#very very original and thoughtful name i know i know

[sh1-n0bu]

imagine dating an older man this, imagine dating an older woman that COWARDS🗣️ imagine being an older woman and having a younger guy astronomically DOWN BAD (for all intents and purposes, this is a joke. i am not an older woman, nor am i shitting on ppl who love aforementioned relationship dynamics, this is just a horndogged thought)

imagine being an older woman, who never really saw the appeal in romantic or sexual relationships, only focusing on what was ahead of you. the job, adventures of life, education, academic achievements and your own personal hobbies, pastime enjoyments and relationships other than the romantic or sexual ones. there was more to world and life than just that after all, even though your friends’ nagging of when you will reveal the secret guy, or when you will find someone to settle down etc rang out during nearly every night outs, surely giving you a grey strand or few. really, you just… weren’t interested at all. there were rarely anyone who caught your attention and those who did were only appealing to the eyes rather than the heart

sure, there were some boys who would saunter up to you at the bar or cafe with their smug little faces and annoying attitudes, talking some shit about how they like their women like a silver fox, talking about how you were a beekeeping age, or even the stupid ‘i like my woman who are as old as my momma’. useless little things being said as a means to get a single night stand. you’d always tell them off with some backhanded insult, sharp words or how this wasn’t the predator franchise

one thing led to another and one of your closest and longest lasting friend had downloaded a dating app on your phone for you. something something about how you were in the perfect age to settle down now and if not, at least go out on a romantic date for once rather than taking yourself out on dates or with the ladies. you decided to humor them, keeping the app and adding very minimum information about yourself, work, hobbies and what not before kicking the acknowledgement of the app’s existence into the back of your mind

many DMs and snaps were sent to you of course, the usual beekeeping age bullshit. the rare few men who would be around your age range would end up being married, had a fiancée or in an odd form of relationship. you made sure to get their partners’ phone number and name before blocking them, calling them or texting them to notify them that their partner was a cheating bastard and had a dating app. “it’s their relationship, not yours!” most would say, but ladies gotta look out for one another in your opinion. made a pretty few sweet friends that way too

it was one of your slow and peaceful weekends when your phone dinged, another DM text in that accursed dating app. though instead of the usual annoying half-assed flirts or dick pics, it was a simple compliment. ‘good eve, ma’am. i just wanted to say that you look breathtaking. have a nice night, ma’am’ was all it said, a reply to one of the pictures you had added to the app for the introduction part. surprisingly straight to the point and respectful, so with a shrug and a ‘might as well give it a shot’ thought, you messaged back with some words of gratitude. something that quickly derailed into a nice normal conversation and getting to know each other texts. checking his profile, you found out that he was basically in the same position as you. forced by some of his friends to grow outside his shell, few pictures and simple descriptions, just a few years younger. safe to say, he was your first match in that damn app

life continued on, weekdays and weekends switching in their endless circle and you and your dating app friend had gotten close. it truly did felt like he was a nice mannered young man and when he asked if you would be willing to go out on a date, you agreed. nothing wrong with putting the dating app to its original intents and purposes. he was sweet, planned nearly everything with your added thoughts and preferences and had let you enjoy a nice dinner date, all freshened up and smelling of a sweet cologne with a decent suit. perhaps this whole dating app thing was a good idea after all, even as he stuttered sometimes and tripped over his words upon seeing how gorgeous you were, you thought of him as oddly cute

one dinner date turned into a few dates, then park, movie and hobby dates and before you two had known it, the whole thing had shifted smoothly into a relationship. things taken slowly at your own preferred pace, no use of rushing or getting down and dirty. it was a good relationship and possibly the best one you had so far, you'd wager. even your sweet boyfriend - as much as you both occasionally laugh and joke how it was unfitting and even a little bit young and childish for your age - had gotten used to this shift in life, comfortable with making you breakfast in bed on the days you have a work off or just sleeping in, making your coffee just the way you like, eggs cooked to fit your needs on a crispy toast, a pancake, with an adorably whipped cream drawn smiley face. it was just perfect

but of course, there were the occasional moments when your boyfriend nearly destroyed these perfect moments — at least, in his opinion. waking up in the morning before you, and seeing your sleeping face, all peaceful and calm with the grey streaks in your hair and the laugh lines on your face did things to him. you just looked so ethereal, basking in the glow of the morning sunlight, like the reincarnation of aphrodite. and before he knew it, he had a morning wood, quickly scuffling out of bed and towards to bathroom to take care of his problem before you woke up

or when you’re showing him the latest dress you bought, or any clothes really, just peacefully showing him what it looked like on you as you twirled in front of him and gods, you were so breathtaking. all he could do was just nod dumbly like the lovesick puppy he was as a weak ‘uh-huh’ escaped his lips. oh, the little pooch of your tummy, the rolls on your sides, the love handle, the hipdip — whatever these things were called, good god, he wanted nothing more than to just slink down from the couch onto his knees and politely ask to bury his face into them. let him touch them, the little fats on your body, the rolls, the pooch. he’ll lovingly caress them and your stretch marks and everything with reverence

or when you’re testing your new lipsticks on his face, applying the newly bought make up on your gorgeous, kissable lips before smooching him on the face, turning him more and more into a painting of your doing while he drunkenly sits there on the couch with a stupid fucking smile. oh no, this one wasn’t kiss proof either, better try all of them and see if they’re kiss proof too. oh he was covered in lipstick? don’t worry, nothing big. he’s just too busy admiring you and occasionally wondering how the color would look in its perfect kiss shape on his leaking dick while you mocked him for being a horny dog

maybe he slipped up one day, instead of thanking you usually with the sweet nickname after you had done fixing his tie for him, just idiotically smiling at you as a “thank you, mistress” dropped from his lips. an immediate freeze and after a moment, his face was turning red with an embarrassed apology after apology while he hid his face into the crook of your neck. not like you minded too much, just laughing and patting him on the back, reassuring him that it was fine, mistakes happened. though, you won’t lie, it was adorable in the sexy way on how he just let that slip out

ever since that little incident, your sweet boyfriend’s longing grew worse and worse. their hands started to wander more, squeezing, pinching and pawing hopelessly against the fat rolls of your tummy or gripping at your love handles with an eagerness of a puppy whenever they came to stand behind you while you made dinner. damn near sliding towards you on their knees to help you put on your shoes before you leave the house for work and have mercy on him if you choose to wear high heels that day, placing your heel between his thighs while his other hand gently guided your leg by the ankle to slip into the heel. he thought he was being slick but no, you caught it all. of course you would, he was damn near whimpering nowadays every time you come home all exhausted and collapse onto the couch, scrambling over and getting on his knees to massage your tired feet while his adam’s apple bobs while staring at your meaty thighs, mindlessly nodding and going “uh-huh” while you ramble about your day while your pretty boyfriend just wishes he was that goddamn stockings, snug around your legs

it was during one of these days that you decided to take pity on him — how could you not? his pathetic puppy eyes had you wrapped around his fingers — moving your leg out of his hands and instead hooking it over his shoulder. pulling him closer by your leg towards your thighs while you shift down more to place yourself closer to the edge of the couch. pretty eyes blinked up at you with a stuttered, “h-honey…?”, hands placed on his knees like the good boy he is while a pretty pink color bloomed on his cheeks. you just gave a roll of your hips on the couch, a sweet smile and a “my thighs feel exhausted too. help me out?” and he was immediately nodding his head vigorously, shaky hands grabbing and gently squeezing the fat while his breath grew shaky. god, he could see the lace edges of the stockings under your skirt now! and even more, he could see your panties. god help him, he was growing hard in his boxers like some stupid teenager seeing a woman’s boobs all over again

“a little bit up” you called out, watching his reactions with the same smile, lipstick covered lips spread wide on your face. your boyfriend whined instead of following through with your words, peering up at you through his pretty lashes. his hands pushed your skirt up, enough to take in your panties and stockings in full view as he gulped down his saliva, muttering out a weak “m-may i taste you, ma’am?”. the honorific instead of your name or the usual patnames just seem to fall from his lips so easily now, eyes constantly switching from your pretty face and colored lips and to your underwear and the fat of your thighs covered by the heavenly nylon

“you wanna taste me, pup?” you hum out, voice like a sweet honey or the finest red wine and have mercy on him, the idiot merely lost it right then and there, ready to lose any sense of dignity as he nods his head with an obedient “yes ma’am, i would like to taste you ma’am”. you simply cooed at his eager words, the leg thrown over his shoulder pulling him closer to the couch, closer to the heaven between your thighs as you balance your feet on his shoulder. he whined again at how you were teasing him, refusing to give him a solid answer and just toying with him like he was a canary trapped in the fangs of a cat. but he might as well be a willing canary that flew into the jaws of the feline with the way he cutely adds a final, “please allow me, ma’am…?” and damn near cheers a loud excited whoop when you nod at him, giving him the green lights

your boyfriend lets out a stuttered breath through his lips when he pulls down your panties, even folding them sweetly and placing them beside your legs on the couch like the sweet boy he is, when he sees your pussy, covered in the same color of bush as your hair. gulping again, he trails gentle kisses up your legs, from the lace ends of your stockings and up the bare skin of your legs, making sure to kiss the stretch marks he comes across before he finally nuzzles his face into your bushy mound. weakly, he licks at your folds, as if this was his first time eating out a woman and occasionally suckling at your clit. he was just so adorable with how he tenderly kisses and suckles and licks at you, like he had never felt the touch of a woman. so when your hands grasps at his hair, scratching at his scalp once before pulling him flush against your pussy, he downright moans against you before diving in like it was his final food. slurping at your wetness and eating you out like you were his last meal while his two fingers pushed your labia open, whimpering out words of “t-thank you, ma’am, thank yo-you for letting me touch you” and “you taste mmgh so sweet, ma’am.. i aamgh l-love your pussy juice s’much”

when you do cum into his mouth after his excited tongue and finger fucking you open, he opens his mouth eagerly to taste every single drop of your sweet pussy juice, already addicted to the taste and scent of it from just a single taste. his fingers continue to massage your soft walls, thumb swirling over your clit in gentle motions while his free hand pushed down on your lower tummy, pleading you to cum again and to get his face wet with your slick like he was some pathetic toy for you. only when you patted his head at last with a “good job, pretty boy” did he pull his fingers away — albeit with heavy disappointment — as he drawled out “th-thank you, missus. i’m glad to be-be of use to my missus” with his lips and jaws dripping with some of your cum. you laughed at seeing that look on his face, pupils blown wide, cheeks flushed and his hair a mess with your slick all over his jaw. seems like your pretty boy was a messy eater

first time writing smut for my female readers, this was truly a shift in my writing ngl. as you can tell from the smuts on my blog, im more comfortable writing for a gender neutral reader, top reader and im sure most — or at least half — of my readers feel comfortable with that norm as well. but lately cough cough a bit of rp on c.ai with cod character bots with my older oc cough cough ive gotten addicted to the thought of being an older woman and having a younger man just whipped for you and decided to challenge myself with writing for a femdom reader. and by younger, i mean within a decade of years age gap, preferably within 5 years even. nothing too serious. hope you all liked this small brainrot and the dividers belong to @/cafekitsune

[theonewhowanks]

I can’t take it anymore here’s my nonsense and bullshit and opinions and analyses

Narinder definitely has a sadistic streak, maybe he is a full on sadist or maybe he just enjoys the power dynamic, either are possible but im betting on the former. Also potential snuff kink but im unsure

As shown in previous comics and art we can confirm that Narinder enjoys seeing the lamb injured or dying, maybe sadism, maybe just liking to see the lamb helpless although again I do think he is likely a sadist

The Lamb is either a masochist or just enjoys whatever Narinder enjoys, im really leaning towards the former again and I am probably sounding really stupid and overanalytical but that is my job

The Goat gets no dick ass or pusspuss from spiders or otherwise

The Red Crown and the Goat’s Purple Crown (as I call it) seem to be oddly tender in their affection towards each other but they do fuck and fun fact when snakes fuck they get locked together for hours

Leshy is a menace (as always)

Heket loves Heket’s snake wife (I call her Meretseger (name of an old Egyptian goddess, which Heket’s name also originated from I think (also the name means “She Who Loves Silence” which fits so fucking perfectly imo although it is a tad long sorry for the rant)))

Yellow cat is a victim and I love him (platonically. don’t worry leshy im not stealing him.)

Woaw that's a lot of thought put into my silly shit! I am pleasantly surprised! Truth be told, I don't have much of a personal 'canon' because I like playing with ideas a lot but there are some consistencies that I am glad to see someone's picked up on... Allow me ramble and drop some late-night tipsy scribbles:

You are right about my Nari! He takes great joy in inflicting pain, sees death as a very sensual and captivating process, and when it's on the Lamb it's amplified by a lot. The two enable each other and make each other much worse.

The Lamb is actually a sadist to everyone else, and a stone top. For Narinder, they are obsessed enough with him to enjoy submitting. They find receiving pain as cathartic, when they are otherwise repressing themself to the point of dissociation most of the time. With the Goat, they will occasionally mess around because it kinda just counts as masturbation to them.

These two are a mystery. They just like the company I guess and I think it's funny as hell. Leshy... He is, indeed, a menace. I don't have an established personality for my Yellow Cat yet. I just kinda see him as Leshy's assigned supervisor/chewtoy. Who might get Leshy pregnant at some point who knows.

Meretseger is a perfect name and I am taking that now thank you!! Thank you for giving me a reason to ramble! It gives me inspiration to maybe try to make more consistencies in the future, especially when I start talking about an AU I have brewing in my brain, that I am currently working on drawing... slowly.

[thefirstlioveyou]

this old conversation that i'm very much late to is GIVING ME SO MANY THOUGHTS

"vecna wouldn't be alone anymore, he'd make himself untouchable by wearing mike like a shield"

that puts the whole "we need to drive a stake through vecna's heart" in a new light. literally robin (?) adds on: if he has one

steve takes it literally but max explains it's just a metaphor, meaning they could've said anything else but yknow. the writers like to be like that

the party has a heart.

but vecna took it, and he's so close to taking over it completely.

he says it like possession/mind control and becoming him are two different stages.

then literally mike in vecna's spot/as vecna in his attic being impaled by a stake. can they make it anymore obvious?

"there was a time i wanted you by my side" — this whole interaction between jason (an antagonist of the season side by side with vecna) and nancy basically reading as "el was great, but i'll do you one better — have you ever heard of michael wheeler?"

"without [you], we all fall apart"

"you have already lost" — because HE HAS THE HEART!!!! HE HAS MIKE!! HE WON A LONG TIME AGO!!

everyone needs michael 'what if she doesn't need me anymore' wheeler, and that includes the antagonists.

"maybe it's something just slightly different with mike, more like the original sales pitch el got but with no option to say no"

reminds me of the you spin me round song in his playlist, which also just so happens to play at rink o mania.

"if i, i get to know your name

i could trace your private number, baby"

"i set my sights on you

(and no one else will do)

and i, i've got to have my way now, baby"

obviously, it's basically saying "i don't care if you say no, i will find you and you will be mine."

i genuinely don't get why that is on his playlist if it's not about vecna spying on mike and making his move to grab him with the vine. even if you interpret it as a love song, mike is not "romantic" like that, especially in s2. he's depressed and grieving. he's not pining.

the love songs he does have on there are all sad and ones about heartbreak, making this one stand out. and they at least have zero SA implications.

also, likely a coincidence but "you spin me right round like a record" — his name is mike wheeler lol

possessiongate: explained

i've been vague posting about this for a while, but after mapping everything out i think it's time for a full analysis of stranger things 4 and what's going on with mike wheeler in it

i think vecna is in mike's head. i think mike is being possessed by vecna at certain points in the season, which is why he's suddenly so weird and inconsistent about a lot of things

@dinitride-art’s post on the visuals of mike’s monologue sent me down this rabbit hole, and since going through everything for this explanation with that in mind, i'm now extremely convinced that this is intentional

i’m going to follow mike through the entire season to explain what he's thinking, what's going on in his head in general, and why it's not what the show wants us to think

very lengthy explanation under the cut!

we start in hawkins, with el's letter. it's the first thing we see. the camera only secondarily pans up to mike. then nancy suddenly barges in, seems to snap him out of something, and we immediately get the question "what the hell are you doing?", which mike never actually provides an answer to

in the second shot we get of mike, the sign above his bed is only partially visible. it reads “one w”

one -> vecna

w -> wheeler

there's an almost immediate connection, and it has something to do with el because her letter is still in frame until mike throws it away. vecna intends to use mike against el

when we get a wider view of the room, it's a complete mess. last time we saw mike's room it was immaculate. we can see daylight coming through the window in the mirror ("one way" mirror -> one is watching him without his knowledge) but his lamp is still on, implying he's been up all night

there are a lot of time references surrounding mike in this opening sequence. time -> clocks -> vecna

mike's issue with sleeping (which is later revealed as a sign that vecna is in your head) gets a bit closer to noticeable when he starts to say something that's probably along the lines of him going to bed early not mattering because he won't be able to sleep anyway, but he doesn't get the chance to finish what he wants to say. this happens a lot this season

karen: you need to go to bed early tonight. mike: why? ted: it's a 6:30 flight, michael. mike: yeah, i know, but— karen: no buts. 9 or no california. ted: and no sweetie pie.

