#this surface level introspection is too much

[rawliverandgoronspice]

While I completely agree with everything Bloo said, I am... I also feel like there is a competing possibility for the placement of Ganondorf's glyph, and while it absolutely does not erase the implications or the fact that it does punch down this story of repetence and villification and "dark origin story", as the devteam would consider it (I think it might have been part of the argument within the team), I also think there's a more... down-to-earth, designer-brain case at play here. I might be totally offbase, but for having interacted with a LOT of designers who think practically about things and are both uninterested and very perplexed by the necessity of storytelling and its priorities, I think the placement choice may have gone something like this:

"Hey, wouldn't it be normal to put a Ganondorf memory near Gerudo Town, since he's gerudo? It would just make sense that players would go look for memories related to Ganondorf near Gerudo Town, right? And then it's important to have the glyph be visible from all nearby landmarks to encourage the player to go from interest point to interest point."

I think it was literally all the designers considered in their choice of placement honesty. Why wouldn't they. They apparently didn't hire narrative designers/game writers/quest designers/anyone with narrative sensitivity to keep the design team from going with their first obvious game designer instinct over and over and over, never once stopping to think about the ingame or "watsonian" implications of any of it --instead their choices are almost systematically guided by progression, affordance, impact, and "wouldn't it be cool if". I think this particular instance is a great example of that "designer brain" tendency --but the whole game is like that, which is why I'm so grumpy that they thought narrative skill was but an optional flavoring they could skip with no consequences. I don't think anyone in this team considered the way the glyphs would or even *could* impact the NPCs in the world beyond vaguely Impa and the NPCs that serve as pointers going "activity over there!!" as their core function.

It's exactly as Bloo said: these barely qualify as Zelda's memories. The entire framing is poorly thought out, and I think game mechanics is truly the only thing driving most of the decisions taken in this game.

do you ever warp into Gerudo Town, look straight ahead, and draw some unpleasant conclusions about the connection between that geoglyph and the Gerudo tendency to bear guilt for Ganondorf’s actions even thousands of years into the future? Like, assuming that for some time the geoglyphs were visible before disappearing until the Upheaval, that sure is a “look at this guy you made who sucked so bad and will one day be a threat once more” reminder staring the Gerudo dead in the face. and that seems a bit much

[singingcicadas]

More thoughts on Cyclonus.

Nova's evaluation of him in this panel is brutally accurate. That last sentence. Ouch.

On the surface level Cyclonus appears to be portrayed as this stiff proud warrior with an austere, diehard take on his own internal code of honour and patriotism, but the more I think about it his actual character is pretty much the opposite? He doesn't have any hardfast values or stances of his own aside from shallow romanticism for the preachings of others.

His whole life is comprised of hanging onto other people. First it's Nova and his group, despite Nova and Jhiaxius looking down on him and insulting him to his face and being very forthright about the actual purpose of their mission, which Cyclonus apparently had different ideals about. Theoretically. But he didn't say anything after Nova corrected him.

Then it's Galvatron, after Galvatron backstabbed Nova. Even when Galvatron became increasingly unhinged and violent toward him and also started insulting him to his face, he still continued to follow Galvatron around because Galvatron's powerful, hope he stays on our side.

Then after he broke off from Galvatron post-Chaos Theory he joined the Lost Light, an Autobot ship, despite not liking Autobots, because it had something that he wanted: the chance to start again.

His defense for murdering all those people in Kimia is literally "he made me do it." That's all he can come up with. He even knows it's a bad excuse.

And he always corrects people when they assume he's a Decepticon. Here he directly says that he doesn't want to be a Decepticon. Why not, if he clearly admires their ideology?

One possible reason is maybe he doesn't like their ideology that much. Enough to romanticize it from a safe distance but not enough to commit to it himself (since doing that would force him to do actual introspection about his own role in what made the Decepticon ideology so appealing in the first place). Second reason's simpler: Decepticons have to wear inhibitor chips. No thanks. They're the losing side.

Once on board the Lost Light he followed Rodimus' command fine despite Rodimus accusing him of murdering Red Alert without any proof. Then after he developed a relationship with Tailgate, he put Tailgate up on a pedestal and made Tailgate the center of his universe.

But then there's also this 🔽 after he thought Tailgate dumped him:

I don't even know what he's trying to do there😂

His lack of true conviction is evident in the little things too: he thinks it's unethical for Rodimus to perform mnemosurgery on Tailgate while he's unconscious and unable to give consent but drops the subject after Rodimus distracted him with fireworks. He thinks that mutiliating an enemy's corpse is appalling but doesn't say anything when Rodimus said they were going to use Skip's corpse as a shuttle to get off Necroworld. It's Nautica who raised ethical objections, not him. He's supposed to be really religious but when the guiding hand did their big reveal at the end of Lost Light, he got nearly zero lines because of compressed screentime except to argue with Epistemus over sending Tailgate into danger.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that Cyclonus is essentially a go-with-the-flow sort of person. Nothing he holds is uncompromisable. Not his ideals, not his values, not his pride, not his faith. To an extent, not even his love for Tailgate, at least not completely, because he left when Tailgate told him to leave even when he suspected that Tailgate was lying about not loving him without making more of an effort to understand why. It all depends on the person he's hanging on to at the moment. And his choice of which leader to follow is ultimately based on self-serving reasons. This pattern is first broken when he turns on Galvatron, then fully subverted after he learns to love Tailgate as a sign of character growth.

He's not an intrinsically cruel or callous person. The way he learns to love Tailgate, befriend Whirl, and being kind and supportive to everyone when Rodimus left him in charge on the Necroworld are all attestments of his better nature. Water takes the shape of the container in which it's kept; surround him with people like Galvatron and Nova and he'll be their murder machine. Put him in the company of people who's mostly decent like the Lost Light crew and he'll grow into a compassionate person and a reliable friend.

[supersoakerfullofblood]

Why You Shouldn't Care About Theme (as a writer)

"Theme" is another word like "worldbuilding" and "plot hole" that writers put way too much stock into without clear definition. It's often thought to be one of the most important things in your story, one of the defining traits of creative writing, but it can be hard to pin down, and some pervasive definitions are actively harmful to the writing process. Let's talk about that.

A common misconception about theme is that it's the story's "message." Under this definition, a theme of The Great Gatsby would be that generation wealth is a hollow substitute for genuine human enrichment, love, etc. A theme of Hamlet would be to not kill yourself. But this idea of a book's message misses the point of why we read at all. Reading is a relationship between the author and the reader; to interpret text, the author puts their experiences in writing, and you bring your experiences to its reading. In other words, you as the reader create meaning from a story. You give the story its messages. The author's only purpose is to transcribe their worldview and experiences, and the best authors can sway the empathy of the reader towards those experiences. Anything greater than this, any book that moralizes, preaches, dictates, is gaudy, emotional propaganda. Imagine a novel where throughout the book, the author is telling you about the toxic environmental effects of unwalkable cities. While true, narrative fiction is a realm of characters and story, not essays. Readers pull meaning from a novel because they think and feel about a character's struggle and relate it to their own. So a message about The Great Gatsby is that generation wealth is hollow because we as readers live in an age of unprecedented wealth disparity; a message about Hamlet is to not kill yourself because we as readers have felt pretty down in the dumps sometimes and have maybe thought about suicide. But our experiences could be different: if we're generationally wealthy, we might read Gatsby as a celebration; if we have an awful stepfather, we might read Hamlet first as a story of revenge than of introspection. Strong authors make you sympathize with the experiences they've gone through--Fitzgerald himself was a wealthy, popular man and saw firsthand the effects of wealth, and Shakespeare probably felt rough around the emotional edges at times--but ultimately, deciding a text's "messages" is up to the reader.

So if we can't control the messages of our writing, what is theme? I like to think of it as "whatever a text is about," and that about word carries some ambiguity. Is Gatsby about money? Yes, but there's more to that. You can think right now about a plot element your WIP is about, but as authors, we want to find that greater depth. That's what we call theme.

