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dyketubbo · 3 years

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when you get a chance, thoughts on seer of space tubbo?

(i am also open to maid of space tubbo, and many others, but i am currently seer leaning)

*wakes up* oh boy time to classpect! under the readmore because seers are interesting enough that i ended up going on a tangent

of course no argument about the aspect because hes 100% a space player, ive discussed heir before i believe, so seer analysis it is, because i havent thought about it before (seers slip my mind sometimes, i love them, my brain is just the equivalent of a ground with a bunch of banana peels and cant handle having more than 4 coherent thoughts at a time).

like said with knights, he doesnt exactly try to tell anyone what he wants to come off as, sure he wants to be intimidating enough that people leave him alone, but, well. he does fit the intimidating thing, its less a facade and more a warning, he doesnt want to hurt anyone, but he will should he deem it necessary (thankfully, tubbos kind enough that he deems it unecessary in most cases). hes a bit too likely to follow through, and its bred from feeling unsafe, rather than feeling insecure. c!tubbo knows he can do things, the cc is more likely to downplay what he does than the character is (not that c!tubbo doesnt, but he does still believe in his abilities, he just doesnt think hes important enough to emphasize his impact. difference between going "oh no it was all __" and going "oh no it wasnt just me" when theres something hes done most of the work on)

so, he almost fits knight, at least in abilities, after all knights are capable and they know theyre capable, and hes very good at the exploitation aspect, pushing limitations and using them for their benefits. i could see him as maybe a knight thats actually gotten past the insecurity and facades already, if we're to consider his spy history as him being pre-actualization. being a space player doesnt really change how solid knight arcs are, so the combination of knight and space doesnt make knight much more fitting for tubbo

similarly, he does fit a few aspects of being a seer (having similar struggles, talking a shitton sometimes, sitting back and observing the world around him when he finds it beneficial to do so, generally very smart especially within their group), but not so much others (seers are often overbearingly smug in a way tubbos a bit too humble for, learning through education rather than experience, having a habit of getting too focused on their goal, and theyre overall passive, being too active is actually how they get themselves into shit, while tubbo gets hurt when hes too passive). seers of space focus more on the present than the future or past, which almost fits tubbo.. if it werent for the fact that he doesnt focus on the future or past out of repression cknsks. not that he would much anyways, but the intentional focus on the present is out of stubborness and trauma rather an actual trait of staying in the present. notably, theres quite a few times where tubbo does think about the past and future, especially when he was younger, and he does try to work towards his ideal future, he just doesnt talk about it much.

funnily enough, because of where seer falls through, he ends up being closer to the mage struggle of, well, getting their asses kicked when theyre too passive because things work out best when theyre involving themselves. mages also have that posturing thing as well, though its connected to intelligence (desperately trying to come off as smarter because they believe theyre still too dumb and naïve, even though theyre actually doing fine), so again, not exactly tubbos kind of posturing. plus, hes pissy, but not pissy enough for a mage, as theyre more likely to get caught up in how fed up they are with everything, while tubbo gets caught up in how much he still cares no matter how much he seems like he doesnt. the space aspect adds that theres.. a shitton of shit happening to and around him, which does fit, at least, and mages of space usually suffer because of their passions, knowledge, and experience, as well as they're rather hands on. again, fits, but, well.

seers and mages are a bit too focused on knowledge for the kind of person tubbo is. hes smart for sure, has a lot of knowledge, and even when hes not a spy he does want to know things and looks for that knowledge, but while he fits the goals and positives of seers (and mages), he doesnt exactly fit their flaws or what happens when theyre unhealthy. not that he needs to show signs of being unhealthy, but even healthy players still show an ability to be the unhealthy versions of their classes. he doesnt get his ass kicked for being too active and tunnel visioned like seers do (and it can sometimes come from ego trips, which tubbos very unlikely to have, even if he fits the "my solution is the most correct here, so we have to follow it" part of it all) like seers, he doesnt have any moments of just refusing to learn and complaining about how everything sucks rather than doing anything about it (nor is he likely too) like mages. he does vaguely fit where the unhealthiness of a knight can come in, propping up a shield to a ridiculous extent and lashing out when their insecurites are picked at, but that feels a bit too reckless to be tubbo (though it does fit tommy).

overall, i can kind of see seer for a slightly different version of tubbo, but it feels too passive for tubbo, if that makes sense. he is passive at least, in terms of classes anyways (note- despite how some classpectors define it, passive doesnt really mean you serve others, its not an insult, it just means you weave your aspect through others, rather than yourself. its the difference between a prince destroying x/destroying through x and a bard allowing destruction of x/inviting destruction through x. still listen to passive classes, thats what seers fall into after all, and seers are very important). its just that tubbo usually gets hurt by being too passive rather than getting hurt by being too active (not that it couldnt happen, which is why i say it could still fit under other circumstances).

speaking of passive v active, if i had to pick a passive class i feel fits tubbo the most, probably heir. active wise, id say maid does actually fit rather well. i feel like ive talked about maid tubbo before but i might be remembering a different analysis so just in case ill generally say i feel he fits the arc of going from a "doormat" to taking their life for themselves. theyre stubborn, stressed out from listening to others, like banter, occassionally silly and can start arguing in circles due to the stubborness (think that one patrick id scene, but smarter). maids are also heavy repressers, they fear being seen as weak, and are unwilling to ask for help. they rely on their environment and hate it.

and, painfully enough, some classpectors state that when pushed into being unhealthy, maids explode. maids are already intimidating on their own, being powerful and smart enough to know what to do with that power, and when they get stressed out enough, they, well, explode. they hurt everyone in one big event (think aradias actions in make her pay). its not necessarily a reckless lashing out at everyone like knights, but a giant burnout that happens to effect everyone. tubbos not at a point where it seems likely for this to happen, but i wouldnt be too surprised if something like it did happen were things to get too be too much. he is the mf with nukes after all. healthy maids are independent, with maids of space specifically, well, making space for themselves and others (sound like a certain snow commune anyone), attempting to start new lives. an independent maid, allowed to be their own person without anyone stepping on them, is a healthy maid. unfortunate for tubbo that his life fucking sucks too hard for him to really get to this point KEKW

heirs fit a similar "followed others then became more independent" arc, mostly unaware that theyre being lead around but, if whats happening aligns with their own ideals, dont really care much that theyre being a follower when they are aware of such. heirs have an instinct to stick to comfort, rather than an instinct to be independent like maids. heirs still need to find their independence and autonomy, but need to do so because they can change things, theyre also very powerful when they play correctly. however, going against what they may feel is best and is more comfortable for them can be actively painful, early heirs often would rather be comfortable and happy even if things arent going well than take the difficult route, know that theyll suffer, and temporarily risk comfort and happiness in an attempt to reach an end they dont know will be there for sure. they can deal with suffering, but choosing to stay constantly aware of this suffering hurts and they struggle with dealing with the fact that they need to be aware to stop the suffering.

heirs change by picking up on subtle details naturally, subconsciously effecting those around them, making either themself or others interact with their aspect differently (or actively not think with their own aspect, in a positive way). heirs, when self aware, want to help. thats an important detail, and its why heirs are often protagonists, they dont have the ambition to do things that only benefit themselves when they realize theyre in a position of power. at their core, heirs usually want to make things better, but learning to move on and better themselves can hurt, and it takes a lot for heirs to to let it be apart of the process.

unhealthy heirs fade. they get so stressed out by getting hurt that they shrink back into themselves, they stick with what makes them comfortable and refuse to acknowledge that they and others are hurting, wrapped up in their more selfish instincts and becoming hard and stressful to deal with. "i want everything to be okay" becomes "i dont want to deal with the idea that nothings okay right now", soon getting to "im okay and you cant tell me otherwise, fuck you if you want to take this away from me, you cant stop me but i will stop you". of course, that last one can be useful if a heir were to use it to change things for the better, but the tunnel vision on "i want to be comfortable even if im making others uncomfortable" is, well. shitty. unhealthy heirs wont actively try to hurt anyone unless pushed, but they can they can still manage to through a lack of acknowledging that they have to help. and well, that sounds somewhat like tubbo, the hurting through a lack of helping, at the very least its present in things like him not visiting tommy during exile (partially because it was safer to just not challenge dream, partially out of guilt and belief that tommy hated him)

heirs of space specifically are about flitting from project to project, learning about what interests them, impatient when others dont share their excitement, and learning when to adapt and move on from things. generally, if i had to put a scale on it, id say tubbos most likely to be a heir, then a maid, then a seer. it all depends on what aspects of him you wanna focus on, really. seer tubbo is really interesting though! i think seers are more smug than he is though, not that he doesnt have his moments, but his tendency to believe hes right isnt all too prominent compared to other traits of his, and its less from a smug "i know whats right" and more just a firm "this isnt right, i have a better idea". he wants to do whats right, but if he feels like he doesnt know whats right, hes willing to rely on others, it just.. takes him a bit of pushing to admit such

#i took like 5 hours on this hope you appreciate it max /lh #i enjoy classpecting though and i enjoy tubbo even more so its alright #dsmp #tubbo #dsmp classpects #hs #angel answers #long post #(iirc about 14 or 16 paragraphs maybe?#*)

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sanstropfremir · 3 years

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kingdom episode 5 review!!! lets fucking go!!!!!

look. was i insanely hyped for this episode? yes. was my hype justified? also yes. holy FUCKING SHIT. you’ll have to forgive me for going off the rails at some points because ateez and btob directly tapped into something primal in my brain and i am obsessed. i'm obsessed. there’s no other word for it I’m obsessed.

ok ok ok i'll focus. i'm focused. i'll do the stage breakdown first and then do my personal ranking at the end. i might do a quick runup comparison of the self and expert rankings for funsies but i'll see how i feel when i get there. instead of going in airing order i’m gonna reverse it, since that was the order i actually watched them in and also i will run out of brains if i talk about rhythm ta first.

skz

i feel for skz. i don't think this show is going to be as much of learning curve as it needs to be for them because the fan voting skews the rankings so much. I’ve said it so many times before, but letting something flop or getting a bad ranking is actually good, because it shows you that you need to improve. because skz keeps getting validated by the fan rankings and placing first in the last two stages, they aren't actually taking the time to evaluate what about their stages is or isn't working. and besides, we’ve now seen two very similar concepts in a row from them, just one is on a grander scale than the other. what they should be doing is what both ateez and btob did for this round, which was scale up production value, but scale down concept. i know this sounds weird but i'll explain. skz has done two very abstract and ‘grand’ concepts. first round we had ghosts/good self vs evil self, and this stage they just went straight for the throat with a deal with the devil type stage. now when you combine these very abstract concepts with an unclear narrative arc, you lose clarity of intent in the performance because there are no specifics that you’re playing off of. there’s a lot more places left up to personal interpretation and this is where people can get lost. btob and ateez both narrowed down their concepts to hyperspecific scenarios where they very clearly showing the audience the arc the stage is taking. audiences can be smart but also if you can lead them by the hand they like not thinking about highly conceptual ideas, and especially not so much in a pop song competition show.

costume

this is so rare because generally stylists are pretty careful about this, but i genuinely think they got outshone by the backup dancers, especially in the ‘heaven’ sequence. those sash and skirt combos with the strapped white tops that look like straitjackets? the fucking angel wings?! these are some thematically fun costume designs and because they’re white they stand out so much more when skz are wearing black. i also think i've seen these tops on backup dancers before? i thought it was on the last stage but i might be going insane.

i am a sucker for beaded embroidery and the combined dyework on some of their sashes is beautiful. but again, thematically irrelevant? at least you can see the greco-roman inspiration in the backup dancers’ costumes. all this is telling me is that whoever the stitchers are at jype, they are fucking incredible, but they don’t actually have a good designer because the main costumes for all their stages have been both aesthetically similar and thematically irrelevant.

again, i applaud skz for trying more experimental makeup, but boys you have to go bigger, it has no impact right now.

set

well, i did ask for them to commit to the western art bit and they sort of delivered? the first space is not planned very well and combined with the wide wide camera shots instead of making the space seem grand and sweeping it just seems bare. the ‘heaven’ side was excellent though, there was much better control of the camera and the columns and altar scaled the space down so it was more believable. also the breakable columns were fun and corny and i love it when stuff gets destroyed onstage.

the child statue transformation into actual child was a neat trick that i think landed really well. i wish they had given that concept a little more grounding other than the flashback bit but it was still very readable.

i know using rodin's gates of hell is the easiest way to shortcut saying that like, “you are now entering hell,” but them being used SO literally feels a bit blunt when the last time we saw them used in kpop was by original blasphemous catholic lee taemin, who used them with such nuance and intelligence that i'm a bit put off by skz’s literalism.

