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comicaurora · 5 months

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Hi Red! I was curious if you've watched the new Yu Yu Hakusho live action, and if so, what your thoughts were on its pacing and handling of various plots. Personally I thought it did some very clever things and it genuinely pleasantly surprised me at a couple points, but at the same time the fact that it's only 5 episodes hurt its ability to do the story justice a bit.

Also I was rewatching the Dark Tournament arc of the anime today and wondering what it must've been like to watch when it originally aired, considering all the multi episode fights. Do you remember any of your thoughts at the time?

On an unrelated note, I'm really excited for arc 2 of Aurora!!!! Also sorry this is so ramble-y

I have watched it! For the most part, I really enjoyed it, although in pursuit of compressing everything down to five episodes it did a couple things I think definitely harmed the overall impact and characterization.

Spoilers below!

The first episode is I think nearly pitch-perfect. The visual design on the Spirit World is top-tier, and the choice to make everything that was a sacred artifact move like ferrofluid was a very clever bit of visual design. It's absolutely weird and original and I think it was a very fun way to spice up Fluffy Cloud Heaven.

Of all the things they sped through, I'm very glad they did not speed through the crucial characterization of Yusuke initially choosing to stay dead on the assumption that everyone is better off without him, and the show subsequently taking its time to show the wake, let Yusuke's mom and Keiko really feel their feelings, etcetera. The adaptation of the wake was, to my memory, almost 100% true to the anime version, including the gut-wrenching moments like Kuwabara starting off angry and then breaking down, and the toddler Yusuke saved not really understanding that he's dead. And I had no complaints about the parts of this arc that they did speed up - a lot of the timeline of the original show is training arcs and Yusuke having to prove himself, and I had almost no problem with them skipping over that. Yusuke not having to do any tasks before coming back to life is A-OK with me.

I also entirely lost my shit at The Dropkick.

And then the last bit of episode 1, where they have to deal with the possessed kid, was absolutely top tier. The way they make demonic possession look and feel in this show is truly horrific, and I loved the way they played it like a one-man zombie apocalypse. The fight choreography was also very impressive and I liked how much they used the environment. Also, letting Kuwabara fight this guy first was a very good way of making the power-scaling clear and establishing that Kuwabara is a fundamentally very decent person willing to punch above his weight class to try and help.

However, this episode did get me excited for something they ended up not doing, which was a bummer. The first thing we see in the show is a Makai insect, which in the anime are the tools of the villains in the Four Saint Beasts arc - at the climax of that storyline, Makai-insect-possessed students and faculty corner Keiko and Botan in the human world while Yusuke fights an increasingly desperate battle against Suzaku to try and stop him. If the full-on body horror zombie thing was what makai insect possession looked like, that scenario immediately seemed like it was going to be butt-clenchingly terrifying.

Of course, they ended up entirely sidestepping the Saint Beasts arc, which is understandable - narratively speaking its only real function is to let the four protagonists team-build after their contentious first meetings. It became clear pretty quickly that with the time they had, it wouldn't be worth it to go there. That said, I think they really could've used a little more team-building time - more on that later.

The first episode also pretty solidly established the tone they'd be taking for the rest of the show - much more dark, almost no comedy. Normally I find those sorts of adaptations pretty dour and joyless, but in this case I thought it helped make the stakes feel solid, and if anything it lined up better with the original premise of "the demon world is a truly horrifying place and its incursion into reality would be an absolute nightmarish apocalypse." I didn't mind that it felt like the stakes were real and the heroes fighting demons was really necessary.

The second episode made it pretty clear where they were going with the series adaptation. While it speeds through the intro of Goki, Kurama and Hiei, it also lets Yusuke's fight with Goki feel - again - extremely well-choreographed and tense. The choreography in this show is consistently very impressive, especially considering how often our heroes have to fight fully CGI bad guys - and this fight doesn't even have any dialogue in it, but it still makes it entirely clear what Yusuke is thinking at every point, which is very impressive, especially since he goes through an entire arc from "I don't need to figure out how to use the Spirit Gun" to "I desperately need the spirit gun to start working right the fuck now". They also handle Kurama's intro very well, making it very clear that he's cunning and kind of inscrutable but not necessarily malicious, and in the scene where Yusuke's tailing him it's pretty clear from the choreography that Kurama knows he's there and is very carefully waiting long enough for him to follow him without feeling like he's being lured, which is entirely in-character, and again a very impressive way to show characterization without any dialogue required. And of course the reveal that Kurama is in fact a Nice Boy who is trying to sacrifice himself to save his mom is real good, and letting Yusuke's past experience with seeing how his mom reacted to his death make him immediately ride or die for Kurama was a very solid bit of characterization - and adding Kuwabara to this subplot where he wasn't originally there helped balance out the characterization a little bit with an entirely justified naysayer pointing out "dude he's a demon maybe don't trust him immediately." It also helps get Kuwabara involved in the main story nice and quick, where he originally is a bit of a late arrival.

The part I was getting a little worried about at this point, and an element of the adaptation that I legitimately think is a detriment, was how they were handling Hiei. A huge part of what makes Hiei fun in the original series is that he is legitimately a huge bastard, and in his introduction is a full-blown bad guy who Yusuke very nearly dies fighting. Classic Hiei kidnapped Keiko and nearly turned her into a demon just to fuck with Yusuke. And what makes their relationship great is the team-building that happens in the Four Saint Beasts arc the adaptation is evidently skipping over, where Hiei is so baffled - and so touched - by Yusuke's completely unearned trust in him that he immediately becomes 100% ride or die for Yusuke and only Yusuke.

He's a vicious little asshole who takes himself very seriously and legitimately has the power to back up his grandstanding 90% of the time, and that's what makes him so fun to watch - those little slivers of characterization where he's goofy or baffled or vulnerable or lets himself be visibly impressed with one of his teammates, mixed with the moments where he's like "okay this has been fun but it's time to die now" and just one-shots the bad guy with another dangerous forbidden technique he picked up for shits and giggles.

So I was getting a little worried that the adaptation wasn't gonna let Hiei be, like. An actual asshole. Because what makes him fun as a character is that he is an asshole, he just also has a handful of sympathetic motivations and nice qualities that he usually doesn't own up to. And I ended up being right about that, which was a bummer, but again, the way they did it was a bit of extremely efficient streamlining. In the anime, Hiei's introduction is just him being a dick for no reason - then everyone has a team-building bonding arc with the Four Saint Beasts, and then Hiei is revealed to have a real heroic motivation hiding somewhere in there: rescuing his secret twin sister Yukina from a nasty human holding her prisoner.

So the adaptation basically just streamlined the entire rest of the show into that arc. Hiei's intro stealing the fancy knife? He's using it to get the Jagan Eye to look for Yukina. Hiei storming this compound full of humans? They're the ones holding Yukina prisoner. It's 100% sympathetic, he's just not willing to own up to that to anybody. Everything he does that's dubiously moral or kind of a dick move? It's actually fine, or he's being framed (like in the shot they perfectly remake from the anime where he kidnaps Keiko, except just kidding it's a shapeshifting bad guy framing him), or Yusuke's the one who attacks him in the first place.

