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rainbow-wolf120 · 2 months

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The RayClone Theory: Why It Could Be Possible

(Massive Spoilers for CLH below) Tw: Ab//se, Imprisonment, D3ath, Really Bad Pacing on My Part <3

With me thinking about this way too much, I’ve come up with a thought. Have you ever wondered why the CLH Rayman is so… different from his in-game persona?

No, it’s not because it's a remix. Think deeper. Examine them under a microscope.

It could be because… they’re not the same person.

Now, this may sound like another silly cartoon theory, but hear me out. I have… proof. Aka overanalyzing, but school taught me to do that.

So, what is the RayClone Theory? Well, to put it simple, the Rayman we see in the show isn't the ‘first’ Rayman. There’s been many in the past. Many, as in 5 or so. How? That’s what this post is for. So, let's go back to the beginning. Mushing both Rayman and CLH lore alike.

To make this simpler, we’re gonna establish a rule. Referring to all the Raymen in the show as ‘Rayman’ is very, very confusing. So I will make a list:

OG Rayman - Rayman CLH Rayman - Ramon Rayplacement - Fakeman

Get it? Got it? Good. Let’s start.

According to the Rayman lore, Rayman was created with one purpose in mind: To protect the Glade (or, in this case, Dimension X). He was created for one thing only. To protect. To be the ‘hero’.

In the games, he’s never failed before. He thrives and beats the bad guy. But remember, this isn’t the games. It’s a remix. A what-if. This leads into:

What if Rayman failed? What does he do then?

And not like, fails as in Rayman 2, fail as in royally fucked up. Fail as in, the closest one to him dies by ‘his hand’. No, not Globox, he was considered alive by Adi. But you know who he didn’t confirm?

Betilla the Fairy.

You could be thinking: “Duh, of course she wasn’t mentioned. He was being broad.”, but he mentioned Razorbeard. His ass wasn’t relevant since Rayman M. So why mention him, but not Rayman’s literal mom??

Because she's not alive.

Eden (and America) has always been a resource hungry society. It’s human nature. In this timeline, society progresses much quicker than in the real world (flying cars in 1992). Progress needs resources. Have you ever noticed that Eden is barren of all plant life? It’s because Eden (or America) used it all for industrialization.

How does this relate to Rayman? You know how the Glade of Dreams is a lush forest? Resources from massive jungles to deep oceans to towering mountains? Imagine what a power-hungry company (or companies) would do if they discovered this.

*Insert How Bad Can I Be Here*

The creation of the Super-Scope must’ve been revolutionary. The ability to travel to other dimensions with one click of a trigger. Resources galore.

Sarah Fisher mentions in ep2 that the Golder Super-Scope was stolen from Eden’s labs. So, what’s stopping Eden from creating this material? Nothing. That’s what.

Eden, still a sorta underground company, creates this gun and finds Dimension X. Filled with lush resources ripe for the picking. The critters of the Glade don’t know their ‘bad guys’. They don’t look inherently bad. So they leave them be.

Rabbids. The little bunny fellas.

The Kaiju monsters in the show. How does that become a monster? It’s easy. Toxic chemicals. Not just any toxic chemicals, but Eden’s toxic chemicals from polluting the Glade.

I’m getting distracted, back to Rayman.

Kaiju Rabbids started popping around Dimension X. They started small and inefficient until they got bigger and bigger. Rayman took care of them, yes, but one day, he got absolutely bombarded by a hoard of Rabbids.

A massive war broke out between the citizens of the Dimension and the Rabbids. No one knows how it started because Eden left after it got all it needed.

Rayman, having ‘hero-ing’ literally coded into him, fights back. Others help, yes, but it’s mostly Rayman doing the fighting.

This leads into Betilla, and how she died.

Rayman was getting jumped by Rabbids, so she came in to save him, risking her life as a result. Yes, her sacrifice did stun the Rabbids and cause them to flee into the depths of Dimension X, but Rayman feels like he’s one to blame.

No one really fully ‘died’ in the games. Sure, they got kidnapped, possessed, you name it. But no explicit deaths besides villains.

So, imagine what that does to a guy when his first, full on death witness was with his creator, his mother.

He doesn’t take it too well.

Yes. Rayman was a hero and drove out the Rabbids, but he didn’t save everybody. He couldn’t save his mom.

He failed.

Lost and confused, Rayman runs to find… something. He runs away, something he’s never done before. He never backed down from a fight. So why is he now?

Well, because he’s scared. Scared for his life and others.

Betilla saved him with her own life. She died because of him. Heroes are supposed to be giving the sacrifice. Not receiving it.

Rayman blames himself. If he’s out of the picture, then no one else would risk their life for his.

The art book says that they destroyed the dimension, but Globox, the Teensies, and even Razorbeard are alive, so the dimension can’t be unlivable. So what if this use of ‘dimension’ was less literal?

This may sound far-off, but Rayman’s “dimension” could be talking about Betilla. She created him, so she is his ‘dimension’.

This transition into Eden! Or, America currently.

Rayman goes into America looking for a fresh start. To find his purpose. He failed his original purpose (which was to be a hero and save everybody), so he blocked out everything that happened originally to start a fresh start.

Or, every immigration story ever. Leaving behind what you loved for a better start.

He needed a new purpose. And that purpose is to be an entertainer!

His origin in America is the same as the show. He goes to college, gets outcasted, and rises with Eden.

Things are different here than with Ramon. Rayman is… less constricted here.

Back when Eden was new (most likely had good intentions), they weren’t worried about Rayman finding the truth. There was no truth to find. So Rayman was allowed to explore, make friends, talk to people and hybrids below his social class.

One day, he met a hybrid journalist. One of the lower-income hybrids, but a very strong writer. Rayman admired their work, being a news reporter and all, and the two became really good friends, even with him getting them a job at Eden.

Then, the journalist goes snooping. Eden wasn’t as terrible as it is in the present day, but it still did bad things. The hybrid craves justice (like any other journalist) and stations a revolt. It affects Eden, but nothing major except getting the journalist put in jail.

Rayman finds out and goes to give his buddy a visit and to ask what happened. Rayman (still under the influence of Eden) explains that they shouldn’t have revolted and that Eden is great. The hybrid shows him the articles and photos (which were disapproved by Eden so they weren’t published) and explains their side of the story. Since the journalist was low-income, they experienced the biases and issues of Eden first hand.

Rayman obviously seeks the truth as well, promising that he could save the journalist. He goes to the Board of the Directors with the proof and articles, demanding an explanation. Not in a violent way like Ramon, but in a diplomatic manner.

(Keep in mind, Rayman has been questioning Eden in recent weeks from folks he’s talked with in his downtime)

Sound familiar? Of course it does. It happens in the show. Clones are still clones, y’know?

The Board, unsure on how to react with their poster boy finding their fucked up ways, tells Rayman that they’ll explain tomorrow.

Rayman, still trusting of the Board, agrees and waits it out. The next day, he awakens, chained in a dingy room.

Why? Well, the Board knew that Rayman’s act wouldn’t be as efficient if he knew what he was saying was bullshit. Think Disney’s Bolt. So what do they do?

Try out their latest technology, of course. And that was a cloning device.

Now, you can’t just clone Rayman. He’s an alien. Not an organic lifeform. So, how did Eden approach it?

Lums. Take bits of Rayman, combine it with various animals, and boom. Almost perfect Rayman clone.

Clones are never perfect. Each one has an imperfection, little or big. And the Lums is what gives Rayman his main form.

So, chain him to the basement so he’s always on hand. Duh.

Rayman stays in that basement for at least 10 years. Sad, alone, and going insane. He can’t die; he’s immortal. Eden goes through at least 4 or 5 different RayClones before landing on Ramon. I’ll go into Ramon in a bit.

When a RayClone is too imperfect or steps out of line, the Board sends one of the Niji 6 to eliminate them. This is shown by this line of dialogue:

“Taking care of”? What do they imply by that? Maybe it implies that they were sent to assassinate Rayman, or in this case, Ramon.

So, RayClone bodies can’t exactly decompose. Yes, they can die and lose consciousness, but those Lums inside them don’t allow the body to rot. So what happened to those bodies? Leave them in the depths of Eden to rot.

Back to Rayman, one day, he manages to slip his hand loose from the chains and free him. This happens when Ramon is just made. The Board orders the Niji 6 to hunt and bring back Rayman. During his escape attempt, Rayman accidentally causes an explosion ‘killing him’.

We’re gonna pause his story and shift to Ramon.

Now, I wanna talk about his reaction to Red in ep3. Clones share the same memories as the original, but they don’t experience it the same. It’s like knowing something and actually being there.

The Rabbids attack, but Ramon isn’t really stressed about them attacking. Was he that faithful in the Niji 6? Or was it something else?

Was it because he doesn’t have that trauma about them?

When Red calls Ramon an “interdimensional alien scum," Ramon bursts? Why? Because he experienced it. He experienced being belittled and talked down by his colleagues at work. He knows how it feels, so he’s pissed.

If Rayman was in his place, Rayman would be fidgety and panicky about the Rabbids and brush over Red insulting him. If anything, Rayman would be thanking Red for stopping them. Yes, Rayman was talked down in college and his early days, but the Rabbids changed his life.

You could argue that it’s because he had his cry before the cameras were running, but he shows no sign of that. No voice cracks or eye twitches. And the fight just happened, which explains the presence of Red.

Going back in time for a moment-

Ramon was the latest RayClone and the last one with the ‘death’ of Rayman. This makes Eden super protective over him and his opinion on Eden. Other RayClones in the past were either too disfigured to seamlessly become Rayman, or found / was close to the truth. They need to keep Ramon pure.

How does one keep something pure and untouched? Isolated them, of course!

(Note the use of the word ‘illusory’ here)

This also explains the ‘Eden-generated’ scripts. Rayman wrote his own scripts. Rayman said his own opinion. Now, 10+ years later, Eden writes Ramon’s scripts. Ramon says Eden’s opinion.

If he was stripped of his freedom, then how would he be infected with the truth?

If he wasn’t needed anymore.

This is where Fakeman comes in. I think Fakeman is Raymesis, due to those yellow eye highlights you can see in a split second.

The Board wasn’t as faithful in Ramon as they were previously. He might’ve had some outbursts before ep3. They needed a backup. They can’t clone him, the clone would be to fucked up. They needed another Rayman.

Remember the Rabbid invasion in ep2 / 3? While the Niji 6 was dealing with the kaijus, guess who was snooping around the Glade for a Rayplacement?

Raymesis was kidnapped and forced to work for Eden if he liked it or not. They weren’t going to clone him yet, but to keep him in line, instead of acceptance (like they did with Rayman), they used threats.

This explains Fakeman’s uneasiness in ep6 with Retribution Day. That was his first big acting event, and the one Eden decided if he’s replacing Rayman on stage or in the basement.

Look at his face when it’s canceled. Bro looks scared shitless.

But Fakeman and his lore / personality is a whole ‘nother post.

Ramon follows the same path as Rayman. Seeing something unfair (Rayman’s friend getting arrested and Ramon losing his job), and doing something about it.

It’s that Ramon is filled with vengeance and anger because his whole life was a lie.

Rayman is filled with doubt and confusion because he just refound his purpose, and that was a lie.

Rayman’s whole journey throughout this is finding his purpose. His original purpose was to ‘save everybody’, and that failed. He went to America to find a purpose and did with Eden. In his character bio in the art book mentions this purpose line.

“Even happier that Eden gave him purpose”. Why? Because he lost his original purpose! He felt he was nothing before Eden gave him everything. He’s under the mindset that Eden gave him his meaning of life again.

They quite literally saved his life.

Anyway, what does Rayman do after his ‘death’? Have an identity crisis of course! He was locked up for over 10 years, his brain is scrambled eggs at this point!

He failed his purpose for Eden, so he resorts back to his original purpose: Be a Hero.

But, what about the Rayman on TV? Is he the real one?

Rayman’s mindset is that he was created to be a hero. Heroes are brave, speak the truth, and rise up against bad. What is the Rayman on TV doing?

He’s being brave, speaking the ‘truth’, and rising up against ‘bad’.

What’s the real Rayman doing?

He’s being a coward, secret about what he knows and saw, and hiding against the bad.

Heroes don’t do that. So Rayman must be a fake. He must be the RayClone. He’s the mistake. At least, that’s what he made himself think.

Now, I won’t get into my ideas for Season 2. If people want it, sure. I will. But for now, I’ll leave it at that. This is 2200+ words, and I’m grasping at the air at this point.

If you disagree? Great! If you don’t? Great! Tell me your own thoughts / theories then!

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gale-gentlepenguin · 11 months

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Gale Reviews: ML Season 5 episode 23 Revolution

Spoilers below

-Chloe being puppet as the new dictator of Paris. Outlawing super heroes and monarch. So cringe

-ladybug and chat noir debating on what to do but think since Chloe isn’t akumatized they would look like villains if they did something. Ummm, she has a robot army and declared herself leader, I’m pretty sure you got a free pass to beat her ass

-Pffff! They are trusting adults. Yeah, cause THAT always worked for you guys.

-of course that Racist cop is fine with Chloe being in charge!

-meanwhile Plagg talking sense to Adrien

-he was going to tell her, but in her defense this stupid ass situation is kind of important

-It’s really sad that the reaction to Chloe being a dictator is really not surprising. I could go in depth but if I think about our current society I will just get annoyed.

-Chloe at least tried to have monarch arrested… before then immediately listening to him and getting powers BUT pretending she didn’t have an akuma.

-A political puppet that’s a hypocrite. What a twist. (Said no one)

-Queen mayor, at least Chloé gets some sort of outfit change.

-So the Resistance is doing a protest. How French. I hope they involve a guillotine.

-… if this were anymore on the nose it would be a face hugger.

-I will give Astruc one thing, he nailed what a typical politician is like. Corrupt, arrogant, being told what to say and do, and lies all the time. I could go on but I hate politics.

-chloé and evolution, and Chloe being the only one in class yet NOT paying attention. That’s actually kind of funny. Like why even go?

-How did they get a Statue like that built in such a short time?

-did Chloe just Legislate love?

-and she just arrested Marinette’s parents and captured her.

-Adrien still can’t communicate with Marinette cause of the situation.

-Adrien found out what Chloe did and is PISSED!

-Chloé knows about London.

-At least Adrien didn’t cave. But now he’s captured.

-Sure is Big brother up in this bitch.

-Plagg being like (want me to take a crack at the screens) Plagg is best boy

-looking at it, the jail/detention isn’t that hard to escape.

-wait did chat noir use cataclysm 2 times already? Well we can assume he detransformed and retransformed.

- Chloe yelling about threats to democracy, yet never knowing what the word meant.

-Ladybug and chat noir step in to tell her. Perfect.

-invincible prisons, oh damn.

-Gabriel and Tomoe out here waiting for the detransformation and taking back control.

-welp, I guess this makes Queen mayor the most effective akuma. She captured them both and now they will detransform. Unless someone shows up? Maybe Su han will finally be useful. I’m kidding. My bet is they get a power up

-ladybug coming in clutch with hero speeches

-Did he just say super underpants?!

-They just willed their transformation back! So I guess they are all grown up now?

-Monarch is shocked by the power of plot convinience.

-chat noir didn’t need to do that, he just wanted to show off and I don’t blame him.

-Was ladybug going to give Chloe a charm? I don’t think she wants one.

-And the mayor steps in to finally ground her.

-Lila took the robots.

-so the kids encourage Ms. Bustier to run

-Chloe is being taken by her mother to have her education Re-evaluated. And now Chloe is going to expose what she knows to Marinette as one last act of spite. Though for a brief moment we saw her pause on Sabrina, perhaps contemplating something. But for what reason, we may never know.

-meanwhile, Adrien is being forced to leave now by his father. He can’t say no because Amok.

-Nathalie is there, Nathalie do something!

-no Nathalie Kick Gabriel’s ass! Don’t just stand by!

-wait so Chloe never called her. Adrien got to tell her. Well at least that.

-Break my heart why don’t ya.

-they sold enough Alliance? Oh dear that can’t be good.

-G being a real G and letting Adrien go.

-FINALLY! A canon Adrinette kiss. Too bad it’s absolutely tragic

-G no! You have to seperate them now.

-Ah there goes my heart.

-Oh bonus scene.

-Marinette telling Chloe to F*** off was great.

-Lila or whoever she is has that suitcase and is likely going to mess with the plan Tomoe and Gabriel have

___________________________________________

Honestly this episode was cringe for most of it.

Chloé being dictator was jumping the shark, ladybug and chat noir can use their powers multiple times now which is about time but probably not useful now.

Lila has the pieces she needs and finally

ADRINETTE KISS!

That last part alone keeping this episode from being the worst of season 5

I give it a 6.5 out of 10

The 6.0 being awarded cause of the Adrien kiss

The additional .5 being Adrien and Marinette standing up to Chloe.

Though Andre got off easy

#miraculous ladybug #ml #ml spoilers #ml revolution #ml revolution spoilers

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justmybookthots · 6 months

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Chess & Mate

Okay, first of all: This isn't a bad book. I want to preface my review with that, even if 'bad' is a nebulous term. I want to make it clear that at this point, I'm absolving Ali Hazelwood of her sins with Love Hypothesis. While I hated Adam, I loved Jack from Love Theoretically, and I do like Sawyer… to a degree. I think her heroes have evolved slightly since Adam, and now they're kind of at a very acceptable Jack-Sawyer stage.

I'll elaborate on the hero part in a bit. But for now, I also want to make it clear that while I don't love this book anywhere as much as I loved Love Theoretically, I can see a lot of people loving this, and I understand. It really all boils down to personal preference. (Though that… pretty much sums up any kind of book review, so you can ignore this statement, really. But I guess what I'm trying to say is: Love Hypothesis pissed me the fuck off. Its issues were egregious to me. Chess & Mate got on my nerves a bit, but I recognise it was just due to my own weird preferences as a reader.)

Anyway. Spoilers ahead.

Things I liked:

Sawyer. He's very similar to Jack and if that's the kind of hero Ali likes, I ain't complaining. He knows what he wants; he's mostly straightforward with his feelings and is unabashed about them. Neither is he growly or saying "babe" and all that cringe stuff. He's just… calm, same as Jack. It's very attractive. And ALSO. He is a virgin. I so, so love that? Too bad this was YA so the sex scenes were closed-door, because I felt that would have been a fun dynamic to explore in an adult book.

I like that for once, Mallory (the heroine) is the one who sleeps around. It's all very sex-positive and I support that immensely. Also her being bi? I 100% am for it.

I really liked Oz, for most of the book. And Dfne? I think that's how you spell her name. [But I may be wrong and I'm too lazy to check.]

I think all the loose ends were tied up rather conclusively, re: Eaton and Mallory's family.

Now…. The things I did not like. Hoo-boy.

I'm not into the Mary Sue scene. This is my biggest, biggest gripe for this book. Mallory being this good was not to my liking. She was just winning match after match even though she hadn't played in years. She felt unbeatable, and it took a lot of narrative tension out of the story for me. At some point, I was just like: Okay, I get it. You're the best. And Sawyer is also the best. You are both the best, and you two can sit above the plebs in your couple-y thrones. Reading this book felt like I was reading a power fantasy between two people, and while I get that being everyone's cup of tea, it wasn't mine. At some point, it felt like Sawyer was only ever interested in her because she could play as well as (or better than) he did.

