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yumeka-sxf · 5 months

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In addition to Yor's epiphany scene, this scene was the other one I was most looking forward to in season 2 - a scene that, in my opinion, is one of the most Twiyor-ish scenes in the series so far 💖

Why is it so significant? Because there was no reason for Twilight to put on any Loid Forger acting in that moment. He wasn't conversing with nor being scrutinized by anyone. So why would he give that soft smile followed by such affectionate, comforting words as "お疲れ様/otsukaresama"? (this can be translated in many ways, but generally it's something you say to thank someone for their hard work).

The answer is because it's something he truly felt...he understood the sacrifice Yor made for Anya's happiness and genuinely appreciated it (if only he knew the sacrifice she made on the larger scale, lol). While he's a bit perturbed at first since some onlookers were snickering at him, it didn't take long for him to soften and then graciously carry his queen and princess the girls back to the ship 😭

But Twilight overall was really soft in this episode and I loved it~ From his blush upon seeing Yor to the several times he gave that same soft smile when talking with/looking at her...I think Anya was right when she called him out on the ship about missing his wife 😅

I liked how the anime conveyed his shock when noticing her bruised face...what must have been his thought at that moment? 👀

The scenes of the family activities translated better in animated form in my opinion. While they were each only a single panel in the manga, they lasted a few seconds each in the anime, plus the addition of the insert song helped the with the comfy, wholesome vibe~ Also the part where Yor inadvertently chucks Anya across the ocean is still hilarious.

Loid's dorky skip at the beginning of the episode translated very well in animated form too 😅

The ending of this chapter in the manga always felt a bit rushed to me...it quickly jumps from the aforementioned scene of them returning to the ship, to suddenly being home, reuniting with Bond and Franky, having a meal together, then Twilight meeting Sylvia, all within a few panels. Even though I wish the anime added more than just some additional scenes of the ship leaving the island, I felt it flowed much better in the anime since, just like the family activities, each scene in the ending lasted a second or two instead of being a single illustration.

But I love how this chapter/episode ends, with Yor, Anya, and Bond napping while Anya draws about her family vacation. This seems to take place the next day or maybe later the same day they got home, so makes sense they'd still be tired from the trip!

By the way, the manga has this additional scene showing that Olka and company are safe. Weird that the anime didn't stick it in at some point.

Also, the anime team didn't have to go so hard with this episode's key visual but they did...and I love it 😍 Might actually be my favorite of the key visuals so far!

I was very happy to see the "surrounded by liars" panel finally animated! This is such a funny scene and a great way to fully wrap up the cruise arc.

I also burst out laughing at Yuri's locker 🤣

Damian is surprisingly laid back in this episode. I think the reason is because Anya's antics aren't directly involving him. He tends to go total tsundere only when she's actually talking to him, lol.

The new scene of Yor getting the keychains for her coworkers was a nice addition! Guess it's canon that Yor and Anya didn't sleep for the entire trip back, lol. Glad they got to spend family time on the ship too! (though I wish we could have seen Yor's reaction waking up in Loid's bottom bunk bed, haha. He must have brought her to his room since he wouldn't know where her room is. Unless she woke up before he even put her in a bed, in which case she would have been super embarrassed knowing he was carrying her around in public 😆)

Looks like next week the anime will be changing the order of things a bit and giving us the Becky home-wrecking and Fiona chapters (the latter of which seems to have some anime original content?) The Becky chapter is one of my favorite stand-alone chapters...I'm already dying of laugher thinking about it 😂

#spy family #spy x family #sxf #spyxfamily #loid forger #yor forger #anya forger #twiyor #sxf anime #becky blackbell #yuri briar

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canyourfavesurvivecastledracula · 3 months

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Can Percy Jackson survive Castle Dracula?

To cut to the chase: Yes. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that he is *insanely* well prepared for this encounter.

First off, Dracula did not invite young Mr. Jackson to the castle. Percy took a wrong turn and stumbled in there by accident while on some other quest to recover a magic doodad or stop the evil whatsit, because that's what he does! (I love that the PJO books really take the "greek adventurer wanders around and has unconnected adventures" structure to heart.) But once he's in there, Dracula is delighted to take him in as a guest--canonically, halfbloods smell delicious to monsters. Taste delicious too. Percy is exactly the kind of snack he'd get excited about.

Fortunately, Percy would be on his guard pretty much immediately. The whole "monster pretends to be a gracious host and then tries to imprison and eat you" stunt gets pulled on him about every other week. Plus he's armed with a celestial bronze sword, which is specially forged to vaporize monsters. I dunno that Dracula would follow greek myth monster rules and vaporize per se, but I think it's reasonable that Riptide would be an effective weapon against him. And crucially, Dracula can't take it it away from Percy, since it is enchanted to always reappear in his pocket no matter how it gets lost. (And extremely useful trait for an ADHD teen that I wish my belongings had.)

But it gets better. Let's go into the specifics:

The Crucifix: Percy would accept it. He's used to receiving seemingly nonsensical gifts from people that save his life later at crucial moments. Plus he knows that gods and supernatural beings are real, even though he's not christian-religious, I think he would recognize the woman's sincerity in her belief that it would protect him.

Shaving: He's too young to shave! No confrontation here.

Going exploring: He 100% would. Percy never follows directions when someone says "don't go there." I could list at least 10 examples right now of him wandering off when he's explicitly told to stay put.

The Girlies: Percy has been known get distracted by hypnosis by female monsters before, but he's pretty good at snapping out of it. I think he's likely to clock 'em as enemies pretty quickly and get his sword out, at which point he should be able to fend them off.

Climbing the wall: One of the standard training activities at Camp Halfblood is a rock wall that undergoes earthquakes and pours lava on you. I think he'll be fine.

Wolves: Small beans compared to other monsters he's fought. Plus, Percy has an empathy link with his satyr friend Grover that allows them to communicate through dreams, especially when one of them is distress. If Percy is stuck at the castle long enough, then I think by the time he gets to facing the wolves there would have been enough time for Grover to get the memo and come help him--and Grover can talk to animals! So there's a good chance he can just talk the wolves down and not even have to fight them.

But I don't think it would come that. No, I think the biggest issue Percy would face is that he would force a confrontation with Dracula MUCH soon, probably within the first few days of entering the castle. Percy isn't particularly polite, and he has a bad habit of talking back and picking fights with powerful supernatural entities that already want to whoop his ass. (He picks a fight with the God of War as an eleven year old, and that's how the series starts.) Add that to the fact that he'll already be on high alert for monsters, and I think he'll be in a flat out combat with Dracula before the roasted chicken has cooled on his plate.

Fortunately, Percy is quite the accomplished swordsman. As mentioned, I think celestial bronze would be an effective weapon against Dracula. Unfortunately, Percy won't have access to one of his biggest advantages--water! Being a son of Poseidon would be very useful given vampires' aversion to running water, but I don't think there are any sources close enough to the castle for him to call on. In extreme situations, Percy does have an Ultimate he can use to call forth the sea from within his own body, but it wipes him out pretty thoroughly, and if he used that I think he would be at risk of dying in the woods after unless his friends showed up to get him somewhere safe. But even without water powers, I think Percy would put up a very good fight against Dracula and have a good chance of making it out alive.

...there's one more wildcard which might get played in his favor, which is that the greek gods love jumping in on his quests at the last minute with some divine intervention. So even if things go south fighting Dracula, I could see some kind of literal deus ex machina showing up at the last moment to give him the last push to victory.

So yeah. Castle Dracula would end up being just one more pesky side quest. XD

Aw man I was actually going to answer this one. Buuuuut I've had all week and I didn't so I can't complain.

N.B. I have not yet seen the new TV series, so hereinafter we will be talking about the books.

I think you're absolutely right about Percy stumbling haplessly into Castle Dracula, which is a bummer because it robs us of the Calèche ride, which is our only real opportunity to have Percy use his Poseidon powers by talking to the horses. I want to see Dracula's horses chatting with each other about the fresh meat, being nervous about the wolves, changing their tone in a truly disturbing way as Dracula calms them ... and Percy sitting in the back listening in like "I'm in Danger 🙃." He may not speak Romanian, but he might well be adequately warned by the horses.

One place where I am going to disagree with you a bit is the Celestial Bronze. Monster in this setting is a technical term - a species, really. Dracula is not a Monster in the Greek Mythology sense - he's just a guy. A human born to human parents who then got upgraded. So Percy's sword isn't going to turn him to sand and return him to Tartarus, because he is fundamentally not a creature of Tartarus. Now, does Dracula count as human for Celestial Bronze purposes? Will Riptide pass harmlessly through him? Maybe not. Maybe it's still at least a long sharp piece of metal and can be weilded as such. (Of course, if he goes after Dracula at night, it'll still pass harmlessly through him, but for unrelated reasons).

I agree that he will clock the Girlies as enemies immediately - as you say, this kind of thing happens to him all the time. I am less confident than you are that he could simply snap out of a trance, something that happens neither in the novel Dracula nor, to my recollection, in the PJO books. Usually iirc he is rescued from hypnosis via some sort of outside influence - much as Jonathan is woken by the baying of dogs the second time the Girlies come after him. I feel like Percy would give us some self-effacing narration to the effect of "now you're probably thinking - why did you just lie there!? You know they're vampires! And you'd right, because I was thinking that too! But for some reason I just couldn't seem to move. Man, I hate being hypnotized." That said, attacking something that can dissolve into moonlight with a sword is a good way to get dead, so it's just as well.

