#so i'm missing fully entire storylines as well

[absentlyabbie]

fuck amazon, yes, fuck netflix too

but right now, fuck amazon and prime video in particular because at least netflix is pretty damn consistent and reliable on the most basic of accessibility options such as subtitles/captions actually syncing to their damn videos and not making it all but impossible to report playback and accessibility issues when they occur

i'm genuinely, legit excited to watch good omens season 2 here soon--except that if it's yet another show where at minimum random episodes are completely and entirely out of sync, i probably won't be able to watch it anyways

[myhamartiaishubris]

Ben Hargreeves is the worst written best character and I can prove it

This is a poorly organized meta/essay about my baby boy who got massacred. Originally posted in the discord server so some of y'all have seen it already.

Let me be clear: this is a love letter to my favourite Hargreeves boy. I could write him better. I could fix him (narratively).

Here's why Ben is a great character who, paradoxically, was very badly written.

Umbrella Ben

Listen. Listen to me. Ben Hargreeves was, from the moment I saw him, my absolute favourite character. He's already dead? Doomed by the narrative before the narrative even begins? Also, an East Asian character in the year of our Lord 2018?? I was on board. And Brelly Ben gets a lot of good moments! You know that scene where Klaus is in the motel closet, tied up, and Ben says something like, "How does it feel being helpless? This is how I feel, watching my brother piss his life away." Um, hello?? That's such a delicious line.

Because up until this point Ben's been kind of quiet, in that dead broody way, or we saw his young self being soft and reluctant. But suddenly we realize, oh, Ben isn't nice. In fact, he's kind of nasty to his addict brother, and you get this kernel of a glimpse into his character. This is a character who might have been soft-spoken in life, but death and the years since have shredded him down to all his razor edges. He's still that bookish little Ben, except he's not little and he's frustrated, angry, traumatized, and in pain.

And season 2 builds on this! He's willing to violate Klaus's personal boundaries just for a taste of life again. Holy shit that's so delicious. My problem is that, especially in season 2, this isn't explored nearly as much as it could be. Ben's possession shenanigans are mostly played for comedy, when in fact we could be delving into the implications of Ben's character and his relationship with Klaus. You have this character who's kind, who (from what we know so far) represented the "good" of the academy, who loves his brother so so hard and it hurts him so bad to see Klaus hit rock bottom every time. The little "I missed you guys" in season 2? Devastating. And yet despite his goodness he is capable of being a bad person, and he repeatedly hurts those around him (namely Klaus).

So surely this is part of his arc, right? This is going to be explored and resolved. Right?

The Season 2 Ending

So the thing is, I didn't immediately hate the way they had Ben move on / die to save Viktor. I was sad to see my favourite character go, but also excited to see where the writers would take that storyline. Because, obviously, it wasn't over. Right? Obviously Ben's arc isn't finished, he hasn't resolved his frustrations, his complicated relationship with Klaus is never fully untangled, plus the rest of the family never get a moment of real closure with him (except maybe Diego). So clearly, it wasn't over. Right?

Well, in light of season 4, I can confidently come back and say that killing Brelly Ben off here was a stupidass decision.

And here's why: you've effectively splintered his arc in half. Starting from season 3, Ben is an entirely different character, with an entirely different arc that needs to be built from the ground up. While everyone else gets 4 seasons of development, Ben only gets 2, both times. And I'm so not over the fact that his arc isn't over. We saw Ben do some reprehensible shit to Klaus, especially in season 2 with all that possession shit! And we just. Never hear from him again? That's bullshit.

But anyway, since we're here, let's make peace with being here. Hey, Justin H Min is still playing a version of Ben, and he seems interesting, if way different! Surely this will have some interesting implications.

Sparrow Ben

Oh god, Sparrow Ben. In terms of Ben's character writing, season 3 is... fine. Like I said, it suffers from effectively fracturing his arc in half and having to start over, and this isn't the complicated, kind but frustrated and prickly ghost Ben I originally fell in love with. But ok, I do like Justin, and EA rep is still a win to me, so let's go with the flow.

For the most part, season 3 does a solid job. We get some solid beats relating to Ben's ambition and inferiority complex being Number 2. There's a bit of overacting on Justin's part, but hey, that's camp. (I think. I have no idea if I'm using that word right. Am I hip with the kids?)

I really, really loved Ben's moment with Sloane as she's getting married, because it highlights the core of this Ben's character: someone who desperately yearns for family but has forced himself to be all hard shell and soldier. In a way, he's the other end of Brelly Ben's spectrum. (Like forsterite and fayalite - all Mg on one end, Fe on the other.) How much of this Ben is family softness, how much of it is defense mechanism and lashing out?

And then of course - the thing I've been craving so badly - the in-universe comparison to Brelly Ben. This was done... underwhelmingly, if I'm honest. I liked that Ben had a moment of crisis where he couldn't live up to the Umbrellas' dead version of himself, and his moment with Klaus was nice, but in light of season 4 it becomes clear that we could have had more. I wanted him to have an entire arc about it - after all, it's a pretty significant aspect of your character to be "the worse version of yourself from another timeline." (Refer to @vyther16's Gongye Jiwu fic.) I feel like there's a lot of meta you could pull from that, about how your siblings who aren't your siblings look at you and see someone different. Someone you won't be. Someone you can't be, even if you tried, so why bother trying? And they really don't dig through that at all, which is disappointing.

The tentacle samurai fight is badass, though.

Season 4

Oh buddy oh boy. There's so much dumpster fire here, but I'll start with the season 3 loose ends and then move on to season 4's own problems.

1) Sloane. Luther picks Ben up from prison, so I thought they might have an interesting bonding moment over Sloane - after all, they're the two people who cared most about her. But actually no, apparently Ben doesn't give a shit about the one real sister he actually had left at the end of s3.

2) The subway thing. Wasn't he in Korea? My grasping-at-straws ass truly thought that might have been Brelly Ben in the reset timeline, and we'd get a Ben-Ben confrontation or a battle in the minds thing. But I guess that doesn't matter.

3) The Jennifer Incident. So we all know that everyone forgetting about an incident they explicitly reference is stupid, right? Especially because the name Jennifer only exists because they reference it in s3. Ben obsessively draws Jennifer, and then he doesn't recognize or know her? Kill me.

The continuation of his arc is also just sloppy, if it even exists. No more identity crisis about being the worse Ben, no more secret yearning for family or inferiority complex about being a good soldier. Suddenly his arc amounts to, uh, being an asshole and getting hit with sex pollen so powerful it ends the world.

And look, there is a world where Sparrow Ben spiking everyone with marigold could parallel with Brelly Ben's consent problems with Klaus. There is a world where Sparrow Ben dying because of Jennifer could echo Brelly Ben's death in a haunting, tragic, destined kind of way.

But, uh, none of that happens. Here we are, finally getting a Ben-centric season, and it's this. Being relegated to a plot device in your own season. Looking back and realizing that you were always the plot device, even in season 2. Carrying all that tragedy in your little ghost body and being treated like Chekov's waterlogged gun.

And I can't help but look back at season 1, Klaus trying so desperately to prove Ben's existence, and contrast it with the literal next season where a single throwaway line from Klaus sidelines Ben for a whole season. And then he dies. And he dies again.

Fucking hell.

It feels like I'm being made a fool of. Oh, you cared about this East Asian character? You wanted him to have narrative weight and character presence instead of being a plot device for the benefit of his White brothers? Idiot.

Because you'll still be here anyway, right? You'll grasp onto your crumbs for a cool EA character, you'll let us run a character through a trash compactor and keep pretending he's a good character because you latched onto this one East Asian protagonist and you don't want to admit that maybe you should have let go years before.

[theflyindutchwoman]

Can you better explain how Isabel factored into Tim and Lucy's fight? I've rewatched the scene multiple times trying to understand, but I'm just not making the connection, and I know I'm missing something. I thought the fight was about Lucy making detective, but then she brought up Tim's trauma with Isabel, and I'm just not seeing how they connect.

I can certainly try - whether I'll succeed, however, is another matter… Make yourself comfortable, it's going to be a long post. As always, this is merely my interpretation.

The fight was initially about Lucy making detective and escalated from there. That's because the issue goes beyond just this test : all of this is intrinsically connected to the whole undercover work storyline. This is the reason why she is taking this exam in the first place : so she can become a UC. And that is the crux of the matter. This is the topic they have yet to fully discuss : how Tim truly feels about her becoming a full UC officer considering his past traumatic experience. It has been bubbling for the last five episodes… And this time, it blew over.

In my opinion, you can see the progression of their argument in these 3 key scenes.

/ 1st - First scene in the shop (Lucy's spiraling) Here, Lucy is entirely focused on the detective exam. This is about the pressure she is feeling. Taking an exam is already stressful enough, but add the fact that one of the higher-ups is gunning for her, and her anxiety is understandable. I believe that up to this point, she has been trying not to let it get to her. We saw a bit of her distress when she found out about Primm potentially blocking her in 5.19, but that was it. Now that the date is approaching though, the cracks are starting to show. As someone else mentioned, she asked for TO/Sergeant Bradford to help her when really, she wanted (and needed) Boyfriend Tim. You can already see how she is second-guessing herself when she says she should have asked Nyla or Angela for help. And after that, well… She starts spiraling. Part of the reason why she cracks here is that she feels safe : she's in the shop, riding with Tim. This is an environment she is familiar with. So she starts unloading. Only, once she starts, she can't stop. She overthinks everything in a way we haven't seen her do before, not even when she was still a rookie. And Tim in that moment is completely caught off-guard, not knowing what to do. And to be frank, I don't think he realises how bad it is yet. Now, speaking from experience, I'm not entirely sure there was anything he could have said that would have made a difference. I've been on both sides of the equation and you usually feel powerless. What could have possibly helped was doing some breathing exercises with her, making her focus on the here and now, or simply taking a small walk… Like in that scene with Barnes and the ladybug in 3.11. Anything really to take her mind off that exam. But I'm afraid that would have only been helpful in the short term since the issue at heart goes far deeper than the exam.