I wished Sawyer hadn't been interested in her from the start. It would have been fun to really lean into the 'enemies' angle for a bit and have her slowly climb her way up to face off against him later. But then again, that's asking for a major rewrite, and that's a whole can of worms I'd rather not open.

But speaking of interest, I was conflicted on the insta-love on Sawyer's part. Him showing up at her house early on in the book and eating dinner with her family was really abrupt and it took me aback. They went from almost no interaction save for her beating him at the first match and the encounter at the pool to… this? Or maybe there were more encounters that I can't recall off the top of my head now, but it just felt too soon for me.

Oh gosh. Her family. Her mom was fine, but her sisters, especially Sabrina? I was being driven nuts. When Sabrina called Mallory egotistical, I was like: wtf? Mallory was practically slaving her ass off to support her family and she made so many sacrifices for them. I get that that was the point—Mallory was clinging to martyrdom and refusing to let herself need them and it upset them. But being antagonistic to Mallory was NOT the answer. Her martyrdom stemmed from a place of self-loathing and trauma. I hated how everyone at the end of the book was yelling at Mallory to get her head out of her ass. Maybe this wake-up call works in books/fiction, or maybe it works for some people, but it's not ideal. It's callous and cruel. I approved only of how Mallory's mother handled it: she very calmly talked things out with her.

Mallory had EVERY right to be angry with Sawyer. I hated how everyone, including Eaton, fed this narrative that Mallory was completely in the wrong for her blow-up at him and how everything he did was right for her. If a man I was developing a romantic relationship with was paying for my fellowship/my fucking SALARY all along and omitted telling me (don't give me the bullshit about "you could have just asked"—omission is still lying), I would be furious. This is crucial information that should have been voluntarily shared sooner. Even if he came from a good place, it doesn't make it okay to hide this imbalance of power from me.

I also want to say that the bad guys are cartoonishly bad. Like you know right away who the 'villain' of the book was going to be, and it felt rather juvenile how unapologetically dickish he was. There wasn't a lot of nuance to it, but eh. Whatever.

The PDA between Sawyer and Mallory (her sitting between his thighs and him… biting her earlobe? I… Okay) while they played chess with his friends was… not for me. I had the same complaint with a hauntingly similar scene in Love Theoretically. I get it: this type of thing is just not my cuppa, but Ali loves it.

All in all, while it sounds like I'm complaining a lot, I don't hate this book. I just don't really love it. Or… like it very, very much. But it had its cute moments, so it's, well, not that bad? I think?

- 13 Nov 2023

#book review #book blog #ali hazelwood #check & mate #love theoretically #the love hypothesis

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dany36 · 10 months

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full totk onion below for my own sanity. super long-ass rant ahead (11k words lmaoooo wow) and also contains spoilers.

so i beat the final boss of tears of the kingdom a while back. took me (according to my switch) “over 100 hours” to beat the game. i did about 110ish shrines, and got like 50 or so korok seeds. did quite a lot of sidequests as well. i was actually surprised how long i played it for considering how much fun i was not having playing it. but of course i wanted to uncover the whole overworld map (excluding the depths) and unlock as many shrines as possible to be able to say that hey, i explored quite a lot and gave this game a fair chance to impress me. which, unfortunately, it did not. if i had to rank all of the zelda games i’ve beaten (which i’ve done all except triforce heroes), i’d put botw in absolute last place, with totk slightly right above it.

before writing this, i re-read through this fantastic botw critical piece on destructoid by Cory Arnold ("Breaking down why Breath of the Wild is highly overrated") that literally hits on all the points on why i hate botw cus i wanted to see if maybe totk had improved on any of those criticisms. the criticisms that the author lists were similar (but much more eloquent) than the hasty list i had made when i first completed the game way back then. i was sad to re-read through it and realize that no, pretty much all of the major criticisms i had in botw were still present since totk is literally an exact copy of botw which some new stuff sprinkled on it, then they called it a brand new game. “but the depths!! the sky!! the new ultrahand mechanic!!” yeah that shit wasn’t fun for me at all (maybe the Ascend ability but more on that later). i literally couldn’t believe that this game cost 70 dollars when there were absolutely no enhancements in terms of the overworld and enemies and was seething through the first 4 hours of the game (or however long it took me to get through the tutorial portion of it). to quote that botw article i mentioned above:

If Breath of the Wild is your personal favorite game or favorite Zelda game, I’m not speaking to you. It’s the people foaming at the mouth at how it’s objectively better than other games, objectively better than other Zelda games, did open world better than other games, and want to enshrine it that I am addressing. This game is far too flawed to be getting this level of praise.

but i’m getting a bit ahead of myself. let’s start with the things i DID like and then i will write a lithany of all the things i hated about this game and why, despite having played it for 100+ hours, i had fun for maybe 10 hours of it.

the good

the ending.

one of the things i absolutely hated about botw was how short and unsatisfying the ending was. zelda wakes up and asks link if he remembers her and links says nothing, which then cuts to zelda and link talking together about…i think all they have to do to restore hyrule. i honestly forget because it sucked so bad that i had no interest in looking it up again. zelda turning human again with rauru’s and sonia’s help, and you having to catch her as she’s falling (a throwback to when you couldn’t catch her at the beginning of the game) were things that made it already looking better than botw’s stale-ass ending. zelda’s “link, i’m home!” was really sweet even if we once again get no emotion from link even though he knows the incredibly weighted decision zelda had made when she decided to turn into a dragon to restore the master sword. but whatever, more on that later.

i’m NOT saying totk’s ending is perfect, in fact i’ve seen some legit criticisms of it that i agree with, but in my opinion it wasn’t TERRIBLE like with how i felt with botw’s (and trust me i take every opportunity i get to bash on botw/totk). seeing link, zelda, and the four sages together at the end as they swear to protect hyrule and its princess was really cool and actually made it look like they were all in it together as friends/companions, in contrast to botw where we get no reference of the new champions in the ending at all. while this ending was better than totk, it’s still not like…at a level of it making my heart ache of joy/satisfcation/sadness (if you know me even the slightest i get very emotional with videogames and i will cry at literally anything lol) like in tww when hyrule floods, or SS with granny and fi leaving, or tp with midna and the mirror. which damn now that i think about it, it looks like zelda has a lot of bittersweet endings, so i will give totk +1 point in that there are no bittersweet moments at the end. i especially liked that they cleared up that no, zelda wasn’t aware or fully conscious about her hundreds of years roaming the skies as a dragon, because even the thought of her being aware of her time as a dragon was making me go insane. like, you mean that in botw she was trapped in the castle for 100 years keeping calamity ganon at bay and NOW she had to spend another 1000 years or whatever as a dragon? hell no. so thank you totk ending for making that clear that she doesn’t remember that at all and that it actually felt like she was asleep like with SS Zelda. :)

which brings me to the next thing that i liked, which is...

princess zelda overall.

i think it should come to no one’s surprise that her decision to turn into a dragon really elevated this zelda’s status to just completely fucking badass. like, damn, i say that’s my baby and i’m proud. the incredible amount of courage that zelda had to have to make that decision is just something that i don’t think we’ve seen other zeldas make. i guess there’s TP Zelda giving up her life to save Midna but, is that a worse fate than be unconsciously roaming the skies as a dragon for hundreds of years not knowing when you’ll come back? and SS Zelda knew that link would come back to wake her up from her slumber, so…. i mean, the scene of the last tears of the dragon memory was just so impactful, and it was probably the only scene in the game that really punched me in the emotional gut. the whole dragon transformation scene was just so heartbreaking to watch and when you see those tears come out of the dragon’s eyes and realize that’s where those memories come from that you’re watching….i’m telling you it made me almost catatonic. like. what the FUCK. probably one of the best cutscenes in zelda history, if I’m being honest. when the memory ends and it leaves you in that field of silent princesses i just needed a moment to breathe. i didn’t even wanna move (both in-game and irl lol). what a beautiful sequence. it’s something i don’t think any other zelda game has made me feel. sure i cried like a fucking baby when granny “dies” in SS or when Fi says goodbye (and i swear i always cry at the beginning of tww when link says goodbye to his grandma oh god), but with the dragon scene it just left me fucking speechless. A+++ work.

now, do i HATE that zelda is once fucking again stuck somewhere else in the middle of the story waiting for us to rescue her instead of being a more active, nuanced character like in ST, TWW, or OoT? absolutely yes. can nintendo fucking do something new and interesting with zelda like (dare i say!!) HW did and give her some personality instead of just being a damsel in distress yet fucking again?? but plenty of people have already ranted about that so i will just leave this to say botw/totk zelda has gone through enough shit and deserves to rest and be happy without going into other things about her character that other people have already talked about in greater detail than i ever could. :)

yunobo and riju.

yunobo was absolutely one of my favorite characters in botw, and so it’s no surprise that he’s a fave here too. his attack was super useful when exploring those boring-ass caves where i had to clear mountains and mountains of rocks without having to use my limited supply of bomb flowers or wacking away with a boulder sword. also one-shot killing those annoying-ass ice lizalfos with his attack will always be funny. the thought of a goron leader having such a child-like voice and huggable face just makes him such an interesting and fun character to me. as for riju, although i didn’t really care for her in botw, there was something about her in this game that just made her really grow on me. some of it definitely has to do with her new design which i thought was fantastic (minus the heels in the fucking desert), but also her attack is just so badass and useful. also helps that the portion where you have to defend gerudo town from the gibdos reminded me a lot of hyrule warriors, aka one of my favorite games ever (unironically!!). so yeah, yunobo and riju really were the oasis in the desert of uninteresting NPCs in this game!

dragon head island.

out of all the boring-ass sky islands in this game, dragon head island was such a welcomed surprise. from the mysterious thunder clouds surrounding it, to the eeringly relaxing music that plays, it was a breath of fresh air. all of the sky islands in this game look almost identical and yet it was really nice to get something different with music that made me go, hey, this is actually great to listen to and will have to add it to my list of zelda music!

the path to the wind temple.

the rito village was the first village i headed to and i was really hopeful for this game when i had to climb up to the wind temple alongside tulin. that portion where you have to jump from one trampoline to another was fun as hell. i was like wow, this definitely feels new and refreshing. i’m also pretty sure that the music was changing as you’d get higher? either way, this part really felt like something from a zelda game and was just overall a blast to get through.

the wind and lightning temple bosses.

again, because the wind temple was the first temple i did, was REALLY impressed with how fun the colgera boss was. sky diving and using tulin’s ability to dodge the boss’s attacks was just so intense and exciting! ALSO the music that played during it was a remix of the dragon roost island theme from tww, which was so fitting and badass. and speaking of badass, the lightning temple boss was, although super disgusting, so cool as well!! i already talked about how fun riju’s attack is, so the part where all the gibdo hives come alive and start surrounding you was just soooo intense. like damn, i can’t remember any of the botw bosses being so damn fun. if i could re-do those two portions of the game, i definitely would.

the final ganondorf fights.

and speaking of boss battles, these fights also had me all tensed-up and at the edge of my seat. well, except the dragon ganon part (he turned into a dragon and all he could do was spit fire balls at me?? he literally had link on his mouth ready to crunch him down!! oh my bad these are the positives ahem). for the second ganondorf fight i got seriously stumped because he just kept dodging my flurry attacks or whatever, and then he kept hitting me with the attack that would remove one of my heart containers (which was really cool and new to see a zelda boss do THAT!!!). like, it actually made me think i was gonna get my ass kicked and would have to restart the battle. idk if this is the strategy since i haven’t looked it up online but eventually i figured out that, after he dodges your attack, he attacks you and you have to dodge THAT in order for your flurry attack or actually work. anyway, i really liked the ganondorf fights even if i sucked at fighting him and went through all of my 6 shields but hey, at least i beat him first try lol.

the sages joining you in the phantom ganon fight and when the temple bosses show up in the depths.

again just a really cool detail that in totk we actually see the sages actually fight alongside you and aid you in your quest to defeat ganondorf instead of hey you’ve awoken me as a sage i’m just gonna stay here and do nothing as you go and fight the demon king. plus it’s a cool moment when you see all those terrifying AF bosses show up in the depths and the sages are all like nah don’t worry about us, we got this! like…hell yeah? love you guys stay awesome and thank you for taking care of those bosses cus i did nOT want to fight them again since this game loves to make you fight the same enemies hundreds of times :)

the gloom hands.

wow, what a terrifying and cool enemy…the first time. but just like everything else in the game (which i will talk about later), they beat this concept to death until you just go ‘oh the gloom hands again, whatever’ and keep moving. the first time i encountered the gloom hands i was like what in the FUCK is this and what is this TERRIFYING MUSIC that plays!!! very dead-hand-from-oot of them. i thought that the floormasters from tww were terrifying with those disturbing sounds they would make but they got nothing on the gloom hands. and then when you think you finally defeat them all and you’re free from their creepy clutches, phantom ganon shows up and one-hit kills you. amazing!!

the ascend ability.

i wouldn’t say i LOVED the ascend ability (tbh i wasn’t fond of this whole crap with rauru’s arm abilities like idk it just doesn’t feel very zelda-ish but more on that later) but of the four abilities we get, i’d say ascend was the one i liked the most. took me forever to figure out some ascend puzzles at the beginning because i wasn’t used to the fact that uh yeah you can literally go through ceilings if you want so i for the most part would enjoy whenever the ascend ability would be involved. so i mean idk what else to say except that it was neat and wouldn’t make me groan to use it unlike ultrahand.

voice acting (japanese).

i’m sorry but hearing the last trailer where we hear zelda’s and (what i’m assuming was) ganondorf’s voice just made me roll my eyes and groan out loud at just how terrible and cartoony they sound. as soon as the game started and we hear zelda talk in that fake-sounding british voice, i just had to go in and switch the audio to japanese so that they could sound like REAL people instead of idk forced acting. and my god i’m glad i did. wish i had done that for botw because wow, the voice acting in japanese was just top-notch and actually made me like the characters and not like cringe at how the VAs sounded. so A++ to the japanese VAs but i mean who are we kidding they always excel at that and it didn’t sound like over-the-top or anything. it sounded just right :)

well that was nice. very lovely. and now for the things that i absolutely hated about the game. from this point on i’m going to quote a lot of things from the destructoid article and try to expand on them to fit totk. here we go!

the bad and ugly

the overworld.

oh boy. this is the big one. this is the one that, for the first 4ish hours of the game (or however long it took me to reach lookout landing), was just making me rage on the inside, and for the rest of the game, just continuously shake my head and sigh with disappointment (and still rage from time to time) at just how fucking boring the overworld in totk is. this is one of the biggest complaints i had in botw and, given that nintendo just fucking reused the same world for totk with literally almost no interesting or noteworthy changes, it continues to be the thing that makes me angry the most about this game. like, i’m sorry, but developers need to stop fucking making huge overworlds if they are just going to make them boring as hell to traverse and not be able to make them interesting to explore at all:

The game is all about running around aimlessly with nothing unique to discover, no area-specific secret bosses, and overall very little progression. The only secrets or things to discover are shrines or Koroks, leaving the world with a profound lack of mystery. I don’t understand why people complain about sailing in Wind Waker but suddenly love running around grassy plains and climbing rocks that take five times as long as sailing between islands did. Yes a game this size and length would be amazing if and only if it was rich with content all the way through, but it’s not. Clocktown (from Majora’s Mask) alone has more depth than the entirety of Breath of the Wild.

There’s the mention of shrines or koroks, but totk introduces the new exciting concept of…caves and wells!!! and while at first it might seem cool and exciting to explore, you then realize that at the end of the day, just like everything in this game, each cave is exactly the fucking same and only serves to hide those blue glowing overgrown frogs so once you find one, it’s like wellp, there’s nothing else of importance that you’re going to find in this cave EXCEPT maybe your umpteenth shrine or a treasure chest containing an outfit (i think that’s how i found all of the fierce deity clothes—within caves). and it’s like “well see dany! you found something ELSE within caves other than those frogs!!” yeah no i explored maybe like 50 or so caves and the shrine/outfits were found in like 4 caves i explored or something like that so no i wouldn’t call that exciting or wortwhile considering i never used the fierce deity outfit and i could have found my umpteenth shrine somewhere else. and the wells? yeah turns out there’s like 40+ wells whose only purpose is to report to some lady of how many you’ve found so that i think she can give you rupees? and honestly who cares. i have no idea what the reward is once you find all of them but what could be worth visiting the same boring-ass caves with the same boring-ass design just so that you can say “yep i’ve visited every well in this game!” and mark off yet another boring sidequest in totk.

at least with TP or MM whenever i found a cave i knew i was going to get a unique and interesting experience (that one cave in TP where you have to drop down to the lowest levels with the iron boots is one of my faves). but unfortunately here, any cool puzzles that would otherwise be found randomly in caves are now stuck strictly to the freaking shrines, which takes away any sort of mystery you might get from finding a cave because now you KNOW it’s just gonna be yet another same-y cave with the same damn enemies and really nothing else going for it except a bubbulfrog and MAYBE the start of a new shrine quest. and likewise, when you see a shrine, you KNOW you’re going in for your umpteenth ultrahand/rewind/ascend puzzle to get yet another shrine orb. like…totk’s approach to caves and puzzles and shrines take away any surprise that you might have had exploring its vast yet uninteresting overworld (how many times am i gonna say this in this rant lol).

and like god i distinctively remember this one part in the death mountain area where i was trying to reach goron city and i saw a shrine not too far—as in, i didn’t have to use the purah pad to be able to see it. so there i go, walking/running towards the shrine because what else is there to do in-between the rito and goron villages except hunt for shrines along the way. and it was so fucking frustrating because i swear i was just walking straight towards the shrine with nothing else in between. no cool music like in other open world games that immerse you with its beautiful music (see minecraft, horizon, sonic frontiers, xenoblade x), aboslutely no enemies, no interesting or beautiful terrain, just me walking like an idiot bored out of my mind listening to link’s clunky armor just to get to the shrine, complete it, and have to run all the way back to where i was since the shrine was the OPPOSITE direction of goron village.

and like, this empty and uninspiring overworld is what nintendo took 6 years to develop? “oh look there’s naming references to past zelda games teehee!! ruto lake! forest of time! something referencing the lokomos!!” but it’s like. you pass those landmarks without even realizing it because there is, most of the time, nothing worthwhile to do there despite the cool throwback name. at least with MM, which reused a lot of the same assets as OoT, the world was different and unique and interesting with lots of more background to similar-looking characters we saw in OoT (the cucco lady vs anju, for example). i felt like such a fool the first night playing totk because i seriously thought that this might be the MM of Botw—i hated (still do) botw but thought hey, now that they have the engine and the assets down, maybe they can now focusing on making the world and its characters and story more interesting and fleshed out! instead we just get the same korok seed BS, the same shrine BS that, although mildly amusing at first, gets boring and uninteresting fast as you explore your 73rd shrine and see the 46th korok hiding place.

and you might think “well dany of COURSE things are going to get repetitive! it’s an open world game and they can’t fill it with new and exciting content all throughout!!” ok then don’t make your overworld so fucking huge?? like WHY are these developers so hellbent on gloating about having “one of the biggest open-worlds” ever if you’re just going to be copy-pasting the same shit over and over with nothing interesting in between? you really think that what makes an overworld interesting is to see the same caves, the same damn bokoblin enemy camps, the same “uwu i need to reach my friend!” korok quests, the same “waaah i need to keep this postsign of the construction boss up in place and i can’t leave until i do!” BS, the same taluses/hinoxes, the same BOSSES all over the map?? yeah it was cool seeing the first gleeock out in the wild, i was like wow!! that’s amazing, i wonder if there will be different bosses roaming around like that? and then i saw that, nope! wrong again, dany! yet another cool idea beaten to death by just copy pasting the same enemy (with different elemental powers of course so as to not make it TOO obvious!) all over the goddamn map.

