#at which point her arc continues similar to in the old story but with the others more fleshed out this time lol | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ch0wen · 6 months

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༝ ˚ ༝ My Lady is the Sea ｡ ˚ ༝ - Prince Eric x Fem!Reader | NSFW

𖠳 ᐝ warnings: brief smut, 18+ (minors dni), unprotected sex & cursing

Sea salt tickles your nostrils as you step out onto the wooden dock. Nose twitching like a bunny to rid the salty air from your sensitive nerves. You glide forward only a few feet, and your left shin knocks into a wooden pole. A barricade lined the perimeter of the landing. Fencing that stops you from falling into the unknown below. An oil lantern illuminates a portion of the dock and the gradually darkening surface of the deep. The expansive waters lurk just beyond the fading arc of light. Your body gently sways with the sounds of the waves stirring.

Instinctively, you flex your hold on a roped handle. A heavy, disgusting mixture of beer and spit sloshes in the bucket that you have been entrusted to dump out. Polluting the ocean, you think. An unfortunately common attribute of living in a coastal town. It's second nature to dump and forget. Water appears to be along every horizon you look to. It surrounds you, yet it's ever-moving. Continuous. Traveling away.

How you wish you could be out there now. Just like your father had moons ago. Oh, the precious things he gifted you with when he returned to the marina! The carefully selected treasures. He always seemed to know which new object would earn an excited squeal from you because of its sparkles or funky shape. Whispers at bedtime of now fictitious-sounding tales on how he acquired them. To you, his trips were like storybooks. Too embarrassing to admit, you used to go to sleep late into your teens with visions of exploration dancing in your head. Dreaming of the uncharted waters and cloudy faces of the friends you'd make. He'd promise to you, that you would soon be old enough to explore the world with him.

But you couldn't truly treasure the last retelling of his adventures because no one foresaw he would leave it on a cliffhanger. He never came back. Your mother forbade you from speaking of his expeditions as time passed. "Don't go towards the beyond." "This is your home." "You're safe here." she chided. Here, on land. The hope soon ended with the stories. You grew accustomed to the familiar. You were raised here. It's all you have known. Is it worth it to leave at this point?

However, there are instances when you fall back into childlike wonder. In the quiet lulls, similar to the brink of falling asleep, you can't help but contemplate what else the waters hold past their horizons.

༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝

A faint, muffled tune begins inside and wafts out into the silence. The merry-sounding song envelops you. You blink out of the reverie to adjust your vision in the darkness.

You can hear the pub's piano, in desperate need of a tuning, as you push open the door. A gaggle of men are singing a sea shanty in the dining space. They look disheveled but have dancing smiles. You can't help grinning as you watch these men celebrate life.

“Just docked," Gwen, your co-worker, calls from over her shoulder. She fills up two cups and then slides them over the bar top towards one of the waiting men. He slaps a few coins down and moves back to the crowd, like rejoining a school of fish.

Gwen wipes up the liquid he left, “I heard one of them holler that they came in from the Carribean.”

“I feel like that's only the third ship from around there this season."

"How do you manage to even keep track? There have to have been hundreds of vessels that have passed through here."

You blushingly shrug at her knowing smirk. Teasingly, her fingers reach out to flick at your slightly tarnished necklace. A chain made from Spanish silver with a locket bearing some type of ruby gem.

Leonardo was the one who had graced you with this last year. He was a buccaneer. He and his crew docked in town for a fortnight. He was charming and proud. In the tavern, he was always drunkenly boasting about the treasures he had found. The people he'd fought. The Lords he'd impressed. The people he'd fucked. He was so fun.

When your birthday happened around the time he was in town, he came stumbling into the bar with this necklace. He said it was nothing and that he had dozens of more valuable findings in a chest on board his ship. But he never showed you to prove that to be true. However, you did thank him ever so graciously that night.

He sailed out a day later. No harbor was his home. You're used to this life working as a bartender in a popular trading port. You see hundreds of thousands of faces. All of these handsome men ranged from sailors to buccaneers. They all share with you the amazing stories of their lives. They fascinated you. Inspired you. Seduced you. - You can't help but be attracted to the rugged, good-looking, and ambitious type.

A man unexpectedly calls out from the crowd towards the pair of you. His voice grabs your attention like a Siren's song. There were too many bodies to place where it was coming from in the mass of people, but you swear you briefly saw a hand in the air on the left side of the room.

“My lovely bar maidens, a round of your finest ale, please, yeah?"

“Right away, sir,” you nod curtly while pivoting obediently to fill the dregs.

༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝

The rosy-cheeked, rowdy men cheer even louder as you approach with their fifth round of booze. Their attention has been won, not by the promise of refreshments, but by the beer sloshing over the rims and onto the pair of bouncing breasts carrying it all.

Low whistles scatter around the table at your cleavage while you lean over to set down the ale. Mucky hands grabbing for the foaming tankards. You catch a handsome man staring through the limbs. He gives you a dimpled smirk. His eyes betray him as they glimpse down to what you can assume is your chest. Well, he's no better than any man.

Your retreating form hears the same voice from before exclaim, “Here is to another voyage through uncharted waters! I am grateful for all your hard work, boys. And thanks to Grimsby for laying off the scolding because we're three days past schedule."

You're back at the bar. A crewmate, with a red kerchief pushing back his straw-yellow hair, heaves an overfilled mug in the air toward the handsome man,

"And a special thanks to our Captain, whose mother would keel over from learning the adventures her dear boy has taken us on. Prince Eric!"

"Prince Eric," they unanimously cheer!

Together, as they collide their drinks, fat drops of the golden liquid splash onto Prince Eric's tunic and wet his chest. The strings of his shirt are untied. Making the neck loosely hang open with his chest hair on full display. Your eyes are drawn to it. Tracing the outline of his defined pecs through the thin fabric. You're no better than a man. Worst yet, he notices you staring. His stare seems to darken, and he motions his mug towards you as a 'cheers' gesture before returning focus to his companions.

Clearing your throat and dirty mind, you turn back to tend to one of your regulars, a local fisherman slumped over on a stool at the end of the bar.

༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝

Eric strides over as you scrub up the beer rings on the bar, left by the patrons who previously occupied the empty stools. He fluidly pulls one out to sit and drums his fingers along the wood. Blue eyes staring you down for a third time tonight,

"Can I get you anything?”

“I think I should take a breather. My crew is too enthusiastic to get me drunk.”

“Sounds like you're having a bad night." He threw back his head and let out a loud laugh. Admittedly, it was too big of a reaction to that poor joke attempt. You wring out your rag into a nearby bucket to hide your smile.

You wait for a beat before sparing him another glimpse. He’s staring at your chest again. You feel the exposed skin warm under his look. You’re tempted to peek down to see how much this corset is causing you to spill out.

“Did you get it locally?

“Sorry?”

"The necklace," he half-gestures towards you.

You clasp at the pendant, "Oh, this."

He nods with his eyes fixed on your chest a moment longer before moving up to your face. His cheeks are flushed and eyes hooded, assumedly, from the pints he and his crew have slung back. You're moving toward him, holding out the chain to let him get a closer look.

“I think it’s from the Spanish Islands. A pirate passing through last season gave it to me.”

His large hand reaches out to replace yours. “It’s beautiful. I have an eye for treasures like this.”

He's so close like this. You watch his eyes flick around the locket, his fingers tracing over the gems, and the way his dark curls fall as he tilts his head to examine.

“Silly me to think anything else. Here I thought you were just checking out my chest.”

“Well, you do have wonderful tits," he absentmindedly states. He leaves you gaping as he pulls back.

"Thank you for letting me have a look. I'd be rather fond of that if I were you. That's a special gift."

"Y-yeah, but given to me by a not-so-special guy," you shrug.

You sense an awkward pause, but he watches you with a soft, dimpled smile. You motion towards the window out to the harbor, “Which one is yours?”

“The biggest one. Naturally.”

You stifle your giggle and notice a boat at the end of the port. Beautiful and massive.

“Wow, you weren't kidding. What's it like up there?"

"On the boat? You work in a marina. Have you ever been on one?”

“Oddly, no.”

He didn't hide his shock.

“I'm sorry. Are you telling me that summer lover could give you a necklace but decided not to show you his deck?”

“Something like that," you lean onto the bar, "How unfortunate for me, right?"

His hand strikes the top of the bar as he rises from the stool, causing you to flinch.

“Well, that simply just won't do! Do you want to come see mine?"

The lamplight and mischievousness dance in his eyes, "I can give you the grand tour.”

“Will you let me spin the wheel?”

"Only the most skilled helmsmen are allowed to touch," he pouts, then that damned smile graces his lips again, "but I think I may be able to bend the rules for you."

“I’m going on break,” you call to Gwen before following the handsome voyager outside.

༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝

"And, this would be the Captain's quarters."

"Oh, Captain Eric?"

He sheepishly rubs at the back of his neck, "I don't particularly like going by titles. Makes me feel like I'm trying to say I'm more important than others. I swear by my men. We venture out for fun, but I'd be stuck at port without them."

"That is a very noble thing to say, Prince Eric."

"Come off it," he laughs while moving over to a table against one of the walls. Eric picks up what appears to be a rock. He turns the object in his hands before showing you.

"Fossilized sea stone. Found it off the coast of my home island."

He places the textured stone in your open palms. The unexpected weight of it doubles you over, but Eric catches you. His hand lingers on your hip.

He proceeds to tell you about the rest of his findings laid out on the surface. You love the way his face lit up. Making himself exhilarated with his own stories. You listen intently and let yourself live vicariously through his retellings.

༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝

Eric locks an ornate chest up as you watch. Sitting on the table now cleared of his glories. “So, are you considered a sailor, explorer, or just a guy with a boat and a lot of time on his hands?”

Eric laughs, "The last one, for sure. Once I turned nineteen, my mother allowed me to venture out and sail with the crew. I've always loved the idea of discovering something new on my voyages. Whether it be places, possessions, or people."

He's moving into your space, "I am happy to have met you, Y/N."

"And I, you, Prince Eric."

"No titles here." He leans in with a hint of a grin in his whisper, "I forbid it."

"Oh, that sounds like a command, and I shall obey, Your Majesty."

He chuffs as you see his eyes drop to your necklace again. His fingers dance along the silver chain before exploring further and grazing over the top of your chest. He makes sure to peek up at you for some sort of permission. Silently, you put your hand over his own to guide him to grab a handful of your breast. Eric takes the cue and squeezes while closing the gap between you with a kiss that immediately heats up. Hands knead your breasts over your camisole-corset top.

"And here I thought you've been admiring my necklace all night. I feel scandalized," you tease while he kisses your neck.

"No, no, it is beautiful! But, these," His calloused hands give a reassuring squeeze, "are really lovely."

Hands quickly work to pull down your blouse to expose your tits. Eric rolls a nipple between his forefinger and thumb. Gasping, you arch up into his touch. Legs instinctively spread wider to allow him in. You feel his dick twitch the moment he presses closer.

A moan growls in the back of his throat as he rolls his hips. Grinding his hard-on into your wetting core while you kiss. Your skin grows hot, his breaths come heavy, and the heat is building between your legs.

Eric put his mouth to your breast, sucking at your skin in obscene, open-mouthed kisses. Eliciting a low keening sound from you. He withdrew just enough to lave at your nipple, back and forth, over and over, until your pussy thrummed to the same beat.

"Is it very unprincely of me to tell you that I would very much like to fuck you right here, now, in my chambers?"

"You are but a man, my Prince."

༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝

Your body was thrown across the desk. You don’t know where to put your hands, so they grip and scrape at the wooden surface while Eric fucks into you.

He has a firm hold on your naked waist. Keeping your long skirt hiked up to your stomach so he could watch himself penetrate you. He has a brutally harsh pace going. The delicious feel of the drag and pull of his cock.

Eric braces himself on the desk. A toned arm flexes next to your head. His face is now closer to yours as he changes the angle of his hips. With the newfound support, you feel him speed up his thrusting. He groans into your chest. Playfully biting a nipple before kissing up to your neck. His movements were enough to bring you dangerously close to reaching your high in only a few minutes.

"Oh, Prince Eric," you whine.

"Fuck." His hips stutter. "What's my name?"

"Captain Eric. Eric. Eric. "

A wave of bliss hits you and you screw your eyes shut. It doesn’t take long before both of you reach your orgasms. You hold onto Eric's biceps with all your might, as you scream his name. No doubt loud enough for everyone in the tavern to hear.

༝ ˚ ｡⋆ 𓇼 ⋆｡ ˚ ༝

At dawn, you're re-dressed and carefully creeping over the creaky floorboards. Trying not to wake any of the still-drunk crewmates who had found their way back onto the ship.

