#anyway its the beginning of the give your game to me scene again get hype | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

hajimesh · 3 years

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𝙩𝙚𝙖𝙢 𝙚𝙛𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙩 — olympic team / fem reader

[ atsumu, sakusa, suna, kageyama, gao, bokuto, hinata, iwaizumi, oikawa ]

the stress of the first match seems to be taking a toll on the team's spirit, and you refuse to sit and watch them fail when you know you can be of help. but can you really handle all of them?

(or, where you end up having a gang bang with 8 professional volleyball players, and 1 athletic trainer)

⥅ word c. 7,928

⥅ warnings. sub reader, gang bang, foursomes, voyeurism?, fellatio, cum play, vaginal penetration, anal, unprotected sex, creampie, facial, size + stomach bulging kink, praise kink, mild degradation, double penetration, pussy job (for like, one second), double vaginal penetration, fingering, squirting, overstimulation, someone passes out, aftercare

⥅author n. brought to u thanks to this tweet + @kmorgzz who suggested adding iwaoi to the mix

special mention to my wife and love of my life, runa. @tsumue u had me laughing at 4am as i read ur comments in the google doc. i don't know what i'd do without u, tysm for beta and putting up with me for the past week ♡

ps. im v sorry if ur fave didn't make the cut (╥_╥) i added the ones im more familiar with, in terms of writing

if someone had told you you’d be attending the olympic games not as a spectator but as part of japan’s team, you’d have never believed them. but here you are, sitting in the same room with the most skilled players in the country as none other than their personal assistant.

“iwaizumi-san! do you think kageyama and i could pull off a quick attack right at the beginning of the set?”

“shoyo-kun, if there’s someone you’ll be doing the quick attack with it’s me,” atsumu’s eyes land on kageyama, smirking at the other setter from across the room, “right, tobio-kun?”

“you’re a disgrace.”

sakusa’s statement earns an offended scoff from the blond setter, the rest of the team rolling their eyes and sighing at the all-too-familiar scene.

“oi! we don’t have time for petty fights!”

after iwaizumi gets everyone’s attention back on him, he barely finishes explaining tomorrow’s match opponents and their plays without losing the team’s attention. he might be there to train them and make sure they’re on top of their game, but he knows when the team is lacking morale and, sadly, today’s one of those days.

the meeting is over and all of you go to the dining hall, fetching your dinner and sitting on your respective table with you right next to iwaizumi.

since you took that part-time job at the msby jackals, you quickly caught onto their small tics and tell-tale signs when something isn’t right. atsumu becomes a complete asshole which makes sakusa lose his temper sooner than usual. meanwhile, bokuto and hinata become very fidgety, often causing a bit of chaos around them as clumsiness radiates off of them.

when the national team was announced, you were offered the job as the trainer’s assistant—all thanks to the jackals who recommended you to their superiors for said position. your pay-check might say you’re just iwaizumi’s assistant, but you’re basically there to cover the needs of the entire team—all of them.

“iwa-chan!”

your head snaps to the side as a good-looking man takes the last free seat next to iwaizumi.

“aren’t you supposed to be sitting with your team?” iwaizumi asks him, taking a bite of his food while waiting for an answer.

the unknown man huffs exaggeratedly, rolling his eyes as he too starts to eat, “thought you’d miss your best friend.”

“hanamaki isn’t here.”

the stranger opens his mouth to reply, clearly offended by iwizumi’s words, when he notices you peeping at him.

“oh? hi! i think we haven’t met,” he shoots you a charming smile, bringing out his remarkably handsome features, “oikawa tooru, it’s nice to meet you.”

you introduce yourself, bowing at him and focusing back on your food.

both friends start to discuss tomorrow’s events, which inevitably brings out iwaizumi’s concern for his players.

“they seem off,” he’s playing around with the food as he stares at the players sitting in the table in front of yours, “i don’t know if i should talk to them or let them be.”

he’s clearly concerned for them, you can see it in his eyes—the doubt, wondering if he has been doing a good job with the team.

“iwaizumi-san, i-i… perhaps i could aid them this time?”

his head snaps in your direction, a mix of surprise and worry taking over his face, “no way, that’d be too much for you.”

oikawa’s eyebrows scrunch up as he observes you two but says nothing, choosing to listen attentively at you trying to convince iwaizumi while the latter sighs and reminds you that it’s not just the jackals this time.

it takes a while for iwaizumi to accept your offer, pondering the pros and cons, but he ends up accepting it; for everyone’s sakes.

“i’m lost.”

oikawa’s words make your insides flare-up, looking down at your hands in order to avoid looking at him, his curious eyes switching between his best friend and you.

iwaizumi ignores him, standing up from his seat and walking to the table in front of you with you and oikawa watching closely. the team turns to look at him, waiting for him to speak since it’s obvious it has to be something important by the severe look on his face.

“seeing as some of you are clearly out of it, our assistant here has very kindly volunteered to help you guys for tonight.”

a few heads immediately perk up, looking at you with bright eyes once you answer their silent question with a smile.

“please, be good to her. i’ll be there supervising anyways, so don’t think of trying anything funny.”

“oikawa-san! you’re coming with us, right?” hinata looks expectantly at said male, excitement clear in the redhead’s eyes, “she’s the best!”

both iwaizumi and you freeze on the spot, gauging oikawa’s reaction who only looks more confused.

“you’re welcome to join us, if you so desire,” it’s you who’s offering it this time, surprising iwaizumi and earning a worried glance from him.

oikawa can’t deny he’s dying to know what everyone’s so excited about, and after thinking about it for a few more seconds, he has made up his mind.

“shall we go, then?”

—

“alright, ground rules.”

just a handful of the team sits in the room, the ones who know what’s happening waiting eagerly for the green light while the rest wonders what the fuss is about. as much as you want to help them all, it’d be impossible; which is why iwaizumi picked the ones he thought needed the morale boost the most.

with a nod in your direction, he lets you know you’re free to speak.

“the jackals already know this,” you say and atsumu snickers from his seat, winking at you as hinata and bokuto nod excitedly, “but i’m not too strict about the entire thing.”

you can feel the pairs of curious eyes burning holes in you—trying to decipher what’s going on. so, after taking a deep breath and getting an awkward, encouraging smile from iwaizumi, you start voicing out the rules.

“please, be patient. there are so many of you and only one of me. i promise you’ll get your turn,” you give atsumu a pointed look, and this time it's sakusa who snorts while the blond setter rolls his eyes, “which brings me to the next rule, no seconds.”

a hand raises in the air, making you advert your attention to its owner.

“i still don’t get what’s happening,” suna’s eyes narrow down at you, noticing the embarrassment and hesitation in your posture.

“don’t worry, suna. we’ll show ya.”

“shut it, miya.”

clearing up your throat, you smile coyly at the middle blocker, “it’ll make sense once i finish explaining, suna-san.”

he shrugs but stays quiet. taking into account the jackals’ reactions plus the cryptic rules, an idea has already formed in his mind. but it couldn’t be that. right?

“uh, again, only one round. all entrances are fine,” you pause, going through the rules in your head to see if there’s anything you might be forgetting, “oh! and you’ll be paired up in teams of three to make things faster.”

“one more thing,” iwaizumi speaks up, this time looking at you instead of the awaiting men, “don’t forget to let us know how you’re doing.”

two loud claps break the tense atmosphere, “well, we should get started then,” atsumu raises from his spot and walks towards you. his hands cradle your face between them and lift it so you can face him properly, “what do ya say, princess?”

his lips land on yours before you can reply to him, a small squeal getting stuck in your throat when his hands travel down your body until he’s squeezing your ass.

you’re too caught up in the kiss to notice the new presence looming behind you.

“i’ll take your pussy before anyone can taint it with their dick.”

sakusa’s words make you shudder. you break apart from atsumu’s mouth to turn around and face him, his dark eyes alluring and drawing you towards him.

“oi, newbie,” atsumu calls out to suna who scoffs in return, “c’mere and join us.”

meanwhile, sakusa guides you to the bed, making you sit on his lap as you wait for the other two to show up. once they do, atsumu immediately settles behind you while suna stands awkwardly at the foot of the bed. it’s hard for you to read his expression since you’re not too familiar with him, so you offer him a reassuring smile and pat the spot next to you.

the rest of the team watches from their seats as the four of you get started.

suna lifts your chin, his eyes staring down at you before leaning down and kissing the corner of your mouth. he trails down your neck until he reaches your chest, sucking on the skin gently before running his tongue over the delicate area. in the meantime, atsumu unbuttons your blouse, taking it off and playing with your breasts while sakusa busies himself with taking your pants off.

“i get the hype, now,” suna whispers in your ear, blowing air on it and then biting down on your earlobe, making the hairs of your body rise.

his lips capture yours in a slow kiss —savoring your taste— and one of his hands goes to the back of your neck to keep you in place. his teeth play with your bottom lip, biting it softly and pulling away, his hooded eyes calculating your reaction.

“don’t get too excited, suna,” atsumu says from his spot behind you, pinching your nipples between his fingers and prompting a whine to escape your lips, “you’ll only get her mouth.”

“mhm, is that so?” suna’s question is directed towards you rather than atsumu, tilting your chin up and smirking at the dazed look in your eyes, “can’t wait to see that pretty mouth bulging with my cock, then.”

his lewd words earn a few coughs and clearing throats from the rest, which he chooses to ignore when your hand cups his growing bulge.

“enough you two, let the poor woman have a bit of pleasure too,” sakusa’s dark eyes look at you questioningly, silently asking if you’re ready to continue.

in return, you cup his face with your free hand and kiss his cheek—knowing he wouldn’t appreciate a kiss on the mouth when you just finished making out with another man.

they finish getting you out of your clothes until your bare cunt is hovering over sakusa’s lap. he’s quick to undress and ease his cock into you, suna and atsumu observing as they get rid of their clothes as well.

“fuck,” sakusa groans in your ear, the position allowing you to hide your face in his neck and wrap your arms around his shoulders, “always so tight.”

“scoot over, i need to prep her ass.”

suna snorts at atsumu’s words, pumping his cock twice before kneeling on the mattress—right next to you. he pats your cheek with the swollen head, looking down at you with a faint smirk.

“open up.”

your eyes immediately focus on his length, your mouth watering at the sight. you open your mouth and stick your tongue out, looking up at him and observing as he rests the tip on your tongue.

“looking so pretty with a cock in your mouth,” he slowly slides in, guiding your head down until half of him is inside, “so warm.”

a cold liquid dribbles on your backside, making you flinch forward and causing suna’s cock to slide in even more.

“relax, baby. it’s just me,” atsumu rubs the liquid on your asshole, playing with it with his finger before finally sliding it in.

your muscles contract involuntarily, making sakusa groan as he keeps still inside your pussy, waiting for you to grow used to the multiple things going on around you.

“hurry up before i start fucking her.”

a second finger slides in and you moan around suna’s cock, spit running at the corners of your mouth which reminds you to swallow. you hollow your cheeks and retract your mouth until only the tip remains inside, running your tongue over the slit and making the middle blocker shudder.

“someone’s hungry,” he muses.

you hum around him, bobbing your head back and forth and pumping the rest of his length with one hand.

“i’m gonna try get in now, okay?” atsumu taps your ass with his cock, lining it up with your asshole and thrusting in. he watches as the head of his cock finally slips in, groaning when the familiar tightness engulfs him, “that’s it, baby. doin’ so good for me.”

you have to remove your mouth from suna’s cock to avoid biting down on him, the stretch slightly more painful than pleasurable which eventually leads to you tensing up even more.

“you gotta relax,” atsumu says under his breath, strained by the way you feel around his dick.

it takes you around a minute to calm down, taking deep breaths until you feel yourself loosen up and, with one last push, he’s finally inside.

“omi?” you say against his neck, “could you move a bit, please?”

said man grunts as he starts to move his hips, your slick helping his cock glide in, “color.”

it takes you a few seconds to understand what he meant.

“oh! uhh, green.”

atsumu’s thrusts are slow —testing the waters— since the last thing he wants is to get yelled at for being too rough, too soon. but you’re growing impatient, moving your hips backwards and trying to get more of him inside of you.

“m-more, ‘tsumu. i can take it,” you say and he immediately complies, his muscular thighs now slapping against your ass.

suna remains kneeling next to you, cock in his hand as he waits for you to bring your attention back to him. but he doesn’t have to wait too long, your hand wrapping around his cock and guiding it back into your mouth once you’ve set a steady pace with the other two men.

“thought you had forgotten about me.”

he pushes your hair out of your face, watching your lips wrap around his girth. it’s taking all of his willpower to not hold your head and fuck your face until you’re gagging around him, afraid it might be a big ‘no’ from you. and since it’s the first time he’s getting to experience this, he decides to take whatever’s given to him.

“you’re so wet,” sakusa points out as he looks down at where you two are connected, observing his cock slide in and out of your cunt, covered with your slick.

“‘course she is, she’s being stuffed by three cocks.”

“feels good…” your manage to say after releasing suna with a pop, pumping his shaft with your hand, “a-am i making you feel better?”

a hand lands on your ass, causing you to yelp and tighten your hold on suna’s cock.

“what do ya think, hm? we’re getting our dicks wet in none other but our slutty little assistant's holes,” atsumu plays with your ass, squeezing it and humming when the imprint of his hands appears on the soft flesh.

“mhm, quite the slut you are,” sakusa whispers in your ear, kissing your neck afterwards, “as long as i get to make a mess out of that cunt of yours before anyone else, i will always enjoy these little sessions of ours.”

your eyes land on suna, waiting for him to say his thoughts on the matter.

his gaze drops to your hand, covered in his pre-cum and your spit which sends a jolt to his cock, making it throb in your hand.

“can’t say i hate it.”

you smile at his words, recognizing the challenge hidden behind them. your mouth wraps around the flushed tip, eyes closing when both sakusa and atsumu thrust up into your holes at the same time. you try to keep your hand steady as you suck suna off, but the lewd grunts and moans coming from them, plus their cocks filling you so nicely make your rhythm falter every once in a while.

a hand starts toying with your clit, causing you to moan around suna’s cock. the vibrations make him shudder, scowling at himself when he realizes his orgasm is approaching faster than he expected.

“fuck, fuck– princess? do you mind if i cum inside?” atsumu grunts.

your muscles clench at the thought of being filled with his cum, imagining the thick liquid oozing out of your sensitive holes only to stuff it back in with your fingers.

“y-yes, ‘tsumu. cum inside me,” you pant as your hands squeeze suna’s cock, pumping it faster as you notice his hips jerking towards you. you turn your face to look at sakusa, who has his eyebrows drawn upwards and his mouth open slightly as he too feels overwhelmed by the pleasure, “omi, you can cum inside as well.”

and he doesn’t need to be told twice, his large hands holding you by your hips so he can thrust his cock into your drenched cunt faster.

moans and squelching noises echo around the room. atsumu picks up his pace as he feels his orgasm approaching, his deep grunts fanning over your neck and taking over your hearing. the drag of sakusa’s pubic bone against your clit has you cumming shortly after. your head rolls forward as both men keep thrusting in and out of you, only stopping once their cum fill your clenching holes.

“shit– look at me,” suna orders you, and you barely have time to process what’s happening.

his cum lands on your face, his hand helping you pump his throbbing cock as the ropes of cum cover your skin. he exhales heavily once he’s done, brushing the flushed head of his cock over your swollen lips, and smearing the white liquid around them.

it’s silent for a few seconds, save for the heavy breathing and pants coming from your mouths.

“holy shit,” oikawa’s voice breaks the silence. his cock strains almost painfully against his pants at the sight of what awaits him.

“yeah, holy shit,” atsumu laughs off, brushing his hair out of his face with one hand as he massages the flesh of your ass with the other, “ya never disappoint, princess.”

with a grunt, the blond setter removes his softening cock from you, his honey eyes —plus a few curious ones— observing the way his cum dribbles out from your stretched hole. the same thing happens with sakusa, who lifts your hips off of him, his cock falling on his stomach and the mix of your slick and his cum dripping down on his length.

atsumu’s fingers immediately go to your cunt, pumping the juices back into you, “god, you love this. don’t you, baby?”

all you can do is whine, your hands clenching the sheets until he removes his fingers from your sensitive pussy, and stuffs them inside your mouth.

“we all get a turn?” kageyama whispers not so discreetly to hinata, who only nods eagerly in return.

you lick atsumu’s fingers clean which earns you a radiant smile from him.

“here.”

suna has his arm outstretched, handing you a tissue so you can clean your face.

“thank you,” you take it from his hands as you climb off of sakusa’s lap.

you’re cleaning the residues of cum on your face when a hand falls on top of your head.

“drink some water before you start the next round,” sakusa’s dark eyes suddenly seem warmer and kinder to you, patting your head before disappearing into the bathroom.

after tossing the used tissue away, you turn to iwaizumi and give him a firm nod.

“who’s next?”

your dazzling smile has the rest of the men in awe, silently praying it’s them who get to feel your body with their hands next.

“bokuto,” the wing spiker’s immediately perks up at the sound of his name, “you, kageyama, and hakuba are next.”

the three men raise from their seats and make their way towards the bed—towards you.

“hey, bo,” you offer a loving smile to him, “you ready?”

his strong arms wrap around you, kissing your cheek loudly and making you giggle, “it feels as if i’ve been waiting forever. of course, i’m ready!”

meanwhile, kageyama and gao stand at the foot of the bed, waiting for any instructions or a signal from you that could tell them when to start. luckily, you’re quick to notice their hesitation.

”is there a particular place where you want to be?” you ask them, looking specifically at kageyama and gao, since you want to make sure they feel included.

“dibs on your mouth!”

you blush at bokuto’s enthusiasm but accept his request, stroking his cheek as you wait for the other two to answer.

“i’ll take whatever,” kageyama says and scratches the back of his neck.

“me too,” gao smiles and takes a few steps towards you, making bokuto move away from you. his large hand tucks one piece of your hair away, his eyes staring at yours before dropping to your lips, “although, i think i’d like it better if i had your pussy gripping my cock. wouldn’t you like that?”

he presses his front against yours, his erection poking at your belly which earns a small gasp from you. you have to stop yourself from taking a look at the tent in his sweatpants, trying to figure out how much of him there is hidden inside the fabric.

“o-okay.”

the middle blocker smiles at you before diving down to your lips. his hands grab your waist, lifting you up from the ground and making you wrap your legs around his torso. he gently places you down on the bed and kisses his way down your neck until his mouth is right above your erect nipple.

“hey! i want to kiss her too,” bokuto complains, “you can’t hog her like that.”

“s’okay bo, come here.”

he doesn’t have to be told twice, immediately climbing onto the bed and leaning down to kiss your lips.

you grab the back of his head and run your fingers through his soft hair, pulling on it gently which causes a groan to rumble in his chest.

a pair of hands slide over your legs, pushing them apart until your bare cunt is spread wide open for everyone to see.

“you’re dripping, babe,” gao murmurs over your nipple, giving it a light tug before flicking his tongue over it, “do you want my cock that badly?”

you can only moan and nod, your lips still busy with bokuto’s.

but there’s someone who still has yet to join you.

“tobio-chan, if you’re not going to do anything then let me take your place instead.”

oikawa’s words snap you out of your daze. you pat bokuto’s cheek signaling him to let go of you, and the same thing happens with gao as you try to sit up. your eyes fall on kageyama who stands at the same spot with a conflicted look and an obvious erection in his pants.

“hey,” you crawl your way towards him and sit on your knees, “are you uncomfortable?”

his mouth opens but nothing comes out of it. he can feel the weight of everyone’s stare on him, making him look away from you.

a few seconds pass and there’s still no answer.

“you don’t have to do this, you know?” you say in a small tone, slightly confused as to why he’s rejecting you, “i just thought… i could help you relax.”

he nods, still avoiding your gaze.

you take a look at iwaizumi –who looks as equally as puzzled as you– before looking back at the setter.

“do you want to leave?”

at this, his head finally snaps towards you, “no, i-” he pauses. his eyes are immediately drawn to your mouth, making him involuntarily wet his lips, “i want to stay.”

relief washes over you, a timid smile spreading on your lips which is quickly mirrored by him. you take his hand in yours and guide him to the other side of the bed, urging him to join the rest of you. there’s a hunger in his eyes that has your pussy dripping with your slick, a sigh leaving your lips when your back hits the pillows as you watch him take gao’s previous spot.

“kiss me, tobio.”

and he does. it starts slow, hesitant, but it soon turns desperate. his tongue strokes yours before sucking on it, spit coating your lips thanks to the messiness of the kiss. the strain of his cock inside his pants becomes too uncomfortable to his liking, causing him to start humping against you, trying to relieve himself.

noticing his predicament, you move your hand between your bodies and palm his hard-on. he groans against your lips, his hips jerking forward seeking more of your touch.

in the meantime, both bokuto and gao pump their cocks with their hands, having taken their clothes off while you talked to kageyama.

gao squeezes the head of his cock between his hands, pre-cum oozing from the slit as he imagines the way your cunt is going to grip him, “babe, you’re making us suffer.”

“get in line!”

“atsumu, shut the fuck up.”

“baby?” bokuto asks from where he stands, his own cock stiff and ready to be inside your mouth, “we don’t mean to be pushy, but do you think you could get to us soon?”

“bokuto-san, you’re going to break a rule!” hinata says, clearly concerned for his teammate, “be patient, remember?”

the rest of the team laughs and you can’t help but join them.

at this, bokuto pouts playfully at you, “you’re just teasing me, baby.”

“then come here,” you gasp when kageyama’s mouth sucks at the base of your neck, “y-you wanted my mouth, right?”

bokuto kneels next to your face, patting the leaking tip on your lips.

“i’m going to fuck that pretty mouth of yours and you’re going to take it like a good girl,” he says, his tone leaving no room for questions, “open.”

you comply immediately, lolling out your tongue and waiting for him to rest his heavy cock on top of it.

the lewd sight in front of him makes bokuto shudder. his hands grasp your head, pushing you down his length until he feels your throat constricting around him.

“fuck– baby,” he grunts and gives a shallow thrust, “i know you can do better than that.”

you try to relax your jaw so you can fit more of him inside of your mouth. but as you are about to graze your nose against his pubic bone, a finger runs between your folds causing you to flinch.

“i’m still here.”

gao’s tone sounds stern, even if a playful smile tugs his lips upwards, you can see the seriousness swirling in his eyes.

kageyama sighs and leaves your side, stepping away momentarily to take his pants off.

the middle blocker takes it as his chance to settle between your legs as bokuto keeps your mouth busy.

“you’re drenched, sweetheart,” he muses, running his digits over your slit, “don’t worry, i’ll fill this pussy with my cock so well that you’ll be cumming in no time.”

your eyes travel to his shaft, watching as he pumps it twice before running it between your folds. your brows furrow when you notice how heavy it feels, making you wonder if it will fit in.

he lines himself up with your hole, pushing the head inside which is enough to have you whining around bokuto’s cock.

“you look so sexy,” bokuto groans, pushing your head away from him and watching your spit run down your mouth. he looks at kageyama who stands awkwardly with his cock in hand, “i guess we’re sharing her mouth.”

the setter’s eyes widen slightly before nodding, mimicking bokuto’s position and nudging his cock on your lips, “suck.”

your breath hitches at his order, caught off guard by his demanding tone. you grab his cock from the base and guide it into your mouth, pumping bokuto’s length with your other hand. you hum around kageyama, running your tongue over the head of his cock before hollowing your cheeks and sucking harshly on it.

but your attention on them doesn’t last too long, the sudden feel of your pussy getting split open by gao’s cock taking it away.

“so tight,” he grunts, one of his hands running over the skin of your inner thigh until he reaches your soaking cunt. he pulls your folds apart, watching you struggle to take his cock inside you—no matter how wet you are, “i bet those jackals haven’t been fucking you like you deserve.”

“oi!” “not true!”

you free your mouth from kageyama and use both hands to pump his and bokuto’s cock, “s-so big, ugh-”

gao pushes more of him in, half of his cock already inserted in you. but he’s just so thick, so big, that you can’t help but clamp down your walls around him. his thumb starts rubbing circles on your clit, trying to relax your walls, as his other hand settles on your abdomen.

“you’re going to be so full of my cock that you’ll be able to see it,” he gives a gentle pat to your belly, “right here.”

your grip on the other two men tightens as gao finally bottoms out, a whine breaking through your lips at the stretch.

“if only you could see yourself,” his thrusts are lazy, mesmerized by the way your belly bulges when he pushes his cock inside you, “so fucking sexy with my fat cock inside your cunt.”

your lips wrap around the tip of bokuto’s cock once more, closing your eyes as pleasure clouds your head. he thrusts in, hitting the back of your throat and making you gag.

“good girl,” bokuto exhales, “taking my cock so well.”

you quicken the pace of your other hand, looking at kageyama as you obscenely suck bokuto.

the setter’s eyes refuse to leave yours, “who would’ve thought our assistant could be so naughty.”

“as if you’re complaining,” gao says, lifting your leg over his shoulder. the new angle allowing him to press his hips closer to yours.

“i never said i was.”

bokuto curses under his breath when you start sucking his balls, pumping the rest of his length with your hand and squeezing the head of kageyama’s cock with the other.

“you’re going to make me cum,” bokuto groans.

giggling, you lick your way up and run your tongue over the slit, “cum in my mouth.”

the sound of collective groans echoes in the room, a fair amount of players finding your words arousing.

“what a slut, let’s see if you keep talking when you’re covered in our cum.”

gao’s threat goes straight to your pussy, making you cream around his girth. the pace of his thumb on your clit quickens once he notices your walls spasming around him.

“ngh, fuck!” you’re breathing heavily by now, barely managing to keep the pace of your hands consistent, “i-i’m gonna… i’m gonna cum.”

“let go, baby.”

one of gao’s hands travels up your body until he’s pinching your nipple between his fingers.

“shit, shit, shit,” you’re thrashing underneath him, your cunt fluttering around his cock thanks to your orgasm.

kageyama’s way too focused on the way your face contorts in pleasure to notice how his hips have started to jerk faster. that is until the familiar coil suddenly snaps and his cum lands on your chin and part of your chest.

“h-how did you get even tighter- hah!”

warm spurts of cum fill your cunt, the sense of fullness intensifying as gao frees his load inside of you.

“i’m cumming, baby. fuck, fuck–” bokuto chants your name as he too reaches his orgasm, quickly shoving his cock into your mouth and releasing his thick cum inside of it.

you make sure to keep sucking him, milking his cock dry. once you remove your mouth from him, you bring his and kageyama’s cock closer to your face and pucker your lips, letting the mix of cum and spit fall on their cocks before giving a few kitten licks to the flushed heads.

gao starts to remove his cock from your insides, cursing at the state of your pussy once he’s finally out.

“holy fuck, she’s tightening around nothing.”

you let out a low moan when his fingers spread your lower lips, “t-too sensitive.”

“i think that’s enough,” iwaizumi intervenes, pushing him away, “color?”

“yellow,” but you continue as soon as you see his face become stern, “relax, i just need to calm down a bit.”

kageyama offers you a towel before awkwardly thanking you for your help. and after receiving a kiss on the forehead from bokuto, the three of them leave to go clean themselves.

“iwa-chan, why don’t you give her a massage?”

you let your body fall on the mattress, extending your arms above your head and moaning at the stretch.

“mm, that’d be nice.”

iwaizumi rolls his eyes playfully when he sees you pouting at him, “get on your stomach, i’ll be right back.”

in the meantime, oikawa and hinata take the spots next to you, eager to finally have their turn with you.

“you’re so pretty,” oikawa runs his hands over the skin of your shoulders, “those idiots are lucky to have you.”

your eyes start closing up, focusing on the feel of his fingers on your skin and making goosebumps appear all over your body.

“shoyo, we should help her relax too. don’t you think?”

you catch the suggestive tone in his voice, but his touch feels so good that you choose to ignore it.

both men start caressing your body, hinata’s hands paying special attention to your shoulders while oikawa pets your hair, murmuring sweet nothings.

“you ready?” iwaizumi pops back into the room, a bottle of oil and a clean towel in his hands.

