#which is a lot less interesting than i thought it would be.. unless i'm missing something?

[wellzofyouth]

That one post of my mine predictably aged like fine wine. Never let somebody on comic twitter in the writer's room😭😭😭 Like imagine a 1 to 1 adaptation of literally any event?? -1b at the box office. "Who are these people???"

[sims2veronaville]

Btw my sim. From sims 3. He's called Gabe. He got robbed the very first night of his life & then the next morning he set his kitchen on fire making waffles

[msmargarita]

✨🤓Johnathon/🕳️ Spot Headcanons✨

These are some headcanons I wrote for my two fics:

i'm not going to turn into a cosmic anomaly and leave you forever

and

i'm really serious this time, baby

It has !!spoilers!! for both of those fics!

It's basically an AU unless I somehow foresaw the future and guessed what happens in BTSV!

Beware the keep reading button. This is HUGE.

🤓 Johnathon HCs!

HE IS A GEMINI. Like come on. Talks a lot, nerdy, silly guy. He is a canonically silly guy! In his first fight with Miles he pretends to have hurt his nose (he doesn’t have one) to trick him. So silly! I would bet there's Capricorn somewhere in there too. And Pisces. I’ll make this man’s whole birth chart if you dare me. Just dare me. I’m insane.

Jason Schwartzman used to be in a band in the 00s. I think it would be cool if Johnathon also had some sort of interest in music. I think he would have tried to learn guitar in college but only got a few chords in before life got too chaotic and every now and then he thinks of picking it back up. 

He is also one of those guys who fanboys over old ass music, especially from the 60s and 70s. Loves Jazz, Funk and Prog Rock. Look at this man and tell me he is not a prog rock guy. He is a nerd, he might even be *shudders* a math rock guy. I also think he would have one completely random favorite artist that has nothing to do with the things listed above, like, idk Lizzo. Or Princess Nokia. He just looks like the type.

I think everyone agrees Johnathon is at least in his thirties, but I put him down as thirty-three in the end. I did that because Olivia is thirty-five tops in ITSV (according to Peter) and since he was her subordinate it makes sense that he would be just a little bit younger than her. 

“But hey! That's too young to get a PhD!” you might say, but I think Johnny is an overachiever. I think he was one of those super genius kids that got in early in college and lived for academia. A teacher's pet even.

He is a workaholic, so when he quits his job he gets really lost and doesn't know what to do with himself. He might have a new job soon doing what he loves, so you’re going to need to be on his ass so he doesn’t fall back into his old habit of overworking. 

I like to think that Miles would get an internship under Johnathon a few years in the future and they would learn a lot together. Jonathan would probably take a week to figure out he is Spider-Man and would cover for him when the boy needs to disappear. This actually sounds like a fun drabble to write about.

Johnathon may be a genius, but like he said, he is not too familiar with relationships. I think he might've had one or two in the past, but everything slowed down when he started working at Alchemax. “I’ve been told” is referring to those past relationships, in which he was probably told that he works too much and never has time to spend with his partners. He’s not been with anyone for a long time and his game consists of buying the first comic book he saw on a shelf in order to ask you out.

But that doesn't mean he is cold. Quite the opposite really, Johnathon is very touchy-feely. He hasn't been with anyone for a while and misses touching and being touched. He is most comfortable when being at least 70% curled around you. 

He smokes Dunhill Carltons (he likes to feel fancy), but less now that he isn't as stressed from work. Like he said, he used to go on walks to smoke and pass by the comic book store you work at before you guys had even met. I like to think he developed a little crush back then.

Had his tattoos done in college, so they are very faded now. He doesn’t think of redoing them because the mere thought of having to stay seated for hours in the same place feeling pain stresses him out. He was a lot more easygoing when he had them done.

He did have a superhero phase when he was a kid. He would fantasize a lot about having superpowers and flying away when the bullies showed up. Never thought about fighting back. Before becoming the Spot, he wasn't the confrontational type. The hero thing fizzled out as he grew older, but he would always dream about being stronger. Being a better version of himself in a kinda superficial, but understandable way.

He still has a bunch of action figures, he thinks they look cool. If you give him one, he won't even care if he knows the character or not, he just likes them.

Even though Johanthon says he is “good-looking”, he does add “for a scientist” in the end. I think he tries to mask his insecurities with humor, always putting himself down with a joke, always saying he’s too old, too corny, too nerdy. In the back of his head he knows the hair and the glasses are kind of a look, but he doesn’t feel handsome. You help as much as you can, but that’s an obstacle for him to overcome by himself. I think after i’m really serious this time, baby he gets better at this.

🕳️ The Spot HCs!

For clarification: the story of i’m not gonna turn into a cosmic anomaly and leave you forever stretches the plot of ATSV to a few weeks instead of a day. Just think of it like Spot taking a little longer to power up instead of a few hours.

Since he was forced to do crime to survive, I think he would've thought to himself: "Well, since I have to go rob a store anyway, might as well be that one where that cute cashier works at." 

Yes, Spot starts tracking and following you after you two meet. He uses his computer nerd powers for evil. A very unhealthy way of dealing with a crush, I think.

Spot can eat but he doesn't get any nutritional value from food. When you drink wine together or when he burns his tongue (?) from tea it's just a placebo effect. I like to think that Johnathon's mind is still inside The Spot's body, so he eats just for habit. He says he gets hungry all the time, but it's actually a deep need to consume everything around him. The little rascal.

As he powers up, Spot gets more confident in himself. He thinks the stronger he gets the further away he gets from Johnathon, his old self. Which, in the end, turns out to be true.

I think at first you don't really believe Spot is an actual supervillain which is why when you see him after the fight in Mumbattan it's such a shock. In a way, you did the same thing Miles did when he underestimated him, even if for whole different reasons. I think even though he knows you care about him, Spot knows you don't see him as a threat and that makes him want to impress you more. 

Spot knows that the reason you keep getting new jobs is because his own crazy supervillain life keeps interfering with yours, so he tries to keep it as much hidden from you as possible. He thinks what you don’t know can’t hurt you! As Johnathon, he feels guilty at first that you’re changing your whole life to go with him to New Jersey, BUT this time it was your choice! Not because of supervillain shenanigans!

He does love you (even if it was too early to know) and wants to be with you, but his head is so lost in the supervillain game, he thinks he can’t stop now. You never really realized how serious he was about “being stronger”. Which is why you never tried to stop him.

I chose I’d Rather Be With You as a theme song because I think it’s a song Johnathon/Spot would enjoy. But I also like how the lyrics match both their feelings towards you, in both fics. He wants to fly away with you once he gets all powered up, he loves your smile, etc. He does want to be your friend until the end as the Spot, but as Johanthon he is really committed to work on his bad habits in order to be with you. We gon' make it this time, baby! I cry, damnit. 

It’s also a surprisingly gender-neutral song, with no physical descriptions in it! Anyone can put themselves in the lover's place. Bootsy Collins is cool like that.

I like to think that, in the end, Spot didn't erase himself from the timeline. He just reloaded an old save. Does that make sense? Like you said, your relationship will always have happened, just in an old, non existent dimension. And since Johnathon and you still get dreams and deja vu about the whole thing (think of it as dimensional residue or whatever), you do have all the EXP of the old save. Johnathon, after going through the literal end of all existence and then forgetting about it, feels something compelling him to finally take a chance and enter the comic book store. It’s like when your body goes through something and it remembers later, even if your mind doesn't. Here's a (hopefully) comprehensive timeline:

the end.

Thank you for taking an interest in my weird AU! I would kill for you 💖

[logansgaar]

the more I'm thinking about this "Bucky Barnes is a mutant who just happened to have a mutation that kinda looked like the super soldier serum's affects" AU the more it makes plausible sense with everything we know about mutants across the marvel cinematic omg

Dormant mutant genetics can be triggered by one of two things: extreme torturous circumstances or exposure to an Infinity Stone (evidence: this is how Wade Wilson and Wanda Maximoff respectively had their x genes triggered.) Pick your poison, Bucky was exposed to both of these things around the same time. He was literally forced to build weapons made from the Tesseract's energy like all the other POWs were, Bucky had extensive exposure to Tesseract radiation (also something Shuri canonically confirms). Bucky was also undergoing extreme conditions being worked to death, he had pneumonia before any of Zola's experiments even began and was on deaths door... how did a man who was practically dead already survive the intensely traumatic experience of having the serum when many men had died on Zola's table before him? Even before Bucky makes it onto Zola's table, a guard beats him nearly to death, breaking his ribs, because he's not strong enough to work anymore due to his pneumonia.

Why did Zola pick Bucky? Out of all the able-bodied men available, after a string of previous stronger men, Zola picked the one who was basically already dead? He risked exposure to a guy with an infectious disease no less who'd just been brutally beaten within an inch of his life with a fucking empty bomb shell thing?, to the point warring inmates teamed up to murder the guard in front of the whole camp, damn the consequences? Gabe Jones didn't think Bucky was going to make it another day and yet he survives without medical treatment, in awful dirty cold damp conditions in the cell, and even less food due to the group punishment for the guard's death for an indeterminate length of time before somehow ending up in Zola's lab.

Unless Bucky was already displaying unusual phenomenon. He was suffering with extreme exhaustion, pneumonia, broken ribs, deep contusions, likely the beginnings of body wasting through the disease and lack of food...his survival is shocking, I think anyone would be shocked to see a man with all that going on getting up and just continuing to live for who knows how long, Zola actively working on replicating the serum might've taken an interest because of this.

What were the Soviet soldiers doing all the way out there where they picked up Bucky? Why did they pick him up? Someone smarter than me also deduced that Bucky likely got himself out and walked some distance before the Soviets found him. Zola hadn't had time to get any messages out as far as we know and his deal with the Colonel didn't start until after Bucky was "gone". Unless the Soviets saw some real freaky shit going on with this random American soldier missing an arm, potentially the same thing Zola saw in the prison camp, and thought hmm we're not sure we want to give him back to the Americans who already have their super soldier (proto cold war with super soldiers instead of nukes...)