/ 2nd - The fight in the shop (stake out) This is where the conversation starts to (slowly) shift away from the exam itself. At this point, Lucy is on a downward spiral and is second-guessing everything, including taking the exam. It's clear by the tears in her eyes that she is barely holding it together. Tim's immediate reaction is to protest and reassure her that she is ready. And when she argues that it would be better for her to wait, he tries to reassure her again that there's nothing wrong that. He even makes sure to emphasise that she can still do some undercover assignments while in patrol. Because he knows this is why she wants to become a detective. There is no malice in his words. He is genuinely trying to be supportive and help her deescalate. He trusts her to know what's best for her and if she says it is to wait, then he will support her. Just like he trusted her when she wanted to stay undercover after finding out Rosalind had escaped. Unfortunately, Lucy understands something entirely different. What she hears is that he doesn't believe she can pass the exam. Otherwise he would have insisted. And from there, she spirals even more. Her mind is projecting and creating a whole new scenario. Remember when I said she is second-guessing everything? Well, now it includes Tim. When you spiral, your mind tends to jump to the worst case-scenario. And before they can clarify this, the suspect shows up.

/ 3rd - The final scene And this is when it all comes crashing down. Tim is still trying to figure out what happened while Lucy's mind is already somewhere else. He's playing catch up here. When you think about it, it's not that different from the 'unless it is' scene : when they met outside the station back then, Tim was trying to understand why she didn't want to break up with Chris while Lucy was one step ahead of him and blurted her confession out. When they meet here in the parking garage (a few steps away from where they were in 5.08 by the way), she looks completely defeated. She solved the case but it doesn't feel like a victory. Now, her doubts go far beyond Primm and the exam. Doubts poison everything. And make you question everything. And in that moment, the thing she is questioning is why Tim doesn't believe she can pass the exam.

So why does she jump to Tim's trauma with Isabel? Because, in her mind, that's the reason why he is scared of her becoming a detective. If she passes the exam, she will be an undercover cop. Her words are : "Did you undermine me today because you're scared that I'm gonna make detective?". "Scared" being the operative word here. Like I said earlier, this is where I think the context helps. Ever since she told him about taking the detective exam in 5.19, she has tried on numerous occasion to broach the topic of undercover - to no avail. He has either deflected or walked away. Like in that couch scene at the end of 5.20 : "I'm worried that you won't [be able to handle me going deep undercover] - I'll be fine". Or that scene in the laundry room : "Look, it's not my first time - I know. It's probably what makes it worse - All right, now's not the time to talk about this". Before it finally blew over a little at the end : "If this is gonna work between us, I need to know that you can see the difference - Of course I can". And there's something to be said in the mirroring in the language here : "if this is gonna work between us" in 5.21 / "this isn't gonna work if you're gonna lie to me" in 6.01.

She knows about his trauma and like he said, he has acknowledged it with her since day one. But that was then. That was before they became a couple. Since their relationship changed, with the exception of that final scene in 5.21, he has yet to open up on how he truly feels about her doing undercover work. And because she knows him and his past, she can sense that he's hiding something. She can sense he is scared. He all but admitted it in 5.21 after all. But that conversation just scratched the surface.

The other reason she brings up his past and trauma is because the one time they did talk about this was when he jumped to the conclusion that she was hiding things while undercover, the way Isabel did. But they didn't go deeper, they were too raw back then. Still, this part of the conversation probably stuck with her. She has internalised everything for so long, has bottled up all those feelings, those things left unsaid until she couldn't contain them anymore. And she blurted everything out at the worst time. That's the issue when you don't talk about things : your intentions can get misconstrued. And watching your partner walk away from the difficult conversation, before you can actually talk things through, takes its toll on you. It creates a doubt. Now add all that spiraling, all that second-guessing she has done all day long and you got a recipe for disaster. She arrives at this crashing point where she second-guesses him. Because she is afraid too. She is afraid that the other shoe is about to drop.

Now from Tim's perspective, I believe he is sincere in his support. And I don't think that in this episode, his past even crossed his mind. He genuinely wants her to succeed, to have the career that she wants and deserves. When he says that she's different, that they're going to figure out, he means it. When he said they were worth the risk, he meant it. He already knew she was going to do undercover work. But he's also scared. The most obvious time was in 5.20 where they were sitting on the couch. The fear was written all over his face. That said, I get where he's coming from too : after his reaction in 3.06, I can understand why he is more guarded. That he doesn't want his fears to influence her in any way. "You don't let anyone ever tell you you can't do something. Not even me." I can imagine that he is afraid that should he be entirely honest, it would put Lucy in a situation where she feels that she has to choose between him and UC. And that's the last thing he wants. He doesn't want to be the one to hold her back in any form. Like he said in 5.02. He wants the best for her so he will be supportive, no matter what her decision is.

And here's the irony for you : he wants to be so supportive that he doesn't see that what she needs even more is honesty from him and that without that honesty, it is creating a doubt in her mind. It's a loop they are stuck in. At least, for now. All it takes to break that loop is to talk.

I hope this helped shed some light on the connection and answered your question :)

[things-arent-what-they-seem66]

Adam Swapped Au Part 3

For making 900+ followers! Thank you everyone! 💖

TW: Mentions of rape

When Adam woke up he felt so well rested, the bed he was in was so comfy he never wanted to leave. Slowly he opened his eyes and frowned.

So it wasn't a dream he was actually still in Hell, very fucking pregnant and the devil's wife apparently.

Fuck him.

Adam groaned as he made his way to the bathroom to clean up for the day, Lucifer was nowhere to be seen and that was just fine with him.

There wasn't much in the way of clothes he could wear, there were a bunch of maternity clothes. Adam grumbled as he pulled on fresh sweat pants and a long shirt (NOT A DRESS) and went downstairs.

Adam furrowed his brow when he could hear voices coming from the lobby. It peaked his interest when he heard his name.

"I hope Adam is okay, maybe some sleep will do him good." Lucifer said as he paced in the lobby. Something was obviously wrong but he couldn't shake the feeling.

Charlie fiddled with her braid. "You don't think that he was, you know?"

The thought had crossed Lucifer's mind that maybe Adam had been kidnapped, raped, and left for dead. But for this long? He wasn't sure, Lucifer had to find out if the baby was his.

After all, they did sleep together before he went missing.

"I don't like to think about it Char. Maybe I'll take him to the doctor's just to make sure everything is okay." Lucifer needed a professional opinion to see what was troubling his husband.

"Don't I get a fucking say in this? I don't want to go to no gay ass hospital with you." Adam growled as he entered the room. He sat down on the couch looking completely pissed off.

Lucifer needed to be delicate, Adams mood swings were not one's to fight with. "We just want to make sure you're okay."

"Of course I'm not fucking okay! That little bitch of a maid you have in the shit hole stabbed me in the back 28 fucking times!!" Adam roared his eyes ablaze, his back throbbed at the memory.

Lucifer and Charlie's eyes went wide. "What!? Nifty did you stab him?" Charlie looked to her little friend who looked very confused.

"I would never stab one of the baddest boys, hehehe."

"Adam, do you remember anything from before you disappeared seven months ago?" Lucifer asked, he came over to sit beside him.

Adam snorted. "I haven't been missing, this is some nightmare joke! You're married to Lilith who has been missing for seven YEARS."

"Lilith." Lucifer spat out her name as if it were poison. "I bet that bitch is behind this."

"I wouldn't put it past heavens commander dad."

It clicked for Adam then, he was in a universe not only married to Lucifer, but him and Lilith have fully switched places in the entire storyline!

Adam felt himself get emotional, why was he crying!? He couldn't stop himself he was full on sobbing now. Adam felt arms wrap around him and he didn't seem to mind, they were actually comforting to him in the moment. "Shhh, it's okay it's not your fault."

For some reason Adam believed it cause what the fuck, this whole situation wasn't his fault he never intended on being an alternate universe version of himself. Especially one that apparently has Lucifer's babies.

-

They did end up taking Adam to the hospital to get checked out.

It had been super awkward getting a vaginal exam, Adam was sure his face was as red as a tomato. The doctor concluded that there were no signs of sexual assault which everyone was relieved about.

"So we are looking for a paternity test for the baby?" The doctor asked.

"Yes." Lucifer answered, not knowing was killing him. Adam was curious himself.

Doctor nodded and pulled up a needle. "Okay, I'll extract some amniotic fluid to test."

"That's not going where I think it is, is it?" Adam asked, panic setting in. That fucking thing was huge!

"You won't feel a thing your majesty, I swear."

Adam didn't believe him.

It was uncomfortable at best but he still didn't like it. There was a rush out in the results to be tested against Lucifer's DNA.

Adam crossed his legs and groaned, that fucking sucked.

-

It took an hour for the results to come back. And it was determined that the baby was in fact Lucifer's baby.

The King sighed in relief. One mystery solved.

Part of Adam was even relieved, at least his other self wasn't some slut having the baby of some random John, Dick, or Jerry.

Lucifer would put money on it that the reason for Adam going missing and having no memory, but also memories of a life that never happened on Lilith.

She never could get over letting Adam go. Her and Steve were, ironically, a match made in Hell.

If Lilith and Steve were behind, they would pay for this.

[penheadie]

Can we hear some treasurecop headcanons now??? mayhaps???

All right, strap yourselves in boys. Any of you guys are allowed to take these headcanons and do with them what you will. I honestly tried to write a fanfiction about this but I didn't see anything going anywhere. Someday I really want to pick this back up and modify it and turn the story onto their own fully fledged storyboard much like the one for Skippingstones as well. If you don't like my ships that's cool I'm just going to be over here enjoying my own thing that you aren't obligated to like and enjoy it by myself. 

Vinnie was the first one to catch feelings. After Tre had saved Vinnie after she made an accidental miss-slip when she was trying to run away, him actually being willing to save her despite rooting for the opposite team sparked something strange within her. That hand-holding man, he suddenly didn't seem as annoying as she remembered. 

After Tre had a saved her and was able to get her a light sentence of community service (or have her help out with such things as being a lawyer or helping him solve cases to a crime which meant she would be spending a lot of time with Tre around the clock) Vinnie started showing up around him, in which she would take time out of her day when she would usually go on heists and missions stealing with the boys she somehow found it was much more entertaining to annoy cop boy when she found out how easy it was to fluster him she quickly turned it into a game and found it to be more entertaining than anything else. So for a while it sort of becomes a thing that's more about flustering the cop boy and Tre trying to think of a way to fluster her back.

Another thing that definitely drove Tre towards Vinnie was how absolutely funny he could be whenever he was angry and expressed his rants (think of Alfred as Eggman from the Sonic fandub because it's my headcanon that he sounds like that whenever he's upset or angry) and how absolutely funny he could be whenever he expressed his grievances towards Stone. Vinnie thinks it's so funny to watch him go off the handle and spew nonsense in order to make her laugh even though he's making fun of Stone. 

