#anyway imo its objectively not a good show but it was very fun to watch | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

icecreamkink · 3 years

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watched all of the untamed / cql in two weeks after my friend 1 told me abt mdzs a hundred years ago and my friends 2 and 3 tried to get me into cql for like two whole years and there are.

feelings.

very first scene is a very dramatic death in the middle of nightmare battle on sith planet land . i will forget abt it in the next tenish episodes and then will be very surprised when it becomes Extremely Painful

anyway magic flying gays and possession and human sacrifice! we are off to a great start

in retrospect, chaos goblin wei wuxian must have had a blast pretending to be so cRaZy and be as disruptive as he could as mo xuanyu lbr

listen. why is fire always evil coded. cant a magic clan wear red, black and orange and have flame motif while being wholesome?

For Legal Reasons These Are Not Zombies

i wish the politics of the sect were a bit clearer, especially at the beggining when the wen clan had sm power, was wen ruohan the chief cultivator? is that why they were so slow in responding to the attacks? im v confused by the pre yiling patriarch politics

fighting in the roof by the moonlight as way of flirtiiiiiiing. as i understand this is a wuxia/xianxia trope and honestly...... thank u for ur service

slight bullying and being a nuisance in general, as a way of flirting we love to see it

wwx: if i drink on the rooftop, thats not inside the cloud recesses! hmmm check and mate :D lwj: i will fuck u up so help me god wwx: :0

i lov them

through hell or high water (quite literally) wei wuxian rem ains a trashfire gremlin till the end and i love him with my whole heart

in the pt subs wei wuxian calls jiang cheng a stubborn duck and i dearly wish that had come back

my opinions on almost every character goes from love to hate u - Hmm Me Like U - BABY. ILY. and i am Very Pleased w that. its been a while since i loved such a complete cast so much i think

no really. i WONT go into a detailed rant abt what i love about each of these characters and each of their relationships to each other. but i COULD.

some lan disciples in the loudest whisper ever: YEAH THATS THE JIN BASTARD MENG YAO HEARD THE GOT SUPER HUMILIATED BY HIS DAD LOL SURE HOPE HE DOESNT TAKE SLIGHTS TO HIS CHARACTER TO HEART

lan xichen, immediately: i must Love him

being into problematic ppl is in the Lan genetics, we come to realize

wen qing deserves so many awards for so many things but not snapping and just stabbing wen chao is at the top

that scene at lan qirens class where wwx talks about using resentful energy to fight a violent spirit. exquisite.

It establishes Good Student lan wangji, wei wuxian as curious and questioning and not afraid of taboo, lwj sees that wwx is not, in fact, a dumb ass hes just a Dumbass, shows us the audience (esp. a western audience) how shocking the idea of disrupting the dead/dying and controlling resentful energy actually is, the theoretical foreshadow arguing, everyone else like ‘shUT UP’, “and how could you ensure that the resentful energy would obey you and not hurt other?” “well i havent thought that far” and of course, lan qiren just straight up lobbing a hard object at wwx head,. chefs kiss

fellas is it gay to bother the hot rule obessessed nerd from ur school and make drawings of him with flowers in his hair and then hide gay porn in his book to antagonize him and ask him to hold ur hand and be ur friend and talk to him all the time and get him drunk and give him bunnies bc you know he likes them and give him a lantern and always want his attention and dedicate yourself to getting him to smile-

and after all of that wwx rly said oh i Admire him, aksd like yeah we all were there in high school buddy

i have Learned. caves = gay.

accidental marriage +beint physically tied together with the sacred married ribbon+ gay panic+foreshadowing+bunnies! in the cave (1)

the story abt lan yi and baoshan sanren tho. i would like to see it

early days wen bros pull my heart strings like a guqin

EVERYTHING about the lantern scene; disaster hets jiang yanli and jin zixuan; how wwx made lwj a bunny lantern. how soft and touched lwj was. wwx gleefully pointing out he was smiling and lwj IMMEDIATELY PULLING HIW SWORD ON HIM LMAO. tragically foreshadowy promises to do right by pepople, living without regrets. lwjs 'oh no do i love him??' face. just. all of it.

i have it on good acc that in the novel lwj is explicitly Repressed Gay Panicked Big Horny which is delightful and rly Adds to the performance

baby lwj is really just conceal dont feel dont let them know u have EMOTIONS (derogatory)

jiang cheng rly went "why dont.u go play with HIM if u like him so much"

jc and wwx have big BIG annoying sibling energy dont think too hard abt it or youll cry

lotus pier is soo pretty :((((((((((((((((

up until episode 13 you could think this could be a magical ancient chinese gays pride n prejudice w swords and shenanigans ................youre just not prepared for the game of thrones of it all

seriously ha ha ha i cried so much w this show my eyes genuinely swelled up . like. physically. fun timez fun timez

that being said, its hilarious that wen xu goes to cloud recesses like 'come out or ill kill all these hostages' and then DOESNT WAIT FOR AN ASWER AND KILLS THEM ALL IMMEDIATELY. do u know how blackmail works sir

would like to make it recorded that from day one i was like 'CALL A GODDAMN CULTIVATION G20 THIS ASSHOLE SECT IS LITERALLY MASSACRING YALL!!' and it took them like 3 or 4 massacres to do anything and they STILL sent their heirs into their territory LIKE

when wwx cites the gusu lan rules to wen chao tho. that rebel/attention whore/cutie pie 'look lan zhan i DID memorize the rules after all' ‘also a big fuck you to the wen sect :D :D’ sweet spot that scene achieves . delicious

all the cultivator young masters being petty af even though they are practically prisoners at the cave is hilarious and i love them

hurt and comfort + gay mistunderstandings + watsonian gay declaration music + accidental evil acquisition! at the cave (2)

its like where do i start? the fact theyre both trapped and kind of heavily injured inside an isolated cave with a murder turtle? wwx gay panicking lwj into coughing up bad blood? lwj being jealous as wwx babbles abt mianmian? telling him he shouldnt play with people and wwx saying he never played him? wwx going Oh. I See what is happening. YOU like mianmian, and lwj absolute done face ??? (iconic) wwx touching the sacred married ribbon Again? the telepathic communication? the sword? WEI WUXIAN ASKING LAN WANGJI TO SING TO HIM AS HE IS PASSING OUT AND LWJ SINGING HIM. THE SONG. HE WROTE. FOR WWX. AND THAT HE CALLED. THEIR SHIP NAME????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

they are SO insufferable pleeeeease

in the words of my friend 1 : “CQL is so gay we were all amazed how it got past the censors Ofc unfortunately it can't be novel level gay But they did their best And we love them for it”

in the theme of songs THIS OST. WUJI HAS BEEN LIVING IN MY MIND RENT FREE SINCE I FIRST HEARD IT the whole ost is so so sO beautiful.

the costuming in this is also soooo exquisite. the embroidery? the fabrics? the details? how every sect and clan has a distinct style and architecture? (also ik they based each off of dif periods in chinese history which is REALLY fucking cool) just chefs kiss

the direction too!. i enjoy the unusual camera movements and i think they give it that Vibe, also their composition is PARTICULARLY good when it comes to telling the subtext through position of camera/position of character (like nhs off to the side in scenes he at first glance doesnt need to be/ how lwj is often centered when hes Jealous Yearning at wwx being affectionate w other ppl, wwx return from burial mounds etc)

ik madam yu is like Badass Milf Check and shes not getting any mom of the year awards but im delighted at how messy she is. IMAGINE that woman on tiktok

you better have enjoyed gay cave (2) bc its Just Pain from here on out!

jiang fengmian and madame yu win the Most Dramatic Way to show they do care about each other, actually ..... ever :)

i thought jiang yanli jiang cheng and wei wuxian forcing themselves to escape yunmeng barely holding on after their parents are killed was going to be the height of pain in this show. ha.

the family dynamics in general on this showwwww, both blood/ adopted/ found families, brotherly bonds and lifelong friendships just. rly. truly. fucked me up. theyre all so important and complicated and well rounded and beautiful and tragic

and beyond being a Win For the Gays im so glad the relationships w wwx and jiang yanli/ wen qing were NOT changed from platonic bc they are so much better like that imo. like maybe if we didnt Live In A Society it wouldnt be so, but the fact wwx and others can love and value them so much and theres nothing romantic or sexual abt it is like. so refreshing. especially @ jyl, with the way he and jc are overprotective of her and shes such a nurturing/care taker figure for them, it would just not vibe as well if they made it romantic

i love that this is a story abt Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch aka Actual Satan/Boogey Man/Village With/Public Enemy Number One , my dude is literally a necromancer who only dresses in black and has evil smokey black tendrils wafting out of him, but the really edgy one is still jiang cheng, pastel purple fashion icon

and speaking of best/worst siblings wei wuxian and jiang cheng *immediately starts crying*

The Golden Core Transfer i just. no thots only tears

wen qing and wen ning putting themselves in so much danger just.... to help them. wn saving jc from wen chao. wq finding a way to get wwx to transfer his core. like thinking about the monumental work these two did to help wwx and jyl and jc... jyl trying so fucking hard to be strong and keep on moving and giver her little brothers comfort after losing everything... jiang cheng. losing his parents and his home and his ability to do anything abt it and his complete desperation and lack of self worth and turning on them with agression when he didnt realize all that they did for him ... hhhhhhhhhhhhh

me, pointing at the whole cast “i just LOVE them mom!!!”

its sad tho, that BARELY ANY of the women have like.... actual important conversations let alone relationships with each other at all in the story. and like wq and jyl have stayed at the same place for extended periods of time, where wq actively took care of her TWICE, and still! not one measly convo, nothing! ................ .𝓌ₕᵧ

everyone in this show need a good sip of Self Worth and Stop Sacrificing Yourself juice

ngl the sword flying looks very dumb

“a-cheng, please bring a-xian back.” “i will, i promise.” ;-;

the whole calling each other by the More Intimate Version of the name, first as teasing and later as true intimacy. mmmhmmm yes

untamed where everythings the same but wwx evil flute song is eoeo

related that scene when wwx comes back from the burial mounds for the first time w demonic cultivation and he acts all formal and calls lwj hanguang-jun and keeps being evasive and distant and mean and soooooo................. facetious

and how hes kind of desperately trying to keep intense lwj at bay (A FIRST) and avoiding actually talking to either of them and its all tension ughhh and then he MOCKS his and lwjs relationship, he jokes w him in this like... mean echo of their usual ~banter~ oof

and like!!! uncertain but so relieved jc who just HUGS him w no reservations for once and its not like he isnt just as worried as lwj abt wwx and what hes doing, but he chooses in that moment to enjoy getting him back first and mmhmMMMmMm yes (maybe my favorite scene in the whole show? MAYBE SO. )

highkey hurt me but also. i might be into mean wwx. i will take no criticism.

lan zhans sad eyes tho :(((((((((

on one hand i wish we could have seen what happened at the burial mounds but on the other the timeskip adds so much flair to his return so im hnnn

also i love that hes been missing for 3 months reappears kinda melancholic and bloodthirsty and knowing malign tricks and jc is like 'so. are u sad bc of lan wangji'

when ur bae survived the war but he thinks ur evil/ might be evil so you cant kiss :///

hmmm talking at the rooftop under the moonlight not mentioning everything that stands between usssss

they are the two jades of lan and we’ll be the two heroes of yunmeng is the type of line u dont even need to know whats gonna happen to know thats gonna be sad

when they fight wen ruoshan at the nightless city i thought that was the battle we see at the first ep and its not and its so easy and theyre all like ‘yayy we won go wwx!’ i was just. SCREAMS WHAT is gonna HAPPEN

so like. post burial mounds/sunshot campaign pre yiling patriarch wwx is like. ultra arrogant, ultra mocking, peak lil shit and it gave me e v e r y t h i n g i wanted

even tho having the wen prisoners at the targets at phoenix mountain and still having wwx and jzx shooting the arrows was???? so.... tone deaf

wwx: fucking w demonic energy jyl: he has never done anything wrong in his life, ever <3 <3 (mood)

the parallels between meng yao/wei wuxian (and even xue yang a bit?) are Seen and they are Valid

wwx post burial mounds: can yall SHUT UP abt the goddamn sword (suibian left the chat)

LIKE truly, we talk abt the angst and yearning with wangxian. but what abt wwx and suibian. xianbian / xianqing angst and comfort 100k

take a shot everytime someone coughs up blood

zidian is simply the coolest spiritual weapon rip to suibian and chenqing and bichen and sendou and baixa........ but tis the truth

cons: everyones families died in a nightmare war! everyones homes burned to the ground! everyone is traumatized! pros: everyone gets cooler clothes and weapons!!

wen ning and a-yuan and yanli bestest babes squad dont touch me rn

everyone: brooding and fighting wq and jyl: why dont you try some acupunture/drinking some soup and calm down huh? how abt that bitch??

showing the battle/massacre at the nightless city first was genius actually bc then everytime we have a cute scene w yunmeng bros and theyre like 'we'll be together forever! uwu' youre like oh. oh no. oh no no no.

justice vs lawfulness vs means and ends 👁

jc: stay in the right path and practice the art of the sword wx: yeah thats not gonna happen chief

my reaction to wwx renouncing to the sect politics to help the wens was just that elmo burning gif in succession

the dramatic rain. wen qing desperately calling out to wen ning. the ghosts/puppets killing the guards. how terrifying wn actually was while wwx was controlling him :( lwj goeing after him to try and stop him and then he just; he Sees him and understands him even if he cant actually do anything about it other than let them go.

