#watching people get ohko’s with it

[m34gs]

A thought that isn't really an ask but made me giggle. An AU of our Saw AU where Ms. Yamada meets the Twst boys and they instantly stop trapping people lol. (She gives them the 🤨 look.)

OH. MY GOD. That is so perfect. Friend. I love your brain. Alrighty, let's talk about another AU of our AU!!

(for those confused, feel free to check out our Twisted Wonderland Saw AU in the pinned post here, and our multi-universe Bar AU on AO3 here)

Mrs. Yamada gives the boys One (1) disapproving look and their reactions are as follows:

Heartslaybul

Riddle - in tears because he has sorely disappointed the sweetest elderly lady he's ever met and he is So Ashamed. He needs a hug and a sweet treat.

Cater - is definitely ashamed but tries to laugh it off a little. He is totally caught by surprise when she gives him a hug and pats his head (he needed it though).

Ace and Deuce - on their knees begging forgiveness

Bonus, Trey, who does not participate in traps - he is baking in her kitchen and giving every single one of the others an "I Told You So" look :D (he does get a little scolded for not stopping them though)

Savanaclaw

Leona - he definitely gets a little pouty, like a child that knows he's been caught doing something he's not supposed to

Ruggie - Mrs. Yamada's look is a OHKO. How could he justify disappointing this sweet granny, who reminds him of his own?

Jack - ears down and tail between his legs while he apologizes

Octavinelle

Azul - he definitely tries to convince her a little bit, but Mrs. Yamada is having None of it. He is quickly defeated. And she makes him take a vacation because goddammit Azul you work too much.

Jade - he's surprised at himself, at how easily he wants to go along with what this elderly woman is asking of him. He needs 3-5 business days to reflect on this feeling and process it (it's guilt. the feeling is guilt.)

Floyd - Mrs. Yamada says "no more murders" and Floyd goes "Kayyy!😊😊😊" and proceeds to sit on her couch and munch on the cookies she gives him

Scarabia

Kalim - Kalim is instantly on-board. He has tea with Mrs. Yamada regularly. They discuss how to help Jamil be less vindictive.

Jamil - he's reluctant to stop but she convinces him and then Mrs. Yamada makes him sit on the couch and relax while her and Kalim cook something for him and at first he's all tense, but then when it's not a disaster he finally lets himself get some much-needed rest.

Pomefiore

Vil - would not dare turn down a request from such a sweet, kindhearted woman who dresses so nicely and speaks so eloquently. He would much rather have tea with her than do a trap anyway.

Rook - initially, he is a bit uncertain because he thinks there *is* some art to the traps (this is Rook, he finds beauty everywhere) but he does consider Mrs. Yamada's outlook to be rather beautiful too, so he does agree and he joins Vil and her for tea.

Epel - part of him wants to fight back (verbally) because he has Issues with Authority, but he also knows better than to defy an elderly lady when she gives him a disapproving look. And, he can show Mrs. Yamada his favourite apple pie recipe. :D

Ignihyde

Idia - at first, Idia pulls his typical Idia-move and mutters something under his breath about "annoying old ladies" but Mrs. Yamada has Excellent Hearing. She whacks him with her umbrella. He immediately repents (and he and Renji can bond over it later lol)

Ortho - he's on board if Idia is. In fact, he loves Mrs. Yamada. He sits with her and listens to all her stories about how life was for her growing up and he goes through photo albums with her and watches her do embroidery.

Diasomnia

Malleus - he does his best to impress upon Mrs. Yamada the importance of creating a better world for Yuu. Mrs. Yamada counters that there are other and better ways to protect someone. He can't exactly argue. That is that.

Lilia - Listen, Lilia knows a Powerful Entity when he sees one. Sorry, John, but he's not going up against Mrs. Yamada. Not today.

Silver - he follows Malleus and Lilia's lead, of course. He does make a very formal and proper apology to Mrs. Yamada.

Sebek - he argues initially, because who is this human lady to tell Lord Malleus what to do???? But he relents after (several) whacks from her umbrella. Then, since she bested him in a duel, she has his utmost respect and he praises her almost as much as he does Lilia and Malleus. lol.

Those are my thoughts! Please add yours, I'd love to see where we can go with this little thought exercise hehehe!💜💜💜

[seffien]

yet another au: 'deep cut'. you'll see why the quotes are there in a second, and the reason is worse than you think.

small warning: big fan of body horror and horror stuff, so body horror and horror stuff will be present in this post.

basically, mr. grizz suckered deep cut into being on his side during RotM (which took place over, what, ~2 1/2 weeks in this au) with the promise of treasure. this isn't me trying to make deep cut look stupid btw. considering the demeanor of the actual mr grizz, i think he's just a Master Manipulator who took advantage of good people.

anyway, after deep cut joins his side, he gets them to come to a location hidden deep within alterna, then gets armed fuzzy octolings to ambush them. shiver somehow manages to fight them off, but is left weakened and on the floor.

she catches a glimpse of the actual mr grizz (just his eyes) and immediately tries to crawl away, but one claw swipe takes her out. they end up in his super secret science lab (which exists TO ME) and the results are...not pleasant. instead of fighting deep cut, agent 3 has to fight the following.

Eel It In: Eelthing

eelthing is Frye fused with her eels. not just combined, fused. together. frye isn't frye anymore.

eelthing's arena is like frye's, but the dome's screens are glitchy, the giant TVs are smashed, the graffiti/stickers on the ground are

torn, and everything is either gray or yellow.

stunning eelthing is just like stunning frye—just hit the masked eels. when that's done, the eels will explode into, uh...ink? and that ink that isn't really ink will recombine and form eelthing. it's like yellow devil but worse.

during phase 1, eelthing will separate into mutated eels, and those eels will perform eel downpour. the attack basically is eel downpour, just freakier.

during phase 2, eelthing will transform into a cylinder of eels that will spin rapidly and move around the arena. it's armor-breaking on contact, too. the move from phase 1 is there too

during phase 3, eelthing will actually stay in 'inkling' form for more than 3 seconds for once. this isnt good though, as when they stay in inkling form for this long, they will sprint straight towards you. when they get fast enough, they're invincible, and they create a path of ink as they run, but hitting the edge of the arena (which they do almost every time if you dodge correctly) stuns them. hit them when they're stunned out of every move, and you're golden.-

when defeating eelthing, they literally just...melt. and thats it.

2. The Fishy Foe: Sharkthing

sharkthing was supposed to be like eelthing, with shiver being fused with master mega, but something went horribly wrong. while sharkthing is fighting you, shiver is fully concious and aware of everything, but they can't do anything to stop it. all they can do is watch.

sharkthing's arena is like the octomaw's arena combined with shiver's regular arena. the water around the arena is murky, with giant rusted metal pipes in the background. the cage that covers the arena is also rusted and broken at the top. also, the entire arena starts out covered in sharkthing’s ink

for phase 1, sharkthing will dive into a puddle of ink, swim around, then swim up, attempting to bite the player. if you’re unlucky enough to get hit by it, it’s a OHKO. however, you can hit the puddle or throw a bomb on it and stun them.

for phase 2, a pillar of ink will form in a random part of the stage (read: wherever you’re standing) and sharkthing will leap onto it. they’ll spit globs of ink that explode booyah bomb style (but smaller) when they hit the ground. like master mega, when they do this enough, they’ll be left in a position where you can throw a bomb into their mouth

for phase 3, sharkthing gains 2 more attacks: summoning an inkstrike at your current position that looks like the pillar from phase 2, and diving into ink and reefsliding towards your current position and exploding when they reach it. they stun themselves after performing the second attack, giving you a chance to hit them.

when sharkthing is defeated, they collapse onto the ground. they do not get up.

3. Lean, Mean, Fuzzy Manta Machine: Fuzzball

fuzzball is just big man and fuzzy ooze. he looks like big man covered in fuzz, with the ooze part dripping from the bottom of his fins. he has glowing eyes (like someone we know) and his little hat is replaced with a tiny grizzco hat. specifically that one from splatoon 2

his arena is inside a mechanical dome, like the boss domes in splatoon 1, except it’s decorated to look like the inside of a spaceship.

fuzzball still dives into the ground like big man in phase 1, but will sometimes pop out of the ground and fall back down, spreading a good amount of ink in the surrounding area. if he falls on you, then your armor gets broken.

in phase 2, he swims around faster, and the arena suddenly sprouts walls that fuzzball can swim along. he will start to throw various bombs (fizzy bombs, torpedoes, splat bombs, n suction bombs) on top of popping out of the ground or off the wall if you're trying to swim on.

in phase 3, the arena kind of falls apart. five circles of the arena raise, like phase 3 of big man's fight, but the rest of the ground sinks, revealing a pool of fuzzy ooze. while fuzzball is more visible in the pool, you obviously can't go in it like he does. he still throws bombs, but when he's in the pool, he'll dive under and throw bombs from there, then resurface. there's also a new move for the third phase, of course, which involves him collecting a substantial amount of fuzzy ooze from the pool and tossing it at your current location. he also gets to throw another bomb: burst bombs. they don't do as much damage as regular burst bombs and aren't thrown as much, but when they are, they're thrown three times in a row.

when defeating fuzzball, he becomes extra fuzzified, then explodes, showering the arena in fuzz.

[crystalelemental]

I have now cleared Fire Emblem Engage, and before I get to the cut below, I want to address something.  In the leadup to this game, a lot of reviews came back going, rather ominously, “this is not like Three Houses.”  Every scenario was about how the plot isn’t as intricate, the supports not as dynamic, and made everything about Engage sound like it was a step backwards; a regression in some way.  I want to make clear, it’s not.  It’s much more aligned with games prior to Three Houses, but its plot and characters are not lesser for having a more standard story.  At a bare minimum for discussing this game, I feel like that’s something that needs to be said, because it was a concern that almost kept my wife and I from getting it at all.

That said, in the grand scheme of the series?  This might be one of the best.

It’s been a long time since I’ve said this, and I can’t actually recall if it’s ever a thing I’ve said on the blog before, but from my younger days spending time with friends who exclusively watched bad movies for fun, I developed a hardline stance that simple is not bad, and complex is only good if it’s consistent.  Very often, stories can lead into something being incredibly strong, and then falter or trip face-first at the finish line, becoming outright terrible.  I feel like Three Hopes was a strong example.  That was a pretty fun game from an alternate events story, but the instant we start talking about Zahras, that game shits itself so hard even my wife doesn’t like talking about it, and she’s super invested in Three Houses.�� If you can’t stick the landing on a complex idea, I do legitimately think it’s better to not even try.  Just aim simple.  Because if you can aim simple, and just stick to something that has an emotional impact, you can still come out as a good story.

Engage does that.  At its core, it’s a pretty simple good vs evil kind of story.  You are divine dragon, enemy is fell dragon, kill.  This never really changes, and there’s no real gray area on what’s going on broadly.  But the specifics of the story focus a lot on family, and the bonds people create to become like family.  It presents the idea that your family is more than just your blood, and that family can be unbelievably shitty but still, in some distorted way, care about each other.  It has a lot of really impactful scenes around this, with probably the best one being Zephia and Griss.  I...really like that scene.  It’s such an interesting presentation of their dynamic.  It’s too late to feel proper empathy for them, Marni and all that, but it’s such an interesting approach.