Common writing advice tells you to plot out your theme, that greater depth, before drafting the novel. Figure out that Gatsby is a story about generational wealth being a hollow substitute for romance before anything else. But when you think about it, this is crazy advice. Themes like this can only come from our characters and how they interact with the world, and how our characters act is always going to stray in some way away from our plans for them. Writing that deeper theme, then, is impossible to plan (unless you're the most extreme plotter and have found success like that, then keep doing what you're doing. But you reading this almost certainly are not in that camp, let's be honest). So how do we get there?

Before you start drafting, think about the surface-level "abouts." Don't go deep yet. Just think about what's pressing on your mind. If you want to take a very slight moralistic bent here, do so, but be sure not to go into specifics (that's for the characters to do). For my first novel, I wanted to write about friendship responsibilities, family responsibilities, and friendship; for my second novel, church camp, romance, and evangelical culture; for my current novel, the role of story in culture, honor, familial trauma, and cultural perceptions of gender. Some of these took on moral detail--evangelical culture is bad--but most didn't. As you're writing, your characters will discover that deeper meaning. Again, your characters have to and will by nature of being part of the narrative. Your readers interact with the story, not with you.

In my first novel, I came to the thematic conclusion that too many responsibilities degrade individual identity, but too few leave someone empty; in the second novel, I concluded that evangelical culture places restrictive boxes on what romance looks like, and on how to interact with and resolve traumatic events. But I didn't come up with these--my characters did, and I learned from them in the exact same way any reader would. Similarly, a reader might interact with my characters and come to completely different conclusions. This is normal, okay, and encouraged.

You may also find other themes popping up as you write. In my second novel, popularity and social capital became a huge cog in the machine. Let these fresh themes surprise you, and run with them.

Ultimately, you can't control what your readers take away from your story. Your goal as a writer is to create characters so rich and deep and intimate (not in the romantic sense, unless you're into that) that the reader can bring their experiences to the text and find meaning. We cannot worry about this before starting a writing project, because we can't control it, and thinking too much about it will muddy the waters of what actually matters, what we can affect. And when you start to sense those deeper meanings emerging in your story, run with them, flesh them out, and embody them in the struggles of characters.

[fracturediron]

Jin is such an interesting character to think about and why he acts the way he does, as on a surface-level, so much of what he does seems so contradictory. For all that he has feelings for Non and apparently genuinely liked him, his responses to Non's bullying and ostracisation have always been very wishy-washy. Just enough to make a token protest about Non's mistreatment - because he knows what they're doing is shitty, and he feels badly enough and cares enough about Non to say something - but never anything truly concrete or that could alienate him from his friends.

It's kinda ironic how Jin chews out Phee for failing to commit in the present, when in the past, one of Jin's biggest failings was failing to commit to any sort of decisive stand with regards to Non's mistreatment.

He knows what his friends are doing is wrong, and he knows that Non is suffering for it. He stands up for him in a few small ways - and even offers him comfort - but never does he break things with his shitty friends, or truly call them out in a real meaningful way.

When I look at Jin, I think to myself: "Okay. You know what your friends are doing is terrible, and you like Non. Yet you continually to enable their bullying either through your passivity or by straight up trying to keep Non in the group, even though it's blatantly obvious Non's being used and that being with these people is actively harmful for him. So, what kind of person does that make you?"

The kind of person who doesn't want to look too deeply at themselves, or the reality of the people around them, and is not comfortable with introspection. Even in the present, Jin is planning to run away from his problems (rather than acknowledging them) by moving to the USA.

Until ep 7, Jin's convinced that everything will be fine - the others will stop hating Non if he just hangs around long enough! Non's just a sweet, quiet, doe-eyed innocent, a damsel in distress to be saved, and if he sees Jin going to bat him, that just goes to show he's a good guy, right? - and so tries to be the peacekeeper for both sides. He's unwilling to think too hard about the reality and the truth of his friends, because if he acknowledges that, then he has to acknowledge his friends are shitty people, and then what does that also say about him? Time and time again, Jin can't face the truth about his friends and Non, so he wilfully blinds himself in the hopes that it'll all work out in the end.

When he sees Kru Keng and Non together, though, Jin can't blind himself to the sordidness of reality anymore.

[altschmerzes]

You’re such an amazing writer, I love how well you weave long drawn out character thoughts or observations with dialogue it’s so seemless. I feel like when I try to do that it gets so clunky and hard to read

Do you have any training? Because your stuff reads like a professional

And tips or recommendations? Ie books you’ve learnt from etc etc

Thank you 🙏

ahhhh gosh thank you so much!! i'm so glad you think so. that's something i've really had to work on balancing tbh - the long introspective parts with the dialogue. i can get distracted with the narrative and forget that nobody's spoken in a while and have to go back and fix it lmao. i wouldn't say i have any training! i took a creative writing course in university but it was a very surface level 101 class for one term and we didn't really dig into much. i think it's just time, probably, time and effort doubling down on what i think works for me and what doesn't. i've been writing and posting fic online for... fourteen years? going on fifteen? i was very young when i started, lmao, i think i was twelve, and i'm about twenty-six and a half now, and i've made a lot of progress since then.

a lot of how i handle it now is considering context!! i skim a scene and my notes/draft for it and i try to see if it feels like it passes too quick, or if it misses the point i'm trying to drive home in the mind/heart of the character whose point of view i'm in. if it does, i go back over and try and beef up the narration/introspection. if it feels like it lingers too much or isn't getting to the point quick enough or it just feels like a boring section, i try and clip from dialogue to dialogue faster. if i want it to feel disorienting or detached, i'll keep the paragraphs shorter. if i want the pov character to feel like they're spacing out or dissociating or caught up in their own feelings even if they aren't expressing them, i'll spend longer in their head. if you feel like it's getting clunky, take a step back. look at the clunky piece and go why? does it feel clunky because it's repetitive? is the dialogue not anchored to the internal thought enough when it should be? is it moving too much from thought to thought without spending time on what those thoughts mean, how they feel? those kind of questions can help you get to what needs fixing!

ultimately, it's mostly practice, like most things with writing, i think. take notice of what you like and what you don't like, how you think it fits together. i think in terms of books i've read that made me want to write more, my most recent picks would be the last unicorn by peter s beagle and the locked tomb series by tamsin muir - though tlt is like... probably not what i'd go to for a standard balancing of dialogue and introspection. those books are very stylistic so if that is not the specific style you're going for, it could be difficult to take cues from. in terms of just flat out good, mesmerizing writing, though? yeah. hot damn. highly recommend. and the last unicorn is some of the just, straight up best writing i've ever read.

this is seriously so flattering thank you so much <3 i'm beyond thrilled to hear anyone might like my writing enough to ask for advice from me!

[mxtxfanatic]

Okay, honest question. Why do you think there are some fans who dedicated only to Jiang Cheng, Mu Qing, and Shen Jiu (and said they are secretly 'nice & kind characters')? I love how MXTX wrote those characters, but based on canon, they are not the best character, right? From those 3, who do you think is the worst? For me is Shen Jiu.

Oh, I don't know if you've been said it before, but what do you think of Tian Lang Jun (he is in my top 5 fav SVSSS characters ever, just love him)?

Based purely on the stans I've interacted with, it is because through heavy projection, these characters represent something fundamental about those individuals' sense of self or their beliefs that to dislike them means to dislike those irl individuals in their eyes. You have people who identify so heavily with these characters' different modes of suffering that they must defend them for their actions against any and all criticism lest they be made to introspect on their own personal beliefs, which would ruin the fantasy of the abuse award that I discuss here, the thing that probably most draws them to stories like mxtx's. Unfortunately for them, mxtx is not an author that awards characters based on their ability to withstand abuse but based on their ability to persevere as a good person despite hardship. Unfortunately for us, stans are in denial about this reoccurring theme in mxtx novels and so insist that these characters must be "secretly good/kind" in order to pretend that they are deserving of the abuse award that they (and thus, the stans themselves) "unfairly" never received.

