#i see too many other fans making fun of him for xyz even thought he's nothing but a gem to everyone

[aaaaamorphous-entity]

People need to re-learn how to Read The Assignment in fandom spaces. This can apply to a lot of things but I’m going off of a personal experience here as well as the reactions to a character re-imagining I saw earlier tonight, which sparked this post.

I posted in a character rant board a while ago about the parallels between two characters. To remove as many variables as I can for people to use to deviate from the point of this post, I’m not telling who :p Besides, that’s irrelevant. I posted about these characters’ parallels, citing the particular pieces of the decidedly sprawling franchise they’re a part of that I had seen for my observations and commentary.

Cue what I call the Patrick Star phase.

A couple people started with what-about-isms about depictions of the characters in other parts of the franchise which weren’t included in the list I had seen. Not with the purpose to add to my point, nor to correct factually incorrect claims of which I'd made none, only to argue I didn’t Know Enough to make a point at all, I guess? The point of the post was about the characters’ parallels.

A person started nitpicking my wording (which, mind, was not incoherent nor far off from the ‘perfect’ phrasing). Instead of engaging with the spirit of what I was saying and either giving their own perspective on the one nitpicked character’s mindset, or asking for elaboration on my end, they just cited why I was ackshually wrong. The point of the post was about the characters’ parallels.

Somebody DM’d me about how using they-them pronouns for a character was actually unfair to non-English speaking fans and I should be more considerate. Which isn’t the point of this post either but still irks me to this day. Especially as a resident they-them-haver myself.

Anyways. The point of the post was about the characters’ parallels. The Assignment™ was to discuss this subject. To share one’s thoughts about it, to perhaps, kindly, engage with that point and consider it, or share why one personally can’t see it, or whatever have you.

“But what if I didn’t want that assignment?” a theoretical naysayer might ask. Then: don’t comment on that post. It isn’t for you. Coming onto that post just to tell the OP why they’re wrong or What About This part of the media they haven’t seen, or the evolution of that: 'they can’t have a developed opinion of these characters if they haven’t seen XYZ'...is all unproductive, and Not Fun.

The point of fandom to me is to have fun. To engage with the media you all share a love for and build each other up. That grows creativity, and community, and furthers character analysis and media literacy and all that good stuff (ideally speaking, anyways).

If you come onto a post with an Assignment™, only to act like the Grinch and only contribute comments that spoil the fun, then why did you even comment at all? To be right? To feel superior? To just put someone in their place?

What does that accomplish besides killing someone’s desire to engage with others in this fandom, and possibly just entirely remove their creative voice from the space? I know I’ve certainly lost the desire to engage with many in my fandom save a few curated friends because so often, people Miss The Assignment.

This applies to a character re-imagining I saw tonight (not Hazbin Hotel, and not The Point Of This Post. Y’all could stand to hear this too tho), in which the comments were all negative or nitpicky. The character in question was more or less a parody, poorly written and largely disappointing for what he and many others of his group had been built up to be.

The OP had to take a lot of creative liberties to make him into an actual character, instead of a vindictive author’s joke. They still went to the effort of tying in themes and design choices that all complimented details unique to this character and the one other intrinsically tied to him, as well as incorporating a nod to an old fad in the fandom that apparently happened before I joined it. It was a pretty solid redesign IMO. Very different from the character as he was shown on-screen, but frankly, that’s like taking a burning pile of spinning gears and hammering them into a functional clock in this instance.

And all the comments had to say was ‘just make an OC at this point’, or nitpicking that this wasn’t REALLY a ‘rewrite’ because the OP hadn’t written a story or anything of substance with the character (??????????), and one person correcting OP about bipolarism, of which OP was already familiar with through a family member, though frankly I’m unqualified to comment on any of that myself (although I will note OP did not depart from the depictions of bipolarism within the original media they were working with).

All this to say: The Assignment™ of that post was to engage with the idea of redesigning that character. To add your thoughts about him, what could fit him, or possibly some alternatives if the reader felt something fit better. What did saying ‘just make an OC at this point’ add? What did nitpicking about the semantics of the word ‘rewrite’ do? It’s a nothingburger of commentary that, if I were the OP, would kill enthusiasm for the subject.

If you see a fandom post discussing characters, sharing ideas about them or the setting, talking about ships, or talking about parts of the media just clearly for the goddang fun of it, then you have two Decent options: Engage in good faith, or Just. Keep. Scrolling. Commenting just to drag down the OP does nothing but kill the mood and damage community and enthusiasm therein.

For the umpteenthousandth time: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all

#mun speaks #long post #fandom #I swear to god I better not see 'what about in XYZ bad faith instance' comments on this #because that is #NOT THE POINT #obviously this is written about normal everyday run of the mill fandom posts #not hot takes or wild criticisms of the fandom media etc #although I'm sure there's a whole other essay's worth of commentary on those #but I am not the person to write that because for the sake of my own sanity and fandom enjoyment: #I don't engage in those #anyways it's 1:40 AM and I got out of bed to write this post goodnight

[meyhew]

.

#u know... im not saying louis needs to be treated with special kid gloves bc he's a grown man #but i do wish at times ppl would cut him some slack. and praise him when he has genuinely earned it #like. do yall rmbr when we were getting walls reviews there was this one that harped on and on about how louis' music lacks emotionality #even when he has songs like tou and dlibyh and fearless and defenceless #and how the journalist said louis hasnt had enough 'real' issues in his life to write about #even though anyone who knows anything about him KNOWS he lost his mother and sister when he just recovering from the loss of the former #i dont need ppl to treat him like he's fragile but can they stop minimizing what he HAS overcome? #yeah maybe they dont the syco bullshit and yeah maybe they cant write about it blah blah and that contributes to his numbers #but his numbers arent BAD. theyre fine. and what happened yesterday is unprecedented as far as i know #so WHY are people still hellbent on making it seem like he’s hardly scraping by when hes doing more than fine #like hope said in her post.. its so fucking ugly when 'journalists' let their own ugly biases poison their work #like fuck u this isnt about your feelings this is about louis' accomplishments #which he has many many MANY of despite and in spite of every shitty thing life has thrown his way #i see too many other fans making fun of him for xyz even thought he's nothing but a gem to everyone #like its fine if his music isnt for u but what has HE done to YOU. theyre so insensitive bringing personal issues into petty insults i hate #but anyway ... beating a dead horse again when i should be reading

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Let’s talk: Vlive Asks and comment/chat discussions

From @cottoncandykings​: Hello! As u probably know jimin just went live recently and again he mentioned mandaggo and discussing about doing it with tae. I just find it so weird though. I mean jimin keeps constantly mentioning it and its not like vminnies were begging or dying for a vmin live everyday even before jimin mentioned it last year. Even now most including myself dont really care that much ofc i m happy if they do one together. But the way jimin keeps mentioning it is so weird. Like surely if he wanted to do it so badly he could have talked to tae privately and arranged it by now. And if tae is the one that doesnt want to do it then idk why jimin is pushing it. But what was really weird to me this time was that he said there were lots of comments about mandaggo yesterday in zoom call and yet they didnt mention it yesterday but suddenly today without prompting he talks about it. I also hope no one spammed the zoom call chat or the vlive chat with requests for vmin live (i didnt see any) bcoz thats just unnecessary and demanding. I hope vminnies wont demand/ ask for another memeber when one of them is live. Its just disrespectful. This turned into a rant sorry. Do you think it was weird too?

Since Admin 2 can’t type their thoughts themselves, I’ll relay their thoughts to you instead, since they had more thoughts/opinions/ideas in regard to this than I do, to be honest.

Admin 2 is sure that there is a good chance that we will get a vmin vlive sometime soon, which I know contradicts their original opinion and post from a few months ago, but there’s a reason for it. During the zoom meeting between BTS and ARMY they noticed something I don’t think anyone else noticed, or at least neither of us has seen any vminnies mention it anywhere, which in conjunction with Jimin’s vlive today and saying how he’d talk to Tae about doing a mandaggo vlive again, as well as another observation a little while ago, leads them to this conclusion.

So, the observation from the zoom meeting. Basically at one point when the question of Jimin doing a vlive arose Tae looks at Jimin and then he nods while smiling which in turn makes Jimin smile as he turns away from Tae and back to face toward the camera before answering the question and saying how he’ll come visit us the next day. Which he did.

Then the other observation from a while ago, this one being from their OT7 vlive celebrating their BBH100 #1 on June 29th where at one point Jimin says something but slips into satoori after which Tae encourages him to say that again but this time in the Seoul accent, so the way they actually should speak, which Jimin says isn’t difficult but he doesn’t actually end up repeating what he said.

And lastly in today’s vlive Jimin mentioned how he’s using satoori quite often but that he isn’t all that good at doing it on command or at teaching it to others, which is something he’d have to do for mandaggo but I’m sure he’d manage just fine if the time came for it.

Based on that Admin 2′s thoughts are basically that Jimin really meant it when he said, last year, that he’ll bring Tae around for a vlive, that it wasn’t a joke or a way to tease us with something he knew he wouldn’t be able to deliver, but rather that up until this point they weren’t quite sure how to do it. Which sounds a bit odd, I know, but what they mean is that if vmin were to just sit down in front of the camera and were supposed to just talk based on what the chat would give them, it would likely just turn out awkward and weird and no one, including them, would really have fun. Even more so when we take into account how idiotic the chat is during regular vlives so now imagine if those two were to do one together that’s just a casual chat. It would likely end up in disaster and honestly I wouldn’t wish it upon them to read all those awful comments that they would likely get, even worse ones than they already get normally, to be honest.

But now that the whole satoori thing was brought up, and Jimin actually mentioned mandaggo and wanting to bring it back after so many years, Admin 2 thinks that they must’ve finally figured out a solution to their problem, if you can call it that. Doing mandaggo would basically mean they would have an activity, something to do similar to how they did those ASMR videos for the Japanese Fan Club which were fun and cute, and so Admin 2 thinks that perhaps chances are we will finally get the vlive we’ve waited for so long (though like many others I’ve long given up the idea).

Another confirmation is that during his vlive today Jimin basically said that he only came by for a little while since they are quite busy and had to soon get ready for work with the other members but that he’ll return in two or three weeks for a more proper, longer, vlive. So, he could’ve treated today’s vlive as the promised one but instead he saw it more as a bridging one between the zoom meeting and the proper vlive he wants to do, so is it the farfetched to think that he had proper plans for a vlive, like doing mandaggo, but it just wouldn’t have worked out time wise today so he moved the actual vlive he wanted to make to a later date?

One last thing (well two actually) that has nothing to do with this question but Admin 2 wanted me to include it anyway is that one, have you noticed how Tae and Jimin were both on weverse around 3 am (until almost 4am (also both of them posting a comment to some post at 03:41 am KST)) one after the other (though with one day of a break in between them) recently and then also two, that Jimin was up until like 6 am (since he posted on weverse around that time) on the 8th and then during the zoom meeting Tae answered a question by saying that he’d been awake until 6 am the previous day (also the 8th) since he wanted to see the sunrise? Which is also something an anon mentioned to us. Curious, isn’t it?

From anon: I request both admins to please post this ask. So jimin wwnt live today and one of the accounts on twt posted a screen cap of them commenting 'touch your hair if vmin is real' in the live chat and jimin's reaction to it. Now idk if it is an edit or real. No matter i just want to say its not ok to bring up ships in front of the members no matter which ship it is. We dont know the reality of their relationship so lets not make them uncomfortable. Its not a joke. Its not funny. Be respectful the members are real people.

(Admin 1 taking over from this point onward) This ask nicely ties into the last one that’ll be further down in this post since they cover a similar issue of sorts. But let’s start with this one asking about, essentially, vlive comments and the things fans ask/comment, which also ties in with the above ask as well.

The thing with the vlive chat, and especially comments/questions that are like anon said, questions or “commands/requests” about touch your hair if XYZ ship is real or cough twice if you love XYZ member or, likewise, comments such as where is XYZ member or what are the other members doing, unfortunately those have been a steady and unchanging part of the vlive chat since basically forever. It’s been an issue on and off with different intensities though I feel like it’s gotten worse again this year. Particularly if we look back at the vlive Tae did with Hobi and Yoongi and how essentially the entire chat was filled with comments related to Xkook and not much else.

If my memory doesn’t fail me we once even had a situation some years ago (2016) where the chat during Hobi’s vlive was so bad, as in so full of questions about that other members instead of him, that you could see he was upset about it and eventually he handed over the vlive to Jimin, whom the chat had requested Hobi to visit, and Hobi just left. And I can’t blame him for it since the chat must’ve made him feel like basically no one cared about him so what was even the point of him being there, right?

Personally I’ve long given up looking at the comments during vlive because they just make me cringe and feel bad for the members, especially when I think back to vlives such as Yoongi’s D2 one last year where he was so excited to talk about the songs and the process of making the mixtape and yet so many of the comments were just unrelated nonsense and annoying request like speak english or can you say my name or say hello in XYZ language. If it makes me question why the people posting those questions are in the chat, why they are fans to begin with, imagine what the members must feel like, how discouraging that must feel like. After all they are musicians and yet so rarely do they get questions about that. Or rather they do get them but they are just drowned out by nonsense. Which is a shame. And also very disrespectful but any attempts that were made to remind people to be respectful, to remember their place as fans, to focus on the member that’s doing the vlive instead of asking about the others, and to keep ships away from the members have failed because some don’t care and will continue to not care.

From anon: what are your opinions on the Qs that were asked during that zoom meeting thing between BTS and ARMY?

Now I’d like to preface my answer to this last question by saying that by no means do my grievances come from a place of jealousy or anything. I’m very happy for all the ARMYs that won their spot, that they got to participate in the event and that BTS got to see ARMYs again even if only on screens and not in person still. No, my issue stems from something completely different, and I don’t want to say that the system chose the wrong people, because that would be mean and also who even knows how the winners were chosen, if it was pure luck or there were some actual criteria that went into the process, but the fact is that only a select 200 ARMYs got that spot out of however many that applied, so basically for some this was a once in a lifetime chance, right, even just getting this close to asking Bangtan a question and have really great chances of having them give you an answer while acknowledging you somewhat instead of just seeing pure words on a screen, you know what I mean?

Now imagine you are one of those 200 ARMYs and you get the chance to fill the chat with questions along with the other 49 participants of your session and you decide that asking questions such as what it’s like for Jimin to work as angel, if Namjoon ever broke a bicycle, or why JK smells the crowns of the other members heads? Or even worse, you decide to ask about JKs shower routine and in which order he washes his body? And sure, the “fault” doesn’t fall completely on the ARMYs alone, after all it’s the members who read out those questions and not some magical off screen entity, and since I wasn’t part of the event I can’t say with a hundred percent certainty that no one asked any “proper” questions, but if those were the questions that ended up being read out loud, is it that hard to guess that likely all the questions looked similarly? 

Which brings me to my main grievance of it all: have you forgotten that you are fans of musicians and not reality TV stars or vloggers/influencers? I know there were likely no rules for what questions you could or couldn’t ask (except for probably ones that were 100% about shipping or far too personal), but really, you get to ask your favorite band a question, something you might never, ever get the chance to do again, and your first thought isn’t to ask about their music but instead about some unimportant nonsense like the angel question or if they differentiate between the clothes they wear at home and those they sleep in? Like sure the angel one was kinda funny, maybe, and Jimin handled it in a cute way, I applaud him for it, but was that really necessary?

