are. . . choices. But in the end, his goal is to protect sorcerers (a group constantly being used and controlled by the majority of non-sorcerers) and that makes some sense.

5. Toge Inumaki

I personally think he's a bit underrated, and underutilized. Sure, I know he's not loaded with Cursed Energy but like- that technique he has can be overpowered as hell. Also, I like how he insists on using ingredient names to convey how he feels when he could just- avoid commands? Like he can obviously use nouns. As long as there's a proper subject, then verbs won't use the cursed speech technique (Don't flame me if I'm wrong, I haven't read through too much of the manga). He's cute, I love his vibes, and he is my son. As for moments in the series, they're more small than most expect: 1. Whenever Mahito gets his ass beat - Self explanatory. Yes I'm still fucking mad about what happened to Nobara and Nanami.

2. When Yuji met Toge in the streets of Shibuya - SALMON! But fr, I love the small moments that show friendship between sorcerers that otherwise don't meet up much. And Toge just being there, chilling with a megaphone to help people is funny to me.

3. The last conversation between Megumi and Toji - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH! PAIN! BUT ALSO YOU CAN SEE HOW HAPPY TOJI IS FOR HIS SON! I'M GONE. DEAD.

4. THAT Nanami scene - MAPPA served us good as did Kenjiro Tsuda. "The number and locations of your allies," anything for you, love. Let's go to Malaysia and sit on a beach. I giggle every time.

5. The phone conversation Suguru and Satoru have - The expressions and conversation kill me everytime. They're 'close friends' your honor.

[ghostinthegallery]

I can't believe The Silence and the Storm is over a year old! The first anniversary was May 27th (yes I missed my own fic's birthday in my defense I was traveling and forgot how time works).

I'm trying to compose my thoughts because this sure feels like a time a blog post would be fitting. However, my engrams are scrambled because...wow do I have too many feelings.

As some background, I've been a writer for a long time. And I've written 3-5 books (depends on how you count "completing" a book but it's 5 full drafts, 3 of which were heavily edited). I wanted to be a trade published writer (still do) and for a while I was feeling good about my chances! I got lucky and received some wonderful professional mentorship (and met one of my best friends during that program!). I took that guidance to query agents (a necessary step for access to most big/medium US publishers). I knew it would be hard and take time but...4 years later all I have to show are a few requests, hundreds of rejections, and one agent who asked me to rewrite my entire book only to reject me anyway (me, bitter? No not at all nooooo).

I'm a creative person and sharing my work feels like sharing a part of myself. Something that is not easy for me to do. After a while I just assumed I was missing something necessary. My work didn't resonate, but I didn't know how to fix it. I’d never reach anyone in the way I so desperately craved, and it was my fault for not being good enough. I felt broken.

During one of many major depressive episodes my spouse bought me a copy of The Infinite and the Divine. That book has changed my life. I was never much of a fanfic writer before. Either I thought the original work was too good and I didn't think I had anything to add or it was too bad so why would I bother with it when I could just go read/watch something better? 40k inspired me though. The ideas are incredible but underutilized enough that I felt like I had something to add.

So I started writing necron fic because why not? There wasn’t enough for me to read, and I needed more robot stories. Maybe I could rediscover my love of the craft, make some friends, make some robots kiss. Distract my mind from the horrors. So I posted a little OC fic and actually got some nice comments. Hey! Positive reinforcement! Hadn't had that in a while.

Emboldened, I continued in the most normal way possible. Going from a 7 chapter OC story to a giant civil war epic including every named necron character I could find with 6 (then 7...then 9) POVs. It was the type of grand space opera I've always wanted to write but never did because I didn’t think I had the skill and it's harder to sell. Luckily AO3 is free. Ain't no playing to the market there!

Now, a 40k necron civil war space opera is...niche. So I wasn't expecting much. I would have been happy with some kudos, some comments. Fan art felt like a pipe dream, but what are writers if not dreamers? The main goal was to enjoy myself. It was low pressure fun, I love the characters, what could go wrong?

Nothing, but I was wholely unprepared for things to go as right as they did. Y’all have been amazing. So many great comments and ideas exchanged, gorgeous art, fun asks, a lot of screaming (it’s fine probably don’t worry). I’ve never had such a strong outpouring of support for my work. It feels incredible. But also sometimes confusing. I’ve trained myself so well to handle rejection that I kind of forgot how to handle acceptance. Especially for something so personal. This is a weird story about undead space robots, there’s a lot of politics, sometimes the robots have sex. It’s got out there head canons, and 99% of the tyranid parts are pulled out of my ass because nobody knows how the space bugs work okay. My weirdness being embraced on this scale is one of the greatest feelings of my life. But it’s also new, and way out of my comfort zone. I’m being seen and adjusting to that.

Still, writing in this space has been one of the most consistently joyful things in my life for…well, over a year now! It’s changed how I view my art. I actually can create stories that touch people and make them feel things. I can take risks and have them pay off. I know not everyone will love this, but some people really seem to love it. That is mind blowing to me.

It’s making me reassess a lot about how I approach my art. Writing and other. I still plan to pursue publication. I want to get paid for my work, but this is making me consider alternate paths that might fit my style (and psyche) better. I don’t know what the future holds, but if you’d told me a year and a half ago that a big part of it would hinge on an AO3 gay robot skeleton space opera…I would have thought you were nuts, but also hoped you were right because that sounds rad as hell.

So in conclusion, thank you all so much for reading <3

[dedalvs]

Not a question but I just got around to watching Elemental and I when I saw yours and Jessie Sams' (not sure if she has a tumblr) posts on Instagram about Firese my first thought was "wait Elemental has an actual conlang, why?", my second thought was "oh this is a really cool conlang" though I was still confused as to how it would fit into the movie and was worried it would barely be in the movie. After watching the movie I thought it was really cool how it behaves like most any other heritage language in the dialogue of the movie and I definitely understand why a conlang was created for that (and I'm glad it was such a cool one, tone is highly underutilized in conlangs and as a speaker of language with lexical tone I make sure to include it in many of my conlangs) and my only complaint is that I would've liked the characters to be referred to in their Firese names more in the movie but I totally get why that didn't happen.

We both would've loved that, too, because we had fun coming up with their Ts'íts'àsh names, but on the whole, Jessie and I were very pleased with how the language was used in the movie—and with the movie in general. Glad you liked it! <3

[nagannach]

Why So Many People Are Wrong About Book (And Taco Too)

(an in-depth analysis of/appreciation post for one of the most overlooked, underutilized, and misunderstood characters in BFB)

This is an essay about my favorite BFB character, how she was horribly mistreated by the writers, how and why the community is wrong about her, and how she could've been improved.

Book's writing in BFB is often seen as one of the lowest points of the show, and for good reason. She is consistently presented as an irrational, aggressive jerk who hates Taco for absolutely no reason and doesn't care about her teammates. Emphasis on the word "presented", because this simply isn't who Book is – she is a far more interesting character than what a first glance would suggest.

The main problems stem from the way the storyline is structured. Bleh's story arc is often called the Taco-Book arc, but this is a misnomer because it implies that the two characters shared equal roles. In reality, Taco dominated the storyline, and Book's side of the story was never even considered, let alone taken seriously. This style of writing was detrimental to the quality of the show, and it prevented jacknjellify from fully realizing Book's potential as a character.

Book was treated incredibly unfairly, both by her teammates in-universe and by the writers out-of-universe. Throughout the course of the show, jacknjellify consistently failed to consider Book's perspective in her feud with Taco, and her thoughts and feelings are routinely ignored, resulting in her appearing to be a far different character than she actually is.

(Quick heads up: I'm going to be talking about Taco a lot in this essay. I wanted to mention her as infrequently as possible, but given the way Book's character is written, it's impossible to talk about her without talking about Taco as well.)

A common complaints about the way Book was written is that her personality in BFB is not representative of how she acted in previous seasons. However, a close analysis of her early appearances reveals that this isn't quite the case.

Book was never a particularly stable person, and this behavior can be seen even in her competitive debut. She can be very quick to anger, as Lollipop and Fries found out in BFDIA 1, as well as Firey, Tennis Ball, and Gelatin in BFDIA 4. Book often has trouble expressing her emotions in a healthy way, which is one of the two traits that would be her downfall in BFB. Additionally, she showed signs of abandonment issues very early on – she jumped at the opportunity to join Pencil's alliance in BFDIA 3, and she was quick to accept her position as an alternate, despite being less than pleased with not being a full member.

Despite her occasional outbursts, Book was not a mean character by any stretch of the imagination. When Coiny and Pin attempted to steal Teardrop from Team No-Name, Book was the only person to try and stop them. However, this scene also reveals another core part of her personality – one that is essential to understanding Book as a character, as it is her other main flaw. When Coiny stood his ground after Book told him to stop, she backed down without a fight.

Although she is more than willing to stand up for other people when they need help, Book is entirely incapable of standing up for herself when she needs help. Making people mad is her worst nightmare. When faced with conflict, her first instinct is to placate the opposing party, even if she knows that what they're doing is wrong. This is a trait she carries throughout the show – it can be seen in BFDIA 5c and 5e, as well as IDFB 1 and BFB 1. While she seems to be far less of a pushover when leaving the alliance at the start of BFB, this is negated by the fact that she immediately asks Ice Cube to back her up. Keep this in mind - this will come back later.

To summarize, Book has a very short temper and can be tipped off at the slightest provocation, but she also has a heart of gold and a genuine concern for the people around her. She has a strong sense of justice, but her inability to defend herself often prevents her from making meaningful change in the world around her. It's important to note this because despite the way her character is presented in BFB, and despite the fact that she may seem like an entirely different person, her personality never actually changes.

To understand Book's attitude toward Bleh, it's important to first understand her attitude toward Freesmart.

The alliance was never a particularly healthy environment for Book, not even in BFDIA. Pencil was visibly stressed out by the team at multiple points and often took her anger out on her teammates, while Match was simply cruel and careless. Neither of them showed any regard for the lives of their teammates or competitors – both refused to rescue the remaining No-Namers in BFDIA 5c, Match killed Ice Cube without a hint of remorse at the end of the same episode, Pencil directly caused her teammates to die tens of thousands of times in BFDIA 5d, and she drop-kicked Rocky to his death in BFDIA 5e. Book was rarely given time to react to their actions, and when she was, she was usually shut down.

