#old and modern anime have differences of pacing and all

[randomnameless]

I recently watched some TV and happened on Amazon's Fallout tv show -

I never played the games but I think ultimately it didn't matter that much since the series is pretty self-explanatory, but what I really liked is how the heroine, despite being backstabbed, betrayed and insulted for like, the majority of her time "outside" in the post apocalyptic world where people excuse this sort of behaviour as "doing whatever it takes to survive", she still remains the kind of person who upholds, whenever she can, the values from her sheltered life (lol) in a peaceful community of mutual aid and refuses - unless necessary - to behave like the people who mistreated her.

There's a scene where someone, who used her as a bait to lure a giant mutated fish, forced her to drink radioactive water and I think it's implied had her indulge in cannibalism, sells her to people who traffic human organs in exchange for some medicine - the heroine survives but when she sees her former captor on the ground, on death's door because of the lack of medicine, she still gives him some, because she still believe in the rule she was taught, to not inflict on someone the things you wouldn't want to be inflicted on yourself.

And I liked how this positive/naive way - at odds with the general atmosphere from this "post nuclear world" - is portrayed with shady group of people whom you are led to believe engage in human experimentations and want to keep a secret at all costs... but when the heroine discovers this secret and is found out, the shady group of people, far from executing her... just throw her out of their community, and give her food/drinks to survive outside.

Ultimately, when she meets the person who is the reason why she had to live her "shelter/vault" and venture outside, because that person kidnapped her father and killed people living in her vault - instead of killing her or planting a bomb in the, uh, thing she was supposed to exchange for her father, again, asks her to please return her dad in exchange for the "thing she brought".

Of course plot happens - but where I expected some "I had some life experiences and now I'm #badass and #jaded and #sweareverytenwordstoshowhowbadassibecame", I was pleasantly surprised when it wasn't the case.

Maybe it's just the first season and it'll change later on.

And I compared this to the few episodes of some random indian tv show where we follow two policemen dealing with terrorists setting bombs -

In true "early 2000" shows, the officers don't hesitate to, uh, break the protocol and use force to interrogate people - to the point of, when they have to interrogate a grandpa suspected of money laundering, they pick his grandson at school and bring him to the warehouse where grandpa is being interrogated, which makes grandpa talk, of course because the policemen brought grandson as a thinly veiled threat... - and I thought we were back in the era of "gritty" antiheroes who do "bad stuff" but for the "greater good" so they get a pass -

I still don't know if the writers intended to convey this message, but karma striked back when, one of the policeman has to corner a terrorist who, in turn, uses a kid as a hostage.

Of course, being a "nice" person, he puts the kid's safety above his own, much like the grandpa who talked to protect his grandkid, and the terrorist got what he wanted - the policeman was killed, much like the policeman got his intel after threatening grandpa - and didn't kill the kid afterwards.

If you use a kid as a hostage, what makes you think the same thing can't happen to you?

Coupled with the fact that his operation to arrest/corner the terrorists was mounted "outside" of the proper regulations and organisations, because they wanted to strike fast - meant they had no backup and ultimately ended up in a mess, with the death of one of the two policemen and the terrorist escaping - and this is a valid point that is, well, brought out by the female lead to which the surviving policeman has nothing to reply, because she's right.

(I keep my expectations low for the next episodes because of experience)

Anyways, watching those two series really lampshaded that I'm too old for the #dark and #gritty and #realism, and I'm maybe not the only one.

Being kind/nice hero is always harder than becoming dark/jaded antihero, but hey, at the end of the day, if you complain about murdered babies when you already murdered some, are you fighting for the "greater good" or are you just a hypocrite?

[man-down-in-hatchet-town]

THERE'S A CASTLE ON THE HILL, AS THE STORY GOES...

As promised, some initial thoughts on the things I loved about seeing this show. Spoiler free, since most of us haven't gotten to see it yet, and under the cut since I do wax a bit poetic...

Cinderella’s Castle is, in a strange way, an exercise in irony. The show is a retelling of an ancient story that is beloved and recited throughout so many cultures, and yet somehow feels completely fresh. The modern take on glam-punk lighting, a score infused with styles from 80s synth to anime, a high fantasy set with the costumes to match, the spirit of Jim Henson lingering through both the puppets and some larger and intangible vibe, a script combining that Starkid humor and Hatchetfield darkness with a whole different style of speaking… all of these beautifully executed elements melted together into something that I’ve never before seen. To take a tale as old as time and make it unique is no easy feat, but Starkid did so with magic and charm to spare.

Like any good Starkid show, Cinderella’s Castle is relentlessly dynamic: fun and tragic and exciting and just-plain-silly, with many twists and turns and character moments will make you gasp or cheer just as often as you laugh. It simply rollicks. The story clicks right along, especially in act 2, but the characters are so distinct and fun that I found myself almost wishing the Langs had sacrificed their plotting and pace just to spend more time hanging with every single member of this ensemble of personalities.

And that’s also a tribute to the actors themselves. Jeff is David Bowie reborn as the impish and fabulous narrator. Jon and Joey bring Hop A Lot and Crumb to life with so much charm and presence that they practically had the audience eating out of their hands from the very first second. Like, seriously, you will not believe how invested you will immediately become in these talking animals. Kim’s Fairy Queen is as radiant and terrible as promised; her portrayal of immortal inhuman power compels and commands and stands fully distinct from the Lords in Black. Lauren and Mariah are delightfully disgusting as the vile but deeply lovable troll step-sisters; you can feel the fun they’re having practically radiating off of them. Curt’s Tadius is dryly funny and put-upon, but also provides a vitally grounding and centering presence in the larger-than-life world of the Lands That Are. His big scene with Bryce is probably my favorite part of the whole show. James Tolbert is nothing short of an absolute STAR as the Prince, stealing scene after scene after scene with ease and charm and more jokes about genitalia than I think any of us expected. Angela once again displays a completely different facet of her never-ending range, exuding such elegance and control even in trollish filth that I do fear that the kids on the internet are going to start calling her “mother” with greatly increasing frequency. "Facade" was an absolute highlight of the night. And of course Bryce anchors, propels, and heightens every scene she’s in with such apparent ease you forget she’s been rehearsing for weeks and isn’t simply Ella herself. Ella is this world’s bruised, brave, and angry heart, and you will absolutely root for her every step of the way as she wrestles with who she is and learns what it means to claim her own power.

This was Starkid’s biggest budgeted show to date, and you could tell. This group of Michigan Wolverines and friends have accomplished incredible things since the Very Potter days of a single door and some cardboard columns, and I’m so proud of how far they’ve come. And yet Cinderella’s Castle, the fifteenth musical in the fifteenth year, still retains some of that core Starkid magic that I’ve always believed boils down to love. You can so often see that love emanating from the performers on a Starkid stage: love for the show, for their friends, for their craft, for the audience’s energy pushing them through. And the sense of love and support and community radiating from the audience is just as palpable. The man sitting behind me last night was at his first ever Starkid show, and afterwards he remarked in awe how that was the best audience he’d ever been in. And all that love isn’t unearned—it is built and it is nourished by a proud history of creativity, of song and of dance and of laughter and tears. And Cinderella’s Castle, I think, is going to prove an installment worthy of both Starkid’s past and future.

Starkid family, Bogs Hollow grants thee Starlight.

[officialaemondtargaryen]

From Her Knees

❝either we're smoking, or we're drinking, or we're at each other's throats. ❞

Summary: You're in a toxic relationship with Aegon.

Pairing: Modern Aegon Targaryen x Unnamed Female Character (no Y/N)

Word Count: ~1.5 k

Author’s Note: This is a rewrite of an old fic for a different character, but it fits Aegon so well that I had to write it for him. I hope that you enjoy it! As always your support through a reblog or comment is appreciated!

Warnings: alcohol use, language, p in v intercourse, oral (m receiving), mentions of previous domestic abuse, they are so bad for each other.

“You don’t do anything, Aegon!”

That was true.

The words she screamed at him usually were. He knew that, of course. That’s why it pissed him off so much. She was always right and she rubbed it in his face every single time. He had been home less than an hour after the shittiest day and she was already gunning for him.

“When am I ever here?” He spat. “I’m never fucking here! And when I am here, I have to listen to you bitch, and moan, and complain, and I’m fucking sick of it!”

That was also true.

He was almost always working; bearing the cross of being his father's son, forced to live a life he despised. It was exhausting, and draining, and all he wanted to do was come home and rest for the few short hours that he had before he had to get up and do it all over again. She’d never let him, though.

“Oh, you’re sick of it? Boo-fucking-hoo, Aegon,” she threw her hands up in the air. “What are you going to do? Leave? You tried that before, remember? It didn’t work.”

She was right again. How many times had they broken up? They had probably been separated more times than they had actually been together. He broke up with her the night before over something equally as futile, and yet, here he was again.

He just couldn’t stay away.

“You’re such a fuckin’ bitch!” He yelled. “You know that?” 

Yeah, she knew. She always had been and he always knew it. Yet, he stayed, she stayed. The two couldn’t stay away from each other.

They were moths to a flame.

He threw the door open, marching outside to the balcony, cigarette already lit and beer bottle in his hand. He slammed the door behind him, but she didn’t flinch. She was used to slamming doors, used to him in her face. Their screaming fits turned into fist fights almost every single time.

“Yeah, well fuck you,” she mumbled.

She poured herself a drink, swallowing the warm liquid quickly; it burned the whole way down. His silhouette danced along half-opened blinds as he paced back and forth on the balcony. Through the thin glass of the door she could hear him talking to himself; talking himself through hypothetical arguments while waving his hands in the air as he rehearsed. She didn’t even know why she was mad anymore. That’s how it was most nights. Something so small would trigger one of them, and then one sarcastic remark after the other and they were fighting again. The only time they ever got along was when they were both drunk, high, and fucking like animals on the closest surface available.

He was contemplating leaving again. Contemplating grabbing the keys, getting in the car, and spending the night in the gutter of some bar. This relationship was toxic. It always had been. His family begged him to stay away from her; the ‘narcissistic bitch’ they called her. Told him she was no good for him and that all she did was use him for money and sex. No matter how many times he tried to tell them that wasn’t true, they still wouldn’t believe him.

She didn’t want or need money. She didn’t want or need the sex. Hell, she barely wanted him. She could do so much better, they both knew it. She was beautiful and smart, and had everything going for her. Why she was sucked into this black hole of a fling, he would never know, and at times that made him feel even worse; knowing that she- in all of her holier-than-thou attitude and narcissistic personality disorder- she was still the prize of the two of them. He was just some cubicle junkie who only amounted to anything because of his last name, not because he cared.

Not because he was good at anything.

He came back inside when he was done smoking his cigarette and feeling sorry for himself. She was sitting at the table waiting for him. That was it, that was all it took; either he left or it was going to be World War III. He knew it by that shrewd look in her eye. The one that said, ‘you say one word to me, and I’m going to hurl this bottle of Jack Daniels at your fucking head’. He pulled the keys from the counter and started making his way back towards the door.

“Where the fuck are you going?” She asked him, standing up from her seat at the table and placing her hands on her hips.

He rolled his eyes and stopped. He really, really didn’t want to argue with her. He was tired, his muscles were sore, and he was so fed up with her shit. When he turned to face her, he sighed internally. She looked so cute standing there like that. Like at any moment she could just jump on him and claw his eyes out.

He hated crazy, but he loved her crazy.

“Well?” She drew out after not getting an answer the first time.

She was really trying to start something, and Aegon was caught in a cross hair; if he answered her, they fought. If he didn’t answer her, they still fought. If he left, they’d fight when he came back. Either way, there was going to be a fight.

“I’m getting the fuck out of here!” He yelled, knowing that everyone in their apartment complex could hear him. “Away from you and you’re fuckin’ voice that’s like nails on a goddamned chalkboard.”

All he had to do was say ‘I’m leaving’. He didn’t have to add the comment about her voice. But back-handed remarks were his thing, and he really couldn’t keep his mouth shut when it really mattered.

“Oh my voice is like nails on a chalkboard, huh?” She replied. “You aren’t saying that when you’re asking me to scream for you in bed! And trust me, the only reason I would be screaming is in laughter because your dick is so fucking small!”

She was in his face now, not intimidated at all by the way his eyes darkened. His fists were balled. He had hit her before a few times, and he always felt bad about it. But Gods, she was so annoying.

“What are you going to do? Hit me?” She egged on.

He was seriously thinking about it. Shut her up for the rest of the night. She might even pack her bags and stay with someone else for a few weeks. But he couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t. Instead he grabbed her by the arms and pulled her into him, crashing his lips on to hers. It didn’t take long at all for her to wrap her legs and arms around him.

They wasted no time; Aegon pushed her up against the wall, unbuttoned his jeans, pulled her panties to the side, and spit in his hand to wet the tip of his cock before he pushed himself into her. She gasped, fistfuls of his hair. Her mouth hung open as he pounded into her, slamming her up against the wall with each thrust. Her heavy moaning in his ear only added to the built up frustration that he needed to take out on her. She nibbled at his ear lobe, sending a shiver down his spine.

“I fuckin’ hate you,” he groaned in between thrusts.

Aegon pulled out of her and forced her down to her knees, shoving his wet cock into her mouth. She sucked the taste of herself off of him with pleasure before he pulled himself out and slapped the tip against her cheek, exploding on her face. He stood there for a minute, riding out the climax as she licked the dripping seed from his shaft. Then, she looked up at him from her knees; the sticky white liquid covering her face as she smiled. 

This was why he couldn’t stay away.

She stood up, adjusting her clothes, and wiped the semen off of her face with the t-shirt she had pulled off of him. Aegon fixed his pants and plopped down on the couch.

“Grab me another beer, would you?” He asked after a yawn.

She resisted the urge to laugh out loud. “Get your own fucking beer.”

“You’re so ungrateful!” He replied.

“I’m ungrateful?” She started. “I fucking cook your meals, wash your fucking clothes, do your fucking dishes! And what do you do? Nothing!”

She suddenly realized why she was mad at him in the first place.

“Here we go again,” He replied with a groan. “For the last time, I’m never fucking here!”

[deadtiredghost]

Tmnt facts that are canon cause i said so:

All Leo's are sci-fi fans of varying degrees of old sci-fi series/movies

But MM!Leo thinks the old movies are old and thus has no major franchise to obsess over, he is just big into any of the more modern movies of the genre: I'm thinking Interstellar, Blade Runner, idk many more. And then he started watching Final Space and eventually got into Futurama.

But he still would think the other Leo's are old and a bit lame for enjoying old anime so much.

All the Donnie's and Leo's are the musical fans, but that doesn't mean that Raph and Mikey can't enjoy a musical too! Especially 2003!Raph who grew up watching shit like high school musical and teen beach movie with Leo and Donnie.

The 2003 boys all teamed up to sit on Mikey and tape Mikey's mouth shut cause he would dramatically and badly sing the songs otherwise.

2018 crew are hard into Hamilton of course while 2012 have a knock off version of it that flopped but Mikey loves.

2003 have a musical version of Lost Boys and Faries that could possibly be comparable with some rap songs and some emotional ballads.

Bayverse and MM have batman while 2018 have a weird mixture of some irl media and some really obvious knock offs. 2012 has Wingnut and Silber sentry as comics to replace Marvel and DC in their universe and we all know how 2003 is on superheroes.