From what we know so far, none of the serums currently in use come from Bucky's blood. They come from the multiple different attempts to replicate Steve's serum. The CIA developed a lot of them and Isaiah Bradley's was just the one that happened to work, and Isaiah came before Howard's, and we can infer from that that all current serums stem from Isaiah's blood. Alexei says his serum was developed from stolen blood from a "semi-stable" CIA test subject, which was most likely Isaiah, since not only is Bucky's considered the most stable serum after Steve's, it's hinted that Zola lost whatever he might've done to Bucky when the facility exploded. He was given no time to pack anything up and would've had no way of knowing a possible serum used on Bucky worked at all given Bucky was still strapped down when Steve arrived. It seems unlikely HYDRA never tried to replicate Bucky's serum and it seems they weren't able to, I have two theories about that: they didn't have an Infinity Stone anymore, which Shuri believes was used in the place of Vita Rays, so they couldn't get whatever Bucky's got cooking to work on anyone else for that reason, or Bucky was never a super soldier at all, with no serum in his blood to attempt synthesizing from.

Just for fun: Bucky teleports. He just...pops around. This is complete crack but a common thing with Bucky is him just disappearing and reappearing in new locations that are implausible to reach even for a super soldier. And it's not just weird editing post-production either, characters react to it, it's a deliberate plot detail. Bucky's somehow able to disappear in seconds in front of T'Challa, the Black Panther, and a lobby full of people and none of them know where he's gone. It was a helipad btw. He somehow ended up on the helipad... dunno how he got there. Bucky jumped off a building with nowhere to go and a second later Steve looked, had a clear unobstructed view, and couldn't see where Bucky went. He does it more as WS than Bucky, so maybe as Bucky he's just not consciously aware he can do it so he doesn't, like the whole "I'm right handed so I don't always think to use [the arm]" thing whereas WS uses everything available to him.

Going with the Infinity Stone exposure theory, the stone Bucky was exposed to was the space stone, and the one Wanda was exposed to was first off the mind stone, and she had mind powers (along with the energy we've seen from all the stones) up until after the Infinity Wars where she came into contact with all the Infinity stones then boom, upgrade. Bucky gets shot once by the Power stone, that's it.

[zombeebunnie]

Trembling Essence:💙Ending progress + poll results💙

Hi again and welcome new followers, here's another progress update about the game! >;]

But before I write that out I just want to say a very big thank you to everyone that participated in the poll I did so far, The results and responses have been helping me for the final version. :,] If you still want to give your vote/opinion on the start of the game here's the poll from my tumblr! There's less than 24 hours to vote!

I took a small break to gather my thoughts before continuing from where I left off. I was brainstorming a lot about this because I didn't want the beginning of the game to be too long when it comes to figuring out how to get to Noah, but I do want the explorative side to give some lore.

Suddenly, an idea came to mind that'll help me solve this issue I've been having. :,]

Last week I mentioned the two endings you could get that are from the [Extended Demo]. I don't count this as spoilers but these endings will have their own separate choice to go down instead of it being in the same path. This replaces a section from the [Extended Demo] and lowers the amount of time it takes to figure out how to get to Noah, especially for those that are new to the game. Consider this a healthy quality of life change, only one ending has been put on the shelf that I didn't have a connection with so far! :] This also gave me a chance to go through both endings individually and give a deeper exploration into these areas as they do play a part in the game. I added a few choices to show the differences in the terrain and how the player(Y/N) reacts to it. You can get an alternate situation but it will still end the same. I also fixed up some errors I found through the alternate choices that I almost missed too. For right now I'd say this ending will be finished once my play testers look through them! They've given me pointers on the CG's and dialog but not everything else yet. x] Speaking of quality changes I also went back and adjusted some of the new CG's I've drawn. I had a habit of drawing the landscape too low so you couldn't see anything unless you toggled the text box away. :,,,] Luckily this was a quick and easy fix.

Here's the results:

Before:

After:

I'm very happy with how far I've come when I draw backgrounds now! It's been a interesting journey but overall I enjoy knowing everything is coming together no matter how long it might take. There was another one I wanted to share but this the second CG I tried posting gave me an error. Luckily I had everything saved so I don't have to rewrite anything! :,,]

It took some time but I went back and fixed one of the effects that happen when you lose HP. The old version lights up the edges of your screen but sometimes it can be hard to see if there's another effect happening. I went back and gave a small hue effect every time you lose HP instead.

Lastly in other news, I finally started work on Noah's reference sheets! >:]

There will be a total of three(?) which will have specific details for each one! It's took some time to create since I'm still learning how to do angled faces/poses but I've gotten time to practice so I'm ready. >:] I also want to state that Noah's sprites/side sprites in the [Extended Demo] are accurate to how he's suppose to look too. Since I've improved my style certain specifics of his appearance might be slightly different! :]

Almost there to the cabin section, yay! I just have a few more things to fix up. >:]

If you like what I create, please consider supporting what I do on kofi! All donations and tips help tremendously while I work on the game. Also a very huge thank you to those that have optionally bought the [Extended Demo] and the March 2023 demo on itch.io too, it really means a lot. :,]

Q&A / Ask box is open:

If you have any questions about Trembling Essence/Noah feel free to ask here or on itch.io please. This makes it easier for me to see and answer accordingly! I would really like to hear from you guys!

There were some other things I wanted to discuss but this post is getting too long so I'll save it for next week, thank you guys for all of the support, I appreciate it! :,,]

[james-stark-the-writer]

riverdalians, i have deeply disappointing news. the new Super Eyepatch Wolf Riverdale video.... does not Get It.

i mean it's a rough video on its lonesome too, repeating far too much of stuff he already covered in the first video, but it also doesn't really come to any point. honestly, it just seems incoherent at times. but like. the big crime is that he doesn't Get It. like i understand his frustrations with season 7, i share many of them too, but honestly, as sacrilegious as it may sound, it commits some of the same Art Sins as the FSN video (especially as far as treating Riverdale as trying to say something like John does try to find some meaning at the end but he misses the most obvious thing which is really infuriating. like to an extent it's cultural differences, but then again it's also not my culture that's being deconstructed and i got it so i don't know what to tell you, especially bc Riverdale is not remotely subtle about its deconstructions.), like he brings up plot points that are clearly About something and then just... doesn't confront them. like he clearly points out things like how Percival is old and has been around for a long time and how he's corrupting the soul of the town and basically doing a genocide and is from a long line of genociders and how he is the embodiment of evil but he never connects all those to understand that season 6 is critiquing white supremacy (especially given that Riverdale is not a subtle show, like they are very explicit in their political critiques. i do not understand how he could possibly miss that unless he wasn't paying attention and treating it as actual art.), and that season 7 is a very normal lead into it. like yeah i have critiques of season 7 and their approach to tackling racial issues, but it's very clearly leaning further into the deconstruction that the show is doing. like i'm just so stunned he didn't Get It.

fuck, he doesn't even talk about the fucking series finale! which i feel like is a perfect encapsulation of what he finds fascinating in media. like, after his Garfield video, i thought he would get the haunting, horrific implications of the series finale, but he doesn't even talk about it! yeah. there's just no finale section. he just stops talking about the show at the penultimate episode while clearly playing clips from the finale, and he doesn't talk about the finale, which is so baffling to me that i cannot even fathom that this video was meant to be released. genuinely feel like half the video is missing. what the hell, John. i don't think there's a third video coming so it all honestly just seems like a waste. like in some ways, i guess if his Big Point is that the show is incoherent (which tbh is one of the weakest and most wrong criticisms of Riverdale? like, Riverdale will sometimes have you questioning why something was executed the way it was, or why a certain choice was made. but it's not a hard show to follow. it's not incoherent. you just have to pay attention. because it's a dense show. it's very plot-heavy, so you have to be paying attention. yeah sometimes characters flip about, but there's always a base status-quo as a touchstone for categorizing and explaining their behavior, and if you put aside the motivations the literal events are extremely simple to understand. like seriously it's very easy to follow when you actually have context and aren't listening to random plot points decontextualized in a YouTube video that is less than 1/100th of the runtime of the actual show.) and pointless, making the video incoherent and pointless is like, interesting, and tries to mimic the meta characteristics of the show, but it doesn't make for a particularly fun video to watch, and it also is not like giving the show enough credit as a piece of art, so it's just really irritating as a whole.

genuinely so sad about this lol, like i knew from the first one that a lot of his enjoyment was from the outrageous moments and that he probably wouldn't love season 7 but i didn't think he would just completely miss the point this hard. also the way that he understands that Season 4 was filmed during the pandemic but doesn't understand that the first four episodes of Season 5 are actually part of Season 4? baffling. genuinely so many questionable decisions in that video. i do not understand it. i just. i'm so tired of everyone not getting the most blatant fucking Art that's extremely obvious about what it's doing. Riverdale is not hard to Get and the amount of people i've seen blatantly miss the point is really, genuinely scary in terms of media literacy. like jesus, how could you miss the point of Riverdale S06 and how it connects to S07. how is that even possible. did you watch it with your eyes closed, John.

[gabrielsbubblegumbitch]

So I'm sure you've noticed I've been stalking ur blog lol

When I saw this post it actually kinda resonated with me.

https://www.tumblr.com/gabrielsbubblegumbitch/747324251353300992/i-saw-so-many-alastor-ruined-vox-takes-but-how?source=share

I'm Asexual aromatic but Flirting, touching, and other things that can be taken as romantic are purely natural to me. For me it's never serious just another way for me to show interest and have fun with friends. This has actually lead to issues with a few friends in the past. Unknowingly my blind ass would have people genuinely romantically and sexually interested in me and I wouldn't know. It honestly does feel confusing, and in the strangest way violating when you find out. (Can't think of a better word than violating but I don't think that quite gets the feeling across.)

