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jikookiekosmos · 3 years

Text

Classified & Confidential || kth (Part 1)

➥Pairing: detective!taehyung/reader

➥Summary: It’s been years since your close friend passed away, case going cold due to lack of evidence. You never once believed the story the police gave you, since they classified it under an ‘unfortunate accident.’ Now that there are telltale signs of something similar at play regarding someone else you hold dear, you decide to take things into your own hands. You hire world renowned private detective, Kim Taehyung. And he goes above and beyond everything you expected.

➥Genre: strangers to lovers (kinda slow burn), detective au, mystery, angst, eventual smut, fluff

➥Rating: 18+

➥Words: ~7.1k

➥Content Warnings: detective/mystery au, (tw: mentions of death, brief mention of suicide in relation to a criminal case, implied foul play, stalking behavior, non-graphic detailing of a crime scene), slight forensic talk, mentions of nervousness and anxiety, some cursing, mentions of cops/police, unhelpful law enforcement (like they’re kinda terrible with the whole solving this case thing), feelings of unease and tension, we get bestie hoseok, tae is kinda extra but for good reason, no suggestiveness/smut in this chapter but it’s still 18+ due to it involving some of the aforementioned warnings

A/N: This will be a multi-part series that explores some darker themes, and each part will have appropriate content warnings listed; please read at your own risk. This part touches on backstory and introduces the characters, things will start getting a little more intense in the following chapters. I don’t have any kind of specific update schedule but ideally I’d like to get updates out every few weeks at the latest! I hope you look forward to this, and if you wanna be added to a taglist, please let me know~

Thank you @dntaewithluv for your constant motivation and support (and for always beta-reading for me, even when we scream at each other about our ideas); hopefully I do Tae justice for you! I love you lots ❤️

taglist: @inlovewiththemoonn @mwitsmejk @bangtanhome

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

5 Years Ago

The night sky was dark, blanketed by stars as it emitted a peaceful aura. There was no way to bask in the calmness of the night, however, with all the hustle and bustle that surrounded you outside of the apartment complex.

Crime scene tape marked off the area, and many onlookers had gathered to try and get a glimpse of what happened. You were one yourself, but you weren’t there out of sheer curiosity.

Your breathing was ragged, staggered, as you tried to hold yourself together and observed the scene in front of you unfold.

Police wouldn’t let you beyond the tape, despite knowing the person currently covered by the white tarp.

Minutes prior, one of the cops had been politely trying to hold you back as you thrashed around, mind muddled by the vision of your best friend’s face before the tarp concealed it.

“I’m sorry, we can’t let anyone unauthorized come past this tape, please stay where you are.”

“You don’t understand, that’s my best friend, please let me through, please-”

You couldn’t control the volume of your screams, prompting a few of the other bystanders to try and calm you down seeing as you were very clearly distraught.

An unknown amount of time passed before the thickest part of the crowd decided they’d had enough excitement for one night, retiring to their own homes. You stayed planted in your spot, prepared to not move until you got more of an explanation for what was going on.

You’d resigned yourself to the fact that if someone wanted you to leave, they’d have to do it by force, but you eventually complied after two cops convinced you to come down to the station and issue a statement, given your relation to the victim.

They didn’t grill you hard, which was something you appreciated at the time, since you were really in no state to handle a grueling interrogation. You knew you could be marked down as a potential suspect, but everything from their investigation pointed to them believing it had either been an accident or a possible suicide attempt, the latter of which would almost entirely exclude your involvement.

Over the next few weeks, you cooperated with the investigation and helped them with whatever leads you could provide; you were determined that foul play was involved, because you knew your best friend better than anyone, and the story the cops were feeding you wasn’t adding up.

The theory as you knew it was this: she jumped from her apartment window, which was up a significant amount of stories, more than enough to kill a person. A potential suicide note was found at the scene on the nightstand by her bed, typed on a sheet of paper, so handwriting analysis wasn’t an option. The apartment was undisturbed aside from the window having been open.

It almost seemed like a cut-and-dried case, aside from one other small factor: unknown DNA from a hair follicle was found in the apartment alongside the victim’s own.

This didn’t surprise you…at first. You knew Ky had been perusing multiple dating apps and would often invite people over to her place after successful dates. But as far as you also knew, Ky hadn’t recently been on any dates, so there wasn’t a clear reason for that DNA to show up.

Ky had told you in the weeks leading up to her death that she was afraid someone had been following her around, and it unsettled her so much so that she deleted all the dating apps on her phone until she felt safe again.

Sadly, that day never came, and this fact alone caused the nagging suspicion of foul play to burrow itself even deeper into your subconscious.

Since the DNA was unknown, tracing it would be no easy task, but that didn’t stop you. Anything you could do to shed light on what had actually occurred, you were going to do it, plain and simple.

Which is why when the police decided to close the file on the case and label it as an ‘unfortunate accident,’ you were floored.

You begged them to keep focusing on leads when there really weren’t any, offering to aid in any way you could because there was no way that there wasn’t something missing.

Their response?

“Go home, Y/N, there’s nothing else you can do.”

You left the station that day only after you had caused somewhat of a scene, arguing back and forth with one of the lead detectives until you were ‘carefully escorted’ outside. Enraged, you banged your hand against the glass of the door before you slid down the wall beside it, hugging your knees as you tried to compose yourself.

You weren’t sitting that way for long before you felt a gentle tug on your sleeve. You looked up reluctantly and were met with one of the softest pairs of eyes you’d ever seen.

The stranger offered you a kind smile, one that made your heart ache in the aftermath of everything you’d endured the last several weeks. You’d been tackling this situation all on your own, with barely any help from mutual friends or Ky’s family since she’d been estranged from them.

But now, this man stooped down in front of you and smiling at you like everything would be alright…

It almost made you want to believe it.

“Hi, I uh, couldn’t help but overhear about your situation,” he finally spoke up, sounding somewhat bashful. He had bright red hair that peeked out under a cap he wore, and he was sporting a rainbow colored sweater.

A tinge of embarrassment fluttered through you. “Oh. Sorry you had to witness that.”

So this random stranger heard you telling off the police by yelling at them in broad daylight. Way to make a first impression.

To your surprise, he simply shook his head, smile widening. “No, don’t be sorry! I was, uh – happy to be able to listen.”

You quirked an eyebrow. “Ok…may I ask why?”

“Well,” there was that bashful tone again, hand flying to the back of his neck as he looked to the side, “I’d been coming up here for a while, hoping to hear something regarding this case specifically. Usually when I stop by, there isn’t much going on and it’s not like I can just walk in and ask for classified information-”

He stopped speaking immediately once you held up your hand. You didn’t want to be rude, but you were thoroughly confused.

“Is there a reason why you’re eavesdropping for information about this case?”

He nodded eagerly. “Sure is! See, I’m working as a crime reporter, and-”

You scoffed as you pushed yourself to a standing position. “Unbelievable.”

Without sparing another glance to the gentleman, you shouldered past him, earlier hopeful mood soured by the fact that he was just another person looking for a scoop about Ky’s demise.

He was quick to follow, almost jumping down the steps to catch up to you.

“Hey, wait! Please.”

The way he begged pulled at your heartstrings because of how genuine he sounded, and for reasons beyond you, you turned around to face him and decided to hear him out.

You crossed your arms as he sighed with relief.

“Thank you. Ok, to start with, I’m a crime reporter, but I’m not trying to report on this case as everyone knows it.”

Another eyebrow raise from you. “What do you mean?”

The man smiled shyly, brushing away the red hair in his eyes. “I want to bring the injustice of the system to the public’s attention.”

That got your attention. “You do?”

“Yes. And I think your story could help with that.”

“My story?”

He nodded again, this time more eager than the last. “You’re pretty adamant that what happened to your friend was no accident, am I correct?”

Any mention of Ky caused the dull pain in your chest to come back, but at least this time, she wasn’t being mentioned in a gruesome or negative light.

“Yeah, I really don’t think it was an accident. But no one believes me.” You looked down at your shoes, scuffling one against the pavement.

You only looked up again when you felt the stranger’s hand on your shoulder.

“I believe you.”

All of the breath was knocked out of you.

“You…you believe me?”

The smile he gave you this time was bright and sincere as he dropped his hand by his side. “I do. I’ve been following everything posted online or in the newspaper about this case, and some of it just really does not seem plausible. And then after hearing you today, it made so much sense as to why.”

It still bothered you a bit that you were loud enough in the station to be heard outside, but that worry was now being overshadowed by the possibility of having someone else who could stand by you on your conviction.

“It…really means a lot to me that you would even consider my side of things. Truthfully, I think the police only tolerated me this long due to protocol.” You wrapped your arms around yourself.

The red-haired man grimaced at your remark. “Yeah, no kidding. For as long as I’ve been in this line of work, I don’t think I’ve ever seen them take things as seriously as they should.”

“How long have you been doing this?”

“About a year. But trust me, I’ve seen a lot during that time.” His determined expression might have made you giggle under other circumstances because it clashed so much with the rest of his soft demeanor.

“I don’t doubt it.” You walked over to the nearby bench seated a few feet away and the stranger followed hesitantly, only sitting beside you when you didn’t give him any indication his presence was unwanted.

The both of you turned toward each other slightly before you spoke up again.

“So, how can I help you with what you’re wanting to do?”

He seemed pleased that you were on board, eyes shining. “For starters, do you think I could interview you? I’d have to ask some sensitive questions, but I feel like I could have a better understanding of the case that way…only if you’re comfortable, though.”

You swallowed as you thought it over. Your participation in the numerous interrogations during the investigation had now proved to lead nowhere, but maybe this time the outcome would be different.

“Sure, I don’t mind. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, to the best of my ability.”

The stranger beamed, looking happy enough to nearly jump out of the bench, despite the current subject matter. “Great!”

His cheerful nature was a little infectious, you had to admit, because you already started to feel a little lighter in his presence. A hand appeared in your line of vision.

“My name is Hoseok, by the way. We haven’t been properly introduced yet so that would be the next best step, I think.”

You did giggle this time at his action. “Nice to meet you, Hoseok. I’m Y/N.” You took his hand into your own to give it a small but firm shake.

“It’s my pleasure, Y/N. Now,” he regarded you with that same soft look he had in his eyes when you first saw him at the station, “what do you say we discuss some logistics over lunch? My treat, of course, since you’re agreeing to help me.”

For the first time in ages, the smile that graced your face was wholeheartedly genuine. “Sounds good.”

Thus, the beginning of a beautiful, long-lasting friendship bloomed that day outside of the one place you’d begun to loathe more than anything else. Over the next few years, Hoseok stood by your side in more ways than you could count, and he was now someone you considered to be one of the best friends you’d ever had.

One of the only best friends you’d ever had.

What you never expected was to be seated with Hoseok at the same diner that started your initial conversation about Ky’s case 5 years later, discussing something much too similar for your liking.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

Present Day

You sipped from your coffee mug, enjoying the warm beverage as you waited at the diner. The weather had been less than ideal, with rain pouring all day long and displaying little signs of stopping.

But Hoseok had been adamant about the two of you meeting up after your voicemail you left the previous night.

As you were thinking about your close friend, you heard the bell above the diner door ring, signaling his arrival. He spotted you across the room and quickly rushed over to your table, leaving rain droplets in his wake.

Hoseok shrugged out of his soaked jacket and tossed in into the booth seat beside him as he shook his head to – hopefully – rid himself of the water trying to slide down his face.

“Hey,” he finally breathed out once he was settled. His usual wild red hair was darker now thanks to the rain, stern expression plastered onto his face.

“Hey.” You responded meekly, attempting to give him a weak smile. Your stomach was churning with unease at the conversation you were about to have.

Hoseok took a deep breath before he folded his hands together and rested his elbows on the table. The coffee you’d ordered for him had been pushed to the side, momentarily forgotten.

He lowered his voice. “Are you sure the pattern of behavior is the same?”

You nodded slowly, going over all the details again in your mind. “I’m positive. The only difference is Yuri waited longer to tell me that she thinks she’s being followed than Ky did.”

Ky. Not a day went by where you didn’t think about her, seeing her smiling face when you would close your eyes at night and try to drift off to sleep.

Slumber came much easier these days than it did those first few months, but every now and then the same nightmare would plague you about the night you saw her on the sidewalk.

You shook your head to shrug the thoughts away. Now wasn’t the time.

“Shit,” Hoseok finally responded. “That doesn’t seem like good news for us.”

“My thoughts exactly. Who knows how long this has been going on. And she’s been receiving the same kind of ‘gifts’ Ky would get, too. Random text messages, voicemails from unknown numbers…she tries to brush it off, but I know this scares Yuri.”

“She doesn’t recognize who’s speaking in the voicemails?”

You shook your head solemnly. “No, they’re using some sort of voice modifier.”

Hoseok cursed again, this time under his breath. “Well, what do you want to do?”

You gulped. Truthfully, you didn’t know the answer yourself. On the one hand, everything currently happening to your friend mimicked what happened to Ky, almost exactly. But on the other hand, Yuri made it known time and time again that she thought you were too paranoid for your own good sometimes.

So, you were at a loss.

Yuri and you were close, in a sense. You’d been friends for the last 4 years, working at the same company after graduating from college and even getting transferred to a new one in the same division so as to not be separated. Outside of Hoseok, you considered her your dearest friend.

But at the same time, you knew that Yuri had those she held very dear in her own life that were there before you, and you’d never try to overstep.

Still…the events surrounding Yuri were too specific to be coincidental in your opinion, and if the hunch you had right now was correct, you needed to do something.

You wouldn’t – you couldn’t – let another person die. Not if there was some way for you to prevent it.

Something you didn’t do with Ky, and that would haunt you for the rest of your life-

Hoseok pulled you out of your thoughts by calling your name, frowning deeply once your gaze focused on him again.

“I…I don’t know. I feel like if I push too hard on this, I’ll also push Yuri away, and I don’t want that.” You worried at your bottom lip, your most infamous nervous habit.

“Be that as it may, this doesn’t seem like something you should ignore either. What’s worse: pushing her away but potentially saving her life, or not saying anything and she ends up in danger?”

A heavy sigh wracked through your body.

Your silence was enough for Hoseok to continue with his own line of thinking. “Well, we could consider going to the police-”

“Absolutely not,” you answered fiercely, with more emotion than you’d displayed the entire conversation, “not after how they handled everything with Ky and how they treated you.”

You and Hoseok had made a name for yourself throughout the town as ‘Public Enemies 1 and 2’ with the local police department. You, due to your persistent insistence that they were wrong in their deduction about Ky, and Hoseok because of the article he published that shamed their name.

The article was the first – and last – one that he published under the company that had hired him to be a reporter, seeing as the police department had enough sway to get him fired afterwards. He wasn’t able to find another reporting job anywhere within the town or those surrounding it.

There also weren’t any remaining records of the article anywhere online or in paper publication, but as a ‘fuck you’ to the department, Hoseok had a copy of it printed and hanging up on his wall for anyone and everyone to see. You had always admired how he handled the situation with grace even though it made your blood boil every time you thought about it.

Even so, some good had come from the whole ordeal. After failing to find another reporter job, Hoseok had made a somewhat notable career as a crime novel author, popular among locals because of how he came to be a novelist, and eventually rising to fame due to his own amazing writing skills.

He enjoyed his career and had a happy life, but that didn’t mean you had to forgive and forget the shitty events that happened to get him to that point.

Hoseok nodded in understanding. “Ok, so no police. Does that mean we try to tackle this whole thing by ourselves?”

“Neither of us have any legit experience with this kind of stuff, so that’s out of the question, too.”

Hoseok tapped his chin as he pondered another idea. The way his eyes lit up as it came to him made your lips curve upward.

“What if we go to someone who isn’t involved with the police but does have experience with that?”

“…not sure I’m following you.”

Hoseok huffed in an endearing way. “Have you ever heard of a private detective?”

The word ‘detective’ made you wince, considering your last encounter with one evolved into a screaming match…but it was also how you met Hoseok, so there’s a silver lining for everything.

“I’m not familiar with a private detective, but I’m open to listening to your idea.”

He grinned. “Perfect. Ok, so in my research for my latest novel, I actually ended up looking into some real-life private detectives.”

“And what did you find?” Your own curiosity was definitely piqued now, as it always was when Hoseok would talk about something so passionately.

“There’s one who’s basically world renowned, like he’s really fucking good. And his office isn’t too far from here, it’s basically in the next town over.”

You took another sip from your coffee, swirling the now lukewarm liquid around in your mouth as you contemplated.

“What else do you know about him?”

Hoseok’s shoulders slumped slightly at that. “Not much. The only information I have on him is his name and how you can contact him. From what I’ve read, he seems to be pretty selective with clients.”