“mhm.”

the towel rests on your ass, iwaizumi’s warm hands spreading the oil on your back and rubbing at the sore muscles.

“does that feel good, princess?” oikawa asks when he hears you sigh. you are about to reply when iwaizumi hits a sore spot, a groan slipping past your lips and making the setter chuckle, “can you tell me your color now?”

“green.”

oikawa looks at iwaizumi and both men seem to communicate through their eyes, the latter smirking before going back to work.

at first, you don’t pay too much attention to his movements, choosing to focus on the pleasure. but then you notice how his hands seem to ghost lower and lower until he’s kneading your ass, the towel long forgotten.

before you can comment on it, he moves them to your thighs, massaging the soft flesh. it all goes back to normal –or so you think– until his hands reach higher and his digits start grazing your slit.

“hajime…”

“shh,” oikawa coos in your ear, pushing your hair out of your face and kissing your temple, “let him take care of you.”

iwaizumi inserts one finger inside your pussy, curling it until he’s teasing the spongy walls.

whines escape your mouth, your hands gripping the bedsheets which are quickly replaced by hinata’s hands.

“so cute.”

another finger slips in and makes you open your eyes, looking at oikawa helplessly, “o-oikawa-san-”

“tooru,” he interrupts you.

“tooru,” you try his name and he hums, letting you know he’s listening, “could you… uh, k-kiss me?”

“of course, princess.”

he leans down to capture your lips, swallowing your moans when iwaizumi curls both fingers and massages your spot.

you open your legs, allowing iwaizumi to finger you better as you rut your hips on the mattress, rubbing your clit against the fabric of the sheets and chasing after your orgasm.

“iwa– faster, please.”

he complies immediately, causing wetness to gush out of your cunt and making the distinctive squelching sounds fill the room.

“i’m gonna– ah! i’m c-cumming!”

“cum for me,” he encourages you, and that’s all you need.

you gush around his fingers, your slick coating them as you squirm under the gaze of the three men.

hinata tugs at your hand, pulling you underneath him and kissing you sloppily. you gasp on his mouth, caught off guard by the sudden movement but quickly melting into the kiss.

he blushes once he pulls away, “s-sorry, couldn’t help myself.”

“it’s okay, shoyo,” you breathe out, caressing his cheek, “want me to help you?”

he beams at your offer, nodding eagerly as he watches you climb on top of him. you straddle his hips and run your cunt over his cock, shivering when his length grazes your clit.

“do you want me to ride you?” you whisper, playing with his hair.

“wait- i think i have a better idea.”

hinata lifts you from his lap and moves until he’s sitting on the edge of the mattress. he pushes your hips with his hands, turning you around so you’re facing away from him.

“you can sit on my lap now.”

your ass rests right on top of his cock, but he hooks his arms on your knees, spreading you open, as he lets himself fall back on the mattress.

“what are you–”

“oikawa-san, doesn’t this remind you of something?”

said man laughs, “how could i forget? we had quite some fun back in brazil, huh?”

you’re visibly confused, looking at oikawa with furrowed brows, “what do you want to do?”

“say, princess,” his tone suddenly sounds too sweet for your liking, “have you ever had two cocks in one hole?”

your eyes widen, looking back and forth between oikawa and iwaizumi—who has ridden himself of his clothes and sits next to you, his thick cock in his hand.

“i’ll take that as a no.”

“can we do that?” hinata asks from behind you, his breath fanning on your ear, “we’ll be gentle.”

“there’s literally another free hole for you to use!” someone yells, clearly annoyed they didn’t get the chance to do it.

oikawa clicks his tongue, “where’s the fun in that?”

after taking a minute to think it through, you agree to their offer, “okay… uh- iwa?” you turn to look at him, “what about you?”

seeing as there’s no room for him to take your ass, his eyes land on your mouth. and with two taps of his finger on your cheek, he lets you know his decision.

“think you can suck me off?”

they’re all given the green light when you answer his question. hinata raises you from his lap, aligning his cock with your entrance before letting your weight fall on top of it. you groan at the familiar thickness stretching you nicely, missing the flash of hunger in the setter’s eyes.

“my turn.”

oikawa presses the tip on your entrance, pushing forward and making room for his own cock.

the burn of having two cocks in one hole is new to you, but it’s surprisingly more pleasurable than you thought it’d be. you lift your eyes to look at oikawa, his gaze already locked on you, and you feel your pussy cream around their cocks at the lust in his eyes.

“enjoying yourself, princess?”

you moan when he bottoms out, watching the muscles of his abdomen contract and feeling his cock pulsing inside of you.

the thrill of being stretched by two cocks, at the same time, has your head spinning; your thoughts becoming lewd as you picture both men cumming inside you and globs of cum dripping from your abused hole.

“oikawa-san, did you feel that?” hinata asks. half-amused, half excited, “she’s squeezing us so well.”

“naughty, princess,” the setter grunts, “don’t forget about iwa-chan.”

you turn your head to face him, catching the irritated look he sends oikawa before looking down at you.

iwaizumi’s eyes immediately soften, but a smirk slowly tugs at the corners of his lips, “you seem busy.”

“there’s always room for japan’s national team athletic trainer.”

he can’t help but laugh, shaking his head at the silly title. he raises from his seat and settles himself above you, his cock hovering on your face and making your mouth water.

“whenever you’re ready.”

you don’t need to be told twice. grasping his thick cock with your hand, you lean forward and flick your tongue on the head, looking at him through your lashes with faux innocence.

“start moving,” iwaizumi hisses, the words directed at the other two men, “seems like she needs a little reminder of who’s in charge right now.”

oikawa and hinata look at each other with smirks on their lips. as hinata said earlier, they’ve been in this position before, so there’s no need for words between them since they both know what’s coming next.

hinata moves his head slightly to the side, allowing you to rest your head on his shoulder and, at the same time, granting him the view of your cunt being filled with their cocks.

“look at her, oikawa-san” his eyes are locked on your pussy, captivated by the way you suck them in, “she looks so pretty with two cocks splitting her open.”

hinata’s lewd words prompt you to involuntarily moan, the vibrations landing on iwaizumi’s cock.

“hmm, you like it when you’re reduced to nothing but a slut. don’t you?”

you blink up at iwaizumi as you keep bobbing your head up and down his shaft, opting to hum to let him know you’re not ignoring him.

but his words catch someone else’s attention.

“is that true?” oikawa asks, amusement clear in his voice, “you like being reminded you’re a whore? how much of a greedy slut you are by fucking an entire volleyball team?”

you’re speechless, his words –matched with his and hinata’s harsh thrusts– causing your eyes to roll to the back of your head.

“answer me.”

oikawa’s hand wraps around your throat, barely applying any pleasure but it’s enough to send your mind into a frenzy.

after releasing iwaizumi’s cock from your mouth, you take a second to swallow down your spit before answering him.

“y-yes, tooru. i like being treated like a slut.”

his eyes sparkle with mischief, pleased by your words.

“good, because that’s how you’re going to be treated from now on.”

a hand travels to your throbbing clit, rubbing circles on the sensitive nub.

“s-shoyo!”

“shh, it’ll make you feel good.”

something wet slaps against your cheek, “don’t get distracted.”

you nod and go back to sucking iwaizumi off, moaning every time hinata or oikawa hit a spot inside your cunt. you dare take a look at where your body connects with both men, and you catch yourself becoming entranced by the way their cocks slide in and out of your pussy so easily.

you are familiar with hinata’s cock, but it’s nice to see the contrast between the two of them. while hinata’s length is thick and veiny, oikawa’s leans towards the slimmer side—but still with a considerable length. either way, both men manage to hit those sweet spots inside you and make you see stars.

“shit– princess,” oikawa falters a bit when he feels your walls fluttering around him.

“we can cum inside you, right?” hinata asks, sensing his orgasm approaching. after all, he had been waiting for his turn for around an hour.

you pull away from iwaizumi, a string of spit connecting your lips with his cock and causing it to twitch at the sight.

“you can cum wherever you want.”

“oh? the team’s cocksleeve,” oikawa adds, “i see.”

iwaizumi chuckles, combing your hair out of your face and pushing his cock back into the warmth of your mouth, “you like that nickname, sweetheart?”

with his length still in your mouth, you manage to hum in affirmation.

hinata’s pace on your clit quickens as his hips jerk faster, your cunt squeezing their cocks even more in return, “i’m cumming, ah– i-i’m gonna cum!”

he manages to say before you feel him twitch inside you, pumping his cum into your walls. the fullness plus his rapid movements on your clit cause the familiar warmth to take over your body. but it’s your fourth orgasm of the night, and before you can warn anyone, liquid spurts out of your cunt.

you squirm on top of hinata, gushing around his and oikawa’s cock while your mouth remains occupied with iwaizumi’s.

“holy shit.”

both oikawa and iwaizumi cum at the sight of you squirting before them, observing the wetness soaking oikawa’s abdomen and running all the way down onto the bedsheets. they groan as they feel their load releasing into you, oikawa filling your tender cunt while iwaizumi fills your mouth.

you try to swallow a bit of iwaizumi’s cum but it’s useless. your chest heaves in exhaustion, your eyes closing involuntarily as you’re being hit with wave after wave of fatigue.

“hey,” oikawa winces when he removes his cock from you. he shoots a worried glance at iwaizumi before he’s leaning forward so he can take a closer look at you, “princess? how are you feeling?”

iwaizumi nudges hinata with his knee, wordlessly telling him to let go of you.

the following moments become a foggy mess, your mind barely registering the pair of arms wrapping around you and carrying you somewhere else.

all you can feel is tiredness, and the dampness between your thighs, before you finally pass out.

—

consciousness slowly makes its way to you, replacing the sleepiness and making you aware of your surroundings as a familiar soreness sits heavy on your body.

in an instant, flashbacks from the previous night run through your mind.

you grip the duvet and push it away from you, only to notice the set of clothes you’re wearing: an oversized hoodie and a pair of sweatpants that clearly don’t belong to you. but you don’t have time to dwell on it, the sound of your ringtone blasting all over the room and making you scramble around the bed so you can answer the call.

but it’s of no use when it goes to voicemail—you were a bit too late.

when you manage to find your phone, you tap on the screen to see whose call you just missed.

‘hajime’

your fingertips hover on the contact name, debating between returning the call or wait for him to call you again. but a few notifications pop up at the top of the screen signaling you have three text messages from him.

hey, i guess you’re still asleep. don’t freak out when you wake up, you deserve the rest so it’s okay if you stay in bed. i left your breakfast on the nightstand and you can always call me if you need anything else.

and i thought you’d like to see this.

there’s a link attached at the end of the message.

you click on it and wait for the page to load, tapping your nails on the back of your phone anxiously. a headline in big bold letters takes over the screen and you have to stop yourself from squealing.

‘japan men’s volleyball team makes it past the first round.’

you start scrolling down the article, reading how spectacular the match was and how the entire team seemed to be in their best shape. you feel your face heat up when you read the argentinian team won their match too, with multiple comments praising oikawa’s performance.

with a smile on your lips, you go back to your messages to type a quick reply to iwaizumi. only to notice you have one more text from him.

it’s our turn to take care of you.

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kpopmakesmequestionmylifechoices · 3 years

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Kingdom Round 3, pt. 2: How to discourage idols and kill versatility in K-pop - a guide by "experts".

As in my last post I'll talk about my thoughts on the performances, but mostly I'll question the freaking ranking because wth those experts should really reveal themselves at this point (I'm salty). Anyways, let's get into it.

1. A small "disappointment" and two big surprises.

ATEEZ: Oh guys the beginning made me emotional because it reminded me hardcore of Block B Very Good hahaha. Generally I must say, ATEEZ rearrangements are always good. It just sounded very ATEEZ-ish, and that's cool. I personally prefer the original Rhythm Ta over the rearrangement tho. About the performance, I don't have any criticism I think. I personally found that rope scene a bit strange tho, and overall I just wasn't impressed by that stage. Possibly because nothing can top the Symphony Nr.9 for me hahaha.

BTOB: First of all, SKZ X BTOB interactions are peak comedy I loved this so much. Minhyuk fangirling on SKZ back door stage is me tho. And "Kingdom is 15+ right?" Oh man I love those dudes.

About the concept, totally loved it because it was super fun to watch. I was worried beforehand because I couldn't imagine anyone pulling off SKZ' powerful rap. They didn't tho. They did it their own way and I was surprised. The meaning change to a more uh...mature sorta concept was also quite interesting. The moment Eunkwang knocked and opened the door: chefkiss. Those lyrics? Rude but chefkiss. I in general really liked the rearrangement, but in the end it lost its power a bit. Maybe also because I have the original Back Door burned into my brain and the ending just rocks af. But honestly, my brain also was fried by THIS:

[*my edit/gif - I made a full gifset in that style now]

Stray Kids: I must say, I was a bit scared before because anyone having to do a BTOB cover must have absolutely stable vocals. This was the stage I was most concerned about when I heard about the song choices. Without a reason. Because SKZ absolutely killed it. Sure, I.N didn't hit that note as it was planned but let me tell you, it didn't affect my enjoyment of this stage at all. The stage setting? Fantastic. Changbin's rap sounded as if he's in utter pain and despair, Felix added to that with his hyper low tone part which was ABSOLUTELY cool. This was just great, full of feels, and I have NO criticism, bye.

Recap: When thinking about the past 6 performances, I feel that ATEEZ and iKON did the best job with making the others' song their own. In my eyes, SF9 and TBZ both stayed in their comfort zone with their song choices, while BTOB and SKZ took on the extreme challenge to pick songs that are basically the opposite of what they usually do. As I Iove versatility and surprises, SKZ and BTOB have a special place in my heart with those two stages.

Hence, my personal ranking looks as follows:

1. BTOB & SKZ (tied): For me those were the biggest surprises and caused the biggest enjoyment and entertainment for me. If I HAD TO choose a first place, I'd pick BTOB - because Back Door is one of my FAVOURITE songs of all time, and solely evaluating the songs, I heavily prefer Back Door over I'll be your man. Anyways, with that ranking, SKZ jumped from my personal lowest rank in the first round to my personal highest rank.

2. SF9: After seeing SF9's stage last week, I was sure that I'll have them as #1 in today's post. I loved everything about the performance (besides the weird gun dance sry), and I especially loved how they stepped up their game without making the perfomance too huge and too overwhelming. Nevertheless, due to the fact they stayed pretty close to their usual style, I'll rank them 2nd because I was more impressed by the others' style change.

3. iKON / ATEEZ: The performances were good, but to me personally they were absolutely not memorable. It's a matter of taste after all.

4. TBZ: I know, I again rank them last. And again, no I don't hate them. I simply neither am touched by their stages, nor do I understand their plots. So I once again rank them last. I don't find their performances bad tho, because as all groups, they're doing an amazing job. The stages are simply not my cup of tea.

2. Oh you prove that you're a versatile artist? That must be punished!

↑ That's how I imagine the experts' thoughts. Expert ranking was as follows: ATEEZ / TBZ / iKON / SF9 / BTOB / SKZ.

Okay I must say. Which freaking expert would place SKZ last??? I'm not biased in the slightest, if I'm biased then for SF9 and BTOB, but bruh. SKZ last? That's like, ridiculous. Considering the immense challenge SKZ had from switching from their usual style to freaking I'll be your man?

I don't know man, I can't take this ranking seriously. I really wish we'd know what the criteria is...It's a mystery to me how this could happen. Those boys get punished for stepping out of their comfort zone and doing an amazing job? Literally same story with BTOB. Both groups completely stepped outta their comfort zone and that's what they got for it...Well done, experts, well done. This is how you destroy versatility in K-pop, but sure, go on.

Honestly at this point I hope stays and melodies work together to catapult both groups up in the ranking because this is just utter nonsense...

3. Ya all groups, why don't you support your exchange partners :')))))))

↑ This is me hysterically laughing and crying at the same time at the fact that they don't vote for each other. Groups' ranking was as follows: ATEEZ / SF9 / BTOB / iKON / SKZ / TBZ.

Honestly my only explanation for this result is that the groups don't vote for those people they see as their biggest opponents? It's weird man. I personally for example don't understand why the groups which exchange songs don't vote for each other? None of the performances was bad, and I think it's low-key a matter of respect to give the group you exchanged songs with one of your votes? Because after all they tried their best to present your song in a presentable way even tho it's not their own? Idk man. I don't like this weird feeling of "hostility". But might only be my own feeling idk hahahahaha.

Honestly I wish we'd get to see the groups' evaluation and reasoning behind their choices...

That was it from my side this week...As always, thanks for reading! As for next episode, I'm super excited to see proper interactions and them finally having fun...ouf and after all those years Minhyuk going back to vault jumping I'm hyped hahahah. And now I'll go rewatch SKZ and BTOB lol.

#mnet kingdom #kingdom legendary war #btob #stray kids #sf9 #ateez #ikon #the boyz #*mine

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heathneycanon · 3 years

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reasons why phobia factor fucking slaps

ok this lowkey just turned into me rambling abt phobia factor while i rewatched it. putting it under a read more bc it’s super long lmao

like, the entire first five minutes are the campers being friendly to each other?? and vulnerable, to a degree??? you know i love that shit

courtney and trent?? talk to each other?? like. okay they’re never in the same frame together unfortunately, but they do have like, two whole back and forth conversations.

also in that campfire scene at the beginning, cody and trent are sitting next to each other and there are some. good screencaps

“exSQUEEZE me?!” like cody. ur such a dork omfg

duncan vulnerability hours

lindsay asks what a standee is and trent explains it and doesn’t mock her/isn’t annoyed with her at all, in contrast to a lot of the other campers interacting with lindsay. i love them as friends SO much u all have no idea

harold’s little scene with the ninjas. i love him sm. why does he have nunchucks with him when he goes to the bathroom??

leshawna is afraid of spiders and she runs away screaming from. chef wearing a spider suit??? like i don’t love spiders but if a man i knew wearing a spider costume was calmly walking toward me i wouldn’t react the same way as i would to a real spider. anyway i think this is hilarious.

season one heather vulnerability hours.....

i mean, i really wish they’d actually shown her talking abt her fear at the campfire, rather than just having it told by gwen in the confessional, but i get why they did that. regardless that one scene right before the sumo wrestler charges at her where she’s literally shaking.... i want to give her a hug

side note i hope the sumo wrestler is okay he hit his head quite a few times

ok so. trent accidentally leaving gwen buried underground because he’s getting chased by a mime isn’t like. a sweet gwent moment. but it is one of their interactions that i remember most vividly from tdi lmfao

what is a cute gwent moment is trent like. kneeling next to her while chris is burying her. and the face he makes at chris when he jokes abt not digging her up..... i love them sm

also gwen sounds so fucking dramatic when they close the box she’s in like. “goodbye cruel world” gwen ur being buried for 5 minutes ur not dying sdfjlafskj i love her

duncan hyping dj up before he picks up the snake is so cute?? like he’s clapping for him and he’s got what i call “adorable duncan face” which is where his eyes are full circles and he’s smiling. i can remember him making this face at courtney, dj, and alejandro throughout the series and it’s just. ugh loving soft duncan hours

“ah! it blinked” “it means she likes you” sadie where are u getting this information

okay so i googled if this was true and the result i got was “snakes can’t blink” so first of all i have no clue where sadie pulled that fact from and i have even less of an idea of where chris got that fucking. blinking snake from. is that even a snake??

when dj picks up the snake and they all hype him up?????? i love the killer bass so much it’s unreal

more cute gwent moments... gwen and trent talking on the walkie talkies.. they’re so cute

when the mime pops up behind trent and he does that little scream.... it’s loving trent hours u guys

trent is so bothered by a mime literally just. being a mime. me too trent. me too.

duncan and the celine dion music store standee.... everything abt that scene

"DUDE SHE’S MADE OF CARDBOARD” tyler i love you

courtney genuinely saying that it’s okay if he can’t do it (when she was being harsh to dj about the snake earlier..... duncney is so good in tdi u guys)

and then theY HOLD HANDS GUYSSSS IM SOFT FOR THEM

and THAT is what gives duncan the encouragement he needs to go for it?? they’re so good.

his “okay, okay” right before going for it... duncan’s voice acting is so good in this episode omfg

THE MUSIC THAT PLAYS WHEN HE HUGS THE STANDEE AND THEN EVERYONE CHEERING ITS SUCH A GOOD SCENE

THE DUNCNEY HUG

“duncan, you’re awesome!” and the look of shock on his face at both the fact that he did it and that courtney’s hugging him...... have i mentioned i love duncney yet?? bc i do

i can’t believe i used to dislike duncney omfg

then when courtney realizes that she’s hugging him and steps back jafksdfjlsa she’s so cute

and then the rest of the bass come over and hype duncan up more like. i love how supportive they all are in this episode!!

trent is so excited when he finally gets the mime to leave him alone fakjldjfl like he didn’t have to ROAST the dude. but he did.

chris somehow owns a remote control hail cloud?

lindsay getting excited about the “baby cloud” and calling it over?? she’s so cute omfg

trent fucking. hates geoff. gwent has geoffphobia in tdi ig

when they dig up gwen and she throws the walkie talkie at his head but he doesn’t stop smiling..... your honor i love them

owen and izzy getting out of the plane and kissing the ground together..... adorable.

cody with a fucking. watermelon on his head and covered in trash scares bridgette out of the woods. that will never not be funny to me

THAT ONE FUCKING SCENE. WHERE SADIE AND LINDSAY HYPE EACH OTHER UP. THAT MAY BE ONE OF MY FAVORITE SCENES IN THE ENTIRE SERIES. I LOVE THEM SM

the only bad thing abt this ep- tyler should have gotten the fucking point. he completed the challenge. i love courtney, but realistically, she should have gone home this ep and tyler should have stayed.

bridgette hyping tyler up...... im soft they should be friends

“quit being such a girl” courtney im sorry but the only reason you’re still in the game rn is because ezekiel made sexist comments in episode one. what are u saying lmfao

tyler and heather’s reactions to their fears rly make me think. bc like. most of the other campers have a more outward, loud reaction, maybe scream and run away. a couple are just a little wigged out. gwen gets a little snippy and is clearly super freaked out as well. but tyler and heather just. completely shut down. like, curled up in a ball, nonverbal, and shaking. makes u think.

why did cody need a calculator to figure out that the score was 7/3....... cody is canon lgbt+ bc he can’t do basic math without a calculator confirmed

also regardless of how little sense that made. at least that screencap gave us commie cody

when gwen starts trying to psych courtney out and heather like. gasps and looks shocked..... i like to think that heather feels a little bad for courtney here. heathney real.

duncan and bridgette hyping courtney up..... i love the killer bass so much omfg

courtney looks so sad when she walks away from the jelly.......

and then in the confessional right after?? she’s like. crying a little bit :( and she’s beating herself up abt it like..... :( courtney no

LITERALLY she’s like “how could i be so weak” “i deserve to go home” “you’re pathetic” (to herself) and then tells herself to show some confidence and then. she just starts crying again. and then slaps herself?? GOD I FUCKING LOVE COURTNEY SHE’S SO HARD ON HERSELF

owen just. hangin out in the tub of jelly. i love u, u wild dude. fuckin sit in that green jelly. loving owen hours

the little look that courtney and tyler give each other when they’re the last two without marshmallows..... half solidarity half “i don’t want to be the one going home”. i love them sm :(

i KNOW i said this earlier but. tyler should NOT have gone home this episode!!!!!! only bad thing abt this ep

all the fuckin chicken puns are a little bit funny tho

“he won’t be flying high tonight” bridgette chickens can’t fly

when courtney goes “okay, that’s enough” like. tyler’s not even there at this point but she’s defending him. maybe it’s because she still feels she should have gone home instead? maybe it’s because of that little bit of solidarity she felt for him when they were the final two without a marshmallow? maybe i’m reading too much into this? but idk. i think it’s sweet

okay no i have another complaint. what the fuck was the whole boat ride for tyler?? like when sadie gets eliminated the surprise she gets is that katie is on the boat. when tyler is on the boat, CRYING, after literally none of his teammates came to see him off, after he LITERALLY COMPLETED THE CHALLENGE BUT DIDN’T GET CREDIT FOR IT. the fucking. CHICKENS POP OUT?????? tyler deserved better

also some of the challenges were a lot easier, or at the very least, harder to fail than others this ep. i love it but come on. lindsay and sadie vs like. gwen vs owen and izzy vs dj. there were very different time limits, actual fright level, ability to back out once they were doing the challenge.... not a fair challenge

also uhm. if we’re being technical tyler and heather had the exact same reaction to their fears, so why did heather get a point and tyler didn’t? if the chicken had run at him, would he have won? smh

i do love this episode so much but. i had a couple complaints

okay finally lindsay’s little confessional to tyler where she blows him a kiss.... they’re so adorable lyler rights!!

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crusherthedoctor · 3 years

Note

Can we have some unpopular Sonic opinions?

I tried to cram in a lot, so I hope this satisfies you. :P I tried to stick to the ones that I haven't brought up quite as often, since by this point, we all know that I think IDW's storytelling is dire, SA2's story is overrated, X Eggman is an embarrassing portrayal (at least from season 2 onwards), Blaze shouldn't be handcuffed to Silver, Shadow's backstory had issues with or without the Black Arms, Neo Metal Sonic looks silly, etc. But anyway, here we go:

- Knuckles may be tricky to incorporate into plots that don't relate to Angel Island, but making him obsessed with his duties is no better than having him forget about Angel Island entirely.

- I like Marine, and never found her annoying. Oh, I understood what they were trying to do with her, but I honestly wasn't put off by her, and found her Aussie lingo more endearing if anything. Since her debut was during the period in my life where where I couldn't stand Sonic himself, I instead thought he was irritating (and hypocritical) for getting annoyed with her for doing shit he would often be guilty of.

- Silver is just as guilty of being shoehorned into games and plots as the Deadly Six are. Having more fans than the latter is irrelevant, since we're still talking about a character who constantly has to time travel in order to be present.

- Speaking of Silver, if he has to stick around, please do something different with him. They've pulled the doomed future routine multiple times now, and it's been boring every single time. I wasn't interested when it involved Iblis. I wasn't interested when it involved Knuckles drinking the edgy Kool Aid. I wasn't interested when it involved a council of dumbasses... give it a rest already.

- The Tails Doll can work as a mildly creepy thing, with maybe more to it than meets the eye when it's time for a boss fight or what have you. But the memes about him stealing your soul are just dumb, and I thought it was dumb even back in my teenage youth.

- “Eggman is supposed to be clownish!” Yeah, well he's also meant to be a genuine villain with a 300 IQ. These qualities don't have to be mutually exclusive.

- “Sonic is supposed to have attitude!” Yeah, well that's not the same thing as being an absolute cunt. Sonic was only ever meant to come off as having an edge compared to Mario. He was never meant to be a GTA-tier protagonist.

- Rouge is not a villain, and never was a villain. Literally the whole point of her role in SA2 was to reveal that she was working against Eggman and Shadow the whole time, albeit using sneakier tactics to do so. You'd think all those people who exult SA2's story would remember this, but apparently not. She barely even qualifies as an anti-hero, since aside from stealing the Master Emerald, she rarely does anything morally questionable otherwise. She's got a lot more good in her than people give her credit for.

- Captain Whisker is a better Eggman Nega than the actual Eggman Nega. And as far as robot characters in this franchise go, Johnny's design is pretty underrated.

- I don't like Iblis or Mephiles, but I DO like Solaris, and it annoys me that it was out of focus for most of the story due to all the time spent on its less interesting halves. Had they kept the backstory with the Duke and his experiments, and worked from there, I think they could have provided an interesting contrast with Chaos (since Solaris can also qualify as a monster with a sympathetic backstory) instead of recycling the surface level schtick.

- Black Doom may technically be just as bad as Mephiles, Nega, Scourge, Mimic, etc, since he's yet another villain with one-note characterization and fucked over Eggman. But because he never gained a disproportionate fandom, he doesn't annoy me to the same extent. It's easier to ignore him by comparison, and his Dr. Claw voice and face shaped like a lady's delicate part make him enjoyable to mock.