Book may have been a member of Freesmart, but she never felt like a part of the alliance. Not helping her situation was the fact that she was never a "full" member of the team – she was an alternate, a back-up friend. She was excluded from Match's dance party in BFDIA 5a, and she was kicked out of the Clubhouse again in BFDIA 6's deleted scenes (while the incident may not be canon, the sentiment certainly is). She seemed like an outsider for much of the time Freesmart spent together – Bubble and Ice Cube had more time to bond with Pencil, Match, and each other, and while Ruby was always one of Book's close friends, the fact that she was a full member and Book wasn't also gave her more time with the rest of the alliance, not to mention that she had far more in common with Bubble.

IDFB only had one episode, and Book only had a few lines of dialogue, but those lines shed a lot of light on her position in Freesmart. It's implied that Book had a part in Firey's punishment (i.e. locking him in a cage hanging off the Yoyle Needy), but it's also implied that it was against her will. The way she brings up Match afterwards suggests that rescuing Match from the LOL was her top priority and that the main reason she agreed to punish Firey was because she didn't wanted to anger Pencil. (I'm probably reading between the lines a lot here, and there may be many different interpretations of this, but this is a really interesting exchange that doesn't get brought up a lot and deserves at least some recognition. Same for the rest of IDFB – Pencil's comment about Match, for instance, is also ignored, which is a shame because it suggested some kind of schism between the two that never came to fruition. Or maybe Pencil knew something about the LOL that Book didn't.)

In short, Book's tenure at Freesmart saw her being consistently ignored and shut down by Pencil and Match, and she was never particularly close to her other teammates. As a result, Book joined Bleh in search of a healthier environment, but the team would turn out to be even worse for her.

Book's very first interaction with Taco was watching her lead Ice Cube to her death and showing zero sympathy for her pain. Taco's hubris led to her killing six of her team members – including Book and herself – and would've resulted in her team being put up for elimination if Lightning remembered that he could fly. This is the only time Taco would interact with Book for two and a half years.

This incident goes completely unmentioned for the rest of the series, and it sets the tone for what's to come. Taco is the embodiment of all of the worst traits of Freesmart with none of the redeeming qualities. She doesn't care about how her teammates feel, she is brutal to her fellow competitors, she ditches challenges whenever possible, she backstabs her friends for personal gain, she is bossy, she is arrogant, and she has a complete lack of self-awareness. She is a horrible person who's going to do a lot of horrible things, most of them aren't going to come back to bite her in any meaningful way, and she's never going to learn from (or even acknowledge) her mistakes. Everything she does is going to be brushed aside to deny Book validation for her feelings.

Something that's often forgotten about BFB 3 – and that isn't mentioned until TPOT 2 – is that Book wasn't aware that Taco died in BFB 1; Book herself died before Taco did. From her perspective, it made far more sense for the jawbreaker to be on the swing as dead weight put on the swing by Four and nothing more. (Dora and Saw were aware that Taco was dead, but given that Dora can't communicate with the rest of her team and Saw has a habit of concealing vital information from Book as shown in BFB 13, it's safe to assume that Book never got the memo.)

When Book came to the conclusion that Taco abandoned her, she was visibly hurt by the realization. She felt like she failed Taco in some way – the first thing she does is blame herself for Taco abandoning the team. Unfortunately, in a pattern that will repeat itself many times over the course of the show, her reaction was dwarfed by Taco, who dominated the episode. (Also, isn't it funny how Taco showed zero remorse when she led Book to her death in BFB 1, but now that she wants her help, she's suddenly pleading for her?)

And then Taco gets out of the jawbreaker. The same reckless, headstrong Taco who led almost all her teammates to their deaths despite their protests was supposedly trapped for three weeks, yet she got out under her own power with minimal effort. She didn't even make an attempt to escape the jawbreaker during that period – she didn't try licking, she didn't try rolling around to get someone's attention, and she didn't try using brute force. If iance was able to lick their way into a jawbreaker fast enough to earn second place, Taco was more than capable of licking her way out of one over the course of three weeks. She could've done anything to get out of the jawbreaker faster, but she just... didn't. Her absence left her team lacking manpower (not to mention a pretty big weight to negotiate), which could've also led to her team being put up for elimination if it wasn't for Team Ice Cube! screwing up. The only possible explanation I have for her behavior is that Taco never actually cared about giving her teammates company – she only cared about whether her teammates were on her side or not.

Another fact that's important to bring up is that Taco being in the jawbreaker in the first place is a direct consequence of her actions in BFB 1. At the end of that episode, nine contestants were dead, and in order for the jawbreaker challenge to be done, seven contestants would have to be dead. Taco was responsible for six of those deaths, including her own. Had she spared just one of her teammates, after one of the eight dead contestants was revived, there would've been seven contestants in jawbreakers, enough for each of the seven safe teams, which means that nobody would've been left behind. This wasn't a stroke of bad luck – this, along with everything bad that ever happened to her, was her own fault, and she could've avoided it if she'd tried to be better.

All things considered, Book's reaction is relatively subdued. Taco killed her and four of her teammates, neglected her for a good three weeks, and showed zero signs of remorse, and all she got for it was a declaration of her anger. However, the show acts as if Taco being in the jawbreaker somehow exonerates her from her misdeeds in and of itself.

Come BFB 4, Book is still visibly hurt by Taco's actions, and Taco, after two whole weeks, has not apologized for either killing her or being gone for weeks. Instead, she completely dismisses Book's feelings and acts like she did nothing wrong. If she really cared about how her teammates felt, she would've tried to comfort them or make it up to them or at the very least explain what happened to her, but she never said a word to any of her teammates until her personality was completely rewritten in BFB 15. Since her team is upset with her because of something she did, the onus is on her to resolve it, but she never even tries.

A common theme throughout the show is that Taco is treated as if she never has to explain herself. She doesn't have to apologize for killing her teammates and bossing them around in BFB 1 (despite that fact that Pencil and Leafy were eliminated for doing far less and despite BEEP being allowed to hold a grudge against Leafy for the same amount of time that everyone on Bleh but Book held a grudge against Taco), she doesn't have to explain where she was in BFB 3, she doesn't have to tell her team her plans in BFB 6, and she's allowed to not interact with them at all until BFB 15. Her teammates' feelings aren't even considered – Taco's perspective is the only one that's shown, and it's the only one that matters. According to the writers, if someone feels hurt by what Taco does, they're simply wrong. No explanation given, no explanation needed. I can't bring myself to call Taco a Mary Sue, but a lot of the defining characteristics are present.

There might be other ways to explain Taco's absence from her team in BFB 2 that don't involve her not caring about them (although all the explanations that come to mind are very contrived), but the point is that Book isn't allowed to have an argument. The way the scene is supposed to be interpreted is “wow I can't believe it Book is such a drama queen Taco was stuck in the jawbreaker ong ong” without even considering what Book actually thinks about the situation beyond what Taco sees.

This is the biggest problem with Bleh's story arc: Book is never taken seriously. Her feelings don't matter. She isn't allowed to have her side of the story heard as anything other than “Taco abandoned us”. She isn't allowed to defend herself, and nobody is allowed to defend her. She isn't allowed to feel hurt when Taco kills Ice Cube in front of her (and then kills her moments later). She isn't allowed to feel betrayed when Taco reappears after three weeks of unnecessary and unexplained absence. She isn't allowed to feel bitter after months of radio silence from Taco, and she isn't allowed to not forgive her even as she continues to show how little she cares about her. When her feelings aren't ignored, they're always turned against her. Book isn't just being portrayed as if she's in the wrong because of her feelings – her feelings themselves are wrong. She is routinely ignored and mocked by the people around her, and they're allowed to do that because the writers are doing the exact same thing. This is true of everyone Taco hurt over the course of the competition, but it's especially true of Book, whom Taco hurt the most.

BFB 6 is a perfect example of just how biased the narrative is toward Taco. Her team is still bitter about her abandoning and neglecting them, but instead of doing anything to set things right, Taco chooses to abandon them again. Even if Taco was actually in the jawbreaker against her will, the actions she takes after her team accused her of abandonment show what an awful person she is. Whether her plan ends up working or not is irrelevant. Her teammates (especially Book) were hurt by what she did, but Taco doesn't care. She doesn't understand that she hurt them, and she isn't sorry for anything.

Despite that, the episode doesn't even mention how Book might feel and instead focuses entirely on Taco and her antics on Earth. This is going to be a pretty long diatribe, and you can skip this if you want, but this needs to be said. So many factors had to fall into place here that it's ridiculous that Taco's plan didn't end up backfiring. 43 contestants were present on Earth, 34 of which had an unobstructed view of the Moon. In order for Taco's plan to have worked, none of those 34 contestants could've looked at the Moon (and a full moon, at that!) over the course of an hour. Even if they did all know where the Twinkle was, all it would've taken was a momentary lapse in attention – a lapse that could've just as easily came from Taco herself on her hour-long journey. If the Twinkle was being passed between the Earth and Moon, it wouldn't help much – judging from BFB 7, the Lunarians would be more coordinated than the Earthlings, so the Twinkle probably wouldn't spend much time on the Moon. The possibility that Taco could've gotten the Twinkle from someone on Earth also isn't considered. Assuming a direct line of sight to the competition grounds and that Taco would be looking dead ahead (why wouldn't she?), the Twinkle would've transferred to her the moment the Earthlings came over her horizon – which, assuming that the objects are human sized and the Earth is Earth-sized, would've happened as far out as 6.2 miles, or 10 kilometers (even further if a flyer got the Twinkle). Even if she did make it to the competition grounds without contracting the Twinkle, she'd have to open her eyes to seek out a target, risking infection from both the Earth and Moon. Then there's the possibility of Taco mistakenly infecting herself by accidentally looking at Bell. Furthermore, there's no guarantee that Taco would've even made it back to the competition grounds – she didn't even know where she was when she landed on Earth, let alone where the grounds were relative to her. Not only that, but in order for Taco's plan to even have a chance of working, Golf Ball would've had to land on the near side of the Moon, which, because the Earth (and therefore the Twinkle) would've been easily visible, would be a monumental blunder for someone of her acumen. How often do you get to see the Earth from outer space? From just about every possible standpoint, this plan might be the worst call she could've made, but because this is Taco, it went off without a hitch. In the eyes of the writers, Taco is incapable of making bad decisions.