I know someone asked JK about Decalcomania, as well as Tae about his mixtape, and Yoongi/Jimin about Tony Montana (season 2), but other than that were there any other questions about their music? Perhaps I’m overthinking things, maybe I’m exaggerating and maybe I’m the only one who sees an issue with this, but if I would’ve won a spot, I’d rather have asked something about their process when writing lyrics or creating beats or how they prepare when learning new choreographies, what it’s like to be on tour (though perhaps that would be a mean question seeing as tours aren’t really something that’ll continue being possible for a while still), you get the point.

It makes me wonder if it was just bad luck or if it had something to do with how old the participants were (I saw some being as young as fifteen), which isn’t to say that teens can’t ask smart questions because they definitely can just like adults can ask stupid ones as well, but somewhere something, in my opinion, just went weirdly. And maybe that was the point of it all, for the event to be casual, funny, lighthearted, but my question then is when is the time for music discussions? For fans to ask those types of questions that actually have something to do with the boys careers? When even journalists aren’t asking them proper questions, ARMYs aren’t either, so what is the point of it all then?

Then again, after the event concluded and Seokjin came onto vlive he seemed so happy and excited, so maybe they had fun (I mean they seemed to have fun) and didn’t mind at all that the questions were lighthearted and silly, maybe I’m the one making mountains out of molehills. I don’t know, but anon wanted to know my thoughts/opinions, and this is them. Once again, I don’t mean to be mean toward the ARMYs that got rightfully in, that won, and I don’t want to insult them for the questions they asked, perhaps I just expected/hoped for something a little different? And perhaps I’m the only one. I don’t know. 

#answered ask #BTS #vmin #jimin #Vmin vlive

[zabiume]

Orihime as a pacifist + TYBW reflections

So, yesterday, we were talking about Orihime’s core traits in @governthestars ask about writing Orihime + her general characterization and I didn’t expand much about her pacifism because I wanted to make a separate post about it.

On my first read of TYBW, the thing that struck me the most is that both Yhwach and Orihime were probably the most proclaimed “peace-loving” characters in that they both called for a unity of all three worlds.

But the way both characters aim for this “peace” is rather distinct. Yhwach advocates for total anarchy, and his definition of anarchy is the total breakdown of social systems and orders that currently uphold society as we know it, rendering everyone into one clustered group through destruction. Orihime, on the other hand, advocates for anarchy in that she trusts social groups to be capable of taking care of each other and living in harmony through interdependence, without the help of higher institutions like Soul Society. Yhwach focuses on destroying the status quo; Orihime focuses on unionizing the 90%. The fun thing for me is that both definitions have been used to describe anarchism/anarcho-pacifism before and I’m sure this wasn’t meant to be that deep, but it could be, and I’m sad it never went anywhere.

The most frustrating thing about Orihime’s “cool-ness” as a character is that she’s a pacifist in a series where literally everyone is a fighter. Bleach is a shonen, so power-ups (shikai/bankai) and final forms take center stage in what makes a character “cool” to an audience. Kubo set up bankai to be a technique that is incredibly rare to achieve + a physical manifestation of a character’s self-actualization, and that’s pretty deep, but the thing about writing a shonen is that you’re inevitably going to have a shonen audience. AKA, no one cares about what you can do if you can’t do bankai. This is why Chad and Orihime are usually ranked low in popularity polls, despite having solid character arcs and motivations that are apt for them, while characters like Byakuya and Hitsugaya (who have had little to no relevant character arcs post-HM) are very popular. You’d be surprised at how many people on forums think Chad is irrelevant to Ichigo’s main circle, simply because he’s a non-shinigami character. You’d be surprised at how many people think Ichigo is closer to Byakuya than he is to Orihime. But when you see both these ideologies floating around, it isn’t really surprising that most fans thought Ichigo would end up in Soul Society.

I think the point Kubo was trying to make with Ichigo and his identity struggles as a Visored in HM arc, Fullbring in the FB arc, Quincy in the Quincy arc and shinigami throughout is that he can co-opt the identities of all these factions without actually committing an undying loyalty to any single one of them. This is why Ichigo has allies in every faction, just as he has enemies. The entire point of Ichigio’s moral code is that he discards the official manifestos of whatever groups he’s in and creates his own. He’s no one’s man, so to speak, abiding by what he thinks is right as opposed to what each society claims is right. This is a recurring theme seeded in as early as the Lost Agent arc and people still think he’d throw in with the shinigami folk after all the awful shit they’ve done and would have done to him & his friends. If we were to draw a scale of anarchy →  status quo, you’d have it be something like: Yhwach → Orihime (& Ichigo & co) → Urahara(& co) → Gotei 13 with all other characters falling somewhere within that spectrum.

What does this have to do with Orihime as a pacifist? Well, this is what peace and harmony means to her on a grander scale. On a smaller scale, Orihime doesn’t want to hurt a character unless she absolutely has no choice. And even then, her heart isn’t in it unless she’s protecting someone other than herself. This is why she had troubles with Tsubaki before Fullbring Arc, but I don’t think she does now, even if Kubo didn’t really have the time to expand on her powers and origins. I think this quote by Wonder Woman does a good job at summarizing Orihime’s take on violence:

“Don't kill if you can wound, don't wound if you can subdue, don't subdue if you can pacify, and don't raise your hand at all until you've first extended it.”

Orihime would much rather avoid violence and she hates when there’s avoidable loss of life, as we see in Ichigo’s introspection of her re: Yammy. She values life, much like other popular characters in media who don’t kill--like Batman, or Aang. Given her history with family violence and abuse in general, it is pretty much central to her character to be non-violent. Plenty of good characters in media are non-violent as I said, but I think fans like to jest and mock her a lot in fics, especially in I/R fics where her pacifism is written as passive-ism;  where she doesn’t appreciate her powers as much as Ichigo does, where she doesn’t care about whether she has powers or not, unlike Ichigo, who would die without Rukia his powers. This is such a fundamental and hateful misunderstanding of what her powers mean to her and why they were born in the first place-- i.e to protect. Her powers were born because of Ichigo and in the epilogue, we saw her powers protecting Kazui, their son. One of the main reasons why I think a Bleach next gen series would never work--or at least why I don’t want Kubo to cave and make one-- is because it dismantles Orihime and Ichigo’s core of wanting to protect their loved ones. As long as Ichigo and Orihime are alive and functional, I don’t think they’d delegate any wars or greater responsibilities to their son, beyond the occasional Hollow. Orihime sees her powers as an avenue to protect her loved ones, to keep them safe from their enemies -- which, ahem, you might be surprised, is how Ichigo sees his powers, too! It’s almost like she has a fully developed moral code, just like Ichigo does, who knew?

Look, we all read Bleach for different characters and I think it’s amazing that it’s  a versatile enough series that you could read the entirety of it for a character who’s not the protagonist and still walk away with a satisfying story. I mean, I literally could not care less about Nnoitra, while there are fans who run entire meta Tumblr accounts for him. My point isn’t that you shouldn’t do that, it’s that if you read Bleach entirely for characters that are not Orihime and willfully ignored every single panel she was in, you’re not going to have a well-rounded or accurate opinion of her. You’re only going to see her as Ichigo’s bland and convenient love interest or wet blanket wife (yuck) or even a nuisance and hence you’re going to write her as such. If Kubo wrote her that way, I would understand that reflection in fics as well, but he didn’t. We see her as one of Ichigo’s closest companions and motivators for 685 chapters. We see her as his wife in one of them. You don’t need a degree in the School of Orihime Arts & Sciences to be a good Orihime writer-- you just have to understand that she had more of a purpose in Bleach than to be Ichigo’s wife, or Ichi/Ruki’s red herring, or Uryu’s trophy wife or XYZ gay ship’s laughing stock. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

(Part 1)

#this is just my excuse to sneak in comrade!orihime into my posts huh skdjsjdks #orihime inoue #meta #sorry for the Salt but she's my daughter and im tired of the Direspect #i have SO many headcanons and thoughts about her powers and loose threads kubo never got the time to write #and i give every fic a chance if she's in it #but it's so funny when the writer clearly hates her/doesn't know what to do with her #and you'll see the comments praising op for doing a better job than kubo did like please.. #kubo compared her to a god and you insinuated she was a child murderer i think i know which characterization i'd stick with

[xsoulxsilencex]

Could people please stop shitting on YGO SEVENS

We have only seen a little trailer and got a bit of character descriptions. But that already makes a lot of ygo fans mad and they call Sevens trash, horrible, a disgrace to ygo in general - which is really stupid to me.

About the designs: Yeah, the characters look differently. I was surprised too at first but then I read that Studio Gallop isn’t working for YGO anymore and Studio Bridge is doing the job now. That probably explains why the characters don’t have the typical “ygo look” anymore. Even the cards changed their design. Sure, I will miss it and take my time to get used to it but I won’t make a fuss about it.

About the story: Can’t say much about that yet except that we know Yuga wants to change the dueling world to make it more fun with everyone and he wants to do that with his rush duels. That’s basically him saying “screw the rules, I’ll make my own” but hey, that could still turn out interesting.

About the SEVENS characters: So far, I like them all. Sure, Yuga’s haircolors remind of too many anime characters (*looks at IV*) but his personality seems fun. He also loves to invent stuff and so I can’t wait to see all of his creations. Luke gives me slight Shark-vibes which is not bad since I love Shark. Gakuto made me first think of Reiji being all serious and stuff but the trailer showing him having dorky moments made me like him. And then there’s Romin our main girl and it’s said she’s not interested in duels but I’m sure that will change later. But even with her not being a duelist, she’s a guitarist in a band which is really cool. Her personality seems like the one of a kuudere -even more than Aoi- but I think this is not bad.

Misc: Tbh, I don’t get why people think it’s that bad to have characters around 11-12 years. I was so sure anyway that after serious Vrains with its older characters, the next ygo series would probably be more light-hearted and with younger characters. (after all anime with kid characters are popular in Japan) People say that makes it not appealing for older fans but I don’t get why? Do you only watch anime about characters that are around your age? If that was the case, many people shouldn’t be able to watch Pokémon, Digimon, Yo-Kai Watch, The Promised Neverland etc. anymore. Having children as protagonists doesn’t mean the series has to be childish. Look at Digimon and tell me, all the series were childish with no serious moments and depth at all despite having characters mostly even younger than 11 years old.

The ygo anime series are aimed for kids no matter if the protagonist is 18 like Yusei or only 13 like Yuma so why are some people surprised we’re going for actual kids again? Some saying an 11yo protagonist isn’t appealing for older fans makes me wonder if they never thought of that younger fans also want characters they can relate too? Honestly, when I started watching DM I was probably around 11 or 12 years old and so, younger than Yugi and friends. Didn’t stop me enjoying DM. When I watched Zexal, I was already in my 20′s and so, way older than Yuma but didn’t stop me either enjoying Zexal.

The hatred for SEVENS really reminds me of the hatred people had back when Zexal was announced and a lot from the fandom called it immediately bad because younger characters, all colorful and apparenlty too comedic compared to mature edgy 5D’s. And I think most of us know how Zexal turned out later even with its more comedic start?

The hatred because of the changed art style is way too similar to the pkmn fandom acting shitty when SuMo anime was announced and almost everyone called Ash looking like shit compared to his “cool” looks in XYZ. (and well, there were also people bitching about SuMo being way too slice of life and comedic too) But imo, SuMo turned out to be one of the best pkmn series that could be fun but also still tackle serious topics.

One thing I don’t get either is people saying that SEVENS is responsible for Vrains ending sooner? Do we have any proof for that? So far, I just think some people hate SEVENS so much (and liked Vrains better) so they need another reason to shit on it. Personally, I think Vrains was doomed anyway because Studio Gallop having problems in general which already showed in Arc-V. And before someone thinks I dislike Vrains: Nah, I actually liked season 1 and have a couple of characters dear to me but man, the series took a nose-dive after the first half of season 2 imo. (but lemme tell you, I’m still sad we’re not getting a Vrains manga)

Long story short: it’s fine being sceptical about SEVENS, nobody has against that. But I do find it unfair to call a show trash that hasn’t even started yet. At least wait for the first episodes until you say “yeah, it’s not my cup of tea” and leave it. Don’t destroy the fun for other people who are interested in this series.

#yugioh #yugioh sevens #ygo sevens #honestly some people in the fandom are embarassing #sorry for the rant but had to be said #or you know what: i'm not sorry #yuga and co. didn't do anything wrong - yet #so how about being chill and not taking it out on the kids #imagine hating on anime kids who just want to play a children's card game #sevens hasn't started yet but i declare yuga my son #same to gakuto and luke #romin is my cool rock daughter

[jimmyandjess]

100 Reasons Why Rocketshipping Is Superior To Any Other Pokémon Ship

(Part 1)

1. Jessie and James? Musashi and Kojiro? Really? It’s like they were made for each other 😉😉.

2. They’re grown adults, they have a better chance at staying together compared to 10 years olds (with Ash. ASH).

3. We have 20 years of Rocketshipping footage. 20 YEARS.

4. When it becomes canon in the anime, they won’t separate (hopefully) and will stay together forever. Then we get more shipping IN THE FUTURE instead of maybe 5 moments FROM THE PAST like most of the other pokémon ships.

5. It’s canon in the manga “The Electric Tale of Pikachu”.

6. Episode 31 of Pokémon XYZ, “A Gaggle of Gadget Greatness!” When James pulls ThIs sHiT

7. Episode 63 of Pokémon XY, “A Fork In The Road, A Parting Of The Ways!” Now don’t get me started cos imma start sobbing.

8. The way James calls Jessie “Jess” or “Jessica.”

9. WHEN JAMES STARTS FULL OUT CHEERING FOR JESSIE DURING HER PERFORMANCES AND COMPLETELY EMBARRASSES HIMSELF AND HIS FUTURE CHILDREN.

10. He fell for Jessibelle, who looks a lot like Jessie. Sooooooooo he has to think Jessie’s hot too, right?

11. They’ve been together since the beginning of time.

12. Fear hugs.

13. Crossdressing together.

14. Their motto.

14.5. Now, when I say their motto, I specifically mean, “To denounce the evils of truth and love”, rather than the original phrase, “To denounce the goodness of truth and love”. That says a lot.

15. Episode 45 of Pokémon Indigo League, “Holy Matrimony!”

“Oh, well, guess James chose to hang up his Team Rocket costume.”

“Eh, I guess all that money and luxury was just too tempting for James to give up.”

“Ah, I guess you’re right.”

“Prepared for trouble?”

“Hey, it’s him!”

“James? Hah, make it double!”

[giggling]

“I guess we’re not going to get rich this time either.”

“Guess not. They wouldn’t give me the inheritence.”

“Oh, there’s always next time. We may not make a lot of money, but we sure have got our freedom!”

“Yeah. Double trouble time, right?”

“Sounds great to me, James.”

“Hey, wait! You forgot Meowth, again!”