And that's extremely efficient storytelling! It just makes Hiei kind of an antisocial dick and not even slightly a villain, which I think dramatically reduces how fun his character is - it just flattens him into a very standard-issue lancer archetype who refuses to express any sort of emotional or physical vulnerability to anyone, which is a fine character trope, it's just kind of more boring than the dickhead outdoor cat I was hoping for.

The same thing also happens to Genkai, who in the original series has dozens of episodes of screentime to show off how she is the best kind of mentor ever written - a dickhead mentor.

She's rude and snarky and a full-blown asshole, and she and Yusuke have a truly hilarious mentor-stydent dynamic because they're both assholes. And it's not until a good way into the Dark Tournament that we see them in a dynamic that's not just being assholes to each other - when Genkai consolidates all her power into a sporb for Yusuke to absorb, and he spends several episodes nearly dying about it. The fact that Genkai truly cares about him as her student - and the fact that he truly cares about her as his master - only comes out in this subplot, when she honestly believes she's fucked up and killed him and he goes beyond his limits to absorb the power she's given him. It's a beautiful moment of payoff after dozens of episodes of planting, and right after that happens, Genkai is killed.

So when the live-action show introduced Genkai, and after a good solid montage of training and anime-accurate fight scenes and some really good Kuwabara moments, she told Yusuke she had one final technique to give him, I said out loud "oh my god please don't speedrun this." And then they did. She gave Yusuke the sporb and he absorbed it immediately and painlessly, and then they left, and then she immediately gets killed.

My notes on that part were just

So I didn't like that part. Like Hiei, Genkai is such an effective character because her moments of vulnerability and non-assholeness are so rare, and the rest of the time she's an absolute goblin nightmare. Getting rid of that reduces her to another, much flatter trope, and killing her in the same episode she's introduced almost entirely removes the impact of the moment and just makes her another dead mentor. But again, this is episode 3 of 5. This isn't the writer's fault, this is the writers making a very hard decision on what they need to get into the plot if they're planning on speedrunning the entire Dark Tournament arc - which they are. The primary rule they seemed to use when adapting Yu Yu Hakusho is "if the heroes fought this bad guy more than once, no they didn't." So the first fight with the Toguro brothers is going to become the only fight with the Toguro brothers, and they need to speedrun the entire core plot of the Dark Tournament arc within the confines of Toguro's introduction in the Rescue Yukina arc.

And the thing is, hot take? I'm not mad about that. The Dark Tournament is an iconic moment in Shonen anime history, but like. it's a tournament arc. Like all tournament arcs, it goes on a very long time, a lot of it is extremely repetitive, and it eventually arrives at the foregone conclusion end state of "team protagonist vs team final boss". In a five-episode adaptation, you pick the smallest number of good fights with real stakes and you just use those. And that's what they do here. Kurama and Hiei both get little bottle-episode fights with their respective most plot-relevant opponents from the Dark Tournament, and they both get to show off their dangerous forbidden techniques.

And it slaps. It could've used more buildup for maximum punch, but again, five episodes. And frankly in the original they didn't get much buildup either, just "this is a thing I've been working on, hopefully I don't die about it."

And consistently, the fight choreography continues to be really good. The physicality of the actors is very solid and the way CGI attacks and opponents get worked into the choreography is so fluid it's sometimes hard to tell where the CGI ends. And considering the final boss is two full-CGI photorealistic bad guys, I think they do an incredibly good job making the fights feel real and solid.

Characterization-wise, since so much of the final episode is just a lot of fighting against a big damage sponge, there's not a ton of time for talking, but the choreography is, again, a standout. Even outside combat, the secondary characters get a lot of little moments to shine - even Damsel In Distress Du Jour Keiko gets to pull the "oh no, I, your valuable prisoner, am sick, please come into my cell within easy throttling range" trick and breaks herself and Yukina out, which slaps and makes the whole breakout feel like much more of a team effort, and it also lets Keiko and Yukina share some brief but extremely tender moments of characterization that does a lot to make them feel like well-rounded characters. And back in the main fight zone, the characters don't have much dialogue but show where they're at through how they move. Everyone is exhausted and beaten down and has already used their finishing moves, but Yusuke's in trouble, so it's time to scramble back up and tackle the bad guy. It's just such good choreo and such good acting that it makes me forgive a lot of the pacing struggles they're dealing with from boiling everything down to 5 episodes, and without dialogue - just through fight choreography - they manage to make me buy the teamwork dynamic they've thus far failed to establish due to speedrunning past all the stuff that's supposed to help them bond. This is the first part of the show that makes me believe that Hiei has any affection for the gang and any reason to fight alongside them beyond coincidence.

And they continued the trend of hitting all the major plot beats from the stuff they were speedrunning, which led to me counting down the minutes to the Kuwabara Fake-Dies To Motivate Yusuke moment.

The rest of the fight is pretty much just a shot-for-shot adaptation of the final stage of the Toguro bossfight, plus the added fun that it's the first time in the show Yusuke has actually yelled "spirit gun" out loud, which is neat. And it took every second of those five episodes, but in the closing scene they finally reached the group dynamic I was hoping for.

All things considered, given the parameters they had to work in, I think this is the best we could've possibly gotten in only five episodes. I would've probably preferred one where instead of cramming the entire dark tournament into three episodes they just left it alone and just did Rescue Yukina plus maybe the Saint Beasts, but if this is what we were getting, this was a very solid way to do it. I, at least, had an overall very good time, and have been thinking about rewatching it, which is wild since it's only been like three weeks since I watched it the first time. But yea, overall the pacing is wild but I think there was a lot of love and thought put into it, and it really shows.

#asks #not aurora #media recs

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alicedrawslesmis · 1 year

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ok this chapter of les mis letters (2.2.1. Number 24,601 Becomes Number 9,430) is EXTREMELY important to understand the rest of the novel

les mis is a messy book but I am constantly amazed by how hugo poetically creates these microcosms of the whole novel in very short chapters. Like, I spend a while not reading it but then I get back to it and I see just how circular and how well crafted this novel is despite how messy it is. Contains multitudes etc

ok, what do I mean by this? One: Hugo has a straightforward political message that he wants to convey in his own convoluted and idiosyncratic ways, and every chapter repeats that same message within itself and also as a part of a larger narrative.