“No idea what he looks like?”

Hoseok shook his head. “None. There weren’t pictures or anything like that, I’m not even sure how old he is.”

You hummed as you pictured this mystery man in your head, automatically defaulting to envisioning an older man, maybe in his 50s with already graying hair. A wise old soul who had seen so much in his long years of investigation work.

“Not like all that really matters, I guess. Do you think I should reach out to him?”

Hoseok nodded around his coffee cup before he tilted his head back to take a large sip. “That’s our best shot right now. And if it doesn’t work out, at least you tried.”

Such a simple statement but it made your stomach twist at the memory of Ky and how you weren’t able to save her because you didn’t know how. “Right.”

Hoseok pulled his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through what looked like Google search results. When he found what he was looking for, he texted you the information.

“Kim Taehyung?” You said the name aloud, making sure you got the correct info.

“Yup, that’s him. If you do decide to contact him, let me know how it goes, ok? I’m already worried as is about you delving into something like this again.”

You patted his hand. “I know, Hobi. Don’t worry. I’ll be careful, and I’ll keep you updated as much as possible.”

He smiled brighter than the sunshine. “That’s all I can ask for, bub.”

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

You paced around your apartment, staring at the text that Hoseok had sent you earlier. The rest of your time with him at the diner had been calm and helped to quell your nerves, but now that you were alone again, you were riddled with anxiety.

You had typed in this Kim Taehyung’s number into your phone, ready to call him and just get it over with. The worst he could do is decline your ask for help, but you wouldn’t know unless you tried.

After a few more minutes of useless pacing, you finally hit ‘send’ and raised the receiver to your ear.

You were met with an answering machine almost immediately, wondering if maybe you typed it in wrong until you heard ‘you have reached the number for Kim Taehyung.’ The name had been uttered by a human voice, one that was deep and took you off guard.

You had barely enough time to ponder over the voice before you heard the tell-tale ‘beep’ signaling for you to start your message.

“Oh! Um, hello, Mr. Kim. This is Y/N- well my name is Y/N. I was referred to you by a friend of mine who said you may can help me with a situation I’m having. There’s…some suspicious behavior involving someone dear to me and I’m afraid they could be in danger, but I’m not sure who to turn to. I-If you’d like to give me a call back, you can reach me at this number…”

You finished your voicemail with your contact information before thanking him and wishing him a goodnight. Once you pulled away your phone, you checked the time.

10:36 PM. No wonder you got his answering machine.

The anxiety that had settled down while you were leaving your message started to come back, so to combat that you made the decision to go ahead and get ready for bed. There wasn’t anything else you could do right now, anyway.

You texted Yuri just to wish her a goodnight, and when you received a response almost immediately, you breathed out a sigh of relief. At least she was alright and that was one less thing to worry about for now.

You didn’t dream that night – which was a blessing in its own right – as you thought about the deep timbre of the voice from the answering machine. You’d only heard it briefly, but it left enough of an impact, that was for sure.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

You awoke around 8 AM, your typical time no matter what day it was. It was the weekend, so you could get more sleep if you wanted, but a quick check of your phone had you sitting upright at a record speed.

[Unknown] 6:28 AM: I got your voicemail. If you want to discuss your case, meet me at this address.

Your heart thumped faster as you re-read the words over again. The following message had an address attached, and when you opened it, you noticed how it was for the neighboring town.

With all of the context clues, and taking into account everything Hoseok told you yesterday, you figured that it was Mr. Kim who had texted you. Obviously it would be from an unknown number, and he wouldn’t give out any explicit personal details to lead back to him; that’s just how he did things, as Hobi had mentioned.

And if he contacted you back, that meant he was interested in helping you!

Well…he was interested in hearing you out, at least. Still, you wouldn’t pass up on this opportunity. You quickly crafted a response before you started to make yourself presentable.

[y/n] 8:03 AM: Thank you! When should I meet you?

You had just finished brushing your teeth when you heard your phone chime again.

[Unknown] 8:06 AM: Whenever is best for you. I’ll be here all day and don’t have any other clients lined up.

You clutched your phone to your chest. This was really happening.

Once you were done getting ready to head out, it was just past 9 AM. You called Hobi to let him know what you were doing, and his excitement was tangible even through the phone. He urged you to keep him posted about all the details, which you assured him that of course you would.

The drive to the address you’d been given didn’t take too long, maybe around 20 minutes or so. What surprised you when you arrived, though, was the outward appearance of the building.

It looked abandoned, for lack of a better term, and you checked the text message 3 more times to make sure this is where you were supposed to be.

[y/n] 9:28 AM: I’m here…but I’m not sure if this is the correct place?

There was an eerie feeling settling in your stomach as you waited for a response. Maybe this had been some sort of trick? Had someone set you up?

The sound of a deadbolt clicking grabbed your attention, and the door a few feet in front of you opened up to display an older woman. At first, she seemed a bit disgruntled at having an unexpected guest, but before you could apologize for intruding, her gruff expression was replaced with a warm smile.

“I take it you’re Y/N?”

You gulped and nodded, placing your phone back into your jacket pocket.

“Follow me.”

She turned on her heel to walk back into the building, not bothering to wait and see if you would obey. You quickly scurried after her, only stopping once you were a foot or so behind.

You walked through about 3 or 4 different hallways, trying to remember the directions you’d taken but failing miserably. There wasn’t much to this building…you saw what appeared to be a few offices here and there but otherwise, not much else.

“Here we are,” the woman croaked, gesturing with her arm to a much nicer looking door that had gold lettering on the window.

The etchings were bold, and it was very evident where you were as you read the words:

KIM TAEHYUNG

Private Detective

The older woman rapped on the door 3 times with her knuckles before she walked off. You were standing there, dumbfounded, until you heard a voice softly telling you to come inside.

The doorknob clicked easily under your hand, and as you entered the room, you were in awe of how different everything looked.

The office was tidy and, dare you say, extravagant compared to what surrounded it outside of this room. There were two brown leather couches that had a decent sized coffee table seated in between them; further into the office, you saw the same type of leather chairs, one in front of and one behind a large wooden desk. You also spotted a few plants that looked to be well taken care of, one sitting in a windowsill and the other on a small table next to some black filing cabinets.

Whoever had designed this room clearly had a knack for matching furniture together, because it all meshed well and you appreciated the sleek look to everything.

Your eyes ended their scan as you looked over to the far wall, almost letting out a gasp when you noticed the figure across the room whose back was turned to you.

When you softly shut the door, the other person in the room turned around. It took you a second to start thinking properly again, because he was not at all how you pictured he would be.

For starters, he looked much younger than you thought originally, closer to your own age, which you thought was admirable considering his high status as a detective. He had brown hair parted down the middle that was slightly wavy, with bangs covering his forehead. He had very handsome facial features as well, some of the most handsome you’d ever seen, if you were being honest with yourself.

He was wearing dark jeans and a shirt with black and white print that was hidden underneath a black leather jacket. Everything about this man seemed to scream fashionable and it was throwing you for a loop. You weren’t trying to stereotype him based on your own experience with detectives in the past, but he was just…so not what you expected him to be.

You were wondering again if this might be a prank, until he finally spoke up and acknowledged your presence.

“Y/N, is it?”

You nodded dumbly, scrambling to walk across the office as he motioned to the chair in front of his desk. He sat down in his own once you were close enough, and you shrugged out of your jacket before following suit.

There was a moment of silence between the two of you, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, you felt small under his scrutinizing gaze. He was leaning on one elbow, chin resting in his palm as he stared at you with intensity.

He spoke suddenly, almost making you flinch with surprise.

“So, you mentioned a friend of yours might be in danger?”

You nodded, not sure what to say or if you should say anything.

“Does this friend know you’ve come to a private detective about their situation?”

You opened your mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “Well…no.”

The man nodded, more to himself than you, it looked like. “Alright. That’s not an issue, just have to cover all the basics first.”

“What do the basics entail?”

He seemed amused by your interest as you took the initiative to ask questions now.

His fingertips drummed along the desk, a rhythmic sound that you found to be oddly soothing.

“It entails me finding out as much about your case as I’m willing to before I decide whether or not it’s something I can assist you with.”

He started twirling a pen with his unoccupied fingers, clearly waiting for you to speak first again before he continued.

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything you feel is pertinent to tell me.”

You sighed. “Well, to start with, I think my friend is being followed by someone-”

“Proof?”

You frowned. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Do you have proof? Does this friend have pictures or a video of them being followed, or is it just a feeling?”

“To my knowledge…no. It’s more that they sense it than have actually seen it.”

“And you want me to find out if this is happening or not?”

“Um…yes?”

It was his turn to sigh this time. “You don’t sound very confident in your answer, Y/N.”

His tone rubbed you the wrong way. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“What it means,” he broke off to look away from the pen to your face again, “is that I need to know what it is you want from me before I can agree to help you.”

You were catching onto his game now. He wanted you to very specifically lay it all out for him, instead of leaving him to figure it out by grasping at straws.

“Well, Mr. Kim-”

“Taehyung.”

“Sorry?”

“Taehyung. You can call me that, if you want. I’m not super big on formalities for myself.”

You chewed the inside of your cheek. Why was his presence so overwhelming?

“With all due respect, Mr. Kim, I’ve never done this before. All I know is something isn’t right, and I don’t trust the police to offer assistance in the way I need.”

You swore you saw something flash in his eyes.

“Why don’t you trust the police?”

You crossed your arms and leaned more into the chair. “The last time I worked with them, it didn’t end well.”

“You’ve worked on the force?” He almost sounded impressed.

“No, sorry, poor choice of wording. I tried to help them with a case before.”

“Ah,” his eyes narrowed as he busied himself with the pen again. “Were you a suspect, or?”

“I was close to the victim,” you said softly, almost a whisper.

For a moment, his expression softened. “I’m so sorry.”

You shrugged, inhaling a shaky breath as you looked at your lap. “It’s fine. Just…there’s your answer. I don’t want to work with them again, so I came to you.”

“If I’m able to take your case, I’ll make sure you don’t regret that decision.”

His tone had you picking your eyes back up. You noticed a fire within his own, one that made you feel like he meant every single word he’d just said to you.

“Thank you.”

He carded a hand through his hair, the action drawing your attention to the silver watch that adorned his wrist.

“Can I ask…could you tell me about the case you were involved with?”

A slow nod from you. “If it’ll help, I can do that.”

He motioned for you to continue. As you started telling him the details, you noticed as his eyes widened. At one point, he politely interrupted you.

“Sorry, just – I remember that case. You were involved with that?”

“Yes.” You were twisting your hands together in your lap. “Ky was my best friend.”

“And the police just let the case go cold, without considering all traces of evidence?”

“I begged them not to, but there wasn’t much I could do. They made that known several times,” you trailed off. You thought you heard some semblance of a growl coming from the detective.

“I always knew something was weird about that…every report they published made no sense, and none of the pieces of evidence seemed to corroborate their theories.” His hushed tone suggested he may have been talking more to himself, but you didn’t question it.

“There were signs of suspicious behavior leading up to her death that they never considered, and any time I tried to bring it up, I was shut down immediately.”

“Are these ‘signs’ something you’re noticing now, with your other friend?”

“Yes, exactly.”

Taehyung hummed. “I see. You want to inspect this before it gets out of hand, so you came to me because the police are a lost cause.”

You nodded feebly, voice softer than ever when you spoke again. “I don’t want to see another person die.”

“You won’t.”

His answer startled you, even if it was as quiet as your own. Your eyes met briefly before he started looking anywhere but your face.

Another hush befell the room, and this one seemed more awkward than the last, considering Taehyung cleared his throat before he rifled through one of his desk drawers.

“Before you tell me anything else, I need you to look over something first.”

“Sure, whatever I need to do, I’ll do it.”

A crooked smile tugged at Taehyung’s lips. “You know, you’re a lot more obedient than most of my other clients.”

You…weren’t sure how to take that.

“I am?”

“Yeah. Most of the time they come in with demands and don’t like to listen when I push back on something. It’s part of the reason why I’ve gotten choosier about who I decide to do business with these last few years. But you,” he fished out a piece of paper from the drawer, “are proving much easier to work with. I appreciate that.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

He chuckled, the sound low. “You’re also way more polite than most people I encounter.”

You smiled at him for the first time. “I’m grateful you’re taking the time to hear me out.”

His eyes lingered on yours for just a second before shifting down.

“First and foremost,” Taehyung slid a piece of paper across the wooden desk that separated the two of you, “if we agree to do business, you’ll need to sign this contract. It lists my stipulations and services I can provide.”

You picked up the paper, not quite sure what to expect.

“Take your time to read over all of it carefully, just so everything is clear on both our ends.” He leaned back in his chair, the sound of squeaking leather breaking your concentration for a moment.

You scanned through every line, all of the contract terms seeming straight-forward and easy to agree to-

-but the last line caught your attention.

“Could you explain this last part, please?”

Taehyung leaned over to look at which line you were pointing to before he let out a soft chuckle. “Ah, that. My #1 most important rule. Never get involved with clients’ personal lives.”

“But don’t you have to sometimes?”

“For work, yes. But this is more referring to what happens outside of that. Things can get…messy.”

“You talk like that’s happened before.”

Taehyung smirked but offered nothing more to that specific conversation.

“So, are we in business?”

You didn’t have to ponder long before you signed the contract with a flourish. When you passed it back across the desk, Taehyung smiled.

“Perfect,” he stood up to shake your hand, “I’ll be in touch with you shortly, once I’ve reviewed your case.”

You returned the shake. “Thank you, Mr. Kim.”

He squeezed your hand once before letting it go.

“The pleasure is all mine.”

You waited to see if there was anything else he might need from you, shifting your weight from one foot to the other. He leaned down and sifted through his drawer once more, this time pulling out a Manila file folder.

“I use these to get the typical information needed for me to start my research. It just asks for client’s name and contact info, as well as a summary about what you’re wanting from me and other names of those involved. In this instance, it would be your friend. You can give me as little or as much info as you think I need.”

He handed the folder to you, and upon opening it up, you saw everything he had just mentioned to you on a sheet of paper stapled to the inside.

“I’d prefer you fill it out now so you can leave it with me, but of course I can’t force you to do anything.”

His tone suggested he was teasing, but you were quick to sit on one of the couches and begin filling out the paper. It didn’t take you very long, and when you were done, you noticed he was sitting on the opposite couch, elbows resting on his knees with his hands folded.

“Finished?”

You nodded as you slid the file across the coffee table, his pen placed on top. He accepted both and smiled at you.

“Alright, if that’s all you want to discuss, you’re free to go. As I mentioned before, I’ll be in touch with you after I’ve looked over everything and have some sort of plan on how to proceed. And of course, all of this information is strictly classified. You read that in the contract, but I always reiterate it anyway, due to some problems I’ve had in the past.”

“Of course.” You agreed with no hesitation. Honestly, you couldn’t fathom just how much he’s had to endure in his line of work, how many times he’s probably had to change locations and phone numbers.

Hell, Kim Taehyung may not even be his real name, and you’d never know.

“Any questions for me?”

You mumbled some form of ‘no’ as you shook your head. Taehyung walked over to the door to open it for you, and you certainly weren’t expecting the same woman from before to be out in the hallway, but there she was.

“Ms. Choi will show you out since this place is a bit of a maze,” his tone was light, a sheer contrast to the mood that had settled over the two of you from when you stepped into his office. “Don’t forget: I’ll contact you.”

“Yes, sir.” You couldn’t help the authoritative term as it slipped past your lips, and you walked through the door before you could see the look on his face. You thought you might have heard some sort of laugh from Ms. Choi as she escorted you back to the front, but your imagination liked to play tricks on you sometimes.

Besides, Taehyung said he wasn’t one for formalities, so it didn’t really matter that much, did it? He had to be older than you anyway…right?

You spent the entire walk through the building trying to justify in your head what had just happened, and Ms. Choi gave you a soft smile as she held the door open for you to leave.

When you settled back in your car, you gripped the steering wheel and took a deep breath, leaning your head back as you shut your eyes.

You still couldn’t quite believe that the last 30 minutes or so had happened. Taehyung had proven to be quite different than what you anticipated, but he was truthfully better than you could have hoped.

He seemed driven and motivated about his line of work, and the way he reassured you when you had your doubts-

-it made you feel…safe. Like this was a step in the right direction after all.

As you called Hobi to fill him in on everything during your drive home, you started to believe that maybe, just maybe, things would turn out alright.