(I’m hardcore fangirling rn)

16. They do everything together.

17. They understand each other.

18. They’re so different but so similar.

19. Meowth and Wobbufett are the ultimate third wheels.

20. James gets pissssyyyy when Jess starts flirting with Doctor Proctor.

21. Episode 16 of Pokémon Indigo League, “Pokémon Shipwreck!” when James freaks out and calls Jessie “Jessica” and she’s reassuring him like, “It’s oke me bby boi I won’t let te fire hurt u.”

22. It’s honestly one of the only relationships I find realistic (compared to the 7-15 year old shippings like Bonnie and Max or May and Drew). I mean, they’re together all the time and sleep in the same room (or area, at least). They’re grown adults and have freedom to a large extent. And, well, it’s hard to imagine that they haven’t gotten spicy at least once 🤷🏽‍♀️.

23. People make the most amazing fan art and fanfiction for Rocketshipping, and even just Team Rocket alone. I feel like a large portion of the Pokémon franchise are just a bunch of talented-ass people. This isn’t a good reason but I just had to say it.

24. Episode 146 of Pokémon Diamond & Pearl, “Dressed for Jess Success!” James dresses up as Jessilina because Jessie is ill and can’t show up to her Lilypad contest. Jessie’s pissed at the end bc James wins and people like him as her more than her as her. At least they hug, though. Like, genuinely. It’s fking adorable.

25. They’re just cute together.

26. James knows Jessie well enough to understand her tough exterior.

27. Jessie could’ve totally wanted to stay with Dr. White (ep63 of XY) and try to get him to love her and not that 4’11” chick or something. BUT NO. Every time their trio has tried splitting up, they always find their way back to each other.

28. I can’t see them with anyone else that would end up being long term. Otherwise, I totally ship Faba (or Bitch- I mean, Butch) and James or Cassidy and Jessie.

29. Their hair colors are supppperrrr complimentary.

30. The episode “Training Daze” showed the true relationship of Jessie and James. James falls on top of Jessie and it’s the best thing ever. Well, the best thing NEXT to the thought that they would’ve kissed in that moment.

31. The fact that a ten year old can kiss another ten year old means that two twenty five year olds can MOST CERTAINLY GO FARTHER.

32. There’s so many fans of this ship it’s crazy.

33. Anti-Rocketshippers? Never heard of them.

34. Opposites attract.

35. This is more about Team Rocket in general but they just make an episode so much more interesting.

36. They literally can’t not be together, okay.

37. When they call each other “Dear”. Ah I just fuckin love that shit.

38. On that bulbagarden website there’s literally like one gigantic page of just straight up rocketshipping moments.

39. The writers know exactly what the fuck they’re doing when they make a Rocketshippy episode or moment.

40. Meowth would totally make fun of them, and Wobbufett would join in.

41. They both have shitty backgrounds and came together because of that. It was bound to happen.

42. James loves Jessie. 100%

43. Jessie loves James too.

44. Even if that love is mutual, it’s still there.

45. They can flaunt their gayness and still look absolutely amazing together.

46. There are so many songs that describe their relationship. For example,

• Partners in Crime - Set it Off

• Claudia - FINNEAS

• Make a New Dance Up - Hey Ocean!

• Team Rocket - Lil Uzi Vert

• Double Trouble - Pokémon

(lmao)

and etc.

47. The Pokémon Writers were originally going to have them end up together if season 1 ended the entire show. That alone says a lot.

48. They wouldn’t be the typical couple, and be like completely straight and have a big family or whatever. They would probably have the craziest wedding ever, a lot like @musashi said in a post. And they would be two bisexuals that crossdress together every now and then and it would be absolutely amazing.

49. Jessie’s emerald earings look a lot like James’ eyes and ahhabsjahahagab I love that.

50. Writing fanfiction or drawing some fan art is super fun because there’s so many scenarios that they could be in.

Happy Rocketshipping Day!

#team rocket #pokemon #james #kojiro #jessie #rocketshipping #anime #musashi #pokeani #list #50 reasons #100 reasons #reasons why rocketshipping is superior to any other pokemon ship #jessie x james #james x jessie #musashi x kojiro #kojiro x musashi #nyarth #wobbufett #sonansu #wedding #ah #this took way too long

[popatochisssp]

How are the boys with memes? Like who keeps up with the freshest memes, who has no clue what they are, and who (heaven forbid) uses Facebook mom memes?

I should be embarrassed by how ready to answer this ask I am. Well anyway, here goes! XD

Meme Fluent: Sans (Undertale), Papyrus (Undertale), Rus (Swapfell Papyrus), Papy (Horrortale Papyrus)

Can At Least Ask Where The Bathroom Is In Meme: Paps (Underswap Papyrus), Jasper (Underfell Sans), Slate (Horrortale Sans)

Meme-blivious: Sky (Underswap Sans), Pyre (Underfell Papyrus), Mal (Swapfell Sans)

And now specifics, because I have those, because I am way too prepared for this and have thought this out in detail with their Top Two favorite genres of meme because I am a meme-loving fuck, myself:

Sans (Undertale): Of course he’s hip to the meme scene. No explanation necessary there, except for the types of memes he’s into. Minions memes? Minions memes. He is a troll and a garbage sort of person, so he both ironically and unironically loves Minions. The cornier and more played out the meme, the more he loves it and shares it with all his family and friends to the point that they start to hate him. He exits way too many text conversations with the gif of Stuart walking to the pool in the little red speedo and everyone is very sick of it. But another thing genuinely loves is those funny product reviews people do of stuff: When somebody leaves a long review on a useless or silly product, that is his jam. His longest running favorite is literally everything posted about sugar-free gummy bears, but whether the review is sarcastic or overly dramatic in tone, he gets a good, long chuckle out of the stuff these people come up with and is at any moment a few hours away from trying his hand at the medium himself.

Papyrus (Undertale): More meme-savvy than you’d expect, but he doesn’t sleep much and most of the stuff he likes to do out of the house have ‘reasonable business hours,’ whatever that means, so the witching hours are his internet time! He’s a blogger at heart, though, and his favorites are WarriorMale and shitty-car-mods-daily– the former because he deeply resonates with the fighting-positive spirit of it, and the latter because they are so wrong and he has so much to say about all those incredible cars!

Sky (Underswap Sans): Doesn’t have much spare time to spend on the internet, so he is almost meme-illiterate, and the ones he does know are usually pretty old. He loves fun and positivity, so any of those image edits about loving and supporting your friends get a smile out of him, and doggo memes crack him the fuck up, every time. Heck, they do him the real big laughter! Bamboozled again!

Paps (Underswap Papyrus): He’s online a decent amount, but definitely not enough to understand every single meme he sees. He gets the gist of the really popular ones and has a tendency to hold onto his favorites a little longer than their shelf-life, but who decides a meme is dead, anyway? He loves The Onion headlines as reaction images, and he never fails to chuckle at a good, old fashioned Cask of Amontillado meme. In fact, he has a whole store of them printed out just to look at later. He keeps them down in the basement, would you like to see them?

Jasper (Underfell Sans): Similar to Paps, he spends some time on the internet, but not that much–he generally figures he has better shit to do, but it’s fun for unwinding a little every now and then. He is The Worst with his memeing, though, because his favorites are engineering fails and uncomfortable images. Mailboxes built in the middle of a driveway and ramps with railings through the middle are hilariously stupid to him, but he also gets a very mean-spirited chuckle out of sending people things like horses with dog-mouths, or a hunk of meat decorated to look like a donut, stuff that’ll make just about anyone go, “Hmm, don’t like that.” If looking at it fills you with discomfort and possibly even anger, he will locate it and send it to you at two in the morning.

Pyre (Underfell Papyrus): Is not even really sure what a meme is. Has way better shit to do in real life, or at least believes that he does, to be online very much at all! That said, he does have a small collection of gifs from all the reality shows and things with Real Housewives in them to use as reaction images because one thing he can really appreciate is the kind of petty, cattiness those ladies get up to and he likes to co-opt it when someone’s giving him attitude over text. Another thing he likes, though he has no idea that it was ever a meme or even meme-adjacent, is the Troubled Birds images– he actually has the physical book, he got it as a gift from Jasper and he’d never admit it but it is genuinely a treasured possession of his. HE IS LOOKING FOR TROUBLE AND IF HE CANNOT FIND IT, HE WILL CREATE IT!

Mal (Swapfell Sans): Actually the worst about memes because he knows what they are, but…well, there’s no other way to put it, he’s the Facebook mom memer, it’s him. He adores wine-mom memes especially, as a wine-drinker himself, but he’s also a huge fan of those ecards with sassy, bitchy messages on them. “I need to stop asking people ‘how stupid can you be?’ They’re taking it as a challenge!” That’s the kind of thing that gets a laugh from him and he always sends it to his brother who just sighs every time he sees one at this point.

Rus (Swapfell Papyrus): Now Rus spends a lot of time on the internet and it shows because probably his favorite sort of meme is what everybody keeps calling a resurgence in dadaist absurdism. Deep-fried images that don’t seem to make any sense, memes with at least twelve layers of meme-history that you need a Level 50 understanding of the internet to get, he loves those, which especially frustrates his brother because he doesn’t understand what Rus is laughing at??? WHAT IS FUNNY ABOUT THIS THING!!! …So naturally, the most confusing and weird ones are Rus’ favorites to send along to make his bro all pissy and confused, revenge for the daily stream of Mom Memes he gets from him. But more for himself, Rus is also subscribed to several channels and blogs that do stim or satisfying videos. They’re calming and…well, satisfying to him, and he likes to watch those whenever he’s stressed out. Frosting ones are probably his favorites, if pressed he might admit he thinks they’re even more satisfying than eating what the frosting’s going onto.

Slate (Horrortale Sans): He’s on the internet plenty! There’s just no guarantee that whatever the latest in meme culture is will stick in his skull from day to day, so he’s not always as up-to-date as he could be. Still, he has a couple of big favorites in the meme trends, and the biggest one is vine compilations! He loves those, vines are short and he doesn’t have the longest short-term memory, but seven seconds is very doable for him. There’s also a lot of repeated vines across compilations, so by virtue of seeing it over and over again, he tends to remember more vines than he forgets, which is awesome! He loves referencing a vine and getting a chuckle of understanding out of someone, it’s been awhile since he’s been able to be on the inside of an inside joke! Another trend he likes is the rating/reviews of stuff, like emojis or animals. The glib tone and nonsensical criteria as to what makes an ideal XYZ is just really funny to him, and since those things usually also come in big, compiled posts, each individual review is short enough to read and move onto the next instead of getting so in-depth into a text-wall that he starts to forget where he started.

Papy (Horrortale Papyrus): Also doesn’t sleep much and spends a lot of his night on the internet! His personal taste in memery is a little mish-mosh though, because his big favorites are the translated Russian cat memes and any blog he can find that posts weird thrift store finds. The cat memes should require no explanation, but as for the thrift store stuff…If ever there exists a picture of an odd and/or utterly bizarre thing that makes you wonder how and why it ever came to exist, he’s both thrilled and delighted by it. He loves quirky and unique stuff and thrift stores are full of it! Seeing all the strange things people stumble upon makes him want to start doing some thrifting in real life to make finds of his own, but he also just loves to see what other people have discovered. He sends the most bafflingly odd ones to his brother… who usually responds with the Look What I Bought vine and the text, “its you.”

#anonymous #headcanons #undertale #sans #papyrus #underswap #us!sans #us!papyrus #underfell #uf!sans #uf!papyrus #swapfell/fellswap #sf!sans #sf!papyrus #horrortale #ht!sans #ht!papyrus #memes #old memes

[phdna]

*arriving a month late with Starbucks and an uninteresting Endgame review*

This took me forever to write because work has been very intense lately, but I have thoughts I want to write down, for my own future reference when I’m an old woman looking back on my life, if for nothing else.

SPOILERS AHEAD, of course!

From whatever little I’ve been online since Endgame came out, it seems like the internet has been on fire swearing undying love, eternal hate and everything in between. I’m used to that because the MCU fandom has a tendency to be like that, but it feels like this time is more intense, which puzzled me a little bit, as it mostly adheres to the Marvel rules of storytelling, and people tend to not fuss over movies that do that as much as they do over movies that break the established MCU patterns. And then I did some reading and watching and talking and it just hit me that people aren’t reacting to Endgame itself, they’re reacting to the MCU. Both people who think it’s the best movie ever and people who think it’s absolute trash aren’t talking a lot about the movie, they’re talking about how the movie handled the end of this long journey that was the MCU. (Exception: time travel. I’ll get back to it in a moment!) I know I’m having a Captain Obvious moment here, but bear with me for a moment, I’m going somewhere with this.

Here’s the thing: as long as there are more movies coming, we can all overlook things we dislike about the MCU really well – “they’ll just fix it later,” right? Or we can fix it ourselves, even if we don’t write/read fics – the endless theories about what the next movies are gonna be about are in large part wish-fulfillment. Maybe next time Marvel will have more representation of all kinds, maybe next time Marvel will develop their female characters as much as their male counterparts, maybe next time Marvel will focus on this particular relationship that is either underdeveloped or so developed that it should get more attention, maybe next time Marvel will direct a character arc towards where I think it should go. But when the end arrives, we have to face that we aren’t in charge of the MCU and have sometimes wildly different expectations that what the Powers That Be have in mind. We have been emotionally invested in this universe for a long time – we bring the MCU with us in our lives even away from screens – and it sucks a little to realize that, ultimately, we are powerless to impact it. If Endgame was 100% everything you’ve always wanted for every single character and for the universe as whole, great! You’re still gonna mourn the end a little bit, but it’s cool! But if you feel like even one character of the dozens in the cast got the short end of the stick, you’re gonna be upset because don’t we all wish we could sit down with Marvel and teach them Why They Are Wrong About This Character?

I hope I’m not sounding holier-than-thou, like I’m being absolutely cool and adult about the whole thing. Hell no. I’d fight Kevin Feige in a parking lot any time, and have been ready to do that since huh… the MCU started. (Especially because the MCU has taken over the comics and I like 616 more than I like the MCU, so I’ve got beef with Marvel for that.)

So yeah, I have plenty of “What? No! Whose idea was that, that’s terrible!” moments, but I always try to focus on what I enjoyed more than on what I hated. Sometimes it doesn’t work and I get forever bitter, but most of the time, I make an active effort to 1) be grateful that WE EVEN HAVE GOOD SUPERHERO MOVIES AT ALL and 2) watch the movies I’m actually watching instead of watching the movies I think I should watch. For instance, I want to set myself on fire whenever I think about how un-family-like the Avengers are in the MCU, but since being a family isn’t a story the MCU is trying to tell, I consciously try to find something I enjoy about the constant conflicts, such as what they tell us about what each character believes, and how they keep coming back together to do the right thing despite their differences.

Arguably, that’s too much effort, and I get why some people want to be entertained and get upset if the MCU doesn’t deliver that entertainment – I mean, movies are supposed to be fun. But since I was a kid, I’ve always been a fan of imperfect things I have no control over, and I muddle through what I don’t enjoy to get to the shiny bits that give me goosebumps and keep me up at night feeling giddy over how good something was. It’s part of how I react to stuff I like by now. I don’t know, maybe it’s my History degree talking, but I don’t see what the big deal is with saying “Some of it sucks, some of it is brilliant, some of it has to be challenged on the ground of human rights, but overall I’m interested in learning more about it.”

