#this stuff makes me crazy because i love character design and also well im sure people know why

[princekirijo]

One of these days I'm gonna rant about the idea that the thieves' outfits represent "their idea of rebellion" and how I like interesting that concept is.

[yogurtlid10000]

Recently I read Transformers: Skybound FINALLy!!! it was fantastic, cant wait for the next issue

Highly recommend reading it tho, its a greattt comic and has super awesome art

Spoilers incoming ofc

Everyone's already talked about this but wow Optimus is portrayed so well!!! I love the dialogue when he describes Cybertron. Also love the pink backgrounds i some panels!! Anyway the interaction with him and Spike feels good and authentic. nice

The fight scenes. SO good to me, I think the art is super dynamic and the way the sound effects are written give great impact. The artist knew what they were doing for sure. I love how they use the comic media to its fullest. With those different shaped slanted box panels, and the smear lines when somethings moving fast idk

I also looove the shading in these comics!! and the linework like on their faces really helps the atmosphere. once again i love the sound effects (especially that big TONG) when starscream gets hit lol it just looks like all the fonts were designed or drawn by the artists yk?? and the variety of camera angles throughout is cool too.

Also love the relationship between optimus and the humans. It feels... better than how other transformers media has handled it (imo). I think its sweet

again great comic art the lighting.. the EVERYTHING idk i just admire this artist a lot (i think his name is daniel warren johnson, although it switches to Jorge Corona later) one thing i love in particular is how the lines are like... a little messy and sometimes a little all over the place-to depict their wear and grime. cool!

Next. Cant talk about skybound without talkingabout THE DECEPTICONS. oh my god. starscream is a spawn of hell. what a bitch. like actually he might be at his worst here hes so diabolical. Anyway even though hes very evil hes still enjoyable to watch because its just idk pure villain. Soundwaves care for his cassettes is sweet as usual. PUNTING Ravage is crazy. cannibalizing Skywarp is crazy. FGELP IDEK WHAT TO SAY except i like the art a lot here as usual its great very comic-y again. SOundwave stays a favorite character.

THIS is an iconic and great moment of skybound, i love it, i lvoe that optimus is willing to use this cannon to further the battle yk also looks badass

Gotta say these are two of my favorite pages throughout the whole series. Love the color and camera angles.

I know starscreams the big bad villain or whatever (for now) but he still makes me laugh

These panels... THE YELLOW BACKGROUND. THE LOUD SOUND EFFECTS. THE POSE. THE "YOU KNOW THE SONG" perfect. 10/10 for me. the artist has got the touch. (theyre referencing The Touch right?)

These three phenomenal moments with devastator. the art.... its just too cool. very dynamic. i like starscream getting squished. Once again the fight scene art DELIVERS.

This too. I love how soundwaves punches feel really weighted. also YAY starscreams getting the beating he deserved

....remember that PUNT to ravage earlier? welp. bye starscream. Things only get worse for the autobots here tho.... because with soundwave as leader the decepticons can actually function and be more deadly....

...when i saw this i knew we were fucked. we are fucked. wave and wave partnership? optimus is screwed. AND MEGATRON HASNT EVEN BEEN ADDED TO THE MIX YET. oh god.

The newest chapter has some gorgeous panels. plus beachcomber!

Local deadly robot scientist discovers whales and the beauty of earth. Big fan of transformers discovering earth stuff.

GUYS. ultra magnus!! hes one of my favorite transformers im so glad hes in this series.....i wish he was in better shape because-WE ARE SUPER FUCKED RATCHETS DEAD. no medic-HOW IS ANYONE GONNA GET REPAIRED.

ok fr what are we gonna do

poor wheeljack.

anyway the issue ends with shockwaves insane evil plan to bring cybertron to earth working so idk whats gonna happen next but im excited to see more.

also jazz this whole comic has been really cool, hes always helpful btu then he like gets beat up or captured but HES ALWAYS POSITIVE and he only speaks in music puns too. ONLY.

ultra magnus save us... idk bro we need a miracle... maybe jetfire will be useful again soon, maybe beachcomber will come in clutch. maybe new autobots will join. if yes, i hope we see springer again hes cool

anyway yes ik i barely talked about any faults of the comic, im trying to be super open and see it with like no bias or comparing it to other comics and stuff. personally i like it a lot. the humans arent even dislikable imo. the characters are nice. one thing is that MAN a lot of characters are dying. kinda sad. no ratchet is crazy. also when will megatron awaken? and how?

[weaselishmcdiesel]

theres a youtube channel profiting off and lying about ai art and it's pissing me off

@/tendofarms on youtube uses ai art in the thumbnails and videos of their animal crossing compilation videos, claims it to be made by them despite also giving credit to a @/lumasi.png on instagram, who claims it's "a comission." this art is also being sold on merch on the channel's etsy account.

They haven't posted a video in 2 months but to see that they've made money through this scheme really pisses me off. Also the fact that they're attempting to decieve people by creating a fake artist on instagram who posts the ai art. They've attempted to say the art is a blend of original art made in photoshop/illustrator as well as the help of ai art. I dont believe this is true and im going to show your asses why

On their first video, they say

"my normal workflow so far has been to paint backgrounds, then get Ai to help with character design, i bring to photoshop to select my favorites, and put together something from my personal painting combined with my favorite Ai characters. Hope this clears things up :D"

The art in question:

and if you have no issues with it, here are MY issues with it

i'll pretend for a second that this person did make the backgroundand ignore the fucking surreal characters. sure. ok so what the fuck are these details. and also how did the ai manage to match your style so well? it doesnt have a backglog of years of YOUR work, does it?

On another video, they say

"a lot of illustrator/photoshop work went into this art. I used Ai to get ideas for composition and generate some character ideas, still some stuff i wish i improved but i think i got it to a decent final stage. Hope you guys enjoy the art and the mix <3333 love!!!"

the art in question with my notes.

The reason this particular post stands out to me is because in the DESCRIPTION of this video, they say the art was made by @lumasi.png on instagram. So when i go to their account and find this art, i see this

so, ok. was it a commission or did tendyfarms make it using a lot of illustrator/photoshop work. and if they ARE two different people.. wow their styles are so similar thats crazy /sarcastic as fuck

I would also like to point out that @/lumasi.png's first post, one that isnt featured in a tendyfarms video, also reeks of ai.

But maybe this isnt a big issue. Their etsy after all only shows that theyve made 16 sales, and their most popular views sit around 100k views, which probably isnt enough to even earn a stable living from, so who cares.

Just. as someone who listens to a lot of music from youtube mixes/compilations, who also makes art, i feel it's really fucking disrespectful to try and claim art as your own in a space where i go to try and relax or find new musical artists. and it's fucking rampant! i have to check each mix to see if using ai for the art, which i can only really see if i click on the video, giving them a small boost in stats. And if they arent using ai art? theyre probably stealing the art directly from an artist and not giving proper credit. Forget about asking the artist for permission, it's not like countless youtubers have explained how thumbnails are The Most important element of a video. Just go ahead and take someone else's work to give yourself some cash.

I know tumblr users hate generative ai already, but i'd just like to give a little attention to what youtube looks like, and to try and ask for more vigilance, more comments calling out the bullshit. I dont see a lot of comments at all on tendofarm's posts! or any mention of ai can be brushed away with "oh i used ai as well as drawing it myself" :/ you didnt buddy. you just didnt do that.

Idk what the right thing to do is, report their etsy? report their youtube? does either company care? maybe you can tell me

but i should probably say dont harass them. as much as i would like to. just try your best not to give retention to videos that shamelessly and ile about ai. Really look at the videos, really scrutinize if you can spare the time to. thanks

also. is it just me or do the cats in lumasi's pfp and this etsy reviewer's photo look the same. not sure what this could mean. up to you

[lamouratorrrrry]

Extremely Unbiased Thread About Why Kintoki’s Design is Good, Actually

hello. you may call me Luna, however im sure most people here know me as “the kintoki huge tits artist”. today i’ll be doing something quite a bit different than my usual posts, and thats that im going to be analyzing why exactly i think kintoki’s original design is actually really nice. no i am not biased in any way. 

the reason for this is that, being a huge fan of kintoki (and frequently browsing his tag on here), a sentiment that i see a lot is “i really like kintoki, but i hate his design/i like his rider and heian designs more”. which is fair! you are very much allowed to think that. all i want is to possibly give a different perspective on why i think the opposite (and to gush about my favorite character). 

so come with me on this design-analysis slash luna-talks-about-how-sexy-kintoki-is journey!

(this thread will for the most part be discussing his 1st ascension. the reason being is that he really doesnt change much design-wise as he ascends aside from the big coat in his 3rd ascension. also, its my favorite of the three! see, totally not biased.)

hi handsome ;)

we’ll start at the top and work our way down. first, i need to address the elephant in the room, aka my biggest fate fandom related pet peeve. 

this hairstyle? this is not a bowlcut. this is a bob haircut. and its CUTE OKAY. (op has a bob cut and therefore takes these jokes very personally)

a bob is typically longer, enough so to hide the ears. a bob is also meant to frame your face. the bowl cut is much shorter, shows the ears, and is one length all around. 

for reference, the only other character that i can think of who cant beat the bowlcut allegations is tsuna. i see a lot of people saying stuff like “wow, they both work for raikou and they both have bowlcuts!” when their hair looks completely different... 

firstly, his bob is cute! come on :( second, this haircut has roots in historical kintarou depictions! 

this is a kintarou doll, and is clearly what inspired fate kintoki’s hair! despite the rest of his design being very modern inspired, i quite like that he keeps his “historical” hair. i think its a nice little touch/nod to his younger self. 

moving on, lets talk about kintoki’s fashion sense.

breasts...

it took me a bit to pin down what i think kintoki’s fashion sense is exactly, and i think its fair to say he’s very 70s inspired. this is extremely funny to me for reasons i will talk about later. after doing some light research, a big *big* staple of 70s mens fashion ive picked up on is having your shirt unbuttoned like. basically all the way. just absolutely tits out, and i respect that so hard. 

(technically his extremely popped collar is more 80s, but i think its fair to say hes designed after some amalgamation of decade-fashion)

all kintoki’s missing is a crazy pattern on his shirt. come on raita i believe in you

something else of note is, of course, his jewelry! kintoki very clearly wears a lot of big, bold jewelry like his necklaces and bracelets. ive said it before and i’ll say it now, i wish to god he had been given earrings. that would take his design from a 10 to an 11 imho

one word i see thrown around a lot about kintoki’s design is that its very tacky, and im 99% sure these comments are referring to his obnoxious amount of jewelry. however, i believe kintoki’s design works so well because its tacky. again i’ll talk about this more later, but i think a lot of kintoki’s charm comes from his dorky, tacky accessory choices. 

(im sorry kintoki for just straight up putting your crotch on the dashboard)

speaking of tacky and gaudy, kintoki’s belt buckle. yet again kintoki’s quest to look as cool as possible makes him look absolutely silly, and i adore it. i dont have much else to say here except that i love that he wears not one but two belts. (and yet we still see a peak of his underwear in his 2nd and 3rd ascensions? i love him so much) at this point, we all know that kintoki looks the way he looks because hes trying to be as cool as possible in the modern era. but its not very modern, is it? im not sure if this was intentional or not, but a small detail i really really love about kintoki’s design is how... outdated it is. sure decade fashion comes back and becomes cool every few years, but kintoki looks very outdated. again, i think this all adds to his charm. as much as he tries to look like a 21st century cool guy, he just ends up looking like the bully jock in an 80s film. 

i want to take a second and talk about another small detail that i absolutely love about his design, and that’s the use of pink. its kind of small, but its present enough that i feel justified talking about it. kintoki has a pink bracelet on his right wrist, his sunglasses are tinted pink, and my personal favorite, he wears pink underwear! judging by the other characters hes drawn, im sure this might just be because raita happens to like pink, but i love the implications here regardless. definitely a “real men wear pink” sort of thing (toxic masculinity? never heard of ‘im). or, maybe kintoki just likes pink almost as much as he loves gold! he has good taste. 

and not just pink but hot pink! 

(up till this point, ive been talking about and had only planned to talk about berserker kintoki’s 1st ascension design, but for this small portion, i would like to direct your attention to heian kintoki as well:

PINK!! AND LOTS OF IT. kintoki definitely has at least 2 favorite colors.) 

this guy slaps your girls ass wyd

lets look at kintoki’s full body one last time. like i mentioned earlier, at first glance he definitely looks like he shoves dweebs in lockers as well he should. and this, i dare say, is the best part of his overall design. i know that at this point when talking about fictional characters, subverting expectations is not exactly a new thing, but i think kintoki does this so well. just look at him. this man wants you to know he goes to the gym. he wants you to know that he’s over 6 feet tall and has a 6 pack. he wears sunglasses at night and indoors for gods sake!!! he’s also extremely kind and dorky. he loves his mom. he loves children and teddy bears, and he respects women.  

kintoki’s design is tacky and silly and outrageous and thats exactly why it works so well. it bums me out when i see people write this design off as being ugly just because they think they see a bowlcut, because i personally think a lot of thought went into this. well done raita! i do see why people might prefer his other designs, because its hard to compete with a cool leather jacket or a half-tits out samurai. that being said, this design is my personal favorite of his! his cheerful personality and lack of objective swag has endeared him to me greatly. 

this may have been incoherent, but i hope you’ll walk away from this thinking differently about our friend kintoki <3 

if i missed anything or you have anything youd like to add, please feel free! 

