#to have him turn into the biggest deus ex machina of all time

[eliza-makepeace]

funny when, in inheritance, there’s a moment when saphira tries to help eragon by lending him her power, and he says she can’t help him because it’s “his mountain to climb”. she tries to argue but he replies with “besides, if i were flying, it would be on borrowed wings, and i would gain nothing by it other than the cheap thrill of an unearned victory”

i totally agree with the sentiment and i’d think it’s great of him to say so, if it wasn’t for the fact that that’s exactly what the blood oath celebration has done for him. i understand that, narratively speaking, the main reason for making eragon into an elf is because, otherwise, it would’ve been insanely hard for him to acquire the abilities necessary to defeat galbatorix, but i sitll think it’s a very cheap way of making him get the upper hand, or, if not that, a chance to win. i mean, in the end, paolini makes his own villain so impossible to defeat that he needs to fundamentally alter his main character in order to allow the story’s climax to take place. 

and then the fact that having eragon say this now makes him into a bit of a hypocrite. like, he has such a problem with saphira helping him now, “because it just wouldn’t be an earned victory” but he didn’t seem to mind when the elves made him look like them and have their abilities, even though he obviously hadn’t worked to achieve them by himself in the first place. i’m the first one that finds the whole “eragon gets a few months of learning x and suddenly he’s really good at it” a bit annoying, but i’d rather have that than him being an elf for all intents and purposes.

[bloodyshadow1]

so I've taken time to digest the vengeance saga, I still not sure if I like it as a whole. The music is fantastic as always, but I'm not sure how it works as a musical. as songs, theyr'e great, as a narrative it's messy

not sorry for loving you- I don't like how it tries to make us feel sympathetic to Calypso when the last time we saw her she was keeping odysseus prisoner for 7 years and sexually abusing him. He was going to kill himself if athena didn't get him off the island and suddenly they're cool. It's a beautiful song, but again doesn't work in the whole of a narrative for me

Dangerous- Overall fine, a bit too much exposition but the silly nature of the song fits epic as a whole. That being said, I think there were better ways to set up the other songs in the saga. Reusing the wind bag seems unnecessary and a messy Chekhov's gun. Why not use Hermes' sandals that he gave Perseus, it would have amounted to the same thing and would have been less dumb as a jetpack wind bag giving him the ability to defeat a god.

Charybdis- a song that I like, but the actual monster doesn't really fit the narrative and is defeated as an afterthought in the story. The ending is really good, but it kind of feels filler to me as a song

Get in the water- like dangerous the whole thing is pretty solid, we the whole song release before so not many twists and turns, but a good song

600 strikes- this is the song I have the biggest problems with, a lot of it has to do with the animatic. No hate to the artist, but the idea of the windbag as a jetpack letting odysseus defeat poseidon is stupid, I just can't get around it, it soured a lot of the saga for me personally. It wasn't even silly, it was ridiculous to me, like the monster april fools joke, but this is real. It just felt like a clumsy chekhov's gun and deus ex machina in one. Even worse than that, I hate the idea that all a mortal needs to do, even one with divine blood can just hulk out and defeat a god. Mortals can do a lot, they can wound, even defeat gods with other gods help, but to be able to curbstomp Poseidon of all gods like that alone just bothered me. There are ways that it could have worked, but Jorge didn't. I don't mind the torture scene, it's just how Odysseus beat Poseidon that bothers me

I'm just mixed on the saga so much, it is good music, but as a saga in the musical, I just think things could have been done better. It's probably my least favorite saga story wise in the musical. I know others differ, but to each their own

[vemaro]

under these circumstances

[PART 1]

Link to PART 2!

Summary : Astarion got roped in by the tieflings to come and see their former leader. And by roped in, Karlach literally dragged him up from the Underdark. Against his will. It’s not that he doesn’t want to see Tav. Of course he wants to see her. He wishes she never left his sight. Astarion just has absolutely no desire to see the woman he’s madly in love with living a lavish life with someone else.

Pairing: Astarion x Tav (female Tav) // also minor Karlach x Dammon

Word Count: ~ 1120

Notes: I was going to write out a whole spiel to give context, but I’m suddenly feeling lazy. Fair warning, this is a super elaborate, highly specific AU I came up with a week ago. It’s been a brainworm (hah) in my head ever since. It’s canon-divergent, at least when it pertains to the romance with Astarion. But also Karlach’s heart. They pull a deus ex machina and she doesn’t have to stay in Avernus because reasons. Tav needs their Mama K.

My Tav’s name is Robyn, but I switched it to Tav when posting. I don’t go too much into detail about appearance so feel free to imagine your own character in her place. Though, I mention she a druid a few times, and she has heterochromia. Apologies if this is makes absolutely no sense. I haven’t written anything in a long time. And this is my first time posting here. Don’t be afraid to ask questions. I’m dying to talk to someone about this.

Also, I do have a second part I plan to post in the next couple of days.

Enjoy (:

…

Tav starts backing out of the room. “Wait right here. I’ll fetch Callum. He’ll be thrilled to see you.”

As soon as her back is turned, she sighs. Thank the gods that Terrick has gone on another of his business trips. While her husband and old travel companions are civil (mostly), there is a stifling tension in the air whenever a friend pops in and Terrick is home. On one hand, Tav’s the same person she’s always been; the optimistic, fun loving druid who became the defacto leader of their merry band of misfits. Now though, she’s part of the highly respected Solariz clan, a noble family who holds a large influence within Baldur’s Gate. And a Solariz must act as such. She must mind her manners, dress in a way that befits her status, and worst of all, not go gallivanting up and down the Sword Coast looking for adventure. At least whenever Terrick isn’t around, she can let loose a little. Thankfully, her husband isn’t around too often.

Instead of walking straight through her son’s open bedroom door, Tav stops just outside and leans on the wall. She’s fighting back laughter because her day’s been made, but her son's month is about to get better. Tav loudly clears her throat and holds her hand up to project. “Oh, Callum,” she says in a sing-song voice. “Guess who’s here to see you.”

There’s a gasp from inside the room, followed by a thump, then followed by the sound of socked feet racing towards the door. The little boy spots his mother hiding behind the wall immediately and starts hopping up and down. “Who, Mama? Who’s here?”

She uses her mismatched eyes to point down the hallway. “Go look in the kitchen. They’re waiting for you.”

“Okay!” And he’s off.

Tav lets out a soft laugh. She loves that boy more than she’s loved anyone before, blood relations be damned. Finding him was the single greatest adventure of her life and she’s never, not once regretted taking him in, especially with moments like this, when he’s so happy. When they’re both so happy. Tav had no idea a part of her found family was missing until coming across Callum.

Speaking of found family …

“Karlach!”

When Tav reenters the kitchen, her red tiefling companion is kneeling down with her arms thrown out, sporting the biggest grin from pointy ear to pointy ear. “There’s my favorite little soldier!” Callum races towards her, throwing open his own arms as he jumps. Karlach pretends to almost fall over when she catches him. “Oh my gods, kiddo. Have you gotten bigger since I last saw you?”

Callum buries his face in her neck, soaking up as much of the barbarian's warmth as he can. “I missed you!” he exclaims into her shirt collar.

Karlach swings side to side, squeezing him tighter (but not too tight). “I missed you too, Callum. Been taking care of your mum, yeah?”

He pulls away and nods vehemently, making his blue curls bounce with the movement. “Yeah! I protect Mama from the scary monsters!”

Karlach ruffles his hair. “Good job, Callum.”

The second visitor slides in behind his partner. “On the subject of protection, I’ve got a little something for you.”

“Hi, Dammon! I missed you!”

Dammon, too, ruffles Callum’s blue locks. “Missed you too, kid.” The blacksmith reaches into his satchel and pulls out something wrapped in a cloth. Callum automatically leans forward out of curiosity, letting go of Karlach altogether. “Maybe you could use this to fend off those scary monsters.”

“What is it?” he asks.

Dammon removes the the cloth and crouches down to the Callum’s level. “Why, a sword, of course.” Karlach and Tav give a chorus of oohs and ahs. “The perfect weapon for a warrior of your esteemed caliber.”

Callum flaps his hands, jumping up and down, excitement radiating off him in waves. “A real sword?” he shouts. “For me?”

“If your mum will allow it.”

Callum whirls around, clasping his hands close to his cheek and brown eyes wide, a lethal combination meant to weaken the heart of their target. “Mama! Can I? Can I have the sword? Please?”

It doesn’t take a trained eye to know the weapon is fake. It’s made of wood and the blade is painted silver. The hilt’s adorned with dyed twine and a few faux gems for embellishment. To a small child, this is as real as it gets. Tav walks over and cards her fingers through his already messy hair, a scrutinizing pout adorning her face. “I don’t know,” she sighs. “Swords are very dangerous.”

Four year olds are not above begging. “Please, Mama! Puh-lease! ”

It’s fake, of course she’s planning to let him keep the gift. Tav still acts as if she’s thinking it over. “I suppose,” she says, dragging out the words. “As long as you say thank you to Dammon for making it.”

Callum whoops. “Yay!” Then he faces the tieflings again. “Thank you, Dammon!”

Dammon looks up to Tav and winks. She winks back. The hyperactive child quickly recaptures their attention by bouncing yet again. “Alright then.” Dammon then gets down on one knee and bows his head while holding out the wooden sword. “It was my deepest honor and pleasure, Sir Callum.”

Oh, Callum is eating this up. The newly minted knight looks back at his mother one more time, making sure he still has permission. A quick, encouraging nod from Tav lets him know he’s good to go. Callum gingerly reaches for the sword and takes it into his hands. “Wow …” he whispers.

“What do you think of the sword, soldier?” Karlach asks.

Words cannot properly express what Callum is thinking. He’s barely four years old after all. So Callum takes the sword by the hilt and holds it high above his head, shouting, “I have a sword!”

“Yes, you do,” Dammon agrees.

Karlach jumps back into her feet. “Hey! Let’s say you and I have a spar in the courtyard later, yeah?”

“Yeah!” With that, Callum starts showing off his swordsman skills, slashing and jabbing in a way only a child could. He even provides the sound effects. Tab, Karlach, and Dammon laugh along at his antics.

A scoff from the third and final visitor has everyone looking in his direction. “Wyll had better watch out,” croons a familiar voice. Tav digs her finger nails into her palms. “Our little bird here may be coming for his title as the Blade of Frontiers.”

If they thought the boy was excited at the previous company, they are immediately proven wrong. Callum’s smile shines so big and so bright, the sun may turn green with envy. It’s almost too bright for the pale elf. “Asty!” he cries.

“Hello, dear.”

Thanks for reading!!!

[umaia3aurart]

What are your thoughts over the Japanese dub of the transformer prime series? Or any tf series!

I kinda love the second opening song of the primverse

OH! This is gonna be a long post! Let me talk a lot PLSSS!! 🥺👉👈

I love the original TFP dub but I also dig the Japanese version! I often enjoy comparing the differences between them!

A lot of popular voice actors in Japan participate in the show. Some of them even did voices in the “BEAST WARS” series, which had a big fanbase in my country.

The biggest difference between the original and the Japanese version is that the latter makes a few adjustments to the characters to make them more distinctive and child-friendly. They even added some comical lines that weren’t in the original to make it more mild and relatable for children. Because the original had some pretty serious moments. So in the Japanese version, Starscream and Airachnid turned out to be the funniest characters…

Similarly, “BEAST WARS” also underwent some comical changes for similar reasons. And because of that, the show was a hit with Japanese kids back in the day. So in TFP, I'd say they also gave a nod to fans who grew up watching it.

But as you can imagine, these changes have divided opinions among fans in Japan. Tbh, I understand how both of them feel about it because I love the original vibes! That being said, the Japanese dub has a lot of adorable moments that don’t exist in the original version! Let me pick up MY BOY BREAKDOWN as an example!!!!

He has a funny childish demeanor and talks more than in the original dub. His favorite phrase is “壊すの大好き!(I love breaking things!)”

In “Deus Ex Machina,” the episode of his first appearance, he says, “あーーーごめーーーーん！！(AAAHHH I’M SOOOORYYYYYY!!!)” to Knock Out when he accidentally hits his partner's face with his hammer!

In the next episode, “Speed Metal,” when Starscream scratches Knock Out’s paint as a punishment, Breakdown breaks the fourth wall and speaks to kids in front of the TV, saying “みんなぁ！ いじめはダメだぞ��！(HEY YOU GUYS!! BULLYING IS WRONG!!)” AWW IT'S SO ADORABLE!! HES 100% A NICE GUY lmao

And surprisingly, he even sings a song sometimes... If you don't believe me, please check out “T.M.I” and “Operation Bumblebee part 2” 🥺

And Our Knock Out is even more of a narcissist than in the original. He always praises himself for how beautiful he is. He usually uses polite Japanese when talking to others, but sometimes he talks to Breakdown casually! I love how the difference in his behavior signifies that Breakdown is special to him as a friend! ( ꈍᴗꈍ) <3

In addition, the voices of Optimus and Megatron both sound younger than in the original! On the other hand, Bulkhead sounds older than in the English version. That's interesting! Oh, and did you know? Wheeljack speaks just like a samurai! This change is probably due to his two-sword style.

I especially love Japanese Ratchet. The voice actor is Nobuo Tobita, who has played many TF characters until now. His voice is really soft and gentle! Besides, he also voiced Scourge in Rise of the Beasts! Wow, he has a wide range of acting! I’m a long-time fan of his!

Oh, speaking of ROTB, let me mention Japanese Mirage’s voice actor, Shingo Fujimori! He’s a famous comedian, and his comedy style is acting like a player and a party person (or someone like that… it’s difficult to explain). He shouts things like “YOOO! GIRL, YOU’RE SO PURDYYY!” So he really fits the character of Mirage!

Oh! And you listened to “TRANSFORMERZ” by M-flo? I like the song too! The original opening theme of TFP is magnificent, so you all might be surprised at the gap between them, but such an anime style is not bad, right? It's interesting how we find different styles in different countries!Unfortunately, the show was only broadcast in Japan up to seasons 2. I wish I could have seen the entire series dubbed in Japanese...😭

I really talked for quite a while, sorry! Thank you for the question, and for taking the time to read!

[masked-disciple]

PIRANHA ROSE ATTACK!!!! 🌹🌹🌹🌹

On the days when Lord Barok van Zieks's presence was required in the judiciary of Scotland Yard, but his apprentice was not invited, a man without a name found himself sometimes given errands to run and sometimes given free time that he had no interest on spending wandering London. Instead, he would often spend it in the van Zieks manor, alone save for the two servants that generally didn't bother him for longer than making sure he remembered to eat something, and the two pets in whose names the lord and his apprentice did everything.

-from that nameless Kaz WIP, which apparently is difficult to get snippets of because apparently the Masked Disciple lives on dick jokes and black humour?? I have no memory of this. There is literally only like two paragraphs in the entire wip where he isn't making a dick joke.

Return to the land of the great dark sea Return to the tides where you'll follow me Bring home the sun and bring home the moon You've waited so long and now you'll witness us

-Witness Us; a song by the Sirinnkata, aka Sagiverse's most famous band! Very fictional, frontmanned by a mary sue of a Vocaloid and the god of darkness. Fun fact: Aoibheann is covering a couple of their songs in DGSblr, because I'm lazy and don't want to write more songs. The Sirinnkata do screwy folk-trance and heavy rock, though.