on that note, i find it very interesting the conflation that happens between greco-roman/”classical” aesthetics and catholicism, because ideologically the two are opposed (see: the bible) and historically, they didn't exist at the same time. now i'm not going to go off on a tangent about neoclassicism because you are not here for an art history lecture but i thought i would make the observation about how catholics continued appropriation of greco-roman aesthetics without complete understanding or context of those aesthetics is as pervasive as it ever has been in the last several hundred years.

lighting

generally the lighting is pretty good, but there’s an over-reliance on projections that cheapens the look of the stage but also devalues the intentions as well. at the core of it there’s a profound statement being made about trading away your innocence, but when you underscore that with like, clock graphics and a WoW looking demon, it loses that simplicity of message.

the thing about using this particular type of projection, which are actually screens and not typical projectors, is that screens always throw light. and due to where they are situated, this basically means that if you're using the screens at full capacity with a cool colour range, we are going to be able to see everything. this is another contributing factor to why the stage looks so empty; they’re lighting up everything and it exposes where the gaps are.

now i fully acknowledge that this possibly could have been a deliberate choice, since they do actually use some spot lighting at the beginning and end. however, if it was it did not land for me.

i loved the intro of demon felix done in blue, that was a nice switchup from what we would usually see, but i wish there was more of a coherent colour arc. like the narrative it stutters around a bit.

sound

the arrangement was a miss for me. i found it a bit dissonant again, like their last stage, since the original i'll be your man has obvious lyrics about a good christian boy being sad about a girl. this gets a bit wonky conceptually as soon as you add a child self into it. i don’t know if they changed any of the lyrics in the singing to match this a little more because i don't speak korean, so i'll have to wait for episode subs for verification.

i really applaud them for trying, and overall they didn't actually do that bad, but skz is not a vocal group. the most i'm going to say about it is that these boys don’t have the breath support. this is likely because they're trying to do choreographically complex movements, but also it's a training thing. you can hear the difference even just between eunkwang’s ‘vocal warmup’ at the beginning of back door, he’s not projecting full voice but he still has the breath support for his voice to sound full, whereas all skz boys sound thin in comparison, even when at full volume, because they’re trying to project from the throat and not the chest. that's all i'm gonna say about that. i don't think the cracked note was bad, i didn’t really clock it on first listen.

staging

thematically they could have had something really interesting here if they stuck to a more simple narrative arc. the genesis (i’m very funny) of the idea here is good, the whole mephistopheles deal with a devil + regret/loss of innocence is clear, but the arc isn't really an arc, and the colour story doesn't help. it kind of goes earth (green/blue) -> the gates of hell are opening (red) -> oh it's heaven now (blue) -> oh just kidding it's hell/lets destroy heaven (red) -> back to earth (blue). not necessarily a bad arc, just a bit complex for four minutes.

the choreo was a lot better this time, there was a lot more intention and relevance to theme and i didn’t feel like they were flailing for the sake of flailing as much as i have in their other stages. there was also a clarity in the overall blocking and movement patterns that was missing from their other stages. this stage has a really great handoff of each member playing the ‘main’ character, especially in the beginning. i especially liked the cut from falling off the stairs to laying centre stage.

i think I’m right in assuming that it was a choice that the members were all playing the same character and demon felix was that character possessed rather than the actual devil, but personally i think it would have been a lot more fun if they had straight up just made him be the actual devil. there’s a bit of dissonance when you have a performer with such a specialized skillset that gets used in very specific instances, but then he shows up in the regular group choreo like any ol’ guy. they always put such emphasis on felix (as they should, he’s their most charismatic performer), but they never go the distance. i would have loved it if they had committed to the bit like TOO did in their magnolia stage from rtk, where they had a member just be blinded justice. that was literally the only thing he did and it worked so well. could have done the same here with felix and it would have been fun. that being said the felix parts were SO good. love love love him getting dragging in chains.

btob

this hit every little one of the buttons in my tiny backstage crew brain. i'm in love with this stage. there’s so many true to life little details here that on repeat viewings you're still finding new things. i know i rag on and on about narrative every week but here is a good example of what i've been trying to get at this whole time: the stage needs a shape. an a to b. you don't need a whole pirates spiel or a game of thrones theme extended universe; all you need is a clear setting and a point a to point b. this stage has both those things perfectly. we have a hyperspecific setting, (american rockstars) and a basic arc (getting ready to perform -> performing). even though back door is outside of btob’s wheelhouse, they spun it in a way that played to their strengths and did a bit braggadocio, which is rightfully earned. i'm gonna be saying it every time but the experience shows!!!

costume

good contemporary costume is SO difficult, i want to impress that here. because it's the the time period that we are currently living and seeing every day it's so easy for the audience to spot mistakes. although yes it's easier to source/shop for, to get it good enough that it doesn't pull people out of the immersion is surprisingly more difficult than you think. their stylists did an excellent job here. the backup dancers and btob are all in monochrome plus one and it adds a very clean unity to everything without visual clutter.

each of btob’s costumes have enough to give indication of character, along with the member’s acting, which i'll get more into in the staging section. regardless, never underestimate the power of a good fitting shirt and statement belt. oh and minhyuk in the stirrup motorcycle boots with the skinny jeans and the supreme boxers and the red satin robe? good bye.

i love love love a dyed buzz this was such a good aesthetic choice for peniel, 10/10 i have no complaints about the costumes.

set

oh my god i’m gonna french kiss this set designer. this is such a simple set but it’s executed so well. there’s the ‘backstage’ area, the corridor with four dressing rooms, and then the ‘stage’ that’s pretty much just velvet ropes. so simple, but all the detail is in the set decoration and props. the road cases, the monitor, the subtle flex of the posters of them on the walls, the clothing racks, all the booze. although this is not the actual layout of any theatre (they're normally much weirder than this), there’s so many little details here that really make the experience.

there’s a very straightforward path here and it works so well. i think this might be the best use of the gates so far? it appropriately suited the drama of the moment and they didn't have to do anything to them because they're already in a theatre. bada bing bada boom.

lighting

love the setup and continuation through the amber ‘BRRRMM.’ like with sf9 it gives a smooth transition into the stage. also loved no blackout. it's a general rule in current theatrical practice that you only use blackouts when they are absolutely necessary, because they can stop the pacing of a play dead in the water. so the lack of one here at the start of the stage was a really smart choice and makes the transition feel less jarring.

i will say that actual backstage areas are very rarely lit with amber because it travels far and it's bright. it's much more common to see running lights (the lights on during a performance) to be deep red or blue.

those blasting wash lights as the gates open? the DRAMA. such a seemingly innocuous choice that really cements the atmosphere of ‘we are about to perform.’

really smart use of the projections to accentuate the already existing stage facilities. it's pretty much unnoticable because it's very well done but i appreciate it.

sound

this ARRANGEMENT!!!! it's so good!!! back door has this premise essentially built into the song so it was so smart of them to put this gimmicky spin on it. loved the literal interpretation of the knocks into the structure of the stage, it makes the blend between the sound design and the staging that much more effective.

more rock versions of everything please and thank you.

btob is just stunting at this point and i love it. i'll have to wait for subs but judging by the hands in front of the camera bit and the ‘your super high note’ i’m pretty confident the added rap lyrics are full of shots at the other groups and honestly? valid.

staging

there's some really sharp camera control here with the one take first half. It’s up very close and personal because there’s a lack of space but it really works for the ‘intimacy’ of seeing backstage at a venue. also this is such a simple movement track but it’s so effective. it backs over a couple spots but it doesn't feel repetitive because there’s a sense of urgency and drive.

there are so many good little details in here that are true to life and unnecessary to include but sell the performance as a whole. peniel flinging water onstage, minhyuk stripping down twice and flinging his clothes around, minhyuk closing the door on the standby’s face, the backup dancer as a dresser with the laundry basket, peniel stealing the hat off her but then not going on stage with it these are all things that I’ve either had directly happen to me or something very similar has happened. but the best one and the one that sets off the tone amazingly for the whole stage is eunkwang’s intro. that ‘vocal warmup’ with the quiet okay at the end? with the little jump? i see that moment of vulnerability before the transition between person and actor every time i watch someone go onstage for the first time and there’s no way to describe it other than magic.

the luxury of only having four members, there was actually time in this stage to establish character. it also speaks to the performing strength of btob that they can establish clear character in this short amount of time. obviously it’s pretty one dimensional; there’s serious eunkwang, typical rocker minhyuk, fuckboy peniel (how many licks does it take to make your tootsie pop, anyone?), and comedian changsub. i’ve seen and met and worked with these exact dudes many, many times. ugh i love this stage

ateez

the utter euphoria i felt at the proof that last round’s stage wasn't a fluke. this stage is so good. it's so good. i'm obsessed with how good this stage. as an unreformed pop punk teen who played a LOT of latin jazz i am LIVING. if you’ve only seen the episode cut and not the full version here i'll make it easy and link it for you because oh my GOD mnet destroyed the pacing by cutting in a full minute and a half of reaction shots. actually mnet fucked up the pacing for all of these stages but this one was the worst. and look. i know this is the closest these boys are going to get to being real punks and this is a carefully curated and artificial facade for narrative purposes only but oh the pandering tastes so sweet. regardless of that, i am IN AWE of the level of storytelling happening here. the narrative is so clear on just the first viewing even though there is so much going on and they use every possible element they can to further enhance that narrative. repeat viewings just add more and more little details. i’ll probably miss some things because there's so much but i'll try my best.

costume

look, hanya and i were joking that my notes for this stage were just gonna be ‘san dog collar’ for a thousand words and i was so tempted to just leave it at that because.....woof. so here is a short list of things i am the most obsessed with:

san dog collar

san smeared lipstick

wooyoung cruella deville ponytail

hongjoong terrible blond crewcut

san crushed velvet cargo pants?!

seonghwa cropped fur jacket

yunho arm sleeve

hongjoong sockless in red derbys

but in all seriousness the costumes are so good. none of these are truly authentic punk looks but they capture the spirit right and that's what matters. all the right trappings are there; safety pins, patches, plaid, leather, and a lot of diy type looks. i love the painted masks, especially as a callback to the comedy/tragedy theatre masks. it was a thematic choice to have the backup dancers in black and the tac vests are a super simple contextual device.

also hongjoong’s quickchange hat/jacket combo is super fun and i hope that’s intentionally a preview of the next stage.

set

if you weren't convinced before that whoever is designing the ateez stages is a stage designer, i don't know what to tell you. it's hard to tell because there is so much environmental storytelling happening, but there is NO large scale set here. like with their last stage, kq smartly put money into two highlight pieces; the anarchist blimp and the van/wall, and the rest of the stage atmosphere is established solely through propwork and lighting. just think about that for a bit. every other group has some kind of large scale room or wall build. ateez has a bunch of tables, flyers, and a podium. i don’t know if i can accurately communicate just how difficult this kind of coordination is to pull off but holy fucking shit this is so hard to pull off. these are theatre people i see you and i see your work and i love you!!!

they fully used the gilt mnet stage as their pseudo government building and it works. everything about this (lack of) set is so smart i wish i could be more articulate about it but there’s so only so many ways i can say the same thing over and over again.

lighting

the laser scopes. the LASER SCOPES!!! god this lighting designer is so good. whoever you are, i'm acknowledging your effort because you deserve it. there’s some really wonderful contrast and directional lighting: the van light, the pinlights/lasers/smoke as searchlights. a lot of atmospheric red lighting but it makes sense for the theme (alarm lights) and they offset it well (unlike in the other two predominantly red stages we’ve seen) by fill lighting the faces with blue or amber; this is what actually makes us able to see what’s happening on stage

the projections are used to augment the stage action in without being overpowering, they're at relatively low tonal value so they aren't lighting up the stage at full brightness like in the skz stage.

the big brother eye on the tv screens (it's just a projection, not actual screens) combined with the government ban notice and the broadcast has to be the record for fastest visual explanation of fascist totalitarian state.

sound

i love it. they really successfully made rhythm ta into an ateez song and it’s cool as fuck. i love that it isn't sonically very loud. a lot of the chorus is actually quite level tone and quiet, which is a bold choice and they pull it off. this is very comfortably in their range (excluding jongho) and they went more for style than range and that's exactly what every group should be doing. singing high does not equal singing good. yes i am looking at you jongho you should have stopped at that penultimate note, it was fine!!

using rhythm ta as a pseudo protest song against a fascist government that’s banned all music and art? galaxy brain. that intro of hongjoong whispering “hey hey hey hey, this is just a song so get on the rhythm” after gunning down military police/guards? king fucking shit.