So what we just had in the previous book is the fall of a great titan, Napoleon, who represented a sort of french spirit. Hugo tell us his thesis: the 19th century is the end of the age of great men and the rise in community where authority is spread equally. We don't have titans, we have democracies. His fall is followed in text by the fall of M. Madeleine, a popular man who was the "soul" of this small town, a titan of industry, who - being toppled - took with him the prostperity of the town. It continues his message of 'a great patriarch is no solution to collective suffering'. M sur M's prosperity died when the one guy who was holding it together went away

(I also think that the runaway cart scene is a demonstration of that too. JVJ can't lift the cart by himself, but in risking his life the rest of the onlookers rushed to help and saved Fauchelevent. The same principle)

In a way JVJ's rise to a position of mayor mirrors Napoleon's rise to power propped up by a massive wave of popular outcry even a little bit despite himself. He wasn't aiming for it, but he got there and he made himself emperor (nowadays we don't really have that but we need to understand that the whole concept of king/emperor was understood by most people to be a human manifestation of the body politico. This is illustrated very clearly by the cover for Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan, where the population becomes the body of the king:

Hobbes codified the idea of the social contract and of absolute monarchies)

But also, unrelated to this chapter specifically: I believe Hugo is directly refuting Hobbes when he claims that the collective spirit of the people of France is not in the shape of a king or of a tyrant, but of a lion. It's not in a single man that we confine authority and power but in the collective. And so the man in this equation is superfluous. No need for a great man anymore!

Anyway, in conclusion: I would describe les mis as a big spiral where the narrative keeps circling itself to form a larger picture that still reflects the same shape. And I always forget that, but then I come back to the book and I'm smacked in the face by that again.

(if you've never read les mis, the newspaper articles in this chapter are also a surprise tool that will help us later)

#les mis letters #long post

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therestofmyfandoms · 3 months

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turnabout succession thoughts

parts 1 2 and 3

this ones gonna be a lil different, ill be adding thoughts as I play, then do a summary at the end. ill probably do this one under a read more

edit: i've finished, and yeah, glad i put it under a read more. just a massive block of bullet points under there, so i'll do my summary up here instead. full breakdown is under the cut. spoilers ahead!

apollo: loved his whole thing here. glad he still got to do the final blows to kristoph. phoenix did take over a lot, but i'm glad apollo was still there, yknow. also his bracelet! i know some people are probably like "great magic bracelet" and tbh the "power" is a little stupid, but i like that the bracelet technically has nothing to do with it? it's just something that tightens perfectly to your skin, and it feels like it gets "tighter" because you get more tense. fascinating

phoenix: mans is so mysterious. why do you not explain anything to anyone. please please please fucking tell your daughter she has a brother wtf. i get things are on a need-to-know basis with you but like. come on. that seems pretty need-to-know. also his fuckin hat camera thing!! oh my god!! man has been recording shit (presumably) this whold fucking time!!! what the fuck!!!!!!

trucy: never change queen i love you. been bossing people around since day fuckin one and no one can stop you. queen shit

klavier: this man. has been through. so fucking much. how are you still standing. how have you not collapsed under the anger and the grief and the stress youve been under?? baby boy please take a rest. please see a therapist. please im begging you

kristoph: what an evil man, but tbh? im still a little confused on his motive. why did he want to be so famous? why did he decide to kill so many people. why. mans a fuckin insane serial killer and yet. he still trusted his brother. maybe because klavier would've been harder to get rid of. the mishams, whatever, they're reclusive painters, no one would've noticed if they up and disappeared (technically). but klavier? man

conclusions: i love this game and i love apollo justice. thank you.

i called it i knew valant was gonna come back. yet he's only technically tangentially related to this case. suspicious......

vera. pretty..............

WHY does drew misham have that hair. fuckin mad scientist lookin ass

the fuckin. layer thing?? the minigame x-ray thing?? honestly super fun i want to do more

why did misham draw our cases???? how did he get this images when he has barely left his house at all?? im ngl i genuinely got a shiver down my spine when that got revealed like wtf. i felt like i was being watched

also didnt mention earlier but like. the envelope that nick gave trucy? fuckin. chekov's gun. deus ex machina. "this is a surprise tool that will help us later"-looking ass. thats so suspicious phoenix what the fuck

I HATE THIS STUPID BRUSHEL GUY I HATE HIS FACE WHY IS HE LIKE THIS

and hes gonna be a fuckin witness because of course he is goddamn it

and the trial's starting i do not feel prepared but what else is new

goddamn brushel. why do i have to look at him sweating. i hate this

klavier?? just fuckin flirting with apollo?? and my man just goes "anyways heres the point i was making" like my boy. my man please he wants your attention so bad hes so desperate

apollo goes "what if drew was a fake himself" and i suddenly caught on to his train of thought and felt like i slipped into the matrix. for a moment i felt so incredibly smart

"the... de.. vil...." vera please. did you just call kristoph the devil??

aaaaand of course this ties back to the case 7 years ago of course it does. phoenix "haunting the narrative" wright motherfucker. man please i just to play as apollo why are you bringing phoenix back into this

BABY KLAVIER THIS IS NOT A DRILL I REPEAT BABY KLAVIER

baby boy why are you wearing shades i cant see your pretty eyes.... baby your hair is so short why..... so young so pretty

oh right and phoenix and gumshoe are here. but klavier......

also calling it now valant is gonna be the second witness

in the meantime. did zak (shadi) actually do it???? did valant do it?? is perhaps my dislike of valant coloring my perception of the case?? so many questions so little time

fuckin called it there he is twirling his stupid baton. man idk what it is but i hate this guy so much

maybe he reminds me of max galactica. maybe i just have ptsd from the big top case. not sure

man also had a letter. but for a later time. hmm...

also where does the girl fit into this. isnt troupe gramarye a 3 person show? is the girl just. eye candy or somethin? did she also get a letter? or was she fully excluded from this whole thing?

speaking of girls theres a lot of guys in this courtroom. i miss maya. where's my favorite small medium at large?

klavier i love you PLEASE shut up about your music. no one cares

oh god oh no not the magician's grand prix please no

""ace attorney" Phoenix Wright" he did he said the line

"theres no proof he didnt do it, either" FUCKING THANK YOU. how long have we gone... with perfectly good explantions and reasonings, only for the prosecution to be like "yeah but i dont think they did therefore youre wrong" shyagzjfhsjks

fuck i know this evidence is forged but like. phoenix doesn't?? also is just the page fake?? is the whole book fake?? and klavier knows, right? didnt kristoph tell him that phoenix made-up evidence? though i got it from trucy, who got it from a mysterious man in the hallway. what the fuck is going on

god its such an obvious trap but theres literally nothing else i can do. it fits too well goddamn it

oh fuck and klavier's trying to warn me. god fuckin...

wait wait wait hold on. so we knew misham was a forger. we've known for years. it was brought up in court, in front of a judge. and they didnt arrest him???????? my only thought is that maybe they decided to "overlook" this crime in exchange for him cooperation but like. why

aha and im already seeing inconsistencies. misham is obviously covering for his client, he "never met them". vera, on the other hand, claims she met them face to face. a clear discrepancy, and now klavier's earlier (later?) freakout makes much more sense. hes been under the impression that phoenix is a liar and a cheat this whole time. obviously, he has no idea his brother's involvement in this whole this (tbf im still not clear on the details myself but dramatic irony at its finest)