they're already hiding mike's thoughts from us. even when we’re seeing things from his point of view, for one reason or another, we’re not allowed to know what he’s thinking despite him actively trying to tell us

ted’s comment brings up el again, further connecting her to the time references and mike’s concerning behaviour

mike is immediately not okay for some reason, from his very first scene, but it’s not in our face like max. it’s hidden. nancy doesn’t comment on the state of his room even though this isn’t normal for him. his parents kind of seem to assume that him trying to brush off his need for sleep is just him being a stubborn teenager. his grades having slipped is told to us through a joke while the same thing with max is pointed out as not normal and a sign that something’s wrong. the characters haven’t noticed, and a good majority of the audience won’t notice either unless they go looking for it. it’s all there, but it's hidden in plain sight

for this first day, mike is 100% mike. this is establishing who he is now, without any active supernatural interference. mike is over the forced conforming of last summer, mike doesn’t care about being popular, mike doesn’t care about girls laughing at him, mike is embracing his love of dungeons and dragons again, mike is shamelessly sending heart eyes the way of the cool older guy who likes dnd and rock music and shows him it’s okay to be different. this is setting up the contrast for when he starts acting like a completely different person later

because of an outside influence in the shape of eddie, mike does a few uncharacteristic things. he ditches lucas and lets someone else lead, instead of leading by example like he usually does and just telling dustin that they’re going to the basketball game anyway. he did fight for lucas in the first place, being the only one who could just say that they needed to postpone, but he gets manipulated in a direction he doesn’t want to go. this really sets the stage for what’s going on with him this season

mike is having headaches. this is another sign of vecna being in his head. i think of it like a physical defence mechanism, a sign from your body that something’s wrong, similar to the nosebleeds since they both stem from the brain. which there’s also a very small hint of when mike does this very subtle sniffing thing while sitting outside with dustin like there’s something tickling his nose

there’s the beginning of mike not really knowing what’s going on

mike: screw what? [...] what? what? dustin, where are you going? [...] come on, just talk to me! tell me things! [...] what are you talking about?

this is new territory. mike usually knows everything for absolutely no reason. he's being removed from his leadership position as the dungeon master and his ability to understand the situation is being messed with. that functionally changes his role, and effectively disables him as a character so that the season can work and vecna can win

they neutralised jonathan so that he couldn't support will and el by making him a stoner. they (vecna) neutralised mike so that he couldn't support will and el by making his mind not his own anymore

during the campaign, an argument starts up. mike doesn't take part until dustin puts his ego on the backseat to ask what mike thinks, reminding us just how smart mike really is and the effect he has on people. especially since his advice works. mike, always being more inclined to fight than run, supports dustin's plan

mike: it's risky as hell. but you're the ones on the battlefield. so it's your call.

this sounds like mike giving advice that he wants to hear himself. specifics of the campaign aside, getting told that he's smart and capable and should trust his own judgement is a major turning point in his character later on

right around the time mike would be meeting his curfew (offscreen, because we're not allowed to see that either) and committing to visiting the byers, vecna moves in for the kill and chrissy dies

mike was supposed to visit the byers months earlier but he didn't for some reason, and them coming back to hawkins for christmas didn't work out either. it's easy to find a reason why, probably money, but mike had already gotten permission from karen at the end of season 3 and money isn't a problem for them. he could have just been doing his avoidance thing, or it could be a play on the pattern of him being late to things, but i'm curious if he subconsciously knew that something bad would happen if he left and held it off as long as he could. considering mike is already acting like someone else when he gets off the plane and his clothes, which he must have put on in hawkins, are used to indicate that, it's possible vecna took control in this offscreen blind spot and made him go. the fact that it took this long for that to happen really is a testament to mike's mental strength

now we’re in california! and mike immediately starts acting weird. he’s wearing sunglasses indoors, which is unnecessary and really stands out. i also get a vibe of implied dishonesty

mike: so i kinda did, like a 70/30 split, kinda thing.

70% vecna. 30% mike. this is absolutely an intentional slip from vecna, since we know he likes just telling people his plans and feeling smug about how clever he is when he still fools them

mike is very weird towards will, which is so unlike him that absolutely everyone picks up on it. mike got over his “ignoring will” issues near the end of season 3. he looked devastated and completely dead inside the day they left hawkins. there is no way that mike, fully in control of himself, would treat will this way after seeing him again for the first time in months

argyle: that's a rad shirt, man. ocean pacific? [...] oh no, no, no. no, it's a shitty knockoff. yeah. but don't worry, i'll get you the good threads out here.

mike shows up acting fake. the dialogue points out that his shirt is fake. and a bad fake, at that, but one that's convincing enough at first glance. you can connect the dots

then argyle brings up nancy and things get awkward, but like most of the romance this season (especially around mike), i think it's meant to distract us

argyle: yeah, this is kinda awkward, man. mike: yeah, so awkward. argyle: i mean, i really thought it was ocean pacific.

it comes right back to the shirt. right back to mike being a fake. one that tricks you unless you look hard enough

things aren’t awkward because of nancy. they’re awkward because this random person who vecna didn't even seem to account for, based on the initial weird look mike gives him that really reminds me of possessed will looking at bob, called out his ploy in two seconds flat without even realising it

vecna has mike play along with the perfect, happy, normal couple ideal that el is aiming for, while simultaneously ignoring will. inevitably it crashes and burns, which vecna was probably counting on, because he knows lies like this never last

mike and will fight. mike's side involves a hurt that's based in not knowing what's going on. he looks confused when will describes the day they both just lived through (this will not be the last time this happens) and tries to just... leave the conversation. because he doesn't know what to say. because he doesn't know what will's talking about. this whole day was mostly from will’s point of view and doesn’t even touch mike’s, so we don’t even know what, exactly, mike is confused about or what he thought was happening

but will doesn’t let him walk away

will: you're mad that i didn't talk to you? seems like you made it super clear that you're not interested in anything i have to say. mike: that's just not true. will: you called maybe a couple times. it's been a year, mike. meanwhile el has like a book of letters from you.

we know mike cares what will has to say. he cares a lot. all he does this season is listen to what will has to say

it also hasn’t been a year. it’s been six months, tops. but mike and will stick to this even when most other characters talk about it normally. the only real time period in the show that matches up with what they’re saying was between seasons 1 and 2. before will got possessed. before will and mike spent an entire season joined at the hip while mike provided emotional support against the possession. which is exactly what happens in season 4, just in reverse

one line near the end of the fight hints towards mike already knowing something's wrong, despite being pretty majorly influenced by vecna for the majority of the day

mike: why... why am i the bad guy?

if this is mike — which, considering it sounds like he has to fight to say it, i think it is — it's possible that he saw/found the double meaning in argyle's comment earlier. he glanced down at his shirt when he heard it and didn’t really know how to respond to it

we saw how mike dressed just one episode ago, one day ago, and it wasn't like this. the outfit is used as an indication that something's wrong with mike. the logic of the clothes being unlike him probably opened up the floodgates for his intuition, which we know doesn't have to make logical sense for him to trust it

i’m dead certain that el heard this fight. she heard angela's group perfectly when they were a similar distance away from her, and she has a habit of hearing mike whether he wants her to or not. she seems to have very good hearing in general, possibly because of the way she was born. el knowing this will pop up again later

vecna manipulates mike's reaction to el schmacking angela, which mike notably seems confused about later and can't coherently explain. this part was very, very obvious. even casual viewers picked up on this reaction not matching up with mike’s prior reactions to el dealing with bullies

because of this preoccupation with mike, vecna has to pretty much speedrun fred's visions as this big chunk that takes long enough for the sun to set because he didn't have time to spread them out over the day like he did with chrissy. there was one individual vision, but it was relatively brief and wouldn't have left mike to his own devices for too long

this was most likely happening during the period where everyone was standing around rinkomania, on the drive home, and spilling into the dinner scene, because mike's stormy, silent judgement and bitchy glares are the most in character thing he's done in california so far

the byers and guests have dinner. mike seems normal at first, although there is another hint of a nosebleed. he quickly realises that murray's hiding something and gets visibly suspicious about it, he's still unimpressed by jonathan and argyle's shenanigans, and he instinctively questions joyce's last minute business trip but keeps his thoughts to himself, probably because he doesn't fully understand the situation and also likes and respects the byers too much to start a scene at the dinner table when he's a guest in their home. we saw this behaviour during eddie's campaign, the choice to not involve himself unless called upon while a whole lot's going on around him. this is all mike

and then mike starts a scene at the dinner table when he's a guest in their home

vecna must have jumped back shortly after killing fred. something switches, and suddenly mike's not acting like mike anymore

he makes a totally uncalled for, passive aggressive comment that upsets el further in response to jonathan and argyle trying to make her feel better. that happened on the drive home too, and while mike rolled his eyes at them, that's because they were ridiculously high and acting like it. he didn't have a problem with them being nice to el ten minutes ago. it comes completely out of nowhere. there was no indication he was even that upset about the angela incident prior to this. if anything he was thinking about his fight with will

el visibly finds mike's comment confusing for a second before she leaves to beat herself up in her bedroom, making it the second time in one day she's thought mike was acting wrong. and she's right to think that. mike only ever makes comments like this to el or will in the heat of the moment because they get special treatment. a chill family dinner where mike was previously minding his own business is not equivalent to el throwing lucas through the air and knocking him unconscious

mike doesn't eat at dinner. he's shown playing with his food and will is shown noticing it. argyle must have too because of something that happens later. mike has always done this when he's upset, dating all the way back to the first episode, but in this context it seems to be representative of him resisting something. it reminds me of his implied resistance to sleep too

joyce is confused by what’s going on, probably referring to jonathan and mike’s behaviour specifically. murray, the expert Seer of Things, watches el leave with mild surprise and then immediately looks straight at mike

murray: okay, i, uh, i sense tension. is it the risotto? everyone hates the risotto?

this is a joke, but mike is pointedly not eating the risotto in the same scene as he suddenly starts acting like a different person. it was a targeted comment. the tension is within mike. it's vecna fighting for control of mike's mind

jonathan and argyle, however, have only positive things to say about the risotto. this topic of food (in relation to mike) will pop back up later

now we’re onto the part of how and when vecna kills people that probably stumped robin when she tried to find a pattern to it. why they got an extra day to figure out max was in danger. it’s because vecna had to make sure mike wouldn’t fix things with el first. he’s still keeping an eye on the home team, because he starts opening the first gate the second they leave the trailer park, but el is his priority

mike mopes at breakfast. he still isn't eating. he's still resisting. will is still noticing, which is promising in terms of mike eventually getting help on this. but for now he loses again, just like last night, and he ends up chasing after el. he brings her food too, which as it currently stands is not a good thing. she doesn’t eat either, and i doubt she would have even if he’d brought cutlery

mike seems really confused during their conversation. he trails off a lot and talks himself in circles. it really stands out because it's so different from his usual speech patterns

el: you think i'm a monster too. mike: what? el: yesterday. the way you looked at me. you... you were scared of me. mike: no. no. no, that's not... that's... that's not true. i was surprised. maybe i was a little upset in the moment, but i mean... i'm sorry. i just... i didn't know what to do.

no mention of his comment at dinner. it's almost like he doesn't even remember saying it. he retroactively confirms that he didn't care that much about what happened once the shock wore off. and i cannot stress enough that he is so, so confused. this isn't about no one telling him anything anymore. he was there. he should know what he's talking about. but he doesn't

it sounds like he's seriously fighting to get the words out again, but cranked up to a hundred. this is probably why max got so much extra time. because mike is stubborn as hell, and every single season demonstrates how his true strength lies in his mind, and it probably took a lot of vecna’s focus to force him into upsetting el when we know how much he cares about her and he seems to be actively fighting it. it takes mike five tries to even start to say "that's not true," the same thing he said to will yesterday. but it’s such a minor detail, and they’re overshadowing it all with the love triangle drama, so it’s easy to miss

mike is usually so confident and so level headed and so silver tongued that he can get full grown adults like hopper to respect and listen to him in a crisis, so hearing him trip over his words like this is ringing major alarm bells. el looks confused by the way he's acting again because mike is truly gifted at quickly understanding and explaining situations. he's slightly worse off when they concern his feelings, but he's not this bad. the only way he'd be acting like this is if his ability to understand what's going on has been internally tampered with

the uncharacteristic hesitancy and confusion lingers for most of the scene, but it lets up a lot after "i say it" and entirely disappears by the end, where this really patronising tone comes in to fill its place that doesn't sound like mike at all. he calls el ridiculous, he tries to make her think she's making things up, he brushes off her feelings, he deflects. mike does not do this in conflicts with el. mike avoids. and mike has far more respect for el than this

mike: what, like... what is this? you know what i think of you.

this directly leads into mike externally basing el's self worth on being incredible and special and a superhero, which directly contradicts the information we already have about mike's thoughts on el's powers that they're actively drawing our attention to

in season 3, mike was the one person saying that el shouldn't have to use her powers. that she shouldn't be obligated to sacrifice everything for her friends. that she's more than a superhero or a machine. that she's a person who's worthy of protecting whether she's saving them or not. and he followed through on that when she initially lost her powers: he flipped the car when she couldn't, he made a plan to get her and max to safety and tried to protect her from vecna when they were trapped in starcourt, and months later he got a teddy bear down from the high shelf for her when she couldn't get it herself. there was no hint of mike's view of el potentially changing without her powers. none. and this show is very good at foreshadowing, so that absence is very conspicuous

the tail end of this speech doesn't sound anything like mike. there's a reason he sounds like he's fighting it

but you know who it does sound like? vecna. the guy who thinks every other human being is an unimportant nobody. the guy who says that brenner didn't matter because he was ordinary. the guy who thinks that el is on his level, whether that's as an apprentice or an enemy, because of how special and incredible and superpowered she is. the guy who wants to kill el's friends while she watches, or kill her while they watch, as punishment for turning against him. and he can't do any of that if she doesn't remember him, and she can't remember him until she's pushed into thinking that she's worthless without her powers, which is exactly what mike is putting into her head in this scene despite that not being how he sees her at all

the police interrupt before mike can get his head sorted out, and we get this

mike: everything's gonna be fine. i am going to fix this. okay? just... just stay calm and everything's gonna be fine. okay? just... all you have to do is trust me. i promise. i'm gonna get you out. i promise!

like to his advice to dustin, i think this reveals what's going on in mike's head. el doesn't want reassurance that everything will be okay. el doesn't need to be told not to panic. she's not the one panicking right now. these are all things that mike needs to hear

which implicitly makes "i'm gonna get you out" a lot more interesting. it applies to el, because she's getting arrested and later trapped by brenner, but how does it apply to mike? what does he need out of? what does he need rescuing from?

vecna focuses on max much later, after el doesn't return home and confirms that she's on her way to getting her powers and memories back. they try to hide it with the episode break, but mike immediately starts acting more like himself. he gets into an individual standoff with an authority figure representing the american government in like five minutes. that's the most mike wheeler thing he could possibly do

mike: so, what? we're just supposed to trust that you're the good guys? whoever you are?

this is mike in control of his own mind, mike who's finally acting like himself again, and he's telling us not to blindly trust anyone just because they're supposedly a good guy. he's telling us not to trust him, just like el didn't seem to earlier. because he doesn't trust himself right now. because he's been acting like someone else. if there's one thing mike is stellar at, it's tactical calls like this. this is exactly what happened when will was possessed

mike retreats upstairs to read el's letter, isolating himself. that particular habit becomes something very interesting in a little bit

dear mike, i have gone to become a superhero again. from, el

he realises that his words pushed el towards this decision, that he's the reason she chose to go back to some version of the lab, and he starts to wonder why the hell he said any of it. this kind of implies that what he said downstairs was entirely based on intuitive, subconscious knowledge, since he was pretty focused on the situation in front of him, and seeing something solid and tangible that proves there’s merit to the idea of something being wrong with him just kicked his brain into high gear

mike’s still very present in the hawkins part of the story during dear billy. they’re in mike’s space, and the way they’re hanging out without him there and not even trying to think of a plan makes his absence really obvious. max writes him a letter. max says his name twice, either independently of anyone else’s or before them. he appears in max's memory montage

we see the basement for the first time this season and it's as bad as his room. the lighting is much darker and less homey than before, there's no natural light, and the mess makes it feel claustrophobic when it’s actually a very open space. it's hard not to think that this is meant to be a physical representation of what's going on in mike's mind

as for what mike's actually doing, he has a clear head for the first time since he landed in california because vecna doesn't need to use him to mess with el anymore, and he's using it to question his own actions and words and why they don't reflect what he actually thinks

will: i… i just don't think they've actually thought this through. if this goes on for a month, or months, and people can't get a hold of us, they're gonna totally freak out. meanwhile my mom's probably having a panic attack already.

this is said by a rambling, pacing will, while mike sits on the edge of the bed, not moving, staring a hole through el's letter. it's the next day, and he's still hung up on it. he still can't figure out why he called el a superhero. this is a different type of anxiety than we've seen from mike before, because when mike is anxious he's usually the one pacing non-stop until everyone is annoyed with him. we saw that behaviour from him just last night, so he hasn't just dropped it

mike paces when he wants to fix an external problem. the fact that he's not moving at all here suggests that this is an internal one

the joyce mention can only be indicative of mike's mental space, because joyce isn't that anxious at all this season. certainly not enough to be reminiscent of a panic attack. this isn't foreshadowing for joyce, it's utilising the similarities between her and mike to tell us what he's on the edge of until will pulls him out of it

the idea of a problem lasting for months is interesting too, because threats from the upside down usually last for about a week. i think it's meant to indicate that what mike is quietly freaking out about has been going on for months, and that it’s connected to what's happening in hawkins

mike: before the cops came, me and el, we had a bad fight. we never fight. [...] but, i don’t know, this one just felt more adult.

when they got interrupted, they weren't talking about mike's inability to say he loves el. they were talking about el being a superhero

mike's confused as he says they never fight, which backs up el's confusion over his comment at dinner and his own confusion during the fight in question as mike not being in control during that conflict. this isn’t normal behaviour, and mike’s the one who started it so mike’s not normal right now

the adult comment is really telling too. it felt more adult because it was more adult, because there was an adult involved. vecna was involved

mike: and maybe i should've said something, and if i would've said that thing, then maybe she'd want me there with her. wherever she is.