I agree that he will be able to manage the wall, and yeah, once he gets outside the castle, he's a good candidate for divine intervention or just another wacky encounter. He's so good at being rescued and/or nursed back to health by things. And the more I think about it, the more the wolves being organized by Grover as a rescue is exactly the kind of thing they would pull. "Oh no, I'm being ripped apart by woooooolves~~~"

Despite his battle reflex and excellent skills, I'm not convinced Percy could best Dracula in a direct fight, but he might be able to match him well enough to fall or jump out the window and escape. Alternatively, do Percy's demigod powers let him control Dracula while in mistform?? If so, Dracula will NOT be pleases.

As for general pugnaciousness, I dunno. He does pick fights with Ares but I don't know that he'd start something with an extremely scary dude whose house he is trapped on - unless he's deliberately trying to provoke him for some advantage. He does go in for the "get the other guy so angry it makes them stupid" approach quite a lot. But I don't know if he's try that on Dracula. He might well go for the "keep your head down and try not to get murdered" approach.

Percy's Fatal Flaw (tm) is his devotion to his friends, but since they're not here that's unlikely to be a problem. His ordinary flaw is that he's stupid (affectionate) - but again that might work to his advantage here. Because he is genuinely very stupid, no one ever expects him to be clever, and he's clever enough to lean into that. If he can play dumb and keep his anger in check, he might well last long enough to escape. And as you say, Dracula has an interest in keeping him around, because he smells delicious.

So on I guess precisely opposite reasoning, Perseus "Percy" Jackson, half-blood son of Poseidon, can survive Castle Dracula

#percy jackson #pjo #avatars and demigods #children

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canonmisogynyvictimstournament · 8 months

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PROPAGANDA

PADMÉ AMIDALA (STAR WARS) (CW: Pregnancy)

1.) From the beginning, she only existed to be Anakin's love interest and Luke and Leia's mother. Although she's an important political figure in all three prequels, her characterization in being Anakin's crush/maternal figure in Phantom Menace, Anakin's love interest in Attack of the Clones, and Anakin's wife and baby mama in Revenge of the Sith. She literally dies of a broken heart when Anakin turns to the dark side in RotS, right after giving birth to the twins, because her whole purpose in that movie was to motivate Anakin's fall and be the twins' incubator. What's more, she didn't even know she was carrying twins until after Luke was born because George Lucas apparently gave no thought to what prenatal care would have been like in a universe with futuristic technology despite the whole main plot revolving around Anakin thinking Padme was going to die in childbirth. There was also a subplot cut from RotS where Padme helped found the rebellion with Bail and Mon and then goes to Mustafar to kill Anakin after he falls, but it was apparently deemed not important enough to keep.

2.) Her characterization was drastically forgotten about in the prequel films in favor of her husband's (despite her being one of three main characters in the prequel franchise). She went from queen of an entire planet to a senator of a galaxy-wide political body to dying of a broken heart. She does not question the actions of those close to her despite them contradicting her character morals (which her character was built on!!). Plus, she is rarely mentioned outside of the animated series. The show, Kenobi, doesn't even mention her name, only that she was essentially kind and brave. Also, she was not approached for a cameo in any of the largest related media while the men have.

3.) oh boy. she basically dies because apparently George Lucas doesn’t realize that women’s healthcare exists??? like you could argue that she wouldn’t have died if she just had an OBGYN. in 2/3 of the movies she’s basically just used as a tool for the main male character’s development. then there’s this whole plotline in The Clone Wars (aka TCW) series where there’s all this gross stuff with her ex who literally tries to kiss her when she’s actively saying no, then her husband proceeds to lowkey victim blame her??? it’s just so unnecessary. I could go on

BUMBLE (WARRIOR CATS) (CW: Domestic Abuse)

1.) Back with another Warriors submission, I bet you’ll be getting a lot from other people too LMAO. Bumble is a kittypet (housecat) who befriends the male protagonist Gray Wing’s girlfriend, Turtle Tail, and lets her stay in her house. This gets Gray Wing all pissy because he’s controlling of Turtle Tail and shares most of the wild/clan cat’s proclivity for looking down upon kittypets. Turtle Tail gets pregnant by another kittypet, Tom, who tries to control her by hiding the fact that humans take away kittens after they’re born. Eventually Bumble comes clean about it so Turtle Tail returns to the forest. Some time later, Bumble is found in the forest seeking refuge because Tom has been physically abusing her, scratching her where the humans can’t see. So, she’s CANONICALLY ACKNOWLEDGED as a domestic abuse victim (unlike Squirrelflight who meets all the textbook signs but the narrative and authors deny it). How do you think our good guy protagonists, i.e. Gray Wing “The Wise” and Turtle Tail, respond to an abuse victim seeking refuge? They tell Bumble to go home, thinking to themselves that she’s fat and soft and therefore would be useless in their group. Bumble stands up for herself and asks to speak with the leaders of the group. One of them asks if Bumble could just get along with Tom better (bro???) and when Bumble says it’s not within her control, the leader suggests being nicer to the humans instead. Another rival leader butts in and verbally abuses Bumble again by ripping into how fat and lazy and useless she would be. Despite Turtle Tail having been friends with Bumble and Bumble had helped her through her own hard times, to Gray Wing’s approval Turtle Tail chooses not to intervene as Bumble is forcibly escorted back to her abuser. But that’s not all. Later Bumble is found in the forest maimed and dying, and it seems likely that Gray Wing’s brother Clear Sky, a male with a long history of violence, is the culprit. Rather than mourn the dying innocent cat, Gray Wing’s primary concern is how other cats might be mean to Clear Sky if they think he’s a murderer, and reassures himself that refusing to help Bumble in her time of need was still the right decision.

2.) I have no idea how she managed to be written so horrifically from an abuse victim and woman (/she-cat I guess) standpoint but here we are. Okay so my memory is a bit fuzzy but basically Bumble was a character in Dawn of the Clans and a close friend to Turtle Tail, a major character, as well as a character who lived close to Tom, an abusive dickhead of a cat. Bumble was largely depicted as just a really sweet cat. Turtle Tail was very briefly the mate of Turtle Tail, but once she got pregnant, he became super violent towards both her and our gal Bumble. Tom actively hid the fact that, once her kits were old enough, Turtle Tail’s kits would probably be taken from her, and made Bumble keep quiet about this too, but Bumble eventually told Turtle Tail the truth, Turtle Tail left and Tom became extremely violent towards Bumble because of this, and was extremely abusive towards her. Eventually, Bumble ran away from him to where Turtle Tail and co were and begged to stay, since the wilderness as a whole was genuinely more safe than being around Tom was. Naturally, this meant kitty xenophobia from cats who had only arrived in that area recently, because everybody was insistent than, since she was a kittypet/house cat, things wouldn’t work out, and even her friend Turtle Tail denied her on this, insisted she was too soft to live in the wild and only sent her towards a cat Bumble wanted to convince because she was absolutely certain she’d be denied. Also our good old protagonist Gray Wing got to spend this scene being all upset about this soft cat wanting to join them to escape an abuser and was all bitter about the fact that Turtle Tail lived with her for a short period of time, and he also got to have a sweet romantic moment with Turtle Tail after denying an abuse victim an escape from her abuser. Also as much as I like Tall Shadow usually she sucked ass in the following scene because she was essentially telling Bumble to go find a way to make peace with Tom as if she was not the one being abused (Bumble pointed out that Tom was the one who would need to make peace for it to happen, not her) and that she should just make life better by going back to being a housecat and being spoiled despite the fact that she was actively at risk with her owners because of Tom. Then she leaves after being threatened by several cats there and is called soft on the way out. The next time she appears she is literally dying, and her death is just a plot device to create a stupid little mystery which is solved in a very stupid way. Also her abuser does continue to be a shithead and for some reason is fully permitted to kidnap his own children but he also gets a heroic death and the only reason I will not rant more about him is because this is too long already. Long story short Bumble deserves the world and everybody who decided not to let her escape her abuser just because they thought she was soft sucks

3.) Is nice to the group of starving, feral wild cats that left the mountains so their friends and family could have more food to eat and befriends one of them to the point of opening her home to her after she leaves the group because the guy she likes is too dumb to notice she likes him and keeps falling for his brother’s love interests.

Unfortunately, because Bumble is a house cat who lives in a house with people and not a Wild and Free cat, this is a grave and horrible crime (luring a wild cat into the safety and comforts of domesticity) and is villainized for the rest of the arc, including for things wildly out of her control

I.E.

Her owners taking in an aggressive male cat that bullies and abuses the two female cats already living there

When Bumble’s friend leaves and goes back to the wild cats, Bumble leaves her home (as the abuse as has gotten worse) to see if she could either get help or have her friend return so the abuse isn’t as bad again)

Bumble eventually dies in the wild because the feral cats all hate her for ‘stealing’ their friend and tricking her into becoming a kittypet for awhile and refuse to help Bumble adjust to wild life or even teaching her how to hunt.

They are littl e to no hard feelings at her death beyond 'good riddance’ but the aggressive tomcat that chased her out of her home is later regarded with good feelings and regret at such a 'good, heroic cat’ passing when he dies despite him literally never doing a good or kind thing in his life and actually causing trouble for the wild cats right before dying

#polls #round 1 #week 1 #new #cw pregnancy #cw domestic abuse

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hoooooooooot · 14 days

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Worm AU but instead of shards it's a magical girl/miraculous AU. Every power has a fucked up plushie or creature that embodies it. Instead having to make a costume the shards give you a magical girl transformation. Also the thing changed with you and your transformation with it. Let's try and come up with different new looks for the characters and have some fun with it.

