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books-and-dragons · 5 months

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with the combined effort of literal club and storygraph: my 2023 book year in review!

featuring stats, my top recommendation of the year, and some favourite quotes. let me be annoying about my reads.

(in a side note, please feel free to add me on Literal Club or Storygraph!)

#books talks #not my BEST showing i'll admit b u t i'm striving for better in 2024 #and more consistent reviewing #anyway pLEASE talk to me about the Jem Flockhart series oh my g o d #i'm gonna single handedly start and fill an ao3 fandom tag mark my words i l o v e that series #i only made a storygraph recently but the stats side of it is super interesting!#i prefer literal's social element though #together their balance is very promising #side note that over my rotting corpse will i ever use goodreads #please do yourselves a favour if you're still using goodreads and switch to at LEAST one of these options #or another #there's a few more out there i think #literal club #storygraph #books

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eightyuh · 5 months

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ducktracy · 10 months

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!!!NEW REVIEW!!!

a comedian and performer who looked, acted and talked funny was like striking gold for cartoonists in the golden age. thus, Jerry Colonna’s growing popularity in the early ‘40s proved helpful, as he soon became ripe caricature material. so much so that Friz Freleng dedicated a worm character in his likeness not once, but twice: thus enters the eponymous wacky worm. a seemingly standard chase cartoon between a crow and a worm, the short does what it can to subvert a tired out cartoon format even by 1941 through unconventional run cycles, didactic birds, and perhaps the distinction of having the most obnoxious song number in a cartoon.

#for those interested this one has two sets of lobby cards: the originals and ones for the reissue. i used the originals here for Consistency #but it’s amusing they made new lobby cards for the reissue since they’re the same drawings just with a bit more shading #lt #the wacky worm #reviews #freleng #looney tunes

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thelightningstreak · 8 months

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Final Chapter for Karma - Thread Complete!

Part of Deliverance - A collection of one-shots and short stories on ff.net featuring Valerie Gray and Dan Phantom

Chapter Summary for Karma Part 15, Epilogue: The clear-minded Ghost King Dan Phantom struggles under the weight of his past, but he's not the only one as he and Valerie forge a little found family from the ashes of the world around them. Final chapter of the Karma thread!

Chapter Warnings: None

Overall Thread Rating: M

Read the new chapter here on FFN!

#Danny Phantom #Dan Phantom #Valerie Gray #Dark Gray #DanVal #Deliverance #ahhh and it HASN'T been 84 years this time!#Y'all this story is 9 years old but we finally made it #If you get a chance please read and review thank you!#(And let me know what new DarkGray stories sound like fun to write!)#Also RIP FFN is acting strange #While I intend to keep updating on FFN #I may start reposting to AO3 more consistently

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sometipsygnostalgic · 1 year

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everyone on Reddit being asked what their least favourite She-ra episode is and at least two people commented on the tonal dissonance of Signals being 50% trash and 50% the best episode in the season, it’s great

#i have consistently destroyed this episode for its tonal dissonance of the rebellion and horde plot and now im watching others do the same #there arent actually any standouts for a least favourite episode #the only eps mentioned were flowers for shera #boys night out (which i countered)#and system failure (which i also countered)#none of the eps are bad #but everyone agrees that signals is 50% shit #and 50% fucking incredible #i love this show #she ra #spop #signals is actually my favourite s2 ep for the horde plot it was enough for it to reach that spot #but if i were reviewing it as a critic like with owl house id give it a 6 out of 10 at best #whereas white out would have a straightforward 8 but i do not like white out more at all #it does a great job with all the characters coming together though!

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softgrungeprophet · 11 days

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i need a million dollars just so i can go to the movie theater more than once or twice a year, there's so much out this year i wanna see... on a big screen and not "i'll watch that later on my laptop" which i never do

#hearing good things about everything from challengers to furiosa to i saw the tv glow to love lies bleeding to monkey man #a couple of those are not in theaters anymore though and furiosa isn't out for a few days obv #saw a pre-release review that seemed positive though #nadia rambles #tickets are at least a little cheaper here than in seattle but like #i only make anywhere between $10 and $150 a month LOL (depends on how much training i am doing that month)#if i had a more consistent income i would seriously consider getting one of those movie theater memberships though #i fucking love.... controlled sensory overload.... which has a set duration #obv any other situation with 80 db sound blasting i would be like fuck this. but movies are a nice cathartic experience for me personally #unironically very glad i had the money to see madame web