the show wants us to think he's talking about the romantic conflict. but if what he's thinking about is the idea of breaking up with el, and what he's thinking about has him on the verge of a panic attack, then it can't be el because we've seen his reaction to breaking up with her before and he was totally fine. what they’re telling us is going on in mike’s head makes no sense at all

this is a trick. just like mike’s fake shirt. they're distracting us with the relationship drama and letting us assume that it's about el or will as we please, while mike never specifies that that's what he's talking about

he means the main bulk of the letter. he's talking about calling el a superhero instead of telling her what he actually thinks which is that she doesn't need powers to have worth. he's on the verge of a panic attack because he doesn't know why he said that, because he feels like he's losing his mind again, and because it physically drove el away to get her powers back at the same time as bad things are happening in hawkins. that combination usually leads to el endangering herself and mike protesting, so him driving her to it without even meaning to is definitely panic-worthy

will tells mike that he can see el again and say whatever he wants to say then, but mike clearly isn't convinced. he's not reassured. he doesn't want to hear that he's going to see el again. he doesn't actually want el to have taken him with her. because being near el means uncontrollably saying something he doesn't believe that hurts her again. this is the start of mike wanting to distance himself from el to protect her

mike significantly perks up when joking around/flirting with will and after jonathan makes the plan for them to go to hawkins (away from el), which leads into possibly the most mike scene in this entire season: the bedroom heart to heart with will

will: you're packed already? mike: yeah, i mean, i never really unpacked. thanks, by the way. will: for what? mike: for knocking some sense into me. i mean, i was being a total self-pitying idiot.

there's... a lot going on here. they bring up mike's emotional baggage and then almost immediately have him brush off his panic (a near panic attack, remember) from earlier that he never actually dealt with. both of their reactions support what i was saying earlier, that it would be ridiculous if mike was that panicked over el. not even el being in danger, just a fight with el

will definitely did the right thing by pulling mike out of that spiral and it makes sense that mike would thank him for that, but he was still thinking about it at the end of that scene before he got distracted by jonathan's plan. mike is still bottling things up. there are still things about mike that are being hidden from us

mike attributes his change in mood to will, which isn't entirely wrong. support systems do make a difference in fighting off possession, as seen with the shed scene back in season 2, and mike was instrumental in bringing will back so the opposite is most likely true. but the fact is that it isn't just will, it's that vecna isn't actively using mike anymore, and it’s that mike thinks he’s going to hawkins where he won’t be able to hurt el so he can stop worrying about it for now

mike: hey, also, about the last few days...

it was incredibly intentional that mike didn't get to finish this sentence. it would have told us too much if he did. getting an insight into what mike’s version of the first two days in california looked like would probably answer a lot of questions

mike gets distracted by will's inability to accept an apology, going against his prior, uncharacteristic behaviour of apparently noticing how will was feeling but not really doing anything about it, and we get likely the same information we would have but framed in a different way

mike: listen, the truth, is the last year has been weird, you know?

presumably he's just being dramatic again and actually means the time since the byers moved, but that's still a long time. and if things have been weird in the same way that the last few days have been weird, where he’s constantly confused and not acting like himself and not knowing what’s going on at all, that has some really sinister implications

will nods in response, because he does know. will knows what it's like to be possessed. he knows what it's like to have someone else in your head. he knows what it's like to feel like you're going crazy. he knows what it's like when someone else is using you to hurt the people you care about

mike says he feels like he was focusing too much on el and that he lost will in the process. vecna was using mike to upset el. he was pushing her where he wants her to go on the chess board. he was pushing her into remembering him so that when he tortures her he'll get the full satisfaction out of it. mike wasn't allowed to focus on will because vecna wouldn't get anything out of that

the way mike mends his relationship with will here by just being himself and caring is exactly what vecna was trying to avoid by not letting mike talk to el

they get knocked off course by the shootout, plans change, and their new goal is to find a way to el

vecna continues to leave mike alone, focusing on patrick and the nosy teenagers that are poking around his house. he wants the cali crew (and mike specifically) to find el, and just letting mike do his thing is the easiest way to make that happen

when argyle starts freaking out in the desert, mike realises while standing over an open grave that not only did his words send el away, they could directly lead to her death if anything happens to her. and he still has no clue why the fuck he said that. he freezes up again (continued indication that this is an internal conflict within his mind) as he gets caught up in that thought spiral, because he didn't actually resolve it before despite what he said to will. during their conversation on top of the car, mike connects the mystery of unknown hero agent man’s dying (lack of) words to his own situation

why didn't he just say the number? -> what the hell was going on with mike in the monster/superhero fight?

because mike still can't figure it out. he still doesn't know why he couldn’t just tell el what he thinks of her

mike: i should've explained myself. maybe then eleven would've taken me with her and things would be different, but i... will: no. mike: i didn't know what to say.

there's the reoccurring oddity of mike being uncharacteristically lost again. he didn't know what to say because he didn't know what was going on, and he still doesn't understand the fight or the things he said or why he lied right to el's face

the idea that things would be different if that fight had gone differently is an interesting thing to bring up. they're telling us it's important. the things mike said in that scene are important. if mike wasn't neutralised like this, things would be different. that's why vecna couldn't let him run wild and still entertain any idea of success

i think what they’re really getting at is if mike was able to give el a stronger hint that something’s wrong. because el is very clever, and i do believe that she figures it out near the end of the season, but it would’ve made a significant difference if she got it just a few days earlier

will: i think it's just scary to open up like that. to say how you really feel. especially to the people you care about the most. because what if they don't like the truth?

queercoding aside, that last question really freaks me out within this context. because yes, it was the 80s, but good people existed in the 80s. good people have always existed. our cast of main characters is made up of good people. none of them would hate mike for being queer, even if it's a very understandable fear for him to have. but if mike was unwittingly giving information to vecna? if he was used to push vecna's plans into motion? if he was used to cause the downfall of hawkins?

that's a much, much scarier thing to think about. because i find it more plausible that people would be angry at him for that. mike could easily think so too, even if it's not his fault. he'd certainly blame himself

then mike finds the coordinates, figures out what NINA is, and has the idea to go to suzie for help

the assumption that NINA is a phone -> the assumption that what mike wants to say is that he loves el

the reality that NINA is a computer -> the reality that what mike wants to say is that el doesn't need to have powers or be a superhero to matter

mike: now i don’t know if NINA’s a computer like joshua or owens’ lab, but unknown hero agent man, he gave us access to it for a reason. we just need to find the computer. we find owens, then we warn him. then we warn eleven. i just need a hacker.

this is a coded way for them to talk about what’s going on with mike through the connection they established between the number and the superhero fight. he doesn’t know what’s happening to him, but he knows that it’s happening for a reason. he needs to find out what the situation is and then warn el. and he can do that by going to suzie

mike’s headache from the first episode makes a reappearance when they get there. vecna’s still in his head, just dormant. mike lies flawlessly with will, in contrast to dustin, lucas and max doing a very bad job of it. they’re reminding us that mike is good at lying to make us look closer at the things he’s been saying

suzie: i’m really sorry. truly. but it looks like you came all the way here for nothing. unless… mike: unless? suzie: there might be a way. but we’re gonna need help. and i mean a lot of help.

they said that mike would find answers at suzie’s house. this is it. the scene cuts to karen looking for the kids and running down into the basement right after this, which is looking good for their relationship growing stronger next season

mike came here looking for a computer, and they end up needing suzie’s father’s computer, which is locked up in his study. they use the help from before to distract him, sneak in, and start looking for answers

jonathan: maybe it’s hidden in the code somehow? mike: what you just said makes no sense. suzie: hold your butts. i’ll just trace the IP.

someone’s going to overcomplicate the situation because mike’s head has so much constantly going on in it that even a certified genius like suzie has an initial “what is all this?” reaction to it when she sees the mountains of code on the real world equivalent. but there’s going to be a really simple solution that most of them were too overwhelmed to think of immediately

the cali crew succeed, so whatever this section is foreshadowing in season 5, it’s going to work. much better than the similar plan of this season. there are a million more distractions, everyone gets out unharmed, and the person who locked up the computer is none the wiser at the end

even with the coordinates, they have a hard time finding NINA. mike and will are on the same page but jonathan insists on rechecking the map. it's right, and they remind us that mike said as much. we should trust what he's thinking about something being wrong with him and we should trust the coded solution he just found

argyle is the one who actually finds the trail, so for some reason he's going to be really important to fixing this problem

back in hawkins, vecna plays mind games with nancy and uses her as a messenger for el too. apparently that's just a thing for the plot relevant wheelers

then there's the painting scene. which i think vecna was listening in on, but i don’t think he was influencing it

the answers they found at suzie's were that mike needs help. will gives him help when he starts spiralling about the closing distance between him and el, real help that actually gets through to him, by reminding him of who he fundamentally is. when mike is literally losing himself, that makes all the difference

the scene is also very visually similar to when will was possessed. will is being absolutely smothered in light from the window, because he's mike's light, the one max says you have to hide in to escape vecna, and when the shed scene turned into a time skip montage mike was lit in a similar way

mike: i mean, she’s special. she was born special. maybe i was one of the first people to realise that.

this doesn’t make any sense unless it’s mike looking back into vecna’s mind without realising, because it’s just not true for mike but it is something vecna would think. he was talking about how el was born special (like him) just last episode. he’s the one who told her the secret to making her powers stronger because he saw himself in her

if you zoom in on what mike’s saying, you get “maybe i was one”. was. past tense, when el was nearby. now he’s mike again

when nancy delivers the message for el, it includes seeing mike dead. vecna definitely knows who he is and he's in danger

then we find out, through el, that mike did try to call will. he tried to call him a lot. enough that dustin was sick of hearing about it

dustin: i told you, joyce has this telemarketer job. she's always on the phone. mike won't stop whining about it.

so why didn't mike say as much in their rinkomania fight? he'll complain to dustin but not to will? he was defending himself, saying it's not solely on him to maintain that relationship, so why wouldn't he say something along the lines of "at least i tried," because we all know mike can get harsh in arguments with will that he thinks are unfair

why would mike say that will should have reached out more but not say that he did try to reach out himself? he told el that he called her every night for 353 days without any hesitation, so he doesn't think admitting to that kind of thing is embarrassing. he wanted el to know that he missed her. he protested when will said he deserved the way he was treated during that argument. he wasn't afraid of will knowing how much he cares because he started shamelessly flirting and told will that hawkins isn't the same without him like two days after their fight, once he started acting like himself again

and that's the problem. because it wasn't fully mike at that point. all he could get out was "that's just not true," which was calling on our pre-existing knowledge of him to piece things together

which is exactly what el starts doing. she has a lot on her mind, but she's noticed all of mike’s odd behaviour already. this is just another thing that's so blatantly contradictory that it pushes her towards really questioning where all of it is coming from. she knows this doesn't make sense. if she heard mike and will arguing about the calls she heard mike say that he was the bad guy. that was the very first hint mike seemed to be trying to give anyone that something was wrong with him, the first real effort he made to warn them, despite not fully knowing what he was warning them of. and el's figuring it out. this perfectly matches up with what jonathan said at suzie's about the answers being hidden in the code, and with mike’s goal of warning el

we get our second elmike reunion of the season, and it's right this time. el gives him a once over when she first sees him, and she seems to realise very quickly that this is actually mike. his smile looks real. he’s wearing his signature colour. he hugs el the way he usually does. they do their cute little forehead touch thing that we saw in starcourt after vecna almost killed her. he's not wearing unnecessary sunglasses. he's not ignoring will

in contrast to the shitty knockoff comment from the airport reunion, we get this

el: oh, mike. is it really you? mike: it's me. i'm here. el: okay.

that's the most "loved one fighting off possession" dialogue ever. and there's no reason el would ask that question if she hadn't realised that he's been not mike at some point, because el isn't a character like mike or joyce or hopper or will who's had problems with not knowing what's real before

this is confirmation that despite vecna's interference, mike is still here. this is will speaking through morse code and just saying the word "here" after being given strength by mike and his family, just like mike was given strength by will. and el looks so happy about it that it suddenly makes me as emotional as the willel reunion does

then we get into the piggyback, which i think has some layers to it as an episode title. it's been said a lot that vecna's like el. not just that he has powers like her or that he's from the lab like her, but that he's like her. it's incredibly easy for me to believe that they think similarly enough to have the same ideas. using mike to get to el could be described as piggybacking

el came up with it by remembering the times she's gone into people's minds to find the source of why they changed. i think this could be part of the solution to getting mike back. it matches up with what suzie said about tracing the IP address. el will have to go into mike's mind to help him, finally letting us see everything that's been going on with him throughout the whole show. mike's role in the party is sharing vital information, so it wouldn't surprise me if he spies back on vecna like will did, especially since that was mike's idea in the first place, or shows el the way to find max or vecna's weakness

it's interesting that they keep calling it a mind fight too, because that doesn't really make me think of a fight in the mind. it sounds like a fight for the mind. and that's definitely not what happens with max, because her life is at stake, not her mind

over in russia, the adults finally hear about what’s going on

hopper: she said the doc's with the girl. and the girl went off to fight some evil in hawkins. then they all went off-grid. the doc, the girl, everybody. [...] and they're not alone. joyce's kids are with them.

mike isn't included in the group that's fighting vecna. this omission makes sense for argyle, because hopper doesn't know he exists and joyce has no reason to think he'd be with them, but there's no way in hell that mike would leave el or will in the middle of this. joyce knows that. joyce has seen firsthand how stubborn he is when will is in danger, and hopper came around to him being the same way with el by the end of season 3

i don't think this is a character thing. joyce only briefly saw mike acting weird at dinner after months of being nowhere near him and that isn't really enough to figure anything out, even for her. i think it was a very conspicuous decision for the writers to not align him with the strictly good guys’ side when they had the opportunity to

argyle making a pizza is included in the preparing for battle montage. it's funny, but it also implies that whatever happens with that pizza will be important to defeating vecna

then el and mike get their first real conversation. when mike puts the pizza box glasses on and confirms that they work, el is watching him like she's looking for something. it's only when he starts goofing around, like when he joked about his singing or made fun of himself with the M&Ms in season 3, that el relaxes and starts giggling and looking absurdly happy again. this is the way mike always tries to make el laugh. it's nothing like the lame socks joke from rinkomania

mike is literally in the dark. he can't see what's going on. el can

el: mike. mike: yeah? el: i… missed you. mike: yeah. yeah, i missed you too.

el is weighing her words very carefully. she doesn't know how much she can say to mike yet. and it really sounds like they've missed each other for longer than the few days separation, because they haven't really been together like this in months

from there mike brings up the monster/superhero fight again, and el just listens. she's feeling him out, waiting to see if he has some kind of explanation for what was going on there. because he was back to himself in the reunion scene, he was back to worrying about her safety and being relieved when she's okay. that was completely at odds with the superhero comment

argyle shows up with his pizza before mike can apologise or tell el that she doesn't need to act like a superhero for him to care about her. the pizza is for mike, it turns out, but he doesn't want it

and he shouldn't, right? wasn't food bad?

el: good. mike: it's good? what do you mean it's good? el: really good. mike: that's insane. that's blasphemous.

mike seems to think so. but then argyle and el conspire against him (and the fact that they're worried enough about him to make him eat something in the first place is really telling of how much trouble he's in), and he admits defeat and accepts more help

mike: okay, okay! no, you're right. it's good.

el says the pizza is good. jonathan and argyle said the risotto was good. will was eating at breakfast

mike wasn't eating the risotto when he disappeared and someone else filled his place. mike wasn't eating breakfast before he went up to el's bedroom and someone else filled his place. mike wasn't eating back in season 2 while his parents listed off all the ways he's bad and horrible, fundamentally, as a person. mike wasn't eating in the first episode when his parents said that he shouldn't look for will. nancy told mike that the things he likes to eat are disgusting in season 1

it was never about vecna. the food is mike. admitting that the food is good is admitting that he is good

el knows this. will knows this. jonathan knows this. argyle knows this, and he's only known mike for a week. the entire party knows this. dustin, lucas, joyce, max. even karen's catching on. ted thinks the game mike likes is lame and for nerds, but that it being called pure evil is ridiculous. nancy cried when she saw a vision of mike's dead body and used the desire to keep that from becoming reality as fuel to keep fighting

dustin told mike not to jump off the quarry. el always finds the strength to save mike. steve saved him in the tunnels. max freaked out when she thought he was dead at starcourt

mike constantly throws himself into dangerous situations with no care for his own safety. he put himself at high risk of getting shot during the shootout by physically shielding the others because he thought that would be better than will or jonathan getting shot, which jonathan had to put a stop to

everyone knows that mike wheeler is worth it. they're just waiting for him to catch up

that's what mike needs to beat this. he needs to realise that he, mike wheeler, is worth fighting for, exactly as he is. that his continued existence in this world is worth preserving. that he can't let himself disappear. fighting for his friends isn't enough, he has to fight for himself

here’s where we get into the mind fight, which mike isn’t really apart of, so there shouldn’t be a lot to say. right?

vecna: you think i don't see what you're doing? memory max: is mike a good kisser? vecna: you think i don't see everything?

no, it turns out there’s this very conspicuous placement of a mike mention in this part of the story. the dialogue in the memory montages this episode matter, and max's first one in the running up that hill scene had barely any dialogue because words don't seem to be the point for her. the point is the togetherness and joy and sense of belonging from having fun with her friends. if the point of that memory is el laughing, they could have just had that. they didn't have to include the line about mike right in the middle of vecna saying he sees everything, but they did. because vecna is watching mike, and watching el through mike

el was giving the cali crew updates the whole time she was looking for max. vecna only came for max when el said she was getting close so that he wouldn’t kill max too soon

into the red mind soup world we go! vecna monologues, tells el she's the monster, says that the whole point of this was for her to watch max die

vecna: all i needed was someone to open the door. and you did that for me. without even realising it. didn't you? and when you did realise, you chose to resist.

this would work perfectly if you put mike in this scene. mike was used to open the door to get el here. mike didn't know what he was doing. mike doesn't even need to fully realise what's happening to resist it

and now, we’ve finally reached the infamous monologue

mike asks if el can hear him a lot. the answer is yes, but she can't tell him. she can't tell him because of the vines. she can't tell him that she knows what he's been trying to say all week because mike isn't just mike anymore

mike: el? i don't know if you can hear this, but… but if you can, i want you to know i'm here, okay? i'm right here.