- Likewise, while Lyric is also on the same level as these other villains, it's easier to dismiss him because I was never invested in the Boom games anyway, and being an obvious alternate universe (compared to Sonic X or IDW, which retain the Modern designs and plot elements), it never had an effect on the main series. I also unironically like his design, and if nothing else, at least this snake didn't start a hypnotism fetish across the internet.

- Sally - and the rest of the Freedom Fighters for that matter - have had their importance in the franchise severely inflated. They may have been lucky to be the face of popular media (SatAM and Archie), but they're not these magnificent entities that the game characters are but a speck of dust in comparison to. Having a “legacy” doesn't make them more entitled to shit than any other character, old or new.

- Conceptually, the treasure hunting gameplay is one of the better alternate gameplay styles IMO. But it was let down in SA2 by its one track minded radar (the levels may have been big, but I don't think that would have been an issue on its own if the radar was better). If they brought it back and made it more like SA1's treasure hunting, I'd be all for it, although it would probably be better suited for a spinoff title.

- This goes for a lot of games, but when it comes to 2D, I prefer sprites over models. Not that the Rush models are bad (though the ones in Chronicles sure as fuck are), but the sprites in Mania and the Advance trilogy are just so charming and full of character.

- I actually like Marble Zone. Yeah, the level design is a bit blocky, but I love the concept of an underground temple prison, mixed with lava elements in a zone that otherwise isn't a traditional volcano level.

- I also like Sandopolis Zone. Again, completely understand why it's not the most popular zone around, but I've been a sucker for the Ancient Egyptian aesthetic since childhood (you can thank Crash 3 for that), and Act 1 is visually stunning.

- I prefer the JP soundtrack for Sonic CD over the US version overall... but I also prefer Sonic Boom over You Can Do Anything.

- SA2's soundtrack isn't bad by any means - I love Rouge's tracks, and The Last Scene is one of my favourite pieces of music - but as far as variety goes, it's a step down from SA1's soundtrack.

- If Sonic X-Treme had been released, it probably would have been unenjoyable and confusing. Whatever your thoughts on SA1, it was probably the better option between the two as far as Sonic's first legitimate translation into 3D goes.

- I have no qualms with Modern Sonic and the other Modern designs and characters, but I also fully acknowledge that changing gears from Adventure onwards - and doing it with a great amount of fanfare - was always going to create one of the biggest divides in the fandom, and fans shouldn't act surprised that this happened. The fact that they felt the need to hype up a new design and direction in the first place (compared to Mario, who has mostly been the same since the beginning, with only the occasional minor change with little fanfare) also indicates that they weren't confident enough in Sonic and his universe being the way it was, which often gets ignored by all the “SEGA have no confidence!!!” complaints you see with their recent games.

- Unleashed did not deserve the incredibly harsh reviews it received back in the day... but it doesn't deserve its current sacred cow status either. It had more effort put into it than '06 to be sure, and I can respect that, but much of it was misguided effort, and even if you like the Werehog, you have to admit that the idea came at the absolute worst time. The intro cutscene may be awesome, as is the Egg Dragoon fight, but 2% doesn't make up the entire game. Chip was also quite annoying, and I wasn't particularly sad when he pressed F in the chat at the end.

- On the other hand, while Colours definitely has its shortcomings, and people have every right to criticse those shortcomings, a lot of its most vocal detractors tend to have a stick up their arse about the game because people actually enjoyed it, and it had a gimmick that people actually liked. Yes, it may have been the first game to have those writers everyone hates, but then SA1 was the first game to give the characters alternate gameplay styles and have other villains upstage Eggman, so...

- Forces is absolutely not on the level of '06. It's nowhere close. A game being flawed does not make it the next '06, clickbait YouTubers. Or should I say, the game they want to retroactively apply '06's reception to, since they've been trying hard to magically retcon '06's own quality...

- To echo @beevean, ALL of the 3D stories have their issues. SA1 is probably the most well-rounded of them on the whole, but even that one isn't perfect.

- To echo another opinion, although I do love SA1, I'm not crazy over the idea of a remake, and would prefer them to just take Sonic's gameplay from SA1 and work from there. Because with a remake, you're stuck in a hard spot: Do you keep it the way it is bar the expected graphical upgrades, and risk accusations of not doing anything to actually improve the experience? Or do you try to address past criticisms, and risk the wrath of the fans who will inevitably go on a #NotMyAdventure crusade about it? What people fail to consider is that the Crash and Spyro remakes were accepted gracefully because their original iterations were still unanimously beloved for the most part, whereas SA1 - and especially SA2 - have always been divisive, and have only gotten moreso over the years.

- People take their preferences for the character's voice actors too seriously. I have my own favourites like anyone else, but I don't make a big deal out of it.

- And with fandom voice actors, they usually focus too much on doing a basic impression of their preferred official voice actor, and not enough on the acting. So you end up getting a lot of fan voices who sound like decent impressions of Ryan Drummond or Jason Griffith on the surface, but they sound utterly empty beyond that impression, because there's no oomph or depth to the actual emotions. They think about the actor rather than the character, when it should really be the other way around.

- The thing with Ian Flynn is that he is capable of telling a decent story, and he can portray some characters well. But he's proven time and time again that everything will go off the rails if he's given too much freedom (ironic, given how quick he is to point the finger at mandates when something goes wrong).

- Ian Flynn and Shiro Maekawa are not the only people in the world who are allowed to write for Sonic. I understand that one should be cautious when seeking out new writing talent, but for all the fandom's accusations of playing it safe, they sure aren't in a rush to experiment outside of their own comfort zone.

- And of course, the big one: You don't fix the franchise's current problems by crawling back to its previous problems. It's much more helpful and constructive to discuss the good and bad alike with each of the games. Less “THIS GOOD, MODERN BAD”, and more “This could work, but maybe without that part...”

#Crusher's Asks #Opinion #Sonic the Hedgehog

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rachelbethhines · 4 years

Text

Tangled Salt Marathon - Queen for a Day Part 2

So this is the continuation of my review for Queen for a Day. My personal favorite episode in the series, but it does have some flaws that needs to be pointed out.

You can find the first part here https://rachelbethhines.tumblr.com/post/622226424477171713/tangled-salt-marathon-queen-for-a-day-part-1

Summary: The King and Queen are stranded in the blizzard and Eugene and the Pub Thugs must rescue them. Meanwhile, Varian rushes to ask for Rapunzel's help freeing his dad, but Rapunzel tells him that she can't help him because of the blizzard, leaving Varian feeling betrayed. Rapunzel orders the evacuation of the island, but then remembers about a legend told earlier by Xavier about an underground machine with the power to change the way of the blizzard.

The Show Tells Us Things that Contradict What We’ve Already Seen

No they didn’t.

If it was up to Frederic you’d all be jailed, hanged, or banished. Don’t try to pretend now that the King is somehow better than any other leader when it’s his crack down on crime is what causes 75% of the conflict in the first season.

Rapunzel gave you a second chance. She’s the one to thank. And she only did that because she befriended you, not because she thought the system unjust.

Look at All This Time Spent On This Very Important Note, No Way the Writers Would Dumb Enough Not Follow Up On This Finely Crafted Set Up.

Why is Season Three So Bad!!!!?????

Evacuation is a Dumb Plan to Begin With

So throughout the episode Rapunzel is being pressured into evacuating the populace off the island. With the idea that, as an island, they’d be cut off from food supplies and whatnot.

Which is beyond dumb because they’re currently inside a castle. Castles are built specifically for withstanding sieges. They should have all the supplies and room that they need right there for weeks if not months.

Everyone is acting like risking exposure is somehow a better option then just staying put, inside the comfy palace.

Also keep in mind no one knows that this is a magic storm. They think it’s just a regular blizzard and it’s not even been one day of snow. You’re telling me that King Frederic is such a poor leader that can’t even keep the kingdom stocked for one day?

You know what. I'd believe that. Corona is a shittly runned country that can’t handle emergencies.

Cass Can Clearly See and Hear What’s Going On

The show will later act as if Cass didn’t know the truth about what happened between Raps and Varian, but that’s a load of bull. She clearly sees and hears Varian talking about the rocks and his dad. In short, Cassandra winds up looking like a horrible person because of poorly thought out framing.

Rapunzel Has More Options Here But She Doesn’t Explore Them

Look Rapunzel being inexperienced and not knowing what to do, leading to her making poor decisions; is a perfectly fine set up for a conflict. And the choices she makes are understandable.

However the show acts like these were the only options available to her; stay and help her people or go with Varian right then, and that’s simply not the case.

Here’s a list of things she actually could have done.

Send someone else with Varian. Cass isn’t doing anything right now. She’s not needed for the evacuation, as evidenced by her going with Raps to the demantius device later (a task that she doesn’t actually help much with) and she already is in on your secret about the rocks and is friends with Varian. Alternatively there are other guards you could have sent with him, but Cass is the best option for the job.

Keep Varian with her until the storm was over with. He could have helped with the demantius device and then you both could have gone to Old Corona afterwards.

Order the evacuation and then actually go with Varian. Once again, Rapunzel isn’t honestly needed for the evacuation, as evidenced by her taking off to find the demantius device later. She also. at the this point, doesn’t know if the demantius device is real nor does she have a plan in place yet to use it. It would have been a worse idea, yes, but it’s still an option that she failed to consider. (Unless they came back to the device after failing to save Quirin, cause it’s fiction and the writers can decide the time frame however they want)

Go check up on Varian after fixing the storm.

None of these options would have saved Quirin, obviously, but any one of them would have given Varian the emotional support that he needed. So while it’s understandable that Rapunzel did what she did, it’s still not excusable.

Therein lies the failure of the show. It tries it damndest to excuse the protagonists at every turn even when they do quite clearly mess up, all while shifting all the blame onto an easy scapegoat. The series then acts like, we the audience, should just blindly accept it’s manipulation as fact.

The Show Implies That the Heroes Just Threw A Child Out Into A Deadly Blizzard

Rapunzel’s ‘orders’ falls on deaf ears and that’s honestly on her. She’s in charge and ergo she needs to keep her guards in line. It’s up to her to give clear and concise orders.

Cause what we see is the garuds dragging away a 14 year old begging for help and next we see him, he’s back out in the snow storm. The snow storm that’s been deemed a national emergency and could potentially kill people stuck out in it.

If the show didn’t intend for us to think that Stan and Pete just chucked the poor kid out the door, than it needed to establish that Varian left of his own accord. But it doesn’t do that. So everyone is Corona just winds up looking like an bunch of asses instead.

Rapunzel Breaking Her Promise isn’t the Point

The show gives way too much focus on Rapunzel’s promise. Because not being able to keep a promise is understandable and something that everyone experiences. No, in truth what Rapunzel does here is much worse than that. She fails at her responsibilities as a leader, as an adult, and as a decent human being.

Her promise to Varian doesn’t actually matter. Her friendship with Varian doesn’t actually matter. Her even knowing him doesn’t matter.

Had Varian came to her as a stranger with this same problem and she failed to help him, she’d still be in the wrong. This is a child in need that she ignores. A subject that she is in charge of and responsible for.

Once again, I’m not hating on Rapunzel here. I’m fine, glad even, for the protagonist to make a mistake. But the show fails to even acknowledge that what she did was a mistake to being with; hence the real problem with the character.

Let’s Talk About ‘Daddy’ and How The Creators are Full of It

OK so there was some debate about whether or not Varian actually said the word ‘daddy’ in this scene. It was confirmed by one of the creators, Chirs, that yes, Jeremy Jordan (Varian’s VA) ad libbed this line and that the writers decided to keep it.

Which, in of itself, is fine. This scene still hurts like hell and is the most powerfully emotionally hitting scene in the show. It’s awesome.

The problem is the Chris’s reasoning for including the line.

According to the creator, Varian saying the word ‘daddy’ means that’s still immature and not ready yet to know whatever secrets Quirin is keeping from him.

OK first off, calling you father ‘daddy’ does not make you immature. What a stupid thing to say. My siblings and I are all in or 20s, 30s, and 40s, and we still call our father ‘daddy’ as well. (We’re quite spread out in ages)

Secondly, what secrets!? We’re never told what Quirin is hiding from his son. Varian never learns the truth of any earth shattering secret that involves him.

We get lots of behind the scenes hints that the writers prematurely cut Varian out of the plot in later seasons, despite his conflict not being resolved and the fact that he was presented as being integral to main plot.

We’re never given a real reason why Varian’s story so poorly was edited out and any excuses that the series creators, Ben and Chris, have given is nothing but that same BS as this line here and I’m going to call them out on it.

Xavier and Monty Should Have Been Streamlined Into One Character

Xavier is given no real introduction and yet he’s suddenly an important part of the main overarching plot. Nor do we ever get any backstory for him or insight into why he does what he does and knows what he knows. He’s just there to give exposition and that’s it.

Meanwhile Monty is given a whole episode worth’s of introduction and insight, but then proceeds to add nothing to the series afterwards.

Just imagine if Monty and Xavier were made into one character. Introduction, insight, plus actual story importance. As an added bonus, it would have forced Raps to deal with someone she doesn’t get along with in order to save the kingdom. Which would counterbalanced the ‘friendship saves the day’ bs of later seasons along with the idea that anyone who doesn’t kiss Rapunzel’s royal arse is a villain.

Once Again, Why Do you Know this Legends and No One Else, Xavier?

It’s lazy writing. You need to either set these things up beforehand or give reason for them later.

Pascal’s Story Makes Far More Sense After This Scene

The consequence of showing things out of order is that context is lost.

I Love the Reprise but it Gives the Game Away too Early

The writing team can’t decide where they want Varian’s fall into villainy to start and where to have it’s ‘twist’. This is suppose to be foreshadowing, but having it then undermines the ‘surprise betrayal’ in The Alchemist Returns. Not to mention that Varian doesn’t actually do anything truly ‘villainous’ until Secret of the Sundrop anyways.

In short this scene winds up being pointless and the insistence of having a shocking reveal later winds up being redundant. Which in turn then becomes a poor excuse for not featuring a episode dedicated to Varian’s side of the story.

Conclusion

I still love this episode, and I’m saddened that most of the series does not live up to this quality nor its own hype. On its own Queen for a Day is 40 mins of wonderful entertainment. As part of the an on going story it’s a bitter reminder of the disappointment to soon follow.

#varian #rapunzel #tangled #anti-tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #tts #rta #queen for a day

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selfcareparker · 3 years

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yesss the letter format 💝💓💘💖💞💕💖💞💓 (lovely anon)

my dearest aria (a hamilton reference lmao),

i’m home alone (bc i wanted the house alone to get my head together after my brothers were mean to me 🙃) and i’m so hype LMAO but i’m watching chloe x halle’s tiny desk concert and honestly just vibing. (this is so random) besides zendaya like they are my badass black women role models. my one accomplishment would be to learn to body roll like them LMAO

oh nevermind i can’t have anything nice, my dad just came home 🙃 WHAT A WAY TO START OFF THIS ASK WTFFF

i’m liking tfatws, the second episode was veryyy intense imo but WANDAVISION IS SO GOOD😭 i knew it was going to be my favorite from the really old trailer but it’s really good and i promise it’s not just sitcoms, girl especially cuz you’ll have all the episodes already out- we were having to wait every week😭 BUT ITS SO GOOD I PROMISE HDJSHDJSH lmao reading this i was like “i- the episodes aren’t an hour long” but i feel that, it’s hard for me to watch tfatws bc they are an hour long and i’m like 😐 but wandavision episodes are less than 30mins bc I KID YOU NOT they have the damn 10 MINUTE CREDITS DHDJSJ no i don’t think we’ve talked about this b4 lol but it all depends on the series for me. i binged love island uk in less than a week bc i was so invested and LITERALLY LOVE IT but uh those episodes are like an hour and a half, but say i was binging tfatws (it’s so hard to type that ohmigosh) i honestly would not be able to do it bc of the intensity (you may be like what intensity but if you’ve seen episode 2 by the time you’re reading this.......... isaiah and the scene afterwards is all i have to say, esp me being black it was so tough :/)

girl you’re fine, as long as you’ve experienced it once hahaha i think the reason why it’s so important to my family (this letter feels so personal and extreme HSJSJA IM SORRY) is bc my grandmother loved it and in my family i guess it’s just important to us lol like my mom and dad love it too and we have the literal VHS tapes LMAO, but it only came up recently cuz my youngest brother was watching lion guard HAHA and he wanted to see the originals :) and fun fact (unless you already know) but there’s a lion king part 2 and 1 1/2 and i have all three ON VHS HAHAHA but i love lion king 1 duh (the og) but part two’s music and love story..... is so good. anyway. 🦁

I WAS THINKING THE SAME THING DURING THE WHOLE MOVIE THEATER ENCOUNTER THING HAHAHA AND WHEN SHE WAS SAYING AWKWARD I WAS LIKE WTF THE NOISE LMAOOOO i don’t think there’s a better way to describe that whole situation than ZKDHDJSHAJAJSHDJSNAHA. yeah. yeaaaa at the cinemas (i like the word cinema more than movies 🥰) here they have chips (fries), some have ice cream, nachos, drinks, hot dogs, the cinema we were at had pretzels and like BURGERS I WAS LIKE HUH OKAY and ya know obviously popcorn but i don’t know why the theaters (or cinemas) here do that, it started a long time ago though like yearsssss

PLEASE i have the longest movie watchlist and uhh haven’t seen any of them JDJSKA (istg i use HSJSSKSH as a period - like . ) i’m still hype for cherry but very hesitant (idk if i can handle it) but i’m thinking about watching it in the next couple of weeks? i know it’ll take me forever bc i’m gonna have to keep pausing and shit but idk. i’ve asked around for very specific trigger warnings and time stamps so i REALLY know what’s coming (even if it spoiled the film a bit for me) but i do really wanna see it (i think? writing this now i’m not so sure lol) so whooooooo really knows lol, but chaos walking YES i was really excited about it :))) and about my friend uhh dude you don’t sound mean at all i was literally thinking the same thing but worse HAAKL idk what she was there for???? she bought my ticket tho so 💁🏾‍♀️ whatever

“SIMS ahh, BUNK BEDS ahh” had me cracking up lmao and you know my sims status JAJAHHAJ but i’m gonna become like you, saving every 5 minutes 😭 but that’s exactly what happened to me, i really didn’t know whether to shut it off or not but after 2 hours i was heartbroken lol i’m literally making a list of things i need to redo that wasn’t saved lmao

CAN I JUST SAY UR A MASTERMIND THOUGH??? UR SIMS GAME SOUNDS SO *chefs kiss* IM CRINE university is PAINFULLY long and LITERALLY I FEEEL THAT like you can’t do anything else without failing, i had my sim go to a party once for like a few hours and i felt so dumb afterwards like urgh he should’ve been studying LMAOO just cracking down on work honestly. UR NEIGHBOR!AU IN THE SIMS PLEASEEE i am very much in love with it, yes. (pouring rain has just suddenly begun where i am rn wow ok) i love that you put them on the same lot, that was really really smart and i love that ur living out your sexuality in the sims😭 i was abt to say “now you can say you’ve got experience bc of the sims” but ANYWAY IGNORE ME fhdhs THE ALIEN BABY DHSJSK i hope it’s not a dealbreaker for enisa. that’d be tragic. IM BACK IN UPPERCASE THO BC YES MAKING OUT IN THE SIMS IS SO HOT TO ME??? I THOUGHT I WAS THE ONLY ONE STFU OH MY GOSH- all the stuff, whispering sweet nothings, and the making out, and JUST ALL OF IT!!! AM I TOUCH STARVED????? there was this time i made my sim just continue to woohoo bc it was turning me on big time. ANYWAY

half way through that i had to go to my grandmothers house (not the one that likes lion king, but uh hmm idk if you remember but i was talking abt my shit family so yeah that grandmother lol) so now i’m finishing this 🥴 and instead of chloe x halle i’m watching a tom interview lmao & if this takes me longer than 30 minutes.... imma cry

I REALLY WANNA ASK- IS IT BC UR GERMAN LIKE YOU CAN JUST WRITE OUT THAT LONG ASS WORD???? i mean i can’t write out supercalafrag- anyway, but that word is a bit nonsense, UR WORD IS A REAL WORD DUDE HDJSHS i love how ur like “maybe i mixed up these words” YEA OK.

lol i had to google what are waveformers lol (lol makes a comeback) and they look like curlers that you would sleep in (here we would call them curlers or uhm i forgot uhhhhhhh rollers i think) but ur fine when am i ever making sense?? i think the best part about these is the chaos yet we understand what the other means 😌

H20 H20 H20 OH MY GOODNESS SHE BROUGHT UP H20 OK MY LIFE WAS H20🥲 I HAVE THEIR LOCKET NECKLACE AND (short storytime) when i was younger i thought they were american despite their accents (idk i was dumb) but then i figured they weren’t when lewis went to go study in america HAHAH ALSO FAVORITE COUPLE CLEO AND LEWIS UGH WATCH ME REWATCH THE SHOW NOW THANKS (also i hated elizabeth so much) but anyway back on topic, when lewis went to go study in the US i looked up where the show took place and all that good stuff and i found out they were australian HAHAH and that started my obsession with accents LMAO the uk :’)) (i’m proofreading AND AUSTRALIA IS NOT A PART OF THE UK LMAOO IM SOO DHSJSSHS) also it is now one of my many goals (besides the body roll HAHAH) to go to mako island (that’s what it’s called right??)

about music, i googled stormzy and i might listen to a song of his.. LOL I WANNA GIVE IT A TRY IMMA DO IT FOR YOU NFDVSFSG lmaoo the german rapper had me cackling (autocorrect once again being helpful and said raper and i’m like nOO) i mean we all have that one person. can’t lie, won’t lie. my one (IM SORRY BUT AUTOCORRECT HAD “MY ONE TRUE ACCOMPLISHMENT” SITTING AND READY HDJSJA I DONT EVEN TYPE THAT wHAT) person out of my white soft boy with brown hair and brown eyes type would beeeee pete davidson. love me some petey. i was gonna say rex orange county as well lmao but i don’t really loveeee him i’m just in love with his music... and wanna be friends with him..... so 👉🏾👈🏾 (i never do that fdshsh)

oh my goodness, i love tattoos too- GASP what are you thinking of getting 🥺 i want tattoos too but i’m too indecisive to figure out what to have & where. especially in my family... idk they aren’t frowned upon but my mom’s not applauding the thought lol, if i got one it would have to be meaningful but i am absolutely in love with (for example) ariana grande’s finger tattoos !! they’re so cute and simple :’) i don’t even know if i can get tattoos? my skin is... interesting. not in a bad way!! just like.... idk how to explain it??? keyloids run in the family & i got a piercing once and it got infected soo :/ the doctor also confirmed that if i wanted tattoos they couldn’t be in color so LMAO

ONCE AGAIN THIS WHOLE THING FEELS SO TMI DHSHSSJ IM LIKE OHMIGOSH SHUT UP SHE DOESNT CARE JESJSKS

in regards to you not sleeping, i wanted to mention that dumb bird, what was the reason it was up so early aT 4AM???? SIR WHO YOU CALLING TO??? also it’s 11:30pm and idk why i’m tired???

yeah i was never SUPER into justin so i don’t know exactly what albums you’re talking about lol, i do know yummy though.. but everyone did hahaha also i listen to so much pop 🙈 i mean maybe... idk what would count as pop and what wouldn’t. that new person feeling though.. i get that. it’s like who is this new person..? i kinda feel like that with taylor swift (i was never THAT into her either though so it’s like oh wait i didn’t know you from the beginning instead of hello old friend but you’re different lol)

about the concerts, thanks 🥰🥰 that’s so sweet what you did for your mom too, it’s nice seeing them so happy like 🥲 awh AND GLEE IS AND WAS MY LIFE FOR A V V LONG TIME, i’ve been meaning to rewatch it for the longest time lmaooo but i’m just so lazy and it’s such a commitment... i’ll have to get emotionally involved again and idk if i want that rn. but i have a friend on instagram and she runs a glee fan account and it’s such a big part of her life i really don’t think i could ever be THAT obsessed with something. like another one of my friends loves tom holland so much that she changed her mom’s name in her phone to what tom’s mom’s name is in his phone (that was confusing lol) and obviously i’m not judging them AT ALL, it just couldn’t be me lol

CONCERTS LOOK LIKE SO MUCH FUN 😩😩 LIKE THE EXPERIENCE AND THE FEELINGGG URGHSJS i wanna see a few people live like ari and chloe x halle and- hmm.... idk who else FJDSJ rex orange county i guess huh anyway, the experience just sounds so amazing and the atmosphere is just ✨✨✨ yeah

aria do it do it do it do it do it- watch hamilton!! but with subtitles bc you won’t catch half of the things they’re saying without them LMAO (me and my family watched it and they all didn’t like it bc they didn’t know what was happening lol) BUT DONT WATCH IT AT 4AM LMAO ITS LITERALLY 3 HOURS LONG

yes!! superior peter fics 🥺🥺🥺🥺 and it just shows how much of an incredible writer AND PERSON you are through your fics that you can turn a blurb into 2k....... like what.

LMAO the annoying thing, sometimes i feel like i’m bothering people (like right now HAHAH) but i think it’s my antisocial side being like yeaa no one wants to talk to you like you wanna talk to them :’) idk it’s strange!! sometimes i get really ✨insecure✨ and overthink everything LOL like is this too long, im talking too much, i’m swearing too much, oh lord i’m a pain, all that good shit lmao so that’s fun:))

ALSO YOUR BLOG IS SO FUN TO ME HAHAK LIKE ITS JUST YOUR OWN AND I LOVE THAT!!! like you talk about everything and anything on here lol,, and i say that bc what you said lmao how if i was someone else i would want to fuck me so bad😭 i honestly don’t understand how i don’t have people lining up though..... but if no one’s gonna tell you... then you tell yourself, period (and sometimes telling yourself is fucking yourself HSHAJKS OK NEXT)

ohmigosh the realization you had that you graduated last year and are going to uni this year🤧 but the fact that you had a teacher who LEFT THE GROUP CHAT bc she was mad at y’all i- 😭 but yeah about your maths (i always wondered why you guys call it maths and the US calls it math. like i know so many people out of the states, not just in the uk that say maths) teacher- i saw this post that said online school is looking a lot like dora the explorer😭😭 “you have any questions?” 🦗 “okay bye then” lmao and please i love when tests have nothing to do with what you studied like ??? thanks? sometimes i get scared that my teacher will somehow find out that i googled everything? or like my answer is too close to the answer sheet or something. i get sooo nervous lol but i’m already past that point of not being able to do anything myself DHJS i mean i’m still learning like i said!! read the question, read the answer. boom. now i know the answer to the question and i learned!