I'm skipping most of the episodes from BFB 5 to BFB 9, but it's important to discuss them because people tend to forget about how Book was characterized here.

When Taco isn't on screen with her, Book is actually presented as her true character. She is the same kind, thoughtful, caring person she was in BFDIA. She was visibly worried about X in BFB 5 and 9, and she can be seen comforting Saw about her fume issues in BFB 8. Again, she isn't a “mean” character by any stretch of the imagination, and she never was.

Another thing that deserves mention is Book's relationship with Dora. The first episode seemed to promise a relationship between the two given Book's desire to learn about how Dora communicates. She genuinely saw something in Dora that nobody else did. However, that would be the last time they'd interact – their relationship would only be brought up twice, and one of those times was after Dora was eliminated. Book was snubbed of yet another opportunity to actually show off her true character, and Dora was snubbed of her only opportunity for character development.

BFB 10 is arguably the biggest missed opportunity in the story arc.

After neglecting her team yet again, Taco approaches Bell and tries to strike a conversation with her. Bell, just like Book, is clearly upset by what Taco did in BFB 6 (and she has every right to be – it's pretty clear that the only reason Taco is apologizing to her is because she wants to talk to her, not because she actually cares about her), and she refuses to trust Taco and accept her "apology". Meanwhile, Lollipop sees all of this – not caring about how Bell feels, she immediately takes Taco's side, since all she sees is someone who won a challenge for her.

Ignoring everything that happens after it, this is probably one of the best scenes in the show. After months of running away from the consequences of her actions and hurting people without an iota of concern for them, Taco is finally forced to confront her mistakes. Unlike the situation with her teammates, she can't pretend she isn't hurting anyone and act like nothing's wrong – unlike Book, Bell isn't pulling any punches. Just like Match in the next episode, she has to deal with not being forgiven immediately so she can actually learn from her mistakes. She broke their trust, and now she has to put in the work to regain it. Taco's expression after the exchange even suggests that she's aware that she did something wrong (even if it would later be disproven).

However, notably absent from this scene is Book.

Many of Book's teammates (namely Lollipop, Teardrop, possibly Gaty and Dora, and, of course, Taco) care deeply about victory regardless of whether they have to hurt people to achieve it. Pencil and Match also acted like that very often (and, at this point, still are), which is something Book hated about Freesmart. She has, in the past, been willing to protect her opponents from harm even if it means giving up ground in a challenge. Bell was visibly hurt by Taco's actions, everyone else on Book's team flipped to Taco's side because of this incident, and Book has always stood up for those who have nobody to defend themselves, which is why Teardrop is on the team.

Why couldn't Book have defended Bell? Nobody else was there for her, and Book was presumably standing within earshot of her and Taco, so why couldn't she help her? There could've been some genuine conflict in the team. Taco could've been held accountable for her actions. She could've actually learned from her mistakes and grown into a somewhat decent person. Instead, nothing comes of this, and Bell, much like Book, is portrayed as being in the wrong for not wanting to forgive Taco (despite the fact that Taco has done nothing to deserve being forgiven by either of them – as Bell said, “sorry” isn't enough, let alone an insincere one, and she hasn't even given that to Book).

By BFB 11, jacknjellify has completely given up on Book.

At this point, they're no longer treating her like a character; they're treating her like a punching bag. She exists solely so other characters (read: Lollipop) can make fun of her and get away with it. Her feelings and perspective somehow matter less than they did in the previous episodes. The fact that Taco never shows up in the episode and never even volunteered to do the challenge is ignored. She learned absolutely nothing from her exchange with Bell, and she's back to doing what she's always done.

BFB 12 somehow gets worse for Book. The only reason she's given a speaking role here is so Lollipop can mock and degrade her. Lollipop doesn't even say anything useful – she doesn't provide a shred of evidence to back up her claim that Taco saved them in BFB 6. (Also, isn't it funny how Taco single-handedly almost losing the challenge in BFB 1 and being the first to be found out in BFB 12 both go unmentioned, but her actions in BFB 6 are front and center? Taco's one saving grace is supposed to be that she's good at challenges, but not even that is true.)

If Book's teammates think she's wrong, what they should be doing is understanding her perspective, acknowledging her feelings, and explaining their arguments, but they never do any of that. Understanding how someone else feels is hard, and it's much easier to silence them and pretend they have nothing to say. They are so confident that Book is wrong that they don't feel the need to hear her side of the story. Book's arguments aren't given a modicum of attention because her purpose is to be wrong. Her feelings and perspective being dismissed here is not an accident – it's the point of her character. (The fact that Taco – and the rest of the team – completely ignored Book's outburst also show just how little they care about her.)

And yet, despite how much the writers rail on Book, despite the fact that the sole point of her character is to be laughed at, her claim that Taco abandoned them in the challenge isn't as outlandish as it's presented. After all, it's awfully convenient that the person who has never spoken to her teammates since BFB 1 and has avoided them every chance she got just so happened to be the impostor, isn't it? Four never explained how they chose whose bodies would be swapped. It's entirely possible that Taco volunteered to be swapped when nobody was looking, and given how she'd acted up to that point, it's hard to argue that she wouldn't have jumped at the opportunity. It may be a bit of a farfetched argument, but it's an argument nonetheless, and it would've provided an insight into Book's thought process – two things that she has been denied for the entirety of the season.

There's also the fact that Taco killed Bottle for no reason and didn't show any signs of remorse. Once again, this is quickly brushed aside – if Book found out about it, she would've had every reason to go ballistic. She has several very legitimate reasons to be mad at Taco – the show just pretends she doesn't. Taco's style of gameplay hurts people every single time, and it always ends up with her team being worse off than if she did nothing at all, sometimes on the brink of elimination (and the one time her plans helped her team was so unbelievably contrived that it's not even funny). I swear I've seen this situation before, just... elsewhere. Can't think of where, though.

BFB 13 is where the Book-bashing gets turned up to 11.

First, Book, with Lollipop in tow, finds out that not only has Taco been actively avoiding the team, but she isn't even trying to patch things up with them, instead opting to pester Barf Bag while she's hanging out with Spongy. (Remember: Since Taco is the aggressor in this situation, she should be the one apologizing to Book, not the other way around.) This is pretty convincing evidence in Book's favor, but Lollipop completely ignores her. She outright refuses to acknowledge her perspective. At this point, Book is clearly desperate to get people to start taking her seriously, so Lollipop dismissing her is only exacerbating the problem.

And then Saw comes back. This is the first time anyone has seen Saw in over a year. She didn't even consider telling Book where she was, and Lollipop and Taco didn't either. Book was left completely in the dark, and to further compound her issues, Saw has an unbelievably flimsy excuse. She really couldn't have gotten off her scent cleanse any sooner than she did? Why did she have to leave the competition grounds to go on her scent cleanse in the first place? Her scent cleanse did almost nothing at all!

And yet, when Book rightfully vents her frustration toward Saw, everyone on her team completely ignores her. They don't even make an attempt to take her argument seriously. The only way they could've been more direct about not caring about her is if they said it directly to her face.

It's honestly impressive how the writers were able to take a situation that objectively shows Book in the right and her team in the wrong and somehow turn it against Book. Even if she was wrong about Taco, her teammates still treated her like garbage – far worse than they ever treated Taco (granted, that's not saying much; all things considered, Taco was treated exceptionally well) – and she's still letting it happen.

However, she isn't letting it happen for any longer.

Book has been kicked to the curb for the entire season. Taco has killed her, killed her best friend, abandoned her, and avoided her for over a year – and she is yet to show a shred of remorse. She was neglected and mocked by her old team, but her new team turned out to be even worse. Whenever she shows any kind of frustration, she's immediately labeled the villain. Nobody, not one person, has ever shown any sympathy for her. Nobody has even entertained the idea that her side of the story is worth listening to. Heck, nobody has even acknowledged her feelings. If she wants the basic respect and dignity she's been denied since 2012, her team desperately needs changes – changes that clearly won't come from within.

She's been given the short end of the stick since her debut, and she's had enough. Enough of being silenced. Enough of sacrificing herself so other people can be happy. Enough of waiting for her situation to improve. Enough of waiting for her team to start listening to her. Enough of waiting for someone to stand up for her. For the first time in her life, Book stood up for herself.

Well, she tried to. Book still hadn't gotten around the whole “depends on external validation” thing. When she finally started speaking her mind, she never vented about how she felt; she talked about how she and Ice Cube felt. Everything Book had done up to that point was with the implicit assumption that at least one person felt her pain or would at least listen to her. She's projecting her pain onto Ice Cube so she can convince herself that she has a modicum of support. In reality, Ice Cube understands how Book feels as poorly as the rest of the team, but if Book learned about this, it would break her. She still needs Ice Cube to be on her side. This also explains why she's focused her efforts on convincing her teammates that she's right instead of actually standing up to Taco.

Book needs Ice Cube's support in order to make any lasting change in her team, but despite the fact that she's had a front row seat to Book's neglect and mockery, and despite how close they've been and everything Book's done for her, Ice Cube betrays Book when she needs her the most.

All of Book's teammates are absolutely atrocious friends, but Ice Cube goes above and beyond here. Book has always been there to support Ice Cube. She has consistently protected her and given her a shoulder to cry on, and up to this point, she has asked for almost nothing in return. And yet, the second that Book needs her help, in a situation where it's crystal clear that Book is in the right, Ice Cube immediately backstabs her. She doesn't get a chance to explain herself. She doesn't get a chance to talk about how she feels. Ice Cube just takes off, and it's all presented as Book's fault.

And if that wasn't bad enough, what happens the next time Book appears is – and this isn't a hyperbole – the worst scene in the entire series.

One of my favorite scenes in BFB is when Bubble confronted Match in BFB 11.

iance's story arc had admittedly been rather mediocre up to that point, and for many of the same reasons that I don't like the Bleh arc (namely, Match's motivations are never shown until the last moment). However, the way Bubble confronted Match was the perfect way the writers could've capped it off.