“there must be somewhere in this earth we can go to :(((((((((”

"IF I HAVE TO FIGHT THEM, I'D RATHER IT BE YOU. DYING BY YOUR HANDS WOULD AT LEAST BE WORTH IT." oh my god oh my god oh my goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooddddddd

also lwjs umbrella is white w black smoke.. . . nice

yiling patriarch / demonic farming burial mounds settlement is like one of my favorite concepts. they an "EVIL" FARMING COMMUNITY LED BY THE VILLAGE WITCH COME ON

they planted TURNIPS and LOTUS FLOWERS and ONE (1) baby and made lanterns and a common hall :(((((((

wen qing and wei wuxian, baddest bitches and genius science best friends i absolutely LOVED to see it. they rly went ‘is anyone gonna sibling/project partner that’ and didnt wait for an answer

both wwx and jyl getting lotus ponds at the burial mounds and in lanling bc they miss lotus pier ;;;;;;;w

;;;;; wish jyl had actually gone into the burial mounds. we were robbed of jyl and wq meeting again and jyl meeting a-yuan and seeing the settlement and the homes and all ;w; at least jc did go, stab wounds and broken arms and all

wwx like... having thrown his whole life away to help the wens (yeah the sect leaders and jin guangshan in particular wanting his stygian tiger amulet was an Element but still) and not.... necessarily regretting it, but grappling with all of the consequences of it... becoming moody and drepressed at times, missing his family and lotus pier and his friends and probably simply missing being around people and causing trouble, extrovert that he is, lashing out at the wens and at a-yuan, just in general the whole messiness of that experience

the way the resentful energy does affect his temperament is rly nice bc its not too in your face,(i mean outside of the Shaky Hands of Rage) but like he clearly has a much lesser control on his anger and impulsivity (tall order) than both before bm and after hes ressurected

on that note A-YUAN BABIEST BABY BOY BEST BOY

lan zhan being like oh hey there wei ying fancy meeting u and our son here. just passing by u know how it is hmmmmMm and then PLOT TWIST having defied orders to go see him and being punished for it. oof;;

they habent seen each other in like? a year? and now theyre tgt 10 seconds and are already parenting a child together

also lwj rly kneels down in the snow way too much to be healthy

wwx: calm down guyssss i wont lose control of demonic cultivation omgggg . spoiler alert: he loses control of demonic cultivation

did u enjoy cute children? good bc now the Real Pain Begins

jiang yanli and jin zixuan rly out there APROPRIATING both disaster gays AND bury ur gays huh ;w;

i KNEW jin lings birthday was gonna fuck something up but the GASP that left my body when wwx lost control of wn and killed jin zixuan .. . .

im sorry and thank you aaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAaAAAAA

when wen ning and wen qing were telling wwx their plan i was saying NO NO NO NO NO NO out loud in despair

also can we talk abt how wq is definetely talking about only the both of them surrending themselves but then? everyone else just surrenders w them? IT MAKES NO SENSE LIKE WHY WOULD THEY what would be the Point

sometimes there are some pretty gaping jumps in logic and continuity that are just like ? ?

wwx: oh so when you try to murder me its justified but when i survive through dark magic and murder all of you its a "war crime"

unsurprisingly, his most feral, most spiraling moment talking to the sect leaders on the roof and attacking them and even fighting lan zhan is among my favorite scenes... its like, so painful to watch but also so thrilling (and maybe my wen bbs dying arose some resentful energy in me what can i say)

and its JUST, all they ever wanted was to do good but then... war. and trauma. and hubris.

jiang cheng on the ground clearly thorn between what to do and feel is a Mood, lets just say

i was already crying when jyl showed up, but if i wasnt-

i suffered SO MUCH through this series trying to figure out WHY jc would kill wwx. and when i understood. its somehow not as bad as i thought and also MUCH MUCH WORSE

a look into my group chat during the last flashback episodes:

SO ANYWAY. after the BLOOD BATH and RIPPING YOUR HEART OUT and FEEDING IT TO YOU the untamed goes ‘ayy back to the present!! tu du dud ud du’

literally it ends a quarter into an episode and then KEEPS GOING i had to pause and stare blankly at the ceiling for an hour

babie cultivators and detective soulmates . i do need some cute after All of That

(not that the pain is over LOL)

lwj is significantly less emotionally repressed in the present and its delightful. hes just ALL IN with wwx. and not just in the ‘i would and have killed various men and risked my reputation for you’ but also ‘ur tired here have a drink i brought it up cause i know u like it and it want you to be happy, always’

“when everyone praised me and wanted my power, you were the only one that challenged me. now that everyone hates me and wants me dead, youre the only one that stands by my side.” hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

and just filling in the blanks how lan zhan searched for him. for all of those 16 years he searched for him and was punished for it and raised a-yuan, the only survivor of the burial mounds settlement, as his own in gusu......

and jiang cheng. being the tough love uncle . having raised the yunmeng jiang clan from the rubble all alone, his whole family dead, some of it on the blame of his own brother, his siblings, his closest friends gone.......and only jin ling there needing his guidance.

THE PARALLEL BETWEEN JIN LING BEING A LIFELINE FOR JIANG CHENG AND A-YUAN FOR LAN WANGJI AFTER THE BATTLE AT THE NIGHTLESS CITY

great now i made myself sad

and like . the fact! that lwj and jc dislike each other!!. jc projects blame onto him for wwx both “leaving” him and indirectly causing their families deaths and when hes so consumed by it he makes wwx an enemy, lwj is there now? trying to protect him?? and lwj, who can never understand the pain that wwx , indirectly or not put jc through, but who was right there when jc tried to kill him and will never allow him to hurt wwx again. and how they like. in a way project blame of their tragedies onto each other while dealing with some type of survivor guilt and in their own way still loving wwx through it all??? amd in way its kind of fundamentally selfish but also tragically understandable? and like when u put it against the fact that after he disappears during the sunshot campaign they were looking for him together and fought together??

JUST. THE CHARACTERS. AND THE RELATIONSHIPS IN THIS. MAN. UGH. GOD.

and like i think thats what makes it so good? its such a sad and painful and violent story, edgy even, but its compelling bc at the center of it there are all of these relationships and different types of love and hope and. :( i love it

enough crying lets talk abt wwx sleeping at the jingshi with lwj and wearing his under garment for a minute 🙏

jin ling just has that Was Raised by JC energy tho lmao i love him

babie cultivator squad is the perfect ammount of cute and comedic relief while still bearing the weight? of the narrative in a way, both from sizhui and jin lings existences, and also. like. how do i put this. they feel hopeful? they were born after a war, they came of age at a time of relative peace, they dont hold on so closely to the resentments of their parents/father figures, they are specifically shown as more accepting and open minded. and its like.... Hope for the future

one of the ?? things i love the most is the fact that the main cast are often in situations where theyre hunted/running but they like. never wear disguises... just going around in their gorgeous expensive clan clothes and hair ornaments and distinctive spiritual weapons.... maybe w a straw hat on, just for kicks

wwx teacher 🥺🥺🥺

so this is why its called Yi City Misery huh

a-qing is such. an icon. im so sad. my girl even knew to leave xys dumb self rotting by the road but no one listens to her thats why theyre all dead or sad

her and xue yang measuring each other up was so entertaining lmao

its the funniest thing when hes like. HERES MY SAD STORY. FOR WHY IM A SADISTIC MURDERER. I BROKE MY HAND ONCE.

like ok someone broke his hand in a horrible way, and like Poverty, i get it but also like.......... that lost the brunt of a proper sob story like, 50 sadistic murders ago bby

and i love that xingchen does not entertain that for a second hes like ‘not ?????? good enough???’ and the best thing is he wasnt even like 'u hadto be the bigger person' or sth but ' well then break that dudes hand back, rip his arm off for i care, what do the rest of us have to do w anything???”

anjo sensato :(

xue yang is like..... the sexy sadistic evil version of a himbo..... a meanbo...

the fucked upness of xy’s feelings for xxc/ xxc and sl feelings for each other... like my dude literally gave his bf HIS EYES. and xy getting so attached to xxc .... the fucked up fake domesticity.... having him hurt sl..... then desperately trying to bring him back ...................... oof

song lan........... literally had his eyes AND tongue removed, his bfs eyes put in place, was almost killed, turned into a puppet by his bf unknowingly, manipulated by xy, sees his bf killing himself in despair.... and STILL finds the strenght to get up from there, and keep on traveling and helping people and attempting to fix xxcs soul.......... like, my man. damn.

wangxian looking at songxiao and seeing an Actually more painful parallel for themselves. ft. that Color Coding.

THE A-YUAN/SIZHUI REVEAL PUNCHED ME IN THE HEART but in a good way for a change

should have know that he would be the Best Boy the cute one w all the braincells

the butterfly AND the bunny lantern. i see how it is

u know is very convenient that no one can see the stark black veins on wen nings neck, ever

BAT WEN NING

wns face when lwj comes into wwx room like ‘:0 omg did u two finally get your shit together? good for you master wei good for u’

(they didnt) (yet)

DISASTER DRUNK LWJ. JUST. THRUST SOME CHICKENS TO SHOW UR RESSURECTED BAE THAT U LOVE THEM.

i have absolutely no idea WHY they gave lwj the same punishment for fighting his own sect/allies to protect the burial mounds as when they got drunk on cloud recess class days.... like? its such a ... emotional continuity error again

also is lwj gonna get an actual friend besides wwx , ever

mianmian marrying and having a family and a cute life after saying FUCK U AND UR SYSTEM TOO in a much less unhinged and dramatic way than wwx......... fills me w joy

also lol the idea that like. her husband not knowing that shes friends w satan/the boogey man/the village witch is hilarious

i love nie mingjue bc hes the resident Though Guy but also the most dramatic bitch in this show and thats Saying Something

jin ling cant have one uneventful relative can he

the fact that everyone present already knew “mo xuanyu” was wwx at the stairs is so funny, their faces are like ‘oh............ wow. that. sure is a development. shock”

in the tradition of extremely loud whispers wwx tells lwj with twelve guards standing like one meter away from them: HEY PSH LAN ZHAN PRETEND IM FORCING YOU TO STAY W ME DO IT

oh my god oh my god

the absolute Yearning on his face when he leaves wwx and a-yuan at the burial mounds and refuses to stay for dinner was already Enough but the fact?? they brought it back?? to this declaration of love?? their expressions??????? strike me dead right now just go ahead

lFor Legal Reasons We Cant Kiss but we will have a very sappy declaration of love and trust and look at each other in way that is the actualization of 💞💘💗💖💓💘💞💗💖💘💗💖💕💞

also icb all the sect leaders and guards are standing there watching them say they like like each other with a dozen swords pointing at their neck

i enjoyed the depiction of the fickle public perception and how easily it can be used to scapegoat people. when the sect leaders turn on jgy and wwx knows thats its more for convenience than anything else...

poor lxc is literally like 'oh so when YOUR problematic boyfriend gets called evil its a misunderstanding but when its MY problematic bf-'

ok like i cant get over nmj let jgy play a song that messed with his temperament at all, like maN u KNEW he might be shady wth

wwx: “hey dont say anything bad abt lan zhan hes not an arrogant dick, thats just his face.

ME ON THE OTHER HAND"

the cultivators as wwx is poking holes in their narrative is literally *nazaré meme*

"wei wuxian-!" "what did i break your leg, too?" not to be problematic but i laughed so hard

not as hard as "you dont have the rank to talk to me " tho

i Enjoy that, over the course of story, wwx sees that... theres nothing truly to Do, but move on. he saw how his arrogance and his mistakes hurt others, and hes trying to fix what he can, but he already did die for his mistakes and there are things he cant fix and that's. just how it is. even towards jgy, the narrative doesn't go gleefully and completely with "lets make THEM pay bc theyre the big bad" bc its not that simple, and it wouldn't lead anywhere but more pain...

re him and jiang cheng and the wens and kinda. isnt that what nhs did? scheming to displace jgy out of revenge more than any justice and doing so in the most painful way?

idk if that actually makes sense im truly just babbling

i thought the scene at the lotus pond would be CUTE but the context was PAIN again

jiang cheng finding out about his golden core and his conflict with wwx at the guanyin temple .... destroyed me but in a nice way kinda.... same way it destroys him look at his face oh god

and. the fact??? he sacrificed himself for wwx?? first?? and he'll probably never tell anyone much less wwx???? keeps me up at night

i havent decided if the neckbreak transition between jgy does sth super Evil or does he he does OR Does He yes he does O R does heeeee is sth i dislike or not

jin guangyao and wei wuxians most interesting parallel is that... theyve both seen 'hmm hey this system is fucked up' and wwx went 'so fuck it all i will renounce it and challenge it' and jgy went 'so fuck it i will use all of it to my advantage and manipulate it to my goals and whims'

the fact jgys mom was actually great and he loved her and his whole issue w it was more than simply being ashamed of being a bastard kinda got me ngl

never trust a dude with a fan.

nhs and jgy: the first rule to a convoluted and decades spanning violent revenge plot is to have fun and be yourself!

when a-yuan finally FINALLY remembers ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;-;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; wen ning has someone in his family back and a-yuan has someone to talk abt his wen family and wwx has him back bc he survived and lwj raised him anD HES THEIR SON. THEYRE MARRIED AND HAVE A SON. UGH.

and theyre allowed to heal. everyone is allowed to try and recover and be happy

netflix put all of the 3 endings on top of each other and it looks kinda weird actually BUT I DONT EVEN MIND :’’’’’’’’’)

the gasp that left me when lwj says ‘wei ying’ and wwx turns.........

there was also a screen with ‘thank you mxtx for creating these characters, we hope their wishes come true’ and i might. have cried then too. maybe.

that was . a ride. as is proven by this behemot of a ramble clearly i just really needed and Outlet. i am currently trying to convince dumb monkey brain to not consume the other medias of mdzs immediately bc i REALLY need to like. live. a life. and take care of real responsibilities. *longest oh boi ever*

#m.#ANYWAY #ENOUGH TALKING #THIS IS SO LONG #LOL #but whatever this is MY performative journaling i do what i want #rambling impressions abt what i watch is a thing i do now? apparently??#cql #untamed #the untamed #fun fact that chat is named 'k keeps on babbling abt the untamed' and it STILL wasnt enough #also it took me 15 episodes to realize lwj was yibo #IT WAS V SHOCKING #i did not recognize him at a l l #but in retrospect he WAS the perfect choice

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glassesandkim · 3 years

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ok so anon sent me a rant that i asked for and I want to answer it but under a cut so we don’t have to spam the dash.