SPEAKING of copy-pasting the same things instead of having a boss or enemy or cave be truly unique, another thing that drove me insane was the mazes that you find in the overworld. i think i only did the one in the upper right, but there’s at least one other in the upper left of the corner. i thought it was a cool idea so i traversed through the (truth be told) rather boring maze just activating switches, which wasn’t really that interesting or challenging, it was just mildly frustrating and confusing navigating through it. and i fought i think a construct III at the end? whatever, you see those all over the sky as well. and what i got as a reward for navigating through the two mazes (the one in hyrule, and the one in the sky) was…one part of oot ganondorf’s outfits. like, ok, great, whatever, but before heading off to the final boss towards the end of the game i was like “well let me go do that other maze and see what that’s all about” but then i stopped myself and said, you know what, it’s probably gonna be the same BS, going through yet another non-engaging maze doing an uninteresting and confusing puzzle just to get either a weapon that calls back to an older game or another piece of oot ganondorf’s outfit. and i was like HMMMM yeah that doesn’t sound appealing or fun at all. SKIP!!!

Breath of the Wild wants you to grind and do repetitive shit all day. Fighting the same things over and over in a massive world isn’t fun, it really isn’t.

like i’m sorry if i’m just predictable and want something more entertaining to keep me interested in the world as i explore along instead of the same repetitive nonsense and then praise nintendo for giving us such a huge overworld for it. people might have complained about tww’s vast ocean but at least it gave us one of the most beautiful overworld themes to date and it made sense STORY-wise (as in, there’s sea everywhere and little islands in between because of the flooding of hyrule). here, and sorry to beat this point to the death but i just cannot emphasize enough how terrible of an experience it was for me to explore the overworld, because it’s just huge, boring, and repetitive for no reason.

and the worst part is, i couldn’t even ride my horse if i wanted to (which would have made exploring this forsaken world less annoying) because for some unknown reason, nintendo has decided that in these past two games, you can’t call for your horse from wherever you are. sure, you can BOARD your horse from the kakariko stable even if you left it far off in the rito village, that’s no problem! but calling your horse from wherever you want? no no that’s too unrealistic!

so no, i don’t care that you can climb every mountain in this game (to find what, another korok seed? lol). that’s not what makes exploration fun for me in a videogame. if i climb a mountain and then find a UNIQUE boss or a UNIQUE cave or a UNIQUE sidequest? now that’s cool. here? just copy-pasting away!

Climbing and watching the stamina bar is not fun, and it’s downright annoying when it begins to rain. Call it a mechanic or whatever you want but it’s not fun. It feels like they added a ton of mountain ranges just to pad the game length and justify a stamina meter when flatter land would have been just as acceptable.

i’d rather sail tww’s ocean or ride around ST’s tracks any day of the week. fucking NEXT!

the shrines.

like i mentioned at the beginning, i did my fair share of looking for and completing shrines because i wanted to get a fair sense of just all that this “new” game had to offer. sure, the first 10 or so are fun and interesting because you are learning to use the new arm powers. oh you want me to combine these two things with ultrahand to complete the shrine? cool! let me do that! oh ok, now you want me to rewind time on this object? omg neat! oh wow, now i have to be aware of my surroundings and use ascend here! cool! and then you do that again, and again, and again, and again, and again again again again until you’re on your 100th shrine and it’s like oh god PLEASE give me something new:

Shrine puzzles are all about the same level of difficulty, as are all the Divine Beasts and their bosses. Again, since they want to let you go anywhere, there is no progression of difficulty in either the bosses or puzzles. You do not learn new things and compound them as the game goes on […] You just do the same things with the same runes over and over. […] All have the exact same aesthetic, same music, and same lack of connection to game’s world. But rather than 120, there are actually only 80. There are 20 “Blessing” shrines which nine out of ten times give you some generic weapon you probably already have, accessed by completing puzzles of sorts outside the shrine to unlock them. Those “puzzles” are often just putting balls in holes, shooting an arrow at something, or fetch quests, though.

putting aside the number of shrines mentioned above (since they vary in totk), it’s like, that’s literally it. unlike previous zelda games, where maybe you’d enter a cave and wouldn’t have the necessary item to complete its puzzle, here, there’s no sense of progression because the game already gives you everything you need to explore ITS ENTIRE OVERWORLD AND ALL ITS SHRINES right from the beginning. and some people might like that, but it’s definitely not for me. because like, after you get all your arm powers, everything just stays exactly the fucking same through the rest of the damn game:

There is never a moment of “I need to comeback here later” which sounds convenient but it takes away from the sense of progression and getting stronger that this game and its fans claim it has. There is no excitement of getting a new mask, new song, boomerang, bottle, or equipment item that lets me do more. No matter where you go, you know you will be sufficiently equipped, and that takes the thrill out of it.

and i feel like that’s exactly one of the issues that i have with the concept of shrines in this game. it’s just the same types of puzzles with the same 4 powers tens of times until you complete them all and you can maybe recall 2 or 3 that you really liked and were like “huh ok that was cool” and move on. truly revolutionary for a game. and i just HATE that all pieces of heart/stamina currency is restricted to ONLY shrines because, once again, that leaves no variety or surprises in the game! you know completing a sidequest won’t yield a piece of heart or a stamina vessel ‘cus that’s all shrines, same for minigames or caves, which was half the fun of doing those things in previous games!! but no, once you find a type of SOMETHING in this game (a cave, a well, a shrine), you bet your ass that THAT same design is all you’ll ever see for the rest of the game.

shrines in this game did introduce a new type which is when they strip you of all of your equipment and only give you basic weapons that you have to use to get through the bunch of constructs that you have to fight inside. and yes, that was cool for the first couple of times, but i swear after my third one i was once again with the feeling of “oh god not THIS again??”. god i just feel like i’m just repeating the same issues i had with this game over and over again: repetition repetition repetition. this game just loves damn repeating itself!!! anyway, moving on…

99% of the side quests and NPCs.

this was a problem i had with botw and i don’t know why i’m surprised that totk did absolutely nothing to fix the issue of uninteresting, unengaging sidequests. remember in SS with the whole Peatrice-falling-in-love-with-you thing? or those sidequests in TWW with the rich and poor girl who at the end switch lifestyles because of circumstances in their lives, and you can help the now-poor Mila come to terms with her new life? or hell, ANY of the MM sidequests and how they actually made you empathize with its characters and actually care a little bit for what would happen to them? here in totk (and in botw) i just don’t feel that connection or need to help NPCs with their mundane problems like i would in previous zelda games:

Breath of Wild has its NPCs, but they are bland and as memorable as my ex-girlfriends’ birthdays. They don’t have unique characteristics, designs, or problems. Looking like they were born out of some generator rather than a human, they send you on shallow fetch quests. Collect 55 rushrooms. Tame that horse. The rewards are almost always just rupees, ingredients, or more generic breakable weapons.

i said 99% of the side quests and NPCs because i think the only one i actually cared for (but was actually tedious towards the end…) was rebuilding that lurelin village because the thought of having your home destroyed by “pirates” (aka bokoblins because god forbid this game have to create more unique enemies) was a bit too much for my heart to take. but i mean, other than that? who cares. oh that guy in hateno village has a creepy crush on that girl sweeping the front of the store? whatever. that whole elections thing in hateno village? yawn. some rito girl wants to cook some new recipe? i don’t know her. there’s really nothing much else i can say about NPCs or sidequests in this game because i can’t think of anyone else other than that guy who helped rebuild the village that actually made me feel SOMETHING else other than boredom. and like mentioned above, most of the time doing the sidequests isn’t really worth it because there’s no cool rewards like bottles, quiver expansions, pieces of heart, or an upgrade to an item because well, that would be taking away from the shrines-and-some-depths-treasure-chests-can-only-give-you-worthwhile-rewards thing from this game, huh?

overall, the villages in this game just feel empty and void of any interesting and captivating NPCs/sidequests that make me want to learn more about their lives. despite hateno village being the biggest village (i think) we’ve seen in a zelda game yet, i just…don’t really care for it or its people. same with kakariko village and zora’s domain, the latter of which just feels so big but just so fucking hollow and honestly boring to explore. tww’s windfall island just had tons of life and compelling characters of which i may not remember their names, but sure as hell remember their small but memorable sidequests. playing cupid between that guy that would walk around windfall and the girl with the orange dress is infinitely much more interesting than any of the so-called sidequests i did in hateno village.

the lack of enemy variety.

it’s kind of insane to me how, given that nintendo had about 5+ years to develop this game, they had a pretty good chance to develop new and interesting enemies. this was a problem i had with botw: fighting the same damn enemies just got old very damn fast. let’s see how many enemies (NOT including varieties, i don’t care that a fire keese is different than an ice keese, and also not mini bosses like hinoxes) botw had according to the zelda wiki: bokoblins, chuchus, keese, lizalfos, lynels, moblins, wizzrobes, yigas, pebblits, guardian scouts, guardians, guardian skywatcher, and…guardian turret i guess. that’s 13 enemies for a game that boasts to have such a huge and unique overworld. THRITEEN types of enemies. just thirteen. compared to Xenoblade 1, which has 30+ types of enemies (i stopped counting really), and horizon zero dawn, which has 24 types of unique machines.

now let’s see how many enemies totk has! there’s bokoblins, boss bokoblins, chuchus, constructs, evermeans, horriblins, keese, like likes, lizalfos, lynels, moblins, wizzrobes, aerocuda, pebblits, gibdos, gloom spawns, little frox, moth gibdo, and…yigas. 19 enemies, 6 more than its predecessor. just, wow, even now just looking at the numbers, the variety in this game is ABYSMAL considering that most of the time in the overworld you run in bokoblins, moblins, and lizalfos like 80% of the time. in caves, most of the time it’s just horroblins but really, the strategy to fight them all is exactly the same except for lynels, like likes, and gibdos, which you have to be more careful with. but really, it’s like…that’s all you could come up with for this huge overworld? i don’t know about other folks but for me, i eventually stopped fighting enemies because it just wasn’t worth it with how this game handles weapons and their durability:

But you quickly stop raiding camps and just avoid enemies in general, just as you slowly lose interest in exploring every ruin, because there is no suitable reward. You expend your breakable weapons, arrows, and food fighting easy enemies to get more breakable weapons; likely weaker than the ones you broke to get to it.

i already had more-than-enough strong enemy spoils to fuse with my weapons, i don’t need to fight my umpteenth silver bokoblin just to get another one of its stupid-looking horns to attach to my weapon and somehow make it stronger (and stupider). and also like, fighting them just got so boring after a while. sure, it’s a bit scary and intimidating fighting moblins when you only have 5 hearts and weak weapons, but eventually you get a two-handed weapon and all you have to do is just constantly whack away at your moblin/horriblin/bokoblin/lizalfos so that you constantly knock them down and don’t allow them to get back up cus it’s not like they have much variety in their attacks either. such thrilling combat if you ask me!! and the way that this game handles difficulty is just so stupid: making enemies “damage sponges” so that instead of 5 hits, now it takes 15 hits to kill a moblin in the same repetitive way—whack them away so that they can’t get up. how is this fun and interesting?

i fought a black lynel once in the wild and that was cool, but then i just never fought another one again because in my opinion the rewards for killing a lynel just aren’t really worth it. you break a couple of your weapons just to get some of its spoils and it’s like, eh, i’ll pass. a silver bokoblin’s horn might not be as strong but it’s not like it makes a HUGE difference in this game whether i have a silver bokoblin horn or a lynel horn. who cares!

the game of course then wanted me to fight a silver lynel on the way to kill ganondorf and i was like hell no, i don’t want to dodge the same moves over and over again and do the same flurry attacks over and over and over just like i did with the black lynel, except now i get to do it MORE times because of damage sponges! how is that exciting or interesting? at least give stronger enemies more variety in their attacks instead of making my hand hurt from just doing the same repetitive (there’s that word again) moves until it dies.

Speaking of Hinoxes and Stone Taluses, during my first encounter I was delighted to have a random mini-boss-like fight out in the open, thinking it was the only one. Then I quickly realized they’re copy and pasted all over the map. I was expecting to see unique mini-bosses or fights in certain locations, but that wouldn’t be possible when they have the loot system requiring you grind enemies over and over to upgrade numerical stats on armor.

already touched on the point made above a little bit but just had to mention it here as well because as i said, this game takes away any sort of unique aspect to it by beating it to death via copy pasting enemies, mini bosses, and bosses all over its map. you can’t imagine the disappointment i felt when i learned that colgera, aka a boss i really loved fighting at the wind temple, was found again in the depths. and again. i at least fought it three times throughout the game, not sure if it appears more times but when i saw it the second time i was like holy shit, this again?? really? any memory of having such a thrill of fighting it for the first time was quickly erased realizing nintendo just can’t keep something unique in this game. same thing with phantom ganon—encountering it for the first time was cool and intimidating. by the time i rescued the deku tree i was just sick to death of it, so realizing i had to fight it YET AGAIN!!!! at hyrule castle with the whole fake zelda business was just almost unbearable. (man, typing this whole rant out is making me realize just how many repetitive and monotonous aspects there are to this game!!!! and i hate that i keep using that word but what else is there to describe the constant sludge of same same same same this game kept throwing at my face??)

combat gets repetitive very fast.

look, i mentioned it before but i don’t play zelda to custom make doohickeys that can kill enemies. i’m old fashioned and honestly not creative enough (minecraft building wasn’t for me, i just liked to explore), so i like my hand-to-hand combat, with an arrow or two in between. i’ve already mentioned this in the previous section but the combat in this game just gets so repetitive despite the many weapons this game tries to throw at your face. i mean really when you think about it you have three kinds of weapons: your typical sword, the two-handed sword, and the spear. and i guess the bow? (oh and the wands but i’m more referring to the classic combat weapons) but like, for hand-to-hand combat, your overall strategy doesn’t change regardless of the type of weapon you have, which is just wack away as many times as you can, and do some flurry attacks for the stronger enemies like lynels and uh. hmmm. yeah. why not introduce different attack mechanics depending on the type of weapon you are building, like the horizon series does with the many weapon types it introduces in the games?

i’m not saying previous zelda games’ combat was the most exciting or varied, but at least with tww, the special parry attack attack would VARY by either doing a helm splitter or a back slice. but here in botw/totk it’s like…your special sword attacks consist of your classic spin attack and the flurry attack, which just stays (yet again) constant throughout the game. no upgrades like with the hurricane spin or the great spin. with tp and even tmc you had your hidden skills you could learn to vary your sword attacks and even tp gives you a special finishing attack (the ending blow, and actually SS had this too now that i remember!), but these past two zelda games just have failed to give much flavor in the sword techniques you can use. which is kind of stupid when you think about it cus this link is supposed to have been trained in sword combat while tww link is some kid from an island and tp link is just some guy raised in a ranch. i don’t know if this is the game trying to make itself seem more difficult by having removed these types of different sword skills because like, why can’t i side step and do a back slice like in tp? or ANYTHING ELSE other than a damn flurry attack which, if you’re not good at dodging, then good luck with that shit. flurry attacking over and over again just gets old very fast and makes those sponge enemies even more of a chore to fight when i can’t add any flavor to my sword attacks. just yet another thing in the game that i feel severely pales in comparison to past zelda games.

the weapon durability.

speaking of combat variety…i have no idea why i thought weapon durability would go away in totk. do people really like having breakable weapons? it was something i absolutely hated in botw and well, it’s back and HOPEFULLY not here to stay as a staple of new zelda games!

I’m beating a dead horse here, but breakable weapons is not a fun concept at all. It’s tedious and makes finding and collecting new weapons completely moot because “well I’ll be able to use this for a few seconds til it breaks.” If you want more weapons while keeping the thrill of finding them alive but not having a stronger one that makes others obsolete, then make a bunch of non-breakable weapons that are used differently and better in certain situations than others.

to piggyback on that last point, that sort of matches with what i was saying earlier about having different attack mechanics depending on the weapon that you’re using. i don’t know why the hell we need to have breakable weapons be a thing in this game. is it just to fill the overworld with more treasure chests of weapons you can find like the biggoron’s sword so you can be like “oh, thanks for this, it will break in a couple of hits and then i’ll lose it forever”? having the master sword “lose” its power after certain hits is so damn stupid too. sure zelda roamed the skies as a dragon for hundreds of years to power up the master sword but it still becomes unusable after wacking it against a moblin for a bit too long. this game just REALLY wants you to spend all your time running around and fighting the same enemies over and over again so you can get new weapons/stupid shit to fuse to them to make this game longer than it really is.

the music overall.

anyone who knows me even just a little bit knows how much i love video game music. i’ll even listen to music from games i haven’t even played, and i even cry of just pure joy at listening to some of the video game music out there. but oh god. just thinking about traversing the overworld in this game with just hearing link’s footsteps and the clunky armor is enough to make me go insane. why can’t we have good overworld music in zelda games anymore? as mentioned above, at least when i had to sail around tww’s ocean or ride around st’s tracks, it gave me some damn good music to listen to that, frankly, never got old (st’s overworld theme is still one of my ultimate faves in the series). and it’s not just hyrule, but the sky and the depths have this same problem as well: absolutely nothing but silence or (in the depth’s case) random creepy music from time to time. as if the overworld itself isn’t boring enough, they just had to make its “music” dull and lackluster and honestly non-memorable. when i think of exploring hyrule in TP i think of that badass orchestra-like music playing while i’m riding around with epona. when i think of exploring hyrule/the sky/the depths in totk i think of absolutely nothing but emptiness and boredom, music-wise. SIGH!

but if the overworld wasn’t bad enough, i feel like the locations themselves didn’t…really offer much in terms music that i’d personally want to save in my music collection. there were some exceptions, of course: hateno village (but really it’s just the same music as in botw), dragon head island (really chill music, love it), and…i think the lookout landing had some decent music, but honestly i don’t remember it well enough lmao. boss-wise, sure, the wind temple boss fight music was REALLY cool (dragon roost island sample in there? sign me the fuck up), and the build up as to when you’re going down to face ganondorf was also cool, but…again, for a game THIS damn huge, i’d expect more memorable music, like with the horizon series, minecraft, or xenoblade 1/X. idk, i just am not impressed with the music available in this game given how many iconic songs the zelda games have been in the past. like kakariko village’s theme song in this game is, imo, a disgrace. idk why they couldn’t have adjusted the classic kakariko village theme song to fit the new “aesthetic” they were going for with the sheikah. they did it in tww (where it’s a lively town) and they did it in tp (now in like a old wild west town kind of thing), why couldn’t they do it in botw/totk? ugh, just….so lame and bland.

the depths.

the problem i have with the depths is pretty much the same problems i had with the hyrule overworld except make it ten times worse and also now it’s completely dark. “but omg isn’t it cool how the depths mirror the surface overworld??” yeah i don’t really care, alttp already did that and it didn’t bore me to tears exploring the dark world. seriously, i fucking dreaded going to the depths because if the lack of new and interesting things to do on the surface is bad, then in the depths it’s just so much worse. at least in the surface you can use your horse in some areas to make it go a bit faster, but here? all on foot, baby. imagine exploring the surface all on foot, with barely ANY interesting landmarks, with the same 5 or so enemies, all the damn time, and it’s dark…can’t think of anything worse, game-design wise lmao. seriously, the depths were just idk another attempt to make this game’s overworld seem a lot bigger than it is but god it was just so damn fucking boring to me. i don’t care about the abandoned mines, or the springs, or…well, what else was there? just yet another treasure chest with yet another PART of an outfit? no thanks!!

i specifically remember that getting one part of the TP outfit was such a pain in the ass to get because it’s in that spiral part on the eastern side of the map except well it’s in the depths. it was literally just me running for like 5 minutes straight around this spiral while running past a bunch of bokoblins and other enemies because lmao i don’t want to fight the same damn enemy over and over again as i’m trying to get to the end of this spiral which is actually just part of some abandoned mines with no lore or anything else interesting in it that would make it memorable. and of course what’s at the end of it all? a throwback outfit so that you can think it was worth it to run like an idiot for 5 minutes straight. finding a quiver upgrade or an empty bottle would have felt more rewarding than just yet another outfit that i won’t be bothering to upgrade because upgrades in this game are so damn tedious.