⊱──────── ✬ ✬ ✬ ────────⊰

➥Part 2

➥Series Masterlist

➥All Works Masterlist

#bts #bts smut #bangtaninn #taehyung angst #taehyung x reader #taehyung au #taehyung scenarios #detective!au

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dropoutparty · 3 years

Text

ngc ramblings part 3- chapter 5

here we are at part 3!!! sorry this one took so long, i originally was gonna make this post include entropy and extus (along with finally talking about face in depth) but it was so fuckin long that im splitting it into 2 different posts! the next part isnt done yet but im like almost halfway done so it shouldnt be too much longer until its out! also before we get into this one:

tw for: death, animal death, and suicide. pls take care of urself and don't read this if those things are triggering for u <3

ok lets get on with the post

at the start of entropy zach doesnt waste any time getting right to the point. this place is bigger than the other planets so far, and zach says the music this time around is a melody that “started out normal but then got distorted” played by a violin sounding instrument. even tho i do sometimes forget that this is supposed to be a creepypasta im not surprised that he said it made him feel depressed and unnerved lmao. anyways, this planet has all new level types in it!! no reused ones!! ok now this is epic. the bosses this time around are megalon, battra, and mechagodzilla, but itll be a good while before we get to those guys because this chapter is long as hell holy shit?? buckle up babez <33 now, before i get into the meat of things as usual im gonna talk abt the planet name! entropy basically means “a lack of order/predictability or a gradual decline into disorder” and that's very accurate to this part of the story. at this point, red is pissed off and is getting desperate, which means from here on out things are going to be getting more intense and more unstable. this world is the turning point in the overall story, basically.

now with that out of the way, zach first goes to the worlds quiz level as usual! this time something was different. usually, in the quiz levels there would be goofy ass music playin in the bg (specifically the GH1D0RA cheat music, if you wanna like listen to it ig?) but from here on out its been replaced by the music from the games password screen, which zach called creepy earlier on in the pasta. im gonna glaze over the quiz again this time, but when we get to the next planet ill talk about all of the quizzes in depth all at once. basically all you need to know for now abt what happens here is face asks “do you like mothra?” and when zach picks no (after going on a tangent abt how mothra sucks lmao,, bro i swear im good at the game my controllers just messed up /s), face enters bastard mode and goes “TOO BAD!” and boom now zach cant play as anyone but mothra. zach is pissed for now but little does he know this is just going to become an even more epic gamer bc of this,, youll never get better at something if you never try and all that.

after that, zach moves on to the first level type- the forest. immediately zach gets an eerie feeling from this level bc he has some kinda fear involving forests at night (i can think of a reason why but ill have to talk abt that later just to be sure). hes also not feelin great about being forced to play as mothra, so the pressure of it all is def starting to get to him by now. the music in the forest is woodwinds followed by slow, rhythmic drums and chiming bells. must have been some ominous woodwinds and bells bc it made him feel like he was intruding somewhere he shouldnt be (oh rlly?? u dont say,, everything up until now has been fine /s). getting into the level itself, eventually zach comes across some weird deer-like monsters just vibing and scares them away when he gets close. later in the level he finds more of these weird deer along with a sloth-like creature on some of the trees and some raptor dudes killing some of the deer. zach shoots one of the raptors but thats about it. nothing really happened in this level but zach noted that he didnt feel like he was playing a video game, but instead it felt more like he was exploring a forest in another dimension. thats interesting for reasons ill ~get to later~ (yall must be so tired of hearing that by now omg,, i know im tired of saying it at least. i was gonna wait until after replay to talk about things but i severely underestimated how long this whole project would be, so i might make a post for the “more on that later” stuff before i get into replay. let me know what u think i should do).

anyways, the next thing zach checks out is the first tv screen level so far. these levels just play an animation with some music in the background, and theres a different animation per level. this time around the animation is of a kid with a beaver(?) head licking a lollipop and the music is the GH1D0RA music that the quiz levels used to use. the only thing of note here is that zach says he had a shirt that looked just like that when he was a kid. after that, were off to some of the weirdest fuckin levels in this whole thing imo- the hourglass levels. these levels have an entirely brown color palette, with grandfather clocks standing in the background (the level appears to be in like a hallway or something) and various time measuring things floating in the air. the music is the same as the board (ig cosby just didnt feel like thinking of what theme this place would have lol). after a little bit zach was rlly happy to see actual enemies from the normal game show up! these are basically like aircraft, tanks, etc. thats not the main attraction here tho, bc this level has its own unique mechanic! this mechanic is the colored hourglass items you can pick up. there are three of them, a blue one that slows time down and makes enemies from the past appear, a red one that speeds up time and makes enemies from the future appear, and a green one that made the time flow normally and spawned enemies from the normal game. zach found the blue one first, which caused a bunch of prehistoric enemies based on real animals to show up. after that he found a green one and fought normal enemies again, and then he found a red hourglass. the future enemies here look like aliens to me, and zach says that one enemy reminds him of something he saw in a book once. eventually, a special future creature showed up and zach was suddenly in a boss battle! or a mini boss battle? that description is probably more accurate. this guy doesnt have a face, and he can only attack by shooting a beam from his face, it sure does look cool! after zach beat it tho, he was off to the next level type, which is basically a toxic waste dump.

zach called it grungy and inhospitable, with the music being a synth ambient loop that made him feel dizzy while he listened to it. this is important because this is the first instance of the game making zach feel something *physically*, not just psychologically. all of the enemies here are mutated to some degree, with him first seeing green mummies with bird skulls coming out from vats of toxic slutch and a brownish cow skeleton monster with spider legs. later zach comes across a deer from the woods, drinking some toxic slutch (delinchous). zach got close to it to try making it stopped but suddenly some enemies came out of nowhere and scared it into running right off a ledge and into the slutch. rip :pensive:. after that zach found more mutated enemies (i.e some things with tentacles and some other deformed thing with human teeth) before he finally gets to the end of the level, where theres another miniboss waiting for him!! this ones a toxic sludge monster with a whale skull who attacks with a mouth projectile and by charging into you. the monster sank into the slutch and thats all for this level babeyy!

the next level is another forest, but this time its winter! its still at night, but this time zach doesnt feel off put, which he mostly attributes to the music. he describes it as a gentle, calm song that almost sounded romantic. the entire first segment of this level had no enemies in it, but dw this level is interesting i swear. the next segment starts out just as empty as the last one, but this time its silent. that is, until the music from “unforgiving cold” starts playing. yaa you remember that place!! i think i said it was less interesting than i remembered but its interesting again now bc it was foreshadowing these levels!! anyways soon after the music started up, zach started to come across tons of frozen bodies of the deer from earlier. some were mutilated, some werent, but they were all frozen and covered in snow. eventually zach does come across something living though, a sloth creature from earlier! its just vibing when suddenly the winter versions of the raptors from earlier rush in and fuckin obliterate the sloth thing. those things just blindly try killing everything in sight, and even start fighting themselves before zach finally gets to the last part of the level.

now this is where shit starts to get crayzay. this part opens up to a big empty field with a full moon and the nice music from earlier back. despite the nice music tho, zach immediately starts feeling dread and eventually he finds a lake. the lake comes down from the sky and starts to crack like an egg, a humanoid figure curled up in the fetus position dropping into the lake below and the moon halves disintegrated. this spawned the moon beast, the hardest challenge zachs had to deal with so far. after he finally defeats it, the screen goes to black and the name “melissa” is on screen, written in red. after that, the screen then says kys. the word kill then fills up the screen, layering over itself until it forms a picture of reds face. its now that we finally get to hear abt the whole melissa thing (which makes it sound like shes been mentioned in the pasta before this but thats not what i mean lmao). to summarize, zach had a middle school gf named melissa (also bro middle school?? wadda hell) who often went into “episodes” where she would stare off, expressionless, before trembling and putting her face in her hands. she and zach hung out in a field at night a lot but one night she just stared at the moon the whole time before running into traffic and dying.

NOW its finally later!!! were not done with entropy yet, but this is the end of part one of entropy so i wanna just take a little break to talk about things so far. this planet is FULL of symbolism and foreshadowing. to start off, i think a lot of the questions face asks at the beginning foreshadow things that happen. some examples are “is time slipping though your fingers?” which could allude to the time levels, “do you have any regrets?” which i think obviously foreshadows the whole melissa thing, “is it safe to go out at night?” and “do you find it hard to sleep at night?” both follow the same kinda theme, which i think relates to how the melissa incident happened at night, specifically out at night. i dont think the forest levels have anything too important in them, other than to introduce the presence of an innocent, harmless creature that doesnt deserve what happens to it later (aka the deer things) which might symbolize melissa. more evidence for this symbolizing melissa comes from the encounter with the deer in the toxic dump and the winter forest, where in the former zach tries to stop it from hurting itself but is too late, being forced to watch it die, and in the latter the same innocent thing from earlier is found dead close to where the real incident took place. the two big themes to keep in mind here are death and time, more specifically the past. most of the enemies here are either made from bones or kill other enemies, there's a dedicated time level referencing things that zach remembers seeing at one point (aka that one alien zach recognized), the beaver head had the same shirt as child zach did, it all connects to zachs past and the death of melissa. as for the moon beast, its the most obvious reference for reasons ive already explained. i dont really know what the moon cracking open and dropping a curled up human into the lake could mean other than some other thing melissa related, but i *do* think that the fact that the moon beast is the most difficult thing zach has faced so far is symbolic of the fact that the trauma from this event has followed him throughout his entire life, and its something he struggles with daily. it could even be the reason why he said no when face asked if he could sleep easily at night. the moon beast also has some black fur around its neck, which i think is meant to represent a tire track, referencing and/or mocking the way melissa died.

its so cool how this entire part of the story builds up to and foreshadows the bomb it drops at the end of the part, giving people something to look back on. a lot of ppl say that as soon as the melissa stuff gets introduced the story goes down in quality, and i do somewhat agree with that sentiment, especially if they want the story to actually be scary, but i think the direction the story goes from this point on is so unique and cool. it does follow the whole “theres a ghost in the game” troupe (even tho it was probably seen as a spin on that originally) but it doesnt do the same cliches as so many other gaming creepypastas do and it really takes the concept and makes it its own. i just think its neat,,,

anyways im done gushing abt this story, lets get on with part 2 of extus!! basically zach has a fuckin panic attack and, after taking a few minutes to calm himself down when its over, he decides that he has to finish the game now because if he doesnt its just going to haunt him for the rest of his life. zach has now realized that the game is “alive” and can somehow see his thoughts and memories, so understandably hes pretty freaked out by it at this point. when he keeps playing, the first thing he does is check out another tv screen level. this time, the animation is of a fish dude just kinda standing there with his mouth flapping open and closed and the music is the neptune board music from the original game. the only reason i can think of for why this is here is maybe the game is mocking zach for the panic attack he just had (bc when u have a panic attack you feel like you can barely breathe, if ur lucky enough to have never had one before and u dont know) but thats abt it. its probably just a random goofy thing cosby threw in there.

anyways, the next actual level is the first labyrinth level. this time around, its a gold labyrinth specifically. the music in these levels is a slow, ominous drum beat with female vocals occasionally coming in and (basically from here on out) the monster zach plays as is now half the size it used to be. i think this shows how zachs feeling at this point, like this whole thing isnt just being a big strong monster and beating up enemies any more, he feels small and scared and helpless in the face of something potentially dangerous that he doesnt understand maybe his confusion about the game is the reason *why* theres so many labyrinth levels here in the first place. anyways im getting ahead of myself. personally, i think the aesthetic of the gold labyrinth is very similar to the green temples back on trance. while trance had a more circular and soft theme to it's architecture and sculpture, entropys is much more square or rectangle oriented. despite this, i think that the golden mazes at least are another religious kind of building, and the architecture is just different because theyre two different cultures who just happen to worship the same spiritual figure (aka melissa. did i say that earlier? i think i did,, if i didnt well the religions worship melissa, not knowing she's a dead human or anything. probably).

moving on, zach notes how the gold labyrinth would probably have been impossible to navigate as any of the other monsters, so turns out face being an asshole was a blessing in disguise after all huh? anyways this place is full of weird gold monsters, lava/fire traps, and stone faces (both in more of an easter island head style and in the regular feminine headshot weve seen so far). zach comes across two feminine heads, one that is more adult looking and pure gold, and another one that looks much younger and whos eyes have red irises and blue scleras. this statue apparently looks a lot like melissa did on the night she died, so zach leaves it pretty quickly. i *think* this is the first time we see the color blue associated with melissa? if it isnt sorry abt that, its been a couple days since i worked on ngcr so ive forgotten some of the smaller or more subtle things by now. GOD i keep getting side tracked ANYWAYS eventually zach finds a non-gold enemy and sees it get picked up by like an arcade crane claw. hes curious so he follows the claw, only to see the monster be put in a big gold cauldron and walk out the side of it as a gold monster.

gonna be honest, no idea what the hell this could mean. like? theres been no themes of corruption or good things becoming evil so far so this just kinda. exists,, yea idk lol. im not part of like any discord servers or anything so all this theorizing and analysis has just been me, maybe getting some small ideas from like random youtube comments or something, so if something ive said so far has been unanimously disagreed with somewhere i dont know about it. thats also why this isnt really a definitive or comprehensive analysis (even tho im trying to be as comprehensive as i can).

anyways zach finds the exit soon after and hes on to the next level type (there's so fucking many of them ik dont worry weve almost gotten to all of them now), the indigo cliffs. the background of these levels is similar to the blue mountains from trance, but now the moon and clouds from the toxic dump background is also here (and colored indigo to match). the music here is just a deep rumbling noise. the first “enemies” he sees here are just a bunch of multicolored little guys coming out of a hole in the ground and jumping off a cliff. were continuing the death theme yall!! anyways zach continues, flying over some more weird creatures (tho some of them just look like dinosaurs lol) before he sees a bunch more of the multicolored guys out and about but this time theyre getting grabbed by birds!! wadda heel!!! zach comments on how the multicolored dudes seem eager to die and thinks maybe the moon has something to do with it (like melissa dude wat!!!! that's crazy /s). at the end of the level there were some more multicolored dudes just walking into a creatures mouth so zach attacked the thing and killed it and the levels over yay!

now its time for the bosses babeyy!!! first zach fights battra (basically an evil moth kaiju), the music is varans theme. battra starts off in his larvae form, where he basically just fought by running into you and shooting stuff at you. while fighting this form, zach noticed that the game buffed mothra because his gamer skillz were too cringe lmaoo. he beats the larvae form and battra goes into his second form, where hes basically a stronger clone of mothra (misogyny). zach fights battra and has fun doing it (for once,, good for him) and he wins yay! next hes fighting megalon (a big beetle/bug kaiju), whos music was gigans theme. im tired when im writing this so ill just give you zachs description of how he fought: “strong, persistent, but dumb”. after this, zach checks out the last tv screen of entropy. this time, it shows a big buff guy with a sack over his head hit a womans head with a sledgehammer while shes tied to a table or something. the music for it was the password theme. i think this is probably here because red is getting angrier? like this guy is still here after i triggered his ptsd?? what the hell!!!

anyways before we get to the last boss we have one last level type to get through- the shadow labyrinth. at this point, zach starts to feel drained because no shit sherlock you just had a panic attack and youve been playing this game for fuckin several hours at this point of course youre fuckin drained. anyways zach enters the shadow labyrinth, which is a black recolor of the gold labyrinth. the music is “evil ambience” similar to unforgiving colds music but distinctly different apparently. there werent any enemies so zach just kinda wandered for a while until the lights turned off, darkening the whole screen and (secretly) spawning tons of spooky enemies thatll chase and hit mothra in the dark. eventually the lights came back on and zach started scrambling to the exit. when the lights turned back off, zach was able to find one of the melissa looking statues and stood next to it. it warded off the monsters while the lights were off, so zach was safe. i think this shows 2 things: 1) its a little more validation for my “religion in this world worships melissa” theory and 2) it foreshadows the way melissa wants to protect zach at the end of the game. zach beat the shadow labyrinth a lot faster than the gold one so were done with all the stages now!! now theres only the last boss and red and were done with entropy!

the last boss is mechagodzilla, but when zach starts the level, normal godzilla is there instead!! its whatever tho bc soon the disguise is gone and its just pretty much the normal mechagodzilla fight (but now hes got a gay beam). at about half health tho, mechagodzillas sprite breaks into pieces like gezoras did way back on earth and reforms into not-mechagodzilla. even tho it looks uncanny (and the usage of the face statue on the front is probably there to further mock zach bc melissa) zach beats it p easily and now its time for the chase. ba dum ba dum thats the sound of a chase.

as usual tho, before i get to the red chase its time to talk about entropy as a planet!! i think the best way to describe the layout is “a big forest with a toxic waste dump in it takes up half the planet while the other half is a large religious temple/labyrinth with a dangerous underbelly”. there doesnt seem to be any intelligent life there now (its all dead by now probably) but there was at some point at least because imean the huge labyrinth is there dude!!! i dont have much to say for this section tbh bc i feel like i've already said everything i wanted to, so its time for the chase ig!!

basically the chase with red here takes place in a labyrinth level bc of course it does. this labyrinth, however, seems to be made of some kind of organic matter. is it flesh? organs? nondescript viscera? idk but it's pulsating and bloody. also this time red has wings too!! anyways, basically zach avoids red throughout the maze, red breaks through one of the walls with his big alien tongue, and zach gets to the end of the maze. nothing crazy happens at the end of this chapter (i think it was crazy enough as is) so thats the end of that and now its time for the penultimate planet- extus.