more confirmation that mike hasn't disappeared yet. that he's still in there. that there's still hope

then he starts getting into all the obvious lies. but the thing is, i don't think they're lies, because i don't think mike is the one saying them. mike is a good liar. vecna is giving the monologue. which means it's not a lie, it's just not true. and mike looks like he's fighting it the whole time. this is where the alternate interpretation of what a mind fight is comes in

at the end of season 3, max and mike were the ones with el when vecna chased her through starcourt. they tried to protect her from vecna. they stalled long enough to keep el from getting skewered and for joyce to close the gate. now el is trapped, max is being killed in front of her, and mike is monologuing down from the sky and making her cry. they are both being used to hurt el

el knows that mike hasn't loved her since the day they met, because she heard him say he wanted to send her back to pennhurst that first night. el knows that mike can live without her (if not happily), because he made it a whole year into her disappearance but less than a week into will's. el knows that mike's life didn't start the day he met her, because he tried to end it a few days later when she ran off and took any hope of finding will with her

it's not until mike calls el a superhero again that she realises exactly what's happening

el's reaction to mike saying he can't lose her looks like she's thinking the exact same thing. she knows something's wrong with mike, and she doesn't want to lose him either, because he was one of the first friends she ever made and she doesn't want him to disappear

mike starts parroting what brenner said about flying and moving mountains, and el looks angry. she looks at vecna, looming ominously over max, not lifting a finger to stop mike's supposedly good monologue. and then she's able to pull away from the vines

mike was a distraction. mike was keeping el from breaking away sooner and saving max and hawkins

this is what they meant by forced conformity killing the kids. mike didn't choose to conform to society's expectations of the nature of his relationship with el, he was forced into it. and max died because of it

max's plan didn't work. nancy's plan didn't work. el's plan didn't work. dustin's plan didn't work

joyce's plan did. joyce caught vecna off guard again. and it worked because she didn't tell the kids what she found out about hopper. mike had no clue what she was doing. he didn't know she was involved, and vecna distracted him before he could figure it out by himself

vecna screwed himself over. because despite all the posturing about being the superior specimen, vecna is not as smart as mike. that's why mike had to be free to find el. because mike is better than him. mike has foiled his evil plans over and over and over again. even now, when vecna's supposed to have total control, mike managed to warn el when he was only at 30% control against vecna's 70%, and he did it in a way where vecna doesn't even know she knows. vecna screwed himself over letting mike have even that much, because mike is better than him, whether he likes it or not

the gates opening -> mike urging el to wake up -> el reviving max

once again, mike is right in the middle of things that are happening because of vecna despite supposedly having nothing to do with it

the fact that he's crying is also a massive red flag. he's one of the most emotionally closed off characters on the show. he only cries when something's seriously wrong

he really is terrified of losing el, and he's spent the better part of the past week trying to figure out why he said something he didn't mean that pushed her into danger, and he just said a bunch more stuff he didn't mean, and she hasn't woken up yet, and if she never does it'll be his fault

two days later, mike is back to himself. the first thing he does is hug karen

karen: you are never going on vacation again, you hear me? in fact, you can forget about college. you are staying right here.

there’s more of mike being “here,” officially adding karen to the list of people who will probably be fighting for him in season 5

then we cut to jonathan and nancy

jonathan: this isn't an earthquake. i know. i know a lot more than you think. nancy: how? we've been trying to call you— jonathan: i know. i know, i'm sorry. we just couldn't risk contact. nancy: "we couldn't risk contact"? jonathan: hey, hey. i'll tell you everything, okay? i promise.

we know jonathan's very perceptive. jonathan sees things that people try to hide. jonathan's been with mike all week, jonathan's seen everything, and jonathan's hinting at having more answers than anyone would expect

i honestly think he has the best frame of reference for mike's normal behaviour. he's known him since he was five, he's older than him so has a better memory of certain points of his life (as illustrated by the toy up the nose story that will only vaguely remembered), and he didn't stop paying attention to him the second he stopped being cuter than his baby sister like the wheelers did

at the hospital, mike is in the same room as lucas for a grand total of ten seconds before lucas notices that something’s wrong with him

will looks concerned when he finds out how messy mike has gotten from nancy’s lighthearted jab about his bedroom. it seems like a lot of different people are collecting a lot of different pieces that they'll have to put their heads together to make sense of

i can't for the life of me figure out what tipped him off. i have no idea what's going through his head or why he gives mike such a suspicious look, similar to el's from the pizza box glasses conversation. mike can't see lucas as he realises something’s wrong because it's during the hug, just like he couldn't see el before, which means that vecna can't see that they're onto him either

i'm confident that he was 100% mike at this point (with vecna still in his head, just dormant again), but the effect it's had on him is apparently still extremely noticeable to the people who know him very well

mike didn't seem to know that el brought max back to life. she didn't tell him, and she doesn't explain now either. he'll have to be in the dark on basically everything in season 5 for them to stand a chance, up until the point where they get him back properly, which is a major problem because mike is instrumental to figuring things out and making plans. hawkins literally fell apart without him

when nancy talks to jonathan one on one again, they continue to hide what’s going on with mike behind the relationship drama. she says that she's glad jonathan was with mike first and will second, kind of as an afterthought, which is another hint towards jonathan knowing what's going on with mike

while they’re cleaning up the cabin, el not talking to mike goes from implicit to textual

will: did she… talk to you at all? mike: not much. i mean, a little bit.

this is exactly what jonathan was talking about. team hawkins was trying to call the byers, but they couldn't risk contact in case the government was listening. mike has been trying to call the byers, but they can't risk contact in case vecna is listening

i’m pretty sure this is what mike was going for in the first place. the idea of distancing himself from the group and el specifically. it’s exactly the kind of move he would pull, and it’s funny that they ended up going with what was originally mike’s plan because it’s just the best course of action. he came up with it days ahead of anyone else, based mostly on instinct and not the evidence that el and jonathan needed to collect over the week to figure it out

will: it's strange, knowing now who it was this whole time, but…

the camera is focused on mike as will says this. half of his face is in shadow, which conveys a sense of duplicity

we cut away for a second, but it comes back to mike for will to say that vecna won't stop until he's taken everything. vecna will likely try to completely take over mike's mind. possibly as a replacement body, because he knows they wouldn’t dare try the molotov cocktail trick when killing him means killing mike too. this matches up with what happened in season 2 and joyce's fear that will would cease to exist as the possession grew stronger

then the adults show up and mike gets an individual reunion with hopper, which kind of visually parallels the one with karen

hopper: you’ve grown. mike: yeah. you shrunk.

hopper’s comment puts him on the team of people who will be fighting to get mike back in season 5 too. staying “here” is connected to growth, and he’s happy to see that mike has grown, and he’s going to want him to keep doing that

mike’s part is more of the same of their dynamic from the start of season 3. mike is being annoying to show affection because hopper is one of the few adults he feels safe enough to act like an obnoxious teenager around. but hopper doesn’t get mad about it this time, he gets this fond smile on his face and initiates the hug. this is one more thing that mike’s been conditioned to think is bad about himself getting treated as good instead

hopper was vitally important to figuring out will’s possession. he was the first person joyce called and he’s the one who always figured out what will was saying when he found unconventional ways to communicate like through drawings or morse code. hopper’s probably going to do something similar for mike

[airybcby]

જ⁀♡⊹｡° only threw this party for you

( sae itoshi x fem! reader )

♡ a/n — i fear i got very off track with what i originally wanted this to be

♡ word count — 2.6k

♡ content — sae itoshi x fem! reader, reader could be gn but i put fem bc i think i used 'girl' once or twice, drug use (implied), disfunctional family, childhood best friends to strangers (AHA), goes from ages 10 to 20, emotional trauma, regret, unrequited love, unsolved feelings, singular club scene, alcohol mentioned (once), not proofread :)

♡ synopsis — Sae Itoshi has been unknowingly giving you pieces of his heart for the past 10 years. At some point, there's no more to give.

── .✦ got the party bag with the purple pills

The summer you turned ten, you met Sae Itoshi properly for the first time.

You’d seen him before, of course—he was Rin’s older brother, the one with the quiet eyes and the half-zipped sports bag always slung over one shoulder. 

He never lingered after soccer practice, never joined the other boys who traded snacks or played keep-away until the sky turned violet. 

You’d always thought he looked like he was already somewhere else, like his feet were still in Japan, but his mind was halfway across the ocean.

You never spoke to him until the day your mother forgot to pick you up from school.

You sat alone on the front steps, legs swinging, homework open on your lap, and the sun slowly burning gold behind the trees. 

One by one, the other students trickled off. Even the teacher who promised to “check back soon” had long since vanished into the teacher’s lounge.

You pressed your pencil into your math workbook, erased something, wrote it again. Got it wrong. Again. 

You were starting to cry—quiet, angry tears that you blinked away before they could fall.

“You didn’t carry the one,” a voice said.

You flinched. Looked up.

Sae Itoshi stood beside you, shadow stretching long across the concrete. His tie was loose around his neck, his shirt a little rumpled. 

He looked like he didn’t care if he got in trouble for being here. Like rules didn’t apply to him.

“What?” you mumbled.

He stepped closer. “That one. You’re supposed to carry the one.”

He tapped your page once, then stepped back again. He didn’t sound like he was teasing. Just… stating a fact.

You stared at the problem. You hadn’t carried the one.

“Oh,” you muttered.

“Try again,” he said, but softer this time.

You glanced at him again. “Why do you care?”

He shrugged. “Because you look like you want to get it right.”

You hadn’t realized until then how much you needed someone to believe you could.

So you tried again.

And again.

By the fourth problem, he was sitting beside you. Quiet. Focused. Helping without hovering.

Rin eventually came running, shouting his brother’s name across the empty schoolyard.

“There you are! We’re gonna be late—”

“She’s doing math,” Sae said simply. "Be quiet."

Rin blinked. “You know her?”

“She’s good at fixing her mistakes,” Sae replied, standing up and brushing off his pants.

And just like that, he walked away.

You didn’t know it then, but that was the first time Sae gave you a piece of his heart—subtle, unspoken, and absolute.

When you were eleven, you told Sae about your family.

He had come over after school, still in his uniform, and you had opened the door with smudges under your eyes and a scratch on your wrist you didn’t remember getting. 

You didn’t bother hiding the mess in the living room. 

Didn’t bother pretending the yelling from upstairs didn’t make you flinch.

Sae didn’t comment on any of it. He just sat on the floor next to you and pulled out his notebooks.

He helped you study in silence until your hands stopped shaking.

That day, you told him about the stash in your uncle’s drawer. 

About the time your older cousin went missing for two days and came back with eyes that looked through you. 

About how your mom used to be softer. 

How you didn’t want to become like them.

“I want to change things,” you had whispered. “I want people to stop looking at my last name like it means I’ll end up in jail. Or worse.”

Sae was only eleven, but his eyes met yours like he already knew the weight of a dream.

“I think you can,” he said.

And that was that.

You were thirteen when he left.

The news came one afternoon, passed through the school halls like a ghost. Sae Itoshi had been scouted for a youth program in Spain. A real academy. A once-in-a-lifetime chance.

You didn’t say anything for a long time. 

Not when he told you. 

Not when Rin threw a fit and refused to talk to him for a week. 

Not even when the suitcases appeared in the halls of his house and your friends started whispering about it at lunch.

But when the day finally came—when the taxi pulled up and Rin was still upstairs, refusing to say goodbye—you stepped outside, heart thudding against your ribs like a caged animal.

“I hope you don’t forget me,” you said, quiet.

“I won’t.”

“Promise?”

Sae stared at you for a moment too long. Then he stepped forward and pulled you into a hug.

You gripped him like he was the last solid thing in your world. “Make me proud,” you whispered.

He didn’t say anything. Just nodded against your hair.

He left that day.

Rin didn’t cry until after the car was gone.

Sae? He didn’t cry at all.

But something inside him cracked when he felt your arms around him—like a piece of his heart had splintered off and stayed with you. 

And he carried the ache with him all the way to Spain.

When Sae came back at fifteen, he was different.

Not just in the way he walked, or how sharp his jaw had gotten, or how even Rin didn’t seem to recognize the boy who came home with his bags already packed to leave again.

He left his brother in the snow, arguing, fists clenched. He didn’t explain himself.

He showed up at your door instead.

You answered in sweatpants and a worn hoodie, blinking like you weren’t sure he was real. Your eyes were duller somehow. 

Your smile a little too practiced. You spoke slower, but your leg wouldn’t stop shaking.

Sae noticed it all. But he didn’t ask.

You didn’t mention the rumors about your family. About your mom’s latest boyfriend. About the fight last fall that ended in flashing red and blue lights.

Instead, you watched movies together in silence. Ate popcorn. Shared a blanket on the couch.

“I saw Rin,” you said eventually, eyes still on the screen. “He said you didn’t even try to explain.”

“He’s in some teenage angst phase,” Sae said. “He’ll grow out of it.”

You snorted softly. “You’re only two years older than him.”

Sae shrugged. “I feel like I’ve lived five lifetimes since I left.”

You didn’t say anything after that. Just rested your head against the couch and let the credits roll.

The next day, you hugged him goodbye again. Told him to make it big.

Another piece of his heart—gone.

And you didn’t even know.

Sae didn't come home again for five years.

Not even for holidays. 

Not for Rin’s matches. 

Not when your mother was in the news for another domestic charge. 

Not when you stopped answering his texts.

He wanted to write. Wanted to ask. But every message started and stopped the same way.

Hey, are you-

I saw something today that made me-

Do you remember-

Delete. 

Delete. 

Delete.

Because what was he supposed to say?

Sae told himself it was for the best. 

You had your own life. He had his. 

If you really needed him, you’d say something.

But you didn’t.

And that silence began to rot somewhere deep in his chest.

He saw the list of players for Japan’s U-20 match and felt something stir. A strange, breathless thought

Maybe I’ll see her. 

Maybe she’ll be there.

He didn’t expect to lose. 

But when he did, he left the pitch before the final whistle even echoed.

He got on the first flight out. Didn’t wait for the press. Didn’t call anyone.

He told himself there was no one waiting, anyway.

The club was loud. Too loud. Sae didn’t know why he was there.

Spain was suffocating lately—too clean, too calculated. 

He wanted noise. 

Chaos. 

Something messy enough to drown the quiet parts of himself he couldn’t silence anymore.

The music pulsed. 

Lights strobed. 

Bodies swayed and twisted like smoke.

He didn’t drink. Just sat with a glass of untouched gin and stared into the dark.

Loud, stinky, and a blur of bodies. That’s all this place was.

But the club is alive. 

The air is thick with the pulse of bass that rattles your chest, and strobe lights paint the room in jagged streaks of color. 

You’re lost in the crowd, in the music, in the haze. Faces blur, shapes melt into the atmosphere, bodies bump and sway like they’re all just trying to escape themselves. 

You don’t know what you’re doing here anymore. 

You don’t care. 

You don’t need to.

The pills, the drinks, the strangers—you’ve learned not to question it. 

You take what they give you, let it flood your veins until everything softens, until nothing feels real, until you can float somewhere between the noise and the numbness.

Your heartbeats are the only rhythm that matters now.

It’s then that you see him.

He’s not supposed to be here. 

He doesn’t belong to this world. 

The world you’re tangled in, the one where you’ve erased parts of yourself to keep breathing.

But Sae is there, standing still in the middle of the chaos, his face carved from stone. He’s older now. 

More defined. Colder. 

His black outfit blends into the shadows, but there’s something about him that stands out. 

It’s him. 

Your Sae. 

The boy you once knew.

Your body freezes, heartbeat speeding up in your chest. 

The lights flicker, flashing neon red, blue, then white as if your heart has stopped beating and the world has cracked open. 

It’s him. 

You blink, and everything comes back to you. 

All the pieces—the way he used to look at you like you were everything he needed, how he used to pull you close when the world felt too heavy. 

How he would hold your hand while you studied, laughing together, promising to make it out.

But now, he's a stranger. 

Someone distant. 

Someone colder.

And yet, the pull to him is magnetic. You can’t help it.

Without thinking, your hand reaches out, fingers curling in the air—beckoning him, not with words, but with the kind of invitation that only the two of you understand. 

Come closer. 

Join me. 

For just one moment.

You don’t know why you do it. You don’t know why you need him to come to you. Maybe you’re just tired of being lost. 

Tired of forgetting. 

Maybe, just maybe, you want to feel something again—something like how it used to be.

Sae’s gaze locks on you across the floor. 

His eyes harden, and for a split second, you feel like he’s going to turn away, disappear into the crowd again, just like he always does when the world gets too real.

But then, he doesn’t.

His steps are slow at first, unsure, as if every instinct in him is telling him to stop, to walk away. But something pulls him in—something deep, something he can’t resist. 

He’s always had a weakness for you. A vulnerability that he can’t shake, even now, even after all this time.

When he reaches you, there’s a moment of hesitation, his breath almost shaky. His hands hover over your waist as if unsure of where to touch. 

He seems like he’s trying to hold onto something—anything—that might remind him of the person you used to be.

Your hands slide up his chest, slow, languid, pulling him closer. 

His body stiffens, and for a second, you can almost feel the struggle in him. 

Him trying to convince himself this isn’t a good idea, that you’re not the same person, that he should leave.

But you press against him, your lips brushing the skin of his jaw, your breath warm and unsteady.

“I missed you,Sae.” you whisper into his ear.

The words are slurred, the chemicals in your veins blurring the edges of your thoughts. But you mean it. 

You’ve missed him more than you’re willing to admit. 

More than you’ve allowed yourself to think about.

Sae’s hands finally settle on your waist, his grip firm but not harsh. His face is inches from yours, and for a moment, you feel a flicker of the connection you once shared. 

His eyes are darker now, colder, but you still see something in them—the boy who cared, who held you close when everything else was falling apart.