With the way you phrased it actually made me more understanding of how Alastor can just push Vox away, and resonated with me lol.

Put in the same situation I would likely do the same. I'm not just going to change how I talk or act around this person because they have feelings for me, but I can't ignore/forget that they do.

Unlike Alastor though I am a people pleaser so I did try to enter into those relationships and I safely say it would've ended up so much worse for both Vox and Alastor.

Acting flirtatious/romantic is so very different than actually being interested.

At first you follow the classical steps of romance, dates, flowers, I love yous, you do that with friends too, but physically touch suddenly becomes more uncomfortable. Which could explain why Alastor has a "I touch you, you don't touch me" policy, unless your Nifty/Rosie of course!

Everything that person who 'loves' you does however begins to feel annoying, suffocating.

Alastor feeling claustrophobic, uncomfortable, and confused suddenly because this person who was a good friend suddenly wants to get together would instantly push him away. FORCE Alastor either looks at his own actions or views Vox as some perverse person. Therefore any ideas he might have like new technology come from a perverted place.

Obviously I'm not saying that Vox being interested in Alastor from a romantic angle is automatically perverse or wrong but with how much he values his autonomy it definitely feels weird for someone to WANT to be tied down.

I have a lot of thoughts but it is late so I'm just rambling and have way too many thoughts! I do hope you could more or less make sense of this mess! Thank you!

I'm sorry it took me ages to reply but unfortunately I'm mentally ill and for the las few weeks, putting together a coherent response was too demanding :c But I don't like leaving asks unanswered.

I could make sense of this rambling! Actually it's more or less what I had in mind while writing the original post. I'm autistic so I often miss the fact that people are attracted to me + sometimes things have different meanings for me than for most of people (e.g. lately I said something that made someone think that I want to be romantically involved with them, they rejected me, things got extremely weird and I did my best to explain to them my true feelings but I'm still anxious that they might think that I lied to save face) and I'm aromantic. So I get what you mean with that unreasonable feeling of being violated. It is completely unjustified and I hate feeling that way because I recognize it as utterly unfair toward the other person, who is not hurting me in any way but I can't help it.

So, I can imagine that Alastor - who hasn't been though years of therapy and may not be the most self aware and emotionally open person - could feel very bad with Vox's feelings. Especially when Vox is not above manipulation and gaslightning, and probably doesn't take rejection well so thing could get nasty pretty quickly.

[tokiro07]

Undead Unluck ch.199 thoughts

[The Master Rules Strike Back]

[Contents: analysis/speculation - Gods/Master Rules]

I want to start this one with a quick note about last week's review: when Soul said that Luna gave people "potential," I assumed that was a built-in aspect to Soul's Rule. Based on what Soul says this week, though, it seems that human potential is a direct result of Change, not Soul. Perhaps there's still more to it that I'm not quite getting, but is it possible that Soul isn't the only UMA created by Luna? That would kind of reduce the impact of Soul's revelation, but I guess we'll find out sooner or later

The big event for this chapter is definitely the beginning of Language's offensive, but that's more of a transition into next chapter, so unless I want to speculate on where this is going, that doesn't give me a lot to work with (and I don't want to do that, you all know my predictions are always wrong)

Instead, what stands out the most to me this chapter is what Soul tells the other Master Rules as they mourn Beast: "we need to usher Beast into a validated world." I'm sure this ties back into what Beast said about God wanting the "greatest life of all." What exactly is the end goal? What interest does God have in creating a world with set rules?

I've talked about it before, but if God just wanted to torture humanity, there're definitely better ways to do that than to have a game with a set win/lose condition. I've long since believed that God (or at least Sun) is not doing any of this sadistically. UMA being ordered to make humanity suffer and Negators experiencing tragedy upon selection have both only fed into the Negators becoming more determined to fight and grow their abilities, suggesting that this is a calculated effort to groom them into worthy enemies for the Master Rules, trials to help them achieve their full potential

So what happens when the final world is created? When Sun has proven to Luna that humanity cannot reach the Gods and no longer gives them any means of fighting back? Will the Rules simply run rampant, killing humans for fun for all eternity? It's been made quite clear that Sun would one day grow bored of that, so what happens then?

I think that Sun has really just been experimenting with the Rules to see which ones make the most sense, which ones help the world run the most smoothly without simply giving humanity unearned happiness. The final world won't be a paradise, but it will presumably be one with clearly defined order. Perhaps human autonomy will be erased and the world will continue to loop, like Heaven in JJBA, or perhaps Sun will simply abandon the final world and move onto create another, a failed experiment that failed to meet his expectations. Whatever it ends up being, I get the feeling it will be presented as something good at first glance, true happiness on paper, only to fall apart upon closer inspection

The fact that the Master Rules, the most human UMAs, have been fighting as long as the Union has tells me that they have a vested interest in creating this validated world. They aren't blindly loyal to Sun like Ruin is, their happiness is set to be found in that world. Perhaps they will inherit the world, and they will be the new humans, like the end goal of the Curses in JJK? They have goals of their own beyond just trying to beat the heroes because they were told to, and that depth is definitely the puzzle piece that was missing in the early parts of UU

I hope that we'll get more insight here with the Language fight, since Language seems by her nature to be less overtly antagonistic. If Beast, a creature of instinct, was the expositor of the bare circumstances, then it would make sense that Language, presented as an intellectual, would be the expositor of the philosophical motivations behind those circumstances. Perhaps not, though, but hopefully we'll find out soon

Until next time, let's enjoy life!

[ginger-futch]

Thoughts on Poppy Playtime Chapter 3 (spoilers ahead):

It’s interesting to see the developers taking a more overt and darker tone with this chapter; I guess they’ve gotten tired of the sanitized and infantile image their game has.

I'm pretty sure Ollie isn't a human survivor, but a toy with a childish voicebox. Given DogDay's voice sounds like a radio despite him being right in front of the player, and the CatNap tape, it seems that the voiceboxes are all but outright confirmed to be a mechanical part, not biological.

Plus, it wouldn't make sense for him to be a human survivor, because it's been ten years since the Hour of Joy in-universe, so unless he somehow managed to hide and survive from infancy, he'd be at least a teenager by now.

Of course, he could also be the Prototype playing 4D chess with Poppy, but who's to say?

Contrary to SuperHorrorBro's theory, I don't think the Prototype is an "amalgamation of souls," but instead a mimic. He reflects the scientists words right back at him, like playing back a recording, which if he did that by "absorbing souls" of those he integrated into his own body, it wouldn't make sense given the scientist was still alive when he did that.

A lot of people seem to be more than a little confused with the Miss Delight thing, so to clarify: Given the number of Miss Delights that are shown in the Hour of Joy tape, it appears that the school in the facility was mainly taught via Miss Delight bigger bodies toys, not human teachers. This was probably to avoid getting the whistle blown by human teachers, given all the red flags being flown there.

While I'm pretty sure the kids died in the Hour of Joy along with the adults, that is kind of muddled some by the Miss Delight tape (the one where she talks about the one exchange with CatNap, after she lost her mind). Maybe CatNap was saying the kids were in a different place from the employees in a metaphorical sense.

Personally, I think CatNap willingly gave his life to the Prototype, but I do see the basis for the idea that he was more or less tricked instead. He didn't talk much throughout the whole chapter, so it's hard to really know for certain.

The impressions of the Prototype's character are a bit mixed. On one hand, he saved Theodore’s life at the cost of his own freedom made a vested effort to stop the living toy production, and questioned Dr. Sawyer’s morals, implying some sense of morals himself. On the other hand, no distinction was made between the innocent and guilty during the Hour of Joy, he made seemingly no effort to free the toys from the factory despite resources growing scarce, and it’s strongly implied that the children were also killed in the Hour. So, it’s kind of murky at the moment.

I went through the TV Tropes page, and unless I missed something I don’t see the connection between Claire Harper and Miss Delight. I would like to think Claire quit or called in sick by the time the Hour rolled around.

[askanautistic]

Hi!

I don't know for sure if he's autistic, but my partner seems to have some signs of alexithymia..?

Idk, when he's with me, he's amazing & caring & sweet, but he forgets about me when he's gone. Largely, it's because texting can be a lot for him, & he forgets about his phone. I believe him, but I haven't heard of it before? Is it a thing that you can love someone but just... don't think about them all the time? Am I just a hopeless romantic lol

He also rarely says things like 'I love you' or 'i miss you', unless prompted; he doesnt do romantic things for me; he needs time away from me after a day or so (where i could spend weeks on end with him); he needs time alone to figure out why something bothers him, etc. I feel like with most partners, I would assume he just wasn't really interested, but then other things he does really contradict that (like being thoughtful with gifts, listening when i need to talk, thinking about my feelings, etc.). It's confusing.