staging

i will eat all five pairs of my fluevog boots if kq hasn't hired a bunch of theatre professionals to direct and design these stages because now it's been proven that last stage wasn't a fluke. the level of execution at work here is absolutely incredible. oh the gesamtkunstwerk of it all!!! there is SO much happening so quickly in this four minute stage and it still manages to convey exactly the correct amount of information that it needs to on the first go round, and it only gets better on repeat viewings.

they use a really classic theatre perspective trick with san climbing the rope, and they absolutely didn’t have to do that. san probably could have actually climbed that himself, but here they made a choice for aesthetic artistry over tricking/other feats of skills we’ve seen the 4th gen groups do. instead of going with the more technically difficult and ‘impressive’ option, they chose the simple way that allows for more character to shine through. there’s actually very little tricking in this stage as whole, they're putting trust in the design of the stage and the raw performance abilities of the members to carry the stage and they stick the landing again. san has some breakdancing and so do the backup dancers, but it’s window dressing in the same way that the flyers are window dressing.

there’s a lot of really good little moments of acting that really sell the performance and dedication of the group as a whole to giving their all. hongjoong overall in his cocky aspirational leader role, seonghwa’s first verse and malfunctioning earpiece bit, san’s falsetto hostage interrogation bit. also i'm obsessed with how far yunho just hucks that mask. he gets like fifteen feet of air with that thing. also props to hongjoong barehanding that glass break.

the paper props are impeccable. the first notice sets up the situation right away, and then we get some further exposition with the newspaper wooyoung is holding (which says ‘the central government has defined the black pirates as a terrorist’ but honestly you don't really need to know what it says to get the point), and then we have raining anarchist flyers from the anarchist blimp. great atmospheric touches.

the blackout crash-to-mask transition is just so good. this is an example of a good use of a blackout. nothing else to add i just thought i would point it out because it's dope.

like with btob there's some really tight camera control here, that along with the lighting and the way they've laid out the space make it easy to follow the trajectory of where they're going and also make the space seem smaller than it is. this is a really big stage and if you don't control how you want it to be seen you end up like with what happened to the first part of skz’s stage. i wish they had tracked some of the one takes a bit better, but the end of that take where the camera followed the group movement laterally and then the formation swung around to face front? sexy. surprisingly the editing is pretty ok.

there’s probably still so much i could talk about but this is already so long so if i missed something just let me know.

ok finally lets do some rankings

personal ranking

this round wasn't as tough to rank because there were two clear top tier stages for me. i actually went back and looked at my ranking from last round and this is identical except the top two spots are switched, which i find extremely funny. however in contrast to last round, these stages were all leagues better than their predecessors. all the groups are improving, just some at greater speed than others.

ateez - i'm not even gonna explain this one.

btob - i won't explain this one either since i just did that.

sf9 - this would have been first if ateez and btob hadnt blow everyone out of the water.i still think they made all the right choices and played to their strengths.

ikon - this stage is so fun to watch but the others offer me more. that’s it.

skz - i like the idea behind it and i loved felix; i'm always down for some good catholic fuckery but like last round it just wasn't played out far enough.

tbz - double ding on the moulin rouge and the continued game of thrones references for me. there were a lot of strong elements here but when compared to every other stage it just doesn't have the same gravitas.

the self rankings i thought were fairly accurate, but again, what the fuck is up with these expert rankings? who are these experts? what stages are they watching?? i won't go more into it than that because then you'll be here even longer but i don't trust these experts who consistently rank btob at the bottom, do you have eyes??? ears????

ok i'm done for real now im so sorry this 4.6k words......if you make it this far do something nice for yourself like eat a cookie or something. this is way too long you deserve a reward for making it through my nonsense. as always if you’ve got questions or want to share your opinions feel free to send me an ask!

#kingdom #kingdom review #should i risk it and tag the groups this time? i kinda wanna bait some weirdos #kpop analysis #ok im gonna do it #ateez #btob #stray kids #the boyz #sf9 #ikon #im pretty sure i missed so much here but this is so long im so sorry #at least next week i wont be doing this kind of writeup #text

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wehatejulietsimms · 3 years

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A/N: i'm gonna respond to this in sections bc it's quite long so bare with me.

Howdy y’all, 🤠 again. Yes, I didn’t in fact die. I’m sorry though that I kept getting sidetracked and couldn’t submit this until now, my boss decided to keep dumping her work into my lap. So I just wanna preface this by stating that I’m going to try and say what I want to as coherent as possible, but I have pretty severe ADHD so I’m not always as easy to understand as I think I am in my head, and I often go off on tangents, over explain things and circle back to topics randomly without realizing. Im basically going to go over their relationship over the years as I said previously (I’m not gonna go into detail about every single scandal and shitty thing Juliet did over the years, because we’d be here all year. so I figure I won’t cover them here, but rather let people ask specific questions if they want to. Remember, I was present for pretty much everything so feel free to ask.😊), but I’m also going to do kind of a mini deep dive into Andy’s behavior and actions (because although the snakes will hit you with every excuse in the book, and tell you that you’re looking too far into things and that it doesn’t matter, it does. The way a person acts in general and towards people around them is very relevant when talking about someone’s health, happiness, and well-being.) To start off, let’s take it all the way back to the time before Juliet’s reign of terror, when Andy and Scout were still together. In all honesty from what I saw of them together (and I saw pretty much everything they posted, I’m only a year younger than Andy, and I was quite into him when he was on MySpace and such, and I always watched anything with him and Scout together because they were fucking adorable lol) they had a really healthy relationship. Not once did I get weird vibes from them. The way Andy acted toward and with Scout, you could tell they really loved each other and were happy together. They had nothing to prove. It just was normal. (For any of you who are younger, or didn’t come into the picture until Andy was already post-scout and would like to see some videos of them together, you could generally search on YouTube for it, but also there’s a specific channel on there called like bring the milk tea or something that has videos of old Andy blogs and also Andy and scout on stickam and such. Worth a look if you’re curious) They weren’t constantly all over each other like possessive pack dogs *ahem Juliet ahem* and whenever Andy mentioned scout he didn’t need to shower her in compliments. They both seemed very secure in both themselves and the relationship. Super cute. Initially when they broke up it seemed quite odd. I didn’t really expect it. It got even weirder when he states that he and Juliet are together. It didn’t feel like they fit together at all (and no I’m not talking about from a fame or success perspective. At least not yet lol) As I’ve said I got bad vibes from Juliet right from the get go. Andy already seemed to be acting not like himself. (Also snakeys have argued that it’s just that he’s more mature now and that’s why he acts nervous and constantly looks Ike he wants to die. 🙄 maturity doesn’t mean losing your fucking personality and being unhappy most of the time. Jesus Christ.) it seemed like they got possessive of each other and constantly needed to show people how in love they were. Pictures, videos, and fucking public love paragraphs to show they are, in fact, in a super real relationship and they love each other. It also felt like Andy’s family was in on this whole weird charade.They (Chris honestly) started to defend her degenerate behavior and attack anyone who had even a whisper of negative things to say about her or their relationship. It was like watching a group of awkward, pretty mediocre actors put on a play about them being together. (I’ve hit the text limit now, but there will be more that I will write just after I submit this one though, fear not haha. N, you can either post this now or wait until I submit the rest, it’s up to you.) 1 / ? -🤠

A/N: i was here for a lot of it as well so i do remember some of this. although i did join the fandom shortly after him and juliet got together (i joined like around the time she was on the voice) i literally remember hoping that him and scout would get back together bc juliet just rubbed me the wrong way and i didn't know why at the time. & side note i actually do recommend people go look at old videos of andy and scout they were really adorable. there is this one video of them singing (i think a carrie underwood song lol) in the car and it's really cute. but yeah just bc he's older doesn't mean his whole entire personality changes. you can be any age and act however you want. i could even use jenna marbles & julien solomita (a youtube couple) as an example, they've been together for i think like 8 or 9 years and are about the same age as A&J (julien being around andy's age & jenna around juliet's age) & although they can have mature adult conversations and all of that, they still act like idiots and joke around together. neither of them look uncomfortable or are afraid of saying certain things like andy is around juliet. so andy aging doesn't mean shit in regards to his personality doing a 180.

🤠okay, so part two here we go. (Also I apologize if I get the chronological order of anything I talk about incorrect, I’m a bit scattered sometimes and the next ask I make will be the one where I talk about the domestic abuse and I tend to get quite heated, which only makes my brain function worse lol) so the point at which Andy was trying to get fans to go vote for/ support Juliet when she was on the voice seemed really fishy. I’m all for supporting the work of the people you love, but it’s kinda strange how hard Andy was pushing this at the time. Too hard in my opinion. I’m obviously aware that it was helpful in the end and he more or less got what he was asking for. But it was like he absolutely needed people to vote for her. As if he would get in trouble if they didn’t. So around 2012 or 2013 it felt like things really went down the shitter from there and just got progressively worse. (I never knew why for the longest time, but after they revealed that Vegas wedding that happened in about that time frame, it made a lot of sense.) Andy’s behavior began to change towards his fans. There are a lot of accounts of this happening from fans themselves and a lot of people said that 1. It was worse with Juliet around, and 2. a lot of the time it would happen towards females especially. ( I think more towards the “pretty” fans but don’t count me on that, I don’t know for sure.) This was completely night and day. Especially coming from the same man who used to always defend his fans and once stated something along the lines of he would never have a crazy or awkward fan story because he loves and is grateful for all of his fans and he won’t get upset if they’re just really excited. I would understand if these fans crossed the line in some way (like the later incident of fans finding his address and harassing them, which is unacceptable no matter who the people are) but from most if not all of the fan stories I’ve heard, they didn’t. They were being respectful and didn’t do anything to warrant this happening to them besides showing up. Which brings me to my next point, a lot of these negative experiences were caused by Juliet. Either she was the one being mean to people, she was causing Andy to be mean to people on her behalf, or her presence was upsetting Andy to the point that he was angry and started being rude and irritable. What scares me the most are the accounts of Andy having a whole Jekyll and Hyde thing, depending on weather or not Juliet was present. Happy when he’s free of her and miserable when he isn’t. In videos of him where Juliet is behind the camera he always seems nervous and strange. Like he’s afraid to mess up. That’s fucking alarming to say the least. You would think that the last thing one would want to do if another person brings them this much anger, stress, and anxiety, the LAST thing they would want to do is fucking marry them. Right? He literally started barely smiling at one point and really doesn’t anymore. I mean for Christ’s sake look at his wedding photos. What’s suppose to be one of the happiest moments of your life and to quote another anon with a different ask, he looks like he’s being dragged to the gallows. (And I get really fucking Angry honestly when snakeys tries to pass it off as “oh he’s awkward he doesn’t know how to smile” or “omg he’s being dramatic for the aesthetics” in some pictures, yes. But why the fuck would you look like that in pictures with the “love of your life” who you now regularly write cringy paragraphs publicly professing your love and complete adoration for? Andy knows how to smile genuinely. Ffs he used to. He smiled genuinely when he was a kid, he smiled genuinely with scout, and he smiled genuinely when Juliet wasn’t around. He doesn’t smile when she is there, and if he does, it is pretty much always visibly fake.) So I may backtrack a little later, but right now I want to talk about the fact that Juliet IS an abuser. More specifically, the plane incident. (Word limit. TBC.) 2 / ? -🤠

A/N: yes. 100%. when it comes to the wedding photos i will never understand people (specifically snakeys) writing off his behavior as him "just being dramatic for the aesthetics". is that something he would do in photoshoots? yeah. is it something he may do on stage? sure. something he would do in an interview? maybe. but candid shots of him on one of the "happiest days of his life"? wtf no. & idk why people think that.