99% of the islands.

i feel like a broken record here so i’ll keep this section short since my issues with the islands are similar to the issues i have with the shrines and the overworld and the caves except now they’re in the sky. other than dragon-head island and the one where you have to like move mirrors so that light shines in certain directions, the sky islands were stale and just a big whatever. i don’t know what else to say that i haven’t already beaten to death here except that the islands in tww are more interesting and rewarding to explore than the sky islands in totk. just would absolutely bore me to tears fighting my nth construct or doing the nth take-this-crystal-to-reveal-a-shrine quest next!

the temples.

again, my problems with the temples are very similar to that of shrines, ‘cus i mean they actually just feel like glorified shrines, but at least in totk they did a better job at having each temple have a different design and feel to it instead of botw where just every beast felt the fucking same (i honestly wouldn’t be able to tell the beast dungeons apart from one another). regardless, i don’t know about you guys but man do i sure as hell miss traditional zelda temples. to quote a person i follow who recently talked about their grievences with botw (waywardsalt):

Older zelda games’ dungeons being tied to their respective items is a big part- to me- of what makes those dungeons so good. […] The dungeons in past Zelda games are practically complex tutorials on how you can use your new items. […] And then you must then use that item to defeat that dungeon’s boss, and you usually have no chance of beating that boss if you don’t make use of the dungeon’s associated item. It’s like a final test for the item, seeing if you know how it works enough to complete the dungeon and use it against a boss’s weaknesses.

much like the beasts in botw, you get to a temple here and they immediately mark the spots of where you have to go. some are more straightforward and simplistic (the water temple) than others (the fire temple—which i think is the best of the four), but they all amount to the same thing: all of the puzzles are just a variation of yet another ultrahand object fusion, or if we get a little bit crazy, you have to use ascend throughout the temple. instead of giving you a mirror shield, the lightning temple just makes you use the ultrahand to move around mirrors to solve puzzles. which was cool at first (who doesn’t love mirror puzzles?), but the temple felt way too damn short compared to other mirror-heavy temples (spirit temple from oot and earth temple from tww), and moving around a mirror that’s laying in the room in plain sight just doesn’t have quite the same zelda feel of “i’ve fought my way through this temple, beat the miniboss, and NOW i finally have a mirror shield i can use to solve the puzzles i had been seeing previously!” ‘cus idk i do miss having that bit sense of progression that dungeon items would add: i DO miss stumbling upon a locked door in a temple and searching everywhere for a key to unlock it, or wondering “wow, i have to get up there, but i think i’m missing the temple item in order to advance, i guess i’ll have to come back here after defeating the miniboss.” instead here it’s just like, ok, i’m in the flashing dot room, what fan/cart/rocket/wing combination do they want me to build yet again??

i always felt like temples were supposed to be a big part of zelda games but, again, other than the fire temple, i felt like the temples here were rather fast to beat, with the water temple just being the worst offender. i mean they can’t all be winners, but considering this game ONLY has FOUR temples, you’d think they’d idk be a bit longer or more difficult to complete like in majora’s mask? there is barely any complexity in navigating temples like with MM’s snowhead temple or tww’s wind temple—the fire temple was the only one that did anything interesting with its navigation and the others were just so fucking flat, much like the beasts in botw. did the zelda team lose its main dungeon designer or something? even majora’s mask’s pirate fortress—a MINI dungeon—was more fun and interesting to navigate than THE fucking water temple in totk. what a joke!!!

the way the story gets told.

i won’t talk about my grievances with the story details themselves, there’s plenty of people who have rightly criticized how simplistic it is and how it doesn’t really make you empathize with ANY of its characters (except, in my opinion, princess zelda): not sorry but i actually laughed when ganondorf killed sonia lol, especially with them being like HA! your fake zelda ways can’t trick us!!! and then WHAM out comes ganondorf and fucking obliterates sonia like lol ok bye girl!!! i hardly knew you and the game gave me no incentive to care about you like i would with medli in tww or grandma impa in ss so your death means nothing to me! oh whoops i need to stop talking about the “story” and its “characters” before i get carried away!

anyway! i absolutely despised how botw told its bare-bones “story” through memories you had to find in the overworld, so can you imagine my utter disappointment when totk has decided to ONCE AGAIN tell its story the same damn way?? i get that they’re going for an open world aspect but my god, some fucking linearity won’t fucking kill you nintendo. plenty of open world games are STILL very much open world while forcing some linearity when trying to tell its story—horizon forbidden west and xenoblade x come to mind. these games still let you explore much of its world as freely as you want while making you progress through its story and make you care about its characters and their purpose along the way. but here with totk i feel no connection to the world or its people—kakariko village used to be such an important place in zelda games and i honestly couldn’t tell you the name of ONE interesting or appealing character from that village like renado in TP or Mila from TWW (what’s the name of that girl that took over from impa? even fucking impa is just another afterthought in this damn game). shit, i’m getting sidetracked again, but god there is just so many things to talk about how poor of a job totk does in making you FEEL something in its damn empty overworld but i got other shit to do and this is already way too damn long (if you’ve made it this far i could kiss you!!!!)

anyway anyway! my main problem with the way that the “story” gets told is that you can collect the memory that explains the bit about fake zelda way early in the game and you’re still running around visiting towns with the new sages being like “omg princess zelda was here and she tried to kill us!! :(“ like, link what the fuck you clearly just saw a memory that zelda is in the past (or has become a dragon if you went and hunted down all the memories right away) and there was a fake zelda back then, SPEAK UP and TELL these people something!!! same thing with those sidequests with penn or whatever, you’re over here hunting down clues about the missing princess, but you already know where she is!! she’s in the past!! the zelda that people have been seeing is more than likely fake!!! she’s a dragon!! but no, because nintendo for some reason couldn’t figure out how to tell an engaging and interesting story while also having an open world (they had 6 years!!!), you have to sit like an idiot as these people talk to you about fake zelda apparitions while you’re just like “gee i wonder what THAT could be!!”

because i found dragonhead island + the fifth sage way before my fight with phantom ganon, one of my friends told me that once you beat him, you can go back to kakariko village and tell people that the zelda that prohibited access to the ring ruins is fake so that they’ll let you explore them and eventually lead you to dragonhead island. but see, i never had to do that so instead i was just frustrated at the game design that i can’t SPEAK UP about fake zelda because the game decided that this is the one time they want some linearity and you won’t be able to say anything about the fake zelda until you defeat her. instead of like, hey, let’s warn the citizens of hyrule that there’s a fake zelda running around and to not trust her?? hello?? just another missed opportunity of having this game somewhat connect you to its characters and surroundings.

likewise with the master sword. i got the master sword before i saw the final tear + learned of the sacrifice zelda had to make, so i was kinda mad cus i feel like the emotional impact of getting the master sword from the white dragon would have been MUCH MORE greater if the game would have FORCED me to see the final tear before trying to retrieve the master sword. so it’s just like, ugh. if i have to play another zelda game that does such a shitty job at telling its story and making compelling characters that evoke empathy and compassion, i will seriously not know what to do with myself. like a mutual (shoutout be-gay-do-crimes) recently mentioned: loneliness isn’t Zelda!!

and i know people have complained about this but like, sitting through the same damn cutscene after you beat the temple bosses was YET AGAIN nintendo showing that they don’t know how to keep things interesting and just repeat the same BS over and over again. why not have each old sage, which of course are just another afterthought in this game’s sea of uninteresting NPCs, add on something new from its POV so we literally don’t have to sit through the exact same story being told and have absolutely no unique perspective from the old sage? is it really too much to ask for a bit of variety for a game that reused a lot of assets from its previous game and had so many years in development? where are the good story writers from past zelda games??

link’s lack of emotions.

i have a full post where i talk about botw link’s lack of emotions and why it was such a disappointment going from tww/tp/ss to….that, so i won’t get too much into this here ‘cus i already wrote another thesis-long post about that that you can find. people defend totk link saying “but his micro expressions! omg!!! you’re OBVIOUSLY not paying attention!!” like ok lmao keep being happy you’re fed crumbs. botw/totk link’s emotions are a fucking joke when you compare to previous zelda games, even oot link showed relief and a smile at zelda when they thought they had killed ganondorf. totk link? exists in a vacuum. to quote waywardsalt again:

the blank stare and limited emoting worked in botw because… there’s a given reason for his lack of outward emotion in the past, plus he has no memory in the present. it makes sense. but this time around, he’s gotten memories in the years between this and the last game, but he just feels like a background character in most of the story beats.

like i’m sorry if i expect link to at least show a fucking SMILE at zelda once she says “link, i’m home!” GIVEN that he knows the incredibly weighted decision that zelda took in becoming a dragon and roam its skies for hundreds of years in order to give link and the people of hyrule some hope that evil will be defeated once again. this is the same girl that spent 100 years keeping calamity ganon at bay waiting for YOU to heal and wake up. and there’s absolutely no emotional payback from link to us the player or zelda now that we know she won’t spent eternity as a dragon? give me a break! botw tried to explain it in zelda’s diary saying that “oh link doesn’t like showing emotion because he feels he has so much responsibility on his shoulder so he doesn’t want anyone to know what he’s feeling” but like, girl he’s not made of stone??

imagine if we had gotten a fraction of ss link’s expressions with totk link when he’s reaching out to zelda as she’s falling again after turning back into a human just like ss link did when he tried to catch zelda from falling to the surface. or respond to totk zelda’s “i’m home!” with the same smile that tp link gave to midna when he saw his friend was safe after the light spirits bring her back. it’s just ugh so fucking frustrating looking back at past links and how expressive they were and with totk we’re supposed to cheer that he has microexpressions and praise nintendo for making link such an emotionally-complex character through crumbs. it just makes the totk fanart of link and zelda even funnier considering how non-responsive link is to anything involving zelda. botw/totk zelda has gone through so much shit emotionally to just be talking to a wall. just whatever.

miscellaneous questionable gameplay decisions.

why can’t i call my horse from wherever i am in the overworld like i could in oot/mm/tp. this game tries to be sooo realistic with its slipping from walls if it’s raining or striking you with thunder if you have metallic weapons or well OF COURSE your horse can’t hear you whistling from where you are 10 thousand feet away! but sure i can dive from great heights and not die and i can climb mountains like spiderman and swim up waterfalls with a special shirt (but careful ‘cus this same shirt will make you drown with regular horizontal swimming!) and sure it’s fine for the gerudo to run through the desert in heels. like…make it make sense lol.

and why is it such an odyssey to use a sage’s ability. why do i have to chase them down in a chaotic battle for me to use riju’s ability. why aren’t there shortcut buttons for me to do this. who thought this was a good idea?

why is there no shortcut or a menu where i can easily switch back and forth between my most-used outfits? this was especially annoying in the desert when during the night it’d be freezing cold, so there i go to put on the rito pants and shirt. ah but it’s afternoon again so open up the menu and now switch to the gerudo head gear so you don’t die of heatstroke. like, there’s all these outfit options and this game makes it such a pain to quickly pick my most-used outfits, especially considering that each outfit consists of three parts so you have to be switching back and forth between whatever is currently needed. it’s why i never even bothered to get the climbing outfit because i sure as hell didn’t want to be switching back and forth between THAT and my green tunic just so i can climb this game’s dull mountains. there’s millions types of outfits and upgrading them just give you defense stats. to quote the destructoid article:

OK, I can swim up a waterfall, but why not let me swim like a Zora as you could in Majora’s Mask? How about on top of just climbing faster, upgrading the climbing gear lets me climb in the rain without slipping? How about at least giving me a hotkey or shortcut to quickly change outfits on the fly instead of going through the menu every five seconds? Those would be things worth upgrading for, not just numerical defensive stats.

but of course you can’t use the same gear for climbing faster AND not allowing you to slip—why, what else would they fill the overworld with if not yet another super specific outfit?

the fusing ability was just a big whatever to me. like, just give me stronger weapons since that’s what i would end up doing 95% of the time with the fuse ability. i don’t care about fusing an ugly-ass looking bokoblin horn to my weapons to make them stronger, or putting a mushroom or whatever on my shield. oh i can fuse fruits and keese eyes and bomb flowers to make fire/ice/light/bomb arrows? very revolutionary.

eventually….ultrahand.

i won’t make this long since i’ve already talked about how i don’t play zelda games for customizations or being able to make my own house or whatever else this game tried to fit into it in a vain attempt to make the game seem bigger than it actually is. sure the ultrahand stuff is cool for the first few hours of the game and your first few shrines, but just like everything else that i’ve talked about on this thesis-long rant, it just got boring and monotonous and uninteresting to me. i honestly went through maybe 70% of the game with just the first zonai battery-thingy that you get from the start since i never really felt the need to upgrade it. ultrahand and its weird-ass puzzles just don’t feel zelda to me, i miss items like the hookshot/clawshots, the boomerang to stun enemies, the whip, the sand wand, the hammer, like…i don’t care that i can make machines that can obliterate enemy camps in an instant, it’s not like enemies are that hard in this game once you get to a certain point—i don’t need ultrahand BS for it. good for the people that are having fun with and making all sorts of contraptions, and yes in a game programming sense it is definitely cool and a marvel to think about, but……idk it just wasn’t for me and the game leaned too heavily on it for my liking. doing the same types of puzzles with carts/rockets/fans over and over again in shrines in the depths in the sky in the temples in the overworld just made me hate the ultrahand mechanic. at least with the ascend ability i felt like it wasn’t as overused as ultrahand but well i guess nintendo really wanted to show off its fancy new toy and say see!! this was worth the 70 dollars!!

—————

whew, well, there’s definitely more things i could talk about in regards to why this game is such a huge letdown for me and one of the worst ZELDA games i’ve had the displeasure to play, but i think i’ll stop here for my own sanity. if there’s one thing i’m grateful for this game is that it made me appreciate older zelda games so much more: i have this huge urge to play through tww and st again, hell even through ocarina of time too even though i’ve beaten that game EASILY over 80 times. i also had a lot of fun messaging back and forth with my buddy downpourstringloop as we would play through the game and exchange our thoughts on it (reminded me of our SS days!), so that was really cool as well. just like with botw, i definitely will not be playing through this game again as i would always do with pretty much all other zelda games (man i remember as soon as i beat ST i immediately started a new run for it because it was just so damn great). it just wasn’t fun for me and i don’t want to wade through 90+ hours of BS just to replay 10 hours of somewhat good moments.

so now that i’ve mostly poured out all most of my thoughts on this game, i hope that totk will not be taking up more of time and make me want to go insane at thinking of all the missed opportunities that nintendo had with this game coming from botw. i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again: i really hope the next zelda game isn’t in this same lackluster open world format and that nintendo can put back a little bit of the magic that made zelda games great and a joy to replay through. but unfortunately for me, people everywhere love botw/totk to death, so it looks like i will just have to ride it out and wait patiently for this zelda open world hype train to die. maybe then we’ll once again get interesting temples, new unique dungeon items, compelling characters and NPCs, engaging sidequests with worthwhile rewards, fun minigames that are rewarding to complete, gameplay that doesn't feel repetitive and beaten to death, and a story that tugs at my heart like SS or ST did.

PEACE OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ✌️

#junk #totk #totk criticism #legend of zelda #zelda #tears of the kingdom #as a long-time zelda fan i just had to get this all out off my chest #it's no surprise my neighbor and i spent over 4 hours talking about this game lol #THE DEED IS DONE i can finally put it to rest #not tagging anyone mentioned in the post cus idk this is just a personal rant #if i thought my xc3 post was long....lol

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bubblegum-and-ciggarettes · 6 months

Text

Spoilers For S2E1!

(Some of Comic Spoilers too)

I said I would probably most a more spoiler discussion post so let’s go!

Alright let’s start with the intro. In the intro we’re introduced with a Mark that eventually saw his dads view and helped take over Earth with him. I wonder, how long did it take to convince him? Was it before he got beat by Omni Man? Was it after? How long has it been since he took his dads side?

We know that The Immortal went straight after Omni Man once he was resurrected, and I assume the events of Omni Man killing his coworkers were the same. Or maybe he didn’t kill them yet and that’s why Mark was more susceptible to join him? It’s just weird it would take so long as we’re led to know an underground bunker has been made and that Rex died fighting already. Plus Eve has a new look which shows the passage of time.

Its very curious to me how Mark acted in this universe. He seemed just like ours and yet was so cruel. He genuinely thought he was in the right and wanted Eve to join him so bad. He didn’t even kill her, just paralyzed her and said he would visit. Did he see her as a pet? The way Omni Man claimed he did with Debbie? What even happened to Debbie? Was this one in favour of Omni Man and that’s why it seemed much easier to get Mark to be on the Viltrimites side?

What also surprised me was the fact that the act of Mark being good, of not taking his fathers side, was rare in the multiverse. Usually the main character is good in most other universes and is bad in a few. Like Superman for example, who’s a hero in most, but still feels like he’s a monster for being a villain in a few. Usually I’m not a fan of the hero mc being upset over being a villain because it’s not that many universes and obviously they wouldn’t be good in all of them, but for Mark it’s different. In his world, him being good is in the minority. He’s so worried about turning into his father and now he has actual proof that it’s so easy for it to happen. I feel like the fact he’s mostly bad in different universes works wayyy better and actually let’s the audience not roll their eyes over one or two evil versions.