I wish he'd be more vocal about his feelings & I'm sure he would if i asked, but I'd feel like an asshole if that's just who he is. I don't want him to think anything is wrong with him 😕

I'm not really sure why you think he might be autistic or has alexithymia based on *these things* specifically... Without knowing the full details of your relationship, it sounds a lot like he's very attentive when you're together. And when you're apart he's paying attention to other things. Which, unless it is very extreme, or if you spend a lot of time apart and so do rely on there being some communication and contact during those times, sounds quite balanced! Life is made up of lots of elements, and it would be quite difficult to function at school or work or when doing any activity if someone was constantly thinking about their partner all the time. How expressive people are with their partners can also be influenced by culture or socialisation. Different families communicate in different ways or might be more or less comfortable with talking about big issues. Some people are more likely to be very expressive and some aren't. Some people need reassurance more than others. Some people are much better face to face at expressing themselves or showing affection, and some people can be better at communicating from a distance (so might be more likely to share memes or text a loved one, or get into deeper conversations via text/messaging, but might seem more standoffish in person!). Introverts often need time to themselves to decompress, process, etc. and just because that's how introverts reenergise. Whereas extroverts tend to need to be around people, so don't always understand that need for regular alone time. Whatever the case is, however, it's okay to let your partner know what you like/need in a relationship. It doesn't have to be framed in a way that undermines or criticises the other person. Sometimes it's not that someone is too much, or that someone isn't being expressive enough, it's just that you have conflicting needs or preferences. So it would be okay to say, 'I really like it when you tell me you love me every day and would like for you to say it more often if you would be comfortable doing so.' It would also be okay to ask him what he experiences. Or to let him know that you interpret behaviours a certain way and would like to know whether you're right or not (if you think when he doesn't say it it's because he doesn't feel it or doesn't know if he feels it, then he can let you know whether he does feel it but doesn't think it necessary to say, or whatever else the case may be). I've known NT people who just tend not to use their phones much, who can lose their phone and won't rush to replace it even though it makes it hard to contact them, who don't have or use social media, etc. Or who *do* use their phones a lot but often don't reply to things immediately because they're also very busy people, working, socialising, etc. and sometimes need to dedicate their attention to other things and other people. So it's definitely not exclusively an ND thing... But, if your partner *is* ND, it is also quite common for ND people to experience these things to an even greater extent. It's more often associated with ADHD (but is probably not ADHD exclusive) to experience 'out of sight, out of mind'. Which can apply to objects (and can cause people to do things frequently forget what food is in the cupboard so it goes out of date, or might forget to take medication or to do a task because there's no visual prompt because the implements are somewhere they can't easily be seen). And time blindness. So this can also extend to people - not thinking to message someone because they're not on your mind as much when you're not physically with them, and/or not realising that you haven't heard from or checked in with someone for hours... or days/weeks/months/years. It doesn't mean we don't care about people, and we can be very thoughtful and might show affection in less expected ways, but we might be less consistent or easily distracted or not notice the passing of time so won't feel it as deeply as someone who doesn't have our difficulties.

[gomzdrawfr]

Gomz rambles about something again so feel free to scroll pass :]

Recently had a video recommended to me on youtube and gave it a watch: how you play games is how you do everything so I wanted to give some thoughts after watching it

for starters, the video was pretty simple and straightforward and easy to watch, it got me thinking how true that statement is and I started reflecting a bit.

I rarely play games any more, simply because sometimes I couldn't bring in the time and commitment to games like I used to be, or that it feels like I'm completing tasks instead of enjoying the game (kind of what the original author felt)

That applies to some games I've played in the past, Minecraft, Valorant, Dont starve - when I play a game, I clock tf in LMAO I just tend to focus so much on it that everything else didn't matter. I guess irl this applies to me too, whenever I want to do something I make sure to put in 110% into it, very meticulous with completion and deadlines and ensuring the work I do are good quality, I spend time on researching every single questions or queries I have and yeah just, being into something. Though lately, I've dialled down a bit and take it easy (bcuz stress isn't fun)

Honestly, in another aspect, say Minecraft again, I used to be very active in a community, being the lead builder and just pumping out ideas and making builds after builds while still having fun, I loved brainstorming idea and vomit it out in blocks, being able to use part of my interest that are less relevant in my studies to something else, you know? but ever since the said community grew larger, I got overwhelmed and stepped away from the people. They're great friends, really, but sometimes it's a lot when a friend circle grows.

Reflecting this to irl, I tend to work in smaller groups and have a close-knit of friends instead of many friends. Better yet, working alone or just with another one person. It's easier to focus and manage things. Another takeaway would be, I guess, is the way I tend to walk away when things gets more than what I like, or can handle.

I used to be part of a group of friends online too, I liked what we had going, we were silly we were honi (lol) and things were more light-hearted. But as more and more people join, I started feeling overwhelm or a sense of disconnect. There's a lot going on, like a bouncing ball started yeeting against each surfaces at lighting speed and I can barely catch the ball kind of feeling.

I wouldn't say it's entirely their fault, it's mostly myself, which is more comfortable in controlled or slower pace(despite being hyper as well- brainrot goes brrrr). I guess what sucks the most is also watching a friend who liked hanging with another person that you don't really vibe with can be uh something(idk what or how to describe it, it's not jealousy either). The main issue is always around the aspect that I like person A, B, C and F, but not the rest of the bunch. Yes, I could bring it up, talk to them about it, and then highly possibly creating drama and beef with that process (relationships are so fragile). Knowing the people I was dealing with, I decided to just leave quietly (which, to no one's surprised, caused drama itself too - sigh)

I do miss them sometimes, the people I like talking to and be friends with, some of us kept the connection, some burn the bridge for good, some remains a mystery.

That brings me to another aspect in decision-making games, where I tend to walk the passive, most diplomatic route ever to finish the game. Well because irl I hate dealing with conflicts XD I also lean towards neutrality most of the time, unless it's something important then only I pick a side strongly. Using persuasion, communications and understanding, compromising and delegation to let a project or anything really(like relationship) run smoothly. Some of this cost my sanity, patiences and often, gaining less from the agreement lol

I stopped caring more than I do, I stopped trying to please everyone in the room after going through some stuff, and I learn to let go a lot of things because of those experiences, which for now feels like a good experience for me (Literally my page motto is my life motto, it is what it is)

This also made me think, that I am a person who likes to stay the same, more often than I'd like to admit. I mean this by saying like for example, no matter how many times I play Stardew Valley, I will follow a similar route. If irl, the mix rice shop I visit for almost 4 years now? I'll pick the same veggie and meat choices everytime I go there. I find comfort in repetition, I like following the same pattern, I enjoy being safe in a known routine.

If i want to ramble about this, I do like to change sometimes, explore different options, pick a different route etc. But, only if I finished the "foundation" first(both in game and irl)

So for example, stardew valley right? I tend to go min max route, getting my greenhouse and my plants, relationship, all those jazz to maximum first before I actually try something else. What's funny is the something else can be as small as picking a different spot to fish, wearing a different hat, try defeating the dungeon without espresso(that was awful) or romance other people(I still love Harvey more than anyone, sorry Sebastian, I do love the frog though)

Same with Minecraft, Im a builder yes, but I also grind a hell lot in the game, building industrial district and shit ton of farms to get whatever I need.

I think this is kinda reflected irl, where I like to have a strong stability of foundation before I try something different, something that is not part of the route Im used for. It's like once I am sure that our project presentation has the right amount of slides, informations and delivery, then only I try and test out animations, maybe some infographics and whatnot. Same with patient counselling, I usually follow a flow strictly in patient information gathering because that is what we were taught in University (name, age, height, weight, etc), but one time I decided to switch it up a bit to and try to make small talk in between info gathering (like when a patient tells me they're married, instead of moving on I congrats on their marriage instead) and has found it a nice experience and change of pace. You may find this a silly or heck, an obvious thing that I should've tried, but you need to understand every video, notes and lectures always follow a systematic manner with stuff like this. I've only started incorporating this style after being in the med course for like, 2 years, so when I transitioned to Pharmacy, it came naturally to me when it comes to building rapport with patients. The patients and lecturers love it, because the process can feel more like a conversation rather than an interrogation you know, it feels more lively, more empathy and whatnot. I hope to continue to improve on this actually, Im really happy that one of the change I made on an impulse stick through and benefitted my career.

Id say one bad thing with this habit (with how I approach change) is sometimes I miss out opportunities and again, missing out the fun. Heck, sometimes the process to finish the "foundation" itself feels like a chore that sucks out the fun from games. Like rn with tears of the kingdom(totk), I like collecting Light of Blessing to get more hearts and stamina, but god- totk is so much bigger now compared to the first one, and I got overwhelmed and stressful to play the game. So I dropped it on my previous semester break. (I wanna go back to it one day, hopefully)

This kind of also tie into something Im aware of, is that I get weary and overthink in the face of uncertainty. Like there are a lot of places in totk that I have yet to explore, because I have thoughts like

oh shit does this have important story plot? wait what if im suppose to go place A before going place B first? will it mess up the timeline? oh no that place is new what the heck let's just put a marker first-

you get the gist, same applies irl too. An invitation to quizzes, participating talk shows or experiments, most of which I usually don't attend in fear of my lack of skills or just, nervousness in new environment. There's always a lingering thought that I am not good enough to go to events that clearly, required skills and competence beyond what I have. Im no 4 flat student, hell my cgpa is shit lmfao, the only thing Im good at are soft skills and maybe level 1-2 clinical judgments. I still regret that one time I didn't join a community event where they've explored and talked about stem cells intervention, they had a whole freaking lab!! of cells!! like in the movies!!!!!!!!! ok anyways

Idk what im tryna say with this ramble, I just wanted to share and relate my experience to the video, maybe this is like a self reflection. I've been trying to be better at managing some of the issues I talked about, building confidence or maybe facing confrontations instead of dipping entirely.

If you read till here, thanks I guess! maybe you can relate to me or maybe you just wanna read my yaps, either way I appreciate it :D if you want to share your thoughts or experiences as well go ahead!

[slowthinkingreader]

The Claw of The Conciliator - Gene Wolfe

(Started May 27th, 2024, finished June 6th)

Monkey men! Green men from the future! Huge alien men! Robot guys from the future, maybe! There is, above everything, no shortage of strange and multitudinous guys in these books. There is no ink spared on the matter! Every man Severian meets is cool as hell; the women...

I shouldn't have waited several weeks to write my review of this book, clearly, but frankly, the latter part of it left a sour taste in my mouth and I've been stewing over how I feel about it. I think there's something very skillful going on with regards to what's happening with Severian in this book with regards to his misogyny and his relationship to women, and I'm interested in seeing where it goes (even if my presentiment is that it's not going to be very interesting to me) but at the same time, I'm finding it hard to look past the misogyny as I read, and to enjoy thinking about what the book has to say about it. Mainly, because Severian as our narrator is so disinterested in the internal lives of women unless it revolves around him, the effect is that I just don't care! To me, that's boring! I'm bored of Jolenta and Dorcas being nothing-characters treated like nothing. But then, that's also what the book is about.