Despite how much Match hurt her, Bubble still respects her. She (somewhat) calmly explains exactly why Match was misguided. She makes it abundantly clear that she still sees her as a friend. She understands how she feels and why she did what she did. She doesn't needlessly berate her; she merely vents her frustrations in a stern but understanding manner. Most importantly, she allows Match to explain her perspective and how she felt.

Gaty does none of that with Book. What she does instead can only be described as emotional abuse.

She has zero respect for Book. She doesn't care about how she feels. Book never gets the chance to explain herself, and she barely gets the chance to explain how she feels – and when she does, Gaty rolls right over her. She, just like Lollipop in BFB 12, doesn't actually provide any evidence for her claims, instead opting for an argumetum ad populum (which is odd, because if everyone but Book – whom nobody cares about – believes that Taco didn't abandon them, how can they still be shunning Taco? Pick one, Gaty). She intentionally provokes a reaction from Book to “prove” how “irrational” she is (which is actual gaslighting). This isn't about trying to help Book or the team or even trying to defend Taco – this is about power. The only thing Gaty wants is to silence Book and put her back in her place.

All of that is happening while Taco is sitting hundreds of feet from the rest of her team, not even trying to interact with them. Gaty is trying to convince Book that Taco didn't abandon them after Taco just abandoned them. Gaty even pulled Book over while she was trying to convince her, so she would've known that had she listened to her for five seconds! Which of these two is supposed to be the irrational one, again?

Even if Book was wrong here, this would still be the worst scene in the entire series by a wide margin. It wouldn't have changed the fact that Gaty still abused her. Even though Bleh is in a crisis, the proper response is not to vilify their allies. Ironically, it wasn't Taco who was vilified by Book – it was Book who was vilified by Bleh.

This episode should've been the turning point in the arc. This should've been the part of the story where Book finally had her voice heard. This should've been the point where her fortunes finally started to improve as her team started to realize how awfully they'd been treating her. Instead, Book was bullied and manipulated into submission, she was blamed for everything that happened to the team, she was completely drained of what precious little willpower wasn't beaten out of her before this point, and her teammates remained blissfully ignorant of her plight.

Soon after the worst scene in the series comes BFB's second-worst scene. If BFB 13 showed how little the writers care about Book, BFB 14 showed how little they understand her. Just about everything regarding the way she is depicted is wrong.

Despite the fact that Book is (for once) the focal point in this scene, her perspective on Taco is still never heard. The only thing she says about how she felt is her bitterness toward Freesmart, but that's it. Nothing about how her teammates treated her like garbage, nothing about how Taco was never there for her ever, nothing about how hurt she felt, nothing about her alienation from her team, nothing about her struggle to be seen and heard. Even when she finally becomes the focus of the story, her voice and her feelings still doesn't matter.

Book blaming herself for everything wrong with the team is entirely within character (see BFB 3 and TPOT 4), but it's also entirely wrong. Her team was the way it was because her teammates shunned her and refused to take her seriously, and she had too little self-confidence to press on in the face of adversity. She absolutely did not “make the team worse for everyone in it” – they made the team worse for her.

But the worst part of the scene is the final exchange between Book and Pin, because not only is it all wrong, but it's the polar opposite of the truth. First off, Book never hurt anyone, especially not Taco. Her teammates hurt her – they were the ones who wouldn't listen to a word she said, and they were the ones who drove her to further and further desperation just to be taken seriously. Book never forced anyone to do what she wanted – whenever anyone objected to something she wanted, she almost always gave in to their demands no matter how absurd they were, which is one of her primary character flaws. She always sacrificed her happiness and her desires to not anger the people around her (making her teammates mad at her is what she “did wrong”), so the line about Book only caring about making her teammates happy with her is completely unfounded.

Above all else, Book's teammates had more freedom than anyone on any other team. She let Taco lead her team to their deaths and did absolutely nothing to stop her. She let Taco abandon her team multiple times and took no action against her. She let Saw abandon her for over a year and stopped trying to take against her when Ice Cube said no. She let Ice Cube backstab and abandon her and did absolutely nothing. When she finally stood up for herself, she had to ask for Ice Cube's approval before she could make any changes. Bleh's biggest problem was that nobody was there to stop its members from hurting each other or their opponents. Book tried her best to fill that role, but her passiveness, spinelessness, and tendency to avoid conflict rendered it impossible for her to do anything meaningful. She is a paper tiger – although she may appear menacing, she had zero actual power, and her teammates were free to do what they wanted under her “leadership”. What little power she did have came directly from Ice Cube. If freedom is the ability to do as one wishes, then by holding herself to an impossible task, the only person on Bleh who lacked it was Book.

What makes this even more infuriating is the fact that not only does none of Pin's advice apply to Book, all of it applies to Taco. She never made a genuine attempt to reconnect with the people she hurt, she only did what she wanted instead of what her teammates wanted, she only wanted to make people happy with her instead of trying to make them happy, and in the only challenge she participated in with her teammates, she demanded that they follow her orders. She wasn't the sole cause of the turmoil within the team (that was down to everyone shunning Book), but she started it and did nothing but fan the flames. She had the power and the willpower to stop it before it even started, but she never wanted to.

Again, even if Book was wrong about Taco abandoning them in BFB 3, most of what was said in this episode is still incorrect. It wouldn't change the fact that Taco still hurt Book and didn't care about how she felt (and, in fact, kept hurting her). It wouldn't change the fact that Bleh silenced her at every opportunity. It wouldn't change the fact that no one bothered to listen to her side of the story. It wouldn't change the fact that nobody ever made a single valid argument in Taco's favor to her. Book may have been at the center of Bleh's collapse, but none of it was her fault. She was trying her best, and her teammates were doing their worst. Recognizing that the whole group is at fault is hard. It was easier for Bleh to blame everything on one person, it was even easier to blame the one everyone refused to listen to because she was “irrational” and “hysterical”, and it was easier still to blame the one who would sooner blow her brains out than make someone feel bad. What was she going to do about it, anyways? She has no power, she has no willpower, and she has no support.

Overall, the sheer amount of information that was ignored and flat-out made up suggests that this scene was written out of obligation and not because the writers cared about Book.

I don't know where else to put this, but one of the main reasons why I'm writing this is that the way Book is treated seems to have a lot of ableist undertones. I know (think) this is completely unintentional, but there are still some very unfortunate implications here.

I'm not the first person to suggest this, but throughout the course of the show, Book has shown several signs of borderline personality disorder. She has difficulty controlling her emotions (understatement of the year), she has a favorite person (Ice Cube), she has serious abandonment issues, she may or may not engage in impulsive and self-destructive behavior (BFB 7 shows that she might have an eating disorder), and her relationships are turbulent at best.

However, Book's character is never treated with the same carefulness that characters like her should be. She is never portrayed in a sympathetic light, and she's never allowed to have reasons for how she feels. The mere idea that Taco (or anyone, for that matter) may have hurt her just a little bit is laughed off. Whenever she expresses any kind of “extreme” emotion, it's immediately brushed off as hysteria, even when her reaction is completely appropriate for the situation (see BFB 3 and BFB 6 with Taco, BFB 11 with Lollipop, and BFB 13 with Saw, Lollipop, Gaty, and Ice Cube). In fact, given the fact that she hasn't shown any signs of trauma or mental illness since BFB 13, it honestly feels like the writers are denying that Book ever had emotions.

There's also the fact that she's portrayed as an inherently hurtful person because of her outbursts. The show seems to act as if they're the sole reason her way the team is, which is absolutely untrue. She's not acting out because she doesn't care about how her teammates feel or because she wants to hurt them – she's acting out because nobody is taking her seriously. She isn't yelling – she's projecting. Her complaints are falling on deaf ears, so her only option is to scream louder and louder in the vain hope that someone will finally start listening to her. Nobody did, and nobody will.

In the end, Book never truly got any closure.

Her team never apologized to her for treating her like garbage (and they probably never will), Taco never apologized to her for everything she did to her (and she probably never will), everyone on her team still hates her for something she never actually did, and her new team is paying little attention to her. She's gotten almost zero focus in TPOT, and given the new direction the series has taken (and how many votes she got in TPOT 5), it's incredibly unlikely that Book will get any real development in the future. At this point, the only way her character can be salvaged is in the incredibly unlikely scenario that she realizes that she did nothing wrong to Bleh.

The only person who's gotten any form of retribution for the way they treated Book was Ice Cube. As a direct consequence of her betrayal, Ice Cube landed on The s!, a team which has consistently treated her horribly and likely killed her thousands of times. This never would've happened to her had she stood up for her friend in need and stayed with Book.

In BFB 15 and 16, jacknjellify found a way to slap Book in the face one last time before she and Taco parted ways. After more than two and a half years of ignoring Book and pretending she doesn't exist, Taco, without any formal character development, suddenly acts like she cares about leaving her behind. Taco had never come close to caring about abandoning anyone for over two years, yet when they finally talk (conveniently right after something happens that makes Taco think she might be able to get Book back on her side), she acts like she's always cared. The writers acted like she never hurt anyone, and as such, she never had to redeem herself. Despite never apologizing to them, despite showing no signs of remorse throughout the entire season, Taco was immediately forgiven by Bleh for what she did (not only that, but they apologized to her!). She didn't earn back the trust of her peers – it was handed back to her on a silver platter.

Despite everything Book went through, so many people brush her off as “the person who did a bad thing” without really understanding or even acknowledging how she actually felt. She was never a bully or a jerk, she was never irrational, she was never stupid, and she never imposed her will onto any of her teammates. She was just depicted that way so the writers could pretend that she was the villain and Taco was the hero.

Book in BFB has always been the character that nobody is willing to defend, which is a shame because she's not at all the character the community thinks she is. BFB never showed her point of view, only Taco's. Book was degraded, ignored, and mocked for years, and nobody cared because nobody paid any attention to her. She never had a character arc - she was haphazardly stapled onto Taco's arc as Taco hogged all of the attention. The show likes to act as if she ignored her teammates and denied them freedom, but in reality, she was the one who needed to be freed – from herself and from her teammates. The only thing she ever wanted from her team was a voice, and she never got it.