All the Mikey's are naturally talented at drawing apart from 2012 who's skills apparently just got transferred to literally every single one of his siblings.

2012!Mikey's writing looks like chickenscratch and his drawings are chaotic in an abstract art kinda way, while 12!Leo can draw anime, 12!Karai is decent at drawing anything reallt, 12!Donnie preffers skatching items and backgrounds rather than people and 12!Raph is the one who does art the most in the fam.

The 1987 turtles are stuck in 1987 and have been since 1987. They like crossovers for the change of pace but 87!Raph and 87!Donnie very much dislike how other turtles have treated them in the past so take any and ever chance to fuck with their alternates in retaliation, feigning innocence well enough that they keep getting away with blatantly insulting their iterations to their face.

Leo is the tea drinker in the family across iterations but most of the iterations don't drink coffee - rottmnt gets into coffee wars (sans Leo and Splinter) but other than that 2007!Donnie and Bayverse!Raph are the only rabid coffee drinkers.

most of the Donnies drink energy drinks if they want a caffeine boost - the nonbinaries and their Monster especially.

The MM kids aren't allowed coffee because Splinter read a watched of child-raising YouTube videos and banned it. Of course that doesn't stop them from sneaking out. MM!Donnie is trying to convince him to allow coffee while MM!Raph just sneaks in his energy drinks.

2003!Casey was convinced the turtles were adults for at LEAST the first month into their friendship.

The ampunt Mikey wears stickers is directly proportional to the amount of leeway Splinter gives him - with the used-to-be-human Splinters being more strict on not personalising his weapon while the used-to-be-rat Splinters such as MM gives the go ahead.

The outlines of this rule are 03!Splinter and 18!Splinter of course who have entirely different ways of handling their adhd child.

And then there is bayverse!Splinter who said fuck the stickers, yes of course my 15-year-old children can have tattoos.

(And yes I firmly believe they were 15 in the first movie, and I attribute their tattoos to Splinter not really seeing the harm in it, or caring much as long as it won't hurt them.)

18!Leo is biologically the eldest but no one knows this apart from Draxum who will never tell at this point. Splinter aged them based on size.

On the other hand, 03!Leo is the biological youngest but only Donnie knows this (science shit to find it out) and will never tell anyone because he found out that 03!Mikey hatched first and that information can never be allowed to get to the turtle in question.

2012 Casey is transfem but doesn't know it yet and 2018 Casey is what 12!Casey will look like at 20.

All Donnie's watch anime and all Mikey's watch horror movies - despite how much they may or may not scream at the horror movies.

07!Mikey sells art online and 07!Leo becomes a language tutor in their 20's. Ironic as 12!Raph attempts to sell art online but becomes too emotionally attached to his work and 12!Donnie attempts to tutor for a time but is a terrible teacher.

Leo is a basketball or baseball fan, Raph likes wrestling and basketball, Donnie will partake in basketball or volleyball and Mikey prefers dancing but is open to playing anything... just not watching.

Splinter always watched the tennis, becuase his grandmother did. Leo likes to put it on but doesn't like playing it.

Mikey will forever be confused why the others enjoy watching sport. This stemms from when he was 12 and trying to watch his cartoons and Splinter would always take control of the TV during the Olympics. Mikey is still very salty and has an agenda against the Olympics and any other big sports match on their communal TV.

All the Leo's before 2012 just didnt use the Internet or any electronics as a kid and thus struggles with electronics massively.

Conversely 2012 and 2018 Leo were both on tumblr as kids and read fanfic about Space Heros and Jupiter Jim respectively.

And in addition: Donnie was on the Internet far too much as a kid.

(12!Donnie will never tell but 12!Mikey befriending Chris Bradford on Facebook hit a bit too close to home.)

After Don, Raph is the best at mechanics, other than 18!Raph who is kinda shit at them.

Splinter taught all of the turtles first aid but Raph and Mikey are patched up the most by the other two, which leads to the other two being more confident and skilled at first aid.

Leo's first aid experience is very much similar to an army medic, using improvisation based on his prior knowledge without any of the proper hospital procedure while Donnie's is much more based on his research into medicine and thus much more clinical.

The outliers are the 18!kids cause Donnie finds biological shit kinda disgusting unless he HAS to do it.

And then there is the 87!turtles who don't really get hurt for longer than an episode's run time. Despite this every single one of them are able to accurately and skillfully carry out any medical procedure should the need arise becuase cartoon logic and convenience. It is a skill they have and its usually 87!Donnie ordering them about while 87!Raph plays nurse.

Mikey and Raph spray paint together sometimes in all iterations other than 87.

87!Mikey and 87!Leo have never kmowingly committed a crime.

Mikey looks up to Leo most out of his siblings, and Leo would look up to Mikey in turn if he could get over the jealousy towards his youngest brother.

There is not a single itteration where Leo doesn't sometimes kinda wish he could be more like Mikey - he has never voiced these feelings and hates that he feels this jealousy.

If you wake Leo up from sleeping he will be alert, a bit grumpy about it, but will never turn you away. He rarely gets a full good night's sleep anyways, ans becuase of this he is prime target to bother when he is awake... up until they turn 14 where Leo gets into the habit of pretending to be asleep so Mikey doesn't bother him and starts meditating until he falls asleep.

The prior headcannon excludes rottmnt and mutant mayhem.

Mikey starts bothering Donnie more and joins him in the lab late at night a lot.

If you dare to disturb Raph's beauty sleep you will get a pillow to the face and a shouting to at the least.

Everyone of the turtles loves Kung Fu Panda or whatever similar movie exists in their world. They won't admit it but its because Poe reminds them of Mikey.

Raph maintains that he doesn't like physical contact much to get out of hugging the sweaty humans in his life. He is actually fairly chill with hugs he just hates the feeling of sweat on his scales so much, and learnt that the hard way when Casey brought him in for a hug after a fight and he shoved him off and blustered a bit. But any of his siblings hugging him is fine, he only ever shoves them off out of annoyance.

Donnie is the least huggy turtle, but he will sometimes lean his full body weight on April - which is fine in most iterations but some cannot handle the weight, I'm looking at Bayverse.

If Mikey were a human he would be a borderline nudist when home and everyone who lived with him would complain about it.

Like [insert hair covering here] and a fluffy dressing gown from when he was 9 wrapped around the waist if you're lucky.

[marieracingteam]

Till then I will forever miss you – sv5

Sebastian Vettel x reader

word count: 1588

summary: In which Sebastian Vettel knew he couldn’t be friends with his ex-partner until he got his priorities straight.

The news about Sebastian Vettel’s retirement was out and everywhere. His video has already been shared more than a million times in the few days it has been out. So he guessed anyone with a minor interest in the sport knew who he was and what the future looked like to him now.

Or at least what they imagine his future would look like.

The reality is that not even Sebastian knew what life had in store for him.

He was a divorced thirty-something, with three daughters who lived away from him most of the year and an apartment that made him feel like a caged animal. He had 4 world championships and a full passport, but he also had 35 years behind him in which he felt that he had achieved nothing in his personal life.

He could try and blame his fast-paced professional life for his half-hearted personal life, but he couldn't deny that he was mostly to blame for his failed marriage to a wonderful woman, his poor parenting of wonderful daughters who adored him, and his too-modern home in a city he hated.

Since his divorce, he had dedicated all his energy to racing and fast cars, but he quickly discovered that his heart wasn't in it either. So he obviously knew that he should retire and leave that seat free for someone whose heart was at the wheel.

The worst thing was that Sebastian knew where his heart was, he just didn't know how to get to it. It just had been lost since 2015.

Without it, he had been floundering ever since. He had moved, he had pursued a different lifestyle, he had gotten married, he had even changed teams trying to find it, but he always knocked on the wrong doors only. The truth was that the closest he had been to happiness had been when his daughters were born, but by then he was no longer the man he wanted his daughters to learn from.

But now, he thought. Now he was free of the chains to which he had bound himself. Now he was finally starting to realize his mistakes and taking the right steps to correct them. Now he was ready to be the man he wanted to be, for himself and, most importantly, for his daughters.

After the last race of the season, Sebastian took the first flight to his native Germany and completely left behind his past life and the mistakes he had carried in it.

He bought a house in the country as he had always dreamed of and painted rooms with children's motifs for small beds and toys. He adopted a dog as his psychologist had recommended. And he dusted off the old cell phone that he always carried with him.

It was a long shot and he knew it, but it was the only thing he could think of to find peace and happiness.

In those long eight years, there was a good chance that she had changed her number or blocked him. Maybe she too had gotten married and had a life away from him, probably better than the one he could offer her.

Maybe she had forgotten him. Maybe he should have forgotten her.

But there was no chance, however remote, that he could live in a world in which she did not occupy his thoughts at all hours. He'd been a stupid kid when he'd let her get away thinking he could do it.

He had promised her father that he would do right by her and that is what he had tried to do all his life since he met her in school. His problem had been thinking that he was doing it when he let her go so that she could find happiness away from his chaotic life when she wanted to start a family and he could only think about lifting the championship cup with the red team.

He had been a fool thinking a trophy could give him more than a life with her and even more so for believing that she could be happier away from him.

And all for what? To end up forming a family far from hers? To have his heart searching for something that he knew he would only find with her? He was a fool and he had paid for it by being miserable for the next few years, thinking that his repentance was not enough to deserve her back.

Now, something about him had changed, although he wasn't sure what at the moment. He knew now. It had been the robbery he suffered during one of the Grand Prix he raced in which he lost the photo he kept of her in her wallet. He had hundreds more hidden in his house, but that one was special. That had been a gift from her after graduating from school, a photo that her parents had taken of them to remember their last day as classmates, and that she had wanted him to have to remember her if they were not classmates at high school.

Losing that photo had been the last blow he needed to get her life back in order. When he retrieved the empty wallet he could only kneel on the ground and cry for the life he had lost. And when he found it after hours looking for it in all the garbage containers in the city he knew to do something, even if it was for nothing.

Less than a year later he was a different man. What remained to be known is whether she was also a different woman. And what that meant to them.

After breaking up their relationship, they both accepted that they couldn’t be friends. Not when they knew what it felt like to be more. Not when they had never been friends.

Since they were six years old they had been best friends, lovers, confidants, each other's other half... but never friends. Now they were nothing, not even acquaintances who follow each other’s lives on social media. Despite having let her be free to find happiness elsewhere, Sebastian knew that he couldn't bear to see her happy away from him.

He thought he was sacrificing himself for her when in reality he had just condemned them both.

However, now he wanted to change it and his only asset was that old phone that he had kept as his most precious possession.

The only number still saved there was the one he used to call at all hours and that he still had memorized.

By the fourth ring, Sebastian was convinced he had lost his last hope. But she had always told him that a fifth championship awaited her. And there was no better victory in his eyes than that fifth tone that she cut to make way for the voice that always accompanied him.

“Hello?” she whispered in German.

“Hello” he whispered back and he felt like coming finally home “I didn't know if you had changed your phone number”

“I did” she confessed “but I kept the phone in case you ever called”.

Sebastian completely forgot the paper he held tremblingly in his hand with everything he wanted to say written down when he heard her.

“You did?” he dared to ask.

“Of course,” she said “who could I not?”

“I didn’t hope you would wait” It was difficult to hear her with her racing heartbeat in his ears, but Sebastian did his best to memorize every one of her words.

“I have always waited for your love, Sebastian”

At that he couldn’t hold any longer the tears that begged to break free from his eyes. A sob left his mouth. What had he condemned them to when he chose for her?

“Everything's fine. We have a lot to tell each other, it's fine. It was difficult for me, but I understood why you did it. It wasn't our time, we didn't know how to align our dreams. But I felt your love in your sacrifice. Everything is alright.”

Sebastian could only nod even if he knew she couldn't see him. Words could not come out of his mouth with his body paralyzed in the only chair he had for now in his new living room. That photo that she almost lost on her knee staring at him.

“I’m back” he gathered the strength to say.

“I know” he answered.

“I came back for you” was his time to confess.

She laughed timidly at that and more tears escaped his eyes. “I know”.

“Can I see you?” he begged.

There was a lot he hadn't asked. He didn't know anything about what his life had been like in those eight years, so he didn't even know if he could ask that question. But he had to do it now that he had worked up the courage to do it.

“Sebastian... I also tried to look for you elsewhere” she whispered again, probably afraid of what those words could mean for both of them.

“I don’t care, liebe. There's nothing you can say that will make me love you less”.

“I have my two boys with me till next month” she said.

“I have my daughters with me next week for a month too”.

She laughed again and he knew she also felt it. He knew that she felt that everything was fine now, that everything was finally falling into place.

They will be fine.

[franki-lew-yo]

Chicken Run 2 things I did really like:

It's a fun and small nod to irl chicken farming, but I like that the pen the chickens are kept in in Funtime Farms is an indoor pen. That's how modern poultry gets by on the "free range" excuse.

Genuinely appreciate how much and how well this movie states Ginger's awesomeness through Rocky or other people. It's not too distracting and it's earned. She is the iron chicken and it's a good way to hype up the character without telling you rather than showing you. God. I love Ginger.

Nick and Fetcher needed more scenes with Molly because them being attached and joining in just to save their "niece" is adorable and a great expanse on their characters. Good.

Rocky was a great dad and way better written than the original but still very much Rocky. That's how you do a 'wrote a potentially problematic love interest 20 years ago now here's them updated for modern ''wokeness' standards,' PIXAR. I liked him being both a hinderence and an accessory to Ginger. Shows why and what I like about them as a couple. I especially like how, without even showing you, that Rocky was the one to tell Molly what she needed to know but did not expand on just how traumatized Ginger really is from her ordeal. That's both in character and a believable thing a parent would do when their kid is simply prodding about their past, rather than directly asking their parent. Also, given it's Rocky and he already didn't have a perfect sitch going on as a circus animal, he probably didn't hype it up as perfect but more or less leaned into how adventurous he and Ginger were.

Ginger and Molly and their whole plot of not understanding each other was fine. Ginger being an overprotective parent who never wants to leave the island now and is enforcing her flock never to leave works better here than in contrived direct to video movies like Lion King 2 or Little Mermaid 2. The annoying thing about these kinds of stories is, simply put, the audience is screaming at the parent to just better communicate with their kids, especially when it's not like Ginger is too haunted to talk about the farm to other characters. What was needed, I think, was real establishment that Molly knows her mom escaped from a farm but doesn't truly know what a farm is and what would happen to her on one. Maybe also have it clear that Ginger is so set on being a "free chicken" she refuses to even talk about her past with Molly- somehow thinking that her old life before was beneath what she is now, even though she was the one who escaped from it and was always worth the lifestyle she deserves. Would be a great call forward to Ginger's slight (understandable) apathy for chickens outside her flock that would come full circle to her being the character she always is and is best at. Over all I liked her, Rocky and Molly a lot. I just wished I could have heard Julia Sawahla instead.

Pacing actually moved decently for once for a modern animated kids film. That's impressive, especially for a sequel.

Mrs. Tweedy saying she "gave Ginger everything a hen could ask for" was really illuminating for her character. Really, much as I wish this wasn't the same character, I love Mrs. Tweedy wanting revenge on Ginger. On a chicken. Her dialogue revealing that she thought the life she gave the chickens on her old farm was "good" for them tells you so much about her and how she sees herself as a good farmer only if she's a successful farmer.

Haha the ending shot is perfect.