Why the essay on how to engage with the MCU?

Because no matter how I think about it, my primary opinion about Endgame isn’t “I think it’s good” or “I think it’s bad” but just “I’m thankful.” That’s it. I can’t look at Endgame and see it as an isolated movie. I look at it and think “God, I was just out of school when Tony said I am Iron Man and now I’m a teacher and the MCU has always been there helping me keep track of the passage of time all these years.” Here, have a bad analogy: Endgame is when you finish a long travel and there’s nothing home to eat and you have to unpack and you’re exhausted and normal life is depressing and you have a headache and you’re frustrated that holidays are over and you didn’t do everything you wanted…. but that doesn’t make the entire travel a waste of time, does it? It’s actually the opposite. If the travel sucks, getting home is great. And very, very, very few people walk out of Endgame saying “Thank god this MCU saga is over, ugh, I was following it just out of obligation and I’m glad I’m free now” – I mean, there are people like that, and I can see why, but I also never finish things just out of obligation so I can’t relate. Anyway, mostly, people either expected more because the MCU is good enough to do better or thought this was the perfect ending. I’m both. Some things I loved, some things I really wish would be different, but mostly, I’m, like I said, grateful that the journey was so good that no ending would’ve fully satisfied me.

My biggest problem is with time travel. I’ve never liked the trope (not huge on alternate universes, either!), so I knew this would be a pet peeve even before I watched Endgame. I’m also surprised that apparently nobody involved in the movie can agree on how aforementioned time travel works. Fans certainly can’t. And I don’t think it’s a good thing if your audience is confused by a major part of your movie, even if there is a perfectly good explanation and the audience just didn’t get it. (Which isn’t the case, as apparently there isn’t a perfect explanation.) But you know what? I’m hand-waving it. It’s a convoluted plot device but it made a good movie, so like, whatever. Let it work in ABC way unless XYZ needs to happen, in which case, XYZ is how it’s always worked regardless of how ABC was used before. I don’t care. I’m taking what they say happened and saying “Okay, that’s how it happened” and ignoring the hows and the whys. It’s just bad comic book logic on the big screen, I’ve been rolling with this kind of thing since I was a literal child. Having said that, I don’t know what year it is in the MCU, I don’t know how Spider-Man will work, I’m not touching Cap’s time paradox with a ten-foot pole, and I’m not even gonna try to understand any of the timeline charts going around online.

My other major problems have to do with real life more than with the movie. The only original female Avenger dies in the same way the only original female Guardian of the Galaxy died, and neither of them get funerals but we do get the men in their lives suffering over it (which switches the focus from mourning the women to the men’s journeys.) Not sure if the joke was that Thor was clinically depressed or if the joke was that Thor was fat, but haha hilarious. The first openly queer character is omg a nameless cameo talking about someone we never see, isn’t the MCU so progressive? (The bar was so low that Marvel had to dig a ditch so they could somehow get lower than that.) Not loving the idea of “Thanos treated Gamora like shit but the Soul Stone recognizes he loved her” and “Tony’s dad was awful but Tony can Forgive Him” being presented as touching – it’s creepy af and makes me wonder if the MCU will end up saying Alexander Pierce actually cared about Bucky somewhat or something of that sort. Female hero team up: unironically loved it and want it projected on my tombstone (it was one of my favorite part), but it’s a little disturbing that almost none of them had much of a storyline in the movie because they don’t have much of a storyline in the MCU – it really highlights that Marvel has a boy’s club problem still. Now, none of these things make for a bad movie, it just reminds me that Marvel has a long way to go with they want to become inclusive.

Okay, now on to storylines…

Tony. Loved it. I love how the Russos direct Tony (I do have a problem with how M&M write Tony, sometimes, though, and always have) because they love to highlight how soft Tony’s heart is. Part of what makes the character interesting in any universe is that he’s willing to do morally shady stuff when he thinks he’s justified and he tends to think he’s justified because he knows exactly how smart he is, but if you explore this borderline antihero behavior without a deep commitment to reminding the audience that Tony is emotional and gentle, you end up with Reed Richards. 616!Tony will always be sweeter than MCU!Tony (even though 616!Tony’s dad literally tried to beat emotions out of him, while MCU!Tony’s dad more ignored him than actively tried to make him colder, but that’s besides the point) but Tony was so openly loving in this movie, and it helps make his death hit home, why so many people will miss Iron Man and Tony I pity Morgan a lot because she won’t remember her dad, but the only way to feel like the torch has truly been passed to other heroes was to kill Tony – keep him alive in any way and characters are gonna want his advice even if he stops fighting. I want to see how other heroes will protect a world without Iron Man. It’s exciting and brand new and feels a bit like when Fury said in 2008 that Tony isn’t the only superhero.

Steve. Let’s take the time paradox at face value and say everything goes well in every possible timeline and nobody suffers more than they would if he hadn’t done his time-heist thing, because I think that’s what the movie wanted to imply. I’m actually happy he got to be with Peggy. It’s not how I’d write him, mind you, but I always knew MCU Steve was being written as someone who is inherently out of place in the modern world. In the comics, Steve has a culture shock and he mourns people, but he finds a new family in the Avengers and truly becomes part of this century. MCU Steve was never that guy. And that’s okay, it’s a valid take! Not what I’d do, but given his storyline throughout the other movies, I think it’s a very satisfying ending that feels very organic. Saying “screw everything, I’ll do what I think it’s important” has been Steve’s constant in all movies, and it’s nice that he learned that he is important too, not just everybody else. Handing the shield was also very important – no “I think he’d want you to have it” to fuel conspiracy theories in the future: Steve made a good decision and that’s fine. (And I’ll cut a bitch if y’all keep saying “maybe Bucky had the shield before” because Sam can be a first choice fgs!!!)

Professor Hulk is a thing and I liked it more than I thought I would. Hopefully we’ll see more of him. I liked Bruce and I liked the Hulk, but somehow this version of him made me go from “Yeah, they’re nice” to “PLEASE TELL ME HE’LL HAVE A SOLO MOVIE” so good job in redeeming the Hulk franchise, Marvel! It only took you 10 years to get the right tone, but hey, what matters is that you did it!

Thor…….. Um. Hard. I liked his character arc but hated how it was handled. I’m not even a huge fan of Ragnarok because comedy isn’t my thing, but watching Ragnarok, I could see why the movie worked and the humor didn’t come at the expense of being fair to the character. Endgame felt more like the movie itself was bullying him. They’re laughing at his pain, basically, and it’s just not funny. It bothers me for the same reason it bothers me when people say pre-serum Steve should never leave home – just… no. But then, we got Thor and Frigga and I’d sell a kidney for more Frigga, so, it wasn’t completely awful. Just like, 90%?

Natasha!!! I hope everybody who said Scarjo can’t act paid attention to this movie, because she gave Nat a depth that we haven’t seen since CATWS, and even then, because it was Steve’s story, she was sidelined. That’s the Nat I’ve always wanted in the MCU. …and of course, she’s dead. Luckily, we don’t know anything about MCU!Nat, so we can still get prequels even if they don’t want to bring her back to life. It’s a little shady that she dies (why is it that the randomly decided death always seem to be randomly assigned to whatever the minority in a team is, huh?) but I love that she sacrificed herself for the greater good. It’s a heroic end to a woman who thought she was gonna be a villain her entire life. Oh, oh, oh, I have to say this: Natasha leading the remaining Avengers? Godtier. I’m not much of a fic person but I desperately want fics of that off-screen period where she’s being a boss.

Clint. MCU!Clint never did much for me, so I was impressed that I was rooting so much for him during the movie. I don’t know if he’ll just retire completely, but I’m hoping he doesn’t so we can see more of him in the MCU.

Okay, that’s the original Avengers and I’ve already written……. Too much. So I’ll stop – sort of – here.

But first, other random comments.

Fight choreography? On point, 10/10, would let Marvel beat me up to experience these sequences myself

“I am inevitable.” “I am Iron Man.” I cried so much the screen got blurry and I almost missed the snap. Thank you for this exchange.

I love and support Morgan, but I’m dreading the idea that in a near future, the MCU will get Riri’s entire story and give it to Morgan. Please, MCU, I’m counting on you, have Morgan grow up to befriend Riri, not to steal her role.

Nebula needs a solo movie. Nebula needs a whole cinematic universe, actually. What a character.

Speaking of which, GotG 3 is shaping up to be very cool

Sam being the one to say “On your left” in the movie where he becomes Captain America? Poetic cinema. Also! Sam Wilson is Captain America and both the human being who wants children to grow up in a better world and the geek who wants to see flying Cap in me are equally over the moon with joy

Bucky, my darling, the MCU hasn’t known what to make of you since 2011. It’s okay, Sebastian Stan will always do his magic and make you be Bucky even when Marvel doesn’t fully understand anything about your character

Pepper’s character development in 10 years is protagonist-worthy, I can’t believe how she always only has a couple of scenes every movie

Tom Holland should not be allowed to have crying scenes, they make my heart hurt

The movie feels a lot shorter than it is

There’s a lot more I could say, but I’m writing it on Word (tumblr sometimes eat my text posts as I’m writing them) and the wordcount is nearing 3k, so I better shut up. If you’ve read all of this, please treat yourself to a milkshake, you’re awesome. If there’s anything you want to talk about that I didn’t address (or just… you know, about Marvel in general), my ask and my direct messages are always open. I’ll probably take forever to get back to you (I NEED A VACATION ASAP) but I will eventually answer you and I don’t bite, so please go ahead if you’re curious about my not-so-very-interesting thoughts :)

TL;DR: Endgame isn’t my favorite movie (IM, IM3, CATFA, CATWS and BP all come first, sorry) but it’s up there in the “I can watch this movie a thousand times and I won’t get tired of it” list, and I think it does a fairly good job in ending the Infinity Saga, so I’m basically pleased!

#avengers endgame spoilers

[managician]

ARC V Anniversary Day 12

Disccusion prompt: Favorite ships?

ARC V has really made me ship a lot of things, be it with or without taking canon into account just because of the potential, so buckle up ‘cause this is gonna be long. I kept it to a top 10 or otherwise I’d be here all day. Honorable mentions to prodigy and whistle, as they barely didn’t make it.

(PD this is a reupload because I realised the post wasn’t showing up properly, so if you’ve seen it before already I apologize)

With that out of the way, let’s go!

10. Natureshipping

I love many of the bgirl/bgirl ships so naturally I’d love all of them being together… Not only for the awesome aesthetic though, I also think their personalities would fit so nicely with each other and they’d like having the chance to meet and talk about everything they’ve gone through; I have so many fluffy headcanons for them and I really just wanna see them bonding and being happy together!

09. Frypanshipping

Probably the oddest ship in this list, I sure as hell didn’t expect to like them so much, but Crow really helped in making Shingo become a better person, and poor Shingo clutching onto his card post BB-arc the entire time made me so emotional. You could tell they had a good relationship and were very happy to be fighting together after that, they’re so cute.

08. Wingshipping

Look at these two precious babs… On a visual level they both have some of my favorite designs in all of ARC V and they’re both counterparts, so I was bound to at the very least consider pairing them up, but when they actually had a rather peaceful meeting in canon all things considered, and immediately valued each other? When you take into account all the possible fluff and angst you could make with setting these two into any scenario? I was soo sold. And they both share the egao philosophy, they’d definitely get along… It’s just fun to think about ideas with them.

07. Janushipping

I have a weak spot for Fusion/XYZ ships because I think there’s so much room for growth and forgiveness if done right, and while I didn’t expect Dennis and Ruri to actually have some backstory together, this relationship has all I could wish for both of their characters. It adds personal conflict to their stories (especially on Ruri’s side, something that isn’t about being related to Shun or Yuto) and leaves room for Dennis to be able to apologize and improve himself after the war; not to mention their aesthetics mesh beautifully together. It’s so easy to picture them awkwardly falling back into an acquaintanceship and figuring out together where to go from there.

06. Fruitshipping

aka the ‘these two care so fucking much for each other, I don’t know how you can watch arc v and at the very least not appreciate their relationship’ ship.

I don’t know what to say that hasn’t been said about them already, honestly. I was admittedly… Reticent, let’s say, to ship this at first, because the relationships between the protagonist and lead girl in YGO shows tend to be lackluster at best for me, but they built each other up as equals from day one and have a genuinely heartwarming friendship, where they know they can lean on each other for support no matter what. They’re one of the most important people for the other and you can feel that throughout the entire show. To this day they hold the honour of being the only protag/main girl ship I can stand romantically.

Though… since they’re so well-executed in canon, I don’t feel the need to seek fanworks of them because there’s no real conflict in their relationship, if that makes sense, haha.

05. Mysteryshipping

This is sort of to be expected as I enjoy all the relationships between this trio separately (even if Yuto/Yuzu’s was short-lived); this shot in the 2nd ED is what got me to even become interested in the OT3 potential, though it was after I finished the show. Yuzu had clearly been having a period of self-doubt in S1 because of the Yuto situation, and thanks to episodes 36-37 we got a wonderful showcase of how well Yuto and Yuya would have clicked, so if Yuzu happened to explain her problem to either of them and caused them to meet in not-so-tragic circumstancies… You can only dream of the possibilities. And thanks to their bonds being established early on, you can expand on them during or post canon events, both in a positive and negative light. We’ve seen teamwork and discussions between all of them already; it’s fun to try to translate that dynamic into a three-way interaction (cranky but overly protective Yuto being dragged around by his two enthusiastic Standard S/Os who also happen to love each other very much, for one).

04. Musicboxshipping

Gosh, these two are just so cute together. Sora was heavily influenced by both Yuya and Yuzu, but you can tell their relationship is really important by the way they both act with each other, especially during the Synchro Arc. Sora taught Yuzu how to Fusion Summon and thanks to that Yuzu was able to become stronger; but Sora also was able to form a solid connection with her and basically made his first true friend in all of his life. They support each other and care about each other so much that even after they know of Sora’s true colours, Yuzu still has blind faith in him, and Sora returns that feeling by saving her from her Duel crash and even being unable to carry the mission Academia gave him because he treasured their friendship that much. Their little master/apprentice moments are adorable and really give off the fluffy energy these two have around each other; and of course Sora’s Mad Chimera and Yuzu’s Bloom Prima dancing together was beautiful too! That was such a lovely scene that made me really appreciate the trust they have in each other.

03. Swiftshipping

I shipped them together from the moment I learned both of them had been kidnapped, and I was really happy when I saw that their designs fit well with each other’s color scheme. They’re both very caring for people they hold close and since there was no indication of the opposite, for the longest time I assumed they were in a cell together. Imagining both of them trying to comfort and support each other through their predicament got me really invested in their possible relationship, and even if it didn’t turn out like I’d hoped in the end, I still had a solid grasp on their personalities by that time, and I couldn’t let go of all the AUs and concepting I’d made for them. It should be said that I have a really weak spot for f/f ships, and this one hit many of my favorite tropes (stuck in same bad situation where they both would try to be strong for each other’s sake, different growing-up backgrounds; to name a few) so my investment only went up from there. I love them so much.