Catching your eye, the silver locket, sat on the once-empty desk, glints in the daybreak. Eric's back rises and falls. The rest of his bare body is covered by the messy bedsheets. Blissfully oblivious of your exit.

You let that sleeping form be your final image of the handsome Prince and disembark the Royal ship.

#sorry that my comeback post is for a man in a completely different universe #the little mermaid #prince eric x reader #prince eric x fem!reader #jonah hauer king #prince eric #prince eric fic

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mysebacielblog · 2 months

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Ciel is Trans Theory

I Need to point this out because. I have a hunch that Ciel is Trans, and fingers crossed I’m right. Honestly, I could be completely off base and this could be as close as Ancient Aliens is to History.

This might be an overreach but here is my case for it, as best as I can:

* Based on previous events and Chapters, Yana has shown that She Likes Playing on the concept of Gender from the Very First Arc. From the Very beginning we are introduced to a woman who is Jack the Ripper, challenging the male murder stereotype on its head, and her lover, a gender ambiguous (Later Confirmed Canonically!!) Trans Reaper Lady. Both unite from their desire, and hatred for the prostitutes who beg for abortions at her clinic. There are Already wombs being ripped out of women and we’ve just started.

* The Fact that Ciel is Dressed extremely effeminately not only for the period, even for EGL clothing standards might point to something as well. But when forced to wear a dress for the sake of a mission, he loses his mind. Although it could be a tween’s worst nightmare, how Madame Red laments to Ciel when dressing him as a girl that she always wanted a daughter feels like something.

* Ciel is always referred to as beautiful, which is not wrong for the period, but there are less masculine terms that people refer to him as.

* Yana herself says that she Over Masculinizes Ciel. Which is an interesting take for his effeminate nature of dress Vs masculine personality?

* Another hot take is that Yana Specifically has instructed in certain live action and anime for the voice actor to be a woman. I’ve seen a lot of talk on this particular conversation but none highlighting this as a clue on our Ciel’s Identity??? How??

* Mey Rin is also have been hidden as a boy with her previous life as a sniper, so this also shows that this is not out of the question either. The same reveal has happened with Doll.

* Ciel does not let anyone get close to his body. This is obviously because traumatic stress behaviors, however, similar flinching could allude to a different reason entirely.

* Our Lad introduces himself as the “Earl Ciel Phantomhive” Earl almost being apart of his first name. He’s already changed his name to hide his past. But Why?

* Let’s pretend that Ciel was in fact, born a boy at birth. If his brother and parents died, even if he was considered a “Spare Child”, (remember the British Phrase an Heir and a Spare). He would still be a legitimate hier due to his brother being unable to claim inheritance (because of his death) and pass on something to him. Even if another family member became a guardian and inherited a majority to raise our ciel, he would still be entitled to Something, and (might) even become Earl. This would Not be the case if Ciel was born a girl.

* Two Cultural similarities Japanese Manga and the Victorian period have in common are the troupe of “women disguising themselves as men”. I put this in quotes because, as Ciel described it, “the old him died in his cage,” pointing to metaphorical metamorphosis, and not simply a disguise for convient’s sake. Although it was common for (transgender men, queer cis women and/or Cis women) to take on a male position / pseudonym in order to establish a title, or a job position (typically in writing, this continued until the 1960’s). Now add on the popular manga/anime that were important in playing with perceptions of gender during Black Butler’s Debut (think Ouran High school host club), and there’s something there.

* The Fact that no one mourned Ciel’s Death was unfortunate, but a critical plot point of the story. Up until now, no one even acknowledged Our Ciel had ever Existed. Not a name, not “twins” nothing. Even though our Lad was an ill child, no one had even acknowledged he was there to begin with. Women and children were rarely recognized in Victorian culture, let alone a “Woman Child”. This culture was challenged somewhat through literature in the early ‘30’s with works from Jane Austen, ‘47 with Charlotte Brontë (who went by a pseudonym) and Lewis Carol’s Alice and the Looking Glass at the end of the century. (introducing a Girl Protag!! Gracious!). As sad as it may be, no one would really mourn an terminally ill girl compared to her family’s murder, unless having accomplished something amazing. It would be seen unfortunately as a lifted burden, and ultimately one less dowery or added expense. The fact that no one even bothered to notice our Ciel’s death or even the toll it might have on his twin is evident enough.

* The most Damning evidence I have for this theory is Lizzy’s reaction to figuring out “Ciel” was not the real “Ciel”. The immediate turn against Ciel. Why wouldn’t she even hear him out? What could have possibly turned her away like that, without a doubt in her mind, even if she had met with the Real Ciel? The fact that her reaction was not confusion but rather an extreme turn against him, she did not even think one minute to give Our Ciel a chance. And the only possible reason (combined with the fact that he was lying about not being his brother) is that if he was Not Cis. Not only would that mean that she was with the sick weaker sibling not heir to the Phantomhive legacy, but Ciel Could never conceive a family with Elizabeth, nor marry her like she would have wanted. And even if she married him, they would never be able to have children of their own (a really big obsession with British Aristocracy- modern day source: royals). All of her dreams would be shattered. And that shattering would bring her to turn instantly.

* The fact that everyone automatically assumed our ciel was real ciel, just based on saying so. Why?

* The fact that sick girls were often dressed like male counterparts to strengthen them during this era, as well as androgynous clothing for children being in fashion (because of less washing headaches and hand-me-downs)

* A smaller, minor detail is how Sebastian says “When lies become truth”. This is pointing towards both their façades but an interesting quote none the less on transitioning.

* I’m pointing to his teeny shoes with the high heels. It’s not that they’re effeminate women’s shoes that are iffy for the period, (which let’s be clear, they are) but. Look at him. Trying his best to be tall adult man. I’m pointing at his shoes.

* I might be missing a lot. Tell me if I am.

Reasons For Why I Am Extremely Wrong:

*Tanaka and Vincent referring to Our Ciel with he/him pronouns, (although I’m not sure on the original Japanese translation on chapter 131)

#black butler analysis #black butler theories #slaps Ciel’s Head #this bad boy can fit so many queer coding #I’m not writing this because I’m nb #But I’m not Not saying I’m writing this because I’m nb #i wrote this at 2am #please be gentle #Pepe Silvia board

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chairteeth · 7 months

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"The Many Masks of Touka Satomi"

So I actually wanted to refine this certified word vomit of mine before I put it anywhere buuuut I figured this would be a good time to let it out of its containment zone. This is essentially me overthinking the crap out of everything ever and coming out of it with this interpretation of Touka in particular. Informal essay under the cut! It will have extra tangents! And I blend a bit of what we were shown in the anime into my interpretation, but this is game canon.

Whenever Touka is discussed, the words "child", "immature", "selfish", and "arrogant" are the ones most often thrown around. There is usually not much more discussion after that. Well, I'm not here to say it's wrong, it's correct for the most part, I'm just here to draw attention to the fact that there's so much more to her than meets the eye. So, hear me out, if you would.

Touka's levels of vulnerability in the Magius era. That's already interesting by virtue of it being the Magius era. That's a really interesting era. Ui was what brought Touka and Nemu together and Ui was the cornerstone of their relationship for a while, so losing that RETROACTIVELY kinda makes you wonder exactly what their memories of the hospital era became. How exactly the two of them met, became friends, came to share a room, etc. Because the quotes are from their Magius selves and so we know they very much remember being roommates for a long time and still consider each other reliable and trustworthy (also the entirety of Nemu's swimsuit costume story which spawns many questions when you stop to think about it but I will touch on that some other time). We know that in reality, the hospital trio began to share a room after Touka, in her infinite princess behavior, asked her dad to put all three of them in the same room because it was annoying to walk between the rooms so often (source: TouNemu Christmas alt quotes). Interesting choice on her part back then considering she seemingly wanted Nemu out of the way, but I will touch on that another time because the hospital era has its own analysis.

Okay then, let's talk about Touka's role as a Magius. A leader. One who shoulders the burdens of the many. She willingly exposed herself to the weight of a whole people's sorrow, pain, grief, anger. And then she chose to lead them. To avenge them. It may not have started that way but it sure as heck got there at some point (thank you anime for helping out with this point). Now, I want to stop here for a moment and remind everyone that during Arc 1, Touka was 11 to 12 years old (as per the JP script, she is 12 by the end of it). Not only that, but if you pay attention, you'll notice the stress of Nemu's declining health is killing her. Nemu is quite literally the only person Magius Touka shows genuine concern for. This one person she cares about more than anyone else, slowly dying for the plan. For the cause. And as the sort of "main leader", Touka can't back down. She just can't. It would be not only a betrayal to "her people", but also to the one closest to her, the one who has arguably sacrificed the most for their salvation. So then, with someone as full of herself as Touka, someone seemingly so arrogant... What about her own health and wellbeing? What about her own sense of self? Because I have a feeling she doesn't really have one.

The way she always emphasizes the genius aspect of herself and even uses it as an excuse and brings it up so often feels like that's all she sees herself as. Nemu gives, yes. Nemu has similar issues. But hers are much, much more obvious. Less concealed. Touka gives without measure, without the slightest care for herself. She's selfish and at the same time one of the most selfless characters. There's also the interpretation that, at their very core, Touka and Nemu both just wanted to live. But I feel like that was only at the beginning. If that was all there was to it, the plan would not have continued with Nemu's life at risk, Touka would not put herself in the line of fire. Essentially, Touka has taken on way, way too much responsibility, as well as crafting several masks. Don't forget, just like every other magical girl, she led a double life the entire time, and she financed a lot of the cult's operations. Though I don't have any doubt many of the richer members contributed to the budget with their ridiculous allowances that they do not use.

Touka had to hide from everyone. She couldn't show her true self to anyone. Not her father who loves her so deeply, not anyone else in her civilian life, not her subordinates, Alina is not the most warm and welcoming to be around... so her only option is Nemu. That's comfortable. That's familiar. But. Then there are the many, many feelings she has about Nemu. It's, complicated you see. Touka feels many ways about Nemu. For starters, if their memory of Ui is gone, it means all of the warmth and kindness Ui had must've taken another form, which explains the difference in their bond, how they seem so much... closer, as Magius. Either way, even back then, Nemu is the only one who would understand. Touka Satomi is an actress. Everywhere else is her stage, and Nemu is backstage. So, Touka can only ever be truly 100% vulnerable with Nemu. Yet she still didn't do it. I don't think Magius Touka ever really fully 100% relied on Nemu. She may have wanted to, and she does call her reliable in her quotes. But well, with Nemu's health getting worse and worse, she may have come to the conclusion that it would be for the best (health-wise) if Nemu didn't have to share her burden.

However, Nemu's declining health also brought something else. Touka took on another role: the protector. Nemu is practically helpless during the mid to late Magius era. Not completely helpless, she's still a strong magical girl, mind you, but could drop or have an attack at any time. We see this multiple times such as in Mifuyu's MGS, her own MGS, and she even has what is basically a stroke during Arc 1 Chapter 8, 4:02:36 - 4:03:43 in the video if you want to take a listen (I have a Magius Nemu essay in the works, don't you fret). Therefore, Touka has to be alert and ready to respond immediately. Which I think is why we see more of Alina outside than Touka. Touka lingers around where Nemu is and only hesitantly hands her over to Alina or Mifuyu when she absolutely must. Other than the sheer pain of watching Nemu bleed herself dry and being unable to do anything about it, not because she physically can't, but because she can't in a different sense... she also can't revert things back to the way they were, for all of her genius and medical knowledge she can't help Nemu, she can't help her best friend feel even a little better. This leads us to the undeniable fact that Touka is very, very unstable and volatile as a Magius. That's not the impression she first gives at all, of course.

Arc 1 Chapter 6 is where we first meet Magius Touka. She's calm, with a cold cheerfulness to her, calculated. Most importantly, I feel like the reason she was the one doing the lecture instead of literally just sending Mifuyu was because she recognized Team Mikazuki as a possible threat and specifically did not like Iroha, which was also why she lied. The one and only thing Touka lied about in her lecture: Iroha asked where Nemu was, Touka said they parted ways after being discharged. Blatant gigantic lie. And seriously, the only reason she'd have to lie about that and in that specific way would be to protect Nemu. At that point, Iroha and her team have wiped out a handful of uwasa, so she must have known. But yes, this is not at all how she really feels or what she really thinks. This is just another mask (I will talk about Touka's plastic smile and Nemu's poker face ANOTHER TIME). Because she needs to nip any aspirations Iroha may have in the bud, hopefully recruit more Feathers, and neutralize the threat that is Team Mikazuki.