 They looked him up and down, with the air of someone faintly amused. "You're not local," they remarked, and he winced. Their voice might have been more pleasant next to someone grinding through granite, but not by much. "Gas is free if you answer a riddle, then. Bully for you." He paused, halfway through pulling out his wallet. Riddles were the last thing he wanted to think about right now, right next to anything else at all. Still, free gas didn't come around very often, and he was smart enough. He bit back a sigh. "What's your riddle, then?" He still couldn't see their face, but he felt, quite abruptly, as though they were smiling. "If I make two people out of one, what am I?" That wasn't one he'd heard before. He blinked, pausing for a second, before answering, "A mother with identical twins."

-Blow the Wind, Come the Rain; aka the tale of Bratworth running into the van Zieks brothers on the ghostroads, right when his life is crashing around his ears

“What is the status of functionality of this circuitry?” He turned towards it, still blindfolded, although it didn’t seem to be bothering him any. “Permanently nonfunctioning. It would not be efficient to attempt to restore it.” She nodded. “Admin Volatile is also permanently nonfunctional,” she answered. It hurt to phrase it like that – everyone around her could say what they liked, that he died or he passed away or he had left them, but the point was that he was gone. What difference did it make to refer to him as nonfunctional? He was still gone, and he wasn’t coming back. “Admin Volatile is… permanently offline?” 00A asked. The cadence in his voice had changed; slower, more hesitant. All right, maybe the programming on his speech was more complex than she’d given him credit for. “That is irregular.” “Tell me about it.” She dropped the circuitboard back where she’d found it, folding her arms and walking back towards her chair. “When did he go offline?” She turned to look at him again as she sat down. He was fixed on her, or appeared to be, his arms folded and shoulders leaning slightly towards her. “Does it matter?” she asked, dryly.

-Steal the Starlight Road; also known as when Kay Faraday has to explain to her father's AI assistant (who is secretly the biggest deus ex machina anyone has access to) what death is, when she brings him back online.

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Montgomery Scott

By Ames

Bust out the green booze! We’re spotlighting The Original Series’s resident miracle worker this week on A Star to Steer Her By, where we’re giving you the best and worst moments of each character in the whole dang show. We’re donning our worst Scottish accents to give you a whole bunch of moments from Scotty, whose engineering prowess is only matched by his love of scotch. If you’re going to wear a red shirt on this ship, make sure you’re the chief engineer evidently.

Since we’ve already covered the main three characters (Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are all here), finding moments to highlight from the rest of the crew of the original Enterprise is going to be more and more of a stretch. Cut us a little slack here – the writers didn’t consider the secondary characters most of the time either. See what all we came up with below, listen to this week’s discussion on the podcast (jump to 46:48), and maybe you’ll break the laws of physics too!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best Moments

The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank We see Scott in command of the Enterprise a bunch of times because Kirk and Spock are on away missions, and his emphatically no-nonsense attitude is honestly refreshing, especially compared with all the times Spock utterly fails at leading. And in “A Taste of Armageddon,” Scott figures out Anan 7 was imitating Kirk and stands up to ambassador Fox about it like a boss!

Deus ex machina, literally Despite it being utterly futile, Scotty stands up to the literal god Apollo several times in “Who Mourns for Adonais?” and it’s a little bit commendable. Sure, he gets his ass handed to him. Multiple times. But we’ve gotta give the guy credit for trying! However, as you’ll see in a minute, his motivation may not have entirely been in the right place.

I meant to say that it should be hauled away as garbage Scotty is a genuine delight throughout all of “The Trouble with Tribbles” and he really gets to shine. We learn his idea of shore leave is curling up with a good technical journal, which seems right to us. But his big scene in the commissary in which he starts a massive brawl with Klingons in defense of the name of the Enterprise is just too good not to highlight.

We did it, you and me… put him right under the table Let’s also give Scotty a lot of credit for drinking that Kelvan under the table in “By Any Other Name”! He sacrifices a bottle of very old whiskey for the cause of distracting their captors, and he came out (or really staggered out) the other side a victor. They don’t call it Constitution class for nothing!

No order can stop me from frightening them Again, Scott is left in charge of the Enterprise while the three lead characters get to have an adventure in “Bread and Circuses.” Although under orders not to interfere while orbiting Rome planet over and over, Scott agilely side steps that order by turning off the power on the surface. There was NO reason to think that nonsensical idea would help in any way, but the gamble paid off!

It's the biggest guess I've ever made! Somehow, this is the first moment of actually engineering genius that we’ve included on the list (I suppose we just consider it Scott doing his job at this point), but installing a Romulan cloaking device on the Enterprise in “The Enterprise Incident” is a step above the usual excellent job he does down in the bowels of the ship. Now you see him, now you don’t!

Oh what adventures they’d have! I’m almost saddened we never got a spin-off series that was just the adventures of Montgomery Scott and the slug baby from “The Eye of the Beholder” because that would be a lot of fun. When Scott meets this hyper-genius child, he somehow works out a compromise with its people even though none of the other crewmen could so much as communicate with them! Even Spock!

My sister’s youngest Uncle Scott’s relationship with his nephew Preston in The Wrath of Khan is really quite lovely. We don’t get to see much of it (families in Star Trek are famously fraught), which means the moments we do get of them together are touching and sweet. And then James Doohan’s acting in Preston’s death scene is sure to pull on your heartstrings, something this movie does in spades.

Amazing grace Speaking of touching scenes from The Wrath of Khan, the film culminates in not only the perfectly delivered eulogy from Kirk (which has a special place on our Kirk spotlight post), but in Scotty’s playing “Amazing Grace��� on the bagpipes while Spock’s torpedo is spat into space. The fact that this was added at Doohan’s suggestion makes it all the more beautiful.

From one surgeon to another Let’s get further into the movies, where Scott (and the other minor crewmembers) seems to have the most to actually do. All the main TOS characters commit one hell of a treason to go search for Spock in The Search for Spock, and Scott is right there with them, sabotaging the Excelsior by pulling out some of the parts of its notorious transwarp drive.

Hello, computer! The Voyage Home shows us what a crime it was throughout The Original Series that they didn’t pair McCoy and Scott together more often. They play so well off each other as they go off to find material for the trip back to the future with some whales in tow. The comedy is spot on, their timing is down to the millisecond, and their shattering the Temporal Prime Directive is… well, you’ll see.

No bloody A, B, C, or D The Next Generation found a clever way to bring Montgomery Scott into the 24th century in “Relics” and it’s a generally good time! Sure, I have a better punchline for the “it’s green” callback somewhere in our episode coverage, but Scott wrestling with being behind the times, seeking out the familiar bridge of the Enterprise, and having a heart-to-heart with Picard are all lovely moments.

—

Worst Moments

I’d like to get into her toga Despite finding Scott standing up to Apollo in “Who Mourns for Adonais?” sort of endearing because he is so outmatched, his motivation the whole episode long is that he wants to get in Palamas’s pants, even though it’s pretty clear she’s not interested in that way, and he spends the rest of the episode speaking for her and telling Apollo what she wants when she’s right there.

This unit is not perfect Not so much a bad moment for Scott through any fault of his own, but a bad moment in that it makes him look as much like a chump as he did in literally the previous episode, Scott gets freaking killed in “The Changeling” only for it to get undone when Kirk asks really nicely. It was also in defense of Uhura, whose mind had just gotten erased, but there just aren’t enough bad Scott moments, okay?

Alright then, we can do it the hard way We mentioned a handful of times in which Scott did a good job in command of the Enterprise, but sometimes he’s almost as bad as that pointy-eared hobgoblin. In “Metamorphosis,” he decides to search for the missing crew by scanning every single possible one in the 7000 bodies in an asteroid belt, which is just not how engineers solve problems! An engineer would write an algorithm or something. Yeesh.

Is your refrigerator running? Here’s another moment while Scott was in control that he just acted stupidly. In “Friday’s Child,” the Klingons set up the ruse of a false distress signal to keep the Enterprise busy while the away team is on planet, and Scott loses like a whole day to it before figuring out he’s been duped. And then we never even get to see the confrontation with Klingons on his return! What a waste!

I just need a wee bit of rest, that's all We’re scraping for crumbs to find more moments from Scott doing anything noteworthy, and I can’t help myself from bringing up the look on his face when his advanced aging is revealed in “The Deadly Years.” There's nothing wrong with the character, but “walk in and look sad” seemed like a boring sight gag to me. Then Scott barely has any lines despite being one of the affected crewmembers!

A walk in the fog with a bonny lass We’ve harped on “Wolf in the Fold” in both our Kirk and McCoy spotlights, and we’re just not done giving grief to an absolutely absurd inciting moment for an episode. Scotty is literally diagnosed with a medical case of misogyny by Doc, setting up a string of events that gets a bunch of women killed. And this show was supposed to be progressive at the time.

Where they’ll be no tribble at all… in death “The Trouble with Tribbles” is a genuinely funny episode, and the punchline at the end is meant to be a good button. But then you start thinking about it. And you realize that if Scott beamed hundreds (if not thousands) of tribbles into the engine room of a Klingon ship, they were either fried when they went to warp or brutally murdered by Klingons. And that’s less funny.

Look over there, a distraction! Here’s another one to pad out the list that I find kind of dumb. To distract Kara long enough to get a phaser from her in “Spock’s Brain,” Scott pretends to faint and it simply looks ridiculous. As if this episode isn’t bad enough, it’s also so uncreative that it uses a really half-assed plan to get out of this situation. Where’s something as creative as fizzbin when you need it?

Could it be the half a gallon of scotch? Even more half-assed is everything about “Spectre of the Gun,” which sees Scott volunteering to test a kludged tranquilizer on himself only for it not to work because his mind is too weak. Yeah, I don’t follow this train of thought either. How do they know Scott would have woken up in time? What exactly were they going to do if it did work? Force it under the Earps’ noses? Yeehaw!

I’m an engineer not a doctor We’ve already stated how sweet the relationship between Scott and Preston is in The Wrath of Khan, but I still cannot fathom why Scott brings his dying nephew to the bridge instead of sickbay after the attack. It’s only in the movie to get a reaction out of Kirk and not for any rational purpose because Scott is a professional who should know not to go many decks out of his way during a crisis.

How do we know he didn't invent the thing? I’m gonna call Jake out as a hypocrite for putting McCoy regrowing a woman’s kidney in The Voyage Home on his best moments list, but putting Scott giving Nicols the formula for transparent aluminum on his worst list, but here we are. It does break the hell out of the Temporal Prime Directive by a few more factors, so maybe it’s the negligence that makes the cut!

I know this ship like I know the back of my hand And to round things out, we finally reach The Final Frontier, which includes a joke that couldn’t even land if it had a barricade in the shuttle bay. How incompetent does Shatner think Scott is to have him literally concuss himself on a weirdly placed crossbeam (what were those crossbeams doing there anyway?)? It’s a bad punchline to a joke no one asked for and does Scotty dirty.

—

Well, we gave her all she’s got, captain. If you think some of these moments are already scraping the bottom of the barrel, imagine how creative we’re going to have to get for our Sulu spotlight. In fact, don’t imagine it; come back next week and find out! Also keep listening along to our podcast coverage of Enterprise over on SoundCloud or wherever you podcast, hail us on Facebook and Twitter, and keep your haggis out of the fire.

[ihopeyoubothstaysafefromharm]

Ask game! Share 10 different favorite characters from 10 different pieces of media in no particular order. Then send this to 10 people (anon or not, your choice). Have fun! 💖

I did this yesterday but I got a few more anon ones and also from you and @saintgarbanzo so I decided to do like an unnecessary deep dive into why I love each of the characters I listed.

Draco Malfoy fanon draco is such an excellent example of the ownership readers have over text. Stories are both the smallest unit of life and the biggest most all encompassing serious thing, and that gives readers this extraordinary authority to reject either the author's treatment of a character as a person, who has evolved from a something into a someone, or to reject the story's treatment of a character in the capacity of some benevolent omnipotent force that can pick and choose life's twists and turns. the first drarry fic i read was what we pretend we can't see and that draco is just so immediately redeemed, so fully human and idiosyncratic and such a ridiculous, likeable creature, and that impression of him followed me through everything i've read since. i've dealt with a lot of placed and unplaced guilt and shame in my life, along with this lingering feeling of having done something completely irredeemable and irreversible. i adore how fanon draco shoulders all of that and how he still manages to find a place for himself, how people find a place for him guided by this beacon of his humility and wit. when i buy new shoes i go out and get them dirty right away. i prefer worn in things. like me, like draco some things are better a little dented.

Loki like a lot of people who've ever felt pretty trans and a little feral, and orphaned in any capacity, i've always loved characters who just let themselves get as close to evil and insane as their little heart will allow. i liked loki in the comics and films, but when i started reading fics, i fell in love with this fanon dimension of him that's infinitely exposed, laid bare and waiting for love and approval. that thinks he's unfixable and smarter than anyone, and is taken aback by the effect that mundane delights and mundane heartbreaks have on him. he's also just so...sparkly. like he seems impossible not to love, and he's just tiny and brave and smart and emotional, and so broken that he's ready to resign himself to the worst punishments. but he's a part of a whole, and thor is always going to be there to miss him and love him and save him and be saved by him, and there's something so comforting about a character that can only go so far alone, because they belong to some mighty huddle.

riddler he's a crazy little lonely person who loves words, hates power structures and spends a lot of time on the internet. what's not to love

will and hannibal

i love characters who can do anything. like yes nuance and good writing and complexity are all super sexy and important and What We’re Here For but i just love when one of the characters in a ship is so competent and smart and strong that it’s a little deus ex machina-y. it’s just so charming. like how fanon hannibal is incredibly strong and knows literally everything and can keep fighting if badly injured and has infinite money and resources. it’s just so cool, there’s a child reader in me that gets a huge rush from that certainty that Things Will Probably Work Out because this character is there, no matter how bad it gets. and then in contrast to this extremely exaggerated magical man is an extremely Regular Guy will, who's anything but regular - just cutting and hilarious and insightful and Over It. And despite being shown as this traumatized, snarling little creature, he finds love and chases it literally over a cliff, because there's no tiredness and terror that would be worth losing that spark. it's so romantic. i also like couples who don't need anyone else.

5. Q

smart little gay boy. my favorite thing in fic is how hardworking he is, but also that he's always like... very social and socially apt? like he's the normal person and bond is this feral old cat that he sort of tames? it's so charming

6. crowley from good omens

i fell in love with him when i was 10 and i never stopped loving him. i love characters who fight against their heritage, but what i like in particular is that his life story is the thing i'm always most afraid of - that i've accidentally done a lot of little bad things and that this path can't ever be retraced, that i've sauntered vaguely downwards. which he has, but he discovers that it doesn't matter at all, that it's still you, and your love, wherever you are. i also love people who love deeply and desperately, ted mosby and jim from newsroom and the office and those sorts of people. crowley is one of those.

7. arthur from inception

he's extremely neat and clean and uptight. i don't like a lot of characters like that, they usually piss me off, but there's something so endearing and sometimes a little heartbreaking, how much his fanon interpretations fear disorder and feelings and how he fights against it. my favorite quote from an arthur/eames fic summarizes my love of him very well: ""I've seen things," said Arthur, because the word no made him break out in hives.""

8. jay from okja

i have a weak spot for messianic righteous characters and jay is just such a delightful iteration of one of those. i love that he wears a suit because he represents A Cause, I love that he adheres to a moral code, I love that he's violent in funny ways, and how sincere he is. i love that he protects animals. i've always wanted to have a singular cause. also i'm obsessed with translation and linguistics, and he that he thinks translation is sacred, which just absolutely kills me.