Okay one thing about this movie- this may be actually be a bad thing depending on your diet choices -this movie makes me actually really hungry for chicken and chicken nuggets. This whole franchise isn't inherently vegetarian or trying to be anti meat, granted, but that is the take away from the character's perspective given that they are the chickens. To put this a different way: the first movie makes eating chicken really unappetizing from the beginning with the "roll call" scene and the pies the chickens would potentially turn into, over the top as it is, also unpleasant. You definitely don't get anything close to the "roll call" scene in this film. A chicken does die but it's all so offscreen it has no impact, so when she's cartoonishly instantly turned into nuggets that Mrs. Tweedy eats, you don't feel anything...you kind of wanna eat the nuggets. Apologies to any chickens reading that. Here, have some happy chickens to counteract the pain:

[stemmmm]

Stem's thoughts on Harvest Moon: Back to Nature

This game is the first to boast a set of mechanics that I think are the most easily recognizable as how modern farming sims work. It’s the first to have cooking, a detailed tool-upgrading process, a mine…  All prior games have been leading up to this!

This is the first console release that I had no idea even existed. In hindsight, it explained why I kept running into game screenshots that looked like they were from a certain game but definitely weren’t whenever I went on random google-images sprees, because this is a straight up asset flip. It’s impossible to play this without comparing it to Harvest Moon 64, the console release that came out not even a year prior. Going in, I was worried I wouldn’t be able to assess this game without comparing it heavily to the remakes that came after it, considering Friends of Mineral Town was the first HM series game that I personally owned and I played it to death, but that proved to not be a problem at all, thanks to its relationship with HM64. 

To be clear, this game is absolutely on par with 64. Just in terms of things I liked about that game, this one has more events with NPCs, they’re easier to catch, they’re relatively spaced out to fill the full three years you’re expected to play (rather than only triggering based on friendship levels alone), the gameplay in general runs smoothly and naturally, and the addition of some new decorative assets on top of the old ones makes it look so much nicer while still maintaining the crunchy, old art style. The only thing I really hesitate to say is better than 64 is the pacing, but I’ll get to that. First, I need to go over the gameplay.

The new

It’s hard to say that the game is mechanically too different from 64, other than the inventory and the fences. Do fences finally work as advertised? Well, yes and no, but it’s at least better than when the fences were the thing summoning wild animals in the first place. 

The way fences function is most changed by the fact that the wild dog has finally gained corporeal form. After 6PM, if you’re on your farm and have animals out, the dog can come to visit and won’t really attack your animals, but it will bark at them and scare them. Your only solution at this point is to wack that thing with a hammer or other farming implement until it skitters off, or if your dog is well trained, he can help you fight the beast off as well. 

The effects of the beast (making your animals unhappy) can be prevented in several ways. Of course, there’s always leaving your animals inside, the time honored tradition that it is (and my personal choice). Alternatively you could put your animals inside a fence. Issue here is that the dog can absolutely bark through the fence, so it kind of does nothing to help you. However, if the fence is two posts thick all the way around, the dog can no longer reach your animals, so in that sense, the fences finally work! It takes up way more space and way more resources though, plus the fact that fence posts rot over time. You can’t really use rocks to compensate because the wild dog walks right over them. The final option is to just not be outside past 6PM. If you’re not there to see it, the wild dog does not exist. I rarely played days that long anyways, so I could have left my animals out all the time with no fences and no problems, but then you run into the issue that your field is massive and it’s way too easy to lose track of your animals. 

Oh, and there’s one other detail that I almost forgot– you don’t need to leave the animals out overnight anymore anyways. They finally eat during the day, at least my chickens did, and they were the only animals I bothered to put out because it was as easy as picking them up in my hands to put them back away. I love not fighting livestock hitboxes.

Inventory-wise, this game gives you a myriad of options for carrying things. Firstly, there’s your rucksack which you’re able to buy a larger version of, so you can carry more on your person. Then there’s a basket you can buy which allows you to pick things up in bulk, but not have access to them, so it’s kind of like a shipping bin that you carry around, except you still have to dump it in the shipping bin later, unlike the horse’s saddlebag which IS just a mobile shipping bin. I never got to use the saddlebag because it’s something you get with an adult horse, and despite my best efforts, Barley decided my horse didn’t love me enough and took it away from me. :( My horse loved me a lot though. In the end, my rucksack was big enough and my growing operation was small enough that I never even saw a real need for the basket or saddlebags. Maybe I would if there was any urgency to ship things before 5PM, but things won’t rot in the shipping bin here, so you’re free to take all the time that you need. I actually encourage taking your time, there’s three whole in-game years that you’re expected to play, after all.

In terms of other new additions, there’s now a fish pond on your farm, kind of like GBC2 had, but a little better. This time it’s not just for storing fish (something that’s much less of a concern when you can ship things any time of day), but you’re also able to breed and grow them. The store in town sells fish food that you can use to breed more fish, and just leaving fish in the pond over time will make them grow larger.

You can also finally cook things, rather than just buy meals or collect useless recipes. You have to upgrade your house to get access to a kitchen and then buy the utensils elsewhere, but once you’ve done that, you can make anything in the game and unlock new recipes by either being told them by someone in town or just trying things out for yourself! You cook by choosing both the ingredients and utensils, meaning you can make entirely different things while still using the same ingredient! Cooked meals make for fantastic gifts, and as a result, there’s a whole new feature that I love built around giving you the ability to cook new things, which is the shopping channel on your TV.

Every Saturday after you’ve upgraded your house, the shopping channel will sell items for your house at random. They’re mostly cooking utensils, but there's also a power berry in the rotation. Nothing’s cheap, so it’s a good way to keep the player working and making more money. This is one of my favorite new things, as it gives you more reason to engage with your TV, and it forces you to pay attention to what day of the week it is in game even more than usual. Having one day where you can do something as opposed to various days that you can’t (days certain stores are closed, for example) does so much for making the days seem different and makes you look forward to the next week on a regular basis, as opposed to only looking forward to town festivals which are less frequent and more varied in terms of quality. To buy things, you have to run down to the inn which has the only working phone in town– a charming little reminder that this game is set in a rural town in the 20th century, back when everyone wasn’t so easily connected and it was normal to only have four channels on your TV. Hell, back when it was normal to have cable.

Anyways, on the topic of buying things, while stores in SNES and 64 mostly had you walk up to an item on a shelf to select it and purchase it, this game still has that function, but it far more heavily leans on menus for just about everything aside from a few items in the general store, like the fish food, inventory items, and some cooking ingredients. The most bizarre shopping experience comes when you try to upgrade your house, where you’re forced to follow the very specific order of chicken coop upgrade, to first house upgrade, to barn, to second house, to hothouse for growing crops in any season. It’s kind of weird and confusing the first time you run into it, because it’s easy to imagine something went wrong or that you need to do something else to unlock your house upgrade, but I imagine this was the result of a couple of things. For one, having multiple tiers of upgrades on your house may have been a little strange to implement with their menuing system– I know that the way things worked in 64 was also very confusing and unclear, and in that game, all of it was presented to you the whole time. For two, this game is… really easy as an adult with a functional brain, so it’s a decent way to keep you working on stuff and bar you from having your house upgraded to maximum before the end of year one (which I still did anyways).

Getting all those upgrades takes a lot of wood, so it’s important early on to make sure you have a good ax. Tool upgrades now expand on 64’s leveling up mechanic by requiring you to gain experience with the tools and then take the tools along with a type of mined ore to the blacksmith who will upgrade that tool for a fee, which very nearly brings us to the way that upgrades are most commonly handled in farming sims to this day! It also gives purpose to the cave/mine, which has been a feature in nearly every console release up to this point but was never really fleshed out. Speaking of which, compared to 64, the mine is now available year round rather than just in winter. Instead, there’s a secret mine in the middle of the mountain lake full of higher quality ore that unlocks in winter. There’s no winter crops once again, so as long as you’ve got enough cash saved up, the lake mine makes winter the perfect time to upgrade all your tools, because as long as the tool is leveled up enough, you can skip straight to later upgrades.

The old

What’s truly the same as 64, or at least negligibly different, are the general mechanics for growing crops, caring for animals, and building relationships with people. The town– while arranged differently and with the addition of a specialized chicken store, a general store fusing the 64 bakery and seed shops, and a blacksmith –is generally about the same size as it was in 64, if you take into account all the offshoot areas that weren’t quite based inside the town-proper. Areas like the beach, woods, hot springs, goddess pond, mountain, and summit are all still here and generally serve the same purpose. It’s occupied by generally the same people as well, though only in appearance.

Even the number of festivals is almost exactly the same, though the subjects and contents are different. While there are a couple more minigames incorporated with the festivals here, I would say this game loses out in terms of the town having a sense of culture and life, in that none of the festivals have anything to do with personal beliefs or spirituality in any way other than the goddess festival, which is established as a dying cultural practice, and maybe the music festival which takes place in the church, and that’s it. However, the game actually has something of a narrative defense in this regard: the town pastor isn’t a religious man, which is kind of bizarre but it does track with everything else going on. Religion doesn’t really exist in this town, so rituals wouldn’t really exist either. I do still find the lack of distinct culture disappointing compared to 64, which was brimming with it, but it’s a small nitpick.

Another nitpick I have, one much more tangible, is that it lets you walk behind walls and buildings, which would be one thing if this was played at a straight-on viewing angle and with controls that easily mapped to that, but much like in 64, the camera is set at an isometric 45 degree angle which game controllers are not really designed for. If you walk behind something, a goofy arrow appears above your head to show where you’re at, but it’s still not clear enough that I didn’t regularly run into trouble just trying to go through doors. There aren’t a ton that are an issue, only two that I can think of off the top of my head, but one of those two is the entrance to your own bedroom after you’ve fully upgraded your house. Your bedroom is the place that you have to go to save your game and move time forward, it’s mandatory to go through this door every single day. 

What are you farming for?

The game opens with a flashback to your childhood…. If you’re playing as a boy. If you’re playing the version released later where you play as a girl, the story is completely different. This is the first entry in the series where you can marry men! But I didn’t play the girl version, so everything I share about the story will have to do with the original, boy version. There, in your memories, you were visiting your grandfather in the country who was too busy with work to play with you, so instead you met a girl who lived in the town and played with her the whole time you were there. Before you left, you promised to see each other again. 

In the current day, your grandfather has died and you’ve been given the option to take over his farm, though the townspeople are hesitant about having someone new in town. As a compromise, you’ll be able to take care of the farm for three years, and as long as you can bring the farm back to its former glory and get along with the townsfolk by then, you’ll be allowed to stay living there! But if you don’t use the land and don’t make any friends, you’re out.

This comes across as a really harsh ultimatum, especially if you don’t know what that “former glory” means, but what it actually translates to is “farm…. At all”. Just ship a couple things, and you’ve basically covered the farming requirements. The harder requirement is to make friends with the people in town, though if you aren’t managing to do that, you’ve missed out on the entire point of the game. In this iteration of the Harvest Moon series, your goal isn’t to farm for crops… but for cutscenes.

Much like 64, every marriageable person has special cutscenes associated with how close the two of you are, and additional cutscenes involving them and their romantic rival. There are also cutscenes to do with the various people in town, as a general story progresses over your three years there. Beyond the familiar mechanics, you’ll see some familiar faces, as every character is reused from 64, just a little to the left. Their families and careers are slightly different, as are the people they date and marry, thus bringing an entirely different story to the table. For example, instead of Lillia’s husband being Basil, a man who brings her loneliness because he leaves for half a year, her husband Rod isn’t present in the game at all, having gone off on a long journey to find a cure for her illness, something she didn’t ask him to do and is pretty peeved about. There’s also the little girl May, who instead of having a working father who’s so busy that she never gets to see him, was abandoned by her mother and lives with her grandfather.

Unlike 64, a lot of these relationship cutscenes, both for you and for your rivals, are slightly less dependent on your relationships with everyone. Instead, to fill out the three years of gameplay, they’re based on time passing. While it’s generally possible to get married as quickly as possible, your rivals will never get married until year three. To fill out all that time, there are a lot more cutscenes that don’t have to do with romance, and a lot more sidequests given to you.

Every marriageable character and rival has a sort of side quest of varying levels of difficulty which gives you a decent bump in their friendship. By varying levels of difficulty I mean it can go from just telling Gray “yes, you can spend a day or two working on my farm in a way that doesn’t inhibit my ability to do anything,” and then in return he weeds your entire field. Or it can be like Ann who needs you to bring her three eggs every single day for a full week without missing a single day or the whole thing ends, and your only reward other than friendship is to get the payment you would have gotten for the eggs anyways.

Probably the most famous example of these quests is Cliff’s, due to the fact that he will leave the town if it isn’t completed, and because it’s so important to his character that it was the only one of these side quests included in either of this game’s remakes. He’s a wanderer, depressed, without a job and without anywhere to go. For his quest, you’re approached by Duke from the winery at some time in fall, asking if you can help with the year’s harvest. If you can bring along a friend to help, that would be great too. The only person you can invite is Cliff, and if you fail to do that, he’ll be gone by the end of the year. What isn’t included in the remakes is the “minigame” you have to do every day of the week that you’re hired, where you walk up to all the grape vines and click on them until you finally pick up some grapes with zero visual feedback. It’s not the hardest quest, but it is certainly the most tedious, and the most punishing if you fail to get Cliff on board.

What you realize pretty quickly as you get on with the game is that the original prompt that you came back to this town to see your childhood friend again really isn’t relevant to anything. None of the girls indicate anything about that to you until the very end of the game, if you got married. What’s going on in the town really has nothing to do with you, and that’s fine. Everyone’s lives are rich and vibrant, and often pretty tragic, and it’s very fun to get deeper into the stories and get a peek into some of the town lore. There is one plotline in particular that overtakes the entire narrative, and it reveals to you what happens when you don’t manage to make friends with everyone in the town. It turns out the town is hesitant to let new people in because it’s full of bigots.

The real story

There are two characters depicted as being a different race than the town at large. One of them is Won, who is portrayed as a con artist and scammer, and appears to be Chinese. He’s introduced when the cop in town comes by one morning to warn you of a suspicious person spotted in town, and Won appears on your farm shortly after. I don’t know exactly how that storyline ends, because I didn’t report him on account of not being a fucking snitch, but Won occasionally sells an assortment of items inside the inn and sometimes comes to your door to sell very useful things like a vase and dog ball.

The other character, Kai, is the only dark skinned character in both this game and in 64, where he worked for the winery and came across as… suspiciously servile. In this game, he shows up in the summertime to sell food at the shack on the beach, and has gained the reputation of a heartbreaker, which has made nearly every man in the town absolutely despise him. At first you might get where they’re coming from, because his demeanor is pretty snarky and smug, but to me it pretty quickly came across that he only acted that way as a defense mechanism, because there are only so many ways you can manage people constantly attacking you for no reason and holding yourself as superior to them isn’t a bad choice. It’s obvious how deeply in the wrong the town is in one of the first events you can get after Kai shows up, where he gets cornered in the inn– the only place he’s able to stay while he’s in town –by at least three different men and you’re given the option to either pick a side or call the whole thing stupid, which it really is and Kai agrees.