Click under the read more if you want to read me and anon’s rant on grey’s anatomy s17 finale

anon said: “Magston... what the hell lmao. They literally had a whole plot in 1716 about postponing their wedding so they could do it right (with family) and then winston was getting all mad about it and thought maggie was backing out (even though its a pandemic and theyve only been engaged for like what? 3 months tops). Then they flew their older parent/grandparent out (in the middle of a pandemic and severely affects old people), only to have them object to the wedding at the ceremony and then they postpone anyways???? What???? They couldnt have done that over the phone lmao like I liked the idea of magston a lot in s16 but their arc this season made me hate them so much lol. Sometimes I think theyre less developed than schmico (like which writer decided to marry them this season ????? Fireable offence imo considering they have no previous relationship history Im pretty sure and Im pretty sure they were only dating/engaged for like a year???? Even if the show was ending a moving in together/dating/engagment endgame would have worked for them? Anyways).”

First of all: what the fuck is grey’s obsession with marriage?????

It might just be me, but take it from someone who worked in the wedding industry for 3 years, and lemme tell you: weddings are fun, beautiful, amazing, but they’re also hella for the privileged. YOU KNOW IT CAN COST UP TO $700 CAD TO HIRE AN OFFICIANT??? So the job Richard had? He could’ve made an easy few hundies.

I really hate how fucking fake and badly acted that scene was when Maggie’s dad and Winston’s grandma objected to the marriage. Why did they wait until then and EMBARRASS both of them???? Like you said, what the hell was the point of last episode’s whole debacle???? They could’ve just not done that plot in ep 16 and had them get married anyway in ep 17 and had someone object to their marriage.

Can’t believe Maggie flew two old people around the country during a goddamn pandemic. How irresponsible is it???? Again, I don’t know if it’s because they’re just way more relaxed in the states than where I’m from but wth....

anon said: Okay and then amelink. I LOVED how amelia was written this episode, but in the context of the time jump it was kind of weird? Like amelia was feeling this way about marriage/more kids for 8-9 months and never even hinted to link that she wasnt interested? And I like to think link respects amelia a lot, so why didnt he bring up marriage again before proposing? Or ask mer/maggie what they thought about him proposing? I can understand her not talking to link about her concerns but I find it hard to believe she didnt bring it up with mer/maggie once in that time frame? Idk it was just rushed and weird. And amelia clearly wasnt okay with the fostering thing and he still went with it anyways lol.

I can’t remember and I don’t care enough to go watch the ep, but did Amelia and Link move out of Mer’s house?

The only good thing about this episode was Amelia, especially her conversation with Richard (in that not very Seattle courtyard rofl HONESTLY GREY’S PUT SOME EFFORT IN YOUR SETS. YOU KNOW YOUR ENTIRE SHOW IS SET IN SEATTLE RIGHT/???? LIKE MAKE IT RAIN IN THAT COURTYARD TO REFLECT HOW AMELIA FEELS IDK GAWD)

I also can’t believe Amelia would just be like, welp! I guess I’m a double mom now of my own child and this random crotch child that my baby daddy promised to his best friend. And oh ya, I don’t want anymore children but shhh its a secert.

I mean, I know Amelia technically fostered before but ............. (i’ll continue this in the next segment)

anon said: And the fostering thing... Jo’s plot was weird this ep too lmao. Like maybe Im just dumb but they never explained why she failed her background check? Idk this plot would have been a much better season long arc than a one episode arc lol. Although I think the single parent thing might be fun next season (the weird jo/levi friendship will be worth it if we get schmico babysitting)

They didn’t really explain why she failed her bg check. I also don’t know how money can fix her failed background check.

Also how fucking shady is it that Link and Amelia fostered a child? Wouldn’t the foster people want to give a child to a stable family who, let’s think, ARE MARRIED and HAVE A HOME OF THEIR OWN?

Who’s the dumbass in the writer’s room that thought of this ludicrous convenient solution for Jo? Only people with that much money and power can steal children.

I really thought Jo’s fight for Luna should’ve started earlier and when it didn’t start, I thought it would bleed into next season. It’s not easy to adopt a child.

anon said: Also is our last jackson appearance on this show really a random facetime with jo? Would have much rather had a face maggie to congratulate her on her marriage (why wasnt he there???)

Maggie’s kind of his step sister or whatever the f they are. Jackson could’ve taken a break from solving racism to attend his family member’s wedding, right?

anon said: Okay and then the interns... we never actually saw mer teaching them? Im hoping that theres a bigger intern/resident focus next season because of mers new job but now Im not optimistic haha. And why are the residents and interns grouped together? And why was levi so involved with mer’s patient that he wasnt pulled from the wedding to help???????? Its a double lung transplant get the upper year resident in there PLEASE!!! Or at least let him take over the surgery when mer passed out. Cristina would have been doing this shit in her intern year. I assure you he would much rather be at the surgery than the wedding of someone he has never interacted with. And Surely that surgery would have been better if more than 2 surgeons were working on it?????? my ONLY hope is that the time jump means we’re getting helm and levi aged up to 5th years and we get some chief resident/specialization/boards plots for them next year.

i hate grey’s and their ridiculous time jumps and blatant disregard to HOW THIS WILL AFFECT THE CAREERS OF THEIR RESIDENTS.

I bet, like Teddy’s child, Levi and Helm are gonna be residents for 10 years and never choose a speciality. I want to revoke grey’s rights to call themselves a medical drama. There’s nothing medical about this show.

JUST WATCH MER TOUCH A DIRTY ASS BASIN AND THEN TOUCH A WHOLE HUMAN LUNG WITH THE SAME HANDS

YOU KNOW HOW DIRTY THAT BASIN IS SITTING ON WHATEVER THE FUCK IT WAS SITTING ON??? GET A NURSE TO HOLD THE BASIN. YOUR HANDS ARE STERILE

(Okay, I’m also sure the basin would be sterile but I can’t. I can’t believe in real life, they’d have the same hands hold a basin and a human organ. Someone who’s a doctor or works in the OR, tell me if I’m right. I need to know. )

Also, Bailey taking off her mask when she’s hugging Mer after the surgery. Right TO JAIL!

anon said: And finally... not half of maggies wedding guests ditching the wedding to go stand in a hallway and clap for mer LMAO like they couldnt have done that the next day??? Like I said before, most of this episode was comedy lol.

it’s COVID. Why are people going into the hospital unnecessarily??????

Yes, but you’re right. I gotta watch these eps like it’s a comedy or I’ll LOSE MY FACKING MIND

anon said: Redeeming parts of this episode: merhayes still has potential, need them to stop having the same scene over and over again though. Nico ily and alex get that cheque for sitting there, dancing, and clapping for ellen. Jo selling her shares to koracick... lmao. Bokhee and the other nurse getting their vaccines :’)

LOL @ merhayes having the same interaction. I was telling some people that I’d love for Hayes and Owen to have some scenes and for Hayes to kick Owen’s ass. Because like @schmico-ing said, Owen is a child collector and Hayes would absolutely fucking hate him.

YES ALEX LANDI GETTIN’ THAT DOUUUUGHHHHHHHHHHHHH. What an amazing job. I hope he gets paid in the 6 figures for his time at grey’s.

I don’t know how I feel about Koracick. I love caring Koracick. I hate asshole Koracick. I feel like they’re two different people.

BOHKEE <3

Anyways, love your rants. I look forward to them when s18 starts or even whenever you have the odd urge to rant!

#i would go more in depth but it's been almost a week and the process of purging my mind of grey's has already begun #grey's anatomy #gk asks

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fl0ating-tree · 3 years

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Favorite to least favorite c!'s on the dream smp GO! (Them as character's objectively, not their actions, if that makes sense!)

anon kiss me rn this is a perfect excuse to ramble about my opinions and boy do i have opinions.... totally up for rebuttles to these or ppl trying to change my opinions on it i am a literary analysis bitch at heart

hate - technoblade, ranboo (there will be a bounty on my head for this one LOL)

dislike - niki, foolish, punz

don't love or hate - dream, phil, sam, puffy

like - sapnap (i WILL go further into detail for this one if someone wants), jack, tubbo, tommy, fundy

love - wilbur, ghostbur, eret, quackity, schlatt

hate is a strong word but it was used for the sake of the scale lol. but i REALLY dislike techno and ranboo's characters for the same reason of the fact that they feel very mary sue.

techno feels mary sue to me cause just like...nothing bad ever happens to him. i think 90% of my issue with his character would be fixed if he had died as his execution. that entire thing felt so stagnated. the day before dream is like "hey i think youre gonna get executed. heres how to not let that happen." and then the stream after that was "hey im getting executed. thats not gonna happen." like...it was just so unsatisfying because there wasn't a single moment i was concerned for techno considering i watched him get totems the day before and watched him hold one during his execution. he's stuck in the prison but from the way cc!techno was acting it feels like techno doesn't even CARE that he's there, and he has a contingency plan with the syndicate anyways. i didn't even feel bad that he got pulled out of retirement considering it was revealed he was collecting weapons of mass destruction the entire time. the only time i have EVER like his character was early pogtopia when everyone was always like "techno refuses to roleplay" AFSDKFSKG

ranboo feels like a mary sue to me because it's literally just one bad thing happening to him after another without any rhyme or reason. oh no his tears burn him and he has memory loss and he's scared he's doing bad things (did the whole "ranboo secretly has the cat disc" every get brought up again?) and he hears voices. his husband and best friend are moral enemies with his roomies but none of them seem to have an issue with that? just like.....his entire character is internal conflict and everyone loves him. not a fan.

dislike character all boil down to the same thing as well in that i feel like i would LOVE these character if they were executed better.

niki's going from wanting to protect tommy in pogtopia to the next thing i remember of her is her blaming tommy for her trauma. and her villain arc being INCREDIBLY serious but then a joke? niki as a character has a lot of potential but it all just isnt executed well imo, which is why i dislike the character.

foolish being a fun idea but the whole "totem god" thing just falls flat with me.

punz had SO much potential to do something really cool character-wise after the disc finale, but i think that boils down to cc!punz not being a big roleplayer/minecraft streamer, so it makes sense but still feels a little bit like a let down.

for the idc category it's honestly just that personally their character doesn't retain my interest. not that i think there's any major flaw with their character, just not something i care about.

dream i legit just...don't have thoughts about. cool character, but nothing stands out, and he feels a little flip-floppy sometimes. couldn't care less that he's being tortured so i feel like that's a sign that something isn't working right with that plotline.

phil and sam i think i would love their characters if they were exclusivly side characters but with the nature of streaming as the medium for the story there has to be a bit more substance to their characters but i genuinely think i would've liked them if it was just "the warden" and "wilbur's father" rather than their own individual characters. cool characters regardless, just not my personal faves.

puffy i might just not watch her enough but its similar to phil and sam where i think having her just be a therapist wouldve worked better than a fleshed out character. if more puffychu development happens tho, both her and niki will probably rise on this list.

the like characters range from "i think these characters have flaws objectively, but overall are very good!" to just....i am nostalgic for the pet wars.

sapnap i don't have a good reason for liking his character LOL it's mainly because i started watching during the height of the pet wars and i loved watching him during that. but i still just think the concept of his character is so cool and if he did more lore and specifically more stuff with dream, i can see him easily becoming a favorite character of mine.

jack, tubbo, and tommy i think are all very well fleshed out and executed characters. they have goals, flaws, relationships, and all three of the CCs are good actors i feel too. jack REALLY wow'd me over with his manifold hotel arc thing. tommy i think works well as a character because objectively he's kind of a prick but i still want him to win, and i think that's a sign of a well written character.

fundy again is similar to sapnap in that i loved him in the pet wars, but also he has the strongest relationships on the server imo. phil and wilbur stand out the most, but also with the OG l'manbergians and how his relationship with all of them are strained for no apparent reason in this awful "i've grown as a person and can't love you any more" kind of way.

i will fight tooth and nail over the fact that these characters are some of the most well-written and acted on the server genuinely. ESPECIALLY eret. i am a c!eret stan before all else.

ghostbur and eret i absolutely adore because of just how quietly tragic they are. a ghost damned to haunt his failures, and a king damned to try and repent. really REALLY well executed characters, and i pray every day that eret gets the kind of views tommy and wilbur's lore streams do because she is an amazing actor. they are both so tragically well written and executed amazingly, both are great examples of "show not tell" too. ghostbur with the amneisa and eret with their museum and abandoned castle. (only critic for eret is that i wish he stayed dethroned and george stayed king, but i think that was CC error not C error because if i remember right geroge said he wanted out of the lore. tho i think he could've stayed king and still not been involved in lore, but i digress)

wilbur and quackity are all incredibly thought out. you can see a start and a middle, and you can see that there's an ending. i feel like the biggest issue i have with tommy and tubbo is that there just doesn't seem to be an ending for their characters. with wilbur and quackity i can see an ending happening for them. they've got flaws, pros, goals, motivations, ideas. just AMAZING execution and it's cool to see how they're both so well written yet they execute their characters differently. wilbur with very casually imbedded lore that you only realize was lore and foreshadowing until it's too late, and quackity with very in-your-face produced lore streams that make you sit for an hour afterwards and wonder what happened.

schlatt is a good character because of cc!schlatt's AMAZING acting and also because he didn't try to make it some grand thing. schlatt was an alcoholic who abused his workers and was power hungry. he had his goal, and that was it, and cc!schlatt executed that perfectly.