Jiang Cheng is the worst for me because he suffers the least but causes the most amount of damage through his massacre of the Wen remnants, abuse of his nephew, serial killing, and general terrorizing of the communities under his jurisdiction. Mu Qing, as much of an asshole as he is, does not deserve to be grouped in with those other two. Tianlang-jun is fine as a character, but I pray that the svsss fandom doesn't latch onto him or start making serious meta cause from what I've seen so far, I do not think too many people understand him deeper than his surface level image of the "carefree lordling who only cares about trashy romance novels and soap operas who'll destroy the world if you look at him wrong" that he projects to others to cover his actual traumas. He's not in my top 5 as a character, but his story arc is good.

[weeb-polls-with-pip]

Autistic Anime Girls Group 2 Round 5 Match 2

SUBMISSION PROPAGANDA:

Ahiru -

"She's just like me for real! A lot of Duck's story is about accepting herself for who she really is instead of pretending to be a normal human girl like everyone else, which makes me feel so comfy inside. Also that one person in the notes who said that the magical girl genre has a lot of autistic girlies? So true. She's one of them! I love her so much, she's awkward and genuine and so very lovely and I've been looking up to her since I was a little baby because again… She's just like me for real. Also I feel like this gif makes good propaganda because mood."

Marcille -

"Dungeon Meshi is a manga about autism that just so happens to also have monsters and cooking.

On a surface level, Marcille seems like the most 'normal' one in the main group, she's often playing the straight man role in jokes and objects to their crazier plans. But its all just masking yall. She is a very introspective and anxious person, she spends a lot of time silently worrying about things like mortality and social rules. So whenever she's freaking out about people cooking monsters, she doesn't actually have any personal objections to it, she's just watching people break the rules she has fixated on and is unsure what to do about it. Likewise, she fell in love with her girlfriend after watching her openly being a weirdo who scampers around in the wilderness to look for cool bugs.

And yet, for all of her worrying about fitting in, she never quite manages it. At the wizard school she was seen as a weirdo half-elf who does unusual experiments and gets too excited. Over the course of the manga, she travels in an adventuring party with a few other openly autistic people (and a chronically divorced hobbit), and she slowly opens up to them over time and becomes more okay with the idea of coming across as weird.

A vote for Marcille Donato is a vote for your local weirdo autistic transbian who fails to fit in."

[parachutingkitten]

Okay, this has been bothering me, and I'm gonna go into it, cuz I feel like being mad that the fandom didn't get better is friggin valid, so imma get negative here at some serious missed potential, if that's not your jam, 100% get it, please scroll past.

We have a season with 20 episodes, each of which are 20 minutes long. That is an unprecedented amount of time for a ninjago season- I would argue maybe too much time, but that's not what we're getting into here. Even just the first half is the length of your standard ninjago season back in the day. There is no excuse for not taking your time with ideas that deserve time. You've got time. You've got too much time.

If you're gonna do a mystical mind prison that traps you in your worst fears, you gotta do it! You can't do this wimpy half commit thing you're doing here. What is this cop out that's like three minutes long? This is a top tier trope! Loads of stories do this- for a good reason, it's a great way to get lots of new insight into your characters, not to mention have fun with environments, hypotheticals, bend logic, and do some creative filmmaking. And here you are, inventing a whole weird fictional animal to facilitate your nightmare state, and it legitimately takes up so little screen time that it hurts! What? Did you not have enough to say about your characters to fill out a full subplot? You thinking that surface level about things? Or was the basketball tournament fake out with the dragons so important to the story that you couldn't cut it out for some character introspection?

It's so short and pointless, it doesn't functionally do anything except tell us very directly "Here's what this character fears, and will have to get past this season!" No looking into why or making some progress/losing progress on the issue in the dream state. We don't even get to see everyone's visions, let alone see any interconnectivity between them. It's just such a waste of a classically exciting set up. And why on earth would you place this concept at the beginning of the season? Put it at the turning point man! That's what this scenario is made for! Literalizing characters overcoming mental challenges so that it's interesting to watch! Using the nightmare dream sphere for exposition in the most boring possible version of the trope is just dumbfounding.

I mean seriously? The black void? That's all you've got? You gonna go the Cars 2 route and set our supposedly deep nightmare sequence in a black void? No symbolism to the void even? No distorting of visuals within the void? Nothing? Can you get any more basic? Did you really put that little creativity into this? Like, the whole point of the nightmare dreamscape is to get creative! So much symbolism and messaging that you can easily tie into things! the possibilities are literally endless! But yeah, I guess Arin running in place is pretty meaningful too, I'm sure it took you a while to come up with something so profound.

There's a reason this story beat usually makes up at least half the plot of any given episode it's in! There's so much room to explore. The potential for crosscutting between nightmares is so high, drawing parallels between characters. Maybe they're all interconnected, and the mentally strongest of the team breaks free to help the others in their nightmares. Maybe it's a revelation point for the rest of the team as they see a dark past of another character they didn't know about. Or maybe it's just the audience who gets new insight into a sheltered corner of a character's mind, or a way to reveal to them a dark secret someone is hiding. You can also have fun subverting expectations, maybe one of the nightmares is just objectively pretty funny. And, the best thing about any dream environment you're creating, you can have the characters get involved in insanely creative fights and action scenes where they literally beat up their mental roadblocks with cool looking and symbolically important powers or tools.

Like, I know the fandom is losing their mind over this scene because 'omg Nya's gonna be so sad cuz of the memory loss(that hasn't even been revealed in narrative yet, so the irony doesn't even really work)' but I just need you to understand that the full fledged angst, character growth, and introspection y'all are speculating could have theoretically happened in Kai's plot is what we could have had for everyone. For a full episode. Like it deserved to be. And it would have been really cool, and really satisfying, and beautifully and symbolically stunning, because countless other people have done it, it's honestly not too difficult. Stop freaking out like they did a good job with this- they didn't do a good job with this. They couldn't even bother to give everyone a vision, they just gave up on the concept halfway through.

Not to mention how accessible and valuable this type of storytelling is to kids! Literalizing some of the big abstract issues these characters are supposedly battling this season would be a great way to get kids to grasp these ideas, but instead it's literally like two and a half minutes of slightly ominous stuff to bate us before we move on.

Stop teasing us with interesting stuff and then not actually following through! This is not how you do storytelling!

[scavengerssuccotash]

What does aftercare look like for Clint and Nat?

Depends on what kind of aftercare you’re looking for, my dear.

Was it a rough mission that left their bodies sore and aching?

If that’s the case they soothe each other’s sore muscles away in a variety of ways. For Natasha the bulk of her sore muscles rests in her thighs and legs. Clint with usually draw her a nice hot bath with some soaking salts (lavender scented) and let her decompress. Sometimes he’ll join her, especially if his back is hurting, but most times he just lets her rest in the bath and play errand boy if she needs something. Afterwards, Natasha will curl up with him on the couch with her feet in his lap so he can rub them. And oh god! His hands? If Natasha were religious his hands is the closest thing to making her believe in a god. About the time he works his way up her calves, she’s limp against the arm of the couch and almost asleep.

Clint on the other hand carries most of his stress in his shoulders and arms. (Clint often jokes that if you put the two of them together, her legs and his upper body, they could qualify for a retirement community by the state of their joints alone.) With that said, baths hardly touch the ache in his shoulders. Showers are his go-to, along with icy-hot and Natasha’s own bone melting masseuse skills. Repetition with the draw weight he’s got might’ve given him great definition but it also aged his rotator cuffs and shoulder blade ten years. After a long hot shower, you can find him sitting on the floor between Natasha’s legs with an ice pack on each shoulder as she rubs his neck.

Or are you looking for the tumble between the sheets kind of aftercare?

In which case this came to them with much more difficulty than it did with the other kind. Particularly for Natasha. Any wonder why? The first few times they slide between the sheets, Natasha would jump out of bed, quickly throw on her clothes and leave while Clint just laid in bed still coming down from his post coital high, dazed and ultimately confused. In hindsight, Natasha’s sudden departure after taught Clint a lot about himself. Namely: how much he really did like and need the after romp cuddling. Be it some internalized misogyny, or a lack of self introspection Clint had just assumed that is what you did with your partner, so…he did it and didn’t look into it any deeper than the surface level. Turns out it just took Natasha leaving him high and dry (wet?) for him to realize that, “actually no, I think I like the cuddling!?”