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ranger-kellyn · 27 days

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i did end up finishing the new avatar last night, and yeah. my final thoughts are: it was fine. i think the first episode was the best, and it never really got above that. it tells the story it's setting out to tell. the bending is beautifully animated, the settings are all gorgeous, and i even actually enjoyed most of the costuming. there were times i thought some of the outfits looked out of place or cheap, but overall, for 2024, good. the backdrops made me want to spend hours exploring every nook and cranny.

beyond that, though.... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

What's Not Working: -the insistence that the past avatars are all these hardened assholes who insist the avatar must "do it alone" and I think it was Kuruk who said "there's no 'Team Avatar'!" like?????

in the fucking FORWARD OF THE RISE OF KYOSHI, the forward that was written by Michael Dante DiMartino: "And the Avatar universe has no shortage of "must-haves." ... The Avatar can't do all this alone and thus must also have a core group of teachers and friends--a Team Avatar, as we like to call it."

LIKE!!!!!!! Team Avatar is literally a must have for the avatar!!!!!!! how can you insist all the past avatars would be hounding aang to do it alone??????????????

-i'm still fuming at having fucking kyoshi of all avatar's get onto aang for "not being there"???? one of kyoshi's whole fucking things was her anger with powerful men in the world who did nothing but abuse that power. she would never get onto a 12 year old child who just had the weight of the world thrust onto their shoulders after the genocide of their people-- HELLO???? am i too much of a kyoshi stan????? am i the insane one here?????????

-apparently sokka's actor claimed to be cherokee, but he's just a member of the southern cherokee nation of kentucky. which is on the cherokee fraud list. and while i know the bullshit that comes with blood quantum and trace lineage and just how hard it is for a tribe to get federally recognized bc heaven for fucking bid we treat natives with any dignity-- s i g h glad to see the whole "my great, great grandmother was a cherokee princess who ran away during the trail of tears!!" is still alive 🙄

-the show is absolutely suffering from the whole "the original show's s1 was like 20 episodes all around 25-ish minutes that we're now having to cram into 8 1-hour episodes".

so, in some ways, i get why they took out sokka's sexism: they didn't have the time to spend actually letting him learn.

still think it was a coward's choice.

speaking as a former shitty kid who was raised by shitty people with their shitty, narrow world views, in small town with shitty, narrow views: it's so fucking important for kids like me to see that you can change your mind. that you can have your world view challenged, and changed for the better.

-all the romance so far just Does Not Land with me. i'm a hopeless romantic, sure, but it's all so...Underdeveloped, I guess. idk if i'm the best judge here. i am the kind of person who loves a slow burn bc i love seeing every note of the relationship develop.

but it's just.....idk. sokka/suki, to me, has always been a "we're only together bc you were the first person my age i've met and i think you're cute". they're not a pairing that i think would last into adulthood. at most, they would be amiable exes who still do love one another, but are just not going in the same direction.

sokka/yue...i have to be honest that never made sense to me. again, it's just a "you're my age and you're cute" and for yue "you treat me like a regular person", but even then, their interactions were so brief in this adaptation-- if they go through with the "my girlfriend turned into the moon" "that's rough buddy" thing at the boiling rock later on, it's just......not. going to land the same way, i think.

-i know it wasn't until later in the original series that we saw it, but i still hate how it just seems like "all fire nation is bad and evil and wants to destroy the world" and it's not until the gaang is hiding out in the fire nation that you see that many of the fire nation citizen's are also negatively affected by the imperial core-- i just. wish they would have some fucking guts and show that in the live action. i wish they would show that not every fire nation soldier is this heartless war machine. if they had any balls they would show just how much military bootcamps brainwash people (but considering the us gov literally has a whole section of an agency dedicated to making sure the us military looks good on screen, i guess i know why they wouldn't take that risk. can't risk making big brother angry.)

-all of this to say that like. there's just no real storytelling risks being made!!! the point of a new adaptation should be to have a chance to tell some stories the original medium wouldn't let you! it was a kids/teen's show on nickelodeon! i'm not saying go all-out grimdark tooedgy5me, but like?????? throw me a bone SOMETHING

i made the comparison early on of "nothing worse than what happened to the earth queen in korra" and yeah. it. never really even got to that level in my opinion??

like, sure, the fire lord/fire nation soldiers burning people alive-- yeah yeah bad. killing the earth queen by suffocating her with airbending???? a bending form that was generally accepted as "peaceful"?????? that shit was fucking insane. come on pull on that string some more if you really wanted a more mature telling for the viewers you're nostalgia baiting into watching.