What happens just as she's starting to go off the deep end? How convenient, it seems Yachiyo and Iroha have spent a good amount of their time destroying uwasa, thus wasting Nemu's repeated sacrifices, and forcing her to make more in order to meet their energy quota. Honestly, who wouldn't be losing it, at that point? So close to salvation, so close to freedom, so close to being done. And they're ruining not only the plan but also everything it means for her and the person she loves most. When you really think about it, Touka's mental health was, forgive the crude language, IN DEEP SHIT throughout Arc 1. Not that it was great before or that it improved too much after, but yeah, I do believe people do not give this enough thought.

Finally, with all of this in mind, as for the topic of this rant being Touka's levels of vulnerability as a Magius... There were none. She had no choice. At first it was fine. At first, before the gears turned too fast to stop, she could deal with it. She could confide in Nemu, even a little bit in Alina or Mifuyu (though not much), but it got worse and worse. Mifuyu was clearly blind to all of this the entire time (she, much like everyone other than Touka, didn't seem to care that Nemu had to give up her life force for each uwasa, and if you disagree I will point out the scene at the end of Mifuyu's MGS as one of my more than five pieces of evidence). Alina likely didn't care enough, and Nemu was probably too exhausted, although the concern must've been there. In summary, Magius Touka stands alone in her mind, and with her mind. Arc 1 was practically a descent into madness for her. When you start thinking about things from Touka's perspective, you start to see how abysmal her mental health was.

As part of my conclusion I'd like to say that honestly, it makes sense why she gave off the feeling of being lost for a decent chunk of... everything after Arc 1. What is she supposed to do without a purpose? What is she supposed to do without anything or anyone to tell her what she is and who she is? Not to mention the fucking ton of bricks to her face that must've been getting her memories back. I do not know how she didn't break. I legitimately do not know how she survived. During that little "lost" stage she had, I got the feeling she'd relapse back to her suicidal tendencies. It was... less "a feeling" and more "exactly what canon did", it's just slightly (badly) disguised.

ANYWAY. What I mean is that the children are complex and I ask everyone to have more respect and more compassion for them. I will be back with more about the performer and her backstage, hopefully in a more organized format.

#nishiposting #magia record #touka satomi #she's a baby cactus sir #idk if I should tag anything or anyone else?#uhhh #essay #yeah sure that'll do so I can find them later

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acoldsovereign · 2 months

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CONNECTIONS & CONTINUNITY.

Maiz has one future-- one where she dies horrifically. Or, she used to have only one. Decisions taken fracture her true, 'original' ending. Now, she is either doomed to live out her own personal dark, bleak future or avoid it altogether (--or to varying degrees, anyway).

MAIN VERSE (Z to Super):

Maiz makes her debut appearance Pre/During the Cell Games. Some 'space' months after the events of Broly -- The Legendary Super Saiyan, she touches down on some unnamed planet for resources, and ends up finding a frozen corpse. At first she thinks about passing it over (and does), but one of her slaves-- a Kokytan, alerts her to a thought/'feeling' they picked up: 'Pain. It hurts.'

The corpse is NOT a corpse.

Curiosity gets the better of her and she decides to bring it back to her ship for further studying. Through testing, she finds out this is a Saiyan body and drops everything to tend to him. Nursing him back to health, Broly is canonically the first survivor she ever sees since the Genocide. This also is the first time in-story she displays altruistic behavior. They eventually bond over time and become friends of the murdering kind. (Broly mentioned here is Kuro's/ @gazelessmenagerie).

Between the Discovery/Recovery of Broly and the last arc of Z, seven years have passed. Maiz at some point returns to the far reaches of outer space to continue her business; maintaining and seeking expansion of her twelve planet-empire. She officially touches down on Earth, and takes issue with the shape of the Race therein; Earthlings. She finds their mortal shells (which are remarkably similar to Saiyans) as a serious affront to her, and makes it a point to punish them for it. The majority of her exploits in-story takes place near Buu Saga and onwards:

Encountering and fighting an alternate Future Gohan that survived 17 & 18 (@likeadragcn).

Encountering, fighting and crushing on Future Trunks (@hopefromadoomedtimeline) In one scenario, he's successful in killing her but falls himself some time later and goes to visit her in Hell with King Yemma's permission.

Encountering Goku Black, allying herself with him and befriending him (@roseplendence) Other things happen. Several things happen, one of which leads her to meet Hearts (@clairvoyantcubes ) .She ... dislikes Hearts.

Encountering, fighting and eventually becoming engaged to/later marrying Future Trunks. (@peoplcshope).

Encountering, antagonizing/instigating a fight with Adult!Gohan, and being a general menace to him because his reactions are funny. (@n3rdb0x).

Encountering Vegeta and slowly bonding with him over lost culture/befriending him, encountering Turles and teaching him the old variant of the Saiyan language, encountering Granolah and antagonizing him about his Saiyan trauma when she finds out about it (@dragvnsovl).

Encountering, trying to and FAILING to antagonize Son Goku but ends up fighting him anyway (@age736).

And so on.

NOTE: Some of the verses detailed above (like the one concerning Broly) may or may not share loose/soft continuity or commonalities with each other! For example:

Z ERA:

The Maiz that fights Future Gohan (in the present timeline) is similar to the one that antagonizes Present/Adult!Gohan. The point of canon divergence is her personality. The version of Maiz that fought his future variant was colder and harsher; she was new to the planet. In fact, this interaction is the origin story for why she despises and loathes humanity (and Earth) so much. Maiz is emotionally and physically aggressive, abrasive, and dismissive of all things not immediately entertaining or interesting to her. In the second scenario, she's visited the planet multiple times but still loathes it with a fiery passion. Present Gohan is unfortunately a victim that was in the wrong place at the wrong time as this version of Maiz has picked up the habit of choosing people (humans, specifically) at random to antagonize/'learn about'. Any and all curiosity she has surrounding Earthlings are malicious in nature.

The version of Maiz that crushes on Thane's Trunks is the one that finds out where Yusuke Urameshi (@thuganomxcs) lives by stalking him. Hilariously enough, it's the same, exact Maiz-- the condescension, the violence, the sadism, aggression and egotism. The only divergence is who she chooses (which affects how she develops). The verse where she's with Yusuke instead is a derivative of this one; she only targeted him because she found out he was an ally or friend and aimed to torture or kill him to get to Trunks. (In actuality, all Trunks did was a pick up job for him, begging the question of how exactly she came about this information in the first place).

Six months later after she failed to get a rise out of Yusuke via banter, her response was to burn his house down and kill sixteen people. When that failed, she resorted to physical violence, concluding he wasn't completely human, because his lack of 'proper' responses to her were odd. She was proven correct. With her new goal of torturing Yusuke in mind, she picked up an Earthling contact to teach her his native dialect. They're still heavily unhealthy towards each other five months later; she's eaten parts of his flesh and drank some of his blood. He encourages her behavior while teasing her (and recently gifted her some of his flesh willingly). Oddly enough, he thinks her violence and unwarranted aggression towards him is attractive whilst she's become accustomed to his voice. This is the first time in-story Maiz has developed any type of sexual masochism.**

**Maiz's budding lean towards verbal degradation applies to Yusuke, only.

Also Trunks, in-story, was the first person Maiz grew romantically attracted to since the Genocide. Her deeper feelings escape self-reflection initially but she's becoming aware something is wrong. They've been enemies ever since they laid eyes on each other, they've been fighting ever since-- and yet, at some point she's shown different sides of herself. A side that knows mercy, a side that knows when to give him a break, one that honors (or remembers) rest. A side that knows jokes and humor-- and gasp!-- she has a flirtatious aspect. A side that remembers Bardock. She does not like what's happening but subconsciously wants him to reciprocate and will not take things well if he doesn't. Their 'relationship', if it could be called that, is complicated by many things; Trunks' moral compass, Maiz's lack of transparency and control issues, miscommunication on both sides and the lack of understanding of who the other really is or could be under the right circumstances.

The tragedy of this romance (if not addressed) leads to a scenario where she dies by Trunks' hands after 11 months of fighting/meeting him. In that verse, they're finally able to make up and talk to each other normally but not at first; Maiz is despondent, reclusive, silent. It's . . . not pleasant to see. After six years of staring at nothing in Hell, she talks to him-- finally remembering how to speak. Even worse, she holds no remorse for all the lives and homes she's destroyed. Unbeknownst to her, this is now fine with him. He doesn't care-- he doesn't have to. He's dead and has no moral obligation to uphold anymore.

The Maiz that meets Goku at the End of Z is disconnected from all other storylines, as are the ones that antagonize Granolah, the Maiz that meets Vegeta and so on.

SUPER ERA:

Maiz is focused on figuring out the secrets of aging to prevent it. She's close to 70, and will start showing her chronical age/her body will start to decline when she hits her 90s or 100s.

This quest for cellular dominance brings her to Black's doorstep. Err, his backyard actually-- and at night. The two are rather cordial and polite all things considered. It's not hard to see why they get along so well so quickly. Seizing his chance to learn more about his body, Black assumes the identity of a "low class Saiyan who was sent off planet" to gain her trust. Fortunately, it works. He is unaware that Maiz is very accepting-- she doesn't once ask why his Super Saiyan state is pink nor why he's like that all the time. Like with Thane's Trunks, she just assumed he was an atypical Saiyan with strange traits. These two bond, and in-story, he's her first friend and confidant, as well as the first healthy relationship she ever has. The base is not violence but one of mutual understanding, respect and civility-- this is because she sought help for her issues when she first suspected something was wrong with her. At first she thought it was a heart issue and so, sought a doctor. Hearts was who she found. It was a heart issue, but not the one she thought. She returns to Black some time later and is glad their bond has not only stayed intact but has grown stronger. They continue their occasional killing sprees on other planets (which eventually crawls into a slow stop due to lack of challenges and other reasons), tea outings and other mundane and not-so-mundane activities. He learns he's capable of caring for someone in that manner and she learns emotional honesty and patience when it comes to him. He's not well-versed in relationships for a reason . . .

This version of Maiz and Trunks (played by Jay) starts off a lot more violently and suddenly. The Maiz depicted here and the relationship itself could be a considered an extreme canon divergence of the Z version. Trunks is post Super instead of Pre Super/Post-Dabura/Dabura Era. He's also a Time Patroller. Maiz doesn't go looking for him-- he brings the fight to her. He has to. If he does not, Earth dies in a cold/heated space war between Universes 6 and 7.

Further differences are: They do not meet on Earth but on other planets. She doesn't know him, doesn't take him seriously, nor does she want to get to know him. Dislike of the other is mutual and strong, so much so that Maiz actually is trying to kill him from the start and is surprised when he doesn't die. Trunks can heal himself to a great extent but he's no Dende. Regardless, Maiz is PISSED when she witnesses him do it in front of her. She breaks a couple of his ribs with a kick for being 'dishonest'. The fighting stretches out over eight months. Both parties are tired of the other and try to end things. Doesn't work, but names are exchanged finally. Maiz is annoyed but curious about him. Eleven months later, same thing-- he discloses he's a Saiyan and his occupation, but leaves out he's only half. She's confused by his moral alignment but welcomes the fight all the same. Less annoyed by him and more curious, Maiz learns in-story to fight up close instead of constantly flinging and hitting him away. He's gotten stronger and yet, Maiz has some sort of advantage-- she's older and more battle experienced than him. The gap IS starting to close, however. He can feel it. It's not until two years later that things come to a head. The full fruits of his labor show-- he's not getting launched or pushed away so easily, and he's able to withstand her cold. Without realizing it, she's trained and conditioned him to be a tank. She's become more analytical and ruthless as well, going as far as to actually look forward to their fights. This was supposed to be the last one because as fun as it was, she couldn't neglect her planets for the thrill of killing one man. It was supposed to be the end. So why did they did end up sleeping with each other in Earth's freezing Tundras? Because she saw Bardock in him.

#Ship Dynamics: You're Lucky to Have Me #{{ Don't be like Tina. Have all your RP notes out and done before you start roleplaying..... 😭 the fact I had to condense so much-#{{IN ONE POST is insane. dear kami I'm never doing this ding a ling shit ever again my GOSH.#{{ I purposely left some details out but this is the gist of her major personal developments-- *holds Maiz up* i think she's neat. :3 #Domestic violence mention #domestic violence tw #violence tw

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teaveetamer · 10 months

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i read through a lot of your analyses and i still can't tell what some of your stances are, but i just wanted to know how much you agree with my own stances on edelgard and dimitri/3H.