9. cherry from sk8 the infinity

like loki, cherry is a part of a whole. he's also extremely intelligent and it holds him back from certain things, from intimacy and hoping for good things for himself, which i find very touching. also, like hannibal, he's one of those characters that can do anything - his presence is sort of infinitely reassuring. i also love that he's a man with long pink hair, it makes me excited to maybe one day do that.

[steoxthiles]

*gently pats back* Much like with Sterek being more popular than any ship they tried giving Scott, with Thiam also pulling away from whatever Scott's doing...instead of writing Theo back into the story, they just added another random Hale that'll probably be a Deus ex machina, whose age already confuses the fuck out of people and the time line....and hey, they're bringing back a canonly killed off character in Allison... God, I hate Jeff even more after writing this. THEY'RE BRINGING BACK A DEAD CHARACTER instead of asking Cody back and having a living character that'll be more natural to ease into the story.......

Ok i didn’t want to say anything bc i dont want to be too mean… but i instantly came to the conclusion he wasn’t asked bc tyler posey hates being upstaged. HEAR ME OUT and this is also just based on my personal observations… tyler posey is so obviously the one who’s made this all happen, he is the star and lets face it i think tw was his biggest roll and he hasnt been in anything to great since, so like I feel like he would have say in the script/casting/story and we all know he actively hated sterek SO there is a chance he has something to do with this

Now not to hate on him bc whatever i dont know him or his intentions, and maybe its JEFF actually who wants Scott to be the center of the show with no other characters/ships stealing the spotlight IDK

regardless, cody not being asked is INSANE and tbh maybe i wont even watch this stupid thing bc what is the point without him (for me) - i was resigned to dob not being in it, yk? Hes busy, so i kinda knew in my heart he wouldn’t be in it, but i was SO EXCITED for more Theo.. to think he wants to do it but simply wasnt asked is absolutely INSANE and to me, honestly hurtful as a loyal fan of this stupid show since I was 11 (yes i was one of those people who started watching when only the first season was on netflix lmao you see why i am so invested)

On another note, i am actually kind of (very apprehensively) happy that allison is coming back lol! I thought her death was done well, but also kind of the turning point of quality for the show in my opinion.. stiles and later theo was the shining light in a confusing, unintelligible storyline that was season 4 5 and 6b. So like Allison returning is a little bit like the glimmer of light in this pile of grabage (again, in my opinion)

I am so so so disappointed and hurt by this insane decision… if he was just busy or didnt want to be in it i would be sad but id get it, but not even being asked?? This feels like a purposeful, egotistical choice on someone’s part, be it tyler jeff or the other producers. I truly hope they get over themselves and get cody involved, bc by the way he’s spoke about tw since it ended and in the interview, i really really think he wants to play Theo again

[duckielover151]

I'm pretty sure those 6 or 7 Crash Town episodes are just a little filler thing before the big Grand Prix season kicks off... But I have to say, I really like this little arc for one big reason in particular:

Because they do something that at least tries to overwrite my biggest gripe about season 3. I can't pretend I was ever all that attached to Kalin... But seeing him sulking around the town, wanting to be punished for his past actions because he feels so guilty for hurting his friends... It's a thousand times a better way to handle the past trauma than Carly's "Wouldn't you know, I woke up after it was over and can't remember a thing!"

(That's a whole rant all its own, though. Sometimes I think no one was treated worse than Carly. She was always goofy, but she got so much character development during her ordeal with the Dark Signers. And even before that, realizing she cared more about Jack's mental health than the story she'd originally been chasing. That they regress to having no relationship to speak of after season two... That her fangirl tendencies are worse than ever, doing an even worse disservice to all the progress the writers had previously made for that relationship... Ugh.)

I love 5ds, but the point where it starts to go downhill for me will always be season 3, where they just suddenly deus ex machina away all the dark, gritty details of the New Domino/Satellite society that really defined this series for me. That we're gonna pretend the 2 decades of worth of prejudice the city residents had built up towards the Satellites just magically went away once the bridge was built is some bullshit I can't get over. The gang's landlady comes by early on, complaining about the noise from them working on their bikes... She's all, "You want to be living in the streets?!" Like that's a threat. Like Crow and Yusei at least have ever known anything else. I'm not saying the whole show suddenly turns to shit or anything. There are still some really good moments, but the overall cohesiveness is gone. It's just frustrating.

[totentanz]

Shi Mei, Mo Ran, and Injustice

I finally finished Erha, and…well. I’m not sure how I feel about it. I think there are a lot of interesting themes running through it regarding redemption and forgiveness and how do we determine what is just and what is cruel, and yet I feel that those ideas are never interrogated to the extent that they could be. The respective endings of Shi Mei/Hua Binan and Mo Ran leave me feeling a bit cold, mostly because both of their story lines directly touch on these themes and yet they don’t quite seem to know what they want to say about them? They’re just kind of left hanging?

(Fair warning, this isn’t really a structured meta and it doesn’t really reach any grand conclusions; it’s mostly me just rambling on about some thoughts I had.)

So, the atrocity within the cultivation world that really sets the novel’s entire plot in motion is the systematic dehumanization and exploitation of the Butterfly Boned Beauty Clan. The beauties are a race descended from demons that cultivators see as being good for only two things: serving as human cauldrons to increase cultivation (so basically, get raped so their rapists can increase their spiritual power) or being eaten outright or having their bodies harvested to turn into high-level medicines.

Hua Binan wants this to end. He wants his people to return to the Demon Realm, where they’ll have access to their spiritual power and won’t have to worry about being bred like livestock and cannibalized. The kicker is that doing so requires the Path of Martyrdom, which has to be constructed from the flesh, blood, and bone of so many people that it basically requires killing pretty much everyone in the world. One atrocity begets another; in order to save his people from murder, Hua Binan commits murder on a massive scale. And yet Hua Binan’s path is thematically similar to what Mo Ran did to his childhood tormentors—Mo Ran killed everyone in the Drunken Jade Pavilion, either with a machete or by burning them alive after he set the building on fire, and he didn’t discriminate between the ones who had directly harmed him and the ones who just happened to be there.There’s a definite parallel in how these characters are responding to violence with more violence, yet one of them is spared while one of them is crushed.

Just as Mo Ran’s actions led to his new life as a young master at Sisheng Peak, Hua Binan is about to achieve a new life within the Demon Realm. His machinations finally allow him to forge the Path of Martyrdom, the gates to the Demon Realm open, and the Butterfly Boned Beauties are allowed to go home. And then comes the kicker: Hua Binan’s father is descended from a god, and so he cannot be allowed to enter the demon realm. The doors to the demon realm begin to close, heedless of the beauties who have yet to enter (regardless of whether or not those beauties have any god blood!), and Hua Binan, desperate to save his people, pulls on his newly unlocked spiritual power to hold the doors open just long enough for the rest of his people to pass through to safety, then he’s brutally crushed.

On the one hand, it’s easy to say that Hua Binan got what he deserved. The Path of Martyrdom was brutal, built on the blood and bone of everyone regardless of whether they deserved to be sacrificed or not (and who can possibly be the judge of that?), and Hua Binan has responded to the genocide of his people by instigating another genocide. He shouldn’t be rewarded for killing everyone in the world, and his choice to die for the sake of his people but not reap the benefits of mass murder is fitting.

But if Hua Binan gets what he deserved, then I have trouble with how Mo Ran’s story line plays out. Their death scenes are remarkably similar: Mo Ran/Taxian Jun maintains the Black Tortoise Spirit Foundation in order to allow the cultivators to pass through the Gate of Time and Space and Life and Death to safety, just as Hua Binan held open the door to the demon realm to allow the beauties to pass through; and just like Hua Binan’s body was slowly crushed by the closing doors, his own body slowly dissolves into dust. Both of them sacrifice themselves to ensure the safety of others.

Yet Mo Ran is ultimately spared. He’s spared because he was a Butterfly Boned Beauty all along, even if he didn’t know it—because of course, he’s a super special Butterfly Boned Beauty who didn’t have the physical giveaway of crying golden tears but has the ability to cultivate an incredibly strong golden core. There’s something about this that just feels a bit too neat and tidy. Mo Ran is a Butterfly Boned Beauty, but he can safely pass as a regular cultivator and didn’t feel the same fear that constantly tore into Hua Binan. Mo Ran can stay within the Demon Realm, embrace his heritage as a Butterfly Boned Beauty, and live an extended lifespan because he did so much to aid the beauties. And yet, everything that he did for them—the Forbidden Techniques, the creation of chess pieces to create the Path of Martyrdom—was ultimately done at the behest of Hua Binan. Mo Ran has never dedicated himself to the cause of the beauties to the same extent that Hua Binan did and has never taken their cause as his own. He felt bad for Song Qiutong at the auction, but we never really see him engaging with the systematic exploitation of an entire group of people outside of this incident.

And Mo Ran’s grace isn’t based on an idea of morality being rewarded. The Demon Realm doesn’t care if he killed a bunch of people under someone else’s control or not; it doesn’t care if he killed people at all, as long as it’s done for a purpose the demons agree with. Mo Ran being a beauty feels like a deus ex machina in the worst sort of way, a last minute addition to tie the plot work even if it isn’t thematically integrated.

And Shi Mei? The last one of the Butterfly Boned Beauties who were exploited for so long, who lost his eyesight and didn’t return to the Demon Realm? The last we hear of him, he’s wandering the world as a blind cultivator, living a life of atonement, calling himself a sinner, and healing others with his own flesh. Did he get what he deserved? He let Chu Wanning go and dedicated his life to helping others, but is he truly free of the fear that has followed him his entire life? If word gets out that he’s the last beauty, will he be hunted down and harvested like his kin, even after everything else he’s done? We don’t know.

And that’s the thing: we never find out if the rest of the world ever reckons with the harm it’s done to the Butterfly Boned Beauty Clan. Honestly, one of my biggest frustrations with the beauties is that they are the point around which the entire plot revolves, and yet there is so little time actually spent on them—we get Song Qiutong’s auction scene, Hua Binan’s info dump to Chu Wanning, and that’s pretty much it. One of the questions that I feel that Erha could have really engaged is if genocide really needs to be responded to with genocide—were there other options that the beauties could take?

Erha rests on a backdrop of societal injustice and exploitation, and yet it never commits to actually addressing it. It’s leaving me frustrated. It’s such a big question, and yet it never really asks the readers to engage with it. Mo Ran is forgiven! Hua Binan gets his comeuppance! Shi Mei is...who knows! It’s wrapped up so neatly, when these themes are anything but neat.

[genshinconfessions]

I feel like the whole Inazuma act was sadly weak compared to the two first archon quests. There was a lot going on but it also seemed to barely have any relations with one another. My biggest turn off to the story arc was signora in general because,, she had nothing to do in Inazuma??

It was a great opportunity to bring back Scaramouche for newer players and shape up his story and motives, or even have him directly confront Raiden because he's one of, if not the most relevant harbingers for the region.

Or have to convince Raiden not to kill her or hell, have a character (I was hoping Venti just appearing because I'm all about the idea he doesn't want to hurt Signora because he feels guilty of the whole Ronstam(?) thing) save her. She was not the main villain of the story for her to die.

SPOILERS FOR INAZUMA ARCHON QUEST!

totally agreed! i felt like the whole 'scaramouche is the og puppet/undying vessel' was SO glossed over like ??? sorry he's WHAT??? and we only find out at the very end talking with yae???

i actually enjoyed signora's appearance because if she was behind all three nations' plots, then it means she's certainly a significant character, significant enough to drive the plot. but the fact she died is just... i agree that she wasn't relevant enough to die, or at the very least she shouldn't have died HERE. hell, how hard would it have been to have her transform into butterflies or smth and rush out of the door???

but i guess mihoyo might have other plans in mind. maybe signora's death was actually the catalyst for a bunch of other stuff? we know that she studied at the academy in sumeru, so maybe something will show up there? i'm also anticipating a lisa callback because as we know, lisa was the best student the academy had seen in 200 years. (i wonder who it was before her... 👀)

personally, my biggest problem with the inazuma story was the thing that you mentioned first, that it was disjointed. ayaka was pretty consistent but she wasn't important except to give us a safe place and send thoma deus ex machina us out of situations (thoma was ACTUALLY the thread that held everything together lmao). yoimiya stopped showing up? like, even when we went to get the fireworks from her, it was so... cursory, you know? she showed up because she had to but she didn't play a part in anything. we never became friends with sayu, kokomi and gorou really might as well have been NPCs lol, and the plot just felt so rushed.

like why did we spend time showing off our archery skills to teppei (pt2) instead of, idk, getting to know gorou? or something? and then we spent a lot of time in pt3 running errands for kokomi.... istg we had to keep going back and forth and i was like GIRLIE STOP.

honestly like i've said many times by now, the only characters who were relevant were traveller, kujou sara, raiden, yae, and thoma. literally everyone else could have been cut and it would have still been a full story. i'm really sorry i just, kokomi and gorou were so useless 😭😭😭 i really really hope mihoyo has more plans like idk maybe an epilogue or another chapter of we will be reunited that deals with everyone we didn't see enough of because

first off, beidou and kazuha randomly showing up in the fight between the resistance and the kujou clan was SO uncalled for and like yeah they're our backup army i guess but what'd they do afterwards??? nothing!!! also again kokomi and gorou might as well have been NPCs and that's just not fair to them or us.

i am sorry for ranting about this yet again LOL

- katheryne from liyue

[ladyandtheghost]

I love your blog and especially reading your metas. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how things could have ended if we had Political!Jon and I thought you would be one of the people to ask. I can picture him pretending to bend the knee so he can get Dany’s help during the fight against the dead...but then like what happens after? In the show, they fucked up and made him completely loyal to her (up until the end) when it could have been so interesting. Would he have betrayed her before going to King’s Landing? Afterwards? Would he have used the fact that he was the Targaryen heir to make her back down and let the North be independent? What do you think?

Hi Anon, thanks for bringing up these very interesting questions :) 

I always felt that Political!Jon was implied even up to the very end, which makes it even more unfathomable that they wanted us to believe Jon was loyal to her and thought her a “good queen” all this time. 

After securing her help (which honestly is not even a shitty reason to just feign loyalty, considering they were in a life-or-death situation) I always thought Jon was so focused on the WW threat that he pushed all thoughts away of what would happen after. He bent the knee in the dragon pit and slept with her - two things he did not *have* to do but that he knew would clearly *please* her to the point of HER being loyal to him and to his people. 

It was so brilliant in fact, because it actually made Jon appear “smarter than Robb”, with the opposite move to Robb’s spurning the marriage alliance he did not want. Jon went with it, he went to bed with a woman he did not love in order to forge an alliance and secure help for his people. There was no malice in it (like D stans always accuse us of) just pure desperation, he needed those dragons and he needed her to be focused and fully committed to saving them (and leave Cersei be for a while). 

Political!Jon would never have been blind to all the red flags of Dany being a tyrant, watching her in Dragonstone and later finding out what she did to Lannister soldiers and the Tarlys. In S7 they were showing us Jon’s reactions to her awful behaviour: he was having none of it, it was clear that he neither admired her nor liked her much. Now, the “rescue” was supposed to have changed that, but why? How did this one act of her playing Deus Ex Machina cancel out everything else he knew and felt about her? Jon all but warned Missandei that Dany would never let her go, he knew what she was like...