And then, before either of you can stop it, he kisses you.

It’s not like any of the others you’ve had in this club. 

It’s not hurried, not full of heat and urgency. 

It doesn’t taste of a mix of pills and weed.

It’s slow, almost tentative. 

His lips brush against yours like he’s trying to remember you, to bring you back from the person you’ve become.

You kiss him back, and everything inside you crumbles. 

You press closer to him, your hands weaving into his hair, pulling him deeper, as if the act itself can make him stay. 

You forget the music, the club, the lights flashing around you. It’s just him and you. Just the soft brush of his lips against yours.

But it’s not enough.

Sae pulls away, breathing heavily, his hands lingering on your waist, his forehead resting against yours. 

There’s a tremor in his touch, a quiet desperation. “You’re not…” he murmurs, voice low, almost broken. “What happened to you?”

You try to answer, but your head is spinning, your thoughts scattered. The words feel heavy on your tongue, and you can hardly keep them straight.

“I’m fine,” you say, but the way your voice cracks betrays you.

“No,” he says, his voice rough. “You’re not.”

His hands move to your face, tilting your head up to meet his eyes. And for a second, you think maybe he sees it—the cracks, the pain, the emptiness inside you. 

Maybe he sees what you’ve become.

But he doesn’t say anything more. 

Instead, he kisses you again—harder this time, deeper, like he’s trying to make it stop, to stop the pain of seeing you like this, of knowing he can’t fix you.

It’s messy. It’s desperate. And it’s not love—it’s a yearning for something lost, for a piece of you that’s slipped away with time and circumstance.

When you break apart, it’s not with a promise or an apology. It’s with the quiet weight of something that should’ve never happened, but did anyway.

You stare at each other for a long moment, and Sae’s face hardens again. The walls are up. The man he’s become is standing in front of you.

But his hands stay on your waist, a lingering connection. He doesn’t pull away. Not yet.

“I can’t stay,” he whispers. “I’m not… the person you knew.”

And you know it’s true. But you still want him to stay. 

Just a little longer. 

Just for tonight.

“Sae…please-”

He stood there, a million things breaking at once, unsure if his chest hurt because of you or because of the person you'd become.

But then he remembered the way you hugged him at thirteen, whispering make me proud into his shoulder.

And he turned around.

He didn’t look back.

Because this time, the piece of his heart that broke—it wasn’t given to you.

It was buried in the cold realization that he didn’t know you anymore.

And maybe you didn’t want to be known.

Sae boarded his flight the next morning.

No headlines. No goodbyes. Just a one-way ticket and a heart that had finally run out of pieces to give.

He stared out the window as the wheels lifted off the tarmac, and he imagined it—his final gift, the last shard of himself—falling from the sky like ash.

He left it there, on the ground, buried beneath flashing lights and bad music.

He left you there, too.

Because maybe you were already gone.

And Sae Itoshi—ice-cold, silver-eyed, always in control—didn’t cry when he landed.

But the ache in his chest never stopped.

lol this was literally supposed to give jay gatsby and...it ended up like this

likes, comments, and reblogs are appreciated!

❀ tags: ❀ @kenyuukissme ❀ @irethepotato ❀ @kiyy0mei ❀ @x3nafix ❀ @sugacor3 ❀ @ohagiyoo ❀ @reigensuperstar ❀ @nevvynevnev ❀ join the taglist here !

⋆.˚✮ 2025 ©airybcby ✮˚.⋆

[t00nyah]

[local group repost so that i can add my newest oc from the event to my list]

(context: we had to design a character from a song, so i went with GameGrl (Original 1993 Mix)

this is The Expeditioner, Gamecat, or, well, GAMEGRL! (she/they/it)

expeditions are her speciality cause she's really good at following missions, and she's VERY good at this game called rain world (have you heard of it??). she always can see her score (outside expedition too) that rises from eating, killing, collecting, meeting, you name it! any crazy gamer move gives her extra score too, like avoiding a leviathan!

she can enter The Zone(gamer zone, not to be confused with roadside picnic's Zone!) in which she can see everything in an extra gamified style and see stats and stuff. it acts more as a style change tbh, it's temporary and not too useful, but maybe it'll help in her campaign..? who knows! i don't have ANY idea for her campaign!

if you're attentive to detail, you may have noticed that she has a somewhat similar design to inv...and my new watcher design... it's because expeditioner is the watcher to inv's nightcat. they may be related, but she's just better, because GIRLS RULE!

initially it wasn't planned, but i thought it would be a fun parallel and her design already looked very similar to invenot.

due to that, i think it'd be very funny if her campaign ending would be something paralleling inv's datesim (which, btw, she can beat them at! because, you know, she's the bomb at anything you can name?), like...dry can friendsim (hiveswap friendsim reference).

if you guys have actual ideas for a campaign that would be r4d1c4l because i don't, she's just soooooooo silly.

there's more extra art under the cut!

i made some homestuck openbound style talksprites for her:

as well as objection, because i noticed that in GameGlr you can hear objection from ace attorney and that's mad funny

as well as a small funny animation to the song that i made today at 4am

[simplytsereve]

ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES (CH. 1)

☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

Summary: Billie couldn't deal with her older brother's tragic death, which pushed her back to the darkest corners of her mind. But what happens when an inconspicuous schoolmate meets her at her lowest?

Pairing: Teen!Billie x Teen!Fem!Reader

Warnings: Angst, mentions of death and suicidal thoughts, mental health, slow burn.

A/N: This is my first time posting any fanfiction, but I got this idea while rewatching the film, so I figured I'll try. This won't be 100% movie accurate, I also haven't read the book. Let me know what do you think. I love the original story and I hope you'll enjoy this little idea!! Also this is going to be a series.

Word Count: 1.1k

☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

This morning was like any other. A chilly, seemingly monotonously repetitive start of the day, with the sun barely rising above the horizon. The type of morning where nobody would like to peek from under their warm and cozy duvets, because that would be equal with coming back from Morpheus' embrace.

The day didn't even start properly, the sky was just turning into a smooth gradient of navy blue and orange. Most people were still soundly sleeping in their own beds, but you were awake, taking your usual route of morning run.

The little habit that you developed over the years, as you found comfort in the daily dose of activity, away from all that hustle and bustle. Being on your own, with no-one but your music blasting through the old headphones was always something that gave you a peace of mind, whenever everything started to feel overwhelming once again.

After all, what a sane person would wake up and run through the empty roads of Los Angeles' suburbs at 6 AM? That's exactly what you've thought the moment you approached the old bridge, the same you usually run through, and the same one where a fatal car accident took place just a few weeks ago.

You saw her, you saw the girl standing on a stone wall that served as a railing for the aforementioned bridge. Was she going to jump off? Even if she didn't, she sure looked like she was about to. The horrific sight made you stop in your tracks. You looked around your surroundings, to make sure that it's just you and her, before you took hesitant steps towards her. You could hear the rapid heartbeat ringing through your eardrums, the sound was almost deafening.

The girl stood still, staring at the deep river that was set very low from the bridge. The distance between top and bottom was significant, the perfect one for someone who wanted to end their life successfully. She was just in her sleeping clothes, a puffer jacket thrown lazily over her shoulders. She was standing on the cold concrete with her bare feet, and the morning breeze messed her shoulder length hair up. But what caught your eye first about her appearance, was the color of her hair. Raven black locks, with dyed neon green roots. You knew this hair color all too well.

"What are you doing?" You finally said after long seconds of analysing girl's body language. The sudden words coming from you clearly startled the girl, because she rapidly looked your way, her eyes wide in shock that someone approached her out of nowhere.

"Billie O'Connell?" Your voice continued, and with the second you said her name out loud, the surprise turned into annoyance.

"My god..." The girl scoffed under her nose, but loud enough for you to hear. "Please, go."

"Well, I don't think that's very-" You began, but before you could even finish your sentence, Billie interrupted you, cutting your words off with her own. "Just go!" She raised her voice ever so slightly, but enough to leave you stunned.

When she tore her gaze away from you, to once again glue her eyes to the depths of the river, without thinking much you started climbing the wall to stand next to her. You stood straight, looking down at the running water below you, clearly mimicking Billie's action.

"What are you doing?" Her delicate voice brought you back to your senses. A wicked smile creeped its way onto your face, and when you made eye contact with her, the silly sentence pushed itself on your tounge.

"I asked you first."

It was followed by an innocent chuckle that escaped from your throat, as you looked between the girl beside you and the abyss beneath. "It's higher than I thought."

Billie watched you with unimpressed expression on her face, clearly annoyed with your presence on the bridge.

"Hey, look what I can do." You lifted one leg, stretching your arms out to the sides. You tried to balance yourself on one leg, but your posture was unstable, and it seemed like you would fall at any given moment.

Then something seemed to shift in the way that Billie looked at you, and you could see the look of horror in girl's ocean blue eyes. "Stop." She said. But when you didn't react, shs decided to yell. "Stop!"

She clearly has panicked, which made your smile disappear.

"Hey, Billie." You said to her softly, as not to startle poor girl any more than you already did. You slowly but surely reached your hand towards her, and you jerked your head to the side, silently asking her to step down from the edge with you.

You could see in her eyes the inside turmoil, and you weren't sure if she'd take on your offer, but after long agonising seconds, she took your hand into her own.

Her skin was soft, much softer than any you had occasion to touch or hold. You held on tightly to her pale hand, and without saying much, you helped her back down to the street.

Neither of you said much at that moment, but the interaction between you and the girl you saved on the bridge had burned into your memory for good, the image playing vividly in your mind even when you were on your way home.

Only an hour or so had passed, yet everything was happening as usual. It was finally time for the first lesson at school, and both you and Billie showed up as if nothing had happened.

Watercolour-eyed girl acted as if she hadn't been standing on the edge of the bridge some time ago, wondering whether or not to end everything that had been troubling her lately. Billie proudly walks through the hallways of the old high school building, head held high. However, for those who paid close enough attention to their surroundings, even at first glance it was obvious that this was just an act to fool everyone.

When she opened her locker, a familiar face emerged from behind her. "Hey." Billie's best friend Zoe said, her voice sweet as always.

"Do you plan anything on this weekend? My parents will be out of town, and I was thinking about throwing a party."

Billie's eyes landed on the other girl's silhouette, but before she could even respond with any believable lie, a glimpse of your familiar figure passed in front of her sight.

Zoe followed the way her friend was looking, and her own gaze found you. The infamous delinquent of high school, standing in the distance, watching them both.

"Billie, are you okay?" The taller girl questioned her friend with dyed hair, as she watched you dissapeared around the corner of the crowded hallway.

☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★☆★

[serpens-the-puppetmaster]

Also, something I noticed about ENA Dream BBQ

Maybe spoilers? I don’t know—Assume spoilers

So we’re all in agreement that ENA is trying to assassinate The Boss, right?

Meanie ENA seems to be aware of this(And her breakdown at the vending machine implies she’s done it before). Froggy(I think his name is Froggy) seems to be aware of this, and he even knows ENA’s “wacky language”, which could actually just be coded assassin language to keep the conversation private while in public. Most everyone else is aware of this too, and not only does this paint ENA in a bad light in their eyes(The BATHROOM straight up tells ENA her sins will not be forgiven), but some of them also seem to be mocking ENA over it by pretending to be The Boss, which ENA always disproves(Which also implies she very well knows who The Boss is, but that’s irrelevant). Her reputation is so well-known and perhaps even infamous that she is straight up BANNED from a door, and from what the game implies, she is the ONLY case of this happening.

But Salesperson ENA…doesn’t seem to be aware. Her first cutscene has her stating she’s “out of the loop”(and yes, this could also be seen as an excuse to exposition dump) while Meanie ENA seems aware of “this dumb job” she has to take. Salesperson ENA didn’t even seem aware The Boss was absent until Froggy mentioned it, but Meanie ENA seemed to know that already. As far as Salesperson ENA is aware, her job is to clear the smoke and go see The Boss on his island so she can rope him into some “prism scheme” as her new “work target”.

I was originally going to ask if the two sides of ENA possessing different knowledge was a thing in the ENA world or whatever it’s called(Dream BBQ is my first exposure), but I don’t think that’s the case anymore. Despite having different thoughts and opinions, ENA seems to have the same mind and memories. Also, no one ever differentiates between the two ENA sides—It’s just one ‘ENA’—so how can one side be so blissfully unaware while the other is practically traumatized by the knowledge they possess?

My question is still very much “how is this possible” and “why is it happening” but I don’t want to accidentally come up with a theory. It’s just something I noticed and was curious if anyone else did. Let me know what you guys think!

Anyways, with that out of the way—Yes, I am gonna make an ENAsona, I just need to figure out how to draw her without being a little crook and tracing. I’m also officially in finals week so gimme a hot minute and then I gotchu fam~

Spoiler Alert for her: I also recently watched the Gaslight District, so expect some ‘religious horror’ undertones. Nothing too graphic, I sweareth.

[tessenpai]

Kono Oto Tomare! Chapter 143 Scans and Rough TL

Disclaimer: Please DO NOT use this translation to make your own TL of the chapter!! The KOT TL group works very hard to give you the most accurate translation, that does as much justice to the original script as possible. This is a ROUGH translation. That means is faulty and there must be mistakes in certain places. This is just for impatient people like myself to get a grasp on what is going on in the chapter! You can REFERENCE my TL if you want to discuss the chapter but never USE it as it was your own.

Scans (Use Adblocker): Kono Oto Tomare - 143 RAWs

Page 1 Chapter Title: Blue determination Tsukaji: … Judges Panel Page:

Koto Performer: Agata Kouzo

Hokkaido Music University: Kurokawa Yoshie

Composer: Tatsumi Yukito

Shakuhachi Performer: Nanba Yoshihisa(?)

Music Critic: Iwagaki Keiko(?)

Komaki: Tsukaji-san~!

Komaki: The social gathering is about to start—

Tsukaji: That so.

Tsurugi: Is something wrong? You were staring at that program with such a serious face.

Page 2

Tsukaji: Ahh, no. I was just thinking how tough must judging be…

Tsurugi: Ahh— That’s true.

Komaki: The judges are totally at odds with each other, right?

Tsukaji: Well, there’s also that but… I think the main problem is how high the level of the performances were this time.

Tsukaji: If there was a clear difference between the performance’s skill levels, even if the judges were to have clashing opinions, it wouldn’t lead to conflict… but this time..

Tsukaji: Truly… This turned out to a be quite a problem…

Page 3

Judge Nanba(?): If there had been a clear difference in the scores, it would’ve been fairly easy to move the discussion along.

Judge Kurokawa: This is surprising. Well, it is understandable, though.

Judge Iwagaki(?): Yeah… But to think—

Judge Iwagaki(?): We have 3-way tie for the highest score…

Judge Tatsumi: …

Judge Agata: There’s nothing we can do about that.

Page 4

Judge Agata: When it comes to these three schools, there was nothing we could deduct points from.

Judge Agata: Fundamentals, expressiveness, artistry, difficulty, harmony… All of it was outstanding.

Judge Agata: From this point on, it’s about how we assign extra points.

Judge Agata: This will be a difficult evaluation.

Judge Agata: …Let’s thoroughly discuss this.

Judge Agata: Those performances deserve us to face them with our full dedication.

Judge Tatsumi: -----….

Page 5

Judge Tatsumi: That’s right…

Program:

Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award – 1st Place

Agency of Cultural Affairs Awars – 2nd to 4th Place.

Excellence Award: 5th to 8th Place

Cultural Federation Award – All participating schools

[1st to 4th Place qualify for the Outstanding Tokyo Public Performance.]

Chika: Ministr… Minister’s Award…?

Sane: It says “Ministry” right? Ministry’s award.

Kota: What an impressive name~ What kind of award is that?

Takezou: That’s the award the winner of the National Cultural Festival Competition receives.

3-baka: …What-?

Kota: Woah, that’s so cool—!

Natsu: Why don’t you know the name of the award you’ve been aiming for all this time…?

3-baka: !!

Sane: Shup up! No matter the name, 1st place it’s 1st place.

Chika: Did you know about this, Momoya!

Natsu: Yes.

Mittsu: Eh?

Chika: ----~ A- Anyway, “Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Award”!

Chika: If they call us after saying this, that means we won 1st place!!

Takezou: ---Yeah.

Page 6

Program: 1st to 4th Place qualify for the Outstanding Tokyo Public Performance.

Chika: Hey, what’s this written here---?

Takezou: !

MC 1: Hello, everyone!

MC 2: We’re now going to begin the social gathering!

Chika: Oooh.

MC 1: The schools gave us such wonderful performances!

MC 1: Even while we were helping with the event, we found ourselves completely drawn in!

MC 2: Yeah, we did.

MC 1: Should we take a little break here then

MC 2: Sounds good!

Page 7

MC 1: We thought we'd take this opportunity to introduce Hokkaido to you.

MC 2: By doing a Hokkaido Quiz!

Mittsu: Oooh, so this is a social gathering.

Sane: I thought it was about “socializing” with the other schools

Kota: I like quizzes—

MC: Then, 1st question

MC: What do people in Hokkaido mean when they say “Zangi”*—?

MC: Clap if you think it’s #3!

Kota: It’s definitely 3!

Page 8

*No text*

Page 9

Judge Tatsumi: -------…

Page 10

Judge Agata: With this, we are in agreement with this final decision.

Judge Agata: …I’ve been a judge for many different competitions, but… I didn’t expect something like this to happen.

Judge Agata: Today I also learned a lot.

Page 11

Judge Agata: Let us go, then.

MC 1: That concludes this social gathering!

MC 1: Did you have a good time?

MC 2: Next year’s event will be in Kyoto!

MC 2: Let’s meet again there next year!

Chika [thoughts]: Next year…

Page 12

*No text*

Page 13

MC: We will be taking a 10 minute break now. After that we will begin with the closing ceremony—

Mittsu: Uoooh here it is… The closing ceremony… Which means…

Sane: Results announcement…

Kota: Woah, amazing. My hands are getting cold again—

Hiro: Oh man. My heart is pounding. My hands are shaking—

Takezou: …Wanna hold hands?