The two who hate him most are Duke and Rick. Duke is an alcoholic with notorious anger issues. You can learn much later that his problem is that his daughter allegedly left town due to Kai’s influence (I imagine because he made her realize this town sucks). Meanwhile, Rick hates Kai because his sister Popuri is crazy about him and Rick probably fears for the same result. Popuri is a seemingly cheerful and somewhat childish girl who wants to be helpful. Her family runs a poultry business together, but she was never taught or allowed to do any work, which leads to a bounty of frustrations in her life. To make matters worse, her brother seems to be very possessive and is controlling over who she gets to hang out with, particularly when it comes to her hanging around Kai. The way both Duke and Rick behave gives off the impression that their frustrations with Kai have nothing to do with anything Kai has done, and everything to do with the fact that they’re miserable people to be around. 

As you follow the story of Kai and Popuri, you learn everything about the culture problem in the town, the double-standards of acceptance that let you get away with defending Kai while he continues to get teamed up on, and you choose whether or not you want to help Kai and Popuri escape from it (albeit temporarily, they both come back every summer). To be clear, I loved this storyline. The experience of helping the two of them, though on a heavily controlled course, made me feel like I was actually making a difference in characters' lives. And the resulting lack of Popuri’s presence in town afterwards made things feel tangibly different than they were before. Farming sims seldom have interpersonal conflicts that go this deep, and it really enhances the story! I know I spoiled the whole thing here, but in all fairness, I’ve known how this story ends for decades and still had a wonderful time going through the motions. It’s more about the experience than the destination for sure.

My critiques

To beat the game is extremely low-stakes and slow-paced. You’ve got a lot of time to see everything the game has to offer, and just about all of that comes from having good relationships with the NPCs. The problem with this is that if you’re competent with the mechanics, getting through the game can be a total slog. Part of this is because it loads pretty slowly, but there also isn’t very much to do with your time. Since you need a lot of money to get animals, and a ton of money to upgrade your house enough to get married since that’s locked behind other farm upgrades, you do need to do a little bit of farming, but I personally never even touched more than a quarter of my field between crops and grass for animal feed. The ending requirements didn’t ask me to ship that many crops, so I didn’t. I just grew what I needed, and after a certain point, the amount I needed was “nothing”, so I stopped gardening.

Lack of requirement to do so wasn’t the only reason, though. I enjoy farming mechanics, so I would have done it if I wasn’t trying to focus my time elsewhere– on getting story events. By the later points of year two and three, that’s all I was after, and while they are locked by your relationships with the characters, I’d already gotten them as high as I reasonably needed them. I just had to wait for time to pass at that point, and I was getting impatient. The way cutscenes are locked off in this game is that they’ll see you’ve reached the relationship threshold, and then wait until a certain time-marker has passed. Once you’ve met both of those, it’s just about being in the right place at the right time. By and large, the time-marker is the turn of the new year, so everything fires off in a frenzy on the first day of spring that you go into town. I think my record was triggering four cutscenes in sequence by walking in and outside of the poultry farm area a couple times. 

Fortunately, the events for Kai and Popuri were locked until summer, when Kai would come to visit, so it wasn’t truly everything happening as soon as spring came up, but still, fall and winter usually had absolutely nothing going on. To make matters worse, once year three rolls around, chances are that you’ve gotten all the relationships filled and all of your progression finished, so it’s just a waiting game to get everyones’ weddings to trigger and then truly be done with story content until you’re evaluated at the end of the year.

This is where we loop back to the fact that I wasn’t farming. If my relationships with everyone were filled and I wasn’t doing anything on my farm, what was I doing? Sleeping. For months at a time. Just to get through things quicker. In year three, I got all the marriage cutscenes I could (one wouldn’t trigger, don’t know why but I had to just give up on it), and then went to bed until the end of the year. My last manual save was dated “Summer 9, year 3”, meaning I slept through three entire seasons to get to the end of the game.

And for what reward? I mentioned previously that this is low-stakes. Technically, all of the games prior to this are low-stakes as well– the requirements to simply not lose your farm are generally pretty relaxed. It’s the variety of “good” endings or praise that you get which often require a frankly obscene amount of work. There are many good endings to be had, but only one bad one. Not the case here! There are different endings for if you didn’t grow enough crops, ship enough things, or make any friends and therefore are kicked out of the town, but if you did manage all three (which is hard NOT to do), there is only one ending you get where the town gathers to tell you you’re welcome to stay in town and congratulate you on your hard work. Even Kai shows up! It’s a nice bit of fanfare but… do I deserve it? It’s on me for playing the game this way of course, but after just sleeping through almost a whole year, I don’t really feel like I earned any praise. The other reward is that you’re allowed to keep playing the save file, but why would I want to do that? I’ve already done everything there was to do.

Conclusion

The first half of this game is my dream Harvest Moon. I sincerely don't understand why FoMT was remade and not this, since this is by far the better game. The fact that the town feels like it has an actual narrative (centered primarily around Kai) is really enjoyable and I feel like there’s a lot of value gained out of each cutscene, and every new bit of dialogue is a joy. In particular, the quantity and variety of quests gave me a lot to do in the downtime between cutscenes. The remakes should have added more of those, not removed them almost entirely. I’m sick to death of Mineral Town because of how much I've played FoMT, so the fact that I enjoyed this so much says a lot about the quality of the game.

That aside, three years is too much time to pass through for how much content there is here. Two and a half would have been manageable, but I understand that the only reason that was the cutoff in SNES was because there literally wasn't anything to do in fall or winter. I enjoyed the lack of goals required to get a good ending because I was so fatigued by the intense grind of the prior games, but the game was so easy that I mostly ran out of things to do for fixing my farm in only year one, and I really just spent year two scrambling around for cutscenes which I didn't really need to even try doing, because I got swamped with them at the start of spring. Maybe if I was a child and worse at playing video games, three years would be okay, but if I was a child, I wouldn’t have made it to year 2 because I wouldn't have the attention span or memory to keep me going. I know this because that’s exactly what happened when I played FoMT.

I suppose how I’d recommend playing the game is to play until you’re satisfied (which will probably be by the end of summer year 2) and then watch or look up the endings. That is assuming you care about the endings at all, which you may not because there isn’t terribly much to them. I do sincerely recommend this game, I think it’s great to play, but you’re almost certainly going to be bored with it and have experienced the vast majority of what it has to offer well before you reach the end of it.

A closing thought in reference to my journey playing all these games in sequence:  there’s a chance, just going by my prior knowledge of the later games which I mostly have not played, that this is actually going to be the peak of this series in terms of both ease of play and quality of narrative. I’m sure there will be games with more interesting stories, and maybe a later game that feels better to play, but my bet is none of them hit both as well as this one did.

[reelvibes91]

Batman: Caped Crusader Review

Batman has probably the deepest rogues gallery in all of comics. Oftentimes, when depicted on screen, the focus has been on a core few. With Batman: Caped Crusader, we step away from that and get some focus put on different characters. How does Caped Crusader stack up against other iterations of character?

This version of events is unique in various ways. Taking Batman back to a 40s Mafia setting was a nice touch. One that particularly helped lend to the investigative aspects of the character. It relies on good old-fashioned detective work instead of relying on modern technology.

The Batman/Bruce Wayne dynamic was handled well. Hamish Linklater has the task of living up to prior talent, and he does a great job. This is a Batman who feels more vulnerable and wants to keep in touch with his human side. It has always been his allies that ground him, and this version really allows the relationships Batman has form organically. He has to establish those links over time and knows full well these tasks can't be accomplished on his own.

There can't be a discussion about a Batman series without the villains. Here, we treated to a wide array of villains. Two standouts immediately are Firefly and Harley Quinn. The episode featuring Firefly was the most visually stunning of the entire series. By far, I stand out in that regard. Why Harley worked so well is the changes made to her origin story. This far into the characters' existence, it was a refreshing take and one that kept the fundamentals of the character in tact.

The only real issue of the series is a general lack of pacing. Some episodes hit very hard, and others were just the middle of the road. That is the hard part of trying to tell a complete story within a 25-minute episode. There really is no room for the additional subplots and working out enough growth for everyone. Catwoman and Onomatopoeia were the weakest links in terms of the villains because their presence does not matter to the overall plot development. Catwoman is all stuff we have seen before, and with the Onomatopoeia stuff, it felt completely like a filler episode.

The writing on this show was very well thought and executed with the mafia and overall look and feel. There is so much potential for future seasons of this show to capitalize on villains who need redemption. The potential and ceiling for this series are limitless because we know they are willing to make changes to classic villains. This show did in a way that elevates the character and does not take away why we love them. That is the key to enhancing any long-standing character. Make them your own and find a way to set yourself apart from other versions.

One last thing is that this show really proved why animation is much easier than live action. Live action takes on creating certain aspects of characters, which have translated to some ridiculous looks. Here, they were able to finesse together some new looks and new styles and blend them all together. Some of these scenes and new looks likely would not have created the same atmosphere in live action. That's not to say stop doing live action but more to say use animation to do things that are harder to create in live action. It was stunning to see some of this come to life the way it did. It feels the same way across all animation that has excelled at telling rich and deep stories.

[mediaevalmusereads]

Dracula. By Bram Stoker. Dover Thrift Edition, 2000 (originally 1897).

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Genre: Gorhic, horror

Series: N/A

Summary: When Jonathan Harker visits Transylvania to help Count Dracula with the purchase of a London house, he makes a series of horrific discoveries about his client. Soon afterwards, various bizarre incidents unfold in England: an apparently unmanned ship is wrecked off the coast of Whitby; a young woman discovers strange puncture marks on her neck; and the inmate of a lunatic asylum raves about the 'Master' and his imminent arrival.

***Full review below.***

CONTENT WARNINGS: disturbing imagery, blood, animal cruelty, racism

OVERVIEW: This was my book club's pick for June 2024. I've read Dracula before, but it was a while ago, so I loved having the opportunity to revisit an old favorite. It reminded me not only why Dracula was so influential, but why I fell in love with Gothic storytelling in the first place. It gets 4.5 stars from me for no other reason than it being a classic that I adore.

WRITING: Stoker's writing is interesting in that it makes use of a lot of scientific language, blending it with the supernatural to create an atmosphere that is sometimes dark and ancient, sometimes modern and philosophical. I love the way Stoker blends these modes and champions characters who are smart and have an open mind (though that openness is lacking when it comes to things like gender and racial dynamics).

I also appreciated the way Stoker tries to differentiate between character voices. Though not every character sounds unique, there is a difference in how Mina writes versus how Dr. Seward writes versus how Van Helsing speaks. It makes the book as a whole feel more polyvocal, which in turn enhances the sense that the story is made from pieces of diaries and newspaper excerpts.

PLOT: The plot of this book follows a number of English characters as they try to defeat a powerful vampire known as Count Dracula. The story is told from a number of perspectives in the form of diary entries and occasional newspaper clippings and memoranda, all of which detail the strange occurrences surrounding the Count.

This book is less of a spooky horror and more of a classic Gothic novel. That isn't to say that there aren't some disturbing images, but if you go in expecting a lot of blood, gore, and jumpscares, you might be disappointed. Instead what we have is the gradual realization that there is a vampire in England, and after some bizarre occurrences and a tragic death, our protagonists team up to defeat the monstrous Count once and for all.

I love the Gothic flavor of this plot and the way Stoker plays with folk belief and superstition in the age of science and advancing medical knowledge. I also just generally love Stoker's descriptions and some of the absolute weirdness that pervades the novel, from fly-eating lunatics to bats and wolves acting unlike themselves.

If I had any criticism, I would say that there are places where the pace seems a bit slow, but I don't know if it's slow because Stoker actually wrote it that way or my perception is off because I'm familiar with the story.

TL;DR: Dracula is a classic and influential novel for a reason. With evocative supernatural imagery, a clever multivovalic narration style, and a Gothic flavor that is sure to delight lovers of the genre, this book stands out and is worthy of its place in vampire lore.

CHARACTERS: There are a lot of characters in this book, so I'll try to keep things brief.

Jonathan Harker, our first narrator, is relatable as an average working class man who gets caught up in the world of the supernatural. He seems rather brave and sweet, as evidenced by his devotion to his wife, Mina, and his heart always seems to be in the right place.

Dr. Seward, the head of a psychiatric institution, is sympathetic in that he has to watch the girl he loves suffer. I really did feel bad for him and admired the way he stepped up to lend his expertise, even though the situation has little to do with him personally.

Mina, Jonathan's wife, is just so great. Everyone seems to adore her and I love that her intelligence is constantly praised. Stoker isn't without bias, however; there are numerous instances when Mina is said to have the "brain of a man" or is described as a woman in opposition to a man. The gender essentialism is sure to make some readers uncomfortable, but it's not particularly surprising given the date of this novel.

Characters who do not get POV sections are still charming in their own ways. I liked that Van Helsing was eager to assist people he didn't know and constantly championed having an open mind. Renfield was interesting and his fly-eating helped create some nice parallels with vampirism itself. Lucy, who has a couple of POV sections, sounded sweet and it's a shame that so many adaptations portray her as overly sexual when in reality, she's a victim who just wants to make people happy.

Most of my criticisms regarding character lay with weird gender politics and racial prejudice. I've already described the gender stuff in my discussion of Mina above. The racial dynamics, while not overwhelming, are present enough to be noticeable. Stoker describes a number of Romani and Romaniam peoples as superstitious, which in itself might not sound horrible, but does play into some negative stereotypes. Again, these dynamics are not so present that they distract from the main storyline, but they are on the fringes and shape the way we understand Stoker's world.

[pvffinsdaisies]

May I hear more about your Fem! Finland? She sounds interesting, and I also portray my Finland as a woman 👀

Sure you can! ✨ I’m sooo happy to hear you’re interested in my silly little OC portrayals. And also especially relieved to hear you also see finny as a woman, I always get nervous talking about it due to some sexist comments I received last year for preferring female fin.

I won’t get into that!

Anyway, since I wrote so little about them last time, I thought I’d give you a list of my headcanons for Aino. Free to steal if you’d like, and if you have any headcanons for fem! Fin I encourage you to send me them. 😌✨🇫🇮.

Aino is an animal lover through and through, she loves all animals and is pretty knowledgable on most animal species that live in her country. She has a huge admiration and respect for bears especially. However, her favourites are by far birds. She’s such a bird nerd, she owns many books on them, she loves bird watching, and she actually makes and puts up bird houses in her garden every spring time.

She has a Finnish lapphund as a pet. She’s white, and her name is “lumi”, which means snow in Finnish.

They’re a bit of an old soul, in a sense. They older “old” people hobbies, like fishing, knitting and long walks. Aikkuli finds she needs slower moments in life to wind down and appreciate some of the simpler things.

However, they need to have their fast paced hobbies too, the things that make them feel alive. They’re a huge fan of ice hockey, but they also love rally driving, and can actually ride a motorcycle.

Speaking of rally, Aino loves cars! They’re so fascinated by them, they’re the type to ask someone 10 million different questions about what type of car they drive, they find it interesting

She adores moomin! Has a whole collection of moomin mugs. The animated series from the 90s is her comfort show, and they’re constantly relating things happening in real life to something that happened in either the moomin books, or in the show.

Aikkuli really enjoys skiing, and due to their competitive nature, they get upset when left out of “who’s the best nordic at skiing” debates, even though objectively, they’re not as good at Sweden, and especially not as good as Norway.

Whilst they can’t see creatures, Aino is still quite interested in her old pagan beliefs, and owns a Kalevala, and other books about old Finnish mythology. In modern day, they’re not entirely sure what their religion is, but they also don’t often sit down and actually ponder it.