#not doing every character if that wasn't appartent #only characters i am interseted in/have a lot of thoughts on

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fencesandfrogs · 3 years

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“i love you”: ambiguity in media

spoilers for she-ra. the entire show. especially the last season. but if you don’t care i’ve also added context. so it’s not mandatory watching.

spacer gif for spoilers. also cause its cute.

okay so i’m still thinking about the scene where glimmer says, “i love you,” and bow kisses her on the temple, and it’s just the cutest thing and my heart says “squee”.

i wrote something about gay media & the necessary differences in gay tales and ATM it has not been posted bc i routinely shuffle my queue but the basic thesis of it is: gay romance stories are inherently different from straight ones, because it is impossible to separate them from homophobia. and i kind of ran into a wall writing it because homophobia is really hard to ignore on earth because its omnipresent and it dramatically affects gay youth growing up.

and then i watched she-ra, which has lesbians*, in case you didn’t know, and also basically zero homophobia.

*also gays, but the titular character is a lesbian, so.

which damn, was very refreshing. like. yeah. sign me up for that.

so. adora and catra are adorable lesbians w/ shared traumatic experiences and their character arcs are interesting and wonderful and there’s a lot of great analysis of that already and here’s one that sums it up better than i ever could:

youtube

love that. they’re adorable. i love them.

bow & glimmer are also best friends who get together at the end of the show & have a lot of parallels to catra and adora minus the trauma and also including crushing weights of responsibility.

uhh so catra & glimmer both make a mistake at one point during the show that basically irreparably wrecks the world and requires sacrifice of life to solve. adora is the intended sacrifice each time but this isn’t about adora, i just want to give context for this.

so catra has the explanation of trauma and the scared behaviors of a traumatized teen. like. she makes mistakes for an understandable reason. again. not about her. just giving context.

glimmer on the other hand basically throws a fit that her friends have other friends. i mean. glimmer has problems but her mistakes are not like, “you know if you were raised in a loving home this prob wouldn’t have happened” because she was raised in a loving home. it’s more like “you know if you didn’t become queen at age, like, 17, this probably wouldn’t have happened.”

(side note, i don’t know how old the characters in she-ra are. i read them as 15-17 in the beginning of the series and 18-20 by the end, and i’m just not really sure. because you know, cartoons & child soldiers do not accurate age placing make. catra and adora’s arc speaks to me ages 15-18ish because that is when i had a similar arc.

according to the wiki adora starts around 17 and ends around 20. which is w/in my own estimations i’m just commenting.)

right so glimmer apologizes to bow and is all “look you don’t have to forgive me, i don’t have a right to that, but i’m not going to stop trying to earn your forgiveness,” and bow, well, he says “okay”

and. you know. i feel that.

(more side notes: i, age 17ish, broke up w my boyfriend. for reasons. we got back together. for other reasons. repairing the bond of trust is hard. because i was not secure that he loved me, and he was not secure that i wouldn’t leave if something went wrong. so you know. i feel glimmer, here.

yes, she made a mistake and no, she does not have a right to forgiveness. but she’s also a kid, who has had one friend for her entire life, and is only just beginning to learn how to share friends, and she thinks she lost him, and that desperation and rejection is painful. she was lashing out, and she never intended this to happen.)

so glimmer & bow throughout the show have romantic tension, but in a soft way. in a, bow goes to a ball with someone else and glimmer gets jealous but it’s also directly stated she’s jealous because she’s sharing her friend way.

plus there’s a scene that definitely has some strong glimmer x adora vibes is what i’m saying

it’s not this specific scene but idk what to search for to find it & i’m not fighting w tumblr to include external images again i’ve been hurt before.

anyway.

so when glimmer says, “i love you,” my heart pounds in a new way, because what does she mean by that? does she love him?

and at some point in this adora has a fantasy future where bow and glimmer are together & it’s adorable but i’m mentioning to explicitly say that it’s not relevant because bow and glimmer r def not together before this moment.

anyway bow kisses glimmer on the forehead and my heart go “thumpthumpthumpthumpthump” real real fast and it’s cute and i text my boyfriend a bunch of hearts because that’s what i do when i see cute couples i’m a soft gay nerd.

and the thing is? i’m also thinking, “wow there is so much ambiguity” there.

and then. i realized. this is why gay romance is fundamentally different. because american culture is not very touch-y, especially across gendered lines.

& i have a very physically affectionate family. i will cuddle the homies. i will kiss them on the temple. (ok i won’t do that bc my boyfriend would not like that n i respect that it’s legit i kiss him on the temple instead. mb i’ll write about boundaries in relationships where people have different understandings of physical affection.) so like? did not occur to me before to discuss this.

but there’s a huge ambiguity in gay romance. it’s hard to write gay romance that’s explicitly gay (especially wlw since men r less affectionate & more stereotyped in media imo and that’s another discussion but there’s a reason i’m focusing on catra and adora in she-ra’s gay relationships) without slapping a huge “THEY’RE LESBIANS, HAROLD” on it, so like.

yeah. it does get a label.

& i mean. she-ra is the big gay. it could have gone hard queer baiting, but even if that was a possibility, adora and catra are too hard-coded to Love Love each other. they have a best friends to rivals (to enemies) to lovers thing going on, it’s hard to miss. there is no doubt in my mind what catra means when she tells adora she loves her.

this is from before the confession and just. look at them. they are gay.

& meanwhile glimmer and bow have the soft affection, the feelings which could be read either way.

objectively the same hold, but he’s saving her life. catra leaps into adora’s arms, bow catches her. (after he just caught her before:

& it does not escape my attention that bow was the one who caught her from the void of space, not the stronger & arguably better adora/she-ra.

okay so bow & glimmer = adorable, and i’m v happy they got together. but it was an interesting application of tropes in that i don’t think you could tell this romance in a very different context. it just. it doesn’t work right.

i think glimmer & bow end up a will they/won’t they couple in a different context. and that works, yeah, but that’s the point. gay tropes r just...different.

and it’s really hard to switch them because you kind of need a fantasy world where physical affection is much more common and we don’t have the baggage of gender in friendships.

just for fun, here’s one last couple. mermista and seahawk. i’m not gonna spend a long time on them i just wanted to say maybe i’m gay but it took me until season five to realize they’re together and i think they’ve been together the whole show.

& i think that’s because she-ra does a really good job at depicting the post-homophobia, post-sexism universe. (sexism plays a big part in all this ik i didn’t talk about it but some other time)

so you get the opportunity to have these fantastic stories of relationships through new lenses. & i appreciate that. i appreciate getting to have a “he’s my friend” (i love him) “he’s mine” character moment with a new kind of angst. (glimmer: the gay, who loves her best friend but also loves her best friend, vs glimmer: the hypothetical straight, who loves her best friend, and her best friend loves her. the difference is subtle but it’s there.)

anyway yeah a lot of words. forehead kisses kill me because i have a weak, gay, heart. uhhhh media & tropes & telling explicitly gay romances requires us to be able to shake around what role friendship plays in the relationship arc, and something we’re not entirely up for yet, as a culture.

i leave u with this bc no one has made a gif of their actual kiss

#glimbow #she ra #she-ra #media analysis #romance #q #mine #txt #13th #December #2020 #December 13th 2020 #rant #essay

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macgyvertape · 3 years

Text

50 or so hours into Cyberpunk 2077

This should be roughly the correct amount of time, ive been leaving the game running as I get up to get food or do stretches. Quests are roughly in order I did them

non spoilers above cut:

i haven't found a single hat/helmet i like, and since you can't hide them I just am not wearing any. It matters that much.

I posted the other day about bugs, every few hours I play I find new bugs. some require me to go back and reload a save others I honestly can’t tell if it’s a bug or just really poor development

there are several perks that don’t quite do what the description says, like the Anamesis perk. Based on reddit and trying it out it seems to just not do anything.

sometimes in car chase segments the passenger will say “look out” as cars spawn in my path and hit me. Can’t tell if that was deliberate or a pop in issue

Yeah I’ve just totally given up on doing pacifist things unless required by a mission. Given up on doing stealth too unless a mission objective, except for sneaking around to set up a fight.

:readmore:

the delemain car quest is fun. From the shock of the one going "beep beep motherfucker" and doing a hit and run to start it off, to the GLADOS car i see a lot of people talking about. It was fun to explore the city when i might have missed places like the landfill apparently there is follow up on T-bug's death if you go back to the quick hack shop in Kabuki. It's not much but better than nothing I made the pass with Panam of "what if the room just had one bed". I know she won't do a wlw romance, which is fine since I wouldn’t have chosen her. I enjoy her as a character, don’t get me wrong, my V considers her as a friend, but it seems like theres always drama going on which would be tiring. I would have gone for a fling, i like her leotard-pants combo with all the straps

but also her questline was buggy as hell. Multiple cases of having to reload due to clipping into objects, including her in a driving section, or just insta-dying when collision physics with some rocks broke "your neural network can no longer function independantly of the chip" me slapping my desk: s y m b i o te!!! come on lets have some s y m b i o s i s

in the scene with hellman i really liked how Johnny moved around the room. It made him feel like he was really there. it was hard to follow the convo as I left the room, i would not have understood it without subtitles. But i guess Takemura fucking waterboarded hellman. :|

lol I hope the dialogue is different b/c i refuse to smoke for Johnny

i am level 18 and still can't beat the first opponents in the fist fighting quest. ffs

I looked up the romances options so I went to do the I fought the law quest as soon as i got it. ACAB, but like I literally just met River Ward 2 minutes ago, and I really like him. His earring and cyborg eye, his big fluffy coat. I'm definitely gonna sleep with him Ok i like how when River Ward is dealing with the tiger claws if you interject it leads to a fight. It goes better if you follow his instructions and let him deal with it. Seriously I enjoy that sometimes its good to not pick a dialogue choice.

during the red queen club part, there was no dialogue over the phone. So i reloaded a save and got myself spotted and attacked. Then River showed up to help me <3 and it was more enjoyable having him there. I honestly am not sure if him not going to the club level is bug or not.

then uuuuuugh the worst of irl police "cops are my family" from Detective Han. Again ACAB "FRATERNITY OF CITY COPS RESEMBLES A [Nomad] CLAN NOT AT ALL" ok a few minutes ago i was complaining about bugs, but the character modeling in this game is good (when they're there). You can see body posture, characters jiggle their legs when they are nervous. Like I though character A was just throwing a cigarette on the ground, but then character B flinches back; I realize Char A threw it at B as a fuck you

I'm honestly curious if "I fought the Law" quest will have any impact later on. My choices were that I thought there was more going on than Holt being the only person behind this (based on how complicated the main questline heist is, and keeping an eye on some of the in game news), and told him not to take it to internal affairs, and I loved his response of how he doesn't give a shit what we think, he's doing it anyway.

In the elevator to report in, Johnny said "this muck is deeper than you think, tell them nothing", so i just said that the case was complicated. anyway i love how much of a sarcastic asshole V is

I thought i was being nonlethal with the monk quest, but it seems i accidently killed someone. RIP, but thats kind of the problem with this game. Like when i do the non lethal cyberpychosis quests I equip my non lethal modded gun and hope for the est. I like how a go here kill things quest led to Charles the ripperdoc. He's getting all his parts from scav gang members so I felt obligated to take him out. I got a police bounty for it but w/e.

I merged the Delemain fragments with the whole. Guess he's the meta now. (Side note: some of my favorite rvb fanfic plots are Ai consiousness/memory merging with the humans, so I’m having fun with this game and look foward to introspective fanfic)

Honestly Jonny made some good points, the fragments didn't deserve to die; but also destroying the core and freeing the fragments, they couldn't really function alone.

I was able to rescue Saul fine with stealth. Using cameras and the synapse overload really made it easy. Can't use the sniper rifle reward b/c I don't have the stats for it, and while it has a silencer the fact that it's a ricochette weapon and not a shoot through walls weapons, makes it not as good imo; and theres a legendary one that is stats free for only 100k.

Lol made a pass again at Panam, and she immediately shut me down. I then did Mitch's quest and I love every time someone tells V they area good person.

I hacked the operation carpe noctem shard, and wow the corporations are using ai to make people have cyberpsychosis, or something like that. What a shocker /s, I've played Deus Ex HR before

lol driving through the unifinished interstate, past the fight from Panam's first quest I found a "batcave" with a very nice car, and a manifesto written by "muckman'. But here's my complaint about the loot, there is a legendary top, but it had 16 armor. My current top has 84 armor, like why would i switch?? then later i found a bunker with soviet spies in it. Wild

Doing River's second quest, love the timing of as soon as you ask, why are we breaking in, someone shows up to tell you he got kicked off the force. It's funny how Johnny comments how maybe River's into you, and V just doubts Johnny's words. Love how the first kid asks River if I'm his girlfriend. also wow like oof both the second parts of Judy and River's quest are SUPER fucked UP!! oof like i stopped doing first person mode on the braindances for those quests as soon as i could, just made me too uncomfortable seeing that in first person.