So Jon was supposed to have seen Dany clearly for the first time here, when in truth it seemed much more like he saw her dragons in action clearly for the first time. He saw their power and how they wiped out masses of WW. It even ties up with Quaithe’s prophecy: 

“They shall come day and night to see the wonder born into the world again. And when they see they shall lust... for dragons are fire made flesh... and fire is power."

And here’s where the show got it ALL wrong: Jon DID lust. Jon lusted for the dragons and their power against the WW. But the show wanted us to only believe that Jon lusted for Dany. You know, like a guy who thinks with his dick even in a precarious situation. Like Robb and like Tyrion. Jon WANTING those dragons made SO much sense - not only to save his people, but also because he’s a Targ and there is some degree of that dragon-obsession inside him - and yet instead of acknowledging Jon’s true nature and intentions that made all the sense in the world, the show opted to insert the spirit of horny Dany-fanboys into the character of Jon. Because that’s what they thought made the show so popular. Because hero must be lusting after the hottest girl on the show, right? 

God forbid that he was only planning to use her dragons for his campaign...

When Jon took her hand and called her “Dany” and “his queen” on the ship, and then ominously said “they will see you for WHAT you are” that was Political!Jon to the highest degree. That was Jon utilising what he’s learned from, well, Sansa. Flattering the monster, giving it nice names, pretending to buy into their bullshit and making it appear as if you are just the dumbest person for them. 

(Not to mention that “for WHAT you are” I will never get over how dark that hit)

And even in S8, I feel there was still an implication of Political!Jon hanging in the air, for example the fact that Jon NEVER stood up for Dany, singing her praises - Tyrion has to do that. And then there is Sansa...Sansa who KNOWS

Seriously, Sansa straightout *asks* Jon whether he loves Dany or kisses her ass to secure help for the North. 

Sansa literally: Are you Political!Jon or Stupid!Jon? 

Jon: *cricket sounds*

Why not just confirm it? Why beat around the bush? Why cut away at this pivotal moment. And I think I can speak for the Jonerys community in this one instant who must have screamed with frustration that they did not get the confirmation they wanted so badly. The show still implied that Jon might have been thinking politically rather than with his genitals. 

The biggest WAIT WHAT? moment, however, was this: 

Dany just confirmed that Jon succeeded in convincing her to (momentarily) give up her war against Cersei to fight “Jon’s war” - and deadass asks “Tell me who manipulated whom?” And OMG I need whoever directed that scene to explain Sansa’s reaction to me because it makes zero sense unless it’s supposed to confirm that Sansa in that moment understands that Jon *did* manipulate Dany and that he does *not* love her or became stupid for her. 

When I saw this scene for the first time, I screamed because it was such a huge hint at Political!Jon and Sansa’s reaction was literally all of us being relieved that Jon is NOT stupid. 

The thing is, even after The Long Night, it still made sense for Jon to go South and help with the war against Cersei, seen as Cersei was the more ‘immediate’ threat to the North (and Sansa in particular). So that was still within the lines of what could be excused...

And then it went to pot...

There is no way in hell that Jon Snow would silently stand by as Dany burns Varys. He may not be able to prevent it, but S1-7!Jon would have *said* something at least, he would have looked away or criticized her it. He would certainly not have condoned it. 

And it only gets worse from here on out: In what universe would Jon seriously make excuses for someone who just burned a million innocent people for no other reason but their own satisfaction. 

I know they were trying to instil some kind of “conflict” in Jon, to make him feel torn between his duty towards Dany and his love for his family, but Lord, it was not a good look for him. 

Jon trying to defend her actions and making excuses for her to Arya and then Tyrion was some of the dumbest and most insane dialogue every written on this show and I strongly feel that a little part of GRRM died inside at that moment. 

So for me, Political!Jon was still possible up to the very last episode, when two characters had to *explain* to Jon the difference between good and bad and what is acceptable behaviour. Adding insult to injury, Tyrion even compared his own “love” (read: lust) for Dany to Jon’s as if they were both just a couple of simps who had been fooled by a hot woman. 

Political!Jon was always a covert concept, something lying underneath, a possibility for something more interesting that what was being presented on the surface. That used to be the strength of GoT: the unexpected plot twists and turns. 

But it still makes me hopeful for the books, because GRRM *is* indeed taking his good old time to do things properly and to create a multi-layered story. Who knows Political!Jon might be a part of that story...

Thanks you for the kind message and great question, Anon :) 

[olivemeister]

OKAY NEO THOUGHTS NOW THAT I’VE BEATEN IT AND HAD TIME TO MARINATE. no spoilers for another day bc i haven’t finished it yet, but i did go “no, why shan’t i? i have the internet” and watched the secret endings on youtube so those and the secret reports will be discussed. yeah. so here’s some thoughts. i’m going to talk a lot about the more contentious things, i think. and again i haven’t finished another day so nothing to do with that, but of course major ending spoilers for the main scenario.

these are my opinions both as a writer and a media consumer, so there’s kinda two levels here. it is very freeform “as i think of it” structurally so my sincerest apologies if it’s all over the place. i am trying to keep specific topics confined rather than splattering the same plot point/whatever all through the post, but it’s not like i’m posting a peer-revied academic essay here. it’s also fucking enormous and i would say sorry but that would be a lie.

the majority of the game, i actually really enjoyed. the localization was excellent and i can’t praise it enough. i know people threw fits over the “horrible overstep” of... teenagers using slang. but did you know, in real life, teenagers use slang? even in japan, there’s slang? wild but true! the dialogue was great, and while i can’t say much re: the jp cast since i played in english, the newcomers for the english cast were spectacular. i actually think the newcomers were, in some cases, stronger than the returning cast. even in characters where i didn’t like the voice (nagi had to grow on me, i admit it), they were a fantastic match for the character’s personality.

the emotional beats re: character deaths, typically, landed the way i think the writers wanted; kanon’s death in week 3 had me devastated even though i could see it coming a mile away. i think that’s a testament to the best parts of the writing; as soon as i understood how the current game was being run, i knew it was fairly inevitable that every other team would eventually lose. odds would be that, barring something like someone changing teams or a team merger, the majority of the other teams would be completely wiped out. i knew far in advance that kanon would likely not make it to the end of the story, but it still fucked me up when it finally happened not just because i cared about kanon, but also because of how much the other characters cared about her. some character deaths affected me far less, of course. i think kanon was the epitome of “this hit exactly as hard as the writers wanted it to”, but i do feel they fell short with others. ayano’s lack of development really hurt my ability to be saddened by her death, especially when it was so clear that she set up her own possession as a trap for shoka. it undermined things for shoka in general, because while she was devastated to lose ayano, the game did a poor job at making their relationship tangible and meaningful. i felt worse (not necessarily sadder, just worse) about motoi’s death, and i didn’t like motoi. speaking of him...

the biggest issue i have with the game is a chronic square enix issue. kubo is the Man Pulling The Strings, whatever, this is fine. the problem is that he, minamimoto, motoi, and arguably susukichi are the only characters in the game with dark skin. they are all morally grey at best. i don’t think i need to elaborate on why this is an issue. we’re not going to pretend that racism and colorism don’t exist in japan. i’m just going to say that all of the dark-skinned characters are either totally evil, excessively violent, and/or morally dubious. this is my biggest qualm, but i don’t feel it needs more elaboration. yes, i know motoi turns it around in the end. yes, i know susukichi ultimately changes sides as well, and he’s ultimately portrayed as sympathetic. minamimoto is........ his own beast. but the fact remains that we don’t get a single major character who’s darker and unambiguously heroic.

second big issue is that while i understand the decision to keep shiki off camera until the very end for emotional impact, i feel like this was to the detriment of the story and to the detriment of said impact. she was mentioned, sure, and she was briefly seen from the shoulders down in a cutscene long before her introduction, but i feel that this was ultimately for the worse. her absence in the plot made her a borderline non-entity that can easily leave the audience going “why should i care about this?” on what’s supposed to be a huge emotional cathartic moment. yes, people should know this is a sequel and neku and shiki’s friendship was a crucial part of the original game, and much of the endgame of neo makes no sense if you’re unfamiliar with the original, but their interactions in the ending felt incredibly shallow. and i think this is because of how little shiki appears and how isolated she is from her other friends. eri is unseen and unmentioned. she doesn’t interact with rhyme. she hardly interacts with beat, using him as a translator at best. her other relationships are just... stagnant at best, ignored at worst, and despite having had just as vital of a role in the first game as beat did, she does nothing of import onscreen. her only narrative actions are “fix mr mew (mentioned but not seen)” and “be sad about neku”. so, functionally...

for some reason (we know why) the story decided that the only thing that was important to shiki was seeing neku. but by holding off on this reveal of her, we lost the impact that their meeting could have had. because the game refused to show her it didn’t show how much his absence was affecting her, which leaves their reunion feeling incredibly hollow. shiki was gone for upwards of 90% of the game. if not for the first game, this reunion would mean nothing; the narrative does a terrible job of reminding the audience that neku and shiki have a strong relationship and i don’t know if it’s that they expected the first game to have done the heavy lifting, or they thought that what neo gave us was good rather than “good enough”. imo this was an enormous failure and i wish we had gotten more for her both as part of the plot and as a character.

this was an issue present with rhyme as well imo, though to a lesser degree. i think they should have given up the ghost much sooner on confirming that the shadowed figure was rhyme; it was obvious by the time they showed us her silhouette, so i don’t know why the narrative held off on showing her. they didn’t have to introduce her to rindo (or give her the name splash screen) yet, but people who played the first game and are paying attention know it’s rhyme, so why bother hiding her? most of what rhyme accomplishes in this game is off-camera as well, but she has double the screen time that shiki gets.

the shiki thing is another symptom of a common squeenix problem these days, which is poorly-handled implied romantic interests. and i think that was also present with how the end of the game treated shoka. rindo and shoka as an implied romance in general did not bother me; more than a lot of squeenix protags, and perhaps primarily because of the excellent job the english cast did, i actually was unbothered by the suggestion of budding romantic feelings because it felt genuine. they actually felt like a pair of teenagers who were starting to be interested in each other, trying to play it cool and prioritize. this, and shoka’s characterization in general, is really helped by the reveal of swallow’s identity; it retroactively heightens her closeness to rindo specifically and offers enormous insight into her decision to help the team covertly. however, i think this budding implied romance was severely undermined by having other characters comment on it, especially because it felt so out of place timing-wise whenever someone commented. it was never warranted; there are times where they seem to be... not flirting, but not doing a good job of pretending there isn’t an interest. this is not when comments come. the comments come when they are having a totally normal interaction that does not suggest any non-platonic feelings whatsoever.

up until the final day, i had fairly ambivalent feelings about the idea of them as the designated hetero pairing. i felt it was a vast improvement from recent shoehorned romances in squeenix properties. the ending made things much more contentious to me, specifically how shoka is vanished by joshua. the audience should at least have the suspicion that he’s reviving her, but the circumstances surrounding it are the problem more than joshua being a deus ex machina. it’s not the first time joshua was a troll re: reviving someone, but the context of why shoka’s revival is necessary is, well... unnecessary.

they barely foreshadow the shinjuku rules re: reapers, and i will freely admit it’s not remotely ooc for shoka to hide something like that until she can’t any more. but they seem to be just a contrived excuse for shoka to be taken away... and from the framing of it, not from the player, but from rindo. which, i don’t know that i need elaborate on why i wasn’t fond of that. and i won’t lie - i know everybody beefed it in those cutscenes, including beat and neku. but when the dissonance noise grabbed shoka it gave me the exact same vibe as the demon tide grabbing kairi in kh3, and i don’t think i need to elaborate more on why that would put a bad taste in my mouth and make me fearful for shoka’s future treatment in the game. i was worried that the narrative was going to yank her away from rindo like a prize being snatched from him, and it did! while i do also think it’s ic for joshua to fuck around the way he did when reviving her, it also seems contrived and brings up a major question.

if shoka is still playing by shinjuku rules, why does shibuya’s composer have the ability to overturn her erasure? yes, i know, shinjuku is gone, but its composer is still active. surely joshua having the authority to do what he did indicates that on a cosmic bureaucracy level, shoka is a shibuya reaper. the secret reports offer a potential that joshua exploited a loophole by waiting until the second after the shinjuku rules resulted in shoka’s soul being dissolved in order to snatch it up, so perhaps the explanation is that her erasure meant she was technically no longer a shinjuku reaper and no longer beholden to its rules. but that doesn’t answer a different question that honestly bothers me more than the admittedly sorta insignificant question of whether or not joshua overstepped in reviving shoka.

shinjuku’s game has ended because shinjuku has ended; why are its rules still in play for former shinjuku reapers? i am aware that shiba is the conductor “legally” and he has made changes to shibuya’s game, but they’re careful to specify that the “ex-reapers are erased at the end of the game” rules are from shinjuku and do not apply to shibuya reapers. is she considered by the higher plane to be joshua’s underling and not hazuki’s? the secret reports confirm that the transfer of personnel from the destroyed shinjuku to shibuya was authorized by the acting conductor (uzuki) and this is standard procedure, everything was done properly. so “legally” the formerly-shinjuku reapers are shibuya reapers, right? hanekoma notes in particular that it’s a culture clash leading to the shinjuku reapers being designated as such and that they’re only nominally shinjuku reapers. why are a defunct game’s rules still active?

the biggest issue is that shoka’s threat of erasure was unnecessary from a narrative perspective, especially given how quickly it’s introduced and resolved. what was the point of putting this in the story if five minutes later the issue is just dealt with, no effort, minimal tension, by a (narratively speaking, don’t come after me joshua fans) minor character who doesn’t even appear until after the plot is resolved? i honestly wonder if it was just the writers deciding joshua needed to do something so that his appearance in the ending wasn’t just shallow fanservice for people who wanted to see the original gang. joshua’s lack of action is also presumably going to be contentious with fans; i’ve read the secret reports, and i don’t feel that they sufficiently justify why he doesn’t make any moves to protect his city despite being positioned both in his own dialogue and the secret reports as someone opposing shibuya’s purification. i will talk about this a little later re: kubo’s motivations though.

i also think it’s kind of stupid that joshua sets up “find her and you win” and then... rindo doesn’t do anything in that regard. he just bumps into her in the scramble. i know i already said i hate the idea of her being a prize to be won in a game but if they’re going to set it up, why make it pointless in that regard? it feels so unnecessary. joshua portrays shoka’s revival/return as something to be earned, and unlike the ending of twewy there’s no recognition that he was actually just fucking with them.

this is similar to my mixed feelings about kubo’s defeat. on one hand, i wanted to smash his face in personally, i have hated him the entire game. on the other hand, having him jesus beamed and rewritten out of existence without any warning or chance to resist was fucking hilarious and i actually laughed out loud. my speculation as to why he didn’t get a boss fight is that developers worried about people having trouble suspending disbelief over the party being able to defeat an angel. ultimately i think the only way this could have been done was to have it be a boss battle where your victory doesn’t matter, like the week 1 fight with susukichi, and have hazuki curbstomp kubo in the post-battle cutscenes. ultimately, i feel like this was a lesser of two evils; i don’t think the “you lose in the cutscene” approach would have necessarily been significantly better than what we got, i recognize that “the battle didn’t matter and you lose in the cutscene after” is a contentious game trope. and i would understand people struggling to accept the cast defeating a being from a higher plane without intervention from said higher plane. the only benefit would be the catharsis of getting to slap kubo around, which admittedly i kind of miss. having him as a secret boss was an option i guess but i think it would bring more questions than it was worth.