I think it’s also worth noting...there’s discussion I’ve heard through the series about how tension is built up in games, and how things like the turnwheel mechanic lessen the impact of your decisions.  But I think this game now provides a fantastic alternative perspective.  The presence of the Time Crystal, and its infinite use in Normal mode, means this is a very common tool to rely on.  Combined with the Emblem Rings that are absurdly powerful, with Celica’s Warp Ragnarok being a near-instant OHKO on bosses.  So hitting Chapter 11, and having all of your tools removed, even temporarily?  That’s the most powerless and desperate I’ve felt playing these games.  Like, that’s up there with shifting back to Dawn Brigade in Radiant Dawn, or basically anything in Thracia after Chapter 3.  It’s such an effective ploy to get you panicking.  I kinda love it.

On that note, I also kinda like infinite rewind.  I know there’s a lot of discussion about its merits, but I dunno, I kinda thought the decision to limit uses of it was...unnecessary.  Either have it or don’t.

Mechanically, I also enjoy that skills are more limited.  I think modern games tend to go overboard on skills and their acquisition, requiring you to cycle through whole classes and allowing five skills for ridiculous combinations.  I think the limitation to 2 skills is more reasonable, and I actually like that they’re inherited off the rings instead of classes.  I think that makes things more accessible, in a way.  Nothing is more frustrating about optimizing Awakening than needing to go to Dark Flier on like every unit who can access it to get Galeforce, requiring you to promote, shift class, get to level 15, then shift to a class you actually wanted, all before picking up the kids, and at that point being so wildly overpowered that the game no longer mattered.  Optimizing in that way was just frustrating.  Here it’s a lot easier to just play naturally.

But.  I hate the SP system.  It’s awful.  Characters start out with more SP the later they join, which is sensible, but it turns out you cannot possibly accrue that amount of SP without obscene levels of grinding.  Seriously, Framme starts with like 300SP, and I think she ended around 1200.  Meanwhile late-game units like Saphir step in with like 2000SP outright.  And some skills have the audacity to cost 5000.  There’s no NG+.  How in god’s name am I supposed to ever afford that?  It’s just not a well executed system.  At all.  Because you can’t really mix and match skills.  Half my army never saw 2000SP, so I just...didn’t get to test any combinations.  Which sucks.   A lot.

I do like class promotion, though.  We’re off the Echoes/Three Houses system, and back to flat stat improvements.  I like that a lot more.  I like pushing to level 20 then promoting when I can, and it always annoyed me that the base stat promotion system would give me nothing for the change.  I also like the proficiency system a bit, and I think it’s interesting how a lot of the classes are organized in a way where you can pick a combination of two skills.  Like, Wolf Knight?  You get Daggers, but you can pick sword, lance, or axe, depending on what proficiency you learn.  I think that’s really cool.  Also Wolf Knight is the coolest addition.  I love it.

Combat-wise, I really like how this game plays.  It just...feels good, in a way that I’m not quite able to describe.  I felt more like my placement mattered, and that weapon advantage mattered.  I was initially wary of the break system, but it came together incredibly well.  Chain attacks are...a bit hard for me to grasp when they happen, but are an interesting play as well.  When I’m using them.  When the enemy uses them to kill Louis, then it’s bullshit.  Random encounters for grinding in particular get really frustrating once they enter “Recommended level: Advanced Class.”  Because the enemies are a swarm.  And they’re a swarm that will all converge on you at once.  The hardest maps felt like the random encounters, because they scale to your best level, and are so aggressive, and Chain Attacks are going to blitz you regardless of defensive ability.  So I’m a bit back and forth.  It’s a cool idea, but I think any time you’re aiming to farm something, it’s more of a problem than a help.  The game feels like dodge tanking is the way to go sometimes, but even then, Chain Attacks are a flat 80% chance to land, so like...I don’t really know what the solution is there.

The rings are pretty fun, though.  Celica was fantastic early-game, but by the time I got her back, Warp Ragnarok was no longer killing everything in one shot.  Which was frustrating.  I feel like she kinda fell off.  Sigurd’s ring with Canter is fantastic, I love the nonsense you can get up to.  Lucina ring was great on Goldmary, double Chain Attacks put fantastic pressure on things.  Lyn’s special is a great way to just annihilate the first HP bar from a boss, and draw aggro without putting anyone in danger.  Byleth’s Goddess Dance was really good, and Thyrsus meant it was ideal for Celine, who now has 4-range Bolganone.  I think the rings simultaneously felt really overpowered, but not in a way I disliked.  Most of the game you don’t have many, so it doesn’t feel too bad, and once you have them all, nearly your whole team is equipped.  I did find it very funny you get 14 units, though.  Because 12 rings and the two DLC options.  They left you units to encourage use of all options, even the DLC.  I won’t complain.  I love using more units.

The last thing I’d note is supports.  Supports in this game are...really good, actually.  I was very pleased with how they came out.  They can feel a bit repetitive at times, but that’s every game.  But man, when they land on something interesting, they really shine.  I especially liked Celine, really grew to love Yunaka and Goldmary, and Hortensia was a massive surprise as well.  They did really well with crafting the characters with supports, which I always feel like is the most important part.  Not every character needs to be centrally important.  If anything, trying to make everyone centrally important bogs down the gameplay something fierce.  But the characters should matter, and that’s what supports are for.  It’s why they invented the things, I think.  So I’m glad those played out.

But oh my GOD are they hard to get.  Getting C and B aren’t too difficult, just fight in the Arena, but that requires a bit of save scumming.  Eating meals is a slow progression, but far more damning is that in-combat support only works in player phase, and doesn’t seem to confer much.  Worse, I gave everyone Corrin’s Quality Time ability, and it...did not significantly speed up access to supports.  It’s really distressing how little that skill did, actually.  I don’t necessarily mind a game where the goal is to replay things to get different supports.  But I also think this goes way, way too slow to be reasonable.  I’d like it to be a little quicker.

That said, barring the SP and support systems being a little janky...this was a really well put together game, with a simple but really effective story, and some great characters.  I had a great time with this one.  And with that out of the way, I am officially able to look through the tags here on Tumblr, where I’m sure everyone will be normal about things and nothing bad will happen.

[omamervt]

I think I figured out why Tera Raids feel so broken all the time.

It's a feature, not a bug.

I've observed some things I'd consider bizarre, but also too consistent to think they could be mistakes. And also because the bizarre changes always seem to happen around key moments - when the shield is about to break, when the raid boss's HP is critically low, etc. Others may have figured this out long ago and I'm just now catching up, I'm not sure, I haven't seen any videos or blogs about it from people I follow, though.

But anyway, observation 1: When the shield is about to break, your attack will appear to happen at the bottom of the order instead of the top. Usually you move, then see everyone else move, usually at the same time. But when the shield's going down, it's not uncommon for me to have to watch everyone else attack one by one, and then finally get my turn at the end.

And observation 2: When the raid boss's HP is critically low, it will very often not show anyone else attacking.

Both of these choices make it look like YOU landed the decisive hit.

In other words, Tera Raids are designed to always spotlight your actions at critical moments so you feel like you did something important.

The problem is twofold. This means that the server is giving different information to 4 different players, which it then has to reconcile, and it fails to account for things that GameFreak KNOWS about Pokemon players.

The first issue is pretty straightforward. When you're playing a multiplayer game, you wanna make sure all four players are receiving the exact same information at the same time, because trying to catch someone up on it after the fact is gonna make it feel lagged/buggy, even if it's not. But in this case, it very much is buggy. I've had turns skipped, I've had menus load and then seemingly freeze. I've been able to act twice when the countdown timer appeared empty, and I've been blown out before we were even given the timeout warning. These all happen at breakdown points that can easily be tied to this behavior - very start of the battle, when the shield goes up, when the shield goes down, and when the boss's HP is critical. All because the system, rather than communicate what's really happening, is working overtime to try and fudge things in 4 different ways for 4 different people at the same time.

and then there's the second issue. How many times have you seen someone manage to OHKO a raid boss, only for the shield to activate with health now at 50%? With Max Raid Battles, they would have simply capped damage before the shield went up, but somehow, with tera raids, they didn't anticipate that behavior. And that behavior is incompatible with a system designed to make everyone think they were the MVP.

[theomnicode]

Sudden thought:

If Fubuki is driving towards Saitama's place and everything is gonna go according to wc...I wonder if Saitama not living on the ground floor actually affects the Forte vs Sai fight.

What if Fubuki arrives to the scene of the fight and does not actually drive Forte over because she got there before they got on the ground level from the upper floors, and then stayed to watch the fight? I'm guessing people would be mad about not having the comedic moment.

But it would also mean that the fight never gets interrupted. Which would also be interesting to see. Fubuki could get a first hand witness to Saitama's powers as well.

I still like third eye opening scenario more though. Just for the dramatic effect because thematically we had two different main character deaths happen, so we might be able to up the drama of the situations where characters actually get hurt.

Because so far everyone's been tough and all that, but what if we made all the superhumans react realistically to getting hurt and fear of death? Just to subvert some common shounen tropes. That suddenly everyone can actually die from all the shit they keep doing. Kinda like Air got ohkoed few chapters back and interestingly enough, nobody batted an eye.

Some gritty realism to hero work oh man.

Which would play to the aversion of pain psychology stuff. That if Saitama subconsciously dealt with Genos' death and accepting that he got hurt and mended himself from that, that he's no longer completely averse to pain and death as a possibility which can also happen to other people.

This is assuming Fubuki is even driving to Saitama's place, rather than where she thinks Psykos is, idk. From the dialogue I assumed that Psykos is actually already captured and peeps would mald without Fubuki versus Psykos. She could still break out tho.

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Pokémon Scarlet's become my like low attention game to play in the background while I watch youtube videos for the past while and by god is it good at that, I can just run around anywhere and occasionally catch new pokémon or fight some shitter trainers and ohko their entire party with my God Scizor and his maxed out attack stat and do tera raids and mystery trade all the Blisseys away and get people's hacked shiny perfect IV Charmanders whose name is a url for a pokémon selling website. Shit's awesome.

[casliveblog]

Custom Toonami Block Week 119 Rundown

Kaguya-sama: Love is War: So this episode is fucking kickass, like I’ve been kinda mellow about my reactions to this series thus far but this season finale was hype as fuck. Just all the crazy shit people do to get Kagura smuggled out to the fireworks festival, Hayakasa is still best girl, Chika and Ishigami do their part and Miyuki is pretty badass weaponizing his usual mind game tactics and we even get a cameo from one of Chika’s ramen buddies, all of it’s pretty fantastic. It’s pretty funny how in the next part Miyuki thinks all the cool stuff he said came off as cringe because that’s definitely a matter of perspective and definitely a part of social anxiety but at the same time even the cringe versions of events he gives are still pretty cool, just more in an unhinged Jack Sparrow Guile Hero kind of way than the Shojo Manga Man way that Kagura saw them. Still you know how it goes, shenanigans and everything and we’re basically back where we started with a net no progress, like I like to think there’s at least some experience gained here but the nature of the show is fucking over any dynamic these two have that isn’t mind games. Still all that said it was pretty funny, I don’t know if I’ll be watching future seasons on the Custom Toonami Block specifically since it seems like a show that’s more fun to casually binge than do this sort of format for but we’ll see how it goes.