🤠 Just before I start, again, with the pictures, I really don’t think that Andy is enough of a self absorbed egotistical dick that he would actually sit there and put on the whole “miserable tough guy” act in every fucking photo he takes. Ah yes, the infamous plane incident. So straight up, Juliet exposed herself as an abuser, and brought out every bullshit excuse in the book (and made Andy go along with them) to try to cover it up. 1. She was drunk. Honestly this is total bullshit. I say this same thing when people defend cheating or any other degenerate behavior with the excuse of intoxication and I will say it now. Being drunk does not make you a different fucking person. It does not change the thoughts in your head. What it does do is impair your ability to make decisions and judgement skills in general. It’s the same reason why people drive drunk. It’s routine. Its what they would normally do. And because they’re drunk, they can’t see any reason why they shouldn’t do that. Juliet gets drunk, she and Andy fight, she wants to hit him, and because she’s drunk she doesn’t think that she shouldn’t fucking put her hands on him. 2. She hit him in “self defense” and he broke her ribs.(There’s several points I have debunking this) first of all let’s get this out of the way, no one on that plane (including the very real witness who just so happened to be an adult film actress (I think?) who you so love to discount because of it) saw him strike her or even touch her at any time. Two, you are in fucking airplane seats sitting right the fuck next to each other with an armrest in between. It would be pretty fucking hard to break your ribs unless they were made of actual glass, or Andy’s real name is Bruce fucking banner. Bones are surprisingly strong and I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that it’d be damn near impossible for him to do that to you, which brings me to three, if he had broken your ribs you would not be fucking standing up, thrashing around, whining like a little bitch, and oh by the way, continuing to abuse your husband for the second time on that flight. Four, you had a miscarriage. (When I was trying to conceive with my husband it was very difficult. I had two miscarriages before I finally had my son. I’m fully aware of how devastating having one is.) which is why if you are not lying (which I fully believe that Juliet would stoop that low just to get sympathy, especially with this big of a scandal. But I don’t actually have proof of this so I will say that it is just speculation on my part) I don’t fucking care. I am not unsympathetic to her if this did actually happen as I said, however, You do not get to make any excuse for putting your hands on another person out of anger. Ever. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care what kind of stress you are under, I don’t care if you are inebriated in any way and I sure as hell don’t care what the fuck you have between your legs. You do not hurt anyone. Point blank period. Five. You are a woman, you can’t hurt him. This one, actually enrages me. We all know your crusty ass pulled this one out (and threw around trump supporters a few times for good measure) because you know damn well how society and the media views and deals with abusive women. Women can abuse. Women who are shorter or weaker than their target can abuse. The fact that there are people who either don’t know that or don’t agree with that is absolutely baffling. Six. The same (I believe) porn actress. Literally saw you beating your own face with the restraints you had to be put in (which by the way flight attendants only ever use restraints as an absolute last resort when someone becomes a danger to the others on board, so she had to be acting absolutely deranged) to give yourself a bloody nose to claim Andy hit you. Then you proceed to act like a child and tell Andy to call your fucking dad. (Which kinda proves that whole Scientology thing honestly) what in the hell. I stg as long as I am breathing I will never let this go. This is actual fucking domestic abuse. (Word limit TBC.) 3 / ? -🤠

A/N: yeah her hitting him "bc she was drunk" was never a good excuse not only for the reasons you mentioned but, also bc let's be real at no point are you ever going to get served enough alcohol on a plane to make you that drunk i don't care what anyone says. also when it comes to the excuse of him "breaking her ribs" does she forget that andy actually did break his ribs a while ago? i think she even visited him when he was recovering so she should know what kind of pain he was in. & if he actually broke her ribs, there's no way she would have even been able to stand bc i know andy sure wasn't able to. he said it was one of the most painful things he's experienced. (i don't think i need to comment on the rest of this. it would just be redundant. you hit the nail on the head with that.)

🤠 I don’t care if it happened just that one time ore more likely is an everyday occurrence. Abuse is abuse and should never be tolerated. Kind of getting away from the plane thing. Andy always seems, as it’s been said on here before, afraid to mess up. Like he might mess up, and make her mad. A common behavioral pattern in abuse victims. He also at this point and for a decent amount of time before, doesn’t seem like he loves her anymore. Like he keeps up appearances and pretends, but it’s like it’s a job he’s forced to do. He’s tired and burnt out but was probably manipulated into staying and juliet is probably clinging for dear life. Also I don’t know if I’m the only one who thinks this, but I swear, the veganism and sobering up was just a cover up, most likely formed by either Juliet herself or her fucked up family, after the plane incident to hide their tracks and regain some public favor (because you know, if you advocate for animal rights then you can’t abuse your husband 🙃) Andy never gave a shit before though. Even though it was unhealthy he loved to drink and smoke and was very outspoken about that. And he used to never give a fuck about eating meat or consuming animal products like leather. I mean they’re still selling leather goods ffs. I would get having minor fuck ups because you don’t know any better, but it’s fucking leather. And now Andy is unhealthy and miserable as ever, but the culprit is malnourishment and Juliet rather than cigs, alcohol, and Juliet. My final thoughts: I do definitely believe in the Scientology theory, but if not that than I definitely believe that Andy was and is being manipulated for his fame. On several occasions it really looked like they broke up, including the time when they did, and then said it was a joke. It really doesn’t feel normal. Also, Juliet doesn’t really care about Andy that much. She never wears her wedding ring, she sells all their shit, including sentimental items, and now that she’s gained more popularity from being with him, suddenly doesn’t want to put him in her bio or write him the same creepy ass paragraphs or anything. It’s fucked up how shes so keen to say she did it all herself when really she’s been riding dick for fame since before she even met Andy. It also always kinda seemed to me that Amy was kind of uncomfortable around Juliet. We all know that Chris loves to kiss her ass night and day (most likely to do with the Scientology thing “if” it’s true), but Juliet and Amy always seemed to have a weird relationship like it was tense and forced. Also I just want to mention the time that Juliet talked about screaming at the woman over what I believe was a game night and brushed it off as being competitive and no one gave damn. Fucked up. To finish off this already way too long little series, I think Andy is a very vulnerable insecure person who got manipulated by several people (not just Juliet) some of whom he probably really trusted, and they helped to get him in Juliet’s (equally if not more insecure) hands so she could hurt him as she pleases. I truly hope that even now both he, and his parents (even though Chris really grinds my gears) can get out of this whole shit show, relatively unscathed. I know this is probably pretty unlikely, but hope springs eternal I guess. As I said feel free to ask any questions you may have and I will try to answer them best I can. Thank you for reading. 4 / 4 -🤠

A/N: yet again you hit the nail on the head with this part so i don't need to comment too much. other than the fact that i do agree that juliet and amy's relationship does seem weird.

#submission #anonymous

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buglife · 3 years

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Bend and Not Break - Ch 4: A Scar

Read here on AO3 :3

Contains 100% more smooches!

Xena stepped lightly as she opened the door to one of the interrogation rooms, narrowing her eyes as she adjusted to the dim light. The room had been quickly converted to a makeshift recovery room, the table that usually sat in the middle of the room had been pushed aside and replaced with a cot. Said cot was loaded with pillows and blankets in an effort to take as much pressure off the occupant's injuries as possible. Resting peacefully on it was Poppy, the scorpion rescued from the basement of a disgraced noble and had her venom forcibly extracted by torture. She seemed to be doing much better, her body was now criss-crossed with bandages and she was no longer twitching. She seemed to be sleeping at the moment.

She took a look at the clipboard left behind on the table where Monomon’s notes were scribbled. Electrical burns, blunt force trauma, eye damage, nerve damage...the list seemed to go uncomfortably long. She was glad she managed to get to her in time, but was disappointing that she and the other knights didn’t find out about the assassination plot sooner. Maybe they could have prevented a lot of suffering, but she couldn’t know for sure.

“Hello?” Poppy blinked awake, most likely from hearing Xena walk around. She was lying on her back and couldn’t twist her head to see who had entered the room. “Who’s there?” She asked, a tinge of worry to her voice.

“I am Xena, one of the Great Knights, I was there when you were rescued.” She pulled up a chair next to the cot and sat down. “Do you remember me?”

Poppy took a moment to breathe and then smiled the best she could through half a bandaged face. “I do.” She sounded coherent, but her speech was slurred and slow.

“You look much better,” Xena smiled in what she hoped was in a comforting way. “You must be on the good stuff, right?”

“Yeah.” Poppy didn’t bother trying to nod. “Nothin’ hurts. It’s great.”

“Well I won’t keep you long, I just need to ask a few questions and then you can go back to resting, okay?”

“Mmhmm.” The scorpion mumbled softly and did her best to focus her one working eye to the ant’s face. “I’ll try.”

“That’s all I’m asking for. Do you remember how you were abducted?” Xena had a quill and a tablet ready to take notes. “Take your time and try to remember what you can, okay?”

Poppy mulled over the question for a while, and started speaking. “I was at my flower shop in...in Deepnest. Some Hallownest bug came in...I asked if they wanted flowers...I grow flowers by the way and make them into arrangements. It’s nice.”

Xena nodded, knowing full well that she was on some of those good painkillers, and would probably will go off into tangents. “What kinda bug came in?”

“It was that um….beetle. Yes, that beetle. From...the place.” Poppy swallowed thickly, “Where they were...were...hurting me…”

“Don’t worry about him, he can’t hurt you anymore.” The ant put as much conviction as she could muster into her voice. “He won’t be hurting anyone else, after today.”

“Good,” She wheezed a little, catching her breath.

“What did the beetle want from you?” Xena pressed gently. “I think I could wager a guess but I need to hear it from you.”

“He uh...he asked to buy my venom...and I told him I sell flowers, not venom! It was weird...and creepy , and its against the law cause um...uh...it’s dangerous. You hafta have a license to get some and you get it from the...oh...what do you call it…” The scorpion hrmed to herself. “Oh I can’t remember, it’s the place where you can get dangerous stuff if you are a uh...professional? Scientist?”

“A supplier is what I think you mean. Where controlled substances can be given out dependent on research or medical use.”

“Yes! That! Well he got mad and started saying something about the fate of bug kind and how there was monsters in Hallownest? He said I should work with them to save everyone and I told him to leave cause I’m just a flower bug. And then something hit me on the back of my head.” She reached up with a free arm to touch the back of her bandaged head. It looked like a mess when she was first found and Xena was glad that Poppy couldn’t feel any pain right now.

“Then I woke up all tied up and the beetle was there with some other people. He said that I was going to help them get rid of the monsters and I told them I wouldn’t! Then they...they….” She sniffled, her eye tearing up.

“Then they hurt you and forcibly took your venom.” Xena knew when to stop asking questions. Poppy was starting to get a little upset, and she felt awful that she even had to bring up what happened to her so soon. But, she had to get this down for the record, and it was better to do it now while Poppy wasn’t in physical pain than wait and do it later.

Poppy nodded in response. “Mmhmm. I don’t know how long I was there.”

“That’s okay, Right now what I need from you is to rest and get better, okay? We’ll send word to your Queen and Princess and they’ll probably send someone over to help you home once you are well enough to travel.”

“Okay...thank you.” Poppy sighed. She wasn’t going to be able to stay awake anyway with the meds she was on and was quickly falling back into the realm of dreams. “There'll...be someone outside...right? Watching?”

“There are, I promise.” Xena nodded. “Nobody will let you get hurt again.”

“Mhmm...thanks…” Poppy fell asleep, a combination of reassurance and the ‘good stuff’. Xena took a bit of time to make sure she was comfortable, and then left the room. She glanced at the two guardsmen stationed outside.

“Nobody gets in that isn’t a Knight, the King, or Monomon, got it?”

They both saluted and stayed in place.

“Good...now excuse me, I have someone to see.”

She turned and headed towards the holding cells. The cells were kept underground, and as she descended the stairs she began to hear the annoying sound of metal scraping together. There was the sound of someone loudly complaining before descending into shrieks as the scraping got louder. She took a moment to rub her eyes and sighed, locking the gate behind her and stepping into the corridor.

Tiso was just sitting there, making god awful noises as he happily ran a fork over a metal plate. He was making sure to press extra hard, making terrible squeaking noises that made Xena’s antenna twitch under her helmet. The ex-noble within the cell was close to tears, looking around to Xena as soon as he saw her.

“Oh, oh bless you. Please! Please make him stop!” The jewel beetle was in the dirtiest cell they had, tear tracks marking his face and generally looking disheveled. He crawled to the bars on his knees, gripping the bars with shaky hands. “Please! It hurts!”

“I’m not even doing anything! I’m trying to serenade you with my beautiful music, you uncultured bastard.” Tiso scraped the fork loudly and it set the hairs on her carapace standing up and the beetle to cry out in pain. “It’s not my fault you can’t appreciate artistic talent. Frankly, I’m insulted.”

“That’s enough for now, Tiso.” Xena sighed and dug out her keys. “Monomon needs this guy and she’s going to be pissed if we’re late.”

“Oh?” He casually tossed the dishes to the side. “Going to be testing the antidote then?”

“Testing the what now?” The beetle looked around, confused.

“Most likely, yeah.” Xena ignored the beetle. “Now that she has a pure sample of the poison as well, she thinks she’ll know for sure if the antidote is legit or not after a couple hours.”

“Hours?” Said beetle was rapidly turning pale as he realized what was about to happen.

“Did I fucking stutter?” Xena snarled, opening the cell door. “Get your ass out here or else I’ll drag you out.”

“You can’t do that to me! I’m Lord Maximus Pennington Chrysoch the third!” They tried to dodge her hands, but she was too fast. She seized him by the wrists and began to bodily drag him out.