Page 14

Hiro: Ah… Eh…!?

Takezou: Ah, um… You often see people holding hands when waiting for an announcement…

Takezou: If you don’t want to

Takezou: Then…

3-baka: grab

Natsu: Woah, are you serious?

Atsumu: grabs

Page 15

Kota: Momoyan’s hand transmits so much calm—

Natsu: What does that even mean?

Natsu: Wait, let go of m…

Natsu: Huh? How are you so strong…?

Chika & Satowa: ………………….

Chika: Hm.

Page 16

Akira: Fufu Ahh, youth.

Suzuka: Ha ha ha.

Akira: ……

Akira: Could it be that you are also nervous, Takinami-sensei?

Suzuka: Eh?

Akira. After the preliminaries, you said you’d been covered in cold sweat.

Suzuka: Ah—…

Suzuka: For now, I want to have a full night of sleep tonight.

Page 17

MC: Thank you all very much for waiting.

MC: We will now begin the closing ceremony of the National High School Cultural Festival, Japanese Music Division.

MC: First, the Judge Agata Kouzou-sensei will address the overall assessment of the competition.

Page 18

Judge Agata: Yes. I want to thank you all for participating in this competition over the last two days.

Judge Agata: Before I announce the winners, please allow me to say one thing.

Judge Agata: I truly thank you for allowing us to hear such wonderful performances.

Judge Agata: Both technically and musically, this year’s level was incredibly high.

Judge Agata: Us judges unanimously agreed on that.

Page 19

Judge Agata: “To these marvelous sounds”

Judge Agata: “I do not want to do something as meaningless as giving out points”

Judge Agata: “I do not want to rank them”

Judge Agata: I’m truly thankful that you made us feel that way.

Judge Agata: And so, “What is music?”

Page 20

Judge Agata: To this question with no clear right answer…

Judge Agata: Even us judges had differing thoughts about this question

Judge Agata: We got to hear so many colorful and vibrant answers.

Judge Agata: Since this is a competition, we had to assign rankings…

Judge Agata: But we judges want to express our heartfelt respect for every performance.

Page 21

Judge: Without further ado, I’ll begin with the awards announcement.

Page 22

Judge: Beginning with the Excellence Awards, I will announce the 5th to 8th ranked schools.

Akari [thoughts]: 5th to 8th…

Akari [thoughts]: My bridge fell, so it might be out of the question.

Judge Agata: In 8th place.

Judge Agata: Tokushima Prefecture, Tokushima City, Minamikawa High School.

Page 23

Judge Agata: In 7th place, Shizuoka Prefecture, Fukumori High School

Fukumori students: No way, seriously!?

Fukumori students: We did it!!

Fukumori students: Amazing, amazing!!

Judge Agata: In 6th place

Judge Agata: Ibaraki prefecture, Ibaraki Prefectural, Eidai Affiliated High School

Akari: ...Eh?

Akari [thoughts]: 6th place!?

Akari: Senpa...

Page 24

*No text*

Page 25

Judge Iwagaki(?): But my, Eidai was impressive.

Judge Iwagaki(?): Even with so few members, their presence rivaled that of the other schools.

Judge Iwagaki(?): There was a mistake when the pillar fell, but how they recovered from that point on... I personally rated that highly.

Judge Nanba(?): I feel the same way. With just three people, it wouldn't have been strange if the performance had collapsed from there.

Judge Nanba(?): The other two supported him firmly, and the kid who had the mistake handled the situation very calmly.

Judge Tatsumi: It was made evident they've build a relationship of complete trust through endless practice.

Judge Tatsumi: Their recovery was impressive, and the performance after that was so strong and vibrant. It was delightful.

Page 26

Judge Agata: The brilliance of that performance, went above the mistakes.

Page 27

Akari's friends: Akari!! That's amazing!!

Akari's friends: You're 6th!! 6th in the nation!! That's incredible!!!

Akari: Ye... Yeah...

Judge Agata: In 5th place, Saitama Prefecture----

Akari [thoughts]: But

Akari [thoughts]: If I handn't made a mistake, then we would've ranked highe--

Sen-chan: Akari!

Page 28

Haru & Sen-chan: We did it!!

Page 29

Sen-chan: Oh, come on, are you crying of happiness~~!? You're such a crybaby!

Akari[thoughts]: The expression I saw for one moment in the faces of Miya-senpai and Haru-senpai

Page 30

Akari [thoughts]: Was frustration.

Akari [thoughts]: The quickly hid that frustration so I wouldn't see it.

Sen-chan [memory]: Be proud!!

Akari: I... I will practice even more from now on...

Akari [thoughts]: I don't want then to hide it from me anymore

Page 31

Akari [thoughts]: Their frustration, their happiness.

Akari: I will become a lot... A lot better.

Akari [thoughts]: I want to share it with them

Akari [thoughts]: Next time

Akari [thoughts]: For sure

Page 32

Akari [thoughts]: I will stand firmly by their side.

Page 33

Mittsu [thoughts]: Eidai, even with that performance, ended up 6th...

Sane [thoughts]: Are you for real?

Judge Agata: Next, I'll announce the winners of the Agency of Cultural Affairs Award.

Judge Agata: That corresponds to the 2nd to 4th ranked schools.

Page 34

Side text: Nerves are running....!!

Judge Agata: In 4th place.

---Kono Oto Tomare! will continue in the next issue!---

[zeke-fanfucs]

Hear me out,

BvZ actor au like head cannons or a story of what they do on set or smth

Hope ur having a nice day!

Heheheheheheheheheeheheheh. I love this. So i decided my baby need to be a part of this.

Colt (actor)

• Originally hired as Hipswitch’s stunt double because of his athleticism, weapons skill, and comfort with prosthetics and wires.

• The director spotted Colt goofing off during a break—doing stupid impressions of Hipswitch with perfect comedic timing—and immediately gave him a few background lines… which spiraled into a whole-ass side character.

• Everyone on set calls him “the feral baby” or “Crash Dummy Colt.”

• Does his own stunts, but also weirdly maternal with the makeup crew and brings them snacks.

• Has a prank war with the guy who plays Fisher. Once hid 47 googly eyes in his trailer.

• His fans online are rabid. There’s fan cams of him just drinking juice.

Hipswitch (actor)

• Very serious about his craft—classic theater kid turned sci-fi lead.

• Total method actor on set. Stays in character until wrap, but the moment the director says cut, he becomes the most polite, slightly shy guy with reading glasses and tea.

• Constantly apologizing for “being too intense” during fight scenes.

• LOVES Colt. Proud older sibling energy. Calls him “kid” even though they’re the same age.

• Once broke character mid-scene because Colt made a stupid face during a take.

Albus (actor)

• Real name is probably something soft and gentle like “Theo” but he goes by “Albus” even off-screen to mess with people.

• Always messing with the prop team. Constantly steals the fake whiskey and replaces it with apple juice.

• Actually a trained dancer. He choreographs some of his own fight scenes and flirts with the camera crew.

• Has the most dramatic trailer decor. Candles, leather couch, and a picture of a cat named “King Sebastian.”

• Surprisingly gentle with Colt behind the scenes. They’re tight—brotherly but chaotic.

• Teases Hipswitch nonstop during interviews.

Faithful (actor)

• Super sweet and nerdy in real life. Wears cardigans and glasses, always bringing baked goods for the crew.

• Has a huge social media following because she posts behind-the-scenes content and cute selfies with the cast.

• She and Colt have adorable TikToks dancing together in costume.

• Very close to the actress who plays Kerano—they treat each other like real family.

• Secretly plays D&D with the crew on weekends and always plays the tank.

Kamor (actor)

• Quiet but hilarious when he speaks. Known for deadpan humor and accidental one-liners.

• Always falling asleep in weird places on set—once napped in a spaceship prop for 3 hours.

• Has a real-life crush on Hipswitch’s actor but doesn’t know everyone else already knows.

• Loves working with Colt, and they bond over weird indie music and horror films.

• Gets super nervous before cons and hides behind Faithful during panels.

Meksha’s actor

• Comes from a punk music background. Joined the cast late in season 2 and instantly became a fan favorite.

• Has tension with Colt onscreen and outrageous chemistry off-screen. Their improv scenes make the editors cry from laughter.

• Teases Colt mercilessly in interviews—fans aren’t sure if they’re enemies or married.

(Oh and i thought it could be much cooler if Attila and Mahatma were separated people and they just switch during shooting. Why? Cause it’s hilarious for them so look so similar and mess with the whole crew)

Mahatma (actor)

• Total sweetheart in real life—like, rescue-dogs-and-water-plants energy.

• Has a background in medical drama shows, so he takes the “space doctor” role way too seriously. He once corrected the actual on-set medic.

• Eats the weirdest food on set. The crew once caught him dipping pickles in chocolate pudding, and he just went, “It’s for brain chemistry.”

• Best friends with the actor who plays Attila—opposite energy, same wavelength.

• Shares a trailer with Attila and decorates it with crystals, soft lights, and calming incense.

• Everyone on set goes to him for life advice. He gives you a hug, herbal tea, and a five-minute TED Talk on emotional resilience.

Attila (actor)

• Loud, sharp-tongued, and hilarious. Grew up doing stand-up and has no filter.

• Calls Mahatma “Doc Doc Goose” off-camera and roasts him constantly, but if anyone else does it, she gets feral.

• Has a punk background like Meksha’s actor—lots of tattoos, always wearing combat boots.

• Total adrenaline junkie. Volunteers to do dangerous stunts even though He’s not supposed to.

• Weirdly good with kids. Everyone was shocked when he got mobbed by a group of fans at a convention and patiently signed every autograph.

• Teases Colt mercilessly but genuinely likes him. Once said, “You’re like if caffeine were a person.”

(Now a little story)

INT. GRITTY ALIEN MARKETPLACE – TAKE 12

Scene premise: Colt is carrying a half-injured Karmor like a prince, smirking at Hipswitch, trying to provoke jealousy. Karmor is supposed to look dazed but charming and say, “Guess you missed your shot, Cowboy.”

⸻

Director (off-screen):

Action!

Colt (striding into frame, dramatically carrying Karmor):

Looks like someone else got to the lost lamb first.

Karmor (dazed, trying to deliver his line):

Guess you… missed your… shop? Wait, no—shot. SHOT.

Colt:

[Pretending to cry] MY MOM OWNS A SHOP, HOW DARE YOU.

Hipswitch (off-screen):

[Bursts out laughing] Missed your shop—was it a bakery?!

Director:

Cut! Reset! Take 13!

⸻

TAKE 13

Colt:

Looks like someone else got to the lost lamb first.

Karmor (with dramatic flair):

Guess you missed your sheep—NO. Wait. Cowboy. SHOT. FUCK.

Colt (whispering):

Don’t cry. Don’t cry. He’s trying. You’re proud of him.

Hipswitch:

[Straight-up wheezing now] Sheep? Did you call me a sheep?

Attila (from behind the camera):

“Guess you missed your shepherd, dipshit.” That’s the next line, huh?

Mahatma:

[Calmly sipping tea] I think he’s just evolving the metaphor.

⸻

TAKE 17

Colt:

Looks like someone else got to the lost lamb first.

Karmor (genuine effort, soft voice):

Guess you missed your shot… Jace.

[SILENCE]

Colt (voice cracking instantly):

You said my government name. Why did you say my government name.

Hipswitch:

[Face buried in hands, giggling like a kid] He said it like it was romantic?!

Colt (melting into Karmor’s arms):

I’m emotionally compromised. I can’t do this anymore. This is bullying.

Karmor:

I didn’t mean to! You’re just—your face did the soft thing and I panicked!

Attila (mocking):

“He said Jace and I simply perished.”

Director:

Okay, let’s break. Someone get Colt a cookie and Kamor a damn cue card.

⸻

END SCENE.

[centrally-unplanned]

As part of my current quest to get out of my recent "hobby" nadir of low motivation, I am watching The Animes more - one prong of multiple I assure you, isn't a full weeb project. That includes the seasonals, so I watched the first two episodes of Gundam GQuuuuuuX. Directed by Tsurumaki, of FLCL fame! With Anno advising and Yoji Enokido doing the scripts! With character designs by take of Pokemon legend! I was definitely optimistic for this one.

But man, were those first two episodes rough for someone who isn't particularly a Gundam fan...

The first episode was "fine" - the character designs are, of course, amazing, take doesn't miss:

This is one of my "language of anime" moments, where like from the outside "hey let's make the characters 20% blobbier and also add highlights to their eyes that match their hair tones" is such a minor change, but once you are someone who follows ~2000 anime artists seeing designs that stand out in these little ways from anything else around is super cool (at least when they first debuted in Pokemon and spawned imitators, ofc). Having characters with the level of pop in their color pallete as Machu, or the sallow, dark-toned frigidness of Nyaan, in what is technically a war mecha show, feels like a fresh identity. I really liked the rooftop scene for their initial meeting (loved Machu tripping mid-speech, moe-cute moment), and these two are like walking opposed emojis, that too is yuri:

But everything else! That is a lot of jargon to throw at someone for a first episode? And it isn't meant to be technobabble I can just ignore, it is the plot. They obviously expect me to have seen the original Gundam, but that is a show from the 70's, lots of people haven't! You can do this more gracefully. And meanwhile, as runtime is eaten up by loredumps, Machu's character is just forced to become a fucking lunatic and instantly jump into a mecha to Fight The Police for ~reasons? I am sure we will learn reasons, but in the moment I was watching her bumbling from generic mobile suit to discovering the Special Gundam and all suspension of disbelief was blown - "yeah okay they need to get her into the famous mecha, I get it, you can skip this part". It was just very awkward.

Obviously none of this is helped by the fact that modern gundam has just committed to the idea of their mecha being fully-3D objects that pristinely bounce around space with no sense of momentum, feeling, or visual drama to them, so all the fight scenes are pretty bland.

Still, okay, rough first episode, but that happens - maybe episode 2 will flesh out the two main characters a bit now that the premise is out of the way?

Well that is a little hard to do when they do not appear on-screen because episode 2 is a fucking flashback alt history remake of the original gundam show!! It is just Char Anzable being his gay war criminal self for ~20 minutes. I had no clue what was happening, I authentically thought I was watching the wrong show.

They didn't even let us see if his eyes have a Pokemon Trainer hue shift, the complete cowards.

I am obviously not gonna hate too hard on the Huge Otaku at Khara being huge otaku about this and expecting you to have seen the original Gundam - but this is something you do in like episode 8. I did not need to know any of this alt history stuff yet, and I certainly don't care. I don't even remember the main character's names yet! I had to google them for this!

In any other context that level of one-two punch would make me drop this show, but in the end this is Tsurumaki, this is Khara, every anime junkie I know is talking about it - I probably will give it at least ~2 more episodes. I do respect that the fundamentals of character, animation, and directing are there. If they stop being fucking dorks for five seconds this show could be good, so I am hoping they do that.

[when-noodles-form-words]

One JoongDok Order (Crack Flavor) To Go

Only had one thought today, and it was that Joonghyuk's second half of his name sounds so much like the 'hawk-tuah' phrase that, imagine-

Kim Dokja, to spite Yoo Joonghyuk, saves his contact as

Yoo Joong Hyuk-Tuah

and it causes all sorts of misunderstandings

Yoo Sangah thinks he finally hooked up but is kinda concerned about the contact naming and what happened between kdj and possibly a very bad one night stand

Han Sooyoung thinks he's an idiot for actually naming someone that and thinks its a really bad spammer that kdj changed the contact to because the guy was so annoying and refuses to accept that the contact is a real person

Lee Hyungsung is torn between asking what it means and asking kdj who the person is when the phone rings at six o' nine every day

Jung Heewon is torn between laughing out loud or laughing out louder because kdj is just a dumbass and the fact that he knows what hawk-tuah means is hilarious by itself

Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung are at a loss for words and absoultely confused (bless their little hearts, they only know to throw shade to some Yoo guy across the street who keeps bothering their hyung)

Only Lee Jihye and Kim Namwoon have an absolute mental breakdown figuring out that their senior may or may not know modern slang, and die a little inside every time kdj uses 'kid phrases nowadays' for them after they acted all shocked that he knew what 'hawk-tuah' was

*tbf im writing this with like half of the knowledge of the origin of hawk-tuah and only had it explained from a friend in small amounts, so idk how much weight this carries and if it is proportional to actual implications. I just like the chaos possible*

The best part? yjh knows absolutely nothing about this (or he knows everything and isn't paid enough for this and fumes internally and speeds up his rate to getting an ulcer from kimcom) and is just subjected to poorly executed sex jokes and the company betting pool's shenanigans

Relish the idea pls, imagine the possibilities, and think if it actually happened. this was begging to be let out so now I share with yall too

hope you enjoyed and have a good day~ make sure you eat enough and take care of yourselves too~!

[koifsssh]

So I made a whole brand haha

Okay so to preface, this was part of an assignment that was for my finals for a class, and i kind of really liked how it turned out over all, mostly because the concept itself i had made i treated it rather lightly- which ended up being a lot of fun!!!

So, this is my informal presentation of that! Mostly because i put a lot of work into it and i want to share!

SO... lemme introduce you to...

Periwig!

(long text post ahead btw)

OK, so how do i start off?

As previously mentioned this was made for class, so anything here is actually not real and a lot of images are taken from pinterest or just google in general and put together, so whatever you see in regards to photography is not mine! Everything else IS. (like buttons and designs and the like)

So, what's Periwig? As the name suggests, it's a wig making brand!

Ah yes, very silly. Or that's what i had initially thought when in the concept stage. I didn't take a very serious approach in regards to this mostly because i wanted to focus on having fun with it.

The brand itself also takes this approach, since i imagined it being led by a small team, so the brands voice and tone more so speaks like a friend! Here's an example, since i know in screenshots the scroll boxes are going to cut off text:

"Periwig started as a college assignment.