Inuyasha: So IMMEDIATELY after setting up the whole ‘Inuyasha is trapped in Jakotsu’s blade’ cliffhanger Inuyasha just gets cut a little and Wind Scars his way out, OHKOing Jakotsu but refusing to finish him off because killing a queer man that is yandere for you while he’s under a pile of rocks just doesn’t feel right I guess. Still Renkotsu comes and steals Jakotsu’s shard and kills him right after, then goes to fight Bankotsu because he’s pissed Bankotsu won’t share the shards and Bankotsu’s pissed Renkotsu keeps killing all his friends. Bankotsu even says he won’t use his weapon to fight Renkotsu and fucks him up just using Jakotsu’s hair pin which is pretty fucking dope. And just like that the Band of Seven has become the Band of One with a superpowered Bankotsu going to fight Inuyasha. Kikyo has a nice little talk with Hakushin about how even though he couldn’t be the perfectly selfless Saint everyone thought he was he did a lot of good for everyone and not wanting to die isn’t a sin but carrying grief in your heart isn’t healthy and he’s not really mad at everyone for using him but at himself for not living up to that heroic façade. She even gives him permission to quit being a saint and let go of the burden to set his soul at ease and it’s really pretty nice, probably one of Kikyo’s best moments given her own perspective on selflessness and death. But yeah with Hakushin gone, Mt. Hakurei transforms into a JRPG final boss arena and we’re ready for the final Inuyasha vs Bankotsu fight.

Yu Yu Hakusho: So we spend the first part of this episode going ‘Genkai’s really dead forever for reals guys, tournament’s over, no dragon balls or anything so home, show’s over’ then we cut to Toguro volunteering himself for ten thousand years in hell when according to his paperwork he should maybe go to the Moderately Bad Place instead of the Very Very Bad Place. And we get his full backstory which is basically the same as Jiren’s backstory in Dragon Ball Super except less terrible. Apparently all his students were murdered by a big demon and he was prompted to join the Dark Tournament just like he prompted Yusuke to and legitimately became cold and ruthless to rise to the challenge, then wishing to become a demon as a form of punishment and to double down on the path of strength he’d chosen. Basically everything in Toguro’s backstory goes ‘maybe he’s being an asshole but maybe also he has another motive’ and you can really go back and forth on each part of his motive about which of these are self-flagellation and which are corruption since it’s probably a mix of both. Even Toguro seems to be going out of his way to zig-zag the tropes as if someone understanding him in any way is a comfort he doesn’t want. Anyway Yusuke and co. are getting ready for the boat and oops Genkai’s alive again, I mean they are friends with the god of the dead and they did get jipped out of their prize for the tournament, seems like he shouldn’t be able to just… do that but here we are, we went through a lot of ‘she’s really dead super for reals this time’ for her to just come back but whatever. Just hope they do something cool with her in future arcs and this isn’t just something to not make Yusuke have to deal with loss.

Fate/Apocrypha: So now Yggy Mcbabyeater is very mad that the Bigger Cup got stolen and makes Vlad turn into Dracula against his wishes so he can fight despite his weird thing of not being able to fight outside his home turf and he kinda just… fuses with him which is apparently something people can do? So yeah now we have Yggycula as our big season-ending midboss and this just became Netflix Castlevania for a bit with everyone fighting him. They get interrupted though as all the Team Shirou Servants get hit with a case of ‘my master has just been poisoned’ on account of their masters just being poisoned, also Shirou has all their Command Seals now. Also Yggycula comes up to Shirou’s terf and Shirou just starts throwing knives at him like ‘bro you’re a vampire and you walked into a church, the fuck’d you expect’? And we go from Netflix Castlevania to Hellsing Ultimate briefly as Shirou does his best Father Anderson and melts the vampire. We got a little flashback for Shirou a little while ago about him being in the same Grail War as Mr. Yggy Babyeater and if I was paying attention or knew anything about Japanese history I’d have known Shirou was a Servant, not a Master from that though to be fair he does have a human alias and everyone’s surprised he’s still alive after the war like they think he’s just some dude, but yeah basically he seems to be what if Saber lost Shirou and went apeshit and also incarnated to loop the Grail War cycle like Gilgamesh because he’s also a Ruler from before this war started. Seems he was Irisviel’s Servant in this verse and we can’t have a universe where any of the homunculi girls aren’t angst fodder for their male leads so of course she died and now Shirou’s all ‘I’m just keep doing genocide until god strikes me down himself to tell me I’m wrong’ so good luck with that.

Speed Grapher: So they send a Euphoric who can make his tattoos come to life after Ginza who is not down for his superpowered bullshit and has already moved Saiga to a secondary location but she gets marked with his tiny middle finger spider tattoo, guess they put that one in the right place cause it’s a real fuck you to her for kicking his ass. Meanwhile Kagura uses the guy that’s been sexually harassing her in the sensual deprivation chamber to escape by offering herself to him if he lets her step outside and then immediately grabbing an axe and holding herself hostage so she can make her escape, some real character development from her taking charge of the situation, not a perfect plan but it gets the job done. Meanwhile her mom and Suitengu are legit getting ready to sign the paperwork to get married because despite Suitengu not breaking character and pretending to be a romantic he’s also not wasting time on this whole takeover plan. We also get a flashback of Shinzen first meeting her now Alzheimer’s-ridden mother and find out she was actually adopted by the modeling agency because her mom saw her getting harassed by an agent and picked her up on the spot. Though also there’s some magic gene splicing they did on her to make her more ‘perfect’ since she had like two genes out of place or something and the one who did it is Kagura’s dad/the doctor she loved. Really kinda paints a sympathetic picture of Kagura’s mom despite what a bitch she is, like she just wanted to be a model and got roped into an international magic gene therapy ring and became a loveless billionaire because the doctor that transformed her was murdered by a higher power and made to look like he ditched her and now as a result of the gene bullshit her daughter has a tumor that lets her give superpowers to rich assholes by letting them sexually assault her… god this plot is weird when I say it out loud. But yeah turns out Shinzen’s adopted mom got into a car accident on the night Shinzen was out seeing Mr. Dr. Kagura’s dad and got ditched because she was driving down the road REALLY pissed off and that may be why she has such a shitty memory and can barely walk or she could just be old or both idk. Funny thing is Suitengu and everyone talk about not knowing Shinzen’s mom was alive but like she has cameras and staff specifically assigned to her and takes her on walks and shit but guess she never specifically told him about it. Anyway Kagura breaks into her mom’s tower and finds her grandma’s room and Suitengu’s goons find her there. Shinzen backs off signing the marriage certificate because she wants her mom to see it which I’m not entirely sure if that’s out of love or spite for her being pissy about her first marriage attempt. She finds Kagura and Suitengu’s Team Rocket squad in Grandma’s room and is like ‘yo Suitengu wtf bro’ when Kagura starts talking about the eyes wide shut cult of superpowered billionaires he’s been running. She doesn’t seem to believe either of them and for some reason still thinks Suitengu’s just fucking Kagura on the side because she’s really fixated on that and gives him a gun to play Russian roulette with along with Kagura, giving them a 75% chance of survival but playing with their lives. Suitengu’s goons take the gun and try to shoot Shinzen with it but this is why you always fucking use your own guns because turns out there were no bullets and she just wanted them to pull the trigger as a show of faith and apology so she busts out a room full of dozens of kimono girls with automatic rifles because apparently she just had that at the ready at a minute’s notice at like 2am in her marriage certificate ceremony. Luckily Suitengu is Blood Sephiroth and is able to make a Blood Barrier out of blood strands and then turn them into tentacles to Elfen Lied the kimono girls, also killing the poor city worker who was there just because no one that sees his powers can live (except Kagura I guess cause he told his goons to close their eyes). He then uses the blood to do the blood bullet thing from Deadman Wonderland to kill Shinzen’s mom and then choke Shinzen herself out. Kagura desperately tells her mom that her dad didn’t abandon her and was just late and that he loved her even as he was dying and Shinzen dies happy knowing that. Suitengu also has Mr. Dr. Kagura’s Dad’s left arm for some reason so I guess he’s the original Euphoric and is made of a bunch of frakenstein’d body parts that give him blood powers or some shit since he does say “I’m the original’ when talking about Mr. Dr. Kagura’s dad and tells Shinzen that she was always really in the left arm of the man she loved even if it wasn’t him. So yeah now Suitengu’s going to marry Kagura to control the company which she’s like fourteen so that’s kinda fucked up, dunno how the media’s going to spin that one.

Durararax2: Tom takes over the narration and goes on about how everyone needs to chill the fuck out which is fair. Meanwhile Haruna and her teacher crush have turned the Saika army into an actual zombie apocalypse overtaking the town with the same infection types, like can’t believe that’s the most widespread threat with all the weird factions going on here. Izaya has a flashback of Shinra saying how even when Shizuo dies he’ll have a legendary legacy that may exceed his ridiculous exploits since people will be bound to talk about how strong he is. It seems like that ends up getting at the heart of Izaya’s character because that’s kind of what he wanted going into this war for Celty’s head. Meanwhile Shinra’s dad gives Celty her head back and her memory is wiped as expected and she advents like a god from the sky down to the city which is ridiculously cool. Chikage has a ridiculously convoluted plan to pretend to kidnap Masaomi just to get him and Mikado to fucking talk to each other meanwhile Mikado’s about to send Aoba to cap Chikage at the Dollars’ birthplace as Chikage and Namie doxx Masaomi, Mikado and Anri about their parts in leading these huge gang wars. Kujisaki and Varona end up fighting Izaya’s karate girl midboss like this is a scene out of Kill Bill (and Varona has the outfit for it, huh… may be onto something) while Izaya and Shizuo set out to have a Mastermind vs Supertank battle that puts every Batman vs Superman incarnation to shame. So in summary: shit’s about to go down for the tenth time, we really are getting to the endgame here.

[caxycreations]

So let me get this straight, @nope-the-weeb

One of the countries I write about, Dornum, is a very strict oligarchy that outright abuses the "common" species through propaganda used to convince them they're of less value, less skill, less intelligence, while the "rare elite" live cushioned, comfortable, "idealistic" lives. The elites actively abuse the lower class and put them through hell for fun.

Another, Ferus, is a democratic republic with a long history of riots to get what they want. The government works for the citizens through and through, constantly passing, changing, and removing laws as needed to be most beneficial to the citizens as times change and needs evolve.

And then there's Eikiria, a country that is, through and through, an idealistic one. Goods are provided by those who create, craft, and grow produce as hobby. Services provided by those who have a love and passion for those services. Social standing is determined by reliability and strength of character, with a natural disposition towards encouraging better behavior, and a patience for those still maturing.

So based on those countries, given I write about them often and writing is SUCH an indication of character, what is my political view?

I have one character duo, Cyrus and Devon, who are mortal enemies. They will not stop until the other is dead. I have written scenes with Devon graphically maiming, tearing, sawing, slashing, piercing, ripping, and otherwise just *absolutely eviscerating* Cyrus in every manner you can imagine, because Cyrus is just that hard to kill, all in graphic detail, while Cyrus is constantly killing his way through Devon's forces trying to get to him. Neither are above killing, Devon enjoys it immensely and Cyrus is entirely okay with it if it's in the name of the greater good, or if he deems it "deserved".