Their secret talent is that they know how to dance! They’re quite good at ballroom type stuff, but their skills don’t really translate to other forms. She’s a little embarrassed by this, and doesn’t like to tell or show people that often.

Whilst Aino is a very independent woman, who’s not super lenient on anyone, they can be really clingy with Estonia. Often choosing to hang around with Eesti as often and they possibly can. Sometimes it may feel like it’s a bit much, but truth be told? Estonia sometimes feels like their only genuinely close friend they can undoubtably trust.

Fin easily lets their competitive nature get the better of her, and it’s not uncommon for her to take it too far. Especially if Sweden is involved. Be cautious to play anything against both Sweden and Finland. If Aikkuli wins, they will not stop bragging and rubbing it in sve’s face for the rest of the week, and if they lose they can sometimes became extremely resentful. The atmosphere will be cold for a while afterwards.

Aikkuli lives for heavy metal music, they probably listen to some songs from other genres too, but is absolutely a metal head first and foremost. She goes to heavy metal gigs and concerts as often as they can. And they definitely blast their music as loud as they want when they’re in their car.

Ahh! There we go! Sorry this took a while to respond to, I don’t really touch Aino all that much so it can be hard for me to just list things about them on the spot. I have sooo many thoughts about them, but I always struggle to type them out. I partially blame the hiatus I took from her character, it feels like I’m tugging hard to get her off the shelf, but they don’t wanna move 😅😅

[room-surprise]

Dungeon Meshi Anime Season 1, Episode 1 Review

Spoilers for season 1, episode 1 of the anime below the cut!

I watched both the English sub with Japanese audio, and the English dub, on Netflix.

I think overall it's very good, has a good tempo and doesn't mess with the pacing or characterization in any major way, very faithful to the manga. I think there could have been SOME improvements or adjustments made, but I'm not at all surprised that it didn't happen, making 1:1 extremely faithful manga adaptations seems to have become the norm lately.

On the plus side, that means that if this current level of quality continues, that the anime will always be at least as good as the manga... which is already very good! So that's great.

But on the negative side, that means it won't ever be better than the manga, and that makes me a little sad, because I think an anime adaptation of Dungeon Meshi could absolutely surpass the manga, if they were willing to take some risks, and with Ryoko Kui's guiding hand. Anyway.

Love the OP song, love it's old timey tavern feel and that it's not a straight up jpop or jrock song. Soundtrack music was really nice. Animation was great.

Love that they show a closeup of Falin's open eyes in the OP so we'll know.... ;3 later

Things that I didn't like as much:

Almost all the background text is in Japanese when it wasn't in the manga. Kui often used glyphs or scribbles to indicate that things aren't in English or Japanese.... but they're just using Japanese as far as I can tell.

Netflix America doesn't translate most of it either. They also don't put in the English logo on the opening even though they have it on the show homepage... Don't know if they'll fix it later.

Personally, I think it would also be fine if all the releases had the background in-universe text appear in the target language so the implication is "this is in the viewer's language, whatever that is, but that isn't the actual fantasy language being used in-universe". But I doubt this will happen.

And there is SOME text in glyphs! The dungeon gourmet book isn't in a real language when it's shown... I think it's just laziness. I would honestly very much prefer nonsense text in a variety of languages than this.

In the Japanese I genuinely thought Laios was providing the narration, so I was totally taken aback when there was a different narrator in English.... and I honestly liked it a LOT better when I thought Laios was narrating, it felt really natural and good! So sad that it isn't actually what's happening. Don't really like the slightly snarky David Attenborough style nature commentary narrator. Feels weird and jarring at times.

Subtitles are fine, but there's some things that are randomly different for no good reason, subs say Senshi means "researcher" and dub says "seeker" and.... Senshi doesn't have a mouth, you don't need to match his dialogue to mouth-flaps, you can make him say ANYTHING you want so why have it be different?

There's some dub script choices I REALLY hated and am probably going to die mad about lmao:

Marcille saying that their "inventory" was wiped out, like they're in a video game, calling the scared adventurers "newbs" like they're in a video game, saying "as if" like she's a 90's California girl.

Senshi saying "delish" instead of "delicious" . There's no mouth flaps, why shorten it to a modern slang term that feels unnatural?

Laios also says "geez" which is short for "jesus" so they could have picked literally anything else for him to say, I'm sure the Japanese was probably "mattaku" which just means "Really?" (too lazy to confirm this lol)

Chilchuck says "god" and you could just have him... not say that. Or say "gods" because there's multiple gods in Dungeon Meshi.

Those were my major thoughts so far. Overall thought it was great and I enjoyed it! Looking forward to more!

It's not perfect, but I have seen much, much, MUCH worse adaptations lmao so I'm excited for when they get to some of the more dynamic action scenes in the second half of the manga.

[turbulentscrawl]

Your request box is probably overflowing right now, so I'll stick to something simple. What are some of your favourite books!

Remember to stay hydrated and well-rested. We're rooting for you, wherever you are in life

Honestly this is difficult to answer because I don't read nearly as much as I'd like to. I have shelves full that I'm yearning to get through but just...lack time and energy to do so. When I do read, it's usually Fantasy, Sci Fi, or Horror. I don't do much romance or modern stuff.

Instead of FAVORITES, here's a few recent ones I've read and some very basic review/thoughts:

The Ruin of Kings- book 1 of a 5 book high fantasy series. A bit heavy with some of its themes, but EXCITING. I also really enjoyed the pacing: it starts telling the story from two different points in the timeline, and switches back and forth every chapter.

Gideon the Ninth- Science fiction/fantasy. If you're on booktok you probably heard of it at some point or another. Definitely unique, but some of the characters are a bit tropey, and the world building could have been better for a first book in a series. I found myself desperate to understand how the magic system worked better. Very anime-esque in the action scenes.

Annihilation- science fiction. There's a movie, but it's quite different. Both are great. In contrast to the book above this one, the confusion is VERY intentional and VERY well done. Reminiscent of Lovecraft in that the horror is in the inability to comprehend. It's a short read, too. You can chug through it in three or four hours, probably.

How High We Go in the Dark- a collection of sci-fi horror short stories. Not really for me, but not bad. All of the characters seem to be self-inserts of the author, which got old for me after about the fourth of fifth one, but some of the premises are very interesting.

Tender is the Flesh- Cannibalism horror. Hated it, honestly. It's over-hyped, both in the quality and the grossness. (And, frankly, it's just super unrealistic for reasons you might not expect, but I digress. Ask me about it if you wanna know LOL.) But then, you guys know I like gore. I do think it might be worth reading in the original Spanish--I read the English version, and I do wonder if some of the ambiance was lost in translation.

Gearbreakers- Also hated it, but I give it slightly more of a pass because the author is young. (Like they just started college when they published, I believe.) If you like Gundam, and/or B-tier anime (with all the relevant trope-y-ness, major plot holes, and half-decent action) then you'll probably like it. But for me, it squandered a wonderful idea. The cover art is neat, at least.

[protagonistheavy]

Dungeon Menshi is in that fandom-culture position where there's very few people with outwardly bad takes about the show to shit on, so folks from the fandom go around picking apart people who praise the show, but don't praise it in the "right way."

Dungeon Menshi gets a lot of praise for "not being like other anime" and I get how to someone who maybe spends every day watching every new anime that comes out for the past 20 years, that can seem like a harsh/annoying criticisms against an entire category of animation, but like... lets be real, Dungeon Menshi clearly stands out from the pack, especially for a fantasy anime. No, it isn't "subverting" expectations -- I do think people use "subversion" incorrectly to describe any media they happen to like within a genre they otherwise don't like -- but its themes, pacing, characters, plot, and world building are all very unique when you look at what the other most popular fantasy anime tend to be.

Like, why are people trying to pretend we aren't currently in a vast ocean of derivative isekai fantasy stories lol? It's funny how anime fans will laugh and joke about isekai being such an overused trope nowadays, but then lock the fuck in whenever that point is presented as a genuine criticism lol. So many fantasy series are isekai or isekai-adjacent; I even had a friend who thought Dungeon Menshi was an isekai because they just assumed a popular fantasy anime would involve that.

And when presented with this criticism, anime fans will quickly tell you, "oh there's PLENTY of other anime out there! you just need to expand your view and find the good ones! you're just choosing to watch all the bad trashy anime!" And then what anime do they point you to? Well more often than not, they DON'T point you anywhere -- they're just speaking out of their ass -- but when they do drop a few titles to look into, those titles end up being objectively obscure -- series that no fair person would use as some example of standard conventional modern anime. Like yeah dude, I get it, anime like Kids on the Slope exists, there's tons of titles out there about all tons of different topics and that don't involve overwhelming fanservice or cliche tropes, but for each of these obscure titles from five-to-twenty years ago you can find, there's like five Konosubas actively being produced with active fandoms because these shows actually have market and fan appeal lol. It's just so annoying that we're all supposed to not criticize anime at any point because, well, there's one series within the haystack that isn't sick with fanservice and objectification and pedo appeal, so it's wrong to judge the industry/fan culture. Lol.

Dungeon Menshi doesn't just stand out for avoiding these types of tropes, it stands out for doing that and also being an exciting plot that's popular and has audience appeal. So few series within the fantasy genre of anime have accomplished this sort of story, where worldbuilding goes beyond why elves have huge tits or why the loli is actually 1000 years old, but also manages to not be a downright boring story, that still captivates a wide array of people with genuine fun and fantasy. It shouldn't be so startling to people that Dungeon Menshi would get this praise when the climate for fantasy anime has become so stale and repetitive; it isn't a problem that some folks "have only watched just one anime," and trying to frame it like that just... really reeks of trying to deflect the very real and justified criticisms anime at large deserves, criticisms that both the fan culture and the industry have had against them for decades.

in other words, it's impressive that some Dungeon Menshi fans have so little to be upset about that they have to go and find other people thoroughly enjoying the series to designate as the "bad fans" to get upset about.

[voidwritesstuff]

Long Way To The Truth

Summary: once in Oregon,Lucas comes across an old friend.

Cw: hurt/confort, Lucas has a fear of needles,mentuons of human experimentation,lmk if I missed any.

♡Chapter 7: Oregon

Light enters through the small Windows of the white van. Warm and nice sunlight that heats up his sleeping bag, it makes him turn to the side and let out a sigh deeply laced with comfort.

When was the last time he felt so...safe?

For a moment he thinks he can get away with sleeping in, like he can just relax and let life go by. His eyes flutter Open to see the small alarm clock hes got,fallen over probably by one of his one too Many movements while asleep.

Lifting it up,he checks the time, It reads "6:30" am. But he knows theres like a two hour difference,Between his home state and this one.

He simply retracts his hand and tucks it underneath his pillow, to then close his eyes to sleep just a few more hours. After the days hes been having, its better if he just allows himself a moment of the closest thing hes got to a domestic comfort. Itll help him in the long run anyway...

Its not always he decides to sleep a few hours in, with the sun in his hair and a soft breeze just pushing the clouds on the big blue Sky above. Wether he admits it or not,he Needed rest,a break from his hectic routine.

Lucas was exhausted, he just needed a moment for himself. He needs to feel like himself again. And Hes been so caught up in ,Well- Not dying or getting thrown in jail or a ditch, that his body is making the desicion for him.

His body feels like a piece of metal being pulled by the worlds strongest, biggest,magnet. His bones are made of lead and his nerves are just jumbled,tied up wires.

Who cares if he sleeps in? So whats one more day of travel? Its all the same to him,he figures he can wait,he can catch up on sleep and clear his head.

But by the time he wakes up,at 10:30 or so, he feels a lot better. A lot better.

Eventually he does get out of the sleeping bag, rubbing the tiredness out of his eyes with a loud yawn. He throws on his flannel and his boots- he reaches for one of his thermos since he could use a coffee right now.

Thankfully,the remaining water is enough for exactly one cup of coffee. He grabs a platic mug and simply whips up a quick breakfast.

--Please tell me I havent ran out of jerky--He mutters reaching out to one of his backpacks. He rummages though the contents,just the basic deodorant,change of underwear, toothbrush, a shirt-- Aha! Gotcha

He snatches a half empty bag of dry beef Jerky like finding it was a herculean task. And like a kid in a candy store he eats it, sat there on his sleeping bag like hes having breakfast in bed.

Lucas revels in the warmth of the van,provided by the sun that hits the metal roof above his head. Its just a nice,quiet morning.

When hes done, he makes his way to the drivers Seat and turns on the engine. It comes to life with a roar and he starts drumming on the steeringwheel as he pulls into the somewhat empty road infront of him.

Soon the radio accompanies his thoughts, god he loves music- The soft melodies and the quick paced,high energy rythm are enough to get him on a better mood.

As very tough as he liked to show himself to be,Lucas was a simple Man- When his neurotic brain decided to chill out that is.

Music was his escape,his comfort- Just like he had always had a thing for electronics, his first love was always going to be music. Maybe thats why he chose to be a radioman...

He reaches the town of Forlorn Hiraeth, being greeted with long pastures with farm animals, small houses of brick and some with Plaster. And as he drives into the town proper, he notices something...

The streets have a bit of fog, difusing the light from the sun, the roads are a bit cracked with greenery growing out of it- Dandelions and other weeds Sit there bathed in celestial warmth.

Around him the houses are a mix of modern 90s architecture with vestiges of old 60s homes, its a weird mix of appartments and family houses with porches,yards And even a small parking lot for a supermarket.

--Should re-stock on rations--He mutters to himself,pulling into the parking lot. It doesnt take him long to find a spot and leave the van.

With his eyes settling on the old supernarket,its quite wide and a little ornate with that midcentury modern style. The Windows are long,almost reaching the ceiling- It gives him a clear line of sight into the supermarket which hes thankful for. It eases his mind knowing he can see quite a lot of the inside.

Above him a long roof overhangs from the entrance, its really simple and honestly quite nostalgic- There used to be one supermaket like this in the town he grew up with. Then it was demolished And converted into an appartment building.

The Doors slide Open as he enters, he once again takes off his ballcap before even crossing the threshold.

He shouldve made a list-Too late now.

But its a bit disorienting sometimes, for some reason he keeps getting the aisles wrong- he confuses them with those that were in that old grocery store from his home.

--goddamn-- He whispers to himself, shaking off his thoughts and going to Grab a few canned goods that should last him about 2 weeks.

A few cans of peas,corns, beans(his favorite brand being Bush's Baked Beans), some chili and olives. And then he realizes he shouldve grabbed a cart and so he does that- He feels a little silly but he can allow himself this...dont gotta be perfect,right?

He goes to Grab a few bottles of water, some beef jerky and just as hes passing one of the aisles, he stops.

Before him he sees his younger self on an aisle that had alcohol on it, behind him is...Alphonso.

"Can I pleeeease have a beer?" A young Lucas asked the Man behind him.

"Dont be stupid,youre not 21 Years old"

"C'mon! Im going off to fight I think I derserve  a beer"

Alphonso sighed,nodding"Are you sure you dont want your first beer to be with your old Man?"

Lucas just shrugged"Whats tradition anyway?"

The older Man chuckled" Suit yourself,but if im getting your first beer,im taking you somewhere nice. Not store bought" he beamed at his friend who is jumping around like a spring chicken"its on me, of course"

--Young Man-- Says a woman behind him,elderly-- are you alright?