First time that Tre actually does something nice for Vinnie and starts showing feelings of connection and something more is when he buys bread for a thief to feed her and her gang for the rest of the week. That was the first time that Tre probably left Vinnie speechless before she tried to act like it didn't affect her that much. That was the first time that Tre got Vinnie to blush in return without even realizing it. 

Vinnie is a chaotic bisexual and Tre is questioning as he's very insecure about his sexuality and is unsure of where he stands but he'd like to imagine he's straight or at least tries to be. There's probably a storyline in there where Vinnie helps him be more confident in his identity. 

Tre finds out that Vinnie basically has a sense of smell that is basically the equivalent of a canine unit which has helped him solve a lot of cases when Vinnie was paired up with Tre as community service. Tre is able to see Vinnie’s odd talents and strengths as useful. 

In terms of cute couple shit Vinnie has a secret sweet spot underneath her chin that basically is an override switch that temporarily paralyzes her body from the neck down and makes her entire body go limp and turn into jelly whenever he scratches the area underneath. Tre found this out by accident but he does take advantage of that sweet spot from time to time in order to keep her in line. He finds out that Vinnie is secretly just a giant puppy dog in disguise. 

Sometimes when nobody is looking Tre will attempt to be a daredevil of himself attempting to do the same fancy footwork that he always sees Vinnie does across planks and boards whenever she maneuvers out of his grasp when he tries to catch her. It just reminds him of her. Only for when he reached the other side Vinnie would of course be there smugly smiling at him.

Tre needs to take a note or two from Vinnie because he is always waiting for the perfect moment to happen but he learns from Vinnie that the best things that happen out of life are living in the moment instead of waiting for the perfect moment. It's one of the things that Tre needs to learn as character growth, because he always wants to wait for the perfect moment to catch the trio and impress his father. 

Tre and Vinnie’s dynamic definitely plays off of questioning each other's morals and what the other side stands for. As Vinnie is definitely all for the tear down of the establishment political uprising where the poor overthrow the government, eat the rich and give back to the poor. As she's seen as some sort of a martyr among the other street gangs. Meanwhile Tre argues that the laws are there to help protect the world from people like her because even though their side fights for justice they still put innocent people's lives on the line in the name of starting a movement. Their world views definitely challenge one another and makes the other genuinely question their stance and think about what side they are on. 

Vinnie shares her secrets with Tre such as the ones as she has trouble getting into relationships with people including her ex lovers (Aka Ditch and Jewlie Sue because I want to make the joke that Vinnie ditched Ditch to go become a Tree climber) 

Vinnie is secretly the daughter of Captain Jack Sparrow and her existence is supposed to be a secret because her father wanted to keep her safe and not have to deal with his legacy and the risk of people coming after her for her bloodline if they found out who she was related to. So there's a whole storyline and conflict about that somewhere. 

Tre is a hopeless romantic that loves watching those movies that you would probably see on the Hallmark those dramatic romcom soap opera movies that always makes him crave for real love and connection whenever he watches them. And he really wants something in his life to play out like the ones that he sees in movies.

Tre is a perfectionist and he is a maladaptive daydreamer in which he often daydreams perfect scenarios taking place in his head that usually have to do with this black and white detective filter with Skipp and Stone playing instruments since it’s in my belief he often waits for the perfect moment to happen but part of his development is that he finds out you have to make the most of life while you have the opportunity instead of waiting for it to happen you make the opportunity happen yourself.

It was confirmed by Zi in a Discord message that Tre would not be a fan of Shakespeare but for some reason he would have the entire memory of the play Hamlet engraved in his mind so the play is engraved in his mind very much like Vinnie (which I wish I could dig up but I'm not in the Discord server anymore but if you search up somebody mentioning Shakespeare or Hamlet it's definitely in there) 

(Now this is just a massage that I sent a friend that I'm going to copy and paste here because I think that I would do a horrible job of re-summarizing it again in a modified format) OK so I figured I'd have to tell you about this sooner or later but one day I plan to actually write a Tre x Vinnie fanfic. And I keep thinking about a future scene that is probably going to be the end. All I know is that Tre is boarding a train to leave Ramshackle and he thinks he's seen the last of Vinnie and this is there final goodbye. But low and behold he sees Vinnie jumping on the roof tops outside his window, chasing the train before it has a chance to actually pick up speed. Vinnie jumps on one of the stairs of the train as she and Tre have a face to face confession. And I'm thinking Vinnie steals a kiss from Tre, along with stealing his hat. But before he has a chance to even realize what just happened the train leaves the border of the town. With Vinnie putting on his hat waving goodbye to him and staying in Ramshackle as she gets further and further way. As Tre with a smile waves goodbye to her as well. The end.

And in the modern AU Tre and Vinnie definitely have a true crime podcast that they host together as a couple (Think of Boze vs The World, Skipp and Stone meanwhile would totally have a gameplay or movie commentary channel where they just make fun of horrible movies together)

There was one time Vinnie died taking a bullet for Tre and she literally fought Satan to bring her back to life because not even he wanted to deal with her in Hell.

[duckduckhjonk]

I just finished watching the new tpot episode and ouhhggggghhhhhh I have thinks and thoughts

Massive spoilers ahead, this is kinda a full episode review atp, I ramble a lot

First off I really liked One's area, it's super pretty and mystical but somehow feels sinister in a way? Like it's a little too dark to be fully whimsical and fun and mystical without a sinister hint to it.

This kinda also pulls towards my thoughts on One themself. I think they're pulling a cutesy coverup to something evil. I do not trust this number at all. And I pray this doesn't lead to her getting all these contestants eliminated because I am personally biased and will cry the day Fanny gets the boot.

Similarly, I'm really glad to have this storyline start going off. I really wonder what One wants from these characters. Are they as sinister as I am suspecting? I feel like One is moreso a Deal with the Devil type character and I don't think they're actually good friends with Two. I think that's a lie.

The characters themselves that are chosen are also really interesting picks. Fanny, Ice Cube, Basketball, Bell, and Bomby. It's kind of "what do these characters have in common?" I suppose it's they all needed something? Not entirely sure on that though, I mean yeah they probably do. A mouth, legs, help with Robot Flower maybe? An escape from being eliminated? It gets harder with those three to decide what they could get from One to be a part of their scheme.

At least I'll get to hopefully see more Bomby despite his elimination :3

Moving on, I really like the new teams. I think again Death PACT Yet Again is gonna be my favourite but the other teams are super fun as well. Truly devastating news that Golf Ball and Tennis Ball got separated. I fear neither have long left because of this. But on the off chance they do last, I'd like to see how they develop apart.

The challenge felt a little uninteresting but I think it was much more of a catalyst for figuring out team dynamics rather than be a focal point. Still pretty decent and a good finish to it. I personally love that Robot Flower ended up with Death PACT Yet Again.

Also really looking forward to one of the original exitors joining! I feel some of them were vastly underutilised in previous seasons and some got the boot just before getting interesting, pretty namely Dora and Liy come to mind. I voted for Dora because I'd like to see where she's going and what she'd do on TPOT. I think another interesting option would be Match. As much as I dislike her, I think she also has a lot of potential. Maybe a respark in her rivalry with Fanny, I think it would be interesting despite Bubble not being there. Maybe she would also serve as some motivation for Book to try and become better friends with Ice Cube before Match regains her trust.

Speaking of Bubble, I think I'd like to know what the BFB characters are doing. I don't think I'd like them to join the cast/show fully but maybe a check in? We already got Tear Drop in TPOT so none of them could join the show, but it would be interesting to see how they are.

I think in the future as far as theories I have go, I think One is going after either Golf Ball or Tennis Ball next. They're apart and need something and make pretty good targets. Although if it's a 1 per team deal I would also think Donut would be a good choice. He does have his arms missing but also I think he's been the most misused imo. He had a lot of potential on the pre split that I think wasn't utilised, especially with having Four's powers. I think this could be just what he needs.

As for further theories with One, I think they're definitely the weakest of the Algebraliens. Maybe their motivation is having all of these chosen champions and their "favour" is them giving One Twos power at the end of it. That's what I have so far, I mean I haven't seen enough to know 100% and I don't think that would be the case but that's my best theory.

Thanks for listening to me ramble 👍 lmk what you think!

[bumblebeehug]

I've watched season 1-3 of winx in less than 4 days, and I'm so glad I grew up on that instead of cocomelon. Even when the script seemed cringe and not as fleshed out as it could be, they never made the people watching the show seem stupid (they made Bloom seem stupid instead, lol (half-joke)). The dialogue could be simplefied and sometimes a bit naive, but at the same time they never made it feel very simple? Maybe I'm just blinded bc I'm a sucker for illustrated animations, but the fact that they could make a complicated storyline with a lot of character arcs, while keeping the dialogue simple enough for kids to follow, is just amazing. And as if that wasn't amazing enough, the show had good balance in the art - it was colourful, the characters were dynamic and unique with different siluettes (something i rarely see in kids shows today), while also appealing to the preteen audience: the winx girls are strong, stylish, girly girls, who can seek out love from men without needing them to save them. They show that you can be unique in your friend group, and you can still be loved and appreciated (thinking about Musa, Techna and later on Aisha/Layla, who all aren't the stereotypical sweet/soft/stylish girls, but who still find friends who love them for who they are). (More analysis beneath the read more thing - mainly a discussion on how family is represented in the show and how important it is for children to be able to look up to female figures that can represent them. + some other stuff.)

Winx also casts light on a lot of different family dynamics - something i've only really seen Bluey do well recently. Stella's parents are divorced, Bloom is adopted, Musa's relationship with her dad is strained ever since her mom died, Aisha/Layla is an only child who struggled with lonliness despite having both of her parents together (they were absent bc of their royal duties), Techna doesnt seem to have any mayor issues, nor does Flora. And the thing is - these struggles are shown in such natural ways in the show. All of these dynamics turn out to be part of their journeys - Bloom struggles as a fairy because of her unknown past, so she must resolve it and find out more to be able to become a fully fledged fairy. Stella has dealt with her divorced parents most of her life, but in season 3 the entire Valtor thing strains her relationship with her father, and she has to overcome it so she can save him from Cassandra or whatever that duchess was called (girlie practically gets banned from her home planet, don't you forget). Faragonda brings Musa's dad to her first concert, which once again strains their relationship, but then strengthens it when he sees how capable she is, both as a musician and as a fairy. Aisha/Layla displays how it is to have more traditional parents - as a child she had lots of expectations to be a proper princess, which she for a long time still had trauma from, plus that her parents wanted to pick her future husband for her (they were all lucky that the two of them matched well lol). And then we have Flora who showed off sisterhood in an amazing way - worrying over and scolding her little sister, but never doubting for a second that she'd risk her life to save her. To the point though - everyone faces difficulties that can be reflected in most people's lives, and the show makes these journeys meaningful and important. I personally never had a need to see myself represented in my family situation, but my friend had divorced parents, and she told me that Stella's viewpoint made it easier for little her to deal with it. If Stella could overcome it (reminder that she still allowed herself to feel sad about it) then so could my friend.