“I don’t give a fuck who you are! A traitor is a traitor to me.” She looked to Tiso. “Help me drag this sack of shit to Monomon and then you can take a break.”

“Hells yeah!” He jumped up, grabbing the free wrist of the condemned and hauled them to their feet. “Think I’ll have time to head to the museum to see Myla?” The beetle started wibbling and sobbing, but was completely ignored.

“Eh, take Cloth with you and you all can have an hour together. You’ll have to be back at a reasonable time though, we need all hands on deck with this situation.”

“Yeah I got ya. Thanks.” Tiso was noticeably happier, cheerfully dragging the sobbing beetle down the corridor and to their fate. He didn’t care what happened to them, all he could think about now was finally getting to smooch his girlfriends.

---

Monomon arrived outside the door to the royal suite, a capped syringe gripped gently but firmly in her tentacles. As soon as the antidote proved to actually work, and not just be another poison, she rushed as quickly as she could to the top floor. Hollow was standing guard outside of the room and nodded to her. Seeing that there wasn’t time for chit chat, she attempted to open the door.

To her surprise, it was blocked off. She looked at the knob, confused, and tried to push again. “What’s going on here?”

Hollow chirped to get her attention, and signed. <”Father is in there. I think he is sitting in front of the door.”>

“Mato? Of course he would.” She knocked on the door. “Mato! It’s Monomon!”

There was a shuffle from the other side, and the door was pulled open to indeed reveal the Nailmaster. He seemed rather rough looking, he must have booked it from the Howling Cliffs as fast as he could. “Monomon,” he nodded, and stood out of the way.

She floated inside to see what was going on, eyes immediately going to the nest that took up a good portion of the room.

Ghost was cuddled around Quirrel, doing their best to hold him in a way that would hopefully reassure him that someone was watching over him, but not tight enough to harm him. Quirrel was still unconscious, breathing heavily and shivering and once in a while his nerves would shudder, making him twitch and spasm. Ghost was already awake, no doubt hearing the door open. They looked at her, the dark fathomless eyes behind their mask tired and fearful. Their eyes darted from the door to the syringe held in her tentacle.

“Is that…” Their voice was so small and weak, but there was a bloom of hope behind it that Monomon could feel.

“Yes.” She drifted closer and uncapped the syringe. “We have it.”

They sat up quickly. “What do you want me to do?”

“Hold one of his arms still, I don’t want the needle to break if he has a spasm while injecting him.” She checked over the syringe, going over the calculations in her head one more time. She had already triple checked everything, but it wouldn't hurt to check it one more time. Ghost sat up, pulling Quirrel into their lap and used their lower set of arms to cradle him, and the top set to grasp an arm and hold it straight. Quirrel continued to shiver, making a raspy noise of discomfort from being moved.

“Good, like that.” With Ghost holding him, it was easy for her to find the joint in his elbow and sterilize it. Then, she injected the antidote slowly, watching the liquid within disperse into his hemo system.

“There…it should take effect soon.” She deposited the used needle in a box she carried to be sterilized later. “We may not notice a difference at first, but within half an hour he should be more comfortable.”

Ghost kept Quirrel in their embrace, resting their chin on his head and tucking him up close. “Thank you.” They said, moving slightly to adjust themselves. Monomon watched them tilt their head slightly, listening to his breathing as he continued to wheeze.

“How did you get that?” Mato had stayed back to let her do her thing, but now that there wasn’t any needles involved, he approached the nest again.

“A combination of work from the Great Knights, good old science, and some very helpful mandatory volunteers.”

“That’s fucking terrifying.” Mato took a step away from her.

“It’s what they deserved. They at least did something useful with their lives instead of just being executed.”

“How many prisoners are left?” Ghost’s mental voice was whisper quiet, as though they were scared that they were going to disturb Quirrel’s rest.

“I’m not sure. Tiso has the numbers. The ring leader is still alive, he was the lucky one who tested the antidote. What are you going to do about them?”

Ghost was silent for a moment, idly smoothing back Quirrel’s antenna as he lay in their embrace. “I think I will wait for Quirrel to weigh in on it all. He was...the most hurt.”

“He wasn’t the only one hurt,” Monomon drifted down to the floor to sit, curling her tentacles under herself. “There was another victim who is thankfully alive. You’ll have a report on that soon, but you may want to keep her in mind too, as well as yourself and my son.”

“It seems like the best thing to do is to let them stew in their own fear and guilt until you have a chance to deal with them.” Mato also sat, leaning against the wall. “They are not going to have any type of peace as long as they are down there with Tiso at the same time.”

Ghost actually chirped a laugh at that. “That is true.”

As they conversed, Ghost noticed Quirrel subtly shift a little over the course of twenty so odd minutes. His twitching was definitely dying down, leaving him still for the first time since he was poisoned. They could hear his breath change as well, the raspy wheeze was getting smoother and less labored. It would be a while before he was back to normal, but just being able to actually rest was something sorely needed for the pillbug.

“He’s doing better.” The vessel sagged in relief, tears once again welling up in their eyes. “He can breathe now.”

Monomon floated up from her position on the floor and placed a tentacle on the pillbug's forehead. She felt it for a moment before she spoke. “His fever has gone down.”

“He’ll be okay now, right? He’ll be okay?” Ghost shivered, black streaks dripping from their eyes as they pulled Quirrel closer to their chest.

“Yes Ghost, he’ll be okay.”

Ghost broke down into tears, a combination of relief, love, and the bitter fear of loss. Once they started they couldn’t stop, the emotional dam had broken. The sheer stress they had been bundling up for the past two days refused to be ignored any longer. Thick, choking sobs filled the room as they held their husband close. He’ll be okay, they won’t have to say goodbye so soon. They knew one day they would have to, but for now, he’ll be okay. He’ll live and they can continue to share the love that never ran out in their heart. He’ll be okay.

Mato and Monomon both embraced them, and for once, they let their family help them carry the huge amount of stress and emotions swirling around in their void. They kept repeating that simple phrase to themselves, over an over, to keep them grounded in the here and now.

He’ll be okay.

---

Myla hummed to herself as she looked over a crystal in her claws. She turned it around in the light, squinting through a monocular as she studied it’s structure. It was a beautiful fluorite specimen, still rough and unpolished. Broad bands of green, purple, and blues swirled around the stone in a rainbow of colors. She just needed to do a little cleanup on it and then it would be ready for display.

She looked at the basket of rocks on the floor next to her work station, all of them mined and found by her. She was pretty proud that she didn’t lose her knack for finding the beautiful and unusual. The infection left her unable to mine professionally anymore, but she had enough energy to go on little expeditions, following her heart as she explored the corners of the kingdom.

Of course, she didn’t go alone. Either Tiso or Cloth would come with her, keeping her protected as she jumped into holes to hack away at the rocks. She wasn’t very strong, but she can still knee cap people who threaten her, and she keeps her pickaxe nice and sharp. It was fun! Especially when she could spend the time with her partners.

She sighed, she hadn’t seen Tiso and Cloth for several days now. She knew what happened, the whole kingdom knew by now. She knew they had important work to do, but she still missed them.

As if the universe was listening to her thoughts, there was a knock on her office door. She glanced at her clock, it was about time for lunch. Maybe it was a coworker asking if she’d like something?

“Come in!” She called.

The door opened, and to her delight, her two knights tried to squeeze their way inside at the same time. Tiso gasped, smushed up against the door frame as Cloth tried to force her massive bulk through, getting equally wedged in.

“Cloth! Back up!” Tiso kicked his legs that were a good foot of the ground. The force of the attempt to beat Cloth inside had angled his body upwards to get stuck on the frame, one arm free and trying to pull himself free.

“No! You back up!” She retorted, trying to squeeze her shoulders in. “I want to kiss her first!”

“Like hell you -wheeze-” Tiso started going a little blue, a stark contrast to his black shell as he got squashed harder.

Myla never in her whole life, expected that she’d ever be a girl that someone would fight over, let alone two. She knew they were just playing around and joking with their fake little rivalry thing, it was endearing, but sometimes Cloth forgot her own strength. She remembered once when Cloth gave Tiso a ‘gentle’ punch to the arm and accidentally sent him through the window.

“How about both of you back out, and I’ll come to you?”

Cloth and Tiso looked at each other. Cloth nodded and with some effort, pulled herself back and out of the door-frame. Tiso, no longer supported, just fell on the ground and wheezed for breath. Cloth helpfully picked him up and set him on his feet again and dusted off his armor.

Myla giggled, bouncing forward to leap at the two of them and was caught into a three way hug. It was a happy moment of hugs and little smooches that was sorely needed after days of being apart. “I’m so glad you two are here!”

“Unfortunately, we only got a short amount of time, then we have to go back.” Cloth replied, sounding very apologetic.

“Yeah...we still got idiots to process.” Tiso took the time to give them both a nuzzle. “Duty calls and all that.”

“That’s okay, I’m just glad you’re here for now!” Myla wriggled to escape the hug, and promptly headed back inside the office. “I processed some new minerals if you’d like to take a look!”

“Of course we would!” Tiso booked it to the door.. and ended up getting wedged in again when Cloth tried to get in at the same time. This time it was worse, because Cloth didn’t put her club down first, and Myla could hear the wood creaking under the strain of it all. She rubbed the back of her head as she watched them both struggle.

She wondered if she should just have a second door put in.

---

It felt like ages since Grimm started talking, telling Quirrel of fantastical worlds both old and new. It was fascinating, hearing of so many places that were different and unique. For the most part Quirrel listened, asking a question here and there. It seemed like the Nightmare King had visited the places Quirrel had during his wanderings on the surface world, and offered some interesting insight to things he may have missed.

“It seems our time is nearly up.” Grimm folded his claws together under his chin, looking at the pill bug who sat in front of him. He had just finished telling Quirrel about a colorful world with a legend of an eternal sprout that was constantly being searched for. “You will need to wake up soon.”

“Really?” Quirrel leaned back in his chair and poked himself a couple times. “If I’m well enough now to wake up, how come I don’t feel any different?”

“It’s because your mind is protecting itself. You won’t feel pain while in a dream. I can however, change that aspect if it is a nightmare, but I have no reason to do so here.” Grimm gave him a sinister grin, exposing many needle sharp teeth, but Quirrel wasn’t afraid.

“Thanks.” Quirrel sighed, and put down his cup. As soon as it hit the table, it began to dissolve into essence, floating away in motes of white and red. In fact, it seemed like everything that wasn’t Grimm or himself was beginning to look blurry and grainy.

“I am not going to lie. You will most likely be in for a lot of pain once you awaken, but you must wake up.” Grimm looked to the side and off to the distance, watching the walls of the cozy room fade into white. “But you will live.”

“Will we ever get to chat again sometime? Despite the circumstances, I quite enjoyed our conversation. It would be nice to revisit it sometime.”

Grimm smiled softly, hiding his wicked looking teeth once again. “Of course we will.”

“Great!” Quirrel watched the last motes of color leave the dream, leaving nothing but a white, featureless void. Somehow they were still sitting, despite the lack of anything coherent around them. “Hrm...how do I wake up then?”

“Oh, that’s easy.” Grimm laughed, his voice distorting and echoing, as though retreating backwards. “You /[Quirrel]/ just need to /open[ed]/ your /[his] eyes./”

Suddenly, he was awake.... and he hated it.

Quirrel’s first thought was a mess of confusion. He had managed to open his eyes, a jarring jump from the dream world to reality. It was easy, but hard at the same time.

What Quirrel managed to see through his stinging eyes was nothing but a blurry mess of darkness and shapes. As soon as his brain caught up with the rest of his body, a deep sharp ache radiated from within his core, spreading all the way to the tips of his limbs. It felt like he tried to cuddle an ooma and paid the price for it. He had no idea how, but even his mandibles hurt. At least Grimm warned him, but it still sucked.

He could tell he was lying on something soft and warm at least. Wriggling his antenna (with a wince, cause how the fuck is his antenna sore too!?!) slightly gave him the usual smells of his home in the palace. His mind was still a little foggy, so when he detected three other people around him, he wasn’t quite sure who they were at first. It was silent, so he couldn’t identify anyone by voices. He was exhausted. Everything hurt. Breathing hurt. Having his eyes open hurt. It sucked and he resolved to complain about it soon enough. He had no clue what happened other than 1. he got poisoned and 2. he got sick from it.

What he needed right now, was his spouse. They probably knew what the hell happened and could fill him in on what he missed. He didn’t even know how long he was out for. It didn’t seem so long while he conversed with Grimm, but he suspected that time doesn’t really hold all that much meaning in a dream. He moved, at least, he tried to, gasping in pain as his hand squeezed something hard and slender. He nearly jumped out of his chitin when something squeezed back. A shape moved in front of his vision, a blurry mess of white that seemed to shine in the darkness.