3H is obviously not a well thought-out political treatise on the ramifications of war and different styles of political change. it just isn't. it ends far too quickly and is too simplistic to ever be anything similar.

what 3H is incredible at is character writing. this is why i simply don't understand why people "hate" edelgard OR dimitri. neither of these people are saints. they've both done horrific things. but they both portray trauma in such fascinating and complex ways that you rarely see in videogames. the parallels they have and the way they see the world are just so compelling to me that i actually avoid finishing CF/SS/AM because it always leaves me feeling so emotional afterward and sometimes i just want a nice comfort game.

that being said, i do take issue with the way dimitri's arc resolves. i think it's extremely unrealistic how he just "snapped out" of his intense mental problems. as someone who has also struggled with mental health, it's a very slow process and often it feels like one step forward, two steps back. i wish that they had left his recovery a lot more incomplete, or that the game had lasted longer so his recovery felt more organic.

this is why i prefer edelgard purely as a character because i think the way she represses her emotions completely and is slowly corrupted by her inability to trust or love herself is a story that makes a lot more sense to me.

I'm not sure in which respects my stances are unclear, but I'm always happy to clarify if you just ask! Keep in mind that this blog is like three years old at this point so if you go back far enough you'll probably find contradicting things, as my opinions have developed and changed over the years. So if that's the problem just assume the most recent stuff is the most accurate.

I will say that while 3H can have some very good character moments, I also think it's incredibly disappointing in a lot of ways. The plot, writing, and worldbuilding being so messy just doesn't give the characters a good foundation to stand on, so character moments often come across extremely hollow to me.

I could name countless examples but I think the most obvious one that everyone picks up on is Gronder Field. First, we're told that this is extremely sad and difficult for all of the characters involved, despite never or almost never seeing the students from different houses interact with each other at any point during the main story. If you don't recruit then it's entirely possible to go the entire Academy portion of the game without seeing a single cross-house interaction beyond the house leaders.

They all point to the feast they had after the battle of Eagle and Lion in the Academy part, but that happens entirely off screen. It's not even really described beyond "it was fun" and "we were all sitting together". Emblem Claude in Engage gives a better idea of what happened there than 3H ever does. A piece of DLC for a completely different game in the series describes what is supposed to be a key interaction better than the game it was actually from!

And then you actually get there and it's contrived AF. There's literally no reason for the BL and GD to be fighting each other at any point but they all kill each other anyway. There's no fog of war. Characters will even recognize each other before they fight and then continue fighting each other anyways despite having absolutely no reason to?

And then it just ends and we're all told to feel very sad about it, but why should we? It's not earned. These characters don't know each other or care about each other, most of them weren't even on opposite sides. It comes across as feeling dumb and unearned, which makes the characters reacting to it completely 100% straight as if it were this huge but unavoidable tragedy come off as confusing and overwrought.

Edelgard's writing as an entire other can of worms that I've gotten into too many times to count, so I'll try to keep this short.

I'll preface this by saying I don't have a problem with people liking or relating to Edelgard in any way. Also, just because something has problems doesn't mean you can't have found meaning in it. I can tell you really enjoy the character anon, and that's great! I wouldn't want to take that away from you.

Buuuuuut since I'm giving my opinion here... I don't agree with her being a well written depiction of trauma. I feel like, especially now, the fandom tends to engage with the Edelgard we all wanted instead of the one we actually got.

Again I'll use a specific example (well actually two) to illustrate my point.

It's hard to take her trauma seriously when it's immediately undercut by her doodling pictures of her crush, getting embarrassed about it, and getting teased. This happens twice. They do this twice! Once in the explore section immediately after Ladislava and Randolph literally die right in front of her, and once after you could have potentially killed Claude and she's talking about being locked in a fucking dungeon!

Like it blows my mind that more people don't talk about this, especially the latter example. You have just potentially killed someone. She's sitting there. Talking about being locked in a dungeon, tortured, and experimented on. And then your character's reaction is to tease her for doodling a picture of you. And they did this two times, so it's not like it was an accident!

So like how am I supposed to read this, exactly? Either the entire scene is bunk and you're not really meant to take the trauma portion seriously, it's all just a big joke, or... or you're supposed to find teasing someone going through a genuine trauma response endearing and enjoyable..? It's just. I've been looking at this scene and the numerous other Edelgard scenes like it and I just don't get there. I don't understand how to read this in a way that isn't incredibly belittling or sexist or SEVERELY undercutting what should be a serious character moment.

But people want it to be this serious, well-written character moment for her. I don't blame anyone for that, because that's what I would have wanted too! But it's just... it's so crazy disrespectful on every level, to treat a female character's trauma like it's a funny quirk or an opportunity to flirt/tease? I can damn well guarantee that no male character would be treated with that amount of disrespect, and we know that because Dimitri exists and at no point is his trauma ever played for a joke or undercut like this! It's not perfectly written, but it's written with respect to the subject and the character.

There's an absurd degree of sexism baked into the writing of 3H that just doesn't get addressed by the fandom at large, so I kind of find it frustrating.

And worse, sometimes when you try to engage with that and critique it you're shouted down or treated as if you are the problem, like I somehow spoke the sexism of the game into existence just by pointing it out.

I could go on but I'll cut myself off here

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fairytalk · 7 months

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Hiro Mashima’s deplorable shtick

Topic of today: Wendy Marvell and Rule 34

As we know Wendy is a main cast member in fairy tail. She is frequently posted with Team Natsu and treated as an icon, which in itself is not a problem. The main issue arises from the publicity that comes with the trope of being an older character while still having the appearance of an underage child. Wendy canonically speaking is 400 years old, which is why artist including Mashima and Ueda get away with fetishizing her character. This gives other artists the ok to draw her under rule 34 soliciting her in a sexual nature. Mavis vermilion is in a similar predicament of age dysmorphia, the difference being that Mavis does not age but is treated like the much older wiser person that she is even as an apparition. Wendy however does age, but still has a youthful appearance because of the time bubble. She just doesn’t get treated the same way Mavis does because it isn’t clear that Wendy is from a relative time period and isn’t a spirit like Mavis. In the beginning Wendy was posted as being only twelve years old and was treated as such, from her appearance to other characters treating her as if she were the younger naive sister. Comments are thrown around about her growing into her clothes, or protecting her sight and hearing from mature situations such as; loke talking about sex, nudity of numerous characters, and even just talking about being in the same bed. They allow her to drink alcohol after all the fuss of protecting her “innocence”, but when things start to pick up in battle she is treated as a full fledged adult again . She deals with healing the heavily injured or fending off enemies that are triple in size compared to her physically small stature. Which in continuously being mocked and pointed out. Speaking of her stature, one of Mashimas infamous gags is to write about her chest size. It does nothing to drive the plot and even if it is a joke it comes off as creepy and derogatory. In one instillation of this moment about her being young and small during the Tartaros arc, pedophilic implications of Mest Gryder ( come on even his name feels like an arbitrary choice) being interested in young women appears as the main cast is shrunken down from a spell that was cast on Erza. He is blushing and appears during the statement of Jellal saying he is ‘not interested in little girls.’ This moment is also backed up by Mest being flustered again (during the Alvarez arc) while he sees Wendy and Carla helping children find there parents. He refers to her as an “angel”. It’s not set evidence of him enacting on any of his strange behavior but it is clear that Mashima used these moments as some nasty satire to make light on a serious topic like pedophilia, only for him to cover it up as if Mest and Wendy have a friendly close relationship, when really Mests subplot relied on him gaining his memories back after being inclined to erase them. Wendy being the one to help him get accepted back into the guild. It pushes the line between friendly admiration and uncomfortable attraction.

It is conclusive that Mashima should have the resources to help him write better story plots, he has bitten off more than he can chew coming up with Edenz zero, Ft100yq, illustrating characters for a game, as well as the recently released manga Dead Rock. Fairy tail is probably his most well known work and what boosted his career after Rave master. It deserves a better conclusion and more care and consideration put into the characters he created. It would not only lessen his workload, it would also help refresh the characters that we would like to see elaborated on considering they are important to his story.

#fairy tail #wendy marvell #ft100yq #team natsu #mest gryder #rambles

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scruffyplayssonic · 1 year

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Are the ArchieSonic comics actually an 80's/90's syndicated cartoon? Episode 40: The one episode that's unique to the show's premise and characters (part 4: Spark of Life)

Welcome back to my look at the ArchieSonic comic series, and how it shared a lot of the same story tropes as a typical ‘80s or ‘90s syndicated cartoon. Today I have one last story arc I want to look at for the “episode that’s unique to the show’s premise or characters,” category. It’s the fan-favourite story arc Spark of Life, published in Sonic Universe #71 - 74!

Taking place during the Shattered World crisis adapting Sonic Unleashed post-reboot, Spark of Life saw Sally, Nicole, Tails and Big travel to Isolated Island (from Knuckles’ Chaotix) to answer a digital distress call from Nicole’s creator, Dr Ellidy. Venturing into the digital world, Nicole discovered Dr. Ellidy was being threatened by a rogue A.I. that was interfering with the reprogrammed badniks Ellidy had turned into his housekeepers, and which also tried to get its hands on Ellidy himself when he digitised himself to investigate the problem in Cyberspace. Combined with the continuing threat of the Dark Gaia monsters appearing at night and a shocking revelation about Nicole’s origins, the Freedom Fighters had a lot on their plates for this story.

Spark of Life is one of only a handful of stories written by Aleah Baker (with Aleah writing the script based on her husband Ian Flynn’s plot). Aleah regularly contributed to ArchieSonic for years by doing character designs, colouring, and working on the letter pages’ gag strip, Off Panel, as well as writing a number of stories for the post-reboot era. As well as Spark of Life, this includes the stories Light in the Dark in Sonic #260 - 262, Consequences in Sonic #263, Hidden Costs in Sonic #277 - 279, The Case of the Pirate Princess in Sonic Universe #91 - 94, and Knuckles vs. Break Man in Sonic: Worlds Unite Battles #1. Aleah has unfortunately not been able to write for IDW Sonic yet due to poor health, although last year she did colour an absolutely gorgeous cover for issue #50. I’m sure that I speak for all of us when I wish her all the best and hope that she gets better..

So what makes Spark of Life so special? Well a lot of it has to do with Nicole, and the relationships she has in this arc. By the time of this story Nicole had come a long way from the talking handheld computer she was first introduced as, developing into a real person with feelings, hopes, and dreams. Nicole and her development as a character was a large part of the Iron Dominion arc and its aftermath, but that was partially lost after the comic was rebooted and the Freedom Fighters’ backstories were all rewritten to be similar to the old canon but different enough to be distinguishable. Nicole’s awakening as a sentient being is shown as a flashback in this story, and it’s very similar to how it was pre-reboot, with Nicole creating a hard-light holographic avatar for herself and stargazing with Sally.

But how she got to that point was the big difference, as this time she didn’t have wacky body-swap shenanigans with Sally. She also wasn’t sent back in time to be Sally’s friend by a future Rotor - instead she was given to a young Sally as a present by Dr Ellidy. But it’s only during the events of this story that we find out why Dr Ellidy created Nicole in the first place.

Nicole was actually a failed attempt at creating a digital existence for his daughter Nikki, who was dying of a chronic disease. The idea was that he would be able to preserve Nikki’s mind in the digital world, but all he was able to create before Nikki passed was an A.I. that seemed emotionless and did not have any sense of identity or personality. Heartbroken, Dr. Ellidy decided to leave Mobotropolis and retire to Isolated Island, leaving the AI (now named Nicole by King Nigel) with Sally as a gift. However Dr. Ellidy was apparently more successful than he realised, as over time Nicole developed into an actual person - going from JARVIS to Vision, if you like. Dr. Ellidy lived up to the name of his new home and stayed isolated from the rest of the world for the most part, although he would occasionally make contact with the Kingdom such as when he sent Sally the ring blades that had become a part of her new design post-reboot. But Dr Ellidy wasn’t aware of how much Nicole had grown over the years and so he was naturally shocked when she came to his rescue in the digital world, and harboured some resentment towards her because she reminded him of Nikki.

The other main relationship that was focused on in this story was that of Nicole and Sally, as this issue was the first step on the road for the two of them becoming a couple. More like Spark of Romance, amirite?

…

…anyway! It was subtle and sadly not able to be followed up on before the series was cancelled, but the seeds of the romance that was supposed to come were there. With Sally, we got to see that she cared about Nicole very deeply and was very upset by how Dr Ellidy was treating her as if she were not a real person.

And for Nicole we got to see some character growth for her, as she started out chastising Sally for putting herself at risk at the beginning of the story but later realised she would do the exact same thing for her.

Nicole totally had an, “Oh… she just like me. She just like me FR!” moment there!

Aside from Nicole and how the other characters relate to her, there’s a lot of other great stuff in this story. Another one of my favourite moments from all of ArchieSonic is this incredibly wholesome talk that Sally and Big had.