Now, while I'm at it, I might as well continue ranting:

Maybe I'm just not updated in modern shows, but isn't there an entire market of preteens who are missing these types of shows today? We're always talking about how clothing trends and social media is forcing younger people to grow up eariler, but let's not forget that these kids have nothing if they don't decide to grow up immediately. There's no shows, no "toys" (i'm mostly talking about merch that caters to young people - "H2O just add water" pillowcases and diaries etc) and no older teens in these shows setting appropriate clothing trends. Shows aren't cool enough nowadays for preteens to see the appeal of being young. Too many shows are changing their target audience to younger and younger children - and not only shows! Just look at the Nesquik bunny! He went from 100% drip and style, to 100% millenial.

Ik this isn't anyone in particulars fault, but this is just my way of saying: go back to unique styles and outfits! Shows aren't cool anymore, and removing the illustrated style and exaggeration is absolutely part of that.

I also saw someone on TikTok critique the pace of the earlier seasons - they said everything was too slow-paced and boring, and honestly? I couldn't disagree more. Now, I don't have any difficulties concentrating, so maybe it's a bigger problem for people with ADHD or similar diagnosis, but the slower pace gave more time for me to immerse myself in the winx world. They added amazing vocals and soundtrack, that could either showcase heartbreak or joy, and these details made the show reach much higher quality, despite looking like it was made in the cheapest animation program ever.

I went off on a tangent, but I'm getting back to winx now - what I mean is that kids nowadays have no authentic way of finding shows like winx, mainly because there aren't any! Most shows are made for kids under the age of 8 or over the age of 13, and there's almost no inbetween. Shows don't do it like winx did anymore - they don't make the art appealing enough (bc the shows are never illustrated - fair enough i'll add, bc illustrated animation is too expensive to be profitable nowadays, but not even the animation is appealing anymore, they're all rapunzel-lookalikes/wannabes), they don't trust that the watchers have brains and critical thinking, so they make the stories too dumb, they don't have the guts to make scary storylines, and they try so hard to be inclusive without actually succeeding at it (making all the fairies even paler than what they were in the beginning of the show).

I'm sure everything I've said here has been said before a trillion times, but I wanted to get it off my chest. I won't blame anyone if they decide that they ain't reading allat bc i really ran with this. If u did read this though, thanks! And sorry if i spelled things wrong, I'm writing this on a Swedish computer that insists that every single word is spelled incorrectly, lol.

[eff-plays]

Curious about the bits you enjoyed! What Companions did you end up liking or loving

Honestly Bellara ended up as the dark horse favorite for me! It might be because I picked her to do a big thing at the climax and seeing her all messed up made me sad, which in turn made me realize that I was invested in her survival.

I didn't think I'd like her at first, since she was so peppy and MPDG-coded, it felt really forced? And I also thought that her sudden reveal about her sad backstory was a bit trite? But the VA and animators did such a great job with the character that it saved the bland writing for me. The trick to writing a quirky peppy character is that they generally need to have a bitter sadness in them, and Bellara very much had that. I also enjoyed the part where you can't really get a "good," triumphant ending to her quest? It contrasts with her initial personality and the rest of the personal quests (except Taash). I dunno, I feel like she has a lot of potential, and her arc really works super well if you do the thing I did and pick her for the ending bit. She really grows into her own person.

Now you asked about the things I enjoyed and liked/loved. And I forgot about that and went off on a bunch of rants anyway. So um. I'll put those under the cut.

Davrin and Emmrich were built up as the best of the bunch, and I think that stands for the majority of the game, but I thought Davrin's storyline really sorta fizzled out at the end? It didn't help that I'd romanced him, so him suddenly confessing his love was really jarring. It sort of broke the illusion of the story for me, a little bit. I also think that the critics were right, and that Davrin's personal arc does get sidelined for the griffons'. Initially I thought it would mostly focus on him accepting his new role as Assan's dad, and that Assan would be the vehicle for Davrin's character development. Davrin had this lowkey suicidal thing going on initially, and there are some nods to his wanting to keep living and planning a future (esp if romanced) as he grows into his new parental role, but it's just ... so easy? Like most of his struggles with being a caretaker is reduced to jokes about truffles. I'm not even mad about using Assain+the griffons as a vehicle for Davrin's character development, if they'd actually done that. Now it feels mostly like Davrin is an accessory to it. Anybody could've filled in that role and the plot wouldn't have changed at all. God ok I have a lot of thoughts on this but I'll move on.

Also not super thrilled with how Emmrich was handled, either. I chose the lich path for the drama (and because I still thought I might romance him with a different Rook and wanted to save the human path for that), and I thought I'd be more torn about it because Manfred is such a sweetie. But once Manfred's gone, Emmrich just sorta. Says it's sad and all but essentially that he still wants to become a lich. He doesn't even seem all that conflicted. I know there's some banter about him missing Manfred, but that shouldn't be an optional thing you hear after the fact, it should be at the forefront before the choice, ya know? And after that, he just kinda. Vibes. No regrets or anything. Which is part of the story, I suppose, to let go of attachments, but it just ends up adding to the consequence-free vibe the entire game has. Rook doesn't get to mourn Manfred, either. He's just gone and Emmrich is fine with it and everybody is fine with it. Bleh.

Taash was honestly not as annoying as some people say, even if their storyline mostly sucks ass and smacks of performative activism. But they're also pretty fun in banters and I enjoyed their dry humor, plus I could sort of see what the writer was going for? It landed very flat, but my overall impression of them as a character leans more positive than negative. I did think it was very funny that Davrin expresses doubt of how to address them and there's a whole banter around that, meanwhile my Rook is fully nonbinary and in a relationship with him and he has no issues addressing them properly. Good follow-through, BioWare. Really wanged it this time.

Harding, Lucanis, and especially Neve are nothingburgers. The only critiques you can really make of them is that there isn't much to critique. You'd be dunking on the negative space around them rather than what's there. And I hear that's a bad type of criticism, so ... they are barely worth talking about, I guess.

[rawliverandgoronspice]

New anon. I've been a few reading your thoughts and general posts, and I really agree so strongly to many of them. Some of my biggest pet peeves in the story were really how weirdly disjointed it felt, with missing reasoning and foundation? If I may share my thoughts? I wish they had genuinely focused more on characters besides Zelda, because by the end of the storyline, and having watched all the tears, I was left more confused and empty, and not satisfied at all. Not to be rude to Zelda, but I really stopped caring about her because I was so hyperfocused on wanting to know more about the Zonai, Sonia, the Sages, and Ganondorf... and then nothing, well except two tears, and they gave almost no plot relevance? It was such a pity. The sages? Who? Why? How? Every sage showing the exact same memory with only a tiny bit of their personality sprinkled, but nothing about them as sages made me miffed. Ganondorf felt really like a missed opportunity, I think you, other anon's and everyone has already said it. In my words: Lost potential. I don't even need a big sobstory or anything, a monologue like in WW? Yeah he's angry that the Zonai are wasting their "god like powers" but WHY is he so angry about it? How are the lives of the Gerudo? Why are they split? Even if he was raised to crave power, just getting more of a look at why would have been nice. The Gerudo sage would have been a perfect candidate to get some explanation. (I'd have much preferred that over some of the more slice-of-life Zelda tears tbh.) I know it's called "The legend of ZELDA!" But I always took that to be more along the lines of "This is the legend of Zelda, but we (the player) see the legend from behind the scenes." Zelda being a major player and royalty would obviously be more interesting to in-universe historians, and easier to write down, with Link always just being "The hero clad in green!" But us, as the player, we see what really occurred, how the hero came to be, and that he's not "just a hero" but he's actually just a guy, who then takes up the mantle of hero. I just wasn't too invested in Zelda's story, especially since she's just background noise for a lot of the story. (Idk how to best word it, pardon me.)

Hello, thank you for the ask and sorry for taking so long to reply!!

Yeah, I mean I don't even think that Zelda got much opportunity to be a character either, despite her being the throughline for most of it. I don't feel like I learned anything new about her character that I didn't know from BotW, and some aspects developed in that game were gone entirely. As you said, she does feel like background noise, a witness to other people's story. Her nerdiness is set-up and then never really paid off (despite her and Mineru interacting), she gets no personal interaction with Ganondorf... I actually don't think they ever speak to one another directly, for the whole game????

Just went out to check that out and... Ganondorf says Zelda's name to her once, then Zelda asks him how he knows their name. That's it. That's the entire sum of their conversation in the entire game, and it happens in the first 5 opening minutes. Unless you count fake Zelda, but even then that would only be a single sentence, and honestly I don't think it counts?

The more I dig around and the more I'm truly baffled by some of the narrative choices made in this game. Like I want to be Normal about it again (and managing, slowly, just getting through the last asks) but.... honestly I don't understand what happened. The straight up refusal to build up any kind of actual dramatic tension between the leading trio is so baffling to me. Like, not to dip back into the TotK Rewrite Well, but: why didn't they fully commit to the OoT route, since they were already so far down, where Zelda is the only one to suss out Ganondorf is out to get them, and so the tension is concentrated between the two of them, where she tries to save Rauru and Sonia from his scheme but can't (which would also give weight to her sacrifice as she turns into a dragon)? Then you'd have an actual reason to feel invested in the plot and want to avenge her and those she cared about! Why are the stakes so split out between Rauru, Zelda and Mineru, to the point where nothing has any oomph and you, as Link, feel pretty much uninvolved in the entire situation?