Okay so I'll start with the guys who actually matter, the underseiders. I'll go easy/interesting to hard/boring.

Let's start with my boy Brian. Favorite wallflower. Now, you might be thinking "Brian would never wear frills, he can't be a magical girl" and you'd be correct. Plus, the whole point of his power is to hide him and his so he won't be too sparkly. Instead, he gets and elegant black suit with medieval armour haphazardly added on top. He looks like if a modern day bouncer in final fantasy. Also, his darkness is constantly leaking out of gaps in the armours and where it would have a feather.

As for what fucked up plushie I want to give Brian... At first I wanted to give him a pair of eyes that can only exist in the dark but then I realized that was basically just a grue. Then I realized a grue would be perfect! Yes, I'm not very creative but it is fun.

Next we have Taylor. Good old Taylor Hebert... What to do with you. See, I kind of want to give her a tapeworm that grows alongside her. Something literally eating her up inside, growing to consume more of her. To the point that she eventually puppets herself to be slightly faster than humans should be using it. The only problem is that it feels too on the nose. Eh, workshop later.

Now, what dress do we give good old Taylor... Taylor would hate wearing anything that calls attention to her, so she would probably get something lame. Boring even. A long dress with plenty of bulk and frills to hide her actual figure, some victorian era type thing. Expect as she grown into skitter the dress aquires layer for her to keep bugs in. The fold of the dress begin to resemble the layers of a hive. Or something idk.

Jean-Paul! See, this guy is interesting because I don't quite get his deal. I do think his final costume will be more or less what he wears in canon but the change form Hijack to Regent sounds fascinating. I can imagine his first transformation being more so based around his father, and either dramatically changing into canon or slowly adapting into canon until he escapes.

As for what his little animal will be... Instead of an animal I kind of want to give him an object. Be it his scepter, a crown, a series of puppets strings that wrap around him, or maybe even the ceramic mask. He's just an object kinda guy, yannow?

1/? I'll think more about this later

#parahumans #worm #wormblr

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spirintom · 15 days

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💜Sampo headcanons

Sooo... I wanted to try to wright something about characters i love so i decided to do 2 in 1 - art plus headcanons fot it

~Ordinary day in Belobog~

It's just some fluff silly headcanons. Hope you'll love it!

💜 Sampo's morning always starts not with coffee, not with social media, but with checking turnip prices in Animal Crossing.

Seriously. He doesn't worry that much about his own budget, how he keeps an eye on his bank account in the game. Sampo knows the prices for EVERYTHING: bugs, fish, fossils, fruits, etc. He sells it with incredible efficiency, but doesn't pay a single penny to Tom Nook (the merchant simply hates this raccoon, but respects him for how skillfully he can push another loan or charge money for some service).

💜 After finishing all the virtual "megaimportantyoudon’trunderstand" tasks, Sampo puts on his cozy bathrobe, slippers with Hannah Montana (even aeons don't know where he managed to dig up merchandise originally for kids of such size. His foot isn’t small after all...) and goes to bathroom. After fixing his hair, brushing his teeth, and applying a super shiny fancy mask, the merchant goes to the kitchen.

💜 Surprisingly, Sampo cooks well. Especially simple dishes.

💜 During breakfast, he always watches something. Most often it's TV series. God, I'm 100% sure that Sampo loves shows about the double life of pop stars (especially the mentioned above Montana). Romantic melodramas, cosplay videos, game reviews - that's his thing too.

💜 What he can't stand, though, is true crime videos and all sorts of creepypastas. He's really hates all that descriptions of bloody scenes, violence, and worse - rape. Sampo can't even sleep at night after that. Not that he's scared, but he feels bad inside.

💜 Later in the day, between tasks, the merchant likes to sit in some secluded spot in the upper part of Belobog and look around. It's his kind of meditation. Watching the peaceful, monotonous flow of life around him, Sampo gets distracted from his problems.

💜 People walk back and forth in the streets, clouds float in the sky, and a cool breeze blows on his face - that means everything is good, the world hasn't collapsed yet, everything can be fixed. Everything will be fine.

💜 Sampo gets especially cheered up when he sees familiar faces in the crowd. For some reason, I think he really appreciates the crew of the Star Express. And every time he sees Stella/Kelus, March 7, Dan Han, or familiar faces from Belobog, he brightens up. (well, only if it's not Gepard, coming to arrest his poor ass).

💜 At the end of the day, after playing hide-and-seek with Gepard and a couple of other guards, arguing with stubborn clients, and a bunch of other not-so-pleasant work, Sampo comes home completely exhausted. But he remembers the unsold scorpions in Crossing, the episode he missed in the morning, and drags himself first to the bathroom, and then to bed. There's a whole night ahead. Which means there's still time to goof around and dedicate time to little silliness and joys. He can still borrow energy from the next day anyway...

(sorry if there are mistakes. It's first time i'm writing on english😢)

#sampo koski #sampo #sampo headcanons #hsr sampo #hsr headcanons #honkai star rail #hsr #hsr fanart #sampo honkai #honkai star rail sampo #sampo fanart #game fanart #digital art

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drowninginredink · 23 days

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Favorite Albums: choose 9 and then tag 9 people!

For my own sanity, I didn't include musicals because I could fill up a whole other 3x3 grid with them, and comparing musicals to non-musical theater albums is weird.

Those last 4 that you definitely don't recognize are by Old Earth who you should definitely listen to if you want artsy ambient indie folk with really intricate guitar. My absolute favorite artist by far, and also the most obscure artist I listen to by far.

Electric by The Pet Shop Boys — I think this is my favorite album period. I am still pissed off that Tom Scott called it "not that great" in the old Technical Difficulties podcast. Maybe I'm biased because it was my favorite album when I was 14 and because it's where I really fell in love with the Pet Shop Boys. God I love them. So much. I'm way too excited for the new album and I worship geowayne's website where he analyzes all their songs. I probably should have put another PSB album on here, but there isn't another where I'm in love with every track. Plus honestly so many of my favorite tracks of theirs are B sides. They still release B sides with their singles, and this album cycle, the B sides are honestly better than the actual singles. Anyway electric is pure synthy electropop and I adore it in that way you can only love something you first heard at 14.

Pure Heroine by Lorde — I read a quote somewhere where Lorde said she tried to really put all of being a teenager into the album, so much so that once she became an adult, she probably wouldn't understand or like it anymore. I can definitely say that I'm not nearly as attached to it anymore now that I'm an adult, but God, it was my life when I was 13. She really did capture the unique ennui of being a teenager. I wrote a novel in eighth grade, and I wrote at least half of it to tracks from this album. Also, hot take: Royals is my least favorite track by a lot. Buzzcut Season is my favorite.

My Head is an Animal by Of Monsters and Men — God, this one was my life when I was like, 12. I fell in love with folk there, and I'm still in love nearly a decade later. Another album where I still love every track.

Strange Trails by Lord Huron — hey look, an album I actually discovered and came to love as an adult! The fact that I love Lord Huron's brand of folky horror/fantasy/western music that tell stories with characters should not surprise anyone. Also, if I had to describe my experience with schizophrenia in one song, I'd choose Meet Me in the Woods.

The Tragic Treasury by The Gothic Archies — Look. Hear me out. Is it a album based purely on A Series of Unfortunate Events? Yes. But. Is it also an album where I genuinely love every track and have genuinely been known to just throw it on shuffle? Yes. I mean I think of one lyric from this album, like, weekly. I swear it's not just ASOUE brainrot that makes me like it so much. If it'd ever gotten a vinyl release, I'd absolutely own it. I wish it had gotten one.

a low place at The Old Place by Old Earth — honestly this is probably only my favorite Old Earth album because it's the one that I was able to actually get on vinyl and being able to play that vinyl is so lovely. I mean, it's good, but so is everything by Old Earth. Then again, Less Words is my favorite single track by them and it is on this album. Look. All the Old Earth albums I've listed here are, at most, 20 minutes long. If you like ambient artsy indie folk with lyrics that are there more for the way they sound than their meaning, try one.

light shaped by Old Earth — god the lyrics to this one. Normally I don't like Old Earth for the lyrics but. "It gets old/then it's done" and "what if it's just some song that gets you home" and especially "I'm holding your arms/and you're holding my eyes/and I lie like the right thing to do" are all just so great. And so is the middle track with no lyrics.

... until they're called by Old Earth — have you ever heard an album so good that you a) just played the whole thing and danced to it in your basement nonstop for the full 12 minutes, and then b) wrote a poem about the experience? People talk about finding God, but dancing to that album was the moment I found athiesm. The beauty of us all being here for no reason, just feeling things and living and doing our best to make something beautiful out of it.

Two Torches, at a Place Where Three Roads Meet by Old Earth — I'll be honest, I don't have much to say about this one. They're just a really solid three tracks.

... Yeah okay I really like Old Earth. Don't judge me.

Thank you @cygninae and @thehistoryone for tagging me! I'll tag @ven10 (I'm surprised neither of the people who tagged me tagged you), @weirdthoughtsandideas (ditto), @70snasagay (hmmmm i wonder what you'll put), @cat-boy-tom, @thetreetzar, @buncoreclown, @notthatalex, @unfortunate-sapphic-disaster, and @roach-in-the-kitchen. No pressure, obviously!