In this house we stan Big the Cat. I'd go to him if I needed someone to talk about girls with too!

We also were introduced to Phage, the afore-mentioned malicious AI making everyone’s lives difficult.

Phage was a very curious AI who was fascinated by what she did not understand, and had an interesting speech pattern which indicates she may have assimilated a thesaurus at some point. We didn’t find out her whole story at this time, but we did discover that she was created by Eggman and seemed to be looking for a way to get back in his good graces. After Nicole foiled her first attempt on Dr Ellidy, Phage took Nicole hostage instead and demanded that the Freedom Fighters bring her the red star ring and the chaos emerald hidden on the island.

Speaking of, red star rings now became a thing!

While they had technically been introduced the previous year in the Sonic Super Special Magazine, that was only in a five page story of dubious canonicity adapting the mobile game Sonic Dash, and the red star rings hadn’t been seen again since. This story served as their proper introduction, with Dr Ellidy explaining that the island’s Lake of Rings had one day created this instead of the usual standard rings and that he had been researching the increased power it generated compared to them. It was later revealed that the reason the Lake of Rings had started producing red star rings was because a chaos emerald had landed in it.

The best (and most unexpected) thing about the red star rings though is that they granted Nicole a super form!

But if SEGA asks, it’s not a super form, okay? It’s an overclocked form. Totally different. ;)

Dr Ellidy later gave both of the red star rings he’d obtained to Nicole as an olive branch, showing that he did actually want to have an ongoing friendship with her despite how the painful way she reminded him of his lost daughter. It was a nice gesture.

And the last thing I’d like to talk about in Spark of Life is the location. It was really neat to see the Knuckles’ Chaotix game get a shoutout in this way. It’s one of the classic games that is often overlooked (it doesn’t help that unlike most of the classic era games it has never been ported to modern consoles), and considering how different the modern Chaotix are to their classic counterparts, it’s hard to say whether it’s even canon any more. So for a long-time Sonic nerd like myself, it was nice to see it get this kind of representation. We get to see some of the badniks from the game and also the sling-rings, which actually make sense to be in this story.

This is in contrast to the pre-reboot adaptation of Knuckles’ Chaotix where they just came out of nowhere. Dr Ellidy was explained to be a scientist who was researching ring technology and had actually created them (presumably Knuckles and the Chaotix came across them during the events of that game and used them to get around the island). Considering the sling-rings were Chekov’s gun-ed early in the story, it felt a lot more natural for Sally and Nicole to use them against Phage than the way the Chaotix adaptation just jammed them into the story without any setup.

So those are my four choices for most unique story arcs of ArchieSonic: Mike Gallagher’s Mecha Madness, Karl Bollers’ Return to Angel Island, Ian Flynn’s Iron Dominion, and Aleah Baker’s Spark of Life. I’d also like to shout out a couple of other Ian Flynn stories I considered for this category, but that didn’t quite make the cut:

#1: Enerjak Reborn. Ian gets his hands on Ken Penders’ echidna mythos, and like Karl Bollers before him, puts his own spin on it. Also like Karl Bollers before him, he really pisses Ken Penders off in doing so. xD

#2: The Tails Adventure. A very unexpected adaptation of the Game Gear game of the same name, introducing the Battlebird Armada! Tails takes Antoine and Bunnie to Cocoa Island for their long overdue honeymoon and hijinks ensue.

#3: Scrambled. It’s the big showdown between Snively and Eggman! With interesting cameos from the Egg Bosses and Omega, the introduction of Orbot and Cubot, and the long awaited return of the Iron Queen!

#4: Champions. A Sonic the Fighters adaptation in the middle of a Sonic Unleashed adaptation! Reintroducing a bunch of characters from the Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon! Only Ian Flynn would be so bold!

youtube

Well as much fun as it’s been writing for this topic, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved to be moving on to some shorter topics now. Hopefully this’ll mean there’s a shorter wait for you between posts too (but I am rather preoccupied trying to find a new home, so no promises).

Next time I’ll be looking at episode 41 of our theoretical 65 episode syndicated cartoon: “Recap the origin story in yet another clip show.” See you next time!

#archiesonic syndicated #Youtube

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haircoveredwriter · 7 months

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Episode 1x04 thoughts

This episode wasn't one of my favorites, not horrible, a decent episode in itself but it felt as though it fell prey to a few of the issues similar ones in s11 of TWD did. I'll get in to those later but first we'll put the usual page break for those who don't want any spoilers.

First the aspects I did enjoy:

After taking a swim in walker-infested waters post his ceiling crash like a drunk Mary Poppins (you're welcome for the reference lol), Daryl strolls through Paris trying to get his bearings and comes to see an older couple inside a house, having tea (perhaps). The woman caresses the side of the man's face across the table which causes Daryl to pause, appearing to be lost in reflection before looking down briefly lost in a memory, only moving on once the nearness of walkers is apparent. Now who is the only person/woman who Daryl has ever stroked the face of/had his face stroked by?? I'll give you 3 guesses but anyone with a brain doesn't need that many and in case you've been living under a rock, please refer to my previous precious gifs post.

Later we get to see Daryl-of-old while he's beating a prisoner he and Isabelle took in hopes of finding Laurent. Having him go back to his early TWD season story-telling ways was lovely while also mixing it with the depraved Dixon he learnt to be from his upbringing meshed very well. (Basically Daryl wanted to create his own R-rated version of "Babe"). He must have read some anatomy books over the years to know where to cause the most damage without hitting vital organs.

Fallou's group using Molotov cocktails during their assault on Quinn's place is something I've been waiting for someone to do in the ZA! Like, seriously! Who wouldn't be using mini firebombs at this point when supplies are low and it keeps you at a distance from your opponent? It's just good sense imo.

Norman and the show itself did a very good job again pointing out that there is nothing going on shippy-wise between Daryl and Isabelle. (I know many a worried about it but there was nothing there from my standpoint) Daryl looked honestly uncomfortable when Isabelle hugged him, returning it lightly after a beat or two but happy to break away to continue looking at anything else afterwards. We also got Isabelle's own words that she has no romantic feelings for Daryl but simply concern for his wellbeing. When you watch the scene, they have Sylvie asking (a young girl who only now has her first ever crush but knows nothing of love) who is not equipped enough in life to be able to discern anything different.

Daryl's expression looking at the mini Statue of Liberty made me smile as well. Knowing he's getting closer to getting home, no matter what other tasks people throw at him, and getting back to his person would make anyone happy.

Overall the episode sets up the plot for the remaining 2 installments, getting us where we need to be for certain other aspects to take place. (Gonna let that be for the moment until the next ones drop 😉)

What I didn't like:

The pacing seemed quite slow and the story arc pretty much went in a circle, finally reaching an end point which we realistically could have gotten in 10 mins of another ep. Several points of the episode felt contrived just to fill up space before they could move on to a main bullet point in the story. (This was my main issue with a fair number of s11 TWD eps).

Isabelle's lack of any fighting skill is really getting on my nerves. How has she survived this long? The answer is probably by making things up and having others protect her/do her dirty work and other not so nice things so I'll relent. I haven't seen worse stabby abilities since early on in TWD ... again, yes I am not gonna say anything if I can't say anything nice.

Why'd they do pigeon man like that?!😒

Genet is equally as concerned about finding a man who blew a hole in her years-long-prepped boat as she is a kid who gives people hope? Mmmkay.

Regardless of it all I am excited for next week. It's gonna be great. Trust me.

#twd #twd: daryl dixon #daryl dixion #twd spoilers #caryl #caryl is coming #carol loves daryl #daryl loves carol

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claire-starsword · 9 months

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Shining Force 2 Pre-release Coverage

Post on the first game here

Let’s continue our deep dive on old magazines. Again most of my info here are from the Beep! Megadrive magazine, but I did manage to find some footage from old Sega videos as well.

For context again, the game released in Japan on October 1993.

June 1993

Unlike the first game, which showed very few regions during pre release, this one is eager to show a bunch of new places, probably because it can’t generate hype about a unique battle system anymore. Bowie and a parade of peculiar placeholders take a good tour around the continent.

Save for the wall decoration and possibly the colors, it’s hard to judge on print, New Granseal’s castle is pretty much the final version. Same for Arc Valley's escher-like dungeon, as the magazine puts it.

Volcanon’s shrine is also here, and the magazine claims to have seen “a huge monster” on the top of the shrine, so Volcanon is likely already there as well. They wonder if it could be a boss but I think it’s just baseless speculation since it’s clearly not a battle scene, and little story was revealed at this point.

The monument looks wack, the shop signs are huge, and doors are different, but otherwise Hassan looks very close to the final version.

Bedoe is dark, that particular torch is also not in the final version, although there are torches in the town. Would be a pain in the ass to navigate, but might be just a test of the dark effect.

HQ already has the same vibe, but lots of different details, like different tables, cups and flowers vases on them, no stone walls, etc.

But enough of that, let’s stop pretending the Placeholder Force isn’t the wackiest and most amusing thing in these screenshots. What do we have there.

Bowie seems mostly complete, which makes sense as I’ll show in a second that his design was already announced. There are still a couple differences though, his clothes are blue instead of white and his cape has a golden line. His design might have been quickly revised at some point?

There’s a bunny girl NPC. Because of course the first thing these devs hopped to make was a bunny girl NPC. I’m actually more shocked that they did not keep her. Also I’m saying NPC with some certainty because as you can see comparing with Bowie, playable characters tend to have one less pixel between the eyes. So I don’t think she’s a scrapped character or anything.

Mae is here! Because of course it makes sense to use a character from the previous game as placeholder. As opposed to, you know, drawing a whole bunny girl. Her lower body was recolored to orange/yellow for some reason though.

There’s a wyvern sprite that does make it to the final game as an enemy. Curiously that shot of New Granseal shows more wyverns flying around as well. It makes no sense to use flying placeholders for the soldiers that should be there, so I wonder if there were supposed to be birds flying in the scenario or something, it would be neat.

There’s a cute little girl NPC with twintails who sadly didn’t make it. I don’t have anything to say about this.

Finally, true nerds like me fans of this blog will have certainly recognized the warrior sprite as an unused sprite from the first game:

From the side however, it was clearly edited, the helmet losing detail, getting shorter horns, and the whole guy getting shorter as well. My theory is that this guy was on the process of becoming this:

and maybe later Jaha, as this NPC is already very similar to him, and his design was already announced as well. In fact, that’s what we’ll talk about next. Besides these screenshots, there are four characters introduced in this article.

This kid is the protagonist!?

He is the protagonist who will represent you and travel through the world of Shining Force II. It seems he lives in the castle town of Granseal, but has no adventuring experience yet. From here on the both of you will have an exciting journey together!

The princess of Granseal!?

The princess of the country of Granseal, where the protagonist lives. She seems to be the main female character for Shining Force II. Her long hair and beautiful dress are nice. How will she get involved with the protagonist? We look forward to see it.

Jaha

“We’re the side characters!?“

Wielding a huge axe, he’s a bad influence for the protagonist, and a hobbit warrior. Just like the protagonist, he’s still in training and has no adventuring experience. Really bad at studying in school.

Slade

The greatest thief in Granseal. He shares the stolen treasures with poor people. Clearly a kind of Nezumi Kozo.

As the link above says, Nezumi Kozo (rat brat) is the nickname of a japanese thief who later became a kind of Robin Hood-esque folk hero as it was assumed he helped the poor as well with his crimes, and also apparently never hurt a victim. There’s an obvious inspiration here.

Producer Hiroyuki Takakashi doesn’t reveal much of the story at this point, only that it will be a different continent than the first game, and also have more events happening one after another unlike SF. He also says that there would be battles different than the army vs. army setting of SF. There are also talks of how certain details of the system and graphics were being reworked, and already talks of being able to choose between promotions, but it’s all very vague.

Later in this month, a demonstration of the game was presented at the Tokyo Toy Show. I couldn’t confirm it as there doesn’t seem to be a recording of it anywhere, but it’s likely a lot of the footage from here on is from that.

July 1993

Article opens up with an interview with the Takahashi brothers, but there’s not much to note. They mention being in the point of writing the game’s ending, and when asked about the presence of robots and such in the previous game, mention that while the Ancients are always a part of the Shining Series since SitD, this game would lean more into the fantasy vibes.

Also, up to this point, they had been working on both SF2 and Gaiden 2 at the same time. Gaiden 3 released in early July so from here on they’re free to focus on SF2. Or maybe not, because there’s already talks of a Gaiden 3 being planned. For better and for worse, these people could not stand still a second.