Like, sure the buildup to the final fight was amazing, the soundtrack is sooooo sososo good, the mood and ambiance is probably at its best, the fight itself is a little treat, but. I really felt like I was a Hyrule appointed cop having to walk into the freaky abandoned basement and yelling "sir I've been mandated by the royal family to formally ask you to stop dumping experimental chemicals into the sewers of the kingdom" to the local weirdo squatter in his broken hot tub, and then fighting about it.

But personal investment and stakes really didn't land for me. I was glad to see Ganondorf, tho I would have prefered him telling me anything other than generic anime villain stuff before repeatedly punting my face into the floor. But yeah. The story was disjointed, and it kept me from enjoying the extremely carefully crafted mechanics to their fullest capacity. :(

[wizard-finix]

Should the next Zelda game be open world like BOTW & TotK, or linear like the prior games? Why?

Hot take, but definitely a little more linear.

Listen, I love open world as much as anyone. BOTW did a fantastic job at it! The main storyline split up into four threads across the regions and then converged again for the final boss, which I though was cool to be able to pick a region and work on it at your pace. But it needs to be done *well*. TOTK's story suffered a bit because when you met the past champions, they coughed up the exact same explanation four times, and it got old fast. BOTW managed to avoid this because each of the champions' appearances and personalities were unique, which just shows you that it can be done well, it just has to be written with that in mind.

Not to mention critical story beats are optional, not required (see: the dragon's tears), and if you head straight to the boss fight without realizing that you've missed important information, you end up losing some of that significance because you're not fully aware of what's going on. And you risk major spoilers if you try to look up what you're missing before the boss fight. (seriously, imagine going through the Demon King boss fight not knowing anything about draconification or the light dragon.)

Also, the storyline and characters don't get much chance to build off themselves. The new sages don't interact because each region quest operates under the assumption that you haven't done any of the others yet. I want the cast to interact a bit! The moment where the new sages all took a stand together? That was excellent! I miss having companions like Fi and Midna and Ravio that stick with you for your entire journey, rather than going it alone.

Also, most important of all: I need *some* objective to focus on or I'm never going to actually finish the dang story. I love vibing and seeing the sights and exploring the depths for treasure, but there's a reason why I never finished Skyrim despite having played ~200 hours. 😂

Nintendo seems to focus more on mechanics and gameplay than the storyline for a lot of their Zelda games. Which is fine! It is a game at the end of the day, and it's genuinely fun to play! And I don't mind the classic style of unlocking new regions as you go through the main quest, but I don't think linear storylines and open worlds have to be mutually exclusive, either. Technology has come so far in the past decades, and the BOTW and TOTK maps are excellent for exploring all the nooks and crannies and meeting the people of Hyrule. I do enjoy side questlines to fill out the world a bit! Wind Waker and Twilight Princess had them too! Heck, I loved the Hateno and Yiga questlines! Just, y'know, maybe help us not lose sight of what we're supposed to do along the way.

[gffa]

feel free to ignore if you think this is a hornets nest but what’s your opinion on devin grayson? personally, i think the bad rap is more so because she’s a woman - there’s men who have written worse but haven’t been torn down as viciously.

I'm honestly not fully sure of what her rep is, is she pretty reviled? Because any time I see criticism lately, it's usually centered around whoever's currently writing (right now I see a ton more for King and Taylor, I don't think I've seen anyone hardly mention Devin Grayson), but to be fair I'm still acclimating to being back, I have over a decade's worth of missed comics to cover and all. For me, I remember so vividly that I was so excited when she was first announced as upcoming on the Nightwing solo series because I'd loved her Gotham Knights stories, she seemed like she was right in my wheelhouse, that she wrote Dick and Babs interaction that I liked, she touched on Dick's issues with Bruce as a central figure in his life, etc. She seemed designed to appeal to me specifically! But then the issues started coming out and I was just very underwhelmed by her writing, not even her writing daddy issues with Dick and Bruce could do it for me and that's my ENTIRE REASON for being here, like how do you write it so even I am like, ".......no."???, and it felt to me like she was good at telling smaller, more self-contained stories, but that she didn't know what to do with the character when she had to plan his overall direction for the entire book. I think part of it is that she's a bit of a product of the time--I recently reread some of her stuff that I don't remember being all that controversial at the time, like the Romani story she did never jumped out at me while I was reading it back in the day (or maybe I just hung out in the wrong places for that sort of thing? I primarily got my interaction through the Nightwing/Bludhaven Yahoo! group) but I picked it up again and WOOF, that was bad. And, at the time, I don't really recall much reaction over the Tarantula storyline, either. But part of it is also that I just don't find her stuff to hold up, I read something more recent of hers (a single-issue story in an anthology or something? it's already slipped my mind, you can tell how much of an impression it left on me) and it just sort of slid right off me because I wasn't connecting with any of it. Ultimately, I don't hate her writing, but I don't find it particularly compelling, either. I think she had some strong views of the character that didn't mesh with a lot of people and was a lot more open about them than a lot of other writers were and I do think writers who try to be progressive and do it very imperfectly (which I suspect she was, given how she's a queer woman who probably occupies a lot of the same spaces we do) tend to get more backlash than those who don't do anything of interest or stay inside the safer zones. So, I feel like it's kind of middle ground territory for me--I've seen straight male writers get torn down just as much, but also you're not wrong that some spaces do go after women who dare to write a character differently, that I think her work has a lot of problems for me, especially because I'm not sure how much is clumsy wording on her part for her explanations/product of its time and how much is genuinely weird AF objectification stuff, but there are some cute moments as well. But also I haven't reread those Nightwing issues in like 20 years, so I'm purely going off my memories of what I experienced at the time and I have no idea how I might react differently, having grown so much that I'm basically a different person now, too, you know?

[ssum-thinginthewayshemoves]

The Ssum Review 3: It's Raining Men

So! It's been well over a year since my last in-depth review of The Ssum: Forbidden Lab. I didn't write one for the last couple of major changes, so those will be folded into this. (Yes I'm doing this for batteries again).

Since my review from October of last year, Cheritz has added two new routes to the game, as well as updating the UI and adding some extra features. The word document I originally typed this in clocked in at 6 pages only mildly edited, so without further ado, let's get into it.

Note : This review will include spoilers for all three routes, including June's. I won't discuss any major twists from later on in any of the routes, but I will talk about the identity of June's Mystic Messenger connection, if you have any concern about keeping that a surprise.

Boys –

I will sum up my thoughts, feelings, and opinions on each boy through two categories – my opinion on each boy as a character, and my opinion on that boy's route- the way their story is written and told.

Teo

The boy -

Early on in the game's lifespan, before anyone else was released to compare him to, a sizable portion of the fanbase had complaints about Teo, calling him “boring” or “generic”. My opinion is that, being the only option available, it was difficult for his unique qualities to stand out. Now that we have Harry and June to compare him to, I believe his personality is permitted to shine.

And shine it does. Far from being boring, he's a cheerful, friendly boy with a quick sense of humor and a deep love of movie's and film-making. He's a chronic workaholic. He's scared of bugs, ghosts, and horror monsters. He's a terminal optimist who tries to give people the benefit of the doubt. He loves meat and hates carrots. He's a lovesick idiot who wears his heart on his sleeve. I finished his route back in April, and I think about him every day.

The route -

So far, Teo is the only route for which I have fully completed all available content for. 200 entire days of chats and phone calls with this boy, with more days expected to be added at an unknown point in the future. Teo's route has been compared to a train ride- relatively smooth and steady, with some bumps along the way as he lived his life. This applies most clearly to the romantic arc- there are a few arguments and conflicts that pop up between teo and the player during the course of the story. But as to the relationship itself, there's a generally steady uphill pace as the you get to know each other, growing closer and more comfortable with each other. The story remains rather slice-of-life in nature, but Teo's so active that he's always doing something interesting.

Teo's route was, of course, the first route written/released, and therefore misses hallmarks shown in later routes – we get very few opportunities to hear directly from other people in Teo's life, mainly relying on Teo as sole narrator (with the exception of the rare occasions his phone is lost or stolen). This can lead to its own brand of strengths and weaknesses- while it lacks a variety of voices and the punch of different characters interacting, there does come the added layer of Teo as a potentially unreliable narrator. And that does make the rare occasions when someone else has Teo's phone a strange but delightful treat.

Harry

The boy -

Harry's an interesting character. Being the only other boy for what Cheritz has dubbed the “First Season” of the Ssum's storyline, Harry is clearly meant to stand as a narrative foil to Teo, especially early on. Teo is cheerful and friendly, Harry is closed-off and a bit of a misanthrope. Teo's a workaholic, Harry is lazy and very difficult to motivate. Teo's a lovesick idiot, Harry declares early on his route that there is No Such Thing as love. Their roles as narrative foils stands most clearly in the most superficial of their differences: Teo loves meat and absolutely hates carrots, while Harry would be a full vegetarian if he could, and Carrots are his absolute favorite food.

In short, Harry's not the easiest character to get along with. He does show the most growth and change over the route, however, and while the core of his character stays the same, his growth is delightful to watch.

The route -

As mentioned above, Harry is a lazy misanthrope who doesn't believe in love. Not the easiest character to write a romantic arc for! How did Cheritz deal with this, you may ask? By giving him a lot of outside stimuli, with a variety of characters intruding on his quiet life against his will.

The first major difference from Teo's route was the app's AI Piu-Piu as a character- in Harry's Route, Piu-Piu is present from the beginning, giving the player someone to talk to when Harry's not around, and working hard trying to foster a relationship between the player and Harry. In addition, the speech-to-text feature (not implemented until very late in Teo's route) is used liberally from day 2 of Harry's route, allowing us to listen to conversations between Harry and the people around him. It's a creative way to tell more varied stories in the limited format of a private messenger chatroom.

Harry's character arc is pretty closely tied to the romantic arc of this route – Harry starts out as a very closed-off person, but as he interacts more with the player and gets to know them, he starts to open himself up to trying new things and being more adventurous. He's still blunt and frustrating to deal with, but it's been a genuine delight to see him change and grow, however gradually. In short, THIS is the slow burn romance.

June

The Boy-

June's by far the youngest of the boy's currently accessible in the game, 20 years old compared to Teo's 27 and Harry's 28. He's also much more sheltered, suffering from an unspecified illness and therefore forced to live with his mother for his well-being. He's therefore very shy with people he doesn't know very well, and has a lot of self-worth issues tied to his status as an “unemployed moocher” (his words). That said, he positively blossoms when talking to the player, being very affectionate from day one, proving to be a rather chatty, playful young man. He enjoys painting, especially appreciating the works of Monet. He does seem to be rather desperate for affection- I get the sense that he'd bend himself into a pretzel to please the player. I worry about this kids self esteem.