THANKS 🙈🥰🤧 idk how else to explain my feelings LMAO i feel it’s cool that you find my dance lessons and voice lessons cool so thanks :’)

oh god not headache season 😭😭 allergies are the worst like it’s not even funny. is headache season just when the seasons are changing or is it like... all throughout the summer? cuz i love the summer lmaoo i love the winter too but i just love wearing as little clothes as possible LMAO

GIRL IF THAT BIRD DONT STOP CHIRPING- i am 100% convinced that it is the same bird trying to give you headaches and no sleep and it needs to stfu 😤 and pLEASE ur theme is adorable and pretty and cute but also it just feels like you? idk if i’m explaining this right or if it’s bc i’ve been talking to you for a bit but it’s cute but not innocent in a way that i’m surprised that you write smut and- yeah, that didn’t make sense!! but ur new theme is gonna look pretty too and as long as you like it, it’ll be amazing🥰

yessssss the fact that megan is gonna be ur pfp YES JUST YES

edit: ok i just need to 🥺😭 sometimes u make me wanna cry cuz i feel like you’re just a kind person. i truly mean this, the fact that you celebrate yours & others stretch marks makes me so 🥺🥺🥺 i honestly don’t know anyone who has said they want need more stretch marks and it’s just all very lovely to me :’)) OKAY IMMA STOP BEING SAPPY

#yes my fake tags are back #by popular demand #aka me #and look i have actual tags this time! #i’m seriously craving water ice rn....... huh #but it’s past midnight and i fr fr want a snack #aw man #i wrote that last paragraph while doing my tags yes #and i hope you become responsible for that anon’s orgasm #assuming they had one #and i saw your response to the tom thing and yeaa when they only look like that for something and it’s like aw bae be yourself #i’m gonna shut up now and find a snack but goodnight!! morning?? IDK #IF THESE TAGS END UP AS ACTUAL TAGS I AM SO SORRY HAHAHA #alright proofreading done and i’m gonna go eat cereal

okay i‘m on my way to a driving lesson rn and afterwards i have a zoom uni thing, and then another uni thing lmao. but hopefully i can reply to this in between because i‘ve been dying to talk to you since i got this ask dldjds💘💘💘 (i really like this heart. i had a 💖 phase for a while and now it‘s 💘 (seems like a very romantic heart but.... it is what it is idk dkddj)

^okay that was literally all i wrote before my lesson lmfao. just had the worst driving lesson ever dbdvsnylkxsksj i think i‘ve gotten too used to being good at driving and now i‘ve gotten too cocky with it 🥴 anyway i‘ve had such a stressful day and overall week but tbh i‘m already feeling better bc i can (indirectly) talk to you <333

omg i went to chloe or halle (i don‘t remember who out of the two)‘s instagram the other day and found out that they are not twins alejeleksjsksj but yes oh my god their voices are literally angelic and i can‘t wait to see Halle as Ariel (Arielle??)🥰 and omg it‘s literally 2021 and we‘ve only had......... one(?) black Disney Princess like it‘s about fucking time (I might be forgetting someone, I‘m not too familiar with the new Disney films, but as far as I remember there‘s only Tiana right? (who is literally a frog for 3/4 of the film 😭😭) so yes i‘m here for it too😌😌😌 (obviously she‘s not a cartoon like tiana ekdlek but she‘s a disney princess you know what i mean ddkjdh)

pfkejdj i‘m already overwhelmed with my parents i can‘t imagine having siblings too 😭😭 (sometimes i wish i had siblings but then other times (like after reading what you wrote dksjj) i‘m glad that i‘m an only child lmao like your brothers being mean to you and i remember when you cried and he was just like 👁👄👁 ok. like i’m totally okay being an only child sksjsj———and he doesn‘t listen to music 🤧🤧🤧 (although i guess that‘s good for you because at least he can‘t annoy you by listening to loud music that you hate dmdn)

okay okay i might watch wandavision then??? I‘ll definitely let you know!!! and yes omg i‘m loving tfatws (that really is so fucking hard to type omg) but same i totally get what you mean, i‘m not used to watching action series at all and every episode so far has been like a little movie so i‘m glad that i didn‘t wait until it was all out cause there’s no way i could binge watch that lol) and yes last episode was really intense. i‘m glad that marvel are talking about racism because (from what i‘ve seen) they haven‘t been the best in that department, and i‘m really curious to see what they‘ll do in the next episodes (curious isn‘t the right word but excited isn‘t the right wort either, like i‘m excited but in a neutral way ? i‘ll shut up dslsksj i hate that german has so many words that you cant translate because theres a really good german word that describes how i’m feeling but i cant think of a good translation ugh)

okay i absolutely need to watch lion king (and part 2 and 1/ 1/2 dksksj) AND hamilton, i might even do it soon 👀

BURGERS AT THE CINEMA? EBEEISNDBEKSK i‘ll come to the US just to go and watch a movie lmaooo, i think all the popcorn sizes and drinks are bigger as well, i‘ll come and watch chaos walking with you 😌😌 does next week work?

and yeah i‘ve seen posts with specific time stamps and trigger warning for cherry too so if you haven’t looked on tumblr yet i’ve def seen some! (but ive also seen some on twitter and yeah- i mean idk youve probably looked on tumblr but yeah- then there’s also imdb which doesn’t have time stamps i believe but quite specific warnings, mostly without spoilers!)

Tbh i don‘t think i would have even considered watching cherry if tom wasn‘t in it... (i’m personally fine with most of the triggering topics/things like for some reason i’m just stoic when i’m watching the most tragic films ever dldldldlbut the plot just... idk if it‘s for me you know? just entertainment wise?).... and even with tom in it i‘m unsure skeldls, i‘d totally get if you decide not to watch it but let me know if you do i‘d want to hear your thoughts! <3

SKSLSJJ my sims both finally graduated!! i think i played sometime last week, and i literally got the achievement/notification that i‘d been playing with this household for 24hours.... and that was BEFORE they graduated dldjdldkdksjjs

oh no my tumblr broke and three paragraphs of me talking about sims were deleted 😭😭😭

WAIT NO I TOOK SCREENSHOTSSKSK because i couldn’t press save so i knew they might be gone okay okay okay i‘m a genius

*move out

oh no idk if the quality is too bad to read... idk how good your eyes are dkdkdjjd (also sometimes it will be really bad quality for some but not for others so i hope that the you can see the pics in a normal/good quality)

Okay let me continue

OMG THE ROMANTIC AND SEXUAL STUFF IS THE BEST PART ABOUT THE SIMS DIDLDKJIkdkj i kind of miss how in the sims 3 they would be making out basically lying on top of each other if they were on a bed— but in sims 4 when they‘re sitting next to each other and everything that‘s definitely hot too 😌😭 or with hot tubs dkdkdk how one sim climbs on the other sim‘s lap before they woohoo (i used to make them skinny dip in the hot tub and then make out and woohoo so they’re like naked on top of each other even if you can‘t see anything- en e waysss)

Dkdkdkdj so @ Rindfleischet.. blah bla. so it‘s basically just loads of individual words put together/connected and that‘s a really big part of german. so yesterday i had an online Einführungsveranstaltung for uni (like it was a zoom meeting where they just talked about general stuff about the uni and i was really anxious before, idk why, but it turned out absolutely fine so) and that words consists of the two words Einführung (introduction) and Veranstaltung (event) which are also two individual words but you can make a new word (Einführungsveranstaltung, so in english that‘s basically “introduction event“ lmao) by combining those two words. there are obviously some rules like you can‘t just combine random words in a random order but you can basically make infinite words (technically). for example (i feel like i‘m teaching a class just skip this if you don’t care 🙃🙃🙃djdjdkdlns)

for example i could say Einführungsveranstaltungsteilnehmer (which is not underlined with red by tumblr because it is a grammatically correct compound word (i think that‘s what they‘re called?)) which is the words introduction + event + participant, so that word just means “participant of an introductory event“ but instead it‘s one word? i hope that makes sense? dkdkkdksks i mean it makes sense in german but idk if it makes sense to you cause idk if i‘m explaining it very well lmao,

(I just deleted a really really long paragraph that i wrote about gender in the german language and grammar, you‘re welcome slsksksj)

my capacity to think has now been used up for the week 🥴🥴🥴 i absolutely do not blame you if you just skipped over that part or can‘t be bothered to (re)read my awful explanation edkflsksjdjdj (again, i had double the amount of words but i just deleted it dkdkdlslsl but what‘s left lf my german lesson is probably confusing enough already😭i‘m sorry🥴)

so to answer your question LEJDKSKJ: it‘s really common to have long words in german, words that are just word+ word+ word + word made into one long word. obv rindfleischetikettierung..... is a very extreme example and it‘s normally just 2-4 words made into one! So yup i think that comes mostly from german and talking german and growing up here and going to school here and everything dmdfnsksx

i think the best part about these is the chaos yet we understand what the other means 😌— YES. YES. Yes. I love that about us 😌😌🥰🥰/ I love us. Yes.

okay but your friend changing her mom‘s name into tom‘s mum‘s name (was that right? Dkdkdjh)—— so Justin Bieber once posted something where you could see that his Dad‘s number was saved as „Daddy Cakes“ (which, thinking back, sounds very weird ekejjej) and till this day I have my Dad’s contact name as Tata (which is serbian for Dad lmao), “Tata🍰“ in my phone because of it 😭😭😭😭🙃🙃🙃 it‘s not because of justin anymore like i‘ve just gotten used to it by now but at first i did it because of justin lol........ but nowadays i don‘t think i‘m THAT type of fan of anyone- like you know how people have fandom names (Justin‘s fans are the Beliebers, One Direction fans are Directioners (writing that hurt my soul💔💔💔)) and I wouldn‘t consider myself a fan of anyone like that. like even with tom i wouldn‘t call myself........ does tom even have a name for his fans??? Well if he does, I wouldn‘t call myself that. Like i used to be such a hardcore stan for any celebrity that i liked and now it‘s just... okay, i like em. (She says on her blog where she writes fan fiction about Tom Holland — WJDJEJDKELSKSKKSNSNDXB🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃🙃)

Omg rex orange county!!!!!! I don‘t know that many songs like I‘ve only listened to the album pony, but i love it 💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘

thanks again for what you said about my fics/writing I‘m🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

Pete Davidson Pete Davidson Pete Davidson I‘m-🥰🥰🥰🥰 and I can‘t explain why. But as blissfulparker said the other day (i don‘t want to tag her and make her read through all of this lolll) “I like my men when they look like they are on the brink of death 😍“ (or something along the lines of that) eskkejs okay pete isn‘t that bad, he looks quite good on some days but other days you‘re like... is this man alive? Like i don‘t want to be mean I love Pete so much The King of Staten Island is literally my favourite film ever (although it‘s not my #1 because of how he looks, but i mean he does look good) VUT ALSO

(Okay i was gonna look for a terrible picture of him but he really doesn‘t look as bad as people say??? like. i think he‘s hot. can‘t necessarily explain why. so that‘s that on that.)

i‘m not going chronologically right now (i just keep scrolling up to your ask and replying to whatever i see first sksksksh) so i might miss a thing or two that you said

Okay Stormzy, you really really don‘t have to dkdkdjd like i think you said you don‘t really listen to rap, and uk rap is a whole nother thing from us rap because of the accent i feel like??? (That sentence did not make sense) BUT if you‘re looking for a few songs that aren‘t like RAP rap, then I‘d recommend One Second (feat HER), Superheroes, Own it (which you might know?), ummm maybe the song Lessons?, he has a ton of Lion King references by the way dkdjdj for example in Rachael‘s Little Brother but that‘s like more RAP again if you know what I mean?😭 and it‘s also like 5 Minutes long and tbh i only started liking that song a year after that album came out lmao but Rachael‘s Little Brother is possibly my fav Stormzy song, then there is Shut Up which you absolutely need to listen to just for fun dldjdjd like it‘s just pure fun and also a little funny lmao, especially if you‘re not British (i imagine so at least) cause he‘s like shuTTTT up idk dldkdjdldkjdhdhfjfbfldlsksksks

Vossi Bop is one of his classics, and then maybeee - ok so there‘s Blinded By Your Grace Pt. 2 lmaoobdjsj it‘s very (Christian/) religious but i like it a lot even though i‘m not really Christian (at least not practicing or anything) so idk about your views on religion but i do like the song a lot just by like the sound lmao

Okay so again you absolutely DO NOT have to listen to any, especially not for me dlskdj but I really do recommend the songs Superheroes, One Second and Rachael‘s Little Brother (and all the other ones i mentioned but if you don‘t listen to a lot of his songs you should at least give these three a try <3333) also let me know some of your songs? 🥺 like i dont care who they‘re by but i‘d love to listen to some that you like and Recommend 🥰🥰🥰

Okay so skdjdjdjddhhddhdhjsk... I used to watch all of my series in German (like H2O) bc obviously they were on german tv so they were german- and i knew that most of these actors i saw on tv were american and i was always SO fascinated that they all learned german for this show??? Like I actually thought they were the people‘s real voices and that these English and American actors were learning german so they could re-record the whole ass show and do everything in german dkdkdldjdjjd... i swear I thought that until I was like 14 omg. And then the first time that I watched H2O in the original version i was sooo confused about their accents because to me all actors who spoke english were American?? I mean MOST of those shows are American so I wasn‘t completely off but yeah i was definitely caught off guard when I heard all of their Australian accents for the first time 💀💀😭😭😭

@ math vs maths, math actually makes more sense in my opinion. like you have the word mathematics, then the abbreviation would obviously be math... why would English people randomly add the s from the end??? Or maybe it makes more sense after all because it‘s like plural??? Now I‘m unsure dkdkdkdj but i do say maths because that‘s how i was taught to say it and i hear the word maths more than math but yeah dldkdjs i think math might even make more sense (okay i just tried saying math and maths is easier to pronounce but again tjat might just be me, oh god i‘ll stop talking about that disgusting thing (mathematics).)

not the crickets and dora LMAOOOSNSNSMDNBS yeah that teacher was... a lot. a lot a lot a lot didjjd but she kinda liked me so she always gave me good grades/marks but the people she didn‘t like..... ooft. OOF.

Fksksjsj idek about headache season like i just know that i get headaches from the sun and i‘m allergic to only one.. type of...pollen??? (I don’t understand the science of that whole pollen thing and idek if it’s called pollen in english i just know sex pollen from fan fics😔)and yeah we have this weird wind that makes a lot of people get headaches yeahd dkdkdj. i loved the i just love wearing as little clothes as possible LMAO lllioool i love that i really do. i always struggle so much in the summer cause i never have anything to wear. i feel like i buy so many new summer clothes every year but when i end up looking for an outfit i don‘t ever find anything 😭 (so i just go naked— lmao jk jk) but i‘m generally not the biggest fan of summer so-

OMG THIS FUCKING BIRD ISTG, okay the first time i heard it i went to sleep at like 5 am, so the next day i was like let me go to bed earlier so the bird doesn‘t keep me up, so i went to bed at 4 am (🥲) and THE BIRD JUST STARTED FUCKING CHIRPING SO LOUDLY, so the next day i went to bed at 3 am AND IT FUCKING STARTED AT 3 AM and it‘s still there 😁 every. night.

and since you said you‘ve gotten used to my theme and everything (idk where this transition came from😭) so tomorrow (2nd april) we have our... wait what‘s an anniversary but for a month.? I think month is like mensus in latin OK NO THATS DEF WRONG DKDKDJ wait

So Tomorrow is our... mensiversary💘💘💘💘💘💘 or at least from the first time you sent an ask. i couldn‘t find it on my tumblr anymore because tumblr is a bit of a bitch but i remember the first thing you ever sent (in an ask) was something lovely about my writing and i always take screenshots of stuff like that, and i found it in my gallery. and i took that screenshot of your ask on the 2nd of march so i‘m assuming that‘s when you sent it 🥰🥰 i feel like i‘ve known you for a week not a month like how is it a month already????? (i mean this in a good way lmao but i really can’t believe that its been a month wtf)

omg no you make me want to cry because i just love you so much 😭😭🥺 but about the stretch mark thing it‘s just.. it‘s not even me trying to empower other women (or anyone else who has stretch marks) to shake off these dumb insecurities that the patriarchy and capitalism have instilled in us— ok no it‘s definitely that too lmao. But i mean I‘ve always loved stretch marks, i‘ve just always loved loved loved them so much so it makes me genuinely sad that people don‘t like them. so yeah. i dont really know how to explain it lol, like i‘m not (only) hoping that people realise that hating your stretch marks is giving the men and the patriarchy what they want per se- (that made no sense) it‘s just because i love stretch marks and think they‘re beautiful and also sexy. idk dldkdjls and omg the fact that you called me kind 🥺🥺🥺 like i don‘t really have a goal in life or anything, but if i had to choose a ‘goal‘ in life it would just be to be kind. (i‘ll end this here otherwise i‘m gonna talk about being kind for 30 more lines—)

And please. Do not ever feel like you‘re annoying me or sending too much. never ever ever. I get so happy when i see that you‘ve sent me an ask. No matter if it‘s a long one like this or just a short one where you‘re saying something about a post that i reblogged or something. I love hearing from/about you and talking to you 💘💘💘💘💘💘💘💘

P.S: i‘m so sorry for the tags you‘re about to read they make even less sense than this post, also i reached the tag limit dkdkdj but i said some butterfly tattoos look tacky... and the next thing i said was since we‘re already speaking about Ariana- I DID NOT MEAN THAT SHE WAS TACKY dldkdjsj, i meant since you already mentioned some of her tattoos lmao

#lovely anon #<3 #ALSO I LOVE YOUR TAGS SM DKDJDKDL #i definitely (accidentally) didn‘t say something about every single thing you said #but this is so long already and i don‘t want to force you to read even more of my shite dldkdjsj #(i dont day shite i say shit but sometimes shite sound funnier)#*say #omg its too mate to speak english what i meant was i‘m sire i forgot to adress some of the things you said but i tried my best iwjwskb #omg adress (address? lmao) sounds so negative i mean i‘m sure i forgot to reply to some things- also *late not mate loool #omg ignore my whole german lesson i cant believe i actually wrote all of that wtf #but it took me like 20 minutes so i don‘t want to delete it 😭#and omg i hope you got to re do everything that your sims game didnt save and that it all worked out the same #😭#I NEARLY DELETED THIS ASK WITJ MY ANSWER OH MYFUCKING GOD MY FUCKING HEART #also i realised i didnt say anything at all about uni but i dont have any news like that Einführungsveranstaltung (😭) I went to was literall #just about schedules and credits and boring stuff mostly lmao #oh and tattoos!!!! it sucks that you might not be able to get the ones that you want/get any :((((( but hopefully you can at least get some #that arent in colour? 🤞🏼🤞🏼🤞🏼#so my parents aren‘t that supportive either like they most definitely wouldnt pay for it (even though they pay for a lot of my stuff lmao)#but i think in the end they know that i‘m old enough and they can‘t stop me and they‘d accept it one day so they‘re definitely not THAT bad #maybe your parents will change their mind over time? :(#or maybe youll just get one one day and ig theyll have to get used to it lol #so i want a butterfly (thats the only thing that i‘m sure about) and there are a lot of butterfly tattoos that look really tacky #but speaking of her i actually really like ariana‘s butterfly! but idk if i want that much shading- i have a whole album with like 35 photos #of just butterfly tattoos lol- i‘ll stop here tho. ldkdkd #omg im rereading this all and it‘s so messy good luck dkdkkddl #my tags got messed up and idk how to fix it #wait did i reach the tag limit and you cant even see half of these? 😭😭😭#i‘m so confused about these tags why are they not in the correct order? 😭😭😭 ily snd i‘m so sorry for dropping this post on you none of it #none of it makes sense.

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snkpolls · 3 years

Text

SnK Episode 70 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 170 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Manga Readers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll, click here.

RATE THE EPISODE 167 responses

This episode received good ratings, though it wasn’t as hype as previous episodes have been. We presume this is likely due to the primary focus on Gabi and Falco over the Survey Corps/Warriors. Overall, though, the episode was solid for most respondents.

Beautiful😍✨

MAPPAGOAT

Its pretty good

Alright for what it was.

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING GABI AND FALCO MOMENTS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 167 responses

The majority of the most favored Gabi/Falco moments from the episode were in the second half, starting with Gabi’s unfortunate encounter with the horse with 29.9% of the vote. Behind that is Kaya and Gabi’s argument about why Kaya’s mom had to die with 27.5% of the vote. At 21.6%, Kaya remembering Sasha was favored and at 13.2% was Kaya taking Gabi and Falco to her old home.

Gabi's character is so real. LOVED her and Kaya's argument; the va's went all out & it made me cry

Why do ask us what our favorite Gabi/Falco moment was without the option "I don't have one?" Falco's cool and all but Gabi's story has literally been nothing but a drag to me from start to finish

Would have chosen the horse thing for my favorite moment but went with Kaya remembering Sasha instead. At this point so close to the end of the manga I'd rather focus more on moments with characters I enjoy than obsessing with a character I utterly despise having some misfortune (to put it mildly)

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING MOMENTS FOCUSING ON OTHER CHARACTERS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 168 responses

This pie chart was a bit more colorful than the previous one, with the largest piece going to Mikasa’s headache with her flashback to the night Eren saved her (26.2%). Behind that moment, 16.7% most enjoyed Hange confronting Floch and Co. about their involvement in leaking information about Eren, 16.1% favored seeing Hange remembering Sannes’ warning. 14.9% liked seeing Mikasa and Louise’s brief conversation in the dungeon and 13.1% liked the moment with Magath and the Warriors discussing their retaliation.

GIVE HANGE A BREAK </3

WHICH FLASHBACK HAD THE MOST EMOTIONAL IMPACT FOR YOU? 169 responses

Nearly half of respondents were most touched by the moment at the end of the episode where Kaya talks about Sasha saving her and says she wishes to become a person like her. 29.6% got most emotional over seeing the flashback to the night Eren saved Mikasa, and 18.3% were most impacted by Hange remembering Sannes’ warning.

RATE JEAN’S OUTFIT 169 responses

Jean doesn’t do anything in this episode really, but he sure did come dressed in, erm, a unique outfit. Overall most people were neutral or felt that he needs to up his fashion game. Although 34.3% altogether ranked on the higher end, feeling he’s a total fashion icon. We’re questioning the legitimacy of these claims or whether they were just being sarcastic for the fun of it. lol

WHO WERE YOU MORE EXCITED ABOUT TO SEE SHIRTLESS? 159 responses

Eren thirst won out on this question, with 70.4% being most excited to see his half naked body in the previous episode. Though Reiner stans came through for him in their support of his shirtless moment this week with nearly 30% of the vote (and commentary).

Poundtown

More half naked Reiner thx

My only disappointment is that the shirtless reiner scene wasn't longer.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO HAVE AN EXCUSE TO TALK TO YELENA? 169 responses

When asked if respondents would like an excuse to have a conversation with our chaotic bae Yelena, 40.2% said they would absolutely love a reason to talk to her. 29% aren’t sure if they would want to or not, while 16.6% were a solid “no.” 14.2% didn’t care about this question.

Yelena is hot

AS ALWAYS, WE’RE GONNA ABOUT CUTS. MAPPA LEFT OUT FALCO’S THOUGHTS ABOUT IT NOT BEING THE RIGHT TIME TO TELL GABI HE DELIVERED EREN’S LETTERS. THOUGHTS? 165 responses

There was a brief moment in the manga after Gabi’s misfortune with the horse where Falco thinks to himself about how he’s not yet ready to tell Gabi about his involvement in Eren’s attack on Liberio. 35.8% had completely forgotten this was a thing at all, while 24.2% felt it would have been a nice thing to keep, although ultimately unneeded. 20.6% feel it wasn’t a big deal since he tells her later anyway, and 9.7% feel that this thought of his will come up at a later time.

I honestly forgot about it but it would have been really cool to see his thoughts in a better way, if that makes sense.

MAPPA ALSO CUT THE BEGINNING OF PIXIS AND YELENA’S CONVERSATION WHERE HE ASKS HER ABOUT HER CELL, TO WHICH SHE RESPONDS IT WOULD HAVE A BETTER VIEW WITHOUT THE BARS. THOUGHTS? 165 responses

Though a small detail, a few lines were cut from Pixis and Yelena’s conversation as well. 42.4% feel that it was unneeded and feel ok with the cut. 23% thought it wasn’t necessary to begin with, and 20.6% had completely forgotten about this as well. A handful didn’t care or feel saddened by less Yelena content.

Maybe the actress wouldn’t come in to say one line l idk

I knew something was missing

HOW DOES IT FEEL GETTING TO RELIVE GABI’S EARLY CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT AGAIN? 167 responses

We get to reexperience Gabi’s evolution from a perpetuator of Marleyan propaganda to someone who learns to “understand Reiner’s feelings” and see that those she was taught to hate are just like her. 25.1% of respondents feel unbothered by her initial resistance to see things any other way as they know where her arc is headed. 22.2% were never annoyed by this facet of her character to begin with and are totally enjoying the ride. 15% love her but can’t help but feel frustrated by these early moments of her development. 13.8% have always felt annoyed by her character and so their feelings remain unchanged, and 10.8% simply stated that they had forgotten just how annoyed they felt by her at all in the early portion of this arc.

It's annoying AF but looking back/knowing what I know now makes me more empathetic to her storyline. She still annoying AF rn, though.

Back then I was just antsy to get back to the other plot lines. But I’m enjoying this a LOT more this time around.

It's a mix of painful and Gabi I love you but you need sense knocked into you, ya know?

Always hated her, always will, nothing the anime does changes my hatred of her

To quote Eren, "I always hated you".

I feel bad for her, she doesn't deserve this

She’s so annoying but I found Eren just as annoying in the beginning and I grew into loving the character. The get the reasons for her character but boy yams really made her so fucking annoying

Gabi Braun Must Die

HOW DO YOU THINK GABI’S BELIEFS WOULD HAVE DEVELOPED HAD SHE BEEN THE ONE TO MEET EREN INSTEAD OF FALCO? 168 responses

The majority has spoken. 54.8% feel that if Gabi had been the one to encounter Eren at the hospital, her views would have mostly remained the same, as opposed to Falco who was probably a better person to put into that role narratively speaking. 24.4% don’t want to say for sure as there is no way we will ever know, and 14.3% feel that she would have had her views altered to a slight degree, but would still not have been as empathetic to Eren as Falco was.

DID KAYA TALKING ABOUT WANTING TO BE LIKE SASHA HAVE MORE EMOTIONAL IMPACT ON YOU WHEN INITIALLY READING IT IN THE MANGA, OR IN THE ANIME? 168 responses

Overall, the anime had a profound effect on the emotions of the audience. 36.9% state that they were equally impacted in both mediums, though if a side was chosen, 32.7% felt that the anime made the scene more impactful, versus only 19% who thought that Isayama nailed it better in the manga. Only 11.3% were unaffected by this scene in either medium.

PORCO AND PIECK GOT ADDED DIALOGUE IN THE ENDING SCENE, ARGUING THAT THEY MUST RETRIEVE GABI AND FALCO DUE TO THEM BEING VALUABLE WARRIOR CANDIDATES, AND THAT IT WOULD TAKE YEARS TO RETRAIN A NEW BATCH. WHAT DID YOU THINK OF THIS INCLUSION? 167 responses

MAPPA included dialogue of Porco and Pieck vouching for saving Gabi and Falco ASAP, arguing that they should get them for the sake of the warrior program and that losing their talent would be a blow, and it would take ages to train up new warrior candidates. This is most likely just their excuse to appeal to Magath while wanting to save Gabi and Falco because they care about them. 41.9% felt that their commentary added more depth to the situation and the urgency to retaliate against Paradis and get Gabi and Falco back. 28.1% were simply content to get more content of them. 18% weren’t super excited about it, just stating that it was alright, while 9.6% just felt “meh” about the addition.

I like how they all piled on about the need to take immediate action

I want to say I enjoyed it and it added depth but thinking about it longer makes it sound like they only care about rescuing them only because their valuable warrior candidates. Like, it makes it seem like they don't actually care that much about them, even if I know that's not the case. LOL

Any extra scene with Pieck is much appreciated!!

made me sad that they only see them as soldiers and not kids that need saving.

WHICH MOMENT FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 165 responses

The vast majority (65.5%) of manga readers are most excited to see Zackley blowing up in the anime (bye bye, poop machine!). At a distant second was seeing Eren his cell at 22.4%. Only 7.3% are looking forward to seeing Mikasa and Armin pleading with Zackley to see Eren, and Yelena and Pixis got minimal love.

My memory is not working well, did Wit showed Zackleys poop machine or was it supposed to be shown in the next episode?

WE GOT CONFIRMATION THAT EPISODE 16 OF THIS SEASON IS GOING TO END ON CHAPTER 116. THOUGHTS? 159 responses

The plurality of respondents (42.8%) seemed a bit disappointed, but had no problem accepting this cliffhanger. 27% seemed rather displeased, but nonetheless were also understanding of MAPPA’s decision. In contrast, 10.7% looked back to the Promotional Video (which had content from up 122) and expressed their PAIN. 8.2% actually wanted the season to end on this cliffhanger, so they were rather pleased instead. We also received a lot of write-ins.

There absolutely needs to be season part 2, i don't accept any early endings

I am... not sure yet.