02. Triggershipping

I didn’t expect them to interact much, much less positively, and much less for them to grow to care for each other so much in a short span of time. They have such a friendly and beautiful relationship; Yugo hugging Yuzu because he thought she was Rin and poor Yuzu becoming a blushing mess was a sure way to make me interested from the get go in them, haha. And it only got better from there! Even though she was a complete stranger to him, Yugo still tried to comfort Yuzu to the best of his abilities and looked out for her, fully trusting everything she said, even if to someone else it would’ve sounded like a crazy story. And you can tell Yuzu grows very comfortable with being around Yugo; their small scene with the domestic bantering and her pulling out her fan says that much, as she only uses it with people she really cares for. Whenever they’re on screen together you know you’re gonna be in for a good time, their interactions are always funny and heartwarming.

Yugo saying that Yuzu will always live on his heart in a similar manner to what Yuri said of Rin made me realise how much she really meant to him, and both of them cheering for each other in their Friendship Cup duels was adorable. But if you put their situation into context their relationship is… really sad, as Yugo has lost Rin and Yuzu is all by herself in an unknown dimension. They have that perfect mix of fluff and angst to work with that I love in ships. I adore their relationship; even if it was born out of less than desirable circumstancies, they made it work and learned to appreciate and love each other. It’s always a source of inspiration for me!

(And Yugo’s lack of knowledge of what personal space is just made it even easier to ship them)

01. Counterpartshipping

ARC V has always had the uncanny ability of making me consider ships in the span of a single episode because of the wonderful character interactions. But these two… These two really take the cake. I’m not exaggerating when I say the relationship and development between them has made me cry.    

Anyone who has heard me talk about YGO may know how much I like them. As I mentioned in a previous post where I talked about my favorite characters, I hadn’t expected to enjoy Yuto’s character so much, and much less this ship. Yuto remains a latent force of encouragement for Yuya during the entire show; as Reiji beautifully points out on his duel with Yuya after the Battle Royale fiasco, Yuya’s immediate connection with Yuto thanks to their shared ideology was the bond that allowed him to perform a XYZ Summon. His concern for Yuto in episode 37 was so palpable that it hurt; Yuto went from being some random shady dude who was beating up his friend Sora to a kind damaged person who believed in Yuya’s potential to make people happy in a way that he no longer could. It’s really interesting for me to analyse how deeply they affected each other in a short span of time. We’d seen that Yuto was a very protective person thanks to his interactions with Yuzu, so when he said that he didn’t want to hurt anyone else and ended up protecting Yuya at the cost of his own life… It drove the point home, Yuto really saw Yuya as someone worth protecting and that made it so much more painful.

Yuya also later on refers to their dialogue as a vow/promise, despite the fact that Yuto never said so, which really shows just how much thought he put into his words; to the point where those very words managed to snap him out of Berserk Mode when he was about to fight Sora. It really moved me, and the soul-crushing sensation I felt then stayed fresh in my mind right until the final season, which made me fall in love with them even more. They argued, they had fallouts, but their undying trust for each other still rose through all the problems. Yuto trusted Yuya so much that he essentially told him he was okay with falling to darkness because he knew Yuya would be okay and he’d still believe in him no matter what; that moment nearly made me actually tear up because it shows how much they’d helped each other grow.

They’re hands down one of the, if not my most favorite ship in all of the YGO series, and they’ve spurred my creativity so much. I love making AUs or analysing their interactions. They made me interested in creating content for other people to enjoy after I’d hit a stalemate 5 months ago, I’ll just never be able to express how much I love them and how grateful I am that they got to meet.

#arcvanniversary #ygo arc v #arc v #yugioh arc v #long post #you can tell these get longer as the list goes on because i have so many feelings and tbh im not sorry i love all the relationships

[blueeyeswhitegarden]

Arc V Anniversary Day 24

Day 24. What you’d like to see in the future (arc v video games, movie, other continuation, etc.):

A continuation for Arc V would be just amazing. I don't think that there's be enough to do for a full movie though. All of the major threats to the series like Zarc and Academia had been dealt with and I don't know about introducing a new villain for the cast to deal with. The four dimensions were connected yet still their own separate worlds too. I'm sure a lot of people would like a storyline where the counterparts split apart again, but I honestly wouldn't be in favor of that. I actually like and appreciate that they didn't just magically undo the merging during the last episode. The dimensional war changed everything, for better or for worse, and things couldn't just go back to the way they were beforehand. I thought that having the counterparts fused together fits with that aspect of the finale. Plus, there were quite a few signs throughout the series, especially during the last arc, that hinted that counterparts wouldn't unmerge. Neither Yuya or Yuto mentioned the possibility of unmerging even after they were able to talk to each other, so that wasn't really a goal for the series compared to stopping Academia. The seemingly only way to split them apart would be through the En Cards, but that would have reverted them back into babies, so that wasn't really an ideal solution either.

To be clear, I'm not saying that people can't be upset about the finale or that they shouldn't write fan fiction where the counterparts get their bodies back. I do understand why people were upset about the finale to a degree and people can write whatever they want to so long as it isn't offensive or hateful towards people. I just wouldn't want to make that the focus of a continuation since I do appreciate that aspect of the finale. It fits with how all of the dimensions, and in turn the people, were affected by the dimensional war to varying degrees, but they were still able to take a step forward into the future together with a smile.

I do think that there would be enough to do an OVA. Getting to see Yuya vs. Yusho would be fantastic. Seeing the whole match would be good, but I could see an OVA cutting to a time skip epilogue before the conclusion. I think leaving the match's outcome up to interpretation would be a pretty fitting choice. Yuya defeating Yusho would be terrific, but even with all of the progress made over the series, it might be a bit too soon for him to win in their first match. Plus, they'd have more duels together over time anyway. While I like the finale, I do wish we had gotten a time skip epilogue. I'm not too surprised that it didn't happen since they'd ideally need more than five minutes to show how the characters were doing. Plus, giving the cast full of relatively young teenagers new designs for just a short scene or even one episode might have been too much for them to do right at the end of the series. Still, I would love to see how the characters are doing a few years after the events of the series and see how the dimensions have changed now that they're all connected. The Xyz and Synchro dimensions had a good sense of closure during the series, but it would be nice to see Heartland fully restored and the City doing well without the Tops and Commons system. Seeing how Pendulum changed would be nice and what Academia had become after the dimensional war would be neat. Academia wasn't a threat after Leo realized that he was in the wrong, but there were still students there during the finale, so seeing what the school had become post-dimensional war would be really interesting. Seeing how the characters were doing would definitely be great. Even though they still live in different dimensions, they aren't really far apart since they can easily visit each other whenever they want to. Showing how both Yuya and Yuzu adjusted to being one with their counterparts would also be really great. Yuzu didn't get the scenes with her counterparts like Yuya did with his during the last few episodes, so that would be nice to see. I really love the idea that she'd upgrade her deck to reflect all four of them somehow, so I could see her doing that. Reiji being with a slightly older Reira would be sweet too. I'd really just like to see how the whole cast are doing with their new lives a few years after the finale.

I'd absolutely love an Arc V video game. I'm still upset and disappointed that we didn't get a proper one during the series' run, but I'm not surprised about it either. I'm pretty sure that Yu-Gi-Oh! video games don't tend to sell that well, even with the free cards included, which is why video game releases have been pretty rare since Zexal. It's a shame since I only play the card game through video games, but I imagine more people play the card game in person or online. I'd pay good money for a video game focused only on Arc V though. Playing through the storyline with my own avatar character like the old World Championship series would be fantastic.

The closest we'll probably get to that is the Legacy of the Duelist: Link Evolution game on the Switch. Surprisingly enough, I haven't bought the game yet. I still prefer buying physical copies of my video games over digital purchases whenever possible. Plus, I want to make sure that I buy the U.S. release in the hopes that they'll release more video games in the future. Hopefully Konami won't pull a Konami and chop up the game upon a western release. I am seriously looking forward to the game primarily for the Arc V story mode. I'd probably still get it if it was just focused on another series like DM, but the idea of playing as the different Arc V characters and finally getting a chance to try out these different archetypes is way too fantastic for me. The new Link monster rules will probably make some of the more difficult unfortunately, but I want to play an Odd Eyes Dragon Deck and somehow I'm going to do it. The idea of seeing some of my favorite Arc V characters on the Switch is also pretty amazing. I primarily play it in handheld mode, but it's still pretty cool and they have so many characters from the cast in the game too. I'm sure that I'll have a ton of fun playing through the game.

I'm also extremely eager for an Arc V update for Duel Links. Based on the previous updates, we should get a Zexal update sometime this fall and then an Arc V update next year. I am already thrilled at the possibility of an Arc V World in Duel Links. Getting new artwork for the characters and especially new dialogue would make me extremely happy. I'm still not sure how Pendulum summoning would work for a Speed Duel format, but I'd just want to play these different archetypes and get all of the Arc V themed card sleeves and mats. I'd want to level up all of the characters, but I'd also be worried about that just because maxing out characters' levels, or even get them to close to it, in Duel Links tends to make me less interested in playing as them. This probably wouldn't be as much of an issue with the Arc V cast though. It would just be so wonderful to see Arc V characters being included in Duel Links, having special events for any new characters and adapting some events from the show into a Duelist Chronicles event. I already love Duel Links. I hadn't played the card game in years due to the lack of video games. Now thanks to the app, I can play the card game every day, which still amazes me, and it still feels fresh with all of the events and updates they have for the game. But an Arc V World would just make me extremely happy and love Duel Links even more. I do hope that they give more attention to the spin-off series in general, especially when there are so many playable DM characters, but I am just waiting and hoping for an Arc V World announcement in the not too distant future.

#Arc V #Arc V Anniversary #Arcvanniversary

[smilingperformer]

SM086 - Thoughts

Simply put, I loved this episode. It may be a typical “Rocket Gang comes and steals Satoshi and others Pokémon” plot, but it has great character moments, and I love how we got to learn more about Ride Pokémon, and just how human this episode was. Pokémon need refreshment from time to time, they need more than just Pokémon Center from time to time too! And how each Pokémon is given their own course depending on their condition is great! Without further ado, let’s talk about my favourite moments in our newest episode of Pokémon Sun & Moon, before the highly anticipated Necrozma Arc begins:

I Choose Here! The Pokémon Steam Paradise!

So the Ultra Guardians are heading to Pokémon Paradise Resort on Akala Island to have a relaxing time after being called to so many Ultra Beast missions lately. Lusamine is paying their trip there, which honestly is an extremely nice act from her! What I loved about the opening scene is how Mamane and Mao explain the place to Satoshi, to which Satoshi goes all sparkle eyes. He’s clearly excited to go there, and it shows later on as well! I honestly love it when they show that side of him, because then we’re reminded he’s still a kid inside, even with such amount of battle expertism!

Another moment I absolutely adore is how every trainer seems to feel close to their Ride Pokémon. Somehow I adore Suiren and Hakuryu’s moments throughout the episode, even if one could consider them small.  Gosh I wish I could get myself a Hakuryu figurine to accompany my Suiren nendoroid :D (with Ashimari as well).

Another moment I loved is how Yareyutan is apparently a regular customer at the Spa. This darn Pokémon keeps on coming back to Sun & Moon episodes and I have to say, he’s by far one of my favourite recurring Pokémon on the cast as of this moment.

And of course Suiren has the best lines :))) I think she’s slowly becoming the very top favourite character on my list. I just really adore her ok?

Thou honestly, after learning about Ishizuka’s passing and him apparently being the voice behind Yareyutan, it kinda feels sad to see Yareyutan in this episode now. And I bet any future episode that’s been pre-recorded with his lines are gonna have same effect. I may have been a fan of Pokeani for only about one year and maybe three months, but his voice has stuck to me through a lot of voice roles he’s had (Hohenheim from FMA:B and Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop being most memorable before Pokeani), so it has hit me quite a bit. Bit of a sidenote regarding the episode, but felt like mentioning. He’ll be greatly missed.

This conversation with Mao and Satoshi is absolutely amazing as well. I keep on getting the ‘big sis’ vibes from Mao lol. Also, this is 100% Satoshi. I mean, he knows they came there to take care of their Ride Pokémon, but when he’s excited, he tends to go with the flow. And this is one of those moments. I just loved it a lot.

When the Ride Pokémon are given examinations on their conditions and given recommended courses, Satoshi’s reaction is so cute! He truly thinks all of this is amazing! He’s so excited!

And how Satoshi is so excitedly running to the changing room is just amazing.

I absolutely adored Rocket Gang in this episode. They had such good going throughout the episode, showing their skills and all. It was absolutely hilarious how everything they did in this episode actually turned out to be helping the Ride Pokémon relax. What amazing buffoons they are!

While Satoshi and others are at the Care Area of this Spa, their partner Pokémon have gone to the Play Area to have fun. While others are playing in the pool with slides, Nyaheat, Bakugames and Amajo are taking a tan. So to speak. And I have to say, I keep on loving Amajo more and more in every single episode since her evolution debut, and I find that amazing. She basically did nothing in this episode, but her enjoying the sun and prompting the two fire Pokémon do the same somehow just makes me adore Amajo more. What is it with me...

This scene is absolutely amazing! First Satoshi gets excited about the hot spring and jumps in, then that act prompts Flygon to jump in (Mao calling Satoshi out for making Flygon copy him), and then Gablias does the same! These two have so much personality in them.

And then this scene happens!

They all really love the Spa and really want to jump in like Satoshi did lol. Don’t do this at home, like Lilie says after this!

We’re not even a third of the episode in and I’ve laughed so much. That already tells me this episode has started out strong and is a really enjoyable one. And I was supposed to keep this short. Will I ever manage with that?

Why is Musashi saying such good lines in this episode :D And her outfit, gosh I love it.

Oh really. That’s kinda obvious thou but isn’t that a bit too closed up to be able to enjoy the pool XD

Ajhasgfjhsgfjhgjf this already killed me without subtitles because I knew she said that. But can you believe it, they actually managed to capture all of the Pokémon. They could have got away perfectly. The Pokémon remain captured for the rest of the episode, and we’re still not halfway there. But oh no. They plan on capturing the Ride Pokémon as well, and how they plan on doing it is so weird. They want to help Ride Pokémon relax so they’d be all noodles. That’s... not exactly how relaxation works. :D

And I’d like to unsee this tyvm. Such a majestic creature looking so... non-majestic. It’s got to be cotton wings...

The scene with Lilie and Tyltalis playing with moisterising mud is precious and gosh they’re so lovable.

But I honestly loved Suiren and Hakuryu’s moment somewhat more. And Musashi is great as well.

Ajsgfjshgjsfgj Musashi is so blunt with her actions, but her action here actually wasn’t harmful, but incredibly helpful. Suiren’s reaction is so her, she’s such a kind person that she’d never do something if she saw the other being afraid of it. But Mu, oh no she’ll do it if it’s good for it.

Once Suiren realises Hakuryu is fine with it thou, they start applying the mud on each other as well. I just love their partnership whole lot.

Others have great moments as well, Mamane applying Aroma Oil on Metang while Sonansu and Hidoide are doing the same (it really works like a charm on Pokémon huh?), and Flygon and Gablias being rivals to each other in a swimming race, Nyarth helping Satoshi and Mao to cheer them on. Just amazing!