MAN FUCKIN JUST DISAPPEARS ON THE WITNESS STAND. MY MAN YOU HAVE A CHILD WHERE ARE YOU GOING

OH MY GOD THE MAGATAMA??? ITS BACK????

just as a little aside as i embark on the mason system: looking at the court record, i see that kristoph and apollo have been added. both of them have (what i presume to be) their "present" descriptions, but their "past" ages. so apollo says "a greenhorn defense attorney. i call him apollo" and his age is 15. like first off. you did not meet apollo at 15 i call bullshit. plus kid is not a defense attorney he is in HIGH SCHOOL

anyway the kristoph one is funnier because it says he's 25 but "incarcerated for the murder of shadi smith" which has not happened yet. they dont even know shadi yet (well they do but. you get my point). okay aside over back to the game

awww its officer meekins. ill be honest i really was not expecting to run into him of all people

baby truce is the same as ever i see. she has immediately taken over phoenix's life and honestly? good for her

"i just dont know much about anything other than law" yeah thats what happens when you drop out of art school to save your crush from 2nd grade, phoenix. you end up knowing nothing

god fuckin. trucys mother. the woman in troupe gramarye. lamiroir. fuuuuuck

BABY VERA. SHES SO CUTE

WAIT WAIT WAIT BRUSHEL WAS THERE???? BRUSHEL WAS AT THE BOWL CLUB?????????

why does kristoph have a full study for a cell. what is this. what kinda rich asshole bullshit

black psyche-locks??? what does this mean...

okay wait im just now doing valant's locks. did they fucking shoot thalassa??? is that what happened to her??????? oh my god poor lamiroir....

no wait wait wait apollo has the same thing as trucy yeah but youre not implying what i think youre implying are you game?????? trucy and apollo?? are actually related???? nah nah nah say it aint so. i thought those were fuckin. headcanons. not. not actually....

ah so magnifi killed himself. okay. sure

WAIT WAIT WAIT HAS PHOENIX BEEN RECORDING THE WHOLE TIME??? WITH HIS LITTLE BUTTON??? OH MY GOD???

"mr. wright told me everything that's been happening" did he mention you have a sister. did he mention you and trucy are related. did he fucking mention that

god klavier... youre helping me against your brother.... man what this man must be going through.... your brother is a murderer yet you still help to make sure the truth comes to light instead of covering for him... fuuuuck

"i have to pull that darkness out of him" GOD FUCKIN-- apollo is trying to save klavier and klavier is trying so hard to help apollo even through all this emotional shit jesus fucking christ im going FERAL

okay so even though kristoph is a fuckin murderer and does not care about anyone... he still cares about his brother. he killed literally everybody else who knew about the forging (or tried to), he covered all of his bases..... except for klavier. did he just never expect klavier to betray him? did he trust klavier? if youre killing everyone else, why not your brother?

GAHDGSYDUJD

LAMIROIR??? SHES A JURIST???? HUHHHH???

ohhh fuuuckkk and the reveal of the other bracelet omggg

if you didnt piece it together by this point that would be a HELL of a reveal

i love vera im glad shes alive

question. for the straight people out there. is vera supposed to be apollo's love interest? like i know he was a lil blushy around her or whatever but like. is that just typical ace attorney stuff or are they trying to insinuate stuff.

i mean obviously klapollo is superior regardless but like. is that the intention

trucy dear we dont need to find you a mommy we just need to figure out where your other daddy is. probably in germany somewhere

PHOENIX YOU HAVENT TOLD THEM THEYRE RELATED WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU

and thats the end! lets go me

and as an aside for those who read through to the bottom of this: i'll be playing duel destinies next, and ill probably be writing my notes as i play again. my question to you is this: would you prefer this play-by-play again? or simply the post-case breakdown like my first posts were? thanks!

#apollo justice spoilers #ace attorney: apollo justice #aa:aj #m plays games #apollo justice #phoenix wright #klavier gavin #turnabout succession #.#i did genuinely enjoy this game #im glad i finally played it! and despite being spoiled for several things im still glad i actually experienced it #plus i did get surprised by several things too #ace attorney is fun! apollo justice is fun!!! play the games!!!!

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all-seeing-ifer · 6 months

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Saying this with full awareness that this is so, so low down on the ranking of Bad Things About Angel Season 4, and tbh if the season as a whole was good this wouldn't even be an actual grievance it would probably just be another silly buffyverse plot hole that we can point and giggle at. But I've been trying to figure out the actual chronology of the season (for fic reasons) and I think this is actually going to be my cause of death.

Like ok. Generally speaking the narrative of the Buffyverse shows is told roughly in real time, with each episode taking place around the episode's real life air date. Even the more heavily serialised season 7 of Buffy (THIS IS A SURPRISE TOOL THAT WILL HELP US LATER) roughly follows this kind of timeline. It has enough direct references to the passage of time, such as the start of the school year, christmas etc. for us to plot that out. Even when it gets more serialised in the second half, it still feels like there's plenty of dead space in between episodes where they're just training the potentials, trying to make a plan to fight the First, and so on.

Then we have Angel season 4. Now, we know that "Deep Down" takes place three months after "Tomorrow", which assuming that "Tomorrow" is set somewhere around its May airdate, puts "Deep Down" in around August/September 2002. We also know that "Home" takes place at the same time as "End of Days"/"Chosen", which take place in around May 2003. Meaning that season 4 takes place over the course of about nine months.

HOWEVAR. In "Players" Gunn states that everything from "Apocalypse, Now-ish" up until that episode (which is about half the season) has happened over the course of "a couple of weeks". Which raises the question, where the fuck did the rest of the time go? The most obvious solution would probably be to say that Jasmine was just in charge of LA for way longer than the month it took for those episodes to air, but nope! "Orpheus" has to happen between the Buffy episodes "Lies My Parents Told Me" and "Dirty Girls" on account of Willow's cameo, and "Dirty Girls" really marks the point in season 7 where the one-to-one real-world/in-show timeline breaks down (as it often does towards the end of a season) and everything from that point onwards seems to happen over the course of about a week tops.

And saying that the first six episodes of season 4 are just spread out over a longer period of time also only gets you so far, because all the episodes from "House Always Wins" to "Apocalypse, Now-ish" follow pretty directly on from each other. Which means the only way to make it make sense is if either a) the first three episodes of season 4 are spread out over like. six months. or b) "Tomorrow" actually happens way later than its real life airdate, which I guess is possible - I don't think there's any in-show evidence that is has to happen around the same time as the Dark Willow arc - but does mean that now the whole season 3 timeline is a bit fucked up.

And to be clear I probably wouldn't care about this at all if it weren't for the fact that the Buffyverse timeline is normally extremely one-to-one and extremely easy to follow, and then Angel season 4 is like a fucking hydrogen bomb just destroying the whole thing

#SORRY FOR ACTING LIKE A CINEMASINS GUY ABOUT THIS. UNFORTUNATELY FOR EVERYONE I REALLY CARE ABOUT TIMELINES ADDING UP #ifer rambles #buffyverse #angel the series

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cannibalistic-cucumber · 3 months

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Okay so

For various reasons, Sonic Adventure (SA1) is among my dead favorite games. The two relevant to this rant are the characters and the gorgeous soundtrack (in fact, I might go on a tangent about individual songs at the end of this).