“Quirrel?” The voice was tinged with the feeling of hope as it whispered through his head. He knew that voice, and he relaxed.

“Hello, love,” he wheezed. His throat was dry and scratchy and he coughed on his words. He closed his eyes for a moment as the blur moved and tripped his sense of vertigo. He heard a chirp in response before he was being hauled upright and held with four arms. The sudden movement flipped his stomach around and he groaned in response. “Ugh…”

“I’msorryi’msorryi’msorry.” He was being peppered with kisses all over his face as a soft whining noise emitted from a throat that was voiceless. He managed to lift up a shaking hand to rest it on the side of Ghost’s face, happy he didn’t accidentally poke them in the eyes since he couldn't see. He rubbed them as well as he could, struggling with the effort of keeping his arm up.

“It’s alright... dear…” It was difficult to talk, he had to stop and take a breath between each word. As much as he loved kisses, it was starting to overwhelm him, so he tried to soothe his spouse. “I’m fine.”

“You are not fine. I...I…” There was another wheezing sob and he was thankfully nuzzled instead of kissed. “You could have died.”

“Heh...heh...like you could...get rid of me...that easy.” He dropped his arm, no longer able to keep it up. His hand was captured in one of Ghost’s, and they rubbed it gently. “I plan to...be around...for much longer…You couldn’t...keep me away...if you tried…” He was losing his voice and he swallowed with a wince. He opened his eyes again, it was still blurry, but he could see clearer shapes. A blob of green and a blob of red was approaching, mixing together as he struggled to focus.

“Here you are, my dear.” A glass of water was placed in his free hand and encircled with a tentacle. “Sip slowly.”

“Hi mom…” He knew what his mom felt like, how she always had this sort of static energy around her, like you could get a good zap if you pissed her off. The same tentacle that used to rock him to sleep at night when he was a pip helped him drink and he gratefully swallowed down the water. It was absolute bliss. He may be king, but all the finery in the world couldn’t compare to that nice cold glass of water.

“You gave us a hell of a scare, how are you feeling?” Oh, that must have been Mato. It made sense that he would be here. The blurs of red mixed with gray and was certainly big enough to be the Nailmaster. They moved to stand closer to Ghost...at least he thinks they did. It was hard to tell for the moment.

“Hurts.” Quirrel could have lied but his mother was right there and she would have no trouble putting him in the corner for it. “All over. Hard to see.”

“I figured as much,” Monomon was still holding the glass of water for him, and another tentacle bumped against his mandibles. “Open up, I have something for the pain.”

He did just that, letting the pills go down with another few swallows of water. He imagined that he should feel hungry or something too, but he just didn’t feel like it. She must have sensed the question because she continued talking.

"Let’s wait for half an hour and see if you can handle some soup, okay?”

Quirrel nodded with a sigh. He was awake but tired again, it was rather frustrating. He closed his eyes again, letting them rest as he just laid there and breathed. He could feel the medicine begin to work, a numb tingling working down his limbs and into his core. Soon, every movement didn’t result in pain, and he managed to sit up a little. Ghost helped, sitting so that his back could rest against this chest and belly.

“What happened?” It seemed like a sensible question to ask. He was not surprised that Ghost was the one to answer.

“There was an assassination attempt and you were poisoned by the nail that cut you. The Great Knights led an investigation and arrested the ringleader and several members of the group. They are still investigating, but they are confident they caught most to all of them. You were unconscious for almost three days.”

“Three days?!” Quirrel raised his voice at that. Three whole days? As in seventy two hours?

“Yes, three days.” Monomon piped up. “If it makes you feel any better, half the kingdom has been keeping vigil outside, hoping that you would get better.”

Quirrel blinked in surprise. “Really?”

“She isn’t lying.” Mato was the next to say something, his voice moving around the room. “I nearly had to fight my way inside, there were so many people out there.”

Quirrel...didn’t know how to feel about that. On one hand, he didn’t feel like he was a person who would warrant a three day vigil, and on the other, he was touched and humbled. He had always been a bug who was fairly social and had a lot of friends, but to have that many bugs sitting around and waiting for news about him...it was astonishing. It must mean that he is doing something right.

“You two need rest,” Mato continued. “Ghost? There’s a pot of soup in the icebox, just warm it up. I’ll go out and tell the masses that things are okay so they can go home.”

“That is a good idea.” Ghost leaned their head down to nuzzle Quirrel some more. “Thank you.”

“And you, my little scholar, are going to stay in bed.” Monomon added. “Strict bed rest until further notice, got it? I will know if you get out of bed, trust me.”

“Yes mom.” Quirrel believed her.

Soon, both parents departed, and once again the room was quiet, save for a soft rumbling. Quirrel realized that Ghost was purring as they cuddled against them. “Stay with me...for a little?” He asked. Now that their parents were gone, it felt strange, like he was a small thing in a sea of uncertainty. Most likely, it’s trauma from the experience, but he didn’t think he could stand being alone for very long now. Now that he was awake, he wanted to stay awake, but he doubts that his body will let him for long.

“I would never leave you,” came the reply. “Everything is on hold for now and will be for a little while.”

“You can’t just... shut down the government...love.” Quirrel chuckled. “Even though...I think most would...enjoy the vacation.”

“I am a king, I can do what I want. And if I want everyone to fuck off so I can care for my beloved husband who survived an attack on his life, I will make it so.” There was a hint of amusement in their voice as they gave him a nuzzle.

“What about...the assassins?” He would not be surprised if they were all dead by now, but he still wanted to know.

“The knights have them. We can talk about it later. I would rather kiss you and talk about how much I love you, if that’s okay.”

Quirrel managed a laugh as he relaxed against his spouse, feeling happy and full of love. “You know what? I would...like that very much.”

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thekrawratalksbnha · 3 years

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end of act two — the idealogical war: who won the bnha war and why? (aka everyone’s in pain but who is in more pain — me. liking the heroes and the villains is a tough life. also shouto — can someone please give that boy a proper hug, NOT YOU DABI)

so it looks like the war arc is finally beginning to wrap up and while a lot could still happen, let’s take a quick moment on reflect on what’s happened and try and figure out who is winning this war because uh, both sides have taken some pretty major hits.

going into this war arc, in general, things were looking pretty bad for the heroes from a technical standpoint. structurally, it feels like we’d hit the point that many stories hit — where the hero loses.

you can find this happening in most stories, where at some point the villain comes out on top and things get bad before they get better. it makes the story a bit more interesting because normally it gives us a chance to see heroes at their lowest of low points. give us a sense of who they are when the going really gets tough and how they’ll react or respond to it.

and it seemed that this war arc would be moment where the villains came out on top. so a lot of us bnha readers were expecting the worst: bracing for death flags, expecting to see some major casualties from the good guys, or watching the heroes be forced underground as villains take over japan. we braced for the worst.

however at this point, things are kind of balanced. both the heroes and villains have suffered casualties. while crust is the highest profile confirmed hero death we’ve gotten, many other heroes are currently MIA or their statuses unknown (in addition to some grave injuries in bakugou, deku, hawks, miriko, aizawa and endeavour — all of whom at this point are pretty certain to survive but also very injured). the villains have lost twice, ujirou has been captured and things aren’t looking great for machia. plus compress is injured and escape routes are becoming limited (although admittedly very few heroes are left standing to stop them at this point).

so it seems like a bit of a toss up: so does this war come down to whether or not the LOV escapes?

well physically maybe, but i want to take the chance to talk about the main war going on — the idealogical one.

because quite frankly, that’s the one that matters moving forward.

yes, while the worst might’ve happened and things are looking grim for the villains, i feel pretty confident in saying that the villains have won this fight.

in most stories when the villains “win”, its normally accompanied by victory in some sort of physical fight. but bnha seems like it might be resembling the flip side to that: the heroes “win” the fight, but at what cost?

because the villains didn’t need to win this fight physically to come out victorious. their goal is to destabilize hero society, to make the public doubt the heroes that protect them, to punish and tear down the corrupt hero system that put them all in the positions they were left in.

that’s what this fight was really, symbolically about. while it manifested in brawls between heroes and villains, fundamentally it was about the villain ideology vs hero society.

even if they heroes manage to capture shiggy, dabi, compress, spinner and machia. even if the heroes win that fight, dabi’s video and the sheer destruction and civilian casualties of this “war” might very well lead to the villains winning out.

the flaws in hero society has never been more prominent than they are now, with the number one’s son being revealed as part of the villain organization that has just caused mass destruction that the heroes failed to prevent, lead there by a childhood of abuse.

the heroes failed to protect the public and with dabi’s video, it seems like they fail to protect their own even. however this plays out, there’s no denying that the villains biggest hit wasn’t on any hero individually, but rather on hero society.

and the heroes have no space any more for an “I AM HERE” moment from anyone, i think the chances of them doing equal damage to the villain’s ideology is slim to none.

and it’s going to be very interesting to see the fallout for all this. the heroes are going to be forced to try and minimize damage, the discussion of what to publicly say about endeavour (which is a whole other conversation that i started to talk about here), and figure how to win back the public support. and that’s going to be hard, and maybe even impossible.

the heroes might still win the fight, but i doubt they’ll win the war here. image and public opinions are one of the most important part of heroics: bnha has brought it up time and time again with best jeanist, the hero rankings, mount lady’s lesson at ua. and now that’s in ruins. with the worst side of heroes now upfront and visible for the public to see, hero society could very well be on the verge of collapse.

just what the villains wanted.

(okay look i promise i’ll be back on my todoroki tangents real soon if that’s what you’re here for. its just a lot to process and i’m too busy crying about shouto to form any sort of coherent thought -- yes dabi it is no fun only pain for him and IM SAD. anyway, once those thoughts have any sort of coherency i’ll be todoroki tangenting away)

#bnha 294 #bnha #bnha manga #bnha manga spoilers #bnha spoilers #mha #mha spoilers #bnha war arc

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thewhitefluffyhat · 4 years

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Thoughts on Karin’s Magical Girl Story

Another collection of thoughts and reactions, plus analyzing some small changes the NA translation made (similar to the translation comparison I did for Alina’s MGS a while back).

Starting off with not a change, but an interesting note: Karin and Alina’s club situation is rather strange. Alina is the “outsider” from the Art Club, while Karin is part of the Manga Club. The classroom they share, though, doesn’t appear to be the main space for either club. I’d initially assumed that it was the room originally used for the Manga Club, but once Arc 2 updates these backgrounds...

It turns out this actually is an art classroom! I guess the school just has two?

First major change: Just like in Alina’s MGS, they removed direct references to Karin and Alina’s ages. The reference to Karin’s age at the start of the Magical Halloween Theater event was also changed.

(In JP here, Alina was said to have won a lot of different awards “for a 16 year old,” while Karin stated her age as 14 in the MHT event.)

Again, unsure of why the change, but it could be in order to fix the continuity issues. Because good lord, that continuity is snarled...

I think the order that makes the most sense is Karin MGS > Alina MGS > Magius forms > one year passes > MHT > Main Story Ch5 > Holy Alina’s MGS. In theory, then Karin should be 13 and Alina should be 15 in their Magical Girl Stories and then 14 and 16 in the present, but as mentioned that’s contradicted by the start of Karin’s MGS in the original Japanese.

There’s also the weirdness around when/how Karin learned Alina was a magical girl, since Karin seems aware of it in MHT, yet it’s unclear if she knows in Holy Alina’s MGS.

… Anyway, stuff like this is why I gave up on constructing a coherent timeline for Magia Record. There’s just too many continuity tangles. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

References to Karin being in her second year in middle school and the third years leaving – also changed. Probably because it’s both an uncommon way to refer to grades in English, and also, once again, another continuity issue. (If the third years left, why is Alina still there in one years’ time if she’s at least one grade ahead of Karin?)

Another change: some specifics in why Karin and Alina are in the same classroom together. In JP, it’s not specified who made the deal to let Alina use the room. If anything it seems like Karin is the one making a deal directly with Alina.

Which actually makes far more sense all around – why does “the school” care that Alina is giving informal lessons to some random kid?

And it makes more sense from Alina’s perspective too, in that it explains why she tolerates Karin constantly bothering her – putting up with Karin is explicitly the price she’s paying to Karin for using the space.

Oh boy, this. Karin having this mindset is why it took me so long to really ship AliKari. Because the dark undertone to “if only I improve, then surely Alina will treat me better” is that Karin is blaming herself when Alina is cruel to her. And that can very easily slide into an abusive relationship - if you don’t consider it one already.

Alina treating Karin decently should not be dependent on Karin’s art skill. Or anything else, for that matter. Full stop.