The community seems to view the Bleh arc as Taco's uphill battle to receive the respect she deserves from a team who tried to put her down at every step of the way and laughed at every misfortune. This is mostly true. The only thing wrong with it is that it isn't a description of Taco. It's a description of Book.

Book deserves better. Book deserves so much better.

tl;dr Taco did abandon Book. So did the writers.

book is the best BFB character, she has done nothing wrong ever in her life, and if you disagree you're wrong (this is only mostly a joke)

[jgnico]

One thing that bothers me about jujutsu is that the author doesn't know how to develop some characters. 1 Shoko Ieri is an interesting character but I find her apathetic without a cold and superficial personality. 2 itadori yuji doesn't seem to be a protagonist he seems more like a tool than the protagonist of the work. 3 nobara had no development dry and emotionless death. and many other characters. There were only 2 characters that really had development, which was gojo and geto, for me, they were the only ones that had it. Why do you think the author did this, is it because he didn't want to develop the characters that's why he killed many important characters? I would appreciate it if you respond.

Tell me you got into jjk for satosugu without telling me you got into jjk for satosugu.

I... I don't even know where to start with this, to be honest. I will agree to the point that Gege has a problem with underutilizing and underdeveloping some of his characters, especially the women, but I think that's all I can agree with here.

1. Shoko is a great character. She has a more monotone personality, especially compared to others within the series, but I wouldn't call her cold or superficial by any means. She has friends that she cares about and a fun relationship with Utahime, but I'm not gonna find fault in her not being as enthusiastic as other characters, esp when she's continuously lost loved ones as the series has progressed.

2. It seems to me that you read the panels where Yuuuji called himself a cog and took that as the end all be all of his character. I actually find Yuuji incredibly loveable and complex for a protagonist, especially as an MC. He's a breath of fresh air, and his mentality toward the trope of "save everyone" is refreshing and realistic. He knows he can't, but he tries to save the people he can. He cares deeply about people, especially his friends. He's new to Jujutsu, but what he lacks in initial knowledge he makes up for by meshing almost seemlessly with everyone he's paired up with. He's not the smartest character, but he learns quickly and has some good ingenuity when it comes to fights. He has a positive, outgoing personality that's balanced out by moments of intense emotional and mental upheaval. Yuuji has grown and changed a lot as the story has progressed and he will continue to.

That being said, every character is a tool of the story, and given that we're brought into the wold of Jujutsu through him and are going through the story with him (same as with other characters) I don't see how him, a character within the story, being a tool used for storytelling is the negative point you think it is. Every character is a tool of the story. It's no fault of the character that you just don't find him as effective or useful as others do.

3. This point honestly makes me think you're trolling, I'm not gonna lie. Nobara had insane amounts of development during her time within the story. To name a few: She learns the value of relying on her teammates and prioritizing her life on her first mission with Yuuji. She makes the mistake of not bringing enough nails (her primary weapon) on her second mission and brings a surplus to every mission afterward. She shows a spectacular amount of foward thinking when it comes to fighting that we see demonstrated both in the Goodwill and Shibuya arcs. She's willing to sacrifice her health for the sake of winning a fight. She's one of the few characters (and one of three students) to land a black flash and touch the core of cursed energy. She's also one of the very, very few characters that can innately damage the soul.

Nobara has great growth throughout her time in the story, and she has the potential to do better if (when, imo) she returns to it. But let's move on to the other point of her dearh being "dry and emotionless" because I simply don't understand how you came away with that opinion. She's one of the main trio, she gave Yuuji hope when he was close to breaking and dealt lasting damage to Mahito in Shibuya, she has a touching backstory and relationship with her childhood best friend, and even still, has an impact on Yuuji and his approach toward letting new people into his life. Yuuji wasn't afraid of letting Higurum into his life and somehow replacing Nanami, he was afraid of letting Hana in and emotionally replacing Nobara. She's the first person that he asks about when he meets back up with Megumi post-Shibuya.

I think your opinion toward Nobara stems from the fact that you just don't connect with her the way others do, but just because you don't notice or care about her impact in the story (much less the impact her death had on Yuuji, who you don't even consider a protagonist) doesn't mean that she's not a well-written, interesting, and enjoyable character.

Gojo and Geto are good characters. Their dynamic is interesting, and their combined and individual stories are emotionally impactful. Even their techniques are cool, in my opinion. But, they're not the only characters that you can say that for. In fact, I wouldn't even put either of them in my personal top five. If you do, that's you, but it's a little wild to say that they're the only ones with good development in the story because that simply isn't true.

Lastly, like I said at the beginning of this answer, I do think that Gege has an issue with how he handles some characters. Does that include all, or even most of them? No, I think he's doing fine. Are their some big ones that he could've written better? Absolutely, but I challenge you to find any series where the author uses every one of their characters as best as they possibly could. Everyone is going to have a favorite character that they want to see shine, just because they don't, that doesn't always make it the author's fault.

I don't think fumbling this aspect of the story is intentional, and I'd even argue thats it's fitting in some cases. We're not going to get the full story of everyone we're introduced to, especially ones outside the main cast. Sometimes a character is simply there to move the plot along or introduce/reintroduce an aspect of the story, and that's fine. I think that people often forget that the story is ongoing and has time to touch on things that they feel have been overlooked. I also think that a lot of people don't want to consider that Gege has a plan for the story that we aren't privy to, nor are we going to like everything that he does.

As for why he kills a lot of important characters? Most likely to reinforce the idea that the world in which the story takes place isn't fair. No one has plot armor. It'd be a boring story if they did, and it would rob us of a lot of emotional investment because the tension wouldn't be nearly as high if we weren't worried for the safety of the characters that we love. If you're not invested in certain characters, maybe you won't feel that way, but that isn't a universal experience.

At the end of the day, I'd say Jujutsu Kaisen is a good story with a lot of really good characters (some of my favorite characters ever, even) but not everyone will agree with that statement. If a significant portion of the story or characters just aren't doing it for you, you might fall into the latter, and it seems that way if Gojo and Geto are the only highlights you've found to be worth investing your interest in.

(Since you sent me two of the exact same ask, consider this a part one. See ya in a minute.)

[theboarsbride]

"A Court of Thorns and Roses" Reading Update I

Page 101 - 24%

So, some major notes so far:

-I refuse to believe SJM knows how to write poor people. I refuse to believe that Feyre's family has been poor for a decade. How tf can the sisters be so dainty and act so oblivious and bitchy about work for survival after NEARLY 10 YEARS OF ECONOMIC DESTITUTION???????Just their mentalities, how they react to being poor, how they treat their belongings, how they treat their food, how they handle their money, etc. doesn't really line up.

-I can't stand SJM's writing style. SO MANY MF EM DASHES HOLY FUCK AND THEYRE IN PLACES WHERE THEY'RE UNNECESSARY. And also she reuses the same sentence structure, and it bothers meeeeee. (ex.- i was going to the bathroom, which was white and clean and shining. Then, I went to school, a place that was dull and bland and boring.) Like jfc. I wholeheartedly believe the conspiracy that no one actually edits SJM's book because good LORD.

- Feyre is dumb and deserves death. Like the instance with the Pooka. She suddenly sees her crippled father on Tamlin's land in Prythian in the middle of the night??? Given the wary hostility and aggression and distrust she's been displaying towards everyone and everything so far in Prythian, why isn't she doing the same in this instance???? She's said herself she is wary of faerie tricks, and acknowledged that not even whole, able-bodied humans are able to survive in Prythian without the help of a faerie, so why would she think her DISABLED FATHER, who is helpless in the mortal realm, be any different??? And why would she CARE that her father has come for her??? Did she not hope that her family starves without her, so that they realize she's important to them and she holds them in such an embittered contempt?????

- I LOVE Lucien <3 I like this fox-boy, he is funny and actually treats Feyre like the murderer she is (because yes, she's a murderer, and takes PRIDE in having killed a faerie. Which Feyre has some nerve being hostile to faeries who have been nothing but courteous and gracious with her, and thinking THEY are in the wrong when she was the one that MURDERED their friend).

- why couldn't Tamlin remain more like his beast form, making this more of a BATB retelling? I literally imagine him looking like Legolas but JACKED. This is where my ire of 'BATB but the beast is just a hot guy that growls or has behavioral problems' first began. It's such a shallow version of the story and completely misses the point. And the fact that this is also a retelling of The Ballad of Tam-Lin, a Scottish folktale, and does really nothing that's an homage to the story aside from Tamlin's name, the fact he shape-shifts (albeit BARELY), and there's (poorly written) fae really irks me.

-for once I want SJM to actually describe paintings rather than describing what the painting is of. I don't believe for one minute that SJM did more research into art, style, etc. because for the life of me I couldn't tell you what Feyre's art style is, nor do I really care because her having painting as a hobby is so pointless and has no effect on her character whatsoever.

- SJM is lazy as fuck with her world building. ex.- Lucien saying capital 'h' Hell, as in Christian Hell, when humans are agnostic/atheist with a sparse number of fae-worshiping cults (and were once implied to have had a polytheistic religion) and fae worship the Cauldron and other faerie deities so like.....why not use a few extra braincells to create her own version of Hell rather than using lazy cultural shorthand that, by the logic of this book's world, doesn't work????; underutilizing fae lore so now they're either underdeveloped spectral entities or LOTR elves... BORINGGGG!! GIVE US ACTUAL FAE IN LITERATURE AGAIN!!!! (*applauds Heather Fawcett's Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries and Krystal Sutherland's House of Hollow*)

These are my major thoughts for the first quarter of the book.... See y'all again at 50%!

[nono-bunny]

I have somehow never heard this before, but I thought it was interesting so I figured I'd share... I am currently reading the Obey Me! manga- which is a lot of fun, btw- and the MC has a name there! Which was news to me, because I never heard anyone refer to them by that! Zephyr is such a cool gender neutral choice, and it's how they're referred to in the manga, and it rocks!