My favorite character in the game is E-102 “Gamma” (btw if you derail this post about Omega, you die), a robot built by Eggman, who runs on animal power, as Eggman’s robots usually do. However, Gamma contains a very special animal - it’s a surprise tool the will help us later. Five minutes into being born (and after training, ofc), he is forced to shoot his brother, E-101 “Beta”. Following this, he board’s Eggman’s ship (the Egg Carrier) and is tasked with catching the tailed frog. Upon collecting the frog, he is transported to the past, where he experiences childlike wonder at the chao. Back on the Egg Carrier, the rest of his siblings are cast out because of their failure to get the frog. After that, Gamma is sent to execute a prisoner. On the way, he makes a wrong turn and ends up in the machining room, where he experiences eldritch horror at the sight of his brother being disassembled and reassembled. In the prison, he finds Amy Rose, who has a blue bird flying around with her looking for its parents. She convinces him not to kill her a la Mindy Animaniacs, and protects Sonic out on the deck of the ship, further confusing Gamma. He leaves the crashing ship, now convinced to “rescue” his disowned brothers. After successfully disposing of them, he is ambushed on the Egg Carrier by Beta Mk II, who feigns death in order to shoot Gamma in the back, and they both die as a result. Lo and behold, Gamma and Beta contained the parents of the bird. Reunited, they fly off into the sunset.

TLDR: Gamma is Eggman robot who experiences eldritch horror and compassion and forsakes his master as a result. He “rescues” his siblings before dying himself, and the animal inside him reunites with its family.

Now, a little more background before we get to the main point. SEGA Sound Team popped off for this game. Each character has a theme song that plays during their respective recaps and end credits (each one has an entire storyline with slight variations on who does what (it’s all happening at once)). Side note: I’m like 70% sure SA1 is the origin of Knuckles jazz. It should also be noted that I have a youtube playlist of songs on queue for downloading, and when I run out of ideas I scroll through the recommended additions section.

E-102’s theme is in my top three favorite songs from SA1. You’ll never guess what it’s called! Theme of E-102γ. And that’s my first talking point. I was reading the comments on one of the music videos, and one of them made a connection that his theme doesn’t get a proper name because he’s just another cog in the machine. Even Big the Cat has a greater role in the main story than him. And yet, doomed by the narrative as he is, he gets his own story. As another comment pointed out, each story has its own (literary) theme: Sonic is Adventure, Tails is Independence, Knuckles is Recollection (I’m kinda iffy on that one), Amy is Protection, Big is Friendship, and Gamma? Gamma is heart and soul. Compassion. Morality, something that shouldn’t be possible, and definitely isn’t comprehensible for a robot, especially one of Eggman’s creation.

As a side tangent here, I’ve been putting rescued in quotes when it comes to Gamma and his brothers, but I realized something between the time I started writing this and now. The animals that drop from the E-series robots are birds. They’re all his brothers, inside and out. I had always assumed that Gamma had meant rescue only in the liberation sense. I never realized that he meant it both ways. I just… I’m need a moment.

As a side side tangent, I think this is one of the biggest differences between E-100 ZERO and the rest. To my knowledge, he didn’t have any animals, much less another bird, and that was what led him to the brutish oafishness that we see displayed by him.

Back to the main points, I think that all of this is reflected in the song. It starts out with all of the synth, vague vocals, electro, etc. that would be expected from the theme of a robot, and then you’ve got… PIANO. Oh my god the piano. Piano Man has its harmonica, and this song has its piano. In the midst of the circuits, the wires, the computers, there’s life, a heartbeat, a soul. And with the soul comes that twinge of sadness. Sure he freed the animals, but to do so, he had to kill his brothers with his own two (?)(does the gun count?) hands. Due to this and the cumulation of everything else, hearing the song (or the variation of it) during his final cutscene hits and hits hard.

youtube

THE REPRISE OF THE MAIN THEME PIANO AS HE DIES IN OBSCURITY. THE OTHER BIRDS ARE LIKELY THE ONLY ONES THAT END UP KNOWING ABOUT HIS DEATH

It’s okay I’m okay I’m so normal about this

Now that the main rant is over, it’s time for me to hoot about the other songs

Be Cool, Be Wild, Be Groovy …for Ice Cap

I get that it’s a snowboarding section, but still. THEY BOTHERED TO USE GUITAR IN A SNOW LEVEL. NAME ONE OTHER INSTANCE OF THAT THAT ISN’T LITTLE BIG PLANET’S THE WILDERNESS’S SITAR.

Limestone Cave …for Ice Cap

Ambience plain and simple. Good for falling asleep to

Snowy Mountain …for Ice Cap

Another ambience piece, this time with another guitar (no this doesn’t count for the challenge I posed above). Love the mix of electric and acoustic

Welcome To Station Square

“The train headed for the Mystic Ruins will be departing soon.” Came for the guitar, stayed for the trumpet.

Red Barrage Area …for Hot Shelter

SAX (shout outs to the rest of Hot Shelter’s music btw)

Militant Missionary … Boss Egg Walker & Egg Viper

Hopelessness, despair, DRAMA. Things may not have gone to plan, but Eggman is surely still the one in control.

And finally, shoutouts to Bad Taste Aquarium, Pleasure Castle, and Dilapidated Way for going full throttle right out the gate.

@green-mountain-goose @greetings-inferiors @cue-jay @kimu-dem

#Youtube

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mylefey · 2 years

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We really need to talk about Gregorio

Some thoughts about Motherland: Fort Salem. Full spoilers for seasons 1 to the end of 3, you are warned. (Sorry, this is extremely long but the conclusions might be worth it, we can kinda prove that Talder is canon).

Gregorio serves no obvious narrative purpose in s3

In the last 2 episodes of M:FS s3, the only episodes he’s featured in, Gregorio doesn't seem to serve any narrative purpose: he has almost no effect on the plot, his very rare contributions could have been either taken out of the script entirely, or been given by other characters who we’ve been familiarized with all throughout the season.

In M:FS s3e09, here are Gregorio’s contributions:

he meets with Tally and Adil, explains he was in jail (explains his absence for the whole season)

he helps Adil get dressed (he’s literally the only male present with which Adil has had a previous relationship, thus the only candidate for this moment of male bonding)

he’s Tally’s partner at the weddings, they sit together, dance together, have sex

he’s Tally’s partner at an all couple hang out at the campfire scene

In resume, he’s here only so Tally isn’t alone at the weddings or at the campfire.

He’s used as a prop. They put him here to occupy Tally when everybody else is paired up, and to make her look happy instead of helpless (her own words).