[kidical]

Saw your recent comic with Ben and Jeff and thought it was pretty cool. It also got me curious about the lore for your versions of them. Do you have any headcanons about em? Also for your Ben, is he based on any other versions from canon or other fanmade ones? And is your Jeff based on any others? Ive seen names like Woods and Hodek be used around before and even entirely new Jeffs.

.oh yeah for sure! i was hugely into creepypasta from ages 8-11 so that was like, 2011-2014, so my biggest inspirations were always things like pastamonsters, ask-BENdrowned, those old flipnote hatena animations and harleyquinn191 animations (slendy works at burger king, MCR blood animation) so with that in mind my style and characterization of not just ben and jeff, but every creepypasta character has always been this decently light-hearted and silly ^_^ i do like to experiment and do some character studies just for funsies though such as my latest comic and with comics like that its not ever something ive been brewing in my mind for months thinking about i usually just get an idea for something that would make for an interesting idea for a minuscule amount of depth and draw it the same day i get the idea and then forget about it forever also i get soooooo long winded with these answers

my portrayal of ben is kind of different i guess from a lot of people because i have this very specific idea of him in my head where im hyperaware of him being a 90s kid whos into video games. like. its so hard to describe but essentially i base his personality off of the way pictures like this FEEL. with like the wooden board walls and the shitty tv.

i do also take into account the minor details in his original pre-revamp story where hes just this petty little asshole who gives the narrator the silent treatment because they ignored him for like 3 days

as for jeff i definitely have a very super messy portrayal of him because i absolutely love experimenting with different versions and designs for him. the 8 year old in me has made me loyal to jeffrey woods though, the 13 year old with hair turned black from fire and skin turned white from bleach. i definitely give him the most depth out of any of them underneath the layers and layers of comic relief and base a lot of his issues off of my own hardships such as growing up with undiagnosed mental illnesses with parents who dont really like the idea of having a child With Mental Illness because they associate any disorder of the brain with Crazy And Straitjackets. there are certain parts of jeffs story that i take liberties with because jeffs story is one of the. Worse written ones so things like liu going to prison, billys birthday party and the way randy and his friends bully him are all way different as well as things that are clear signs of familial abuse that i think the author just. did not really view as familial abuse? like how fast his parents were ready to just. kill him. for self harming in the bathroom after coming home from the hospital and stuff. so i do have a long winded explanation of all of jeffs childhood trauma and his misdirected anger and his way of kind of just laughing that shit off or pretending like he never had a family because having no family > having a shitty family. also unrelated i like to give him a stutter and asthma Hooray

[sanchoyo]

danny phantom episode 4-7 Thoughts: (under a readmore because, these got kinda long!)

-the outfit danny had to buy for dash's party. CLASSIC 2000S i cannot stop laughing. And also showing up to the party and everyone is dressed like the trio is hilarious. and further proof that everyone looks good dressed goth.

-dash has a closet full of cute lil bear plushies?? LOVE that. adorable. also his response to danny trashing his room fighting a ghost was SO valid if somone BROKE MY BED IN HALF ID BE PISSED TOO.

-technus being like 'oh smart, u should be a tutor!' then later being like 'forget tutor, be a teacher!' :) supportive king <3 I also really like his upgraded suit/design. AND SPOCK CAMEO??? HELLO??

-the music in this show is super. its so funky. I looked it up and the guy who does it, guy moon (awesome name) also did music for other cartoons like fairly odd parents, barnyard, chalkzone, billy & mandy, AND some actual movies like FIGHT CLUB??? the whiplash I got from reading that)

-sam being rich explains a lot about her, actually.

-I know the moral of the episode was supposed to be 'dont ditch your friends for popular people/spend a lot of money on clothes that arent You to Fit In'. but tbh. it wouldve been easy for danny to have been like 'well, okay, ill come but only if my friends can!' but I get. that hes 14. so. not a lot to say there.

-BOX GHOST IS BACK!!!!! also, danny sitting up and wearing the dress/wig/makeup. umm thats how I dress everyday LMFAO. unironically me. (hate the jokes that boil down to 'haha funney man in dress' tho. but this is a look)

-jazz being protective of her brother once again being like NOOO YOU GUYS BETTER NOT STAKE OUT HIS (actually haunted) LOCKER!! shes aware of how people perceive him and she wants to help :( which is also probably why she told dash to invite him to that party even tho she had no interest in going!! she wants to help him out :(

-gotta say im with tucker on the whole 'should danny use his powers to get back at bullies' debate. 100% yes. let him teach kids to fight back. making dash throw his food at paulina out of the blue? no. but when hes actually about to pick on someone? yeah! for self defense? YEAH! if dash and his friends just threw food at him, I think rather than. idk doing sneaky shit with frogs he couldve just threw it back and not pulled punches if they tried to fight. I kNOOWWW its a kids show so they are like 'if u fight back ur just as bad!! violence bad!!' but. theyre HIS POWERS. WHO CARES.

-like my only gripe is that dash really isnt LEARNING ANYTHING WHEN DANNY GETS BACK AT HIM IN THE MOST PETTY INDIRECT WAYS. whatever they had to add a bully psa episode I guess. I hate it and I hate the way cartoons usually handle it because these methods simply Do Not Work. 'aND YouRE USinG YOur poWErs FOR EVill???!' this is Not Evil. even when poindexter takes dannys body, theyre only being 'nice' bc hes stealing soda for them!! bitches deserve what they get (nothing too brutal bc theyre high schoolers but damn, if they pick on danny he doesnt need to be the 'bigger person' he needs to start biting people)

-SAM TRYING TO SMUGGLE FROGS OUT OF THE BIO LAB?? girl in middle school when we had to dissect frogs we could opt out, also, they came to us already dead and preserved...

-sidney's lingo and the fact hes in black and white is sending me. also, danny is a ghost celebrity apparently for being a halfa?? ok. thats interesting to know

-the DENTIST BEING EXCITED ABOUT THE COTTON CANDY FLOOD IS THE FUNNIEST THING SO FAR.

-I LOOOVE the trope of 'wishes gone wrong'. not crazy about the stereotypical genie, or the use of the dreamcatcher looking design. (also, I KNOW theyre scientists but the way theyre handling a cold...are the fentons ANTIVAX)

-the genie. she. whitewished paulina. JKASDFHKJ. (the ghost literally just being hello kitty???? im dying) 'why do i feel that im special and wonderful? because I AM! <3' paulina ilu self worth queen. felt bad for her also getting possessed by (2) boys later who were arguing INSIDE HER. WTF.

-imagine being the guy trapped in his now flying car. he thought danny and tucker were HALUCINATIONS. imagine being trapped in a flying car with two, what you think are imaginary arguing 14 year olds convinced ur gonna die. i WOULD say this dude is gonna need so much therapy, but he seemed totally fine and excited when they landed (I would be happy too if a chicken was on my head. chickens rule) stoner rights

-sam's bat slippers??? iconic. SO cute.

-I think desiree's backstory is so :( do all ghosts have messed up sad backstories?? poindexter's was sad too...cannot imagine box ghost has any kind of fucked up backstory. but what if. his mom got pushed off cliffs by boxes...........a la cruella... anyway her 'no man may lay a hand on me' iconic. ilu

-I know danny has no concept of how much bras cost but my god dont attack tucker with some girls bra. those are so expensive.

-its really. well its not a GOOD THING he went into the portal and got fucked up, but its good danny was the one to do it rather than sam or tucker. because even tho he was being influenced by desiree and kept getting more malicious and it prob wasnt 100% him...he sucked as a ghost like most the people he 'pranked' were innocent ppl just Chillin and he didnt want to help anyone at all. I think danny is the most responsible out of them but also, hes 14 and shouldnt HAVE to feel obligated to fight every ghost. hes a good kid and wants to, but I also feel like he feels like...responsible for the portal turning on?? because his parents did give it up,, but it was an accident and not his fault (if anything, why was the on switch on the inside. why was it that easy. why was there no safety measures. that seems like smth OSHA needs to hear about). like thats my son. hes a good boy. and hes never done anything wrong in his life, ever. if anyone hurts him im killing everyone in this room and then myself. etc.

-danny's curfew is 10PM????? DUDE. when I was 14...shit I couldn't be out that late, I had to be back at like, 8 at the latest, and my parents had to know exactly where and who I was going with, AND i had to call/text them regularly...is this a case of my parents being overbearing, or the fentons sucking??? the only time i could EVER be out that late was if I was at an overnight sleepover or smth...

-the vultures have lil fezes. why do they have fezes...theyre so fuckin funny 'ask him for directions' 'I KNOW WHERE IM GOING' these ghost vultures are my new grandpas. pick them up, put them in the adopt box.

-'I wonder why those guys were trying to waste dad!' THEYRE GHOSTS. YOUR DAD HUNTS GHOSTS. why is that not a conclusion you'd immediately jump to??

-*jazz voice, clearly disgusted* WISCONSIN???

-mrs fenton with the lab coat and leg warmers and PERM. YESSS STYLISH.

-was going to say 'ew billionaire' @vlad but. super valid he used his powers to assumedly steal and cheat to get that money, thats how all billionaires do it! but ew hes a SIMP. and spending your billions on FOOTBALL STUFF?? you are Not Valid overall. I DO respect the fact you have a castle instead of a mansion. in wisconsin. if youre going to be stupidly rich might as well go all out, torches on the wall and all. I DO like his ghost form's little kitty ears. catman. and his cape! every design can benefit from a cape. and how different his forms look, like danny looks the EXACT SAME IN BOTH FORMS ASIDE FROM COLOR CHANGES. vlad's is like,, I could believe they were different people!! also I love the drama. but dude you are fighting a 14 year old. lame. also he was like, telling danny he wanted his mom and him and like, wanted him to renounce his dad?? WHAT ABOUT JAZZ?? bitch. those r MY kids and they are both important and special. I do agree they need better parents but thats not u sir <3

-I thought vlad's 'little badger' nickname for danny came from the football mascot of the packers, but google says they have NO MASCOT?? so now I'm like?? is it because his hair is sometimes black and sometimes white?? I hate to give him props but thats a PERFECT NICKNAME. theyre also tiny and vicious!

-why did I get so excited that Skulker is back!! its been like. 2-3 eps LMAO. AND THE DAIRY KING. ICONIC I LOVE HIM. hes the nicest guy ever :) more nice ghosts please. danny cannot be fighting alone everytime with no ghost buds like every ghost being hostile sucks :(

-mr. fenton knew vlad was controlling him, but a few episodes ago he had no clue danny was doing the same thing...is it something about how malicious the ghost is?? he just seemed to think his memory had gaps the first time, this time he was INSTANTLY LIKE 'GHOST'. then again in this ep when danny did it again he was just slightly confused but not immediately freaking out like he did with vlad possessing him!!

-'my parents will accept ME NO MATTER WHAT' so. so why haven't you come out to them yet, danny?? if you really think that?? if theres no harm, and you're sure??? if vlad is a real problem, wouldnt that make dealing with him easier, to expose him???? SO WHY HAVENT YOU COME OUT YET?? COULD IT BE,, MAYBE YOU HAVE DOUBTS ABOUT WHETHER YOUR PARENTS ACTUALLY WILL ACCEPT YOU??? 🤔 ... 🏳‍🌈 I get why people say He Is Trans. I totally totally get u danny.

-sorta unrelated, but it just occurred to me in one of these eps they go to casper HIGH not casper middle school??? theyre 14?? dont highschools usually do ages 15-18? (I didnt go to hs so I might be wrong, if I am ignore this...) freshmen are usually 14-15, could just be a case of them not turning 15 yet but they will sometime in the school year (I say they because tucker said he was 14 too)? I know the show has 3 seasons, so by the end of it will they be older? thatd be neat but usually cartoon characters stay the same age...I love shows where you can see the characters age and grow up, though...three seasons seems like a long time to spend on like, 1 year...

[sanstropfremir]

Okay, time for my weekly rant so buckle up. The vocal stages were okay-I cant really remember them well because I watched them only once so take what I say with a grain of salt. Well I watched the Spark one once and I only got through half of the other one because I can’t stand ballads especially when there’s no interesting movement on stage to keep me engaged. Like it’s no fault of the members themselves or the song (I actually think their singing was incredibly beautiful and Eunkwang always sings like his wife just left him with the kids which is how you know he’s good) but I physically could not pay attention. That’s why I liked the spark stage a bit better-there was enough movement that I was able to focus on it. I really liked the use of the fire and the way they were walking in and out of the frame trading off parts so there weren’t too many awkward moments where the other members where on stage but not doing anything. The opening was gorgeous with each members being lit by the spotlight as they harmonize. So stagewise, I prefer Spark but vocally I think the other group was stronger. I love Spark and Taeyon is such an incredible vocalist (I mean the song is great because of her) so I don’t get why their delivery was, I don’t want to say weak, but subdued might be a better word. The only one that really stood out was Junhoe (but also that man couldn’t not stand out even if he tried, not with that incredibly rasp) and even he seemed to be holding himself back a bit. Though it was a bit slow it built up well to the two last choruses but still the first half could have been stronger. I know they were trying to draw it out to a strong pay off but I don’t really know if it was enough. And yes the suits were *chef’s kiss*. I think at this point in their career the FNC stylist has put SF9 in so many suits they’ve got it down to a science. Also I’m a sucker for those shirts with the triangle cut out and we got not one but two of them here.