I am a fan of and play some other games with a mostly nameless protagonist, but there the names they're given in the manga or anime that actually do tend to stick amongst the fandom and they usually start getting referred to by those rather than as MC. The Persona franchise for insance has multiple canon-ish names for the MCs, but most fans would know you're talking about the P5 protagonist anyway when you mention Akira or Ren (or, alternatively, Akiren)- it's easier to refer to them by a name when you have multiple games and multiple protagonists, and in general the different games have protagonists that tend to be perceived as having unique personalities even though you can choose their dialogue by virtue of them being silent protagonists (p3 has the emo one, p4 has the manwhore, p5 has the sassy one, no one talks about p1 and p2)

On the other hand, there's Love Live All Stars (rip), where you're entirely unseen like in Obey Me!, but the anime created a player proxy character named Yu Takaski as a result of a fan poll, which is a name that's essentially just various wordplays on this character being us, the player. She has a voice actress who became relatively active in the franchise alongside her character, and at this point she's arguably a different character than the one you play in the game, and she's generally quite loved anyway (which wasn't a guaranteed thing with the LL fandom, they're very possessive of the idols as might sadly be expected)

Zephyr definitely tends more towards the skeptical options you get in the game which is. Kind of the opposite of how I play, and they're stuck in the body of a sheep which is obviously NOT the case for the regular MC, but regardless of that they're actually so great! Like. They don't feel like I'm seeing my MC, but rather an MC, which is actually really refreshing and surprisingly fun, and its very funny to see that type of MC going through the story while also BEING A SHEEP, and like. While I don't necessarily feel represented by Zephyr, I'd also be 100% down for the fandom to start referring to MC as Zephyr, or just like.... Talk about them at all, because istg I never see them mentioned anywhere ever and it's a shame, actually, because the manga is really fun! I feel like Zephyr can and should exist and have a distinct personality like in Persona, and maybe also be a way for us to feature in a potential season 3 of the anime... And that WOULDN'T take away from them only being one version of the MC, similarly to how things shook out with LL! Idk I just. Felt like it's a shame how underutilized Zephyr is amongst the fandom and the franchise in general, justice for Zephyr ig lol

Also! I very much recommend reading the manga, it's so funny and a lot of fun! Also for my fellow Mammon fans (aka, everyone- is there even anyone who doesn't like him even if he's not their fave??) we get to see a lot of Mammon butt which is. Surprising but not unwelcome lol

[tobias-carrick-appreciation-week]

Tobias Carrick Appreciation Week

EVENT MASTERLIST

Dr. Tobias Carrick here! Thanks for checking out my event. I'm used to being checked out, but this is a whole new way. It's long overdue if you ask me! But you know what they say, good things come to those who wait, and there are a whole lot of good things planned, and I can't wait to see what you come up with.

I'm gonna let the event's mod @jerzwriter take over from here. If you've got any questions, just talk to her... she'll take care of you! 😉

Welcome to Tobias Carrick Appreciation Week!

Tobias's character was woefully underutilized in Open Heart, but their loss is our gain. Why? Because it left us with an intriguing character that we can largely make our own. This week - take the time to share YOUR VERSION of Tobias and how he fits in your OH world.

All types of fanwork, old and new, will be accepted for this event. So send us your fics, headcanons, artwork, edits, moodboards, you name it! If it's Tobias related, it can be shared.

Day 1 - Saturday, April 1 - Where did this guy come from? Info & Templates for Day 1 We know little about his background. Tell us where he grew up. What about his family, life before Hopkins, and how it made him who he is today.

Day 2 - Sunday, April 2 - The Hopkins Years and Beyond Info & Templates for Day 2 Here's your chance to flesh out canon. Tell us about the rise & fall of his friendship with Ethan. What was the story of their mutual crush? What kind of student was he? What was his rep? And what happened to him during the years between Hopkins and when we met him again in Book 2? Day 2 can be anything from these years.

Day 3 - Monday, April 3 - OH Book 2 What did you like/dislike about Tobias in Book 2? What did canon miss? What was up with June? What did he think of MC, and vice versa? What are your HCs about this time?

Day 4 - Tuesday, April 4 - OH Book 3 How did that job offer come about? What was his motivation, and did it change? How did you see his relationship with Ethan change? Was he friends (or more) with your MC in your HC? What did canon miss?

Day 5 - Wednesday, April 5 - After Hours: Romance / Personal Life Info & Templates for Day 5 What did Tobias do when he was off the clock? Did he have friends he hung out with regularly? See his family? Did he date? Hobbies? This category is broad - use your imagination! 😏

Day 6 - Thursday, April 6 - Doctor Tobias Carrick What kind of doctor was he? Was he respected? Published? Did he teach? What made him tick? Contrast how he mentored interns/residents with Ethan's style.

Day 7 - Friday, April 7 - All About the Future Where do you see Tobias when the series ends? In the near and distant future. How did his career progress? Did he settle down? How'd that work out for him? Any part of his future.

Day 8 - WAIT! That's over a week! Yep, but Tobias can be a rule-breaker, and so is this event! Saturday, April 8 - Masterlists and ANYTHING GOES If you have a Tobias Carrick Masterlist, share it with us! Also, share anything related to Dr. Carrick or his world.

Sunday, April 9th Event Masterlist will be posted

Rules and Guidelines:

Please tag @tobias-carrick-appreciation-week on your post or reblog for your work to be included.

Make sure your work has a rating, and if it is NSFW or Mature, please make sure it is labeled as so.

Please use a :readmore: / page break to avoid excessively long posts. If a post is deemed to be too long, a new post with a link to the post submitted may be used in replacement of a reblog.

Tobias is an ambiguous character, so interpretations may vary. Works that aren't gushing adorations of Tobias will be included, but since this is an appreciation week, anything overtly negative will not be included.

I'm tagging those who have followed the event so far (and a few who may be interested) below. THANKS FOR CHECKING US OUT! :)

Tags: @alj4890 @songsaboutgirls @liaromancewriter @annoyingmillenialnewbie @hopelessromantic1352 @differenttyphoonwerewolf @trappedinfanfiction @jamespotterthefirst @lucy-268 @coffeeheartaddict2 @icecoffee90 @choicesficwriterscreations @choicesmonthlychallenge

[crusherthedoctor]

Your hottest Sonic takes?

Most of these are ones you'll already know, but here goes. I'll number them in no real order because bullet points always get lumped together when I use them no matter how I space them, which bothers me lol. And as always, these are just the ones that come immediately to mind, as I'm sure to have plenty more (I'm not a contrarian for contrarian's sake, I swear D:).

1. Just because I take faithfulness to the game canon seriously - hence my disapproval for adaptations that change shit for the sake of changing shit out of a misplaced sense of superiority - doesn't mean I think the game canon is perfect. Putting aside the obvious questionable quality of certain installments, there are also certain traditions in the games that I don't exactly appreciate, and refuse to tolerate them just because I'm apparently expected to (ie: the friends standing around being cheerleaders while Super Sonic does his thing, Eggman being usurped and/or forced to team up with Sonic so damn often, characters having a limited range of interactions with other characters, certain characters being rather obnoxiously OP, etc).

2. IDW Sonic is still a holier than thou asswipe whose actions and overall behaviour don't line up with how great and virtuous he supposedly is. Prime Sonic is still an unbearable dumbass, and the show and characters are grilling him for the completely wrong reasons.

3. If your only idea for redeeming Tails is making him a yes-man for Sonic, then I don't think you actually care about Tails aside from how good he makes Sonic look.

4. Shadow coming back after his not-death doesn't undermine SA2's ending. But him coming back so soon afterwards kind of does. They should have waited a lot longer before bringing him back.

5. Rouge is not a villain. Rouge is not a villain. Rouge is not a villain. And outside of her jewel obsession, she's not even that majorly anti-heroic after SA2.

6. Eggman is a villain. Eggman is a villain. Eggman is a villain. And you can flesh him out without softening him up. Pre-Frontiers games already did it FFS.

7. Just because Cream is a little girl, and acts appropriately for the most part compared to Tails, doesn't mean she should be infantilized by the other characters and by the writing. She's more capable than she's given credit for.

8. Merlina isn't that amazing. Better than the Mephiles-tier villains of course, but she still fell short of her unique concept.

9. Erazor Djinn AKA Qui-Gon Djinn AKA Tonic Djinn AKA Other Djinn Pun is the best villain who isn't Eggman, an Eggman robot, affiliated with Eggman, or Chaos.

10. I've made my apathy for Silver well known during the last few days cause of all the IDW Silver discourse, but I'll take it one spicier step further: when people defend him by saying he earned his place, I think "...Did he?"

Make no mistake, he absolutely does not deserve to be treated like garbage by the IDW crew either way, but compared to other recurring game characters, including similarly divisive ones like Shadow, I've always felt as though he was shoehorned into later games because he was already set to as the hot new character of the initially anticipated '06, rather than earning his place more organically if you get me. And when people say how awesome it was that he almost killed Sonic effortlessly twice in '06, I ask myself when Sonic getting textbook Worf'd in a game with his name on it was considered a good thing. I mean, is that the level of '06 stanning we're at now?

Or maybe I'm just letting my bitterness at (IMO) better characters remaining one-offs do the talking. I'm willing to admit that I am indeed bitter about that. :P (Also, I'd like to apologise to Silver fans for harping on about him like this a lot as of late. I really have nothing against his level-headed fans, and I still sympathise with them on his poor treatment in the comics despite my apathy towards him.)

11. Forces is one of Eggman's best showings despite the underutilized premise. That fans' only idea for "fixing" the game is usurping him with Infinite and/or the Phantom Ruby says a lot about how much they want him to be out of the way.

12. I don't understand why the in-game racing banter in TSR is taken so seriously. Speaking as someone who otherwise takes characterization very seriously, this is like if people started shitting on Mario Kart because of Luigi's death stare.

13. Other games are objectively worse (like '06 and Chronicles), but Frontiers is my personal least favourite Sonic game for... well, nearly everything about it. And neither Sage or The End are as deep or as fans make them out to be.

14. At this point, I separate the IDW characters into two categories. The first category consists of the characters who I just hate or find lame full stop (Surge and Kit, Rough and Tumble, Mimic). The second category consists of the characters that I think could have had potential if it weren't for the awful writing, that I begrudgingly feel somewhat bad for as a result, and as such would be willing to attempt to redeem if I could (Tangle, Whisper, Lanolin, Starline before he got turned into Toothpaste Snively).