As long as it means less cut content lmao

Don't really care much where it's gonna end. I just hope the pacing is good.

i read it ages ago idek which chapter 116 is

I want people to stop complaining about the trailer “lying to them”. Also my anime only gf is going to be very frustrated with where episode 16 ends.

I thought it would end with 122 according to the preview and it would have been, IMO one of the best cliff hanger ever since all the logic of the plot turns around with revelation about Eren path shenangians. However, I think it's really fine since it allowed MAPPA to take its time to show us the story without making to much choices or compromise. It also means longer s4 part2 if there's one.

I dare you to stop at chapter 114 and fluster up all Levi fans

I am going to die waiting for Paths.

I need to recheck chapter 116 I forgot about almost everything happened after ema encounter in 112 :D

I don't care as long as they all cover it eventually.

Chapter 119 would have been a better end, but well, I'm gradually learning to lower my expectations for this season

I just roll with whatever they give me xD only fearing Hange's farewell </3

:((((

both 122 and 116 are okay for me tbh

It's all fine to me

Someone explain this whole "ending on chapter 116" thing please

It should've been 117 :/

I was hoping for 119, but I get why they picked 116

WHAT ARE YOU MOST HOPING FOR AS A CONTINUATION? 169 responses

In a nearly unanimous vote, the large majority of respondents feel that the series is best wrapped up with a “part 2” of the final season over the potential for MAPPA to conclude things as a movie (or as movies). Hopefully we’ll have an answer from MAPPA on this front at the end of this run. :)

Another season or movie series works as long as they keep to the source material

I’m happy with either.

I really really reeeeeeally hope it's not movies. I do not want movies! It would take literal years for fans outside of Japan to get a proper conclusion to the series. Last time people waited years for a season so many people stopped caring, moved on and the popularity took a huge hit it never recovered from. I'm worried that due to Demon Slayer's success they're gonna get greedy but SNK movies wouldn't even make a fraction of what Demon Slayer made. That series is a behemoth over there, it's insane. And I love SNK but Evangelion it is not, and people aren't going to wait and will lose interest. Just please, NO MOVIES!

Final Season Part 2 BUT with lots of time to adapt it

part two but don't call it part two XD.... let's stay in a hiatus for an anime season or 2. or more i don't care , i hope they have enough time to make the amazing job they are doing right now :)

Series Spin-Off after Final Season Part 2 !!

A movie would be super sick but unrealistic

Whatever MAPPA decides is best

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

The scenery is a 10/10

gabi braun and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad island vacation.

Gabi sucks

All hail the Eldian Empire

I thought it was overall really good and funny because of the scenes where falco and gabi were just arguing,, it didn’t have much blood and all but I still really liked it!

I never noticed this in the manga, but seeing gabi constantly almost give them away and falco anxiously making up excuses felt like watching reiner and bert again 😂

Gabbbiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!! Kaya MVP btw.

Bless MAPPA for delivering on the shirtless scenes after we got robbed in Season 3. lol :p But seriously, this episode's scenery was gorgeous.

It was like the calm before the storm that's about to come with the next episode. Episode 71 will be when everything starts to violently turn

people should understand Gabi's character even more

I think Falco was very cute the whole time

Gabi beating that guard was way more brutal in the anime, but the scene of her slapping Lisa's hand away was badly done here.

It was a bit boring, but it was needed for character development

One thing I noticed about this episode is how heavily it featured female characters being influenced by other female characters/female characters in general (Louise and Mikasa; Kaya and Sasha; Kaya and Gabi; arguably Hange depending on how you identify them) which was a nice reminder that of the fact that AOT isn't one of those shows that falls heavily in the 'one token girl' dynamic. Isayama worked to include a wide variety of female characters with very differing outlooks, which clash occasionally, without it ever being about romance.

Like most of this season (except episodes 1 and 7 maybe), I appreciate Mappa's work but that's all. I'm sad, disappointed, and I guess it's a good thing this season will end on chapter 116. Let's hope they will have enough time to adapt Part 2 and make it legendary, because this first part is good at best. Also, I totally forgot how annoying Gabi was back then. I really like her now, but geez, she was awful this episode.

Felt good to see Gabi get horsebite all over again. Can't wait to see how MAPPA extends Nicolo punching her lol

cool episode, i’m looking forward to seeing more of gabi’s development in the future episodes :))

The horror of mikasa's newly resignified memory... PERFECT. i was fearing they would use wit's romanticized scene... which worked just fine in the first season BUT NOT NOW! because the whole connotation of the memory is different. ALSO! the scenery was insane!

Horse for President!

Damn, MAPPA's killing it on the scenery this episode. I really enjoyed the animation as well as the plot and voice acting.

In spite of the animation quality I had to give it an obligatory 1 because it was a Gabi episode, and anything involving Gabi automatically decreases the overall quality of the story

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 156 responses

Thank you again to everyone who participated!

#snk poll #snk polls #shingeki no kyojin #attack on titan #snk #aot #snk spoilers #snk s4

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fatimazahramalik · 3 years

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e-Portfolio in Media Lit

Task #2

Malik, Fatima Zahra A.

12 - STEM Abequibel

A.) Choose 1 photo from a magazine, newspaper, or website and analyze what it is trying to tell readers. If it’s a photo for an advertisement, describe what the photos are doing for the product sold.

The picture above is from a magazine, it is a photo for an advertisement. In the photo you can see that the model which is known as Gigi Hadid launched “Gigi Hadid x Maybelline collection” in her collection there are a lot of matte liquid lipsticks with a lot of shades and it says in the picture that the lipstick last for 16 hours which is amazing for me and by the fact that this lipsticks has 30 shades in all because I got to choose what color is really suitable for me. Gigi continued on to share the inspiration behind her line, revealing she named the red lipstick “Khair” after her little sister Bella’s middle name because,”Bella’s favorite color is red and it’s kind of the red she has worn her whole life.” Therefore this photo encourages people especially teenager girls like me who loves to wear make up to buy this lipsticks because beside that it is not that expensive like any other lipsticks it is also very pigmented and can last long in your lips.

B.) Choose an existing pop song and interpret its lyrics. Decipher what the song is all about and list down the situations being narrated in the song.

The song that I chose is “Me!” By Taylor Swift featuring Brendon Urie. For the verse one of the song she’s listing all of the negative, which is something that I tend to do a lot, it’s like if I’m going to try to sell somebody something, or try to convince them with something; I’m going to list all of the negatives first, so I empathise with that. Then in the chorus and the pre-chorus she lists the positives, then for the verse 2 Is which is a thing that made me think that it’s funny, it doesn’t really fit into the spirit of the song, I thought the idea was that we’re all okay just the way we are! So now all of the sudden we’re playing in a comparison game? It doesn’t seem to me that Brendon Urie really got the spirit of this song, which doesn’t seem off character from him anyway. Then Taylor continues on saying, And when we had that fight out in the rain. You ran after me and called my name, I never wanna see you walk away (And there's a lot of lame guys out there) Many speculate those "lame guys" are definitely in reference to Taylor's past, where she used to have a reputation for dating various famous men - Harry Styles, John Mayer, Joe Jonas, etc. The lyric "I will never bore you, baby" could specifically be in reference to Tom, though especially considering tabloid reports hinted that Tom dumped Taylor because he got bored of her. Lastly what Taylor Swift is trying to communicate through the song is the message of “Yes! Go and be yourself, and whatever kind of version that you are, just be that version” And so we go to the bridge, and this is probably the part that I enjoyed the most, but also had the biggest question about, Girl, there ain't no I in "team" But you know there is a "me" Which is a common cliche that we hear a lot; and it’s not in the sense that they're doing bad, they’re obviously doing a bit with it. Then they go into the chorus and an outro and it’s this pretty happy fun anthem-like thing; and I think that this song accomplishes very well what it was set out to do, which is to be sort of like a party rousing song; “It’s nice and fun to be just you, because you’re unique. The song 'ME!' is a song about embracing your individuality and really celebrating it and owning it, with this pop song, we have the ability to get a melody really stuck in people's heads, and I just want it to be one that makes them feel better about themselves. The lyrics were also trying to tell us that we should really appreciate ourselves because we are who we are and no one or nobody can be like you because you are you and you are unique and one of a kind. The hype about this song is that it’s about “me”, and the way that I am is okay and great, but it’s all in the context of a relationship; which makes it a little more complicated, and it’s not necessarily bad, as I think that it’s really good that this song establishes the value of the individual. Taylor Swift has said in an interview talking about how there are all of those advertisements that tells you how you should be to look better, and how you should be wealthier, or healthier, or whatever; and to an extent, you just have to say “Yeah, I am who I am, and that’s great, there is only one “ME!”, right?”; and that’s the main gist of these lyrics, this emphasis of the individual.

C.) Pick a music video and watch it several times. Study it closely to see if the visuals are affecting the song. Or is the song helping the visuals in a way?

The music video that I chose was “Look what you made me do” by Taylor Swift. After watching her music video I have noticed that the song is helping the visuals because it is so accurate like the lyrics really matched the visuals in the music video. The music video begins with a zombified T-Swift digging her own grave so the old Swift is dead, resigned to the graveyard of pop culture history. First, we see the aforementioned tombstone, where Swift’s reputation lies, but also a second one, reading “Nils Sjoberg”, the pseudonym Swift used as a co-writer on her ex-boyfriend Calvin Harris’s song, This Is What You Came For, a collaboration widely assumed to have contributed to their breakup. Swift’s writing credit was supposed to be kept secret, but when her team revealed that she had, in fact, written the Harris-Rihanna hit, her ex went on a tweetstorm about how Swift was looking for “someone new to try and bury”. So she buried the fictitious Mr Sjoberg.

In the next shot, Swift luxuriates in a tub of diamonds, where there sits a single dollar bill, a possible reference to the symbolic dollar she earned in last month’s sexual assault case against the radio DJ who groped her in 2013.

This next part of the videl was a dead giveaway, Swift sits atop a throne as dozens of snakes slither at her feet. One even serves her what we can only assume is piping hot tea, the kind Kim Kardashian dished out when she released audio of Swift, who publicly disputed Kanye West’s lyric about her in Famous, appearing to sign off on those same lyrics in a phone conversation with West. Afterwards, Swift’s reputation as a snake in sheep’s clothing took off; Kardashian helped further that image by tweeting a bunch of snake emojis on international snake day. More than a year later, it seems Swift’s ready to embrace the title: ahead of the single’s release, she dropped cryptic reptilian teaser videos. And now, the snake has shed her skin.

So in the next shot, as the chorus begins, Swift rams a shiny gold car into a storefront where paparazzi are lurking. She opens the door, a cheetah in tow, to show off none other than her Grammy award. She proceeds to display and caress it in one of the video’s most bewildering moments.

Swift’s love of cats is well documented. Here, she’s surrounded by stacks of cash and a Girl Squad of masked felines, wielding a baseball bat and a sweater that says “Blind for Love”. In the next scene, the masked marauders can be seen robbing a music streaming company. Swift, if you remember, boycotted Spotify for years due to its dismal compensation of artists. She also wrote an open letter to Apple Music in 2014 arguing on behalf of increased artists compensation and then took to Tumblr, in June 2015, blasting Apple’s decision to give users three-month free trials. And now she’s back to rob them, cat imagery to boot.

The next part of the video was made waves for its apparent resemblance to a shot from Beyoncé’s Formation video. But the real hidden gem is the backup dancers’ belly shirts, which read “I Heart TS”. Tom Hiddleston, one of Swift’s ex-boyfriends, was caught in a similar shirt when splashing around the beaches of Rhode Island with Swift.

Finally, the last part is when the Swifts both old and new assemble before an airplane, where the word “reputation” appears again. Overall I think that the song really help the visuals in a way that it was really created beautifully (the music video) and for me the music video is a masterpiece becausr I have also learned the real meaning behind it, the song song is also about her struggles in the past and how she handled herself.

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commenter2 · 4 years

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Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart trailer analysis

For those that haven’t heard yet, Insomniac Games has released a trailer for there new Ratchet & Clank game yesterday, called Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

I don’t think I need to say how excited I am for it but I’m going to anyway. IM SO EXCITED FOR THIS GAME ! For those that haven’t heard about it yet, here is a link to a video showing the trailer for the game as well as gameplay of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsnG-3-r6-Q

The game looked so amazing that I did na analysis of the trailer last night and thought Id post it on my Tumblr page for anyone to read. HUGES spoilers ahead. Also I apologize or the spacing as for some reason I can't separate the paragraphs any longer then they are now.

First is the trailer

First off we get a shot of the amazing animation of the game till Ratchet & Clank drop in, literally, but did they just come out of a dimensional rift ? This has to mean the Dimensionator has to be involved in this somehow. We then see another amazing example of the games design and graphics of what looks like planet Sargasso (which would be cool to go to again) till Clank brings up how they need to get to something, the Dimensionator maybe ?, till he is distracted by an Antropod/Terratrope followed by another rift releasing robots shooting at them and though I’ve seen the trailer already, I quickly got a Dr. Nefarious vibe from them.

Then something unexpected happens as Ratchet RIDES the bug and uses it to take down the robots ! Now I haven’t played Spyro in years but that charging attack reminds me a bit of the charge attack Spyro uses in the games, did anyone else think that? If that was on purpose then its nice to see that Insomniac Games still remembers there roots which gives me comfort with them making awesome Spider Man games in the future without worrying about them ignoring there Ratchet & Clank fans.

After some animal handling gameplay, Ratchet and Clank are thrown into a rift and we see a series of shattered pink/purple glass images of places only for them to quickly grind and slide though two planets, maybe existing ones at the night one kinda looks like Veldin while the city one could be Metropolis or Meridian City, with Clank saying the dimensions are weakening which again backs up the idea of the Dimesinator being involved. I do want to say that during the quick grind rail segment, the Grind Boots looked much better in design compared to there previous appearances, which were kinda lazy in my opinion. I hope this means they and the Gravity Boots will be different in appearance instead of in color. I should also say it shown that you can DOUBLE JUMP while grinding, which is a cool small change for the iconic mechanic.

We then see Ratchet ride another animal, this time with wings, on planet Torren IV which though I’m not 100% sure I think I saw a Hoverboot boost pad. Could the Hoverboots be in the game ? Before I continue I want to say the idea of Ratchet riding and controlling animals is a really awesome idea, not only would this be an interesting twist to combat in the game but it would also be another interesting way to travel throughout the levels, which Id be ok with doing IF the Hoverboots aren’t in Rift Apart.

Either way this ends quickly as Ratchet & Clank hop to another planet, a new one according to them but again teleport to planet Ardolis where Ratchet fights robot pirates (AWESOME) who are dealing with a creature. I wonder if Captain Slag and Rusty Pete will be in the game ? During a fight we see Ratchet uses a new weapons, specifically a new BLASTER like weapon that has a rapid-fire feature, which I am thankful for cause I couldn’t take another game with the Combuster.

The fight quickly ends as the explosive barrel explodes and Clank gets thrown through a dimensional rift and is separated from Ratchet, NO ! but also AWESOME cause it gives a A Crack In Time like vibe. The hype is then taken up a notch where its revealed that Clank is on a planet run by none other then DR. NEFARIOUS, Clank saying they are to late, meaning those robots at the beginning WERE his and he is somehow causing all of this, maybe.

Speaking of which Im not sure how I feel about Dr. Nefarious being the main antagonist of ANOTHER game. Don't get me wrong he's still an awesome character but it would also be nice to face a new villain for a change, plus it makes me nervous that this could mean Nefarious could be defeated once and for all which could ruin a big part of the story of the R&C trilogy finale I made some time ago.

HOWEVER I think we can all agree that the biggest thing about this trailer is that while Clank is calling for Ratchet a blue and gray/white colored female Lombax with a robotic arm appears wondering who Clank is talking about, which again gives off A Crack In Time like vibes and…..she’s carrying a hammer ? A bit odd since Lombaxes are affiliated with wrenches but its still an amazing idea. Then we get the name of the game which though I hate to say, the text makes it looks a bit bad as its looks poorly rendered especially at the "and" section and what’s that thing between the words Rift and Apart ? Is that a dimensional rift ?

Other then that the trailer is amazing.

Now for the gameplay

So Marcus Smith does confirm some things about Rift Apart like how this will be a full length game and how those things teleporting Ratchet & Clank were dimensional rifts that will allow them to teleport form planet to planet which though cool its goanna be a bit sad not being able to use Aphelion in the game, I wish she could have more speaking roles in games as she IS one of the last few things from the Lombaxes.

He also says that the new graphic allows them to put something called ray trace reflections on Clank, which along with some other people I’ve seen, I agree makes him look really odd. Hopefully before the game comes out they fix this by toning it down and maybe add a bit of white in there like his older appearances. He then says that the planets are denser with new creatures and that Ratchet has a new arsenal, which sounds perfect to me. He then states that R&C is close to the company’s hearts and can’t wait to show more of it, which again gives comfort.

We get to the gameplay and immediately were introduced to a new mechanic where Ratchet uses a gadget called the Rift Tether to go through a yellow rift similar to that scene in Avenger: Infinity Wars where (spoilers) Thanos uses the stones to pull Dr. Strange closer to him, pulling the area around him towards him in the process. We then see Ratchet fight a Thug for Less enemy, which is cool but not surprising since there were many signs that this game would make references to there other games and this is confirmed seconds later where we see Ratchet fight some Sandsharks. We also get to see several new species of aliens here.

During the Sandshark section we do see a NEW comet strike as unlike in previous games the Omniwrench is thrown diagonally and it looks like it returns to your hand faster. I feel like this change was done for the new female Lombax as I feel like she can do the same thing but since her melee weapon is a a hammer, it wouldn’t really work (or make since) if thrown horizontally, and it would be confusing to have two character with two different ways of throwing there melee weapon. Though I’m not that big a fan of changes I don’t really mind it, heck maybe its a one time thing.

After some more chaos like a giant tentacle creature coming out of the portal, similar to the one in the trailer, and what looks like an Ultra-Mech Unlimited crashing through a walkway Ratchet and Clank were in we get some interesting content in the next cut. One is Ratchet saying something about “break reality” again telling reality is coming apart because of theses rifts, quickly followed by Clank saying Dr. Nefarious has come out of hiding after years of hiding to take over the universe again which means that this IS a post Into The Nexus game, as I’ve seen some people debate about if it is or not.

We get another new game mechanic during the fight with some thugs. It seems that Ratchet can now jump to his left or right in order to avoid incoming damage by using a thruster on his boots, could this mean the Hoverboots are really in the game but are damaged ? It would be cool if during the game Ratchet & Clank or Ratchet goes to Azimuths house on Torren IV to find something about the Dimensionator but also find a part needed to fix his hoverboots thus letting Ratchet use them to get around, especially if the part of the trailer of Ratchet and Clank getting separated IS true.

Were also introduced to new weapons here. One is called a Shatterbomb, the bomb glove weapon, The Enforcer a shotgun like weapon and the Burst Pistol which is the blaster shown in the trailer and would explain its rapid fire ability. The most interesting weapon shown so far is the Topiary Sprinkler, a weapon that when thrown forms into a sprinkler that can project plants around it and shoots out a stream of water that can stop enemies in there place, plus I bet the plants around it is a form of defense system to protect the sprinkler for a time.

The gameplay ends with Ratchet destroying some Robomutts and going though a hallway where a statue of Dr. Nefarious or a mech in his image can be seen but also there is a moment where a purple energy ways rushes through the surrounding areas, just like in another R&C game but that’s for another post, no spoilers now.

Wow that was a lot to write but that’s because there was SO MUCH going on in theses trailers and I’m pretty sure I missed some things. I’m already working on a theory on what’s going to happen in this game, which will most likely come out during the weekend so stay tuned for that.

What were your thoughts on the trailers ? What was your favorite moment in them, and did you noticed anything in them I didn’t talked about ?

#Ratchet & Clank #ratchet and clank #Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart #Dr. Nefarious #insomniac games #playstation #PS5 #playstation 5 #video games

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bearpillowmonster · 3 years

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KH: MOM Review (Gameplay)

Every Kingdom Hearts game feels different. It's always innovating and always adding new types of gameplay. This is no exception. Rhythm minigames are no stranger to the Kingdom Hearts series but a whole game based on it is new.

I don't play a lot of rhythm games but I have played the infamous Atlantica section in Kingdom Hearts 2 as well as the Symphony of Sorcery in Dream Drop Distance and the Ice Cream Beat of Birth By Sleep, Guitar Hero and I'll even throw in the Honeybee Inn rhythm game in FFVII Remake. Out of all of those, Atlantica has been my favorite, that's right, I actually didn't mind it.

Now this system is entirely different than any of those, at least to me. It's definitely the most complex though but just hold on because I know how the word 'complex' can be triggering for a game, I just mean in comparison to the others is all. It's not a DDR right, left, up or down. So without further ado...(Nonspoiler for this part, it’s just gameplay)

This game begins with a stage. You're thrown into it without any notice, there were things that I didn't grasp until near the end of the stage, luckily it doesn't count towards a score yet, and after it is the tutorial but that's just the opening so if you're clueless and want to be prepared, I would say to try out the demo, I didn't even realize how much it helped me until I played the actual game.

I wanted to say at just how friendly this game is to newcomers, it's literally all laid out for you. Nomura came out with HD remasters and collections of the previous games then a recap of the franchise on YouTube then put it IN Kingdom Hearts 3 and people still complained because they don't know the story and are too lazy to play the other games. Now Nomura's packed it all into one whole game to sum it up, explained from the perspective of Kairi herself so that you're still entertained while catching up. If there was ever an easy path to get into Kingdom Hearts, this is the answer. If I hear complaining about it from this point forward, I will be pissed. Now, as you can see, I didn't make it to story yet but that's not entirely what I'm talking about. All the buttons and functions are the same as a regular game, you basically have it all but the different keyblades (well you can collect them but not use them because they're cards). You can play as casually as you want, a song here and there. There are even options for a shuffle and sort function if you want to just jump to track selection but you'll need to unlock them individually in World Tour first. This may sound complicated but that's where the clean and accessible the menu comes in, I have to give props for that.

You're on a set track, it runs on its own, does its own thing except when you're gliding which is just moving left and right to collect notes. You use the normal KH abilities to your advantage because some enemies will be high in the air so you need to jump and slash at the same time but you can't just button mash any more, there's timing involved now. Once you get used to the gameplay, it's quite enjoyable, you may even get a song that you hit every note, my first one was 'Another Side', the first try too, I didn't hit all excellent though.

How do party members work? Well let's say you have Sora, Donald, and Goofy in a party. You have 3 buttons you can press to attack, Sora's the only one that can jump and the only one that can use the reaction commands so you need to pay attention to all three because there could be enemies on the floor and in the sky at the same time. The one thing I will say is a little bit of a complaint and that's that it doesn't tell you which buttons to press except on specific stages, it just has the symbols, I guess that's what makes it more combat oriented but it's definitely different and a little bit harder. But I guess it gets to be muscle memory, after a while. If you already know the themes, it gets easier for you to manage because you focus more on what you hear and less on what you see, that's how I started getting better with timing. I experimented with pretty much everything I could think of so I tried it with low volume and found that I missed a whole lot more because I couldn't hear it, which might be obvious because it's a rhythm game, but it just goes to show how important sound is. I even tried using headphones, I suppose that's up to you, it definitely made the music clearer but my performance was about the same.

What do songs net you other than progress? Well you get materials. Also similar to KHUX, you get crafting materials except these ones you can use for potions and stuff, I did a potionless run because I didn’t feel the need (but I also didn’t do it all proud either) but I used a few summons and item boosts just for fun. You can also craft cards, which are really just for looks to see in the Museum after you finish one of the memory dives (which I'll get into) but the way you get the cards, grinds my gears because it's gacha, you craft them and it's a surprise what you're going to get...so it's essentially a loot box that you don't pay money for?? What the-

(notice how it says KH2 or Days at the bottom, you don’t even know. Of course I have Writhing Shards rn but that’s because I beat the game and didn’t open a whole lot of keyblade cards but the memory and scene ones are the annoying ones for me)

You don't even have to "finish" the song, just get it most of the way before you die then you'll still get credit and still get a ranking, just no exp. Now, there are also stars, stars are from 'missions' for each stage, if you play KHUX, it’s kind of like how it says “get this amount of Lux” or “use this type of medal” or “don’t use continue” so most stars are just “get this many points” and you need to collect enough stars to get to the next area. With that, so long as you have enough stars, you don’t “have” to play every stage, just like regular Kingdom Hearts and skipping worlds, I did though, just for sport, except Let it Go, just for spite. I could see plenty of fans going after those A+++ Proud Performer 3-Star rankings, I can't wait to see the hype it generates, same with the co-op.

They went all out when they didn't have to. The Museum is where everything is collected, so all the cards you collect and craft. You can also just play the song on its own without gameplay through the Museum, so if you want headphones to just chill, it's really nice. You can also play the cutscenes and memory dives on their own without the gameplay. There are "feats" or missions such as finishing a certain number of songs, like Nook Miles or the ones they had in Re:Mind. You can collect profile pictures for your co-op or versus account, mine is Simba (even though I don’t really use it). But the co-op can get pretty intense as you can “sabotage” each other, which seems similar to a Smash or Mario Kart match, adding that much more to the gameplay.

A few more complaints, one is that certain enemies from a stage, (say, the Wyverns) won't have the same attacks as the other stages, sometimes they'll have it so that you jump to hit them and sometimes they'll just have them take a normal hit without the jump so you can't memorize what each enemy requires (there are too many to really do that anyway). The other thing is more just opinion based, particular enemies such as Large Bodies tend to carry a weight so you need to hit them more than once even if its just one enemy. How it does this is that you hit it and then the enemy gets knocked back as your next note so you hit them again. There were definitely times where I struggled because I knew I was hitting the buttons but nothing was happening, I would guess timing was the problem in some of those cases but the indicators can be difficult to keep track of because it has to be “just right”. I think even just a line on the floor to tell when you’re supposed to hit would be a major help but in a way, I feel like that’s on purpose. Also, in the Museum, you can view all the cards EXCEPT the Keyblades which is pretty shotty if you ask me, what's the point in grinding to get my favorite Rumbling Rose, if I can't even look at it properly?

(also new names for some keyblades (this is a zoom-in))

There will be a lot of things happening at once which can be daunting, I do appreciate that they included the easy, standard, and proud modes though. Keep in mind, each of those are used for individual songs, not playthroughs so if you want to change, go ahead, at least as far as World Tour goes. On top of that, there are different modes that also gauge at how good you are (to use on the track selection). There's the basic mode which I already explained, then there's the one button mode which should be self explanatory, and then there's the performer mode which is quite a lot to put on your plate all at once because on top of normal gameplay, you're adding new buttons and things in the middle of your attacks, I would probably only recommend that after you've got a decent amount of experience because I tried it day 1 and it seems like you would need a good understanding of the game and to be on the same wavelength before even attempting it. You can view a playthrough of each stage called a "demo" which is the little play symbol button next to the "play" button, it shows you how you should be playing to get an A+++ rank and giving you a heads up of what's to come, all excellent all the time. On top of that, when I was playing Xenoblade, one thing I proposed was flicking the analog stick in a certain direction for each move, that’s present here in the form of bosses and memory dives but if you want it to, you can go into the menu to enable it for regular gameplay. You'll find out if you want it on the very first stage, again, I would only recommend it after a lot of experience.

Your characters level up but it mainly just has to do with HP so you don’t die so easily but at the same time, you have potions so I don’t see much of a point for normal gameplay. All three of the party members only have one health bar, so leveling does come in handy for the bosses. However, I don't understand how each party member has a different level, maybe it's just based on the amount of notes you hit with that character but it's kind of weird because I don't think it matters. Even on the team selection part of the play screen, it has one compilitive level so why would they be different on the menu?

For bosses, you only encounter a few. If it were me, I would've made one per game but it is what it is. You don't worry about jumping anymore, it's just holding the attack button down instead and the amount of "dodge" notes that you hit will work in your defense whenever the boss attacks. Once the dodge section is over, it actually tells you how you did with the dodging section. The first time I ever did it, it said "Oh No." it has a sense of humor, it took me a while to nail those ones you hold down which is odd because I rock the gliding sections most of the time.