The Route-

Part of the marketing surrounding June included the announced return of Mystic Messenger's writing staff to the team, along with the promise of a more dramatic story. They promised and delivered- June's life is full of drama, both due to his illness and due to the complicated conflicts of the people around him. The poor boy has very little agency in his life due to his illness and position, and there are many moments where the player is forced to stand by and watch as events unfold. Some of these moments effectively act as a gut punch, meant to make the player feel helpless when June's health takes a turn for the worse.

Other's, however, may simply be a poorly executed writing fumble. A separate arc from The Drama™ is the development of June's friendship with his doctor, Henri. Long segments of chats are devoted to listening to the two of them talk and get to know each other, which can prove frustrating when players can't interject and are forced to sit by and watch. The development of their friendship is rather awkwardly implemented, in my opinion- I get the sense that they wanted a bit of an enemies to friends(lovers?) arc, but didn't give themselves the time to properly develop the relationship in the time they'd allotted themselves, and ended up pacing it out poorly.

Now, you may be wondering, what about the romantic arc? You mentioned the romantic arc for the other two boys, what about here? That's the problem, there is none. June loves you right off the bat. Literally from the moment he meets you. And granted, that's part of his story and low self-esteem- June's been using the Ssum app for nearly two years, waiting for a match, and he's so overjoyed to finally match with anyone that he's willing to throw himself into it whole heartedly. But the downside of this is, at least from my perspective, that it feel's hollow. Unearned.

The Mystic Messenger Connection

Another large part of June's marketing was his connection to a character from Mystic Messenger, Cheritz's most popular game. This was left vague in initial advertising, but the connection is revealed very early on in the route. That said, I'm gonna mark the spoilers very visibly for those who want to avoid it. (… honestly who is reading this without already being a fan of the game? This is my the ssum fanblog, y'all are already in here with me. Still, common courtesy.)

SPOILER STARTS HERE

So those who know me well know that I am not particularly fond of Jumin Han from Mystic Messenger. I don't dislike him, per se- I think he's an entertaining and fun character to interact with, as his lack of experience with ordinary people and deadpan sense of humor adds an interesting dynamic to the cast. That said, I do not like his route. It skeeves me out. It's not for me. Big yikes, dude.

That said, it ultimately makes the most sense for June's connection to be through Jumin's birth mother- why wouldn't a divorced woman remarry and have more children, if she were so inclined? Especially since Jumin's father apparently remarried more than once.

The question may be: does this connection to Mystic Messenger overshadow June's story? In one sense, I don't think it does. While June and Jumin's mother Carolyn plays a very prominent role in the story, and while Jumin does show up later, I feel like the story can be easily understood without having played the other game. You don't need to know who any of these crossover characters are to understand what's going on. Anything you need to know is explained. There are a few easter eggs choices sprinkled in here or there for fans of both to enjoy a good callback, but there's no content lockout. (Some moments in game do come across very heavily as Promotional Advertising for Mystic Messenger to The Ssum players. That is annoying.)

In another sense, yes, absolutely. Whatever melodrama doesn't come from June's poor health comes from drama connected to his family- Carolyn arguing, corporate espionage related to Jumin's company, it's just... so much drama. So much unnecessary drama that has nothing to do with June except how the backsplash affects him.

I honestly don't know how to feel about it. I ultimately like the idea of watching estranged half-siblings trying to form a relationship, but I haven't finished the full 30 days yet so I don't know where that will go. I do relish the potential it holds.

SPOILER ENDS HERE

Art

Teo's Art – You may recall from last time that I discussed the shift in art style partway through Teo's route – the “Updated” art from the first month or so, and the “pre-update” style that started from about day 31. I speculated two things- one, that Cheritz would continue to go back and update artwork to this newer style, and that whether or not we'd return to the “updated” or or if the “pre-update” style would remain. Joy of joys, Cheritz did update a little more of Teo's artwork, bringing the next ten days in line with the artwork of the first 30.

Alas, the updated art style never made any appearances later in the route, as I had hoped. That said, as the route went on, the implementation of this art style seemed to improve with practice- there are some very cute pictures of Teo from later on in the route using this style. (Yes I am biased, and yes, there's still a lot of janky art in there)

Harry's Art – I honestly don't have a lot to say about Harry's art. Unlike Teo's it's consistent, and it's pretty good. Harry's generally not expressive, but when he is, it shines. That said, my one critique is, while Teo's route also made liberal use of stock photo's, the stock photos in Harry's route frequently included other people. This came off as a little jarring, especially if any of those photos with Actual Human Beings (run through a filter) also had Harry drawn in alongside them. It's not bad, it's just jarring. Because again, I get it, 200 days worth of pictures is a lot. This is an indie dev with a small art team. This is what stock photos are for.

June's Art – One of the hallmarks of June as the start of 'Season 2 – Love from Today' is the shift in art style. With June's route comes much more stylized artwork, more in line with Cheritz's previous work such as Mystic Messenger. The artwork of June and other characters shown within his route are well-drawn, consistent, and expressive. I do slightly mourn the loss of the more realistic style from Teo and Harry's routes, I understand why they made this shift. I am curious about what June would have looked like in the older art style, but I like what we have.

The other and much more controversial shift that came with June's art was the use of AI-generated backgrounds. Many fans raised concerns with Cheritz about this, citing the ethical considerations. Cheritz has released two statements regarding this: the first, apologizing for the surprising shift and explaining that the dataset they'd been using had been from commercially available sources. To my mind, this doesn't seem particularly different from how they had used Stock Photos as backgrounds in Teo and Harry's route. Still, it's hard not to object just on a basic knee-jerk reaction. It's just not a good look.

A more recent second statement has left me slightly confused with the wording – they've stated that some background artwork in Harry's upcoming content update will include AI generated backgrounds, but clarified that no AI has ever been used for Character artwork, and that they had no intent to do so in the future. My first time reading that statement left me with the impression that they'd meant that they intended to step back from AI-generated backgrounds as well for any future development, but on a closer rereading, I realize that they seem to mean that they never have and never will use AI for the Character Artwork. What this means for the future use of AI in the game in general remains unclear. I do hope they'll switch back to putting filters over stock photos- it was really fun spotting very obviously well known locations (my personal favorite is "The Artist Village" from Teo's route literally being a photo of the Small World attraction at Tokyo Disneyland)

Monetization -

I Can See Your Voice

I mentioned the speech to text feature offhand earlier, but I'll go slightly more in depth here: A feature I had not encountered by the time of my last review, “I Can See Your Voice” in season one and “Voice Recognition” in season two, has seen a lot of use across Harry and Junes routes especially. This may be seen as simply a fun quirk meant to help bring other characters and different kind of interactions and scenes into the story, if it weren't for the paywalled content.

Like the paywalled images, some dialogue from the voice to text content “glitches out”, requiring the player to use the in-game currency (batterys) to view the missing dialogue. Depending on how willing you are to use your batteries on this, it can range from one line you can easily figure out from context, to blocks of missing text in a row. It's frustrating to deal with, but at least for me, it's not that difficult for me to go “fine I guess I don't get to know what you said” and move on with my day. I'm not wasting my batteries on that when I could use them to make phone calls.

Subscription Services and Piu-Piu Plus

I forget when they added this, but there was a fun new, affordable subscription plan added to the Ssum! Called Piu-Piu plus, it has a much more pared down version of the other subscriptions key features- it still unlocks paywalled content such as photos and missing voice-to-text dialogue, and gives a daily supply of temporary batteries with which to make phone calls and choose paywalled options. It also removed the 5 second ads that pop up half the time, and tossed in the “faster typing” as a bonus. This plan is priced at 8USD a month, a much more affordable price, especially considering how much just buying the batteries you would use would cost otherwise.

I ended up using Piu-Piu Plus for one month back in February, and honestly... I kind of loved it. I was able to go back to days gone and unlock the paywalled photos and voice-to-text. Teo and Harry typed faster. Hell, if Harry or Teo were making me wait too long for the next part of the conversation, I could use the temp batteries to skip the wait. After that month ended, it was a little hard to come back to normal, and while I've readjusted since then, I keep thinking “maybe it wouldn't hurt to subscribe for one more month.”

Honestly, especially if you mean to play while juggling multiple routes in the same day, Piu-Piu plus is not a bad option, especially if you're hurting for batteries and want to access as much content as possible. I just wish it had the private account access.

Misc

There isn't really any specific focus here, I just had additional thoughts that didn't fit elsewhere.

I love love LOVE the music in Harry's route. There's a lot more variety in the melodies, and there's an overall Jazz Piano sound to it that just hits me right. I don't have a lot to say about it. It's good music, Brent.

One of the other UI updates that came with the addition of June was Profile Pictures for the expanded cast in each route. Any significant character that Harry or June speaks to with the voice-to-text feature now has a profile picture displayed, along with a specially colored textbox. It's a fun little detail, and I'm delighted to finally have a face to put to names.

The addition of video calls in June's route is a fun addition. The implementation is rather simple (it's not dissimilar to a standard visual novel), but they do some fun things with the new format, such as June lifting his hand to cover the camera if he's trying to hide something from the player. The new Harry content coming in December is supposed to include Video Calls as well, and I'm excited to see what video calls with him are like.

And also, wonder of wonder, miracle of miracles, The Profanity Filter in the Infinite Universe has finally been updated to tell us What Word Is Causing a Problem! No more do you have to sit there wondering why on earth you can't post your post. The app will certainly tell you! And then you can get mad that it won't let you write “wtf”.

Conclusion

I wrapped up my last review discussing the nature of otome games, giving players choice, having an ensemble. We now have three boys to choose from, with more on the way. There's plenty of variety to choose from: Cheerful Teo, Blunt Harry, Sweetie June. While which boy you prefer is ultimately up to taste, there's plenty of entertainment to be had regardless of whose route you play. Ultimately, ask yourself these questions.

Do you enjoy the more melodramatic style of otome games like Mystic Messenger? Or do you like your boys gooey sweet? June's the one for you.

Do you like tall men with deep voices? Do you want a man so weird you want to examine him under a microscope? Do you like a proper opposites attract slow-burn? Harry's the one for you.

Do you want a steady, mostly relaxed slice-of-life story? Do you like yourself a cheerful boy who likes to joke around? Do you enjoy Pining, mutual or otherwise? Teo's the boy for you.