#ngc ramblings #nes godzilla creepypasta #godzilla nes creepypasta #godzilla nes

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aprito · 3 years

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hello <3 since i got these asks at the same time i decided to combine my thoughts on them in this post. yet another annoying sjw essay from yours truly on this blog

before i get into these i think i need to preface why im like. i guess overly hyperfocused on a certain unproblematic base (same age au / platonic canon) for them and avoid the ped0philic content like the plague lol

tw for pedophilia ment, rape ment if that makes you squicky. ALSO THIS IS LONG AND RAMBLY

as i’ve mentioned a couple times already, ive been into the ship since i was 12, back when it was very very common to not only post untagged (nsfw) canonverse content of the two in writing and in drawing but also non con and the like, so you can imagine how bad my first impression online was. thinking back on it ...as a child i found it disturbing but didnt really register how problematic it really was?? (i know, but i also lived in the middle of nowhere and had no one explain this to me)

skip to 2014 aka me coming back to naruto at 17ish and i had kinda become hyper aware of the fact that there was an increasing amount of people online who had come forward with explaining how fictional problematic content, mostly pedophilia, had been used to groom them into starting relationships with adullts. it was also a time where a lot of people didnt believe these victims, not registering how common it was for minors to be online friends with adults who had no boundaries and no qualms exposing them such content. not gonna get into my personal life here but i was lucky to not having gone through this myself. like... it kinda was my first time truly realising how fiction can EASILY be used to manipulate others irl (and yes i will not argue this, if you dont think fictional media can form and manipulate people’s opinions on attitudes, countries, cultures and virtues, pick up a book about the effects of propaganda media at least once please)

i, being young, still liking the dynamic but not really the romance, would point this out here and there in the fandom and get into fights with grown adults in their mid 20s who assumed i automatically hated the ship(s) and tried to restrict their freedom of speech or whatever, heard everything from the “age of consent doesnt exist in naruto” to the “sasori looks like a child what does it matter” despite people clearly playing on him being older and experienced. it made me so upset that people were just consuming all this content uncritically and exposing children to it tbh?? not really just sos but a lot of minor/adult ships in naruto in general. and thats where i sat down and thought, i do not want to be a grown adult talking down to children that point out how unsafe the fandom is. theyre absolutely right in drawing these boundaries and calling out adults who defend the uncritical consumption and creation of this content. i do not want to consume or create content that predators could use to groom minors, and i absolutely do want to let younger people in fandom know that i am respecting their comfort zones and want them to have a safe and fun experience. after all, naruto is not an adult show and i think a lot of people forget that!!!! i am not perfect in that regard but its something that i, at the age of 23, am very passionate about and strive towards to.

and i guess thats where same age au was born for me and i have been sticking to it ever since.

so finally we can move to the first question

aside from the fact that we both dont like canon sos, i dont think it would work out even if i wasnt prejudiced to it anyways. in all honesty, 35 year old canon sasori is not a redeemable character to me, given the fact that he’s easily amongst the cruelest villains in naruto (torturing and killing and taxiderming people for his own fun personal gain, never for a goal that served anyone but himself. how do you redeem having over 300 corpses in your backpack that you felt absolutely no remorse for killing). sasori was legit one of the only cruel villains that didnt had someone else pull the strings, which sends a clear message on kishi’s part, who absolutely loves to redeem villains LOL.

being that old, he obviously had already been very manifested in what he believed in, even if it was shakey, to the point where the first crack in that world view (sakura and chiyo protecting each other) immediately had him give up on his life all together. that, in my opinion, is not a man who’s going to know what healthy relationships would look like, regardless of it being romantic or not. 35 year old sasori to me has the same appeal as an expired can of tuna and he’s probably very happy 6 feet under. he’s supposed to be a failed gaara in that sense that he had no one to look out for him and therefore was never going to experience anything but a bad ending in life. its fine that hes dead honestly, it wraps up his short character development the best IMO.

adding to that, seriously, sakura was obviously interested in knowing why he was that way, and called him out for being seriously fucked in the head, but it’s weird to me that people assume she had any interest in actively rehabilitating him, let alone starting a serious romantic relationship with him. sakura who’s not only very, uhm, immature and straight forward when it comes to her romantic viewpoints also, as a big bootlicker, wouldnt soil her standing in the village by starting anything with a disgraced and far too gone criminal like sasori. shipping that version of sasori with sakura intimately is still going to set her up for a huge power imbalance that would be difficult to handle imo, even if she was the one in the fight ultimately exerting her power over him. i would still look at it and think damn she deserves better than having to play therapist for man like that lol.

additionally, even if you ignored all of this, you cant really ignore that sasori had already known her as a child, and that had been his first and most impactful impression of her. i dont think that sasori would look at 35 year old sakura and see her as a grown woman and not the little green girl she was in the fight. plus, you easily fall into predatory comparison territory between the “childish” and “womanly” and i have seen way too often in fic just being boiled down to her now being fuckable. a lot of of ships do this and i would just like to remind yall thats it not normal for adults to want to start relationships with children they have seen grown up or known as a child when they themselves were fully grown adults. therefore, maybe if sakura hadnt met sasori before it would be less of a problem? but that also obviously defeats the point of the dynamic and the reason he died in the first place. so yeah, it sounds kind of doomed especially if you were to make it romantic.

WHICH BRINGS ME TO THE SECOND QUESTION

let me preface this that im not fundamentally against age gaps, even if im not super interested in it. after all, colorblind had a 5 yr age gap (with sakura being 21), even if, say, i wrote similar fics today i probably would make it smaller lol. i think it can be handled well if both parties have enough life experience to deal with it, and the author is cautious of where the age gap starts, i think a 10+ year age gap would be fine in a scenario where the younger party (i guess sakura) was at least 25-27ish, meaning she has completed most of her most formative life stages and probably had been in relationships before, meaning she would be able to handle it without having to fear a huge power imbalance. the older the younger party is the less the age gap is going to matter tbh .TsukiHoshino and AngelOfDeath10 both handle age gaps in their fics really well imo, so i do not mind reading about them.

unfortunately, a lot of people in this fandom think making sakura barely "”””legal””””” (18, not even 20 which is hilarious to me because the source material is obviously japanese) because they both cannot stand her being past her “prime years” of being young fertile and fuckable to much older men as well as thinking a 20 year old is automatically old enough to handle that type of relationship. ive seen a lot of unironic takes that believe it will absolve them of callout posts if they throw around age of consent and “shes 18 now suckers!!!” enough lmfao. absolutely hilarious. aging a minor up without aging the adult down seriously reeks of predatory “cant wait until youre 18″ narratives and thats why i find it similarly disturbing as straight up pedo shipping.

ultimately, sasosaku is and will always be a inherently problematic ship in canon, which is why i think it should always be handled a little more responsibly in fandom spaces, ignoring or outright excusing the main problem factor, which is sasori, isnt going to convince anyone that the dynamic in itself is well written and interesting enough to explore in aus, like giving sasori the redemption most of us wanted him to have by aging him down to a point in time where he was still realistically going to allow being positively influenced, similar to gaara.

so really, what i think is well handled age gap and how most people handle age gap in the naruto fandom are two different worlds at times lol

tl;dr

canon shippers have never been anything but gross when i was younger and i didnt wanna be like that, even if youre “smart”enough to differenate, actual creeps dont really care and might use your content to blur the lines, sasori isnt rly redeemable so romantic canonverse realistically wouldnt make much sense and is still iffy, age gaps are fine if they are handled well, but given that the dynamic doesnt really need the age gap to still work im not that invested on making that an essential part of my shipping experience.

thank you for reading and hope this makes sense!

#nonitxt #meta #another hot take from me #but seriously if you're offended over these #unfollow me lol idc #defending predatory content is not a hill im gonna die on in this life

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thefudge · 4 years

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what do you think they don't let jeronica have scenes together? can it be because of some cast or fandom drama? i find it impossible to watch riverdale post-season 2 and understand why the hell they never let them become (at least) friends. their story is so damn connected. it would make so much sense. what doesn't make sense is that they don't

ha, well, back in the day we speculated that even a jeronica friendship would seriously threaten the main couples that riverdale was trying to sell because these two have insane chemistry and their background and storylines are way more exciting when put together (as you also pointed out) and i still think that’s true, buuuuut in recent years i’ve come to suspect there’s a little more to it. i mean yeah, riverdale has pretty much turned into a “whatever we throw at the wall and sticks” kind of show, but they also have weirdly moral stances about who should be together and the *right* teen couples (and yes, that is gross and weird and controlling).

so my pet theory is that this might all be about barchie. the showrunner gives me the impression that he wanted to be clever and *subvert* expectations (especially wrt. to the comics), and show that betty and archie are actually deluded in their young love and don’t belong together. that’s why b*ghead is presented as a “smarter” ship, because uhhh deconstructing-america’s-sweethearts-something-something. and look, isn’t betty brave to be going out with an “outsider”? so, despite the fact that the show has and will continue to explore barchie for the drama and chemistry, it feels like the showrunner is very invested in ultimately shutting it down because he wants to be *right* about the main couples. and it’s not enough to show how misguided barchie is, you have to also make sure the reverse couple is not palatable. except that jeronica could actually be a solid duo, clearly better than v*rchie, at least (i’d argue it’s better than most of the ships this show has tried to make a thing, but anyway). even GG saw this and paired up dan and blair. but GG weren’t obsessed with proving that the equivalent of betty and archie (serena and nate?) are wrong for each other. whereas, the riverdale showrunner really wants you to know how much he understands The Teens (TM). that scene in s4 where cheryl makes a big case about how b*ghead found each other? that is the showrunner talking, cheryl is just the avatar through which he’s making his stance known. and his stance is “betty thinks she wants that, but i know she actually needs this”. ultimately, the writers of this show have their own preferences, and fine, they don’t click with jeronica, but the lack of bare-minimum friendship and interactions makes me think this has to do with the weird, holier-than-thou stance about barchie. why else do they keep framing barchie as misguided cheating and young kids who don’t know any better? and since i mentioned b*ghead (a ship which happened in roughly 5 episodes of season 1), i wouldn’t have had a problem with it and might have enjoyed it if it had better development and didn’t constantly have to pit itself against barchie in a weird pseudo-moralistic stance. it’s like none of these ships can stand on their own and be their own dynamics because the showrunner needs to prove a point. and okay, you can frame it as this *foursome* being very tangled and incestuous, but they don’t do that either, because the storylines are not about exploring the messiness of the core four, but rather about making sure only half of them interact and the other half is presented as morally dubious. at the same time, they have no qualms about milking the romance of barchie for the #drama*. it’s...weird. and lol, i’m sorry this has turned into a RANT but it needs to be said that the CW as a whole seems to be in the business of placing young people in weird situations and then shaming them for it. and that is pretty awful. anyway! that’s my take on it. sure, there could also be cast drama involved, but given the way this show is written, i think it’s more likely this is about some nebulous *values* that the showrunner and writers are trying to promote.

*i also wanna add, i’m not even a ride-or-die barchie, i like them fine and i think they have solid chemistry, but it feels like this show is frollo and barchie are their esmeralda, if you catch my drift lol

#jeronica #barchie #replies #anti riverdale #my thoughts

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nerdygaymormon · 4 years

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Sorry, this is a super long ask, but I had some thoughts I wanted to articulate at a person, not just in a post 😅 I had this thought about the article from Elder & Sister Renlund. It was then reinforced when my mom (who I'm not out to) sent me some quotes about God loving his children after she had talked to a family friend who's teen daughter is bi and very angry at the church (And I will admit, the quotes my mom sent we're a lot more loving than anything from the Renlunds). 1

I'm tired of the only reference queer members get about God loving them is that he loves them inspite of their queerness. It's not presented that straight forward always. It's usually presented as "God loves all his children, whether they're following his commandments or not" which isn't a bad sentiment within itself (And maybe that's helpful for some queer people sometimes, idk). 2

I also understand how it can seem a helpful message to share with queer members as a cis straight member. But one of the biggest things that has held me back from exploring my sexuality and gender identity is this idea. By identifying and living openly queer, sentiments like these tell me I am actively rebelling against God. 3

And if I'm actively rebelling just simply by being myself, then why should I keep any other commandments? Sure, maybe if it's just that one commandment I don't follow and I follow everything else perfectly I can still be saved, but I'm still human! The rest of those commandments are still often hard to follow! And if I spend all this time figuring out my queer identity, only to reach heaven and have that taken away... then I don't wanna go to heaven anyway. 4

So maybe our fellow members, when talking to queer members, can stop with the "God still loves you, despite your queerness!" & can instead say "God loves you, queerness very much included!" (Any higher up leadership doesn't get to say this until they get their lives in order & stop being homophobic/transphobic. You can't tell me God loves me if you're out here telling me he doesn't through your policies.) Anyway, this has been bubbling for a little bit and I wanted to get it out of my head 5

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My sense of it is that our top church leaders talk to the members about us. For many years there’s been at least one, often more than one, talk at General Conference that mentions queer people, with gay people getting the most attention.

The leaders tell the members what they believe the Lord thinks and lament that the world is becoming more welcoming. It can sound harsh. They soften it by saying that God still loves us, we’re still God’s children, but it does feel like an after thought.

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It’s very rare to hear a message directly aimed at LGBTQIA+ people. Because of my calling, I’ve gotten to meet several General Authorities, which means I’ve had the unique opportunity to hear how they speak directly to a queer person.

The first one I met is Elder Joaquin Costa, I told him that I’m gay and he was extra caring and kind to me. He hugged me and told me he loves me. It surprised me.

The blog post I wrote went viral and someone asked he and his wife about it, and they wept and he said everyone is deserving of Jesus’ love.

I met Elder Costa again last summer and brought a friend with me. He stayed after hours at the office in order to see us. He hugged me and he’s smiling so big and he keeps mentioning one thing or another from when we met, and my friend leans over and says, “he likes you, like for real, he likes you.” The conversation didn’t go as I’d hoped, but I give Elder Costa credit for listening to us, and it seemed he learned and adjusted. And he kept reaching over and patting my arm, and we’d lean towards each other and bump shoulders, you know, like friends do when you’re telling a joke or something to show you feel friendly towards each other.

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The second General Authority, we got off to a rough start as he spoke for two hours about the importance of marriage between a man and woman and how necessary that is. The next day he went out of his way to befriend me, even asking that we drop titles and just call each other by our first names. He calls me David and I call him Claudio. By the time he left, it felt like we were friends, although I didn’t know if that’s just how he makes everyone feel.

I took him up on his offer for lunch when I visited Utah in 2018. When we got to his office, he was so excited to tell me that he and my dad have the same birthday, but 2 year apart. Had he been snooping on me, how did he know that? Well, he wondered how many people in the Church had his birthday and he did a search on the churchwide membership list. None had the exact birthday, so he dropped the year, and there was my dad’s name. He knew my last name, so he clicked on my dad to see if we’re related. He had waited eagerly several days for me to arrive so he could tell me. Anyway, he and I had a very real conversation, you know, we got beyond just the niceties. He never contradicted the Church teachings, but did admit there’s a lot we don’t know, there’s many questions for people like me for which we have no answers. He listened and understood where I was coming from and that we have significant gaps in our teachings and our church needs to do better in showing love to LGBTQ people. We ended with a lot of laughs and hugs and I left with a good feeling.

I met Claudio again last year and brought a friend with me. I didn’t share this in the blog post I wrote, but Claudio was so eager to see me because he wanted to share how knowing me had helped him respond to a father who was worried his daughter had come out as a lesbian. He shared the advice he gave the father and wanted my reaction. It was very good and focused on accepting the situation, loving his daughter as he always had, and she’s got to make some big decisions but to stand by her and always include her no matter what path she chooses. Those are her decisions, his responsibility is to be her loving dad that she can count on. I was stunned that he shared knowing me had caused him to think about the situation of queer members and the choices we face. My friend that I brought is also gay and Claudio pronounced a beautiful blessing on him. And he invited me to his home next time I come to Utah (which due to the pandemic, has been postponed). As we drove away, my friend remarked, “you don’t just invite acquaintances to your home, you guys are officially friends.”