Another character duo, Luka and Olivia. Luka is a janitor at an elementary school, and spends all his time either watching the world go by from inside his favorite café, going on dates with Olivia, or working at the school. He's sincere, and genuine, and kind, and the children adore him because he knows how to get on their level and explain things to them in ways they understand. Olivia adores children as much as the children adore Luka, and is devoted to teaching them as best she can so they'll be prepared to go out into the world. Both are very parental individuals, and see every child as one of their own. They abhor violence in all its forms, preferring to talk things out, and rather than spank or physically punish others, they both opt to teach them a better way and why they were wrong to do it the way they did.

Another, David and Ryder. Ryder is quick-to-action, and prefers using physical methods to resolve situations, whether that's dealing a OHKO to the person causing the trouble or if it's just getting between a pair of fighters. He answers any call to action quickly, and is, at his core, a guardian of others. He cares deeply about people, and only uses violence as a means to an end, with the end being "help the victims, stop the problems", while David is too reserved and has too low a self-image to do anything so grand. David prefers to call for help rather than be the help, and while they'll step in if it's the only possible way, they are not a fighter. They are less comfortable fighting, and far more comfortable loving, offering their affections freely, be it a simple shake of the hand or a night of passion.

Based on these, given these are my three most commonly written duos, and writing is such a strong indication of character, what kind of person am I?

Because, see, you can read this, and you can spend weeks, months, years, psychoanalyzing my work to figure me out.

You will be no closer in ten years than you are in five minutes.

Because I am not these people. I am not Ryder, or David. I am not Luka, or Olivia. I am not Cyrus, or Devon. I do not rule Dornum, nor do I govern Ferus, nor am I an Eikirian.

I am a writer. My job is to take ideas, concepts, imagined scenarios, and put them on written display for all to read, so that it might inspire other writers, it might inspire artists, it might entertain readers, it might cause debates and spark curiosities.

My goal is not so deep as to turn my book into my manifesto. My goal is not so grand as to project myself for the world to see.

I see a thousand different perspectives. I see a million ways of handling any given situation.

Just because I write some of them down doesn't mean those are how I would handle them, and saying that people should "be careful what they write" because "it can speak about your own character" is how you wind up with watered down, soulless fictions with no depth, no consequence, no risk.

Nobody wants an ideal, perfect, sanitized world. They make for boring stories. "Jeremy woke up in his comfortable bed, like every day before. He had his favorite breakfast, his favorite lunch, and his favorite dinner. He worked his favorite job. He came home to his perfect house. He got a perfect night's sleep, just like every day before." isn't a good story. There's no conflict, there's no lesson, there's no ANYTHING besides "everything was perfect and good and safe."

A story doesn't need a conflict. It doesn't need a lesson. But it needs something. Whether that something is a lesson or a conflict, a goal or a purpose, whatever the case, it needs something. It's up to the author to decide what that something is.

But it needs something.

And when you tell people to "be careful what you write, it reflects on your character as a person!", you're essentially telling them to water down their ideas, to forsake their creativity in favor of some imaginary risk of being a bad person because they write about a bad topic.

Dornum actively practices eugenics, a practice which makes me physically fucking ill to write about, but to ignore that aspect of Dornum would be to water down the horrors of that country. Why are people so desperate to get out if it's JUST a caste system with no problems besides it BEING a caste system? Why are the citizens willing to fight and die for their escape if the worst that happens is "Well, I'm socially better than you are"?

What I am trying to say, in case it still hasn't registered with you is...

JUST BECAUSE YOU FIND A TOPIC UNCOMFORTABLE DOES NOT MEAN THE WRITER IS A BAD PERSON, NOR DOES IT MEAN THEY ADVOCATE FOR OR SUPPORT THAT TOPIC.

I will live, fight, and die on this hill and anyone who thinks written fiction reflects on an author's character needs to remind themselves Agatha Christie knew many, many ways to kill a man and wrote countless deaths and murders, but NEVER was a murderer herself.

Fiction does not dictate the Author's quality of character and, if I may be so bold as to speak from the heart for a moment so you CAN get an indication of my character...

If you think writing about uncomfortable topics makes someone a bad person, fuck you. Look at Junji Ito, writes and illustrates some of the most horrific things you can find out there, and they're one of the sweetest, kindest people in the world. Even Hayao Miyazaki puts "problematic" topics into the Ghibli films, and yet nobody is knocking at his door telling him he's an awful person for it.

Sorry for the long rant, this topic got me going and it was hard to stop once I started. Most of y'all can ignore this, I like to believe the kind of people that follow me aren't the ones going around trying to police authors on what they can and can't write. But if this passes your dash and you ARE the kind of person who tries to police it, give this a read, let it really sink in, and think about the fact you've been judging innocent people for doing their fucking jobs as writers.

I really think everyone needs to truly internalize this:

Fictional characters are objects.

They are not people. You cannot "objectify" them, because they have no personhood to be deprived of. They have no humanity to be erased. You cannot "disrespect" them, because they are not real.

[slicksquid]

tenta brella seems like fun to use but if you’re good at it, which i am not

[epicspheal]

Pokemon Journeys Episode 117

This episode brought me to actual real-life tears. I loved how this battle got underway quickly with Excadril versus Gastrodon. Seeing Ash get super excited about seeing Excadrill again was really touching, considering he got to see firsthand some of Iris' initial struggles with the Drill King Pokemon. I really liked how Iris chose her starter Pokemon here even though it's not a dragon type or dragon-like (the closes connection you can make is the fact that it's Japanese Doryuzu has Ryu which means dragon in it). It was also super cool to see Goh explain to Hop that Ash also traveled with Iris throughout the Unova region, with Hop once again realizing Ash knows all of the Masters 8. Team Rocket proved to be really entertaining this episode by finally recognizing Iris and then deciding to root for her! But onto the actual battle itself. I was super happy to see Excadrill take the win over Gastrodon with OHKO moves thanks to Iris believing in him even when up against not only a massive type advantage in Gastrodon, but dealing with Cynthia's supreme usage of Gastrodon's physiology (being able to have attacks bounce right off), and the use of Rain Dance and Muddy Water. Iris' speech during this battle about how much she appreciated Cynthia's prior training with her back in Unova was really touching, as were the cameos. It was nice to see Alder, Stephan, Burgundy, Georgia Bianca, Drayden, and even Trip. That being said...where the hell was Cilan!? I'm sure he'll probably turn up for one of Ash's battles, but admittedly, I'm really upset that he wasn't there in a cameo for Iris, who is also one of his friends. Also, some people have mentioned the fact that a lot of the cameos seemed more Ash-focused, to which I agree. While thankfully, a lot of those cameos were people who participated in either the Don Clubsplosion tournaments or the Pokemon Junior World Cup Tournament alongside Ash and Iris, it would've been nice to see the Elder from the Village of Dragons or Iris' childhood friend Shannon because this was, in the end, Iris battling. Of course, Cynthia quickly turned the tables against Iris with her very powerful Milotic (which sidenote for me in my playthroughs) was always the Pokemon I struggled against over her Garchomp. That Hydro Pump on Excadrill was absolutely brutal. And major props to Cynthia for not flinching as that very brutal attack whizzed right past her. Then, of course, there was the Dragonite versus Milotic beatdown. Poor Dragonite, at least it got some hits in with Thunder Punch but that Iron Head to the head was brutal. Hop and Ash being a little intimidated by the performance was a neat touch. This brings me to a cool contrast point I noticed in the battle. Whenever Iris secured a victory over one of Cynthia's Pokemon, she was extremely exuberant and celebrated loudly and proudly with her Pokemon. This was very adorable, and I really how it symbolized Iris embracing being a child more, especially how she often used to chide Ash for getting super excited, calling him a kid to the ire of many people who watched the BW anime. Kids should definitely feel okay acting their age, and I'm glad she was able to feel like she could do it on the world stage. Also, it harkens back to her champion battle in BW2, where she talks about Pokemon battles being fun, and I like how even though this Masters 8 match was a serious battle, I loved that Iris still allowed herself those moments of joy for getting a win on a very renowned opponent like Cynthia. But then you had Cynthia, who maintained rather cold professionalism throughout the battle. She still showed warmth when Iris talked, and she was rather poetic with how she called forth her Pokemon. But you could tell she was all business. This is rather consistent from the snippets of battles we saw of her back in DP, from the Paul wipeout to the elite 4 challenge matchups that were broadcast in Pokemon Centers that Ash, Brock, and Dawn. She's pretty much all business when it comes to battling which is cool to see. I liked how she refers to herself as just another trainer on the battlefield rather than talking about being a champion like Leon, Lance, Diantha, and Iris all referenced. It's cools to see how different champions approach battling and how they view their titles. Then the final matchup of Haxorus vs Garchomp. It was a really interesting choice to pull out the organ music for Garchomp's music. I'm not necessarily a huge fan of that moment personally. I get why they did it as Cynthia's Garchomp is infamous among the fandom but I felt that part to be not needed. But other than that moment the final bout was amazing. Haxorus was giving Garchomp a run for her money and I'm rather confident that if Cynthia hadn't of used mega evolution Garchomp would've fallen. The fact that Haxorus still went toe to toe with Mega Garchomp with Dynamaxing or Z-moves was amazing. I also really liked the part where Iris showed off her dragon powers. But ultimately it would be Cynthia who would win after a devastating final clash between draco meteor and dragon pulse. It was really touching to see how much respect Cynthia had for Iris' performance. I honestly started tearing up when Iris told Haxorus, Excadrill and Dragonite that she loved them. And then my tears really started flowing when Iris met up with Ash and she ended up bawling her eyes out. I really felt for Iris in that moment. I know some fans called her childish in this moment and once again I have to remind folks that fictional children are allowed to be children. And honestly, I wouldn't look down at a grown adult for crying after a close loss in front of the world. It's rough. I'm glad Ash (and Goh) was there at the moment. It would've been nice to see Ash give her a pat on the shoulder or a hug, but still him just being there means a lot. Now it's finally time to watch Steven and Ash duke it out. I'm excited to see what this next episode brings.

[jaybug-jabbers]

All-Glitch Pokemon Blue Run Pt17 (Final): A Whole New World

Professor,

You've always nagged-- uh, I mean, informed-- me about the importance of taking copious, detailed notes about everything, for the importance of research and records. So even though you were in the audience that day, I'm sending you my report about my fight with the Elites.

I know you strongly advised that I train a little more before taking them on. After all, the team was only at level 40. I agree that was a little low. You told me I was being rash and impatient, and maybe I was, I don't know. But I knew my team felt ready. They were so eager to fight for me, and I believed in them.

So I entered the arena, and faced off against the first: Lorelei. I won't lie; she was so easy it was almost trivial. Wobbles' Thunderbolt wiped out almost all her pokes in a single hit. Lapras needed two hits, but it was still easy to tank a Hydro Pump from it. The only uncertainty was Jynx, but after paralyzing it, Charmed could deliver a Fire Blast to its face.