15. I respect Daniel Barnes, his work and understanding of Sonic's character in particular is certainly of a higher quality than that of Flynn and Stanley, and he also has more integrity to be sure. But I can't currently buy into the full hype since I wasn't that interested in Scrapnik Island, and since I'm very cautious of the golden pedestal mentality, since that's how people like Flynn got as far as they have in the first place, I really wish the fans who are as tired of Flynn and Co's antics as I am would keep that in mind.

16. I prefer What I'm Made Of over Live & Learn.

17. I'm not a literal "Classic Good, Modern Bad" type of fan, but the things that I appreciate most about Sonic games tend to be associated more in the public consciousness - at least in terms of gameplay, use of playable characters, and aesthetics - with classic and classic-in-spirit games.

18. AoStH is better than SatAM because it had Long John Baldry. *dab* And SatAM was the first serious split in the franchise, and the influence of said split continues to this day with the Freedom Fighter stans and their desire to make everything like SatAM/Archie, meaning I wholeheartedly wish this show never existed. *double dab*

19. I don't have a guilty pleasure, because that would imply I feel any guilt for enjoying them. I enjoy 3D Blast as a fun little time waster without any shame, and I have ironic enjoyment for ShtH, also without any shame.

20. If you use mandates as an excuse for bad writing, I officially cannot trust anything you have to say on the writing, the characters, and probably the entire franchise.

[oh-a-very-toxic-octopus]

Finally got around to watching the Terminator films. We've seen 1–3 so far and I fucking love them. Spoilers in my rave below the cut.

The Terminator

Yeah, it's old and the score is cheap & doesn't rise like a modern audience expects and some of the dialogue is unintentionally silly, but the pacing of this film is mind-blowingly perfect and Linda Hamilton is just the coolest person on the planet. (Shout out to the invisible hand of Gale Anne Hurd, who surely did a lot here.)

The early character work is intensely 80s but I fell in love with Sarah and her buddies so quickly. Their chemistry is brilliant.

I love the stakes of the story and how succinctly they're explained. A lifetime of struggle and a near-impossible victory could be undone in an instant. Hhhh. We don't even need to see much of the future — its impact is evident in Reese (who I thought was Rhys, btw, so I died when it was revealed Reese was his surname and his first name was KYLE) and how battered and war-wearied he is.

The props and prosthetics are about as bad as you'd expect, but the team knew it and mitigated that by keeping those shots short. I loved the stop-motion terminator regardless. It's kinda charming and the final fight is so good I was carried away by the action.

Terminator 2

Jim is of the opinion this is the best Terminator film, so I went into it primed to be contrary, naturally. But I liked it!

I'm sad time and pop culture has removed the big reveal at the start; I can only imagine how fckn awesome it must have been to watch a contemporary screening of this film and experience the heel-face turn unspoiled.

The T-1000 is just plain cool, and the old CGI was clearly such a labour of love (and money) that it stands up remarkably well.

I love love the film's focus on what future sight really does to you, but I kinda hate it when characters go crazy, so I didn't much enjoy Sarah's early scenes.

I didn't much enjoy the sniper sequence either.

But in an unusual turn... I liked the kid actor and his interaction with the Terminator. The slang sounds even more ridiculous now than I imagine it did then, but it's fun.

As a result, I died at the end. When his arm was ripped off, I piped up all "omg, but they have another one for him in John's backpack!" Apparently Jim watched me from that point onwards and saw the moment my little heart broke, lmfao.

Terminator 3

I know this film gets a lot of hate, and I agree it skews too silly/kiddy in places, but the T-X was a really good active threat and seemed even more focused on her target than the T-1000. The boob joke was the only miss with her, in my opinion.

I enjoyed the film, liked the way it explored the impact of a supposed victory on John and then spanked him with that original fate/choices quote.

Kate was pretty cool but underutilized towards the end; I felt they failed to capitalise on the idea that she sent this Terminator back after it had killed her fckn husband. Not to understate how brilliant the final twist was to watch, but I wanted more Kate in the scene just before it; that final showdown shouldn't have been solely between Terminators, which 2 had clearly recognised.

I wish John's move with the T-800 in the hangar hadn't worked. Honestly it felt like Arnie had a hero clause or something; clearly the most impactful thing to happen there was a mirror of things to come, his attachment to a robot leading to his demise. Kate could have rescued him somehow and then have that image in her damn brain for decades until he's terminated in the future. I just... Yeah. Your main villain can control machines and she only hacks the good Terminator for three minutes? When there's so much emotional material to tap into with the betrayal? Boooo.

Overall I think 3 ties thematically into the other two films, so I like it and I'm unimpressed they've tried to hide it from the world. Might watch Dark Fate next and see how it fares as a replacement.

[destinygoldenstar]

My thoughts on Total Drama Next Generation cast so far

I said this before, I don’t like making judgements on characters until I’ve seen a full episode. So I don’t want to say I love or hate anybody just yet.

I also said that these looked like children of past cast members because of similar design features, and I stand by that still.

For clarification:

-Millie is the Lesharold kid, because of Leshawna’s body type, skin tone, and hair, and she has Harold’s hair fringe

-Ripper is the Nowen kid. EVERYONE has said this. And Ripper? JACK THE RIPPER, HELLO?

-Axel is the Duncney kid. HEAR ME OUT. She has Courtney’s skin tone. She has Duncan’s piercings. Duncan’s eye shape but Courtney’s eye color. She has a black top like Duncan did, and she has a white undershirt like Courtney did. The body shape is Courtney’s! 

-Chase is the MikexZoey kid. That may be a stretch, but to be, he has Mike’s face and skin tone, Mike influenced hair (even if it’s not exact), and he’s wearing red like Zoey did. How he’s more buff than Mike...? Idk, maybe that’s from his mom’s side.

-Caleb is the StephaniexRyan kid. I don’t think I need to explain this one. But good lord, if he’s actually their kid, then that’s a SERIOUS abusive household backstory he has going on. Maybe Caleb’s considered ‘the hot one’ by everyone as a way to cope with this, even if deep down, he’s a bisexual man. If you’ve seen the other poster I can’t show for internet reasons, I think you know what I’m talking about.

-Nichelle is the GwenxCameron kid. I DO NOT like the ship, but I can’t ignore this. Cameron’s skin tone, Gwen’s eyes. How her hair is blonde...? Idk, Gwen’s hair is dyed, so she might have been born blonde. 

-Julia is the SamxDakota kid. Idk, she just gives that vibe to me. I like the ripped jeans as well, I think that’s the best way I can explain it. Plus it’s cute to me.

-Bowie is the LeonardxTammy kid. Leonard’s skin. Leonard’s head. Tammy’s hair. 

-Wayne is the Gidgette kid. I WANTED to say that Wayne and Raj are brothers, BUT then Wayne wouldn’t be a Gidgette kid because Raj has NOTHING resembling Geoff or Bridgette. 

-Raj, but he DOES have a GeoffxBrody vibe. That’s WIERD to think about anyway. But hey, maybe they share the same dad in Geoff and they’re a happy surfer trio

Bridgette: “This is my husband Geoff and his husband Brody”

-Emma, a LindsayxBeth kid?? I WANT to say Lindsay and Tyler, but no, there’s nothing Tyler about her. She has Beth’s body type and side, and I don’t think I need to explain the blonde hair and blue eyes. I WOULD say Carrie and Devin because of the chin, but Carrie doesn’t have blue eyes, and neither does Devin.

-MK. THIS is the girl I have my eyes on. I am not the biggest Ezekiel fan, BUT with that said, she IS ‘Reverse Ezekiel’. You cannot convince me otherwise. She has the beanie and sweater, giving a homeschool vibe, just like Zeke did. I DO NOT think she’s Ezekiel’s ‘kid’, but she could be related to him. In that sense, I think they could do with her what they didn’t do with Zeke. 

In that sense, MK’s a finalist. She’s lasting to the very end.

The others, I don’t know yet. Damien MIGHT be a Lightning kid, but I don’t know for sure. (And no AleHeather kid? Me sad :( )

Now for my thoughts on the designs and names:

I love the designs. I know they’re not as out there as Paketiew, but I love them for that. These look like teenagers that could exist in the real world. These look like relatable characters.

And tbh, the reason I never included the other gens in my tier lists was because I never had much to say about them. I don’t count Ridonculous Race since that’s a spin off, BUT I do like that cast too, for the most part. 

The problem ISN’T ‘new gen casts and ditching the old cast is bad’. Danganronpa has 3 main games, ALL with new casts, and they’re ALL good in their own ways. It’s that the new casts are just not interesting characters compared to the first gen. They could have been! 

The Revenge cast is fine, but they’re horribly underutilized, especially with giving them only 13 episodes and jumping into All Stars.

And Paketiew... well, to be nice about it, I HATE the Paketiew cast. Except maybe Jasmine & Shawn. But that’s it. 

So, with 2 new seasons for this cast, this COULD be a redemption, to make this cast as loveable as the OGs. They’ll have the screen time to achieve that.

The names though? I’m... mixed on that. 

I like some of the names. Priya, Axel, Chase, Zee, Caleb, Nichelle, Julia, I LOVE those. Those are great.

But unless Nowen’s related, Ripper just... does NOT give a Ripper vibe to me. That might be a me issue. He could end up being my favorite character.

Scary Girl...

This MIGHT be a plot twist later on what her real name is, or it could be a gag, BUT, if it’s NOT, then what the heck is the point? Give her a real name! Until we find out, I’m calling her Quinn!

We have another Emma. Come on, why not Emily? That’s similar, but we don’t have an Emily yet. Maybe she has a nickname like Em? That’d work.

And then Bowie’s just a me problem. That doesn’t slip off the tongue well for me.

And for who I think the finalists are?

Like I said, MK. And...?

IDK, ROTI had two boys, so maybe this has two girls to balance things out?

In that sense, MAYBE Axel. She gives quite a but of main character vibes for me. But I’m not counting on it. All I know is that she’s probably, definitely, merging.