About men... I like the contrast between Severian as complemented by Jonas, and the Severian we're stuck with after he leaves the narrative. The book spends a lot of time showing how much they care about each other. They help each other. Severian looks up to him, clearly, and considers him a good friend, and some part of their relationship is also tinged by the fact that Jonas appears to be much older than Severian, who is still (implied to be? Explicitly? Unclear if I missed a detail) very young. There's a feeling to their relationship that is partly mentorly slash brotherly. Jonas doesn't quite bring out "a side" of Severian that is "better", if you will, but in the absence of women he appears kinder, and less tinged with so many complications regarding what he wants. It's clear that what he wants from men is community, regard, belonging, etc.; from women he expects other things, mostly the high of lording power over them. It's pleasant in a way these books haven't been since the earliest chapters of Shadow, where he's (notably) surrounded by other men of his guild. When we lose that sense again, it's frustrating, in a way that's both interesting (in the sense that it feels purposeful) and sad.

I am DEEPLY interested in the fact that he appears to share a mind with Thecla now. Possibly the most interesting thing to have happened so far. I don't know why I didn't expect this to happen when we learned about the corpse-eaters, but it's so good. It's so good. The moment where Thecla inhabits his body in the prison/waiting room, walking in the dark, and a child "mistakes" his steps for a woman's? Could talk about this for ages. I want to take a transgender hammer to this whole concept but I'll abstain for now; I don't know where this is really heading. Possibly nowhere. The book doesn't seem interested in questioning the border between what is Severian and what is Thecla, at least not purposefully enough, and maybe that's not where Gene Wolfe is taking things. I don't expect it, but it would be incredibly sick if they merged to the degree where they can't tell which thoughts belongs to whom; some real dissolution of personhood. Let Thecla eat HIM, in their beautiful mind palace, right back!

There's a lot of moving players now. Agia. The Pelerines. Jonas. Vodalus and his bitch wife, eating corpses. The autarch has appeared and he's up to something, whilst looking androgynous. The lovecraftian horrors are real and BRIEFLY ON LAND, trying to lure Severian down there with them, in what was (in my opinion) one of the better scenes of this book. Hethor appears everywhere; he's implied to be terrifying, because the things he says and does are terrifying, but I actually love him; his comedic timing is too good, I can't hate him for that. Agia tries to kill Severian for a third (?) time. The Claw of the Conciliator is very useful, even if it's very ominous to me.

What else. I don't care about the play in the middle of this book, unfortunately. Or the story about the giant. I can't follow it at all. I don't understand how it fits into the narrative so far. In all honesty, I'm getting a little fatigued from trying to figure out what's happening on any of these pages. Even though this might be intentional, I feel like I get faint hints at bigger pictures moving around and if I paid more attention I would enjoy them better, but I also don't care enough about them to do so. I have a certain disdain for works that demand your attention to the point where it takes you out of the actual work itself, just to entertain an idea which is not interesting enough to be explicit about in the first place. It's not rewarding to me. I'm not sure how else to put it. I get tired of these games!!

Very mixed feelings on this book. Needs more Jonas. 5/10

[clovermarigold]

Daggers & Daffodils Chap.23

Dagur x Reader

LESGOOOOOO!!! Three updates in a month! Looks like we have a somewhat solid update schedule guy.... wonder how long until the burnout hits. Sorry if the chapter is a little shorter than usual, just wanted to get something out before school steals all my attention.

Dagur had grown a lot in the past three years, grown in madness, grown in delusion, but also in muscle and height. Two of which were currently on display as he towered over your laid out form, holding the dagger in his right, your ankle in his left. 

"How did you know about that" he spun the blade in his hand with ease relaxed and staring down at you. "Y/N, I have gone three years without so much as your voice. So, when I look at you, I take in everything" he slid the knife back into your boot, moving so he can lay on the bed next to you. Dagur shifted to wrap his arms around you, holding your side into his chest while he rests his chin on your head. It was awkward, at least for you it was. Dagur, content to bury his nose in your hair. As stiff as you were, you couldn't help but melt into the softness of the sheets. Who would have thought the chief of the Berserkers would be so diligent with keeping his linens clean. 

"Never say that, again unless you mean it" he said the word with venom as if cursing the very memory. Maybe saying that you and Dagur would never be together wasn't the best thing to do immediately after making him upset minutes earlier. But it was something that was in your mind, an unfortunate truth. Sure, a part of you still cared for Dagur and missed when you were able to be with him, but that was before the war. "I do mean it" Dagur released one of his hands around your waist to grip your chin to look at him. "Then say it" you remembered the last time he did this; made you challenge your feelings. It was a similar situation to this, just a different ship and a different time. 

You were a fool to think you would be able to face him alone. You had honestly believed you had trained yourself to deal with Dagur, no one could; he was wild and unpredictable. Your silence was answer enough for him it would seem, as he cupped the side of your face. "What can I do to make you forgive me".

"Leave my brother and Berk alone, forget the dragons, forget your revenge" Dagur seemed to think for a moment before releasing you and sitting up and walking to the center of the room. "My love, you know I can't do that" you sat up quickly to stare at him. "You say you love me" you asked. 

"I do!" his answer is instant a glimpse of his more deranged tone seeping through. "Then forget it all! If you love me, you'll leave them alone". Dagur's eyes turn wide, his pupils narrowed and crazy. His hands are suddenly gripping your arms, squishing them to your sides, as he looks down at you, insane. "I love you. I love you, and that's why I'm doing this" his grip tightens to the cusp of pain, but not quite. Uncomfortable and firm you can't move to gain distance from the now worked up Berserker, "As long as Hiccup is alive, he'll try to take you from me".

"Because you're crazy!" your arms were released and Dagur stepped back enraged. "You- you... AAAAGGGHH" Dagur spun around away from you, carding a hand through his hair, "I'm getting some air!" he yelled slamming the door as he exits. 

The faint sound of a scream and a splash told you that Dagur no doubt threw someone overboard, which made you feel a slight amount of guilt for the poor bystander that happened to cross his path after your argument. 

Dagur was upset, no, livid, to say the least. He understood that he had a habit of making rash and less thought-out decisions when it came to you. But they were always in your best interest. And you- You just had to be so well equipped to getting under his skin. He wasn't mad at you per say. No, he could never be mad at you, but he was irritated. You knew all the perfect spots to hit to get him worked up. And usually he loved that, to him it was a testament to your bond. But right now, he really wished you would take a moment to realize he was doing this for you. 

Being called crazy wasn't an insult, not when you said it. But that glare you fixed it with, along with your vocal and visible demeaning nature was. Dagur would never say it (to anyone but you), but he loved it when you would get angry. The way your hot and narrowed eyes would be on him, and only him. It was likely stemmed from the lack of your attention he was given in his youth. But he planned to make up for it ten times over once the two of you got married. If only you could see that. If only you could see all the joy and freedom this would bring. But until then Dagur was stuck outside, away from you, throwing anyone that got in his way overboard.

The stopping of the ship brought Dagur's attention away from his irritation. His mood did a 180 at the realization that the treasure would soon be in his possession. This was just a temporary issue; you were being stubborn out of habit not out of malice. It would be gone in a couple weeks, and if not, Dagur had some ideas of how to get it out of your system. 

"This is it" Gustav said stopping at the mouth of the cave. "Why are we stopping" Dagur asked. "No reason, I was just kind of impressed that you trusted your men enough to show them exactly where the treasure is hidden. Especially when there's so much of it" the brat in question had a point. Dagur trusted himself to be able to scare his men back in line when they got unruly, but that didn't mean they couldn't try. 

"Stay here" Dagur called to his crew, gesturing with the dragon eye. "Why" the sound of Savages voice was grating to his ears. Dagur played up his pondering before letting out a loud stream that sent the outcast found berserker cowering backwards, "Oh, uh. Let's see, uh... I don't know. Maybe because... I said so!!!".

"Oh, good idea, sir. We'll stay here and uh... guard the prisoner" Dagur sent a maddening look back at the tall man. "Uh, the queen" he corrected. Turning sharply Dagur walked over to Gustav forcefully placing the dragon eye in his hand for Fanghook to activate. The dragon eye illuminated an orange yellow light, casting the map onto the rock in front of them. "Ah, I see. You outdid yourself, Hiccup. I love this thing". And with that the pair and the made their way into the cave. one of which, unaware to the approaching dragon rider.

You however are in a much less open area, still locked in Dagur's quarters.  The sound of soldiers marching outside the door told you that unfortunately, they were smart enough not to leave the ship unattended. "Ok, come on brain, think" A glint from the small window in the room gave you an idea, but without a getaway plan, it would take Dagur a matter of minutes to find you once he realized you were gone. However, the faint outline of a black shadow approaching the island told you that your getaway was already here. Pulling the knife out from your boot you wedged is between the pane and the wood of the ship to use as leverage to pop the glass out. 

Unfortunately using both hands to leverage the glass was not the best idea, as the glass came out farther than expected and fell to the ground shattering. The door began to rattle as berserkers came running over struggling to unlock the door. Without hesitation you threw yourself out the window landing in the shallow waters of the island. Looking up you could see the glinting yellow scales of Silver Tongue flying above, invisible to the oblivious and distracted Berserkers. Quietly to swam along the beach line till the ship was out of sight. 

Silver Tongue's beating wings kicked up large plumes of sand that stuck to your wet form. "Alright buddy, let's get out of here" Silver Tongue let out a huff and low groan, the two of you taking off back towards the edge. 

As it would turn out, Gustav had planned to stay behind in order to steal back the dragon eye as well as get the treasure. A plan that by some miricle had worked. 

"Gustav I-" Astrid was interrupted by the teenager placing a finger to her lips and shushing her, "Uh-uh, stop right there, sweets. I can't stay. My mom would kill me. She usually notices I've been gone after about three days". 

"Or she just enjoys the quiet for three days" you whisper earning an elbow from Hiccup as well as a high five from Tuff. "Alright, Fanghook, let's go. You take care babe. Don't worry, Gustav will be back soon!" the boy and his dragon then lifted off the ground back towards Berk. 