The bit with The Immortal being wary of Mark will definitely show up again once all his other selves join the fight. I wonder if that’s what happened in the version we saw at the beginning too; if that Mark was trying to move on like ours, but in this case he actually did follow his fathers path.

Loving Angstrom so far too. I love how you can already see the complexity and insanity in his character. We know that Marks killed many in the different universes where he exists. We know he knows this. We also know he knows that our Mark is good. And yet, after he WILLINGLY sabotages himself he blames our Mark for everything. For killing so many people. We even see how he went from cool and collected, from being a pacifist who knows that Mark is good and doesn’t deserve to die, to be a cold bloodthirsty genius wanting revenge.

It wasn’t even that Mark was brutal towards the Mauler Twins and co. We don’t see him draw ANY blood from them, even though he easily can as we see him crush The Immortals head in the intro. He’s intentionally holding himself back to not actually hurt them, and Angstrom can see this. I think this was done intentionally to show the viewer how not-at-fault Mark was, and how he doesn’t deserve whatever’s coming. He doesn’t even fight anyone else until the end. I can just tell Mark is gonna have a rough ass time in this season. Boy is just suffering and is gonna face hell itself only a month after his dad tried to kill him.

I know some plot points of the comics, but not much than knowing the events, and so I know there will be a big Invincible fight, but I don’t know what will make them all agree to try to kill our Mark. I also know that Mark gets a new suit eventually; a black and blue suit. The new title card starts with covering the whole thing in blood, and then we see a crack of blue starting. I think what they’re gonna do is reveal the title card in the color scheme of his new suit by the end of the series. I don’t know when exactly he gets his new suit, but I think it’ll probably be in the last episode. You can kinda see the lettering on his name being black in the title card, and I think it breaking away to reveal his new suit scheme will be really cool.

This episode, while not super exciting, was great at setting up the atmosphere and feelings Mark and Debbie are going through. It’s good at showing how much everyone else has moved on compared to them, because they were the most effected. It also handled the main villain lead up super good. Villains being unhinged is always amazing. Especially when we can understand why he wants to kill Mark in general, but doesn’t have any reason to kill our Mark specifically. Can’t wait for the new episode next week!

#invincible season 2 #invincible #invincible s2e1 #mark grayson #Debbie grayson #Nolan grayson #Omni man #Angstorm levy #kinda glad the “’you should’ve died at birth’ thing wasn’t directed at Mark #savage as hell #but I know from comic spoilers that Nolan rlly does love mark #and didn’t want to hurt him or Debbie #we won’t be privy to that for a while tho #Cecil having an obvious soft spot for Mark was also touching #him repeating that what he did was good and he did nothing wrong #right after yelling at the guardians of the globe

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omegafan101 · 2 years

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Okay I need to give some thoughts on Sonic IDW 50 cause I was finally able to read it so MAJOR spoilers below.

I feel like the best way for me to talk about this would be in sections so--

Belle

I love Belle, definetly one of my favorite new inclusions from the comics (which honestly isn’t saying too much because I love ALL of the new inclusions so let’s put her in top 5).

In all honesty I was a little dissapointed with her finally confronting Eggman. It wasn’t bad by any means just not as much as I wanted. But I do like how, without outright saying he remembers her, the writing makes it clear he remembers creating her but that he still isn’t Mr. Tinker. Doesn’t treat her with any fondness but knows her name. I do love that he asked her to join him after seeing how useful she was, and when she refused, he actually let her go just fine. Could’ve had Metal destroy her then and there but he’s perfectly fine letting her walk away. Good little moment there.

Also, Badnik siblings fans finally got their interaction and I am very happy for them. Now when does she meet Omega and/or Gemerl???

Tails vs Kit

I don’t know what I was expecting from this fight but I LOVED it. Tails is a fighter, obviously, but he’s never been nearly as actiony as Sonic, so it was great to see him mostly just dodge and try to talk Kit down.

Kit’s reliance on Surge’s needs have finally kicked Starline in the ass because without her around he just doesn’t know what to do aside from keeping Tails away from helping Sonic or stopping Surge. The way he was genuinly taken aback by Tails’ kindness towards him was kinda fucking heartbreaking, this poor little guy deserves the world. The fact that Tails can calm him down by simply complimenting his tech and relating to him on being different is so nice and a very good moment for Tails and of course he beats him by outsmarting him, Finally Tails has good moments again!

Also just constantly in love with any panel. that gives Kit the evil anime eyes I love this guy’s design it’s so good.

Sonic vs Surge

This is the big one. Most of the issue is dedicated to it after all, and rightfully so. I get where people are coming from when they think Sonic wasn’t written well but, guys, come on, he doesn’t know who the fuck Surge is. She showed up, threw him against a wall, and started going on about how much she hated him, a typical Tuesday for Sonic. He started to catch on that Surge has gone through a LOT more than he knows but didn’t get a chance to truly sympathize with her before the fight ended.

I think the problem here, and this is a good problem for writing, is that Sonic is treating Surge like he treats all his enemies. He’s cocky, he’s quippy, he’s forgiving and tries to give them a second chance. He’s like that with everyone.

The issue is Surge HATES that. She was designed to hate and destroy him and he doesn’t share nearly the same animosity towards her and, in her eyes, doesn’t even treat her like a real threat. It’s a pretty good clashing of characters.

And as for the actual fight my word it was amazing. Felt like something ripped straight out of Dragon Ball, fitting with how many parallels Surge and Kit have to Androids 17 and 18, even if it was apparently unintentional. I gotta say I’m a sucker for villains refusing help from heroes even if it costs them their life and Surge doing this while also getting the satisfaction of “getting the last hit” was superb. Can’t wait to see more of her in the future cause you’d be a fool to think she’s actually dead.

Eggman vs Starline

For a comic about Sonic the Hedgehog coming off of a mini series about Surge and Kit, this fight, by all accounts, should NOT be the highlight of the comic but holy fuck it IS.

This was amazing start to finish. Sonic Heroes is what got me into Sonic in the first place so I am HERE for the Egg Emperor being pulled out! It’s honestly just such a cool design for an Eggman robot, and of course Starline pulls out the Death Egg Robot because that things becoming as necessary to Sonic as Green Hill and Chemical Plant (I still love it though good robot design). An Eggman mech battle was NOT on my bingo card.

Egg Emperor was made even better with Starline pulling out the team blast (on his own) and I love how Eggman used that AGAINST him! After such a blunder with having no backup plan for the Metal Virus, the way he absolutely demolishes Starline and uses his own ego, fanboy nature, and tech against him is fucking amazing. New triple power glove? Used the Egg Emperor to bait him to use all its power. Hypnotizing glove? He told him about that, he remembered, and planned for it. Barbed ankle? YA YA YEET!!!

This issue finally made Eggman scary again. Yeah he’s a goofy, egg shaped scientist but what sets him apart from someone like Bowser is that he is CAPABLE and when he’s at his absolute A-game he is fucking powerful and terrifying.

As for Starline. MAN what a send off for the character. He’s easily had some of the strongest presence out of any of the new characters and I’m glad we’re finally done with him. I loved him but I was kinda worried he would escape, be upset his plan failed again, and try something else. But no! He fails and is just fucking TORN by the fact that no matter how much he plans, he can’t beat Sonic, and he CERTAINLY isn’t better than Dr. Eggman.

I can’t find the source for this but I read that Ian Flynn confirmed that he dies here so I suppose this really is a send off for this wonderful homage to Dr. Finitevus. It was great while it lasted but hopefully this means Eggman and more new or old villains get chances to shine. Plus, supposedly Ian also said that if demand is high enough he could feesibly be brought back in the far future, which is standard comics affair, so I suppose it’s not goodbye, just, until next time you rat bastard.

Conclusion

It’s no Metal Virus arc but man I’ve loved Imposter Syndrome so far. It’s not quite over yet but issue 50 was a very neat wrap up of several plot threads and it was just such a good time.

Can’t wait to see Adrenaline Dubs do it, even if they are way way behind lmao

#sonic the hedgehog #sonic idw #sonic idw spoilers #miles tails prower #belle the tinkerer #metal sonic #surge the tenrec #kit the fennec #Dr. Eggman #dr. starline

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eaamon · 4 months

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Perspective | Part 4

Warning: It has spoilers from manga so don't read it if you aren't caught up.

Pairing: Touya Todoroki x Reader (Female)

Synopsis: Touya has become a hero, fulfilling his father's wish. He wanted Endeavor to be proud of him. Then why is this emptiness chasing him everywhere? Why can't he fit in with everyone else? Is this really what he wanted? All his thoughts and concepts about the hero society are left in chaos when he meets a certain villain.

Note: There is just Fuyumi in this story because Touya has achieved what Endeavor wanted.

Word count: 2.7k

“Eh?” She was staring at him with wide eyes and parted lips. She had dropped the pen she was writing with. “What do you mean?” Her voice seemed unsure and he could see her red ears peeking out of her hair. He swallowed hard as he weighed different options to answer that question. He could hear his heart hammering in his chest. A minute passed by as they quietly stared at each, awkwardness blanketing them.

“This…this place I found. Thought you’d like it.” He finally managed to say. In the last moment he decided to change the meaning of what he asked her. It was too risky and he didn’t want whatever they had between them to completely disappear because of his stupidity.

“Oh?” It seemed like her voice had calmed down from the high-pitched voice before and he saw her shoulders sag. “I’m afraid I have decline. There is a lot of work I need to do.” She gave him a sorry smile. He shook his head immediately and he took a step towards her. “Ya gotta stop overworking your ass. Your progress will get affected.”

She shook her head at that. “I have been taking breaks. It’s fine.” She looked down at her work and picked the pen. He clicked his tongue out of annoyance and walked over to her in large strides and grabbed her wrist. “When was the last time you went out of this building?” He demanded. She was looking up a him with surprise. At least she wasn’t pulling herself away from him. “I went to the bank…” She gave him an awkward close eyed smile. “That was ages ago.” His grip tightened as he pulled her out of the chair. “You’re coming with me.”

“W-wait…” Her voice was hesitant and she halted. He looked back at her over his shoulder with a questioning look on his face. “Are you sure…about this?” Her voice was meek when she asked that and looked down. He gave her an incredulous expression. “I wouldn’t be here otherwise!” He let out an exacerbated sigh at that. He turned to face her completely, her wrist still in his grip. “What is it? I know you got something cooking in that head of yours.”

She finally looked up at him with wide eyes. She was shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “Well…you’re a hero and a lot of people know you. And villains come after me so I have to be careful.” He blinked at that. “Well, I don’t care what random ass people have to say about me hanging out with someone. As for your safety, you’ve got number 2 hero accompanying you. I’ll beat them up.” He had a slight pout on his face as he stared to his side while rubbing the back of his neck. He only looked her way when she giggled. He was stunned at what he saw. Her cheeks were dusted red and her eyes were closed with a cute smile on her face. He was taking it all in, burning it in to his memory, not realizing his cheeks were tingling.

She looked up at him with confidence swimming in her now bright eyes. “Okay.” He didn’t realize he had a huge grin on his face as he turned and started pulling her along with him. They were now walking side by side. After a while he realized he was still gripping her wrist and just thinking about it made his cheeks burn but he didn’t know what to do. It would seem weird if he suddenly removed his hand so he just kept holding it.

“So…what’s the special occasion today?” He heard her say beside him. He looked her way once and then forward “Hm?” He didn’t understand what she meant so he asked her to elaborate. “You seem to be in a good mood. Did something good happen?” She was looking up at him curiously and he felt himself slow his pace. “E-eh?” He internally facepalmed at himself stuttering so badly. “Is there anything wrong in that?” He was pouting now and looking to the side, not realizing his grip tightened around her wrist. She laughed at that and his eyes automatically shifted to her face. “No, silly. I was just curious what made you so happy.” He raised his eyebrow at her. He thought about what could have made him so happy and the only thing that came to his mind was the fact that she agreed to hang out with him. Just thinking about it made him embarrassed. There was no way he would agree to that outwardly.

“Ya gotta figure that out yourself.” With that he looked at the front. They finally reached the train station. They both got tickets and he didn’t let her pay no matter how much she protested. Once they settled in the train, she turned towards him with curious eyes and a small pout on her face. “You always tell me what’s up but why aren’t you telling me now?” It was his turn to be surprised. That was followed by a snort. She was fuming now and had her hands clenched in fists. She looked so cute right now, he could kiss her. His thoughts halted there as he stared at her quietly.

“Didn’t think you cared so much about me, Doll.” He had a soft smile on his face. He saw her halt and drop her loosened fists in her lap. She opened and closed her mouth like a fish as she tried searching for a way to answer. She finally let out a shaky breath and spoke something in a meek low tone which wasn’t audible to him because of the loud sound of trains and people chattering around them.

“What? I couldn’t hear ya.” He placed a hand behind his ear and leaned forward so that his ear is close to her face. He saw her stiffen from his periphery. “I do…care about you.” Her voice was low but this time it reached him. He stayed in the same position for a bit because his face was burning from what she just said and how close her voice was. He finally looked up when he had composed himself, with a smug grin on his face. “Awee. Was it that hard to admit, Doll?” She let out an exacerbated sigh and covered his face with her hand, pushing it away. He let out a chuckle at that and grabbed her wrist to pull the hand away. He saw her looking away from him but her ears betrayed her by poking out of her hair showing the red dusted over them.

Just them he heard the announcement and he realized it was their stop. This seemed like the quickest train ride he had ever taken. “That’s our stop.” He told her while standing up. He led her through the crowd, still holding her wrist.

They kept bickering back and forth for the rest of the way until they reached the foot of a hill. “Hiking?” She sounded unsure. “Just a little bit. But there’s a little surprise on top.” He told her while taking a step forward. She hummed in response and followed him.

They hadn’t even covered half of the hill when he heard a sound beside him causing him to look. He saw her slipping over a stone and was about to take a tumble. His body took action quickly and his arm was under her before he could think properly. Her body was pressed so close to him and he could feel her breath hitting his face. He was staring in to her wide E/C orbs. Her hands were gripping his shirt over his chest. He was hoping she wouldn’t feel the hammering of his chest. He snapped out of the trance when he heard her calling his name. “Yeah?” He didn’t realize his voice had deepened. “I…I’m okay now. You can…you can get up.” He nodded when she said that. He pulled her up with him, his arm still looped around her waist. He was a bit disappointed about how short this moment lasted but he didn’t let it sour his mood. “You’re such a klutz.” He gave her a disapproving nod. “You should come out more often.” Saying that he grabbed her hand this time, intertwining their fingers. She froze at that and gave him a questioning look. “To make sure you don’t tumble down.” He made an excuse because he was caught in the moment and didn’t think before grabbing her hand.

Soon they reached the top of the hill and heard her breath hitch beside her. This was the first sound he heard her make since she nearly tumbled down the hill. The top of the hill was covered in a lot of plants. It looked like a mix of green, purple, yellow and blue. There was a tree in the right which was covered in moss and there was an old swing hanging from it. The sun was beginning to set, casting orange shadows everywhere. “It’s so pretty.” She spoke while taking a few steps forward. She did a little twirl and she looked breathtaking as her white dress floated along with the wind and she seemed to glow. She was now looking at him, her head slightly tilted to the side with a closed smile and hands behind her back. She looked heavenly.

Before he knew it, he took his phone out and took a picture. The loud shutter caused her eyes to open wide and he cursed himself for not keeping his phone silent. Her eyes were wide as she rushed over to him with her hands out in a demanding way. “Give it to me.” Her cheeks were puffed up. “You looked nice. I can send it you…if you give me your number.” He gave her a smirk. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish as she pounced on him, trying to take the phone from him but he easily raised his hand over his head so the phone was out of her reach. “You can’t take it from me by force, armrest.” He chuckled as he rested his elbow on her head. She was fuming from anger at that and finally gave up. She pushed his arm away from her head and turned away. He watched her stomp away as he covered his mouth watching her being cute.

He saw her squatting down and touching the flowers with a gentle touch. He closed his eyes and imagined himself as that flower but his thoughts suddenly halted and he opened his eyes. What was he thinking just now? He shook his head and walked over to her. “You can take some to keep on your desk.” He squatted beside her. “I can?” She asked with a hopeful look in her eyes, the anger from before already melted in to thin air. He chuckled and nodded. “Why not? It’s free property.” He shrugged. She tilted her head out of confusion. “Oh? I thought it was someone’s property. It seems well kept.”

“I come here to train everyday so in my breaks I take care of these.” He saw the surprise on her face. “Oh? That’s nice.” She turned back to the plants and stared at them for a while. Then she stood up. “Eh? You’re not gonna take em?” He was confused as he stood up along with her. She shook her head. “They’ll die if I pick them. They are better taken care of here.” He shrugged at that. “Suit yourself.” He knew what kind of person she was by now and this response made complete sense to him. She has always been caring when any life is involved and that was the motivation behind the facility as well. He admired her for that. He was so lost in thought that he didn’t realize she wasn’t beside him.

He saw her beside the swing so he walked over to her. “Need my help, kiddo? How will you take the swing with those short legs?” He saw her cheeks puff up and she hmphed while sitting down. He chuckled and stood behind her. Her back was so close to him, he could feel the heat radiating from her body. She held on to the ropes and just sat like that, admiring the sunset, maybe? But then she looked at him over her shoulder. “Well?” He gave her a questioning look when she asked that. “Why aren’t you pushing me? You said you were gonna help.” He stared at her as he felt fire rising in his body and burning his throat and cheeks. He didn’t expect her to actually agree. He shook his head as he let out a chuckle. “As you wish, My Lady.” He bowed and then proceeded to grab the rope from both sides. He heard her chuckle at this response as he pulled the ropes back and let it go. He could hear the branch creaking as the swing moved.

She took a deep breath followed by a relaxed sigh. Her shoulders weren’t pulled up and her face didn’t have the stress lines anymore. “Thank you, Touya.” He heard her voice coming close and then moving far from him. “For what?” He genuinely didn’t know why she thanked him so out of the blue. “For bringing me here. I feel much better now.” He shook his head as he smiled wide while pushing the swing. “Told ya so.” He could never have guessed what happened in the next few seconds. He heard a snap and the swing was coming right at him. He heard her yelp as he tried to grab her. She collided with him as they both fell in to the ground, surrounded by the soft grass.

He finally opened his eyes after the impact and he felt like someone took his breath away. His hands were resting on her waist as she was sprawled on top of him, her back facing him. “Shit.” He finally spoke as he turned her towards him with slight worry. “You good?” He scanned her face, not realizing the proximity as he leaned further. Her hands were resting on his sides and he brought his up to cup her cheek and turn her head slightly. Then he grabbed her hands and examined them. It was now that he realized she was stiff and staring at him quietly.

He looked up with a worried expression on her face but before he could say anything, his voice was caught in his throat because he finally realized the proximity of their bodies and her lidded eyes. They were staring at each other quietly. He felt his head inching closer to her face and he saw her coping his movements. He could feel his cheeks burning and it seemed like his heart would come out of his chest. He saw her eyes closing and that was the last thing he saw before he felt her lips over his. He could feel their lips move in sync as he raised his hands to cup her cheeks. She was putting all her weight on him as she tried to lean closer even though their bodies were touching. It seemed like there were fireworks going on in his stomach. For a moment it seemed like it might finally work out between them, that their difference didn't matter. That she liked him as well. His tongue finally reached her lips as he tried to gain entry but he felt her halt.