There's only one more type of gameplay type I can think of, memory dives. It's similar to a boss but you're flying and there's a scene playing in the background, also some of the directional notes will have doubles, so you need to point the analog stick in different directions which is as difficult as can be because you have to use BOTH analog sticks (took me forever just to figure that out). You 'mainly' gain the memory dives from crafting which is a bit odd but you unlock the recipes and items as you go through World Tour and then play them separately in Track Selection, until you get to KH3 at least.

Keep in mind that I played the demo on both PS4 and Switch and compared the two, my performance was about the same, though I will say this. With Switch, you can take it on the go and just do a few levels here and there as well as remove the joy-cons. The thing about that is that I feel the need to shake the joy-cons but there's no function that uses that in the game, I really wish there was though. And those directional ‘slide’ notes have to be way easier on PlayStation because the analog sticks are right next to each other.

#kh #mom #melody of memory #kingdom hearts #gameplay #review #game #kh: mom

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thicceon · 4 years

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My Final Views on Pokémon Sword & Shield

There’s my Trainer! Isn’t she lovely? Anyways, this is a game I had so many strong feelings about, so I feel like jotting this down so I can give it a lil’ bit of closure.

The National Dex

This was perhaps the game’s greatest controversy leading up to release, so I want to give my thoughts on this first. I don’t mind the absence of the National Dex as long as it improves the game all around. I think it’s an okay decision moving forward. However, in these games you can tell half the existing Pokémon were cut just to save time in order to meet a holiday release, not to actually improve the game.

Presentation

The game makes a powerful first impression. The campaign’s strongest moments are probably the first couple hours. The narrative really caught my attention in the beginning and I felt SUPER hyped for my first few gym battles. The story’s climax is also pretty exciting. Game Freak did step up to the plate where it counted most, fortunately.

Gameplay

The game is bare, short, and vapid. Halfway through it’s REALLY apparent how rushed the game is. You end up zooming through tiny routes that feel more like hallways than anything, and only have a couple Trainers in them. Most “cities” are smaller than the ones in Red & Blue. There is a town that’s literally just a corridor with a Pokémon Center and outdoor gym. This is also one of the coolest cities in the game, so seeing that wasted potential is very frustrating.

The NPCs feel lifeless and have nothing interesting to say. I don’t see anyone else talking about this! The NPCs in BW, XY, and SM actually had some very entertaining dialogue once the tutorial stuff was out of the way, whether it was hilarious, straight-up weird, or genuinely thought-provoking and insightful. Everyone feels so...boring.

The Wild Area is...rough. It looks horrid. However, it’s still where I had the most fun in the game. It’s a great concept and I think Game Freak had a decent first go at creating an open world Pokémon experience. It wasn’t a particularly fun place to explore per se, but it was enthralling just to be able to control the camera and go where I please. Being able to see glimpses of other players here is also a wonderful addition, and something I’ve wanted from the series for a while. All in all, this area has a delightful MMO feel to it. Raids are also very fun! It’s great to have a co-op feature to play with friends, and the rewards and rarity of Gigantamax forms gives you a good reason to do them!

There are many wonderful QoL features in this game. Pokémon’s UI experience has never been smoother. There's one rather large caveat though, which is the online experience. It’s nonsensical not to include a friends list for easy trading and battling with your pals, and most of the time the stamp system just doesn’t work. It’s extremely frustrating, but sigh it’s workable.

I also must say that I hate the Exp. All being baked into the game. The feature itself is not the problem, it’s the fact that I have literally no way of turning it off, despite previous games allowing you to. This was borderline game ruining for me, as it killed any sense of satisfaction I felt leveling my Pokémon. It genuinely felt like the game was raising my Pokémon for me. Yeah, not for me.

The post-game is practically non-existent. There’s a lifeless husk that qualifies as a Battle Tower of sorts, but that’s all you’ll find, Champ. But of course, this has become standard for modern Pokémon games.

Graphics

The Wild Area looks very shoddy, however, the rest of the game looks genuinely beautiful! The overworld textures are poor, and this is not a high-fidelity game by any means, but the general art direction and colors are gorgeous. The new Pokémon have nice models, and the older ones have greatly improved textures. The cities all look distinct and lovely. However, the pop-in of NPCs is very apparent and feels jarring. I can tolerate a little pop-in, but this draw distance is short enough where I will just about hit NPCs that appear before my eyes while biking.

Pokémon still lack battle animations that are even comparable to the Stadium games. _That’s _the type of stuff that should be improved by cutting Pokémon.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack is decent and has its own flare. There are a few standout tracks, my favorite being the Slumbering Weald at the beginning. Gym battles have a great chanting effect that really adds to the atmosphere. My biggest complaints are that a few of the city themes are weak, and theres a real lack of route themes.

Story

It feels rushed and empty, like everything else in the game. Conceptually I think it’s pretty strong, and as I said before, the climax is great. However, the story beats leading up to the climax are hilariously rushed and character’s actions begin to make zero sense. You also visit areas that were so obviously meant to be dungeons, but were condensed into single rooms. One significant scene didn’t even get a proper cutscene and was instead told via a slideshow that looked like screenshots of the models painted over.

As for the characters, I’m extremely disappointed with how underdeveloped the main villain was, despite him having an intriguing, and surprisingly contemporary motive. I was also bummed out that Marnie, a rival advertised as being significant, had practically no story relevance whatsoever. Team Yell also was very underutilized.

Hop was okay; decently developed. Bede is probably my favorite rival in the series since Cheren. I’m one of those people that’s been complaining for a decade about how we haven’t had a jerkass rival since Johto, and I’m very pleased to finally have one again. His arc is also solid, though a bit under-explored.

Leon was good. It’s rare for the series to tell us who the Champion we’re fighting is before it’s time to tango with them. It was nice to see him have a presence throughout the entire game, and it was interesting to see the types of responsibilities a Champion has, such as protecting the region and...signing endorsement deals.

Closing

Yeah, the game is okay. It’s not a masterpiece. It’s not a train wreck. Just okay. It’s very apparent that it was meant to be so much more though, and that’s frustrating. It feels like even 6 more months could’ve made a world of a difference. I don’t believe Game Freak is lazy. I don’t believe they’re incompetent. However, I do think the yearly release schedule of Pokémon games really hampers the potential of not only the games, but the developers.

But perhaps that’s just what we have to accept from such a juggernaut IP. Sword & Shield is about the quality you’d expect from most MCU movies, or those live-action Disney remakes. It’s solid, and it’s the standard fun you’d expect from the property, but it lacks any depth.

But I can’t really bring myself to call it a step back for the series. It does its fair share of things better than XY and SM, even if if those two games are much fuller experiences. Right, this is a decent first real entry for the main series into the home console market. However, it’s still nothing compared to the sheer breadth of content available in the GBA or DS games.

But this game signified to me that the “golden age” of Pokémon is really gone for good. Sword & Shield was never concerned about living up to those titles though. Gaming has changed. Gamers have changed. And thus, Pokémon has changed. Most games aren’t intended to last you the better part of a year now, unless they’re a live multiplayer service with consistent updates.

As a veteran superfan that's been absolutely enamored by the franchise since before I could even read, I’ll admit that I find it a bit of a challenge to judge Pokémon games on their own individual merit, rather than against the now substantial catalogue that makes up the legacy of the series. Sword & Shield isn’t worried about living up to the past, it’s a step towards the future, clumsy as it may be. However, that future is still going to need some more substance to it before I can consider it a bright one.

#pokemon #sword and shield #minty speaks

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wings-of-a-storm · 5 years

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Apparently it is that time again when the emotions of my Skam France addiction bubble over and I actually have time to write up some thoughts on scenes that have moved me.

In the stress of Incommunicado Eliott Week, now seems like a great time to revisit a slightly happier time for Elu... Hint: it involves paint.

AN OVERDUE REVISITING OF EPISODE 7: THE PAINT FIGHT ERA

Let me try and start from the beginning…

BOY GANG HELPING LUCAS

They may not always be my favourite boy squad, but it warms my heart how Lucas’ friends all gathered to support him through an emotionally tough task: painting the Mural of Heartbreak that was supposed to be Lucas’ and Eliott’s special thing together.

Come to think of it, Lucas didn’t technically even have to do it. If Daphne needed the eyesore gone that badly, she could have kept bugging Eliott to do it since he was the one who offered in the first place. With that in mind, I guess Lucas needed to paint over the mural as a form of closure. It may have always been hanging over his head as this ongoing promise between him and Eliott. By painting over it with his friends, he could cut that painful ‘what if’ from his life and close that door before Eliott can get another foot in. It is a tangible way for him to feel like he is in control and moving on (with the bonus of making Daphy happy).

The boys helping him through that was the Gang support we and Lucas had been needing! I don’t have much else to add about them in this scene but wanted to give them kudos anyway because they really helped Lucas a lot just by being there with him and helping him have a new memory of the mural. (It’s hard to say that with a straight face after knowing what happens…)

SENDING AN ULTIMATUM

I was honestly rather skeptical that the boys would be able to help Lucas navigate the strained relationship he was in with Eliott. Their relationship felt so damaged compared to other versions -- Lucas wasn’t budging or letting any softness in no matter how many well-meaning drawings he received. Eliott needed to prove his mindset was different before Lucas could even consider letting him back into his life. Eliott hadn’t achieved that by the time Lucas met up with his friends to paint the mural though, and a few texts to Eliott didn’t seem likely to appeal to Lucas. The ball was in Eliott’s court after all, to prove he wasn’t just leading Lucas on again.

But to my surprise, the text ultimatum started unfolding anyway. And even more surprising, it actually started to make sense. Lucas had chosen to ghost Eliott until he was convinced that Eliott had made his choice and was going to stick to it. What that meant though was that Lucas had taken on a passive role (just waiting things out) and he became trapped in that self-imposed limbo land. He couldn’t get out by himself because he was too in love to give up that last drop of hope that Eliott would somehow come back and mean it this time.

We’ve seen Lucas be savage before so he did have it in him to actually text Eliott (as Eliott himself had even requested with his last drawing) to tell him to knock it off and stop leaving drawings, but Lucas never quite reached that step. Perhaps he was hoping Eliott would get the message on his own after two deliberate ghostings and he wouldn’t have to say the difficult words out loud. But of course I think it was more that his subconscious just couldn’t handle cutting hope off completely that the boy he was in love with would dump Lucille for good and come back to him.

It wasn’t going to happen though because nothing was changing. It made sense then that Lucas would be receptive to (unsolicited) advice on how to take that final step and make it either a clean break or a clean reunion. Especially when his ‘experienced’ (wtf Arthur!) friends seemed so confident that texting an ultimatum was guaranteed to end Lucas’ woes one way or another. It’s hard not to get hyped up with that sort of group confidence. It was the push Lucas probably knew deep down that he needed to take to exit his own purgatory. He was only leading himself on… I love that even though the Gang gave Lucas the basic guidelines of what message to send to Eliott, Lucas, in typical Savage Style, was able to put the killer touches on his texts. He didn’t mince his words; they sure cut straight through the bullshit with a bullseye that drew blood. This, more than anything, sold the scene for me. It felt so true to Lucas that he would jump on a chance to express his frustration without any games but just needed that push from an unbiased third party.

I only have one minor issue with the scene: the pacing of the Gang’s solution just felt a little disproportionately quick. Is it a French language thing? Are things just expressed so much easier and quicker in French than in English so it takes longer to read and process? Because the Gang’s advice kind of gave me whiplash -- especially when they were able to even digress with the ‘wtf Arthur’ tangent in almost the same breath.

Or is it just a Skam France thing because they have that painful time limit that always messes with the pacing? I guess I just get frustrated that some scenes feel a little rushed when they don’t have to be. Even with a time limit, you can still work your pacing around it by cutting certain lines out to give pivotal scenes the space they need to breathe. For example, they could have left out Arthur’s mysterious past relationship or Lucas listening to a story about a recently deceased hoarder… By rushing the Gang’s advice, you don’t really have time as a viewer to anticipate whether it will work and whether Eliott will even show up or not. It wouldn’t have ruined the sense of urgency to slow it down even just a little… But maybe that comes down to my personal taste.

LUCAS: THE ARTISTE

God love Lucas for his highly convincing I’m just an Artiste holding a paint brush while pondering a mural on a Friday afternoon pose. How relatable was that. Of course Lucas needed to feel unaffected and strong even though he was practically trembling with nervous energy. His fear of turning around after hearing the door open was palpable. It doesn’t matter how many times I rewatch it, I am always scared for him. Plus the soft, tentative piano music accompanying Lucas’ nerves is almost too much to bear with its earnest fragility…

The man he is desperately in love with has just walked into the room and might break his heart all over again…

A WILD RACOON APPEARS: ABOUT TIME

Eliott Demaury, don’t you ever leave us again! Lucas had missed Eliott; I had missed Eliott; we all had missed Eliott, so of course the very second we saw his beautiful, earnest racoon face peep around the door it was like OH MY GOD, THE SUN HAS COME OUT!

Seriously, shout out to the mise-en-scene crew for placing that It’s About Time poster right beside Eliott during his close-up arrival shot because truth. Those hell weeks were totally like Titanic and Interstellar rolled into one: even though only two weeks had passed for the characters, for our reality it had been 84 YEARRRRS. But back to Eliott’s beautiful, earnest racoon face.

How nervous was he before he let the bravado slip back into place! And excuse me, child? “Need a hand?” Pretty smooth for a guy who has been leaving drawings of droopy-eared racoons around and getting ignored. Oh, to have that kind of fake confidence! He really had nothing to lose. (Was the wording in French dripping in double meaning too though? Good times.)

Guys, Eliott is really strong though. How did he have function left in his legs to walk over after being hit with that face…

THE MURAL METAPHOR:

I really like the way Skam France turned the common room mural into a metaphor for Lucas’ and Eliott’s relationship. The final clip opens on both of them examining it in silence, looking at what they have to work with and what can be done to fix it. Their first words to each other in this moment complete the metaphor with their double meaning:

- “What were you planning on doing?” - “I don’t know right now.”

Eliott is of course the one to nominate a solution to the ‘mural’ because he is the one who needs to fix the error of breaking up their relationship and hurting Lucas. It is up to Eliott to salvage that mess and lead them in a new direction (Lucas’ texts made it clear that he won’t budge until Eliott does).

So Eliott dips his paintbrush into his tub of emotion and flings his feelings at the wall in wild, raw abandon. (And he says they should paint with every colour because Lucas brings out all his colours and Eliott is putting all of himself into this. Ugly sobbing!)

Eliott urges Lucas to try it too. And his dumb, beautiful, earnest racoon face is so hopeful that Lucas will because that will mean that Lucas is willing to try and forgive him.

Lucas halfheartedly gives it a go but his heart isn’t really ready to commit yet, so his flick of paint ‘misses’ its mark (allegedly at least). Eliott can see that Lucas isn’t ready yet and needs to find a way through to him. He makes a joke to try and soften things further but all that does is manage to stick a paintbrush through his own heart because Lucas actually smiles and Eliott remembers (probably for the nth time) just how much he has missed seeing it.

In the face of that emotion, Eliott simply can’t sustain his bravado anymore and he confesses: “It’s nice to see you smile. I missed it.” For once, Eliott reveals the sadness that he normally tries to keep hidden from Lucas. His words have in fact stripped both of their masks away.

And even more emotional than all of that perhaps: this moment was a clear nod to the passe på meg scene in og. Even though Isak is the one who uses that line, what is actually revealed by Even in that scene is that he saw Isak on the first day he came to school. In Skam France, Eliott has obviously already revealed that to Lucas early on, so this line (the last remaining bit from passe på meg) seems to act as an extension to its original sentiment: Eliott seems to be revealing that he has continued to watch Lucas from afar at school and hasn’t stopped since that first day. He has noticed Lucas’ changed demeanour and absent smiles. He hasn’t seen Lucas smile for a long time. (It all links nicely with Eliott’s ‘In case you ever foolishly forget’ sentiment too.)

Like yes, technically that line can also be interpreted as ‘I missed seeing your smile in general because Lucille’s can’t compare’ but the use of the passe på meg line seems to scream significance… Eliott has noticed.

SAVAGE LUCAS:

As sweet and well-meaning as Eliott’s sentiments are, we can always count on Lucas to cut right through them to reach the heart of the matter... I love him so much for cockblocking Eliott’s attempts to open an intimate channel between them with his straight up: ‘You miss my smile and yet you looked sooooo happy with Lucille the other week. It’s totes amazeballs that you’re ‘talking’ to her again after supposedly dumping her ass.’ Like yassss Lucas, don’t let him get away with that type of seductive sentimentality! He’s not deliberately trying to lead you on but the results are the same and you deserve better than that back and forth!

(Beware, guys, because a small rant is about to start.)

Eliott’s response to Lucas really frustrates me. There is a pattern to it and I just can’t ignore it…

His response to Lucas’ ‘You looked happy with Lucille’ was “You can’t say that.”

Um, yes, yes he can. Just because Eliott knows he isn’t happy with Lucille, doesn’t mean Lucas can mindread… Like Lucas has stated that that is the impression he got when he saw them together and he has a right to that interpretation. Dictating what Lucas is allowed to think without elaborating on why he has misinterpreted it isn’t helpful, it’s actually really dismissive. Of course that is going to rub Lucas the wrong way. I am so happy Lucas heard that response and served up a sassy ‘Oh yeh? This will be good’ face to counter it. He was not having any of that crap.

But Eliott only makes things worse by saying: “Because none of it matters.”

Ugh again, yes it does, Eliott. It obviously matters to Lucas. He has just told you that he saw you back with your ex and is hurt by it. If he is hurt, then that matters. I know Eliott doesn’t mean it that way, but it is really harsh to be made to feel like you’re just being stupid and your hurt isn’t important.

It is a shame that Eliott has a habit of sweeping aside Lucas’ emotions without properly acknowledging them out of fear of rejection and a misguided need to prove him wrong because of it. We saw the same brush off in the cafeteria scene and later again in the kitchen scene. Eliott means well but I really wish he would validate Lucas’ emotions so Lucas can at least feel heard.

And like I get that Eliott wasn’t elaborating between each audacious statement because he was trying to build up to the surprise revelation he had in store for Lucas, but boy did he choose the wrong method, for me...

Back to their conversation though.

“It doesn’t matter?” Lucas rightfully echoes, for all the above reasons.

And finally Eliott has his cue (the cue he has been building up to during their whole exchange) to go in for his grand gesture kill: “Ever since I met you, you’re the only thing that has mattered.”

Cue piano music returning. Cue Lucas basically stopping breathing. Cue a literal light flare hitting the screen beside Lucas. Cue Eliott smiling because Lucas has finally heard his Truth.

And cue the return of the mural metaphor: while Lucas is stunned and left to process this grand romantic declaration, Eliott turns to add lots more paint to their Relationship Mural. It is like the tangible release of his sentiment; like his way of physically proving his own commitment to Lucas. He will work on this mural/relationship with everything he has, for as long as it takes.

The question is: will Lucas work on it as well?

Once Eliott has finished adding splashes of colour (because he is all in with his feelings!), he turns to Lucas to both make sure Lucas has seen how serious he is and to see what Lucas has decided.

Lucas’ response is to silently pick up a paint brush and add to the mural too. And if that is not the most powerful response… Some things need no words.

PAINT FIGHT

Well. When we speculated that Eliott’s grand gesture in the common room might be to paint a hedgehog, who knew that Eliott would literally be painting his hedgehog...

Eliott came into that room with the determination to get Lucas back. As soon as he got his sign that Lucas was willing to forgive him, his rush of happiness could no longer be contained and he darted towards Lucas with an impromptu paint dab on the nose.

It was so unexpected for Lucas, it allowed him to forget all of his deep-seated Lucille insecurities for the moment and fall back into that easy, old, familiar rhythm with Eliott. It must have been such a relief to suspend the recent heaviness and just be together like that again, as dumb, playful, carefree teenagers.

And because they are dumb, playful, carefree teenagers, their paint fight escalates. It gets more physical, it gets more exciting, their hearts start to race more… And in a brief stalemate, they get caught in each other’s eyes and their play-fighting drops away to reveal what it had been substituting for all along: their desire to physically connect with each other and consummate what they are feeling.

And what an intense love it is to make you forget you are tasting paint and having sex on school property, where anyone could walk into that room since it is, you know, a common room.

Their love making (grinding, rubbing, being handsy, whichever method they were making love to each other with) was a literal piece of art, as others have already said. It was an explosion of colour in a world that had been dark for both of them.

I’m squeamish with paint and other questionable substances, but when I put all that aside, I can imagine just how amazing it would have felt to have that slippery addition to their sense of touch. Feeling skin against skin, body against body, palms against skin that is sensitive precisely because it isn’t normally touched is a very heady thing, let along adding a kinky lubrication onto it. Even paint-covered fingers running through hair would feel different with strands clumping together and exposing parts of your head to cool air.

Not only that but you’d be able to see the marks your hands are leaving on the other person; like you are drawing them into existence and -- dare I say it -- claiming them for yourself after seeing them with other people and being denied them. How alive would you feel with all those heightened sensations?

And what has been evident with Lucas and Eliott from the very beginning is how important touch is for them. Even during their first kiss, their hands were running over each other’s bodies and tangling in each other’s hair. Then their morning after kisses were filled with even more sensuality with their (basically) naked bodies pressed up against each other so that they could feel each other’s weight and warmth. This new lovemaking scene had all of that in it again. It was so vibrant and so loving, it was almost too much to bear…

They just get so much comfort from the physicality of each other’s presence. Perhaps it is that reassurance of feeling someone physically there, of not being abandoned, of every part of them being loved. Whatever the reason behind it, they are so compatible in that way.

It was a stunning scene to end the episode with. Especially the way the light kept increasing and engulfed them at the end. They lost themselves over to pleasure but they never lost each other in it. They both went there together.

And I felt that. We all felt that, I think. What more is there to even say?

#Skam France #Elu #skamfr thoughts #3x07 thoughts

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jcmorrigan · 5 years

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I agree with your Sora rant. It's like they were so busy shoving SoKai down our throats (not that I'm against Kairi but it seriously effected her character too) that the Sora we know got lost.

You’re right, but there’s actually more to it than that. You know what? I’m gonna spell out my Sora rant here and give it the proper tags so I can get this opinion out there.

The forced romance is perhaps the most offensive of the missteps, and I love both Sora and Kairi so much that it hurts to see how they got wrecked by it. I’ll touch upon how that affected Sora here, but trust me, its effect on Kairi was horrible in a completely different way. I think we all know how well that went. The thing is, I’m basically a SoRiku or bust type of person, but I’m also a ship-and-let-ship sort. Up until now, the KH series did a good job at building great friendships that had subtext all over, and people were allowed to choose without much argument. Did you want to ship SoKai? SoRiku? RokuShi? RokuNami? NamiShi? TerrAqua? Nothing’s stopping you! I just…don’t believe canon shipping belongs in Kingdom Hearts when it comes to characters who aren’t on the Disney side of the spectrum (obviously I wouldn’t want to remove the Aladdin/Jasmine or Ariel/Eric plots, which are not only important to the films’ integrity but also time-tested successes that mean things to those who grew up with those films).

But let’s talk about Sora first and foremost, and I’m actually going to save the SoKai for last. Because there’s more to talk about here. I went back over cutscene comps from both III and DDD for a little experiment. I’m just going to describe things in text here, but trust me, the images speak for themselves if you want to look them up. I used DDD as my “control” for Sora as it was, before III, the latest Sora in time – the one who had developed most as a character. I have yet to test 1, CoM, or II against III, but they shouldn’t matter as much as DDD, as DDD features a Sora who’s grown through the characterization in all of those games. III should have built on DDD.

Let’s go.

THE THEME OF FRIENDSHIP AND KINDNESS

Sora in DDD is a firm believer in the power of friendship. No, seriously, he mentions it every five minutes to the point where it’s easily parodied. And, in fact, canon does so in an important way. The scene that stands out to me is his arrival in Traverse Town, where he meets Neku Sakuraba and immediately decides they’re friends. Neku scoffs, saying it’s impossible for them to be friends after a short time and telling Sora that he can’t trust every stranger he meets.

Why this stands out to me is because it actually turns out to be a mistake on Neku’s part rather than a pointing out of a legitimate criticism of Sora. And given exactly what this criticism was about – namely, forming positive bonds and devoting yourself to caring about another person, with your best foot forward – I think this was actually a great little arc for Sora and Neku to go through. Neku turns out to be after his own agenda, willing to trick Sora in order to get it, though he regrets he has to do so. Sora forgives him once he knows that Neku just wanted to reunite with Shiki. After all, people do crazy things for their friends, and that’s okay. When Sora collides with Neku, he brings with him a concept Neku is unfamiliar with. Knowing Neku from original TWEWY canon, Neku’s core is about learning to come out of his shell of negativity and see the value in others and the world around him. Sora is hitting him with the extreme of this result – an ideal where every stranger is a friend you haven’t met yet, and kindness always pays off. This seems impossible for Neku, but by the end of that first Traverse Town visit, he learns that Sora was right to bring him this message. Neku is better off now for knowing someone who was willing to put that much trust in him and help him out with a seemingly impossible task, and now he can pass a little piece of that on to someone else.

I think that’s a cool message for us to take into real life. It’s obviously not applicable in the literal sense. Not everyone’s gonna get along, and there are people out there who will have ethical divides we can’t bridge. But for that reason, it’s wonderful to have an escapist fantasy where every new person you meet brings new value to your life, and it’s nice to take just a little bit of that attitude into your life – why not think the best of new people?

This theme continues throughout DDD. Sora declares himself friends with most of the people he meets, and Mickey is even the first to bring this up in Symphony of Sorcery, already feeling that they have a connection that will go places. Beyond that, Sora is always volunteering to assist. When Neku mentions he’s having trouble with the Reaper’s Game, Sora admits he doesn’t have any idea what Neku’s talking about, but he sees a problem and asks if he can help. This is how he approaches pretty much everyone in DDD. He sees people in trouble or people struggling emotionally and he offers a hand or a listening ear.

Contrast his actions in Corona and you’ll find a stark difference. He barely invests in introducing himself to Rapunzel or Eugene, regarding them pleasantly enough but not really inviting them into his circle. It’s in fact Eugene that breaks the ice here, deciding the SDG trio is now his “sidekicks.”

Where this feels offensive is when Sora contests this label on multiple occasions. I might be all right with this if it were a playful competition for who is labeled the brains of the operation, the way that II Sora would declare himself good enough to be king or decide he’s cut out for pirate life. However, it seems more like Sora is legitimately angry that Eugene decided not only to rope Sora into an unknown mission but also set him as the second banana. This couldn’t be more different from the Neku interaction in such a bizarre way. DDD Sora would protest a little at being sidekick, but say he’s happy to help anyway and that he’s glad to have met “Flynn.” (Sidenote: Eugene himself is wonderful during this scene, and Zachary Levi kills the delivery in such a way that you really do know he was hyped to be involved with this franchise. I think that kind of distracted me from seeing these problems at first.)

Eugene goes on to explain that he’s bringing Rapunzel to see the floating lights because she really, really wants it to the point of it being her “dream.” He then says that he can be the guide through the forest if Sora, Donald, and Goofy take care of the Heartless. To this, Donald says that they are heroes, and Goofy backs them up that they’re Heartless experts. Sora offers nothing but a “Leave it to us.”

There’s no mention of helping Rapunzel achieve her dream, or knowing what it’s like to have one. They’re not doing this out of kindness. They’re doing this because “We’re heroes.” Because it’s an obligation. Because it’s the “right thing” to do, and that’s what they always do. There’s no passion behind this commitment at all. Now, for Donald, I buy it. Donald has always been a Jerk With a Heart of Gold. It’s his charm. Goofy? A little more suspect. Goofy is all heart and sympathy with a clumsy exterior, but then again, there’s a lot of room for interpretation with him. Sora, though? Think back to Neku or later Rhyme. Sora should be jumping at the opportunity to help Rapunzel achieve her dream.