 Hiccup moved to open a small wooden chest. "What's that". "Oh, just something I found at the bottom of that cave" he held up a blue crystal eye lens. "Oh, a new lens" Fishlegs said. "Yeah, there was treasure in those caves after all. The dragon eye was giving us clues on how to find it all along. We just weren't looking in the right place". Fishlegs' eyes widened, "And if there's one of these out there, that means there has to be more".

"Huh, and to think we never would've found that without Gustav" Astrid said making you wince. "I'd rather not be in debt to him right now thank you" Hiccup gave a light laugh. "Alright, awesome. Let's just go tell Gustav" And on cue all of you screamed a stream of no's. 

This was the beginning of a new adventure. 

[caliburn-the-sword]

up to chapter 10. first winter thoughts!!!

thanks to miss marissa meyer because literally everything about winter completely makes up for the fact that i had to go through fairest. also this time i wasn't too lazy to take photos sometimes!! (don't ask me how it's less effort to type up quotes instead of just taking a photo, sending it to my email and downloading the photo from there-- and oh never mind it is still a lot of effort and is only worth it for chunks of paragraphs)

"dark side of luna" made me remember that one side of the moon is perpetually day time. i'm assuming that's where everyone lives since people need vitamin D. hope worldbuilding expands on what it's like during "night time" which is to say when it's late

i think this is the first time we've had a significant time jump between books. it's been months since war started, whereas the past few books only had days between them. idk if i'm disappointed yet because it means we skip a significant portion of the development between winter and scarlet, as well as seeing how kai integrates with the rest of the rampion crew. (note: or it's only been a month????)

ahh do the domes cut off light once it's "nighttime"???

omg she still hasn't seen jacin - i imagine he's also been locked up?? for treason?? but then why not just killed like this father of a shell

APPLAUDED the execution???? cray z

JACIN FINALLY. he's a main love interest so there's no way he will die. i wonder how winter will save him. why was he under arrest for so long??? levana doesn't seem like the type to waste time, unless the war was holding most of her attention

damn that's crazy devoted of winter to die by the blade

i feel like winter hates gingers more than tiktok does LMAO

i can't wait to get jacin's pov and see if he actually tipped off sybil or if it was someone else (which i believe it to be)

why does the name liam kinney sound familiar to me. also, this guard is definitely important since he has been named AND is standing up for jacin. confirmed by kinney looking at winter lol

30 LASHINGS?? there is NO way he can realistically survive that, even if self inflicted. and 40 hours of penance?? sounds vaguely catholic lmao. wonder what it means in this context

"a girl of sunshine and stardust" AYO NEW Y/A FANTASY TITLE JUST DROPPED fskhfsdkhfshk

"Willful determination had stifled any hallucinations." i'm not an expert or anything but like,,, i don't think think that's how it works?? if anyone's got experience with this please let me know if you're comfortable with sharing

why tf does aimery hate jacin so bad (note: probably a jealous bastard?? creeper mccreepface wants winter all for himself)

seeing jacin grin is honestly kind of alarming. i don't remember him smiling ONCE in his first book. but seeing him smile to reassure her after he's literally been through hell is so nice. i am beginning to see why people like him now. i take back the mean things i said

if i had a nickel for every time the most beautiful woman in the land had a scar that accentuated and multiplied her beauty, i would only have 2 nickels but it's weird that it's happened twice (shiori's stepmother from six crimson cranes). it's very slayed of them. more appreciation for scars PLEASE.

"My Selene" HELP THAT'S SO TENDER??? i am already feeling feelings

these childhood best friends have absolutely NO business flirting with each other this hard

i'm sorry but can kai even cook?? i highly doubt it he's literally royalty there is no way (note: i KNEW that he couldn't cook)

17TH KISS?????

FINALLY SCARLET AT CHAPTER 5 I THOUGHT I WOULD EXPLODE WITHOUT HER

scarlet's relationship with ryu is something i didn't know i needed until now. anyway i love them very much. her emotional support wolf

i wonder how scarlet's finger is healing up

scarlet is so helplessly gay for winter lmao

i'm honestly surprised that scarlet is trusting winter's word that her friends are alive

ngl it's very apalling and sickening that a race of people that can use their gift to command someone to do anything they like, such as telling the truth, the lunars instead choose to TORTURE answers out of people. it's the ultimate display of torture being a method of exerting power rather than to actually try and find answers

i LOVE how marissa meyer throws together so many duos of characters and really lets them bond. it's so nice to see cress help wolf now so casually with the benoit farm when she used to be terrified of him during the kidnapping of kai - oh lol nevermind she's still terrified lmao. but this is still good progress and i'm living for it and i can't wait to see them become closer!! imagine him as an older brother figure for her~

since we have no idea who cinder's father is imagine if her nameless father is in fact wolf's father

knowing what wolf and scarlet are like about tomatoes. insufferable fandom culture have probably made tomatoes their entire personalities in like

FIRST JACIN POV CHAPTER

"Dreaming was for people with nothing better to do." okay emo bastard. try not being blonde and looking like a disney prince and then get back to me (seriously i'm imagining him as those vaguely femboy tiktok guys with like long wispy hair in a manbun and is vaguely elflike and uh oh am i just picturing legolas but with shoulder length hair?? fuck me dead)

TWO jacin chapters in a row?? i'm being treated to the works. thank you miss marissa meyer

i will admit,,, that the banter that winter and jacin have is quite delicious (context: he's just been made her personal guard for the first time)

the way that winter and jacin are literally foils for levana and evret makes me froth at the mouth. will not be elaborating i MUST READ no time (or braincells) for analysation

THORNE CAN SEE AGAIN aaaaaaand he's being weird about cress. i hate it here

i love how instead of being all jealous that cinder and thorne have spent all this time together kai says almost the EXACT same thing about thorne being competition as thorne did when he found out about kai. love triangle except they're only doing it for the meme. so real of them (except thorne please stop creeping on teenage girls challenge)

note: reactions with photos are now gonna be their own posts because trying to figure out the formatting was a nightmare and i'm too tired for this shit. tag list does not apply to that because again i'm too lazy. peace and love <3

@eddisfargo @francforever @winterrhayle @winterpinetrees @shellyseashell

[nyalternatehellkitten]

@madharemuses replied to your post “((I have a headache so I'm watching an FE:Engage...”:

[I want to enjoy Engage. I like the art design, I like the characters, I like the gameplay, but for some reason I just can't really bring myself to enjoy it. Also, it lacks replay value compared to most previous titles, so I feel like I spent too much on it.]

@gensokyogarden replied to your post “((I have a headache so I'm watching an FE:Engage...”:

ENGAGE GOOD

((Ayyyy we have the big two(tm) opinions here! Joking aside, I reply to these responses in the same post because I want to share some general thoughts. I'm not trying to pit you against each other by highlighting your opposing opinions lmao. Even though it's been a few days, Engage has been swirling around in my head for about a week or so now, and I do want to give my thoughts to you two, who responded to me, at least, so that post I made doesn't just become a big jebait or whatever the term is. So, spoilers, Zane's thoughts, and etc. etc. beneath the cut. Oh yeah, and it's long so don't read it unless you want to know what I think of a game I've not played, that a lot of people have been dismissive towards.))

I am writing this across several sittings. At the time of writing this statement, I'm watching the Avalanche map, so basically I'm right near the end. (I've also seen some supports, but the guy whose playthrough I'm watching is doing them offsceen because he doesn't want to waste his audience's time with grinding.)

This isn't going to be a structured review, it's more of a slightly-edited thought-dump.

My overall thoughts of this game so far, which is an impression unlikely to change, is this:

Fire Emblem Engage is a game unfairly criticised as worse than it actually is. It's not a super good game, but it does not fall as far below the 'average' standards of the series as much as people say it does.

Before I get into the full swing of things, I need to offer a disclaimer: I am out of touch with the series. I've played FE3-12 and Echoes, which means I'm missing FE1, the game that started it all, and Awakening and Three Houses, two immensely popular games that made big changes to the way Fire Emblem works, brought many new people to the fanbase, and generated a lot of attention. (I also haven't played Fates, but it's a bit less relevant to what I have to say.) I have never been interested in Awakening or Three Houses, but they changed the Fire Emblem 'landscape' so much that I would consider myself out-of-touch simply because I haven't played them.

Addressing some common criticisms

The two main complaints I see first-and-foremost on the internet that dominate over the better-formulated criticisms are: It's too anime and the writing sucks.

Now, the anime thing is stupid. Fire Emblem has always been anime; it's a stale and tasteless counter-argument, but it's objectively true. Most Fire Emblem games at least partially reflect the anime style popular around the time they were made, and all of them draw some influences from anime in general. The designs are too colourful and fancy for my taste, but I still find them enjoyable (Chloe and Etie are probably my favourites? Not super fond of Etie's Archer outfit but the player I'm watching made her a Warrior and she looks fine). In fact, I think this design choice was good; they clearly wanted to deviate from the grimness and seriousness of Three Houses, and can they be blamed for that? Making that sort of story can get heavy at times, so for an anniversary game I feel like going for something lighter was the right choice. Overall, the presentation in this game is excellent; not enough to make me love it like I loved Echoes (which was carried by the presentation alone for me), but good enough that I enjoy seeing it on my screen.

The second criticism is the writing, which is semi-valid. It's almost-good in a lot of places, but there's always one or two tiny details holding it back in my eyes. It's frustrating, because I feel like Engage would actually be quite well-written with a few fairly small edits that remove some of the issues or make the stupid parts (Chapter 10-11 Time Crystal) less stupid. The issue I have with the criticism is not that it's wrong, it's that people act like all of the other games in the series are god-tier writing or something. This is objectively untrue; most Fire Emblem stories are fairly straightforward or cliche plots carried by a cast of one-note, but enjoyable and likeable characters. Liking the characters makes you overlook the flaws in the plot. Just think about how many Fire Emblem games are about awakening or summoning some kind of all-powerful dragon or dark god (or both), and then think about how often that actually bothers you simply because you like some of the characters.