(To digress a bit, it’s also peculiar because the Final Conflict strategy guide mentions the game was originally planned for the Mega Drive. The Gaiden series was a Game Gear thing, so perhaps there was a whole different game being considered at this point which got shelved to make way for Final Conflict.)

Back to the topic, we get a few more screenshots with the Placeholder Force.

Most places seen like the final version, but this house/village in front of the ancient shrine was removed.

We then get pictures of what is likely a later build with more familiar characters being worked on.

The Caravan debuts, and we also finally get the first battle scenes.

Taros is already here as the most eye-catching part for the 90′s kids. I on the other hand am loving a lot more how the platform neatly informs you it is a test only. The UI also does not show the character’s class, even though it will in the final version.

And Luke is here! Except maybe not. His name onscreen says Nick. Obviously this could be an issue of them using the rename cheat, but that doesn’t happen for any other character in these pre release footages, and would be a bizarre move. It’s possibly a placeholder name derived from Sonic Co., (like Max is likely derived from Climax Entertainment, now you know). The interesting thing is that this sprite and its palettes in the final game don’t quite match Luke nor Skreech’s design, and Luke is also the only character to not get a sprite change upon promotion, so it’s easy to believe that was some delay or complication in finalizing these guys.

We also get a look at the Grans-Parmecia Shrine map, which is very much done as well. The monsters on the top however is frustrating me to no end because they look very familiar but I can’t remember where from. Anyway, definitely didn’t make it to this game at least.

We also get our first look at Sarah and Kazin, except Kazin is so cut off on this screen it’s not worth mentioning him now, there will be plenty of time to talk about Kazin later. Sarah on the other hand is easy to see, and she’s clearly not herself yet. Her outfit is what will become hers and Karna’s vicar outfit in the final version, but she also has a hat, which only the vicar battle sprite will have in the end.

It’s okay, she’s an important character so i’m sure they will sort this out in a timely manner. Anyway! We do see someone else there who is also from the starting gang and with a complete design. Chester’s design is indeed announced at this point, though with little character info. There’s also a small synopsis of the story by now, which is basically “Slade steals a treasure in the shrine and bad stuff begins to happen”. We then get a map of Parmecia.

I don’t think I’ve posted an official map of Parmecia before, so here it is for comparison. They do look pretty much the same already. Volcanon’s shrine is weirdly not marked in the map, but is mentioned in the text. Lemon and Creed’s names are mentioned as well.

August 1993

The article of this month explicitly mentions the Tokyo Toy Show so that’s nice for reference. While I couldn’t confirm it, by comparing the footage I also think this Sega video (the Shining Force part starts at the 6 minute mark) is from the same month, so I’ll be using footage from there as well.

The demo showed an early version of the jail cutscene with Slade. While the dialogue seems to be same as the final version, Sarah does not have her portrait nor her final sprite yet, and the other characters seem to be just following Bowie in line as opposed to having their own places in the cutscene. The old man NPC also has different colors, and there seems to be someone else in the room.

If you watch further in the footage you’ll see everyone keeps following Bowie, even hilariously clipping through walls at points. I’ve joked about it before but turns out I was right, they did put some good effort into coding the followers’ movement, because they might have intended to use it more, if not through the whole game.

Lemon’s sprite was not done at the time, and the event of the Galam army’s departure was likely simplified since the final version involves not only Lemon, but the king as well, who seems to have no placeholder here.

The Caravan scene is also shown, although using the dwarf village theme, and having Jaha instead of Peter. Given that it’s just one character as opposed to the big team you would have at this point, it’s possible he’s just standing in for Peter and not actually intended to be in the scene. The next one raises further questions though.

The Kraken scene is also shown, and the whole starting team is here. Slade’s text is very much in same vein as Oddler’s in the final version, warning everyone of the Kraken’s appearance, but it’s still different text, as Oddler speaks more politely, so this version was written for Slade himself, no placeholding.

It deeply hurts my heart to consider Slade was supposed to have a bigger role and got scrapped, though I feel I know why this happened. This series really likes to take its gameplay deaths seriously for some reason, and it would probably be too costly to constantly check which characters are alive and have alternate versions of a cutscene to adjust for that. That’s why the first game mostly has just Nova talking (though characters still show up for the ending at least). The Gaiden games go around this a bit more by reviving everyone at the start of every chapter and on endings, and also using characters who just joined the force in the cutscenes as they can’t have died already.

This game made Peter and Lemon, two immortal characters who carry most of the conversations from the moment they join alongside Astral. It also seems to delay some characters joining as playable characters for this reason. For example, Kazin is not playable through the path to Hawel’s house even though he’s following you, because he has to be alive for the cutscene there. Pretty much every instance of a character following you instead of joining the force seems to be because of this.

There are a few instances that show they might have considered other approaches though. There are numerous instances at the start of the game where characters revive automatically, since there’s a lot of dialogue with them. After the first battle, before the jail scene, upon leaving Grans Island, and during the one year timeskip. Of course, they all resurrect during the time Princess Elis is asleep in the ending as well. There’s also as far as I remember a single instance where you must have a particular character alive to progress, if Elric is dead he won’t open the passage to Creed’s mansion.

Of course, they might have felt that characters would have to be constantly revived for do more scenes with that, and it would ruin their game design, and it’s not intuitive to know that you must revive a particular someone to proceed, so they might just have scrapped this kind of plot. Still sucks given that it’s kind of a self imposed limitation, plenty of games just treat defeat in battle as different to death and let the characters take part in the story as needed. But alas, back on topic.

Plenty of other battle maps are shown, albeit with different enemies and different stats. A very minor detail is that the golem sprite has red eyes. In the final version they have green eyes except for Claude.

Sorcerer spells are in, although they don’t seem to be fully implemented yet, in the footage Kazin uses them through the attack command as opposed to an actual spell. Perhaps because of that it is also single target.

Speaking of Kazin, I did say we have to talk about him, now’s the time.

His sprite seems to be much like the final one, but blue. It is possible there are small differences though, because his staff, not in the final version, seems to use at least three colors besides black and white, when all final weapons in the game use only two. This is because the game loads the character and weapon colors into a single 16 color palette, so to have more colors in one you sacrifice colors of the other. Weapons in the first game did have three colors so this might be a leftover.

Small details for big nerds though, as I said the design is pretty much complete, including details like the bag and the feathers he carries around, which are less generic than I’d expect for a placeholder. Perhaps he already had a tentative design floating around.

More than that, the map sprite seen in all these pictures did make it to the final game. As his sorcerer sprite.

It looks nothing like the sorcerer design, so it’s easy to accept it was designed for something else. Let’s compare with the final mage sprite.

Hair changed to be spiky, but everything else is basically the same, including the green staff which matches his final artwork. It’s likely he had some concept art already around, though it wasn’t officially revealed so perhaps there was some intention of changing it. But it’s noticeable that he shows up in plenty of footage while nothing is seen of Sarah, who is not finalized either. He was at least further in the development.

The color thing is also interesting. Kazin does get to be blue as sorcerer, and also as wizard... in the map, and the game’s cover, a rare case of official illustration of a promotion. In battle however his sprite is brown. That palette, though? Is the last one set for the wizard sprite, even though he should be the first wizard. And the first palette for it? That’s right, blue. In the final version it is used for Chaz, who does have the exact same clothes but is the last wizard in the game. It would not surprise me if there was a swap at some point. And of course it makes sense to not use two blue palettes for the same sprite. The question is, why design the characters with the same colors then? I would love to get an answer.

September 1993

Signs of progress, every picture is this article is from a different build, since character classes now show up in the UI.

Sarah still does not have her map sprite.

Her battle sprite and finished design do finally show up in the next pages though, so they might have just not got to it at the time, even if it feels silly to me as map sprites are simpler, perhaps exactly because of that they weren’t top priority. Either way, it just feels wild to me when compared to how Chester and Jaha and even Kazin seem to have been done.

As for the actual point of the picture, that’s Bowie casting Freeze level 4. Normally I’d chalk this up to debugging shenanigans, as the first game and Gaiden I as well give the heroes extra spells in debug mode, but, that generally also comes with jacked stats including 99 MP. Bowie here is at max unpromoted level but his stats look normal.

For further consideration here’s another screenshot of him at level 4 knowing Egress and Blaze level 1. Everyone’s stats look normal so this looks like his actual intended progression. Also while drafting this post and having it blasted to oblivion because tumblr can’t save properly apparently, I realized this explains a bit of the wackiness when it comes to magic progression in this game. Did you know that the Kraken is weak to ice? Have fun trying to exploit that weakness. In the final game, you go a big stretch of the game without access to Freeze. If you promote Kazin to wizard and don’t pick Tyrin at Creed’s, you’re basically locked out of ice spells for most of the game, until you finally find Chaz. That always struck me as very weird, and I’m realizing now it might be because they might have stuck with magical Bowie here for a good time, and didn’t rebalance things when changing it.

Sarah debuts with a proper sprite for once.

Blue Kazin however remains undeterred. You might also notice his staff is switching colors weirdly during animation. I’ve had this problem on my first hacking attempts of the game due to not setting up proper Mega Drive colors, and it’s amusing me to no end that it happened to the actual devs as well. Though I don’t know that much on how animations are done so the problem might have a different origin as well. Anyway, fun.

We also get to see Kazin’s full spell list, and while mostly the same, he has the Attack spell instead of Desoul, much like Tao was the only wizard to have it in the first game. In the final version, only Frayja learns this spell, making this the only classic Shining Force game where it is a priest spell instead of a mage one, so it doesn’t surprise me at all that Kazin was meant to have it.

It’s also worth noting that in the final game, Kazin is the only character who learns Desoul. Either the spell wasn’t in (the article mentions every other wizard and priest spell except for it), or someone else was meant to learn it, or they hadn’t even planned that far ahead.

We get our first character bios in a long time.

Protagonist - Bowie

A boy who lives in the castle town of Granseal. He used to be a mischievous boy, but nowadays is well behaved (?) and studying hard as Astral’s pupil. He’s friends with Jaha and Chester, and they play together almost every day.

The thief Slade

The self proclaimed great thief of justice. But he’s not much of a bad guy, and shares his stolen treasures with poor people. He seems to main culprit behind the story’s beginning!?

Warrior Jaha

Bowie’s friend, and a hobbit who hates studying the most out of all of Astral’s pupils. Really strong in battle.

The knight Chester

Bowie’s friend, and another pupil of Astral’s, but while he’s a gallant centaur, his one flaw is that he’s not very assertive. He often comes up as just a yes-man to Bowie. Don’t you have friends like that too? Treat him well.

Priest Sarah

An elf girl and also Astral’s pupil. She’s helpful and likes taking care of others, being kind of a big sister to Bowie and the others. Pulling out that sisterly authority at times, she might be kind of annoying?

Sometimes I wonder if Sarah went through some kind of rewrite during development since none of her official descriptions bring up her being the actual mischievous kid who plans to sneak into the castle and is not even apologetic about it, but then I remember that this series is uhhhh, ah, erm, oof, hmmmm, about women, so yeah, I don’t think that’s what’s going on here.

Sage Astral

Currently retired, he has now taken Bowie and the other kids as pupils. He’s also a notable person who knows the king personally. At the story’s beginning, he berates these troublesome kids while also giving them a chance to go on the adventure.

Sheela

A mysterious and beautiful human girl. She used to train under Astral, but left for some reason. While she doesn’t have much relation with the story, we look forward to see just how will she and Bowie meet. She’s quite sexy!!

King Granseal

King of the country of Granseal at the south of Grans Island. Bowie and the others live in its castle town. Because the queen passed away too soon, he dotes a lot on Princess Elis. Ooh.

Princess Granseal

The princess of Granseal, she’s a happy girl loved by the king and her people. We’re quite curious to know how she’ll be connected to the heroes. Maybe in the end she’ll be a party member!?

OOF

Kiwi

A new character appears!

The green turtle Kiwi is the mascot-like character this time. Of course he can take part in battles, but he’s not very strong. But he seems to hide some special talent!? What exactly is still a secret for now. He’s kind of cute, maybe.

-The previous game had Yogurt, of famous sayings (?) like “do you like my helmet” and “I don’t get it”.

After the magazine, we get more Sega footage (starts around the 4:45 mark).

The intro seems pretty much done, except for a Gizmo attacking the king instead of Geshp. And it’s easy to think “oh it’s a placeholder”, but in the final version the king is really possessed by a Gizmo and Geshp doesn’t show up until much later, so I’m not sure? It’s not a very important change at least.

Sarah finally has her final sprite and portrait, so this is a different build. This does mean I can finally go bully the final graphics of this game a bit more.