Just then she pushed herself away from him. She was staring at him with wide eyes as she breathed deeply. He looked breathtaking. He smirked at her as he brushed his fingers through her hair. “That was unexpected, Doll.” His voice was soft and his eyes were lidded as his hand moved from her hair to her cheeks and he caressed that soft plump flesh. He saw the surprise on her face shift to horror as she shook her head. “No…I…it’s…I didn’t think. It was just a stupid thing I did in the moment.” She was pushing herself away from him while shaking her head. Her body was trembling and her voice was breaking. He felt something crack inside him as his face became sombre. “What do you mean?” His voice was heavy as he sat up. “I’m sorry.” With that she stood up and started walking away at a quick pace. He didn’t have it in him to follow her or ask anything further so he just saw her receding back, jaw clenched tightly. His eyes were burning as he let out a shaky breath while plopping back down in the grass when he couldn’t see her anymore. He covered his face with his arm and stayed still.

Note: I had promised that I was gonna post regularly but then disappeared. I didn't exactly have the motivation to continue plus I have a hectic schedule so I just pushed it aside. I apologize for that. I hope there are still people here who would read this and I hope you enjoy. Feedback would be nice.

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tsuki-sennin · 5 months

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Episode 44! She's finally here~! The Empress finally makes her mark! We get to know her deal! Uh... use the intro I had two episodes ago, yeah that one. Also there's a Beeg Elle running around. An Uppercase Elle, if you would.

Spoilers, I guess...

-"I can't believe I got my ass beat by a bunch of teenage girls, a thirteen-year old bird and a baby. How far I have fallen..."

-Ahhhhh, injured previously.

-"Skearhead. If you die, that's it."

-Ariri...

-We ride our Chocobos to meet the darkness.

-Oh yeah, Elle gets big in this episode

-She doth brood in the rain.

-"Somewhere safe?"

-Oh???

-I'd be a little more shocked about this apparent hint at a deeper history between the Underg's desire to topple Sky Land's monarchy if this were a thing brought up more

-Ohhhhhhh she looks so sick

-Instant Dark Pillar

-300 YEARS????

-GIRL WHAT

-Beef with a literal baby.

-Oh wow, she

-She's serious about this, huh?

-Majestic Chroniclon~!

-Away to the soaring world go you

-Oh, okay just

-Shoot 'em all down

-"I hate you, Princess."

-Time stands still in the Chroniclon's world.

-Elle-chan does as any kid would do. Go straight to her Mom and Dad :)

-BIRDS

-Oh, I see how this is now

-No miss, we're fine! Sorry to bother you and your... escort?

-Ellelain?

-"Did we find a body double?"

-To the castle we go~!

-556~!

-Oh!

-Sky Land's got a different calendar too. Interesting how we still have worldbuilding even so late into the season.

-Hmm... I wonder what kind of massive world-shifting event caused them to start their calendar 856 years ago?

-Try not to step on any Cure Butterflies while we're here, okay?

-The Legendary Pretty Cure, once more.

-Oh yeah, we have a whole knight regiment here.

-Hirogaru Change~!

-...Hirogaru Change~!

-"Here you go, kind strangers~!"

-She believes in the future...

-OH?

-Hello!

-Who the hell are you, pops?

-Jesus, they're all getting womped.

-Emperor Underg~!

-There goes our hero, Sora-chan.

-"Flee, my son!"

-God, Sora's so cool...

-One kill~!

-"Underg Energy. Rip them to shreds."

-I see Mashiro's now a god at Chocobo Racing.

-Well, we kinda bootstrapped the Legendary Pretty Cure into existence, Song of Storms style.

-Densetsu no Pretty Cure! Cure Noble...

-The hell are we doin' today?

-Ohhhhhhh, I see

-A princess herself.

-Ohhhhhhhhh

-I see....

-Yeah, that's good enough motivation for me.

-I think this would've been awesome to explore earlier, but uh... well, we were kinda preoccupied, weren't we?

-She's gonna kill your asshole dad, little Empress.

#Hop! Step! Jump! Hero Gals Dream of the Everlasting Sky!#precure #pretty cure #hirogaru sky precure #hirogaru sky spoilers

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ordinaryxtreme · 1 year

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Blue Lock Thoughts(tm) Post

So I read Blue Lock up to the U-20 match and let me just say that having a lot of thoughts about it is an understatement. These are not Smart(tm) thoughts at all, just me screaming into the void. I'll mostly be talking abt third selection up to U-20 match so spoilers for up to ch 148!!

Chigiri and Kunigami

MY SHIP... The third selection truly made them so Spicy. They could've been the dynamic duo that perseveres together all the way through the selection, but they got separated and Kunigami didn't even make it PAST the third selection, at least, not in the normal way. I was upset at the reveal (I was very embarrassingly yelling to my friend in voice chat while reading) because I missed their banter. But now that I think about it, we now have the knight/hero rising up from the ashes to meet his princess again and I'm now so glad this was the outcome. As my friend so eloquently put it, it's super cool that Blue Lock isn't afraid to separate their duos. Which brings me to the next duo...

2. Reo and Nagi

Reo's separation from Nagi is honestly the best thing to happen to both of their characters. Reo didn't really interest me as a character until Nagi left him and he was all gunning for revenge. I thought they were going for some sort of villain arc with him, but what they did was SO much better. Yes, Reo was understandably bitter for some time, but he changed stances and saw it from a different point of view really quickly. We literally watched him go through the 5 stages of grief.

And then come back stronger after his acceptance. Even finding a crazy ability to call his own.

And he OWNS it too. That moment when Shidou made fun of him for being a copy-cat, he DOUBLED DOWN ON IT and taunted him for not even being able to beat a copy-cat. Now that's the ultimate power move.

My favorite favorite FAVORITE thing is... he is still a duo with Nagi. They still sync perfectly well. They still know each other the best. Reo turned his spite on its head and came back to Nagi at full force.

What can I say except NAGIREO REAL!!!!! OK next point.

3. Bachira & Isagi

Honestly, I kinda didn't expect Bachira and Isagi to develop almost like a parallel to Nagi and Reo. I love how Bachira is portrayed. He obviously has some mental disorder (I'm guessing ASD or adjacent) and the way it's portrayed as a monster which Bachira eventually hones into his own... At first he just wanted friends, he wanted people who play just like him, to accept him as he is and that was what Isagi was to him. But in the end having others accepting him wasn't enough. He had to accept HIMSELF, his monster. And because of that he came in SEVENTH after the third selection!!!

Honestly, it was one of the most satisfying character development moments.

And again, after that, his and Isagi's duo play just comes out stronger.

Just Dynamic Duo Things.

3. Barou and Rin

I put these two together because they feel like the ultimate sports trope subversion. It's almost BLASPHEMOUS how they essentially become the egotistical "villains" of the field.

I love Barou as a character too, he is SO GAP MOE. Who would've thought that he was a malewife that was obsessed with keeping things neat? I want to destroy his ass. Ahem.

Anyway, Rin. He literally went fucking BONKERS at the idea that he has a team behind him. HE WANTS IT ALL TO HIMSELF.

THIS SHIT WOULD LITERALLY NEVER FLY IN A NORMAL SPORTS STORY. Which brings me to my favorite thing about Blue Lock

4. It is simultaneously a love letter AND a blasphemy to the sports genre.

I had a Kuroko no Basket phase years ago and I KNOW a KnB inspired story when I see one. Of course there's references and concepts that Blue Lock obviously borrowed from KnB. I could easily list all of them like the concept of "Flow" that is totally not KnB's "zone", the copy guy, the "emperor style", Aryuu Juubei who is totally not a homage to Murasakibara... References and concepts are easy to insert into any story. The important part is the Utter Unhingedness. They took KnB's barely believable superpowers and high school drama and all these high stakes that are totally just made up in the characters heads... and turned it up to 11.

KnB was a level of "skirting the boundary of what's humanly possible" that is still acceptable. Yeah, people thought it was insane and were laughing about it, but it didn't really have "haters". It's still just regular sports. But Blue Lock said fuck that, they're going to be straight up CONTROVERSIAL. There's no point if it doesn't have passionate haters. This isn't sports as you know it. And I respect that so much honestly. (If you've been on anitwt recently, you'll know that fans of conventional sports stories DESPISE Blue Lock).

I think with the sports genre becoming this Big Thing(tm) and the market somewhat becoming saturated over the years, this kind of blasphemy is exactly what the genre needs right now.

Speaking of blasphemy...

5. Itoshi Sae vs. Itoshi Rin

I love the whole angel vs demon thing going on with them. I love Sae's beautiful perfection and Rin's feral animal-like approach

(short digression, as a STEM major nerd I fucking LOVE the numbers in the visualization of Sae's abilities. I'm betting that it's the golden ratio because you won't get a number more perfect anywhere else!!)

I love their entire silent sequence against each other. No dialogue, no SFX. They were silently communicating with their bodies and with their eyes the way only brothers could. In a way, this is brotherly bonding :D

I love that Rin, and the Blue Lock team, is painted as the "villains" of the sports scene. And they won against U-20, the "heroes". They changed sports forever.

6. The unseriousness of it all (my lovehate letter to Isagi Yoichi)

In the end this is a manga about SOCCER. The characters take it WAY too seriously because they're dumbasses who literally only have soccer in their brains. It's honestly hilarious at times. But damn, if I'm not invested in this unreal, unserious, BFFR shit!!! Every time Isagi realizes something that is common sense (like when he "discovered" that luck also plays a part in games) I die a little bit inside.

BOY YOU ARE STUPID AND DRAMATIC AND GAY AND I LOVE YOU. Blue Lock would not be the same if Isagi wasn't the protagonist. If you think about it, every insane visualization of everyone's abilities is how ISAGI sees their abilities. This shit we are seeing, all the puzzle pieces, the fire, the thunder... is all in Isagi's head. And once he gets out of the game, he's literally just an awkward high school boy.

I guess he can be cute sometimes.

8. (For now) I don't think Blue Lock will end the way Ego says it will. (A love letter to Ego)

Muneyuki Kaneshiro you did it again. If you haven't read his other work, Kamisama no Iutoori and Kamisama no Iutoori ni, please do so. Having read those, I'm half-convinced that he'll pull an Akashi on us and give Isagi a canon love interest by the end AHAHA.

Digression aside, Ego said that by the end, there will be 1 striker to stand above all 299 "corpses" as he so elegantly put it. But I honestly don't think that'd happen. I have no basis for this other than the fact that it would just feel WRONG to end it like that. They wanted the sport to evolve by "creating soccer from zero", playing different positions with the ego of a striker. Honestly, I wouldn't see the point in all that when there's only 1 striker to survive in the end, you feel me?

Ego may have only said that to rile the boys up. He's playing the role of the ultimate "villain" for the boys to conquer. Now that's a very questionable approach to coaching but it sure fucking works!!! I really really love it.

And he KNOWS his methods are questionable at best, enough to get him banned from the world of soccer forever. He didn't care about himself if it meant these boys will evolve and play the ultimate soccer.

He really knows how to cultivate the perfect little "villains". Sure, it involved literally isolating them from the outside world in what is the equivalent of Soccer Jail, but you gotta do what you gotta do! :D

Honestly my wishful thinking is they end up with 11 top Blue Lock players (maybe a few more for the bench) and they get to compete internationally or something. Go beyond the scope and scale of regular sports manga... But I guess I'll just have to see what happens next!

OK. Alright. I think I'm done now. If you read this all, thank you for coming to my TED Talk!!!!

#blue lock #long post #bllk #i hate you isagi (affectionate)

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queen-ofsunflowers · 2 years

Text

My favorite parts of Day By Day that I’ve written so far with little to no context:

Things are likely to be changed between now and the final draft since this is still in the scripting process. There are also minor spoilers ahead! Anyway, enjoy!

Bakugo: I’m not gonna hurt ‘em!

Ruby: No explosions!

Bakugo: Shut up!

---

Yang: You haven’t met these kids.

Tamaki: But you’ve met Mirio.

Yang: What’s that supposed to mean?

Tamaki: It means that I don’t think they can take the same level that you and Mirio like to brawl at.

Yang: …hold on a minute.

Mirio: Nope! Can’t stop me now! I’m doin’ this!

Yang: Mirio!

---

Midoriya: Rose, do you know anything about Sir Nighteye?

Ruby: Sir Nighteye? (Midoriya nods.) Probably not much more than you. He's a super serious Pro who's Uncle Yagi's former sidekick. He never said anything about what caused them to break up, though...

Midoriya: Break up? (Ruby shrugs.)

Ruby: That's what Uncle Qrow says happened.

---

Qrow: Hold on. You know that this isn’t like that. Go let the boss man know you’re here. I have to handle whatever requests just came in and keep the others in line.

Ruby: Don’t you guys run the agency together?

Qrow: Yeah, but your dad’s too nice.

---

Kirishima: H-How did…? Right, your Quirk. All that damage he was doing just got redirected back at him.

Yang: When you’re fighting a villain, they’ll do whatever it takes to beat you and escape, even if it means killing you. The way that we win is by takin’ ‘em down without anyone getting hurt — hero, villain or civilian. Got that? Make ‘em lose their fighting spirit, and they’ll go down easy.

Kirishima: Y-Yes, sen— Um, Firecracker-senpai! (Eh, close enough.) Wait, is that why you always tease villains? (Yang nods. Well, that and it’s kind of fun. Helps her get out a lot of bottled up anger, too.)

---

Midoriya: …Eri ran into me when we first encountered them. She was clinging onto me and I had to let her go. She was so scared that I could feel her shaking… (Ruby loops her arm around his shoulders.)

Ruby: Is this okay? (He pauses before he nods, leaning against her shoulder. It doesn’t take long for him to start shaking, silent tears streaming down his cheeks.)

---

Yang: Here.

Tamaki: Swordfish? Where did you even get this?

Yang: I thought you could use it at some point.

Tamaki: That doesn’t answer my question.

---

Tamaki: You need to…

Jaune: They can wait! You can’t even stand.

Tamaki: Stop it! You’re wasting your energy. I’ll be fine… Just go—!

Jaune: Tamaki Amajiki, sit your ass down and hold still! You put up an amazing fight. Let me do this so you can keep going. I think they literally broke your face.

Tamaki: ...Recovery Girl's been rubbing off on you.

Jaune: I'm taking that as a compliment.

---

Yang: Blake, it's okay to be scared. We're only fifteen, and what he did to you wasn't right. Anyone would be scared after that. Wanna know a secret? Even the strongest Pros are scared whenever they go into a fight. But the thing is... they forget their fear because they have their friends fighting beside them. Other Pro Heroes. You can be scared. But no matter how scared you get, I promise I'll be with you, okay?

Blake: You don't have to protect me, Yang. I can do that myself.

Yang: Didn't say that I was. You can count on me, alright? I won't leave you to face your fears alone.

---

Kirishima: Sen...pai...?

Fatgum: Don't look over here.

Kirishima: ...kay...

---

Oscar: NO!! (He jumps onto Overhaul from behind, pressing his hand onto Chisaki's face, and the other onto his arm. The villain’s body ripples with a green glow. His eyes widened.)

Overhaul: You... You BRAT!! (Overhaul grabs Oscar, throwing him towards a set of spikes. Mirio acts quickly, grabbing the boy before he can get hurt.)

---

Midoriya: Your eyes are glowing again. (Midoriya charges up One for All and stomps the ground, breaking apart the incoming spike attacks.)

Ruby: !!! If he’s seen my mom at work, then he’s right to be afraid of them… afraid of me. Even if I don’t have her Quirk… he hasn’t seen me. Unless he’s watched the sports festival, he doesn’t know my Quirk or what I can do. What we can do. (Ruby to dash on forward. With a shout, she swings her leg around to collide it with Overhaul’s face. She shoves off with more than enough speed to catch a spike nearby to use as a perch.)

---

Jaune: Suneater, take Lemillion and find the others. I'll go ahead with him.

Tamaki: Are you sure?

Jaune: Yeah. He’s in bad shape, and I don't doubt that they are, too. Get them out of here as quickly as possible! I'll go help Harbinger and the others!

Tamaki: Right. (He hauls Mirio over his shoulder. Jaune turns to Oscar.)

Jaune: Your dad's gonna kill me. (He sighs.) Are you injured at all?

Oscar: N-No...

Jaune: Good. Then come on!

---

Jaune: I’m gonna head over to the entrance where the ambulances are. There’s bound to be a lot of injured heroes there that need help.

Qrow: Don’t overdo it.

Jaune: I won’t.

---

(Taiyang tackles Kurogiri to the ground, pinning his hands behind him. He digs his knee into the man's back to keep him grounded.)

Taiyang: Consider this payback for attacking my daughter. Twice.

Kurogiri: Golden Dragon… (He groans as Taiyang tightens his hold. Not again. He’s never going to be responsible for his children or any children getting hurt again.

---

Ren: As strange as it is, I agree with Hadou. Go talk to her. Yang cares about you a lot, you know. That's why she jumped in the way she did.

Blake: What does Nejire—

Ren: Did you know Togata had gone to visit her room one night?

Blake: What does that have to do with—

Ren: He heard Yang wake up in tears. Amajiki saw her crying too when he walked in on her visit with Togata. I think she's been troubled about the incident, to say the least.

Blake: Togata needs to keep his mouth shut.

Ren: Mirio may talk a lot, but he knows where a line is drawn. He'll only cross it if it concerns his friends. Yang included.

---

Tamaki: ...you think you're being selfless, don't you? But what you're actually being is selfish. Yeah, Yang got hurt. But you know what she told Mirio about what happened? She said that she would do it all over again if it meant protecting you. (Blake turns to face the two as Tamaki walks out on the balcony.)

Blake: She...? (She looks down.)

Tamaki: I blamed myself for what happened with Mirio at first. I thought that if I had gone with him, he wouldn't have gotten hurt. When I told him this, he told me that it wasn't my fault. He would've made the same choice had I been with him either way. He actually said that he was glad that I wasn't with him. If I had been, I might've gotten shot again and lost my Quirk permanently this time.

Blake: I'm not you, and Togata isn't Yang.

Tamaki: I know. But it helps prove my point. You can make your own choices, Belladonna, but you can't make ours. When someone fights for you, it means that they want to.

---

Blake: Have you ever met someone and thought that they were the personification of a word?

Yang: What?

Blake: Okay, well... I remember getting to know Ruby and thinking that she was the embodiment of purity. And it continued from there. I saw Weiss as defiance. Nejire as compassion. Togata as optimism. Amajiki as bravery.

Yang: This is the same Tamaki we're talking about, right? (Blake casts her a look.)

Blake: You... You're strength, Yang. I'm not sure what made me think that... maybe because of how I saw you during training, but I realized... it was how emotionally strong you are. I looked up to you for that strength that I lacked to overcome the problems I ran away from, just like what I tried to do because you...!

Yang: Blake...

Blake: I... I'm sorry...! This is all my fault, I'm so sorry!