kubo’s motivation is also just bizarre; i understand that it’s given as him getting overzealous after carrying out his orders to purify shinjuku, but why? i feel like this could have easily been fixed/rationalized by “shinjuku’s surviving reapers fled to shibuya, leading kubo to consider shibuya to be an extension of shinjuku”, but that’s solely speculation. i do not know why kubo decided to also start an inversion in shibuya. they didn’t give me enough information. his conflict with joshua is inexplicable and almost entirely offscreen via the secret reports. i do not feel like i have a grasp on why the plot of the game even happened. hazuki’s involvement is iffy; i can’t say whether he initially approved of kubo’s overstep and changed his mind, or if he just took his time collecting his errant underling. the secret reports suggest the former, and hanekoma noting that the contentious nature of the previous game’s events gives a speculative explanation for why no action was taken if hazuki was actually making moves against shibuya rather than kubo being out of line. hazuki could damn well have been lying, there’s a precedent for composers being full of shit and telling bold-faced lies to protagonists, though in the previous game these lies were all eventually uncovered. this leaves me to believe that ultimately, hazuki’s statements regarding kubo acting outside of his given authority were mostly honest. but what i don’t understand is why joshua took such a hands-off approach.

yes, he says he figured the main cast had it under control and would have stepped in had things gotten worse, but this appearance and statement comes long after rindo fails and shibuya is destroyed in multiple timelines. why did he not step in in the first timeline? i can speculate, but the game and secret reports do not do a great job in explaining why the proxy vs. proxy game even happened in the first place. kubo is hazuki’s underling, which makes joshua higher in the pecking order than kubo. if hazuki was capable of exorcising kubo instantaneously, why didn’t joshua just flick him off the board like a flea before he even got started trying to cause an inversion in shibuya? in the epilogue of a new day joshua is seen in conversation with hanekoma, who’s taking shinjuku’s inversion seriously, which seems at odds with how easily his fellow composer ends the problem.

retroactively, i guess i could rationalize this as him realizing that either shinjuku’s composer must be responsible for said inversion or that potentially shinjuku’s composer has been compromised in some way. and i can rationalize him failing to immediately jesus beam kubo as well - it’s possible that, as kubo was initially acting under the orders of another composer (assuming hazuki is still technically “legally” one/at the bureaucratic level of one), joshua’s hands were somewhat tied re: what actions he could take without potential consequences. it could be that joshua would get in big trouble if he took disciplinary action against another composer’s underling, but 1. the legal transfer of personnel should mean kubo is joshua’s underling, not hazuki’s, see the shoka problem 2. hazuki’s status as a composer is questionable given that his territory is now purified and its game is defunct 3. given that kubo was acting outside of his original composer’s turf and outside of his initial orders (purify shinjuku) at this point i feel like that isn’t likely. it could be that he was trying to avoid a conflict with hazuki himself. it may be that he considered it hazuki’s responsibility to retrieve kubo, but that’s at odds with him choosing a proxy to combat kubo’s and his claims that he totally would have done something, really, he swears. they don’t give us much info at all as to why joshua entered a game with kubo in the first place. i have reason to believe that something’s fishy in the secret reports, and i would like to see the japanese text, which i’ll mention again in a few paragraphs.

i know the absence of shibuya’s composer is partially, and perhaps primarily, “there wouldn’t be a plot if joshua fixed it”. but it really feels like they just kinda tucked joshua in the corner and hoped fans wouldn’t be like “hey where is shibuya’s composer and why is no one mentioning them?” that part is probably for the same reason we don’t see shiki until the very ending, teasing the audience by holding off on revealing him until the last second, but it’s jarring to me that shiki is mentioned but neither neku, beat, nor any of the reapers (!) think “we should contact the composer”. even if just to say “we can’t contact the composer, he is unreachable”! i guess it’s to avoid people remembering how significant joshua is and thinking too hard about it, because joshua is simply too powerful of a character to be running around freely. the plot falls apart when you have a character who’s so strong and, in his own words, kind of omnipotent, who could trivialize the conflict in an instant if he took action.

i feel like they surely could have given a more explicit reason for him to not be involved in the story, even if it’s a reason like “he’s in trouble with the higher plane”. which could have easily been set up! hanekoma is clear in his reports that shibuya’s impurification is highly contentious in the higher plane; people are big mad about it, potentially people higher in the chain of command than a composer. this could have been easily utilized as an explanation for why joshua is hands-off; he’s on a shit list and needs to step carefully as a result. but it’s just not addressed. hanekoma is unreachable according to his reports, and he notes that people are trying to contact him for help. are we just to assume that people have looked for joshua to ask for help in the past but it was so long ago that it isn’t even worth mentioning now to the newcomers? according to other reports, the higher ups are pissed with joshua about his game with kitaniji and are turning a blind eye to what’s happening with kubo in shibuya as a result. but this doesn’t explain why the members of the shibuya UG never discuss the composer. hanekoma’s reports have him confused as to joshua’s lack of action as well; he knows the context of what’s going on in shibuya but doesn’t understand why joshua is staying silent.

that said! the fact that hazuki’s motive for the destruction of shinjuku is never stated does not bother me too much. he’s placed in a position very parallel to joshua in the first game, and he even says he felt like he was following in josh’s footsteps. when you add his seemingly-genuine inability to understand why people care about shibuya, i feel there’s enough evidence to... not dismiss, but nudge this aside as “He Too is a misanthropic bastard”; shinjuku’s destruction is a parallel to the intended destruction of shibuya in the first game. hazuki just carried on where joshua had a change of heart. the secret reports complicate this; it might be that someone fucked up in transcribing, but the reports i read online state that shibuya’s composer, i.e. joshua, was responsible for the destruction of shinjuku due to a game with kubo. this does not make sense given everything else, including hazuki’s own statements and later reports, so i’m setting that aside for the moment as either an uncaught mistake either in translation or transcription online (most likely) or hanekoma not knowing the actual truth until receiving the post-purification shinjuku reports. hanekoma also suggests that hazuki’s goal was also the purification of shibuya, but as he’s not shibuya’s composer this is certainly not his jurisdiction so i’m curious as to what exactly happened there.

EDIT: i’ve been informed by a helpful anon that this is not a mistranslation, the japanese secret reports do state that it was a game involving joshua that resulted in shinjuku’s inversion. with that in mind, i have figured out how to rationalize this and it solves a lot of problems: if it was a proxy game between joshua and kubo, then joshua must have been the opposition to shinjuku’s inversion. though you could argue that joshua is responsible for the end result, he didn’t destroy shinjuku; his proxy lost, probably because kubo’s had the support of shinjuku’s composer. kubo’s overconfidence in running rampant in shibuya is now explicable and he may have been trying to rub it in that joshua lost.

if hazuki was still backing kubo post-shinjuku, this could explain why hazuki felt he could make decisions about shibuya’s fate and wander around it; joshua had already overstepped onto his turf to meddle in purification, so he was returning the favor. at this point in time, i figure that joshua’s proxy was either tsugumi’s brother (shinjuku’s conductor) or coco (she’s noted to have inexplicable powers for a rank-and-file reaper, but joshua’s opposition to her killing of neku throws this into question), and if we truly had a scrapped “shinjuku’s final game” plot then joshua’s proxy could also have been neku. kubo’s proxy was presumably shiba. this actually answers a few questions that i couldn’t rationalize when i assumed joshua was uninvolved (why would shinjuku’s composer be running a game against kubo when they wanted the same thing?), so i’m gonna chalk it up as an absolute win.

i think hishima as a character was... sort of nothing. he was just there. yeah, it was kinda funny how he dressed shiba down, but i don’t know that the plot needed him. his role in the endgame could have easily been given to tsugumi without much fuss, and i feel tsugumi deserved a much bigger part in the narrative given how much she was hyped up by solo and final remix. she was so prominent and anticipated that the fans called her hype-chan for years before we had a name for her. this could also be folded into the problem with hiding shiki until the very end; it feels like we missed a whole sequence with both of these characters simply because the narrative refused to show us shiki. instead, we’re told that shiki showed up and fixed mr. mew, and somehow this freed tsugumi. i think the fact that they don’t even give a flashback of this crucial event after shiki’s proper introduction is just a questionable decision. the story tells us that tsugumi’s release from the plushie is of the utmost importance and shiba can’t be swayed without her, setting it up as a vital event, but it happens offscreen with no real interaction with the main cast. it also only happens after multiple failed loops, even though rindo’s interference is what prevents the meeting between coco and shiki to repair the plushie. i don’t understand this from a logistical standpoint; if coco isn’t pulled to escort rhyme, she must have met with shiki and released tsugumi in timely manner, but tsugumi does not appear until after you replay to get coco back to her original schedule. you could wave it off as “she didn’t get there fast enough”, but i can’t accept that as a reason given the circumstances; it’s not like she would have to look hard to find shiba. this one’s flawed writing; i know in a meta sense why she didn’t appear, it was to build tension etc etc, but in-universe it’s a plot hole.

coco being so absent from the plot is also somewhat conspicuous. i wonder what reception of her was like in japan and if that influenced her lack of presence in the story. i honestly don’t even know if she was received well by the english audience, all i know is that i did not like her at all in final remix. not from an “i don’t like the villain because they’re doing bad things” perspective, from an “i don’t find this character compelling and i think they’re annoying” perspective. also curious as to whether or not her speech patterns changed in the japanese dialogue since final remix; i found her far less jarring and obnoxious in neo and i think it’s enormously because she stopped talking verbally in internet shorthand. overall, coco’s retool was imo a change for the better, but she’s barely there for me to appreciate how much of an improvement she was. it feels like there’s an entire narrative we were set up for by a new day, yet it’s almost completely missing. the ending of a new day laid out this framework for neku and minamimoto to be forced allies in an unseen future game. i had mixed feelings about this conceptually, but the narrative setup was fairly transparent. not only does this not happen, coco’s motivation in a new day and what ultimately happened were so lacking to me.

i feel like something got lost and we were originally going to actually see and perhaps play the shinjuku game that ended in disaster instead of just getting a summation and brief flashbacks of the survivors fleeing. this kinda ties in with my complaints about how hyped tsugumi was by solo and final remix, and then she turned out to have a very small (albeit crucial, via her trailer ability) and mostly unseen role in neo’s story. retroactively we learn that rindo’s visions are from tsugumi, but this is something she does entirely off-screen. all of coco’s scheming was for nothing, because joshua was a deus ex machina and whisked neku away the second he died. this feels to me like cut content or rewrites; there’s a whole game’s worth of story that just happened off-camera and we got to hear a little bit about it. it wasn’t enough, imo. i think doing it as a midquel is still possible, but it’s a hard sell to create a video game with a downer ending and we know shinjuku’s fate is already set in stone... even though a new day ended on the tragic cliffhanger of neku’s death, it’s a little different since it’s coming as an optional postgame sequel hook after victory rather than the entire narrative you fought through ending in failure. i suppose it could be done with a Distant Epilogue now that we know shiba and most of his surviving reapers will return to rebuild shinjuku. ultimately i really think that if not for the concern about neku overshadowing the new cast, shinjuku’s purification could and should have been the prologue to neo. it would be a tough balancing act, but i do think it could have been done right and it would have done a lot for narrative tension with his absence if we had a prologue following him that ends in a cliffhanger re: shinjuku’s purification. neku’s role in the story was done decently i think re: how big said role was, but a lot of circumstances surrounding his absence, legendary status, and reappearance leave much to be desired.

frankly, i just don’t like how much they glossed over neku’s three year absence. we’re given a vague explanation of what he was doing, but it isn’t actually an explanation. definitely again feels like a plot rewrite situation; there’s this huge blank space of neku doing nothing because there used to be a story that we were going to play through and it got scrapped for whatever reason. overall i feel neku’s characterization was very odd and perhaps a little inconsistent in this game; he didn’t have much of a personality at all, which i struggle to reconcile with the original game. we don’t see how he reconciled with coco, it’s just dismissed entirely as “no we’re good now”. how are we good? why did you forgive her for playing murder games instead of just explaining shit? i know he forgave joshua for his gatekeep gaslight girlboss behavior in the first game, but we had context as to why he made that decision. also what the fuck was keeping him from coming back to shibuya, i don’t feel like that was sufficiently explained either? for someone who was so hyped up by the narrative, i was a little let down by how insignificant neku ended up being to the plot as a whole. and again, his personality seemed very watered down and neutral despite the seriousness of the situation. why was he so mellow? the circumstances of his return i did really like, because... well, we’ll talk about character relationships i guess.

i already summed up my feelings on rindo and shoka and i think i’ll leave them on the note of “unnecessary elements dampened my potential for overt enthusiasm, but overall i feel neutral-positive about the suggestion of romantic interest” which is a lot more than i can say about a lot of (semi-)official pairings. on a broader and more platonic scale? generally i have positive feelings about the new cast and their interactions; i feel like their development is more understated than neku’s in the first game, his character arc is very in your face and the neo cast is not nearly as overt, but you can see the difference in how the team interacts across the three weeks. rindo and fret’s established friendship, not to be dismissive of it, does exactly what it needs to. i mean this in a completely positive way. it’s an established friendship, they feel like friends, and they serve initially as anchors to one another in the beginning of the game as a “you’re the only person i know in this chaos” setup. this contrasts neku in the first game in an excellent way because of how it highlights their biggest character flaws, which i’ll talk about later; it’s important to rindo’s fatal flaw that he has someone to fall back and rely on in the beginning of the game in the same way that it’s crucial for neku’s development that he’s surrounded by strangers who he must learn to trust and rely on in order to survive. rindo and fret can lean on each other in the beginning of the game, and as people who have known each other for some time, are able to recognize and appreciate each others’ positive changes.

i do love the development of nagi’s friendship with fret, particularly how it’s sometimes but not always remarked on when she shelves her initial aloof attitude with him. i prefer when a narrative is more subtle on that kind of thing; pointing it out every once in a while is okay, but i don’t want it shoved down my throat via dialogue that characters are developing an emotional bond. we can see that nagi is slowly becoming more receptive to fret and less likely to dismiss or disparage him. it seems like their initial relationship is that of two people who have opposite struggles; nagi is notably closed off in the beginning, but fret immediately approaches her with an unearned and offputting level of familiarity. their slow and understated (more noticeable with nagi than fret) development towards accepting each other as friends is mutually beneficial to them even outside of the context of their personal relationship; nagi opens up a little with everyone, not just fret. placing two people with very different perspectives on how to interact with new people in close proximity helped both of them grow. i’m sure other people have different perspectives, but i do not feel like they were being teased as a pairing which i enormously appreciate, i am tired of “pair the spares” shit. (minor note: i also appreciate how while fret’s crush on kanon was very overt and strong, she was also fairly clear that she considered him a kid and his feelings were never going to be reciprocated because of that age gap. i know, the bar is low, but thank god.)

i love how, despite nagi now having been confirmed as older than beat, as soon as beat joins the narrative he takes this hard stance of “i’m the one who’s already been in this hellscape so it’s my responsibility to help the newbies”. he really embodies the big brother role so well in this game; he knows a little more about what’s going on, this isn’t his first rodeo even if it’s not exactly the same, so he considers himself to have an obligation to protect the others. he serves as sort of a physical and emotional rock for the team from the second he joins, becoming an excellent support for them both as a combatant and an older brother figure. he has experience in being both of these things, and i think beat’s writing is some of the best in the game.