Which brings us to the next and larger flaw…

INTERNAL VS. EXTERNAL FOCUS

Sora’s character in DDD is almost fully focused on what’s going on around him. He arrives in Traverse Town to find the TWEWY cast there and suffering their own problems. So he jumps right into the fray to help out. Every move he makes is directed by what he needs to do in order to help them: find Rhyme, chase the black-coated man, trust Neku. He came here in the first place to unlock a Sleeping World, but that seems to Sora to be a secondary agenda to what’s going on with that world’s denizens.

This keeps true with the other worlds he visits. Every time, he has a job: unlock the Keyhole. But he doesn’t gun right for that Keyhole. He instead immerses into what’s going on around him. Quasimodo was frightened away from the Feast of Fools, so let’s deal with that. Mickey is hypnotized in a dream, so let’s get a Sound Idea to defeat the Spellican and wake him up. Why are we after a Spellican, anyway? Because the people in a world we already visited need to beat it in order to complete the Reaper’s Game, which has ZERO to do with our quest. Sora almost never focuses on himself, but instead on the others around him.

This is seen from the very beginning. When he and Riku meet with Yen Sid, Yen Sid points out that they need to earn Mastery. Two important things happen here. First of all, Sora does stick up for himself and claim he’s good enough – very confidently and sincerely. He knows he’s good enough for Mastery and has no question about it. Save this for later. Second, when it becomes clear that Riku has doubts, Sora’s focus shifts immediately. It’s no longer about “Why test me?” but about “My friend thinks he can’t pass, but I know he can, so I need to help both him and our teacher realize that.” And even though he immerses himself in the problems of so many others throughout DDD, not a single world passes without him bringing up how much he couldn’t do this without Riku and he believes in Riku. Sora’s heart encompasses everyone, but if you’re his friend, you get a SPECIAL place and you don’t get lost in the shuffle (and this game is actually what really put me on the SoRiku ship so hard).

Now, let’s look at III. Sora’s quest begins because he has been stripped of his abilities, which is a must-have for any new game starring him so the player can level up in the process. It’s game design. But this has happened to Sora in three other games: CoM, II, and DDD. In all of those, not much focus is given to this device, and he just goes about learning his abilities as they come. However, this time, where it’s never happened before, Sora is suddenly fixated on how “weak” he is without his powers. His quest begins because he seeks to get stronger and achieve the Power of Waking. The story structure is awkward overall regarding the Power of Waking, as every interlude features Yen Sid reminding Sora of its importance and Sora acknowledging it without any real progress being made toward his learning it.

When Sora arrives on Olympus with this in mind, the difference is horribly stark from the way he approaches Traverse Town in DDD. When he reunites with Hercules (which has considerably less sentiment than the similar scene in II), he doesn’t really talk about being gung-ho about saving Thebes from destruction. He kinda just points out that this is Hades’ doing and gets to work. With Neku, he talked sincerely about how he wanted to help. Here, again, it seems out of obligation: I’m a hero. It’s what I do.

Moreover, there’s now so much focus on his lost power. He fixates on it. Asking Hercules about it in the middle of Thebes’ collapse is…not the worst of sins, but a little odd. The rest of this world, however, is scene after scene of Sora reacting to his loss of power rather than the destruction around him and the connections he can forge. A particularly telling scene is when Pete teases him about his lost power, and Sora is hurt. Another is where an original NPC is saved by Sora and taunts him about not being as good as Hercules, and Sora is offended. While this is relatable to the player audience, it doesn’t quite jive with the Sora who proclaimed he didn’t need Mastery because he knew he was good enough and who started three other games at square one without being bothered. This is also the first time since DDD we’ve had a plot where Sora’s conflict revolves around what’s going on inside himself rather than integrating into the environment around him.

It’s not a bad thing to put characters through the paces with self-examination. However, Sora was fully self-actualized as of DDD. The writers actively and consciously set him a step back for III and undid his own development. This is potentially to make him seem more “dynamic” and “three-dimensional” when it really just doesn’t feel like Sora.

This gets incredibly insulting when over the course of that one world alone, Sora learns pretty much every new ability needed for this game except the Power of Waking. So Pete’s insult really only stung for about an hour and then became moot.

Corona also stands out to me because there, Sora doesn’t interact much with Rapunzel upon meeting her. What he does do is hang back with Donald and Goofy and talk about how he knows how she feels, being scared of the world…which he transitions into talking about how Donald and Goofy really helped him during his scary time. Notice what’s missing here? Any engagement of Rapunzel in this conversation and an attempt to bridge their gap by connecting over this shared experience. Sora has taken Rapunzel’s problem and used it to talk about his own instead. Why is this especially odd? Because the factor here being sympathized over is “fear of the outside world” and being confined until you get thrust into a bigger adventure. In DDD, Quasimodo embodied the same concept. Instead of making Quasimodo’s problem about himself, Sora took it upon himself to use his experience to inspire Quasimodo, encouraging him to step outside the cathedral walls and not give up on his dreams.

As for his close friends, you will every now and then get a scene that compares something he sees to a memory of a friend – Elsa and Anna remind him of both Riku and Kairi. But he doesn’t talk about how they affect him at all. And in a game that both follows up on the Riku worship of DDD and is determined to shoehorn a Kairi romance into the ending sequence, both of these characters should be coming to Sora’s lips a lot more. He should be talking about how “You remind me of someone I know – I should introduce you!” or “You know you can count on your canon friend because Riku and Kairi helped me through these hard times.” Even using Donald and Goofy in that role would make more sense, but they seem more tacked on than anything.

SORA’S ENTHUSIASM

Sora in DDD is awed by every new experience. Look no further than the first Traverse Town visit, yet again, where he first sees the new districts and cries out “Never been this way before! Ooh, what’s that?”. This is a town he spent a long time in over the course of KH1, and the prospect of finding a new street in a familiar place is magical to him.

Compare Corona again. When he comes upon Rapunzel’s tower, he does remark, “Wow, a tower!”, but in a very deflated tone compared to his excitement over Traverse Town. And if Quinton Flynn’s delivery is anything to go by, this was the one game in years where the voice actors could finally have free reign without having to struggle to match lip movements. (Seriously, track Quinton’s voice acting performance over the course of the series. It’s a hilarious fluctuation between flawlessness in II and III and utter crashing and burning in every interquel.)

More condemning, however, is his reaction to the kingdom of Corona itself. This comes from a personal place. Corona is one of my favorite Disney environments. I’ve always wished I could visit it because it’s designed so beautifully. When Sora beholds the island from afar, he says…nothing. It’s Rapunzel who remarks how she’s finally close to her dream, and she thanks Sora for getting her here. He still says nothing. This experience suddenly isn’t interesting to him at all.

Sora’s silence is an interesting phenomenon. During DDD, he’s constantly self-narrating. He chats with other characters a lot. He even says some lines that are a little superfluous, indicating where he wants to go next and basically spelling out where the player should turn their attention by talking about what in the area is interesting. But that fits with his enthusiastic character.

In III, he’s quieter. Obviously, giving him party members Donald and Goofy back means he has to divide his dialogue, but there’s a lot of space where they get more to say than he does. (Possibly a disagreement between Disney and Square over whose characters should have more screen time? Please take this theory with a grain of salt.) And then you have scenes like approaching Corona, where he just doesn’t say a word to Rapunzel. Not a “You’re welcome” or an “I’m glad we got you to your dream” or ANYTHING. It’s like he not only doesn’t care about seeing a new place, but doesn’t care about how much it means to his new friend. Which is heartbreaking compared to his previous behavior.

Also, his smiles are less often and less sincere. A nervous smile he gives Frollo when trying not to get in trouble is happier and brighter than a legitimate smile he gives Eugene when promising to guide Rapunzel to Corona, and when Eugene says he “couldn’t have done it without my sidekicks,” Sora doesn’t even smile at him.

One other thing to note – I actually did catch this as a little odd on my first III playthrough, but compounded with this, it now seems very suspect. The Monstropolis transformation is the first time Sora has found one of his own transformations ugly/frightening. In the past, he’s barely minded becoming a merman, a lion, a digital program…and, in the case of Halloween Town, which he visited twice, a literal monster. There’s no reason he should be more frightened of himself in Monstropolis than Halloween Town. Moreover, it implies he finds the monsters of Monstropolis creepier than anyone else he’s met – including the talking lions, the living skeleton, the Beast, the Disney anthros, the animate puppet, the merpeople, and the card soldiers. (You seriously think we’re not keeping track?)

THE FORCED ROMANCE PLOT

Now, however, it’s time to talk about the largest nail in the Sora coffin: the last-minute SoKai plot.

Like I said earlier, I wouldn’t have wanted any shipping plot here whatsoever. But let’s say it absolutely had to get done. Think back to KH1 or even II. In the first game, Kairi manifests as hallucinations for Sora, indicating that he thinks of her often. In II, he has flashbacks to her that are a little more involved and creative than just “Eugene hugging Rapunzel makes me think of Kairi’s face.” His reunion scenes with her in both feature actual conversations. And there’s also plenty of focus on Riku. Sora has two hands and two friends. Even if Kairi must be the love interest, Riku never gets the short end because of it. Sora will still cross the abyss to find him, sending Kairi home safe to the Destiny Islands so he can keep looking for a way to free Riku of his dark prison.

In III, we’re strangely devoid of any reference to either of them besides short flashbacks. And since we’re focusing on Kairi, we’ll talk about her. Sora doesn’t even meet up with her between training sessions. She writes him letters she doesn’t send. They don’t even communicate until endgame triggers. Then, all of a sudden, she initiates the paopu. This is after having no communication for a LONG time, and we have no indication Sora had thought about her on his journey despite a few flashbacks. The paopu is supposed to unite your fates for life, and Sora just rushes right into it.

This is where it should’ve really started to sink in that the SoKai romance was just a series of rushed death flags to get you sad when Kairi finally got slashed. Why they went with the Kairi “death” still escapes me, but if I had to guess, I’d say that ever since Aerith Gainsborough’s death made everyone flabbergasted, Square Enix has been trying to pull the same gambit in order to capture that lightning in a bottle. Take a look at Lunafreya Nox Fleuret for evidence that supports this theory.

Every interaction Sora has with her from that point onward is far too hamfisted. When he tries to shield her from an incoming attack, it’s by hugging her. When in any and all other instances in the past, Sora would at least be savvy enough to leap in front of a person with Keyblade braced. (You can’t count on Goofy to do that for you all the time, bro.) When he flies with her through a void of little importance to get back to the Keyblade Graveyard, he tells her “I feel strong with you” even though they’ve fought together a total of once, and they both literally died in the attempt. Not even together. There is no reason for him to say he feels strong with her; we’ve never seen her make him strong. We’ve seen her appeal to his heart, listen to him, vow to protect him and be strong when he can’t, work to reunite him with Riku, sympathize with his goals, chat and laugh with him. There are so many other themes you could pick here and they went right for the one that makes the least sense but the most automatic association with romance in a “tell-don’t-show” space. Kairi “holding him together” in the Final World is a completely skippable fact for some reason, and also is not anything any mortal should be able to do by KH logic as of yet.

Then, finally, he watches Kairi die, and it breaks him. And it sure broke the audience and got them talking, all right, but not about how great Aerith 3.0 was. (Note: still unconfirmed on that theory.) Sora’s a big old mess of angry tears, all right. And this directly leads to him exiting stage left at the end of the story because he has to find Kairi alone.

So the romance was forced rather than fleshed in order to build up to a shocking scene, relying upon keywords to initiate clichés rather than showing any actual buildup of communication, teamwork, or trust. We can all see how this negatively affected Kairi; essays have already been composed. But how does this turn SORA for the worse?

Well, for one, his sudden laser focus on Kairi makes him unable to really care for anyone else. Riku gets the worst of it. I absolutely hated how, after the first mass murder via Demon Tornado, Sora cried to Riku that “all” of his friends had died and he had no one left. We all know that scene was playing up Kairi. He was crying over Kairi. And in doing so, he happened to imply to Riku that Riku wasn’t valuable enough to be as missed as those lost. Sora lost them “all.” The fact that Riku is there doesn’t mean anything. He has no one left. He has Riku. Riku is no one. Later, when Kairi is lost out there, Sora eschews Riku’s help completely, which is probably to set the stage for whatever installment comes next. However, like the rest of the SoKai scenes, this is rushed, so much so that it sounds like Sora is just disregarding Riku’s counsel entirely and has decided to abandon him in favor of seeking Kairi. Not to mention everyone else in that scene.

Then the fact that Sora gives in to proclaiming it’s love so fast gives me some bad vibes. Kairi hasn’t done much to engage with him on an emotional level as of recently. It almost seems shallow for him to accept the paopu under those circumstances – like he’s a teenage boy chasing a pretty girl rather than a friend acknowledging a friend as more than a friend. And that’s how it looks to me through the rest of the ending sequence. (If you know who my favorite DanganRonpa character is, you can see how I might be used to looking for the signs of this phenomenon.) Think of this in conjunction for how Sora has failed to be other-focused and instead looking to increase his own strength and confidence. Is he ready to give everything up to Kairi? Is he the kind of person who she could count on? He would’ve been in DDD. He also would’ve been the sort of person to balance this out with his friendship with Riku.

The Sora I knew had some growing up to do, but by DDD, he’s self-actualized. He’s confident in his own abilities, even if he has to start from square one. Now his primary motivation is to help others with their problems, especially if those people are his close friends, for whom he is ride or die. Every new experience is magic to him. As of III, Sora now seems insecure, focused on himself, and distant from his friends, including the one he actually does “die” for. The worlds he visits and the friends he makes are means to an end, and hold less magic to him than before, even standing out as negatively bizarre in some cases. III’s Sora does not feel like the same person at all, and this groundwork was laid ingame long before he accepted Kairi’s paopu.

#sora #kingdom hearts critical #kh critical #kingdom hearts iii critical

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monasatlantis · 4 years

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My final Review for Trails of Zero and Trails of Azure and also my thoughts about the Trails-Saga so far as a whole

After finishing the Trails in the Sky games, also known as the Liberl-Arc I knew that if I wanted to be fully prepared for playing Trails of Cold Steel 4 myself (I’ve watched a lot from this game on YouTube with subtitles already…) I would have to play the Crossbell-Arc (Zero and Azure) too and so that is what I did. I have to say I had mixed feelings from the beginning, because many people were Hyping the Crossbell-Games and I tend to be extremely disappointed by hyped games because they almost never met my expectations. However… it was for the greater good. And also for being able to give a overview over how I see the Trails-Games as a whole in the moment, as I have now played almost all the games that have come out so far.

So lets start with my review of Zero and Ao/Azure first…

1. What is your overall opinion of the Crossbell-Saga games?

Personally, I think Trails of Zero is among the two worst most boring games in the Trails-Saga so far. I couldn’t help but dislike it and its so called plot from the very beginning. When it comes to game-mechanics and battle-mechanics it was a trails-game so there was not that much to be bothered about, but when it comes to the plot or the characters or the way they were explored it was awful. The only game that is worse, is Trails in the Sky 3, which had the luxury that we already knew most of the characters so that we only had to be unnerved by Kevins and Ries questionable story while otherwise being at least already attached to the other characters and thus following their story anyway, even if it was not half as good as it could have been… IF you saw their story that is, but I digress.

On the other hand, Trails of Azure/Ao no Kiseki was done very well. The plot was indeed one of the best plots of a sole game. (As I personally thinks the deps of the Erebonia-Saga as a whole is better than the ones from Lilberl and Crossbell.) And since we already went through the phase of trying and failing to get to like the characters, but actually at least knew them and had formed some sort of small attachment to them in the previous game, it was easier to overlook the things certain points, since we just accepted it that it was the way it was and learned to enjoy what we had.

2. Lets get a little deeper into Zero… what was good and what was bad?

Good, huh? Uh… ^^’ The only thing I really like about this game were the cameos of Estelle, Joshua and Renne. And I also adored KeA. That was basically it.

One of the main problems of Zero was how awfully badly the plot was delivered and how badly the characters were shown… or not shown. We start with Lloyd who technically speaking has a really interesting story. He was raised by his older brother and the woman said older brother loved for most of his live and said brother, who had worked by the police has been murdered and his murder became a cold case. Now that Lloyd is finally working for the police too, he… gives a damn about any chance for him to solve his brothers murder-case. Like… he never seemed interested in doing that at all. The first thing he should have done after he started working for the police, was actually to take a look at the file of his brothers murder and ask around the police to find any kind of information or evidence about what could have happened to him. (His name was Guy, by the way. Who calls his child Guy?) He never did that. In chapter 4, when the first game was almost over we suddenly found out that like half the people we had regular contact with actually knew Guy or had worked with him and suddenly I wasn’t so sure anymore about Lloyds and Guys relationship. Did he never mention the names of the people he worked with? And why did Sergei hide the fact that he has been working with Guy for so long? Why didn’t Grace or Arios ever think of mentioning that they also knew Guy or worked with him in all the times we meet them before chapter 4? Then again, if Lloyd had asked about him, he might have found out early. Or if he actually had a decent relationship with his brother, this man might have told him. I mean… isn’t it weird? In Ao/Azure its shown that Guy wanted to invite Arios to his wedding… an brag about his brother and you want to tell me that Lloyd never either heard about that man nor ever meet him in Crossbell together with his brother? Seems very weird. The characters as a whole felt extremely… empty in Zero. I can’t explain it fully, but I just couldn’t start to like them or bond with them, because the games made them focus so much on their job as the SSS that you never felt like they were actually people you could relate to. Like they had those problems in their lifes, but we always just scratched on the surface of their lifes and the problems they had. Also… in both Sky and Cold Steel family was really important to every character, even if the family wasn’t blood related, a huge part of must characters character-arcs were connected to how important their families were for them, no matter how hard the circumstances surrounding those families were. And in Zero it seemed like family was so not important to those characters. I absolutely get Randy here, because his family raised him to be a person who sacrificed a whole village for a job, even tho in this village was a person he liked. BUT everyone else was weird for me. As I said, Lloyd (despite stating otherwise later in Ao/Azure) has never shown much interest in finding out anything about his brother or his murder, despite the fact that he had been so close to all the information he needed the whole time. Elie showed in that talk with Lloyd that she was bothered by the fact that her parents both abandoned her and yet she never (until Cold Steel 4 – funny enough) showed any interest in facing them. Even tho it was shown by the game that she loved her grandfather, the game totally failed to deliver it to look like she was really attached to him. I mean, in Sky Tita was traveling around with Estelle a lot and yet, it was absolutely clear that she loved her grandfather nuts AND also missed her parents. (Until they came back suddenly and gave Agathe a hard time that is XD Were it was yet again shown, that despite being separated for a long time, they had a really close relationship. But once again, I digress…) Tio had been a missing child that has been through hell and when she was return to her parents she actually was different and since that was making it difficult she left her parents again. I never really got if it was really fine for her parents that she left or if she herself decided that it was best that way. Which is already a really bad thing without even mentioning how unsatisfying it was that once again, apparently Tios interest in her family seemed really small.

Now don’t start with the “The whole point of this game was that the SSS became a family” because that didn’t really work either, because the game never really spend that much time giving the characters a real time to bond with each other in Zero. When I reached Elies final bonding event I felt like it came out of nowhere, because I never had the feeling that Lloyd got over his awkward “Elie and me? Never!” – stage or that they gotten close enough for an almost kiss at all. (Never had that problem in Cold Steel, although here the bonding events over the course of the game might have helped a lot… but I also think even without the bonding events the bonds between the characters developed really well, dating aside, because here only Alisa had the advantage, but I will digress again if I don’t stop here… ^^’) But lovestorys aside (since I am really picky with them) I also do not feels that the friendship between the characters was so well develop in the game. Obviously they all being doting parents to KeA helped a lot here with making them look more closer, but a child should not be the only-bonding-point between them. And here we come to an example for why the bonding between those characters worked so bad. In Cold Steel (yes, I am going there now…) we had that canon-event with Rean and Alisa exchanging they problems, hopes and wished in Nord while looking at the nightsky. So we had Lloyd and Elie on the rooftop together and Elie was opening up about her life, her past, her feelings and problems…. and Lloyd? Even when Elie mentioned that he has his own problems, he didn’t open up to her. He didn’t tell her how he was raised by his brother, how he is chasing after becoming like him instead of chasing after his murderer, since it was an unsolved case and so on. So the difference in those scenes were, that while Alisa and Rean were both open and honest to each other Lloyd was a great listener but failed to actually help by opening up himself and show trust with that. And that is how this whole game went. In the end of Zero, the SSS didn’t feel half as close as it should have been and would have been if the game would have spent more time with serious bonding.

Through most of this game, I was desperately searching for the plot. Because I was refusing to believe that besting the bracers was the plot, because damn was that a stupid idea and a huge ass fail too. Most of the chapters (even the final chapter itself – which becomes even more clear after Ao/Azure) ended with us being almost killed if no one had come to help/save us. Starting with the Prolog itself. And despite that, until KeA showed up, Lloyd had been simply too proud to ask the bracers for help. It pissed me off so much! Honestly, we’ve been bracers in Sky, we’ve been friends with bracers in Cold Steel, were we also learned how important and great bracers are and in Zero they tried to make you want to be “better” than the bracers. Which was a huge fail not just because of how incapable the SSS was, but also because they brought Estelle and Joshua back, because if we just had the somehow arrogant bracers of Crossbell, wanting to best them would have become a given at some point, even for a player like me, but after those two joined the bracers, there was no freaking way that I would have been able to want to beat them anyone. So as much as I loved Estelle and Joshua being there… I also think it was a very stupid move. Especially since in the end, the most interesting part of the story (also the only one that really found a conclusion in this game) was Rennes backgroundstory and how she found her way back to Estelle and Joshua. The only other interesting thing was KeA and that was never solved in the first game AND she was also introduced far too late in this game.

A lot of potential was wasted in this game. Like Lloyd should have started to hear KeAs voice long before we actually found her, because that would have been something to make the plot interesting. Make you want to find out what is going on. Then again, it was never fully explained why only Lloyd could hear KeAs voice anyway… such a damn waste.

3. Now to Ao/Azure! What was good, what was bad?

A lot of the things from the first game didn’t really change, but I was already used to them and they were buried under a really interesting plot this time and as the plot was also delivered so much better this time, it changed really a lot for how much I enjoyed playing the game. Much less wasted potential. They were going all out with the plot this time and things like KeA acting weird/bothered/unhappy started much, much earlier and with that gave you a good reason to be interested and stay interested. They handled the return of characters from the other games so much better this time too. Honestly? In Zero all I wanted to do was see Estelle and Joshua again and I think this also blocked any chance for me to start liking the other characters as they were so boring and their storys so… boring and then we got Estelle and Joshua, who we knew and loved and who had such an important mission… of course they were more important and more interesting than Lloyd who didn’t give a damn about the question who killed his brother. In Ao/Azure these characters were kind of coming and going in an extremely powerful but satisfying way. People who know me know very well that I love Olivert and was the happiest player in the world for him showing up in Ao and also having a side-mission and lots of screentime in chapter 2 of Ao. And although I found it a bit sad that we couldn’t say goodbye to him and Kloe, all in all they came for a reason and left after what they had to do was done and it felt really satisfying. Honestly, tho? Osborne totally stole the show in this chapter. Kudos to how they handled him in this chapter. You could feel his enormous aura through the screen and the impression they already wanted to give you in Sky, which was that this man is a real monster, really came across as well as what a genius he was. When Olivert was shocked that Osborn used the Red-Constellation in the name of the Empire, he used the excuse that he wanted to protect Olivert (which was in fact part of the contract as Sigmund mentioned earlier) to justify it and the Emperor would have totally understand that and that was one of the ways to show what a genius he was. I also loved the difference between how Rocksmith had been handling the SSS and how Osborne did. He doesn’t need to get them on his side, because he can crush them and that is exactly what he warned them about in a way that was too friendly to be threatening although it had clearly been a threat. I am not a fan of this man (Reans father or not…) but he was really amazing in this chapter but especially in this whole scene with the SSS.

Also really, the secret star of this game was Lechter XD Showing up in the most unexpected times, doing the weirdest things from the beginning to the end. Even showing off that damn, this man is a fighter and he looks cool when he does fight. And I love how in the end, you never know why the hell he works for Osborne as he never sounded like he really liked to work for him, although it was clear at the end that he was very well aware of how capable this man is with his plans and how well they usually work.

However… this game had a lot of great and amazing plottwist and also the usual traitors, traitors who return to our side, never really were traitors and also of course the bad guys who will be forgiven no matter what bullshit they pulled. A true Trails game.

Honestly, even the side characters were so much easier to fall in love with this time. I was so shocked when Ilya was hurt and I cried when Rixia screamed her name. When the game showed you how guilty the characters felt that were protected and thus not badly or just a little bit hurt, it was really emotional. And really realistic. I liked it a lot.

Also… the intermezzo. Total fanservice, really. And yet it was really amusing and a great chance to spend more time with the side-characters that you didn’t spend much time with during the usual plot. I also loved how those useless Urgent-Missions vanished in the end, because in Zero most of the time, they didn’t have anything to do with the game. Why the hell did I have to find that girls Umbrella again? And how can that be an urgent mission?

But while I am at it, here is still some critic. I hated how a lot of information’s that were important for the plot were revealed in side-missions or even hidden-missions. I played non of them and when I had to watch the final from a lets player because of technical reasons I was constantly like “What?”, when all the things were revealed that he got, do to the fact that he played all Support-Requests and Hidden-Missions and got so much more information’s over certain situations and characters do to that. Don’t get my wrong, I think it is great if those missions are not just boring but also give you valuable information, but there is a difference between valuable information’s and stuff that should have been mentioned in the main-plot because you need them to get things. Lloyd often all of the sudden was like: “WAIT! You did these and that, right?” And I never got how he suddenly reached that conclusion, because I missed some important information that were given by missions I didn’t do, because I didn’t had too. If missions have important information, than for gods sake game, force me to do them!

I found that Wald was a weird plot-device that didn’t really… made much use to the story? It was kind of an motivation for Wazy but a questionable one and one that was somehow unnecessary. It felt like they just needed to do something with this man.

Also… uh… KeA just gave up her powers and that was so anti-climatic? At least I would have wished it would not have been so easy for her to do it. Or if she would have sacrificed them to… I don’t know, do something useful. Don’t get me wrong! It was good and right that her powers are gone now (tho looking at CS4 there are some remnants there…) but I just would have wished the way she gave her powers away would have been a bit more interesting or dramatic.

4. Any thoughts about the music and the game-mechanics or battle-system?

Sadly, I couldn’t hear the music with the game but I listened to the OSTs and they were both good. (Not as good as the one from Trails of Cold Steel 3 tho, but that one is hard to beat…)

I didn’t really like how you had no idea how you gathered bonding points. The final bonding event with Elie in the first game was a lucky draw. I chose her to be Lloyds partner every time because I am a shipper with heart and soul, but I was feeling bad about neglecting Tio and Randy and almost didn’t chose Elie for the last one. The game could have at least told me that some of my decisions would influence the bonding with the other characters – I am so damn spoiled by Cold Steel XD - and in the second game I did relay completely on a walkthrough to get enough bonding points with Elie and yet still thought I fucked it up until I got the invitation to the deck ^^’

I totally loved those Combi-Crafts. They were great and I would have loved to also have them in Cold Steel (but I guess we have the Link-Attacks there as an replacement…)

I wished I could have auto-fight or at least a way to make the fights go faster. Grinding was so not possible the slow way this was going.

Holy shit was it impossible to use the Masters-Quarz from Ao/Azure to their full potential because it was so hard to level them up. Much easier in Cold Steel.

5. The ending of Ao/Azure, what do you think about it?

I found both the ending of Zero and Ao/Azure a tiny bit rushed in a way. Like… we hardly get any explanation or an after-credits scene. And the explanation in Ao/Azure was a fucking huge Spoiler. The game tells you that Osborn is alive and won the fight against the noble fraction in the civil war and that he also took over Crossbell for 2 years. Like… uh… when you play CS… this is like some huge ass things to ponder about and if you had played this game before (which you should) you would have known all this already ^^’ Still… I liked how they had the final picture of them standing under the flag of an now independent Crossbell (probably after CS4) after the whole Epilogue-Information felt like we left Crossbell at a really bad time and that this way, it somehow was a unfinished game. But, as we know now… Lloyd and Co. take care of that problem in CS4, so its fine.