---

Midnight: You are safe here, Rose. The staff and your classmates won't let anything happen to you. Do you understand?

Ruby: Yes, ma’am.

Midnight: Next time you have this dream, I want you to do something for me. Remind yourself that it’s just a dream. A nightmare can’t hurt you, no matter what the contents are. Take control of your fears, rewrite your cognition and change your nightmares if you can. If you need to, go and wake Eraserhead if you have these nightmares again. It’s most likely he’ll be awake anyway, so if you’re worried about bothering him, don’t be. I’ll let him know what’s going on, too.

Ruby: Okay.

Midnight: Remember, you are safe. No one — especially not a villain — can harm you while you’re here. Alright?

Ruby: Alright.

---

Midoriya: ...if we're being honest... I already knew about your mom.

Ruby: You did? Why didn't you say anything!?

Midoriya: Because it was personal, and I didn't know if you wanted to talk about it! Besides, you didn't know about All for One or One for All and I...! I only know because I asked why All Might kept nearly calling you by your given name and he started talking about how he worked with your mom and...!

Bakugo: Get to the point, nerd.

Midoriya: Because of something I noticed, when All Might and Ozpin told me about All for One, they also brought up that he killed her, but... I never knew that she was trying to protect you.

Ruby: ...Neither did I. All I knew was that she died on a rescue mission...

Bakugo: This dude's more fucked up than I thought. You gotta work harder not to

Ruby: As long as you two have my back.

Midoriya: Always.

---

Oscar: My dad's taken me and my sister to the festival before. When we went last year, one of the classes was selling candy apples. I think you might like those.

Eri: What are candy apples?

Oscar: They dip an apple into liquid sugar so that it hardens and cracks when you bite into it. It makes it even sweeter than normal. (She’s drooling a little. Easy to say, that idea got her on board.)

---

All Might: Ozpin was actually the one to train your mother. At that point, though, she had already learned how to activate her Quirk without much of an issue. I’m not sure if he knows how to do it either, but he’s the best chance that we’ve got. However, he’s been spending time with his son lately because of everything that happened. It’s likely that training on that front won’t get started until after the festival’s ended. For the time being, I’m setting you two up as sparring partners.

Ruby/Izuku: What?!

All Might: It’s why I asked Ruby to come out here as well. That, and it should help a certain someone with their inability to attack people that they are familiar with. (He’s looking over at Ruby as he says this. She laughs, albeit nervously. She’s been getting better at it. Kind of, sort of… She was able to fight Bakugo and Midoriya with a problem. Then again, that was to get them to stop fighting in the first place…)

---

Ruby: You want me to do what?

Todoroki: I was talking with Ashido about it last night.

Kirishima: The idea is that we throw you up in the air, and use Uraraka’s Quirk to keep you floating, and once we give you a little push, you can use your Quirk to shower rose petals down on everyone!

Ruby: Isn’t that a bit much?

Kirishima: Nah, just think about it. All that shining ice dust and your petals will look really cool! (Todoroki nods beside him.)

---

(Monoma cackles, something that quickly develops into a yelp, leaping onto Tetsutetsu in the process. Zwei trots up to him, pawing at Tetsu's pants.) Get that mutt away from me!

Ruby: Hey, he's a good boy!

Mirio: Zwei's been a perfect angel so far. Don't get why he's acting up now.

Ruby: Dunno. (She would say that maybe Zwei just doesn’t like Monoma, but that’s impossible. Ruby had yet to meet a person that Zwei didn’t like.)

Tetsutetsu: Oh, so this is your dog?

Monoma: What?! Rose, control your mutt!

Awase: I heard that there were rumors about a dog living with 1-A. I just didn’t think that they were true.

Ruby: They are. I got permission from the school and everything to let him come and live with us on campus when we moved in.

Monoma: Just keep it away from me.

Ruby: His name is Zwei.

Monoma: I don’t care!

---

Ruby: Shinsou, are you okay?

Shinsou: Huh? Yeah. Why’d you ask?

Ruby: You’re making a weird face.

---

Izuku: It’s kinda nuts that he's been putting out videos for years now but hasn’t gotten caught yet. I wonder what he’s planning next. (He blindly picks up one of the teacups and drinks from it. A second later, he sputters on the contents.) That’s…! T-That’s super sweet…!

Ochako: Oh, crap! That’s Ruby’s… She likes a lot of sugar in hers, so…

Izuku: S-Sorry…

---

Izuku: It’s fine. I can just go buy a new one in the morning. It’s my fault for not noticing. And this’ll work out. I’m up early with Ruby for training anyway.

Kaminari: Training?

Izuku: Uh! Well…

Ruby: He’s been helping me when it comes to having to fight familiar faces. Who better to beat up than your best friend?

Kaminari: Okay…

---

Izuku: Keep your hands off! (Izuku comes around for a kick of his own, knocking Gentle Criminal off course.) It’s like you always say; aim for the face.

Ruby: Nice to see that you learned something from me. (The two end up back-to-back as Gentle bounces around them, landing small shots as Ruby tries to figure out a way to stop him and hit him. She tries to get her eyes to work. It would be really useful if they could right now, but she’s having trouble concentrating when there’s a criminal bouncing around her like a ping pong ball. Or Weiss.)

---

Ruby: Best seat in the house for our number two fan.

Yang: Who's number one? (Ruby points down below. Mirio is holding Eri up high. And she's smiling. She's genuinely, wholeheartedly smiling.)

---

Blake: Good luck, Midoriya. You’re going to need it.

Izuku: Huh?

Yang: When it comes to heroes, Ruby’s as big a dork as you are. She might just kick your butt. (Ruby chuckles, smiling all the while. Her friend grins, a little nervous as he remembers his competition. Over the summer, Ruby has proven that she’s as big a fan of heroes as he was himself. She was going to be hard to beat.)

---

Ruby: Oh no! Izuku Midoriya, you still owe me for the Test of Courage, remember? We never got to go!

Izuku: What? …oh no.

Ruby: Oh, yes. (Midoriya groans.) We’ll catch up with you guys later!

---

(Immediately as they step into the dorm, however…)

Bakugo: RED! (Uh-oh. That was never a good thing to hear.) WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!?

Ruby: Oops. I might've gone overboard with baking a bit.

Bakugo: Oh, ya think?!

32 notes · View notes

darthkvznblogs · 2 years

Note

So, if it’s not a spoiler, what are you thinking about for Big Hero 6’s individual hero names in the Kryptonverse?

Well, it's not a spoiler because I'm not! As stated numerous times before, I am terrible at naming everything from people to fic titles.

To be fair, though, I'm not just bailing because of that; Big Hero 6 is a team that does not work when it's broken down to individuals. Sure, each of them could strike out on their own and be a competent superhero, but they became heroes together and I can't imagine any of them would go solo. Even Fred, the most obsessed with being a hero, relentlessly pesters the others when they claim they no longer wanna do it in the series.

So yeah, the way it works is that the team is named Big Hero 6, regardless of how many members the team has/are currently in the field. When people need to refer to individual members, they do so through their primary color - Big Hero Red for Baymax, Purple for Hiro, Yellow for GoGo, Pink for Honey Lemon, Green for Wasabi, and Blue for Fred.

I feel like it's a fun quirk of this particular team! Imagine someone from New York coming along:

New Yorker: "Oh, shit, you guys got superheroes, too, right?"

San Franciscan: "Well, yeah, they're everywhere, my dude. You guys just think you have a monopoly."

NY: "Right, right. 'Big Hero 6', huh? That's kind of a weird ass name."

SF: "Hey, you watch yourself, buddy. BH6 are the best."

NY: "Well, sorry, but you gotta admit, it just doesn't have the nicest ring to it, like 'Avengers', or 'X-Men'."

SF: "You say that, but if the Avengers didn't have Captain America front and center, you'd think it was a supervillain team. Big Hero 6, it's in the name, y'know? No ifs, ands, or buts about it."

NY: "Speaking of, aren't there like eight members of Big Hero 6 now? Doesn't that get updated?"

SF: "Nah, we tried it when they got their first recruit. 'Big Hero 7' just wasn't the same, so...I think we just all collectively agreed to stick with BH6 and I guess the heroes rolled with it."

NY: "And these names? Big Hero Blue? Big Hero Red? That's so lame, you guys didn't come up with cool hero monikers? You could call the big guy 'Red Panda', or something! Think about the merch!"

SF: "I mean, that's pretty good, but you're missing the point; they're a team, and they've been a team from the beginning. It wasn't 'Red Panda' or 'Magnet Lad' or 'Lizard Lord' or whatever beating the Yokai, it was all of them together. It's all or nothing, y'know? Plus, they got those bright freakin' primary colors, it just works for us."

NY: "...oh, but you will name the supervillains, huh?"

SF: "Well, yeah. Sure, the man went nuts, but Yokai looked too cool to just be Robert Callaghan, you feel me?"

#ask box #kryptonverse #big hero 6

12 notes · View notes

starrysoftie · 2 years

Text

— interrupted | p.p

“five times he almost kissed you and the one time he finally did”

includes: tasm! Peter Parker

notes: i dont think i’ve seen anybody do this for andrew garfields peter parker and i absolutely love this trope and him so why not write it!

also i still need to edit this but im too lazy

SPOILER ABOUT TASM (if you haven’t seen it yet or sum idk LOLS): I know uncle ben dies but I literally physically and emotionally cannot accept that fact, so he is perfectly well and alive in this :)

i. when the ac broke

“Why. Is. It. So. Hot.”

You dramatically collapse on the bed next to Peter, sprawling your limbs out in every direction humanly possible. “I feel... so gross. And sticky.”

“Give me a second to finish this and then I’ll fix the air conditioning.”

There’s an amused expression on his face as he jokingly pushes your legs off of his stomach, causing you to clumsily fall off and on the floor with a light ‘thump’.

Groaning, you accept the lopsided position you’ve been subjected to on the ground, too lazy to move and undeniably enjoying the cool sensation of the wood flooring against your warm skin.

“You know the heat’s really not that bad.”

“I never asked.”

“I think you should be more like me.” He retorts.

“No offense, but gross.”

He gasps dramatically, amusedly watching you lay motionless on his bedroom floor. “Excuse me?”

“You’re excused.”

He smiles.

“Stop smiling. My suffering is not funny Parker.” You grumble, barely audible as you’re talking with your face literally smack on the ground.

“I’m not smiling.”

“Bullshit.”

Finally, he unsurprisingly successfully fixes the air conditioning as cold air circulates throughout the room, revitalizing your immobile body as you eventually peel your face off his bedroom floor to feel the breeze.

“Peter?”

He turns to face you. “Yes?”

Slowly, you stand up and waddle over to him, tackling him in a big sweaty and sticky bear hug that he’s happy to return. “You’re literally my hero.”

“I thought you said you hated me like… what was it? Like three minutes ago?” Wrapping his arms around your waist and tightening his hold, color flushes on his cheeks at close contact between you two. You snuggled your head into the crook of his frame, taking a whiff of his cologne.

“Not anymore.”

“Aw, how kind.”

You pull back after a moment and it takes everything within him to not whine at the loss of your touch, but the big smile on your face makes all his disappointment fade within nanoseconds.

Beaming, you look into his eyes as he raises a hand to brush away a stray hair that’s covering the corner of your eye. There’s a particular look in his eyes that you just can’t label, but it’s... different. A good different. He hooks a gentle hand on your cheek, thumb tilting your head up slightly—

“Peter? Are you home?”

The two of you jump back, a little frightened by the sudden intrusion. You take a look at the door, watching Uncle Ben slowly walking away while erupting into a loud fit of giggles.

Peter sighs. “Oh my god.”

“You really got to get that stupid lock fixed.” You comment.

“I know.”

ii. coffee date

“What’d you get?” He questions as he glances at the video you’re watching, piquing his curiosity. “And more importantly, what are you watching?”

“Shhh.” You hold a finger up to his lips, shushing him.

He sits up a little higher, trying to get a better view of your phone screen. “No actually, what are you doing?”

“Do you see this?”

“Uh yeah? That video of Spiderman is literally all over youtube right now.” He grabs your drink. “Can I try some?”

You nod.

He sips the beverage, giving a hum of approval. “What’s so special about that video anyways? It’s just him beating some dude up.”

“I’m not talking about that.” You zoom in. “I’m talking about this.”

Peter chokes on your drink.

“Did you just zoom in on his ass???”

“Uh yes, obviously.”

He quirks his eyebrows in curiosity, genuinely confused as to what the actual hell you were thinking right now.

“But why?”

“Why not?? Dude, that ass is just... woah.”

He chokes on the beverage once again, but this time some spurts out his nose in a cartoonish manner. Your eyes widen, immediately grabbing some nearby napkins and wiping the coffee off his face.

“Are you okay??”

He nods, rubbing his nose as he tries to ease the pain.

“Yup.” He half-heartedly hums, “Feeling better already.”

You frown. “Are you sure??”

“Yeah.”

“Here, wait... you have some still on your face.” Grabbing the left side of his face, you pulled his face closer to wipe off the rest of the coffee. The two of you lock eyes at the exact same moment, breath hitching in your chest.

Suddenly you’re speechless.

The strange look in his eyes return once more, pupils dilating as he glances down to your lips and back up to meet your gaze. He ever so slightly leans in, seemingly asking for permission.

You lean in slightly as well.

A barista walks up to Peter and taps him on the shoulder, offering the drink that he ordered. He looks sideways before pulling away and grabbing the beverage, offering a kind smile to mask the disappointment etched on his features.

Did we almost... just kiss?

iii. when you found out he was spiderman

You gasped.

No fucking way.

“YOU’RE SPIDERMAN?!”

Peter’s standing in his room, back facing you with his mask off and in his skin-tight spandex suit. Instinctively he raises his hands in defeat, mouth agape yet speechless.

“I-I can explain.” He croaks, dropping the mask on the floor.

“So you’re telling me, that you.” You point an accusing finger at him. “You’re Spiderman?? Like THE Spiderman??”

His eyes narrow, hands slowly falling back down to his sides once he realizes you weren’t as pissed as he expected you to be. “Uh, well— yes.”

“And...” A deep breath. “You never even thought about telling me?”

“Well I mean I did but like—”

“I absolutely cannot believe you right now. I mean yeah I’m pissed that you didn’t tell me but like I’m so worried for you now too! What kinda bullshit is this??? So you’re a normal highschool teenager by day and at night you go out and fight all these damn monsters without even mentioning it to anybody?? Not even me??? I knew you were a dumbass but I didn’t think you were this dumb.”

Never mind. He thinks to himself. She’s mad.

In retrospect though, Peter does understand that if the roles were reversed, he would be equally, if not more, angry and concerned.

“What do you do when you get beat up and shit huh?? Do you just swing yourself home without any proper medical care or even needing to rant about it to anybody??”

“Yeah.” He rubs the back of his neck awkwardly. “Sorry ‘bout keeping it a secret and uh—stuff.”

You grumble as you massage your eyes with the palm of your hands with deep breaths. “I hate you right now.”

“That's fine with me.” A small smirk arises on his face, glad that your temper was finally cooling off. “I swear I’ll explain everything... and— I’m genuinely sorry I didn’t tell you. I was just scared that you knowing that if I was Spiderman the people I fight would target you rather than me personally.”

A dramatic gasp escapes your lips once more.

“Oh my god...”

“Did I do something?” Peter questions as he sits down next to you, placing a comforting hand on your back. “Was my apology that bad??”

“Oh my god...” You repeat once more.

“What?? Is it something I said?”

“No!” You exclaim. “It’s something I said!”

“I’m not mad at you for what you said. You know if I was you in this situation I would be pissed too, I totally get—”

“I COMPLIMENTED YOUR ASS! Like a week ago at that coffee shop! What the hell was I thinking??

There was a small moment of silence until he burst into laughter, falling back onto the bed as he held his stomach in pure bliss, cackling at your misfortune.

“Peter!” There was a small grin on your face as you jokingly smacked him on the arm, the overwhelming mixture of emotions slowly fading away. “Come on, it’s not that funny.”

He shoots back upright, still holding onto his stomach and wiping away a few tears that formed at the corners of his eyes from his fit of giggles. “Oh my god that is ABSOLUTELY hilarious, you have no idea. This is your karma.”

That piqued your interest. “Karma for what?”

“Revenge for you thinking I was gay for Spiderman like a week ago.”

“Oh my god I totally forgot about that.”

“Now you get why your… uh, compliments threw me off guard.”

“Yeah.”

There was a real smile that finally graced your features as you blankly stared at the mask that lay on the bedroom floor.

“Hey Pete?”

“Yeah?”

You look back up at him to meet his gaze. “You promise now that since I know that you’re Spiderman that you’ll come to me for help with that superhero shit if you ever need it?”

“I promise.” He agrees. “I’m genuinely sorry about not telling you though.”

“I know.”

“Is... there a way I can make it up to you?”

You try to bite the inside of your cheek to hide the smile at the suggestion. Within seconds his hand is cupping your cheek once more, the now familiar sheen glazing his eyes as he scoots clos—

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

“Peter?” Uncle Ben’s voice booms through the door. “Are you in there?”

Irritatedly, he groans. “Again??!?”

iv. when he fulfilled his promise to you

Outside, the pitiless rain fell with a fierce malignity that was all too inhumanly powerful. Raw rain battered the window like hail, trickling in a rhythmic fashion along with the frantic pounding on the window.

Wait what?

You instinctively turned towards your bedroom window, met with the one and only Spiderman tapping on the fragile glass. Briskly, you walk over to open the hatch to let him into your room.

“Finally about time you noticed.” Peter sighed, taking off the mask and throwing it in one swift motion. You eyed him curiously, confused and highly concerned when you noticed the bloody lacerations on his chest

“Oh my god.”

You grab him by the arm and place him on your bed, rummaging through your wardrobe to find a spare pair of pants you’ve stolen from him.

“Change out of that dirty suit and wear this.” You toss sweatpants at him as you dig through your closet once more, looking for your handy first aid kit.

Finally you feel the familiar cold, plastic casing of the kit against your fingers, grabbing it while you make your way over to the injured teen. Tenderly, you place a hand on his back, slowly guiding him to lay down.

“What happened?”

He winced as you gently dabbed a cold cloth to clean up some blood. “I got beat up pretty bad.”

“Clearly.” You gruff. “How much pain are you in??”

“I rate my pain a solid 6 and a half out of ten, but now that I’m with you I’m feeling a whole lot better.”

His words make a heat creep on your cheeks that you quickly brush off, too concerned with his current condition rather than his flirting. “Peter, I'm being serious right now, what actually happened?”

He sighs. “There was this guy who threw me down an entire highway.”

“No kidding geez.”

“Yeah.” He winces at the feeling of pressure on the cut. “Do you need to do that?”

“Yeah, I gotta wipe all the dirt away before I can put some antibiotic cream on so It doesn’t get infected.”

“It hurts like a bitch.”

You offer the most comforting look you could muster. “I know, just a little bit longer and then you’ll be done.”

A comforting silence washes over the two of you as you finish debriding the cut and apply Neosporin, finally placing some gauze and properly wrapping his torso with the adhesive bandages.

“Anddd.... done!” You gleam, proud of your effort. “Do you feel any better?”