despite his position as a former player who’s back in the UG, he meshes with the newbies perfectly. he doesn’t overshadow the rest of the team despite having more lived (ha) experience in the reaper’s game, he doesn’t feel like he’s on a different level from them or anything like that. he fits in while serving an important unique role that he can only fill because of his prior time in the UG. it’s completely understandable and reasonable why rindo remains the team leader despite beat’s presence. he’s had a three year gap since his last game and doesn’t even understand how he returned to the UG. he’s not a fish out of water, he knows the UG and the game. but he’s really truly gotta shake the dust off, and he’s trying to figure out what happened to him in the first place because he knows he shouldn’t be in the UG at all. he didn’t have a huge bump in intelligence since the first game, but it’s hard to dismiss him as a complete idiot. he has both large and small perceptive moments where another narrative might have chosen to keep him as the dumb muscle. in fact, his firm convictions serve an important role for the others - beat knows he didn’t die and can’t be convinced otherwise, and his confidence that he’s a living player is part of how rindo and gang realize they also aren’t dead. he’s clearly not simply a comic relief character. another story might have positioned him as more of a mentor figure, but he plays to his strengths and serves to ground the team instead. beat is honestly a highlight of this ensemble cast to me. i’m unsure as to how much of that is simply because he was one of my favorites from the first game, but i really truly love beat in this game.

shoka and neku’s late introductions to the team mean they have far less “we are now firmly allies and friends” interactions with the rest of the ensemble for unavoidable reasons. i will say that the excellent casting and localization for the english version, particularly shoka, has done a lot to mitigate that issue; yes, the plot doesn’t develop her relationships with the team as a whole as thoroughly as some of the others, but the combat interactions with her are so genuine that i found myself shocked when writing this because, well, those combat lines did so much legwork making her role in the party seem earned and cohesive. i had such a strong sense of her place in the team that just isn’t reflected in the cutscenes, and i find that very interesting but i’m unsure as to whether it’s good or bad; i think it’s incredible that the combat dialogue did such a good job fostering this air of “we are a unit” for these characters and it really is a testament to the skill of these actors, but i do wish it was more prevalent in the cutscenes itself. beat’s established relationship with neku and their relaxed nature with one another does a lot to ease neku’s entry into the group; he has an “in” with a firmly established member and a well-written dynamic with him that helps him out here.

as a nekubeat appreciator i feel very fed and i hope there’s an uptick in interest for the pairing following neo. i love how beat, who throughout the game is constantly forgetting who people from 3 years ago are (doesn’t recognize his former superior bc she’s wearing a suit now and can’t even remember her name), immediately recognizes coco despite her changing her entire aesthetic specifically because he’s so angry with her for killing neku. he’s ready to throw down the second he sees her, which gives this feeling of “he’s been waiting for this moment for 3 years”. because the narrative never addresses beat’s change in style, particularly that he wears his hair like neku now, i choose to believe it’s because the last time he saw neku was immediately after coco shot and killed him. it could be that this shit’s been haunting him ever since neku died. my city now, if you don’t talk about it in the game i make shit up. both their cutscene interactions and combat quotes do an excellent job of maintaining the sense that these two have been close friends for a long time and distance hasn’t changed that. they fall right back into old ways with one another immediately.

even outside of the context of me being a nekubeat shipper, their relationship and continued partnership (UG game context partnership) feels very genuine. neku and joshua call each other partner, but it rings hollow. i’m sure it’s partially the lack of screentime that makes it so they don’t feel like partners any more than neku and shiki do, but the game doesn’t even try to push closeness the way it does for shiki - more on that in a minute. beat is the only one of neku’s partners that seems to have retained the same strength in their bond with him despite the three years; shiki and joshua are super absent in the plot, which really undermines their relationships with neku. i’ve already talked about my problems with shiki’s lack of focus and how i feel it harms her relationship with neku, but as for neku’s relationship with joshua, i think neo has taken an interesting approach that i feel will have a mixed reception.

it actually feels like neku and joshua ended this game on worse terms than the first one even though joshua was a far more benevolent figure this time around. neku is very clear about wanting to return to the RG despite this meaning he will have no access to the UG (outside of potentially text-based communication since rhyme paved the way for RG residents to bust into the RNS and... however it was that shoka’s fanGO account worked, since she and rindo were fanGO friends long before his entry to the UG) and doesn’t show any hesitation or reluctance in stating this desire. he seems quite content with not having joshua be a part of his life, as opposed to the first game’s ending where he extends an open offer to joshua to join his friend group. i understand how this would (and will) let a lot of people down, but i actually think it’s for the best. i have no real opinion on neku’s capacity for forgiving joshua after the first game, good or bad, but i think putting distance between them in this game is the correct move.

i take this viewpoint especially given that after the first game, joshua did in fact choose this distance - neku invited him in, and he did not take the offer. it was his decision to not join neku’s group in the first game’s ending and he continued to remain separate from it in the three year gap; he may have masqueraded as a fellow player and peer in age, but joshua is not and has never been an actual peer to neku, shiki, and beat. his life experiences are so different from theirs that i would struggle to suspend disbelief that they have enough in common to maintain a close friendship. he intervened when neku was killed by coco and placed him in a safe area and gave moral support in the ending, and i think this is the most we should expect of a reforming (not reformed but in-progress) misanthrope like joshua. he’s an enigmatic figure sure and largely benevolent if inactive in this game, but he isn’t a good person and he clearly considers himself to be on a different level from neku and his peers. hanekoma notes that joshua’s somewhat reluctant to continue to remain separate from neku’s group, but i think the narrative places him both objectively and in his own mind as someone who is just... from a different world. joshua chose distance, he chose to cut contact, and this is the consequence of that decision. i think that’s a good lesson to teach; it may not be a given, but it’s natural that sometimes a friendship you ignore will fade. it doesn’t necessarily mean the time you spent didn’t matter, but you shouldn’t be shocked if a plant you don’t water wilts away.

i feel like that wasn’t the intended takeaway, that it was just questionable writing that i’m reading too deep into, but that’s how i feel about the situation.

i’m also incredibly grateful that hazuki was introduced as an age-appropriate option for joshua and i hope they’ll draw attention as a bastard boyfriends ship, both because i think it’s very funny and because i have opinions about shipping joshua with the teens. i know it’s contentious and i’m not going too deep into it, so what i’m going to say is this. the secret reports state in plain objective text that joshua downtuning his vibes aged him down and his true appearance is older. neither the narrative nor supplementary info state anything about how old josh was when he died or how long he’s been a reaper/the composer (reapers ageing is ??? as well, we don’t know if it’s not a thing or if it’s optional or what). however, it is firmly canon that he is older than 15. if that canon upsets you then that’s your problem to either work through or ignore indefinitely. suffice to say, joshua and hazuki do not have the schrodinger’s pedophile issue and i wholly support and strongly encourage that over the alternative for this reason and again because i find it funny and think they deserve each other. i hate to say hazuki is a healthy choice for joshua because i think both of them are just walking messes, but they are actual peers on the same tier of the higher plane pecking order and more importantly the disaster they could be as a couple has infinite potential.

on the girls side of things, i am still mad about eri’s absence not just because it’s a relationship shiki had that just got ignored. i know the story wants us to believe that neku and shiki have something but shiki and eri had more. i’m sorry writers you made a more compelling f/f ship by accident in the first game and i am not invested in the one you weakly suggested between neku and shiki here. if you made shiki have more of a role in neo maybe i’d feel differently, or maybe you would have screwed it up worse. we’ll never know. i think it’s a shame that they couldn’t make me care about neku and shiki as a pairing, but it is what it is.

i was briefly worried that the game would try to suggest something between kaie and rhyme because sometimes people lose their minds when a boy and girl stand next to each other, but i was quickly set at ease with that one. they felt like two people who are starting to straddle that line of acquaintance/friend in a believable way despite how little interaction between them we see, and i appreciate that. i was also briefly worried that fret would develop a crush on rhyme based on his initial reaction at being introduced to her, but again quickly dismissed. can you tell i’m a little gun shy about strangled “him boy her girl” romances in fiction these days? yeah. i’ve been let down too much recently by bad writing.

i think all of the party members could have benefited from more development with one another outside of combat lines - i would like to see more interaction between nagi and shoka, or neku and fret, etc - but that would come at the expense of the narrative’s pacing. i think it could have been done by tweaking certain details, but ultimately i can accept this as a sacrifice made in the interest of keeping the narrative from getting bloated.

i wanna talk briefly about the new main cast a little.

rindo’s ups and downs re: development are much more subtle than neku’s were, but with the secret reports in mind i feel his arc is actually pretty excellent. i think we could have done with a little less of fret pointing out rindo’s increased confidence and how he becomes more assertive, i think the audience is smart enough to notice that on their own. but i’m a huge fan of how the narrative quietly places rindo in this position of a leader who fears that responsibility, but nonetheless has to grow and accept it. hanekoma’s reports may spell it out in plain text postgame, but the narrative already told us in our own way that rindo’s development stalled when someone else entered the cast who could take over for him and this is demonstrative of a(n understandable) lack of maturity and failure to grow. neku’s fatal flaw was his rejection of others, and so he was forced by the narrative into a position where he had to learn to trust them; rindo’s is that he relies too much on them and the narrative forces him to stand on his own.

while i think this is a little muddled (he was right in some instances to not make hard solo decisions; thinking specifically of ayano, it was absolutely the right call to ease shoka into this inevitable loss rather than forcing her into the situation unilaterally) and i wish we saw more consequences of his initial waffling behavior, rindo’s indecisiveness is an actual flaw that i think a lot of people can relate to and i think it contrasts him wonderfully with neku without being heavy-handed. rindo working through it from “relying on others to make choices for him -> still valuing the input of others but not wholly dependent on them -> capable of making difficult calls without anyone else to support him” was subdued and while it had realistic hitches in the form of other characters who he could consider authority figures, it was steady and imo very good. he’s a teenager coming into his own, stepping out of this world where others in his life - motoi as an0ther, shoka as swallow, presumably his parents, teachers, etc - have made the big, scary decisions for him or guided him through them, and into a place where there aren’t these people to guide him. he’s surrounded by people who either don’t know anything more than he does, or don’t care about his best interests; he’s clashing and changing and it forces him to grasp and accept his own autonomy rather than falling back and relying on someone else to fix things when it’s too frightening or difficult.

we can talk cultural differences re: the level of autonomy and responsibility that’s right for teenagers but i’m not really interested in drawing hard lines there. this is a coming of age story; as he approaches maturity, rindo is learning how to be an adult. i think that’s a classic and important narrative concept and it’s done well here.

fret, interestingly, is imo a case where the subtlety didn’t work out. to me, there wasn’t a huge distinction between flippant “telling you what i think you want to hear” fret and “genuine” fret. his initial interactions with kanon don’t seem different from their last conversation; maybe he comes off as less initally honest in the jp version, or maybe this one was a writing fumble. maybe it’s just me, and other people don’t feel the same way! he seems to be a far more static character in a strange way; the narrative tells us that he’s developing via other characters’ dialogue, but it doesn’t seem to support that. to me it’s a failure of “show, don’t tell” - i don’t take a hard stance on “show, don’t tell” as some kind of holy rule of writing, there are plenty of situations in a narrative where telling is perfectly acceptable and i think rigid adherence to showing and not telling can result in a bloated narrative, but in this case i feel like that’s where the narrative failed. it failed to support fret’s development outside of other people telling him he’s changed. i like fret, but i feel like in this ensemble cast fret and nagi kinda serve more as nominal protagonists and are more strong supporting characters than true leads.

as for nagi, i love how, despite it being low-hanging fruit, not only are there no real digs at nagi for being a vocal fangirl of a visual novel dating sim, it actually ties perfectly into her character as someone who understands people. dating sims are about people and relationships. how people interact, the importance of conveying your feelings, the consequences of bad communication; that’s what nagi is obsessed with. and rather than this being a detriment and making her avoid others, it ends up priming her to have healthy friendships because her gaming taught her to value knowing other people. it takes her time to actually open up, but rather than the video games closing her off to others they actually set her up to be an excellent friend. elestra in general could have been a subject of enormous mockery, but instead it’s viewed in a very neutral way and is given the implication of universal appeal by fret picking it up in the epilogue. nagi’s not in the spotlight for most of the game, but the payoff of her monologue to fret about being human was immense and was one of the best bits of dialogue in the entire game to me. it’s not going to be as iconic as hanekoma’s “open up your world” and “enjoy the moment”, but i truly think it’s one of the only parts of neo’s dialogue that approaches its level.

shoka is a character that i think is better on the replay, and i say this as someone who was very fond of shoka the first time around. i thought she had a lot of personality in her mannerisms alone, and i firmly appreciate how she wasn’t a one-note tsundere character. she had some of those minor elements, but subdued and with a reasonable context - she’s hot and cold with rindo and his team because she’s supposed to be working this rigged game to erase them, but she’s already rindo’s friend in a different context and is struggling to reconcile these two parts of her life. knowing her motivation as swallow gives so much retroactive depth to her actions; she was circumventing the game itself not just because she was exhausted by it or unease with shiba like some of the other turncoat reapers, but because rindo was her friend from before the story even began.

i will say that i didn’t actually fully call swallow being shoka simply because at first i had the impression that it would be rhyme (before rhyme’s role in the story became clearer), and admittedly by the time the climax hit the mystery of who swallow was had kind of dropped out of my mind completely, but i think it does a lot to develop shoka. whether this development being retroactive is strictly good or bad as an issue is subjective; neo is a game that has a built-in chapter select, so replaying the game and rewatching the cutscenes with the full narrative context is incredibly easy. however, for a lot of players, if you’re replaying the game it’s with a specific goal of getting something you missed earlier in-game, so you’re rushing through those cutscenes trying to get to that completionist bit. i think a line could have been walked re: giving more of a hint that shoka was swallow before the very end without fully giving it away, but i definitely think the rewatch value is more subjective and based on how you specifically play the game. if you’re here looking to watch all the cutscenes again now that you know everything, shoka being swallow is a huge treat regarding changing the context of her behavior - if you’re fast-forwarding trying to find a pig, it’s totally wasted.

i would have liked to see more of shoka’s backstory and interaction with the other shinjuku reapers for sure, and i wonder if this is another thing along the lines of “we were supposed to see more of shinjuku’s final game than we did”; if we’d gotten more of shinjuku, we certainly would have seen more of its reapers. i talked briefly about how i feel like ayano’s death didn’t hit the way i think it was intended to, but if the game had let us see more of her as a shinjuku reaper i feel like the entire plot would have benefited. it would have benefited shiba as well honestly; they tried to have him as a repentant “now i shall fix what i destroyed” character at the very end, but i don’t feel like they did a good enough job portraying that he had changed and he was brainwashed so it fell flat. if we’d seen more of shiba as the compassionate leader who deserved the loyalty of his reapers that they say he was, the contrast would have done a lot to help define the tragedy of his backstory. overall i think this is another “we lost a chunk of the plot in rewrites or something” issue, which i admit is not based in anything like interviews. it’s just my speculation because it feels like something that was supposed to be here got left behind - i can’t say if i’m right, or why it happened if so. it just feels to me like the shinjuku reapers besides shoka went fairly undeveloped not because of writing/lack of screentime alone but because we lost big pieces of shinjuku content entirely. it’s insane that we only learn in the secret reports how tsugumi became trapped in the mr. mew plush to begin with; to me, this screams “we had to cut something”, and the more i think about it the more convinced i am that we were originally meant to see more of shinjuku’s inversion. hell, the secret reports just flippantly inform us that tsugumi’s brother was shinjuku’s conductor and he’s why she survived - but he goes unnamed and unseen, mentioned only in a piece of postgame content that many players may never unlock.