A few days before the weddings, we see Tally kneeling on the grass, singing her piece of the First Song in the same way Khalida had done to summon Alder in M:FS s3e04. She’s trying to summon Alder, to get any sign that she didn’t die in the ice cave. When she gets no response to her call, she says: “I gave up my Sight […] to be a Steward of a Song that might never be sung. I feel helpless and I don’t like it.”

Gregorio appears right at this moment.

The writers were not trying to be subtle about this with the wording and the timing. Tally says she feels helpless and the very next thing they write in is Gregorio coming back into Tally’s life. The link between the two facts is pointed out to us: Gregorio’s presence is their solution to Tally’s helplessness. This, she can control. This will keep her occupied.

Gregorio is used as a tool to make Tally look like she feels better. After all, everybody around her is about to be super happy (weddings and all), the writers/execs will NOT have her be a sad sack in the background, it wouldn’t look good.

There was no need for this. We know Tally, she loves her sisters, we know she’s tremendously happy for them, regardless of her own situation. Tally would have been happily hidden her insecurities for the duration of the weddings, for her sisters’ sake.

In M:FS s3e10, here are Gregorio’s contributions:

he’s physically present with the unit when they leave for Fort Salem

he announces that they can equip themselves at the training room (all the people present knew that too, we’ve seen them all use the same training room)

he helps map a path for reaching the Necro facilities (all the people present knew the path too, even Adil contributes and he didn’t even study here)

he leaves the unit to join Petra’s group (the reason is unclear, how would he know if they need his support more than the unit?)

he informs Petra that the unit is armed (messenger for a useless message)

he suggests which Work to use to get rid of their enemies (not only is he the less experienced fighter of this group, making it strange his suggestion is accepted by the others, but it’s also what’s going to ultimately kill Anacostia)

he helps with the Work (nothing says this Work couldn’t have been cast without him)

he rejoins the unit (again, the reason is unclear, how does he know if the unit needs more support than Petra’s team? They just lost one team member, why lose another?)

he tells them about the new silencing tech (the unit still looks surprised when it’s used against them 2 min later, and they disable the tech the way they would have done without Gregorio’s heads-up anyway)

he disappears without anyone noticing (they were evolving together in narrow tunnels with enemies at their heels, how was he separated?)

he reappears (somehow he survived several encounters with Camarilla soldiers, alone in the tunnels)

he fights alongside the unit (basically he keeps the enemies busy while the protagonists discuss things with their backs turned)

he keeps the enemies busy with Nicte while the unit goes into the Mycelium

he hugs Tally when the battle is over (he’s not even present for the homage to Anacostia even though she died saving his life)

In resume, he’s here to make the real protagonists look good during the fights. When the protagonists need to look badass, he’s put aside so he doesn’t take up visual space, and when the protagonists need to chat, he’s brought out again to keep the enemy busy. He does some kind of back and forth between 2 groups, somehow never getting caught even though the base is crawling with enemies, only to transmit messages that are either useless or not actionable. Anything else he contributes, lines or actions, could have been attributed to other characters (in fact, they probably took those lines and actions from other characters just so he wouldn’t look completely useless).

He’s used as a prop. He could have been replaced simply by better fight choreography, and, although it is good for the heroes to have some support, he didn’t need to date Tally to be here. Gregorio is their friend and coven-mate, this is reason enough to spend time with them and share in their joy.

So if Gregorio being here seems to serve no narrative purpose, why was he here at all? The actor was cast and paid for this, and precious episode time was taken from important plot lines by having him here.

There could be a few reasons:

the obsession of writers and/or executives to want to have everyone be paired up for the end of a show, making it at least “look” like loose ends are tied up. This is very common in TV-shows finales. Gregorio and Tally had flirted a little bit in s2 and they were on good terms so he was a suitable candidate for it.

writers and/or executives knew it would be a very open ending with both Tally and Alder alive, but wanted to make sure the door would be closed on a Talder romance. It’s still rare to have an LGBT+ couple be endgame but as they already gave us Raylla, they didn’t want to give us a second one. LGBT+ couples are still treated as tokens because of rampant homophobia and the need for good ratings.

Gregorio could be a self-insert, wish-fulfillment character from a writer and/or an executive, it’s been known to happen more often than we think. The biggest characteristic of a self-insert, wish-fulfillment character is “they’re pretty bland character-wise but, for some never-defined reason, the sexy protagonist find them very interesting/attractive”, which seems to fit with the situation here.

There might be other reasons. Let's see if we can find one by over-analyzing some things.

How long have Tally and Gregorio been together?

When the unit gets reinstated and they’re back at Fort Salem, Anacostia says that the wedding will happen “next week”, which is fairly vague in number of days, but let’s say it means “in around 7 days”. Gregorio reappears a few moments later. Meaning that, by the time the wedding takes place, Tally and Gregorio have had around 7 days to reacquaint themselves. They were coven-mates and friends before.

But are they dating by the time the wedding happens? The editing of the episode is a bit murky, so let’s see:

After having helped Adil get dressed, Gregorio says: “I’m gonna go find Tally.” It doesn’t inform us on their status, just that he wants to spend time with her.

At the wedding, the first time we see Tally and Gregorio in the same space is for the ceremony, they are seated close but not directly next to each other (Khalida is between them).

Then we see them flirt while dancing, touching cheeks and laughing.

Next up, they have sex in a hallway.

Then, and only then, at the campfire scene, the evening of the wedding, do we see them behaving like a couple (sitting in one’s lap, holding hands).

In addition to that, in M:FS s3e10, in the training room, Gregorio announces that he’s leaving the unit to join Petra’s group. Even though both Tally and Gregorio know that this might be the last time they’ll see each other, they don’t kiss. They’re awkward with each other, which only reinforces how new their relationship is.

From this, we can conclude with some certainty that Tally and Gregorio only became a couple as a result of having sex in the hallway after the weddings ceremony.

Why now?

Tally and Gregorio have known each other since they started War College in M:FS s2e02. They’ve always made some amount of doe eye at each other but it never went anywhere, even though there was ample time and opportunity, not even when it would have gotten the Imperatrix off of both their backs. They don’t see each other for all the time the unit is on the run (we have no indication of how long this lasted, but at least a few months?), Tally doesn’t even mention him, and finally they’re both back at Fort Salem again only a few days before the weddings.

So why do they suddenly get together at the weddings?

Let’s examine one particular bit of timing at the weddings (Tally and Gregorio are not a couple at this point):

Tally feels helpless.

Alder arrives at the weddings to drop off Khalida, reunites with Anacostia and then leaves without even talking to Tally.

Khalida joins the unit, telling them, by her presence if not by words (we are not shown this part), that Alder is here, alive and well.

Tally runs after Alder, and they have a conversation. Tally looks obviously mad, her stance is guarded, arms crossed and she sports a forced, jaw-clenched smile on her face.

Alder rejects Tally’s help and leaves. Tally looks dejected and mad, she shakes her head, looks up at the sky, and stomps away.

The wedding ceremony happens, pausing the action for a bit.