In almost no time at all, I was already in Bruno's chamber. At least this fight took a little longer, but we still weren't working up a sweat. I opened with Jasper to face his Onix. Jasper had been training for this. He'd taken out countless Onix on Victory Road. This one went down like all the others. Hitmonchan was next. I paralyzed with Gia first, but then Bruno started to use X-Defends. I pondered this. It meant I wanted to use some decent Special attacks. Only two of my pokes really had decent Special, of course-- Wobbles and Charmed. I switched Wobbles in, although he caught a hefty Counter to the face for it. Still, he cleared the Hitmonchan out no problem. Next up was Hitmonlee, and I was able to clear it out with Giago, bashing away with Strengths. There was a second Onix, but Jasper wiped it out as easily as the first. The ace was Machamp. While this pokemon is known as an absolute beast of an attacker, he simply doesn't stand a chance against Giago's raw bulk and defenses. She simply shrugged the attacks off and took the pokemon down.

On to Agatha. Things were finally starting to get more difficult. I opened with Jasper, since he knew Earthquake. She started with a Gengar. After a Screech and two Earthquakes, Jasper was able to take the ghost out, since the Gengar didn't use particularly wise moves. Next was Golbat, but it was a trifle with Wobbles' Thunderbolt. Haunter was also easy for Jasper: after a Screech it only needed one Earthquake to go down. Before it left, though, it used a Confuse Ray. When Arbok came in, it was a little more serious for Jasper. The snake used Glare and now Jasper was both confused and paralyzed. Earthquakes did some damage, but not tons. What's worse, Arbok was Screeching and using Acid, so Jasper's defense kept dropping. Jasper finally went down to a Bite before he could finish the job he started. But he left the Arbok rather low of health and easy pickings for a revenge attack. Charmed did this handily.

Then was the final Gengar. I started with a Thunder Wave from Gia. The Gengar chose to poison Gia. Honestly, that was a blessing in disguise; I didn't want to deal with Hypnosis and Dream Eater. Giago chipped away with the only move she could use, Surf, but it was slow going due to Gengar's massive Special. Eventually Gia succumed to the growing Toxic damage. I sent Dusty in next and it was very much the same story: Get hit by Toxic, chip away with Hydro Pumps, eventually go down to Toxic. To my irritation, Agatha then used a Super Potion. I brought in Charmed and Fire Blast things, but run out of Fire Blast and have to resort to Embers. Then Agatha uses a Super Potion AGAIN. I start to grow aggravated as Charmed goes down to Nightshade.

Thankfully, Fractal comes in and saves us from this annoying battle. A well-aimed Fly ends the fight. 

Agatha admits defeat rather begrudingly, but tells me to keep going.

At long last, I reached the final Elite chamber. It belonged to Lance, the dragon tamer. He took some time to wax poetic about how rare and difficult dragons are to find and train, claiming them to be the superior pokemon typing that will dominate all others. I smirked at him.

"Best not rest on your laurels. A new and even more powerful pokemon type could always come along, you know."

The guy chuckled. He told me,

"Yes, I've heard people talking about your so-called 'glitch' pokemon. Personally, I'm not sure if I believe your story."

I reached for my pokeball and told him it was time to see for himself.

Thankfully, Lance's opening pokemon was a pushover. As intimidating as Gyarados was, it collapsed like a wet paper towel to Wobbles' Thunderbolt. Dragonair was made of sterner stuff, though. I decided to play it safe and start by Thunder Waving with Gia. Then I switched to Jasper. A Screech and a couple Earthquakes are all that's needed, although it helped a great deal that Dragonair missed its Hyper Beam. I don't know if even Jasper could have dealt with that kind of hit.

I met the second Dragonair with the same Thunder Wave treatment. Then I sent Dusty in, hoping to chip away with Ice Beams. Unfortunately, Dusty never gets her chance. She goes down immediately. However, Wobbles can clear the dragon away with Aurora Beam.

The fourth pokemon is an Aerodactyl. Like the others, I Thunder Wave, and then I tell Jasper to chip away with Hydro Pumps. Of course, Jasper is more of a physical attacker, but it did some damage. When Jasper fainted, I sent Charmed in to try out some Fire Blasts. It helped wear the Aerodactyl down some more, but it wasn’t not enough. However, at this point, Fractal could finish things off, smashing through the rocky beast at high speeds.

Lance sent out his ace, Dragonite.

Same old story-- I open with Thunder Wave. Then I use some Strengths. It's a bit slow going, but Giago, like Jasper, is more about the long game and survivability. Eventually Gia wears that dragon down to about 1/4 of its health. Then Gia falls. I think I can bring Fractal in to finish things.

But then, Lance uses a Super Potion. It's a slap to the face, honestly. I'm still not sure why using potions during a battle is officially allowed in the rulebook.

My Missingno falls to the Dragonite, and I'm down to just Wobbles.

I tell Wobbles to use Aurora Beam. Wobbles turns and starts glowing bright.

But then, something horrifying: Dragonite moves first. It launches itself bodily towards Wobbles.

I watch helplessly. I know Wobbles' defense is paper-thin. I had been counting on Wobbles outspeeding the paralyzed dragon. But the problem was, it had used so many Agilities that it was faster now.

The dragon careens toward us, a massive brute compared to the tiny body of Wobbles. I think it's over.

But then, in the last moments, Wobbles somehow manages to slip past. The dragon crashes loudly onto the ground.

Then Wobbles aims, and he fires.

When the dust settles, Lance is forced to eat his words. He accepts his loss, and he's forced to admit that my glitch pokemon are actual, real things, and not some fanciful delusions.

I think it's finally done. I'm mentally preparing my victory speech. But Lance doesn't concede that I am the new Champion. Instead, he smiles sort of smugly, and tells me there's one more person I must face.

And it's Professor Oak's freaking grandson.

I had to take a five-minute breather first. I healed up my team and tried to psyche myself up. All things considered, these Elites hadn't been too terrible to face. But I was starting to grow a little weary, and that last dragon battle had been pretty close.

On the other hand, this was Oak's grandson. I mean, how hard could he be? I had spanked him just before heading up Victory Road, so it was doubtful he'd gotten much stronger since then.

So we headed back out there, onto the Champion's stage. Blue gave me some grand speech about his journey, about all the things he'd learned as he helped out Oak, and how he'd assembled a team that would beat any Pokemon type.

I just laughed and asked him, "Are you sure about that?"

He seemed annoyed and told me they could beat even "my pack of freaks."

Done wasting time, I sent my ace out first. He deployed his Pidgeot. It honestly was pathetic; Wobbles blasted the thing clean out of the sky.

He sent his Alakazam out next, though, and I was a little more cautious about that. Like before, I used Giago to paralyze it, and then tried chipping away at it. Gia never had stellar Special, so she goes down. However, just like before, Fractal's devastating attack strikes the powerful Psychic pokemon down. Fractal might be a glass cannon and easy to underestimate, but when you get in his line of fire, you'd best look out.

Next was Rhydon, and I sent Dusty out. To my wonder and joy, Dustdevil solos the Rhydon with Hydro Pumps. I cheered, happy that Dusty was contributing too.

Arcanine comes out next, and although Dusty does her best with Hydro Pump, she quickly folds to the fire dog's strength. I sent Jasper out, and try again with Hydro Pump. Jasper's Special may not be better than Dusty's, but as a sturdy fellow, he could stand up to the dog's strikes until he blasted it with enough water.

Next out is Exeggcute. Charmed has her time to shine, and engulfs the tree in a ball of flame.

Finally, it's Blue's ace, Blastoise. Giago had fainted at that point, so there was no help from paralysis here. I sent out Fractal to do some damage, but he goes down quickly. Dusty as well. Jasper is weakened from his fight with Arcanine and also falls. It's down to a weakened Charmed and Wobbles.

I don't bother sending Charmed out. I knew that her Slashes and fire moves weren’t going to be enough. A fire lizard against a water turtle just isn't a wise move. So really, it's up to Wobbles, my starter.

Thankfully, thankfully-- Wobbles outspeeds. Even more thankfully, Wobbles is able to OHKO the Blastoise with one Thunderbolt.

And then, we'd done it.

There was so much shouting and jubilation from the crowds after that, that it's a bit of a blur. I know Oak rushed down to the arena to talk to us. I remember Oak saying he was proud of how much I'd grown since I'd left with his little Charmander. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm pretty sure Oak still had no idea there was something off about my pokemon. Like, was he sitting in the far back or something? Does this guy have vision problems? I don't know, but I didn't have the heart to tell him that the little Charmander he'd given me was quite a bit different now. As in, I'd raised it and then hybridized it with a Charizard'M. I figured it was fine, though-- he didn't really need to know.

You know what happened after that-- the talk we gave together to the public about glitch pokemon. But when it was time to officially register myself and my team in the Hall of Fame, I went to the room alone with Oak. So I'll tell you what happened.

It was short and simple. Oak gave a brief speech, ceremonial stuff. Then we put my pokeballs into a machine.

The machine displayed the records on a screen. It looked like this:

The machine didn't seem to really process the glitch pokemon correctly, so it displayed the same confusing jumble of pixels for each of them. Unfortunately, Charmed's natural cloaking abilities were so strong, the machine failed to even recognize her and generate a record for her. That's really unfortunate, since she did contribute to the team! Maybe in the future, though, we can adjust the equipment to understand glitch pokemon.

By the end of it, the machine was emitting a strange sort of noise-- I think Dusty messed with its audio settings. It seemed to unnerve Professor Oak, but he carried on with the ceremony anyway.

And that was it. I'd become Champion of Kanto.

It’s all so strange to think about. This summer hasn’t turned out at all like I had expected it to. I’m visting mom at home today, in Pallet Town. When I woke up this morning and laid there, thinking about the events of yesterday, I had to wonder for a moment if it was all a dream. 

I’m just a Bug Catcher from Pallet Town. I spent my days catching Weedles and Caterpie and just wandering Viridian Forest. This whole world of glitch pokemon and all the bizarre things to come out of it . . . this strange reality I stumbled into, it’s well beyond anything I would have even imagined. And it carried me further than I ever would have thought.

I know, I’m just rambling now. I’ll stop. I know we still have a lot of work to do-- now more then ever. Now that we’ve revealed to the world the truth about glitch pokemon, they need us to help explain and understand them. It will be a massive change for everyone.

And this all started because I couldn’t stop wondering what hid in the grass beyond the fence in Pallet Town. It’s funny, really. Now that I know the answers, I just feel . . . more excited then ever.

-Junebug

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Akudama 2 - 3 | HypMic 4 | Yashahime 3 | Taiso 2 - 3 | Moriarty 2 | Maou-jou 3

Akudama 2

I think one or two of the reviews I read of this anime picked up the names of each episode are based on movies and it seems they’re right. Namely, episode 1 is Se7en while episode 2 is Reservoir Dogs...so they’re crime movies specifically.

Kanto, Hikari etc. are the names of certain shinkansen.

Playing with your own blood in front of a no violence sign and smoking in front of a no smoking sign…LOL. So edgy and yet simultaneously so fun.

…*blinks* Welp, that OP was…an experience.

…hey, Funi are hypocrites…they gave HypMic a language warning, but not this???

Come to think of it, this anime is already exactly how I’d imagine the HypMic MTC episode to go…but with more cyberpunk, of course.