(Tangent time, including some Arc 2 spoilers)

What ultimately made me come around to AliKari is some of the early Arc 2 stuff, where Karin starts thinking the reason Alina disappeared is because Alina is mad at Karin for not improving. Karin’s explanation is spectacularly wrong, so I’m now more trusting that the game is implying that Karin’s mindset is going to change. That she’ll stop believing she’s at fault for Alina’s actions - and hopefully stand up to Alina too while she’s at it.

The other half of the equation is Alina, who as far as I can tell, is genuinely not interested in bullying Karin. She certainly has every opportunity to do so – especially given how her teacher punishes Karin for Alina’s behavior – but Alina never takes advantage of it. So while she is overly harsh and blunt about expressing her opinions to Karin, I don’t get the sense there is any manipulation underlying it. Indeed, very unusually for Alina, we also never see her enjoying or fantasizing about Karin’s pain or distress. She really, truly, just wants Karin to get better at art already!

Obviously, for any kind of relationship between the two to work, they would both need to undergo significant character development. But that’s the draw of AliKari – while other characters have stagnated (sigh, RikaRen), Alina and Karin are still some of the most dynamic characters in the game. And in general, the direction has been that despite starting out in a bad place (like Karin’s mindset above), they’re growing to become very positive influences on each other.

(End tangent)

Enjoying the extra cliches thrown in here and there, and in general how they translated Karin’s dramatics by adding additional cheesy and on-theme descriptions. Stuff like “dark and dreary night” or “cauldron of trouble” aren’t in the original Japanese, but they’re wonderfully in-character – honestly probably an improvement over the original!

Not a change, but more reminding myself that I really need to read Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne. I’m like 97% sure that’s what’s being referenced here – the plot description and even the comments Karin makes about “Phantom Thief Kirin” In her later Magic unlock quotes are all a very close match.

Interestingly enough, I’ve heard KKJ mentioned as an earlier dark magical girl series that Madoka Magica rips off. So it’s quite interesting to see it referenced again back in a PMMM property – I wonder which part of the creative team was responsible for this detail?

Hm, so, the subject and detail of Karin and Alina’s conversation in the middle differs between translations. In JP, the subject is vague, so the fan translation has Alina going off on an extended metaphor comparing the history of art to the protagonist of Karin’s manga. Meanwhile, in NA she just makes vague comments comparing her own growth as an artist.

I think I prefer the former - Alina usually doesn’t like talking about herself, but she sure loves to ramble about art history.

The translation I can find for the metaphor Karin’s grandmother uses here in JP renders it “barely able to keep a business going” - so did Karin’s grandmother possibly own a business herself? That’s a bit more interesting than just “struggled to make ends meet.”

Speaking of Karin’s grandmother, I really like her as a character. Her relationship with Karin is really sweet - I mean, how often do you see a teenage girl and an older woman being fans of something together? It happens in real life plenty of times, but it’s so rare to see this kind of interaction represented in fiction.

And it’s nice to see an example of mental illness being treated as just that – an illness. I especially like that there’s consent to the cure – Grandma outright says she wishes to be cured, rather than Karin deciding as such on her own. (As Karin is often wont to do…)

This is a fun illustration of how Alina has a very strong internal logic to her, but she’s really terrible at communicating it to other people.

Karin, naturally, takes Alina’s comment here as an exceptionally mean thing to say – it sounds like Alina is callously implying the thing Karin worked so hard on was so bad it wasn’t even worth Alina’s time to destroy, so she’s making Karin suffer even more in having to destroy it herself.

And the way Alina elaborates makes it quite clear that yes, she did mean to call Karin’s work garbage. This isn’t Alina having difficulty with Japanese or English.

But while Alina’s sense of taste can be quite sadistic, I don’t think that’s what she was aiming for here. Remember that Alina believes that “only the artist themselves has the right to destroy their work.” So this is actually Alina acknowledging Karin’s work as art, and therefore only Karin has the right to rip it up.

And why rip it up? Because whenever Alina finds her own work unsatisfactory, she destroys it. Hence Alina’s question at the end of this little back-and-forth:

If Karin doesn’t want to rip up her manga, then according to Alina’s logic, that means she must be happy and satisfied with it. But even Alina can tell that Karin is still unsatisfied and lying to herself, hence Alina’s frustration and confusion at Karin not destroying her work.

Another timeline note: Alina doesn’t lie, and even if she did, she doesn’t have a ring here. So I think it’s pretty settled that Karin’s MGS takes place before Alina learned about magical girls.

Oh huh. In NA, Alina thinks she’ll be the one in trouble if Karin isn’t ready. In the fan translation I’m used to, it seems like Alina is saying she’d just be mad herself… but I think NA has it right here. (In the original JP, Alina is using the passive form of “get angry” without a subject.)

Both work, but the impression NA gives with both this change and the earlier one is that someone at the school is basically putting Alina in charge of supervising Karin. Which… what the hell, Sakae Academy?

Going back a bit, Alina’s advice and its effect on Karin is interesting. One of Karin’s flaws really is that she makes excuses for herself and only half-commits, so Alina pushing her to think about what she truly wants and work hard to get it was genuinely what Karin needed to hear at the time.

However, Alina is also an obsessive perfectionist that tends to push herself to very clearly unhealthy levels…

So it’s rather fitting that on following Alina’s advice, Karin ends up pushing herself into doing something very dangerous: insisting on fighting a witch alone even though Kaede tries to get her to retreat. Karin is so determined she’s risking her life to fulfill her goal – something Alina would no doubt approve of. But also a great illustration of why Alina and her advice is flawed too.

Which, come to think of it, is part of why Karin and Alina’s MGS actually form a nice pair of complementary short stories. If you read them in chronological(?) / original JP release order, you first get to see how Alina helps Karin to grow as a person, and if you think hard about it, you can kind of see foreshadowing for Alina’s own issues. Then in Alina’s MGS, you get confirmation of that foreshadowing about Alina, and furthermore, the payoff to Karin’s development with her now being the one to give Alina some hard-hitting advice.

#magia record #misono karin #alina gray #alikari #magia record analysis #my ramblings #na translation changes #magia record na #magia record jp #read more

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questionablygourmet · 3 years

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Hi, I love the realistic view in your Hannigram fantics. Do you think Will has a slightly slutty nature? No offence, I know he is starved for a touch and all, but he goes with any opportunity that occures. How does it work when he is on the autistic spectrum?

Hi, anon, and thank you :)

It took me a bit of time to figure out how to approach this question, because while I happily join in on jokingly calling both Will and Hannibal “murder thotts/sluts,” etc. with the fandom, the only variation on the word “slut” I use in my serious personal lexicon is when discussing “slut-shaming” as a phenomenon. “Slut/slutty” are imprecise words that exist primarily to offer derogatory commentary on someone’s sexual promiscuity/availability, and I don’t believe in doing that outside of certain obviously-humorous contexts. So I’m not going to seriously discuss whether or not the word “slutty” applies to anyone at all. But! I’m entirely happy to talk about specific characters’ relationships with intimacy, and there’s certainly plenty to discuss there for Will.

I think one of the most salient details of Will’s characterization in terms of how he connects (or doesn’t) with other people is something I’ve talked about more than once before, and that’s how aloof he is by default. His stance toward the majority of humanity is that he’d really just like to be left the hell alone as much as possible. We see that in both his dialogue (explicitly talking about his sociability or lack thereof) and his behavior (standoffishness/discomfort when people he’s not close to seek him out, living alone, never voluntarily attending social events, etc.). Even with Alana, whom we know he likes and at one point has at least some romantic interest in, he only seeks her out once, when he calls her to help him search for the injured animal he thought he heard. (Hannibal of course is the notable exception; even setting aside the obviously-agenda-laden instances that take place in s2, Will seeks him out quite a lot!)

Bedelia’s description of Hannibal’s stance toward intimacy (paraphrased - you build walls and want to see if someone is clever enough to climb over them) can just as easily be applied to Will - appropriately enough, since the singular nature of their relationship with one another is one of the central emotional arcs of the show!

The difference is that in Will’s case, most of the time he would really like to be able to be close to other humans in a more normative, socially-acceptable way. So he kisses Alana (notably, as Hannibal points out, at a time when he’s panicking and seeking out any grip on something that feels normal and stable) after she shows up unannounced to his house and has spent half a season low-key flirting with him. He accepts Margot’s and Chiyoh’s physical advances, despite those being full of ulterior motive (which he’s almost certainly aware of, to varying degrees). (The situation with Margot is probably deserving of its own whole essay, honestly.) We don’t know what the beginning of his relationship with Molly looks like, but I think the most likely scenario there involves Molly being the main initiator, particularly given that Will’s probably at the very nadir of feeling like he’s fit for normal human company coming off friggen’ Digestivo (and the subsequent trial, etc).

Anyway, there’s a lot of possible interpretations of what, exactly, Will is thinking and feeling and wanting out of these connections (of whatever degree) that we see on-screen. But I think the most coherent summary is that it’s mostly about him generally wanting to be able to identify and relate to other people in a normative, safe sort of way. I think it’s only very incidentally about sexual intimacy, in particular, because as a youngish, conventionally-attractive man (who, if not comfortable with being social, certainly understands other humans enough to be able to say and do the right things when he’s motivated to), sex would not be difficult for him to get, if that was something he was motivated by. But instead, his overall pattern is a very strong one of self-isolation, which mostly gets broken when someone else bothers to do so - which he’s receptive to*, sure, but it’s also notable that in each case we see happen on-screen, there’s already a pretty intense pre-existing intimacy link in place (which is, amusingly, Hannibal, in two out of three cases :P).

As for how this relates (or really, doesn’t) to him being autistic - autistic people run the gamut of attitudes toward intimacy of all kinds. There is some data suggesting that autistic people are more likely to be various flavors of queer than allistics, but that’s not very specific, nor is it at all deterministic. I would say (and to some extent, in not so many words, have said before) that Will’s caution with other people and difficulty relating in socially-normative ways are very relatable from an autistic perspective, but that has very little to do with attitudes toward sex and/or sexual availability. Autistics can be Kinsey 0 or Kinsey 6 or anything in between, sex-repulsed ace to hyper-sexual or anything in between, binary cis or trans or anything in between, etc.

I hope this answers your question!

*There’s another amusing-to-me analysis angle here, which other people have talked about in various contexts before for both Will and Hannibal, and that’s the gender roles thing. Will’s pattern of being receptive to others’ advances rather than being the “aggressor” is a bit of coding that he has much more in common with romantic heroines than with your typical (especially American) male protagonist. But that, like other things, is worth many essays in its own right, so I won’t go off on too much of a tangent here.

#will graham #meta #my meta #headcanons #i'm also amused regarding the gender angle in the sense that #in context of male protags of multiseason TV in general #will is positively chaste #Anonymous

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crossxskulled · 3 years

Text

Mailing chocolates, it seemed, was too impersonal. The Japanese tradition was to give them in person, was it not? And as a surprise, at that. That left Sonia with only one option. She would have to give Ryuji the Valentine’s Day treats she’d arranged herself and with little explanation as to why she needed to meet him that day. Hopefully, he wouldn’t ask too many questions about why she wanted to meet in one of Shibuya’s parks, as opposed to the usual convenience stores and inexpensive restaurants they often visited. She didn’t think it was right to bring such gifts to a dining establishment and she certainly couldn’t visit his home. Thankfully, Haru had been a wonderful help correcting the Princess of Novoselic some of the cultural implications that, at home, would have been a non-issue.

“I hope this wasn’t too terribly inconvenient for you, and I’m not sure if you even like these really,” Sonia began, surprising herself by dancing around the point she was trying to make. At least she spoke clearly and smiled through it all. “But I hope you accept these Valentine’s Day chocolates. Happy Valentine’s Day, Ryuji-san!”

Inside the golden yellow box and coordinating bow, rows of pyramid-shaped dark chocolate candies and round milk chocolate truffles were neatly arranged. The dark chocolates were filled with dark chocolate ganache and liquid fondant to be tiny lava chocolates that would ooze upon biting past the outer shell. But the milk chocolates were filled with chocolate-hazelnut filling, far less messy, and rolled in crushed macadamia nuts. “I remember you telling me about your class trip to Hawaii, the one you seemed to quite enjoy with your friends! I’ve never been myself, but I thought a chocolate volcano and macadamia nuts might remind you of a wonderful time.”

___________________________

☠ - Time managed to bleed through his hands despite a shift of a holiday, hardly slowing, rather, keeping that same pace of trickling sands while he pushed through his training on this day. Motivation and a return to old form blew the blonde’s mind in ways he could’ve of perceived. So what better day to productively blow all that energy than at the gym? Through the help of his old coach and upperclassmen by the name of Ikeda, a regimen that remains rigorous, reward and perfect for warding off the rust across his body’s specifics was the goal for this Valentine’s day.