Tally has sex for the first time with Gregorio, in a hallway.

Before we can conclude anything from this, let’s examine another situation for comparison:

Tally was in a romantic relationship with Gerit. When she learned that he lied to her, by omission, about his marital status, she broke up with him. When, in M:FS s1e07, Gerit comes back some time later and apologizes, Tally initially rejects him.

But she’s in the middle of a personal crisis. She had been ordered to not say anything about Scylla being Spree and being the army’s prisoner in Fort Salem. She can only watch as Raelle suffers from the uncertainty around Scylla’s disappearance. She feels guilty and is scared of Raelle linking with her and seeing her memories of Scylla. She’s obviously conflicted and looks pale (the make-up department is on point).

Tally obviously feels helpless about the whole situation and says so at some point to Anacostia, in M:FS s1e06: “I feel, I do need to do something. […] I cannot pretend that nothing happened!” but she gets shot down.

Then Gerit comes back around a 2nd time, just after Raelle calls Tally out about avoiding her and Tally had to lie about it. It’s only at this point that Tally caves and starts having sex with Gerit again. Even though she makes the decision, she looks downcast about it, instead of horny or enthusiastic.

In resume: Tally feels helpless about Raelle’s suffering - Raelle gets angry at her - Tally starts having sex with Gerit.

It does sound strangely familiar, doesn’t it?

In fact, that’s exactly the same chain of events we have just described about Tally at the weddings: Tally feels helpless about Alder, her Sight and the First Song - Alder avoids her and rejects her - Tally starts having sex with Gregorio.

In M:FS s1e09, when Gerit booty-calls Tally and the unit calls her out on it, right after Libba's funeral, Tally says: “I need this.” Her tone of voice makes it clear that she's not horny or in love, she just needs to work out her frustrations regarding her situation.

Sex with Gerit is a way for Tally to cope with her feelings.

From all this, we can conclude that Tally starts having sex with Gregorio in order to work out her frustrations regarding Alder rejecting her.

Let’s add an interesting fact: in M:FS s3e09, in the hallway as they are about to have sex, Gregorio says he’s feeling judged by a painting of a woman on the wall. Tally answers: “Then let her watch…”. It seems straightforward but Tally looks and sounds a bit ruthless about it, which feels strange as she’s supposed to feel horny and carefree at that point.

Whereas if you consider the fact that Tally is here to work out her frustrations about Alder, it would fit that her comment is in fact directed at Alder, not at a random woman in a painting. It’s like Tally is telling Alder: “Look at what you make me do, it’s your fault.”

It’s very subtle, though, and absolutely no proof of anything by itself.

Is Tallorio even a romance?

Here is the only instance of characters talking about Tally and Gregorio’s relationship, when Tally calls Gregorio “Greg” after having had sex for the first time in M:FS s3e10:

Abigail: “Greg, we’re Greg now? […] Nice little charge-up at the wedding there, Tal?” Tally: “Always good before a battle.” Abigail: “And?” Tally: “He was so good.”

There’s no mention of feelings at all, just that Gregorio gave Tally a good charge.

Let’s compare this to Abigail, who’s notorious for using sex with men for a charge, when she talks about having had sex with Adil for the first time in M:FS s2e01: “It’s more than sex with this one. More than just charging up, you know? It’s deep and feels like destiny or something.”

That’s a stark difference. Character-wise, Tally has been shown to get attached too fast, and Abigail to not get attached at all. And, at the time of each of these quotes, Tally has known Gregorio for at least twice as long as Abigail had known Adil (half a season for Abigail and Adil, 2 seasons for Tally and Gregorio).

All signs point to Tallorio being nothing else than a simple wedding hookup. There’s the possibility of it being the beginning of a romantic relationship, but as the show stops here, a few hours and a whole world-ending battle later, it'll stay nothing more than a possibility.

TL,DR?

Where does all that over-analyzing leave us?

We determined that:

Gregorio doesn’t seem to have a reason to be there except to play combat support and be Tally’s sexual partner.

Tally doesn’t have sex with Gregorio until right after Alder rejects her help.

Tally uses casual sex as a way to cope with her feelings.

Tally doesn’t express any romantic feelings for Gregorio.

From all this, we can safely conclude that Gregorio’s presence serves to show how much being rejected by Alder affects Tally. (The shippers might go as far as to say that Tallorio having sex in these circumstances implies that Talder is canon (on Tally’s part at least).)

We determined earlier that Gregorio had no obvious narrative purpose for being present in s3, could this be the non-obvious narrative reason? To show the depth of Tally’s feelings for Alder?

Bonus part: my personal, wild speculations

If you just wanted the fact analysis, you should stop reading now. The rest is just wild, unsourced speculations on my part.

So, why would the writers go about confirming that Talder is canon in this extremely roundabout, counter-explicit, obscure way? Why not just have Talder kiss on the mouth (or more)?

My bet would be on a conflict between the writers and the executives.

More and more creators in the media entertainment industry speak out about the existence of such conflicts, where creators/writers wanted to include LGBT+ romances and the network executives either refused completely, or only accepted it as long as it was made impossibly subtle, or only canon at the last second (so it wouldn’t have time to affect their ratings). Sometimes, they would go as far as force writers to invent new side characters whose only purpose would be to date main characters that are part of popular non-canon LGBT+ ships. This would put those main characters into acceptable (= straight), canon relationships, and block the non-canon ones.

In Motherland: Fort Salem, the writers gave us Tally and Alder and paired them up, story-wise, for 3 seasons. A part of the audience ships them together romantically, and they’re romance-coded in all of s3.

And, suddenly, for the last 2 episodes of the last season, they dump a bland guy onto Tally and give Alder an ending that looks like death at first glance (but don't worry, it isn’t death). That sure sounds suspicious to me.

Even more suspicious is the fact that, while carefully examining the facts, the bland guy’s presence only seems to reinforce the strength of the ship that’s supposed to be non-canon.

So my personal conclusion is: the writers wanted to make Talder canon but the executives refused, and ordered them instead to romantically pair Tally up with a guy to close the door on Talder. So the writers indeed forced Tally and Gregorio together, and wrote the whole short thing in a way that looks like a standard romantic relationship at first glance (obeying the execs’ orders) but that in fact subtly proves that Talder is canon.

As I said, I get to this from wild speculations, but to me, it fits.

#talder #motherland fort salem #spoilers motherland for salem #spoilers #long post #basically tallorio is a scam and talder is canon #(kinda)#i pulled all the receipts #(that's why it's so long)

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corinne-eaglebridge-sso · 7 months

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“I know.”

“Now it’s time to go.”

(Or: finally, closure)

SSOpromptober 2023, day 31: Ghost Story

This can be read as a stand-alone, but pulls from and references several other stories from this month.

This fic contains extremely heavy spoilers for the Saving Anne quests.

And there we are. The last day, and the “finale” I’ve been slowly but surely building up to.

Remember the “surprise tool that will help us later”? Well, I suppose it’s time for the “later”.