6. Points for both games?

4,5 of 10 points for Trails of Zero, because it was fucking bad!

9 of 10 points for Trails of Azure, because it was really good and had just a few flaws. (CS3, by the way, got the same amount of points…)

A little overview over what I think of the Trails-Saga so far, now that I have played all games currently available to me (aside from CS4 which I have almost completely spoiled for myself anyway at this point XD) follows now. So be aware of SPOILERS!

7. Looking at all 9 games that came out so far, what do you think about the Trails-Saga as a whole?

Something I’ve realized with shock when I’ve been puzzling the pieces of all the games together is how much the Liberl-Arc is actually an outsider here. How it doesn’t feel very important anymore as soon as you move on from the Sky games. Despite the fact that Ouroboros was much more involved in what happened to Liberl than in what happened in Crossbell, it still feels like Liberl is just not half as important as this small town and his two-games. Somehow it feels a bit like the Liberl-Arc was more to introduce certain characters (and Ouroboros) to the player then actually having a huge importance to the actual Trails – Saga as a whole. Of course I know that what Campanella gained from the Liberl-Arc will be important at some point of the Trails-Saga but looking at Cold Steel I think Crossbell is much more prominent and also more important to the Erebonia-Arc (which is huge!) which is not just shown by the connection between those two places, but also by how Rean interacts with Lloyd and how much he seems to honor him for some reason. While Estelle and Joshua, are just some good bracers that helped to solve that one incident in Liberl, Rean seems to have a huge amount of respect for Lloyd and what he did for his hometown.

They of course do have a lot of similarities that connect them somehow, I get that. But in Cold Steel 4, I found the meeting of Rean and Estelle and Joshua so anti-climatic while the one with Lloyd was such a huge deal. I think that we lag a connection between Liberl and Erebonia here. The only thing connecting us to Liberl in the first two Cold Steel games was Olivert, who doesn’t even belong there, but was just traveling through it. Funny enough, what they give us in CS3 is the age-gape-ship – do not get my wrong, I am so not complaining, but I am sure a lot of other western fans are – purely relying on the power of shippings here XD Honestly, it would have been possible to make that work without Tita. By having Shera become a teacher alongside Rean and Randy (instead of hiding her in Erebonia until CS4…) and having Agathe as a Bracer helping out Fie, Sarah and Toval like he usually does. But they had to give us that ship, simply for the reason that shippings always go, if you ask me. But without thinking that a bracer falling for a young girl wasn’t exactly the best representation for Liberl. Once again, do not get me wrong. Both Tita and Agathe are amazing characters. He is a strong bracer and she is an extremely talented and courageous engineer at her very young age. And I personally do treasure their relationship and how it evolved. Okay… I actually love it and supporting the ship with all my might. Yet, looking at how badly ships like that are received in western countries, taking those two as represents for the Liberl arc is questionable at best.

I get it. In CS3 they wanted to form a connection to both the Sky games and Ao/Zero without already giving us the main-characters of those two games because they would have stolen the show XD So they gave us Randy and Tio for Crossbell, with Randy of course being a more prominent person as a colleague of Rean and also a more than capable fighter that also got a connection with Shirley who is working with Ouroboros now. And then they give us Tita and Agathe for Liberl… and you can not help but question the choice. I mean… everyone loved Tita because just like KeA, she was so loveable. And now she turned into a teenager that suddenly is aware that just saying “I love Agathe so much” is not something she should do anymore without giving it a second thought. Agathe suddenly being much more flustered about the teasing from others because obviously its not that unlikely anymore that there are romantic feelings involved here. So… that is our connection to the Liberl-Arc. An Age-Gape-Ship that is not together yet... but too close to thinking about being in love with each other for the likes of most western players. For me as a fan of that ship, it is of course a good choice… but for representing the Liberl-Arc it stays a rather questionable choice if you think about it. Especially since Shera was nearby the whole time and wasn’t shown once and only mentioned close to the end. I feel like that was a choice purely made for evolving Tita and Agathe as a ship somehow and show how those two characters and their relationship has changed in the meantime. Especially with Tita being suddenly self-conscious and also looking at that we go from the Sister-Zone to “For me you are…” in the short span from the beginning of CS3 to the middle of CS4. However… yes… I digress again. I can not help but feel like the Liberl-Arc (despite being a good arc) is less important to the overall plot of the Trails-Saga as a whole. Like… most of the Ouroboros-Guys from this arc are either currently no were to be seen or dead… or on the good-side XD Cassius is showing up for 5 minutes, looking like the powerful guy he became somehow and then he is gone again in Cold Steel 4. Its like he was just introduced to be mentioned every now and then in the other games so you would think: “Ohhhhh!” XD Well… at least he lets Rean become a Swordmaster in the end. He must do something useful at least once in all this games that claim he is a big-shot despite him never being there when actually needed. So he wasn’t really important in the other games either, despite the fuss that was always made about him. So… yeah. Liberl was really just to introduce us to the Trails-Saga and some more or less important characters as well as Ouroboros I think.

Crossbell was used the give Ourobors more people that work for them it seems XD Also, Red-Constellation and Zephir was even mentioned. And then it is in a place that Reans biological father takes over and even uses Rean for that, giving him a feeling of guilt when he thinks of Lloyd who just did what Rean would have done in his stead too, by trying to save Crossbell. Also… in Reans Class was someone from Crossbell (Juna – although we never met her in the Crossbell-saga) but no one from Liberl. Once again, giving that small place called Crossbell a bigger hand. The connection to Erebonia, by the way, and also the way Osborn is mentioned and even shown in both sagas is very huge. As a neightbor of both countries that has the biggest military in the whole Zermuria it was constantly shown in both Liberl and Crossbell as a possible enemies that is threatening them and should be feared. Osborn is mentioned multiple times as a very dangerous and very powerful man and not seldom even as a monster. When he is shown, (which happens in both the Liberl- and the Crossbell-Arc) he fulfills the expectations and shows very well that whatever or whoever stands in his way, will be crushed ultimately. There is no such character in either the Liberl- or Crossbell-Arc that get mentioned or shown so extremely in any of the other games. The Crossbell-Saga, in my eyes, was mostly to show you the people of the City that Osborn uses as a play-toy in his plans so that you feel bad for them, when you reach the part in Cold Steel were Crossbell get annexed and then ruled by someone like Rufus of all people. Also introducing Rean to Lloyd and later having Juna in his class, who adores, fully trusts and supports the SSS makes his feeling of guilt for what Osborn forced him to do in Crossbell even worse. So looking it all that, it seems a little bit like the Crossbell-Saga was a stage that prepared the stage for Osborn and Rean as the major forces of the 4 games long Cold Steel – Saga.

Cold Steel is big and covers a huge span of time (although we had a big time-jump between CS2 and CS3 and also at least one to two months have passed between CS1 and CS2 as well as CS3 and CS4…) and finally deals with the country with the strongest military as well as with the man Osborn himself. With a game as big as this one, we of course get a huge amount of characters as well. Ever single one of them has somehow an important position in Erebonia one way or another. As Rean the main character alone is not just the adoptive-son of a man from the lower-nobility, but also (as it turned out later) the biological son of no other than chancellor Osborn himself (although they were hiding that fact) and became the Ashen Chevalier at the end of the first game. We also have people like Alisa, who is the heir of the Reinford-Company – which is by the way a name that also hear multiple times over the course of the other games, especially in connection with weapons. Jusis, the son of the Duke of one of the four great houses. Emma as being part of the Hexan-Clan and also the “sister” of Vita, who is the second Anguis of Ouroboros. And so on. Even Reans own Class 7 in CS3/CS4 is anything than boring. Although just a commoner, Juna is from Crossbell and was teached at the police academy from no other then our Ironblood Claire Riveld and is also a huge supporter of the SSS. Kurt is the youngest son of the Vanders and with that not just the son and nephew of two huge military-mans, but also the brother of our dearly beloved Mueller Vander, protector and best friend of Prince Olivert and thus of course also known in the royal family of Erebonia. Ash is one of only 3 survivors (technically only two survivors, now that Loewe is dead…) of the nightmare that was the Hamel-incident. And Musse… well… she is… much bigger then she looks like. Besides those main characters we also have guest characters like Princess Alfin the Erebonian-Princess herself. And oh look, Lechter is here too. Even Ouroboros steps up their game in Cold Steel. Adding more and more Enforcers to their Phantasmal Place Plan in the huge state that is called Erebonia. We get our Fool Campanella (the only one who actually shows up in person in all 3 Arcs), we have Phantom Thieve B (who was mentioned in all 3 games, but never showed up in person in Crossbell), the Steel Maiden and her Knights (who were first shown in Crossbell) as well as Vita and McBurn but also Shirley and Mariabell (who both joined Ouroboros around the Crossbell-Saga and were also very present in that arc) which already makes a huge damn amount of Villians or Semi-Villians (as Vita at some point as well as B are at least temporarily joining Team-Rean for a while…) for one Arc. And yet, we get another group of enemies (the Gnomes) added to the list, alongside a few Jeager-Corpses. And although we have plenty of active characters in the Cold Steel-Saga already, yet we also added Randy, Tio, Tita and Agathe as temporary party-members to the game in CS3. Still not enough? You are missing your best friends Estelle, Joshua, Renne, Lloyd, Elie and KeA from the previous installments? Fear not! We add them in Cold Steel 4 were we also have reacurring Guest-Characters like Sully and Grace from the Crossbell-Games. Shera will finally show up as well and did I mention the part in CS4 were Kloe, Cassius and even President Rocksmith joined the game for a short amount of time? And did I tell you that we don’t just travel through Erebonia in this games, but also go to Crossbell? Boy is that game huge! And probably the most important installment of the Series so far.

Now… lets look at this a little closer…

8. The maps of Liberl, Crossbell and Erebonia had different sizes which size was best and which was worst?

I would say the best size had Liberl. It was not too big but not too small either.

Erebonia (especially after also adding Crossbell to the places we visit do to it being part of Erebonia at that point) was far to huge. Crossing the whole of Erebonia by food like we did with Liberl and Crossbell? Absolut impossible! I mean we had 4 games and managed to visit different places almost in every of those 4 games. Erebonia is simply too huge! No wonder that they needed Trains for traveling.

Crossbell was a little bit too small. After playing Cold Steel before, it was sooo boring to run around the same places the whole time for most of those two games. When I started playing this game, I was lost immediately, because Crossbell as a City is huge. But in the first chapter of Ao I would have found my way from Downtown to St.Ursula Hospital blind.

9. As you mentioned yourself, Erebonia has the most characters, but Liberl did have a hand full of characters more then Crossbell. Which is the better amount in the end?

Funny enough I had absolutely no problem to love almost all the Characters from Cold Steel, despite the fact that we were like 9 main characters from the start. But I would say that even for 4 games, we just have a few too many characters in Cold Steel, although the games handled them extremely well all the time. So I can not really criticizes it.

However, while I found it boring with as much as 4 main characters in the first Crossbell-Game and at least 6 in the last Crossbell-Game, but also just too less side-characters to love and enemies to hate, I think that the Liberl-Arc did best with its amount of characters both main- and side-characters. Although they overdid it a bit in Sky 3 with the amount of main characters (but lets not talk about what a huge fail that game was…) with adding characters like Annalace and Richard while we already had people like Kevin and Ries as constant party-Members.

10. Best Soundtrack of all the Trails games so far? (Including CS4)

As I mentioned before it is definitely Trails of Cold Steel 3. The soundtrack is huge and amazing. I listened to it a lot while playing the Crossbell-Games.

11. Best Main Character?

Rean. Rean. Rean… and did I mention that it is Rean? Yes, absolutely and with no doubt Rean. Followed by Estelle as a wonderfully badass female-main-character full of love, cheerfulness and energy. I do not want to put Lloyd in third place, but I do put him in the last place as he was not half as good or interesting or amazing or cool or amusing as Rean or Estelle.

12. Best Character of the whole Trails-Saga?

Prince Olivert Reise Arnor (also known as Oliver Lenheim) without any doubt. Best character ever.

13. Best Side-Kick-Animal?

I can not decide. I love Celine and I also loved Sieg and I also loved Zeit. They were all 3 very amazing and a great addition to their respective games. Tho I love Celines sassiness probably the most XD

14. Top 5 Shippings of all the Trails-Games?

Huh… uh… okay… that one is hard because I have to decide between the best portrait ship, actual canon or harem-choice-ships and somehow they choices are too much and yet too small.

First place is Rean and Alisa because it’s just so damn perfect for being technically-speaking a Harem-Choice-ship. But what makes them perfect is the fact that their shipping is only technically-speaking a choice. Falcom doesn’t make it look like a choice at all XD Starting with the picture perfect meeting, Reans overprotective-instincts leading to this embarrassing closeness a little too early in their relationship, to them exchanging their fears and wishes under the starlit nightsky, to the heart to heart speech in Alisas home, followed by jealousy and apologizes of its finest after Reans “accidental date” with Claire, to the words that are said if you chose Alisa as your dance-partner, directly to the first heartbreaking reunion hug, the fact that they’ve meet once before as Children with Rean being the night in shining armor here who saved a lost Alisa, over to Rean absolutely not complaining about Alisa sitting in his lap in one of their bonding-events, to the fact that Alisa is the only Girl who gets a Kiss in her final bonding event in CS2, moving on with another long desired, very intimate reunion-hug and Rean admitting that he enjoyed the hug later on when confronted by his students, going to their cuddle-moment on the Rooftop of Reans school, over to Alisa being jealous of “fluffy mint” in their team-phone call going to once again being the only one receiving a kiss in her final bonding event in CS3 and even with them basically breaking up because of Alisas guilt do to her parents involvement in Reans situation after a desperate last hug from behind, going over to Rean not giving up on them and finally spending the night with each other before the final fight, with Alisa going down on her knees begging Rean not to leave her when he sacrifices himself and finally with them being close to each other a lot at Oliverts wedding. It could not be more perfect.

Second place just has to be Estelle and Joshua. From the fact that this ship is canon… like really canon, not actually “Falcom wants them to be canon” – Canon, it should be in the first place, but I just love Rean and Alisa so much more. Anyway… Joshua and Estelle were perfect from the beginning to the end. Be it the moment as a child when Joshua decided to stay with Estelle instead of leaving because he realized how much he loved her. Be it the fact that Estelle wasn’t even conscious of his feelings for her for a long time an did things like feeding each other. Over to the moment she finally became jealous of all the woman who really liked Joshua. Not even ending with this awful excuse of a first kiss and the fact that he carried her to his bed after he made her lose consciousness instead of letting her lay on the castle-rooftop until someone finds her. Even with Joshua pretending to be over Estelle, while closely watching her and making sure she was save in secret and then only needing a hug from her to be reminded that right next to her is were he belongs. Of course their amazing second-first-kiss and them almost dying in each other’s arm. With him loosing his temper when Estelle was almost hurt by Wald and with them both going from place to place to find Renne and finally make her part of their family. A wonderfully perfect lovestory.

Third place was taken by Agathe and Tita somehow between Agathe saving Tita in the first Sky game and rescuing her together with Rean and Co. in Cold Steel 4. I loved how he was owned by her in just such a short amount of time. It was hardly a chapter between him telling her she was not allowed to join them because she was a liability and him not being able to tell her joining them was a no-go because she started crying and he just can not stand that. I just love how Tita won Agathes heart by caring for him when he was sick and hurt, even tho she was still a child and he was already a grown man, one of the strongest bracers in Liberl no less. I just loved how she said she loved him when he almost overdid it in his fight with the dragon. I loved how happy and relieved she was when they finally found him in Sky 3 and that her teary hug was all that was needed for Agathe to not doubt for one second that he was just dreaming that weird place up – not to mention the teasing that followed after that. I loved the freaking Trails-Trademark-Headpat at the beginning of CS3, when Agathe told her how grown up and independent she became and still telling her that if something happens she should tell him and he will be there immediately. I loved how he somehow always seemed to be close to wherever the schools field-trips took her so that he could get immediately in action if something was wrong. I loved how EVERYONE is teasing Agathe about his relationship with Tita. I love how Tita became self-conscious but is still aware that revealing her true feelings for Agathe has yet to wait a little longer. I love how she can hug him as long as she wants, despite the teasing he has to live through afterwards. I love how he rushes to her side in the final fight in CS3 and swears to protect her no matter what. I love how he tells Rean that he can not allow Tita to go into mixed bathing with anyone else besides Class 7. (Which is funny, as Rean, by all means, is the most dangerous male character for any girl in this game… XD I mean it) after actually revealing that in the end, he doesn’t feel the same way for Tita as he did for his sister and even saying that she became very pretty. I also love that when he rescues her with Rean and his team, he realizes that he uses the promise he made to Titas family as an excuse and actually really, truly wants to protect her even tho he has yet to finish his “for me, you are…” sentence with the words “the most important person”, but we are getting there. I love how all the things they will do together on the day before the final fight are actually things couples would do. (Riding the farris Wheel together? Having a walk on the beach together? Romantic anyone?) I love how it seems the only reason they were part of CS3 was to show us how their relationship has progressed since that faithful day when Agathe took a bullet for Tita.

These are actually the only ships I really love. If I absolutely have to finish the top 5 then on fourth Place there would be Olivert and Shera… they do fit extremely well but I have no idea when them falling actually in love with each other really happened so it feels a bit weird at times. Fifth place would probably be Millium and Jusis. A ship that I didn’t see coming but I liked it and enjoyed the few small moments we had. If I had to add any ships from the Crossbell-Saga I would give Lloyd and Elie the next position, followed by Randy and Mirellei for some reason that I can not explain.

15. Who from Ouroboros do you like the most?

Vita, obviously. I also kind of gotten used to Campanella at this point and would miss him if he wouldn’t show up in Calvard XD I would maybe somehow like Thieve B but I hate his riddles so I probably won’t XD

16. Which Arc should a new player start with?

Personally I think starting with Cold Steel is not a bad idea, but starting with Sky is possible too, as they spoiler basically nothing for each other. I personally would say to play Cold Steel before Crossbell, because Crossbell spoils a huge part of the plot of CS2. Although I fear that after loving Reans Team and Estelles Team before it is almost impossible to learn to love Lloyds Team… at least that was my experience.

17. Any ideas what might happen next?

No. But I do think that at the end of the Trails-Series we will see the Grahlsritter fighting and propably winning against Ouroboros. Why I think that? We had a Grahlsritter in all of the Trails-Arcs so far. The game got to great lengths even to make sure we do not forget our Kevin from Trails in the Sky. Wazy is our Dominion from the Crossbell-Saga and Gaius is the one from the Erebonia-Saga. We propably get one from Calvard too and honestly? I wouldn’t be surprised if even one is among the Ouroboros guys somehow. I mean, Trails games are Traitor-Games, if you get what I mean. So why not a Traitor among the bad guys too?

#Mona plays Trails of Zero #Mona Plays Trails of Azure #Mona Plays all the Trails games

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thankyoumskobayashi · 5 years

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I just misread an earlier part of TGCF (CH.~41-50) and it said that E-Ming was rumored to have been made with the blood of innocents. However, knowing Hua Cheng, I wouldn't be surprised if that scimitar was made with the blood of the cliquey martial and literature gods who made fun of Xie Lian (and were subsequently murdered simultaneously by the demon king Crimson Rain Sought Flower). Knowing now from recent chapters how many boundless oodles of power Hua Cheng has, only a sword made from the remains of gods themselves would be able to handle that much strength without shattering under the power of its master.

And from the perspectives of the rest of the gods in the heavens, the ones who died were "innocent" because these gods don't consider "making fun of Xie Lian" to be a criminal offence. However, a certain idiot prone to falling (both physically & metaphorically) DOES consider that a criminal offence, one for which he Can & Will mete out punishment.

I think it's cool how MXTX explores reframing narratives through misunderstandings, mindsets, and cultural paradigms. This one event can be analyzed from multiple characters' perspectives: "Crimson Rain Sought Flower challenged all the martial gods and all the literature gods to a contest. Everyone except Xie Lian's former assistants participated and all of them lost their lives as a result of being humiliated and reneging on the wager." Hua Cheng, the one setting the wager and doing the killing, probably saw it as dealing with useless trash. Those gods themselves must have seen it as injustice. The newer gods in the heavens don't know Hua Cheng's motives, so they consider him capricious and dangerous. They regard him with fear, and attempt to pass along that fear to Xie Lian, who hasn't been to the heavens for hundreds of years and therefore doesn't know any of the news or gossip.

It's also interesting to see Xie Lian's opinions grow as he meets Hua Cheng first, then listens to hearsay afterwards. He gets to know Hua Cheng, and sees him as a carefree, knowledgeable, generous person who likes to joke around. Then he is told that Hua Cheng is a capricious and dangerous person liable to turn on you at any moment. His motives are shrouded in mystery. However, these rumors end up slam-dunked in the garbage by Xie Lian because he sees Hua Cheng differently than the rest of the gods in the heavens. Hua Cheng is generous towards and protective of him, to the point of actually fighting well when he defended Xie Lian against Pei Su and the snakes. He fought seriously that time, according to Xie Lian, not allowing a single scratch to land on the Flower Crown Prince.

The play that was performed at the Lantern-counting festival which depicted the blossoming romance between Hua Cheng and Xie Lian probably baffled some, but perhaps some of the gods now believe that Hua Cheng and Xie Lian are in love. I just realized this play might have been written by Wind Master, who saw those two get stuck together with RuoYe during the sandstorm lol

Anyways, I forget where this was supposed to go, but maybe it doesn't have a point so I can write whatever I want. Hua Cheng could have future sight which is why he warned Xie Lian to avoid Wind, Earth & Water Masters, Ling Wen, and the rest of the Heavens for a time. He could be haunted by visions of Xie Lian getting falsely accused & slandered again. We already know this is the worst torment to him, he admitted it during the dice game which was a ploy to test if Earth Master was the Reverend of Empty Words. After this each paragraph is its own idea. They aren't always connected, except through my own convoluted train of thought.

Even though Hua Cheng set his Divine SkypeTM password to something super lovey dovey and/or horny I bet he can communicate telepathically with E-Ming.

After Xie Lian gave Hua Cheng his bamboo hat when they were planting rice, I bet Hua Cheng was hyped up on "he gave me his hat to show everyone that I'm his" energy. He was probably annoyed that these lowly mortals were harassing his love about the Demon King's relationship status and sauntered over to say "I'm already married." But he was silently adding after that, "in my heart...."

After Hua Cheng denied that whole business about having a lover, Xie Lian smiled and told him, "you liar." Mind you, this is after that scene in the QianDang Temple where Xie Lian holds up the white flower that Hua Cheng once made a symbol for him, and asks "This is the flower you are pursuing, right?" Hua Cheng is under the impression that Xie Lian is aware of his romantic intentions towards him. So he goes, "yeah that thing about me having a lover is a lie. I just haven't won them over yet." Not realizing that Xie Lian is still hurt about the joking about marriage thing from the other day.

From Hua Cheng's perspective, that joke was only considered a joke to lessen (for him) the pain of not being immediately engaged to Xie Lian. He was probably trying to see if Xie Lian was into him or not, gauge how he was doing at winning his lifelong crush's affections. Since Xie Lian has been a depressed wanderer for literal centuries, the concept of getting married and having someone to live with must be something he fundamentally believed wasn't for him. Besides, there was that whole "being the laughingstock of the heavens" thing, so he probably internalized the idea that no one would ever want him.

Hubris was Xie Lian's tragic flaw, and for that he paid with his country, the existences of every place he loved, his family, his people, his temples, his reputation + corresponding godly powers, and most importantly, his confidence. He learned humility the hard way, and now hesitates to trust other people. These are mental health problems Hua Cheng can encourage him to overcome, but ultimately the hard work must be done by Xie Lian.

Another thing working against Hua Cheng is the fact that Xie Lian is so old. Hua Cheng is as well, probably around 790 years to Xie Lian's 800, but that is not what I mean by that. Xie Lian being so old means he's gotten used to meeting people, living with them for a while, and then moving on in life as he wanders away or they kick him out or something. He considers Hua Cheng's presence an unlikely yet welcome one, but doesn't expect him to stay in his life for very long. Unless this is addressed directly in words by Crimson Rain Sought Flower, I foresee Xie Lian continuing to act like Hua Cheng is an extended houseguest when the latter believes "I live here." Even if they do end up moving to another small shrine.

Speaking of shrines, Hua Cheng never promised Xie Lian to build him shrines but did anyway. In contrast, the humans who were saved by Xie Lian end up making empty promises of shrines and such. However, Hua Cheng not only built him a shrine, he made a huge fuckin' Sword Collection just to impress Xie Lian because of the one time he got lectured on swords by Xie Lian. I haven't reread that part recently but I know the gist of it was "swords don't seem like your thing so you should use a scimitar instead that'd work really well for you." Boom: 800 years later Hua Cheng wields a legendary scimitar, E-Ming. In the times when Xian Le was still around, Hua Cheng listened to Xie Lian on everything except "forget about me." Because that would have meant ignoring Xie Lian's earlier request, "make me your reason for living." If Hua Cheng had ignored that previous request, which was filled with genuine concern for his wellbeing, he would have had no reason to live and probably would've met a miserable end. But instead, he determined to follow Xie Lian to the godly realm - by becoming a god himself. Probably a martial god, too. He had to be exactly like his hero.

Speaking of being just like his hero, I have some thoughts on why Hua Cheng didn't accept Xie Lian's offer to live at the Palace. One might think it's primarily because Qi Rong would attempt to kill him again but I bet that was simply a minor extra reason. The main reason he didn't stay at the Palace was bc Xie Lian wasn't there most of the time, either due to Crown Princely duties or cultivation at the mountain temple. Hua Cheng, even as a kid, wanted Xie Lian to pay attention to him. Hearing "live for me" was probably as much of a lifeline because Xie Lian was paying attention to him at that critical moment, an equal reason I believe to the content of the message Xie Lian gave itself. "Being encouraged by someone you look up to is a wonderful feeling" is a message MXTX also put in MDZS, when Wei Wuxian encourages the Cloud Kids during the Yi City arc. And the timing of that encouragement holds just as much weight for Hua Cheng as having his hero give him a reason to keep living.

And that reason, as was evidenced by Hua Cheng's descent from godhood to becoming a Supreme Level Demon (I think they're the strongest/rarest type? There were 4 categories mentioned in the beginning. Below Supreme is Menace), is to become strong enough to protect the love of his life. The first thing Hua Cheng did once he crashed the Volcano Party to become the strongest Demon was challenging all the gods in the heavens to the wager and killing them once they lost and didn't uphold their ends of the bargain. He was full of the same wrath that Xie Lian was filled with during his second ascension- that time Xie Lian ascended to the heavens, started an all-out brawl in Jun Wu's courtroom, and then got kicked/demoted after like 5 mins. So people were making fun of Xie Lian after this event too, and Hua Cheng, filled with righteous anger that NO ONE in the so-called "just" heavens was standing up for the love of his life, decided to take matters into his own hands. (I think one of the two assistants in the beginning mentions Hua Cheng became a Demon Supreme after Xie Lian's second ascension and before his third ascension, but I just didn't remember it until now.)

If Hua Cheng was a meme, he'd be that "I've only known Xie Lian for 800 years, and if anything happened to him I'd kill everyone in the heavens and then Qi Rong."

Because he knows if something happens to HIM, Demon Lord Supreme, there will be a power vacuum and Xie Lian's safety won't be guaranteed. Ok so that's abt it. Sorry to everyone on mobile, I threw a readmore in there but you wouldn't know that as you have to scroll through all of this rambling.

#tian guan ci fu #time for my nightly essay #thanks to mo xiang tong xiu for writing her novels and everyone who takes the time to read these #you're amazing!!#spoilers up to chapter 114 discussed here

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