Conversely Natasha dipped because she had wanted to stay, which was in of itself a terrifying epiphany to have after what she’ll testify to is the best sex ever. It was all too much too fast and god she can’t do this?! Can she? She wants to, but…

In the end it took three months, a couple of drunken blurt out your feelings kind of nights, and a close call in Mumbai for them to get on the same page.

For Clint to say, “I need to a place to land after soaring that high, Nat. I drop like a fucking stone, and it’s not a good feeling!”

And for Nat to say, “I don’t know what to do with all this, I wasn’t trained on what to do if I actually fell!”

“No one gets a manual, Tasha. You just do what feels right.”

“Us. That feels right.”

Natasha relaxes into their after sex cuddle sessions a little bit better after this. She still leaves after, only spending the nights when they drink and she doesn’t want to drive or bother with a taxi or public transport, but she stops leaving right away. She lingers long enough for Clint to be on the precipice of sleep, before slipping out of bed. Which is fine by Clint, he’s admittedly a bit of a bed hog.

About a year and two months into their relationship, the aftercare is superb. Clint gets his cuddles, and Natasha, well Natasha gets breakfast in bed now. And sometimes, when Clint’s feeling a bit cheeky he will wake her up in the most delicious of ways.

Thanks for asking, hope you enjoy! 🥰

[pochqmqri]

One change the Railgun anime adaptation does compared to the original manga is introduce Kongou much earlier. In the manga, she isn't introduced until after the Sisters arc, but in the anime, she's introduced in the very first episode of Season 1, and becomes a prominent side character up until the Silent Party arc of Railgun S.

I'm fine with what the anime did, because I think Kongou is one of the more underrated characters in Railgun, and she's great in Silent Party and the Daihasei Festival, but I also feel that the anime cutting out her proper introduction takes out a chunk of her backstory and characterization that makes her truly great.

To start off, there's this running gag where Misaka, trying to break away from a persisent guy, named Unabara, runs into Kongou, the new girl at school, and tries to pretend she's her friend so that she can get away from Unabara. This leads to a misunderstanding where Kongou beleives Misaka's name is Unabara for most of her introductiry chapters, and Misaka is too socially awkward to even introduce herself. It's absolutely hilarious.

Kongou is presented as this haughty ojou-archetype that's too in her pride, such as when she refused to accept help from Kuroko in escorting her to the dorms. Generally these characters can be one-dimensional, but we see with her that there's more than just the surface.

When she was just a little girl, Kongou learned from her father the idea that friends will naturally flock towards one of fine character, which she took the wrong way by allowing her pride and social status to get the better of her. She says to the other girls that they're "allowed" to be friends with her rather than asking directly if they want to be friends, which puts off those girls, who don't accept her indirect birthday invitation.

This reinforces her worldview that because those girls didn't want to hang out with her, they weren't worthy in the first place, rather than focusing on introspection.

Back to current day, and Kongou is the same, even more entrenched in her beliefs, putting herself on a pedestal, that if anyone has a problem with her, it's their fault and not hers. This is why she was immediately drawn to the idea of factions at Tokiwadai, because she desired a clique like the one Shokuhou has.

However, her facade begins to break, as she comes to term with her lonliness underneath all that bravado. She begins to wonder if she's the problem instead.

Her lonliness showed earlier when, after Misaka and Kongou break away from the pushy guy, they start to hang out, which the latter enjoys, stating that she had never done something like that before. But when Misaka finally breaks away at the end, Kongou remembers that this was only born out of a "pretend" situation. Because of the way she grew up, Kongou finds it difficult to be actually honest about her feelings, that all she wanted was a friend.

Misaka comes back to return something to Kongou, which confuses the sheltered girl as she wonders why she'd go through all the effort for her (it's not that relevant to the analysis but Kongou still doesn't know that Misaka is the famed Level 5 Railgun in the school). Misaka replies that it's because she's her friend, which touches the girl, to seemingly be finally considered a friend by someone.

It all comes back full circle at the end, where after Kongou realizes the errors of her ways, the two random girls she met earlier while faction seeking, Wannai and Awatsuki of the swim team, come to Kongou, ask to join her faction. Kongou turns them down, saying that she would rather be friends with them instead, which they accept.

And I think this is just wonderful, it sets up why Kongou, Wannai, and Awatsuki hang out together in the anime and why Kongou is so helpful towards Misaka in the later arcs. She could have easily taken on a more antagonistic and cliquey role like Shokuhou initially has, but her development is actually a joy to read through. It's such a shame that these few chapters weren't properly adapted into the anime.

Kongou is one of my favorite characters in Railgun, one that I find truly underrated, not just for her backstory, but also for how much of a team player she (and the two swim girls) are in the Silent Party and Daihasei Festival arcs. I want to write about that another time.

[nickeverdeen]

https://www.tumblr.com/nickeverdeen/759892946103468032/accident?source=share

It's okay I can do it lol I might not remember exactly what I said that day but probably it was something in these same waters:

A jesse imagine with a fem!autistic!reader, just the same context as the first hcs you posted for someone a while ago. So, jesse and reader know each other, but this is set before they start dating. They know each other, they have brief talks sometimes (around ellie because she's their common friend, or in the in the gatherings at the millers when everyone is invited for dinners, etc) and, you know, he has a crush on her. Would even be cool to have some details in the imagine like since when he started having feelings for her, what was his first impressions of her, how did he got to know she was autistic (did someone tell him or he noticed something by himself? Or it was just a common knowledge in jackson for everyone?). But because she's introspective with people she doesn't really have intimacy, he finds hard to approach her in a way of finding a connection to her, he doesn't know if he would scare her or make her feel uncomfortable if he was too bold. So he begins to notice (by watching her) that she likes to paint and draw sometimes (he's pretty sure he heard someone say that it was one of her hyperfocus), he sees that she sometimes paints ellie's tattoo with markers or makeup when they hang together on her place, and he's pretty sure he saw Joel sitting on tommy and maria's couch and letting reader draw on his hand with a pen in some of the gatherings, when they were both bored.

So he has an ideia. He goes through his stuff until he finds some sketches his 12 year old self did (In my headcanon, he thought about getting a tattoo when Cat came to town and he found out she did tattoos, but he eventually let that idea go). Well, now he has a pretty good reason to have a tattoo. if it doesn't work, at least it will be covered by his shoulder.

So... Yeah he shows to her by the end lol I won't give details on this one tho, I'm pretty sure her reaction or anything that would be written after this point you would plan better than me.

I love you so much, cariño, and I’m so sorry again that you had to rewrite it

————————————————

A Sketch of Connection | Jesse x autistic fem!reader

Summary: The thriving community is a refuge for survivors, where life is beginning to feel a little more normal for Jesse when he meets you.

———————————

Jesse stood just outside of the mess hall, leaning against the wooden post as he watched the world move around him. His gaze was focused on you, sitting a few yards away with Ellie, both of you engrossed in some quiet activity. He couldn’t help but smile, noting how your concentration on whatever you were doing seemed to block out the noise and chaos of the busy day around you.

He’d been trying to get closer to you for a while now, ever since Ellie introduced you both. She spoke of you often, mentioning your incredible talent for painting and how you seemed to find solace in your art in a way that few others did. Jesse had noticed it too, in the small things—how your hands would twitch and fidget when you were in a room full of people, how loud noises would make you flinch slightly, or how you would sometimes eat your food in a very particular order, as if certain textures didn’t sit well with you.

Ellie had mentioned once, offhandedly, that you were autistic, something Jesse hadn’t fully understood but had since looked into. He learned about stimming, about the sensitivity to certain stimuli, and how social interactions could sometimes be challenging. It made him more aware, more cautious in his approach. He didn’t want to scare you off or make you uncomfortable, but he was desperate to find a way to connect with you beyond the surface-level conversations they shared at Miller’s house during group dinners.

As he watched, he noticed how you seemed completely absorbed in drawing on Ellie’s forearm with a marker, probably adding some intricate design around her tattoo. It wasn’t the first time he’d seen you do that. He’d even seen Joel let you doodle on his hand once, a rare occurrence considering how much Joel guarded his personal space. It was then that an idea started forming in Jesse’s mind—a way to get closer to you, to understand you better, and maybe, just maybe, open a door to something more.