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superfurytamago · 6 months

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Every Japanese comedy reference in Jujutsu Kaisen chapters 240 and 241

EDIT: Added one more reference to Audrey that I completely missed out when I was writing this post. Putting my self-proclaimed Japanese comedy otaku title to shame!

I was a Japanese comedy otaku way before I got into manga and anime, which is why I get way too excited whenever I spot Japanese comedy references in other forms of media. Granted, the plot is totally coherent even without knowing the references, but please indulge me as I find myself a rare opportunity to talk about Japanese comedians. All English panels are sourced from Manga Plus and Japanese panels are my own digital copies.

Preface about Japanese comedians

Japanese comedians usually form duos called "combi" in Japanese. Some may form trios or even quartets, but duos make up the overwhelming majority. Solo comedians are becoming more common, but like Takaba, most if not all of them had started out as a duo that didn't work out over time.

Nabe Nabe Entertainment and Pony

Reference to Watanabe Entertainment, a major entertainment agency in Japan. The most famous comedian group under Watanabe's management will be the comedic trio Neptune, and the above panels reference them indirectly as well.

Another talent management agency mentioned is Pony, which is a reference to Sony Music Artists Inc (SMA). Yes, they manage comedians as well lol. Agencies have distinct styles of management, which eventually shows in the type of comedians they manage. Kenjaku assumes that Takaba is with Pony because SMA has managed to propel an impressive number of solo comedians to fame despite the comparatively smaller scale of management. They also lean more slapstick than the "cooler" forms like skits and monologues. In fact, Takaba reminds me of Koume Dayū:

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Laughing Dog? Vocabula?

Both Laughing Dog (Warau Inu) and Vocabula (Vocabula Tengoku) were incredibly popular variety TV serial programmes that Neptune appeared in during the 1990s and early 2000s. Takaba admires Neptune, which is why he chooses to sign with Nabe Nabe rather than Pony, even if the latter may actually manage him better.

Kenjaku wondered for a second why Takaba didn't cite Vocabula as the reason he admires Neptune, because Vocabula was the one that gave Neptune their shot to fame, and they absolutely reached superstar levels of fame during the time. Laughing Dog came later, when they were already established as household names.

The reason why Kenjaku walked back on it with "I guess that's obvious enough" has to do with the nature of the two programmes. Laughing Dog was a sketch comedy programme like Chappelle's Show, while as the name may suggest, Vocabula focused on wordplays, puns, and parodies. Comedians were voted based on how they performed the jokes. Here's a short clip of Neptune on Vocabula:

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While here's a sketch from Laughing Dog (the second, third, and fourth green leaves members are Neptune lol):

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Of course Takaba was inspired by Laughing Dog, "I guess that's obvious enough".

Backbone! My backbone!

An actual short gag (ippatsu gag or lit. one-shot gag) by Haranishi from the duo FUJIWARA:

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It's not the first time Akutami has referenced an actual short gag in the series. Perhaps you may remember Itadori's unfortunate reunion scene at the sister school goodwill event:

This is a gag from Kojima Yoshio:

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You have my condolences, Itadori.

Comedians and auditions

Kenjaku is dressed like a stereotypical TV producer here. This dates back to Japan's asset price bubble; during which, tying a cardigan over the shoulders was a staple look among TV producers and directors. In this scene, Takaba is auditioning like he would for a part in a variety TV show. Struggling comedians like Takaba often audition for variety shows that showcase a series of comedic skits or manzai. Pass the audition and you get a spot to perform on national TV.

Comedians and theatre

Most comedians who don't get their big breaks on TV spend a large part of their careers in small theatres. A typical comedy show consists of several groups of comedians performing their skits or manzai, and the theatre will hand out feedback forms like the above. It seems like Takaba used to go by the stage name Pinchan.

P-1? C-1?

The fictional C-1 is a reference to an actual long-running competition M-1 Grand Prix, while the fictional P-1 which Takaba mentioned earlier is a reference to another competition R-1 Grand Prix. M-1 is restricted to manzai performed by two people or more, while R-1 is open to solo comedians only. There are several important annual comedy competitions in Japan. Winning these big-name competitions is usually the ticket to fame for many comedians, but even then it may not work out for everyone.

Idol shows

It has become customary to have established Japanese comedians host Japanese girl groups TV shows, and I pretty much agree with Takaba's take on why. If you're a fan of idol groups like Morning Musume, AKB48, Nogizaka46, or Idoling!!!, then you would be familiar with Japanese comedians like Ninety-Nine, Ariyoshi Hiroiki, Bananaman, and Bakarhythm.

By the way, Takaba was watching TV while eating cup noodles after the above panel. The lines are from a well-known manzai performed by comedy duo Audrey. This particular joke with them going "hehehe" at each other is a staple in their early manzai:

In fact, take a closer look at the apartment that Takaba lives in. It's based on the actual apartment Kasuga (pink vest guy on the right) used to live in, named Mutsumi-sō. His shabby apartment and extremely thrifty lifestyle had been featured in many variety TV shows in the past. He lived there for more than 20 years, and the apartment was actually quite a tourist spot for fans of Audrey. Kasuga's Japanese Wikipedia article even has a photo of it as seen below, which is what I think Akutami referenced from. The interior is largely based on Kasuga's apartment as well:

Bonus Japanese comedy!

Akutami has taken inspiration from actual Japanese comedians in the past. In chapter 153, two of the spectators look eerily like comedy duo Sandwichman:

And how can we forget Ken, the fellow comedian who gave Takaba advice in chapter 146:

He's based on Kendo Kobayashi, and if you've seen images/clips of Akutami dressed up as Mechamaru, that was when he went on Kenkoba's show:

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Wow that was long. Thanks for indulging the squealing Japanese comedy fan in me!

#superfurymusings #owarai #jujutsu kaisen #takaba fumihiko

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elfven-blog · 10 months

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All the damn vampires (2)

Leon Kennedy x F!Reader A series based on the 1987 film ‘The Lost Boys’

CW: MDNI (18+ series), Panty thieving, Making out, kind of fingering?

Word count: 1.2K

It had been over a week since you’d last seen the blonde man from before, and you curse yourself for not asking his name or giving yours. You’d been down the board walk less, having found yourself a job finally. Nothing to extravagant just playing delivery girl for the people who lived further from the town, at least it was a job you thought to yourself.

One of your customers was a unique older man who hated the town, and had a house covered in stuffed animals. The eyes freaked you out a little bit, but you could handle it for a few minutes every couple of days. Plus, the things he came out with often made you laugh, like the car in his shed that never went past the doors or his crush on the widow down the road.

You’d just finished delivering some more of groceries to him as you set back onto the journey to town, having promised the new girls you’d made friends with that you’d meet them at a diner in town. There was a grin on your face as you drove back down the hills to the beach town, it had gotten later than you had realised. Maybe you needed to get out more with your new friends rather than spending the time listening to “grandpa’s” stories. ‘Don’t be out late, who knows what wonders in the dark’ He always had the strangest and yet sanest advice.

But Claire and Rebecca wouldn’t mind you being a little late you figured. Your car finally passed from dirt road to smooth road, and your cracked your neck with a sigh as you started in the direction of the diner. Jumping a little at the sound of a motorbike growling behind you, their lights blinding your mirrors for a second before several of them rode past you. With a shake of your head and small scoff, you lifted your hand to flip them off. Assholes weren’t even wearing the right gear.

One of the bikes slowed down after another, you guess the leader, had waved them away. You swallow the fear building in your throat. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to retaliate. As the bike slowed to your side of the car, your eyes stayed focused in front of you, ignoring the rider as they used their horn. It wasn’t until you saw them lift their hand in the corner of your eye, a familiar jacket and pins moving into your eyes sight and the rider waved to try and get your attention that you turned.

His blonde hair plastered to his head as he rode his back, both hands back on the handles. That grin on his lips and mischief in his blue eyes. Your eyes lingered on his gloved hands a little too long, the way they wrapped around the handles and his thumb tapped on the bar providing a distraction before you smiled at him and turned your eyes back to the road. He revved his bike as he moved to ride in front of you, and your mind wondered at the sight of his broad back in that jacket.

His arm moved from the handlebar to point to your left, his indicator lighting up. Guess he wanted you to follow him…and you turned on your own indicator. Following as he turned into a small, darkened layby, and you suddenly found it strange that there wasn’t an ounce of nerves in your body. There should be, you reasoned, he is stranger.

But the thought doesn’t stop you from turning your engine off and watching the lights on his bike dim as he gets off the sleek vehicle, or how your eyes fall down his back and legs before moving to watch his face as he turns to walk towards you. His hands on the top of your car as he bent down to look at you through the window, eyes blue like you remembered and hair just a gold as it was on the beach. You wind the window down; it almost sticks halfway.

“Hi” the only word you are able to whisper in the night as he grins at you, his other hand moving to open your door and you let him. Unbuckling your seatbelt and sliding out the car to stand beside him as you do, the blonde moves caging you in between him and the car. Mischief in his smile.

“Hi” his voice is exactly as you remember too, and it feels like its been longer than a week, “Leon, by the way…we didn’t exactly introduce ourselves last time” the words bring your own smile to your face as you shrug and tell him your own name. He repeats it and it sounds like honey from his mouth, you had never realised how pretty your own name sounded until that moment.