Okay moving on, I’m not sure which group was next but I’ll talk about the Ikon stage. It seems like they finally realized that they’re on a performance based competition show so they decided to pull out the big guns. Love the little skit at the beginning (making sure people don’t forget that they’re YG), it was cute and refreshing. I really appreciated how they leaned into the campy acting in this stage (Stray kids did it too-just adding to the similarities between their stages). The song was meh but I also don’t really like BP especially not their recent stuff so it’s not a big deal. I would have preferred if they had gone with another song maybe Whistle or As If It’s Your Last or if they’d done a 2NE1 song like Chanwoo mentioned some point in the episode. I also think the stage would have been way smoother if they’d let Ikon and Lisa interact. Like if the boys appeared in her set after her section and then they all moved back to the first jungle set and then the whole thing turns gold and they did a dramatic outfit change (but with better jackets because theirs look like they came out of Party City). I also get what you mean about the dancers outfits not being that great. I actually really liked the outfits of Lisa’s dancers in isolation but they didn’t match with her or the set so they threw me off a bit. At least with the ikon members they were going for a modern look so the dancers outfits didn’t look that strange in comparison. Do you think it would have been better if they were white? How would you have improved then? The best way I can describe this performance was that it was a stage, stuff happened, I enjoyed myself but I don’t plan to revisit it anytime soon. Oh and we also have to give points for them cursing on national television not once but twice (at this point Jinwan deserves to say fuck).

Now to Stray Kids. So I feel like I need to preface this with the fact that I am actually a stray kids fan (I won’t call myself a stay because I don’t associate with the fandom) and though I’ve been really critical of them and their stages tend to be my least favorite I still have a soft spot for them (I got into this show because of them after all). I loved, loved, loved the intro with Felix (and yes his biggest flaw is that he’s Australian but I forgive him for it) and the way it immediately transitions into the chorus of DDD-the abrupt transition does fit really well with the Deadpool theme and I guess it is the closest they’re going to get to the feeling of yeeting themselves into traffic like in the movie. Interesting choice to start with the chorus. Now that I’m rewatching it I do really wish they stuck with the comic theme. I think that’s my gripe with SKZ-they have a lot of good ideas but they move on too quickly from them. Just pick a handful of things and sprinkle them throughout instead of cycling through them at breakneck speed. Like okay they’re doing Deadpool and he’s a comic character so keep the comic styling (it would have been a good thing to put in the projection behind Seungmin’s scene), maybe in the subway they could have had some fight choreo so the guns coming in at Lee Knows part aren’t out of nowhere (also someone please tell me they were trying to recreate the meme with the cat and the knives, please I need to know). I absolutely agree that them having a goal or an antagonist would have really helped the story along. I mean they literally have a spoken intro so why couldn’t Felix just tell us who they were fighting (and I’m pretty sure in the movie Wade tells us he’s trying to kill Francis in that scene sooo). As always they put more focus on the rappers (please can we get less Changbin and more Seungmin, Jeongin, or Lee Know or at least give Felix more parts). Seungmin was the real mvp of this stage and he had the best outfit (I think it qualifies for Hanya’s best gay little outfit list). Personally I with they hadn’t gone with Gods Menu again. I’ve been hoping that they would perform My Pace (and maybe remix it with their B-side TA off their Go Live album) because that would be such a fun stage. Again, I enjoyed myself but I won’t revisit it anytime soon. At this point the only groups I actually look forward to are BTOB and SF9 (they’re doing fucking Move and I don’t know whether to be excited or terrified-there’s a clip of Taeyang covering Move from a variety show or interview and I think he does it really well so I know at least one of them can pull it off). Again thanks for creating space where I can info dump and I hope I said something of interest to you!

i think you wrote more than me!! i love this, im gonna put my response under a cut im not being super obnoxious on the dash.

i get that the mayfly stage would be not as visually stimulating for people and usually i would count myself in with that crowd because i love a good spectacle but i think because i watched the spark stage first and my colour perception is sometimes weird so when there's a lot of movement with very little colour variation my tiny pea brain loses track of whats happening really quickly. especially with red. so it was kind of difficult for me to pay attention to the spark stage in the second half. also i absolutely HATE watching people flub on stage because it brings up such visceral secondhand feelings that i couldn't even watch the stage when i started the full episode today.

i love a good suit but you know what i would also love: sf9 in more costume variations. tbh im just getting nitpicky about it because im a costume designer down to the core and i got trained by a designer who specialized in doing avant garde costuming so i tend to skew more towards wild than reserved. it looks like the move stage wont be be suits so ill take it, but oh man to do i want to see some really crazy stuff. which i know they'll never do because idols have to be pretty at all times or the fans get mad but oh i want it so badly.

do you mean how i would improve ikon's backup dancers outfits or lisa's? here why dont i do both. for lisa's dancers i would have just done away with that harness shape all together, its almost exclusively a military style. the jackets by themselves would have been fine but really what they should have done was put them in something that matched the gold but contrasted enough to give them shape. by having at least her dancers in all black on a gold stage there was a lot of "haha look at me do a duck walk because lets throw in some voguing for spice." they could have gone with a mesh bodysuit idea similar to what she was wearing or even just different colour coats. as for ikon's backup dancers, firstly pants. not black. or even a longer skirt. genuinely a part of the reason why i dont watch girl group content is because i HATE the hem length of the shorts they make everyone wear. words cannot describe how much i hate that cut. kpop is so obsessed with showing off women's bodies and especially their legs but they do it in the LEAST flattering way possible because it "can't be too risqué," just shoot me now. i hate it. i hate it so fucking much. yea yea everybody was on cocaine in the 80s whatever but at least they were all wearing french cut bodysuits so their legs looked fantastic. stop interrupting the lines!! anyways. pants so the only section of skin showing is thigh to mid calf, especially because they weren't even doing any fun legwork! if they really wanted to keep the full sleeve bodysuits they shout have done them in a fabric with a texture or external embellishments, like a patent/vinyl or sequins/rhinestones. something to catch the stage lights so we can actually see the shape of the limb. but the easiest way to fix it is literally just cut the arms off the bodysuits. stages are lit to show off skin, sometimes the best way to have something be seen is just to have it bare.

i agreed skz cycles through ideas way too fast, they need to just pick a couple and stick them out through the stage instead of just adding more and more different ones throughout. also ok good someone else noticed that there is just...so much changbin. we don't need that much changbin. i know there's other boys in the group let them do something! also im pretty sure theyre not recreating the cat knife meme but actually the promo image from john wick chapter two, which i also could have sworn i saw a deadpool version of as an instagram ad back when movies were happening, but now that im looking for it it doesn't exist so i might be crazy.

im excited for the move stage but im also trepidatious because...its move. i have NO clue what the concept is from the previews so i just hope its weird enough to take it enough out of the taemin context for me to enjoy it.

[readingaccountability]

snow crash - neal stephenson

my playlist (because of The Way That I Am)

final thoughts:

okay, im going to be honest right out of the gate- i cant decide whether this is a book id recommend or not. it was really fun for the most part, but personally there was a lot more exposition than id like. the early portions of the novel have exposition which feels completely fair, mostly things relating to worldbuilding. stephenson creates his own vision of future america, and some places online referred to it as cyberpunk, and some as post-cyberpunk. id be more in the latter camp, mostly due to the way he plays with tropes, leaving the reader unsure of which will be subverted and which wont.

the use of language was really fun, and i enjoyed the worldbuilding a lot. his vision of a futuristic capitalistic earth feels surreal in its immediacy and recognizability. the back jacket blurb ends with "a future america so bizarre, so outrageous, you'll recognize it immediately." which, yeah. a texan info-tech magnate? two competing corporations owning the highway system? suburban city-states? this was another enjoyable thing- everything was colorfully named, and names treated totally normally, which kind of poked fun at how we have everyday things named very ludicrously and for the most part we are totally blind to it.

one aspect i really enjoyed was that the author often doesn't make certain things clear to the audience, until he does, and then it becomes necessary to reassess the entire story and setting. this goes to underscore the theme of the importance of information and the ways we take it in and perceive the world based upon it. for example, we don't learn that y.t. is fifteen until maybe 75 pages in, at which point a lot makes sense in retrospect. the same thing occurs in the worldbuilding, as suddenly a detail is given in passing and the reader must incorporate it into the setting, which by default we assume to be similar in many ways to our idea of america. it keeps the reader on their toes as well as furthering the worldbuilding. for the most part, the tech stuff didnt feel outdated to me, despite being a future projected out from '92.

however, aspects of the book are definitely very 1992. id put these into two camps: the first, being that the book does at different times use slurs. the main character is black and asian, the n word is used a few times by racist side-character/antagonist types, as are a few other racial slurs. there was also the occasional usage of the r slur, within the narrative prose itself, rather than usage as an insult within dialogue.

the protagonist, who is named, unfortunately, hiro protagonist, is a great character and felt very fleshed out to me, though at times he reminded me more of dirk strider than normally would be ideal. (its obvious that stephenson and andrew hussie are of a similar type of writer, and play with similar tropes, lmao.) hiro is a man of many worlds. he seems to shift between them easily, though never fully existing in any of them. this is reflected in his background, both in his biracial identity and in having been raised on a myriad of army bases. this is layered further in his fluidity in interacting with both reality and the metaverse, yet remaining slightly, consistently aloof. fascinatingly the first moment i sensed this drop was when we meet juanita- aka where his real and meta realities coincide. the description of them as the adam and eve of the metaverse is both insanely romantic and thematically key (good god i wish we had more than like, two conversations between them). juanita designed the facial component to metaverse avatars, doing the majority of this work when the two were together, and hiro can see echoes of both their facial tics in the face of every avatar in the metaverse. in a way, by having done this work juanita is positioned by the narrative as one of the gods of this digital realm. she is also hiro's call to action, being aware of the coming trouble and alerting him to it, as well as connecting him to the informational database he needs to prepare.

y.t., the secondary protagonist, fucking ruled. i loved that she was just a fifteen year old punkass kid whose mom doesnt know how crazy this part time job is. y.t. being worried about her mom was a great thread throughout, and a really good balance to how obviously independent y.t. is. i do wish there had been a chance to explain more about her background (she has a dad who left who is mentioned in a throwaway sentence, and a boyfriend who is mentioned near the beginning but never again.) i really enjoyed how obviously hyperaware y.t. was at all times about her own place within the insanities of the setting, while also consistently writing her as a teen maybe in way too deep who thinks about things in typically teenage ways. but like, that wasn't ever held against her? the narrative meets her where she is. it was honestly awesome. HOWEVER,

i absolutely hated the raven and y.t. scenes. how creepy!!! he basically statutory rapes her!!! we know hes at least late 20s early 30s, because hes the same age as hiro. if this sort of content is upsetting to read for you, i definitely do NOT recommend this book. (if you want to avoid reading these bits: ch 47 y.t. meets raven, ch 50 they are in a bar eating, ch 52 things happen that result in y.t.'s anti-assault device activating- she did not activate it on purpose, but forgot it was there- and raven is knocked out.)

please PLEASE dont take any of the following analysis as like, trying to be apologetic towards this scenes. because again they were awful and hard to get through and really gross. but im also cognizant that the author was obviously trying to convey something by making the choice, like the way it was written is obviously not condoning this sort of thing.

i think maybe what stephenson was trying to get at with that, was that we see hiro internally negate any potential for anything untoward with y.t. basically immediately, since he kind of senses that she might have a small crush on him (though this doesnt last more than a fleeting moment, especially from her perspective). vs raven, whose 'poor impulse control' warning tattoo eventually elicits a sarcastic remark from hiro after he finds out raven and y.t. were "a thing". i really dont think hiro knew how far it went? like it was just suuuper weird, but i figured it was meant narratively to 1. execute the chekovs gun of y.t.'s anti-assault device, 2. contrast hiro and raven (especially considering the bike-racing argument where theyre telling the story together, which is supposed to parallel them, while contrasting the differences in how they ended up?), and 3. just to get raven unconscious, i guess. but good god it was weird and i hated every second of it, why couldnt the device have like, activated way earlier?? gah. fucking upsetting. moving past that!

honestly i was really frustrated by how little screentime juanita got, because the way she was introduced was so fucking interesting and then shes mostly off doing her own thing. the bits of explanation she gives at the end about what she was up to on the raft are so sparse and im like damn, can we get a little bit of her pov in here? please? that would have ruled. additionally, shes supposed to be hiros love interest, but we see so little of them interacting outside her intro scenes. a huge portion of why hiro is getting into the sumerian mythology is literally framed as something that will help him understand juanita, but we dont get to see him talk to her about it barely at all.

the supporting characters were quite fun, i particularly liked the librarian. big surprise, i liked the overly literal ai information-dispensor, lmfao. watching him and hiro interact reminded me SO hard of geordi laforge having honest to god conversations with the computer where he tries to coax information out of it, aka one of my favorite little aspects of tng.

and lastly, the major plot themes themselves. i adore the way stephenson approached action, it was very entertaining. usually i cant really visualize action scenes written out, but his use of language was really really effective and engaging. the plot itself was absolutely fascinating, though i found the premise pretty contrived. which isnt bad in itself, i was fully suspending my disbelief until the last hundred pages or so. which for a 550+ page book, isnt too bad.

i did like the approach of linking the ancient to the modern, that is always really neat. and i think ultimately stephenson did it in an interesting way, not how i would have done it, but definitely interesting! creating these ideas about information infrastructures, and there being words that can access those and be used to control people, was wild. not sure if i agree about the equating of religion to a virus, though he did specifically establish that it was more the approach to religion, than religion itself. (maybe if juanita had been more goddamn present in the narrative that could have been elaborated on a little more. literally her perspective would have been perfect in balancing that out!!)

ultimately what did me in was the very very very long winded MONOLOGUE where hiro re-explained the whole premise, in ways that didnt really neatly organize into a cohesive argument. a lot of the scenes where hiro talks to the librarian, which are interspersed throughout the book, are really exposition heavy, because stephenson is rooting his ideas in historical concepts that need to be explained to both hiro and the audience. and i thought all that was fine, because it was a conversation where hiro was grappling with the information, and he was figuring it out along with the reader, and most importantly it was a conversation between him and the librarian computer program.

howeverrr later on we get a full rehash of all that, where hiro makes clear some stuff that was just implied for the reader, and hes literally just telling these important men whats up in this big long monologue. utterly worthless. i kept reading it and going YEAH, we KNOW, we know this we know this. and the important men barely interjected. it added basically nothing to our understanding of the situation, other than reframing it. but everything added was already an implicit thing, and didnt really need to be said again.

the resolution to the book was stellar, the last 30-40 pages, once hiro is onto the raft, were great. ultimately after reading and giving some time to digest it, i think it was a solidly great book with a few big drawbacks near the end, but which dont carry through and sully the ending.