Later that night, he rummaged through his old belongings, finding the sketchbook he’d kept as a kid. Flipping through the pages, he found what he was looking for—an old sketch he’d made when he was about twelve. It was of a wolf, fierce and wild, something he’d thought was cool back then. Jesse had briefly considered getting it tattooed when Cat had passed through Jackson, but the idea had faded away. Now, though, it seemed like the perfect excuse. If nothing else, it would be a conversation starter, a way to share something personal with you.

The next morning, Jesse found himself in front of Cat’s place, the small parlor she’d set up in her spare time, tattooing those who wanted to leave a permanent mark on their skin. He explained what he wanted, showing her the old sketch.

Jesse sat down in the worn, comfortable chair in Cat’s makeshift tattoo parlor, a small room she had converted into her own little artistic haven. The walls were lined with sketches and ink samples, a testament to her skill. He handed her the sketch of the wolf he’d drawn years ago, watching as she studied it with a critical eye.

“This is good,” she said, nodding in approval. “Didn’t know you were an artist, Jesse.”

“Not really,” he replied with a shrug. “Just doodles from when I was a kid.”

Cat raised an eyebrow, still examining the lines of the drawing. “Well, it’s better than half the stuff people bring me. Where do you want it?”

Jesse hesitated, then lifted the edge of his shirt to expose his shoulder. “Here, I think. It’s kinda personal, so I’d like to keep it hidden most of the time.”

“Personal, huh?” Cat murmured, setting up her equipment. She nodded towards the chair, and Jesse shifted to give her better access to his shoulder. As she prepped the area, she kept glancing at him, clearly sensing there was more to the story. “So, what made you finally decide to get it done? This sketch’s been in your drawer for years.”

Jesse bit his lip, debating how much to share. Cat had a way of getting people to open up, even when they weren’t sure they wanted to. “There’s this girl,” he finally admitted, the words coming out quieter than he intended. “Y/N.”

Cat’s hands paused for a moment, and she shot him a knowing look. “Ah, so this is about that pretty girl Ellie’s been talking about.”

Jesse felt his face heat up, but he chuckled. “Yeah, I guess it is. I wanted a reason to talk to her more, something to connect us. She’s… she’s really into art, and I thought maybe if I got this, we could… I don’t know, bond over it?”

Cat smirked, clearly amused. “That’s sweet, Jesse. I didn’t peg you for the romantic type.”

He laughed, a little embarrassed. “Well, I’m not usually, but she’s different, you know? I just want to get to know her better, without scaring her off.”

“You’re doing something right,” Cat said, her voice softer now as she began to work on his tattoo. “From what I hear, Y/N’s not the easiest person to get close to. But you’re willing to take it slow, let her come to you. That’s good. Shows you care.”

Jesse smiled, relaxing into the chair as the familiar buzz of the tattoo machine filled the room. “Yeah, I do. I just hope she sees that.”

Cat worked in silence for a while, focused on her art. When she finished, she wiped down the tattoo and admired her work, giving Jesse a satisfied nod. “Looks good. You’re gonna knock her socks off with this.”

Jesse glanced in the mirror she held up, taking in the new addition to his shoulder. The wolf looked fierce, just like he’d imagined it would all those years ago. But now, it carried a new meaning, one tied to the hope of getting closer to you.

Cat cleaned up her tools, then glanced at Jesse with a teasing grin. “Don’t worry, Jesse. Your pretty girl’s gonna love it. And if she’s smart, she’ll see you for the good guy you are.”

Jesse’s heart skipped a beat at her words, and he couldn’t help but grin back. “Thanks, Cat. I really hope so.”

As he left the parlor, the new tattoo burning slightly under his shirt, Jesse felt more determined than ever to show you just how much you meant to him. And with Cat’s words echoing in his mind, he couldn’t wait to see where this new connection might lead.

He waited a few days before approaching you, nervous about how you might react. One evening, when the sun was beginning to dip behind the mountains, casting a golden glow over Jackson, he spotted you sitting on a bench outside, your sketchbook in your lap. Jesse took a deep breath and walked over, trying to keep his usual easygoing demeanor despite the knot of nerves in his stomach.

“Hey, Y/N,” he greeted, taking a seat next to you. You glanced up, a small smile tugging at your lips, which gave him the courage to continue. “Got a minute?”

“Sure,” you replied softly, closing your sketchbook but keeping your hands fidgeting with the edge of the cover.

He hesitated for a moment, then pulled at the collar of his shirt to reveal his shoulder. “I, uh, got a tattoo the other day. Wanted to show you.”

Your eyes widened slightly, curiosity piqued as you leaned in closer to get a better look. Jesse noticed how your fingers stilled for a moment before you reached out, hesitating just before touching his skin. He nodded, giving you permission, and you gently traced the lines of the tattoo with a featherlight touch.

“It’s… really good,” you murmured, your voice carrying a hint of awe. “The wolf, it looks strong.”

Jesse smiled, relieved by your reaction. “Yeah, it’s something I drew when I was a kid. Thought it would be cool to finally get it inked.”

You nodded, your focus still on the tattoo. “It’s a good design… you used to draw?”

“A little,” he admitted, scratching the back of his neck. “Not as good as you, though. I’ve seen your work—Ellie brags about it all the time.”

A small blush crept up your cheeks, and you looked down, clearly pleased but unsure how to respond. Jesse decided to take the plunge, hoping this would bring you closer.

“I was thinking,” he began, choosing his words carefully, “maybe… you could design my next tattoo? I mean, if you’re up for it. I’d love to have something of yours.”

You looked up at him, eyes wide with surprise. “You… you want me to design something for you?”

“Yeah,” Jesse said, his tone earnest. “Only if you’re comfortable with it, of course. I just thought it could be something we do together.”

You took a moment to process his request, your fingers idly tracing the pattern of the tattoo again as you considered it. Finally, you nodded, a small but genuine smile on your lips. “I’d like that, Jesse. I’d really like that.”

Relief and excitement washed over him. “Great! We can start whenever you’re ready. No rush.”

You nodded again, a bit more confident now. “Maybe… tomorrow? We can meet here, and I can show you some ideas.”

“Sounds perfect,” Jesse replied, his heart swelling with affection. He’d taken a step closer to you, not just by asking for your artistic help, but by showing you that he valued you—your creativity, your thoughts, and your presence in his life.

As the two of you sat there, chatting softly about possible designs, Jesse couldn’t help but feel that this was the beginning of something special. And as you began to open up, sharing more about your art and your ideas, he knew that whatever this was, it was worth every moment of patience and understanding.

[bigsoftmarshmallow]

How would the Ganondorfs (Wind Waker, Ocarina of Time, Twilight Princess, Hyrule Warriors, and Tears of the Kingdom) & Demise react if they found their SO before a portal one day, SO crying, saying they could hear their family inside?

They know it could take them home, to where they belong… but it would mean leaving the Demon King behind. How would they convince their SO to stay with him?

The scene of finding their SO before a portal, weeping at the thought of leaving, would strike each version of Ganondorf and Demise in profoundly different ways. While all are known for their ambition and ruthless power, their approaches to convincing their SO to stay would range from manipulative persuasion to fierce, desperate longing. Here’s how each would respond:

Wind Waker Ganondorf

Reaction: Subdued Plea, Hidden Desperation

Thoughts: Wind Waker Ganondorf, the most introspective and melancholic of them all, would be torn. He understands the pull of home, as he longs for his lost homeland. Yet, for the first time, he finds himself wanting someone to stay not for conquest but for companionship. He would likely try to appeal to their bond without showing too much vulnerability, though beneath the surface, he’d feel the sharp pang of loss at the thought of them leaving.

Scene: Ganondorf watches as his SO trembles before the portal, tears streaming down their face. His heavy footsteps approach, and the portal's light casts a shadow over his face. He speaks softly, his voice steady but laced with sadness. “I understand your desire to return to those you love... I, too, have known loss, have felt the yearning for a place that was taken from me.” He pauses, watching his SO’s shoulders shake. “But would they truly give you what we have shared? What you feel with me?” His hand reaches out, his voice lowering to a near-whisper. “Stay with me, and we can build something new... not just for power, but for us. You are not bound by the past anymore.”