Also, Kojiro being able to do muscle massage on Pokémon somehow feels very him?? I can totally imagine this being real, because he did do the massaging her so expertly? He is known to taking care of his Pokémon with extra care, I mean, I don’t remember others doing watering on their grass types? So, I believe he wasn’t totally lying, even if a bit exaggerating?

Lizardon certainly enjoyed it.

Pretty sure that just helps them out to be in more fit shape you buffoons. lol Or they’re just too good at their jobs here that they didn’t realise their plan was fooled from the beginning.

Sun & Moon has given them the best glares imo. Thou I think my fav is still from SM074?

Gosh I already knew I’d love this bit from the preview #2 and I’m not disappoint.

Somehow I love how Suiren is the one suggest this. She’s been shown to be the silent, shy person, and now that she’s enjoying herself lots, she’s more than happy to suggest a place they should try next. Sort of like me. Heh. She’s actually come quite far when I think about it. I mean, in the beginning of the series when she was asked to hold a lesson about fishing, she acted so nervous. I don’t think the Suiren from SM006 would be so eager to suggest flower bath here. She’s really grown to appreciate this group of friends, or so I see it!

Asfjhgfsjhgf Musashi I adore you. First she acts so sweet and kind and then her true personality comes aboard! Absolutely stunning!

Suiren’s face lol. So cute.

Amazing disguise removal scene.

!!!! I just realised, they actually used the Rocket Gang Song theme version from SM082 here! I love it, thank you Pokeani for doing this.

I don’t know why, but I seriously love how this scene is drawn. Satoshi is so angry. Mao is just not impressed. But like. I adore this art style so much, I know I say this a lot but gosh. I think this is my fav angry-Satoshi face yet.

Well of course they are, you guys did way too good of a job on them!

Well, I guess the springs had an effect as well. Terrifying how refreshed they are indeed. :D

They’ve been in a cage for half the episode and never tried getting out???? This bothers me so much. Pikachu would never wait. He’s always try to get out. I guess the cage was too crowded.

Musashi’s vampire teeth are killing me.

I’m more focused on Suiren trying to get the net off and making noises lol. Others look mad, while Suiren focuses on the net. I don’t think she likes it one bit. :D

The Sludge Bomb attack not being effective because of the Aroma Oil asjkfgsjhgsjh Hidoide helped Metang out with Sonansu lol.

Says Nyarth while Sonansu is enjoying the same Aroma Oil on itself.

Gosh seeing them call out attacks from their Ride Pokémon really make it seem like the Ride Pokémon are truly theirs and not just Aether Foundations. Here’s hoping they get to have them around somehow after Ultra Guardians retire...

I think the last time we saw a combo attack like this was in XYZ. Looks absolutely stunning.

Okey I don’t know if it’s just me but, it really sounded like Kiteruguma was finishing Rocket Gang’s “Ya na kanjii“ with a Kii in place of jii. I just burted out laughing at it because I don’t know if it’s intented or not. If it’s intented, so god damn clever. I missed hearing Ya na kanjii so much.

The sparkling eyes. I love mama bear.

The silence here that lasts 3 seconds until Satoshi reacts is killing me lol. Kiteruguma really does keep on surprising them.

Welp, they get to go the flower path and it looks amazing. I want to go to one too. Nyaheat playing with the flowers while avoiding water is so cute.

Rocket Gang however are enjoying a different hot spring bath with Kiteruguma, who’s clearly parenting the five-man group. I mean, when Musashi tries to get out, Kiteruguma holds her back and tells her to count to 100 before leaving the bath. Like, what the hell :D

They’re burning. Oh boy.

The end of the episode. I think you guys can see I enjoyed this episode. I wanted to keep this short but alas, it had lots of fun moments I loved whole lot. I just... couldn’t keep my hands of the keyboard.

I’m actually wondering if this place was supposed to be Hana Resort. Since that is on Akala Island as well, and Mamane did explain they have hotel and such as well. Hmmmmmm.

PokéProblem segment shows a continuation to Rocket Gang actually finishing their 100 count, and they’re hot-read. Kiteruguma still enjoys the bath thou.

Next week, Necrozma Arc finally begins, and we are shown the symbol of Ultra Necrozma drawn by Bebenom, alongside showing a first clance at a Rocket Gang Unit (which has Matori wearing a Rocket Gang uniform!) that’s about to arrive to Alola, to do whatever plans they have with Necrozma. All the hints from the start of UB arc are coming together now.

All of the adults are shown to be with little energy, sleepy-headed and bedheaded (Kukui wearing a shirt and having his coat closed up is such a cursed scene, clear sign something is wrong.) We also get Gladio as the new member of Ultra Guardians, and Solgaleo and Lunala arrive with a certain black creature chasing them.

SM087 - A Crisis in Alola! The Darkness That Eats Radiance!

I have waited for this day for so long, and I’m so excited! I’ll cya all on the next thought post!

#aleira watches sumo #pokemon #pokeani #pokemon sumo #ub arc #alola squad #ride pokemon #team rocket #rocket gang #long post

[cyancees]

salty ask meme answers

ok im awake now hehe so here’s all my answers for that ask meme

WARNING FOR SPOILERS IN, LIKE, EVERY DANGAN GAME PROBABLY

@adoggodude asks:  5, 7, 14, 16, 20

5: Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

yes. none i can think of for danganronpa, but .... mch/anzo....... but tbh, it was also partially me realizing it’s such a boring ship and they’re only paired because they’re both hot

7:  Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?

see above - nah i’m kidding i don’t hate it that much. a lot of animes i used to like have lost my favor because of things i’ve realized as i got older, mostly pedophilia. namely kill la kill i used to adore until i realized how many characters were underage. i used to really like attack on titan too but the creator is fucking bonkers.  i also liked koma/eda during the first chapter of dangan (as im sure most people did lmao) but i then hated him when he went nuts

14:  Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

[deep breath] KOMA/EDA AND OU/MA BOTH SUCK, THEIR SHIPS WITH THE PROTAGONIST SUCK, AND NEITHER OF THEM ARE GAY

16:  If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

a lotta things, but if i had to choose one, i’d either let juuzou live :( (or maybe i’d make asano from drg end up with the sleepy chick because her ending up with hijirihara pissed me off sooooooooooo bad you have no idea)

20:  What is the purest ship in the fandom?

naegiri uwu

Anonymous asks:  6, 16, 19?

6:  Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?

hmmmmmmmmmmm..... i can’t really think of anything for danganronpa. i’m a huge multishipper after all! well, when i was back into one piece, i hated zoro x sanji. but now i like it - however that wasn’t because of the fandom, i’m long gone out of that hahaha. more just me being nostalgic and watching clips of the show and realizing the sexual tension that little me didn’t 😔

19:  What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

people will call you out for liking the good guys because of one or two “problematic” things then kin sociopaths and serial killers

@sparklygems asks:  eyoo this is for the salty asks list and I was curious about if you could change anything in the DR games what would you change? (You have some Good opinions, i like hearin your thoughts~)

hehe thank you! i already answered this one, but, i guess i’ll give a different answer this time.

less weird borderline pedophilic things coming out of yumeno’s mouth :) (borderline because she’s technically of age but she’s total lo/li bait) and i guess just a bunch of other things regarding the weird unnecessary sexual shit lmao

@oxonicrab asks:  22 and 23! for dangan ofc

22:  Popular character you hate?

pretty sure it’s very well known that i hate koma/eda and ou/ma by now, soooo.... fucking MON/ODAM! he’s by far the most popular cub, i cannot stand him and i never could

23:  Unpopular character you love?

HAGAKURE!!!!!!!

@chainedintimacy asks:  If you could change anything in the show, what would you change? Also purest character? Popular character you hate? Unpopular character you love?

welp, almost every one of these has been answered, im gonna have to get creative!

16: If you could change anything in the show, what would you change?

mukuro-junko incest. totally ruined a perfectly good character for me (mukuro)

Purest character?

fucking usami.... nanami and naegi also are perfect and pure!!! 

22:  Popular character you hate?

hmmmm... shing/uuji

23:  Unpopular character you love?

i adore angie but it seems like a lot of the fandom hates her so;;;

@fly-fool asks:  Unpopular fan opinions 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 14, 17, 24, 25, 26, and 27 please

[rubs hands] here i fucking go

2: Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?

toukomaru :x not that i hate the ship or anything! it can be pretty cute! just.... one is a minor and one is an adult haha

EDIT: i now know that komaru is only a year younger than fukawa, but, this ship still counts for the question!

4:  Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?

fucking. KOM/AHINA. OUM/ASAI. wayyyyy too popular for my liking. also oum/ota

5:  Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?

fuck i really gotta think of something for dangan huh? cus the pairings that i hate, i already hated... if it counts for anything, i only disliked oum/asai at first but the fandom made me loathe it so incredibly?

8:  Have you received anon hate? What about?

nothing too serious that i can recall. a couple funny little things about my CONTROVERSIAL SHIP/CHARACTER OPINIONS but nothing else really! oh, and some of that wasn’t even anon, so...

9: Most disliked character(s)? Why?

here’s ma top 3: 

3. koma/aeda. it feels dumb to have to explain why, but we’re in a fandom where he’s one of the most popular characters, so... just remember every bad thing he’s ever done, and that’s most of it. but i also hate the edginess surrounding him, the weird wheezy laugh, the self-deprecation done in such a weird creepy way, the appearance, the fact that he has the voice of my love, the fact that he’s the sans of the fandom... the sans before sans, if you will...

2: hai/ji. i shouldn’t have to justify this one since almost no one likes him, but. pedophile. even if you take away that totally unnecessary character aspect, he’s just... so fucking annoying. huge dickhead. ugly ratty hair. pissy pissy man. I HATE HIM

1. k*k*ch* **ma!!!! :)))))))))) again, just like kom/aeda, think of every bad thing he’s done. think of how the fandom treats him, amplifying my already-existent hate. think of his mortal enemy in the game who happens to my my favourite v3 (momota) and there ya go! his lying is only entertaining for so long, his stupid fucking shota face, the way people call him hot when he looks 12 and the fandom overlooks it because he’s a boy, the way people treat him like some canonically gay icon, some dickhead i saw who called him autistic once which offended me and my autistic brother deeply since the evidence they used was clearly a lack of understanding of autism... it’s a combination of the fandom’s obsession and his actual canonical character.

14:  Unpopular opinion about your fandom?

it’s fucking shite and everyone is a sheep - not to sound like some “intellectual” atheist who watches rick and morty but.... yall really do just latch onto what others say without looking into things yourself

17:  Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…

hmmmmmmmmmmmmm... instead of gonta getting iruma killed and being punished for it, i’d rather iruma have succeeded with her plan and taken one for the team :)

24:  Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not?

i’ve gotten ummm... at least 6 people to play so far hehe

even back in 2013-2014 when i was first into dangan, i got a couple friends to watch the anime. so that’s a yes! :)

i recommend it because, primarily, i need friends to talk about my hyperfixation to - but also because it’s genuinely a great series in my opinion. it has its flaws, but overall i really love danganronpa !

25:  How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?

i mean...................... they could’ve thrown a naegiri wedding in there at the end of dr3 i’m just saying

26:  Most shippable character?

souda hehe. no bias xd (but for real i don’t think there’s bias considering none of my other top faves have nearly as many cute ships as he does. i can ship him with sonia, gundam, nidai, hinata, kuzuryuu, ibuki, iruma, kiibo....)

27:  Least shippable character?

ou/ma because he deserves nothing. i mean at least i can ship kom/aeda with himself (amami) and himself (sans) :///

@holy-shit-dangan-ronpa asks:  salty ask #17

17: Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…

shit lemme think of something else. uhhhh instead of... monaka going to space i want her redeemed too :( she may be totally evil and a bitch but they’re all kids!!!! i can’t wait for despair girls 2 i want the monokuma kids to be saved from their helmets and i want the warriors of hope to be adopted by good parents :((((

Anonymous asks: 10

10: Most disliked arc? Why?

i’ll probably have to choose ruruka’s whole character arc, what a bitch haha. she caused her own demise by trying to cheat in her exam, blamed her ‘friend’ for it who she only used, then killed her boyfriend because she didn’t wanna be ‘betrayed’ again. fucking christ woman get your shit together lol

Anonymous asks: 1

1: What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

besides the notps i’ve already mentioned earlier... i guess oum/eno? like... the whole thing seems either based on the fact they’re both pedo bait... or because in the 5th trial ou/ma says he likes her (WHICH ISN’T EVEN OU/MA SAYING IT? AND IF MOMOTA IS GETTING THAT FROM HIS SCRIPT THEN DON’T THEY KNOW YOU CAN’T TAKE ANYTHING OU/MA SAYS SERIOUSLY BECAUSE HE’S THE BOY WHO CRIED USO DAYO?)

thanks for those guys it was fun :D xx

#reply #adoggodude #sparklygems #oxonicrab #chainedintimacy #fly-fool #holy-shit-dangan-ronpa #anonymous

[flipperbrain]

Salty Ask List

Since @killian-whump​ is contractually obligated to tell everyone to DO THEM ALLLL!!! and I wouldn’t want her to get into legal trouble, here’s my complete salty ask list. No one else is paying attention anyway so thank you Shari! ❤️😂 I put in a cut so it’s not too annoying though it’s not super duper long.

1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?* Swanfire or whatever it’s called. Neal was such a minor character and a coward imho, that I don’t get why people still cling to the pairing and ignore 85% of what actually happened on the show. But whatevs.

2. Are there any popular fandom OTPs you only BroTP?* Is HookedQueen popular?? I can definitely see the sex appeal and I’ve toyed with the pairing and had fun with it in reblogs and artwork, but I really just see them as friends… though who knows they may be dating now, never say never.

3. Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion? If it was a non-stop rude opinion that was not properly tagged? Definitely. People have unfollowed and blocked me for far less. i.e. criticizing Leanne Aguilera about something she tweeted pertaining to another fandom. I’d do it again because it was shitty, just fyi.

4. Do you have a NoTP in your fandom? Are they a popular OTP?* GoldenQueen, I don’t think it’s popular, is it popular?

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?* This is probably a question that I should take the fifth on but, the response to Season 7 by some fans wrecked captain swan for me a bit, I’ve come back around now that some time has passed and I’ve cleaned up my dash, I can enjoy them and write about them again. It’s not quite the same but I hope eventually it will be.

6. Has fandom ever made you enjoy a pairing you previously hated?* I saw a lot of hatefulness from some $Q fans for a long time on twitter, I know that doesn’t represent ALL fans but it was what I was exposed to. I didn’t like how Killian had to be this awful person in order to make the ship work, like just do your thing and leave him out of it. I can’t say I enjoy it per se, but I’ve come to understand why folks like it. I’m a ship and let ship kind of gal, if it makes you happy and you’re not tormenting other people, then go for it.

7. Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?* There’s some scenes that at first blush I loved, but the more I’ve seen them and thought about them, I can’t stand them now.

8.Have you received anon hate? What about?* Season 7 definitely. Hatred for Wish!Hook and KnightRook… And that time I dared to make HQ art, well I won’t even mention that.

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why? I think Belle is boring but I don’t dislike her. Gothel is pretty universally hated but she was a great villain, she didn’t get all soft and fuzzy, she was a jerk to the end. So I disliked her yes, but in a good way.