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I also met an apostle. Upon telling him I’m gay his very first comment was that same sex attraction isn’t a sin but bullying people over it is. We were sitting at a table of 8, so our conversation on this subject was brief. My feeling is he tried to give me a sense of hope, although it was all about what wonderful things await me when I’m dead. I wanted to reply that I needed hope in this life, but the whole table had started listening in on our conversation at that point and we moved on and discovered that his wife and I are related.

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I wish every queer member had these sorts of opportunities to feel love and concern from church leadership. I also wish the Seventy & apostles had more encounters with queer members, I think it’s good for them to process we’re real people with concerns & feelings that aren’t being satisfied and we need to feel the Savior’s love as much as anyone else.

In the meantime, I will be meeting another general authority at the end of the month and will share how it goes.

#David gets personal

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chaosstar290 · 4 years

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Reasons try out Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore.

Nintendo's been pretty casual with porting Wii U games over to the Switch, and for good reasons. Normally, I'm not all into porting games that I've already played, but my personal favorite games on the system that lack good marketing and advertising are now getting the attention and love they deserve.

Take Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze for example, one of my favorite 2D platfomers. The game originally sold 1.72 million copies worldwide on the Wii U. Not very good numbers, huh? However, the Switch port managed to beat those sales numbers with 2.25 million units sold worldwide by the end of March 2019.

So while this could be seen as a way for Big N to earn more $$$, this is also a way for those who never owned a Wii U and missed out on some of the system's best titles to give these games a shot. Now we just need a port of Xenoblade Chronicles X and The Wonderful 101...and Star Fox Zero, I guess.

But that's a topic for another time. This post is specifically for my favorite JRPG on the Wii U only to be tied with Xenoblade Chronicles X....Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE.

This'll be a long one, so here's hoping you'll stick with it until the end.

Development

Before I get into the reasons, lemme educate you guys a bit. Back in January 2013, both Atlus and Intelligent Systems made a teaser trailer for a potential Shin Megami Tensei x Fire Emblem crossover for the Wii U.

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The trailer was mostly just a slideshow with various character artwork. Despite this, there was a decent amount of hype surrounding it. But development around the game was pretty silent. That is, until we fast forward to the Nintendo Direct in April 1, 2015. We got a trailer of the ambitious SMT x FE crossover that fans were waiting for...but this was the final product.

youtube

Needless to say...neither SMT nor FE fans were happy about this. The fandoms were incredibly salty and foaming at the mouths, basically calling it a Person 4 Lite with a hint of FE. Heck, they're probably still posts on this site from 5 years ago that'll show that.

Fast forward to the games initial release, and you'll see quite a few positive reviews and thoughts about TMS. Unfortunately, the sale numbers were not all that great for the game. Obvious reasons being that it was a Wii U game, and many fans of both SMT x FE were not happy with how it turned out.

And to be honest, I wasn't feeling the game myself at first. It seemed too lighthearted and upbeat, and the J-Pop, anime-ish aesthetics were very off-putting. However, the more I saw about the game, the more I was drawn into it. Somehow all that disappointment I had about TMS originally just washed away. And considering it was a new IP, I decided to give it a chance. And hoo boy...I was generally pleased.

With that outta the way, let's get into why I'm excited for the Switch port of game, and hoping people will give it a fairer chance.

The Setting

The plot of Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is mostly simple. You start out as high schooler Itsuki Aoi, the main character of the game encountering his childhood friend Tsubasa Oribe at an audition event to become a idol. It isn't until moments later in the game that the area gets overruned by shadowy creatures known as Mirages that suck out the creative energy known as Perso-- ah I mean Performa from the other idols and audience.

Poor girl doesn't know what's gonna happen next.

Despite our main characters seeming unharmed by the effect, the Mirages drag Tsubasa into their world known as the Idolsphere. And of course, courageous Itsuki takes action to follow and rescue her.

After trying to make a daring rescue, Itsuki gets bombarded by a Mirage, but somehow manages to awaken it. Taking the form of Fire Emblem Awakening's protagonist Chrom. Itsuki does the same with the Mirage that captured Tsubasa that takes the form of Cedea from Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon. The two awakaned Mirages, however, suffer from a bit of amnesia and can't quite remember who and what they are.

From there on, Itsuki and Tsubasa form a partnership with Chrom and Cedea, encountering various characters trying to reach their way to stardom while trying to draw back the opposing forces from taking over Tokyo and the world. Typical RPG stuff, am I right?

It's a fairly standard and slightly cliche plot with some common anime tropes, but for this game...it works. It's a plot that's incredibly silly, upbeat, and over-the-top, but again...it works for this game. And I love it. It may not be original, deep, or complex, but the story does its best to not take itself too seriously, and it doesn't fail to keep a smile in my face.

Aside from the vanilla cookie-cutter MC Itsuki, the various casts that you meet are incredibly charming, and go through their own personal growth as celebrities. Though you mileage may vary on this.

The Gameplay

The combat is the real star of Tokyo Mirage Sessions. Basically, it's your standard turn-based combat system...but with a few twists. If you've ever played a SMT or Persona game, then don't be surprised that elemental weaknesses make an appearance here. Along with that, the Triangle Weapon system from Fire Emblem also makes an appearance in the game.

But if you're not familiar with either franchise then give you a basic example how this works. Say that you've encountered an armored Mirage wielding an axe. The weaknesses on that enemy are both lightning and swords, and Itsuki just so happens to have both the necessary element and weapon equipped.

In case you're wondering...how the Triangle Weapon mechanic works in FE is that Swords beat Axes, Axes beat Lances, and Lances beat Swords.

The interesting thing about this is that once you exploit an enemy's weakness, other characters will jump in and combo extra attacks. These are called Sessions, and their not only powerful...but also flashy as all hell and it's glorious. Not only that, but there's also Duo Arts where two certain characters will sometimes perform a song that unleashes a powerful attack...which also strings up more Sessions. As broken as this sounds, it actually is pretty strategic for taking down harder enemies, and they can also form Sessions...so be careful.

There's more to the gameplay like roaming Tokyo, exploring dungeons, and upgrading your characters and Mirages by Tiki from Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon as well.

There's mixed opinions on the dungeon aspects of Tokyo Mirage Sessions, but...I personally enjoyed them. Aside from the first one. Once you get past the first dungeon, they get better as the game progresses. From exploring a darker version of Shibuya where you have to avoid giant cameras from sending you back to the entrance of the of the room you currently entered, to venturing through a maze-like TV studio.

There's also side-missions that you can do with your main cast that'll help them grow and develop even further. You'll be rewarded with either a special cutscene or a special attack. Or maybe both.

The Visuals

Go go...Persona Rangers?

If it wasn't obvious from the amount of images I'm posting, Tokyo Mirage Sessions is a very colorful game. Fitting with it's lighthearted theme, the amount of colors the game throws at you makes visuals aesthetically pleasing. Heck, you could make these your personal wallpaper on your phone or something.

Sure, Tokyo Mirage Sessions isn't nearly as strong as Persona 5 graphically or even artistically, but like most Nintendo games...what their games lack in terms of detailed ultra-hyper graphics, they make up for it with giving their games gorgeous artstyles.

Also, this game has some reeeeeally good artwork.

The Music

J-Pop plays a pretty big role in Tokyo Mirage Sessions, so expect a lot of vocal tracks. If you're not into this kind of genre of music, then you might wanna stray away from this game. If you are (or if it doesn't bother you), then you're in for a treat. As someone who really isn't into J-Pop myself, the songs in this game are incredible and catchy followed by some beautiful cutscenes. Reincarnation from Kiria Kurono and Feel from Tsubasa Oribe are some of my personal favorites.

The music from outside the vocal tracks are pretty good too. The normal battle theme and the Illusion Shibuya dungeon theme are just to name a couple.

What's New?

Like I said before, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore is a port of the Wii U version, but with added content. Any DLC that was added in the original game will part of the base game in the Switch version. But let's talk about the new stuff.

EX Story and Songs

The EX Story is basically a dungeon that you explore in short bursts. Here you'll find new costumes such as a Joker outfit from Persona 5 for Itsuki, or an Annette outfit from Fire Emblem Three Houses for Mamori Minamoto. Or you can have a much easier time grinding for EXP. Also, much like the side-stories, this dungeon will also explore the main casts' issues and help them grow.

New songs will also be added in this port. A duo song called "She is..." sung by Tsubasa and Kiria is one of them.

Sessions

By making Sessions even more powerful and ridiculous, unplayable characters like Tiki, Maiko Shimazaki, and Barry Goodman will also join in Sessions.

In addition, a Quick Session option will be added. Which is a major upgrade in my book. One of the big issues the Wii U version had was while the Sessions were fun to watch, they took forever to get through with the more characters that joined your party. There are also smaller improvements like the Switch version having faster loading times.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this long as hell post will spark some interest into those who'll give the game a shot. I know there's small nitpicks like the lack of English voice acting and censorship, but the latter is a topic I'd rather not delve deep into.

Regardless, these small cons are greatly outweighed by the large pros this charming game has. If you're an Atlus fan, a lover of JRPGs, or wanting to play something that'll ease the wait for Persona 5 Royal, I highly recommend you give Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE encore a shot.

If you're also waiting for Persona 5 to actually come to the Switch like me, this game is next best thing we've got for the time being.

This is one of the most stylish menu screens ever.

#tokyo mirage sessions fe #tokyo mirage sessions fe encore #atlus #intelligent systems #nintendo switch #wii u #persona #persona 5 #fire emblem #shin megami tensei

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b-listbadboy · 4 years

Text

Castlevania Season 3 was disappointing

(Spoilers for Castlevania Season 3, if you haven’t seen it yet it’s out now on Netflix. I suggest watching that first before reading this review)

I won’t say it was an awful season by any stretch of the imagination but man was it a drag to get through.

Almost nothing of significance happens for the majority of the season and the things that did happen felt extremely off and weird. 10 episodes, 25 to 30 minutes each, and every single one except for the fucking TWO LAST EPISODES were spent dicking around with a mystery that had little to do with anything from season 2 beyond a really out there twist that I’m sort of iffy on. Top that off with a lackluster arguably stupid ending to leave us off on a needless cliffhanger, and that’s the magic remedy that will leave me feeling pretty damn frustrated.

The best parts, in my opinion, were with Isaac’s massive undead crusade he was waging throughout his journey for revenge, and Trevor and Syph’s interactions with each other as well as with the little villagers. Isaac’s arc going from a servant of Dracula to slowing evolving into the master of the damned felt genuine, intriguing, and badass! I really wish he was the next main villain instead as it makes sense thematically. He carries out Dracula’s nihilistic views of humanity in a similar but now more direct way and that can lead into something really intriguing. However, for some reason, this season left him and his whole journey on a back burner, and virtually everything else that is implemented into main villain role fell flat on its face execution wise.

For example; The new vampires of this season are Camilla’s three other empress sisters, and while they do have a plethora of personality at the very least, that kind of comes at a cost of the main threat being extremely diluted. We go from this hurting sympathetic undead overlord with the power of an anchent GOD, to a couple of wicked sassy sisters who just wanna eat people forever? It’s a bit lame of a progression from what we once had, we know Vampires like to eat people that’s nothing new or exciting. There’s no real twist to it besides it being “led by women in the dark ages” and granted that makes sense here since it IS the dark ages, but come on we literally just had arguably the BEST adaptation of friggin’ Dracula! This shouldn’t be all they got moving forward from that.

Now, I have ZERO issue with the main antagonists being female or even two of the four sisters (not by blood don’t worry) being a lesbian couple. I hate that I have to emphasize this, hell I often defend Cinder Fall in RWBY more than anyone in the fandom at all despite her issues as a complex and sometimes flat out badly written character. However, The four of them in this season have the most basic of plans that it seems arbitrary status quote fluff at best. It felt like just because it’s Castlevania, we HAVE to have the vampires as the villains. Even though in the games the Belmont’s were literally fighting werewolves, dragons, skeletons, and the GRIMM REAPER??

Therefore, the sense of urgency and tense calculating plans of ‘survival vs extinction’ is completely gone. And yknow in a way, I can kinda initially SEE that working in a sort of “Empire Strikes Back” esque plot. Yknow, with Alucard and the gang go around cleaning up Dracula’s leftover horde only for Isaac or even Camilla to have this huge vengeful comeback of dominance? But there’s no one exactly “striking back” or even taking any kind of immediate initiative after Dracula’s death. It’s been MONTHS after the whole event and no one seems like they really care about that world changing event from the last two season’s. Everything is fine and dandy, no one has a single worry in the world! How enthralling...I miss Godbrand 😑

Besides the plan the four empresses have as well as Issac’s revenge, which I hope will both be more explored in season 4, no one really has any goal to warrant THAT kind of length of a season. This is more of a Netflix problem that I have with most of their shows and it’s one of the reasons why I don’t like watching them. Almost every singe show Netflix produces now, feels the need to overstuff itself with needless filler that gets us really nowhere until the very end where it SUDDENLY all comes together. But because of the nature of binge watching and considering how Netflix wants to desperately keep their subscriptions in fear of intimidating competition, they make these shows 12 episodes long with HALF HOUR OR MORE amount of filler content that’s supposed to satisfy us cause it’s “cute”?! No, stop this shit! Granted, Castlevania wasn’t nearly AS bad as the live action shows, but honestly, what exactly was shown to us that couldn’t have been reduced to like 5 solidly paced episodes focused on one or two plot lines ONLY like before? It worked perfectly back then, why change what ain’t broke?

As much as I don’t like the immediate rush of Trevor and Syph’s out of nowhere sexual relationship, I didn’t overall mind it too much since they still somewhat felt consistent. Their characteristics play off very nicely with one another and it’s pretty easy to see the chemistry between the two....HOWEVER I’M STILL GONNA COMPLAIN ABOUT IT SO HERE WE GO!

I get that they were setting them up as an endgame ship of the series, there’s no denying that, but they start fucking for what feels like (to the audience) two days after and I think that’s a bit ridiculous! Even if Alucard states that it’s been at the very least a month worth of time since the events of Season 2, there’s no real physical signs showing that statement to be true. Hell, Trevor’s beard and hair remains the same despite a HUGE passage of time where it would naturally grow out to indicate said time passing by. But both him, Syph, Alucard, and damn near everyone else looks the exact same as last season. So for all I know it could have been like a week since Season 2 and that to me doesn’t feel exactly earned. The Season 2 finale didn’t explicitly leave off Trevor and Syph officially a couple, they felt more like partners in crime more than anything else. Not to say that there wasn’t any chemistry there to develope INTO a relationship GRADUALLY, but going from a little spark of interest to the immediate jump of them sleeping together naked all comfortably as if they’re a goddamn married couple is a STRETCH! Even Trevor himself thinks so too so don’t jump down my throat about not being immediately swooned by the shipping fanservice given to us. I don’t dislike them as a couple at all, in fact I think their dynamic is cute! However, I would have also liked to have this couple feel natural and earned. They most certainly do not feel earned this way, at least to me.

Oh god, then there’s this out of nowhere sexual tension between Alucard and his new two recruits from another region hinted at in the previous season? Mind you, Alucard was doing literally NOTHING throughout the entirety of Season 3. Yep, literally the ONE DUDE WHO BASICALLY KILLED DRACULA gets about fuck all story progression afterwards out of the three. But what they DO give him are these two new vampire hunting student’s who look identical to one another (no racial they just literally look like fraternal twins) so I assumed they were either siblings or a couple, which makes it REALLY WEIRD WHEN THEY BOTH FUCK ALUCARD OUT OF NOWHERE?! I’m NOT making this shit up I promise! What makes even less sense is that it was really just a ploy for them to steal the Belmont knowledge of killing vampires to show to their people who have been enslaved. Which of course ends with them being killed so it really makes this entire conflict in his character damn near pointless besides “sad vibes check”, but here’s the thing...why didn’t they just keep doing training with Alucard?? There were virtually no downsides to having him teach you how to kill Vampires to save your village from being enslaved, he was teaching you both very well and gave you like the eternal knowledge of how to kill literally EVERY MONSTER and even let you live in the castle FOR FREE, food and wine included! What was the turning point for them to want to kill him all of the sudden? Cause he’s a vampire?? THEY FUCKING KNEW THAT ALREADY!!! Why was is suddenly not a problem at first but then coincidentally a problem now? If they wanted to use this to somehow depict this notion of “Oh my dad/Dracula was right humans are the worst” mindset, trust me, it was better conveyed with Isaac. These twins side plot not only made no sense, but also felt unjustified for Alucard to be an emo boi. I get that it’s supposed to be symbolic of him going through the same issues that both of his parents went through, but none of that really showed how bad human’s are. Just that those two twins didn’t think things through apparently. So the point of Alucard having this odd character convenience shift feels by the numbers cliché, and most importantly CHEAP.