Ocarina of Time Ganondorf

Reaction: Arrogant Confidence and Emotional Manipulation

Thoughts: Ocarina of Time Ganondorf is not used to being denied or losing something he desires. He would view his SO’s potential departure as a challenge to his authority, and he would respond with a mixture of emotional manipulation and confidence, aiming to convince them that staying with him is not only the best choice but also their only option.

Scene: Ganondorf crosses his arms, looming over his SO as they cry before the swirling portal. His golden eyes narrow, his voice smooth but filled with dangerous certainty. “You think they will give you what I can? You think you’ll find happiness in a world without me?” He steps closer, tilting his head as his voice grows more commanding. “You are mine. Do not forget that.” He kneels, lowering himself to their level, brushing a tear from their cheek with a surprisingly gentle touch. “You belong with me, not them. What can they offer that I cannot surpass? Power, protection, purpose—all with me. Don’t be a fool.” His eyes harden. “Stay.”

Twilight Princess Ganondorf

Reaction: Stern Intensity, Emotional Guard

Thoughts: Twilight Princess Ganondorf is a being of cold calculation and immense power, and the thought of losing someone close would stir something deep inside him—an unfamiliar but powerful fear of loss. He would never admit vulnerability, but his desperation would manifest in a stern, almost commanding plea for his SO to stay.

Scene: Ganondorf stands tall, his hands clenched into fists as he gazes at his SO. The cold wind of the portal blows through the room, but he remains steady, his voice harsh but tinged with something unspoken. “You wish to leave?” he asks, his tone sharp. “To return to a life that no longer exists for you?” His eyes darken as he takes a step closer, his hand gripping their chin gently but firmly. “I will not stop you, but know this: if you go, you will lose all that we have built together. Your family is not waiting for you on the other side—they are memories, shadows of the past.” He pauses, his voice softening just slightly. “With me, you have a future. One of power, of strength... of us.” His hand drops. “Do not throw that away.”

Hyrule Warriors Ganondorf

Reaction: Dominant and Possessive

Thoughts: Hyrule Warriors Ganondorf, who is the most brutal and aggressive of his incarnations, would view his SO’s desire to leave as a betrayal of sorts. He would respond with possessiveness, reminding them of the power and life they share and trying to make them realize they are already too deeply intertwined to part ways.

Scene: Ganondorf’s eyes flare with barely concealed anger as he approaches the portal, his cape billowing behind him. His voice booms with authority, though there is an undercurrent of tension. “You think you can leave me?” His words are sharp, biting. “After everything we have done, everything I have given you?” He grabs their wrist, pulling them closer, his grip strong but not painful. “You are mine. You cannot simply walk away from me.” His tone softens, but his eyes remain hard. “Look at what we’ve built together, at the strength you’ve gained by my side. You cannot return to the weakness of your former life.” His fingers loosen, his voice lowering. “Stay with me, and you will have everything.”

Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf

Reaction: Gentle Persuasion, Hidden Emotion

Thoughts: Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf is a powerful and calculating figure, but he hides a more restrained, almost enigmatic side. Seeing his SO before the portal, torn between their past and the present, would stir something deep within him. He would try to mask his emotions but offer them the choice—albeit one laced with subtle persuasion.

Scene: Ganondorf approaches slowly, his eyes glowing with quiet intensity. His SO stands trembling before the portal, tears staining their cheeks. He places a hand on their shoulder, his touch surprisingly tender. “You hear them calling you, don’t you?” he asks softly, his voice a low rumble. “Your family, your past... but is it truly them you desire, or merely a reflection of what was lost?” He moves to face them, his gaze piercing yet calm. “You are not the same person you were when you left them. You have grown, changed, and become something more by my side.” He pauses, his expression unreadable. “You can return, but what awaits you there is not what you remember.” He steps back, offering them the choice. “Or you can stay with me, where you belong.”

Demise

Reaction: Cold, Ruthless Determination

Thoughts: Demise, who is driven by hatred and ambition, would not take kindly to the thought of his SO leaving. He would view their desire to return to their family as weakness and would not hesitate to manipulate their emotions, reminding them of the power and immortality they have with him. He would be less gentle in his persuasion, using fear and dominance to convince them to stay.

Scene: Demise’s fiery eyes blaze as he strides toward the portal, his voice a low growl. “You think you can leave me?” he snarls. “You think the weak bonds of your past mean more than the power I have given you?” He looms over them, his presence overwhelming, his voice dripping with contempt. “You are mine. You cannot return to the world of mortals, where death and weakness await you. With me, you are eternal.” His hand grips their chin, forcing them to look at him. “You will stay, or you will face the consequences of betraying me.” His words are final, leaving no room for argument.

Summary of Reactions:

Wind Waker Ganondorf: Appeals to shared experiences and loss, offering a future built together.

Ocarina of Time Ganondorf: Uses emotional manipulation and his dominance to convince them to stay.

Twilight Princess Ganondorf: Cold but sincere, offering a future of strength together, subtly appealing to reason.

Hyrule Warriors Ganondorf: Possessive and forceful, reminding them of the power they’ve gained at his side.

Tears of the Kingdom Ganondorf: Calm and persuasive, offering a choice but emphasizing the reality of their situation.

Demise: Ruthless and commanding, using fear and dominance to force them to stay.

Each Ganondorf and Demise would approach the situation with different tactics, but all would ultimately try to keep their SO by their side, whether through manipulation, persuasion, or force.

[herotome]

I've been scrolling through your blog, which is great by the way but anyway what I came to say, or well write, is that almost every answer by jade or post tagged as jade just makes me go: This is uncannily me?. So I just wanted to ask how did you get inside my brain and who allowed you? - Jades long lost twin??

You see, anon, Jade is also uncannily me... We're all Jade here. 😔🎈

No I'm jk but lol I think she's the one most people actually relate to on a certain level?

Griffin is the part of me that operates at 200% and has enough spoons to rival a kitchen drawer - the part that makes good impressions, makes people laugh and smile and regard me with that awed look of 'I didn't realize you were cool.' (But like, I tap into that energy a few times a year at most, sometimes needing to rely on alcohol to access it, whereas Griffin has an apparent endless supply even when sober l o l).

Mia is my late teens and early-twenties, constantly second guessing, wondering if I was too much, unsure of who I was and how I came across, immediately regretting it every time I had a big emotional reaction; yet at the same time had such a big heart that was ready for love and to be loved in all of love's different forms, just didn't know how.

Dart is how I behave in public - guarded, dismissive, unwilling to interact, but with glimpses into an unwaveringly kind and patient nature that I dole out in cautious doses to people who actually need help. It's the part of me that's seen how people take advantage of others and knows how people can be cruel and ignorant, but nonetheless feels compelled to do the right thing.

Jade is my anxiety and my compulsion to put myself under review, under a microscope, the part of me that is all too aware of being Perceived and wants nothing more than to hide under the covers and sleep for a thousand years, to be away from everyone. The part that is so, so tired, the part that would feel quite done if not for Mr/Ms 200% egging me on and on and providing some levity and good humor.

I think between enjoying yet fretting over the unpredictably fluctuating nature of internet culture, living in an age of monitoring and security and scrutiny, and maybe even a general millennial angst, the Jade mindset has become very commonplace and therefore #relatable.

bonus-

Warden... uhhh. Warden is like... the part of me that's more instinctual - my first reaction to things, which includes my skepticism and my willingness to believe things at face value? He's my capacity for faith and for withholding judgement - even when he wonders deep down if he's making the right call. When placed in a position of authority, the wondering and overwhelm runs rampant. Tbh I'm putting him last because he's also a lot like Jade in a weird low-key way - the way they think is very similar, the way they express themselves couldn't be more different.

And finally, MC. As best as I'm able to write it, MC is my surface level running stream of consciousness. It's capable of deeper thought and introspection, but I make an effort to keep it on the crust rather than allowing it to descend too deeply into the magma (where Jade and Warden live).