[charmspoint]

Top 5 characters that live in your head rent free 🤔

For this ask meme

Oh god ONLY five??? GOOD QUESTION. This is gonna be hard to both decide on and rank fairly uhoh lets see, this ranking his shifty as hell depending on what I’m into atm obvs

5. Tsurugi Kamiya from Servamp

Does he look like a knock off Izaya? Yes. Is he? Very much no.

Tsurugi is like my no 1 reason for getting back into Servamp, I left right in the middle of his arc and I ;-; IS HE OKAY??? DID HE GET AWAY FROM TOUMA??? DID HE BECOME WRATHS EVE??? NOBODY TELL ME I’LL FIND OUT ON MY OWN.

Servamp was one of those shows where I didn’t really have a fav main character for a good while until this guy showed up. This guy is an absolute crazy little monster I can’t overemphasize on this, his coat is used as a fucking straight jacket I’m not even kiddin

You get introduced to him and he’s scary and terrifying because he’s so strong, like he’s one of those strongest in the series characters and since he and the heroes are on semi opposing sides he is a serious threat. So you get introduced to this guy who seems borderline crazy and feral and then...you get to see him goofing off with his two boyfriends and their kid and it’s just

The domesticity!!!!Look at it!!!! It’s so fucking cute aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, they are so cute together OT3 of C3 ftw, MY SON. Like Tsurugi had a horribly abusive childhood and was basically raised like an attack dog and his previous partner :) well he do be trying to seriously kill him don’t he. But look! He found his own little family he can be semi normal in!! Until is torn apart by his abusive adoptive father figure :D!!! I ABANDONED HIM IN THE MIDDLE OF THAT ARC AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

im sorry this got so long on this particular character none of the others will be so long i just miss him TSURUGI ILL CATCH UP FOR YOU!!!! Maybe he should have been no 1 hbjhbjh fucking sleeper agents am i right

4. Izaya Orihara from Durarara

Ah yes, the og queen bitch. Has my taste for villains ever recovered from Izaya? No. If your villain isn’t at least a bit like Izaya I’m not interested. Durarara was one of my first serious fandoms and Izaya was the first character I ever wrote for and I think you can explain me as a person if you consider Izaya was my all time fav at 13. I can’t really say anything about Izaya that hasn’t been said thousands of times before, I love how goofy and overperformative he can be, I love how there’s so much in him once you crack him open, I love how good of a villain he is for a messy story such as DRRR, puppeteer villains are really a league of their own. We need more puppeteering twinks, maybe then I’d be more into villains yaknow.

3. Hawks from Boku no Hero Academia 

To no ones surprise!Him! I’ve been drifting off from BNHA recently what from catching bad case of JJK what from just reading n watching more other stuff and honestly that’s probably good because I’ve been into BNHA for a couple of years now as my main fandom and I really could have used a break. Not to say I don’t like BNHA anymore tbh I think right now BNHA is the best it’s ever been just ya know, drifting. That being said my love for Hawks will never die, god what a good boy and we got his backstory too aaa ;-;. BNHA was just like Servamp, something I liked but didn’t really have a fav character in until this random support character strolled in and won my heart. God I love how much we got on Hawks. He’s completely different from his initial impression and his unrelenting strive to do good despite being thrown from one horrible situation to the next is just ;-; HES SUCH A GOOD BOY. He’s selfless to a fault, literally putting everyone before himself and putting himself down for not being able to achieve more than is humanly possible I’m just ;-; I WANT HIM TO BE HAPPY. He just makes my heart happy, he’s good and warm and hardworking and in a manga where trauma plays such a major role in so many characters it’s so good to see Hawks there, having been through three different types of hell and still coming out unnerving in his goodness. All I want for him is to have a good life and to one day be able to smile for real.

2. Gojo Satoru from Jujutsu Kaisen

Again no surprise since I’ve been so into jjk lately. Satoru is p high up rn cuz I’m mainly into JJK now but god knows where he will actually settle. He’s not even really my favorite character in the show, that goes to Inumaki, but this is a list of who I think about the most (tho all of these characters are either no 1 or no 2 for their shows) and boy my brother and foxy can tell you I’m constantly thinking about this bitch. I didn’t really care about him that much at the start but then I got to Hidden Inventory and OH BOY MUCH TO THINK ABOUT. Satoru is such a wonderfully complex character whos evolution you can clearly follow through the years. He’s under so much pressure as the strongest sorcerer to deal with everything and he has to operate in that system trying to change it for the better while at the same time trying to make sure his students arent sacrificed in the name of that change. He has a very goofy disposition but along side with Nanamin who’s a lot more explicit about it, it’s clear he cares about mental state of his students a whole lot. He knows this world is terrible and that the will come out of it with scars and that he can’t protect them from all of it, but he balances protecting and letting them grow as much as he can. They need to grow so jujutsu society can change after all, but they also need to be protected so they don’t fuckin die before that can happen. This is without all the many many opinions I have on Hidden Inventory and SatoSugu as a whole, how they influenced each other, how differently they reacted to their shared trauma (Funny how everyone on this list is fuckin traumatized) and what resulted from it. How their fucking love story is dramatic enough to be a Shakespeare play. Also I like it when he’s long and goofy ahahah

1. Chuuya Nakahara from Bungou Stray Dogs

Not to objectify men on main but I couldn’t choose a picture 

If there is ever a day when I don’t go feral over Chuuya I’ll probably be dead. He not only lives in my head rent free he owns the place.

HES SO UNDERUSED.

BSD has such a great setup with Chuuya, like he’s ex partners with the mentor of the main character who got betrayed and abandoned when the mentor left shared evil organization. Sounds like grounds for drama right? YOUD THINK SO. Like Chuuya and Dazai have such a great and interesting dynamic and you can feel how strained it is from the distance and betrayal and they bicker and fight as their defining relationship trait BUT there is such a strong underlying trust to all the fighting. These two trust each other with their whole lives and that hasn’t changed despite everything, despite how much time has passed and how much that trust had been tested. So you’d think he’d be an important character :) HES STUCK IN SUPPORT HONESTLY HES STUCK IN BACKGROUND UNLESS HES NEEDED TO DO SOMETHING COOL AAAAAA. Chuuya is literally one of a kind, I’ve never seen a character with such a good design and such an cool power and such an interesting relationship to one of the main characters and such a love and support from the fandom BE SO UTERLLY AND COMPLETLY WASTED. Even when we get Chuuya scraps they rarely build on relationship he has in canon but just throw in new random ones at him (tho that’s a broader problem of Kafka throwing new characters at the plot instead of developing the one he already has really). We get a hint of a cool fight with him? Completely cut out, More often then not it just feels like he is benched because he’s so damn strong there would just be no plot tension if he went in and broke some heads (which is also a problem with Satoru, guys stop writing op characters if you’ll just put em on the bus aaa). Anyway he’s completly and utterly wasted by the plot.

And it’s such a waste because he’s such a good character. Like he’s a member if the villain organization and is obviously by that very vicious and violent but also so empathetic and kind to people he considers his friends. He and Dazai have the brawn and brain thing going on and stg Chuuya is like the only brawn I can think of that is classier then their brain. Look at how this guy dressed, he’s high class gay, hat, choker, coat, gloves, he is bringing in the looks. I love how he can actually be completely calm and rational and put together but then put him with Dazai and it’s back to ‘we are 15 and we will scream out heads off at each other’, they are so childish. 

Anyway I love Chuuya he deserves to be treated better and I will never stop screaming about Chuuya ever

[goatpaste]

mapleshade abused a kit though, and in oots suggested killing kits simply to get to their mothers? she’s an abuser. she took advantage of crookedstar in a vulnerable state to manipulate him. she’s a complex villain who didn’t deserve what was coming to her sure (at first), but she still actually abused a child and many others in the dark forest

i dont think mapleshade suggesting killing kittens makes her a child abuser specfically. i think yeah its evil. but she was supposes to be evil

like iv said before mapleshades vengeance came out ALL she was supposes to be was evil. she was supposes to be this skewed twisted creature of the dark forest whos gonna suggest doing this crazy things to further her agenda as a evil person. 

because what we learn and understand of her character later is she LOVES  her kits so much she was willing to do anything for them. 

but 4 years prior, yeah shes a kit killer because shes eeeeeviiil and a dark forest cat ooooo

i know it sounds lazy to just keep chalking everything up to bad writing (and ill even admit i may nOT have the best input on this because i never finished oots) but does it nOT feel lazy that they just were like ‘yes mapleshade is evil she kicks puppies for fun!! AND KILLS AND EATS BABIES LOOK HOW EVIL SHE IS’ when her wHOLE goal when she died originally was to kill people who she believed hurt her children

alSO while we are here talking about bad writing and stuff i didn’t read myself but on the wiki lol

can i just say this whole qoute

is really funny because im like 90% sure sandstorm doesn’t know who the fuck mapleshade is and that mapleshade also probably ran past 50 other families on the way there. also 90% of thunderclan is her kin. so dont worry mapleshade your family dodged a bullet with thunderclan 

alsO why does mapleshade know or caRE about sandstorm

wHY wasnt there any fight scenes between mapleshade and crookedstar? oR mapleshade and appledusk? oR ANYONE WHO MEANT ANY THING TO MAPLESHADE (i dont think appledusk existed yet but yknow)

as for like the crookedjaw manipulating stuff, i addressed that stuff in my og post. like yeah she hurt crookedjaw

i LOVE crookedjaw, but like? so?

i think its kinda fun she had a gimmick of ‘haunt the family of the man who wronged me’

like yeaH its bad

but again, this predates the mapleshade vengeance book that gives such insight to her character by like 4 years 

i think everyone focuses on all this bad shit she did and never oNCE wants to have perspective on her whole character. or think about how this would happen or look or go down if written well.

like see mapleshade as a villian all you want, she is one! that is her design and i think its cool and good

i just hate people saying there NO redeeming mapleshade at all, that she was a murderer and hurt her children on purpous.

[quackspot]

i started thinking about that gay bastard oc of yours. platano. can u tell me about him

omg u wer thinkgin about platano..... mr banana man... mr 4011. i am obsessed with the banana code srry i just got back from work (it was good :-D)

any way. um. im going below the cut. he kidnaps people and he murders people and i hate him because he’s also a massive weeb so. hm

HISTORY OF PLATANO... yea his name is spanish for banana

his father, pablo, will probably get a name change someday but i literally never think of his father since the only thing he did in platano’s backstory was disappear 

since platano’s world has characters based off like. fruits and vegetables (there aren’t really any limit to what the characters are based off of. it was in my lazy google translate name phase so we have like... a gay character named arcenciel who becomes dadlike through my powerful canon-changing touch. also arcenciel wears the colors of the rainbow as often as he can i haven’t figured out a good design for him since i’m not used to using more than 5 colors. he also owns a hat factory)

i think arcenciel and platano are friends they met when platano was like. 17 probably and arcenciel would be around uhhhhh ummmmmmm 21??? idk man but in canon he’s probably around 30 . yes i m saying “in canon” because i wrote a really dumb and horrible story back in 2018 arcenciel used to have HUGE internalized homophobia and i turned that into a running joke and i dislike that so that’s a reason why i’m not sharing the fun little story i wrote for my friends

(the best part of that story is when arcenciel threw his light-up rainbow heelies at platano, thus starting the boss fight which the main cast LOST.)

ok back to the topic at hand. platano.

i have a whole doc named platano where i just wrote drabbles about him so i’m going to summarize them

the first one was his friend, percisi (my only cishet oc he’s very short and very aggressive while also dressing in a soft-colored turtleneck since he’s based off of peaches) using a misunderstood form of satanism to summon satan. guess what percisi and platano summoned satan for. it was a manga update! wow

i won’t say the mangas name it was an inside joke

so platano was like “hey satan can i have this manga now please please” and satan went “sure just kill people for me” 

that determined platanos job for the next 7 or so years <3 wonderful. 

(it was basically me writing a backstory for a scene to happen in the main writing i wrote for my friends. he killed someone because someone else in the building was trying to summon satan. very confusing but okay i guess.)

i think right after that i wrote about platano meeting his boyfriend, sage, for the first time. i have horribly mixed feelings about their relationship since it’s very. Hm.

so platano kidnaps people to watch anime with him because all his friends left him and his best friend, mangue, is too busy being a dictator over the Land of the Fruits. i shit you not fruits oppressed the vegetables. i wrote that dynamic between the two because i was learning about the revolutionary war in US History. something like that at least

(the Land of the Fruits is not the official name)

on the topic of kidnapping people. guess who his favorite person was. sage. it was sage. so he tried to take sage often but they probably discussed Proper boundaries since everyone else tried to run away. hmm i am now going to write a bit right now 

“Platano,” Sage started. “Why do you keep kidnapping me? It’s rude and I hate it.”