Sarah’s final priest sprite is not based on her artwork, and is instead just a recolor of the vicar spritesheet, which as I mentioned, is from the placeholder sprite we’ve seen all this time. You can even notice some leftover grey shading that doesn’t quite fit with the blue. Compare it with Blue Kazin’s robes that I’ve posted earlier, which use only the two shades of blue in the palette.

This sprite was a massive rush job, is what I’m saying. A lot of map sprites in this game feel the same, learning how to edit graphics is both a blessing and a curse because you can’t unsee these things.

This footage shows up a lot of final battle sprites not seen until now, especially promotions, like Wolf Baron Gerhalt, Hero Bowie, and so on. I find it hilarious that it also brings up Kiwi when everywhere else they were trying to be coy about Kiwi’s promotion.

The weird thing though, is that the footage ends with the sorcerer spell display from the old builds. Did they not have footage of the final sorcerer graphics? Likely. Let’s bully the final graphics some more.

No fingers! Misplaced weapon! His ass was not designed in a sane and timely fashion!

So yes it is fully possible that the sorcerer sprite was not done even as the game was already like halfway through the door.

The funniest part? In this later build footage we only get a vague glimpse of Kazin.

I’m sorry the screenshot is horrible since it goes by fast, but that’s Blue Kazin.

Of course, most characters in the scene seem to be promoted, even special promotions like Brass Gunner Elric. At the same time May and Slade remain unpromoted. So is this Blue Kazin already repurposed as the sorcerer sprite? Or is the mage sprite still not done?

We might never know the truth, but the fact is that the pre release coverage ends here, and we didn’t get a single glimpse of his final artwork. In a sense he might have been a bigger mess than Sarah.

I have more to write but tumblr has already messed up this draft four to five times and I’m tired, so I’m splitting this into two posts even though i didn’t want it just to see if the problem is post size.

#shining force #shining force 2 #shining series #sf2 bowie #sf2 jippo slade #sf2 jaha #sf2 huey chester #sf2 kazin #sf2 sarah #this was fun to research but tumblr is making me want to kill something very hard not gonna lie

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msbarrows · 4 months

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Reading Recap 2023

Did one of these last year for 2022 and decided to do one again this year for 2023.

These are the published (including self-published) books that 1) I added to my library within the last year, that 2) were new to me, and 3) actually got read cover to cover at some point in 2023. It works out to 60 books, three times as many books as last year (granted some of these are short stories, not even novellas or novels - but then a few are anthologies so it sort of balances out).

(Yes, I do read a ridiculous amount, considering this is only the tip of the iceberg of what I've actually read over the last year.)

Ended up finding a lot of older stuff on good sales, and also fell into reading some fantasy romances and a few YA things as well. Sadly there are some reputedly quite excellent books that I bought this year that I either never got around to reading, or started in on and then got distracted by something I wanted to read more, and never got back around to, so there's a pile of stuff that'll never manage to show up on one of these posts.

Books and/or series I particularly enjoyed, in no particular order:

Bookshops & Bonedust, Travis Baldree - great to have a prequel for Legends & Lattes, really good story.

A Charm of Magpies series of series, K.J. Charles - interesting historical queer magic-as-technology romances.

Defiance, the start of the latest (and probably last) trilogy in the Foreigner series of series by C.J. Cherryh (Book #22!!! And yes I re-read the other 21 before diving into this latest addition). So glad she kicked cancer's ass and is still writing; I am on tenterhooks for the next two books, waiting to see if my main guess about what this last story arc will focus around will be right.

Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman - how have I gone this many years without actually reading this one!? Awesome idea, told with his usual (very high) skill.

Elven Alliance series, Tara Grayce, saw it mentioned here on Tumblr on a post wishing for stories where the Princess leans into the arranged marriage rather than revolting against it. Got curious, bought the first book and then just kept buying until I ran out of books.

Princess Floralinda and the Forty Flight Tower, Tamsyn Muir - think this was another one that was mentioned in the notes on the same thread as previous, or possibly in a similar one about female characters who win through traditional female skills rather than by being badasses who insisted on learning male ones. It's mostly a self-rescuing Princess trope in this one.

Thornhedge and A Paladin's Faith, T. Kingfisher. Of course I love both of them. I hope she also kick's cancer's ass and continues writing for some time to come.

The Master of Samar, Melissa Scott - have loved her books for decades, but there's a big gap in my collection from the years when I could only rarely afford new books. This is one of the books I missed reading, and one of her very rare forays into fantasy rather than science fiction (and it's an entertaining read).

The Sea King trilogy, Nancy Springer - another old favourite with books I missed getting when they were new. Interesting story. Made me think a little of the Epic of Gilgamesh, at least in terms of having a king and someone seen as more barbarous in nature as his best friend.

Warhorse and The Dragonback series, Timothy Zahn - author I never got around to trying back in the day, noticed a bunch of his stuff on sale, bought one to try, liked it, have bought more.

The King's Eight, Argon Masters - one of a number of books I read this year that is a published work by a fanfiction author whose works I enjoy. Was reading some of their not-my-fandom works (which yes I sometimes do when I enjoy an author enough - see also "how to trip and fall into new fandoms you have zero knowledge of"). Saw a casual mention of the book in an author's note, wandered off to grab and read it. Have already read it twice, it's excellent. Hope they publish more.

Also oh DAMN I just realized I didn't include the covers for Katherine Addision's Doctrine of Labyrinths series in the image above, I read and enjoyed those as well. Make that 64 books that met my criteria.

Edited to add: And doh, one of the covers for the Desert World trilogy by Lyn Gala has also gone missing. Make that 65 books.

#Reading #Reading Recs #Reading Recap 2023

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random-mailbox · 2 years

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Random-Mailbox's Favorite Sailor Moon Fics - Week 4 - Unfinished Stories

Continuing from last week’s theme of “Sex Positivity,” this week I thought I would cover some of the unfinished fics that I cannot wait to see more of. As a rule of thumb, I don’t read a lot of unfinished stories because I get so caught up in them, I can’t wait to see the next chapter go up. But the ones below have somehow slipped through the cracks and I am a happier person for it. I absolutely understand that there are different circumstances that may have led to these still not being complete, but as a reader, I would selfishly love to even see a picture of a sticky note with some bullet points of where the authors thought the story would be heading.

As always, my apologies in advance for spoiling some of these for you (Fic Titles are linked to either FFN or AO3 entries).

Companion Preference: Blonde - @wishwars

I think I have had 4 different people tell me that this story needs to be read, even if it is not complete yet. I have loved their other works, so I had relented and checked out this one too. The setup is excellent, and the writing brings the story to life and shows the emotional depth of both main characters in the few chapters we have gotten so far. Hopefully we can see more of it one day.

Phantom - @irritablevowel

I accidentally started reading this story on FFN without realizing it was not complete. What I love about this story is that it takes a trope I have come across before in older fiction but does it infinitely better by showing the emotional impact of the decisions, while keeping all the side characters fully involved in the plot. Chapter 6 ends with a big cliffhanger, so hopefully more will get posted. Or pictures of sticky notes go up, I would be happy with that too 😁

Model for Me - @queenrisa14

FFN actually has more chapters of this story than AO3, probably due to engagement being higher there originally. The story starts with Usagi needing help on her school art project and Motoki roping Mamoru into it instead of doing it himself. As the story continues, we see Mamoru tackle his preconceived notions and insecurities. The last chapter leaves off with Mamoru actually making some progress in understanding and somewhat expressing his feelings.

The Speech Dilemma - @queenrisa14

I actually have two of Queen Risa's stories on my "please let me know how this ends one day!" list and this one is just as compelling. Minako is struggling with her memories and her perception of Mamoru vs his past self of Endymion, as time is quickly running out before his and Usagi's big day. The story feels super close to it's resolution (not just because we are at 4/5 chapters), so hopefully we get to see Minako come to terms with her past and her present in a non-self-destructive way.

When two Worlds Collide - @beej88

This sequel to “A Twist in Time” is only up on FFN. The original story has us following Mamoru as he tries to re-do the events from the first arc with some help from Pluto, while saving his Shitennou. This instalment takes inspiration from the second arc of the original manga, while keeping us in this AU with all the consequences to the character development. Hopefully one day I can convince @beej88 to migrate it to AO3 and maybe have Pluto help fix the events that lead to the crazy cliffhanger we got left on that she technically set in motion to begin with? ❤️

Something Old, Something New - @allyunabridged

This is the fluffiest story on this list and I really hope we get to see the development of Usagi and Mamoru’s relationship in this non-senshi AU with an amazing set-up. The way our main couple is written is softer and similar to their other works (which you should be definitely checking out if you haven't already!)

Anomaly - @angelmoongirl

This was another one of those “I accidentally read this thinking it’s complete, but now I NEED to know how this ends” stories. The story gets pretty far into the plot with its 17 chapters, that it has fully captivated my attention. But I have no idea what is going to happen next and I am very intrigued by it. Hopefully one day we get to learn what’s going on with Usagi, who is this “Anomaly” and when is Mamoru going to come back and help?!

There a lot of other works that have been created or had chapters added in the last 12 months that I am constantly checking for updates on, but I think I might do a post about those at another time.

Here is what you will see for tropes for upcoming weeks that work with the Darker / Halloween-ish themes:

October 10 - Darker Stories or "The Road of Suffering"

October 17 - Wrong Impressions

October 24 - Reveals

October 31 - Halloween

Prior posts: Sex Positivity, Established Relationships, Groundhog Day

#sailor moon #fic list #fanfic #unfinished story

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multimetaverse · 2 years

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HSMTMTS 3x06 Review

Color War was the funniest ep of the season and set us up for the final arcs of the season. Let’s dig in!

The jokes were on fire tonight. Corbin telling Ricky his confession footage would be airing unless he praised Nickelodeon was my favourite line of the night. The sly bit about the colour war being so similar to the old Disney channel games was a close contender

It was wild to finally see the Camp Rock song they had released before the season premiered. It’s been quite odd how little they’ve used Meg Donnelly’s voice. One thing the song made clear is that someone on the writing staff realizes that Adrian Lyles has the strongest voice of the male cast; it really shines through tonight with the direct juxtaposition with Joshua Bassett’s voice

Nice to see Jet really get into the games to try and help fix things with Maddox but it’s realistic that she’s wary of how much he’s changed. Not really sure how Jet could have mistaken Maddison for a guys name but at least he’s not homophobic. Certainly Jet and Maddox have been much more well developed then any of the new characters introduced in S2 although it may not end up mattering at all if they don’t appear in S4. The only real plausible way to keep Jet around would be to have him transfer to East High since he could expelled but it’s pretty absurd to move two states over for high school and then what would be the excuse to send Maddox, who is presumably not expelled, to East High

The writers realized they went a little too far with Ricky and his feelings for Gina last ep so now he’s back to acting appropriately and for the moment not interfering with Portwell. Not to mention he continues to give Jet good advice to help fix things with Maddox but does so without overstepping. Seems obvious that his big idea is for Jet to bring Maddison back for the Prom so her and Maddox can set things aright

It’s always been extremely obvious when the writers are working backwards from a desired endpoint; they’ve never cared or been able to hide their plot contrivances. Clearly they’re working backwards from a Portwell breakup by the end of the season. And with proper set up and pacing they could have set it up. Instead we’re getting a rushed mess. Even for teenagers it just doesn’t make sense for a seemingly solid relationship to fall apart in a week or so. Certainly they have issues but they have less than a week left at camp which means the end of the major drain on EJ’s time and focus. And EJ does have a point that this documentary succeeding is probably his only chance to convince his dad to let him stay in Salt Lake which is also what Gina wants

But of course, the spark has to be gone because the plot demands it and Ricky is eagerly waiting in the wings. The no dates to prom rule is laughable. Just go as a couple! Who’s going to stop them? What even would be the consequences?