10. Most disliked arc? Why? I didn’t like the All Saviors Die thing in Season 6. Emma just looked stressed out most of the time and cried a lot, there was too much angst between her and Killian and not enough happiness because this trauma was always hanging over their heads. it wasn’t a pleasant ride for me. The wedding was great but it ended up being kind of rushed. I wish S6 had been calmer and happier so we could enjoy the engagement without all the strife, but that doesn’t make for good TV I guess.

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? I don’t like Neal but I loved little Baelfire. I thought he was a great kid, not sure what happened there.

12. Is there an unpopular arc that you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why? I’ve seen a lot of things disliking the Frozen arc, that it was shoehorned etc, I hadn’t seen the movie when the arc began and have since but don’t see the thrill tbh but I liked it on OUAT, and I LOVED Anna. She was super cute and funny. I felt like overall Frozen was done well.

13. Unpopular opinion about XXX character? Most of the issues I have are more to do with writing that I felt was OOC, I can’t think of anything specific.

14. Unpopular opinion about your fandom? I don’t know if it’s unpopular but there’s a lot of very set-in-their-ways rigid fans in the fandom who are unwilling to let people enjoy what they enjoy. To me it’s like the news, if you only live in an echo chamber and listen to the voices of likeminded people, you never grow in your thinking and learn to understand other opinions. You don’t have to like it but lashing out with hate never helps anyone.

15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show? That I loved it from start to finish. I even love the things I hate.

16. If you could change anything in the show, what would you change? I would put more focus on the characters and their backstories, and less on action for action’s sake. There was too much unnecessary drama imo.

17. Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen… Oh gosh, If A&E’s intention was to make Regina a more sympathetic figure, and it seems like it was, I would have dialed back on some of the dreadful things she inflicted on people. I ended up really liking Roni, but you have to ignore a lot to make her Queen of all the realms. But hey, the people have spoken.

18. Does not shipping something ‘popular’ mean you’re in denial and/or biased? Nope, unless you are in denial or biased.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom? When fans shit on the actors and go after them over their own ridiculous fantasies about their personal lives. I really, really, really hate that.

20. What is the purest ship in the fandom? Hook x hook of course!! They are beautiful and pure and I love them so much!!

21. What are your thoughts on crack ships? See 20. :D

22. Popular character you hate? I don’t hate any character. They’re just out there doing their fairytale jobs.

23. Unpopular character you love? Henry? He really annoyed me but grew on me in the last 2 seasons. Plus Jared is adorable in person and so is Andrew, I have to love them.

24. Would you recommend XXX to a friend? Why or why not? Would I recommend OUAT? Absolutely!! It gave me something to hold onto when I really needed it, and for the most part it has a wonderful message. There’s always hope!

25. How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX? I would get kraken on ending the curse way earlier in season 7 so KnightRook had a little time to be together. I loved that many of the stories were wrapped up in the series finale and all of the familiar faces we got to see, but it was packed so full that it felt rushed. They had all of 7B to fit bits and pieces, why it all had to come to a conclusion in the last 2 eps I dunno.

26. Most shippable character? Killian Jones. He goes with everything, even himself.

27. Least shippable character? Happy. For reasons.

#salty ask list

[natsubeatsrock]

My Incredibly Unpopular Thoughts on: Nalu II

Consider this post an OVA. After three years of infrequent posts in this series, I’ve made 13 editions of the series, which, incidentally equates to the number of episodes in a seasonal anime. (And yes, that means the Naruto post all count as one post to me.) So, now that the series is over and I at least hope that someone is interested in seeing more actual analysis against Nalu from me, I’ve decided to bring back this for one more go around.

Keep in mind that the point of this series is that I have a really big post devoted to my thoughts on a subject that I’ll refer to so I never have to talk about it again. A lot of this has and involves analysis but, as the name should imply, it’s clearly and obviously biased. For the most part, I explain my biases but I don’t make it a habit to apologize for having them. If you’re unconvinced, there are plenty of people more popular than me for disagreeing with me.

This should go without saying but read “My Incredibly Unpopular Thoughts on: Nalu” before reading this if you haven’t already. I don’t think this post leans as heavily as many of my other series-type posts do. However, I think it’s important to have a basic idea of my thoughts on Nalu and its fandom before going into this post. Not to mention, it’s one of my favorite things I’ve ever written for this blog, so...

You know, I'm not even sure if I wanted to do this. If you can't tell, I've been pretty chill about Nalu and very transparent about why. I feel as though I shouldn't have to make too many more posts about Nalu considering I don't see it as canon. I've been wanting to retire this series with the previous edition focusing on my favorite character for more than a year. And to be blunt, I wouldn't make this if it were just me talking about how canon Nalu isn't.

However, I've seen a few things that, even though I've addressed them in posts since the end, have pushed me close to the edge. The thing that really set me off has been a realization I, and other Fairy Tail analysts, have come in rewriting the series I already said in an earlier post. And trust me, I’ll get to that soon enough. (read: it’s close to the last thing I talk about)

But let's start with an easy one; I don't care about Twitter sketches. I don't mean that in the sense that I don't find enjoyment from seeing pictures Mashima puts on Twitter. Many are really good and one of the main reasons I got a Twitter was to see his tweets. I've reblogged tons of them, both original sketches and recolored versions and his original Stone Age comic is one of my favorite things he's done for the series.

I mean that in two other ways.

One: The sketches mean nothing to me in regards to if the ship makes sense or is canon.

The fact that Mashima draws Natsu and Lucy in XYZ situation means nothing about them actually being in XYZ situation in the actual series. After all, the series is over and the sketches have little if any bearing on the series. Your ship isn't canon because Mashima drew them for fun.

And I know someone is going to respond with something like, “You wouldn't feel that way if Mashima drew one of your ships.” You know, despite the fact that I said literally nothing about the Pocky Day sketches which involves Graylu. 

So, I'll use an example of one of my low-key ships: Natsu and Mirajane. Earlier, Mashima did a drawing of Mirajane and Natsu building a snowman together. And this past Valentine’s Day, he drew Mirajane giving a gift with Natsu giving one for White Day. You know what that means about their romantic prospect to me? Nothing! As cool as it is that he did it, the Natsu x Mirajane ship is still as out there as it would have been otherwise. I ship Natsu with Lisanna over her sister for a reason.

Two: I don't care about the sketches enough to bring this kind of thing up every single time Mashima draws Natsu and Lucy in the same picture. 

Everytime Mashima draws them together, someone comes into my inbox and tells me how stupid the Nalu fandom is for thinking that whatever wacky situation Mashima puts them in. Look, I've been in this fandom for long enough to know how this works: Mashima does literally anything Nalu related and it's praised as proof of Nalu as canon. This was always the case with even stupid developments in chapters. Now that those are gone, I'm not shocked the fandom moved to the only thing Mashima puts out for the series.

These exact same things are my thoughts on the Nalu/Gruvia kids from the NYCC trip. There are three quick differences I wanted to add. 

I get that Mashima didn't draw other ship kids but that's only because he wasn't asked to. 

The kids where a was waste of an opportunity to ask Mashima a question about the series, as thegreatrhapsode has proven with his list of 100 alternate questions. 

(I also came up with another 80 or so on some papers I can’t seem to find, though many of mine are more about Mashima and his works than about Fairy Tail.) 

As a fun warm-up for rewriting the series, I’ve been working on a scenario for them to exist and meet which will come out eventually. And, as I reiterate multiple times in said scenario, it’s only a hypothetical.

Now, despite talking about this in at least three prior posts, I want to talk about the Nalu ending.

IT'S NOT CANON!

There is no clear and established relationship canonically proven to exist between Natsu Dragneel and Lucy Heartfilia. I can't believe that this is an issue for so many people. There was no confession. There was no kiss. Honestly, I don't even think Lucy thanking Natsu is or even should be considered romantic.

One of the annoying schools of thought surrounding this ending is that Natsu and Lucy are canon, but aren't in an explicitly romantic relationship. That they clearly love each other, but they wouldn't kiss or stuff because that would be out of character. I've even seen people say Natsu chickened out of a confession.

I'm sorry? Are we talking about the same Natsu? I don’t mean that in the sense that there aren’t times where aspects of characters aren’t up for debate. I mean that in the sense of “What convinced you that this was the right context for such a line of questioning?”

I don't think it's impossible for characters to be fearless and headstrong in some situations but timid and scared in another similar situation. I'm one of those people when it comes to performance versus public speaking. But Natsu hasn't been shown to be this kind of person when it comes to romance. Frankly speaking, romance isn't really an explored aspect of Natsu’s character. There are jokes about him and Lucy being a couple and Lisanna jokingly proposing to him, but that's not really grounds to believe he would be shy to confess to her. In a special edition magazine, it was even revealed that Natsu isn't even really interested in romance.

And then there's the other question from Comic-Con: Who do you think Natsu would end up with?

Again, this was a waste of a question. I know that sounds harsh and it’s a question that many people in the fandom may genuinely want to know. But was there literally anything more important that we could have gotten asked? Between two people, there’s a list of near 200 issues with Fairy Tail that were left unresolved at the end of the series. Even if it’s not about the plot hole ridden, contradictory, pseudo-success that Fairy Tail ended up becoming, you don’t want to know anything else about Hiro Mashima the person? I’ve read other works by him and I’d love to know more about Rave Master or Monster Soul or even the more recent Starbiter Satsuki.

That aside, as I said in the past, this was more conjecture than definite. This wasn’t, “Natsu will absolutely end up with Lucy later on in events after the end of the series”. If anything, this was “It’s most likely that, were the series to continue past the ending, Natsu might end up with the literal only female he could reasonably get away with forming a relationship with that isn’t Erza.” (I say even as I ship Natza. #multishipperprobz) He was later asked who Natsu would end up between Lucy and Lisanna and the answer was that it’s complicated. In other words, it’s not definitely in Lucy’s favor, as (and I only mention this because someone will inevitably bring this up if I don’t) it isn’t definitely in Lisanna’s favor.

But, let’s put all those actual facts aside for a bit and genuinely assume that the Nalu fandom is right about this. They’re not, but let’s assume they are. Mashima’s hilariously roundabout way of addressing the elephant in the room that is whether or not Natsu and Lucy are in a romantic relationship is outright confirmation that they are in fact a canon couple. I want you to consider how terrible this should actually be considered for the Nalu fandom.

Pretty much since I’ve been a fan of Fairy Tail, the expectation for Nalu was that they were definitely going to be canon in the series. There was near constant speculation of how and when this would happen. I even mentioned a few times Mashima could have made it canon if he wanted to when I broke down Nalu. The big one I remember, and one I even mentioned in that post, was when Natsu was coming back after the second time skip. This was right around when I started reading chapters of Fairy Tail weekly and actually seeing this made it seem like the fandom really cares about this ship happening.

Obviously, there was no confession at that time, obviously, that wasn’t the first time the fandom reacted in such a way and, obviously, the clamor for such a moment didn’t die down with time. There were plenty of instances where this thing would happen, pretty much up until the last chapter of Fairy Tail. Even going through old chapters of Fairy Tail, I can (only sort of) see where and when people who thought that Nalu was endgame would want a confession to be followed up.This was a big reason people were willing to put up with Fairy Tail despite knowing better. On top of all the terrible arguments used for defense of Nalu, the clear baseline assumption for a lot of it was obvious: “We [the people against Nalu] are all going to be proven wrong in the end”.

So, what does it say that the creator of the series comes out months after the last chapter and say that they end up becoming canon later on in events we don’t get to see? Shouldn’t that make the Nalu fandom seem mad? After 11 years worth of canon material, you couldn’t bother to give the fandom a proper, in-series ending? 

In the last chapter, we got 5 pages devoted to Mashima’s Zervis AU, positive signs towards Elfgreen and even a shoutout to Kinabra (it’s probably not as bad as people might think), but Natsu or Lucy can’t even get a thought bubble alluding to their potential romantic feelings that “were totally obvious and you’re blind if you can’t see this”. Every other ship in the Big 4 got, at least, a step forward. Even if you want to argue that what we got from Gruvia or Jerza doesn’t matter considering the Century Quest is a serious step back, Nalu didn’t even make a step forward, to begin with. If anything, it took several steps backward.

This is an incredibly unfair comparison for multiple reasons, but let’s look at the end of Fullmetal Alchemist (or Brotherhood for you anime fans). One ship’s hilariously awkward statement near the end of the last chapter of the series before going on a long journey was definitely supposed taken to be a love confession. And, surprise surprise, it was actually taken to be a love confession in series. On the last page, there’s a picture of their family. (I don’t mention names because I’m trying to keep some mystery for those who don’t know.)

And, because I apparently need to beat this point into the ground, let's talk about Mashima’s plan for Nalu. I feel like I shouldn't have to make any more discussion about this. But I’ve seen someone who said that Mashima’s words on Nalu mean that his plan might be to make them canon later on. In a post a two months after the end of the series. So if you think I was jokingly making a stupid argument with that open letter, you're sorely mistaken.

First off, we found this out during the last arc of the series. There's no way he could have made Nalu any type of reasonable romantic development given that Natsu and Lucy weren't simultaneously conscious during the chapters the afterword in question came out. And if you want to go by what volumes were released around that time, the latest one in the main series had Natsu groping Lucy. 

Again.

Keep in mind that assumes that there was enough for them to reasonably even end up in a romantic relationship with by the end of the arc anyway, which, of course, I don't think considering two months before, then I explained why Nalu was terrible in the prequel to this post. And of course, there was plenty of time for them to develop a romantic relationship in the five or six interactions they had in between then and the last chapter.

But consider that this is getting away from the main issue at hand: Mashima’s word on Nalu. He wasn't planning on writing them as a couple originally. And that isn’t just worried about how wasn’t planning on making more of the series past Phantom Lord. He said that their current relationship was somewhere between friends and lovers. That doesn't mean they'll go from friends to lovers. If anything, that means Natsu and Lucy have a relationship close to being siblings, where they care about each other a lot, but not in a romantic sense.

This is probably also a good time to beat my favorite dead horse again: “Natsu should (have) apologize(d).” Mashima is willing to admit that Natsu and Lucy have a really important relationship, to the point that his fans recognize that and want it to be romantic. Why would it make sense to cause a big break in that relationship, recognize that tension exists because of it, and do nothing about fixing it in any context? Now, consider how much of a failure this looks like when you're writing them as a close-knit relationship. 

I’m sorry, how is this better than Tuxedo Mask and Sailor Moon or the Inuyasha ship, WatchMojo folks?

And none of this is even why I've decided to make this post. This is all just extra stuff I've had on my mind before and during the writing of other smaller posts about Nalu. Some of this even came up while I made this post. But those are all small fries compared to the thing that really tipped me off.

This past May, I started going through how I would rewrite Nalu. I figured that, since the ship wasn’t going to be canon anyway but was still popular, there had to be some way I could work them into a romantic relationship. While it was part of the reason I got into rewriting the series as a whole, I realized that I wasn’t going to get very far doing this well. Not because I didn’t like the ship in the original Fairy Tail. But because it would make no sense to put them together given their character arcs.

That’s right. Nalu works against the individual character arcs of Natsu and Lucy.