shinjuku’s final game is just left as this incredible story that was never told, with a cast who we barely see. again, it doesn’t bother me that they never explained to us why hazuki purified shinjuku. but i do wish we could have connected with its reapers to see how they reacted to its impending fate; who was on kubo’s side, who was trying to protect shinjuku? who knew what was happening, and who was just swept up in the chaos? how did the purification affect them emotionally after their escape to shibuya? just from the secret reports we see that tsugumi’s brother is this tragic hero of another story, the conductor opposing the executor and fighting to save his city before ultimately sacrificing himself to keep his sister alive. this is enough content that it could have easily been a standalone, but it wasn’t. i think that’s a damn shame. i’m sure there are people who are already chomping at the bit to write about shinjuku’s tragic final game and it’ll make a stunning fanfic in the right hands, but this is a big gap for fanfiction authors to be filling in.

this was mostly a narrative thoughts dump, but i wanna say just a couple of things about the combat: overall i liked it! i was significantly overleveled for the vast majority of the game partially because i was having fun with the combat, i feel gameplay was very intrinsically motivating. because of how the food system worked, being overleveled didn’t mean too much since it only affects HP, but i also was eating constantly so i was in fact just OP for much of the game. so i suppose, take my gameplay commentary with a grain of salt because i was busted quickly. if i hadn’t been such a powerhouse from early on, i expect my gameplay experience would have been much different.

my biggest complaint: there were some significant issues in enemy design related to battles being timed and the timer having consequences. some enemies were a reasonable/intuitive pain, say, elephants being bullet sponges and chameleons having an invisibility mechanic. these things made them challenging, but in a sensible way. like, of course a big honkin’ elephant has a ton of HP. i think that chameleons in particular could have been tweaked; you have to be very close to them when they’re invisible in order to lock on, and i think this could distance could have been extended a bit to minimize frustration. likewise, it felt like party members that get grabbed by a t.rex were trapped for ages; i feel this could have been tweaked as well. i know a lot of people had issues with wolves for this same reason, but their comparative frailty and my pin choices meant that i quickly overcame wolves and they became a minor nuisance at best until endgame introduced a beefier wolf. even then, i found t.rex noise to be much more of an issue because of their sturdier nature and higher damage output. these are minor gripes; i didn’t like seeing these enemies, but i didn’t hate seeing them. no, here’s what i hate: rhinos and pufferfish.

to me, these are the most annoying enemies in the entire game outside of maybe a handful of bosses. i feel they were poorly thought out in general. the tendency for rhinos to put themselves against the arena walls and the delay on pufferfish exploding after their HP hits zero do not mesh well with that battle timer. i find myself very frustrated by these enemies because it feels like i’m being punished not for a lack of skill or bad decisions choosing weak pins, but simply bad luck. very few pins can circumvent the rhino’s front guard and the hitbox for their guard feels enormous, so i can’t imagine i’m the only player having difficulty herding them out of corners to actually damage them or get beat drops. there’s a postgame dive with a big noise rhino, and it was my worst experience with the entire game because it just kept backing into a corner. i quit that dive multiple times because of how much time i wasted with the rhino; i changed my pins like crazy trying to take advantage of elemental weaknesses or use pins that could circumvent the guard. but it wasn’t about what pins i was using, it was just bad luck with hitboxes. when i finally got the gold rank on that dive it wasn’t that i did anything significantly different, the rhino just didn’t park its ass in the corner that time.

as far as i know, and i hope i’m missing something that someone can enlighten me on, there is no way to prevent pufferfish from inflating and exploding outside of a killer remix. i have not discovered any way to make them explode faster. the amount of time it takes for them to blow up seems to vary not by species but by individual, i’m not sure if it’s being triggered by proximity to a party member or what but i know sometimes one of those little shits will inflate and chase me across the entire arena before finally exploding. in a chain battle, that wasted time adds up. the pufferfish issue could have been severely mitigated, if not entirely fixed, if the gap between HP hitting zero and explosion was just the time it took for them to inflate. that would have basically eliminated my needless frustration with them. but instead i just... don’t know how to make them pop faster.

in normal combat, your post-battle score is primarily just bragging rights/making yourself feel good to have gotten a good grade. but when it comes to dives, where the timer directly decides how many of the finite friendship points you get, the appearance of a rhino or pufferfish specifically is something i approached with dread and disappointment. i already mentioned the postgame dive giant rhino specifically being a nightmare, but this was a reoccurring element for me through the entire game with just normal rhinos. i know rhinos are a returning enemy and kept their front-guard schtick, but the shift to a 3D environment has made them a much more (imo needlessly) difficult opponent.

regarding the pin system itself, i was enormously disappointed to learn how the multi-pin input worked. it turns out that you can only have multiple pins using a single input no matter how many multi-pin wields you unlock; gone were my dreams of having 2 Y-input pins and two ZL input pins (i played on switch). the inability to multi-pin wield uber pins regardless of how many uber slots you have filled is also a huge bummer. i feel like in the postgame i should be able to be an absolute god of destruction, but this didn’t pan out.

this seems to be a switch issue, but autosave was the MVP of the game because i had a few cutscenes crash or freeze (the one with kubo’s reveal seems to be a common source of a crash on the switch version as it fails to load the 3D cutscene); this was annoying and needs fixing, but it was slightly mitigated by autosave kicking in immediately after boss battles. i was crushed thinking i was gonna have to go through the shiba fight again after kubo crashed my game, so the relief i felt upon loading up again and going right into the cutscene was immense. don’t get me wrong: cutscene freezes and particularly crashes are a big problem that a game like this shouldn’t have launched with, but at the very least i didn’t lose my progress on that crash. related, i appreciate the ability to speed through cutscenes you’ve already seen, but i do wish we had the option to skip them entirely because that would have saved me from the freezes that i had to manually close the game and lose progress for.

a more minor complaint that i admittedly am unsure as to how to fix (maybe utilizing the d-pad instead of having it be camera/target select alongside the right stick?) is that i do not seem to have much control over which character my camera centers on in combat. typically selecting the pin that’s equipped to them will focus the camera to them, but every once in a while i’ll be locked to someone whose pin is rebooting while my other party members are actively attacking on the complete opposite end of the arena. i have no idea why this happens. if i’m missing something please let me know. the static nature of the overworld camera took some adjusting to, at first i was offput but i got used to it quickly. if camera was fixed position in combat it would have been a nightmare, but it being fixed in the overworld isn’t the same beast.

this has gotten obscenely long, so props and condolences to everyone who has made it this far. i wanna end on a high note because i want to reiterate something: i have so many criticisms here and that’s actually praise. i enjoyed so much of this game that i’m critical of where it fell short specifically because it’s such a strong contrast to how much i felt it did right. the main story was pretty strong in general, though some character interactions were lacking. the plot itself i didn’t talk a lot about because i thought it was good. there wasn’t much to say, they did a good job! the dissonance noise being created from deleted timelines was great, i loved that. i don’t feel like predictability makes a narrative bad, so it’s not like i was upset when it turned out replay was (gasp) part of a dastardly scheme. for me, foreshadowing is an excellent thing even if sometimes i wish it was handled a little differently.

i vastly prefer this game’s vague sequel hook with minamimoto over how final remix ended a new day; that sequel hook i hated and it had me so worried about neo. thankfully a lot of my fears didn’t come true, and i am very happy overall with the game we got. if another game is greenlit, i would hope it progresses with a mostly new cast; as long as we stay in shibuya some supporting characters can and should be staples imo, like kariya and uzuki, and i hope to see more of what’s being set up with minamimoto even if not necessarily with him as a protagonist. but overall i think twewy’s worldbuilding lends itself much more to a rotating cast if it develops into a full franchise; that’s just the nature of the UG, and i would like to see further installments taking advantage of that and allowing characters to have a complete arc and then retire from the narrative naturally.

i’ve got some pigs to erase and some bosses to slap the pins out of, which i’m sure will take me some time. another day certainly has a secret boss and/or time trial boss rush, so i’ll take a look at that sucker soon as well. i’m looking forward to continuing my playthrough, and i expect to sink quite a few more hours into this game. i really truly enjoyed neo despite my qualms, and i’m leaving the main storyline behind for postgame stuff with almost entirely positive feelings and a hopeful stance on the potential future of the series. i know this was a long-ass post, which is why it’s beneath a readmore, but to anyone who cared enough about my thoughts to keep reading the whole thing... thanks for the time you spent, hope you got something positive out of it!

[god-fucking-dammit-mizutani]

Man, I'm always blown away whenever I start to consider aspects of Koushirou's character because they really kind of went the extra mile for him, huh? Like I know they specifically tried to avoid certain stereotypes in series and I think it's why certain aspects and most of the cast are just timeless because they're generally well-rounded and have this growth that isn't always seen in young adult shows, especially not back in those days, but like Koushirou specifically I feel could have been the laziest done character. He could have just been the plot, deus ex machina boy and done nothing else and honestly it wouldn't be questioned he'd still feel like a character because he'd be an archetype we all know, the vaguely snooty but people-shy computer whizz who sits in the back and becomes relevant when the plot calls for it but they went so hard in the opposite direction?? Like instead of making him on the more apathetic side like when he's shown in the Vademon episode, it's actually more in contrast with his usual characterization because he's an incredibly emotional boy who can laugh along with others but also like cries a lot. Like literally the moment he snaps out of it he's teary-eyed and when Jyou gets turned into a keychain to try to get Koushirou safe he not only cries during the event, but he's still crying as a goddamn keychain??? Fucking rude. While he's an introvert and spends the beginning of his arc actively keeping people out of his emotional bubble, he's not an angry, bitter, I hate everyone character. His main priority tends to be wanting to help everyone like cracking a code to let them go home or when people are in danger he runs immediately to help, like taking action isn't something he struggles with despite not being the most physically fit. Not only is this done in the episode where he breaks down a wall to help Mimi, but also even in the novels there's a scene where he hesitates to help someone else only because he considers the possibility that his options will potentially hurt another person (whether he leaves them behind or brings them with him. I think this character is also Mimi haha). He could be snobby and look down on everyone but he spends a lot of time doubting himself and even disliking himself and is one of the most respectful characters in the media. It's stated as being completely from left field when he stands up to Yamato in that one novels scene, because Koushirou isn't a quarrelsome character, he's generally very polite but he can also have a temper, too. Like he's not a meek character who just hides behind electronics like he sometimes gets pegged. He'll even push Taichi to the side (especially for computers lol). Also in that particular scene with Yamato he showed that he's capable of seeing and reading people in some way because while he doesn't necessarily know every facet to Yamato, he gets that he's an emotional person. He picks up when Sora seems uncertain and tries to lightly comfort her. He shows multiple times that he understands Taichi and is chosen to be the character to specifically round out the leader's emotional arc. I would actually say being emotional is one of his biggest problems (to himself early on), because he spends a lot of the series trying to suppress them. Like I would honestly say why he even calls out Yamato is because he gets him and sees part of himself in the other boy because they both put up this shield to keep others from seeing their vulnerable side. For Koushirou it's schooling himself into this perfect boy who doesn't get into conflict, who people can be proud of, probably on some level because he has this fear that he shows any of his less desirable traits to others, he'll be thrown away. This obviously becomes less of an issue as he comes to accept himself in later arcs, but I think a lot about the one early scene in the novels where Yamato and Takeru come into the shrine where Koushirou's been hiding out to get internet and the older blond uncomfortably asks, "Can we stay here?" and Koushirou realizes that he's probably been glaring because

they didn't take off their shoes, and actively tries to hide that part of him. Like I think in some way the person he is in the Vademon episode might actually on some level be his ideal self, or at least part of his ideal self. Someone who doesn't really have to think or feel. The impulsive, curious side of himself that gets him into trouble is gone. There's no nagging need to find out who he is, just forget everything. Toss it away. Be emotionless. But it's also directly in opposition to things that Koushirou wants?? Because he wants to learn everything so badly to help people and then his partner who he's inadvertently hurting in this way tells him, "I like that part of you," and it helps him so much overcome the feeling like he's not allowed to be too much that he's not allowed to take up space. Being emotional and reckless and caring and curious are just some of the messy little ingredients that make up Koushirou's character and he learns to like those things about himself and utilizes them to be helpful for everyone around him and yet he still feels like a cohesive character and it's??? it's soo good??

[akatsuki-shin]

Review: 天官赐福 Tiān Guān Cì Fú (Heaven Official's Blessing)

Notes:

(Very) long post ahead

Contains spoiler

This is my personal review and does not represent the entire audience, you are free to agree or not agree with what I’ve written here

Feel free to reply/send me a message if there are things you want to discuss

Summary:

The most beloved Crown Prince, pride of the Kingdom of Xianle with abundance of talents and achievements, Xie Lian, ascended to Heaven and became a martial god at the young age of 17 on the path to fulfill his dream "to save the common people".

Three years after his ascension, he saw his kingdom beginning to decline and in order to save his beloved country, Xie Lian defied the rules of Heaven and descended back to the mortal realm. Nevertheless, instead of saving them, his interference ended up accelerating the fall of Xianle, annihilating the once prosperous nation under the war of rebellion and a mysterious, horrifying plague.

The people who once praised and worshipped him day and night now condemned him, his devotees left him, they burnt his temples and divine statues, and Xie Lian himself was ultimately banished from the Heaven.

He ascended for the second time a short while later, but was banished once more very soon after. Since then, he lived among the mortals - surviving by collecting junks as he was now branded as the "God of Misfortune", the "Scrap Collecting Immortal".

800 years later, Xie Lian ascended again for the third time. Though having neither temples nor devotees, he accepted his responsibility as a martial god and carried on with his duties until one day, there came a certain, incidental encounter with a mysterious youth clad in red.

STORY: 7/10

TGCF overall is an (almost) complete, satisfying read with well-written twists and development.

Unlike the two previous MXTX's novels, the main pairing here (HuaLian) did not have to go through complicated misunderstandings and is a beautiful representation of love and devotion. Of course, this means there is a lack of conflict between them, but considering all the trials and tribulations the characters have gone through, this lack of conflict feels like a relieving fresh spring amidst the painful and exhausting journey throughout the entire five books.

The best and my most favorite plot twist is the Earth Master Ming Yi having been dead for a while, and the "Ming Yi" we know turns out to be the Black Water Submerging Boats, He Xuan. I'm the kind of person who always suspects characters, but even my furthest suspicion was "only" him being the Reverend of Empty Words, not He Xuan.

Truthfully, prior to reading this novel, I've seen Shi Qingxuan's "MING-XIONG, I'M SORRY x9999" post before without context, and I thought Ming Yi was going to die a tragic death because of Shi Qingxuan. Turns out it's kind of the opposite, huh? Nice one, really.

I also like how each character's "end" feels satisfying. Especially for the villains, they didn't necessarily have to die some tragic, vengeful death, but was provided with an ending that perfectly fits their background story and deeds. For example, in most stories, a character like Xuan Ji would be most likely be given some well-deserved punishment as her death, given everything she's done. But no, in the end she was given a reality check and was finally able to let go of her hundreds of years grudge. And then Qi Rong - I will talk more about him later on in the "Character" section.