…why is “are you gay?” an insult…? I thought we were past this point years ago.

…what’s up with these puppets? The shark’s shirt says “fool” on it…

The rabbit and shark’s shirts keep changing every time they spin. When they talk about poverty/rich, the rabbit shirts says “poor” and the shark’s “rich” (or something of the sort). When the shark talks about Kansai burning to the ground, his shirt says “nervousness”.

Wow, Hiroshima vers. 2…Rabbit: peace/shark:war

Hoodlum’s just a sycophant…

…ooh, so if the girl and Hoodlum aren’t part of the plan…they could f*** s*** up?

LOL, plasma shield.

“Lil’ stick”? That’s a jitte! A non-bladed weapon which is still plenty nasty by itself!

Ken the 390??? I knew UraShimaSakataSen were on this ED and I knew this was a rap ED because I heard it in AMQ before I was able to finish this ep, IIRC, but I didn’t expect the guy from BATTLE BATTLE BATTLE....

Taiso 2

A-hah! I was right on the money! Tomoyo is an actress!

Oh, it’s senu. That’s an old-timey way of negating your verbs (it’s shinai now), hence “retires not”.

I think they’re hailing Minamino as the first winner in 45 years if I understood the newspaper article on the screen right…?

Does this mean Minamino will join Leo and Aragaki…? The OP shows him with them.

The AnimeLab translation of the title is “Duelling Samurai”, but the translation on the hardsubs is “Rock-Bottom Samurai”. The word donzoko indicates the latter is correct.

I think Leo said “Rei-chan”, not “Rachel”. It’s a bit hard to hear because he’s eating though…

I think there’s only one line where he doesn’t talk like a ninja in his intro to Ayu and that’s the line where he uses keigo instead.

I think the card says “acupuncturist Kawa????” (can’t read the last character due to Britney’s thumb), but…welp, Britney’s kinda disturbing in their (not sure what pronoun to use) own way. There also appears to be an address in Ikebukuro on the card.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Leo learnt how to speak Japanese fluently from ninja movies – that’s a pretty common anime trope, like in Tada-kun’s Rainbow Samurai case. “Always make your heart rainbow!” and all that jazz.

…so that’s what the card said - Kawamoto Orthopedic Clinic.

“My shoulder would…”

Seriously, this anime is just an excuse to look at Aragaki in different outfits (and also shirtless) and I love it, LOL. (I’m such a simpleton.)

Ah…sometimes, people ask me about the days when I used to learn piano and I bring up the fact there is such a thing as “overpractice”. I thought gymnasts would know when they hit their limits in that regard, but…I guess they don’t because they’re so consumed in their passion, or they can’t see what they’re doing to themselves (because it occurs under the skin and doesn’t ache)…?

Minamino is basically Yurio…LOL.

That’s a cute, laidback ED. It’s called Yume? (yes, with the “?”) and it’s by Hatena, hence Leo’s shirt saying “Hatena”.

Welp, I don’t think anything supernatural will happen anymore, but…it’s still a fun anime. They toned down BB too, which should please a huge number of reviewers who found him obnoxious.

Yashahime 3

Hitokon? Short for “hito control” (hito = person)? Update: It seems the name was also kanji for “flying head root”.

“…puts one to sleep.”

“…from a place like that?”

Can a Dream Butterfly steal memories?

Moriarty 2

“Colum” (sic).

These CGI horses are gonna bug me, aren’t they…?

There is this sentiment that people need to be “saved” from poverty, especially when it comes down to African and Asian people living in slums (these days). I get the same feeling from this.

Maou-jou 3

Free advertising for Maou-jou’s home magazine! LOL!

I was wondering why those things were called “Show the Mary”…remember Mezo Shouji from Boku no Hero Academia? Same pun (the walls have ears and the doors have eyes, or something of the sort).

LOL, instead of yokudekimashita (literally, “you did good”) it’s makura ni narimashita (“you made [the book] into a pillow”). The common sentence ending for verbs means it’s funnier in Japanese, I think.

…argh! I can’t read all of Alazif’s info because of the hardsubs! Umm…”Current worry: Princess” and “Worry of the past hundred years: Destroying the demon clan” is in the box next to the logo. “Powerful magic techniques are recorded inside this book, so the demons feared it and sealed it away as a ‘forbidden grimoire’.”/”Currently, under the control of the princess, they’ve been bestowing magic and magic techniques to her, so they haven’t been used for the purpose they were made for and they’re wishing the princess would use them for not-so-stupid things” (I don’t know what pronoun to give Alazif, so I gave them 3rd person “them)…ah, someone translated the stuff for me! (That saves me a lot of time.) So Alazif is a “he”, huh?

OHKO to Demon Cleric, LOL.

SAN…? Oh, “sanity”?

Oh, Demon Cleric’s ears are black goat ears. No wonder you can’t see ‘em.

This sword is like Ex from Princess, ‘Tis Time for Torture!

HypMic 4

From here until episode 6-ish, I’ll be paying extra attention to characters’ role language. I normally do that, but I picked this anime for an assignment because I knew it had a lot of examples…yes, you heard me right. An assignment! I should be happy, but I’m wondering if my taste is going to get roasted by the normies or if I’ve gone too far with my unabashed love…

I was discussing with some of my peeps in a Discord server and…is it possible MTR will get an ED from here on out if you divide the episodes up for an almost equal amount for each division? We’ll have to wait and see.

…Oof. I’m sort of scared for this episode. It’s gonna have swearing galore…and yup, there it is, right out the gate.

Wait, why not translate wakagashira? It just means “young head” or “2nd in command”.

…well, at least they got some variation in their swearing this time…?

Hmm, normally the translation is “rabbit cop” or something toned down like that. They dialled it up to “rabbity-ass cop”. (Yakuwarigo: Samatoki = na, on the whole = very, very slang – as a former naval officer, you would expect Riou to speak formally, but he speaks as casually as almost everyone else (yamero etc.))

I’ve never seen anyone refer to Samatoki as “Kashira”. *laser stares Rentei for guest VA roles*

(Yakuwarigo: Samatoki (?) = zo)

“…why don’t you ask the cops to deal with it?” – Uh, Samatoki? Jyuto is the cop. (Well, a cop.)

I still have no idea why they subtitle the laughing…

Wait, if there’s a casino…is Dice there?!

…yup, right on cue. I didn’t think Tom and co. would be there too.

Oh, LOL. HypMic is a tourist trap anime = see those buns Tom’s eating? They’re chuukaman (Chinese buns). Makes sense in Chinatown.

It took me several watches to realise who’d passed by, but it’s…MTC in formal clothes?! (You can see part of Jyuto’s face, just to confirm it.)

Why are they wearing glasses? Even Jyuto’s wearing different glasses to the usual, LOL.

I learnt how to do some of the casino stuff while trying to get a job as a gaming customer service assistant in a huge casino joint one time. In a sense, this brings me back to then. (Update: I mean, the sound of the roulette, the sight of the board, the chips and the like. That’s what takes me back.)

(Yakuwarigo: Dice slurs his words a lot, especially when yelling things along the lines of “Please lend me moneyyyyyyyyyyyyy!” This is also true in the game.)

Dice seems to have jumped straight to “Riou”, rather than “Riou-san”.  

I wonder if anyone will ever elaborate on that incident where Dice and Riou met?

(Yakuwarigo: Samatoki speaks coarsely, but not outright swearing in the source language…for an example, he says kussotare when roped into being Jakurai’s “female counterpart” for the ARB Halloween event, but he doesn’t do anything of the sort here.)

Even Ramuda uses “san” with Samatoki, most likely to emulate how Samatoki calls himself “oresama” (but with lower formality).

Ramuda-chin? That’s new.

Yakuwarigo: Gentaro spoke normally, just with desu/masu. Maybe the “perchance” was to make it blend in with his -de aru?

Uh-oh…Ramuda’s favours always are things like “dress up for me” and “hang out with me”, if the game is any indication. (One of them happens to be how Ichiro was roped into being a sorta-Kirito for the ARB Halloween event.)

This CGI…it’s not the jankiest, but it is gonna bug me ever so slightly.

I’ve noticed a lot of people in the English-speaking fandom, when they watched the anime, took a shine to MTC (because they seem to embody the entire “refuge in audacity” thing they’ve picked up on…plus that one hamster lyric people got attached to). You can see them being all “cop/gangster husbands” here if that’s your gig – it’s kind of my gig, but to be real HypMic is not a scene where I ship dudes. I’m sorry, but I just like watching pretty boys kick butt.

What warranted the dramatic glasses drop…? (LOL anyway)

That whistle…LOL. It’s like “Look at my boy fight” and “Riou’s got some sweet fightin’ moves” rolled up in one.

For some reason, when I saw the sign for the Organised Crime department, I heard the Student Council theme from Boueibu play in my head…? (Remember that harpsichord theme?) *shrugs* I dunno why that happened.

Hmm…they crossed out the subtitles using Swedish letters instead of strikethrough, huh? Didn’t know that was a limitation.

(Yakuwarigo: Jyuto = dazo)

“Wouldya look at that forlorn mug of his?” – Seeing a man taller than you (Riou is a good 190 or so cm, mind you, making him the tallest member of his division above Samatoki’s 180-something and Jyuto’s 170-something) making a sort of demented puppy-dog face…LOL.

(Yakuwarigo: Jyuto elevated himself to kimasuyo…maybe to win back Riou’s favour?)

(Yakuwarigo: The translation elevated Samatoki’s “nanda” to “the f***”. “Nanda” is not that bad – it’s casual, but doesn’t imply swearing like “ittai” is supposed to mean “the hell”.)

(Yakuwarigo: Jyuto doesn’t finish when he says “ore wa hanashi ga”. That’s called an omission, plain as that may be.)

(Yakuwarigo: Taihendaze!...Maybe that’s a bit far to call it “we’re f**ked”…? It could just be “we’re doomed!” or “we’ve got trouble!”)

(Yakuwarigo: Jyuto uses desune. He’s the most feminine of the trio by virtue of being the smallest height-wise and most polite due to his job, but he seems to bounce between casual and polite a lot.)

…wow, even the rap lyrics have the F bomb…and this time, you can see the evidence.

Natsu no mushi = bugs in the summer. Not a perfect match, but it works. (Notably, things like Gentaro’s speech and rap lyrics don’t play by the same yakuwarigo rules because you can play characters within it – e.g. the evil doctor Jakurai sometimes plays. I’ve noticed most of the songs use casual or whatever rhymes, even for someone like Doppo who’s considered more polite than most.)

…Despite the swearing…that song slaps, man! That’s great.

MTC seems to have more tragedy on average than other divisions. This is because FP and BB are quite light-hearted and mostly family-friendly with hidden depths, but MTR mostly has stalker stories. Update: That’s when they’re focussing on MTR solo. FP’s currently could get pretty dark soon and a lot of the dark/tragic stuff is not actually going to make the anime because it’s in the drama tracks/manga.

My gosh, we got to see Nemu animated!

Okay, I’m not well-versed in yakuza slang but kumicho = boss, so Samatoki would have to answer to a kumicho.

(Yakuwarigo: Notably, when Riou bows, he doesn’t elevate his speech.)