“What else am I supposed to do?” The yellow-haired fool leaned on his sword, digging the tip deeper into the ground. 

“ASK ME IF I WANT TO HANG OUT??” 

“I can do that?”

“You keep making my dads worried.” Sage looked around the area, fidgeting with his hands. 

“Oh. Okay. Want to hang out? Watch some anime?” Platano paused for a moment, but managed to say “Maybe kiss?” before Sage got to answer.

“I- KISS??? We can watch anime together. We can go now.” 

Sage ushered Platano through a portal as fast as he could. 

His dads were never worried.

hmmm maybe that’s alright idk i’m a little tired so it’s probably a little out of character. sage probably isn’t that loud but i think it was trying to be the dynamic of “oh, we’re not dating” when they kiss every sunday at 5 pm by a romantic river scene 

he’s a character who is, at his very core, horrible and bad. he is portrayed in a way i DESPISE but i’m too lazy to correct it. his interest in sage actually started with me going “hmm i think platano would draw sage like this” then sauce giving me fun facts about his oc, sage, yea sage is sauce’s oc <3 epic win . so sauce gave me fun facts about sage and i was like “time to doodle these in platanos ‘art style’” when in reality it’s just the mockery of people just getting into an anime art style, with the chin so pointy it could cut a cake 

i might reread my old writing from 2018. i gotta agree with the judges for that year i did not write very well

it mightve actually been made in 2017 which would be FUCKIN CRAZY im gonna check rn 

yea it was started in 2018. february 14th... huh . finished it completely in june of that year it was 41 pages total and it’s not even double spaced how did i write something without double spacing it

OH MY GOD BOB IS GOING TO HIJACK THIS RANT JUST FOR A LITTLE

so bob is a fluffy little anthro cloud with a grey top hat and bowtie. he is amazing. i love bob. bob is another one of sauce’s character and mangue (mentioned earlier) was made by my friend jamie 

(you can always ask for their tumblrs but i’d ask them if its okay to share their tumblrs. i might just look at them and reblog their stuff cuz i like their art!!! maybe jamie posted a drawing she made recently on her blog but tbh i don’t think she would she’s more of a twitter user)

ok so im skimming thru UMG which is the story it stands for “Universe of Magic Gardens” and it was originally made for a prank on ponytown so people would go “what’s UMG” and my friends and i would be like “ur mom gay xDDDDDD” or something like that . horrible but i’m glad i’ve changed from . that.

here’s a bit i actually like AKLJFISJFIO

“What the actual FUCK, Ilkie?!” Arcenciel cringed in fear. “Put it back- it’s too ugly.” He pointed at Platano, whose arms were crossed. 

why is it bolded. anyway.

i just saw a part where eau used y’all... water cowboy moments <333 i really need to make refs for all of those old characters. all of my umg-related characters have to be my oldest-living ocs. 

i cant believe this is making me genuinely reread my old writing just to go “WJHFSIDAJKSFIOJ WTF????” 

some of the lines on it sound like something you would hear on like. a school bus or somethin 

looking at umg like “wtf how did i add so much Meat to this writing” bc most of my writing now is mostly quotations to progress the story (like the quickie i wrote earlier. i could add meat to it but im  tired lol)

OK THIS IS MORE GENERAL BUT MY FAVORITE THING ABOUT THIS WAS WRITING HAIKUS FOR PORTALS. after you visit a place enough times it’s kind of just an instinct to open a portal there so you don’t have to recite a haiku 

uhh ok here’s another bit becuase im feeling like living la vida loca.  ur biggest regret should be “can you tell me about him” by this point bc i’ve written too much to go back now

He landed on his face once he was outside of the hat. Meko quickly walked over to the guest room, opened the Portals for Dummies book, and flipped to a page. It looked devious.

“Banana, mango,

Each tasting amazingly.

A taste of evil.” 

Meko did the dance on the page, it consisted of something that looks like it’s from an anime. A portal opened, the familiar scent of bananas and mangoes coming from it. With some hesitation, Meko stepped in. He quickly made it so only his head peeked in.

it wasnt bolded this time but i like it bolded. ok i understand how i added meat it was just shitty expired meat ALKFSJSHDAIUJKFEIODSJAK . it wasnt even that much meat DAMN. it just looked like more.

actually that’s all i will write. i could  do more w platano but yea at his base he is a blonde twink who kills people because he wanted a manga but now he’s friends with a dictator. woo! wow. amazing character writing. i cant wait to get motivation to rewrite everything and make platano a good villain (he will still be very interested in anime sadly. idk why around that time i liked making characters who were obsessed with anime i didn’t even watch it much myself. i think it was because i wanted to put capes on them)

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

Fl4k Fl4k Fl4k Fl4k Fl-

i didn’t die i just fell in love with that skill tree creator and have done nothing for the past few days but make skill trees and sleep for 3 hour intervals. im very excited for the gameplay on Wednesday but oh man oh me oh my i gotta catch up on a lot of posts lol

tl;dr: Fl4k is a badass. Stop misgendering them or I’ll show up at your home at 3am local time every time and then eat your spine. Bonus: Mr. Chew being an ‘Eridian skag’ is probably due to some funky mutation from eridium/slag/eridian stuff. Kinda like how Threshers have the ability to make singularities because they are native to Elpis, which is a big ol’ Eridian base (which i totally addressed in this post lol). I also gave my opinion on Fl4k’s skills in general, if you’re interested in that. Overall, a very awesome trailer! Definitely lived up to the hype.

i said it before, this trailer was one of the best ones. definitely #2 for me, Zane is still at #1 because i actually laughed during it. the music in this one is definitely the best out of all 4 tho. seems like they’re all variations of the same song, i like this one best. I need this soundtrack sooo bad.

also i know probably no one else following this blog watches one piece but like

that first footstep with the studded boot and the sound effect immediately flung me back to katakuri. god katakuri was a badass. i was so excited to see that fight animated.

mr chew spinning around is my favorite thing ever. i love that you can tell the personality of the pets just from watching the intro. 

i know fl4k is like a real badass in this trailer, but i get the feeling they’re going to end up being at least a little soft for their pets. i mean... they have stuffed animals of them ffs.

so... we’re near Sanctuary-III in this trailer? I gotta keep my eye out then. i also want to see if that one claptrap area guess i had is correct or not... this looks like an entryway for the garage so im guessing i wasn’t, but let’s seeeee

there is a raised bit up and to the left

also im wondering if this means we’re going to have to rescue ellie from the CoV.

hmmmmmmmm

hmmmmm i don’t think the signs match up.

mr chew is the goodest boy. im so glad we can pet/interact with him!! i want to know what the names of the other pets are

also, a bit off topic but

i could have sworn fl4k’s jabber was cryo/shock. it was blue, wasn’t it? i wonder if they changed it or if it’s skill upgrades change its color. i thought the upgrades just gave it better guns.

yeah it was! i guess possibly upgrading it with the guns gives it a new color scheme? maybe? this could be the gunslinger upgrade!

it looks like their jabber went through the most design changes out of all of the pets. that or this is yet another upgrade (since each pet has 3 states). maybe this is the beefcake version.

‘bitch’. i love how expressive fl4k is with just the eye. very well done.

ohhh you know what that building is in the back?

[we’re near the intro to the game!]*

and tbh i don’t think this place has the building for Ellie’s Scrap in it... i don’t see it anywhere. maybe this is the actual scrapyard and the building is on the other side?

not quite sure tbh. but at least we know this place may also be near sanc-iii, just maybe not the same area as the actual Ellie’s Scrap.

i mean... there IS a shitload of cars everywhere. i wouldn’t surprised if it’s near her garage cause it looks like a scrapyard.

but also where in the fuck are all these ‘normal’ looking cars coming from?? it’s not like we see them being used on pandora. all the ones we see in bl1/2 are clearly dilapidated and rusting. big thonk. at least the vans/busses kinda make sense.

oh yeah that is definitely the same building. [it’s the recruitment center!]*

this scene with the rakk is my favorite out of all the trailers. so fuckin cool

i do hope the jabber goes back to being blue at some point. i like the red design too, don’t get me wrong, but i much prefer the glowy blue. it’s my favorite color and you guys know i love glowing things 👀

<Huge Selection!!!> lol

cat/doggo/monkey. mr chew is my favorite pet but i love the jabber panting like a dog lol

i never knew this is where spiderant mouths were

i always assumed they were below that... f r e a k y

“he likes to chase cars”

fl4k probably took them to the scrapyard for this exact reason ngl. fl4k being a big softie to their pets confirmed

(also, notice how fl4k uses ‘he’ for mr chew. it’s almost as if they understand the concept of gender, chose their own pronouns, and your argument that they only are nonbinary only because they “don’t understand yet” is invalid! Fl4k is canonically nonbinary and uses they/them/theirs pronouns as confirmed by both SungWon Cho and their in-game skills. 

Now that you know, use they/them/theirs for Fl4k or get off my blog. Because by not doing so, you are disrespecting the devs’ wishes for this character AND the nonbinary people who find representation in them and I won’t support that. if you feel like arguing your reasons to purposefully misgender them even after knowing this, please DM me so I can block you. thanks! 

For those of you out there actually making an effort: mistakes happen, especially if Fl4k is the first NB person you’ve learned about. Just make sure to correct yourself then move on, and we’re okay. Everyone has to learn sometime and it’s better to put in the effort than not care at all. It will become second nature.)

Fl4k is such a badass, they really are way different than i expected (personality-wise), but i am not complaining. gearbox knows me better than i know myself, so i know i’m going to end up loving Fl4k anyway. ProZD did such a fantastic job, i honestly did not recognize him at first! i can tell with certain words now, but wow i am blown away. 

i hope we’re able to climb that bird’s nest lookin’ thing in the back. it would be perfect for sniping and/or placing ur clone for maximum coverage.

seriously, what a badass.

idk i feel obligated to give my opinions of Fl4k over here since they were recently released. I am digging them 100%, tho i was kinda surprised (not in a bad way) they’re not as... i guess soft as i was expecting from their character design with the plushes and the face on the backpack and the smiley face pin, but i imagine that’s different when they’re interacting with their pets. im super curious to see how this VH group’s dynamic is going to go. 

mechanically, their skills seem perfect for people who loved sniper Zer0 and in general Mordecai, with a splash of Salvador tossed in for good luck. I am a dirty melee Zer0 main and i prefered Phasewalking over Bloodwing (altho i still play mordy bc he’s best bl1 VH) so, while I am definitely going to give Fl4k a go, they’re not my main bl3 Vault Hunter, that’s reserved for Zane and his lovely ability to befuddle enemies and run around. Funnily enough, I’m not even a fan of pet classes, so Fl4k being second in my play order is pretty funny. Tho, yeah, Amara being last is also pretty weird. I guess I don’t necessarily enjoy melee, I just enjoy messing with the bad guys lol

ohh, also, I am most interested in the upgrade for mr. chew that gives him the ability to create singularities and is called ‘Eridian Skag’. 

so I’m not saying my theory that the threshers on the moon were connected to Eridians was right, I’m just saying they’re the only form of wildlife we know that has a singularity ability (outside of Mr. Chew, apparently). 

im just saying gearbox, you should hire me to write your deep lore for you cause i’d do it for free

im wondering if we’ll be seeing skags with wormhole abilities in bl3. maybe the constant exposure to slag is starting to mutate them further beyond just elemental bonuses (on badass skags). We know Maya’s phaselock has a singularity ability (so does Amara’s phasegrasp), and that is sorta ‘occurring naturally’ (you know, as natural as siren powers can get) unlike the singularity grenades we encounter which use our known technology. plus, uh, whatever happened to the destroyer’s eye in TPS that made it create a singularity/wormhole by injecting it with a fuckload of slag. that probably has something to do with this as well.

but geez i really hope mr. chew is okay with being all slag/eridium-ed up. i guess being badass elemental skags doesn’t appear to hurt them, just make them more powerful, unlike humans. maybe that has something to do with sentience, if slag/eridium/eridian stuff actually is driving bandits crazy. could explain why/if the jabber doesn’t get an element like the skag (eridian skag) and spiderant (fire) do, since they’re described as semi-sentient...

anyway.

Fl4k is cool. Definitely a neat trailer- my second favorite for sure- and the skill tree drop blew me away because i was not expecting it. im expecting a lot of Fl4k mains in the first few weeks of gameplay because they look like a lot of fun!

EDIT: i was wrong, in the newest IGN vid, it turns out we ARE near the recruitment center, because that IS the recruitment center

they gave them little orange flags! good to know!!

[journaloftomfooleryandjapery]

All the TOP 10 OF THE DECADE posts made me want to make one of my own, so here’s my 10 fave games this decade:

Yakuza 0  Shovel Knight  Nier Automata  Metal Gear Rising  Gunvolt Chronicles Luminous Avenger IX Final Fantasy XV   Scott pilgrim vs the world the game Undertale Persona 5  Doom

Danganronpa 2, New Vegas, Touhou Luna Nights, Katana Zero and Mario Odyssey all only barely missed out, and it was a tough decision not to include them. I loved the shit out of those games but thinking it through I decided they were just slightly less loved by me than the above.