No, really — what you’re looking at right now literally began as a basic web-making project for a design class, built with more caffeine than sleep and a very chaotic amount of glitter.

It wasn’t meant to be a real brand at first. But the idea — something playful, cute, and deeply personal — wouldn’t leave [koi] alone. She kept sketching wigs, silly characters, colorful layouts. It felt like something bigger was quietly growing behind the scenes… something she couldn’t ignore.

With the help of a few amazing online friends (you know who you are 🫶), Periwig slowly started to bloom. They brainstormed late at night, shared doodles and silly color palettes, and imagined a little world where creativity, self-expression, and cutesy weirdness were celebrated. That’s when Peri was born — our little puppet girl mascot, stitched together with love and used as the main model and spirit of the brand. She’s bubbly, curious, and maybe a little unhinged (in a good way).

Periwig isn’t just about wigs (though, yes — we love wigs).

It’s about art, character, and style — the freedom to become who you want to be, whether that’s through a new hairstyle, a colorful character design, or a puppet dancing in a product video.

Our brand blends animation, design, storytelling, and fashion to bring a bit of whimsy into your everyday routine. Every wig, brush, accessory, and campaign is created with a strong love for playful expression and handmade charm — and a lot of laughter behind the scenes.

This is a place for people who like to experiment. To perform. To dress up, go bold, be subtle, be strange, be dreamy, be loud, be soft — be whoever you want.

Whether you’re here to find your next favorite wig, fall in love with Peri, or just vibe with the art — we’re so happy you’re here. 💫

Thanks for being part of our story,

with love,

The Periwig Team (and Peri, too!)"

but wait, who's Peri? I'm glad you asked!!

Originally i had no intentions for a mascot or any sort of representative figure for the brand, but after looking at the color palette and the logo i had designed, i had thought of making a character off of it! and thus, Peri was born!

Peri... periwig... peri's wigs... yes yes i laughed about it and yes i know it is very dumb. I had actually made Peri after i had already started making the website prototype, only till i got to halfway into the homepage did i realize having one might help me "take up space" and help with the overall design, while also being a "voice" for the brand.

here's the description about her, since it also is caught off in the scroll box:

"Our wig fairy guide & fashion-loving friend!

Say hello to Peri, the official face (and heart!) of Periwig!

She’s a bubbly little puppet girl with a big imagination, an even bigger closet, and an even bigger love for wigs, makeup, and playing dress-up.

Peri lives for fashion in all its forms — she’s not tied to any one style, and she loves mixing things up. One day she’s soft and pastel, the next she’s bold and dramatic. To her, fashion is about exploring who you are and having fun with it, not following rules.

She’s always collecting accessories, trying new looks, and experimenting with makeup. You’ll never catch her in the same outfit twice if she can help it!

Every time we drop a new collection or announce a collaboration, Peri gets a whole new makeover inspired by the theme — it’s her favorite part of the job.

Peri’s mission is simple:

To encourage everyone to embrace their creativity, be playful with their style, and express themselves however they want — especially through wigs! 💖

She hopes you’ll join her in making fashion feel like fun again. ✨"

she's essentially this brands version of Barbie, except well... puppet version. and the funniest thing, i hadn't thought that her hair and skin colors matched Wally until after the fact, t'was unintentional! but the color combination works, so it stayed.

As for the actual website itself... well... i did a lot to try to make it nice. Especially since Adobe XD was such... a piece... of... interesting software.... (in terms of using it for the first time, haha!)

here are some screenshots of what it looks like at the current moment when looking through the save file!

of course this is just looking at it design wise... it is a *prototype* so all the buttons and links actually do work!

that's where you get funky wires like this, since all the buttons link back to pages and such... honestly, i had believed actually linking everything to together and making it functional would be the time consuming part, but you would be SURPRISED. The actual DESIGNING of the website is the part that takes the most time, which i had... definitely underestimated it.

These pages and closeups are honestly the parts i like the most, and the ones the most finished So i thought some closeups might be appreciated!

But yes, i hope you liked my informal presentation of the brand! There's more i have, but i thought to only just show the designed parts, since the rest is just technical information like target audience, and audience habits and the like.

but yea this was the main reason as to why i was just... dead... among other things as well, but hopefully with the small break im on i'll be able to post more!

[dany36]

need to properly lay out my thoughts regarding xcxde + chapter 13 in order to fully heal and move on from the biggest mess and insult to a fandom i’ve ever had the displeasure to play. so, after 120 hours of gameplay, below are my very long messy thoughts about the good, the bad, and the ugly about xcxde+ch13 (obviously with spoilers).

never in my WILDEST dreams did i ever think the official expansion and “conclusion” to one of the most interesting and intriguing cliffhangers i’ve ever had the pleasure to experience in one of my all-time favorite video games would leave me beyond disappointed, disillusioned, bewildered, and just. angry. but before we get into what sucked about the whole experience, let’s start out with the good.

the many QOL updates. i only played the original xcx once (back when it first released) and i didn’t remember a lot of details about the game, so obviously when i booted up my wii u file while taking a break from xcxde to check on some stuff, i was honestly pleasantly surprised at all the little tweaks they made that just make experiencing the first 12 chapters a much more enjoyable/easier experience. being able to change the time from the main menu, quick cooldown, the new explanations given to overdrive, having to trigger the flight module by jumping in midair instead of automatically triggering when just jumping once, playable BLADEs leveling up with you even if you don’t have them in your party, being able to switch active party members with ease in the menu, they got rid of BLADE levels which in turn means you don’t have to level up your field skills to be able to discover certain treasures across the world, and i’m probably missing more but those are just some of the ones that immediately jumped out at me. 

new “don’t worry” version. hey, if it wasn’t for xcxde we wouldn’t have the sick new improved version of don’t worry, so i’ll give it that. honestly can’t believe just how fucking good it is.

the graphics. xcx was already gorgeous to look at, but again, after going back to the wii u version briefly, it really does make certain environments even more stunning to look at, namely noctilum at night and sylvalum as a whole. planet mira is just a wonder to explore and the new graphics make it even more enjoyable to do so.

well, that was short, but honestly like 95% of xcx is so fucking good so i mean how much more could you improve upon perfection? :) so now for the bad:

hairstyles and some customizations for mims are still locked based on the base you choose. having played games like dragon’s dogma 2, monster hunter wilds, and baldur’s gate 3, the lack of customizations available was shocking but EVEN MORE so the fact that they’re further limited depending on the face base that you use. sure they added some hairstyles inspired by characters from xc2/xc3 but as far as i’m aware, that was the extent of the new “additions” made to the character customization. just…underwhelming to say the least.

armor is still gender-locked. again, it’s 2025, i know the game released almost 10 years ago but the fact that they didn’t think to remove this limitation is just….annoying. it was just disappointing to see how vastly different some of the fashion gear was between male/female characters, especially because a lot of the times i would see male gear that i would want to put on my female cross, but then i would try it on my cross and it would just look completely different both in styling and colors. eye-roll inducing.

you're still just a rookie. this isn't really something "bad" but just something i think it's kinda funny/weird that, even though your cross has helped save humanity twice over now and even was able to pilot the ares prime, the gang still call you "rook". like oh ok, if saving humanity twice isn't enough to gain a rank up from "rook" then idk what will lol. i know why they do it but i think of what they did with granblue fantasy relink in that they call your character "captain" no matter what gender you play as and i thought that worked well enough, so idk maybe it would have been cool if they could have come up with some gender-neutral/non-specific-name term to give you other than....rook. lol. anyways just nitpicking here.

and of course, i’ve bitched about this one so much in other posts but i have to mention my biggest disappointment when playing through chapters 1-12: the downgrade that was the face redesign of elma’s mim form. when the trailer for xcxde dropped, of course i was BEYOND thrilled that the moment xcx fans had been waiting for YEARS to come had FINALLY arrived, even if nintendo/monolith did it in a way that i thought was disrespectful in that it was just randomly dropped and not part of any nintendo direct. to my absolute horror, when they showed what elma looked like, it felt like i had been punched in the face. sure i was getting the xcx switch port/remake that i had been DYING to see and bitching about to anyone that would listen, but my excitement quickly turned into despair at seeing just what they had done to one of my all-time favorite characters ever. and thankfully judging from other people’s reactions with good taste, i was not the only that thought just how OFF and honestly at times even UGLY her new mim face looks compared to her wii u mim (thank you to those folks out there because i seriously thought i was just being my typical supreme hater self). and it’s just baffling because i thought everyone else’s redesign looked ok or even better than in the wii u version (minus the fact that they made celica’s ears waaaay smaller because monolith are fucking cowards and god forbid her long ears make her look unappealing), but they decided to fuck around with elma’s face/hair even more than others and just make her look so fucking unpleasing to look at.

and it might sound like i’m overreacting but honestly seeing elma’s face in some of the cutscenes was just painful to watch for me, it was the ONLY thing that was keeping me from enjoying this remake to its fullest, so much so that (and i’m not joking) after pretty much every cutscene that would heavily feature elma, i would go to youtube and look up the same cutscene but in the wii u version just so that i can cleanse my eyes and remember just how good she looked. because honestly her wii u mim form was and is STILL GOOD, but no of course they had to fuck up her face features to fit in that awful new style that they have been pushing since xc2 came out because god forbid they try to have a unique style like with xc1 and the original xcx.

so of course i was completely BAFFLED. SHOCKED. but pleasantly surprised!! when elma reveals her true form in chapter 12 and….she LOOKS EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE WII U TRUE FORM ELMA. bro. WHAT???? WHAT??????? yeah i was beyond fucking THRILLED: the moment i had been dreading for the entire ch1-12 playthrough was that elma would reveal her true form and it would look just as fucked up as her mim version. but no, they THANKFULLY left it completely alone and just used the EXACT same face model as the wii u version but just upped the graphics a bit to fit with the remake. like, WHY. WHY couldn’t they do the same thing to her mim form?? the facial differences between her DE mim form and true form are just staggering when compared to the wii u. they just had to fuck up a perfectly good mim elma for no reason other than….i don’t fucking know honestly. even her xc2 form looks better than whatever the hell they decided to do for xcxde, and i HATE the styling direction they went with xc2 overall so that just says a lot that i’d be willing to take xc2 mim elma over xcxde mim elma.

but i was like ok, if my BIGGEST complaint with xcxde is the fact that her mim form is just terribly unpleasing to look at, i can live with that because now that i can use her true form in-game, i don’t have to want to cry out in despair every time a cutscene zooms up on elma’s face. i can now do chapter 13 and enjoy the cutscenes at least, and then, after that’s said and done, i could continue to 100% the exploration of my beautiful and beloved planet mira that i just love to no end. sure i had been hearing from two people thus far that the new chapter was bad, but really, how bad could it be? i felt nothing with xc2’s ending and honestly was ambivalent about xc3’s future redeemed as well. like i was just so over the connectivity between the games at that point and how they were doing some bullshit cinematic universe across all xenoblades instead of them being standalone games like the tales of series and to an extent the zelda games. all i wanted was to find out what they would do with the cliffhanger at the end of the original game and find out really truly what it was about this planet. 

but man i was so wrong. so so so so so beyond wrong. because really the ugly about xcxde, a game in which 90% of it is so perfect and gorgeous to enjoy, is chapter 13. all of it, absolutely all of it, is just tedious, uninteresting, exhausting, eye-roll inducing, baffling, ANNOYING, and an absolute fucking pain to experience. if you’re an xc2/xc3 enjoyer, you might wanna stop reading here if anyone actually had the patience and interest in getting this far. :) 

actually, before i dive in to everything that i absolutely despised about this sorry-excuse of a chapter that just seems to be a monolithsoft’s senior executive shitty ass fanfic that they forced upon everyone, let me talk about a few things that i DID enjoy

new true form elma artwork along with a glimpse at elma’s planet and origins. in act 1 when they’re talking about elma’s planet, we get some cool new artwork of true form elma that just honestly blew me away. i was like wow, ok, maybe ch13 won’t be so bad. i’m glad they talked about elma’s planet a little bit and how it is that she escaped, because although in the original xcx they talk about how elma comes to the planet to warn about the war that will come to destroy earth, it was interesting (and honestly sad) to learn that her planet had been destroyed and so was trying to avoid the humans from suffering the same fate as her people. cus honestly i just thought she was just some benevolent alien that had come to help the humans have a chance of survival. and i mean yeah she’s still all of that but now with the added fact that we get a further look into what she suffered through was just compelling and added a layer to a character i already deeply love.

hearing lin and elma again. hey i’ll take the small wins. hearing lin and elma’s original VAs come back and give a performance that honestly sounded like no time had passed between ch12 and ch13 was just so good and pleasing to hear. what a fantastic pair of characters with stellar VAs to match. #blessed

omomo makes an appearance in act 2. i ran into omomo in ch1-12 while exploring sylvalum and her dialogue, which briefly discusses who she is and why she is at the north delusion summit (one of the coolest places in sylvalum imo) captivated me. i was like wow, this is what i fucking love about xcx where even a random npc you bump into in the overworld is able to convey a short yet emotional story on their own. so it was really cool and satisfying to see that they used her in act 2 when you’re trying to evacuate all of the xenoforms into the manon ship.

absolutely no forced romance between elma and al. honestly what i was most afraid of when al first shows up and elma’s attitude towards him is that of a resentful partner that was abandoned by her significant other and thus has to continue the fight for humanity’s survival alone without their help. ever since xc2 this series has loved to push male and female protags together in a way that just feels unsatisfying and forced, so of course when i see this conventionally attractive joe shmoe come out of nowhere and elma is being so cold and resentful towards him, i immediately felt weirded out. elma isn’t a very emotional character to begin with, and even when the most crucial moment in the story comes where they find the lifehold core and have to fight a horde of ganglion to get to it, she remains as calm and collected as ever. i mean, we’re talking about the moment that she and humanity have been fighting for all this time: survival in planet mira. but she still stays level-headed, and i think the only moment in the game we briefly see her lose her cool is when she’s pointing the gun at lao and is telling lin to get out of the way.

i mean sure she later warms up to him and we get some flashback scenes of elma crying out in desperation trying to convince al to not sacrifice himself in the fight against the ghosts and so we see that she deeply cares for him. and then even in the ending when al is rescued from void’s clutches, we once again see elma (and lin) get very emotional and teary-eyed that he’s (to my despair) still alive. this is honestly the moment i thought she was gonna give him a kiss or even a hug, but to my delightful surprise, monolithsoft had the decency to just leave it at that. i was so worn out and fed up by having to slog through rex/pyra and mio/noah when playing through xc2/xc3 that i honestly would have fucking lost it and burned my copy of xcxde right then and there if they had decided to push their friendship (for my mental sake i will choose to read it that way) beyond that. 

and thank fucking god that’s where the extent of the relationship between the two of them stopped, because, and to start getting into everything else that i despised about chapter 13, al is just one of the worst aspects of chapter 13. i have my problems with rex, but in the end to me he’s just a stupid annoying kid (and later an obnoxious man), and i didn’t like noah for several reasons but he was tolerable and i didn’t outright despise him when playing through xc3, just again felt annoyed at his interactions and reactions with the rest of the xc3 characters. but al? god where do i even begin with this insufferable excuse of a male protagonist that seems like that same senior executive at monolithsoft forced their own incredibly obnoxious, unappealing, condescending, unfunny, detestable OC to become a central point in this new chapter. 

like do i even have to talk about how fucking annoying and not funny his whole “how’s it poppin’” act is or can we all agree that’s just a given? who the HELL thought giving such an aggravating catchphrase and “inside-joke” to the new guy was gonna go over well? actually what am i talking about, this is the same franchise whose fans loved xc2 so i’m sure there’s people out there who just find this whole terrible marvel-like humor so funny and is going to be such a great inside-joke for the xcxde community “har “har”. god it was especially so grating when the whole gang is just standing in a circle and they’re going around being like “oh! oh! ask ME the question so i can have my turn running this so-called joke fucking further into the ground!” and those forced laugh tracks after each one? what the hell? at least with lin’s tatsu jokes we would get them spaced out and it was just something between the two of them, they certainly weren’t having elma or hell even MY cross join in on the “joke” and forced to become a part of it.

like the fact that this whole rehearsed act becomes a central part of al’s interactions with others and actually builds up for it to be an attempted heartfelt moment when they give you no choice at the end but to fucking say the line in order to “bond” with al and have both of you pilot the ares prime to defeat the big evil baddie, is just…….bewildering. it took away any potential serious emotional impact that scene could have had and it was just in my personal opinion ruined by monolithsoft’s insistence in making this gag so relevant in the story. and having the colonel also join in on the whole thing? oh boy.