(Yakuwarigo: Jyuto = desukane)

…and randomly, rock solo postcard memory away from the sunset. (LOL) (Also, I believe I befriended Zainou during my time on WordPress. This episode title really does mean things, in a certain sense.)

Ah, it did switch! It’s just…uh, gone to an MTC version of itself (and it has the same name, “Kizuna”). So that means we wait another 6 episodes for MTR. On the other hand…what will the final version be? A whole cast version? A different song? No song at all? *shrugs* Only the future can tell us these things. (Also, why is Jyuto so loud…? That’s why I’m not a bigger fan of him. Much like Ramuda’s minna genki?, his iconic quotes like “In the building!” are so loud and silly-sounding, you just can’t get them out of your head.)

The cityscape in the middle of the disc at the ED’s start seems to have changed. I would assume that’s a Yokohama skyline.

Keiichi Nakagawa is the voice of Rentei…I should stop burning myself on guest VA appearances, this guy’s a rookie. This Nouzenkazura VA (Kenji Hamada) though is voiced by the guy who does Otegine in Touken Ranbu and isn’t as much of a rookie as Rentei’s.

Notably, where BB do the “BB sign” (as it seems to be known), MTC do a finger gun. MTR have the wolf fang, but…what is FP’s, then? Update: It’s a peace sign to the side to make an F.

Today’s new music was “Red Zone (Don’t Test da Master)”, by KLOOZ and DJ WATARAI.

*cringes at the airhorn* *briefly presses fingers to forehead, as if going to massage temples, but then removes them* The airhorn reminds me of crazy sport fans. Crazy anime fans are more civil than them, which is one reason why I don’t follow sports on the regular.

Update: Oh! The pond owl cafe in episode 2! It means Ikebukuro!...Sort of. Fukurou rhymes with ‘bukuro and ike = pond.

Akudama 3

Hmm? Is it just me or is that T in the code the kanji for “bird” (tori)?

“It’s where I belong.” – I know my reason for pursuing Japanese is a purely selfish reason – so I can stay above others in the topics I think matter to me and pursue the endless natural high that comes from the thrill of translation (which may be all one reason or two, depending on how you look at it).

Oh, the bunny and shark again.

The bunny’s shirt said “life” at one point, I didn’t understand the shark’s though.

At one point, shark: Ka (from “Kansai”), bunny: ken (authority).

At the end, shark: heaven, bunny: hell. These broadcasts look like NHK broadcasts at the end.

Most of these words are katakana, making them look foreign.

Kansai 300, 25-1.

“Move-you-s**t!” – It…seems a bit out of character for Swindler to say the swear word there.

Taiso 3

That CGI…is not the greatest.

According to Moon Land, gymnastics operates on a deduction/addition system. You add points for difficulty, but deduct points for errors like how Minamino’s feet are apart.

*sees montage* - Those CGI scenes really take out the budget, huh…?

Gymnastics moves are named after their creators…kinda like scientific names and finders.

There was a lot of commentary in Moon Land so I’m not sure what the moves are called from memory (the dialogue always did that for me), but having the reactions speak for themselves…I think the anime team has enough faith the reactions will convey everything. They did, by the way.

You can see the bone at the base of Minamino’s neck, under the skin…it’s sort of scary.

The fact you couldn’t see Jotaro’s eyes for a shot or two…that kind of unnerved me and built tension.

Oh! The men in black appear after the credits!

[nochiquinn]

campaign 2 episode 85: wait this was the 200th overall episode???

this episode's not allowed to go past midnight, I wanna play pokemon

matt emptied out the shop so they couldn't grab the flaming raging poisoning sword of doom and ohko the thing

"oh, we're treating it like tremors"

fuck your poison

PUMATS ASSEMBLE

caleb: fuck this shit I'm out

invisifuck

this is like playing overwatch when you know the other team has a sombra

you've heard of greased lightning get ready for greased fighting

LORGE

bonus action steal

"anime punch her in the veins"

if someone doesn't goddamn fucking heal somebody I'm gonna

"I am going to do....nothing" what is this king of omashu bullshit

samuel

"no worries" too late I am Worried

inflict boops

sam is the dice jail

laura: no talk me I angy

invisible caleb doing the spycrab walk

(no one gets tf2 memes in the year of our lord two thousand and nineteen)

"I'm already rolling 1s in the game I don't need them in real lfe"

byeeeee bitch

BEGONE THOT

fjord smoll

"I'm shaking too much to make my thing work" :(

"tie fighters kick??? what movie have I been watching?"

"that doesn't happen every day" "kinda does to us"

pumat make them all anti-scry necklaces

pumat: so uh what the fuck

"burn down the store and start afresh" I mean it worked for gilmore

pumat???

pumat's room looks like the original cr set

aww, pumat

The Gang Develops an Anxiety

jester this is going to end so poorly for you

oh. oh no.

beau: her acting skills are NOT THE POINT

jes :(

"sometimes you panic and do weird things"

cad: beau is bossy now

fjord stop encouraging this

"a parent cannot disguise how they look at their child" yeah if they like. give a shit about their kid.

the gang gets ptsd

jestER

wow fuck you The Gentleman

laura is crying and I'm just gonna teleport into the game and kill the gentleman myself

oh, cool. cool cool cool. cool.

welp

we lp

mr man

mariSHA

found familyyy

"he hardly ever human trafficks"

he's totally her dad and keeping her away for her safety.

(there's also the flip side where if she can figure it out other people can figure it out, and knowing she's at risk could at least let her be on the lookout for fuckery)

UNCLE GENTLEMAN

[nebula voice] it's not ripe

"put your arm away from my FACE"

nott

nott: hot boy caleb: speaks one (1) time nott: son boy

oh god

oh no my chat

laura: YEAH WHAT IS IT ABOUT HER

"ivehadthatfantasy"

"the anchor brings you to the bottom if I recall"

"I'll do some work" "nO"

jesteR

weLP

jester did not think this far ahead

then the gentleman morphs into a rakshasa

"I was there. For like, a day. We got exiled."

theory kind of confirmed!!

"you should have trusted her"

oh well fuck there go my emotions

gotg2 "he might be your father but he ain't your daddy"

it's okay, marion has an army of johns. go be a kept man.

cool uno's gonna make me cry now

okay but the writer half of me is yelling at them to stop having big emotional scenes, they have an assassin after them and these are all massive death flags

"someone who has adapted many anime scripts" ldsjfsl

I am not processing any of this, drama-heavy first halves mean the second half is brain mush tiem

two jesters, beau has had this dream

"do not kill pumat sol. I will kill you." sam is all of us.

that's a trap. that's super a trap.

that's bait dot gif

welp

THAT'S BAIT DOT GIF

oh. oh no.

let's go fight ganon in our underpants

PUMAT SOL ROAD TRIP

this is everything I ever wanted

this episode has been A Lot

uvlua fawn

"it's not what you think it is" it's worse

oh cool this is terrible

this is some destruction of emon shit and I Have Anxiety

I LISTENED TO THAT IN THE ARCHIVES I KNEW EVERYBODY SURVIVED

team human <3

poor cad

oh cool. cool cool cool.

weLP

do it nott

laura is me

"a sparROW, LIAM"

T H A T ' S B A I T D O T G I F

this is a bloodborne boss room

vasselwhat now

pelor no I thought we were bros

"I dropped my staff" sdklfjsl

HEY MATT TURN ON YOUR LOCATION

“tune in to see Caleb Widogast dissociate for FOUR HOURS!”

[madameocotillo]

Hello my friends, it is time for Honesty Hour with Ohko. This is yet another episode of me trying to collect my thoughts by writing them out in full view of the public. No read more because I'm on mobile and I don't know how.

Normally I try to be critical anytime my brain tells me "if this one thing was different" or "if only you owned this one item" my life would straighten itself out & my mental health would return to the stability level it was at during the beginning of 2019. It's a common pitfall people fall into, and once they have the one thing done/purchased, there is always another and the cycle starts over.

HOWEVER, I've come to think that my apartment being in the state of disarray that it is, is quite -literally- the singular hurdle standing in between me, and me but with Drive. It didn't weigh on me in early 2019 because I only really moved in around mid-January, but now almost a year later, some rooms are almost non-functional because of clutter and my art space is buried under piles of supplies and junk waiting to be sorted. What energy I do have goes towards keeping it from being gross because I do not like bad smells and feeling icky, but it definitely looks like the mid stage between a sitcom household and an episode of Hoarders.

The main issue that stems from this is I fixate on what I want it to be like, and what I want to be able to do in my own home, but lack the energy to do more than just keep it from getting worse (most days). Because I'm feelin' terrible about not making progress, guilt suckerpunches me hard everytime I try to do anything recreational at home, and the most common result is I sit on my couch watching Netflix from the time I get home till I pass out around 1 or 2 AM. As you might imagine.... this does not make me feel better. But I'm NOT ALLOWED to play games or draw or talk to people, because if I have time and focus to do those, then I have time and focus to spend on my living space!! Doesn't it just sound so logical Ha Ha Ha hA.

It's affecting so many aspects of my life- from not wanting to go out and do things because I should go home and clean, to not allowing anyone (except the best friend who has known me for 12 years and is thus not counted as a Human Social Interaction) to set foot inside my apartment because I am so ashamed of how it looks, to wasting tons of money eating out because I can't face having to dig around in my kitchen just to prepare a simple meal. I was doing so good at the beginning of the year, and it pisses me off a lot that as far as I can tell, this is what's primarily preventing me from having that back!!

The behavior that angers me the most about this all is that I keep setting aside an evening/day/weekend with the EXPRESS GOAL that I will Marie Kondo THE HELL outta my shit, but I never manage to make myself follow through!! Then it's Guilt Time again, because what kind of moron can't double down for a spell to accomplish something that is really important to them?? I know it's the ADHD, but I'm medicated, so it winds up feeling like a personal failing anyways!! If I wasn't super skittish of uppers because I don't trust my addictive personality to be responsible, I am seriously at the point where I would consider doing a bunch of coke so I could shotgun this whole mess in a drug-fueled mania. I won't be taking that option, but that's the general level of desperation I'm feeling.

I have had a brand new, SUPER NICE desktop computer sitting in the box it came in, on the floor, for over a month now because I need to clear off my desk to set it up, but I am Not Allowed to work on the downstairs until I finish the upstairs in entirety. The reason for this? My bedroom is upstairs, and I have already done some of the organizational stuff I need to there, so it is a Partially Finished Job that must be completed before I can start a new task. I know that these rules are fake and technically I can do anything in any order I choose, but I haven't been able to shake the priorities list in my head and it's fucking stupid. It's just such a textbook mental illness sticking point, and I feel dumb any time I think about it too hard.

At this point I think I am just ranting, so in conclusion: My surroundings are negatively affecting my general wellbeing and, along with taking baby steps to address the clutter, I should probably go to therapy about it. Also, if anyone has tips/links to articles about this sort of thing I will happily accept them. I am also not above buying self-help books if one helped you & you remember what it was called.

[sunnyvaiprion]

You can give advice? O.O PLEASE TELL ME YOUR STRATEGY FOR BRAVE VERONICA.