Below the cut are some extended thoughts (of varying length) on the games included:

Just CTRL F if you wanna find a specific one

Yakuza 0

Every Yakuza game is delightful and this is definitely the best one, in my opinion. The Yakuza games appeal to me for a lot of reasons: the combat, the story, the variety of activities, the look of it all and the music. I feel like its a very unique game experience with its blend of weird in-depth side activities, serious crime drama, manly man masculine combat friendship melodrama, metal gear-esque convoluted conspiracies and a surprisingly compassionate view of the world it takes place in. 

The combat is what drew me in initially because it just feels good, the feedback of stomping on a dudes face in yakuza is delivered perfectly, and the attacks are brutal, hard and flashy. Its a very solid and satisfying combat system and in 0 its the best it has ever been. The ability to switch between 3 different and equally fun fighting styles on the fly really lets you mix things up and adapt your approach, every style feels fun and useful. If i had to pick a favorite it would be slugger, but its a tough choice, and they are all very viable and FUN.

Yakuza 0 also gets big points for having the best story in the series. The protagonists feel much more interesting in this era, the fights feel more earned in this game than others, the relationships are incredibly touching (I’m almost mad majima didnt stay with makoto) and the substories (and some parts of the main story) are the funniest they’ve ever been. Stuff like the quasi-stealth mission where you have to make sure women don’t see you buying a porn magazine for a child, and the extended scene of kiryu trying to guess the right business manners for a meeting had me laughing so much i was i was almost in physical pain.

The extensive business and host club substories get you tons of extra game content and are good enough to almost be there own game. The other games in the series have extended side activites of varying quality, but i think 0 had a rare case of all of these being, basically, perfect. The team obviously agrees since host club management came back repeatedly, but never as good as it was here.

Being set in the 80s elevates almost everything in the game because of the outfits, money flying out of every enemy you attack, the classic sega games you can play at the arcade (Outrun is so much fun and I’d have never have given it a proper go otherwise) and the disco minigame everyones made a meme out of (that music is so catchy).

As a final note this game has the best boss fights and music in the series, which is a very high standard to surpass when you look at the rest of the series. The dual final boss fights, the recurring boss for kiryu and almost every majima fight are highlights of the entire series for me. 

0 is going to end up being one of the few games I’ll never sell my copy of because i want it available for me to play forever, its a complete delight.

Shovel Knight

This game has been analysed to hell and back, so i wont have much original to say i suppose. Admittedly i did enjoy the first campaign but it didnt completely win me over, plague knights campaign and beyond was what really made this an all time greats for me. It’s one of very few games that gets the NES+SNES platforming appeal 100% right and essentially surpasses most games of the day, with almost perfect pacing, challenge and level design. IT helps that the whole world and story and look is charming as all hell. It’s an easy game to love and the more you play it the more that feels justified. Being PACKED with great content is also a plus. If you liked the first campaign you can just keep going through a set of campaigns about as good that only really rehash some level assets. I would say its one of the best 2D platformers ever for me, if not quite my true number 1.

ALSO JAKE KAUFMAN KNOCKS IT OUT THE PARK WITH THIS SOUNDTRACK

Since i have little else to add to the shovel knight discussion, here’s my ranking/thoughts on each campaign

Plague of shadows. BEST storyline, great levels with a really cool gameplay gimmick, the characters are all cute and the ending really makes me feel for him. both sorry for him at first and then a very real AAAAAAAWWWWWWWWW for LOVE

King of cards. king knight is just fun as hell to play as, he doesnt have that many tools but his movement is just crazy fun and i love the flair in all his animations. also has that rad final boss. joustus is ok i guess.

Shovel of hope. uuuuuuh what can i even say about this. its good, and the melancholy dream bits add a lot to the mood of the story. we’ve already analysed this campaign within an inch of its life i dont think i can say anything new. wish we could fight the battletoads on pc.

Specter of torment. still fun and i appreciate the tone change, but i didnt care as much for the characters and the mega man-esque level select doesnt suit shovel knight imo. specter knight has a lot of fun movement options though. mainly i just love GRINDING and the diagonal slash. i dont give a fuck about reize

Nier Automata

I feel a tiny bit ashamed i have so little to say about this considering it is one of the most emotional experiences i have ever had with a story. If i lsten to the final version of weight of the world i still cry just from remembering this game and how it made me feel. i think its one of the greatest narratives of the century but i can barely get across the appeal to anyone who hasnt already played it. its a story about hope, despair and the nature of the human race that never feels like its preachy or pretensious or taking on more than it can handle. it made me feel all kinds of emotions deeply and intensely, it genuinely made me burst into tears about 10 times, maybe more. even putting aside the ggrand narrative, theres so many cool character moments and bits of world building and visual eements and tragic little side stories that you would need a whole book to talk about them all while doing any real justice to them. i loved it so much that im paying £70 to see an orchestra do the soundtrack live. I want to hug and kiss 2b and 9s better. i just love it deeply and i find it hard to explain why it makes me feel that way, but its a dark beautiful and hopeful story where every moment feels earned. the despair of the story giving way to genuine hope with the rest of the world helping you fight for it is such an intensely emotional moment that you could never replicate outside of this kind of story and medium. how the fuck do i explain that to anyone that doesnt already get it. I’m glad this game exists

Metal Gear Rising 

Well, complete tone shift here. Platinum made a lot of great action games in the last decade that all dig into that same itch for DODGE SLOW MOTION BANG BANG BANG alongside great soundtracks, visuals and awesome set piece moments. Just intense, flashy, awesome combat. Picking a favorite of the decade was the hard part, because a platinum game had to be one of my faves of the decade. The closest was transformers, but mgr has a couple of things about it that put it above the rest of the platinum catalog for me.

The story actually works very well at still being metal gear while in the platinum formula, its about the cycle of violence and FINDING YOUR OWN PURPOSE and it works weirdly well. The strangest part is that it feels like a legitimate sequel to metal gear 4 tonally while still being the crazy action game it is

Raiden is just super fun to play as, while I’ll always miss the DODGE SLOWMO in a platinum game parry and zandatsu give a great flow to fights and there’s real exhilaration to parrying a hard chain of attacks and tearing out a bunch of enemies spines at once every time

raiden is also just  a fun protag, it truly allows me to embrace that kind of stereotypical edgy cool anime swordsman he embodies

BEST PLATINUM SOUNDTRACK DO NOT @ ME

Bosses just rule

one of the best final bosses ever, in my opinion? maybe that’s controversial, but armstrong gets an insane amount of characterization and pure PRESENCE out of such a small amount of screen time and the fact he feels like such a perfect rival to raiden so quickly is kind of nuts to me. within about half an hour you are ready for the ultimate final showdown with everything at stake, and then the gameplay 100% delivers on that with a fight that is challenging as hell and just feels climatic and intimidating. its a little thing, but having this dude just smack you around with his hands and almost no fighting skill after a game filled with crazy flippy cyborg ninjas makes him feel TOUGH and the way you finish him off? it just rocks, plain and simple. I don’t think i need to justify slices a massive dudes chest open and ripping out his giant still beating robot heart as the music climaxes and our cool edgy protag literally says WE’RE DONE HERE. truly, it has to be this way.

Gunvolt Chronicles Luminous Avenger IX 

For fast twitchy 2d platformers this barely beat out Katana Zero and Touhou Luna Nights, but i think its just a little better. The skill ceiling on this game is high as hell and once you really get to grips with it, its an experience you cant find anywhere else. its just satisfying as hell to be able to get through the point where you can ZOOM  through these levels by making use of copen’s dash and lock-on and weapons well enough. once you get good enough to get through a hole level without touching the ground, you just cant go back. I liked this enough to get an S rank on almost every level. this game just rules, man.

story, art and music are all great as well. but they pale in importance next to zippy jetpack zoom zoom fun time.

also great for having a cool twist that i genuinely did not see coming at all

Final Fantasy XV   

For context, my experience of FFXV was not the base game so i cannot personally address the concerns of the version at launch, which i hear from others was a total mess! The game has been updated and changed so much that it is probably almost unrecognizable aside from the absolute base aspects of it. The version i am talking about is, as far as we know, the “final” version released right before Episode Ardyn. There was of course an update after this, but it only added DLC compatibility and a few items, so it means very little in the grand scheme. I also played all of the dlc and watched all the periphery material to get the full, messy disjointed experience. it is also worth noting that the only other FF game i have played is the classic title Mario Hoops 3 on 3 Basketball. I feel it important to tell you this before getting into things so that you can have a full idea of the perspective i come at the game from.

This was chosen over Mario Odyssey and someone will probably kill me for that. I just think its a great emotional story that does a fantastic job of making you care for all the characters, and the world feels massive and full of cool stuff to see. It’s my favorite open world game and i love The Boys.  its not the kind of thing i usually play but i think it genuinely had a great story and its a very fun game to just explore and spend time in. ffxv truly understands the emotional bond between The Lads and it is fun to kill big monsters with your party

(they kinda ruin the last cutscene in english, in japanese he says I LOVE YOU GUYS and it makes me cry but in english he goes U GUYS ARE THE BEST which just isnt the same. a small nitpick though. a lot of this game made me cry regardless, its just great at creating an emotional bond)

I admire the insane level of ambition in the visuals and scope, and i bought every dlc for it because it was just that good. the ifrit boss fight and all the giant monsters are just amazingly epic in scale. the “found a cool rock” post is what i truly admire about this game summed up. 

all the ancillary material for the game is great and worth getting into, with the exception of the Comrades multiplayer expansion. Everything else adds depth to the story and the world without being entirely necessary for you to get through the story. the anime and the dlc all really feel worth getting into without being something you have to see to get The Full Experience

the giant monsters are cool

Scott Pilgrim vs the World: The Game

Being from 2010 this game only just makes it in, but it was my favorite beat em up this decade and a source of great nostalgia for me. It had a pretty big impact on music and art tastes in regards to games, and in retrospect this games existence was very much a dream team scenario. Paul Robertson is a great sprite artist who does a lot of good work, Anamanaguchi have gone on to become one of my favorite bands (another winter is still one of their best tracks imo) and at the time this came out i was obsessed with scott pilgrim. That plus the beat em up gameplay makes this kind of a perfect blending of a lot of my specific tastes. Playing this brings me back to the time in my school life that i played it very distinctly, a more comfortable time in my life for sure, and i think the game still stands up excellently. I hope that someday it will get a rerelease so others can enjoy it. I give this another play through every year or so, but i wish id gotten the dlc while it was still available

Doom

ITS VIOLENT ITS FAST ITS FUN ITS METAL

i like this game because of the intense adrenaline rush and violent catharsis it gives me, essentially a constant dopamine rush

fun game good

Undertale

I’m glad i got to this before the massive wave of spoilers and popularity came about. It’s a great story with some fun gameplay, and i think SANS UNDERTALE was one of the best boss fights this decade. Its a shame that for so many new players this experience is going to be ruined by spoilers

Persona 5 

Danganronpa 2 and fallout new vegas were close contenders for this last spot. I actually made a post about my thoughts on this game before https://journaloftomfooleryandjapery.tumblr.com/post/184341270554/nue-is-great-love-his-goofy-design-when-life-will but essentially 

Essentially, its got a great cast of characters, a cool slick look, great monster designs, a fun gameplay loop of collecting monsters and grinding stats while waiting for the next big event, and a surprisingly good story

No idea if royal is any good, but its on a pretty small list of games that i might actually take the time to replay

[mikkock]

HELLO I ADORE YOUR OCS SO MUCH WILL YOU TELL ME ABOUT KAI HE LOOKS LIKE A TOTAL "YOUR DAUGHTER CALLS ME DADDY TOO" DOUCHEBAG AND I FUCKING LOVE HIM AND WANNA KNOW MORE ABOUT HIM

LBLMVBGK THANK U OMG love it when ppl like my kids, im a proud dad rn

ALSO wrow congrats on ur on point analysis, cause, that’s the Essence Of His Being (fun fact since i got two characters who go by the name of kai -cause fuck that basic writing tip that says ‘dont have two characters named the same thing- i usually refer to him as The Bad Kai cuz he a bad bitch)

so lets unwrap that dude shall we uwu 

SO this dude was created when i realised my story didnt have antagonists so i made a bunch of Bad People and then they all became good people after i started giving them more personnality somehow eXCEPt him for some reason, the only survivor of the “everyone will be baby” plague, the only rude bitch in this house, the only guy who’s still on the dark grey side of morally grey...but tbh im in love with him cause he’s an asshole and im an idiot so like.

His base concept was basically something along the lines of “fuckboy but make it Couture”, like douchebag indeed But Gotta Be Fancy at being one, gotta add a pinch of Sneaky Bitch in the pot. His aesthetic is Chillin, gettin in ur pants, then moving on for some more chillin and more pants. So if you’re into some funky sexy time with no pressure and no ties, ya gon get along, your goals meet, time to have fun.