The both of you stayed like that for a moment, and then something changed in his eyes and the air around you seemed to crackle with electricity as he bent his head down. His lips pressing to yours, colder than you’d thought they’d be…not that you’d thought about them often. A little cracked too. One of his hands moved to hold you waist as you kissed him back. You seemed to kiss for hours, but most likely it was minutes, until your lungs burned for oxygen and if your eyes weren’t closed you were sure you’d see the black tint at the edges of your vision.

Then and only then did he pull away. And you sucked deep breaths in, he didn’t seem to, probably didn’t take his breath away in the same vein. He waited a moment before diving back in, his tongue licking into your mouth this time. You let him. Hands grabbing at his jacket as you kissed him back, tongue exploring his own. He kissed you until there was drool on your chin, and you were messy.

And when Leon pulled away this time that same saliva connected you before popping as he moved his head to leave wet kisses on your jaw and neck, his tongue soothing along the skin and you could feel his teeth graze. That sent your heart racing. His hand moved to ghost across your chest, palming at your tits below the top you were as his other hand moved from your waist and lower. You should stop him, but you wouldn’t.

His fingers trace along your thigh, moving the hem of your dress up. Your head leans back against the car hands still bawled in his jacket as you tug him closer, eyes open and constantly checking at the road for signs of anything. Worry creeping in your veins, and yet the idea fuels you further too. Slick gathering in your panties at the idea of someone driving past, and you feel his grin press into your neck.

When his fingers finally make contact with the wet fabric a low whine sounds between you, he swallows it by kissing you again. Fingers playing with you over the fabric before he moves them and pulls your panties off. Stuffing them in his pocket. Your brows furrow as he moves away from you. “Just in case we don’t see each other for another week” his voice teases you as he makes his way back to his bike, leaving you there again.

Worse than last time. There’s slick still gathering between your thighs, but this time there’s nothing stopping it from coating your thighs and as you sit back in your car you can’t help the uncomfortable feeling of it sticking to the seat. Your mind races with excuses to tell Claire and Rebecca. You hope this time it doesn’t take a week for you to see Leon again.

#leon s kennedy #Leon Kennedy #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy re4 #leonkennedysmut #leon s kennedy x reader #leonkennedy x f!reader #Leon kennedy x female reader #leon x reader #resident evil #resident evil x reader #all the damn vampires

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stemmmm · 2 months

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Stem's Thoughts on Harvest Moon 64

(that other title's too long so i'm cutting it down now)

Harvest Moon 64 opens on a scene of your character walking around the street, speaking to everyone in the village who’s come to the event. You quickly piece together that this event in question is actually your grandfather’s funeral, the same grandfather who’s farm you’re about to take over. This little scene beautifully sets up both the tone of the game, and immediately shows the player that this iteration is far more focused on the story and characters. HM64 tells a story about the lives of many people in a small, dying town. It is a story about life, and it is a story about death.

A short disclaimer before we dig in: I played this game before the idea to write these essays cropped up, and have not replayed it since then, so this will be mostly vibes. I will try to do my research to make sure I’m not straight up lying though. (Also all of the images in this one are from google because I don't have a means of getting images from my N64 other than photographing the tv screen and I'm not doing that.)

What’s new!

HM64, also called Harvest Moon 2 by HMGB2 and nothing else I’ve ever seen, is the direct sequel to HM SNES. It’s not a sequel in the usual way sequels are, where you’re continuing where you left off with the same character, but in that every main character is the descendant of their equivalent in the previous game. It’s not important to the story, in fact if you don’t already know this, you probably wouldn’t notice anything past some similarities. I played this game before I tried out SNES and it still took me a minute, plus having it directly pointed out to me to get it. Maybe I’m oblivious, who knows.

Gameplay-wise, this iteration is home of a few series firsts: For one, your house can be upgraded to have a kitchen! You can't cook though, only collect recipes. You can also get a greenhouse where you can grow crops year-round. Sheep are introduced as barn animals that produce wool. You receive a fishing rod you can use whenever you want, but as far as I understand, the timing is nigh impossible unless you’re playing on a CRT (I am not, and never managed to catch a single fish). There’s a mine you can access in winter for something to do while you can’t grow crops (there are fall crops, but not winter) where you can find about two key items and garbage otherwise. Tool upgrades are no longer done by magic, but by leveling them up through use! Which I think is very neat and feels very natural, like you’ve just become more proficient with them as a farmer through practice. Characters can now come to visit you on the farm at random times, for either special story events or just to say hi! Your farmer can get sick from working too hard in bad weather, just like your animals, and there’s now medicine for that, just like your animals. And there’s inventory menus that I'll discuss at better length later.

What’s the same is… Most things in a basic sense. You’re on a farm with a dog, planting crops, raising livestock. You can make friends with folks in town by talking to them and giving them gifts. The livestock mechanics, as far as I could see and as far as I’ve been able to understand from online forums, are exactly the same as they were in SNES, the exception being there’s no wild beasts that can kill your animals but they’ll still get sick if they aren’t fenced overnight– and they’re not going to eat any grass unless they’re out overnight anyways.

As for your farm, you’re set up with the usual: a small house, a barn, coop, and fodder silo, a wood bin to store debris cleared off your farm, and a big messy field that you have to clean up before you can properly use it. It starts with three new additions though; a doghouse, a bowl that you can feed your dog with by putting edible items in there, and a mailbox that you’ll occasionally receive letters and notices in! They’re small additions, but very, very charming. The one thing that’s been removed is the toolshed, now replaced by a tiny toolbox by your house.

The world outside your farm is like an enhanced version of the SNES map. Imagine the town and forest now have one or two extra sections tacked onto them, one in the town for some extra housing, and a couple in the forest to let you explore the mountain more and get you deeper into the woods. The mountain still has a cave in it (this time with Harvest Sprites, who have been removed from your farm) and a summit you can climb to for certain events, but it has been upgraded with little wild animals that wander around and can be picked up and shown to people for a few friendship points, if they like the animal. (This applies to your dog too, there’s a well known exploit to max out Karen’s friendship in one day by repeatedly showing it to her in the bar where time is stopped.) The crossroads zone is also expanded by having three new areas you can travel to– the ranch that you buy animals at, a vineyard that’s more of a story-area, and a beach that mostly comes into play for a couple of summer festivals!

On the visual side, this game is the series’ first venture into the new frontier of 3d graphics… kind of. The artstyle is made of isometric 3D models that are rendered into flat sprites and then projected onto the TV as if that’s not what’s happening. The game even lets you turn your farm around in 3D to face different directions, but it’s locked to only let you play in specific angles. Changing the direction made me forget where everything was and get lost on my own tiny farm, so I never touched that mechanic.

Due to the dramatic artstyle shift– not only being in 3D but also presented at a 45 degree angle, the game becomes a fair bit harder to play than either of its 2D predecessors. The controls are just a little clunky, and the bizarre shape of the N64 controller really doesn’t help. This makes the tedium of farming a little irritating to do, since it requires pretty precise inputs done over and over for every extra thing you’re trying to grow. Fortunately, you're not on the hook to ship everything before 5PM comes around like in SNES, so you get to move a little bit slower. The fickle farming experience also gets a little help from the new inventory menu that can be accessed anywhere and any time. It has multiple inventory slots for both tools and items, each type having a dedicated section so there’s no need to prioritize carrying tools versus turnips. Unfortunately, this actually ends up being a little more cumbersome than useful, as the menu takes a little longer than is comfortable to open and is pretty clunky to use. I mostly avoided it unless I was bringing gifts to people. But the addition of an inventory opens up the opportunity for something else which defines this entire game...

Key items– a set of unique, unsellable items –are most frequently found in random, secret places around the farm and town, and they give you a reason to scour every inch of the place. They can also be given to you by NPCs when you gain relationships with them, which is convenient because their entire purpose is to help you get even better relationships with each of them, and maybe even unlock little stories with characters. For example, there’s a music box you can dig up in your field that can be given to any of the girls for a decently sized relationship bump. There’s also an old weathervane in the shape of a chicken that you can find in the little mine. If you give it to Rick, he’ll tell you that it was a precious thing that belonged to his grandmother as a cute scene to deepen the town’s lore and connect it to the first game. Key items quickly become the most important and sought after things in the game because they act as a vessel to deliver that which the game is all about: stories.

Lots of people in a little town

The narrative premise is exceedingly simple: you need to fix up your grandfather’s ruined farm and make a new life for yourself in this town within a certain amount of time, just like its predecessors. Except, this game is a lot bigger than either of them, and it didn’t fill all the extra space with new things to grow on your farm. In my entry on the SNES game, I mentioned that the introspective style of writing turned the repetitive farming gameplay into something more like meditation on things going on in the town. This game takes that idea and runs with it! The town in this game may only be slightly bigger than it was before, but it has a lot more people in it, and every single one of them has a lot more to say, more to do, more festivals to go to, and more story events to take part in. There's even a new photo album that fills in with images for reaching special events or succeeding at certain festivals! Your given goal may be to successfully revitalize your farm, but that rapidly stops being the reason why you want to play. Farming is only a means to further the narrative of the town.

Story events are no longer a reward for reaching the highest heart level with a girl, but instead something that happens naturally in the world as you make better friends with people, or if you just happen to be in the right place at the right time. The world doesn’t only consist of you living it and things happening to you. Instead, you end up being a fly on the wall to other people’s conversations and life events, and you get to see how those events change the people around you. People will begin to say different things, go different places, live different lives without your input at all– often much better lives, as everyone in the town is pretty deeply troubled, whether they seem like it or not.