--Wha-?--He turns to see the old woman behind him,no taller than 5'4, olive skin filled with aging lines and wrinkles.

《I seem to recognize your face

Haunting, familiar yet

I can't seem to place it》comes from the radio equipment installed in the palce ,the song played by Pearl Jam but its not like Lucas has enough mental clarity to notice.

Her brown,hooded eyes look at him concerned,her long black hair tied in a half bun.--you seem..out of it?

Lucas clears his throat--Hah, yes. Sorry- lost in thought -- he sees her blink at him for a moment--Why?

--Nothing you just reminded me of someone --She answered,waving it off--apologies

《Cannot find the candle of thought to light your name

Lifetimes are catching up with me》

--ah dont worry- Truth is im not that busy--He replied-- thanks for the concern Ma'am

The womans eyes fall to his dogtags that are poking a bit from his flannel, but shes  quick to nodd back and excuse herself,walking away.

《All these changes taking place

I wish I'd seen the place

But no one's ever taken me》

Lucas sighs,pushing away his thoughts. He better not linger just in case, he was taking his time but he wasnt going to catch a bullet for it.

Soon he gets everything he needs and goes to the check out,as he waits for the cashier to pass everything through the scanner he hears a conversation between another cashier and an elderly woman.

--Its good to see you again Ms.zhao--Says a younger Man.--How is everything?

--Lonely sometimes,With Dexter's anniversary coming up and all-- he recognizes the voice, its the same woman who spoke to him-- Im planning to visit the cementery soon

--Well ive heard the green house is going on a sale soon,perhaps you could get some flowers there?

Ms.Zhao sounded...happy at the idea--Oh, that'd be splendid. Thank you,Rex

Lucas turns to see the old woman leave,trying to get a glimpse at her bicep for something- But shes wearing a red cardigan. "Shit" he thinks before paying for his things.

He leaves soon after,looking for the woman he just saw exit the store. But nothing finds him...

The last name made something in his head rattle, and as he packs his groceries into his van, his mind wanders...

Why did he know that last name? Why did the woman looked at him with recognition- or something close to it.

It makes him even more confused when he realizes that he instictively went to check the old womans bicep- He was looking for a tattoo, a specific one.

"No,it cant be Jane- Jane isnt from Oregon, Shes from Colorado. Did- why would she move?" He thinks,sat there at the wheel of his van.

And then his stomach rumbles and he sighs. Yeah,no use in thinking with an empty stomach.

《Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away

Hearts and thoughts they fade, fade away》 the radio plays as he drives to a Dinner,the only dinner in the small town.

Once there he does his usual, he parks and while looking at the entrance from his van he just thinks.  The only Jane he knew was Jane Zhao, a nurse from the camp he was stationed at- a woman in her 30s, Chinese-American, kind and sassy.

She gave him shit for being scared of needles, he remembers only knowing her through Alphonso though... she had lost someone too-Her best friend, something Sullivan. Jane was more of an acquaintance to him,tough hes sure Alphonso told her all about his protegé young mister Cole.

Alphonso could never shut up about how proud he was of Lucas. He was a Soccer dad through and through

The bell above him rings as he steps, the Sixties exterior with its Open Windows and large rooves clash with the soft pinks,baby blues and light yellows of the inside, with those large bars that appear in greaser movies and that "Golden Age" posters and decor.

He sits at the edge of the bar, ordering a simple meal to eat and just listening to the music coming from the TV.

With the previous experience a few days back, Being in this restaurant made him a bit on edge. Especially with the TV channel being tuned into MTV.

《I swear, I recognize your breath

Memories like fingerprints are slowly raising

Me, you wouldn't recall for I'm not my former

It's hard when you're stuck upon the shelf》

But thats not whats eating at his mind, he taps on the pristine surface of the bar.

"Even if that was Jane, theres no way- She wouldnt recognize me, its been fourty years almost...I changed...I think" he thinks,going to reach for his dogtags. One is his,the other is Wheelers

--Here you go,sir-- Says a waitress with the nametag "Iris".

--huh?-Oh,Thanks-- he answers, turning to look down at the Plate of food.

God,the whole ambience feels so nostalgic, he grew up in places that looked like this- but some things are off,not the same layout, or equipment...

But the cutlery, the shiny steel,the big plates...even the glasses...

Is...is he getting homesick?

Homesick for the past?

Lucas sighs a little annoyed, Last thing he needs is to dig himself deeper down into old memories. He eats,quietly wondering about  that old woman, was it Jane? If she was would she remember him?

《My God it's been so long

Never dreamed you'd return

But now here you are and here I am》

When hes done, still in silent contemplation, he simply waves over the same waitress that handed him the food.

--Yes,what is it?

--Im uh- not really from around 'ere--He answers, refusing to meet her eye out of awkwardness. A part of him felt stupid for asking this--Say- I met Ms.Zhao- she wasnt an army nurse was she?

--She was,actually-- Iris answered,a little puzzled--Why?

He blinks a few times--I think she worked in my platoon,do you have any idea where I can find her?

The waitress thinks for a moment, looking off into space for a few seconds. Long,eternal seconds...

--i think she visits San Myra's park at night--Iris answered.

Lucas breathes out a sigh of relief-- Thanks, heres uh- a tip. For the help -- he pays what he owes and leaves a few 10 dolar bills.

And before she can say anything, he gets up and leaves. He really cant talk to people...

So with all that in his mind,he goes to ask around for the park hes looking for. Its pretty much in the center of the town so off he drives there.

Its a long wait, he tries to occupy himself with cleaning out his guns, his radio equipment and going to walk around the neighboorhood against his better judgement.

That 50s/60s architecture cant stop haunting him, but its not quite spot on. Some things are off,the colors,the shapes of the rooves and the crash of modern 90s architecture.

He finds himself digging into old memories, the Games he used to play with his dogs, the robotics competition he used to partake in...

Memories of the few pleaseant times while deployed, inner Jokes with his buddies that made him Snicker to himself, dumb little anecdotes and fun Shenanigans.

In hindsight he does pity Alphonso, he had to wrangle a bunch of teenager and a few rowdy "adults" every single Day of his life. He wonders if he ever got stress white hairs from everything- But at least to his credit, he took things in stride And with a big grin and a sassy comeback.

God,he does miss his old pal.

As happy hour begins to push,he goes to a small bar for at least one drink,something to entretain himself.

He sits there at the counter with a few other folk that talk to themselves. Lucas is happy to nurse his beer alone, taking in that 60 and 70s decor that fill the place with life and character.

Theres even an old jukebox and he indulges in a little throw back. He goes up to it and slides a coin in,choosing the song "Aint no mountain high enough" By Marving Gaye and Tammi Terrel.

Within the old machine he can see cogs whirre up,parts move and slide into place. The vinyl, an actual vynil,being grabbed by this claw like thing and being put on a platform with a needle.

It settles into place with a small click and he returns to his spot to simply enjoy the music that starts pouring in.

He turns to his left side to see the other Converse,but instead he sees the side profile of Alphonso.

"I do wonder why you choose me over yer old man" Wheeler asked,half joking and the other half serious.

"Dont-dont worry about it" Answers a young Lucas with his black curly hair all short" Short hair sucks"

The older Man chuckled,the sound so hearty and genuine "I told you- dont be a cry baby about it- itll grow back"

"But my long hair Man! It gave me all my charm!"

Alphonso laughed loudly" Hah! Kid c'mon, theres more t'ya"

"Oh old one give me some of yer wisdom!" The younger Man teased,making a grand display with a wide grin.

"Wise? Yes, Old? Go fuck yerself" Wheeler answered, taking a long sip of his beer" Ya have a good heart,kiddo" the bottle is set on the counter with a soft knock,his eyes are set on the interior of the bottle,spinning it with his fingers "perseviring,Smart, brave. Kind, sweet..."

Lucas remains silent as he usually does when his unofficial dad talks. His eyes glued on the older Man, leaning in a little to hear him better.

"You care for everyone you come across, and hell yer fathers have the emotional awareness of a pea- And you are so much better than them" the older Man sighs" youre the best of all of us,dont forget that- Even when i-" he makes a pause,conteplating something before correcting himself  " when some of Us kick the bucket"

"You talk like yer not coming back" the younger Man chuckled,feeling a little unconfortable at the idea of his best buddy not returning.

"Just old Man ramblings,kid-" he refuses to meet his gaze, his brows furrowed with deep concern that goes unnoticed by his companio.

"Hah,you just said youre not old"

"Maybe I am just starting to lose it" Wheeler says with a quick smirk, he rises his beer" for a better future?"

Lucas grins" and to good Friends"

Their bottles clink and-

--You done with that one,buddy?--Says the barkeeper infront of him.

--Sorry- i yes-- Lucas hands the empty bottle and adds--How much do I owe you?

He pays and finds himself already at night, he walks back to San Myra's park and waits sitting on a bench in silence.Thumb tracing the name on one of his dogtags "Alphonso Wheeler"

Not soon after he sees Ms.Zhao walk past him,up to a statue of a young soldier being held by Saint Nicholas of Myra.

Lucas is quick to follow the old woman and when she looks to her side he asks--Ms.Zhao?

--Oh hey its you--She answers--Yes, its me- What are you doing he-

--I was told you were an army medic,for Vietnam--He starts,the words just coming out like waterfalls,like hes desperate,lost child trying to find an adult to rely on--You tended To Captain Alphonso Wheeler from Alpha Company, a few times actually- Im-

--Lucas--Zhao finishes with a surprised,If not bittersweet look on her face--Lucas Cole

His eyes widen,his heart fills with hope--Jane?

--Ill be damned--She breathes out.

Finally,Someone he knows that isnt dead.

--Well,shit-- he breathes out.

--Dont just stand there,you Crud muffin! Give me a hug--Jane pulls him into a tight embrace. He has to bend over to hug her back,he smiles and burrows his face on the crook of her neck.

Tears pick at the corner of his eyes,he squeezes her a little with a wide grin.

Around them the air is silent,mist creeping from the corners, the streets a little barren. Beside them the saint holds the young soldier,reuniting Him God in peace, with Grace.

--You havent changed a thing --She added,pulling Back with a smile-- Still tall and lanky, that wild black hair and that deer in headlights look!

Lucas feels his face darken--Hey! I grew out of deer in headlights look a long time ago

She snorts--Hah! You did,now you look like a wet cat now

--Hey!!--He yells, flustered.--You and Al' always found a way to make fun of me! Not fair

--Life aint fair,kiddo-- Jane chuckled-- Jesus, you got taller?

--Or maybe you just shrunk--He teased back.

Jane has the Audacity to look impressed-- Finally biting back? About damn time

Lucas groans with annoyance,holding his face in his hands-- Jesus christ!

The old woman cackles,hearty,boisterous,loud and so genuine-- its like im seeing my grandson! Ha--she leans on the display plaque that details the story of saint Nicholas of Myra--Speaking of kids,any of your own? A hot wife? Orrrr husband?

His face grows Darker with blush, suddenly very aware of his personal connections-- No- Not really- for neither. Not yet anyway

Jane raised a brow-- huh..!--He looks at her a little insulted at her disbelief-- Thought you'd have people making line at your door,after all Wheeler told me how full of yourself you were when you were a kid

--I- well- I was 19! Of course I was full of myself-- He said,leaning on the small metal fence that met at the sides of the display plaque.

--well you were really,really full of yourself. Like- a lot

--Okay,okay,Point made,Jane--He looks at the statue,the young soldier- barely in teenhood with dirt on his face and an innocent grin.

He hears the shuffling of cloth,then then a groan of annoyance--Ah shit,got a light?

Lucas turns to see Jane with a cigarette in her mouth--Those things Will kill you

The old woman rolls her eyes-- tell me something I dont know- Do you have a light yes or no?

A soft sigh leaves him and he grabs a lighter from his back pocket. He keeps to himself that the lighter used to belong to Wheeler and flips it Open, soon she lights up her cig And looks at the saint statue.

--i...I heard about Wheeler-- she said quietly,as if hoping he didnt hear.

But his eyes fall to the young soldier and sighs-- course ya did

--I know you suspected that there was foul play involved--She said,exhaling smoke--You were the talk of the ward...

--Because there was,Jane--Lucas replied--Thats why I'm here, im...chasing after this one lead..Its one hell of a long story

She nodds--persevering...just Like Wheeler told me you were-- She takes a drag from her cig--I'd call you bullheaded . Couldnt you just...take a plane?

He shrugs-- Cant pay me to board a plane.. not with those goverment spooks chasing me

--What did you get into,Lucas?--Jane asked,her tone akin to one of a scolding mother.

--Its a long story...

The older woman rubs her eyes,being mindful of her red eyeshadow-- Ill regret telling you this...but I was offered a position not a few days into the ward back at 'Nam, to monitor enemy soldiers exposed to a biochemical weapon...

He snaps his head to look at her--Agen-- He stops,looking around for a brief moment before returning his gaze to her-- Alpha Romeo . Why didnt you-

--I didnt know the symptoms...I refused. It was inhumane! I didnt want to be part of it. But then I was told of the state you were in, and I just...knew -- the older woman's eyes fall to the young soldier statue-- I didnt tell you because I thought itll help you leave it alone...that you'd convince yourself with a lie and...and leave in peace. I mean you were almost like Wheeler's son, and I guess I saw myself as an Aunt, I wanted a peaceful life for you, Kid-

--Dont- Dont call me that-- His voice sounds stern,angry. But it soon breaks down,shaky-- please...

She turns and coos,going to hugh him with one arm as he tries to hold back tears--its not your fault-

--How would you know?

Lucas wipes off his tears angrily, he feels like a child again,lost in that muddly jungle, disoriented...

Jane shakes off her cardigan, dropping it on the floor,she shows her tattoo on her bicep. Its a faded red heart with a cross, the name "Dexter Sullivan" written on it.

--My best friend got shot--She starts, not meeting the Mans gaze-- many times...Then, he was brought to the ward, I was on call and I tried to save his life- Keep pressure on the wounds, I ran to the bloodbank to get transfusions ready. Hell,we shared bloodtypes so I just went and gave him my blood until the doctors could get everything ready

The radioman turns to the older woman, with his eyes misty and red and feeling...Moved.

--When that didnt work, I tried to Stitch the wounds myself- But in the end...he died--Her voice cracks and now its her who has to fight the tears--I spent so,so Many years blaming myself, the doctors kept telling me we were overrun with wounded, that I just afforded him a few seconds of life,allowing him to see that I was trying so damn hard. He died knowing I cared for him

--Oh my god,Jane-

--When he died I was broken. I hated myself,i felt stupid,useless, so guilty--she says, anger in ver voice-- I wouldve wished death took me instead, but as I aged I realized... he died with me around,he died knowing he was cared for,loved...it wasnt my own malpraxis that Killed him- He was already on deaths door when he got there--She continues-- I was a nurse- a damn good one, but he was bleeding out. I did all I could...

--Alphonso- He died in my arms--He added, sniffing--Shot clean through the head by-- he coughs out a sob-- By me- we got sprayed by well- you know what... theres not a day where I dont regret calling for air support, where I wish I was taken and not him

--You werent in sound mind...

--I know-- he replied--But I pulled the trigger, im the reason hes dead...