Brave Veronica, hm? Well, personally my strategy is this guy walking in her range and taking 0 damage from one to four times (depending on dance and speed), then kills her/holds her attention while others can get the Aether. It actually works but… this answer may (more like, it will) not suit like… the majority? So here’s other options:

 (read more since it’s another long post) 

 First of all, what do we need to do with B!Vero? Her huge range will make it difficult to (safely) kill her from a distance, so logical decision would be bait her closer to your team and kill her there… and she, like all staves, has a dazzling effect… BUT. You dont have to kill her the exact second she approaches you. It’s very possible to survive one-two (or even three-four, if she gets repo’d back and danced) of her attacks without much damage and kill her on the subsequent player phase very easily, because of how frail she is near enemies, and all her attacks were charging your special... 

“Normal” Veronica of a player, who put her in a def team cause she’s “meta” has 49 attack and 36 speed (neutral IV + 3att A). “Super-invested” (+att IV, +10, atk/spd solo A, AND dragonflowers) Veronica has 60 attack and 47 speed… Usually you’ll be seeing something in-between. With only 54 attack on average and no access to offensive specials - that’s something a good number of heroes can take. If baited at max range - she is also away from her team - no goads/drives.

Note: with her abysmal HP - any visible buff she can receive is an invitation to panic ploy. Since there’s a lot of panic tools in AR now (Panic ploy users, panic manor, Aversa in particular) visible buffs on defensive teams arent popular (unless they use a rally/restore+ trick, watch out for that, but that’s -1 dancer turn already), but if she has a visible - you can panic it, go ahead. She has silly res too so all other ploys like atk ploy will easily land too. It applies to every other enemy too, but Veronica in particular is easily ploy-able. 

What heroes we can use for this?

Disclaimer: I’m not saying these are the only characters that can be used to bait and kill Veronica, but rather something popular/requiring lower investment.  

Eir. Just free vanilla Eir. She was inroduced as a pretty much forced memeber of every raiding party during light season and beyond, and she has pretty strong stats and skills to deal with Veronica. Her base res with Lifjaberg is 34 (can be further buffed by allies and/or S slot), her B skill effectively halves damage dealt by staff users, and even that damage will be partially (or fully, since far from every Vero will double Eir) healed after combat. There isnt much Veronica can do against Eir in any given situation. I personally know people who were literally saved from doom when they found out Eir can bait Veronica. 

Raven mages are very effective against Veronica, since she cant inherit Cancel Affinity, like some sly archers do. Raven mages with Triangle Adept are hard counters to Veronica, since they needs only around 35 res to take 0 damage from Veronica (or close to that) even after she applies her staff effect, and in turn need very low attack (like 40) to OHKO her on their phase.

  Any mage you inherit a raven tome and TA onto can fit the bill, as long as they have at least ~20 starting Res on them (Res tactic/class buff on ally + Distant Defence SS will bring their res to 35 range) which isnt too much. Gronnraven+  users are preffered meta-wise, because along with Veronica and other colorless threats, they will be able to take on blues like Reinhardt. But other colors are viable too! After all people like Lilina and Lewyn exist too. 

 Units that naturally come with Raven tomes are: Cecilia (I used her to cheese through lower tiers, where VeroLynHardt was a constant thing, pretty solid unit), F/M!Robin (both have prf raven which will help a lot in tactic teams that dont have many spare slots for visible buffs, although F!Robin is preferred for Green color), newly refined Sophia, Lyon and Henry (although less reliable due to very low attack. might get a refine soon). But again - any mage with above 20 res (I’d suggest also having above 20 def too for archer/dagger purposes) can run a Raven (PA!Inigo is a popular choice, since he is green and can also double as a dancer) 

Magic tanks (of any color again) will have little problems baiting Veronica with little harm too, since dedicated PP mages actually hurt more than her (but can be killed with counterattacks ay). There’s a big variety of heroes that would fit in this category. My boy Julius actually sits here, with his atrocious magic damage soaking abilities, but I’d also note ranged heroes like Leo, Micaiah, Deirdre, Kliff, F!Morgan, Innes, Felicia, W!Ceclila, built enemy phase, and others, whose weapons directly reduce damage or have a lot of res, making stacking res an option. Double distant def and guard bow/serpent tome with a visible res buff from an ally will bump up your res by so much that having 30 base may entirely/almost nullify damage from Veronica. 

While ranged units typically have more res, Dragon units are often built into mixed tanks with lots of defences, and 4* ones are also popular merge projects so chances are you might have one merged. W!Fae is a res monster, Myrrh with her prf hold a special place in my heart, others with ~30 base res like Fae can be brough up and used as mixed/res tanks too, which should cover Veronica. Other melee units with high res and useful skills like Sheena and Fjorm can be of use too, even if some of them dont run DC/DC weapons because you arent counterattacking anyway.  BUT if you have a wall between her and your melee unit - you’ll have to use something ranged to actually go for a kill. (not that it’s too bad)   

Head-on method - Nailah and her Null-C-Disrupt. Extra and premium, but … also worth mentioning.

Of course each different situation requires a unique approach in terms of positioning, sometimes you can go around some buildings and assassinate Veronica first, sometimes you can avoid combat with Veronica on first combat phase and bait someone else, so on so forth, but here’s just some general ideas that may help. 

Also another note: Double savage blow (that Veronicas often run) doesnt affect the target, so if you dont put anyone within 2 spaces of Veronica’s target - no one will take splash damage. Eir’s C skill heals everyone as long as they took equal amount of damage, so sometimes it may be not that bad. 

About Restore+: if enemy Veronica has Restore+ and her ally in range has any negative status effect - she will prioritize healing them instead of attacking someone she cant kill (or significantly damage, unfortunately I dont know the details but the idea is that it’s not a unit you want to bait her with). You will need to get the enemy formation moving your way by killing/damaging or baiting someone else, unless number of enemy units with negative status effects (excluding veronica) She will start healing statuses even before you trigger the rest of enemy movement so be careful for her not to catch you off guard with shifted range, because a dancer will dance her after she heals! The rest of enemies wont move before you interact with them anyway. This applies to any staff user with Restore+.    

I hope you find something that you like using and Veronica stops being a problem!!  

[dropmic-tl-blog]

Shinjuku Style ~Don’t Make Me Laugh~

translation: shangri-la | edit: nanairo

[ALL] Ramming right through this car chase, gimme that mic! This is my way, and it’s mega risky

You're not gonna stop us, so get the hell away! We are MATENROU We're gonna ram into you straight up

Ramming right through this car chase, gimme that mic! This is my way, and it’s mega risky

You're not gonna stop us, so get the hell away! We are MATENROU We're gonna ram into you straight up

[JAKURAI] The blood of this drifting samurai boils, Wandering alone in this dangerous world JINGUJI JAKURAI AKA ill-DOG

With undeniable skills, He’s always here for the people The doctor is in, straight from counseling

I will coil around my enemies And sink my fangs deep With the poison circulating, Things are better than before now

Are you in it to win it...or not? The depraved curse on the walls we break Is clearly the rhyme that will shake us awake

You be the judge, the rules are simple No matter how you slice it, Shinjuku is world class! The city that never sleeps (ALL: MATENROU)

The light and shadows project and illuminate My friends are crazy good psychos(1), actual record breakers! Stake everything on the advancing future!

[ALL] We ain't goin' easy on you, (HIFUMI: C'MON!) We're gonna crush you, (HIFUMI: C'MON!) And shut that mouth up! (HIFUMI: HEY!) [JAKURAI] SHINJUKU STYLE SHINJUKU STY- SHINJUKU STYLE SHINJUKU STYLE

[ALL] We ain't goin' easy on you, (HIFUMI: C'MON!) We're gonna crush you, (HIFUMI: C'MON!) And shut that mouth up! (HIFUMI: HEY!) [JAKURAI] SHINJUKU STYLE SHINJUKU STYLE

[DOPPO] What the hell’s a wandering ghost doing here? To me, myself, and everyone else, I'm a psychopath When I hold this mic, I'm crushed by a seal of approval(2) The chances of a tie in this battle? Zero

Like a chrysalis(3), fuckin' fantastic rappin' Like that guy paintin' in his own colors, Van Gogh I'll paint with these words 'cuz I'm Doppo 'Where?' Right here and PISSED, yo! I'm a SHINJUKU LOCAL LOCO(4)

Beating the absolute shit out of ya Knocking over all the other teams too Easier than a goddamn table Haha...! Don't make me fuckin' laugh

Before Matenrou, it's a battlefield of behavior So no limits and no holds barred! In the restroom, I'll just flush you down the toilet, you nameless ass Division So you better watch out 'cuz here comes our PRIDE

[ALL] We ain't goin' easy on you, (HIFUMI: C'MON!) We're gonna crush you, (HIFUMI: C'MON!) And shut that mouth up! (HIFUMI: HEY!) [JAKURAI] SHINJUKU STYLE SHINJUKU STY- SHINJUKU STYLE SHINJUKU STYLE

[ALL] We ain't goin' easy on you, (HIFUMI: C'MON!) We're gonna crush you, (HIFUMI: C'MON!) And shut that mouth up! (HIFUMI: HEY!) [JAKURAI] SHINJUKU STYLE SHINJUKU STYLE

[HIFUMI] Basked in Shinjuku’s Red Lights(5), It’s totally pointless to even fight back Can’t you hear everyone booing ya? Chewin’ ya up and spittin’ ya out like gum I’m so hot I dunno what to do with myself, but it’s my turn!

Beatin’ ya up like bing-bang, champagne, cling-clang If you think you can copy me, then try it, bitch This suit’s my combat gear, All our battles are picture perfect

Ah! C’mon over here! You’re not scared, are you? Your host tonight is a man with wicked status The No.1 player all the way to the moon’s craters I’ll punch holes right into ya I’ll roast and chew out all the haters in one go Or maybe tie ‘em up and give ‘em a whole tequila

Buster Bros!!! Mad Trigger Crew! Fling Posse! Here’s Hifumi, ready to punish ya!

[ALL] We ain't goin' easy on you, (HIFUMI: C'MON!) We're gonna crush you, (HIFUMI: C'MON!) and shut that mouth up! (HIFUMI: HEY!) [JAKURAI] SHINJUKU STYLE SHINJUKU STY- SHINJUKU STYLE SHINJUKU STYLE

[ALL] We ain't goin' easy on you, (HIFUMI: C'MON!) We're gonna crush you, (HIFUMI: C'MON!) And shut that mouth up! (HIFUMI: HEY!) [JAKURAI] SHINJUKU STYLE SHINJUKU STYLE

[ALL] Do you feel the sheer power of Shinjuku flowing? More intense than you could ever think It’s a OHKO, here in the Shinjuku Showcase! Hey! You’re all wiped out without a trace (x4)

サイコに��高に -“psycho ni saikou ni” - “psycho” and “saikou” sound similar; “saikou ni” means “first-rate”

(太鼓判を)押される - literally means “affixing someone with a stamp of approval” but 押される can also mean to apply pressure/to overwhelm/to influence etc

脱皮する - literally means “molting/shedding skin” (like butterflies do) but also means “to free oneself”

ロコ - “loco” means both “local” (as in a resident) and “loco” (Spanish for crazy/insane)

シンジュク歌舞伎 - Kabuki-cho, located in Shinjuku, is Tokyo’s red lights and entertainment district