All this to say I bet every character is #relatable, if you dig deep enough and see them in the right light!

anyway tldr we're all sharing a brain, we're all in the matrix

[cerastes]

Alright, I finished Engage the other day. My comments regarding gameplay reflect on Hard Mode. I’ve not played Normal. I’m currently playing Maddening. Let that inform what’ll be written in here when it comes to gameplay. Here’s what I have to say about Engage.

I gotta say, from minute one to the endgame, the gameplay is truly excellent. Very tight map design, excellent balance, at no point does it feel like they drop the ball, they made the gameplay airtight, it is excellent Strategy RPG. I’ll come back to the gameplay in a second, that needed to be said off rip, now, the story, the story is very basic and doesn’t really have much going for it, but at the same time, it’s not infuriating. It doesn’t get a great grade, it doesn’t get a good grade, but it gets a passing grade because the least a video game narrative can do when not blowing my scrotum off like a shotgun blast from how good it is or when not being just solid, is be inoffensive and save you the frustration from having to deal with something truly braindead and infuriating. Fire Emblem Fates Conquest, for example, had truly phenomenal gameplay, but the story wasn’t just bad, it was insultingly bad, it was an ever-present wasp sting that didn’t leave you the hell alone, it was a wound on the inside of your mouth that made every meal taste like iron. Engage isn’t that, and I know “the story isn’t a horrible wasp sting” doesn’t sound like big praise at face value, but when you give me great SRPG gameplay, yeah, I think that suffices.

Something I find very unfortunate is that they backloaded their fun characters and more interesting story beats: I fundamentally dislike backloaded games because a game should draw me in frame one and be fun from there on, not pile everything on the last 20% of the game. I shouldn’t have to earn the fun of my game, the game should be worth my time from the moment I turn it on. While the game is in fact worth your time the whole time in terms of gameplay, the characters and narrative are very forgettable and without much substance at all: I think here is where Engage should’ve taken a page from Three Houses, a game with excellent Supports.

The style of Supports that Awakening used -- simple background, skit-like, usually very surface level -- and used to great success, may I add, doesn’t land too well nowadays in a post-Three Houses world where Supports were for the most part very introspective, engaging, and delved into interesting facets of both the characters and their circumstances in the world, in the setting. The only exceptions here would be Byleth’s supports with the cast, which tended to be surface level with the purpose of introducing you to the character, their main hat, and what to expect from them on a vacuum, to give you a better idea where the character was coming from in their meaty Supports with other characters, which is honestly a pretty good structure. Engage is more similar to the Awakening style rather than the Three Houses style, to its detriment. However, it does, again, not reach the point of being intolerable, and what good supports you can find there, are worth the time. Going back to Engage being narratively backloaded, the supports of the early game characters are utterly anesthetic, whereas the latter characters dare to get silly, meatier, and deeper. A Pandreo support or a Panette support is worth a hundred Boucheron or Celine supports, we could say.

There is another satchel of credit I will give Engage because I think it’s well worth it: It manages to be Not Yucky With Its Characterization. I’m serious, I appreciate this a lot, because I’ll be the first one to tell you Fire Emblem can get Very Yucky With Its Characterization. For example, two of my favorites, Pandreo and Panette, are siblings. This is not brought up in any Support that is not the support line with each other. Panette is a grown-ass woman that doesn’t go onii-chan this onii-chan that or bases her entire personality on having an older brother. She’s her own person. Pandreo is a grown-ass man that doesn’t obsess over his sister or bases his entire personality on having to protect his younger sister. They’ll occasionally pay reference to one another without names in other conversations when it’s relevant (Panette and Fates’ Corrin converse about how Corrin had to fight her own siblings, to which Panette responds with “oh yeah I feel you, I threw down with my brother a bunch as well when we were kids lol”), and their own support line is very mature and introspective, regarding their current lot in life compared to their very rough childhood. The caliber of supports, when they are not nothingburgers or trying to be skits, is pretty good and in line with this. At least from the several supports I’ve seen, there’s not been any pervasive gross nonsense or anything too tropey. When the worst I can say about supports in a Fire Emblem is that some of them are snoozefests, which is always the case anyways, and not “whatever the fuck the Soleil supports in Fates were where she’s given ‘magic powder’ so she, who likes women, likes men instead”, yeah, that’s a w as well.

If I had to summarize the narrative prowess of the game, again, I’ll say it gets a passing grade, but credit where it’s due: Instead of trying to push boundaries, Fire Emblem Engage instead brought up the lower floor of the writing usually found in Fire Emblem games. It doesn’t do anything special, but it expertly avoids being gross or irritatingly lazy.

Now, the gameplay! Oh, the gameplay. Yeah, it’s really tight, well designed, and I want to talk about something I never see people praise when it comes to Fire Emblem, even though it deserves praise: The onboarding user experience, the accessibility to new players wishing to try the game out, is superb every time. The games have become incredible at welcoming new players, and it deserves praise. It’s really a “make your own experience” kind of deal with Engage! As per the last few Fire Emblems, you can select your difficulty at the start, between Normal, Hard and Maddening (Normal gets unlimited uses of Time Rewind, Hard and Maddening get 10 per stage), but also you can select between Classic style or Casual style: Classic means units that die in non-training settings (like the first few maps with Lumera or during Training skirmishes with allied nations) die for good and you can’t use them again, or Casual style, which doesn’t permakill your units. In addition to this, the Main Story is very well balanced to account for the player not taking Skirmishes. This means that if you’re playing in non-Maddening Mode (Skirmishes are practically non-existent in Maddening) and you find the game too difficult, you can grind out a few Skirmishes to pump up your stats, get materials for upgrades, and try again at your own rhythm. Skirmishes are tuned to your average level +1 or 2, the exact science isn’t clear yet, but it means Skirmishes will always be a bit stronger than you, making you work a bit, but not too much, for that grinding. Or, if you prefer to take the game’s challenge as intended, you just don’t do Skirmishes and the game is perfectly tuned to that to give you a fair challenge. It’s great! You can customize your own gameplay experience naturally, by playing, instead of going into a menu and selecting “Money times 1000%” or “EXP increased 500%” or anything, which is ideal in my opinion.

If you’re doing Maddening, your first run has fixed stat rates for your units. This means that your units’ growth works towards a level up instead of having a random chance of leveling up: If a unit has a 40% growth in Speed, level 1 -> 2 won’t level up Speed, 2 -> 3 won’t either, because 40 + 40 is 80%, but on level 3 -> 4 you will always get that Speed level, because it just went to 120%, and now you have 20% progress towards the next Speed point. Assuming you know the growth rates, you ALWAYS know what you’ll get and you won’t get. This means they balanced the game around these values, which is very encouraging; my experience so far in Maddening has been VERY fun and well balanced. When they actually balance their Maddening difficulties (COUGH UNLIKE THREE HOUSES COUGH OR NEW SHADOW DRAGON’S EXTRA DIFFICULTIES COUGH), Fire Emblem at the highest level is sincerely the best SRPG experience out there. It doesn’t happen every time, but when it does, it is.

So the game will always be as challenging as you want it to be. This is a powerful thing.

The maps are tightly designed, the skill combos you can make are incredible, but SP-gated, which is intelligent conservation of available resources for gameplay, and the flow of player strength vs enemy strength is very well done. While Smash is an unfortunately worthless mechanic overall except in very niche cases, Break is very good: It’s a tool the player and the enemy can both use, and it’s part of what encourages a such potent Player Phase gameplay, which I think is the best thing this game did: Make Player Phase powerful.