DRIVING IN THE GAME IS BAD! nowhere is it more apparent than the sinnerman quest, which took me 3 times to get the driving section done, as cars spawned out of nowhere to hit me. Then when you restart, there is a bunch of dialogue it doesn't let you fast forward through. The rest of the Sinnerman questline is interesting. My V took every option to tell the dude that he was messed up, and what he was doing was wrong. idk, I was surprised how much dialogue there was that let you buy into his whole "forgiveness thing" and how there wasn't any real dialogue to call him the fuck out, that in seeking forgiveness he continues to do harm both emotional to the mother of the man he killed, but also that he got the husband killed via cop. The later follow up quest, I told him that what he is doing is crazy, studio is just going to profit off this vid. Then I refused to join him prayer, and told him fuck no i wasn't going to hammer him to the cross, or even watch. Yes, the man is scared of dying, and the corporation is exploiting him, but he keeps creating burdens for others. I think the discussion on this quest will be interesting to read, it's definitely my own personal experience with religion coloring my view. Anyway back to a main quest, yeah i don't trust Placide, especially in that scene where he grabs my hand, then jacks in. I ran off to do most of the sidequests here and got some criticism from him. I do love how in the cinema the western movie switches to a mission brief as the netwatch agent talks. its a fun enviromental detail. I took the netwatch offer, i don't think he's being fully honest with me, but he didn't put a virus in my head. As I told Placide later, I didn't pick a side. I like how you can then talk with the agent, who is a fan of Western movies, b/c they show "a simpler time where all good guys carry badges" :eyeroll:, and then V recommends Unforgiven, which from the wiki summary goes against that theme.

Looks like the Voodoo boys all got killed by Netwatch, but I as revenge for them trying to set me up I'm fine with it. Honestly after speaking with ai!Alt I don’t believe their plan of trying to be on good relations with AI would work.

doing the johnny flashback 2, and wow Johnny really is an asshole. Like I had gotten so used to him in side missions I forgot how self centered and unlikable he was.You constantly get prompts to drink or do drugs, which I ignored. But i do love the goth/punk love Rogue and others have.

lol i called it, when Hellman said that the engram would seek to override the host, put V on the engram. I really like how as the relic malfunctions, you wind up in the chair with a cigarette, which you can either smoke and say you are turning into Johnny or throw away. My dialogue "your problem is the ends justify the means", which is true!!! He and Rogue detonated a nuke downtown, does anyone know that, and like ask Rogue about it????

(Funny you can ask Rouge about Johnny silverhand, over the phone, then the game bugs out and spawns her npc where you are. She doens't say much about the nuke, but she does say no one trusts you for jobs). The line of no one trusting you for jobs is pretty funny at level 46 street cred where im at “respected” status. really loving the family atmosphere at River's 3rd quest. Also his big strong arms, and the fact he is no longer a cop. I totally let the kids win, and wow the family dinner where they GRILL YOU over the relationship and try to set the two of you up, then the water tower scene!!!!! I don't love the first person sex cutscenes but they do have personality. I'm glad afterwards you got to tell River about the biochip and that you might die. Because he's so far removed from your personal plot. So I took that option to back out of a relationship.

I do love that you wake up with "river's tanktop" that says "fuck the police" It actually has extremely good armor stats, so thats what I'll wear now.

panam 3rd quest, when shes like why did you help me, I'm like "because it's important to you". Basically the closest you can get to "when a friend asks for help you help them", which as an ex-nomad backstory I really choose the nomad options when ever i can Paralezes quest part 2! I love the piano song but I always think of it as ocean's 11 music. It's also fun to see the computer and see Judy recommended you for the first quest. The emails talk about "forgetting" to hire a staffer, on the balocony a strange antennia was scannable, the color of the roses was remembered wrong... lol guess i was right with those giant wall screens. Its fun environmental details that spell things out before you can notice, and it ties into some other quests where people's behavior is being altered. Actually, this quest "Dream On" I love it! For a while I've been like "wheres the illuminati conspiracy! Here it IS! I chose to follow Elisabeth's wishes and not tell her husband he was being brainwashed. In best case they program him to forget again, in worst case he ends up dead. The gaslighting Elisabeth described is CHILLING, her husband describes a vacation she can't remember and she doesn't know whose memories have been messed with. On your way to the plaza you get a call from someone/something that says the know exactly WHAT you are, any you black out!!! It's such a great feeling of helplessness that you're just one person in a world so big that you can't fight every power. As Johnny said, could be a corporation, could be a rogue ai, either way Jefferson is fucked (and so are you).

#cyberpunk 2077 #mac plays video games #a lot of this journaling i do #so in a few years i can look back #and see my first impressions

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kinetic-elaboration · 3 years

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January 10: ST VI The Undiscovered Country

Did not write today and I’m still feeling a lot of anxiety about this, like a lot, but time moves on I guess. I have new things to worry about now.

Anyway, I did watch ST VI: The Undiscovered Country.

I was pretty prepared to hate this movie, I’m not even entirely sure why--out of defensiveness/protectiveness for ST V, I guess? Also just a general uneasiness about Klingon-centric plots.

Objectively it’s not a bad film. It has an interesting idea, and it provides a fitting ending for the TOS cast: on a character level (getting ready for retirement, K and S wondering if their biases make them unfit to continue working), a universe-level (ending the TOS era with the end of hostilities with the Klingons seems appropriate, like a new era is dawning etc. etc.), and a meta-level (having a show that was initially created in the shadow of Vietnam ending its extended story with the end of the Cold War). The mystery was a weird genre to include but pretty fun. And it followed along at a pretty good clip.

I also like the K/S moments, especially Spock putting a tracking device on Kirk (and Kirk just somehow knowing this even though they could not have discussed it), their quiet little confab at the end of the hall, and especially the scene in Spock’s quarters, where Kirk just shows up and Spock just lets him, even though he’s meditating in the dark and you know he’d never let anyone but his husband in while he’s being all emo like that.

I also thought their little unexplained tiff was interesting--a mini-TMP. Imo, it looks like Spock is planning his post-Starfleet career, but while Kirk will probably just retire, Spock is going to go on to diplomacy, and since he and Kirk have never been fans of diplomacy, perhaps he was a little uncertain about telling him? Especially pro-Klingon diplomacy?

Nevertheless, I didn’t really like the movie much as a whole. Even more than ST V, it felt like it was not really Star Trek anymore. I don’t like all this Klingon stuff, this idea that they’re SO important, both as a Federation enemy and as Kirk’s personal nemeses (the second part can be explained by The Search for Spock but the first is just a straight up retcon--if you watch TOS, the Klingons just weren’t that big of a deal). I find them very boring, plus I’m bitter about the sidelining of the Romulans.

I also don’t really care about Federation politics. As I said before, I like the discovery part of ST more than the world-building part necessarily. I realize this is sort of hypocritical of me given some of my complaints about AOS, but it’s not so much that I wanted all of ST XII and ST XIII to be about the political, economic, and social ramifications of Vulcan’s destruction so much as I wanted those things to be mentioned, or woven into the larger stories, and they really weren’t. But anyway.

I did not recognize Kim Cattrall as what’s-her-face but I DID recognize Christian Slater and then I laughed for a long time. I did recognize Iman and I was super attracted to her.

Uhura was delightful in this film. But I felt really deprived of Scotty/Uhura content tbh.

I loved Captain Sulu on the Excelsior. It fit in well with him liking that ship in the previous films and it was great to see him in command. I also liked how clear it was that once you’re Enterprise-family, you’re ALWAYS Enterprise-family.

The retconning of David as some kind of, I don’t know, good person, was understandable but hilarious. The Klingon representative saying Kirk validated her father’s hope or whatever made sense. But Kirk saying she validated his son’s was like???? Your son the unethical scientist who accidentally made the most powerful weapon known to the universe while attempting some Icarus-level hubristic terraforming shit?? Yes he represented hope I guess.

I don’t really think any more films were necessary after The Voyage Home. I think The Search for Spock basically finishes up the story nicely and then The Voyage Home is a fun little epilogue, which also answers some outstanding questions about how Spock recovered from being reborn, and how the crew got off Vulcan, etc. I don’t hate ST V or ST VI but they’re superfluous to me. They’re more... universe expanding stories than necessary stories. In other words, you can ALWAYS add, as long as your characters are still alive you can find more stuff for them to do, but constructed narratives should have end points, and I don’t see what ST V or ST VI really bring to the story. They both have good moments, especially all the Triumvirate stuff in ST V, but they seem a little tacked on to me personally, at least given my interpretation of the narrative, and thus also less Trek as I define it.

The only move left to potentially rewatch is Beyond... I’m still not sure I can do it. I’m just not sure!

#the year 2021 #2021: star trek tos #star trek tos #2021: fandom thoughts #2021: star trek

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thespaceace124 · 3 years

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Tv shows I watched this year, my favorite character from each, and why I like each character.

Since my past few posts about Fandom/TV shows have been kinda negative/ criticism, to end off the year, I wanted to make a few posts about things that I like in media. So today we’ll be taking a look at all the shows I watched/finished this year and my favorite characters from each.

Space Force: Captain Angela Ali. Its been a hot minute since I watched Space force, but iirc she’s just… done like 99% of the time with all of her superiors, but in the ten episodes we get, we see some fun little character moments from her. Like in the war games episode where she has to grapple with being an amazing book student, but has a hard time applying some of the stuff she learned at the military academy in a “combat” situation and has to sort of learn and take the lead from one of her “underlings” who is better in that sort of situation. Also, the bonding moments she has with Chan, like when they’re on the road trip, and when she asks him for help learning some science stuff so she can be more useful on missions and stuff. (again, its been a while since I’ve watched this one so my memory of it is a little foggy)

Stargate SG-1: Colonel Jack O’Neill. I like the tope he falls into of the very surface level sort of gruff military man, doesn’t like talking about his feelings, makes smart ass remarks, asks people who talk to much to get to the point, he’s a very fun character, and adds a lot of fun lightheartedness to the show and is generally enjoyable to have on screen. Also tends to get the most character development, at least regarding his past and sort of why the way that he is. (I would say Teal’c gets the second most), also the reason I got into stargate, as my dad showed me a compilation of him being a smart ass and I was like “oh ho ho, I gotta see more of this guy”

Doctor Who (specifically seasons 11 and 12): The Doctor. I like this version of the Doctor, I like that she a little more lighthearted chaotic as opposed to the previous Doctor, who I would describe as dark chaotic, (at least in s11) and just very fun to be around and watch on screen. Also, I think that the rest of the fam is a little bit underdeveloped? Like, we got a lot of fun stuff for Ryan and Graham in the premier with them being a part of a family unit and then at the end of the season we got a nice little scene of them bonding and Ryan calling him grandad and then in s12 there’s like none of that??? And with Yaz we get that she’s kinda got the usual female companion backstory (not a big fan of her job, not happy living with her family, wants *More* out of life) and then we learn that she got bullied as a kid, and at one point she tried to run away, but a kindhearted cop and her sister??? Managed to keep her in Sheffield. So, I feel a little bit like the doctor is my favorite as a default just because we already know the doctors story, so we’ve just pasted a new personality onto a familiar character.

Deep Space Nine (started 2019): Major Kira Nerys. Straight up the reason this character is my favorite is because my dad said I remind him of her and that makes me feel nice. Also, Nana Visitor is very pretty. Also I like that she takes 0 shit from anyone, including Sisko, but we also get to see her learn and grow from “I will always voice my disagreement no matter what” to “There is a time and a place to object” and also a little bit of learning that sometimes you have to work with people who’ve hurt you and sometimes that sucks. Anyway, she’s a grade A badass and I love her.

Voyager (started 2019): Captain Kathryn Janeway. Like my reasons for Kira, I think Janeway is a badass, and that Kate Mulgrew is very pretty. But also, I think Janeway is a badass in a different way than Kira is, simply because their characters are in very different situations. But I think Janeway is portrayed to be handling things extremely well, and doing what needs be done, obviously that wasn’t super looked at as they did want to keep the tone of voyager relatively light, but anyway, I like Janeway because she’s someone to look up to, to want to incorporate traits of into your own behavior.

Picard: Rafaella “Raffi” Musiker. I like Raffi because she is one of the most consistent characters in Picard. See imo Picard suffers from having too much on its plate, and also it drops/ abandons too many characters. With a show that has only 10 episodes, especially in a first season, you can’t do that. So, with Raffi being in the majority of the episodes, with consistent characterization that makes sense, and working as someone who can actually keep Picard in check? That’s the best character in the show. Also, I think of actors not seen in Star Trek before, she’s one of the better ones and that makes her better.

Lower Decks: Ensign Beckett Mariner. I love a chaotic smartass. Also, for as much as I love LD being a relatively slice of life comedy, I love that Mariner got a ton of characterization in the last few episodes, especially exploring her relationship with her mom, and people who knew her at the academy. She’s super fun, I love how she’s almost always dunking on Boimler, but also really cares for him and doesn’t want to see him hurt. Again, she’s just super fun to see on screen, I love that she doesn’t really like authority figures, and is content to figure herself out while being a relatively low-ranking officer. I like Mariner because she is both sure of herself, but not totally sure what she wants to do with her career, which is something that Star Trek has never explored before, and I think its super interesting.