Let's talk about the writing for a moment, since this is an RP blog and therefore revolves around writing

It sounds to me like Engage's writing is actually really average by Fire Emblem standards (it can't be worse than the GBA games at least, if you ask me) but it's issue is that it came after Three Houses, a game which tried to be very different from the rest of Fire Emblem when it comes to writing. I haven't played Three Houses but I have seen people react to it. The amount of time people spend debating and arguing over who's in the right or wrong, beyond just which lord/house they like, shows that the game provoked more thoughts from its players than just "Oh I like this character more than this other character." Engage clearly has not done this, and parts of it that could form a good running theme just don't quite connect. The dots don't quite link up and the stars don't quite align. It falls just short.

In my head, I'm comparing it with other Fire Emblem games and I don't think it's that much worse than some (fairly well regarded) entries in the series. For example, in FE7, everything Ephidel does doesn't really make sense since he's formenting a rebellion in Lycia to gather Quintessence for Nergal to summon dragons... even though Nergal already has enough Quintessence to summon a dragon. In Sacred Stones, Eirika is supposed to be the diplomacy route, and yet everywhere she goes, stuff(tm) happens and she gets dragged into fights because Fire Emblem requires things.exe to happen so that each chapter can be a fight. In Binding Blade, the big exposition was Jahn explaining Idoun's backstory... through the medium of Roy seizing like 20 thrones in one chapter. In Monshou, the big main idea of Hardin being turned evil was great and executed pretty well, but most chapters are "So you're fighting dudes loyal to Medeus or Hardin" and the story is mostly about Marth trying to figure out what's going on in Akaneia. It's not bad, but it's hardly some god-tier story that has the player hanging off the edge of their seat at every chapter.

By comparison, Engage has an issue with build-up and payoff. The payoffs are often good, but the build-ups often don't do them justice. For instance, Morion was a good payoff because while what happened to him was quite predictable, Alchryst and Diamant's boss conversations with him are great. What's lacking is the fact that he gets captured by Hyacinth like... one chapter after he's introduced, after raising a million death flags. If he had been a green unit (or even a playable character with a big "Morion will go back to ruling his kingdom after next chapter" warning, or his stats transferring over to Diamant like with Nils and Ninian in FE7) for a while to let the player get to know him better, then his death would have been more impactful. Let Alear agree or argue with him about certain things; Alear needs to interact with Morion's pretty strong force of personality (that I think is pretty well demonstrated, even if it's quite one-note, in his first appearance).

Likewise, Lumera died too quickly. We needed a few more chapters for her and Alear's relationship to ripen. If the game had opened with Alear sent to Firine (upon Alfred's request, to help deal with Corrupted and bandits), with Lumera accompanying them but not helping them in battles to help him readjust to being awake, then it would have probably worked out better pacing-wise. Little happens character-wise in those chapters, so slotting in some Alear-Lumera interactions would have helped establish Alear's personality and motivations for the rest of the game. After Firine, they could return to Lythos for a little bit of R&R with Lumera promising to teach Alear more about the Emblems. Then the attack happens, she dies before she can, and the game proceeds with Brodia after that. It makes Lumera more impactful because the player gets to see her relationship with Alear more, and it makes their feelings for her stronger too, since they now have time to experience how she's their mother and acts like it.

One last example I will give is Zephia. Her whole death scene is kind of invalidated by the fact that she's been speaking as if the Hounds are her family for the whole game. I think a little tweak could really have fixed it. Take 'family' to be the theme of the story; a lot of Fire Emblem games place emphasis on bloodlines and family. Engage could have taken that both ways: that sometimes, blood family is important (e.g. the royal sibling pairs in the game) but sometimes your found family is just as important (Lumera and Alear) and sometimes your family can be abusive and bad for you (Sombron and Veyle, Zephia and Marni). How does Zephia fit into this? Well, imagine if her dialogue was tweaked ever so slightly. The idea is that she misunderstands how family should be because of Sombron (what he said during the time travel part). She longs for a real family, but because of Sombron she thinks that family should be abusive. Seeing Alear and Veyle helps her appreciate what family should be, and she helps them because of that. She dies thanking Griss, and hoping that Marni will forgive her in the afterlife. There we go, a villain given a better redemption than the weird one she got in the game, and completing a theme/story/lesson for the game as a whole.

Zephia also suffers from the buildup thing. The Hounds have a lot of screentime but they don't really do much with it; Griss and Zephia get their motivations and backstories infodumped as they die, and Mauvier spends the first half of his appearances being all "I am a knight I follow orders" when he should have been dropping hints that his true loyalty was to Veyle, rather than just mechanically following orders. If some of that screentime had been used to develop that Marni wants familial love, while Zephia misunderstands what a family should be, and Griss thinks of Zephia as his mother/older sister but struggles to convey that since his world is dull when he's not feeling pain, then it would have made them more compelling than the four big mooks you knock over 13 times throughout the story. Oh yeah, and of course, they do the "I must retreat" thing way too often. Fighting them feels completely insignificant because they never die until they suddenly do.

Lastly, the characters are all quirky and... oh boy. I've seen people complain that the Engage characters are more one-note crazy than usual. That... doesn't feel true to me. They feel like they're less serious than usual, but that's Engage being light-hearted. I've seen serious stuff (Alfred's illness, Hortensia's feelings about stuff) but mostly it seems to be on the lighter side. I don't mind, but I think it should have perhaps been a bit more of a balance. I will say this thought: of the supports I have seen, character motivations at least seem to make sense and stay decently consistent.

Some of my other criticisms

I would argue that there are a few things holding the game back. The writing, I have already mentioned. While there are plenty of good individual moments, there's often a lack of good build-up or connectedness that makes the whole feel like wasted potential and staleness. The gameplay, I think might actually be the most tactical in any Fire Emblem game so far; you can't just air-drop a god-unit into any situation with 1-2 range as easily because of Weapon Triangle breaking, and chain strikes mean that positioning actually matters, and tanking isn't infinite. This might not be a good thing, however, as I get the feeling that the average casual Fire Emblem player... doesn't care about gameplay much. It can't suck, but a lot of the time they do just want to make their favourite unit into a god and drop them into whatever situation.

One of the biggest problems is the Emblems, however. They're not really written as themselves. They're more like echoes or shadows or ghosts of the character they're meant to be. They often feel like they were written by someone who'd only read a synopsis of what that character was like, instead of seeing and analysing them (which... is probably what happened). The Emblem ring bond supports are bland and soulless most of the time, with often no connection between the character and the Emblem based off their commonalities (though to be fair, writing 12 Emblem supports for each character would have been hell). Regardless, all of the Emblem characters feel way too superficial to actually matter most of the time, they mostly exist to reference their own games a lot or provide the same basic statements about things. The advice they offer in the story is... logical but kind of bland and uninteresting. Sometimes they feel right, but most of the time they feel... not very good, which is not great when they're meant to be a big selling point of the game. It's like the Emblems are supposed to make you so excited about seeing your favourite characters that you don't stop to think if they're acting in-character. I won't comment on them too much gameplay wise, since I think that as much as they are meant to somewhat represent their own games (e.g. Sigurd being mobility and canter, Lucina having dual strike stuff) there's a limit to what you can do since most Fire Emblem games play quite samey.

Another issue I think that Engage has is the lack of post-game. Relying on DLC and Multiplayer to create replayability for a single-player game is just... objectively a bad idea? It's not what people are mostly there for. Watching the playthrough made me think "If I were playing this game, I'd want to run some of the other characters in side battles to see their supports and find out more about them." A post-game would be good for that, maybe with a bonus series of maps like Thabes was in Echoes. As it is, I've seen no evidence of that sort of thing.

I want to say some nice things

So I actually quite like Alear. Not a lot a lot, but a fair lot, if that makes sense. Based on everything shown about past Alear, and the way Alear loses their memories, their character makes sense for most of the game. Past Alear was emotionally stunted because Sombrero is the worst Fire Emblem dad in the series, and present Alear has a serious case of no-thoughts-head-empty at the start of the game. Given that everyone treats them super well (worships even...), it makes sense for them to develop a positive outlook on life, a strong fondness of their friends, a solid sense of duty towards everyone counting on them, and also feel kind of creeped out at being worshipped. Alear also feels a little more complete as a main character to me, oddly enough? I haven't played those games so I can't say for sure, but Robin and Corrin both often gave me a weird vibe like they're meant to be the player's self-insert but didn't commit to it enough. Like they wanted to make a self-insert character but then realised they needed to insert more character for supports, interactions, and story beats. Alear, on the other hand, feels like they wrote a complete character and then had to shove the self-insert in, to their detriment.

I also need to talk about Yunaka. I think Yunaka did something no other Fire Emblem side character (non-main character) has ever done: she immediately made me want to read about her supports to learn more about her backstory. Most Fire Emblem characters show up and I'm like "Okay, so this is this character's vibe. I'll find out more in the supports, I bet." Yunaka though... as soon as I heard her battle/crit quotes and saw how much that differed from the quirky "OwO I am cute thief" personality she was projecting, I was immediately like "There's more here. I need to know what her deal is." The game immediately shows that she's good at acting, and as soon as you put her into combat you see a side of her completely different from the one you saw before, and that sparks curiosity. That's good. Fire Emblem doesn't do that, instead it tries to establish the one note that its one-note characters are based around in a good way so that the player knows what that character's deal is. This time, it did that, and more. I haven't seen all of Yunaka's supports yet, but I will go through all of them when I get the chance to. I must know.

The music and voice acting are pretty good. The presentation and CG art is good. I don't think I need to elaborate on this, I think they're presented in a way that accentuates the atmosphere they're trying to create most of the time.