One part I really love is the Extra Chapter about the Cave of Ten Thousand Gods. The chapter itself overall is mostly nonsensical and chaotic, but it was just so touching when HuaLian created a "Little Hua Cheng" statue to accompany Xie Lian's "Crown Prince who Pleased the Gods" statue, especially when this Little Hua Cheng statue gave Crown Prince Xie Lian statue a flower, and then Crown Prince Xie Lian received it, lifted him up and carried him in his arms. This one was maybe a bit biased because as much as I love the current HuaLian, I have a special soft spot for the young Xie Lian carrying, cradling the little Hua Cheng back then in the past. ;v;

Though, with all due respect, I must say that TGCF is actually below my expectation.

The biggest issue I have with TGCF is... What is Xie Lian's motivation? What drives him to move forward in the story? What is even the whole story's purpose?

I'm not quite sure how to word this properly, but let me give some examples.

When you read Harry Potter, you know immediately that Voldemort is the bad guy and he must be defeated.

When you read the Lord of the Rings, you know immediately that the One Ring must be destroyed to prevent Sauron from regaining his power.

Or, in MXTX previous works...

In SVSSS, it was clear since the beginning that Shen Yuan's mission is to fix the "Proud Immortal Demon Way" if he wants to survive.

In MDZS, it was clear that Wei Wuxian, together with Lan Wangji's, needs to unravel the mystery behind that fierce left arm. All of their past stories and WangXian getting together in the end are just something they discovered along the way, not the initial "motivation" that drives the character to move forward.

What about TGCF? The Xie Lian who ascended for the third time actually looks like he just wants to go along with the flow, carrying out his duties day by day with responsibility. When Bai Wuxiang later, later, later on appeared to haunt him again, it didn't seem like Xie Lian has any ambition to hunt him down or exact a revenge, just that he wanted to forget about Bai Wuxiang and never recall anything about him ever again. The main character looks like he's not being driven by anything, just...carrying on where the plot takes him? It's just missions after missions and whatever huge things happening in between is just something they accidentally passed by along the way.

At this point, the only purpose of the story I can think of is bringing Hua Cheng and Xie Lian together. The romance is great, I have no complain. But if it's just that, no need to jammed-pack 250+ chapters just to make two people getting together?

Speaking of which, I also think that the way new characters keep being introduced all the way to almost the final showdown of the story feels info dump-ish, because the background story needs to be dropped there along with the characters, but then most of these characters fade away immediately after.

For example, the previous Civil God before Ling Wen, who looks like he’s going to pose some real trouble, but then was easily defeated and was never mentioned again afterwards. And this is especially true for He Xuan; after such a huge arc where he committed such extreme things, after that he was barely mentioned again, even having his “strong impression” leveled down by the joke about him being the poorest Calamity and owing lots of debts to Hua Cheng.

Basically what makes TGCF a long story is because there are too many stories about the side characters in addition to the main characters that are dumped out of the blue instead of slowly being revealed along the way.

Though, I love how the story gradually unravels the "Four Famous Tales" because initially, I thought it wasn't something crucial, and I wished they could've done this for other characters, too.

There is a little bit of plot holes here and there, as in who actually cut open Jian Lan/Lan Chang's baby and made it a ghost, and for what? Even if it turned out that she just met a bad guy or nobody important, at least provide an explanation in one paragraph? Especially because important side characters like Feng Xin and Mu Qing are involved here, so I'm pretty sure us readers need some explanation.

And more importantly, how can Jun Wu become the Emperor martial god? There's no mention about him ascending, only that he annihilated a dynasty of gods before sitting on the throne of the Great Martial Hall. But how can he, like, emitted god-like aura and not some evil aura? Is it because he used to be a god? But he's a ghost? Explanation where???

The gags and comedies are pretty fun, but honestly, the more I read, the more they ruin the atmosphere and suspense, added with the uncalled PDA between Hua Cheng and Xie Lian even during the most important moments. Honestly, I was bored the fuck out of my life from the moment they start fighting Jun Wu with those divine gundams, and only start gaining interest again much later on when Hua Cheng dissipated into butterflies.

Not saying the story's bad. Just... It's not up to my expectation... Characters being inserted here and there with a bunch of background story, gags and a show of PDA being flaunted during crucial moments. And when Mei Nianqing started telling the truth about the Kingdom of Wuyong, that's just plain info dump right there, seriously...

CHARACTERS: 7/10

Interesting characters, but only a few bore a lasting impression on me. Other than the main characters, which are Xie Lian and Hua Cheng, the only side characters (minus Bai Wuxiang as the main villain) who left quite some impression on me were probably just Feng Xin and Mu Qing.

Pei Ming is okay, at least he is still memorable until the end, and his character improved, too.

He Xuan, after having been introduced with such extreme, after his arc is over, was easily forgotten just like that.

Mei Nianqing, is borderline Deus Ex-Machina with a huge chunk of info dump that could solve everything, then he stopped being useful for the rest of the story.

Shi Qingxuan... Honestly, he's almost annoying, too noisy. I don’t hate him (and I kind of like him initially), but the way his character was being handled and presented post-Black Water arc feels disappointingly lazy and he was just there to make the party more merry.

Xie Lian himself, as the protagonist, how do I say this... This is maybe due to the translator's writing style (not MXTX’s fault), but whenever he screams in all capslock, it feels too extreme and borderline OOC? Of course, the original novel written in hanzi couldn't have included capslock.

What's great about him, though, is that despite all he'd gone through, he can still retain a pure heart and could not be swayed to be evil, just as he himself said "Body in the abyss, heart in paradise".

Now Hua Cheng, he is overall a super interesting character and I personally love this type of male characters. But he seriously is way too OP, almost like the original Luo Binghe (Bing-ge) a.k.a. too ideal, too perfect, no flaws, always capable of easily finding a way out in every single peril. I only forgive him for being like this because he dissipated into butterflies at the end of the battle with Jun Wu, making me think "oh, finally he's actually not invincible".

Still, his devotion to Xie Lian is very well written, very well presented, and his "I am forever your most devoted believer" is just downright the most powerful line in the whole story.

Now I promised to talk about Qi Rong, yeah? I haven't the slightest idea why it is even necessary to have Qi Rong as the Night-touring Green Lantern. I mean, yes he is there to make up the number of the Four Great Calamities, but that was for the characters who live in that world. As the novel's reader, I don't see any particularly important roles there for Qi Rong other than being an annoying meme fodder despite his actually pretty-cool first foreshadowing and appearance? Even his issue with Lang Qianqiu does not seem to give that much impact on the overall story, it could've just passed simply being explained in several pages.

Though I'd say he's got the best character development compared to others. Instead of dying as some hateful villain, the way he ended up deciding to protect Guzi at the cost of his own life can already be expected from miles away, but still bittersweet and touching nonetheless - how this crazed, mental person could still love when being presented with such pure, innocent feelings to the point that he acknowledged Guzi as a his own son.

By the way, E Ming and Ruoye are cute, I take no criticism.

TECHNICAL ASPECTS: 8/10

I can't really describe this with words, but MXTX's overall writing technique has greatly improved since MDZS.

It feels more "solid" to read instead of scattered here and there.

The info distribution has improved (fewer info dump compared to before), the story's no longer switching between past and present all of a sudden.

Description of characters and environment are sufficient, the plot is progressing steadily.

Several issues I have with this aspect though, the Prologue being ten pages is just way too long, I don't think I need that much information being stuffed right to my face right from the beginning.

There are excessive use of "Turns out..." every single time an explanation is going to come.

"Xie Lian didn't know whether he should cry or laugh" is honestly has been used probably more than 50 times just in the last two books. Although I'm reading a translation, I'm pretty sure the original Chinese version is being repetitive with this phrase, as well, because the translators couldn't just whip up any other phrase from thin air and put it in someone else's novel.

Almost half of scene transition is always caused by some sudden, external disturbance like "All of a sudden they heard someone's coming", "All of a sudden X visits their room", etc.

OVERALL SCORE: 7.3/10

Worth to read, satisfying overall. The main pairing's love story is just so well written and sweet. As long as you can withstand the violence and gore, though. 😂

TGCF highlights perhaps one of the ugliest natures of mankind: Being nice to someone as long as they're beneficial, and immediately throwing them away once the benefit was no more.

Once that person does not seem to be beneficial anymore, everyone would leave them instantly, even turning on them and start spitting on them without even trying to understand the reason why said person "stopped being beneficial".

Both as a Crown Prince and a martial god, Xie Lian and the Crown Prince of Wuyong were praised, revered, worshipped by the citizens of Xianle and Wuyong respectively. Because they were always helping, always fulfilling the people's wishes. But how easily it was for those very same people to turn on Xie Lian and the Crown Prince of Wuyong when they encountered misfortunes, completely turning a blind eye to the laborious effort both characters have been putting to save them from annihilation, even if it was visible in broad daylight.

It is also worth to note another trait of mankind that this story underlines: To always find a scapegoat or blame others for one's own misfortune and failure - be it another human being, another group of people, the government, even the gods - after having taking their generosity for granted.

Which is why I think the true villain of the story is not Bai Wuxiang, but those citizens of the ancient Wuyong who were now nothing more than resentful spirits eternally burning within the lava of Tonglu Mountain - a well deserved punishment after what they did to their Crown Prince.

[lumilasi]

I'm just curious what your thoughts on Shigaraki are. Im praying he gets control back. I would be so sad if the body take over is dragged out. It looks like they are going the save Tomura route which is great but my thought is that means we won't get him back till the end.. I swear if they have Eri rewind him 😤 I hope it's OK to ask you this, if not please ignore and accept my apologies and have a good day. ☀️🌞

Ha ha it’s alright! I don’t mind talking about my favorite character, and musing out my thoughts about what might happen. Of course, keep in mind this is just my thoughts/viewpoint, and I would never say anything I muse out about this is a fact; I’m not the writer after all.  I’m just going over the story bits we already know and considering what could possibly be the story-direction we’re going towards! 

(Also warning, this is probs gonna get a little long-winded because I have a lot of thoughts about this, and Tomura and Izuku’s stories are pretty tightly tied to the larger one at hand about the world they live in.)

To give you a short summary: I think Tomura might indeed stay possessed for a while, and perhaps Izuku could team up with his friends to help save him from this possession. I also don’t think Eri should be using her powers a whole lot right now in the story, given her trauma and age. She needs to heal herself first to avoid unintentionally causing more damage to her mental state. Trauma recovery takes time, often more than what we’ve seen so far in the manga. 

And now for the long-winded explanation (under the cut so this post isn’t ridiculously long:)

So, considering the overall narration and themes Horikoshi has used in the manga, it feels reasonable to say that one of the end goals in all likeness is to “save” those the current society would not bother saving, including Tomura, and especially Tomura, considering his character and story kind of symbolizes the overall failures and problems of this society. His BG touches on so many bad things and problems wrong with the way their world runs currently.

(Apathy from people being over-reliant on heroes, lack of proper help for mental health, hero idol worship that makes people neglect their families over their duty as a hero, abusive parental figures, dehumanization, etc.)

Izuku’s main goal, the goal of his story after all, is to become the greatest hero as the beginning narration expressed. The most reasonable way to do that given the things we’ve been shown about this world, is to do something none of the current heroes would; save those deemed “unfit” to be saved. It’s not only something personally fitting to Izuku’s character, but holds larger symbolic meaning for the overall narrative. I actually saw somebody discuss this particular topic in a post a while back, that put it better than I ever could. 

(click the link if you’re curious to read it, it’s a pretty interesting one)

Now, what that saving means in practice is likely going to be more complicated, since the people in question have done bad things that deserve consequences, and I won’t deny that. 

However, one of the biggest issues is, that the way this society functions seems to kind of be the very source of these villains doing bad things. If only somebody would’ve bothered to pick up this scared kid walking on the street before AFO got to him, none of what is happening now would have happened. (or at least, it would’ve been someone else in worst case scenario)

So, to go back on what you actually asked about; I do think that in order to reach the goal Izuku was set, he does need to free Tomura from that possession, that’s probably the least he can and should do. 

In that sense, it would honestly make sense it would happen close to the end of the story as the best way to symbolize Izuku becoming the greatest hero - saving even the person who everybody else likely deemed unworthy of saving. 

Not to mention, I recall Horikoshi mentioning that he planned the ending to be something where heroes and villains have to team up to reach an end goal of sorts. Izuku teaming up with Tomura’s friends to save Tomura could fit into this concept. 

As for Eri...her rewind powers are bit of a...yeah. I also have lot of thoughts about that so bear with me.

They’re pretty difficult from narrative perspective, because they come off very “deus ex machina” or “magical fix all” that removes any stakes, and I’ve seen from the fandom people wishing Eri to just magically fix everything each time somebody is horribly injured, which...that’s a tad disturbing to me? Asking this little traumatized girl who’s seen lot of horrid injuries and gore to view MORE of it potentially, to heal your favorites? Even if she’d want to do it willingly (which she probably would out of gratitude) she’s, what, six? 

(yes I know this is fiction and I might be taking this a bit too seriously, but I am also looking at this from the narration point of view, and her doing these magic fixes would also actually be bad for the story narration IMO, I’ll explain below)

She’s just a child, she probably can’t really grasp yet what she can and can’t handle, when it comes to her trauma, and what is and isn’t good for her.  Eri “magically fixing everything” is an absolute no from me, both for her own sake and from narration perspective. 

Like I get it, anybody would be sad when their fave gets hurt, I am too, but Eri’s a traumatized child, and tbh having her magically fix everything at her current state would in my eyes go against the point the narrative is trying to make, about the need for change and doing things better from the previous generation. Her rewinding these “changes” in the story, as a traumatized kid, is basically holding up the status quo that is harmful. Using somebody’s remarkable power out of duty to do good while potentially ignoring the impact it can have on the individuals own well-being, which basically will hindrance their ability to do said good in the future.

I can let fixing Mirio’s quirk pass, because he wasn’t horrifically injured in a manner that could potentially trigger Eri’s traumas. It was still a tad risky in my eyes to make this kid do it, because even if she did train for it, what if things went horribly wrong and she made Mirio disappear? That would’ve just caused her unnecessary mental anguish. They basically got lucky there that Hori was kind enough to make it work. 

I would not mind so much, if the person having this power wasn’t a traumatized kid basically, in a story that is about a flawed system and the harmful effects it has on the individuals living in it with the way it currently runs. 

So personally, I don’t want to see Eri use her powers at this point in that manner. She’s still recovering herself and probably not mentally ready to handle these things. Once she’s in a mentally better place, older and more capable of understanding what is or isn’t good for her, then she can go ahead and rewind people’s lost limbs left and right and use her quirk as the next generation superhero healer. But not right now, not when she’s still just a kid with horrible trauma.

 Plus, I feel her point in the story was less about her power, and more about her parallels with Tomura; she could’ve become like him if she hadn’t been saved, and in turn, Tenko could’ve been like her if he had been saved. 

So, from narrative point of view, It feels likely (though I could be wrong of course) that Tomura will remain possessed for a while, and Izuku’s end goal (or one of them) is to save him from the possession, and perhaps they’ll work together to defeat AFO. This last part I’m not that sure about though, given we still don’t have all the puzzle pieces. There’s probably a lot more to be learned about AFO himself, that will have an impact on how the story goes. We’ll see.

So yeah. Sorry this is kind of long, but sometimes you need lot of text to properly convey your thoughts xD Plus I’m just kinda used to writing long pieces of text.