Discovery: Commander Michael Burnham. I think a trend with a lot of the characters on this list is that I personally find them cool and/or pretty, and once again that also applies to Michael here, but also, I like her because Michael as a concept is fascinating. Like the idea of being a child who goes through a trauma and then is immediately whisked away to a place where she can’t actually process it? And then as a result grows up emotionally constipated and only in her 30s, is sort of finally able to shed that and actually learn how to be healthy with her emotions? Absolutely fascinating, I love that. I also love that we can kind of see that her upbringing and the suppression of emotions as a child still effects the choices that she’s made to this day. Its super cool, and I think one of the best parts of discovery.

Ratched: Nurse Mildred Ratched. I don’t have anything really important to say here, I just tend to like the main characters of tv shows because by default they get the most development/ back story or whatever, and honestly this is one of those shows that I enjoyed enough to watch all ten episodes, and then never picked it up again, so. Ehhh

Dexter: Dexter Morgan. I like Dexter Morgan because he’s a man who has always been told he doesn’t have emotions, but as the show goes on you can totally see that he does have emotions, he just doesn’t know how to handle them, and that they don’t present themselves in the same way that “normal” people’s do. Like, I fully believe that Dexter did actually love Rita, Harry jr., Deb, and Hannah. But I also believe he didn’t fully know how to cope with those emotions, because instead of getting his son help Harry Morgan decided to turn his son into a killing machine, which was a Choice.

Hannibal: Will Graham. I liked watching him kinda fall into Hannibal’s co-dependency trap. Character regression baybee. But like, that’s what happens, I’m pretty sure at one point they both admit that they aren’t healthy for each other, but they also cant live w/o each other. Which is not a dynamic I personally had seen delved into in media before I watched this show. I just think he’s neat.

ATLA: Toph Beifong. I like Toph because I think she provides a nice foil to Aang, whilst also not going too far into the opposite direction. She’s decisive, she knows for the most part what she wants from this adventure, and mostly how to go about getting it, while also discovering a new family along the way. I also just like the way that she can and will throw a boulder at you if she thinks you deserve it.

Chilling Adventures of Sabrina: Sabrina Spellman. Again, sort of falling into the “I tend to like the main character by default folder” It’s also been a hot minute since I watched this show, so I’m just gonna say that I like Sabrina because she is always the one getting her own self into trouble by being Different. And while I’m not saying that it is always good to conform and do what is expected of you, all of the issues in the show are caused by Sabrina (for the most part). Season one is all about shit falling apart if she doesn’t sign the book, season two is her shaking things up at the witch academy and also not wanting to be the princess of hell (understandable, but again, still her fault) and the whole plot of season 3 is the fallout of her imprisoning the devil and then also being too cocky with the guy made of clay. She’s far too cocky, and I think that’s super funny in regards to how it gets her into situations she’s not really prepared for.

The Coroner (BBC): Beth Kennedy. I watched this show with my stepmom, and in this show, Beth tends to be the one who lightens the mood a lot, so she’s my favorite character b/c of that.

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random-french-girl · 4 years

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I don't want to take this Good Thing and use it as a Bad Thing but spop's amazing journey + end points out to me how starkly and objectively strange and lost and kinda.... bad. RWBY's writing can be. I love our girls!! but. Its always seemed to me Kiles fights themselves with what the show is about. Noelle never had that problem. Thoughts?

Hey Anon!

I think that’s a valid feeling! I love RWBY with my entire heart, but we can all agree the writing has faltered at times.

Noelle had a vision for what she wanted her show to be, she knew in advance how many episodes they had to tell this story, and worked extremely hard to make it happen. This resulted in a very tightly written show, imo.

RWBY... is not the same, but it seems a bit unfair to compare the two shows. I do believe the writers of RWBY have a plan, and have been following that plan from the very start. (I’m not sure where you get the idea that they’re not on the same page ? Unless that’s not what you meant.) But they’re not working with the same strict limits (a set number of episodes, same runtime for each episode, etc...), their budget and material resources have not been the same from volume to volume, from what I gather, and they’ve also had to deal with a personal tragedy that affected them, and the show, greatly. It doesn’t make for tight storytelling, always, but... isn’t it fun, too, to watch the growth and progress they make?

Anyway, all I’m saying is: it’s okay if after watching She Ra you’re feeling less enthusiastic about RWBY, or more critical, or whatever. But if you can, I’d just try and appreciate each show for what it is! <3

#Anonymous #she ra #rwby

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lubixings · 3 years

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top 10 movies u thought were really bad I need anti recommendations 😔

omg~!!!! im a hater so this is perfect :) im not including any we watched together jsdlsddkl

midsommar: this movie was absolute trash and i hate ari aster so much he just makes gross weird movies everything i hate about the horror genre. the sad thing is like it had such a good setup but the plot was so stupid and trash and i hate gore for the sake of gore (dont watch it)

it chapter 2: the first movie was so well executed and the problem with the second one is that the kids grew up into the most obnoxious adults imaginable (i know its partly bc of the trauma but the actors were so annoying) and also the film started out with a grossly unnecessary incredibly violent homophobic hate crime which automatically puts it in the trash movie section for me

star wars tros: this was fun actually only bc everyone in the movie theater also thought it was awful so we bonded over that. when rey and kylo kissed the entire theater was groaning or booing. also i was a little high

prom: idk why i watched this u would think with a star studded cast that it would be a good movie but it wasn’t omg also nicole’s face was so distracting to me which is weird bc i didnt find it distracting in her hbo show ? maybe it was the makeup choice idk. anyways movies about white gays are so bad !! so bad

bohemian rhapsody: imo biographies about celebrities are supposed to idk humanize them more and like this one didnt. idk how to explain it but it just felt like a very shallow look at freddie’s life like i wish it was less about him as an idol and more about him as a person? it also kind of glossed over his battle with aids too. also no hate to rami but freddie was not egyptian 😭

the emoji movie: my nephew made me watch it with him n honestly i dont even remember what happened in this movie just that it traumatized me

fantastic beasts: this movie was so boring like harry potter is kind of boring on its own but this was like super mega boring. nothing about it was entertaining it put me to sleep

xmen days of future past: time travel just does not work for me idgi idk whats canon anymore also honestly the first of the new series was good bc Homoerotic Subtext™️ n the rest was just awful

saw: objectively the worst n most overrated horror series of all time. it was like gore for the sake of gore like...how disturbing can we be how fucked up can we be (like ahs) also the villain was like im going to traumatize ppl who have trauma ...like wtf ? idk a lot of horror is just awful

anything from quentin tarantino hes just awful i hate his movies so much theyre so pointless n i hate his ~vision~ or whatever

send me top 5s/top 10s~

#ty!! this was fun i had to think abt it a lot #inbox #aegissi

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mrslittletall · 4 years

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Don’t tell me where to go. Earlier I watched a video about the flaws in Pokémon Sun/Moon. One of them I heavily agreed with, that annoying red flag that indicates where you should go next. In an already very linear game. Imo, it is just unneccessary. I barely am able to explore the world and even when I am allowed to go exploring, sooner or later I have to go back to the part where the latest roadblock was. I probably haven’t forgotten about it, because I am stuck in a small area. Also, Rotom Dex is reminding me constantly where to go anyway. So why is there this red flag on the map? It’s pointless. Thinking about this, I started Trials of Mana to get the last spirit. The remake, not the original. And just like in Pokémon Sun/Moon, I got annoyed. There is always that glowing big star on the map, telling me where to go even though this game is as linear as Sun/Moon! The elfin elder told me to go the mana goddess statue in the northwest of the forest, I can press on minus and see a map with this exact same statue on it and still, a shiny glowing star points on it! It is unneccessary! I played the original, the original didn’t had a map, the map was also divided in screens because old game and guess what? I still was able to found this mana statue! In fact, even just two weeks ago because I like to play the original with my husband. Why are games so adamant to tell you where to go? Heck, even one of my favourite games, Okami, did it. Not often, but at a few points, mostly when you have to hurry (but actually have all the time in the world), a glowing red arrow shows in which direction you should run. This actually gets me out of the immersion. That giant red arrow doesn’t make any sense, especially when Okami normally never tells you where to go with a marker, you just can look into your log and normally get Issuns latest hint where to go, but you have to find out yourself just how to get there. And mostly, in this “hurry to a location” events you already know where the location is, because you have to run back to it! I am getting more and more annoyed by this... do the game developer think we gamers are stupid? That we can’t find our way? That we have trouble when there isn’t a giant marker on the map, especially in linear games? Alright, now let’s talk about Open World games. One example I play atm is Death Stranding. That game actually TELLS me where I need to go, BUT, while I know where I need to head, the way to the location isn’t clear at all. Often you can’t just cross in a straight line, the world is in your way and you are just a basic human without any superpowers (ok outside of the whole BT sensing thing and not being able to die thing), but you get the gist. The thing is, you have to go from point A to point B and have to figure out HOW you get there. Do you pack a bunch of ladders to scale the mountains in your way? Do you try to find a way around the mountains? Do you pack weapons to take out the MULE camp in your way or do you try to sneak through it? Do you try to avoid the timefall and the BTs or do you take them head on? You have a lot of choices in this game how to handle the situation and it is beautiful. Moreso, the game profits from its online features. When you are alone, you can see and use structures of other players, you can see signs that warn you and you can see footpathes that have been created by other players. It really makes it fun to reconnect the world and connect with the other players you never see but know are there. Alright, different game. Zelda Breath of the Wild. That game has a huge world. You are in a tutorial arena in the beginning, but after you got all your shieka stone apps, you are free to leave. And that is meant literally. Once you are done with the tutorial, BotW lets you do WHATEVER you want. You can literally go straight to Hyrule Castle and defeat Ganon and it is a common speedrunner thing. But you don’t have to defeat Ganon. The game gives you several objectives, like tame the titans or find the shrines or the memories. Now, the only thing that downright points to where to go are the titans and they are actually pretty easy to spot from a hight point, because they are HUGE. Everything else? Find it on your own. You get a sensor for shrine and you get quests for them. Nothing ever points to them with a marker, you have to solve the hints and find the shrine yourself. The same for the sidequest of the game. You get pointed to who gave you the quest, which is a good thing because it isn’t easy to remember where they were, but the actual quest? Read the text and figure out where to go. Normally it is near the quest giver, so just exploring a bit will help. And the memories! You have twelve photos and have to find the places they got shot at. So how do you find the needle in the haystack? There is this painter in each main town and a few stables and you can show him the photos, he then gives you a hint just where to search! I pretty much found every memory with his hints, I just needed to look up the last memory that wasn’t on the shieka stone because it had been three years since I visited that area and I forgot where it was (I still remembered that it existed, so iconic did it look). BotW gets praised a lot for his sense of freeness and I totally get why. Ok, now let me talk about the last games for now... Dark Souls, Bloodborne and Sekiro. When I started Dark Souls, I was really upset. Why? Not because the asylum demon crushed my sorry ass five times, not because I thought I had to beat him with the sword hilt, not because of the boulder trap that killed me. That game had no map! I would get so lost! I am HELPLESS without a map! To my surprise... I was completely fine without the map. Sure, in the beginning I got awfully lost and stumbled to the skeletons, but then I found the Undead Burg. I fought myself through it, explored, remembered where which enemy was when I was running back to Taurus the 20th time (I really struggled, ok?) and the gameworld... just made sense. It became a really aha-moment when the shortcuts clicked into place. Granted, the shortcuts aren’t a big part of the game anymore after the lordvessel, but the first half is beautifully done! Finding the shortcut back to Firelink, finding the back exit out of Blighttown, seeing how Anor Londo opens up, the shortcut in Sen’s Fortress, beautiful. That was what let me thought about Dark Souls as Metroidvania. That game is a Metroidvania. Sadly, Dark Souls 2 and 3 don’t have it as much anymore, especially Dark Souls 3 is a lot more linear, but still has loads of optional stuff to do for me and most importantly, never tells me where to go. Bloodborne is a lot like the first Dark Souls and also different. Bloodborne has a lot more areas that are disembodied, but they have that beauty of the Metroidvania in them. One of the most mind baffling things was finding the back entrance to Iosefka’s clinic... coming from the Forbidden Woods! And the finding out, HEY, that is that gate I saw at the start of the game and couldn’t open! Slowly, you open up Yharnam and even the other areas like the nightmares have cool shortcuts to find. It feels like your exploring got rewarded, that you don’t have to fight through all this enemies anymore, only a few, to get back to the boss. Now let me talk about the last game... Sekiro. This game opens up at a certain plot point and your only hints? You talk with Kuro and Emma and they tell you a few things they found out about. I was SO confused. I had no idea what they were talking about and where to go. So I decided to check the areas out they talked about and try to make sense of the riddles they told me. I couldn’t find a lot at first and went back often to listen to their riddles, until I just went full risque and jumped into a pit only to find out that this indeed had been the right solution! One by one, I found out how to find the other locations. The game never pointed them out for me, I followed the hints and found them myself. So, to conclude. Video games, please don’t tell me where to go.

#long post #gaming #video games

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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Here's a random question for you: I know you're a big (the biggest) proponent of Scanny, but if you had to pick someone else for Danny to have a relationship with, who would it be?