It really makes no sense to me why they’re adding so much of this filler for such a long time, especially with some of this filler being oddly sexual. I don’t mind honest depiction of sex between consenting adults of course, but it just felt so misplaced and awkward at parts where it showed itself. I felt like I was reading a mediocre fanfic of Castlevania instead of the actual show itself! Granted, Season 2 had somewhat of a similar dilemma but the lull in between was still showing the character specifically doing things to further the story along. Towards the end, it gave us a way more satisfactory closure of that saga with Dracula that felt natural and well earned. This season however, felt like they were scrambling with different ideas here and there and didn’t know which to go with. Alucard training new recruits in his castle, Trevor and Syph figuring out an estranged (and BORING/GENERIC) cult of Dracula’s plan, Camilla setting up an army with her fellow sisterhood of evil vampires to gain ultimate power, Hector surviving captivity by using his wit and charm, Isaac raising up the dead for revenge on his deceased master, a new character introducing an all new world to the lore of Castlevania as we know it, all of these interesting concepts and ideas that could easily make up for a good season alone! And instead of focusing on one or two ideas to develope into something natural, they ended up saying “FUCK IT! Fucking I dunno what to- WE’RE DOING ALL OF IT I DUNNO!” and mixed the whole thing in a blender of different flavors that don’t necessarily blend together well enough for a tasty satisfactory meal. It just ends up being a mesh of okay at best, and gross at worst.

IN CONCLUSION, Castlevania Season 3 had a rocky start, an okay middle, and a kind of cool end. There was definitely some cool and exciting ideas implemented in here, but not enough to warrant that lengthy amount of time that Netflix seems to love to give to most of their TV shows. Sometimes less is more, and all that shiny cool glitter isn’t necessarily going to turn out to be gold. I’ll give this season a 5/10. It’s not the worst I’ve ever seen but it certainly could’ve been a lot better.

P.S. “Who Do Ya Voodoo” from Dead Island is Isaac’s new theme song, you can’t convince me otherwise.

#castlevania #season 3 spoilers #spoilers #unpopular opinion #review #netflix castlevania #critique

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splatoonwritingproject · 4 years

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TarTar's Return: Chapter I

A thick presence of darkness covered an eerie room. It was coated with metallic air and a heavy teal glow barely illuminating such a chilling and haunted chamber. A single step could shake the dead silence like a pin dropping, and it did indeed.

An adult cephalopod enters, with a monitor semi-lightening up the room just a bit more, and yet the ambiance looked even more dreary. He sits in the chair before the monitor with a smirk slowly painting his face.

The monitor reboots. Steady and even footsteps suddenly dropped to yet another silence. The adult mollusk was ready. Whatever he had planned started to commence.

He pushes his glasses up, carrying the monitor's reflection. His lips curled back into a sinister smirk and his silky voice sliced the dense air one last time: "Now... we really begin, Commander [REDACTED]."

Skylar Toryoshi, also known as Agent 7, works as an agent and lives in the agents HQ. Despite the constant missions and colleges he had living with him, he was pretty lonely and like it that way. His quiet mannerisms keep his life in control in between the madness of the world that attempts to break him down. He loves the HQ. He loves his job, and it seems like the people who look up to the Squidbeak Platoon love him as well.

Keith, Aka Agent 8 was in his room. He's a poet, a quiet one at that. He was writing about something that happened a year ago during his time in the Metro. A television blared throughout the HQ. He was frustrated because he couldn't think, but he noticed the name of the HQ was being tainted. That grabbed Keith's attention.

A trainee was working with an agent for the time being was callee Tina, a young squid that was an aspiring weapon designer. She got off of her cute laptop and stepped downstairs to the main room and looks at the tv captured her undivided attention.

The New's was clicked on by Lucas, AKA Agent 6. He was just lying on the couch flicking through channels on the TV. He stopped on the news channel where the presenter was calling the NSP a terrorist organization. "Uhh, guys? You might wanna look at this." His pubescent voice called out.

"A man had a conspiracy theory about the Squidbeak Platoon at 6:51 am about the heroes we look up to, The Agents of the Recently opened 'New Squidbeak Platoon' (NSP) has been plotting silently to plot against us as terrorists," An octoling woman spoke out, "This man anonymously started posting videos of sketchy activity of these so-called 'heroes.'" She added, "These posts were sent on KettleTube as a result. Do you still believe these agents are heroes? Are this man's conspiracies true? More coming up on Sunshine News later today."

Keith stepped over to the Television in stunned disbelief.

Kris, Agent 9, was staring at the large screen at Inkopolis Square, in his civilian wear, "$&@#..."

"What kind of..." Keith tilted his.

While others glared in shock and awe, Mirror Aka Agent 5, was sleeping like a log on the couch with his goggles over his face oblivious to it all, and Dusk, Agent 4, was playing video games with a sheawnwitch in his mouth.

The young Tina shook her head in denial. "Why is this, we're not assassins."

Throughout this revelation inside the HQ, Skylar was idle in inkopolis square, relaxing and writing in his journal just when he looked over at the squares TV "No... That can't be true can it?" He got up and walked closer to the TV muttering to himself on how this couldn't be true."

Keith Intercom goes off as a trainee's voice goes off: "Hey guys did you watched the news?"

Kris out of hyperfocused instinct rushed into the squid hole and to HQ, continually repeating, "$&@#! $&@T! $&@#!"

Sun Rendezvous with Kris and followed, however, the moment Sun met up with the rest, he started up the stove in the kitchen and started to make a pancake batter.

Octavo would be in his snowglobe asleep

"Yes, I did. And I am very concerned!" Lucas said while pacing around the floor "The people believe the media and the media just called us terrorists and now they're against us and IM FREAKING THE $&@# OUT!"

Keith tried to set up his collective mood as much as he could. "We'll need to save our reputation," Keith muttered.

Kris turned on his intercom, "We all need to meet up, STAT!"

Hearing the Intercom Skylar panicked and notice Kris run and followed after him "what the fuck is happening"

Eventually, Mirror woke up and was livid "SHUT UP! I'm trying to sleep!!"

Keith slapped the daylights out of Mirror

"MIRROR THIS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN SLEEP" Lucas Scolded.

Kris enters the room abruptly, "$&@#!"

"We have an emergency meeting dumbass! Someone's throwing our name into the mud calling us terrorist, and due to your lack of concern, I'd say you were the one who did it!" Keith jokingly accused.

Mirror punched Keith on the shoulder after getting up aggressively "Hey! I may always be a jerk, but a terrorist?!?! ...I'm still trying to achieve that!" he said jokingly.

"Cod damn! Just act like an Agent for once in your miserable life," he stepped away while trying to contact Agent 3.

"Is Agent 3 contactable?" Kris asked Keith, only to finally notice Sun making Pancakes as well as Skylar.

Mirror was irate, "SUN NOW'S NOT THE TIME TO BE MAKING PANCAKES!!"

"IM HUNGRY $&@#%! Sun sassed.

"So far no, she's in a mission with the SquidSisters." Keith replied to Kris, ignoring the confrontation for now.

"Well, $&@#. They're in some serious danger if they're caught in public." Kris replied.

Skylar stood by the doorway "can we all just calm down... Please?"

"NO!" Sun screeched then calmed down after seeing Skylar's death stare, "I-I mean yeah sure..."

"They're in the Valley so they should be... "Okay," Keith reassured, rolling his eyes as the two butted heads.

Octavio just sigh and knocked on the snow globe

"SUN, I WILL STICK MY HAND SO FAR UP YOU'RE $&@ I'LL USE YOU AS A PUPPET!!" Mirror finally snapped.

Keith takes a deep breath, trying to calm down. "Skylar's right let's calm down and put our heads together. How can we save our reputation?"

"I vote assassination!" Lucas shouted in panic.

"Me too!" Sun voted from the Kitchen, finishing his cooking.

Skylar sighed and facepalmed "are Keith and I the only sane people here? Keith? Any ideas?"

"We'll need to search the area without sticking out," Keith demanded, "Hiding in hoodies, making disguises until we find our culprits. We also need some fake identities."

"Hoodies? I got you covered! I own literally every hoodie known to cephalopod kind!" Lucas boasts, showing his massive collection of hoodies in every color of the rainbow.

The meeting eventually escalated into a chaotic bunch as Mirror and Sun were starting to lash out at each other. Sun's pancake flew over to Kris, causing him to go ballistic at the duo. Poor Keith was just trying to get everyone to listen.

Suddenly the gaming and innocent Agent 4 stepped into the room seeing the chaos and clapped his hands to get everyone's attention.

Kris looked to Dusk. Lucas turned his head towards Dusk as well. Keith's attention was added.

"This... This is a me--" Skylar's mouthed, as Keith shut it.

"Now. Keith, what is our game plan?" Dusk asked.

"Thanks, Dusk," He patted Dusk little head as he giggled like a small child, "Once again, we'll need to search the area to find our culprit, From the Squidbeak itself, to out in the open of Inkopolis to the Canyon to the Valley. We also need to make Fake IDs, which would be easy, since our Records don't exist anymore."

"The fake ID's can only last for so long..." Skylar started mumbling.

"Then finding the Culprit needs to be as quick as possible." Keith countered.

"I'll go for the valley, I was born there so I practically know the place inside out" Lucas announced

"I'll go with Lucas," Sun added.

"I'll be in the outskirts, Pearl and Marina trust me so I'll be able to get more information," Keith claimed

"Alright. Skylar and I will be in downtown Inkopolis." Kris demanded.

"But we need to make sure none of us get captured on the way, Lucas."

"I've got some old octoling armor in my room, we can blend in with that when we get to the valley" Lucas said to Sun quietly.

"Ok" Sun replied.

Skylar smiled "Time with Kris?...sure" He muttered under his breath. If anyone ever gave Skylar any joy outside of silence, it would be his close friend Kris.

Sun walked to his room to search for something.

Mirror looked at Octavio with suspicion. "maybe he had something to do with it."

Keith sighed "He's been in that snow globe for 3 years, I don't think he'd do much, but I'll admit Mirror, you are smart, no one is 100% trustworthy at the moment." Keith praised Mirror.

Octavio banged on the glass in anger cracking it out of the rage of Keith's comment.

"Mirror, Dusk, examine Octavio's or the HQ's behavior."

"Yeah whatever," Mirror halfhearted

"Roger 8!" Dusk replied with enthusiasm.

Sun came back with bombs like the ones from the metro. These bombs can be explored with a code word and only your voice. Sun gave everyone some of those bombs but stopped by Keith.

"What are you doing?!?!" Keith held onto one of the small bombs.

Lucas went into his room and brought out three things. Two sets of octoling armor for himself and Sun, as well as a toolbox for unknown reasons

Skylar held up a bomb "Sun.. if people see us wearing these they'll think we're suicide bombers... Which won't help at all."

"O-Oh right," Sun took them all back. "More things to add on for our now proclaimed, 'Terrorist organization'"

Lucas slipped on the octoling armor that was taken from his room. "Huh, I guess I still fit into this."

Keith rushed into his bedroom to pull out some makeup he was using from "Hot Akanni's" and put on some fake contacts to change his eye color. Then he put some makeup to hide the scar. The then put on his Rockingberg Gear; the first gear he ever had the first time he stepped foot in Inkopolis.

"Alright, Sun lets head off. I've got a super jump spot to the valley not too far from here. C'mon." Lucas demanded.

Sun grabbed his dynamo and slipped onto his octoling gear. Sun packed up what was left of his pancakes and put them inside what was bag he added to his attire's roster on his person. "On it!"

Soon after, Lucas leads Sun to the super jump spot. The two of them fly off to Octo Valley.

Kris puts on a hoodie with some sweatpants, "This looks casual." he thought.

Skylar chuckled nervously, blushing furiously, "Y-yeah it does!"

"R-right!" Kris replied, "Let's go..."

Skylar sighed in relief. He will save what is left on what he adores. His new life, his new friends, and his new job is currently in danger, and he won't let it go down into ruin without a fight. That is basically who he is as a person:

A fighter.

#octo expansion #splatoon #inkling #octoling #octoling boy #commander tartar #agent 8 #agent 4 #agent 3 #splatoon 2

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crystalnet · 4 years

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Pop Music in Ghibli

If you mention Ghibli and soundtracks in the same breath to most people, the first thing they will likely think of is Joe Hisaishi-senpai’s prodigious and immaculate compositions, BUT it occurred to me recently that there’s actually a great amount of pop music showing up in a handful of some of my very favorite Ghibli films. They’re more rare compared to the instrumental tracks, sure, but in that way it might be even be more impactful-- especially for plebeians without an ear for vocal-less music-- when they do show up. Click through as I explore pop music in 5 Ghibli classics.

#1- The Wind Rises: ‘ "Hikōki-gumo" (ひこうき雲) by Yumi Matsutoya

Okay so hearing this song on a recent viewing of this film was the whole impetus for writing this. By hugely influential and popular song-writer Yumi Matsutoya, this closing-credits track drops just in time for a full fatality against the viewers’ emotional fortitude- if it remains in tact at all by that point. Between the bittersweet lyrics-- which corresponds beautifully with a plot point from the end of the film-- a righteous hammond organ part and this heart-breaking melody, it all just becomes a bit too much, in a great way.

Mrs. Matsutoya here is outright indecent towards our emotions here. And I love it. In addition to that, the track counts as only one of a few instances of a pop song in a Ghibli joint serving as the closing track. So uh yeah, go down a rabbit hole of Matsutoya’s music if you wanna explore the wonderful world of vintage J-pop/city pop etc., and you will not be disappoint. Also, this isn’t even the first time one of her songs was used... her debut in Ghibli occured 2 decades earlier in....

#2- Kiki’s Delivery Service: ‘I’m Gonna Fly”- Sydney Forester

Okay, so this is not another Matsutoya song. But in the original Disney release of Kiki, this song stood in for what was in the Japanese release a rather different, rockabilly-pop song from one of Matsutoya’s early albums ‘Rouge no Dengon‘, and this has since been corrected on subsequent releases. Tonally they are pretty different, but they both share a level of charm. This English replacement is way cornier though, but I imagine whichever one you grow up with will be the superior and preferable dose of nostalgia. I’m tainted by living with the original 90s English version for so long, that I get really thrown off in the first 20 minutes if, mid-maiden voyage, Kiki turns on her radio to Matsutoya instead of this funny little stand-in.

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Speaking of Kiki’s radio, this is one of only TWO instances I’m aware of in which the pop song is diegetic within the film-- meaning it actually comes from a source within the actual world of the movie-- at least sort of (it’s that kinda pseudo-diegesis where the volume of the song makes it clear that it can’t actually be coming from her little radio). This song just really has a kind of saccharine horse-girl charm which I love and I feel like it matches the movie’s atmosphere pretty well despite being modern sounding, whereas Kiki’s world seems to be vaguely set in a version of the.... 50′s where dirigibles never went away? Never really thought about it actually.

But yeah, these weird contract-based one-off recording artist concoctions are always kinda fun. They remind me of weird tracks from the Detective Conan opening themes where you just wonder about how and why they come about. Ultimately though, Disney probably made a good choice. The song occurs early enough in the film that it might do some work towards dissuading any reservations younger viewer-- or their parents-- might have after wading into such a then-exotic animated film such as this. It gently reassures one that despite appearances, this film CAN be a movie for English-speaking Americans. Plus I mean this lady’s voice actually rocks. I feel like it helped sell the movie to my older Jewel-listening sisters when we were kids and for that I’m grateful~

#3- Only Yesterday: “Omoide No Nagisa”- The Wild Ones (and much much more)

Okay so Only Yesterday is stuffed to the brim with tons of pop music and other cultural ephemera, far too much for me to parse through now (maybe deserving of its own deep-dive post) but I’ll focus on one that shows up early in the movie.

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(This isn’t full track, for some reason the only full version on youtube will not embed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MRlKvOiXgjo

This track plays during one of the early memoir-esque narration-heavy flashback scenes. It’s before we are fully thrust into those more washed-out, impressionistic coming-of-age sequences, and are being lead gently into that world by way of recollection from the now adult protagonist. She is remembering the craze in 1966 around “group-sounds”, a genre in Japan that was clearly partly indebted to the British Invasion happening on the other side of the world.

I like the song a lot because I can hear the Beatles, Kinks and Monkeys etc., but it has it’s own really unique flair on top of that influence. I hear smokey curry and coffee shops. Fuzzy bunny-eared television signals. I think of young fresh-faced Japanese Boomers experiencing a newly technicolor world of pop-culture. The echo on the mic pick-ups whirs in my mind pulling me back toward a “simpler time”.