I feel like Millie, Ripper, Quinn, & Caleb are also merging. I would put my money on Caleb, Axel, and MK being my faves. But again, I’m NOT counting on it yet. I could end up hating them in the show.

Oh, and one last thing, the gay rep that I’m seeing? I’m CONCERNED. SERIOUSLY CONCERNED.

It looks to be Caleb and Bowie from the poster, and if the Caleb character arc I’m thinking of is real, then MAYBE it’ll work and they bring the best in each other. But I’m not getting good vibes from Bowie, and it looks like he’s gonna be a gay joke. 

Please don’t be toxic. Please don’t be toxic. Please don’t be toxic. 

So yeah, that’s all I have to say so far.

[sleepyjuniper]

What are some headcanons you have for Gregory? I've never thought too much about him so I think it'd be neat to hear what you have

Aside from Gregory being left handed? I'll see what I can come up with. I'll include some reasoning for my headcanons with each one I list, starting with the left handed theory.

1. Gregory is left handed

Every item Gregory holds in game— the flashlight, the fazcam, the fazerblaster, the fazwatch— he uses with his left hand. There are other games where player characters hold items, and some of them are held in the character's right hand, which is why I'm led to believe Gregory is just left handed. It doesn't carry any importance, really, and the devs probably didn't do it intentionally, but I like looking at him that way, since he's already such an oddball. It just makes him all the more endearing.

2. Gregory is sometimes nonverbal

This one is honestly me projecting a little, because I'm prone to being nonverbal at times too, but there is some game evidence to back it up. This is, once again, another example of a likely oversight when the developers were making the game, but there's several instances of scripted moments in the game where Gregory has no voicelines— namely the daycare sequence and all of the boss fights (except Afton's). This also makes him look a little bit insane, when he's interacting with a creepy daycare robot or being chased by a blind Roxy, and has nothing to say about it. But I like to imagine that based on his circumstances (whatever they may be) he hasn't talked to other beings a whole lot, so when he's by himself, he's usually silent. And he's so used to being silent because of how much he's alone, that when he IS with someone else, he'll sometimes fall into those nonverbal trances and have to be coerced out of it. This could also be combined with general antisocial behavior or shyness/awkwardness, because why wouldn't he have that problem, if he didn't have a standard, loving and safe childhood? He didn't get a chance to develop the social skills a kid his age would normally have.

3. He's a lost child, or an orphan

If you're asking me what *I* think his backstory is in regards to the game, that explains how he could end up in the Plex by himself, never mention his parents, and end up sleeping in a box in one of the endings, *I* think it's because he doesn't have parents, or has been separated from them for a long time. He would've had to be on his own for a while to have such an attitude of "I can handle myself, all I want to do is get out of this damn mall." Not trusting adults like Vanessa implies that he either has an uncanny sense for underutilized villains, or he's been evading adults and hiding in alleys and stuff for months, maybe years, though it's a painful thought to consider. He's clearly way tougher than he ever should have had to be.

OR— and this is much darker, something happened to his parents the day of him arriving at the Plex, which is why he fled and hid inside of Freddy, and then in the "leave" ending, wound up sleeping in a box. He wouldn't know where to go after escaping, just that he wanted to leave the Pizzaplex. Whatever happened to his parents, it's likely repressed, because he hasn't properly processed it and grieved.

Also, Gregory didn't have a guest profile, but he was still in the mall, so maybe he was with his parents and none of them had entry passes, then his parents got captured by authorities, but he escaped/got separated from them, and didn't know how to get back to them after the events of the game? Honestly I'm just spitballing here at this point, I have no clue LOL.

4. He knows swears, but doesn't like to use them

This is mostly inspired by that one scene in my fic where I had him say "shit" cause— I mean, the situation called for it. It was appropriate at the moment. I imagine he's heard swears, and probably grew up (at a very young age) being told not to swear, so he's got all these effective words in his head that he doesn't ever utter unless they just slip out. (He also probably doesn't know what all of them mean.) They're probably not even in mind normally, and are just tucked away somewhere in his memory. He does use a lot of soft swears, or more tame swears, (like the "oh crap!" We hear him say in game) because a kid swear can convey the frustration just as effectively. Could also be an attempt to make himself more palatable, because it helps his chances if he's not some scruffy lost kid who also swears like a sailor.

In general, I think whenever he does say a more adult swear, he'd be instantly ashamed, because he knows he's not supposed to be swearing. (Like, he definitely felt this after he swore in chapter 3 FFGSHDHDHH fun fact. Like, he was NOT making a good first impression with his new savior.)

5. That's All, Folks!

These turned out more rambly than I was planning, and I actually had a lot more fun writing out some of these thoughts than I was expecting. Even though I'm sure some of them just sound like nonsense. I hope you enjoyed reading nonetheless, and thank you so much for sending the ask, Ren! <33

I'm sure there's way more I could add to this, but for the sake of time, and me being tired as fuck boi, I decided to end it there. If you all want to see more of this though, feel free to send more asks like it, or ask about details you want talked about further!

[dragongutsixofficial]

I think Ladislava is incredibly underutilized, In the cannon yes, but also from a fanfiction standpoint. She deserved better than an offscreen death, (If the cast'd had any reaction at all you could have considered it fridging) and "captain of Edelgard's personal guard" is prime real estate for named character. I'm not asking that she become majorly important, but I think that just having her around makes the world feel open and alive. To have her around just doing her job is comforting, and for it to be done by a named character rather than Imperial Guard No. 3 is far more interesting

When I work with her, I imagine Ladislava as a woman of strong will, loyal to the crown and dedicated to doing her job. She would have been around since Edelgard was very young, making her a grounding force in Edelgard's life. In fact, I have her leaving her position as general to become captain of the guard again after the war, perhaps even on her own request. Edelgard is happy to oblige as she's missed having Ladislava around.

I also think it would be really funny if Edelgard had a crush on Ladislava as a small child. She's obviously forgotten all about this and is thoroughly embarrassed when Hubert brings it up, but Dorothea eats this kind of gossip for breakfast and Edelgard has to beg the both of them to stop talking.

I absolutely agree !! As a general rule, i think Ladislava, Randolph and Fleche are all under-utilized.

As for me, I agree with the fact that Ladislava and Randolph were probably in Edelgard's life way earlier than the plot brings them in! I did think Ladislava was younger though, so I pictured them more as starting their careers in Enbarr as soldiers around the time Edelgard (and the other siblings) are let out of the tunnels after the experiments- but that's just my headcanon. I'd like to think they became friends at this point (especially with Aline and Adel who would be closer in age to them), so that they'd be some of the first to learn about Edelgard's plans!

I also like to think that Ladislava, Randolph, Adel and Aline took bets on when and how Metodey would die and they found it all extremely underwhelming

I feel like Three Hopes fixed that problem with Randolph by giving him another role than just dying and being someone you can chat with at camp more often and all that but Ladislava is just. Forgotten yet again from what i remember xD

[zukkaoru]

oh gosh i already know like. all of these but ummm here are some options!!!

outlaw queen or kunichuuzai for ship

umm if you’re in the mood to complain, kouyou x yosano (idk their ship name) or emma x hook for the do not ship!

also did you know that. ily.

hi corey did you know that. ily🥰 also i am not going to get into why i don't ship emma and hook today i think. that will only make me worse. so i will refrain.

kunichuuzai

What made you ship it?

kunidazai compelled me in season 1 and skk compelled me in season 2 and i was like well. dazai has two hands. and then the more i thought about the potential kunichuu dynamic, the more i was like you know what they ALL have two hands!!

What are your favorite things about the ship?

they could help each other heal...... can anyone hear me. they can be home for one another!! they can be the only ones who see each other as human!! they can be vulnerable around each other!! they can be gentle around each other!! they can build a home for themselves!! they can make each other better and help each other grow!!

but also. first they have to fight to get there. they have to overcome their differences and they have to struggle to make anything work when they're part of rival organizations and they have to decide whether or not this is worth the effort it's going to take and they have to realize that love is a choice that they will have to make over and over again. and i do really like when it starts as dazai being forced to accept that he wants both kunikida and chuuya. because dazai is so bad at wanting things but when it comes to this, he wants more than he thinks he can have which is cruel and unusual punishment except!! it's not impossible!! and in the end, he does get what he wants!! and it turns out even better than he could have ever expected!!

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

kunichuuzai is superior to skk. also i think there is underutilized potential in dazai and kunikida being together first and chuuya joining later BUT there is underutilized potential in kunichuuzai as a whole so. i am very happy to see any and all of it

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outlaw queen

What made you ship it?

you're gonna bully me so hard for this but um. i actually watched ouat out of order. which i'm blaming on my parents bc they only let me start staying up to watch it when season 3 was airing even though my sisters got to stay up and watch it when they were like eight but it's FINE anyway. so i found out that robin was regina's soulmate at the same time regina did - during the scene in zelena's cabin. and i was like oh??👀 OH???? and everything was downhill from there basically

What are your favorite things about the ship?

they were each other's second chance.... they were soulmates..... regina's happy ending was finally feeling at home in the world and robin was a part of that world!!!!!!!!

Is there an unpopular opinion you have on your ship?

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k.ousano

Why don’t you ship it?

i'm gonna be so real with you all. yosano would not be able to stand kouyou. i truly don't think yosano could ever be interested in someone who works so closely with mori. i don't think yosano would have an issue with dating someone from the mafia in general but specifically bc kouyou is an executive, and has (i believe) held that role longer than the rest of the executives, and clearly respects mori at least as a boss, i don't think yosano would be able to be in a relationship with her. i think that's something she would not be able to overlook. also i really don't think she would like how kouyou treated kyouka

What would have made you like it?

idk maybe if kouyou didn't like. just show up to be overly protective of kyouka in a very toxic way. and then disappear forever. but even then it would highly depend on how her character was potentially further developed and there's still the whole "mafia executive working closely with mori issue" ://

Despite not shipping it, do you have anything positive to say about it?

based on aesthetics and appearances alone, they are a very attractive ship. i cannot deny this. also i do thank k.ousano shippers for at least giving the female bsd characters some attention even if i disagree with the ship on a fundamental level and will likely never read fics for it. the fanart is very pretty. i do in fact often find myself wishing i shipped them just so i could actually fully appreciate the art & fics