I actually have thought about this! Honestly, my go to after Scott for Danny is Mason, because the younger characters are literally only two years younger than the original characters even if it seemed otherwise a lot of the time. And so given that we never saw Danny and Mason interact due to the whole ‘oh sure, he totally graduated offscreen a year early just in time to not be around for the season that revolved entirely around his specific expertise aka hacking’ nonsense....I can easily imagine a few years in the future, Danny and Mason meet in college or grad school or somewhere they’re on even footing and learn they have mutual friends/experiences/knowledge in common and from there grow into a friendship and also maybe then they’re boyfriends and then husbands and then dads and then grandpas and happily ever after yada yada.

Meanwhile, if Danny encountered Liam at any age, I feel like he would just be like: “No.” And then wave his hand around in Liam’s direction in a circle like to encompass all of him, as he’s all. “All of this is just exhausting, whatever it is. I am too old and too tired to deal with this....vibe you’re emitting.”

LOL I can’t explain it, like Liam and Mason have entirely different energies and I feel that age isn’t even a factor as to why Danny would just not at all have patience for Liam. Like, I don’t think he’d DISLIKE him exactly, so much as just....’I’m going to be over here, and you’re going to stay over there, and I just think that’ll be best for everyone and we’ll all get along great that way.”

Hmm, who else. Controversial I guess, but I actually did kinda like Dethan, waaaay back at the very beginning of it, before that very same season crapped all over any real potential it or even the twins at all had in the show. Given that I’m fine with them and even like them in AUs or fics that diverge before they had anything to do with Boyd’s death, but if that’s at all in canon for a story, I have no interest in them as anything other than cannon fodder. Which let’s be real, you always kinda have a need for in TW stories.

But initially, I REALLY REALLY liked the fact that there was this (at the time) mysterious new character that was there for DANNY, like, deliberately seeking him out because of real or suspected significance....I was all for that, because I was like yes, excellent, clearly this means they have plans to focus more on Danny and bring him into the core group eventually and also obviously Danny’s gonna turn this guy away from the Dark Side and make him betray his pack of overcompensating losers for Danny and the power of LOVE because who doesn’t love that trope, am I right? Its all so clearly laid out!

Ahhh, to be that dumb again.

Anyway, so in AUs or early canon-divergent fics, I can be all for Danny and a better, more fleshed out and non-jackass depiction of Ethan. But by the time Ethan returns in actual canon, the fact that he’s with Jackson just irritates me in a ‘hooking up with your ex’s best friend is a jerk move and we get it, show, you don’t consider Danny important and never did, jfc’ kinda way. Beyond that though, I’m just like, Jackson can have him at that point, they deserve each other, go Team Jerkwad.

I don’t see Theo and Danny ever happening because I like to think that Danny’s view on scheming, ambitious and boundary-breaking friends with possible homicidal inclinations has changed since Jackson and Ethan’s presences in his life, and he’s like.....”Nah, I’m not doing that again. Two of that type are enough for me, and I’m kinda always gonna put up with Jackson at this point because...look, I had my reasons probably, just because I can’t remember the basis of our friendship now, like....just back off, okay?”

Just saying, I don’t think he’d inherently hate Theo if Theo’s story happens in an AU kinda way where he doesn’t murder and betray his way through the show’s social hierarchy, lol, but Danny would still just be like “Look, whatever your issues are dude, I’m not trying to judge you for them if you don’t make me, but like, go put in some you-time offstage and then maybe we can talk. I am not emotionally equipped to put up with the schemes of yet another person whose whole thing seems to be ‘am I good or bad, you decide, because I sure as hell can’t.’ I don’t care how big your biceps are, that is not going to be a deciding factor for me, not this time, no sir, I have learned from my mistakes, I have had hashtag Growth, and you need to go now, and also please put on a shirt. I SAID GOOD DAY, SIR!”

Danny and Stiles is Lol That’s A No For Me, of course, Danny and Boyd I would be totally down for and can picture them being like, a snark queen power couple who hang back and watch all the drama unfold around them while providing entertaining commentary back and forth to each other but otherwise act like they’re not even there, and when someone annoyed by their running commentary finally snaps and goes “Why are you two even here?” like, I can so picture Danny and Boyd just blinking slowly and looking at them, then at each other, then back at them as if confused by the question.

“It’s Date Night,” Danny says slowly, in the tone reserved for being asked to solve the equation on the board that’s already got the answer written out right there.

“Okay, fine. But why are you HERE, then? If its your Date Night, like.....go have your date then. Catch a movie. Its all good, we don’t need you guys here at the moment.”

Boyd squints at them. “This IS our date. Whoppers?”

The latter is directed to Danny, as Boyd extends the box of candy towards him.

“Yes please,” Danny says, reaching for a handful.

Exasperated sighs are heard all around the room.

LOL anyway....who else....Jackson tends to be a no for me too, not for any real reason beyond like....I’ve read too many fics where they’re essentially treated as the Mirror Universe version of S/ciles, and you KNOW how I feel about that ship, so like, all even dubiously associated ships are by mere proxy also noped by me. *Shrugs*

Which mostly just leaves Isaac, and....idk, tbh. I’m not inherently opposed to them, and I’ve actually even read a couple of fairly long-ish and pretty enjoyable Danny/Isaac fics. But enjoyable in the sense of like....just as their own thing, a fun romance set in the TW setting/universe, between Danny and an Isaac-shaped woobiewolf. As the few Danny/Isaac fics I’ve found over the years tend to suffer from the exact same thing that’s always kept me from really ever getting into Scott and Isaac as a couple in anything other than theory...

Like, in the fics I’ve tried, I always tend to run into the same tendency to just....sand down all of Isaac’s rough edges and make him this shy, insecure, soft boy who is withdrawn until Danny or Scott bring him out of his shell....even when its based on the events of the show and Isaac’s already been turned into his leather jacket-wearing, snark-wielding, deliberately apathetic werewolfsona.

And that’s just...not Isaac to me? So if I treat him as an original character basically, I can enjoy those stories, and do, just because there’s sooooo little Danny-centric fic that awhile back, I absolutely spent a good year or so making sure like, I found every last scrap of it, lol. I went spelunking in some deep, dark places in search of even a little spotlight time for Danny, because He Deserved Better and I was willing to put up with a lot to see him get even a little (except for like, blatant and unavoidable Scott hate being front and center in the fic as well. Then I exited with rapidity. I love Danny, but not even for him can I stomach that).

But yeah, otherwise, I very very rarely found a lot of Isaac fics, no matter who he was paired with, where he wasn’t like....constantly soft and vulnerable and the focus of Scott or Danny or whomever else’s regular attempts to comfort and protect him. Which I mean, I love Isaac, and I’m always projecting onto abuse survivors in fiction even if just a little bit, so its not that I object to the comfort and desire to protect him parts, just the sheer unevenness that tends to be present in his dynamics as well. I’ve always said that for me, the true theme of TW was survivor empowerment, that all of these kids had been hurt and exploited and traumatized in various ways and they all struggled individually and together to find ways to cope and to heal, and also to feel empowered enough to protect THEMSELVES from whatever or whomever tried to hurt them again in the future.

And that’s the element that so often is missing from Isaac’s arc in fics, IMO...any hint of the character who he spent a lot of time and effort growing into on the show. Evolving first into a character who reveled in the power he’d been given and that made him feel safe and strong for the first time in his life, to the point where he was quite frankly an asshole a lot of the time.

But then from there he grew into a character who came to terms with the reality that as his own power grew, so did the power of the new tormentors he was now often in conflict with, due to the source of his newfound strength...and his strength and brutality and apathy were not at all the tools able to help him find true protection and recovery in his new world. They just weren’t going to get the job done, and that’s when he started to let Scott’s example sink in and take his lead from that, finding the power and strength in committing himself more to others, becoming more of an active participant rather than just a spectator or a henchman who needed orders before acting.....allowing himself to be vulnerable in exchange for the benefits being more open to others afforded him.

Isaac’s growth onscreen from season to season was the very thing that made him so interesting and enjoyable to me....as well as how his bond with Scott did the same thing....so when the former isn’t really present in fics, even the presence of the latter doesn’t really do a whole lot for me. And its the same thing in the Danny/Isaac fics I read, so yeah. There for it in theory, but the execution I’ve found has never done anything to make it any more compelling a ship possibility than any other random ship.

I think that’s pretty much everyone though? Well I mean like, there’s Corey, but I don’t have strong feelings about that possibility one way or another. And there’s Derek, given the whole ‘Miguel’ thing in S1, but you know me, even in future/aged-up settings, I still tend to be ‘what if Derek dated people his own damn age tho, like just for the sheer novelty, let’s explore that some more’.....not to mention that as the show progressed, the more fandom hated on Braeden and her relationship with Derek, the more I spite-shipped them. To the extent that now I find it hard to picture even AUs where they’re not endgame, or if Derek HAS to be in another ship for some reason, then they still were a super serious relationship before the fic and there’s always that hint of her being the one that got away, kinda.

*Shrugs* What can I say? The enemy ship of my enemy is my OTP. The Art of War, fandom style. I have no problem admitting it, lolol.

But yeah, that’s all of them I think now.

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atopearth · 4 years

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Fate/stay night Réalta Nua Part 1 - Fate Route (1/2)

Prologue I’ve always wanted to read the VN so it’s time for me to actually do it! I feel like the anime left a lot of things to be desired so let’s see how it goes~ Didn’t expect Mitsuzuri and Rin to be good friends hmmm. I knew Shinji was supposedly popular but I didn’t know he was supposed to be THAT popular, guess I can further understand why he gets so insulted when Rin rejects him but yeah, still a thoroughly crappy guy. Ugh, his arrogance puts me off to no end. Wow, omg, Rin put him in his place so hard, it was hilarious. No wonder why he hates her lolll. Rin is so silly though, she knew her clock was one hour faster and yet she totally forgot loll, I wonder if she really would have been able to summon Saber instead if she did the ritual at the time when her magic was at its peak though? However, Archer is much more interesting and fun than Saber so yahh, not much of a loss there hahaha. Well, I guess since you have to summon them with something related to the Servant, she probably would have still got Archer haha. Hahahaha, I love how he said he’ll ignore her opinions and do everything his own way, so she can just hide in the basement until the Holy Grail War ends🤣🤣 Lmao when she used one of the Command Spells to force him to obey her orders from now on lolll. But I see…she failed summoning him properly so he doesn’t have his memories of who exactly he is… Lmao that he had to clean the living room because he has to listen to her orders or it’ll affect him (due to the spell). Their relationship is so cute though, he even made good tea for her! Although she’s too much of a tsundere to admit that she liked it, he could already tell, so that really adorable hahaha. I’ve alwayssss shipped Rin and Archer together since back in the day hahaha. So cuteee when she was embarrassed at him calling her Rin when she thought he’d just call her “you” or “Master” hahaha.

I love how confident and strong Rin is. She doesn’t feel the need to hide her magic circuits (since other Masters can detect it) because she wants other Masters to find her instead of her looking around for them hahaha, she’s so cool. Honestly, I’m really enjoying seeing things from Rin’s perspective rather than Shirou’s. Sakura…is talking to Gilgamesh? Honestly though, seeing Rin quite actively help and communicate with Sakura is very nice and refreshing, I always found it weird in the anime that they didn’t even seem like acquaintances imo. Also great to see more insight into Kuzuki’s personality with him cancelling and delaying midterm exams to a later date because of a misspelling in the papers loll. Rin even asks about whether she’s okay considering her home circumstances🥺 I see…I always kinda wondered why Rin never did anything to the boundary field at the school when she knew about it, but I see, she can’t destroy it thoroughly, but she was planning to hinder it by decimating some symbols, until Lancer appeared anyway. A lot of things are much clearer in the VN since it explains things and gives you time to digest it, but there really was much relief that Shirou happened to pass by and stopped Lancer from using his Noble Phantasm and kill them. Although, it doesn’t show that this person is actually Shirou, but you do see that Rin obviously really cares about this person, because she used the pendant (given to her by her father’s will, it was supposed to be a last resort for the war) containing an abundant amount of magical power to save his life. Initially, she was about to just accept his death as something “unlucky” since it’s just the normal process of killing all witnesses and it was unfortunate that she was careless this time (since she always made sure to have no witnesses so she wouldn’t have to kill anyone), but when she saw his face, she couldn’t help but use everything she could to save him. Interesting to see that she forgot about the pendant and left it with him, not that it’s very useful anymore since it doesn’t have much magic in it. Also interesting to know that since she lacked the skills to revive him from near death, the magic power from the pendant helped her in that regard, so I guess that means if you lack skills, you can make up for it with magic power?

Hmm I see, so the reason they always say that Saber is the strongest is because in all the previous wars, Saber has made it to final fight. I’ve always wondered why they always put such high acclaim on Saber when even though she is strong, I wouldn’t call her the “strongest”. Nice to also have it clear that most magic doesn’t work on Saber, Lancer and Archer because they were fighters who fought through the age of myths where magic was used widely, and that’s also why these classes are usually the best. I guess that’s why they’re always focused on Saber compared to the other Servants. Lmaoo, for someone who has no goal in this war besides winning, Rin is really confident and cool to be able to sway Archer in believing in her without even trying haha. Took me a while to figure it out, but I guess the pendant that Archer returned to Rin is actually his own? Does that mean he already knew who he was then and was just hiding it from her? I feel so sorry for Rin though! Imagine if she really got killed by Saber because she went back to save Shirou from Lancer and ended up letting her guard down against the sudden appearance of Saber! I didn’t even realise this part was a prologue, and it even ends on the cliffhanger of Saber intending to kill Rin! Well, anyway since I’ve forgotten a lot of things, it’s great to see things again whilst having some knowledge of other stuff that makes me realise what I missed when I first watched the anime haha. Guess we’re back to Shirou’s perspective then!