All that is supported by his charisma, cause unless ya got some nasty history, he’ll just look like that charming bad-boy “oho hot dude with a dangerous but not agressive” vibed person, and he’s quite a sweet-talker. He’s probs not only the ‘your daughter calls me daddy’ kind but also ‘and so will YOU, i’m scoring with the whole family and you wont stop me (and you wont WANT to stop me)’ 

He got that handsome ppl priviledge ya feel

but also, he wouldnt be a rude guy if he was just the ‘i enjoy chill frick-fracking and im just so sexy that no one can say no to that booty’ guy

Dude got quiiite some spite-fueled ego and Does Not Take losing well, and will not, in fact, let himself lose on any objective he has, and when that objective is A Person, he gets ugly. Being good at sweet talking also means being good at small stuff like “not saying exactly the truth always when it would be more beneficial not to”, “deliberately using euphemistic, ambiguous or obscure language so to mask wrong doings and technically saying the truth but in such a way that it becomes completely masked by a thick fog of bullshit”, and “use words and behaviour in general to influence others unscrupulously so to get something in return”. Even a little “playing with their perception in order to make them doubt in their thoughts and selves”. In short dude got no qualms about using all the tools of manipulation available if it means that he comes on top (or on bottom if the goal was getting an assful eeeeeey we’re masters of comedy here) It tends to be all for short term results tho, so not much your ‘boyfriend who convinces you you’re nothing without him” and more of a “you thought you were dating but only you were thinking that as he always kept it just vague enough to have you not official yet convinced of his and now you’re blaming yourself for believing you were together”

master of getting ass, also master of Ugly Ass Breakups, and master of suddenly dissapearing from your life so hard that you wonder if it was just your imagination all along (he got ugly past with a bunch of other ocs especially he’s ex boyfriend with two that are now together cause i dig that sort of drama the sAME dUDe gave u the trust issues that held u from going full lovey dovey ? i fucking lIVE off that kinda shit wait until he pops back like ‘oho hello fancy seeing YOU TWO here my two fave exes together incredible what a small world”)

Though I have to rework on all that cause that backstory is oLD AS SHIT (like prolly i built it in what, 2016? ew ugly) I had that stem from some sort of neglect-fueled inferiority complex. I had given him a kinda cold family with a bunch of siblings who got Way More Nurtured due to their respective talents and achievements, having him left behind and feeling like he got nothing. SO that’s basically the explanation as of today but i dont like iiiiit anymooooore so I’ll have to work on it to make it something i dig, cause idk, bitch feels flat so far.

BUT i do intend on keeping the whole concept of ~Loneliness~, and of him working alone and quite hard for anything he gets. And the general need of proving himself that had come from the WIP backstory. I don’t exactly see him as an overachiever at all, but definitly as an obstinate and persevering hardworking guy, because “Look YALL I WAS aBLE TO DO THIS YALL THOUGHT I COULDNT HUH YALL LOOK DOWN ON ME well fuck u cause idc im better than u now also ur mum’s into bondage i kno from experience bye”. So tbh pair up with him for group projects, you’ll be sure his share of the work will be done (but also if you dont do yours then he’s probably going to be a bITCh about it, no remorse in leaving blank slides in the middle of the powerpoint and then loudly proclaiming ‘OH RIGHT This was supposed to be Kevin’s part but I suppose he never sent it to me, despite the numerous reminders i sent him, no big deal, no hard feelings, its ok sweetie we all sometimes feel too lazy i forgive u :)” )

Also he’d be Chill to hang out with for like, parties, nights out at the bar, that kinda shit. He definetly has some beans to spill about quite some people, he gathers the goss as he gathers lovers (i was gonna end that in “as he spreads legs” but it sounded too PG-18 for this good Well Behaved family friendly blog) and Will Not stay tight lipped, and Will be a bitch when trashtalking people, and It Will Be Entertaining as it always is when you’re hearing about crazy exes and you’ve had some beers. 

Now trivia that idk where else to write cause idk i stupid or more like disorganised :

- he digs red ale beer like if ya wanna win him over with the appropriate alcohol offer there u go

- he’s a fake blonde (cause my hobby is painting regrowth roots on hair)

- his design is a mixture of those 3dgy denim boys u see on pinterest and the specific brand of fuckboys that are french-L-section-chic-grunge-hipster-fuckboys (L section is like a branch of highschool)(that word combo is a so specific kinda guy)(its kinda like a softboi but more arrogant but in a lowkey way)(also they rich)(but he’s not rich so guess that should make him Less Arrogant)

-im constantly dead afraid of giving him more characteristics and story or whatveer cause he’s the only meanie i got left and i do Not want him to stop being an asshole but everytime i develop a character they end up nice or redeemed or whatever and i wanna keep him a bitch so i neglect him (just like his parents in his 2016 version wow)

he smokes (prolly started quite early to Be Kool and now relies on it for stress relief)

he’s outspoken and extraverted and prolly the guy who had a lot to say when you were doing debates in class (there’s always that person who has a Lot to argument about)(its him) but outside of a Set and Defined debate structure he probably doesnt give his mind voraciously 

he’s a law student and despite saying he’s the one bad guy left he probably wont be a corrupt lawyer or judge or whatever like come on he will do his job properly he worked hARD FOR THIS justice may be served

he’s not the kind to openly hate or even dislike anyone cause what’s the point of wasting your energy on that? its much funnier to him to be obnoxiously Neutral with someone and basically ignore them but still strike them with some Spikes of passive-agressive comments, let them be Mad at your calmness

he’s 177cm tall (that’s like 5.8 according to google)

honestly if you’re bros with him he’s fun to be with the being a jerk is completly coincidental 

he probably ranks high in the list of “those criminals who steal big lighters from their friends” 

i think at a point his design had tattoos but i forgot the designs of those so now he doesnt anymore

a dog person

i think ive run out of facts (or my brain dead) so im leavin with a shirtless pic cause my hobby is drawing tits

in short, charming asshole who can get ugly, secretly feels lonely and small, works hard for himself, better have him as a friend than as a foe though probably not the most frontally agressive enemy, and also, your booty, hand it over.

[genderfreezone]

Do you like the Evil Within 2?

Yeah! Certainly not as much as the first one (i was not immune to being sad they left out fan favorites Jojo and Ruvik's Cube)

The rest of this post is me rambling about things i didnt like about the game, and then things i did like (most of my issues are how they treat the female characters tbh)

Its missing kind of the action-noir-gone-horrifically-wrong feel of the first game. The scare factor also suffers bc our player character has been through this before, hes a veteran at dealing with this crazy shit, it doesnt phase him anymore and by extension it doesnt phase the player. They really like tripled down on the Evil Corporation thing and both the intrigue and horror suffer for it.

This game did not drink its respect women juice (the first one didnt really either, case in point: Everything About Kidman) Sebastian is surrounded by 5+ female characters and only 2 of them survive (and one of them is his 7 year old daughter hes spent the whole game trying to rescue... and yet they never bothered to give her any kind of characterization or agency. A highly empathetic and supernaturally powerful little girl in a monster-infested hellscape?? HELLO???? Lily really had the potential to be the most interesting, sympathetic, and complex character--especially as she slowly lost her innocence--in the WHOLE GAME, but she was just sort of relegated to Plot Device McGuffin) The rest of the female supporting cast are killed off for Sebastian's Man Pain. In fact, THIS ENTIRE GAME IS CENTERED AROUND SEBASTIAN'S MAN PAIN. Torrez is a walking stereotype, shes literally just Vasquez from Aliens. Hoffman was the most likeable and believeable, except when it Turns Out She Was In Love With Liam Or Whatever (psst, guess what, i dont care. Also O'neal was kind of a dick anyway? I dont care x2)

And you know who i SUPER dont care about? Bland-White-Bread-And-Mayo-Sandwich Myra. Where's the no-nonsense firecracker of a police lieutenant Sebastian married? Not here, thats for sure. Her entire personality is "mother" and "worries about stressed-out husband". We got more characterization of Myra in seb's jornals from the first game, where she never even made a physical appearance! Horror media does this SO MUCH, women are either A. Sexy Lamp B. Hurts Men (Sexily) C. Mother or D. Innocent Virgin. It sucks. Do better.

The story lacked the "digging up old buried memories" and "theres more to this than meets the eye" of the first game. It felt too...... Straightforward. Everyone told Sebastian the truth. EVERYTHING WAS EXACTLY WHAT IT SEEMED. It all felt too simple, too easy, like there SHOULDVE been something else beneath the surface. And yet there wasnt. (I watched markipliers playthrough and i loved his theory that Kidman was actually Lily. It had such potential. Kidman's entire resume for the police station was fabricated, who's to say the rest of her past wasnt fabricated as well? It would retcon a lot of stuff and like 80% of her backstory from the DLC, but you know games like this arent above retconning important shit, and at least it wouldve been sacrificed for something with actual intrigue. Maybe it wouldnt even retcon anything! Consider: tiny Lily is taken by Evil Corporation and dropped off in a non-nurturing environment that would lead her to become the kind of person who would willingly join & work for an organization like Mobius. At least wouldve been a nice excuse for why Kidman and Lilys face models looked so similar... other than... yknow.... "WomEN ARe hArD tO DRaWwwwwee")

Okay okay ive been ranting for long enough. It probably makes it sound like i kinda hate this game, but i dont! It certainly doesnt hold the same place in my heart as the first one (which i still have very glaring issues with lmao Kidman deserved WAAAAAAY better), but i do like it! It brings back salty, grizzled, tsundere Sebastian Castinellos. It brings back spooky monsters that kill you dead. It brings back having a fun theatrical over-the-top villain who takes himself a litte too seriously.

I love Stefano. Probably not in the way some other fans do, but i love him as a ridiculous theatrical over-the-top villain. He sucks! And i love that he sucks! I love him BECAUSE he sucks! Hes terrible and exaggerated and completely up his own ass and ITS GREAT. He isnt as ACTUALLY THREATENING as Ruvik was (even in his bad assassin's creed cosplay. I could go on and on and on about why Ruvik is simultaneously a ridiculous AND frightening antagonist and how much i love it but uh..... maybe later) but hes such a FUN villain! Hes the kind of pretentious art snob shitheel i cannot STAND irl, but in this game i LOVE to HATE him. Hes just SO over-the-top you kinda wonder if he actually subscribes to the pretentiousness he spouts, or if hes just being Exceptionally Extra.

The other villains? Theodore was.... forgettable. His monsters were forgettable. (Its like how i completely forgot that Frank Manera was a character in Whistleblower for like... 5 years lmao i guess this game also kinda followed that "having multiple named/characterized antagonists in one game" thing that Outlast did) Myra, i just didnt care. Her final design was kinda cool, i liked the red clusters of insect eyes. Her monsters werent really gross enough to be memorable. The only reson theyre gross at all is bc they kinda look like theyre made of semen. (I checked the wiki and apparently Myra's white goo is "psychoplasm" and her monsters lost 99% of their gross factor. I just dont care.) The Administrator literally just looked like a 3D human model of Maxwell from dont starve, and i have to laugh every time i see him. Hes not terribly threatening, all he does is threaten characters to work faster and doesnt actually follow through on those threats. He doesnt even make fun threats like HABIT or anything. He thinks hes so powerful and ominous that his mere presence will frighten the player but hes just kinda all bark and no bite. Hes The Big Bad Company Man so you know hes gonna get whats coming to him, and you know Kidmans gonna be the one to do it to him, so hes not even that much of a threat. Hes whatever.

Stefano definitely got all of the coolest monsters. Many Arms Buzzsaw Lady was terrifying and i love her. And OBSCURA was just *Chef's Kiss* Anima was cool, she kinda looked like a mix of Laura and Samara. The Harbingers were neat, but really only bc ive got a thing for gas masks. The rest of the monsters werent really unique or weighty/threatening enough to be memorable. Now the first game is a fucking TREASURE TROVE of unique monsters *muah* you got Sadist, Sentinel, Keeper, Amalgam, Heresy, Laura, Shigyo, the Twins, Alter Egos, and im probably forgetting some!! But holy FUCK!!!!! And if we're includong the DLC?? MOTHER FUCKING SHADE. SPOTLIGHT LADY. LIGHT WOMAN.  SEXY LEGS.  Whatever you call her, i fucking love her. Her design is so simple. Helmet. Sheet. Legs. Her voice? Unnerving as hell. Love it. (Also i just personally love the diving helmet. Also like you know how a lot of games have a spotlight mechanic where you have to avoid the light and if it lands on you, you're fucked? LET'S MAKE AN ENTIRE MONSTER OUT OF THAT. She's PERFECT.) Oh and also those weird crawling exploding dudes. They made gross sounds and it was great. (Tbh Keepers still probably my favorite, if only for horny reasons)

TATIANA HOW HAVE I NOT FUCKING TALKED ABOUT TATIANA. Shes like the ONE female character that i fucking LOVE in the sequel. I love how they finally gave her a personality, and that personality is literally just "fuck you, Sebastian" Oh GOD its great shes SO FUNNY. I just.... god i love Tatiana lmao. I love how she makes you kinda uncomfortable too, like she knows something, but she wont tell you bc youre stupid. I didn't like the kind of "all-knowing guide" thing they did to try and make her creepy (like she's a "guide" but then also turns around and is like "no i wont tell you what you need to know bc you """have to discover it on your own""" or whatever") it serves no purpose since she never gave you any actual information, and it didn't succeed in making her creepier, all it did was frustrate me. She was at her creepiest when she IMPLIED she was doing something behind the scenes or knew something you didn't know and then didn't elaborate (not REFUSING to elaborate, just... stopping talking and leaving the statement to hang in the air, like the "getting her nails done" and "its been a long time, detective" and the "now what makes you say that" from the first game) and she was at her funniest when she was interacting with Sebastian from the sidelines, her snide little comments and sarcastic clapping cracked me the fuck up. Tatiana not treating Sebastian seriously was a fantastic touch for a game that otherwise would probably take itself so seriously it would double back around to being silly. Without Tatiana, it would've been just another male-centric gun-toting "survival horror" game, and for the most part, it was just that. She was definitely a much-needed source of slightly derisive comedy and a definite high-point for me, even if they didn't so a great job of making her creepy or fulfilling her "purpose."