I was really happy to see the progress with Ashlyn’s story line tonight and her realization at the end that she has a crush on Val. Also neat to learn that Ashlyn is Jewish, must be from her mother’s side of the family

Wild that this is the second time someone was knocked out and had a fantasy musical sequence with an original High School Musical cast member before Carlos slaps them awake

Nice to see Miss Jenn again. Depending on how things shake out for EJ after this season, this may have been a final farewell between them

I actually thought Mike Bowen gifting Ricky a piece of moon rock was a sweet gift especially since he knows all about Ricky’s bucket list. Though I still don’t get how Ricky could be turning 18 before he even starts his 12th grade year. Here in the barren northlands the earliest you could turn 18 would be the January of your 12th grade year ie. well after it’s already started

Looking Ahead:

It’s interesting that they’ve gone the route of Ricky knowing that the confession was caught on camera rather than just having the audience know. I would assume that the confession ties into a cliffhanger of sorts at the end of S3. Since Ricky knows he was filmed there’s really only two ways to play it: Ricky confesses to Gina before the film would be played (or at least before he thinks it’s going to be played) or Ricky attempts to destroy the footage which backfires somehow and leads to Gina seeing it

Since it looks likely that Maddox and Maddison get back together at the Prom, there’s a good chance that the Prom is where Portwell breaks up or at least leads directly to it since the angst would be well balanced with joy

Jet helping Maddox with Maddison will probably do the trick the reconcile them which is also a way to wrap up their story arc in case they’re never seen again

I don’t think they’re gonna have Redlyn breakup since that would fall perilously close to the cheating bisexual trope but it should be an interesting conversation between them when he eventually shows up

As an aside, it’s interesting that the Rina leaker has had very accurate information about the events of the season but has been off on the timing a few times now. It suggests that they didn’t have direct access to the scripts or at least didn’t have direct access to all of them

Until next week, Wildcats

#HSMTMTS #Portwell #Rina #Gina Porter #Ashlyn Caswell #EJ Caswell #Ricky Bowen #Miss Jenn #HSMTMTS Reviews

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thevindicativevordan · 2 years

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Since you mentioned that Williamson would probably launch a Superman ongoing. How do you imagine his run would look like?

Well I called it, not that it was a hard thing to predict:

Looks pretty much exactly what I expected. All the classic elements get plenty of focus, Lois is back at the Daily Planet, Clark will be going up against a bunch of classic villains - Parasite is the villain of the first arc, seems Livewire, Bizarro, and Silver Banshee won't be far behind - classic supporting cast members like Jimmy Olsen will be getting used, and there may be either some new faces or revamps of old ones. That cop with the pony tail in the upper right might be a new take on Inspector (Commissioner?) Henderson. Williamson is at his best when he's focused on one character and just doing fun superhero adventures instead of trying to write big events or copy Morrison. Robin and Flash delivered that for me and were enjoyable, he should bring a similar level of quality here. If nothing else the use of classic Superman Rogues who haven't gotten attention in a while like Livewire, Silver Banshee, and Bizarro get points with me, I don't expect him to write the definitive Parasite arc, but if he can at least provide entertaining Superman stories featuring classic Superman Rogues I'll be happy.

Kaminski (head editor for the Superbooks) hinted on Twitter that Zod was going to play an important role in the Superbooks next year. Given Williamson already used him once for Batman/Superman - his use there of Zod was good - I wouldn't be surprised if he uses him again here. Perhaps Zod is the figure in shadow if it isn't teasing a new Superman Rogue. I've long wanted Zod to fill the Ra's role in Superman's Rogues Gallery and Williamson did position him as that, if he is writing Zod I hope he continues to develop that characterization for him.

Obviously Campbell's art is gorgeous, but does anyone really think he's going to last long on a monthly ongoing? Naomi and Far Sector really struggled to come out on time, if Campbell can do just one arc I'll be happy. Dragotta is a good artist too, but I don't know if he's fast enough to do a monthly these days. I'll enjoy their time on Superman regardless, can't wait to see them draw the villains!

Now for the rest...

Anonymous asked:

New Superbook lineup?

First DC panel thus far to actually talk about the big plans for 2023. Honestly I'm pleased overall with the news that was shared.

Action is becoming a Superfamily book with PKJ continuing to write the main feature, which will still be standard issue length. Lineup is Clark, Kara, Conner, Kenan, Jon, Natasha, and the two Phaelosians from Warworld that Superman adopted: Osul and Othul. Ever since Detective Comics became a Batfamily book during Rebirth I've been wanting to see someone try and do the same for the Superfamily. Metallo is going to be the main villain for the first arc starting in Action 1051, and seeing Metallo be a threat strong enough to challenge the entire Superfamily has me hyped. Loved how PKJ has written the book up till now, hopefully this switch doesn't cause him to struggle. If he does a good job he'll be delivering sorely needed development to Superman's Rogues and his Family, two areas I've long been begging to see more attention given.

It's a small detail but I love that Kenan still has his white and black yin-yang s-shield underneath his jacket. Everyone looks good to me, although perhaps Nat should just change the color of her armor rather than wear a hoodie. And PKJ finally gets an artist who is both good and fast! Sandoval hasn't had trouble meeting a monthly schedule so Action should finally have an artist who can draw consecutive issues. Just need DC not to poach another artist from PKJ for their events, first Sampere then Federeci, go find another book to swipe artists from!

Two backups are being added, Jurgens writing kid Jon stories set in the past and Leah Williams writing Power Girl. Jurgens Lois and Clark was my favorite thing he's done since the Triangle Era, but this sounds boring. Doombreaker (aka Doomsday with four arms instead of two) is not a villain who is attracting my interest, PKJ already brought back Conduit Jurgens, you've said repeatedly you were going to tell a Conduit story after Action 1000 if you got to stay. Go tell that story instead of something conceptually dull as Doomsday 2.0. No opinion on Williams, her Trial of Magneto was terrible but her Mary Jane series was entertaining, I think PG will be a good fit for her, and there's always Johns' JSA if not.

Superman: Son of Kal-El is ending with issue 18 and DC is launching a new Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent 6-issue miniseries where Jon will fight Ultraman and meet Val-Zod. Taylor was claiming he was writing post-Kal-El Returns SSOKE issues a while back on Twitter, so I assume that DC is taking what he had planned for future issues and just doing it as a mini in hopes of increasing sales. My hunch is that this mini will mark the end of Taylor's time with Jon, and he'll either depart the Superman sphere entirely or go do a Val-Zod mini, since all he really cares about is using Jon's book to spotlight his OCs. I want it to flop so he'll be done for good, he's done jack shit to establish Jon outside of his bisexuality, countless other more pressing developments need to be done for Jon to really stand on his own as a hero, but of course Taylor would rather bring in his successor to Superman and try to push Val one last time over actually developing Jon as a character.

Saw that yet again you have people theorizing this is going to end with a version of kid Jon returning or Jon being deaged and at this point I don't even care if that happens. Taylor completely squandered the opportunity Jon represented, long as Val-Zod fucks off back home to Earth 2 and Taylor doesn't try to keep him on the main Earth then fine, whatever, you lot can have your kid Jon back. Completely wasted the potential he offered, might as well reset him back to default. I don't think that's happening, Othul and Osul are filling the kid role for Clark and Lois, plus there might be that Legacy League book coming yet. If it does I don't even care anymore. There's one ray of hope for me even now: Waid, Yang, Watters and PKJ might be writing him soon.

Coming up after Dark Crisis, we have the Lazarus Planet event. Waid has a good track record with weekly events - 52, the No Surrender trilogy - and the supporting writing lineup looks great: Yang, PKJ, Watters, and more. No Multiverse bullshit and any of those guys writing Jon will be an improvement over Taylor. Given this is where Jon is getting his electric blue powers, which will still be a thing over in Action and AoS, this event is going to be important for his direction as a character. Obviously this is me projecting, but I want to believe that one of the writers here is going to end up taking over control of Jon after Taylor's finishes his mini, ideally Yang or Watters. Hey Yang if you can bring Kenan into this event, do it. Taylor keeps trying to make his Superman stick, might as well assert yourself and use your Superman too where you can.

Good lineup generally. That's not counting other projects we know are coming such as Porter's Superboy mini, Waid's Superman: Testament book with Hitch, or Venditti's Superman '78 Season 2. Taylor hinted on Twitter that there are more announcements coming too after Action 1050, and PKJ hinted that something might be coming with Lana. Praying that a Steel miniseries with Lana in there as secondary protagonist/love interest is coming, written by Greg Pak, is in the works. Steel isn't in Action or advertised as being anywhere else, but he had a badass Action 1050 variant and it would be weird for him to just disappear. Irons is being positioned as a key player for PKJ Action, for him not to be with the Superfamily post 1050 must mean he's getting a book of his own. That's how I'm coping anyway.

Anonymous asked:

Thoughts on the NYCC announcements? Personally I'm afraid the Authority will go into the background if Action is becoming the Superfamily book, but I still trust PKJ to introduce interesting concepts.

Yeah I'm resigning myself to the Authority crew getting dropped. PKJ was asking on Twitter if people thought there was any interest in an Authority book not by him, and saying he'd want to get an LGBT+ writer for them. Later said that DC was trying to find a place for those characters, so maybe we'll get a new Superman & the Authority book down the road. I wish they'd induct Apollo into the Superfamily, getting him away from Midnighter who always overshadows him (heh remind you of another duo?) would be good for him. Let him play off of other flying bricks and show how he's similar and how he's different. Let him bond with Jon over being a queer hero and the difficulties that come with that, of trying to establish a place for yourself in the shadow of one of the greatest heroes of all time. I want Apollo so badly to be inducted into the Superfamily but I don't think it's happening. Can always dream though!

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avrilsboy · 1 year

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wow just keep thinking about that new tlou episode... i think the way they introduced bill and frank into the series' conversation of survival and death -- where in this world, survival is enacted as a very base instinct rather than a life being built for a future, and death is often handed in a very brutal and frightening way through various means -- was incredibly important in its subversion. frank is presumably suffering from parkinson's or something similar, a disease that arrests the body's nervous system in a similar way that the cordyceps infection does, but it being a very slow progression illness offers frank something that other people in this universe don't have: time. he has time to figure out how he wants to proceed, and for how long. and when he does make his decision to end his life, he still has time to have an incredibly fulfilling final day with bill. a peaceful death, one that comes with the rarity of old age in this universe, and even further the rarity of being able to die knowing you are loved, cared for, and not feared, is something of a privilege.

this doesn't mean that frank being ill with a disease that is slowly taking over his body is a privilege full stop; it's still a loss of autonomy, which is a fear that absolutely drenches the characters in this world (not just due to the threat of infection, but also because of a very strict and punishing government force). it's still unideal. but in the reality of this universe, to die in a way that offers no brutality whatsoever -- not by government execution, murder by another desperate human being, being killed via gunshot or fire or other violent means by a loved one, or yourself, to avoid turning into a monster, or the quick transformation into an infected, inhuman being -- is quite rare, and quite special.

bill is, of course, faced with the reality that frank will either die by suicide or will wait until his illness progresses to the point where there's a significant deterioration in quality of life. frank making the decision in the morning to die by nightfall leaves bill just a day to understand his fate, and his options -- whether he will continue living alone, or die with frank. he's a survivalist at his core, and certainly has the material means to keep going (despite his age), but emotionally he finds survival purposeless. he learned how to live with frank; mere survival is no longer an option. this timeline of course reflects on the timeline of those who get infected with cordyceps, having mere hours to just under a day to make peace with their fate and make a decision, but it's of course a separate matter in that bill isn't ill. losing a loved one, and further being asked to assist in their suicide, however, can feel like a fate worse than death. to bill -- who is a supreme loner otherwise, who really struggles to trust other people enough to make emotional connections without frank's help -- it can be considered a loss of his own life.

(there are of course theories floating around that bill faked his death, and pretended to die at frank's side in order to give frank peace in his final moments, but i personally just don't think this is the case. it didn't give frank peace to learn that bill was also planning to commit suicide, and would be a very strange decision for bill's character arc.)

this line between surviving and living is something heavily contended in this story, and as it ties back to joel and ellie. joel, an emotionally closed-off survivalist just as bill had been, struggling to allow these emotional relationships into his life due to the trauma of losing his daughter (by brutal government execution, mind you) twenty years prior. he avoids conversation about tess, not just of her death and the fear he held of her post-infection but even what their relationship was; he later refuses an old picture of his daughter from his brother. this struggle contends with ellie's own issues of abandonment and trust: that despite her independence, she's still a child who later admits that she's frightened of being alone and away from those she can trust.

they both say it plainly: neither of them asked for this. to be put into their roles in this world, to be saddled together for a trip across the country where their survival becomes dependent on the other. but it is possible to find peace in this world; the catch is that it inherently involves love and its ever-present threat of loss.

(not to mention, joel's presence is constantly accepted by those he is seeking, even if he's unsure of the outcome; he was certain bill wouldn't help him, only for bill to leave him all of his belongings. later, he's uncertain if tommy will be happy to see him considering they left off with a fight, and tommy embraces his presence with the ease of someone who has desperately missed his older brother. joel refusing to get emotionally attached to people also impedes his own confidence in being someone others feel emotionally positive towards, only to be proven multiple times over that he's wrong.)

#tlou #tlou hbo #tlou spoilers #tlou game spoilers #woke up thinking about this ep. it's just so crazy poignant.#also i have no idea how game spoilers are being tagged vs show spoilers. but this post has game spoilers in it.#🛹

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