The appearance of this song early on is a tip-off to the unfurling of a particularly globally-minded and varied soundtrack in this film which continues to surprise throughout the runtime-- it is my second favorite Ghibli soundtrack after ‘Totoro’ by far and that usually has to do with the incredible Bulgarian choir music that appears, but stuff like this Wild Ones track is just great too. Whether the male-lead/love-interest is playing that Bulgarian “peasant music” via his Toyota’s cassette player or we are getting a history lesson in early J-pop/rock, it’s all particularly tasty. There’s even a couple appearances from music from Japanese children’s television.

A lot of the referencing is nigh impossible for this westerner to parse, but all of it--save for one track-- is pretty ace. That one let-down for me is yet another pop song in the form of the ending credit-sequence track, a Japanese cover of ‘The Rose’. I think Bette Midler is just not a tasty association for an American of my ilk and so even if the rendition is tasteful, and the ending scene is beautiful, it remains the only time I’m let down sonically in the movie.

Before I move on, it’s worth mentioning that the movie itself may be named after an American film OR a song by the Carpenters. I can’t be sure, but I kinda wish they actually used this Carpenters track to close the film instead of ‘The Rose’ but maybe it was a licensing issue. Anyhow. Perfect movie.

#4- Whisper of the Hear: “Take Me Home, Country Roads”- John Denver/Olivia Newton John/Various

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Okay so the way this song factors into the movie is way different than anything else we’ve discussed so far. I’ll embed the Olivia Newton-John rendition that the film opens with as opposed to the Japanese version that plays in the ending, because uh, as cute as it is, the vocalist (who I think is just the main-character’s voice actress?) is pitchy as hell (maybe in a twee, intentional way?)

But so yeah, this song is a big part of an initial and reoccurring plot-point in the film which has the young protag. translating the American song into Japanese with her school friends. It’s a slightly illegible plot-point if you watch the English dub, but it basically comes across. According to Wiki, the producer of the film’s daughter actually supplied her lyrics which Mr. Hayao himself supplemented, which is just too cute. In the film, her version is called ‘Concrete Roads’ which has some nice thematic resonance with a lot of the angst that shows up in ‘Pom Poko’ regarding the suburban developments which sprawled out from Tokyo and other major Japanese cities throughout the 20th cent., encroaching on that same beautiful countryside that John Denver was initially sending up.

In a climactic scene, the protag. nervously but triumphantly sings the song along with her magic-boy boyfriend and his grampa’s grampa-friends, and uh yeah it’s cute as heck.

The film is based on a manga, and though I’m too lazy to research this much, I assume the manga was the first to introduce the concept of centering so much of the story around a relatively benign country-pop tune such as this. But I mean, the choral arrangement in the intro of Newton-John’s is kinda emotional as hell. Mountain-momma indeed.

#5- My Neighbor Totoro: Ending Theme- I don’t know...

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Alright we’ll end with a sampling from the best of the best. I’m not gonna force too much “research” for this ‘cause like, I don’t know man, I just don’t wanna do anything that would remotely threaten to extinguish the magic. And I refuse to ever listen to the abomination that is the Disney re-dub. But I understand they re-recorded these tracks for that. Which, like, why? I’m also assuming the songs were pretty faithful translations of original Japanese tracks, because they’re just too good to have just been created for the western release. Like Hisaishi has to be behind those kalimbas and synth-lines. The lady’s voice basically sounds like my mom to me(?) and the dusty patina on her vocal-track alone kinda makes me wanna weep.

And I kinda hate when people just joylessly parrot internet meme terms, but this song is what I would be unable to not describe as a “bop”. I mean the drums alone rip.

This song has a sister-track in the form of an introductory credit-sequence song which accompanies a ridiculously cute visualizer, and they’re both just perfect matches for the joyful, innocent and exuberant nature of the film itself. Elsewhere on the OST, this is basically the last time that I’m aware of Hisaishi using synthesizers and it’s just glorious. Get this man on drum-machines and synths again! So uh yeah, I mean it’s all just great. What else could I say? Best soundtrack of all time period. Full stop. The end.

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Ok that’s that. Keep in mind, there’s like a small hanful of Ghibli I still haven’t seen so there could be some major instance I’m missing but uh, maybe I’ll update if one day I find out there’s a straight up Utada Hikaru song in ‘Princess Kaguya’. Oh and uh yeah there’s this one in ‘When Marnie Was There’ by one Priscilla Ahn . It’s like a b-side of the Kiki song but not as good as that makes it sound like it’d be. But it’s horse-girl-core as hell. So uh yeah.

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see ya space cowboy~

#ghibli #soundtrack #pop music #vocals #instrumentals #yumi mastutoya #omoide no nagisa #whisper of the heart #john denver #olivia newton-john #when marnie was there #country roads #kiki's deliver service #only yesterday #the carpenters #priscilla ahn

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venus-says · 4 years

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Kamen Rider Gaim Movies

Goodbye is a bitter fruit.

Time to sadly end the Gaim cycle with its many movies! Okay, it's not so much, there are only three of them, but there are 5 stories overall to talk about so IT IS A LOT. I'll try to keep things simple considering how long my last Gaim review and I don't wanna put anyone to have to read so much back to back.

In any case, let's send off this series with a bang starting with the stand-alone movie.

Kamen Rider Gaim: Great Soccer Battle! Golden Fruits Cup!

So... I feel like they had an idea for what the Gaim movie should've been, but then a higher up came and said that because of the World Cup this movie needed to include as much propaganda pro the Samurai Blue and then this movie came up as the way as it did. And that's pretty much the reason why I don't like this movie very much because I could see that there was something they were trying to do with Lapis trying to find hope that Humans aren't like the Femushinm and that debate was interesting to a certain extent and I'd love to watch if the movie had gone all the way through with this. But then we have this world obsessed soccer, which I'll admit is more believable than a world where street dance is so important like in the original show, and we have a lot of scenes in the soccer field, and there's a lot of participation of the players who were part the actual team of the Samurai Blue at that time and it's pretty obvious that none of these people have acting experience and is just very awkward, and the damn final fight is a dumb soccer game that to a person like me who doesn't like soccer it looks just stupid.

But the movie has good things too, as I mentioned, there's the "humans are monsters that only hurt each other" aspect of it that is cool, despite thinking it's a stretch I like the concept of trying to emulate the power of the Golden Fruit and creating this creature, and I like that there's finally not just one but two apple-themed riders because that's something I wanted to happen in the show itself not just in that epilogue, I also like this thing where Kougane had to sacrifice other riders in order to use his lock seed, and just like in all Kamen Rider movies the action is awesome, I love that scene of Gaim fighting Kougane and they're doing it riding horses, that was awesome, seeing all riders together was also very cool, I just what we got after it was an actual fight and not a soccer game disguised as a battle, but oh well. In other words, it was enjoyable to a certain extent but not necessarily good.

Gaim Gaiden: Kamen Rider Zangetsu

Zangetsu's special is the one that got me more disappointed out of the four Gaidens we got, but in this case, it's less because the special was bad and more because I had higher expectations for it and we got wasn't what I wanted. When I saw the line-ups I thought Zangetsu and Knuckle would happen after the show ended and Baron and Duke, for obvious reasons, would be set in the past, and I was really excited to see how Takatora was doing in the future. But this was a special set in the past, I believe it must be anytime around episode 20 or so, and this was more to kinda dive in Takatora's mindset around that time of the show. And, you know, that was good, I just wish it was more, I feel like considering all the horrible stuff he learns about his father there they could've explored it more, I was also a bit disappointed that he used the watermelon seed but it was just a color change of his original melon suit, I think that was kinda cheap. But it's still a good special I'd say, I like how it got really emotional at times with him remembering of his childhood, and the end with Duke killing the girl with the apple seed felt really brutal especially because they did a good job with setting up her connection with Takatora.

Gaim Gaiden: Kamen Rider Baron

The Baron special was exactly what I felt that was missing from Kaito's story in the show, it's where we see his backstory and we get to understand how he ended up the way he did. Yeah, it was kinda silly to do this doppelganger plot and everything, but it really worked in this case, I got to learn more from Kaito which made me appreciate what I saw in the show more. Yeah, I think his backstory is a bit way too edgy and is trying hard, but that's Kaito, he's an edgelord so it works. My real problem with the special is how Yoko comes like a Deus Ex Machina at the end to deliver the apple lock seed the girl from Zaangetsu special used, I think they could've spent less time showing Shapool doing his stupid stuff and more time setting up for that moment. But I overall enjoyed this one quite a lot, I love the design of the dragonfruit suit, that was also another fruit I felt like it was missing from the show so I'm glad we got something with it.

Gaim Gaiden 2: Kamen Rider Duke

The Duke special feels a bit odd to me, but despite this weird feeling I really enjoyed it. It feels like this cult, I think their name is Black Bodhi, came out of nowhere and that's pretty much my only problem with this special, but that aside I like the whole thing. One thing that I think it's great here is that we got to see Yoko's and Sid's pasts, that was incredible and left me wanting a Gaiden for Yoko alone exploring that period of her life, seeing how she became a rider, and also giving us a better understanding of why she is the way she is, yes I'm biased I DON'T CARE, just give me that Marika Gaiden, please.

This is right before the energy Riders become a thing I the show and I like to see Takatora and Ryoma's relationship in that time a few episodes before the betrayal happens. This also created a concept of someone harvesting those bomb lock seeds and to me that was just very cool and I wish they had done something similar in the show, like having a section of Yggdrasil dedicated to just that so they have unlimited supply of seeds for the Kurogane troopers to use, it seems like a good idea for them and it'd be very fun. I still don't buy this story of the testing of one of the lock seeds ended up splitting that guy's soul from his body, but I like that this is also used to set up the ground for Knuckle's special, and of course, his Blood Orange + Pomegranate form looks just dope as hell, I love it!

Gaim Gaiden 2: Kamen Rider Knuckle

Knuckle got the best special and I dare to say is the best movie story of the Gaim movies. First, it's set after the show which is great, I love seeing the world recovering after the finale and I like it even more that it shows just how those characters were trying to move forward. I wish they had set up in the show that he has a crush on Peko's sister because there are parts here that rely a lot on his feelings for her, but I feel like they balanced it well showing how much he cared for Kaito and how much he cares for Peko as well, which were both things that were explored in the show, so in the end, I'm okay with it.

One great thing this special does is that it not focus only on Zack but it also gives a lot of character to Peko who pretty much just sits there in the background doing nothing for most of the show, but that has left a great impression on me after these events. We also got to see how Team Baron started which was something I didn't know I needed but that I enjoyed seeing and that also tied up with the motivation of the main antagonist for this special. Speaking on him I liked the dude, he doesn't seem to be a teen that would be a part of that dance crew that kinda originated Baron, but he's an obsessive maniac and it worked. I feel like they were setting up something with that whole thing with the Saver System, but that didn't really go anywhere, which is understandable because, as I mentioned, this was more focused on seeing how Zack and Peko were trying to move on without Kaito, but it did feel like that was useless.

I feel like it's redundant to praise the action at this point, but we can't deny that the action here was once again amazing (that fight Zack had with one os Shura's minions out of suit was incredible), and it also gives me an excuse to talk about Knuckle's new form. To begin I'm glad they actually gave him a new form rather than just a color swap or a form used by another rider, I'm not really sure how the Chestnut Energy came up to be but I'm glad he didn't get the shorter end of the stick just because he was a side character. It doesn't look all that great with the chestnut shells in his hands, but once those go away I feel like the design becomes more harmonious, and I like how it kinda serves as Knuckle's deadly power-up because after he uses it he collapses in the floor making it seem that Zack has died and the ending scene where he dances with Kaito makes it look pretty ambiguous if he's alive or not and I like that! This is definitely worth watching.

And I'm glad I get to close this final post about Gaim in such a good note because this is what this wonderful show deserves. Thank you so much for reading and I hope I can count on you for next week as I finally begin Drive. If you have anything to add, feel free to do it in the comments. See you, folks~

#Kamen Rider Gaim #kamen rider

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gamerfansims389 · 4 years

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Characters I Think Can (and possibly can't) defeat Alastor

You know. Different characters in Hazbin going up against Alastor one day in a full on power battle with him would be interesting. But what about other characters from other fandoms?

Disclaimer: Some characters from some fandoms, I haven't seen all of (like movies, shows and anime). So please keep that in mind.

I will also categorize characters in the following: High Chance, Medium Chance, Low Chance

High Chance meaning they could most definatley defeat him easily without any injuries or within the blink of an eye, Medium Chance, they could defeat him but it would take a while to, may take some injuries, Low Chance, will most definatley end up with injuries, maybe even come close to dying.

Please note: I don't hate Alastor. He's a really interesting character in my book. This idea has just been in my head for a while. And I wanna see if other people will agree and or disagree. You are also free to reblog this and add onto the list if you want to. This is an open topic to discuss. As long as it remains peaceful and civil. If it gets out of hand, I will delete this post.

This post may also contain spoilers from other shows, anime, cartoons, and movies. I'm leaving game characters out of this because I haven't played a lot of games in order to put those characters on this list. But you are free to add game characters if you wish. You have been warned of possible spoilers!

Anyways. On with the list. This also will be in no particular order power wise so yeah.

High Chance:

1. Mob/Shigeo Kageyama (Mob Psycho 100) (As of this post, I have 2 more episodes left remaining in Season 2. Do not spoil for me and for others please!)

Okay. Maybe not when he's at normal power (0%). But when he's at 100%, that boy is an explosive depending on what emotion he's feeling at the time of a situation. Yes, he has his rule of not using his psychic powers against others. But when the people he holds dearly are in danger of possibly dying or not, he is not a force to be messed with.

(An example of when he's at 100%)

2. Bill Cipher (Gravity Falls) (Spoiler warning!)

We all know of how powerful Bill is. He caused a Weirdmaggedon on Gravity Falls in the Season 2 finale. He froze time, he can grow, he can change his form, and he's been around since the beginning of time itself. Sure, he was defeated by Mabel and Dipper themselves a few times already. But as a whole, this triangle demon is pretty much an unstoppable force to deal with if you really look at it.

He also has a lot of similar qualities to that of Alastor. He likes to make deals, he likes to cause trouble, a lot of the citizens fear him, etc.

3. Kurumi (Date a Live) (Spoiler warning!)

It's been a long time since I last watched Date a Live. But from what I remember, this girl is pretty powerful. If my memory serves me correctly, she can freeze time, she can make duplicates of herself, she weilds a shotgun, she's quite a handful power wise. I haven't seen all of Date a Live. Just the 1st Season. So idk if other seasons/spin offs/OVA's/movies explore more on her powers or not (please don't spoil if it does).

4. Gon (Hunter x Hunter 2011) (Spoiler warning!)

I honestly do think that Gon has a high chance of defeating Alastor. We saw him duke it out with Neferpitou and he won for the sake of a friend. Just like Mob, he may not seem strong appearance wise but this boy has taken on some people much powerful than he is and won. Sure, his battle with the Chimera Ants almost left him for dead but he still made it out alive in the end thanks to Killua's help.

5. Elsa (Frozen, Frozen 2) (Please note I have not seen anything else Frozen related such as shorts. So I'm basing all of this based on what I have seen from Frozen. Any Frozen shorts that may have development on Elsa's powers! I have now seen Frozen 2 on YouTube due to a link but that doesn't mean you can spoil it for others!)

As rediculous as this may sound to some, she probably does have a high chance of defeating Alastor. We saw this girl make an entire ice castle just from her powers alone in Frozen within the course of a 2-3 minute song that everyone has embedded in their heads at this point in time. She can also change her outfits via her powers as well and make animate snow/ice creatures with her powers as well. Heck, we saw her freeze an entire kingdom which was the plot starter for Frozen! Again. Others may have other opinions. But this is what I think.

Medium Chance:

1. Celty Sturloson (Durarara!) (Spoiler warning!)

Like Date a Live, it's been quite a while since I last seen the entirety of Durarara so just bare with me on this. For those that don't know, Celty is a Dullahan, a creature from Irish folklore which is basically like their version of the Grim Reaper. Dullahans supposedly carry their heads around in their arms after they die. But in Celty's case, she lost her head and she kind of gave up on searching for it towards the end of the series. She can make a black ball out of an inescapable substance from her powers, she can make web-like structures with them as well, and she also does weild a scythe. Her motorcycle can also transform into different vehicles such as a horse (which is default), a bike, a carriage, etc.

2. Lelouch Lamporouge (Code Geass) (Please note that I have never completed this anime. I had like 9 episodes remaining in Season 1. So please don't spoil anything in regards to Lelouch's power development!)