Oh I also really love the COLORS in TEW2. The first game fell into the trap of having the colors be totally washed out that a lot of horror stuff does, but it also kind of worked for it. Especially with the color pallette of our main villain and how the whole thing was His World. The saturation of the colors in the second game is a breath of fresh air and gorgeous to look at, and you can even see the color motifs of the game change with each new villain: the game starts out with Stephano has lots of blues and purples and dark reds, when Theodore takes over we get bright orange and yellow contrasted with black and brown, and in the climax with Myra the game goes back to having washed out colors and white (and with her villain design? Let's face it: they were kinda just trying to do Ruvik again) We did get portions that were still kind of wahed out whites and greens and greys, but it wasnt the ENTIRE game, even the big blood-and-brains splatterhouse sections of the first game kinda had their colors weirdly muted for that "Horror Aethetic."

In conclusion, i do like the evil within 2, but i also had a lot of problems with it. And i complain about these problems because i like the game and know it couldve done better, tried harder, and been a LOT more than it was (the wasted character potential is my real overarching pet peeve, probably becuase i loved the characters in the first game, and character development is kind of my whole jam) . But all in all, it was still a fun monster-zombie romp with at least one entertaining villain and fun-to-look-at designs and environments. It wasn't character or horror or even REALLY story driven in the way I know it COULDVE been, but i still had a fun time and enjoyed myself.

[jackrackhams]

twdg take us back thoughts (forgive me if any of this is out of order, i’m doing this from memory)

-the game took 10 minutes to download and those were a wild ten minutes i’ll tell you that -right off the bat i was worried clem was gonna get bit -i tried to shoot lilly at first, then i saw it didn’t work and wished her well. that’s just my s1 lilly fan’s final breaths of air right there -LOUIS SAVED MY LIFE THANK YOU I’M SORRY ABOUT YOUR TONGUE -god louis’s little smile though oOF -VI I LOVE YOU -THE OTHER KIDS ARE ALIVE -vIOLET INITIATED KISS!!!! (adding a read more bc this got LONG)

-uhhhh i’m pretty sure i’m not the only one who was left with some post-ep3 lilly vibes with minnie. like fuck u for expecting some kinda redemption arc with any character we are going to make them go Batshit the next episode -like i really thought we’d be able to help her or something when she was fighting off those walkers. i mean i get she was totally brainwashed but c’mon man. she’s a kid. but fuk that ig -walker james man. i sorta justified not going back and killing lilly last ep by saying this was what james would’ve wanted (also it’s my playthrough i do what i want), and now that i know what happens if you do save him uhhhhhhh.... i’m glad i made the choices i did tbh! it’s what james would’ve wanted. -i spent so long in that cave looking for “something to light on fire” -i decided to trust aj. i figured a) that could possibly save my life (it didn’t lol), b) it would make him feel good about himself, and c) i’ve taught him pretty well up to now so i trust him. -MEETING UP WITH VIOLET AND OUR LITTLE FAMILY HUG WOW CAN I JUST SAY THAT SHIT’S THE GOOD SHIT -i low key wish i’d named the school castle violet, but i figured it was more important to give her the choice. texas two squad, gang gang -fighting minnie on the bridge i was thinking ‘ok minnie’s gonna get a lot of shit for this lol’ -speaking of Bridge Scene, that shit was INTENSE if nothing else -like SHIT -when minnie cut me, i thought ‘oh fuuck, something’s gonna bite that’ -i also thought ‘hey clem’s gonna have a big leg scar to match her big arm scar’ but i was wrong about that lmao -i’ve never been more stressed that someone was gonna bite me than in this ep lmao -i also thought the scene from the trailer where you try to grab aj’s hand was gonna be here on the bridge, not on the rocks -oof when tenn died i was upset, but i feel more secure in that than if it were violet who died. only because that was tenn’s choice, and tenn was another person, like james, who had seemed to make peace with the walkers in a way. plus he died with his sister, which seemed to be what they both wanted at the time. that’s not so say that i wish i could’ve saved him without killing vi (or louis), but i do feel satisfied with what i got here (rip tennessee, you were a cool kid) -and then vi jumps over a fence ok bye violet -climbing up the rocks, i knew this was when it was gonna happen. but still. i cried lol -when i uncovered the bite, i was reminded of the s2 game mechanics. oof -as soon as she was bitten i said ‘you have an axe! cut it off now! do it!’ and when they didn’t i died -the next bit was reminiscent of lee making his way to the marsh house in s1 -actually, clem’s limp reminded me of a new day when lee got into that car crash lol -and when clem and aj were closing the doors to the barn and clem said to get something to block the door, i was expecting her to continue and say something like ‘something strong and sturdy’ like lee said when they were blocking off the pharmacy in s1 bc that scene gave me strong pharmacy vibes -and then strong jewelry shop vibes bc why tf not -playing as aj. that was rough. he’s FAST tho oml -that was when i went ‘ok so clem is dying for real’ and cried a lil bit more cuz you know me -switching between clem and aj. DUDE that got me so emotional -also aj using clem’s trick (that used to be jane’s trick). GO KIDDO -seeing clem looking more and more dead fuckt me up (like how did she get from that to the end of the ep i don’t get it. like even if it was because she waited shorter to cut it off or because it was her leg rather than her arm or what. it doesn’t matter because by the time lee looked like THAT his arm was (determinantly) long gone. but hey, not gonna analyze it too much lol i’m just glad my girl clem’s alive) -okay when clem was talking to aj that also got me crying -and when i told aj to leave clem, i was thinking ‘okay, maybe she’ll link up with james. or tenn, but like hopefully not minnie at this point. and lEE maybe she’ll find lee. or luke. or her parents-’ -and then he picks up that ax and i was like ‘woa ok did you just kill her??’ -and then the flashback. lemme be real and say i thought that was the afterlife or something, and that those floaty specks were Afterlife Dust -but then i remembered ‘oh right the ranch’ -lemme just say i didn’t think the ranch was gonna look like that lol -not 100 percent on what was going on at the ranch tbh -like who were those people and why did we kill all of them? one would assume that clem would first try to get aj back peacefully -oh wait they were at war right -also i really liked the design of like all of those people -and the LAVA GUY HOLY SHIT -obviously i mercy killed him -also wait, was clem with the people they were fighting? i couldn’t tell -ALSO also, was. was that eddie? from 400 days? checking the wiki real quick -yea i think that was him. rip eddie you didn’t deserve That. i mean i was happy he was back nd then we were just forced to kill him oof sorry man -felt bad about killing that woman also, but hey, she had aj in a tiny locker, so i didn’t feel super bad about it after finding him -also lemme just say -little kid aj?? -SUPER CUTE OML -he’s like the perfect mix of anf aj’s face and tfs aj’s face. kudos to whoever designed little aj -also when clem was talking with him in the car. i felt like it was sort of unrealistic little kid talk, but not so much that it distracted from anything going on -never go alone god rule number one had me crying -and then we’re aj fishing! -i didn’t catch any fish as aj lol -also i LOVE how they changed the dialogue options for aj to be a lot more childlike if that makes sense? like fuck yeah that was a really nice call -ROSIE IM SO GLAD YOU’RE OK -i didn’t scratch out the v+m heart because it’s history, and it’s not mine to scratch out. same reason i didn’t make clem spit on marlon’s grave -CLEM’S HAT GET IT -GET IT GET IT -OH GOOD GIRL ROSIE YOU’RE A GOD -oh a walker -oH THAT’S A TENN WALKER SHIT -well i’m not gonna kill him Again -also i don’t want the other kids to have to see him -i was so glad when i got the option to throw the rock -he learned from james what a good boy -RUBY HI -god ruby’s the best lmao -my thoughts when they’re talking about the hat ‘...aj hasn’t put it on... they haven’t talked about clem in the past tense.... is she.... possibly.... not dead?’ -lmao and when the next scene started, the trees + sky reminded me of the st john’s dairy and i wondered if we had another lee dream or afterlife or something but nope -is this take us back?? -hOLY SHIT IT’S TAKE US BACK!!! -okay and walking home, seeing everyone. god i was so sjfsakjfa there -like when i saw aasim run up to ruby i was all !!! and when they held hands i was all !!!!!!!!! yknow?? and then when i saw omar and WILLY and then on the gate there was VIOLET (i was so glad she was ok lmao the last thing i wanted for my girl was an offscreen death) god that was so good with the music i was crying a little again -need to make another bullet to stress how happy i am for ruby and aasim. like i would’ve been happy either way but they were portrayed as such a cute couple in the few seconds we got of them, so like. consider me a fan now i guess -i was worried for louis at first cuz i didn’t see him -i thought maybe this was the end of the game because we closed the gate and stuff and i was thinking ‘oh, like closing the story’ but NOPE -sup omar. up and cooking again i see -lmao my sleep-deprived brain found it hilarious that we just put the empty bucket down next to him -uhh what came next the graves or clem?? i forget -WAIT IT WAS THE GRAVES BECAUSE THE TIRE SWING WHICH IS SO CUTE AHH -well tenn’s grave made me :( but then CLEM -so glad my hunch that she was alive was right lmao -but also i thought that was determinant it was a lot less satisfying when you realize that no matter what she lives -i mean i get why they did it like that, they didn’t want anyone feeling left with the “bad ending”, their thing is that their games are tailored to how you play and there IS no bad ending but still. a little variation on that front would’ve made it a lil more satisfying -also where did they get those crutches -i love talking as aj. so much. -he’s just a funky lil guy! -that convo with clem on the steps, when she asked if she did a good job... like FUCK YEAH you did a good job, I’M YOU, you think i’m not happy with how i raised me?? -aj saying ‘are you crazy’ when clem asked that made me smile -okay i know ppl have been saying this. but. siblings aasim and willy rule. -and then the meal!! -i was super hoping for a card game but what we good was good. not great, but good. also, card game as aj would probably not be quite as fun. or it’d be very fun. honestly, it’d probably just be a different kind of fun. -when we panned over the table i saw a flash of louis and i went all ‘louis!!’ in my head -louis’s little note sadfasf that was so cute -and honestly everything about louis in this scene i love you louis -actually, just this whole scene was cute. willy and omar were adorable, and then ruby, and willy asking for seconds, and everyone just being Soft in general like. yall deserve this happiness -vi and clem talking Strategy dude sign me up -i love how clem trusts aj now. and i trust aj too tbh, a lot more than i did initially. i think i taught him pretty well. -violet and aj duo let’s go -slightly worried abt that caravan that was mentioned, but hey. the game left off on a high note, so NOTHING BAD CAN HAPPEN TO THEM EVER. YOU HEAR THAT?? -vIOLET INITIATED KISS PART TWO!!!!!! CHEEK KISS EDITION!!!!!!!! IM SOFT!!!!!!!!!! -okay that hallway with the snb team’s names all over the walls?? dude oof. they worked so hard it made me so happy to see their mark on texas two -haha texas two -ANYWAY -obviously i looked at all the collectibles i had, AND pet rosie, because i knew that when i ran out of things to do, the game would be over, and who wants that? -aj: *places human skull* *looks at animal skull* wow clem really likes skulls -kiddo i hate to break it to you but -seems like you’re taking after her in that regard -good girl rosie -lmao aj and his magic powers -it’s like louis in a box -hanging up james’ walker mask made me :(( -he is watching over you aj. and he would like that -ok guys i am BEGGING you. if you haven’t already, PLEASE repeatedly click disco broccoli until you can’t anymore. it’s great. -and then i finally had to put down the hat -”thank you for playing” GOD THANK YOU FOR HAVING ME -I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS SERIES IS OVER -I CAN’T BELIEVE I’M SAYING GOODBYE TO CLEM -i mean i still have my louis route BUT IT’S NOT THE SAME AS A FRESH EPISODE YKNOW?? OKAY FINAL THOUGHTS: -FIRST OFF I JUST FOUND OUT VI CAN GO BLIND -honestly im in favor of that i rly like blind violet au and now it’s not au -rip her eye honestly -new tag to match my rip louis’ tongue -also i left violet feeling loved FUCK yea i did i love violet -OKAY ACTUAL THOUGHTS -looking at this episode afterwards, is it just me or is it a little... lacking? like, a little off? i mean obviously it’s good in the moment, super intense, but there were just a few things that make me feel like it’s the weakest of the season -also lmao i guess fuck minnie james and lilly, their storylines all felt kinda like a middle finger to their fans if that makes sense -but holy shit was that minnie stuff haunting. like HOLY SHIT -also, for a game that’s been focused a lot around clem’s interactions with the other characters, there was a lot... less of that in this episode. no card game, barely any interaction with anyone other than louis/violet, tenn, minnie, aj, and james. and two of those people are fighting you. one of them is even determinant. i was just expecting a little more on that front, because this season’s been really good with that sorta thing -also i would’ve loved a little more time with violet/louis. but that’s just a personal thing and not necessarily a problem lol -again, i feel like it would’ve been a little more satisfying for clem to survive if there were an option where she didn’t. but again again, i totally get why they didn’t go that route -in that vein, i’d really enjoy a little more time with the person who wasn’t on the bridge with you. i miss my boy louis :( -idk there’s just something a little off about this episode. -that’s not to say i didn’t love it (because i TOTALLY did just look at all that stuff above haha) -like i know i didn’t love the minnie part, but like i said, that shit was INTENSE -i can sorta see why they went that route -and i can’t speak for living!james but walker!james was oddly peaceful to see. like, there was a feeling of ‘this is what he would’ve wanted’ -and okay i loved the violet initiated kisses. so much. -also ruby and aasim that was pretty cute -and obviously im happy clem isn’t dead that’s always great -OH and i loved the scene with the snb team’s names on the walls. like that was so good. -finally, the end scene was so satisfying. it ended the series the right way. with clem’s hat :p