Fate route (Day 1-9) It’s so cute to see Sakura wake Shirou up in the morning! So crazy that she got there at 6am though omg, how early does she wake up to prepare breakfast for everyone?! At least Shirou usually tries to wake up early to help out, but wow, club activities start at 7am like dayum. Nice to see that Shirou actually notices Sakura as a girl and feels a bit awkward sometimes because he’s aware of how pretty she is and everything, she is a very good girl after all~ It’s so cute how Shirou admits to being one of Rin’s admirers since she’s so perfect, beautiful and well mannered! Ugh Shinji is SO ANNOYING, always being so insecure for being crappy compared to Shirou and he has to make it seem like he’s SO GREAT, ugh he grinds my gears. I don’t even know why Shirou can even consider him to be a “friend”. Lmao, Shirou is so used to Shinji being full of shit that he just calls it Shinji’s style hahahaha, I guess that’s how it is when you’ve known them for a long time. Lmaoooo at Fuji-nee roaring like a tiger hahahaha. I find it so funny how her whole class calls her by the nickname she hates - Tiger, it’s the only way to bring her back alive when she faints from falling down lmaooo. As usual, Illya is creepy saying that if he doesn’t summon it soon, he’s going to die, and it was at night when no one was around on the road!

I’m glad that there’s more explanations about magic circuits since I’ve been rather confused by them. So basically, the amount of magic circuits in a person is determined at birth, and usually it’s not very much. This is where inheriting magic circuits from generation to generation comes in, and that’s why people like Rin are so powerful in magic I guess, because she’s a descendant of a prominent family of magi. However, these magic circuits can only be inherited through blood relations and that’s why Kiritsugu couldn’t pass his to Shirou, although I’m not sure if he would have even if he could tbh. The good thing though, is that apparently every person has at least one type of magic they’re good at, and that’s why Shirou is good at understanding the structure of things. And now I’m glad to understand the difference between mana and od because mana is magical energy floating around the world, and most magi are able to draw mana and “filter” it through their magic circuits to use as a spell. Since Shirou doesn’t have many, I assume he uses od which is the magic within oneself most of the time and I guess that’s why when he gets Saber, it’s hard for him to give enough magical energy to her since it’s difficult for him to draw any mana with his limited magic circuits? Especially since even when he’s doing his training and fixing stuff, he has to utilise an artificial magic circuit and that’s already dangerous enough to his body if he lacks the concentration… I see, as he said, he is not a magus, he is only a magic user who can create magical energy within his body and channel it into objects hmmm, I like that it’s much clearer in the VN what exactly he can do. Strengthening objects is a cool ability though since it reinforces the object’s abilities by putting magical energy into it~ It’s kinda crazy how the Magic Association only cares about concealing magic from the public and not about whether people are using magic properly, it’s like as long as it doesn’t affect them doing their stuff, they don’t care. I guess it’s because they’re probably doing suspicious magic research themselves imo.

Not sure I like the translation of “seigi no mikata” being superhero, since technically you could be a superhero but not really an ally/protector of justice. Although, I do enjoy more info about Shirou’s motivations here. I guess the fact that Shirou tries to be one is mainly because he wants to become someone like Kiritsugu (since he saved him), so really now that I think about it, Shirou isn’t exactly what you would call a “nice person”, like he’s still nice in various areas etc, but a lot of the reason why he doesn’t mind helping people is because he thinks that as long as he keeps helping people who need him and he has the ability to help them, he will one day become the protector of justice he wants to be. On the other hand, I never realised/remembered that Shinji and Shirou actually had a fight where Shirou beat him up when he asked Shinji about Sakura’s bruises and Shinji had the audacity to say he hits her because he feels like it. What a douchebag. I do feel bad for Shirou that because of that, now Shinji thinks of him more as an enemy now and apparently hurts Sakura more, I feel so sorry for Sakura… It always felt like (in the anime) Shirou left the archery club because of Shinji but it seems like, it was a part of the reason, but not really, since Shirou does want to focus on working for living expenses and because he got a scar from work on his right shoulder and I guess it’s not very proper to have something like that when doing archery since people can see it when they shoot. Or maybe these are all just excuses haha, since Shirou seems to be the best “archer”. It seems that Lancer noticing Shirou’s presence was partly done deliberately so that he could distract him from killing Archer? I mean, Shirou’s sick of not being able to do anything when other people are in danger so that’s understandable..

It’s pretty cute how tsundere Rin is, she obviously wants to tell him about the Holy Grail War and everything because she doesn’t want him to die a meaningless death, but at the same time she can’t bring herself to say it like that, so she tells him she’s doing it because he stopped Saber from killing her. When really, he’s the one who owes her considering how she used that jewel that was left for her in her father’s will to save his life. I don’t know why, but in the anime, Shirou came across as annoying with how he keeps saying girls like Saber shouldn’t fight and how he’ll protect her etc, but in the VN, I think the interaction with Rin thinking it was funny that Shirou was going to protect them from perverts at night (when they went to visit Kotomine at the church) made it sound so silly and cute instead. Well, that bad end where you choose to revoke the command spells and thus your rights as a Master was pretty crappy! Illya literally “kills” Shirou and plans to torture him until he’s really dead! That’s pretty disgustingly ruthless honestly… Lmao at the existence of the Tiger Dojo though! It’s a place where they tell you how you went wrong with your choices to get this bad end and tells you the mindset you should have to get back on track to the proper ending lol. Kinda weird to see Illya act so cute in it when she just killed Shirou though lol. Although, I have to admit that Kirei being able to “take out” Shirou’s command spells was very interesting… Tiger Dojo 2 ending was nice in the sense that you could really see how Rin would sacrifice her life to protect Shirou even when he makes silly choices, it’s really heartwarming to see how much she cares about him tbh. And I guess also “nice” to see how much Illya loves and hates both Kiritsugu and Shirou.

One thing that’s interesting to see in the VN for this fight was Shirou’s intention to save Saber by pushing her away from Berserker’s attack, and hoping to think of his next move after that, rather than him simply shielding Saber. In the end, because he wasn’t fast enough, he ended up taking the hit for Saber, but he had no intention of actually getting hit, he thought he would be able to dodge it. Maybe it was naive of him to think that, but I do enjoy knowing more about his intentions and hopes from this move. I love how Rin teases Shirou when he gets embarrassed at shaking her hand because he realised how soft it was hahahah. Shirou is so cute hahaha! LMAO when he doesn’t count Taiga as someone he’s embarrassed to touch hands with because he considers her as someone from a different planet rather than a girl hahahaha. Ohh? I didn’t really think that how famous each Servant is in the current time actually affected how strong they are as well. I see, so they need to be known and like “worshipped” to solidify their existence and power, I guess that makes sense.

I love Shirou and Saber’s first proper conversation with each other at the dojo. It was really nice to see him have the resolve to fight now that he’s decided to keep with the war, and that he’s just like Saber when it comes to their beliefs and values of protecting the innocent. But I think the best thing about their relationship that I’ve always loved is that Shirou always treats Saber like another fellow “person” rather than a Servant. He’s polite, he’s normal with her and he acts the same as he does with others, and I think that always catches Saber off guard in a good way haha. I also love the professional relationship Archer and Rin have though! But yeah, lmao at Rin just bringing her luggage to Shirou’s place saying she’s living there from now on since they’ve decided to ally with each other. Ohh, I don’t know if I missed it (or I just forgot loll) in the anime but I never realised that Shirou wasn’t giving any magical energy to Saber at all! I thought he gave a little bit! But apparently the summoning might have gone wrong and the connection between them wasn’t connected so she can’t receive anything? No wonder why Saber always has to limit herself and her use, because she’s relying on her own medical energy to stay in this world! Actually, yeah, I think I remember it now lol, my bad! Anyway, gotta love Sakura when she was annoyed that Rin was trying to shoo her out of Shirou’s place when Sakura basically thinks of it as her territory loll. Even funnier when Shirou “forgot” about having to deal with Taiga in regards to Rin living here now lol. Not to mention Saber when she appears later! But Taiga is relatively easy to handle anyway haha. Awww I love how Taiga hates the Tiger nickname but her cup has a tiger on it lmao!

Honestly, although Shirou’s white knighting can get a bit too much, it’s situations like when he decides to introduce Saber to everyone instead of continuing to hide her that really makes me like him. Taiga is so cute though, she has such a soft spot for Shirou that she thinks Saber is taking him away from her since Saber is stronger than her and can protect him better hahaha. Taiga really loves Shirou. Hmmm I see, so the Matou don’t have magic circuits anymore and are really just a family that used to be magi, but still retain knowledge of magic etc. Shinji really just thinks of this whole thing like a game, huh? It was so cute how Rin and Saber glared at Shirou for meeting Shinji by himself haha. Although I can understand Saber’s frustration with Shirou when he always tries to prevent her from fighting etc, it was super reckless of her to go to Ryuudou Temple by herself. I always find Assassin/Sasaki Kojirou to be super cool, because he’s really amazing at having the capability to fend off against Saber with his skill and technique as a samurai. Oh, and seriously, Saber and Shirou should really be thankful to Rin, if it wasn’t for her, the two of them would just be super stubborn in their respective positions and beliefs and be unable to understand the other person. Rin is the best~ loved it when she teased Shirou after he carried Saber back home even though she already knew what happened. But yeah, seriously though, Shirou can get pretty frustrating about how he keeps treating Saber like a girl so she shouldn’t fight etc, like dude, be realistic please, she’s gonna have to fight eventually whether you like it or not, the war isn’t so easy that you can keep her safe.

I guess I’ll always love how proper Shirou is, stuff like properly greeting Saber in the morning even when he’s in a rush and apologising to Rin for forcing her to kick out Sakura when he should have done it for her safety a long time ago is just very nice to see. Sure, Shirou is wishy washy and can be very indecisive and not even know what he himself wants, but he’s such a good guy, it’s hard to really get too annoyed with him. Not sure how I feel about Shirou saying that Ayako getting attacked by a mugger and needing to run away might have been good in a sense to teach her some femininity, like I know he means it in a “good way” but seriously, that’s not important considering what happened! Shirou and Illya eating dorayaki together is such a nice image, especially since Illya never got the chance to experience simple stuff like that stuck in a castle. Lmaoo at Shirou accidentally seeing Saber changing to get into the shower and she’s so whatever about it lol. I always found Archer’s talk with Shirou about it being impossible to save all people much more realistic against Shirou’s ideals, but I think hearing it again when you know who Archer actually is makes it even more saddening and “real” because you know how much Archer personally experienced by believing in and trying to achieve this “ideal”.

Although skipping school is bad, I do enjoy the spars Saber and Shirou have in order to give him battle experience on making the best decision at critical moments. I think it’s the most realistic approach on what they can do to train him against Servants since he obviously doesn’t have the power to really win against them. LOLL at Illya casually saying Sella told her that it wouldn’t be fun to play with Shirou because Illya needs to kill him soon anyway. Like, yep, okay, see ya Illya lol. But I guess it’s kinda cute that even though Sella told her that, Illya herself still decided to wait at the park and see if he would come since she thinks it’s fun being with him, and I guess he feels the same since he bothered to pass by the park. But yeah, it’s pretty saddening how Illya was raised all this time knowing nothing about her parents’ love for her and having to live in the environment where her grandfather raised her as a Master to listen to him and kill anyone in their way to winning the war. Saber getting attached to the baby lion plush she got from Taiga is really cute, I guess since it reminds her of something familiar in her life (when she raised a lion cub for a month), she can’t help but feel soft towards it. On the other hand, lmaoo at Rin punching Shinji and not even caring hahaaha, I can understand why she would, but dang is she ruthless and just making things worse for Shirou by telling him that she’s living with Shirou etc loll. I’m still happy that she punched him though, he totally deserves it. I love how Shirou just listens to Rin and swallows the jewel without even questioning what it is. But it’s nice that it’ll help him keep his Magic Circuit on all the time so he can accustom himself to using magic without having to go through the whole process of risking his life to turn the circuit “on”, definitely more efficient if he can master this! It’s definitely contradictory but amusing how in the end, the best teacher for Shirou probably is Archer lol, since he understands his problems best compared to Rin who is too capable and so doesn’t really understand the problems of an ordinary person learning magic lol.

I’m not surprised Shirou met up with Shinji at school and ended up getting caught in his activation of the boundary field, but dang did I like how decisive Shirou was the whole time during battle. He understood he couldn’t fend off against Rider, and he wasn’t shocked too much by the kick from Rider and was able to use a command spell to get Saber to help him. I also liked how he really was ready to kill Shinji if he really had to in order to stop the boundary field (that could have melted all the people in it). Shinji is such a shit though, I was so mad when I heard him talk about kicking Taiga when she told him to call the ambulance when he activated the boundary field. So glad Shirou thrashed him even if he got away in the end. Btw I love the Tiger Dojo segments, they’re hilarious hahaha. Although it was reckless of Shirou to go by himself, it’s good that the experience ended up making him realise he needs to fight alongside Saber and not prevent her from fighting. I thought it was really cute how Saber and Shirou finally came to a better compromise and shook hands, but then Rin appeared and they got all embarrassed haha. But the cutest thing was when Saber was so concerned about wanting the same casual clothes (since they were destroyed) and asked Rin for another set just because Shirou said it looked good on her before.

Overall, most of the stuff for now is pretty similar to the anime so it’s more of a refresh for me with added details. As usual, Rin is really the highlight for me though haha.

#fate stay night

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