I kind of have my doubts with Lelouch on this one since his powers require him to look at someone directly in the eye in order to possess them so he can command them to do something against their own will. But if he plays his cards right (which he's pretty good at doing), he could have a chance of defeating Alastor. Like I previously mentioned, I haven't completed all of Code Geass so I don't know the full extent of Lelouch's powers outside of Season 1. I already also mentioned Lelouch's powers previously, too so yeah lol. But yeah. I kind of have my doubts when it comes to him.

3. Yuu Otosaka (Charlotte) (Spoiler warning!)

Yuu would most likely have a medium chance of defeating Alastor because of his ability to harness other's powers. Keep in mind. It's also been a while since I've last seen Charlotte so bare with me on this one as well. I do think he would come out with some injuries because of the fact that he doesn't know the extent of other's powers that he has harnessed from them, he only knows about his own powers very well. If he's not careful, he could end up injured.

4. Albedo (Overlord) (Please note that I've only seen Season 1 so don't spoil anything that's important to Albedo's power development!)

I personally don't think Einz himself would go out to try to fight someone that's as powerful as he is unless it posed as a threat to his life and or his kingdom. So, I would think that he'd send his servants to survey the area of any potential threats and to get rid of them immediatley before they become a big threat. He probably wouldn't send Albedo out first but maybe she could be his 2nd to last resort before going to investigate himself. Either that or she'd automatically volunteer herself out of the sake of her love for Einz. Which, he'd probably agree with once the begging gets annoying.

5. Chrollo Lucilfer (Hunter x Hunter 2011) (Spoiler warning!)

This would be before he got his powers taken away and restricted into a state of Zetsu by Kurapika. He has shown to be pretty powerful. He made it out alive when fighting against two members of the Zoldyck family. But I think the only disadvantage to this would be the fact that he needs his Nen book in order to use other's powers. Without his Nen book, he's basically powerless.

Low Chance:

1. Ganta (Deadman Wonderland) (Spoiler warning!)

It's been quite a while since I've seen Deadman Wonderland. Bare with me here. So much like Gon, Ganta has taken on some pretty powerful Deadmen while serving his time in Deadman Wonderland after being accused of a crime he was blackmailed against for. I don't exactly remember his Deadman ability since it's been so long. But I do think he'd come out with quite a lot of injuries after challenging Alastor to a fight.

2. Decim (Death Parade) (Spoiler warning!)

The only thing I'm aware of power wise for Decim is that he can use web-like strings to hold people down after they've realized they're dead. I've heard quite a bit saying that he's based on the Greek god, Decima. Idk if that's true or not tho. But the extent of his powers is unknown and I highly doubt Death Parade will continue as an anime series. So I would think he has a low chance at defeating Alastor with all that we currently know on his powers.

3. Sebastian Micaelis (Black Butler/Kuroshitsuji) (Spoiler warning!)

A lot of fangirls will probably hate me for this. Lol. But I kind of doubt Sebastian could defeat Alastor without getting injured. We don't know the full extent of his powers yet despite also coming from Hell in that universe. So, that's the reason to my doubts.

4. Magica De Spell (DuckTales 2017) (Spoiler warning!)

This would be before the Shadow War! I'm also not going to discuss the 1987 show or the original comics since I've never completed the 1987 show nor have I read any of the original comics yet. So I'm only relying on what we've seen so far in the reboot. Like Bill, she was able to start this apocalypse by taking everyone's shadows from them. She trapped Scrooge in his own lucky dime in order to execute her plans. But I doubt she'd be able to defeat Alastor in all honesty.

5. Lena De Spell (DuckTales 2017) (Spoiler warning!)

Lena De Spell is the niece of Magica De Spell. She was created as a shadow with the appearance of the real girl in order to unwillingly help Magica with her plans to take over Duckburg in the exchange for her freedom. After Magica is defeated and powerless, Lena now currently possesses Magica's powers via her amulet. So she undoubtingly has some of the same powers that Magica had. But since she hasn't really had much character development/power development as of this post, I kind of doubt she could defeat Alastor without being injured.

Aand that's all. If you want to add to this post, reblogs are appriciated. Thank you!

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beneaththetangles · 4 years

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Super Bowl LIV for Otaku

Welcome to the wonderful world of football! While otaku and football don’t seem to align (we all have seen the jocks vs. geeks mentality that society tries to throw at us), the reality is much different. Like any other sport, football has a wide audience and can be enjoyable to watch. A few of our staff are football fans who have been watching all season, and as such, we’ve seen the ups and the downs of an interesting 2019 season.

The goal of any football game is for each team to score the most points by moving the football from one end of the field to the other. Getting the football on foot across the goal line gives a team 6 points (touchdown), allowing for an opportunity for one or two extra points. Getting it across the line in the air by kicking it through the uprights gives them 3 points (field goal). Each team gets 4 chances to move the ball forward when they are on offense. If they move the ball a total of 10 yards, those chances (downs) restart at 1 again. A more detailed listing of the rules of play can be found on the NFL’s official website here.

The season ends with the strongest team of the two conferences of the NFL (AFC and NFC) battling it out in an annual match called the Super Bowl.

Why it Matters

Now, you may be asking yourself—why does the Super Bowl matter? For someone who does not watch football much, it is understandable why you may not be interested in the big game, but consider this—the Super Bowl is an annual cultural touchstone.

Every year, the Super Bowl is by far the most watched program on television for the year. Having a passing understanding of what it is and what happens can be helpful as the world around you discusses the event. It is also one of the few remaining shared experiences in American culture—a single day, a single game that nearly all Americans watch.

Does that mean it will be a good game? Not necessarily. Does it mean it can be fun? Absolutely. Sharing this game with a group of friends can make the experience all the better.

Also, even if you do not love the sport, let’s not forget what a capitalism means in the case of a television event—advertising agencies step up their game. Lots of money and lots of eyes on the game means lots of clever, new advertisements. While a silly reason to watch, these ads can be a lot of fun as mini-distractions between the game itself.

The Schedule

As inferred above, the Super Bowl isn’t just about the game—there’s a full schedule of events on the calendar, some that might interest you more than others. Wanna check out the National Anthem? Be sure to get there on time. Not interested? Grab your guac and chips while the singer wails.

Here’s the basic info:

Location: Hard Rock Stadium (Miami Gardens, FL) TV: Fox Stream: Fox Sports App and fuboTV Game day / time: February 2, 2020 at 6:30 p.m. (ET)

The National Anthem, to be sung by Demi Lovato, occurs shortly before kick-off. Even before that, Yolanda Adams will perform “America the Beautiful.” The halftime show lasts about 20-30 minutes and starts at varying times, depending on how quickly the game is being played, though somewhere around 8:00 p.m. is expected. Jennifer Lopez and Shakira will be the performers.

The Season

AFC Breakdown

The AFC had a wild ride. Before the season began, everyone had the Cleveland Browns, New England Patriots, and Kansas City Chiefs on their radar screen. By the end of the season, the Baltimore Ravens were unexpectedly the number one seed with a 14-2, the best in the NFL. The New England Patriots, who won the 2019 Super Bowl, were overall in 3rd place in the playoffs and did not receive a by-week for the first time in nearly a decade. The Browns ended up the season with a losing record of 6-10. The Chiefs, however, were the AFC Champion and proceed to the Super Bowl

The biggest surprise of the playoffs was the fantastic run of the Tennessee Titans. The Titans entered the playoffs in 6th place with a 9-7 record. Their season ended hot and their shot at the playoffs required losses by other teams, wins by them, and their victory strength being high enough. There are a ton of tie-breaking rules that went into the Titans favor. Then, in back-to-back away games, the Titans defeated the #3 ranked New England Patriots and #1 ranked Baltimore Ravens on their way to the AFC Championship game. The Titans lost in the AFC Championship to the #2 ranked Chiefs in a 35 to 24 loss.

NFC Breakdown

It’s been quite a year in the NFC as well. Though they came off a lost in last year’s Super Bowl (the New England Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams), the conference was widely considered the stronger one coming into the season, which bore that out.

Speaking of the Rams, last year’s NFC representative, they were among the disappointing teams this year. Despite as strong second half, they missed the playoffs, as did the Dallas Cowboys, another team many predicted to go the Super Bowl (they fired their head coach after the season; the Rams did not).

Three teams in the conference finished with 13-3 records this season and as the regular season ended, they were all considered strong possibilities to advance to the championship. New Orleans, on of the 13-3 teams, was upset early in the playoffs. The other two, the Green Bay Packers and San Francisco 49ers, met in the NFC Championship game, where the latter dismantled the earlier, 37-20.

The Matchup

The big game is going to be a match up between the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs. Both are high scoring teams who have won a number of come from behind victories. Overall the two teams have scored nearly 150 more points than their opponents in regular season games. That…is a lot. Let’s break it down a little bit.

Kansas City Chiefs

The Kansas City Chiefs are led by an explosive young quarterback in Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes is on his third season in the NFL only his second as the full time starting quarterback. The 2018-2019 season MVP, Mahomes had a fantastic season throwing for 26 touchdowns and rushing for 2 of them. Mahomes is one of those players that is just fun to watch because you never know what he’s going to do.

The Chiefs are coached by an Elder Statesman in Andy Reid. Teams coached by Andy Reid have accumulated a total of 221 wins in his career, making him the 6th most winningist coach in NFL history. This will be his second time as head coach to go to the Super Bowl; however, the last time he was the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles in in 2005.

The Chiefs’ season has been generally high scoring with big wins the back of Mahomes. Apart from a short period where Mahomes was injured, the Chiefs season has seen victory after victory against strong opponents including the other two top seeds in the AFC (Ravens, Patriots). With the dangers both in the air and ground, the Chiefs are a tough team to beat.

San Francisco 49ers

The San Francisco 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo has 2 Super Bowl rings…where he served as the backup quarterback for the New England Patriots. He never really got a chance as the Patriots have Tom Brady as their starter until 2016. In 2016, Brady was suspended for 4 games and Garoppolo started two of them before being injured. After being traded to the 49ers, Garoppolo did not get a chance to start until Week 12 when the starter and backup quarterbacks were both injured. With only one win prior to that, Garappolo led the 49ers to close out the season with 5 wins and 1 loss. In the 2018 season, Garappolo sarted out strong, but was injured early in the season. 2019 saw a healthy Garoppolo throwing for 3,978 passing yards. His strong arm and their solid run offense led the 49ers to one of their first winning seasons in a decade.

The 49ers are coached by Kyle Shanahan, son of 3 time Super Bowl winning Head Coach Mike Shanahan. With a healthy team in 2019, Shanahan’s coaching has seen a dominating season with the 49ers ending with a 13-3 record and the #1 overall NFC seed. The NFC West was a strong division with last year’s Super Bowl contenders (Los Angeles Rams) as well as the Seattle Seahawks (11-5 record).

While generally a high scoring team, the 49ers also have had a number of incredibly close games this season; half of their games were decided by a touchdown or less. Their strong defense have helped them in clutch situations, allowing their high flying offense to get back on the field and win.

The Buzz

As the game gets closer, the stories around the game take on a life of their own. Sometimes, they become the story. This year, though—and unfortunately—the biggest story in sports isn’t Super Bowl-related at all. You’ve almost certainly heard that Kobe Bryant, along with a 13-year-old daughter and a number of other individuals, died in a helicopter crash in California. Because Kobe was the best player in the league during the formative years for many current professional athletes, his death has impacted the community tremendously. Even football players have given their condolences, often very personal ones, about Bryant. It’s created an unusual atmosphere in Miami, as one of celebration is muted just a bit by the seriousness of the crash.

There are other stories that will be referenced throughout the broadcast as well:

The start of Free Agency, the period where most football players who have completed their contracts or have been released by teams may negotiate with other teams for new contracts, is in March, and the list of available players this year contains some very big names, especially at the sexiest position, quarterback. Tom Brady, considered by many to be the best quarterback in NFL history (the GOAT: Greatest of All Time), will be a free agent for the first time in his career, and has stated that he wants to explore the process, meaning he may not return the only team he’s played for during his 20-year career. Where he and others will impact next season, as well as the upcoming NFL Draft, which occurs in late April, and where at least three QB prospects may be selected in the first few picks.

The 2019 season was the 100th for the NFL, and the League has celebrated all year in a variety of ways, including the naming of a 100th Anniversary Team. A special group of “centennial” Hall of Fame inductees were also recently announced, while the remaining modern-era class will be named the day before the Super Bowl; they’ll be mentioned frequently during coverage of the big game.

Stories that have dominated all season long include the evolution of the quarterback position into one where a player who runs well and can pass has the ability to dominate the game, as evidenced by the likely season MVP, Lamar Jackson (player awards are announced at a ceremony the day before the Super Bowl), and an unwillingness by referees to overturn pass interference calls when officially challenged by coaches. The earlier won’t be on full display in the game, but the NFL is hoping the latter doesn’t play a part, as referees making or reversing calls that affect the outcome of the game are a bad look for the league.

Non-football entertainment will be important as well! The commercials are what many people tune in for, but to be honest, they’re not all great. They’re not even always generally great, but there will be some fun ones and occasionally some amazing ones. Also they cost $5.6 million per every 30 seconds, so it’s kind of like watching a very short blockbuster film, right?

Many, of course, are also interested in the music. The halftime show draws a ton of viewers. Sometimes the performance is great (Prince), sometimes bad (last year with Maroon 5), and sometimes weird (Katy Perry). This year,the aformentioned Shakira and Jennifer Lopez will share the stage and give a Latin feel to the proceedings. Even if you’re not interested, again, the halftime show is the thing of water cooler talk.

Sometimes, though, the best performance is actually before the game when the National Anthem is sung. Way back in 1991, Whitney Houston sealed her spot as one of the great vocalists by killing it, and right as we were at war with Iraq (never mind that it was lip synched). This year, Demi Lovato will perform. And guess what? Some gambling addicts will actually gamble on how long she’ll sing for! Yep, you can bet on lots of prop bets (novelty bets) and in other ways on the Super Bowl, where well over $100 million will be wagered. Gambling is a big reason as to why football has grown in prominence in the U.S., and you might even here some segments concerned betting.

Predictions

Finally, it’s time for our picks! We asked football fans on our staff to tell us their predictions, along with two guest pickers: New Orleans Saints superfan and aniblogger, Cajun Samurai, and writer/former aniblogger, Tommy, who is a huge fan of the Green Bay Packers. Here are our picks, with some thoughts below:

Cajun Samurai: I think this Super Bowl will be a prodigious and a high scoring shootout that may come down to a FG. I got a feeling that Mahomes will bring the Chiefs the “W” with a score of 48-45. I’m pulling for the Chiefs as the 49ers beat my Saints earlier. Yes, I’m still bitter…

Chiefs 48, 49ers 45

Tommy: Chiefs win 38-37. Both offenses march up and down the field, Chiefs passing and 49ers running. In the end, Patrick Mahomes wins MVP for a last-second drive to win the game. Highest-scoring Super Bowl ever.

Chiefs 38, 49ers 37

(Bambi 49ers 27-15, Cajun, MDRMN Chiefs 38-35, Peter Chiefs 35-31, Tommy, Twwk)

MDMRN: I see this as a close game with he Chiefs on top. The 49ers are a strong team, don’t get me wrong; however, against a quarterback that can bring so many different options like Mahomes, I feel their defense will have trouble. The Chiefs defense is also strong, but the 49ers offense is stronger. I foresee this being a high scoring game with the storyline being about the two offenses. I expect the 49ers to lead early with the Chiefs dominating the second half. My guess Chiefs over the 49ers with Patrick Mahomes as the Super Bowl MVP.

Chiefs 38, 49ers 35

Twwk: Like the others, I expect a very close Super Bowl. Rules changes have really helped create excitement in the game and bring many of them down to the last minute, including a number of recent Super Bowls. I feel that the 49ers have the offense to be able to keep up with Kansas City, especially a Chiefs team that could score under 30 against a talented and mighty Niners’ defense. I think the game will be back-and-forth, but in today’s NFL, a great offense often beats a great defense, and I foresee a scenario where the 49ers are leading 27-17 going into the 4th (or somewhere thereabouts), and Patrick Mahomes brings them back to score a couple of times, while Jimmy G won’t be able to do the same.

Chiefs 31, 49ers 27

Closing

And that’s it, folks! I hope you’ve enjoyed our preview and, if you’re on the fence, that you’ll give the big game a try. I can’t guarantee it’ll be a great game or even be a fun experience—but it’ll be an experience, and that, I guarantee, is worth your time.

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The 2020 Super Bowl will be airing on network television on Fox and can be streamed using the Fox Sports App. Featured illustration by DN (reprinted w/permission).

#Anime #Manga #Football #Super Bowl #Super Bowl LIV #Kansas City Chiefs #San Francisco 49ers #Articles #Author: TWWK

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