There’s an added depth, too. While the characters in this series have always been defined by their conflicts (in the first game, every big cutscene with each girl was exclusively about their major life conflicts), this game takes it further in multiple ways. Characters have conflicts with their families: you as the player have a conflict with your parents who can take you home if you fail to farm well, Lillia and Basil have conflict over their marriage and the fact that Basil leaves for half the year, and Karen’s family situation is…. A lot. Then, there are characters at conflict with things much more nebulous, like the Mayor who tells you that the town is going to die out but he can’t find any way to save it, or like the young boy Kent who wants to be a farmer just like you, but through a series of events is forced to learn that life isn’t so simple, people can’t just do whatever they would like, and it takes very hard work to get to do the things you dream of. And then there are conflicts that aren’t even necessarily conflicts unless they run into your long-term plans.

Instead of only having a bunch of girls in town who exist only as your prospective marriage candidates, there are also five boys in the town who will marry those girls instead of you, if given the chance. Like in SNES, there are 5 levels of hearts that the girls can have for you. Unlike SNES, each one of these hearts has a corresponding event you can have with the girl where there’s a chance of her liking you more afterwards, if you say the right things. In addition to that though, there are just as many events coming from the other side of the story, rival events that trigger if you happen to be good friends with the boys.

My favorite story by far is that of Harris the mailman who falls in love with the librarian, Maria, from just seeing her handwriting on the outside of all the letters that she would write. I frequently saw him in the bar at the end of the day and he would tell me the woes of his love, saying that he just needed to work up the courage to finally speak to her. Then one day, I happened to be outside of the library when he and Maria met face to face and she handed over a letter addressed to him. No longer did he sit in the bar forlorn every night, instead all he would do was excitedly tell me about Maria, and then when I visited the library, Maria would tell me about Harris!

While I’m on the subject of these characters, I think it’s worth going in a little more depth on who these people are past the grandchildren of the characters from the last game. See, you may be familiar with names like Karen and Kai and Gray, etc., etc. from a little recently remade game called Story of Seasons: Friends of Mineral Town, which is a modern version of Friends of Mineral Town on the GameBoy Advance, which is a port of Back to Nature on the PlayStation. These are not those characters. At all. While the basic elements of these characters are intact– Popuri is cute and childish, Ann is a workaholic, Maria is shy and a little oblivious –nothing else is the same. They all work different jobs and marry different people than they are paired with in later entries, and in my humble opinion, it all works WAY better in this game, probably because of the fact that these characters were designed for this specific context!

As an example, Popuri’s exasperated mother, Lillia, runs the flower shop and Popuri was named by her father, Basil, who loves plants. She’s childish and sweet and loves flowers, but can also be a complete brat. She eventually marries Gray, Ann’s brother, who lives on the ranch run by his father, Doug, who struggles to understand his children. Gray is an angry young man who seems to have a particular dislike for you, but you don’t learn why until you discover he was a promising young jockey until he got a bad injury and had to give up the sport.

Am I gushing a bit and letting the game design part fall to the wayside? Sure probably, but I can only gush because the game does a brilliant job of making a cast of characters who, while simple on their own, have interconnected lives that come together to give every one of them so much more depth than they would have otherwise. It all builds a narrative, and while narrative design is definitely something different than game design on its own, this game is far more about the narrative so it’s impossible to not focus on.

The problems

The trouble with these events is that I nearly missed the chance to see that letter be exchanged. You have some control over the progression of the events, because you have to be decent friends with the boys in order for them to trigger at all, but unlike the girls who have a handy visual signal of how much they like you, the boys have no such thing, so you can’t really know if a new event is ready to fire off. There’s no way of knowing where or when they’ll happen either unless you look it up, and even then you have to get lucky because sometimes they just don’t trigger when you want them to. I had a lovely moment in my game where I managed to accidentally catch a cold from working too hard in the snow and lost a day to being bedridden, followed by the New Years celebration which takes a day away from you, then followed by Kai and Karen’s wedding– something that I had missed multiple events for and therefore had no idea was coming, which also took a day from me. After that three day chain of no work, I think I was extremely lucky my animals didn’t get sick and die.

This chain of events led directly to me never speaking to Gray again, even though he was the boy I was most interested in, because I wanted to marry Popuri and there was too much risk of him getting to her before I could. The reason why I didn’t go into more detail about the relationship between those two when I was talking about them earlier is because I straight up don’t know it, I couldn’t risk giving them a chance to get together.

The thing is, even if I hadn’t forced Gray and Popuri’s cutscenes to stop, I still wouldn’t actually know what their relationship is like, because I have not beaten this game. I know what the ending entails and I can reasonably expect I probably would not have gotten an excellent one, but I’m sure it still would have been fine. I stopped playing the game entirely before I even managed to get married. Why? Because I couldn’t get any of Popuri’s heart events to trigger. I had her hearts maxed out and had a blue feather ready to go in my pocket, so I could turn on the game and marry her right away anytime I wanted to. But I wanted to trigger the little events, even if they’re just a couple seconds of some pixels talking to me on a screen. They’re cute. And it made me sad that I couldn’t see them for some imperceptible reason. So I stopped playing and didn’t pick the game back up.

I don’t remember how close I was to the end of the game, I know I was at least in year 2, but I don’t even remember how much longer the game is after that. Probably a good amount. I had definitely gotten most of the events you could get at this point, since multiple other characters had gotten married, and the farming wasn’t something I really enjoyed so I can’t say I wasn’t at least a little bored by this point, but I wasn’t frustrated with the general mechanics of the game. The days were long enough, but not too long, that I had just enough time to go anywhere I wanted and do what I needed before night came. I could still talk to characters and go to festivals and play minigames. But I didn’t want to, because the game wasn’t doing what it seemed like it was supposed to for some arbitrary reason and that frustrated me enough to make me stop. When the fun of a game is found more in experiencing special events rather than anything else, the player feels cheated out of their good time when those events are too hard to find or can be missed outright, and that’s exactly what I experienced.

Parting Thoughts

The ending, according to what I've read, is very similar to the SNES endings, in that you’ll get different results based on all of the different things you’ve done. Whether you’re married, how many crops you shipped, how many animals you have, how well liked you are by the town… I imagine it’s not quite the victory lap that SNES’s ending was with its little cutscenes, since apparently all you get are comments on how well you performed by various people in the town, but it still seems nice and rewarding! At least like more of a reward than whatever the hell GB1 was trying to do. It seems like a perfectly good ending that it would be nice to see myself someday.

Despite all my troubles with this game, I believe HM64 is still the best one out there– at least that I’ve played yet. The events are plentiful and the content is meaty. The repetitive day to day dialogue still has the simple breath of life that SNES did, that manages to make the most out of a small amount. Don’t get me wrong, this game came out in 1999, I’m giving it a lot of praise but the characters still repeat the same line to you every day, and they still freeze in place until you leave the room. It’s revolutionary, but this is comparing it to a game on the literal Super Nintendo. Absolutely pick up this game to try it out, but keep those expectations tempered. That said, I never picked up this game nor knew a thing about it until I was well into my 20’s, but the moment I started playing, it hit me with a wave of nostalgia as if I’d known this game my whole life. At least to me, the look and feel of the game were like coming home to a childhood I never had.

Will I pick up this game again with the intent to beat it? Maybe! Hard to say for sure when I’m trying to play decades worth of games and write about them at a comprehensive level. What I do know is that this is exactly what I want more farming games to be. It’s a game that has thoughts about life, and about death, both good and bad. And I think this is the perfect context to share those thoughts.

#hm posting #harvest moon #story of seasons #harvest moon 64 #hm64 #m.txt

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badass-queer-couples-battle · 2 months

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Sword gays showdown, round 3 of bracket one

Propaganda:

For Alucard:

He has a sword that he can command to fly around. He's bisexual. He's depressed. He's both the direct opposite of his father and too much like him. He's part of the most disastrous polycule to ever exist. He's a jerk. I love him, he's very important to me.

Symphony of the Night has too much of a cultural impact to not have him be included here. He’s an aroace icon with a huge sword collection (he’s bisexual in the animated series). He has a flying sword familiar and a sword he can hold in his hands. Loves taking naps.