Gaining a small bounty of friendship chocolate had been a unforeseen boon that only made him double down. Seeing the smiling faces of those knuckleheads had been too much of a damn treat not to do anything less. (Taking Yusuke out to get a good meal as a miniature get-together had also fit into that equation.)

If only he could’ve known why Haru kept such a doting voice of knowing in her town. Ryuji simply brushed it off as a means of her being jovial in the atmosphere, enjoying the time no different than he had.

One text message however completely altered the route of his plans like a fork in the river. Business was business and his partners at the gym kindled a brand of training related friendship. So of course knowing the season, there he was being tacked on out with a number of teases, especially seeing how February serves as the season for some to shoot their shot, couples to get more couple-y, while some managed to romanticize facets of romance to make the world look a touch more sunshine and rainbows.

‘Too bad’ that with a huff and a laugh, he’d call them all some bastards after he freshened up, changed, and rolled out back to the busy streets. Like a bolt amidst a mass of sky,. he’s nimble and dedicated to his beeline, wading his way through the day filled with either saturated hopes or the jaded atmosphere as Inokashira Park remains the place to meet with a girl who’s pleasantly been in his thoughts. Just thinking of a touch of their previous ventures makes a chuckle rumble in his chest.

Oh yeah. There sure as hell was a good deal of memories they’ve made since their arrangement while having a blooming friendship.

“Yo, Sonia!” His cheerful voice would soon call as the scenery of an opened sky is replaced with the natural roofing of branches and trees. That had caught her attention, leading to them catching eyes and suddenly having her.. look a touch bashful? Or maybe that skittered in his imagination. Just being met with a soft nod while she balanced something in her hands was a little weird? Here he was much more adjusted to a upbeat prestige or the excitable questions to explore a world that cast refined inclination to the side.

”My bad it took me a lil longer than usual to hop on the scene here.” He begins, grunting in distaste at his tardiness. “The short notice caught me att middle up at the gymmmm-- ah ah, not that it’s a big deal or anything!” That definitely had to be set once she made mentions of inconvenience! Heading out for someone he cares for always had a priority even if there were routine plans for a day. ...And now that he’s getting a better look at this whole situation. Wasn’t that introduction of her’s a touch too kind while she swayed a bit in her spot? Once their eyes met with a gentle glare of sunlight remaining in between, the answer soon arrives, dressed up in an ornate box that makes his eyes pop open a deal wider while unceremoniously dropping that duffel bag of his to the ground.

Unexpected? Unexpected. Somehow that mind of his couldn’t translate the moment at hand while his eyes shoot open like saucers at the ornate box she presents between them both! Seeing that particular design as if she plucked this from the lap of luxury... That made the ticker within his chest speed on up, for real. ‘Wha wha wha.. Whoa! Hold on! Am I seein’ this right!? I.. She had plans of hauling some of these to me?! People usually just roll these out in the hand bags! But this.. I-’ Any other thoughts failed to meet the mark of coherency as he could only stop, stare, and just drink in the view of that familiar smile and the presented box set before him.

Soon a pair of mildly shaky hands would come to take it. No longer was it the aftermath of a good workout that supplied such heat, nor the hot shower taken before making his way on down here. The act in offering this gift itself had burned a fuzzy brand of energy through him while his fingers braced upon the box and drew it a touch closer. Naturally too curious for his own good, this led him to a world of intricate design, for chocolate of all the damn things! Being a more modest and moderate fan had left him ignorant to the designs outside of chocolate bars to bats and eyes on the Halloween days.

Seeing the spread while hearing the story began to tack so many of the pieces together. Antsy thoughts were quelled by the truth of her intentions, the inspiration as to why they’re designed this way and kindness shuffled into each and every one. Had she really been thinking that deeply over one of their past times while getting this fixed up?

So to see Sonia place that much care into him causes a soft sensation to well up as the dominate point of feeling. Settled upon his face was a genuine look of contentment swirled together with a touch of gratitude. “You.. Really went through a damn lot, huh? I mean.. Look at these! So frickin’ cool and designed like people draw with chocolate!” His enthusiasm instantly takes the charge while he glosses over them, taking a touch longer to notice how the play of positioning also added to that! This for sure got a ‘Yoooooooooooo!’ strained from his lips as his eyes instantly sparkled with joy.

”Almost doesn’t make me wanna eat ‘em.. Almost! Maybe I can keep a few for a touch longer and..” Noticing that his delight might’ve had him going on a small tangent made him a touch self-conscious, causing him to seize up while a soft laughter escapes from him. If it wasn’t clear from his expression alone within their momentary getaway of the park’s atmosphere, Ryuji here was really pleased with the gift. ..To the point that somehow the whole Valentine aspect hadn’t reigned as the highest mark of importance.

Spending some more time with her instinctively feels like the best bet in his eye. Taking good care in the way he closes the box, the dropped bag is quickly swiped up before he makes a charged point to one of the sites of scenery appreciating seating off to the side.

“In that case! You sure as hell unlocked a route to some more funny stories! C’mon- how about we try some of these together while we kick back for a while?”

....

“Oh and uh.” This much would be said as they pressed off to the selected spot. “Happy Valentines Day to ya too, Sonia. Thanks for this..”

Today would be another one filled with fun promise.

#more-than-a-princess #submission #| Keepsakes #D'AW THIS WAS SWEET #And much thanks for the send in!

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reggierightsactivism · 3 years

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do you think we would see any type of romance for Reggie at all this season considering the current situation

sure, I think it’s definitely possible! I don’t think it’ll necessarily be a centerpiece to his storyline (though who knows?), but there’s obviously more for us still to learn wrt the backstory of why he’s working for hiram now, presumably some flashbacks or just info drops of things that have happened over the last 7 years, plus just the fact reggie obviously won’t stay an antagonist forever, so narratively speaking there’s definitely some room for it.

(it also, I’d say, kind of depends on how much of this current plot they resolve before the end of the season or if things overlap into s6, although I feel like there will be payoff for reggie’s part of things sooner than that.)

that being said I’m honestly more compelled by his current storyline, whether or not romance ends up factoring in much if at all. it is a perfectly in-character choice for him -- yes, it is -- and I’m looking forward to seeing if/how they explore his motivations for it, reggie’s antagonistic decisions tend to be a little less straightforward in riverdale compared to in the comics by nature of the premise and how his character has been interpreted in the show, but the fact is riverdale’s falling into corruption and reggie is more the type to want to sit pretty and side with the (as he sees it) winning team, the sure thing, rather than risk it all taking a stand. especially the fact he’d latch onto hiram, canny, ambitious, manipulative, as an alternative father figure/role model completely makes sense too because while reggie knows he “”can’t be trusted”” there’s still always the logical fallacy that if they work together then actually, yes he can, it’s a more impersonal businesslike sort of “trust” than tends to be required with actual family... and personally I’m really interested in that as an arc for reggie, especially given how poorly his abuse storyline was resolved (read: not resolved) in s3/s4.

WHICH IS A BIT OF A TANGENT, SORRY, but yes, I don’t think it’s impossible we could get some romantic crumbs, or maybe even an actual romance, mixed into all that even if it’s not the main feature of his arc! like, I don’t wanna expect too much so mentally I’m kind of just in the low-bar camp of “let him have a complete, and ideally coherent/satisfying, storyline of any kind this season” atm but I certainly wouldn’t object to a bit of romance as well especially if it helps strengthen the narrative-- if it’s needless though then I’d rather they keep it focused and streamlined, I don’t want romance to overtake whatever other emotional/moral development storyline they might have planned for him, since that’s long overdue and there will always be time for romance later.

#replies #riverdale spoilers #reggie mantle #Anonymous

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princess-rosie · 4 years

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POF? Or SVS?

Sorry for being so late replying fldjfhfhsh

I remember my reactions to POF more so we’re gonna go with that!

So I knew a little more about what to expect when going into this one. Patton and Roman are my favourite sides and royality is probably my favourite platonic ship so I really really didn’t want to see them fight, however I didn’t expect as much of an actual argument in the way that, say, logic vs passion was

When I watched the summary at the beginning I literally said out loud “bold of you to assume I haven’t watched SVS like 10 times already” lmao

I really wasn’t surprised at c!thomas being angry but jeez that’s a lot of f-bombs lol. I was really happy when both Patton and Roman showed up because... my bois. I love them sm. The song caught me really off guard, I’d heard something about there being “a song that isn’t sung” or something but I really didn’t expect it that early into the episode. But it was a really pleasant surprise, rhythm redux is such a bop and the art accompanying it is so good.

Then the proper discussion began. Roman’s feral cats rant made me laugh, I love how he just goes off on random tangents like that sometimes. I love discussing morals and all the points Patton and Roman brought up really made me think. Then the video game sequences started which I was super excited about. I remember thinking “of all the people we theorised could be behind that silouhette... did anyone predict Leslie Odom Jr?” That was such a great surprise

Logan’s Lowdown!! Oh my gosh I loved this, I was so happy when he showed up. I didn’t expect him to be there at all tbh and seeing how he got his own little video game format thing was amazing. I didn’t pause to read them, I kinda had half my attention on them and half on the conversation between Pat Ro and Thomas leading to me missing a few things and having to skip back a couple times lol, I probably should’ve just paused rather than trying to do two things at once. I also noticed Virgil’s input in the top right corner and Janus’ portrait during the Mario sequence, I was quite proud of myself as I’m usually too invested in what’s happening to notice that kind of stuff the first time around

I recognised the trolley problem from having learnt about it before, I think that scene was a little difficult to watch for everyone. I totally agreed with Roman for being confused by such a complex moral problem. I was kinda scared for a second when Patton got hit with the dialogue box, people do just keep getting hit on the head in this series lol. But it warmed my heart when Roman helped him, like I said, I love their friendship so much

I got so concerned when Patton skipped Logan. Like he panicked, and I really don’t think that’s something he would do on purpose but I was worried for if Logan was ok after being literally yeeted off screen... that took me completely by surprise. As a roman stan, his monologue about letting Patton take the wheel was heartbreaking (although if I thought that was bad, honey, I had a big storm coming). Then “Logan” came back, and I literally had no clue it was Janus, even when he started being more assertive towards Patton. When he revealed himself I was practically kicking myself for not realising it.

Then for at least the next thirty seconds I think the only thing going through my head was “what the hell what the hell what the hell” yeah Patton broke down and turned into a frog I had no idea what was going on then Janus showed up and I was actually kinda relieved to see him, but again was annoyed at myself for not realising sooner. I laughed out loud at all of Patton’s frog puns, Lilypadton was iconic. I was practically giving Janus a standing ovation because all the points he made were so damn important and well-worded. I was so proud of Patton for listening to him and trying to change. But I was also becoming even more concerned for Roman (if that’s even possible) as his black-and-white mentality was preventing him from hearing Janus out.

When I heard the words “my name” I’m pretty sure I started to hold my breath, we’d all been waiting so long to find out Deceit’s name. And I loved the symbolism of him taking his glove off- the acting in this scene was phenomenal. Like so many people, I misheard his name the first time around. I remember pausing the video for a bit and saying out loud “wait what? Is it actually Janice?” (After looking through the comments I realised I’d misheard it and from googling the name afterwards I realised what a good choice it actually was.) But then Roman’s reaction happened and I remember just wincing in shock at how hurtful those two were to each other and by this point I didn’t have the ability to think coherently enough to judge who I thought was in the wrong so I was just kinda thinking “Roman no! Janice no!” and hoping things wouldn’t get any worse

And then things got even worse. I am a roman stan. Have been since I first watched sanders sides in 2018. And those last few lines before he sunk out literally ripped my heart out and I still can’t watch it without getting emotional. I wasn’t even following the next minute or so of the video because I was just kinda going “romanromanromanroman-“ but then all the soft interactions between Janus and Patton started happening and I was just so happy to see the progress in their relationship (but I didn’t stop worrying about Roman). And after Patton sunk out the interactions between Thomas and Janus were also great (“you’re just stuck with a snake boi” made me laugh out loud) and I was so happy that he’d been accepted and that c!thomas knows it’s okay to put himself first sometimes. Oh, and the Leslie Odom Jr cameo!! By that time so much angst had happened I’d honestly completely forgotten that they’d even mentioned him but it was so great that he was in the video and Janus’ reaction was so funny

I only had one thing to say about the endcard: “...guess I’m a Moceit stan now...”

Thanks so much for the ask and again sorry for taking so long to write this!

Send me an episode and I’ll write about my first reactions

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