Jane takes a drag from her cig and offers one to him--Cmon, I saw you smoke a few times

He rolled his eyes, grabbing one and lightning it up soon after- The bitter taste of nicotine in his mouth that soon fills with smoke as he inhales.

《When you were young and your heart

Was an open book

You used to say live and let live

(You know you did)

(You know you did)

(You know you did)》One of the nearby houses blooms witt music. Neither mind,its good to have something to drift their attention away from the pain.

--Im here to chase down these fuckers,im going to expose them all--Lucas growls with a vibrant,youthfull anger in his voice.-- Im going to avenge Wheeler and anyone who died at the hands of the chemical

--Putting the world on your shoulders...Hah,I know the feel -- her voice softens as he takes another drag of the cigarrette.

《But if this ever changin' world

In which we live in

Makes you give in and cry

Say live and let die

Live and let die》

--But Lucas...--Jane continues--Itll eat you alive. The grief- it never ends really,but you can do something about the guilt--She takes his free hand,squeezing it-- Even I havent fully forgiven myself for Dex, but anger and grief makes you bitter- And if youre going after them as hard as I know you Will, you need your mind clear

《What does it matter to ya

When you got a job to do you got to do it well

You got to give the other fella hell》

--I have a job to do,Jane. Itll get done, Even if I dont make it out

--Good lord,Lucas. Youre sounding just like Wheeler now--She says,exhasperated--But dont you want a happy ending? What Will you do when you get your victory?

Lucas sighs,feeling childish again. Jesus, he hasnt thought about it yet--I- I didnt mean to- Do I really sound so....

《You used to say live and let live

(You know you did)

(You know you did)

(You know you did)

But if this ever changin' world

In which we live in

Makes you give in and cry

Say live and let die

Live and let die》

--Bitter?--She asks and He nodds-- Yes, you do. I have no doubt Wheeler knew of the chemicals, something seemed off with him

--Yeah...yeah he did sound off--He answers--He sounded so certain that he wouldnt come back, the day he took me out for my first beer-Right before deployment, He told me to never forget I was the best of our Group- Even when they kick the bucket. How wouldve he known?

--It was an army operation,and he was a damn good soldier

--Do you think...he got an offer?

--Most certainly--Jane agreed-- Knowing him he probably said no.

Lucas sighs with relief,messing witt his hair as his head hangs low at the mild scare he got from imagining his best friend working for Mayer, or its predecesor.

At least Wheeler was on the right side of history-- Probably yeah, i- God, this is so insidious

--Make Wheeler a favor,forgive yourself, Will you?--She says, patting his back-- He wouldnt hold it against you,ever. He loved you like a son, he wouldnt want you to suffer,and neither do I

He chuckles-- you know me a lot more than I know you

She smiles with that bittersweet look in her eyes--Yeah,he never shut up about you-You were the great Lucas Cole,promise of his platoon

Lucas snorts--He was big on hyping me up- All the damn time

Jane rolled her eyes--Oh he'd sing only praises about your aim,your kindnes...and all the dumb shit you did

He laughs loudly, taken by surprise. Its a warm,nostalgic laugh--Hah, im sure he did

Silence falls,the wind blows and the mist thickens. Between them they stand there,reunited.

Above them the Sky is starlit and clear, the music from that one house now a mere hum, the street is barren, and theres an air of privacy,of domesticity to this moment of sincerity.

The nurse figures its quite late now,she turns to the Man she sees as her surrogate Nephew and says--Need a place to stay?

--I can sleep in the van-

--Nonsense, itll fuck up your back--Its so weird to hear an old woman curse-- My son has left the nest a long time ago,my husband is well asleep- I can tell him tomorrow

He snorts-- youre too sweet-- he sighs and nodds,he could use a comfy bed--Fine, cmon ill drive you there

At Janes house,Lucas is guided to the barren bedroom of the place. The beds comfortable and warm, and with his heart and soul a little lighter, he can rest.

The house is quiet, the room is small and cozy-It has the outline of his old room back at his family home...it makes Him feel cozy,safe.

Next morning introductions are made,the ex soldier meets his host's husband, Jared Lawson. Both men get along quite well, specially when Jane tells her beloved who Lucas is.

Its nice to have people he sort of knows,he feels...welcomed,at home, and Jane is a great Cook so he gets not only a hearty breakfast but also some snacks for the road.

--You and Wheeler eat like damn starved hogs-- the nurse teased, seeing her guest inhale a Plate of Bacon and eggs.

Sheepishly,Lucas shrugs and keeps eating.

Just as hes ready to leave, his heart aunt stands there with her cream dress,her red cardigan and her crimson bandana holding her black hair in place. She unties it and her hair falls in beautiful Rolling waves.

--lean down ,Lieutenant

‐-Yes ma'am --He says,and leans to eye level. She Gently curls his hair into a bun and ties it with that red bandana.

--Red's a good luck color in China, now you carry a piece of me with you.

He chuckles,feeling his eyes get misty already--Ill come visit once everything is done, maybe ill even bring a hot wife and kids for you to meet

She laughs--You better, I want to be an aunt for Real

--Am I not enough Auntie Jane?--He teased like he was that shit head of a teen he used to be

--Hah! Asshole

They say goodbye with a good tight hug, and Lucas hops into his van and drives off. His spirits risen, his hopes high and his grin wide.

Its good to be reminded that youre not alone in things that feel like bigger than you. Just because his buddies are dead, it doesnt mean theyre gone

Jane is still there.

Wheeler lived on in his heart

Perhaps he can start the work in forgiving himself.

And as he watches the Rolling mountains of Oregon,the beautiful trees and Lakesthat frame the road he goes through, and under that blue skies

He decides to at least try to be Kinder to his mind and soul,and that young soldier that lives within him.

[liannova]

discussing my thoughts about the different generations of lego friends

— generation 1

i absolutely love this generation. it’s simple, it’s sweet, it’s nostalgic. i was never a huge fan of lego friends growing up, but i still enjoyed it as a kid and have a couple prominent memories in relation to lego friends. (but anyway)

this gen is simplistic in a good way. the plots of the episodes are easy to understand. the characters feel super familiar, you kind of know what to expect with them. and they were established with the intent for at viewers to be able to relate to at least one of them, whether it be in terms of looks or interests. no, it’s not the most diverse lineup ever. if anything, the diversity in this generation was really bad.

i love the way they handled friendships in this, though, specifically with side characters. i liked how mia had plot points with characters like lacy, kate, livi, and fiona. and i always enjoyed the rivalry between stephanie and tanya (and the brief friendship between tanya and emma). there are more dynamics i could state, but these are the ones that come to my mind quickest. i feel like the side characters were unique enough, and every dynamic was unique in its own way, too.

i wasn’t the biggest fan of the voice and animation/design change that happened. it made sense for the movie, but for the episodes, it got confusing to me. a couple voices changed before then, but the alteration of the series between The Grand Hotel and Getting Out The Vote, i’ll probably never be the biggest fan of. i definitely prefer the earlier episodes, and while i absolutely do not hate the later episodes, i kind of just wished the voices stayed. idk why they changed, tbh, including the animation style. maybe it was contract related, or they just wanted something different??? i have no clue, in all honesty

overall, i love this generation. i still have to dive into the webseries lore, though (with the 2D animation). anyways, my favourite character from this generation is definitely mia, and my favourite ship is always mia x emma (miemma).

— generation 2

this is by far my favourite generation. i’m gonna be real, though… i used to not like it at all. i wasn’t a fan of the changes they made (this was when i was heavily into the first gen) and i thought the characters were “too different”

but now, i fight for the exact opposite of what i initially thought about girls on a mission. the animation change is great. the new voices are much more accurate both in terms of character and representation. the modern take on heartlake city is nice for modern times. and the characters personalities aren’t much different from the original… if anything, they’re more interesting. they stayed similar to their original designs and personalities, which is a good thing for fans who previously knew the main five in the previous generation. i’m always gonna defend olivia’s design change (because apparently, it’s a common theme that people are very upset about her new look). it’s easy to tell who is who, and they look different enough in terms of fashion style, too, lol. idk! i just really love the artistic expression within this gen

i like how they continued to have character problem focused episodes in goam. while they were a bit shorter, they were still nicely setup and nicely paced. it’s hard to pick a fav season, tbh. i really love season four because the mall and the fun faire are just beautiful to me. but i’ll forever love the go-kart arc of season one. i feel like they lost me a bit between seasons two and three, but i was not disappointed at all. 

in terms of characters, i would’ve loved to have seen the side characters in goam from the previous gen (specifically livi and tanya). i know, though, that it’s a reboot, and often in reboots, old characters aren’t included and new characters are introduced. that’s okay, though! we got iconic characters like vicky, savannah, camila and claire out of it! and i liked the inclusion of the boy characters within this season. i liked how ethan was the most prominent one for awhile, then it switched over to river.

i’ll forever be a defender of goam. i could write an essay fr. my favourite character from goam has fluctuated over time (going from mia to vicky to stephanie to andrea), but i’d say that andrea and mia are definitely my best girls from this gen. my favourite ships are tied between andrea x emma (andremma) and stephanie x mia (stephmia).

— generation 2.5

this generation confuses me so much. i don’t necessarily hate it. it just came at a time where i was really hoping for a goam season five. i feel it was a bit of a downgrade in terms of animation, and i fear it might be due to the criticisms of “girls on a mission doesn’t even look like lego media at all, the girls don’t look like legos”. i will say, though, that i’m not mad that heartlake stories exist, because it’s a nice closing to generation 2 and bridge into generation 3

i haven’t watched these episodes as much as i’ve watched the episodes of the two previous generations. i will say that at first watch, i don’t enjoy the voice changes as much as i do for goam. but maybe that’s where i just need to be open a bit more (also researching the actresses may help, i always love researching voice actors). the stories feel very close to the vibe of generation one, though, which i rly enjoy. and the new take on heartlake city feels cozy.

you can still tell which character is which. and i like the inclusion of side characters. from what i remember, i think the side characters were included a LOT more than side characters have ever been included in lego friends media.

i don’t have much to say about this generation, as i haven’t given it much thought, let alone much of a chance. i’d be happy with or without it, to be honest. but it was nice to have between goam and generation three. idk if i much of a change in my favourite character for this gen, probably still between mia and andrea, which is probably my favourite ship in this generation, too.

— generation 3

alright y’all, i have tons to say.

i’m OBSESSED with this generation, and it’s only november 2022 (meaning it hasn’t officially released yet, only officially announced).

everything about this generation is so exciting. i’m walking into this gen with an open mindset because i know this is the biggest change within the lego friends franchise, and it’s a change for the better. there has always been a debate on the mere existence of lego friends and how it forces (feminine) stereotypes. i find myself writing against these critiques, as i feel that the existence of lego friends is a positive thing! but now i’ll definitely be writing in favour of lego friends due to this new reboot.

i love love love how media is getting more diverse throughout the past few years. diversity should’ve been set from the start, not followed through a trend. but i’m glad it’s happening, especially even more past girls on a mission. i’m gonna say that i thought goam was pretty diverse already. they diversified the main cast and included many other unique characters within the antagonists, love interests, side characters, and even minor characters. we already had disabled rep in goam, but there’s even more to expect in the new generation, and i’m excited for that.

i’m especially excited for the rep of neurodivergence?!?! this is major. no, like, this is MAJOR. i already have a hunch that, if explicitly stated, liann and nova are very neurodivergent coded (based on their bios), but who knows. dude, they’re probably all neurodivergent. anyway

i’m glad the main five won’t be completely gone. i wonder about the other characters, but mia already appears in a (teased) set for the new generation. the fact that they said “the main five are all grown up” has me in shambles. like, wow. they really have because mia is apparently now a mother?? this is big, everybody.

i have a lot of hope for this generation. i love the inspirational stories around why they are rebooting lego friends, and i am very excited for the animated series. yeah, i’m gonna miss the goam animation style. but i already love the new friends and i can’t wait to get to know them. my favourites based off bios are definitely nova, liann, and paisley. and i’m really excited for the (possible ship) dynamic between aliya and autumn.

[divineerdrick]

One Piece Live Blog: Get Cruising!

Oh boy! Here we go!

The Netflix One Piece adaptation convinced me to take another stab at the genuine article. My previous attempt had stalled out on Kuro's arc. But with Matt Owens, Steven Maeda, and the gang highlighting what I'd enjoyed my first try, I'm back for more.

Since Netflix One Piece is filled with spoilers for the manga and anime, this first part is going to be #not so live blog. I'm basically going to cover all of East Blue in this one massive blog, having paused after Luffy got his first wanted poster. From here, I'll be trying to go one episode and chapter at a time, using episode previews to let me know if I should watch an episode before reading a chapter. For example, I know that the next episode of the anime is Buggy's journey after getting Gum Gum Bazooka'd off the island. But that episode was covered in Oda's famous chapter pages in the manga.

I might look to see if anyone has a good watching/reading order out there. If anyone knows of one, please let me know!

I should also note that I'm not going to be policing spoilers very hard here. I'm going to try to watch each episode and read each chapter as fresh as I can, but let's face facts. One Piece is an integral part of modern anime's DNA, and it's honestly all over the parts of the internet I call home. I'm going to have some preliminary impressions going in for a lot of the characters and arcs that people have raved about throughout the literal decades. Again, if I find an intrepid assistant who feels like intercepting asks and the like, I might accept their help. But I just think it's pretty hard to do this one as a truly blind read/watch.

Without further ado, here are my #not so live blog thoughts on what I've gotten through so far! I'll also go over my thoughts on the differences between manga/anime and Netflix, and occasionally manga and anime . . .

First Thoughts

Right off the bat, I feel like I need to mention that I still struggled through East Blue. It was definitely an easier read than watch, and I found myself enjoying the manga a bit more than the anime. There felt like there was a bit too much generic Shonen bullshit in this first part of the story. Now granted, as one of the OG Shonen works, this is more that other Shonen anime have made some of this boring and generic, but it's honestly still kinda dumb, boring bullshit here.

But that all changed when I got to Arlong Park. That arc felt incredibly tight and well paced, with each character being well utilized. The jokes all landed, the fights were all awesome, and the villain was enjoyable. This is definitely where One Piece started to sing for me, and showed the promise of why this work has had so much staying power.

Please keep that in mind when I get to my coverage of the various arcs.

Characters

Monkey D. Luffy

Our primary protagonist and the Captain of the Straw Hats took me a little warming up to in the manga and anime. Part of this is that Netflix Luffy is a couple notches higher in terms of good nature and IQ, and a couple notches lower on the pirate scale and silliness. In short, Netflix Luffy is a little closer to generic Protag-kun than his animated counterpart. He's really not a pirate, not even a "different kind of pirate." He's an adventurer using the term pirate as his title.

OG Luffy is definitely a pirate. He's a little mean, a little underhanded, and, most importantly, he won't let anything get between him and his goals. There are plenty of times when he just flat out slaps someone down because he thinks they're stupid or they're in his way. The only reason he becomes Zeff's choreboy is that the old pirate kicks the crap out of him. While Netflix Luffy opines that everyone has a story about Nami, except for Nami herself, OG Luffy just doesn't care. Nami is his navigator, and the thought of leaving Conomi Island without her never crosses his mind.

And honestly, while he took a bit to grow on me, this makes OG Luffy such a more fun and interesting character to follow. Yeah, as even Oda jokes, he's thick as brick. But even this has its charm. He sits at a nice middle ground between Goku and Jack Sparrow. He's just mean enough, and just crazy enough that you can't predict what he's going to do, while still being likeable enough to be a hero you want to follow for a thousand plus chapters.