For Zoro:

Literally training to be the greatest swordsman in the world. Has a special three swords technique (one blade in each hand plus one with the handle held in his teeth). I haven't read the manga or watched the anime but the live action adaptation gives me extremely gay vibes and based on the fandom things I've seen I'm not the only one

bro uses three swords. has one in his mouth. dont ask how the HELL he manages that. one day he will be the worlds greatest swordsman....after he beats the current greatest for both the titles of greatest swordsman and fruitiest swordsman. he's dramatic as FUUUCK like bro what the hell. has homoerotic fights with the local twink like everyday. directionally challenged, can and will get lost in a paper bag, doesnt know left from right...he probably cant read, too. hes too silly ngl

First of all, im in like episode 250 and so far he hasnt been shown attracted to any woman at all during the whole show so far, not even when one changed clothes in the same room as him and this is anime so you know there were other characters with bloody noses and shit. With that out of the way he wields three swords at once [two in his hands, one is his goddamn mouth dude. Its cool af trust me.] When he was little he made a promise to his best friend that he'd be the best swordsman in the world. Later she died in a tragic accident and left her sword which he still uses today. He also carries a cursed sword but he overpowers the curse with a combination of skill and sheer luck. He got stuck in a chimney. While his crewmates sail their ship he takes naps. He learned how to cut through metal by fighting a guy who could turn his body into metal blades. That's metal. He refuses to fight this liberal marine officer because she looks like his childhood best friend and its just understandably really awkward for him. He's autistic. He's a he/him bisexual lesbian. He's a gay man. He's ace/aro. He's whatever you want him to be babey!!

he has 3 swords, wields one in his mouth sometimes, his dream is to be the greatest swordsman in the world

three swords and big aroace-spec gay vibes

He not only has a sword he has *three* swords. He's absolutely gay there's no way to see this man as straight. Also one time he licked his sword for no reason and that was really funny to me so I had to mention it

Look, this man thinks about three things: Swords, His Captain, and Booze. He’s on a quest to be the worlds greatest swordsman. The Live action has a scene where he declares his undying, unwavering loyalty to his captain WHILE reaffirming his promise to be the worlds greatest swordsman. At this point His dream and his Captain are so intertwined it’s crazy. Man is so sword-y he’s got three of them. When one of his swords broke he carried its empty scabbard until he was able to give it a SWORD FUNERAL. He hears a sword is cursed and takes that as a challenge. He will literally tell his swords off for “bad behavior” when they “act up” due to being straight up cursed. He tests one by throwing it in the air and sticking his arm out to see if it is so blood thirsty and ill tempered that it will cut him. Even though he’s literally the first mate if you ask him what his role is he’s going to answer Swordsman.

He's dedicated his life to two things: becoming the greatest swordsman in the world and his captain, Luffy.

He mastered the three sword style. Its his style. It would've been more swords but he could only fit one sword in each hand and one in his mouth. He wants to be the world's greatest swordsman, a deal he made with his childhood best frenemy (before she died falling down the stairs). He thought he was All That at the start and was almost completely decimated by the actual Worlds Greatest Swordsman. Now, after two years forced training with that guy, he's probably in the top tier no-doubt, and honestly could already be the best but we just don't know for sure yet. Also, did I mention: he's got the whole demon/devil imagery going on at times. And he has absolutely no sense of direction! plus is a total softie when it comes to Chopper and all the children who somehow gravitate towards him. And he loves naps!

One of the guy's main goals in life is to be the best sword fighter and he fights with three swords which I think is telling enough of his skill.

#sword gays showdown #castlevania #castlevania netflix #alucard #castlevania alucard #one piece #roronoa zoro

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luciddaydreamsstuff · 26 days

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Desert Duo Doodles! I am in way too many fandoms to count, including content creators and whatnot. It wasn’t until a doodle of some CCs that I realised how many were MCYTs. But I wanted to draw these two cause I liked how I drew Scar in the other original doodle and have drawn Grian a bunch but constantly changed the design. Now I have one that I like.

Under the cut are the individual drawings plus stickers that I forgot to add to the original but decided fuck it it’s done, plus some explanation about design choices and headcanons. (Does anyone even care about that?) Idk and idc, I’ll ramble anyways.

(you don’t have to read the stuff, I don’t really care, but you can if you want)

First off, this one was annoying since it was supposed to be a hug. I was too lazy to draw the Third/Sercet Life outfits, so they are in their default outfits with crowns representing the fact that they won at least one of the Life games.

Ramble: For Grian’s design, I wanted to keep the bird/avian hybrid but also reference other series or past friend. The Life series has the poppy has memorabilia, the blue and red bracelet represents YHS/TS, and the eye necklace is for Evo. The tail is more so a mix of Watcher magic and Avian DNA, bird feet cause why not. The wing ears are hidden to look similar enough to his regular hair, I like to imagine that wing ears are a rarer trait and to not draw too much attention, he would use Watcher magic to change the colour of the wing ears to match his hair. The freckles are based off of the idea that Angel Dust’s freckles are actually just eyes (which were shown in the show), and I liked that idea. He didn’t have freckles before Evo but after in Hermitcraft he did, they are just eyes that are always closed though he can see out of them. It’ll be clearer in the next piece, but his eyes are based off of some bird eyes so a black sclera with coloured pupils. Grian just hides his eyes under his hair since they are more sensitive than normal. Also I didn’t wanna draw his eyes cause it was one of the things I kept changing before.

I’ll go into Scar later since it’s just a half body but he goes by the same rule of his outfit showing where he’s been. So the poppy and lavender for Third Life and the heart necklace for Secret Life. The earrings are based off of the crystals from Season 7.

Alter Egos! Or at least Hot Guy and Arianna Griande. Not much here, but you can see what I meant with the eyes beforehand.

Also, I can’t be the only one to notice or at least point out that Ari and Cute Guy have like the same or a least a very similar colour palette of pink and white.

Final one, and the two are taking a much needed nap. This could take place anywhere though I like to imagine somewhere in Double Life or somewhere between Season 7 - 10

(also I find it very funny how close these two’s bases were for Season 6 - 10. both were near each other in the futuristic district of season six, then next door neighbours at the start of season seven, I don’t need to mention much besides boatem in season eight, again near the start and most of season nine with Scarland and Grian’s timejump build, then finally again in season ten with Magic Mountain. just funny to me for some reason)

Ramble: Scar is like a hybrid between an elf/fae creature and a cat centaur (that I cannot remember the proper name for). The cat half is based off of Jellie, RIP, and his body is scarred because well I mean the dude is accident-prone it’s bound to happen. I imagine that Scar would wear slightly baggy outfits, like they hang off just a bit to not hug his figure. His hair is more based off of Season 9 with him leaning into the whole elf aesthetic, and I both hate and like the hair but whatever. Idk, I kinda just wanted to make him centaur based cause that visual isn’t something I see often. I imagine that hind legs are weaker than the front so he would switch between a cane and a wheelchair that you would see for animals. I might draw that later idk, but yea

If you actually took the time to read this incoherent mess, idk comment a content creator you like, no matter how niche they may be

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kit-kat-katie · 10 months

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Morning, Sunshine

A/N: Apologies for disappearing for two and a half months - life has been pretty chaotic and I’ve just been along for the ride as of late. I’m done writing for the Hunger Games for a bit - I have a small reaction idea for Obey Me plus I’m going to be ambitious and try to write something for Ryujin before the Itzy comeback, but we’ll see how far that ambition gets me. If you’re interested in a part two, however, send an ask or let me know in a reblog and I’ll happily move it up on my priority list.

TW: Ends on a cliffhanger, reader’s got some literal nerves and a serious case of obliviousness, canon-typical politics

Pairing: Finnick Odair x Reader (platonic but eventually grows to be romantic and slightly one-sided... for now :] )

Summary: A loving nickname given by your mentor when you were a tribute causes a butterfly effect that leads you back into the 75th Hunger Games as a much wiser person. This time, you realize that your affections for Finnick are more than platonic, but is it too late?

(<- Previous Part | Next Part -> | Series Masterlist)

A simple nickname - that’s all it was supposed to be.

Your fellow District 4 tribute, as you were soon to learn, wasn’t a morning person. The morning after you arrived in The Capitol, you were greeted with the sound of the tribute loudly cursing out your mentor, Finnick.

What a lovely way to start your day.

You sleepily sigh before rolling over in the all-too-comfortable silk sheets provided by the Capitol. When you heard a knock on your door, you mumble an incoherent “Come in,” before sitting up in bed.

“Morning, Sunshine,” Finnick’s saccharine voice floated to your eardrums, “Did you sleep well?”

“Better than they did.” You vaguely gesture to your fellow tribute, who you can see rubbing their eyes before nearly bumping into a wall.

He chuckles softly with his blonde waves of hair bouncing in the air.

“C’mon, we’ve got a busy day ahead of us.”

Finnick taps the doorframe and offers you a warm smile before departing to round up the other tribute.

You manage to pull yourself out of bed and get ready for the day - the Hunger Games aren’t going to fight themselves, after all.

You weren’t sure when you grew close to Finnick, but it happened very suddenly. Despite his young age, he was a victor of the Hunger Games, and as charismatic as sin. The smiles spread wider, the stories became longer, and you became a strong competitor out of the pool of tributes.

Something Finnick had coached the District 4 tributes on, besides survival skills and fighting, was presentation and image.

“Be yourself, and if that’s not the image that the Capitol wants,” Finnick offers a not-so-secretive glance to your fellow tribute, which causes you to snicker under your breath, “perhaps being someone else for a few days isn’t a terrible idea.”

Interviews made you nervous - especially when it could be the last time that your loved ones saw you in your best clothes before they had to bury you a few weeks later. Caesar Flickerman did his best to make all of the tributes feel comfortable, but as your turn approached, you couldn’t help calm the nausea in your stomach.

When your name is called, you calmly walk onto the dazzling stage where Capitol citizen gawk at you like you are an animal on display. You nervously blink and approach Caesar, who offers you a smile.

You find yourself stumbling over your words and blinking a lot, but the crowd seems to enjoy the display that you’re putting on. You can’t tell if they’re mocking you or not, but they’re eating every word up.

You start to tell stories of your youth, your experiences in District 4, and finally, with the story of how you woke up a few mornings ago.

“I quite like the name Sunny, it suits you.” Caesar says as you smile. “Don’t you agree?”

When he gestures to the crowd, they go wild as a brighter smile rests on your face.

“Thank you, Caesar, it’s been a pleasure.” You shake his hand before waving to the crowd.

“No, Sunny, the pleasure is all mine.”

Finnick genuinely smiles at you with proudness shining in his eyes as Mags hugs you.