Does this sound exhausting to deal with? You can always put the game down and come back later when you feel more up to it. The dating sim boys will keep. They'll wait. You have that choice.

[aingeal98]

hiii. while you're thinking about Al Ghouls do you have any comic book recommendations for them? I want to know more about Ra's and Talia without the post 9/11 narrative. Or more about the LoA in general.Tha k you!

Absolutely! I know there's a few reading guides out there for Talia that can probably give a better overview with a more filtered and streamlined guide. Such as this one here, which features Talia at her best:

Other than Son of the Demon, when I refer to LexCorp era Talia and her old character, these are usually what I'm referring to. This is who she was right before she got tortured into being evil. For a deeper dive into Talia's history, this reading list is really well put together:

If you're looking for something even longer, with the full history and context of Batman and the al Ghuls, here's pretty much everything I've read for the al Ghuls starting from the beginning. I'm not an expert by any means so I may have missed some relevant story or mixed up the order of a few different single issues, but there's enough here to offer a coherent timeline. If you can't afford to buy the comics, all of these should be available to read for free by typing them into a search engine and adding "read online" at the end.

Also please note that you don't have to read all of these. Some of these particularly in the 70s/80s contain repetitive story beats. Ra's has a scheme to make Batman his son in law, Talia helps him out. Batman opposes it, Talia helps Batman but doesn't fully abandon her father. That's the pattern writers fell into after the initial establishing of Ra's and Talia as characters. Some stories are better than others, and some break the mold entirely or put a fresh spin on it.

This is going to be LONG and I apologize in advance. I like to ramble about things. Tis a key part of this blog.

The 70s, aka the beginning of it all

Note: In all of these the al Ghuls feature in the main storyline, not the side stories such as Robin or Batgirl unless noted otherwise.

-Detective Comics 411: Into the Den of Death Dealers

Bruce and Talia's first meeting. Written by Denny O'Neil, Talia and Ra's creator. Batman fights a bull. It's very charming in the way only this era of Batman can be.

-Batman 232: Daughter of the Demon

Ra's and Bruce's first encounter, featuring Dick getting kidnapped, Bruce fighting a leopard, and Ra's attempting a ridiculously elaborate overprotective dad scheme.

-Batman 235: Swamp Sinister

-Batman 240: Vengeance for a Dead Man

The one where Batman and Ra's dynamic takes a turn for the worse, where Batman realizes that Ra's has a very different set of morals to him and can be ruthlessly evil.

-Batman 242-244

Introduction of the Lazarus Pits. Some racially insensitive moments that are on par for the 70s.

-Batman 257: Hail Emperor Penguin

-Detective Comics 444-445 and 447-448

Ra's framed Bruce for murder long before David Cain stole his idea. I think Cain did it better but this is still fun.

-Black Lightning 2: Merlyn Means Murder

A non Batman related Talia appearance.

-Batman: Where Were You on the Night Batman Was Killed?

4 part story where Batman's rogues thinks he's dead and come together to figure out who did it. Not massively important for the al Ghuls but Ra's being the judge in this trial is so funny to me.

-DC Special Series 15: I Now Pronounce You Batman and Wife!

The one where Ra's gets fed up of Batman refusing his son in law offerings so he just knocks him out and drags Batman to the wedding ceremony. Not my favourite by a long shot but the "marriage" is important for Damian's conception, since in Son of the Demon Batman hilariously enough doesn't want to sleep with Talia out of wedlock until she reminds him that they're technically married if you stretch the law by a whole lot. After that he's all for it.

-Detective Comics 485: The Vengeance Vow + Detective Comics 490: Requiem for a Martyr

Not a huge fan of this issue considering it fridges Kathy Kane and uses a brainwashed Bronze Tiger to do so. It's included a lot in reprints of the al Ghul storylines and does give us a look at the inner workings of the League of Assassins, but I could do without it. Also DC having two master martial art old men called Sensei who look very similar with one being good and the mentor of characters like Richard Dragon and Shiva, while the other is Ra's al Ghuls father and evil, is very confusing. You could tell how much they REALLY loved Kung-Fu based characters in this era of comics.

-The Brave and the Bold 159: The Crystal Armageddon

The 80s, aka seeds of Character Development and Plot!

-Batman 330-335

The start of Dick and Talia's dislike of each other. Also featuring the most terribly racist Fox family plotline I've read. It makes me glad Jace Fox gets to be Batman in the future even if I didn't like that comic either. He deserves to be Robin and Nightwing too as compensation for this storyline.

-Batman Annual Volume 1 Issue 8: The Messiah of the Crimson Sun

I enjoy this story because rather than have Talia working with Ra's and switching sides halfway, she's firmly opposed to her father from the start here. We start to see the beginning of character development compared to the regular pattern of the old comics.

-Detective Comics 526: All My Enemies Against Me!

We get Pre Crisis aka Earth One Jason Todd's origin while also getting Talia and Catwoman helping Bruce, Babs and Dick fight all the other rogues. I really, really love this issue and I can't fully explain why. It just ticks all the boxes for me.

-Batman 400: Resurrection Night!

Another comic I really enjoy, with Talia teaming up with Robin!Jason to help Batman and Catwoman foil Ra's latest scheme.

-Batman: Son of the Demon

Damian's origin. A must read. The tragedy of what could have been and how loved he was by both parents kills me every time.

The 90s aka we're getting darker and edgier now. Also featuring character regression and Bane for some reason.

-Batman: Bride of the Demon

Classic shenanigans but featuring Tim as Robin this time.

-Batman: Birth of the Demon

Ra's al Ghul origin story time! Trigger warning for sexual assault. Definitely not the tone a 70s era Ra's comic would have but not bad in my opinion.

-The Batman Adventures 13 + 17

Set in the Batman The Animated Series universe, it shows this universe's version of Talia and Ra's and is a pretty faithful adaption! Shocking I know.

-Azrael Issues 5-9 + 29-30

Azrael meets the al Ghuls and Ra's considers making Azrael his heir instead. Basically a classic Ra's Talia and Batman story with Azrael there instead of Batman. Not my favourite, it feels like it belongs in the 70s instead of being 90s al Ghuls.

-Batman: Brotherhood of the Bat + League of Batmen

A future elseworld story starting Tallant Wayne, son of Talia and Bruce. Clearly inspired by the baby in Son of the Demon, who would grow up to be Damian in main continuity.

-Batman: Legacy Volume 1 + 2

A sequel to Batman: Contagion, where a deadly virus spread through Gotham and even infected Tim. This time Ra's is in charge of the spread of the second round of the virus, Talia is back under his thumb and seems miserable about it. And also Ra's is considering making Bane his heir and Talia's husband, which probably contributes a fair bit to her misery. Character regression for Talia compared to how much she went against Ra's in the 80s, but one I personally find realistic. Main drawback is that a lot is written by Chuck Dixon and Talia is weirdly sexual at times. An understandable deal breaker for many, but it's the biggest 90s al Ghul story so I felt it important to mention.

-The Batman and Robin Adventures #10

Set in the comic version of the Batman The Animated Series universe, so if you're a fan of that cartoon you'll probably enjoy this.

-Batman Chronicles Volume 1 #8

Talia centred story that sums up her internal conflict between her father and Batman. Gets to the heart of why Ra's, despite his love for her, is not a good parent at all. Would recommend.

-Batman & Spider-Man: New Age Dawning

Crossover goodness for any Spiderman fans out there.

-Batman No Man's Land #0

The Talia cameo here is good imo. It shows layers to her and Bruce's dynamic that we haven't fully seen before. Plus we get to see Helena becoming the Bat of No man's land.

-Batman: The Chalice

One shot that doesn't fit in NML continuity despite being published at the time. I'm adding it anyway because I enjoy how it portrays Ra's and Talia. A nice break from their most toxic era so far (relationship wise).

The early 2000s aka The Brief and Glorious Talia Independence Era

-JLA: Tower of Babel

The tipping point. Ra's goes too far in messing with Batman, and Talia leaves him. It should have been her permanent break from Ra's and his cult, but if you ignore everything from Death and the Maidens onwards and live in denial like me, it still is!

(This comic also had the unfortunate consequence of giving the most insufferable "Batman solos fiction" fans more fodder. But tis a small price to pay for Talia finally freeing herself from Ra's suffocating grip on her life.)

-Batman Chronicles 22

You get good short stories for Shiva, Steph AND Talia in this issue, exploring more of their character without any of the usual entourage around to hog the spotlight

-Detective Comics 750

Talia is so delightfully done with both Ra's and Bruce. She's sick and tired of their shit and doesn't want to be dragged into it any more. If Tower of Babel was her gaining independence from Ra's, this is her gaining it from Bruce.

-Action Comics 772-773

The start of Talia's LexCorp era.

-JLA Secret Files and Origins 3

Flashback story giving more insight into Talia's POV during Tower of Babel.

-President Luthor Secret Files and Origins #1

-Batman Legends of the Dark Knight 142-145

Like the Birds of Prey storyline of this time, these issues make no attempt to stay in continuity with the rest of this era. It's more a generic 90s story than one that fits where the characters are timeline wise at the date it was published. Only reason I'm adding it to the list is because you get Talia shooting the Joker and leaving him for dead. Batman has to dip him in the Lazarus Pit to stop him from bleeding out.

-Superman Volume 2 Issue 170 (cameo)

-Batman: Our World's at War Issue 1

-Superboy Volume 4 #89

-Suicide Squad 2001 #2 (side role)

-Superman: The Man of Steel 120

Talia is trying to take down LexCorp from the inside meanwhile Superman is like "I stopped the evil stuff you were doing!" and she's like "Congrats you destroyed the evidence of LexCorp doing evil stuff in the process." He still doesn't realise she's on his side, which to be fair is part of her whole antihero deal at the minute.

-Adventures of Superman 600

-Superman: The Man of Steel 122-125

Plot starts in 122. Talia appears in 123 onwards.

-Superman Volume 2 Issue 190 + 194 + 198

Batman: Hush Issue 4. (brief appearance) and Issue 9.

Decent Talia characterisation to me, not so decent Lady Shiva appearance. Torn between amusement and disappointment that Talia manages to beat her by hitting her with a chair. (Yes, really.)

-Superman/Batman #6

Batman informs Lex that Talia has bankrupted him and sold the LexCorp building to Bruce Wayne. Sucks to suck, Lex.