Roronoa Zoro

The first of the Strong Trio, as I've heard them called, Zoro (or Zolo in the version I'm reading) is probably the character who varies the most from his Netflix adaptation to his OG self. OG Zoro isn't as thick or silly as Luffy is, but he's still a lot of fun. He's nowhere near as tightly strung or straight laced as Netflix Zoro is. He also jumps on Luffy's side a lot faster, accepting his role as Luffy's swordsman in exchange for his swords and sticking to his oath from that point forward. When Mihawk destroys him at Baratie, he's genuinely distraught that he not only lost, but he failed Luffy.

He also gets more time to shine during Arlong Park too, with his own opponent to face down and defeat. Granted, I understand why Owens and Maeda probably did this. At that point in the show, we know Zoro is a badass, especially with Mackenyu's amazing displays of swordsmanship, and Sanji needed to be established as the second member of the Strong Trio. Plus I'm betting Hachi would have been trying on their budget.

But again, this version of Zoro is just more fun to follow. We've seen the straight faced, snarky action hero done to death. I like the fact that the OG is much more laid back and willing to have some fun.

Nami

Tied with Usopp for how faithfully she was adapted, Nami is so far the most serious and intelligent member of the Straw Hats. She's a fan favorite for a reason. Besides sporting a cute design to appeal to the core Shonen audience, Nami is honestly one of the most capable characters in the story. And she's shown repeatedly to be pretty badass when she needs to be. All three versions of her are likeably and laudible.

That doesn't mean there aren't differences though. Netflix Nami feels a bit more victimized. And, I mean, fair! She refuses to get close to the Straw Hats because she believes she's doomed to hurt those around her. It feels more like an internalized failing, rather than the result of the overwhelming external force that is Arlong. OG Nami is a loner because she believes she has to do everything herself. It's not that people around her get hurt because of her, it's because if she involves anyone then Arlong might remove them from the picture. She plays a villain to Cocoyashi village not to distance herself, but because she doesn't want anyone else to get hurt saving her.

Either way, the emotional aspect of her arc throughout East Blue is one of the things that made Arlong Park so compelling. Now that she's free, I can't wait to see how her character develops. If her exit from Cocoyashi is any indication, it will be a lot of fun!

Usopp

Usopp is also pretty faithfully adapted in Netflix, with one small exception. Both versions of the character have dreams of being a hero, the same hero they portray themselves as in the stories they tell. However, for now at least, OG Usopp is a little close than Netflix Usopp. While Usopps cowardly antics seem a lot more over the top in manga/anime action, his acts of bravery are also more numerous.

Usopp won't stand by and let someone else get hurt. He may not be able to jump into the fray when things get started, but the moment an innocent person is in danger he doesn't hesitate. Part of this might be the changes made to the arcs for Netflix's adaptation. In the Netflix version, only Kaya is any real danger from Kuro and his Black Cat Pirates. So when Usopp refuses to leave Kaya's side, it comes off more as him refusing to abandon a friend then sticking up for someone that can't defend themselves. But in the original version, Usopp is defending the whole island from the Black Cats, an island that thinks he's a liar and a menace. He's also the one who jumps to Zoro's rescue when Mihawk strikes him down. And at Cocoyashi he repeatedly intercedes when fishmen are menacing the village.

Even his fight against Chew is because he knows he needs to even the odds or the three lieutenants will easily overpower Zoro and Sanji. While Netfix Usopp flees the moment Chew sets his eyes on him, then manages to setup a knockout punch, OG Usopp lures Chew away and then renews his attack the moment Chew tries to give up on the chase.

In short, Oda does an amazing job at showing that Usopp genuinely does have the ability to become a hero. I know he's still mostly comic relief and is part of what is occasionally called the Cowardly Trio, but I do hope we get to see Usopp get some development towards his dream.

Sanji

The last member of the Straw Hat's I've met so far, I have the least to say about Sanji. His dream and ambitions are perfect as the ship's cook, but they aren't particularly compelling for me yet. His fighting style is a lot of fun to watch though. And, as opposed to Zoro, it's so far more fun in animation and sequential art than live action. His swooning over Nami isn't really entertaining for me, though it's also not annoying. It's again, a little more entertaining in the manga/anime where the cool confidence that would probably serve him well in courting her is completely upended by drooling idiocy.

I will use this space to note another difference for the character, though this time it's in their back story and not their character traits. And it's strangely one where Netflix went with the manga, while the anime changed it. I just find it interesting that in both the manga and Netflix, Zeff sacrifices his leg on the rock to stave off his hunger so that he can give all the food to Sanji. But in the anime, they had him sacrifice his leg ahead of time to save Sanji, thus meaning he already had the leg as potential food source before making the decision. I'm curious why they made that change.

Johnny and Yosaku

While not part of the crew, I still felt I should give the two fanboys a mention. They provide something that Netflix missed out on, and maybe even spoiled a little in where they chose to cut and change things for the adaptation. They help setup some of the power scale for the adventure. Put simply, Johnny and Yosaku help give us a notion of what a normal, human adventurer is capable of compared to the pirates of the East Blue.

While the East Blue is the small pond of One Piece's world, that doesn't mean that Buggy, Kuro, and Krieg aren't real and genuine threats. Johnny and Yosaku traveled with Zoro as bounty hunters, and they presumably fought pirates and other outlaws. But they're completely outclassed when Krieg shows up. And when they go to Arlong park, they're dispatched so easily Arlong doesn't even bother to have them killed.

This helps establish that it's not just that Luffy is starting his adventure in a level appropriate zone, Luffy, Zoro, Sanji, and even Nami are genuinely in their own class by East Blue standards. They are destined for greatness by right of their ambitions and everything they've learned and done to get to this point. They're not Lvl 1 Heroes killing slimes to get their first copper sword, they're already at or near vanilla level cap and just need the unifying force that is Luffy to get them moving.

I don't know if the two fanboys will play any further part in the adventure, save for maybe montages of characters past like with the wanted poster. For now they're staying in East Blue, where they've done what I think the story needed them to do.

Arcs

Alvida and Axe-Hand Morgan

One Piece starts out strong. Alvida makes for an entertaining first goon for Luffy to show off on (though am I spying a reinvigorated "most beautiful pirate" on these chapter pages?) Koby makes a nice lore character to get us started off, and Morgan makes a credible threat to defeat as our first baddy.

Obviously the first thing to point out here in differences is that Netflix, with fewer episodes to work with, assembles our first three Straw Hats here. In the original story, this is just where Luffy meets Zoro. I already discussed the changes there. Though I think this is another one where Netflix went back to the manga for one change? In the anime they have Zoro being punished for a month, but I seem to remember the manga had it as like a week or something.

Either way, the first adventure is a lot of fun and sets up some side plots for later. Where I am in the manga, I've just started getting chapter pages for Morgan and Garp. Netflix, of course, made a whole B plot for Koby, Helmeppo, and Garp as they pursue the bread crumbs Luffy is leaving behind.

Buggy the Clown

This was also a really enjoyable arc. I'm not going to discuss the difference here, as there are just too many. Buggy is given a full side character role for all of East Blue in Netflix, where in the manga we just get the chapter pages. The one difference I do want to highlight is that in the manga and anime, it's Nami that thinks to tie down all of Buggy's parts and not Luffy. Though Luffy definitely shows some of that underhanded nature in this fight as he tickles and nut shots his vulnerable opponent whenever he tries to go after Nami with the Chop Chop ability.

Buggy is just so much fun! I don't know how much he actually shows up in the story, though it's obvious even without the Netflix teaser that he's itching for a rematch. His power is so cool and creative, and though he's so far not very competent with it, Netflix showed the potential it has. I hope I get to see a lot more of him.

This arc also nicely sets up Nami and her story for East Blue, though you only realize it in retrospect. Again, I remember just always having a lot of fun with this one.

Captain Kuro and the Black Cat Pirates

This was my original stumbling block and man did I feel it the second time around too. They try to make Kuro out to be this clever and menacing pirate, but I just never buy it. Part of the problem is he just doesn't do anything!

This is one of those arcs where I was getting tired of the Shonen bullshit. The arc starts with the introduction of Usopp as a comic relief character. Since I hadn't had a chance to see the bravery he'll show later yet, and Netflix didn't deliver on it, that's all I get for him as things start. Then we get a rather cliché murder plot. The butler did it! Kuro is revealed, and his plan is . . .

Well, the hypnosis part is creative I guess? It's more fun and interesting than just, "I'll trick the family accountant to signing everything over to me!" Jango fails to be anything but more comic relief though, and that's with Usopp already looking to fill the role.

Then we get to the fight. Usopp starts to show his bravery, but it's buried under all the attempts at comedically stalling things out. Oh no! They're at the wrong beach! Oh no! Zoro's caught in the grease trap! Oh no! Luffy got lost! Oh no! Zoro got his swords stolen! Oh no! Luffy got put to sleep by Jango!

And all the while, Kuro just stands there. Nami doesn't really do much here either, even though I honestly think she could probably take Kuro on her own. Then Kuro just announces he's going to kill everyone and the pirates stop doing anything too. And when Luffy and Kuro finally do fight, it feels drawn out. Like it really just feel like Luffy could have just walloped him if he'd been taking things a bit more seriously or been a bit more creative with his powers.

I will say, Usopp's bravery does start to shine through here. He keeps getting knocked down but refuses to give up. Usopp honestly is the best thing about this arc and it does set his character up well.

Baratie

And finally we come to it: the wall.

Baratie almost ended my second attempt at this. It starts out so strong too! Sanji's introduction is awesome, Zeff is really cool, and the idea of a bunch of "fighting cooks" that can beat pirates is really fun. Then you get the introduction of Mihawk. This is one of the points where I wish I'd stuck with my first attempt at One Piece. To be fair, Netflix's introduction of Mihawk is fantastic. But this was even better in many ways. I feel I would have enjoyed this more anime/manga first, then been impressed by the adaptation. It comes out of almost nowhere with just the barest hints of what's about to happen before Mihawk splashes down in the East Blue like a giant in a puddle. Netflix felt the need to tie Mihawk into the ongoing story. As other commentators have pointed out, this undermines the sense of scale and danger that is The Grand Line.

OG Mihawk isn't on any kind of mission. He's just bored!

But Krieg and his pirates. Oh man . . .

The point of Krieg is that he is the proof that the East Blue is the leveling zone. Here is a man with a ton of resources and know how. He has a massive armada, state of the art weapons, and a vicious and dedicated crew. The chefs of Baratie might have fought off pirates before, but they're no match for Krieg's crew.

But Mihawk, one man with one sword, destroyed it all.

Yet Mihawk gets bored again and doesn't finish the job. So now Luffy has to prove that he does have what it takes by beating them by himself (with some help from Sanji of course.)

It's a pretty functional device as plot devices go. The implementation just sucked.

Krieg is not interesting. "I win because I have the strongest weapon," is such an old trope and one that, especially in anime and manga, almost always means you're a loser. Gin isn't interesting. He's got just enough character that I would actually like to see if Oda does something more with him. But in this arc he starts out feeling like a weak lackey. Then, surprise! he's second in command! Then he's just a weak lackey again. Then, he's a lackey, but he's strong enough to walk away.

And the less said about Pearl the better.

But the biggest problem is, again, no one does anything! For most of the arc, Sanji is the only one that does any fighting. Other than launching their "secret weapon", the fighting chefs don't fight. And Luffy and Krieg just spend the entire arc staring each other down. It starts even before Mihawk shows up, and doesn't stop until Gin beats Sanji. Luffy makes a couple of extremely half hearted attempts to run . . . run . . . over to fight Krieg. But because, and I can't stress this enough, he only ever tries to run over to fight Krieg, Krieg easily repels him with his guns.

Once the fight actually starts, it's clear that Luffy can just pound Krieg into the dust. He just doesn't. And so the fight drags on longer than it feels it should, as Zeff opines about how Luffy will win because he has the will to do so. Even though, we literally just saw Zoro, who has almost, if not as indomitable a spirit, get owned by someone that's just plain better than he is, it's all actually about will and heart.

Well, maybe not just saw. As I said, this drags on a bit. We're quite a few episodes/chapters away from that before Luffy and Krieg actually start fighting.

Now I will say, I know there's more to this. Luffy is still very young and inexperienced. We start the adventure with him leaving his island, having not been show doing any actual fighting. We're literally seeing all of Luffy's actual combat experience in this anime and manga. He's constantly inventing new moves as he learns his abilities, and he also needs to learn how to use those moves at the right time. So this fight is supposed to be part of Luffy's learning process.

But it's just not fun and not funny and not interesting. He used the Gum Gum Rocket in the first arc, yet he keeps trying to, again, run over to fight Krieg. He's shown he can deflect projectiles, yet he just let's Krieg's poison shell hit Baratie. He punches right through Krieg's steel defenses, then takes his time breaking Krieg's spear.

It's just not a good fight!

But we can leave all that behind us now. Because once Krieg is defeated and Sanji says his suitably over the top farewells to Baratie, we can finally get to . . .

Arlong Park

Like I said, this basically saved One Piece for me and brought me back to the promise of the first two arcs. It also proved that this story can deliver on more than just Shonen action and slapstick comedy. Take everything I said about Baratie, change it to the opposite, and you have Arlong Park.

A lot of people have already talked about the difference between adaptations here, so I'm not going to mention it much. This is already getting long here. I do wish Nami had actually gotten to take some part in the action, but she still gets a heroic moment as she faces down the monster that murdered her mother and has controlled her entire life.

Also the way she reacts as Luffy destroys her prison hits hard.

But yeah, everything about this arc is fantastic. The pacing is great! The characters, and their designs, are all fantastic. The jokes all land. The way they divided up each fight is nearly perfect. And there is real, and intense, emotional pay off.

Even the Shonen trope of taking Luffy out of the fight to come back later is done well. Luffy being dumb and trying to do the cool new move he thought of getting him stuck is hilarious. And Arlong's reaction to it is a peak villain moment. It does make me wonder a bit about the way Devil Fruit powers work, because I thought that the ocean takes you power away. But Nojiko is able to stretch Luffy's head above water. Still, it might be that the Devil Fruit permanently made Luffy out of rubber, and it makes for a creative solution with some genuine suspense.

Even our comic relief villain, Hachi, is both funny and menacing. I really liked the fishmen designs in general, though I'm not as much a fan of Chew's design. Kuroobi is probably my favorite of the fishmen, possibly even more than Arlong. He's got a great design, his fighting style is awesome and a great test for Sanji, and he's shown to be more cool and level headed than his boss.

But Arlong is still a great villain. His planning and cunning and evil are demonstrated throughout the arc. And when the fight actually gets going, it's clear that he's a proper match for Luffy. Not only is Arlong strong, but his moves are just the right level of over the top. I'm particularly fond of the Shark Darts. I am a little sad he pulled out that massive sword to not really get to use it much, though. They also do a great job using him to demonstrate Luffy's strength by showing the force Arlong's nose can take before Luffy breaks it.

Final Thoughts

So yeah, I'm on a cruise now. From this point on it's going to be one episode/chapter one post. I'm going to try to do three to four episodes a week. At that pace, it's possible I might get caught up by years end. Either way, I'm hoping to have a lot of fun!