He nods. “Yeah. I actually do.”

“Good!”

“Thank you. So much.”

Peter looks at you with gleaming eyes, placing his arms and pulling you in his comforting embrace you’re eager to return. He was warm, and his big, toned arms wrapped around your body as if to ask you to never let go.

And you don’t.

His hand slowly creeps up your back, making its way to settle on your cheek with his thumb rubbing gentle circles on your skin.

You gulp.

Is it finally happening?? You think.

Almost as if he could read your mind, he and you both lean in, mere centimeters away from each others lips until—

“OH MY GOODNESS PETER PARKER ARE YOU OKAY??”

A shrill shriek escapes from your mom’s mouth followed by a dramatic gasp as she motions towards the bandages on his chest. The door slowly creeks open to reveal her figure standing right in the middle of the hallway, seemingly oblivious to what was going on moments before.

With a deep and irritated breath, you both pull away once more, giving her a firm yet reassuring nod.

“Yeah, I uh— accidentally tripped when we were at the skatepark earlier and I just got patched up.”

“Oh good.” Your mom sighs, flicking off the nonexistent sweat on her forehead. “That looks like a pretty nasty cut. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Yeah, thank god you know how to patch somebody up right?” He playfully shoves your shoulder a little as he falls into a conversation with your mom, catching up as if they hadn't seen each other in years.

You deadpan.

The last time they talked to each other was yesterday.

v. christmas

“Okay, here.” He places the beautifully wrapped present on your lap, anxiously bouncing his leg. “You open yours first.”

“You sure?” You question, not so subtly glancing towards your gift for him.

“Yes. Come on, open it. I wanna see your reaction.”

You smile, amused at his eager nature. “Okay fine.”

Gently, you take the edge of the wrapping paper and slowly unravel it at an annoyingly slow pace, a grin etching your features as you steal quick glances at him impatiently sitting on the edge of his seat.

“Come on, you’re being annoying.”

“That’s the point, dumbass.”

In one swift move, you remove the wrapping paper and reveal a slightly squashed book. Within it were countless pictures of you and him. Some were from when you guys were younger, such as your twelfth birthday to some more candid photos where you both were just laughing at some dumb shit you guys said. All memories you hold deep to your heart.

“Oh my god...” Tears of joy formed in your eyes as you flipped through the book with the most beautiful smile he’s ever seen painted on your face. “I love this so much.”

“Really? Are you sure? You can be honest you know, I-It’s not like it’s like anything special or anythi—”

A gasp of surprise escapes his mouth when you tackle him on the bed, wrapping your arms around him and holding him so tight that you could’ve sworn his eyes were bulging out of his head a little bit.

“Shut up, this is the best gift I could, no— will ever receive.”

Giggles bubble from his throat as you wipe a stray tear in the corner of your eye, silently laughing at how the emotions you both were having were strikingly different. He smiles, rubbing a soothing hand on your back as you reach down near his feet and hand him your gift for him.

“Now you open your gift.”

“Okay.” Unlike you, he messily claws open the wrapping paper and mindlessly throws it somewhere in the room, extremely eager to discover what’s inside. He gasps, eyes widening in realization when the box is fully unwrapped.

“Is that—”

“Yup!” You hum.

“—You did not.” He stares at the camera in his hands, mouth agape but only stammers and small murmurs spoken instead of actual sentences and words.

There’s a moment of denial until he shoves the box back in your grasp, defensively holding up his hands. “I-I simply cannot accept this.”

“The hell? Why not?”

“This camera’s like a thousand dollars!” He sputters dramatically. “A THOUSAND DOLLARS SPENT ON A CAMERA?? For me?!”

You shrug with a small smile, amused at his theatrical movements. “You said your camera was broken and you needed a new one.”

“Yeah, I was gonna get myself one that was like a couple hundred bucks!”

“You deserve the best camera out there Peter, not some camera that's been god-knows where.” You practically shove the gift back at his face. “This is for you and there is absolutely no way I’m gonna let you give that back.”

“I-I...”

He’s at a complete loss for words.

“I-I could kiss you right now.”

oh.

OH MY GOD

“PETER???” Uncle Ben bangs on his door, interrupting yet another moment for the millionth time. “AUNT MAY JUST MADE DINNER, BOTH OF YOU COME DOWN TO EAT!”

You’re fed up with all the ruined moments.

It’s time to take matters into your own hands.

“Peter?”

He turns back around to face you.

“Do it.”

+i. christmas

“Do it.”

He blinks. “What?”

“Kiss me.”

Within seconds his lips are on yours, closing the gap between him and you without any hesitation. Your hands find peace resting around his neck, leaning deeper into him with every passing moment and kissing him back like he was your lifeline.

It was an innocent, yet meaningful kiss that needed no words to be spoken to convey you both were making up for all the missed time.

masterlist

tag list: @scandalous-chaos

#tasm Peter x reader #Peter Parker x reader #spiderman x reader #Andrew Garfield x reader #the amazing spiderman #amazing-spiderman x reader #Peter Parker imagines #Andrew Garfield imagines #Andrew Peter Parker x reader #Andrew Garfield Peter Parker x reader #Andrew garfield spiderman x reader #spider man x reader #Peter Parker oneshots #spiderman #spiderman fluff #Peter Parker fluff #tasm spiderman x reader #tasm Peter Parker x reader

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maximoff-pan · 2 years

Text

mutations and revelations | peter parker

Summary: You’re Peter Parker’s supposedly normal girlfriend, who knows of his web slinging identity. What happens when Peter finds out you’ve been keeping a secret from him: powers of your own?

Pairing: tasm!peter parker x fem!reader

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings: some swearing, angst, mentions of blood and death, no spoilers for nwh

A/n: I know the x-men don’t exist in the tasm universe, but for the sake of this story, it’s an AU, so bear with me haha… I hope this isn’t too confusing, but I liked this request and had a lot of fun writing it. So without further ado, enjoy my darlings!

“I’m telling you Pete. Every girl in the tri-state area’s in love with him.”

He scoffs, puffing out a breath of disbelief. “No way.” He’s trailing only slightly behind you as you rush through the halls of OSCORP, his lab coat hanging off your right arm. “He’s not even that cool.”

“It’s kind of insufferable really.” You continue as if you hadn’t heard his blatant dismissal of your statement. “It’s like, c’mon! How can anyone fall in love with a guy they’ve never met? Especially one that wears a mask.”

“Beats me.” He says as he swipes his ID card to enter his lab quarters. You pass him his white coat and he pulls it on, dropping his bag off to the side. Peter catches a glimpse of the look on your face, a smile etched upon your features.

“It must be hard for you.” Your eyes meet his for a moment. “Having all these people love you as Spider-Man and not being able to experience it as Peter Parker.”

You’re the only person who knows about his powers, the only person besides Gwen who he’s told willingly. Sometimes that scares him because of what happened to her, but most of the time, it just makes him feel like you’re the only one he can be himself with. Call it an unhealthy codependency, but Peter likes the way things are, even if a little voice in the back of his head tells him that he’s putting you in danger.

He smiles softly. “Not really. I like the solitude of being anonymous.” Peter’s jaw shifts to the left in thought, his lip quirking upward. “Besides, the only people I care about are you and Aunt May. As long as I’ve got you, I don’t need anyone else.”

“You really have the smallest ego of any superhero ever, you know that?” You reply with a cheeky grin. “I try to hype you up, and you shut me down. But the truth is, all the ladies love the amazing Spider-Man.”

“All the ladies?” He teases.

You laugh, even though he’s caught you in a trap. “What can I say Mr. Parker? You’re very irresistible.”

“Mhm.” He hums, pulling you in for a quick kiss. “I’m very glad.”

He tries to go for another. “Uh uh.” You stop him, placing your index finger gently on his lips. “If I don’t leave now, I’m going to be very late for work. And you know better than anyone how much of a hard ass Jameson can be.”

Ah, yes…

J. Jonah Jameson: the bane of Peter’s existence. If you looked up the definition of tyrannical nuisance in the dictionary, you’d see his gloating, repulsive face sitting right next to it.

You’ve always found it more than amusing, Jameson’s distaste for Spider-Man. If only he knew one of his journalists was sleeping with the damn son of a bitch, as he so often likes to call him. And because of your close proximity to and unnervingly accurate stories on the web slinging hero (thanks to the man himself), you’ve quickly become the Daily Bugle’s lead on all things Spider-Man. Particularly on obtaining the ever so allusive actions shots of his crime fighting ways, which Jameson can’t seem to fathom how you’ve gotten your hands on them.

Guess he isn’t really all that smart, you think.

Kissing Peter goodbye, he mumbles something about being out tonight and not to wait up for him. You nod, but nonetheless tell him, “you know I’m going to anyway,” before making your way to the Bugle.

• • • • • •

Being Peter’s girlfriend is the best thing that’s ever happened to you, but being Spider-Man’s girlfriend, that, has its downsides. You try not to put too much energy into thinking about what can go wrong, knowing full well that Peter can handle himself, but it’s hard.

The constant worry is what gets you the most. You’ll often stay awake for hours in your apartment, waiting for him to get home, afraid that one night, you’ll turn on the tv and see a news report with the headline Spider-Man Killed during Late Night Patrol.

The worst of it would be the guilt from knowing that you could have stopped it. But that would mean revealing to Peter the part of yourself that you’ve tried to keep hidden since your early childhood. Your powers.

Your parents knew from the moment you were born, there was something strange about you. After your birth, your mother healed almost instantaneously, feeling better and stronger than she’d ever felt before. And that was only the first strange anomaly that occurred since you’d entered the world.

As a child, any scrapes, bruises, or wounds from accidents you had, disappeared within seconds. And with a touch of your hand on someone’s skin, their injuries would disappear as well.

No regular doctor would have been able figure out the cause, and your parents knew it would be dangerous to take you to one, not knowing what would happen if they found out about your powers.

But there’d always been a quiet talk of mutants, people with special abilities who lived among the shadows of the everyday folk. And as your parents searched and searched for someone who could help you, they found the name of a man in upstate New York: a former CIA researcher Dr. Hank McCoy.

Hank quickly became your mentor, recognizing so much of himself in you. You were scared of your powers just like him, scared that you could hurt someone. Although the thought now seems quite ironic, seeing as your gift is to heal, the opposite of hurt. But they still scared you nonetheless.

Hank also introduced you to another man who would come to mean a great deal to you. He was perfectly bald, and sat delicately in this elaborate wheel chair, introducing himself as Charles Xavier, telepath extraoridinaire.

He was funny and had a great sense of humour. That’s probably the first thing you remember thinking about him. But more importantly, he showed you that you were not alone. Cerebro, his mutant locating device as he liked to call it, was extraordinarily powered by his mind, which continues to blow you away to this day. The moment you walked into the control room and Charles placed the helmet on his head, you felt safe. It, he showed you just how many people like you were out there.

Over the years as you grew up, you’d come back to Charles’s mansion for the summers where he and Hank taught you how to control your powers.

“If you’re in control of up here,” Charles had pointed to his temple the last day you saw him, “and down here,” he had then pointed to his heart, “no one can ever use your gifts against you. Remember that my dear child.”

Looking back, you realize you should have told Peter all of this when you found out about him being Spider-Man. You should have been the person for him that Charles had been for you, easing him of this innate feeling of loneliness in the world. But keeping this a secret, that was all you had ever known, and much like it always had, when the day you discovered his powers came around, instinct had taken over.

• • • • • •

“(L/n)!” Jameson’s voice is so loud you’d think he inhaled a megaphone. “Get your ass in here now!”

Having been sitting at your desk for the last number of hours working on a number of stories you couldn’t be less interested in, you’re more than happy to be given something to do. You’re only slightly terrified of what Jameson has to say.

“Yes sir.” You step into his office with your hands clasped, pulled together at the height of your waist.

“I need you at Lenox Hill.” He says with a blunt tone of urgency.

“The hospital?” You ask in curiosity. “Why? What’s happened?”

You know it’s bad when a smile grows on his face. “The son of a bitch finally got what’s coming to him.” Your heart sinks, and you feel like it’s an eternity before Jameson speaks again, confirming your worst nightmare, “Spider-Man’s been shot.”

• • • • • •

The sick feeling in your stomach doesn’t go away. It festers and pulls you deeper into it’s grasp, the uncertainty of Peter’s whereabouts pushing you further and further away from reality.

When you finally reach the hospital, it’s late. The sky is as black and dull as the atmosphere that surrounds it. Peering into the chaos, your mind goes into overdrive: find Peter Parker. That’s your only goal right now. As a journalist, it feels wrong not to focus on the scene, not to interview the crowd, find a story within a story, but you can’t do that right now. All that matters is him.

You feel a buzz in your pocket that forces you to snap out of your panicked daze. Pulling out your phone, you see five missed calls from Peter. Your heart races as your phone continues to buzz for what appears to be the sixth time in under twenty minutes. He’s been calling you and you hadn’t even noticed. How could you not have noticed?

“Peter?” You answer the call shakily. “Where are you?”

He takes a moment to reply, and you can hear the effort he’s using just to take a single breath. “The apartment.” He wheezes. “I promised you’d I’d make it back.”

He put himself in danger for a promise. Even at his lowest, he would never break one.

“I’ll be right there.” You respond, your legs picking up speed as you begin to jog. “I’m only a few minutes away.”

Peter’s voice is already quiet enough, the pain forcing him to take more time in between words, but add in the fact that you’re running, and it makes it that much harder to hear him.

“I’m sorry.”

“Pete,” you plead, “please don’t.”

If you could see him right now, you’re sure he’d be sending you that same pleading look right back, begging you to let him finish what he needs to say.

“In case I don’t make it,” he coughs and you want to stop him, but you don’t. “I want you to know that I love you more than I ever thought I could love someone.”

“Peter Parker, don’t you dare.” Your breath quickens, your lungs burning from the urgency with which your legs are carrying you. “You hold on, as hard as you can, and then you can show me how much you love me.”

On the other end of the line, he smiles for the first time since he’d seen you at OSCORP earlier that day. “Okay.” He says.

• • • • • •

The first thing you see when you burst through your apartment door, is Peter, laying lifeless on the floor.

Collapsing to your knees, you rush to reach him. “No, no, no, no, no,” you beg, “wake up Peter. You need to wake up. You can’t die on me.”

He’s not breathing; your soul crashes.

Cradling him in your arms, you realize the tragedy of the situation. Like Gwen had died in his, Peter had now died in yours. People had always said that you understood Peter more than anyone else ever could, now you understood him even more. This pain, this is why Peter is the way he is.

You prop him up, resting on your leg, running your hands up and down his body. In your emotional state, you can’t control the way your palms begin to glow. You’ve always had the ability to heal, but you’ve never been strong enough to bring someone back from death.

Inhaling deeply, you press down on his chest, trying desperately to breathe a life force back into his body. Your control on your powers has never been weaker, and yet you’ve never felt so powerful, that is until you begin to feel yourself tiring, your life force fighting to ignite his.

You’d read a book in Hank’s library once that said a magic healer must give a piece of themselves to the one they wish to bring back from the dead. Peter could take every piece of you, your thoughts swirl. You’d die happily if it meant he could survive.

Your hands burn and your chest aches, pain overtaking your senses. Your eyes fly open when you feel a light breath hit your face, the sound of him sputtering follows.

“You did it!” You let out a shriek of happiness and surprise, pulling him into your embrace, “Peter, you’re alive!”

He pulls back slightly to get a look at you, your eyes watery and red. You’d been crying, he’d been….dead. He remembers the cold, the darkness that had surrounded him. Reaching down to feel the wound on his chest, he feels nothing. He sees no blood, no bullet hole in his suit. But he remembers being shot. He remembers dying.

“I died.” He says, certain of the fact. “How-how am I alive?”

When he sees your hands, the glow they’re emanating a low golden hue, he recoils. Your happiness begins to fade, being replaced with a nervous energy.

He pushes himself up off the floor, standing tall. You’ve never been afraid of his height or his strength, but you’ve also never seen Peter this angry before.

It’s an anger that’s not all that obvious. Anyone who doesn’t know him well enough, could completely miss it. His emotions don’t present themselves in the form of rage, more so in the form of a seething and cold separation from himself. He becomes detached. It’s in the flicker of his eyes that you can see how angry he really is.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” His voice starts out quiet, calculated, and laced with venom.

“Peter.” You try to calm him.

It doesn’t work. “Why didn’t you fucking tell me?” This time, he’s louder.

“Because I was afraid!” You push back. “I was afraid that you’d look at me the way you’re looking at me now, like I’m some kind of freak.”

He lets out a sarcastic laugh. “You’re unbelievable.” He spits. “All this time, I felt like I was alone in this, like I was the only person with this kind of…” he pauses, looking for the word…

“…mutation.” You finish for him.

He shakes his head in disbelief. “You fucking knew what I was going through, and you said nothing.” He lets out a breath of pure frustration, before his voice cracks and his words fade. “You could have told me. You could have trusted me.”

And that breaks your resolve. You crack, on the verge of tears. “I do trust you.” You take a step closer to him, and to your surprise, he doesn’t take a step back.

“And I was wrong.” You admit. “But I’ve lived my entire life in fear, being told to keep this secret, because the people you love are the ones who can hurt you the most.” You watch as his features relax, your words softening him. “A wise man once told me, when you’re in control of your mind and of your heart, no one can hurt you. When I’m with you Peter, I can’t control my heart.”

“But you saved me.” He says almost as if he’s confused about it. “You went against everything you believed in, every instinct you have, just so that I could live.”

You nod. “Yes.”

“Because you love me?”

Your voice sends a wave of euphoria through him, “Because my love for you is the strongest instinct I have.”

He rushes forward to pull you into his embrace, wrapping his arms around you. His heart beats with yours, his breathing calming as he holds you. After everything he’s been through, after everyone he’s lost, you are the only one who can make him feel whole again. You make him feel understood.

Into your ear, he whispers, “I could never be afraid of you.”

“And I you.” You repeat the sentiment, your head buried into his suit.

Falling to his knees, he leads you down with him so you’re both kneeling face to face. He cups his hands around your cheeks, gently wiping away a tear. You search each other’s eyes, so full of pain, but also full of love and understanding. Empathy your greatest gift.

You’ve both been through many lifetimes of trauma, and yet the one thing that stays dominant in each of your eyes, is your love for each other. Your hearts, souls, minds and bodies intertwined in an absolutely undeniable show of unconditional love.

“You need to promise me one thing (Y/n),” he breaks the silence, his tone soft, never demanding. “No more secrets.” He says.

You blink your eyes shut, releasing a breath of relief. “I promise.” You reply, leaning your forehead against is. “No more secrets.”

A beat of silence ticks. “Now bug boy, I believe you made me a promise earlier.”

“Yeah?” He responds with a bright smile on his face, leaning forward to place a kiss on your lips.

“Yeah.” You smile right back. “Show me how much you love me.”

And so he does….

////////////////

tags: @flowerpersephone @velvetboyys

#peter parker x reader #peter parker imagine #tasm spider man x reader #spiderman x reader #spiderman imagine #andrew!peter parker x reader #andrew!spiderman #tasm!spiderman x reader #andrew garfield #spiderman

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