I'm hesitant about this last bit, but I think the game conveys its characters well. This is something Fire Emblem has never really had trouble doing, so it's not really a thing in Engage's favour, it's just another thing the game is not bad at. The supports (or those that I've seen at least) are good at showing what each character's deal is. That's not hard to do, though it is occasionally not done well (Vaida and Dorcas... a support that shows what their characters are like, but repeats the same joke dragged out three times in a row without really resolving anything).

Edit: Oh, and I can't believe I forgot to say that the really cheesy and campy moments are amusing rather than cringe to me. I think they just barely toe the line at times, but like... given how often the games try to shoehorn the 'Fire Emblem' into it, this really isn't even the worst.

Conclusion

This is the part where I pretend to have a conclusion so it feels structured. I already said what I needed to say at the start, so this is the part I put a bow on it.

I feel like it's hard for me to assess this game. I haven't played it, and I haven't played Awakening and Three Houses, two games that I feel like probably influenced both the fanbase and Engage a lot. But I can't help but feel like it's better than all of the hate it gets. I don't really think it's god tier, but it's definitely not as bad as it's said to be. I think if I did have the opportunity to play it though, I'd enjoy it at least as much as I enjoyed FE6, FE8, and FE11. With the others I played, I think it'd be a bit more up in the air.

If I had to say though, there's enough problems for it to be disappointing, but enough good for it to not warrant the amount of hate I've seen. I feel like the hate it gets is often an instinctual rather than logical thing; rarely do I see people fully explain how they feel, and sometimes some of the people criticising it talk like they're series veterans but it turns out they've played like... 4 games. Still, I can't help but feel like if this game came out after Fates rather than Three Houses, people would have a better view of it.

[duhragonball]

Less Than Meets The Eye

I finished reading the Marvel U.S. run of Transformers yesterday, so I guess I could talk about that.

It's kind of an underwhelming series. Not bad, and there's some enjoyable issues in the set, but it never really excels for me. I suppose the main thing I could praise it for is its consistent quality. Usually, an 80-issue comic book series sees a major decline as the sales start to slump, but this one remained a C+ affair from start to finish.

The main reason I always wanted to read it was because I was a big Transformers fan back in the 80s, and the cartoon kicked ass. I still watch episodes of the original cartoon in my forties. It never gets old. Naturally, the comics caught my interest back then, but when I was a kid I found comic books to be completely impenetrable.

For example, they had a display in the toy aisle at Target back in 1985, with bagged sets of three comics. That's how I got Transformers #7, 8, and 9. I'm pretty sure the bagged three-packs were sold months after the original release dates. Did you miss issues 1-6? Too bad. Do you want to read #10 to see what happens next? Well you probably missed that one too. Issue 8 featured the Dinobots, except they weren't much like the Dinobots from the cartoon. Also, they ganged up on Megatron and he somehow clobbered them all, which is the opposite of how it works in the cartoon. Cartoon Megs would get ragdolled all the time and it was hilarious.

Issue #9 saw the debut of Circuit Breaker, a half-naked cyborg lady who wanted revenge on the Transformers. By the mid-90's every comic book had a half-naked cyborg lady in it, but in 1985 it was still a fairly novel approach. Also, Optimus Prime's head was being held captive by the Decepticons' leader... Shockwave? And Spike Witwicky's name is Buster for some reason? And Prime gave him the Creation Matrix? Whatever that is? There was a lot going on, and also Circuit Breaker fought Jazz, Wheeljack, Starscream and beat them all.

The serial nature of comic books frustrated me at the time. I was interested to see what would happen next, but I also resigned myself to having no way to find out. Back then unless you lived in a town with an actual comic book store, your only way to buy comic books was to look for them at the magazine rack at the grocery and hope they had what you wanted. So I knew I wouldn't get to find out what happened next, but I assumed that it was a nonstop thrill ride with plenty of twists and turns.

The next time I got an issue was #32, which featured the Protectobots fighting the Combaticons. I seem to recall buying this because I was curious to see the fight. The cartoon was over, or nearly over by then, and one thing it never delivered on was a good Bruticus vs. Defensor fight. So I thought Transformers #32 would scratch that itch. Both squads would fight for a while, then merge into Bruticus and Defensor, and fight that way for a while, just like in the cartoon, right?

Well, not exactly. They did fight in #32, and there was more mayhem. Blaster and Goldbug are AWOL from the Autobots, because they aren't happy with their current leader... Grimlock? Somehow Grimlock's the leader, and he's not as dumb as the cartoon version, but he's still pretty stupid. Also, he wears a ridiculous crown, like a cartoon king would put on. The other Autobots just sort of go along with it, and when the Protectobots rescue Blaster, they explain that they came to arrest him so Grimlock can try him for treason.

What about Bruticus and Defensor, though? Why would the Combaticons withdraw without using their coolest trick? Well, the next issue blurb promised we'd see that fight in #33. So I kept an eye out for #33 and actually managed to buy it... except it was a reprint of the first half of an old Marvel UK story, 'Man of Iron.' The second half was in #34, and that Bruticus vs. Defensor fight seemed like it was completely forgotten. The next issue I bought was #72, and that one actually brought back Circuit Breaker, but they completely ruined her look with a bad redesign of her costume.

Once I got older and started collecting comics seriously, I always wanted to go back and read the entire series from start to finish. But I kept putting it off until this month. Now that I've read the whole thing, I realize that it was mostly hype that had me interested in it. The Bruticus/Defensor fight finally happened in #35, but it was pretty dull and I barely remember it a week after reading it. I think the reason for the reprints in #33-34 had something to do with the ouster of Marvel Editor in Chief, Jim Shooter. #33 listed Tom DeFalco as the new EiC, and I suspect DeFalco had a lot on his plate that month, so putting a book or two on autopilot might have been helpful. I guess what I'm saying is that I find that lore more interesting than the giant robot fight in #35.

Circuit Breaker has always fascinated me, not just because she's a half-naked cyborg lady, but also because she's a great foil for the Transformers. In her first appearance, she shows off her powers and it looks like no robot enemy could stand a chance against her. Worse, she doesn't know or care that the Autobots are good guys, so she's out to kill them all. This is awesome, because the Autobots would be reluctant to fight back against a human, while the Decepticons would be forced to recognize a "puny flesh creature" as a legitimate threat.

So when she vanished at the end of #9 I was so sure that she'd come back in a big way, but it turns out she really didn't. She appeared in several more issues over the course of the series, and each time she seemed to get a little more incompetent. I think the main character arc the writers went for is that her revenge scheme was kind of half-baked, and she wasn't as dangerous as she seemed. By #45 she spared a Decepticon because a human offered to pay her to let him film the execution, and she flew off in disgust. By #75 she was helping Optimus Prime beat Unicron, but that led to a nervous breakdown that left her in a coma. The last five issues feature her lying around passed out. It's kind of a shitty payoff for such a cool idea.

So I didn't enjoy the series as much as I thought I would. For a moment I thought that maybe I had just gotten too old for this fare. A common criticism fans have of this series is that it's written for ten-year-olds, and the writer responded by basically saying, yeah, of course it was written for ten-year-olds, it's a comic book about toys.

But that's not my gripe at all. I just didn't like how the series seemed unable or unwilling to focus on any one storyline long enough to make it satisfying. And then it hit me that I had the same problem in 1987, when I was literally a ten-year-old boy. I read #32 for a cool giant robot fight, and it got postponed to #35. The Blaster vs. Grimlock subplot interested me but that didn't get sorted out until later. Blaster surrendered to Grimlock in #36, but then #37-40 switched the focus to two other sets of characters. We didn't find out what happened to Blaster until #41, when they put aside their differences to co-lead the Autobots together. This arrangement lasted approximately zero issues because Optimus Prime came back in #42. There was just way too much stuff happening, and some of it was crap, but even when it was very good, nothing ever lasted long enough to matter.

Also, one of the things that fascinated me about the comics was how they outlived the original cartoon series by about four years. So while the Pretenders, Powermasters, Micromasters and Action Masters never appeared in the G1 cartoon, they do show up in the last thirty-odd issues of the comics, and I always wondered how those characters would play out in fiction.

Turns out, it doesn't really go well. I thought the Pretenders were dumb in 1988, and my opinion of them never really improved. The Micromasters toys were pretty sweet, but in the end they were just more Transformers, only smaller. And the Action Masters were Transformers that couldn't transform. I didn't really feel strongly about them at all, which is probably how everyone else felt about it in 1990 when the toy line shut down. The comic book tried to do the characters justice, and in some cases it did a pretty good job, but it never really sold me on the toys.

Like, I never understood how you play with a Pretender Transformer. The Pretender Shell can operate independently of the robot, but so what? Why not just call that a separate character, then? You can put the robot inside the shell, but why? It's just a container. The gimmick sort of implied that Pretender Transformers use their shells to disguise themselves, but what are they disguising themselves as? the Autobot Pretenders all looked like giant humans, and the Decepticons all looked like giant monsters. And it's not like their enemies were fooled or anything. Most Transformers recognized the Pretender characters on sight. I really think this was what killed the toy line. I mean, the toy line had probably already run its course by '88 anyway, and the Pretenders were just a last-ditch effort to keep it fresh. TMNT was red hot at the time, so they probably thought making the Transformers look like weird alien creatures would catch the same appeal, but it didn't work. Micromasters aped the Micro Machine craze, and Action Masters were probably trying to follow the G. I. Joe formula? I'm not sure I know what they were going for there.

Anyway, the comic really didn't have any worthwhile Pretender stories that justified an Autobot wearing a flesh costume. There were characters who did it and seemed to like doing it, but there was never a moment where anyone said "Yes, it's definitely a good thing we did this because it gives us an advantage in battle." That just never happens.

I don't really have a strong conclusion to go for with this. I guess mostly it's just a re-affirmation that you don't want to get in a rush telling a big long story. There's a lot of good-to-great characters in Transformers, and a lot of intriguing plotlines, but if you try to do too much all at once, it just becomes a big mess.