The thing with Enemy Phase being strong is that the game becomes incredibly stale: Three Houses has very powerful Enemy Phase, >H*roes has very powerful Enemy Phase, most SRPGs have powerful Enemy Phase gameplay, even in Fire Emblem. This is a problem, because it means you just send a sufficiently souped up unit into every enemies’ range -- A leveled Ike in Path of Radiance, Tomahawk Edelgard or Close Counter Claude in Three Houses, a souped up RR like Amuro or Kamille or souped up SR like Kouji or Tetsuya in SRW -- and you just win, they will step in and they will handle it. Cathartic, sure, but not really challenging! Also, enemies tend to have aggro-links, meaning that aggroing one enemy in a small cluster (or ‘squad’) tends to aggro all of those enemies, and they tend to have the one with less movement on the front and those with more movement on the back, meaning that they WILL be able to all hit the same unit the moment they move in range, means that you can’t just pull enemies one by one. This is amazing! Because pulling enemies one by one is the solution to many old Fire Emblems, and that’s not hard at all! All of these things mean that the gameplay necessitates you to take risks instead of always giving you a safe option. This is good, because not all risks are equal, and you have to figure out the lesser risk in order to properly engage with the enemy, and hopefully be able to take them out as quickly as possible as soon as you lock with them. Engage is incredibly good at this, at making active gameplay triumph over passive gameplay, and this should be lauded, it’s excellent design, maps, enemy stats and enemy groups are thoroughly thought out, and they addressed the whole Active Versus Passive dilemma without going full Disgaea, which is definitely a Player Phase series of games but that suffers from a whole other problem: Player Phase is literally the only thing you can do and is less SRPG and more puzzle game due to its Rocket Tag + Big Grind nature.

So, overall? I think Engage is a pretty good game, and I recommend it. In many ways, it raised a lot of red flags -- I myself denounced it pre-release -- but when showtime came and it pried open its thorax for the world to see everything it had to offer? Yes, I will approve of Engage, it has a weak narrative and it’s not perfect -- even on gameplay, I can tell you Class balance and some weaponry balance is off, like single weapon advanced classes like Swordmaster, Berserker and Sniper being shit, and Lances in general being a bit scuffed -- but it’s incredibly solid otherwise in every other department, and no single aspect of it is truly bad and irritating, it simply floats on a scale of a-ok to good, with its gameplay being superb. If you care a lot about narrative, well, Vestaria Saga is out there, but if you want a very good, very well designed, lovingly crafted gameplay experience, Fire Emblem Engage is worth your doubloons and your time.

[thisaintascenereviews]

The Trick Of Keeping Alive A Timeless Genre With Stephen Sanchez & Laufey

Throughout music history, different genres have come and gone, and certain genres were more popular in certain decades than others. History always has a way of repeating itself, however, because nostalgia always rears its head after so many years and something that was unpopular comes back into the zeitgeist yet again. Hell, something that wasn’t even nostalgic might pop back up, and an artist comes along that’s so good, people can’t help but listen to it and enjoy it. You can say that for two artists in the last couple of years — Stephen Sanchez and Laufey. Both of these artists are relatively different, but also kind of the same, especially when Laufey appeared on Stephen Sanchez’s debut album in 2023, so there’s at least some overlap.

What these two artists have in common is that they make music from their grandparents’ generation (maybe great-grandparents, depending on how old their grandparents are), but the kind of music they make is different. Sanchez makes 50s and 60s style traditional pop and early rock and roll, basically like Buddy Holly, Elvis, Dion, Frankie Valli, and a lot of that 50s and 60s sound, at least before rock and roll really took over and the blues seeped its way into the genre. Laufey, on the other hand, makes jazz, traditional pop, classical, and bossa nova, which made were common in the 1940s and 1950s. She has a very relaxed, moody, and introspective sound, but she sounds like she would fit right in during the 1940s and the 1950s.

I did listen to both of their latest albums, respectfully entitled Angel Face and Bewitched, back when they came out in 2023, but I never reviewed them. That was kind of because I just didn’t really care for these albums enough to really sink my teeth into them, but they both just recently released a deluxe edition with some new songs, so I thought it would be interesting to listen to these albums again with the new songs, just to see if the new songs add anything to the overall experience.

I’m sort of torn on both of these albums, because the new songs both add something to the album itself, but at the same time, I’m not head over heels for these albums, although I do respect them quite a bit. I respect these albums, because they bring back styles of music that aren’t very popular right now. Jazz, traditional pop, and rockabilly aren’t popular styles of music, and they’re quite niche, so the fact that they’re both extremely popular is awesome.

I will say, though, that both of these albums don’t do much for me for different reasons. Stephen Sanchez is a wonderful singer, but he’s best with singles. He’s a singles artist, and some of the best songs on Angel Face are the singles. As much as I respect his sound and what he’s doing, lot of what he does is very surface level, and it sounds like he likes that type of music, but it almost comes off like a cosplay at times. Whether it’s the lyrics, the sound itself, or the whole idea of the album, it just feels so amateur. The new songs on the album are good, thankfully, but they’re more of the same, and they just don’t do much for me, at least enough to make me want to go back to that album instead of listening to stuff from that era that’s way better.

Laufey is better, thankfully, but the issue with her sound is that she’s an artist that I like to listen to in certain moods or situations. Her music is best digested at night, when it’s quiet and the sun is down, because this is music for the midnight jazz club. It’s quiet, subdued, and moody, versus being catchy and energetic. I like more energetic jazz, but this is still pretty good, too. I just don’t come back to it much, because it’s not an album I want to listen to at most times of day. If I listen to this, it’s later at night when I’m winding down, and some music is just that - mood music. The new songs on this album are wonderful tracks, and there is a great and surprisingly energetic cover of “It Could Happen To You.” It’s just that this album is little too long for its own good, and where it has a mood that’s quieter and more introspective, I just don’t go back to it much.

There’s certainly something to respect about these artists keeping these genres alive, though, and the trick that they employ to keep these styles alive is by appealing to a younger audience that may not necessarily be familiar with these kinds of music. I know Laufey got big through TikTok, and she introduced jazz to Gen Z, especially being that young herself, and that could be why Stephen Sanchez doesn’t have a fully realized or unique sound yet. He’s young, too, but he just needs some time to hone in his sound. If anything, I like the foundation he has, but he just needs to work on making his sound more unique and stick out a bit.

[still-a-morosexual-help]

Okay okay last one;

These three group songs were probably my favourites, specially when it came to the lyrics because of the way they highlighted the brothers' relationships with each other?

Also loved listening to Belphie's cutesy and almost childish voice & Satan's serious and mature one singing about giving Lucifer hell. Absolutely perfect. 0 notes.

And then when they just reluctantly start talking about how they kind of actually appreciate Lucifer????

What kind of trap should we set up, this and that, he's back

This story is stranger than fiction, bookmark tucked, continue to decode next

At the end, I depend on you. You know it anyway, right?

Icy face, annoying man

But I probably can't hate that part of you too

Even the gentleness that's born from pain

I guess I also understand it

I'm no match for you, but-

Today's another day of planning pranks. Just imagining the scene makes me happy

Belphie's lines are soft and feel somewhat wistful? - resigned to the fact that yeah he does understand and appreciate Lucifer. Which makes sense because there was a time where Belphie was very open about how much he loves Lucifer and he does think back on that time with something like longing, now. So he'd be more likely to understand and accept the way he feels about Lucifer below the surface level of what he shows in the present.

Meanwhile, Satan sounds annoyed and reluctant. He also, obviously, loves and, to an extent, even understands Lucifer but doesn't like confronting it

I love how they jump to singing about playing pranks again, as if they got a bit too honest about their feelings and a bit too deep in their introspection about Lucifer and needed to change the topic to something that's easier

"The I'm not match for you, but-" line is especially interesting because it comes between these two parts of the song that convey significantly different emotions from each other - the quiet introspective part and the peppy surface level part.

It could very well fit in with the peppy surface level part and so mean "you're stronger than us and so our pranks won't work but we'll still keep trying because they make us happy" but the way it's sung, the tone of it, and the way the "but-" doesn't feel like a continuation to the next line but rather the next line feels like it jumped in and cut off what would have really come after the "but-" because they were getting too honest - makes that line feel something more like "I'll never live up to you/your standards/your being"

<- which is a feeling that we've seen the others struggle with as well (Asmo and Mammon mention it explicitly, Beel implies it and context clues also point to it, Levi has never said he has a problem with living up to Lucifer specifically but given that he has issues with everyone's expectations and given what Lucifer is just generally like, it's not farfetched to assume Levi also feels similarly)

Anyway didn't expect a song to give me Feelings™ I'm not doing well

Rock On (Lucifer & Mammon)

Trigger (Levi, Asmo & Beel)