Look at it this way: if you’re going to focus on Lucy as a character, you should focus on her membership of Fairy Tail. That was her dream at the start of the series. If you're going to on Natsu as a character, you should focus on his search for Igneel. That was his dream at the start of the series.

You see the issue?

Now, this wouldn't be that big of an issue if this changed through the series to a point where they realize they want to be with each other. But in Tartaros arc, they double down on their individual goals. While Natsu’s dreams are dealt with later in that arc, the reason Lucy tracks the guilds whereabouts in the next arc is that she still wants to be with them.

I have more I want to say about how it was handled and how I'd fix it another post, but this is too important to leave for later. Not only was Nalu terribly undeveloped. Not only was it never meant to be canon. Not only is it not canon. Even if it was meant to happen, it would work against both of their supposed character motivations.

There are definitely more things I can talk about. For instance, there’s the double 180 the Nalu fandom pulled where the fandom agreed Natsu and Lucy are definitely in love and would have a kid, shifted to saying that romantic stuff like that would be OOC for them, and shifted into saying they’d have a potentially kinky physical romantic relationship within the span of a few months with no self-awareness whatsoever. But at the end of the day, what would be the point? You know, other than sharing my thoughts with the world? I mean, for all I or anyone else can say about how this ship utterly fails in multiple different aspects, people will still believe Nalu is amazing and canon. There's very little I or anyone else can actually do about it. 

The Nalu master list is aesthetically nauseating, but it's more popular than the Nali one. Consider that my post about Nalu not being the original plan has only a fraction of the notes that other posts about that not being the right interpretation do. Many of the points I've torn apart regarding Natsu’s lack of apology are still being used as if they're totally fine. I’m willing to bet there are more posts about how Nalu is actually canon than there are likes/reblogs of my post about how Nalu isn’t canon. (For reference, the number is 12.)

This isn't a Nalu exclusive kind of thing considering I said similar things about Gruvia and Nali last year, but it's still annoying to see my least favorite thing in anime continue to be defended against all odds and reason. A while back, I even saw someone who made a chart about how much of Fairy Tail was pointing towards Nalu, as a teaser for a video they’re making. This series isn’t labeled “incredibly unpopular” for nothing.

I said this in an earlier post, but the anti-Nalu camp isn’t giving me much to enjoy either. I get it, I clearly still don’t like Nalu either. However, the way this fandom has been doing since the end of the series has been annoying. I get that the Nalu fandom is annoying, hypocritical and near unbelievable plenty of times. I’ve seen plenty of stupid with my own eyes and much of part 1 talks about my issues with the fandom. However, I’d love to learn more about why the actual ship fails for so many people then how so many people fail at convincing them.

Of course, that doesn’t mean that I’ll stop finding things to talk about Nalu-wise. A while back, I saw someone make a post about when Lucy could have fallen for Natsu. Next week, a list of 13 Fairy Tail chapters where I think you should have given up on Nalu happening (11 chapters which are in the main series and two special chapters) will be posted in the anti-Nalu tag in response. While some are obvious picks like 416 and 545, a few are places where Mashima could have helped Nalu’s case be more airtight but didn’t.

One of the big first steps to my rewrite of Fairy Tail is how to reconcile the aforementioned “Nalu problem” and I have a few things I have to get to before that. And with the final season of Fairy Tail coming, my own rereading of the series, and more rewriting of the series, I’ll definitely come up with more incredibly unpopular thoughts on one of the most popular things in Fairy Tail.

In Conclusion:

Nalu is trash. It’s not canon, it shouldn’t have been canon and be aware of anyone who would be willing to argue otherwise. 

#fairy tail #anti nalu #anti nalu fandom #nalusgonnanalu #i'm back and i'm pissed off #at EVERYONE! #for the record #this only took two weeks to write #i spent months working on FITAGAPEOInTP #and it's about the same length #also happy holidays! #while you're here #i did see the twitter pics #and guys #come on #the series is over

[xseedgames]

Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection Micro-bloggery Round-up

A very Zwei Q&A with editor Nick!

1) I've got a huge backlog of games. Why should I bump Zwei to the front of the queue?

It's been a great year in videogames - perhaps TOO great, if my own backlog stack is any indication, and I have no doubt that many (most?) of you are in the same boat. But every now and then, we'll get our hands on a game and it sort of effortlessly floats to the front of the queue, like it bought an expensive theme park pass. I'm under no illusion that Zwei will be "that game" for everyone, but for some of you, it might be! Let's look at a couple reasons why Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection might be just the game you've been looking for (but didn't realize it)!

First, it's got a great "medium" length. You won't be rolling the credits in 10 hours, but it's also not an 80+ hour bear where you just look at it and sigh and think, "I know I'll love this, but...when will I find the time to play it?" With Zwei: II's 30-ish hour average playtime, it offers a fulfilling action RPG experience you can sink your teeth into, but you won't need to cancel all your plans for the next month to make time for it.

Second, Zwei represents a heretofore-unknown prong of Falcom's action RPG legacy. Falcom is famous for Ys, an action RPG series that has spanned decades at this point, and other titles in a roughly similar vein, like Brandish and Xanadu - in fact, it's been joked that Falcom's "XYZ" is Xanadu, Ys, and Zwei. But unlike many of their other offerings, nothing from the Zwei series has ever been officially available outside Japan...until now. As Falcom's last/most recent PC-exclusive title (made in 2008), it straddles a fun line between old-school charm and modern conveniences and storytelling. It's the Falcom quality you know, but in a world distinctly different from their other games.

Third, Zwei is made to be easy to pick up and spend some time with without having to invest a ton of time in a sitting. Dungeons are generally broken up into discrete "branches," each of which can be undertaken on its own, with save points in between and the ability to fast-travel between any save point you've been to at least once. If you've got 30 minutes, you can get something done in Zwei. If you've got an hour, you can do even more! The game reflects modern sensibilities regarding variances in player engagement and time commitment, and that makes it really easy to pick up whenever you feel like playing.

If any of that piques your interest, I'd invite you to consider bumping Zwei to the front of your gaming queue.

2) I love Falcom stuff like Ys and Trails, but this one seems...a little bit different. How does it compare? Will I like it?

As a Falcom action RPG, Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection fits into a long legacy of storied games, and ultimately, as fans, we can't help but draw comparisons. But I think overall, these are helpful comparisons to make, because in doing so, you can see where a game like Zwei 2 fits into Falcom's growth as a developer over time.

The original Zwei was released in 2001. It's more of a straight dungeon-crawler than its sequel, The Ilvard Insurrection, is, but it featured the mechanic that would go on to be the series' calling card: two main characters, one specializing in melee attacks and one specializing in magic, who could be swapped between at any time with the tap of a button. However, Japanese fans would have to wait until 2008 to play the second game in the series.

Tom, our resident Falcom historian, slots the Zwei series into a gameplay lineage that also includes Gurumin (made in between the first and second Zwei games) and Nayuta no Kiseki (made after the second Zwei game). That separates it from the gameplay stylings of series like Ys or Xanadu, while still feeling pretty easy to get into for anyone who's played those games before. Visually, Gurumin probably has the most "Zwei DNA" of any of Falcom's other titles, as it features gameplay and even visuals that feel like they could easily have been part of a Zwei game.

The combat in Zwei is not as technical as in the Ys games - it takes more of a "big picture" approach, in the sense that often, your biggest advantages can be gained not in one's mastery of controls or precise techniques, but in when you choose to swap between characters to chain their actions, and how you position yourself within spaces and relative to the enemies. Personally, I feel like this lends a bit more of an "arcade beat-em-up" feel to Zwei's action RPG combat, so if that sounds like your kind of thing, well, get ready to grab your spoon and dig in.

3) I've heard Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection has an unusual leveling system. What can you tell me about macaroni gratin and the power it bestows?

Well, macaroni gratin is delicious, and anyone who says otherwise is a just lookin' to foment some dissent at the lunch tables. BRING IT.

...Er, what I mean to say is, the Zwei series' leveling system is one of its most unique aspects. Instead of getting EXP from killing monsters, you gain EXP from eating food. This same food serves double duty as the main consumable items you use to heal yourself when you take damage, and you'll get plenty of it as you go through the game. It might sound weird, but it works surprisingly well, and sets up some interesting scenarios. If you want to strongarm your way through dungeons, you can be more proactive about eating food to gain EXP and keep on par with or a little above each dungeon's recommended level (as displayed by a metal plate on the floor before every dungeon branch). If you want to give yourself more of a challenge, you can use food only when you need to heal, and treat the EXP you gain as a residual bonus.

You can even just decide to enforce minimal food-usage (or not at all) and see how low of a level you can go through the game with, if you want to give yourself a real challenge. The game doesn't have standard difficulty levels, but the way in which you use food sort of lets you scale the game's difficulty as you see fit.

In addition, the game's foods fit into four different "tiers," and you can trade in ten of any one type of food for one of the "evolution" of that food in the next tier, with the higher-tier food giving 150% more EXP than 10 of the food that came before. It might sound confusing, but it's really not. Here's a quick example. I've got ten plates of Pasta Carbonara. Each one heals 28 HP and gives 2250 EXP when consumed. But, if I take those ten plates of Pasta Carbonara and trade 'em in at the restaurant counter, I'll get one plate of delicious Macaroni Gratin, which heals 38 HP (not a huge upgrade there), but gives a whopping 33,750 EXP when consumed. As you go further in the game, upgrading is more about maximizing your EXP gain versus raw healing amounts. If more raw healing is what you want, though, it may be worth NOT trading food up, because those ten plates of Pasta Carbonara can heal 280 HP - somewhere between two and three full life bars of health at high levels!

4) Got any advice for players? Must see or do stuff?

My best advice for players is to really think about the different types of magic Alwen has and what they're good for. Some magic, like fire, is all about just blasting enemies and puttin' the hurt on them. Other types of magic are, on their face, a bit weaker: ice launches only single shots that have a more limited range, wind whips up a small tornado that sweeps forward - but when you think about all the tools at your disposal, and especially how you can position or lock down enemies (known colloquially as "crowd control"), options that aren't just MAXIMUM DAMAGE BAM RIGHT IN THE BACK OF THE HEAD WITH A FOLDING CHAIR really shine. In fact, if you decide to spelunk through the optional dungeon, you'll need these strategies, because brute forcing your way will only take you so far.

Another piece of advice is to take the time to actually talk to NPCs. I admit, it's a common thing to hear from a localization editor ("Please read this dialogue that I edited!"), but Zwei is a game with a very clear through-line, and if you want to, you can stay on that track, never really go places when it's not necessary to, and finish the game with little trouble. But to do so would be denying yourself the chance to learn more about the amusing people who populate the game's world. Taking a page from the Trails series, Zwei has NPCs who often change up what they say after both major and minor game events, and the NPCs have their own individual stories that develop as the game goes on. It's worth your while to poke around and visit people, because there are many unique conversation snippets in the game that only play when you talk to someone at a particular phase of the game, and often there will even be differences in the dialogue depending on whether Ragna or Alwen is active as your lead character.

5) Since you’re known for your puns, give us your best shot. Which ones are you most proud of?

Surprisingly, Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection isn't particularly full of puns! Zwei: II's style of humor leans much more toward pithy commentary and snarky asides, often made from one partner to the other in the middle of a conversation, or just "thought aloud." Cheekiness seems to be a popular personality trait in the land of Ilvard, as the townsfolk and even the animals (...if you can talk with the animals) get in on the action. Pokkle, one half of the first Zwei game's protagonist duo, is an inveterate punster, and while he does appear in this game in a cameo role, he's not firing off puns left and right here. However...you can choose him as an opponent in the game's battle arena, and if you select Ragna to fight him and win, upon being beaten, Pokkle will moan, "I just got Ragna-rocked!" It's voiced, too, so enjoy that!

Service Penguin says thanks for reading, and be sure to check out the official Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection site at: http://visitilvard.com/!

Zwei on STEAM!

Zwei on GOG!

#ZWEI: THE ILVARD INSURRECTION #XSEED #XSEED GAMES #XSEED BLOG #ZWEI #FALCOM #POST: JESS

[rrevan]

all of the odd ones for the salty ask meme! lol (if it's too much just choose the ones you wanna answer haha)

1. What OTPs in your fandom(s) do you just not get?

Fenders I just don’t understand why people ship them, they hate each other. I can barely conceive of Fenris and Anders being friends let alone having any type of romantic feelings towards each other.

3. Have you ever unfollowed someone over a fandom opinion?

Yeah I’ve unfollowed a few people for shipping Reylo and I unfollowed a prequel blog that kept talking about how much they hated The Last Jedi.

5. Has fandom ever ruined a pairing for you?*

I used to be neutral about Shakarian but the fans are crazy obsessed with Garrus, and act like their pairing is the best ever and everything else sucks. I don’t see it a whole lot now but I still have the tag and Garrus blacklisted because of those fans.

I’d be more neutral about Reylo if Relyo fans weren’t so numerous and crazy about it.

7. Is there anything you used to like but can’t stand now?*

I can’t think of anything I can’t stand that I used to like. If you asked when I had my Twilight hating period then I could say that but I don’t hate or dislike Twilight now. I can do the reverse, I used to dislike Fallout 4 and now I love it.

9. Most disliked character(s)? Why?

I really hate Arl Eamon, for the way he treats Alistair and obviously wants to influence Alistair as king. I also don't like Harrowmont for his traditionalism, yeah Bhelen is a dick but at least he wants to change things.

EVA-Beatrice. If you’ve read Umineko, you know why.

11. Is there an unpopular character you like that the fandom doesn’t? Why?

I love X6-88, most people don’t like him but he’s one of my favourite characters. He’s not “good” like most of the other companions are and I like hearing his approval conversations and how much he respects you.

I also quite like Krennic, I don’t know what most people think of him but I like for being the most relatable villain. He’s pretty pathetic but aims high, still falls, great cape.

13. Unpopular opinion about XXX character?

Nick Valentine is the most boring companion in Fallout 4, I don’t understand why he’s a fan favourite.

Jar Jar is not annoying or terrible, he’s fine as he is.

15. Unpopular opinion about the manga/show?

The Japanese Death Note films have a more satisfying end than the manga/anime and are just as good as the first half of the manga and better than the second.

17. Instead of XYZ happening, I would have made ABC happen…

Instead of L dying, I would have left him alive as Light’s antagonist, even if that meant shortening the manga/anime.

19. What is the one thing you hate most about your fandom?

This goes for all fandoms but people bullying each other over minor things that don’t hurt anyone. I also hate all the things such as homophobia, racism, ableism, etc. 

21. What are your thoughts on crack ships?

As long as they aren’t hurting anyone, then if those crack ships bring some fun then I don’t mind.

23. Unpopular character you love?

I love Sebastian Vael, I don’t understand why so many people don’t like him or don’t bother to try his dlc or watch videos of him. A lot of content creators leave him out of group stuff and while they’re allowed to make that decision, it makes Sebastian seem like a lesser character. 

25. How would you end XXX/Would you change the ending of XXX?

Haha I already said I’d change the ending of Death Note. I’d change the ending of Kotor 2 to make the ending more comprehensible.

27. Least shippable character?

I don’t know, Jar Jar? Jabba the Hutt?

#glassrunner #asks #thank you lauren <3