“All you’ve got to do now is keep up that ‘good kid’ image for the entire Hunger Games - think you can do that, sweetheart?”

Your stomach does a flip, but the nerves from your interview earlier in the evening are still making your head buzz and your stomach queasy, so you can’t tell why you react that way.

“I think I can manage.”

The Capitol’s Darling Little Sibling.

Sunny.

Those names had completely erased the one you had used before entering - and later, winning - the Hunger Games. Luckily, your involvements with the Capitol were limited to charity events and special galas, so you didn’t come home with the sour look that Finnick had on his face after he visited the Capitol.

You and Snow had an agreement - if you continued this charade for the rest of your life, you’d be free to live as a Victor and enjoy life post-Hunger Games.

After the announcement of the 75th Hunger Games happened, you nearly came storming into the Capitol to tell President Snow a piece of your mind.

Annie Cresta’s screams from a house over still haunt your memory, even though Finnick was there to comfort her. You didn’t want to bother them, so you found yourself in the company of Mags with a wine glass in your hand.

“I can’t-,” You pause before shaking your head, “I can’t let Annie go through that again. She won’t be able to come back to us.”

Mags takes your hand and points at herself with the other. Tears glisten in your eyes as you set aside your wine glass and take both of her hands in yours.

“I can’t let you go in either, Mags. It has to be me.”

You press your head against Mags’, and she combs through your hair with one hand as you look into your eyes. The same thought lingers in your brain as she pulls away from you.

“This stays between you and I, okay?”

Mags imitates closing her mouth with a lock before throwing away a key, and you laugh.

“You get me, Mags - I hope I have more moments to spend with you in the future.”

“Annie Cresta.”

You watch Annie nearly crumble to the ground with a hand over her mouth, so you take Mags’ hand with your left and raise the other hand in the air.

“I volunteer as tribute!”

The crowds screams and whoops as you let go of Mags’ hand and glance towards Annie. The relief is unspoken between you two, so you simply nod before approaching Finnick.

“Please tell me you’re not mad.” You mumble under your breath as you take his hand in yours.

His hands are warm, soft, and, more importantly, what you shouldn’t be focusing on in this very dire moment.

“I had a feeling it would be you,” He softly answers before raising your hand in the air along with his, “but hopefully you won’t have to kick my ass in the arena.”

You stifle a laugh as the crowd roars and chants your names together.

“The Girl on Fire is pretty hot to the touch, huh?” You tease Finnick as he climbs back into the carriage with you. “Not everyone is susceptible to your charms, after all.”

He nudges your shoulder before offering you a sugar cube.

“Does that include you?”

You bite your lip before smacking his bare shoulder.

“Don’t get any ideas, pretty boy,” You jokingly say, “you need to focus on the Hunger Games, first and foremost.”

“So you’re going to charm Katniss Everdeen?” Finnick chuckles as you chew on the sugar cube that he hands you. “Good luck, then.”

“I think you’ll find that I can charm anyone and everyone, including you, Finnick.”

In the training room, you keep to yourself, your fish hooks, and your thoughts as you tie a knot to secure the hook to your makeshift bobber.

You were let in on a revolutionary and, if you were being frank, one-in-a-million chance of escaping the hell that you’re currently trapped in. It involved one mission - getting Katniss Everdeen out of the games in one piece.

That, unfortunately, would be impossible unless someone could manage to gain her trust and-

“It’s beautiful.”

Katniss’ voice breaks you from your thoughts, and you shyly move so she can see what you’re working on.

“I saw you volunteer for that girl - it was really brave.” She continues as you feel her gaze study your every movement.

“We put ourselves through the worst torture for the ones that we care about.” You wistfully say before offering Katniss a welcoming smile.

“But Prim was my sister-“ She pauses, noticing the way your eyes soften, before continuing, “Can you… can you teach me how to make a fish hook like that, and I’ll teach you how to hunt?”

You bow your head in shame for a moment.

So she saw me struggle with hunting in my own games…

You look up before nodding.

“The devil’s in the details,” You move aside once again so she can get a better look, “so you need to pay close attention, alright?”

“She trusts you,” Haymitch says in between drinks of whiskey, “so the only problem you have to deal with is keeping her arrows from making their way into Finnick’s chest.”

“She can’t be that bad, right?”

Haymitch chuckles under his breath.

“Just keep an eye on her, and I’ll do what I can.”

“Sunny?”

“Finnick.” You sleepily mumble before gently moving to make room on the couch.

“You should be sleeping.”

“Too much to think about.”

You hear him sigh before settling into the cushion next to you.

“Are you worried about-“

“Is it that obvious?” You look over at Finnick as he teasingly smiles at you.

“You never could hide anything from me, sweetheart.”

Your stomach fills with nerves, but you’ve been on edge from the idea of going back into the arena, so you brush off the notion that you may be in love with-

“Just promise me that you’ll be safe.” You slide your hand next to his, and without any hesitation, he takes your hand and gives it a slight squeeze.

“For you?” He chuckles softly before looking away, “Always.”

You pull your stylist into a warm hug as they tearfully wish you the best. They’ve been styling you since you first arrived in the Capitol years ago, and a part of you will miss the people who helped you be Sunny while working for the Capitol.

I can’t think about that right now.

You pull your head back into the games as you step on the pedestal that’ll put you into the arena.

You’re nervous for Peeta and Katniss - you can’t imagine how scared literal teenagers are about facing off against seasoned adults - but a part of you worries for Finnick as well. He’s a vulnerable person underneath the charisma, charms, and flirting, and if the Capitol gets ahold of him, you’d-

You wouldn’t let that happen. You’d happily put yourself in harm’s way if it meant that Finnick would be safe.

In that moment, you remember why they call you Sunny: you’re warm and protective, especially towards the ones that you love.

Love.

You do love him.

And then the pedestal shoots you into the arena.

#THG #thg finnick #thg x reader #The Hunger Games #the hunger games fanfic #the hunger games x reader #the hunger games fluff #finnick odair #finnick imagine #finnick x reader

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fabuloustrash05 · 6 days

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Some of My TMNT Hot Takes (PART 2) 🔥

Warning: More Opinions

Part 1 Here

I don’t like that in Mutant Mayhem Donnie is not a “science guy” but instead is more of an anime and pop culture geek. I’m not against him being an anime fan (I love anime too) but I wish we saw more of his science and being a tech genius side instead of him just liking stereotypical “nerdy stuff”. If that makes sense.

I don’t like the Punk Frogs (any version).

The 87 crossover episodes in the 2012 series (as much as I did enjoy them & are great episodes) should not have happened. They leave no real impact or development to 2012’s overarching story and just waste time. These episodes could’ve covered more important things that 202 was desperately lacking like like character exploration and character dynamic development. It was just nostalgic fanservice. The arc in S5 specifically would’ve work better as a movie instead of a 3-4 episode arc in the (most likely non canon) final season.

Shinigami being Mikey’s second love interests ruins her character a bit (for me personally). That was a pointless decision that did NOT need to happen. She would’ve been our first recurring female character to not be a love interest, but nope!

People are allowed to like/ship Donnie x April in ROTTMNT (this is coming from someone who’s not crazy about April being shipped with the Turtles).

I ship Yuichi with 2012 Leo more than Rise Leo (still ship Rise Leoichi, but I just think 2012 Leoichi is way more interesting, plus 2012 Leo deserves a good love interest).

The humans in Mutant Mayhem look ugly af (I know that was probably an intentional design choice but still. It looks bad.)

I hate Raph x Casey (any ver). I’ve stated in part one that I don’t like Raph (any version) being in a romantic relationship with human characters and yes, that meant him with Casey. Not only that but Raph and Casey being a couple ruins their whole dynamic and iconic friendship I love so much. I’m all for friends to lovers but they are a line that should not be crossed. Not every friendship needs to turn romantic.

2012 Karai’s hair looks bad.

Fans often over exaggerate Rise Donnie’s character and badly mischaracterize him in fanfics and fan comics to the point it makes him feel like he’s an entirely different character.

Shinigami should have been revealed to be a villain.

Rise Donnie was just as mean to his brother as fans claim 2012 Raph was to his. Yes, they both do love their families and I’m NOT saying either of them are abus!ce (they’re not), but fans praising Rise Donnie for doing similar things fans criticize/hate 2012 Raph for doing just makes them hypocrites.

Venus does NOT need to be in every iteration of TMNT. It gets kind of annoying when fans keep on saying that she should be in all the other iterations when in truth her presence would not make sense based on the already established canon story. The only (recent) version of TMNT where I think her being included would’ve fit the best and deserved to make her comeback in is ROTTMNT.

The side plot of 2012 Karai being mutated and later getting brainwashed by Shredder was a waste of time and the most boring arc in the series.

2012 April, Donnie and Casey being in a poly relationship does not fix anything with their problematic dynamic and massive flaws with one another. I'm not saying you can't ship all three of them together, you do you! Idc But in reality their relationship would be a train wreck, that's why I personally don't ship 2012 Capriltello.

Renet is probably one of the most powerful allies the Turtles have in the 2012 series.

Rise Donnie would NOT hate 2012 April. He’d go crazy over her psychic powers and want to study them to help her explore them more.

From what I've seen so far, Leo x Usagi seems like the only GOOD ship in the 2003 series (this hot take might change tho).

Raph had the best character arc and development in the 2012 series and changed the most out of the four brothers. Next would be Leo. With Mikey and Donnie have little development (or none at all sadly).

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