After this, there was so much potential. You had a solid basis for Talia as an independent anti-hero, using her connections to team up with villains only to double cross them when the time is right and take them down from the inside. A master at espionage in the making. Instead Death and the Maidens happens. You might as well skip to Robin: Son of Batman and fill in the blanks however your imagination deems fit. It's probably better than what DC came up with.

[williamrikers]

i have one major problem with cooking crush, and i'm going to call it the star trek: strange new worlds problem. the thing is, i cannot watch st:snw because it's close to the original series in tone but not as good as the original series in terms of storytelling. so what happens is, i inevitably turn off snw and put on tos instead. because the original is simply better.

the same thing is happening with cooking crush and a boss and a babe. cc uses a lot of the same ingredients (ha) as abaab, but this food is just worse. i'm so sorry. there are logic errors, there are continuity errors, there are editing errors, the storyline has glaring weaknesses, some of the location choices make absolutely no sense. (i suspect the team was unable to book some of their old locations for their many obvious reshoots. also why did they have to do so many reshoots?)

abaab's story is just better told. the relationship development between gun and cher is written with much more nuance and detail than that between ten and prem. some scenes in cooking crush seem to make the characters regress, almost? this is played for comedy at times ("i think we're way past that, doc"), but other times it seems to be accidental? what cc is missing, what abaab had, is a big internal character journey. on abaab, almost the entire middle of the story was cher dealing with his trauma, opening up about his past to gun and having to confront his own insecurities and fears.

and cooking crush certainly set that up with ten, we got the family issues beautifully set up, the touch aversion, the pressure he puts on himself due to his mother's death. and then... they just don't do anything with any of that? i was expecting that at around episode 7, we'd be in full-on past trauma mode, ten really having to fight for his love against his own demons. but no. nothing of the sort is happening.

the cardinal sin is: this is boring.

cooking crush makes boring choices. ten, instead of having to talk to prem about his touch aversion and them maybe having to figure out their way around that, just says "it's okay, you can touch me now." (and god i would have LOVED a bl character who isn't okay with being touched and a story about that, are you kidding me? I WANT THAT!!!) prem, for some reason, is often the one who pulls away, even though this problem was set up for ten to overcome? specifically?!

ten, instead of having to confront his father and his family history, is sent away to do his internship. once again, going the boring route. prem, instead of having to actually deal with ten's father not trusting him, is told "just date him secretly". look, i love his grandma for that, but that is not an interesting narrative choice! that's not really an obstacle to overcome! where is the tension!

i'm not saying abaab was perfect. there were some questions left open about the gaming company that were never addressed in the end. however, the journey of cher and gun and their love story is one of the most well-written relationship arcs i have ever seen and it is a delight on every rewatch. these are two characters who are well-rounded and fully realized, who make sense together, who tangibly have an impact on each other.

what exactly are ten and prem giving each other that no one else can give them? this is always at the core of love stories, and in this case, they haven't really given me an answer to that yet. i can theorize that maybe prem makes ten feel safer? in a way he doesn't feel safe around his family? maybe? but that's purely a headcanon and has not been addressed by the show.

i can tell you exactly why cher and gun are together. i can tell you all about how cher is the only person who consistently makes gun smile, how cher is the only one who treats gun like an equal right out of the gate, who has fun with him and is, in gun's words, "his happiness". i can tell you all about how cher has been longing for someone to stand by him unwaveringly, for someone to support him, to really see him, to listen to him, to be his steadfast rock. and how gun is exactly that for him. watching abaab, you know exactly why these two are right for each other, how they make each other's lives brighter and better, how they make each other happy.

if cc doesn't want to tell me a good story (i'm sorry, but i do not care about the cooking competition), at least tell me a good love story, the way abaab did. but that doesn't seem to be happening, either.

anyway, i would rather be watching the original, the show that got all of these things right, and that is a boss and a babe.

[m4ndysk4nkovich]

I know you talked about Sandy and Debbie before; but I avoided it because I didn't want to be spoiled too much; but I finally got to that and!! I don't really like Sandy?? I have abandonment issues too so I totally get Debbie and am on her side so maybe I'm biased but like Sandy's lack of communication really frustrated me + then her response to Debbie's emotions and insecurities being "you're a psycho" also frustrated me and overall I feel like Debbie deserves someone better than Sandy; fuck what Frank said

but I know you like Sandy and Debbie together so do you mind explaining why? maybe im missing something; and if youve talked about this before, you can just link me to that!

wow i love this ask so much

so i like them together, but once 11x05-11x08 hit i don’t really. i’m surprised i havent talked about this more, and if anyone wants me to i will, but sebbie and gallavich have so many parallels so i think that a part of why i liked them was because they’re very similar to gallavich.

^ and much like gallavich, they SERIOUSLY struggle with miscommunication. this is what ruins them, and this is what nearly ruined gallavich. one thing about them is that the way they were raised fucks with a lot of it. i think this applies to every single relationship every gallagher has been in (especially gallagher x milkovich ships, like gallavich and whatever lip x mandy was called) struggles with miscommunication because the way milkoviches are vs how gallagher’s are is very different. debbie was raised by frank, monica, and fiona. her perspective on what love was was seriously warped because she saw frank and monica’s love which was… well, you know, and then fiona and her many boyfriends who treated her like shit. on top of this, she has serious abandonment issues and is still yet to learn how to cope with them. in sandy’s case, we don’t know much about her childhood other than the fact that she was basically raised as mickey’s sister and got into a serious relationship with an adult at fifteen, so i don’t think it’s too absurd to assume that she didn’t have a great childhood.

sandy is more comfortable with leaving and has a hard time expressing her emotions. debbie doesn’t want anyone to leave her, ever, and can express her emotions but probably not in the most “healthy” way.

i think that i’m biased too because i also have abandonment issues so i get it. but idk.

they had potential, for sure, i think that the mere possibility that debbie could have a girlfriend who validated her emotions and stayed with her was great but unfortunately, it didn’t work out. that devestates me because i’ve talked about this many times, but i’ll say it again, debbie’s trapped in this endless cycle of attaching herself then being left, over and over again. it is literally her entire storyline.

i think that debbie’s feelings about not knowing a lot about sandy’s life were valid, i don’t know if i’d fully defend tracking her but hey, gallagher’s have done much worse- i don’t really blame her for wanting to know if her girlfriend was cheating on her or living a double life or what (*cough* jimmy-steve *cough*). but also, if i were sandy, i would be pretty pissed about that! regardless, why didn’t she tell debbie (her girlfriend of like, nine months at that point) where she worked or where she lived? i get that she was embarrassed but that’s your girlfriend, man. invalidating her feelings on that and calling her a pyscho wasn’t cool, but again, i’m biased and if i were her i wouldn’t be very happy. we have to remember the severity of debbie’s abandonment/attachment issues and how she thinks that’s okay and normal. she reached this point of feeling dependent on sandy and it makes sense that she freaked out the way she did.

but god, i hated 11x07. i mean, i loved it, but i hated it. i think it was a really realistic depiction of abandonment issues, and it was amazing for it’s awknolegment of debbie’s trauma (i wish we got more of that and i wish that people fucking listened to that part). overall, that was a very debbie-centric episode so i loved that, but god, the fight they had.

i have more to say but idk how to say it here, but i really liked sebbie in the sense that i thought they had potential, more potential than anyone else debbie had been with, but their ending was bullshit and i really don’t like the things that went down.

[lesbianwyllravengard]

the ask you sent was so fun so you KNOW i gotta send one back

it's been a while since i was into dbh, but i remember seeing alice n kara and loving them both. do you have any thoughts on them? it can be either of them individually, their relationship, or just how they're treated in the fandom

ok ok thank you bye !!

Oh my GODDDD YES. THANK YOU😭

Kara is my absolute favourite character. No one does it like her. She's just incredible, plus Valorie is insanely talented and she outperformed, making Kara more loveable.

Kara and Alice's storyline is not my favourite to play but it is my favourite as a whole, because of the found family element. That shit's my favourite. I hate d*vid c*ge, I despise how he shoved Kara into a stereotypical Mother role just because she's the only playable woman, ESPECIALLY since this game is only possible because of her. I hate how he used domestic abuse to make her storyline more "thriller" (because the only way he can imagine women feeling fear is if a man is beating them), and I hate how she is the only one who can die so early on and has less chapters than the other two male leads. But, I love Kara tremendously and her story is like a breath of fresh air from Connor's, and a relief when Markus's stresses me out lol.

I really disliked the "Alice is an android" plottwist. Not only was it dumb and predictable, but the way it was handled was sooooo lame and insulting to Kara's character. "she just chose not to remember" because they couldn't reveal it to the audience too soon. Like what kinda explanation is that. There's just so many inconsistencies the "plottwist" created in the story. And it felt entirely tasteless considering Kara was meant to be a bridge between androids and humanity, being an android who so deeply cares for and loves a human child enough to take care of her at any cost. That meaningfulness dies as soon as Alice is no longer human.

But I will defend Alice any time. I do love her. So much of this fandom complains about her being a numb child which is INSANE to me because we all saw her being abused by Todd. Like ffs. Complaining about her "I'm cold", she's a goddamn kid and she's cold, you want her to suck it up? After everything she's been through? God.

Also I'd argue, and have argued before, that Kara is the closest example we have to how a hypothetical ai gaining sentience and emotions would look. Again it's entirely theoretical and not possible in real life, but we actively see her gaining true emotion, we see how she rewrites her programming to suit her, and I wish we had more of it in the game. She's the only character whose emotional responses can be irrational, and therefore are genuine emotional responses. She even says, regarding Alice, "I can't be happy if she's not". That's not rational at all, but it IS a very common emotional response to caring about someone. We know she genuinely cares for Alice because of this. Kara is a beautiful character and I fucking wish the fandom acknowledged her more.

I could rant for days on how they're both mistreated by the fandom but I won't right now. They're both girls, I'm sure you can imagine what they go through at the hands of the fandom and how utterly undeserved and misogynistic it all is.

Ultimately when I ignore the context of the director and writer I am able to fully enjoy their story and their characters. But as soon as I think about DC I fume lol. As is MOST if not ALL things in this game. I honestly feel the only thing I truly enjoy about the game is the characters, and Kara and Alice are great characters. Well written despite the game's overall writing flaws, and very easy to love and understand. I love how passionate and stubborn and caring Kara is. I love how wonderful and loving and compassionate Alice is. I love and miss them both so much