“oh but dany it’s just one silly recurring gag, al doesn’t sound that bad then!” i WAS trying to be more open to al’s character despite this annoying joke, but his first affinity mission just took away any possibility i had at even remotely liking his character. usually affinity missions would always make me go from being indifferent towards a character to getting to actually like that character and being like, ok, you know what, you’re pretty cool! happened with yelv, neilnail (i was a bit iffy towards her at first but grew to like her by her second affinity mission), hope, frye and phog, and even fucking hb who is even more arrogant than al! but fucking al’s affinity mission? first of all, the fact that he insists on calling elma, aka the fucking colonel that everyone rightfully respects because hello she’s the whole fucking reason they’ve managed to be alive so far, “princess” is just disgusting, condescending, patronizing, and just….what the fuck? might be a localization issue, but seriously, is no one else bothered by that?? what??? at first i thought i had missed something in elma’s backstory in act1 where she actually might have possibly mentioned that she was something of a royalty (because honestly just playing through chapter13 was giving me headache), but no, this fucking asshole really does call elma “princess” as an attempt to what? be funny? another one of his fucking annoying-ass jokes? like bro, just shut up. if there’s one way to make me hate a male character is by giving female characters patronizing nicknames like that. just fuck off.

and then the affinity mission actually consists in al being like, YO, prove yourself to me because i don’t actually believe you’re as good as elma says, as if we have anything to prove to this asshole. they really did manage to show his most insufferable and loathsome side instead of showing a side that would actually get you to warm up to him like many other affinity missions have. and then when you beat his stupid ass he’s like “actually no you still failed to pass my test by some arbitrary measure that only i know about”. like the whole affinity mission makes it seem like you’re going to be al’s successor, they talk about him needing someone to “take over his duty” as if he’s gonna somehow die or that cross actually needs to step it up to the plate (more than we already have? lol), but like no dude. you’re still alive at the end so what was even the point of making such a big deal about finding al’s successor?

and thank god i didn’t waste my time playing through chapter 13 by actually trying to raise his affinity to be able to do his second affinity mission, because i just looked it up some moments ago and oh boy. you mean to tell me that this guy, that supposedly everyone loves because he’s some bigshot hero who came from the army and is the “chosen one” to pilot the ares prime, actually becomes some tantrum-throwing big baby when poor little hero boy can’t get some pizza and so he decides to actually insult service workers and yells at them in the same condescending tone until he gets what he wants???? hooooow. how is this real. how is this a character my cross is supposed to grow close to. he tries to relay the job of gathering the ingredients for HIS pizza to you and even at the end tries to take credit for the whole thing even though you helped him with it. whatfucking ever. i know every “hero” character has his flaws but my god. just can’t believe this is the route they decided to go with in regards to his affinity missions. talk about wasted potential. yes he talks about how much love he has for humanity and how if he sets a goal he pursuits it to no end and all these other “hero” qualities but like…..ok cool talk bro, you’re still annoying to deal with.

one other thing i didn’t like about how the game approaches your interactions with him is that, the game choices really try to either really really get you to like him to the point of fawning over him, OR for some reason push you to glare at him with envy. like nah, i’m not envious of this obnoxious hero, i just find him fucking annoying lol. thanks though.

and speaking of hero, and this might just me being bitter at this point about this joe shmoe, but i thought it was….hmmm….actually kind of bothersome how everyone is hailing him as the big hero when…really if it wasn’t for elma and her efforts, all these people would be dead and there would be no humans to speak of. yes i know others recognize that even in act1 where doug says that if it weren’t for elma they wouldn’t be alive, but idk i always saw elma as the main protagonist of xcx and our cross just riding along so seeing this self-insert OC come in and take all the glory for something that’s mentioned in half a sentence in the original xcx intro (that i always imagined was elma tbh?) and thus become the new focal point of this new story (when again elma is the focal point in ch1-12) just rubbed me the wrong way and was just not a good start for me towards taking a liking towards al, so i guess he was doomed from the start for me. so actually you know what, maybe i AM envious of him, but of the screentime he took from elma lol.

anyway enough about that tiresome oc, i don’t know how much i wanna spend time talking about the new villain void. like his motivations was about wanting to find out what death really is because he was imprisoned by the samaar for fucking around with the conduit and bringing the ghosts to appear. lol ok i’m sorry am i supposed feel SORRY for him?? ch13 did something that i aaaaabsolutely despise in storytelling: waiting to tell you about a villain’s background and  motivations after they’re dead in an attempt to humanize him. the last game i played that did this was tales of arise and i absolutely loathed it. what’s the point of you telling me what his origin was and where his motivations come from when i already killed him and he was fucking annoying to deal with the whole entire time. by this point i don’t care, he’s dead and i’m glad he’s gone. if you want to humanize a villain and make his death seem tragic, idk maybe try to do that THROUGHOUT the story’s arc so that his motivations aren’t a fucking afterthought??? it was so fucking when al is like “oh by the way i got this vision of void while i was trapped check it out” like monolith come the fuck onnnnnn you can do better than thaaaat.

his whole final form and fight was just stupid too, reminded me of xc3’s and how i was just so tired by the time it happened. i was so over void by that point that i didn’t find him scary or threatening at all, compared to what i felt when i first fought luxaar in his vita: this is the villain that really wants to end humanity at all costs. but void? just a bunch of big talk and taunting but just so overdone and childish. for being an all-powerful being or whateverthefuck he really was just standing there as he was being stabbed over and over by huge lances that were diminishing his power and going “oughh!!! my cores!!! :( “ each time he’d get hit. like. oh my god. i can’t believe i actually played through this.

honestly who cares about void, i don’t want to spend more than two paragraphs on him. i’ll just end it with saying that void was an overall unappealing, uninteresting, tedious villain, and yet another eyeroll-inducing aspect of ch13. execution just fell so flat for me. moving on!

and now for the pacing of it all. i don’t know how to even begin talking about this aspect because, while yes there were some bits that were interesting (elma’s backstory for example), even though the arcs themselves were long in comparison to ch1-12’s story missions, i felt like….there was barely even anything interesting or engaging going on most of the time? the arcs are so cutscene heavy because of course they have to set the stage of the new problem the gang is facing, and everyone is talking about oh we have to evacuate all the xenoforms onto the manon ship and also make preparations for the ship to be able to escape using ares’s cores, so there is very little if any gameplay in itself during acts 1 and 2. i just felt like the arcs just dragged on and on and on with just filler that ultimately provided very little satisfaction to the overall storytelling. maybe it’s so jarring because, like i mentioned, the original story missions aren’t THIS cutscene heavy, and they’re way shorter in comparison, but provide much more compelling content and interesting content in between, while all three acts are just filled with URGENT we have to save this manon! and now for some al hijinks :) and now for some backstory! hey now go rescue these two random NPCs! idk the whole thing just seemed off to me and i was just NOT enjoying the pacing of it all.

and i was just baffled by the whole thing because, of course the question that any original xenoblade x had in mind was, just WHAT is it about the planet? that’s what we had been waiting to find out since 2015 and….the fact we don’t see ch13 even start to address what could be done to find out more about this was just weird! are we ever gonna get to find out what makes mira so special?

oh right. there was no time to address the biggest aspect fans had been waiting for all this time of course. because right away, your main mission starting within one minute of act 1 starting is to get out of the fucking planet you’ve come to know and love since it’s about to fucking disappear.

sigh.

you know, i could have just accepted the new unlikable hero, i could have accepted the uninteresting and tiresome new villain and its poor way of talking about its motivations, i could have been fine with the new acts dragging on and on and on and just the weird pacing of it all, i could have been fine with of course them wanting to SOMEHOW tie xenoblade x to the numbered games because god knows everything has to be tied nowadays, but here’s the part that hurts the most as an original xcx fan and the part that finally put the nail on the coffin on chapter13:

planet mira’s fate. how. hooooow do you base an entire game’s premise (both story and gameplay) around such a beautiful, unique planet and decide, you know what, FUCK the fans and their affection towards this planet, mira needs to die because who gives a shit about finding more about its many mysteries we left unsolved in the original game. like, did this new monolithsoft senior executive come in and be like, you know what, my self-insert OC had no hand in helping humanity build a new life in mira and new la, so let’s just throw all of it away and make them move to a NEW planet! honestly i just have to make up some villain in my head at this point because how do i even begin to start making sense of it???

it’s honestly a fucking insult and a spit on every original xcx fan’s face. first of all, the whole game puts SOOOO much emphasis on exploring every single corner of mira and mapping it all out and discovering its secrets. it’s unreal seeing just how much love and care the original developers put into creating such a fantastic otherworldy environment, giving us an experience that i honestly think no other game has been able to even come CLOSE to replicating because let’s be honest, you just take one look at noctilum or sylvalum and you just fucking fall in love with the whole damn planet. the game is always boasting about mira being humanity’s new home and so of course you come to love it and grow fond of it. you WANT to explore every single corner and install all of those data probes! the game incites you to complete its exploration to 100% because this is your new home! you have to get to know it! even elma says she wants to take a vacation to explore mira on her own time because the planet fascinates her to no end!

and there’s so much mystery surrounding it too, even before you get to the infamous cliffhanger at the end. elma points out in an early chapter how it’s weird that you’re able to communicate with all sorts of different species in English even though obviously you all come from different places. other NPCs point this out as well. so what is in the planet that is able to translate their words? professor B’s sidequests also talk about him wanting to discover mira’s secrets and that’s why he stays in this…current time and doesn’t go back to the future or whatever. and of course elma’s now-famous quote of “something about this planet” that gets repeated at least three times throughout the whole game. like, there’s so much build up scattered through ch1-12 regarding mira that, when you finally get to the cliffhanger at the end and you find out that the whole database has been destroyed since they landed on mira and it makes absolutely no sense that they haven’t flopped over and died.

so yeah, so many interesting and compelling things about mira left to answer that it’s just INFURIATING and OUTRAGEOUS for monolithsoft to just ignore ALL of that buildup, all of that worldbuilding, to just come in and be like “yeah actually we’re not gonna answer ANY of that, we don’t know WHAT the fuck we were thinking when we kept emphasizing it was something about the planet mira itself and so we’re just gonna create these convoluted, unsatisfying, rushed acts to get you to come to terms that you need to forget all about that and blow up the planet ‘cus we sure as hell are not gonna expand properly on what actually was the biggest, most intriguing cliffhanger in the series”. 

like. what. WHAT. seriously??? is this REALLY what the original xcx team had planned for mira’s fate all of those years ago when the cliffhanger first happened? i REFUSE to believe that the same team that worked on the original xcx is the same team that worked on this fucking mess of a poorly-written start-over fanfic bullshit. and if it is, maybe it’s time i stop giving this company my money because obviously after xcx, this company has just lost the charm and wonder that originally made me fall in love with the original xc1 and xcx. like haha yeah just kidding, there really was nothing about the planet and instead you all live on cus of the abyss…or the rift…or whatever the fuck holds all of your souls and that’s why you get to live on! like i think that was briefly talked about and then never touched again and i might have misunderstood but whatever, who gives a fuck? certainly not monolithsoft.

because WHAT is it with monolith’s obsession with going like “haha never mind! let’s just start over in a new world!” they did it with xc1 which fine whatever first game in the series, but then again in xc3, and now xcx?? the whole time playing chapter13 i kept foolishly thinking that somehow we would come back to mira cus it’s like lol, NO WAY they will do the whole “let’s start over!” for the THIRD time in the series and ruin one of THE most beautiful and unique aspects of the game. i even wasn’t making a big deal of omomo wanting to stay in mira and the other dude obsessed with mira’s lifeforms because i was like, haha no worries guy, somehow we will undo these dematerialization events and mira will be safe at last! ← not delusional at all. little did i know. little did i know that monolith has just gone off the deep end and they really would rather blow it all up than actually take some time to further elaborate on their original concept because god knows they’ve lost their magic touch for compelling storytelling/worldbuilding and can only think of one (1) way to end their games now apparently: just start over!

and it’s like, somehow they tried to have their cake and eat it too or at least (shittily) appease some of the fans with being like “haha no worries guys, we can find a way to preserve mira’s life and replicate it in the new world by just going over to each region and inspecting this one specific form to copy aaalllll of the lifeforms data!! haha isn’t that neat?” excuse me are you guys fucking dumb, what’s to say that they will even be able to survive in a new planet??? what the hell?? yeah just briefly inspect these datapoints and boom, problem solved!!! how fucking lazy could they have gotten with this? and that “new” planet that they find at the end? look i don’t know if it’s some planet that’s already established in the xeno series (i honestly don’t care), but how is it that they say hey look a new planet, that’s our new home :) ? like, yeah sure let me just go out into the universe and try to establish life in the first fucking random planet i find. jfc.

after SO MANY years of foolishly and anticipatedly waiting for a continuation to one of the most interesting cliffhangers i’ve ever had the pleasure to experience in a video game, monolith comes out and spits on, stomps on, and burns to ashes the world and lore the original xcx fans grew to love and care for all these years. the one thing that had been nagging in the back of my mind the ENTIRE time that i was enjoying and having a blast with exploring mira again was that somehow, someway, ch13’s conclusion would take away my immense desire to finally 100% mira’s exploration. i didn’t even come close to it when i originally played in the wii u, and how could i call myself a huge xenoblade x fan if i have never even 100%’d mira? that’s why i was trying to take my sweet time with the original content, because it’s so fucking good and i didn’t want the new content to ruin it for me. but man, never did it even CROSS my mind that mira fucking disappearing would be something that monolith would even dare to do and call it a “conclusion” to one of the greatest mysteries in the series.

so yeah, last night when i completed ch13 i was fucking sad, i was DEVASTATED at what these idiots did to one of my ultimate favorite games and one of its unique aspects that i had come to love so much: planet mira itself. but just like that monolithsoft senior executive can write his shitty little fanfic and call it a day, i am now choosing to ignore chapter 13 ever happened. to me, xenoblade x ends with chapter 12, just like it did originally all those years ago. ch13 talks about parallel universes? well, xenoblade x wii u lives in one of those parallel universes and the gang all lived happily ever after in planet mira, and elma finally got to take her long-awaited vacation to explore the world to her heart’s content. 

i REFUSE to let a company’s fall from grace in my eyes destroy a game that i’ve come to love and treasure with all of my heart. i WILL 100% the game in the switch version, and then i will put it away and never touch it again. while playing and moaning about DE mim elma, i kept thinking that once i 100% the switch version, if i ever do want to replay xcx (which i will, because xcx is life), i will just do it in the wii u version. sure i will lose all of the QOL updates, but i will gain good mim elma, long-eared celica, and i will be able to continue post-chapter 12 knowing there isn’t any insulting additional story mission content waiting to be picked up. and i think that’s a fair exchange.

ok wow i need to wrap this up. i have other problems with ch13 that i could talk about but those were the major ones that made it a pain to get through and honestly i need to move on and forget it ever happened. if you somehow chose to read all of this, made it all the way through this rant and actually agreed with the points i made regarding ch13, then wow, thank you. i am hugging you and giving you a gentle kiss on the forehead.

so yeah, i still have a lot of love left to give to the original xcx fandom. there are still so many drawings i still want to do to pour out and express my love for the original game and world. i’m so tired of giving money to a company whose games and new content i haven’t enjoyed since the original xcx game released. they can continue down this unsatisfying and tiresome path of storytelling in their games as much as they want, i will just continue to be in that fun little corner of the original xc1/xcx fandom since those are the games that captured my heart all those years ago.

alright, that felt good to finally get it all out. now to start working on my next xcx piece. man i love xenoblade chronicles x so fucking much.

[wendelsae]

okay so.

I am a writer not a visual artist, so that makes things very different.

no one is going to trace my writing (do the Borges thing where you type out the exact same thing with different intentions behind it) and then post it themselves to show their writing progress. no one is going to take a chapter of my story out of context and just post it no attribution as social media content. no one's going to take the whole text of my story and post it anonymously or under their name- and even if they did it would be trivial, given how text search works, to find the original. the most sort of use of my writing contrary to my will I can think of is someone writing fanfic of it that doesn't understand it, which isn't really using it at all, or someone excerpting a tiny contextless generic passage to post on one of those image quote Anais Nin blogs for girls, which, whatever.

my point is that a written story takes a fairly long time to appreciate, requires a devotedly thoughtful literate to appreciate, and is integral. even if it's republished with no name or a false name, it's not going to be chopped up or decontextualized, and everyone will know that some unknown writer wrote it and give me honor thereby.

for visual artists, the creators of images, it's different.

images online are constantly chopped up, decontextualized, anonymized in ways that make it nearly impossible to know the source. look around, on tumblr there are thousands and thousands of blogs endlessly posting images with no context, no sense of who made them or why, no way for the viewer to seek out more of the maker's works. it's just an image that, for all the poster and the viewer are concerned, simply emerged out of internet chaos meaninglessly. and this is the primary way images are treated on the internet- as decontextualized meaningless Content to be rapidly consumed on a feed with no time or effort, posted & reposted again & again. and of course now with the putrid filth of the thinking machines this meaninglessness & decontextualization of images is heightened even more, since plenty of images now have no meaning or context at all, and apparently this is acceptable for all most netizens care.

the structure of the internet doesn't help with this- if I want to save a text I have to copy & save the whole thing into a word file, including the colophon unless I'm malicious to the author for some reason; it takes care, much as appreciating the writing does. if I want to reupload someone else's fanfic- well, I won't, I'll just link it. but if I save an image I've looked at for two seconds I'm going to get an isolated image file renamed 52357875473377.jpg, and if I reupload it it's renamed again to tumblr_g6e57vk8rfi8tfrgb.jpg. unless I go out of my way to note the artist's name- if I even can know it- then the image is already lost. and then every person who saves & reuploads it after me will have to do the same thing or the chain of context will be lost time & again anyway.

(I do wonder why so few image-makers just sign their works in the image since it seems like a very good way to reduce this sort of problem.)

you often see them call this theft, which is either unreasonable (I don't care about copyright) or misses the point. it's not that someone else is claiming their work to be their own, it's that their work is fragmented & anonymized & shattered into a thousand untraceable pieces removed from the corpus.

this is asking- to be sure in a rather naive & weird way to someone not in these sorts of visual artist subcultures- please don't do this to my work. please let it be integral to the meaning & place that are as much part of the work as the pixels themselves are, please don't deprive me of my honor.

now this particular person is objecting not just to decontextualization, but to recontextualization. "I drew a picture of my dear Elyth who is a Yuljit, here's her life story & historical context" -> (copy just the picture) -> "this is Ruminella, my Elf character". do you not see how this is even worse than mere decontextualization? this is personal, deliberate dismemberment of a corpus, a disrespect for the work of art, treating it as something to be stripped for raw materials.

I think this sort of warning is very often silly or unrealistic or not understanding how the internet works or pointlessly limiting or overkill, but I get why someone would feel this way and ask this sort of thing.

i really scoured for signs this was joking but didn’t see any, maybe i’m just blind + stupid but it really seems like this was sincere which is unfathomable to me, how does this kind of thing not get you mocked until you delete all your accounts / slit your wrists in a bathtub

[koszmarnybudyn]

So this song fits them so very well right?

[thegalaxyinapaperbag2]

"When I was fourteen, I divorced them. I took them to court. I got paid maintenance 'till employment age and access every fourth weekend to the family dog."