One last story for this month. One I think needed to be told. She has been haunting the narrative at every turn, but at some point, it is time to get a bit of closure and to start moving on.

The song that serves as title and inspiration for this fic, as my post earlier today revealed, is It’s Time (Green Edition) from Stray Gods. I highly recommend listening to it during or after reading.

I will do a wrap-up post later, so I won’t go into too much here, but wow. I am feeling quite sentimental in this moment. It feels like the end of an era, even if it was only a month. It felt so much longer. But everything must come to an end, I suppose.

#sso #ssoblr #star stable online #ssopromptober #ssopromptober2023 #ssotober #ssotober2023 #my posts #my fic #my writing #sso fic

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soldatrose · 4 months

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reasons menas/menodorus is kind of iconic:

has two names. i don't actually know why

was a major general in sextus pompey's fleet and very very good at it

non-exclusive list of impressive deeds includes: captured sardinia (twice)! and two of octavian's legions! and corsica! and was good at Not Crashing His Own Ships Into Each Other, which is a surprise tool that will help us later!

betrayed sextus for octavian. then octavian for sextus. then sextus for octavian, again.

protip: when you betray someone make sure you're indispensable enough that they just have to welcome you back if you change your mind

after he'd already decided to betray sextus again, allowed himself one last moment of glory by wrecking the ships of octavian. the guy he was defecting to.

was the only one to recommend against the treaty of misenum which (although necessary) did heavily contribute to sextus's final defeat

offered to give sextus the roman empire by getting rid of the entire second triumvirate at misenum. in appian he invokes the memory of pompey and pompey jr at that point which is cool and Haunted

once pretended to be stuck in a sandbank and when octavian's men came to seize him he just got his ship out and?? left??

was pretty much hated by the entirety of sextus's entourage because they can't handle a bad bitch

killed his narrative foil in an epic battle

(= most of these are from appian. to take with a barrel of salt)

#what's gayer. being gay or leading a fleet with your savvy second in command who will definitely never ever betray you #spam tag #menodorus #menas #sextus pompey #end of human pomp #also cf appian 5.89-90 for the storm that destroyed octavian's ships. it's genuinely such a good piece of writing #and also horrifying for sure so tw for drowning and such. but woah. woah.

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thenecromancress · 2 years

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Hooked on You: A Dead by Daylight Dating Sim (My experience)

Before I begin, if you didn’t know, Dead by Daylight is a asymmetrical horror game with one killer and four survivors. It has licensed killers as well as it’s own original killers. People on this game are especially horny for the killers. There’s a meme where people will comment on their tweets “add sex to the game.” So the folks over at BeHavior decided to hire the people who made the KFC dating sim. They teamed up and announced “Hooked on You: A Dead by Daylight Dating Sim” Naturally this intrigues me and I immediately watch the trailer. They introduce the 4 date-able characters, all of which are killers. I thought it was such a shame there were only four, because while they may not be able to get the licensed killers (Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, Pyramid Head, Pinhead, etc) they absolutely had many reasonable picks from their original characters, and some I would have loved to see in the Sim. (I’m looking at you, Oni) So the four main characters introduced to us in the trailer are Trapper, Spirit, Huntress, and Wraith. Immediately my shriveled monkey brain screams “DATE THE TRAPPER!” He’s tall and he’s beefy. Two things that make my brain go “AWOOOGA”. I mean, look at him.

So that was my plan. Wait for the game to come out and try to fuck the Trapper. (Mild spoilers ahead) The game comes out, 8/3/22 (Yesterday at time of writing this), and I grab it immediately. When I finally get the time later that night to boot up the game I’m ready. I’m gonna fuck the Trapper. I get in and start my adventure. I meet the gang of killers and immediately Trapper calls me a nitwit. Ouch, but he doesn’t have to like me right away, that’s okay. I talk more to the killers, they ask me questions about myself, asking me to answer honestly. The more Trapper talks, the worse he gets. He’s a rich douche and he’s entitled. Absolutely horrible. But Wraith? Wraith’s over here making my heart do little flip-flops. Do I actually want Wraith? Look at how cute he is!

But no. I double down. I want the Trapper. I’ve made a commitment in my heart, and I’m gonna see it through to the end, dammit! I’ll skip the details of everything that happens, but Trapper does finally start to warm up to me. My character passes out and I wake up on the beach, him gently pouring water into my mouth to help me drink and possibly wake me up.

I’m getting somewhere, and maybe seeing the real him. Later that night he gives me advice to help me sleep better, considering I’m on a mysterious beach island resort with four (kind of five, as someone, whom I won’t spoil, gets introduced) killers. He says:

Honestly brilliant advice. Just knock someone out cold, ease the stress, go to sleep. I laughed really hard and I loved that piece of dialogue. I was like “absolutely that makes perfect sense!” Though part of me longed for him to wrap me in a bearskin blanket, he gave me a bear’s claw.. to help me sleep? The next day was a lot. I learned a lot about him, and he put me to the test. There isn’t much to say that doesn’t majorly ruin the story, but I did make a few bad choices, damaging my relationship with him. Could I save it? On the third day, I’m told it was the final day, I’m given the option to let someone take me on a real date. Obviously I chose Trapper. I’ve been working so hard to get his attention and make him love me. Plus, just look at him. I wanna touch his body at the very least. Eventually he puts me through a test. And I pass. Or so I think. Trapper tells me he has a “huge surprise” for me when he gets back. I wait for him and...

oh... OH. That IS a huge surprise. And I’m thrilled. I just know that dick is insane. And I’m getting my wish. To fuck the Trapper. And I do.

Now I can’t say for certain, because I didn’t actually experience it, but he asks me

I say yes it was amazing.

We then are interrupted by narrative tools, Dwight and Claudette. They take us back to the beach for the finale. We walk back to the Beach and finally Trapper beings to speak to me.

Well, at least it wasn’t just heavily implied, it was confirmed. He said it himself. We boned. But the rest of the dialogue obviously has me worried. He says he’s just not into me, which makes me give a soft little “awh..” under my breath. I know what’s to come but I’m in denial. Maybe the sex was good enough. Maybe he wasn’t that into me but he is now.

But

I am in agony. Not only am I touch starved, and bad at dating in real life, now I must be “friendzoned” in a fictional universe as well. But I got what I wanted didn’t I? I did make my goal to “fuck the Trapper.” And I did just that. Yet, I yearned for his love. He proceeds to throw me into [redacted] to live for eternity with [redacted] and asks me to “please be cool if (he) brings any other dates over”. 10/10 would recommend! (It’s worth adding, yes, you can properly romance him, and yes I did go back. If you do this, save before telling him you love him, so you can see what happens if you say you don’t love him. It’s hilarious, and petty revenge for “friendzoning” me)

#Hooked on you #hooked on you spoilers #dead by daylight #dbd #hooked on you a dead by daylight dating sim #dating sim #the trapper #evan macmillan #the huntress #the wraith #the spirit #game review #BeHavior

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