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What Is Working / Could Work If They Don't Fucking FUMBLE IT

-The biggest standout for me is Azula. i think they are nailing azula's character, and if they play their cards right, could do even better than the original* of showing just how tragic of a character she is. (*i'm not including any of the comics that came after the show ended since i've never read them and have no reference) (but also i'm not gonna hold my breath lmao)

i think it was a great choice to not have her be the season ending cliffhanger reveal of "ooh the new Big Bad", but showing how ozai was using zuko to goad her into a non-stop pursuit of perfection.

like, not to be an azula apologist on main, but, she really is just a perfectly tragic character. a child born in the heart of the imperial empire. a child that stood no chance at not being brainwashed by the empire. a child that her father saw as a weapon, and her mother and uncle only saw as a monster. a child who had no guidance from someone "good". zuko got iroh, azula got......nobody. the only thing azula got was the demand of perfection from her father.

sure, she had mai and ty lee, but they were her age. they didn't have the wisdom and experience to help guide her to a better path.

i think of the final fight with zuko and katara vs azula, and i think of that final moment where she's on the ground, spitting fire and just sobbing. she knows all too well what happens to people who fail the fire lord. and she knows what's going to happen to her if/when they lose the war.

-relating to above, i really do think the casting overall was pretty good. apart from sokka, it was only here and there i thought they should have done another round of casting. the youth of all the actors really just. hits home with how these are children having to save the world. aang is so babyfaced right now i just want to protect him and fight all the prev avatars for demanding a literal baby to protect the world. the child-roundness to azula's face makes her all the more tragic to me.

and i must admit-- daddy ozai fire lord ozai.......... 👀🥵

(but i will also readily admit i didn't look into the exact nationality of every actor bc i'm just one person and i also work a full time job so like)

-again, i think the scenery was great, overall. i think the people who did all the animated backgrounds for everywhere did a fantastic job of capturing the atmosphere. 10/10 hopefully it carries through bc i can't wait to see other locations.

-i am glad they seemed to have cut the shit with the northern(?idr) air temple from the original. being native and knowing just what it's like to see the homeland of your ancestors being taken over by people who just. don't. take care of the land the way it was supposed to-- it never sat right with me.

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Overall

again, it's fine at best. it tells the story it's looking to tell. it's imperfect, but so was the original by plenty of margins. as emphasized with azula, an endless pursuit of the nebulous concept of perfection will only end in disaster, or in this case, the denial of any enjoyment. i've spent 9 hours of my life in worse ways.

i'm sure i'll think of other things i could have added to either side of my list here, but yeah. it's fine. i still recommend the original any day over it, and i cannot recommend the kyoshi novels enough. i think i saw netflix say on the banner that the next 2 seasons are confirmed, so i'll probably watch it to the end.

i'm just excited that my yangchen novels get here today, because at least i can trust that F. C. Yee won't disappoint me

#talking tag #kellyn watches #review tag #i should probably make that a more consistent tag?? idk i don't talk about things like this much lol #been typing this off and on since like 6:30 this morning hopefully it's at least a little legible lol

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pochapal · 3 months

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when will pickle route return home from the war...........

#:)#please...........just a crumb of time to work on my fic...........it's all i ask for...........#anyway today's moping brought on by me being told i need to get a third of my novel for uni written by the summer #and my supervisors were super apologetic about dumping such a heavy and extreme workload on me #but due to semester timings wrt transfer reviews stuff is more frontloaded than it should be #except for the part where this 'extreme' workload consists of like 30k words #which is like. barely the length of a single pickle route chapter #and i'm mad because i need to find the time to write that but i can't find the time for my fic. cruel and evil world #hoping once the Scary Stuff in march has passed i should be able to work on it (i am desperately hoping so)

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amber-lucca44 · 3 months

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Wings (Vonnie's review 💕)

My rating: 9/10 ♥️

First of all thanks @casetotu for telling me about this album. 😭💖

What I loved:

Each member having their own track

The variety of sounds and styles throughout the album

The short films and the way they're all connected to each other

What I didn't love:

Still getting used to it being music in a different language (not being able to understand lyrics as I'm hearing them), but I'm quickly getting there lol ♥️

Favorite song:

#music #bts #album review #k pop #alternative #trying out this format for my reviews lol #i'll start doing them this way #maybe i can be more consistent now ahhh 😭😭#vonnie reviews 💕

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starswallowingsea · 6 months

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oh yes i finished the kingdom of sweets. its an interesting take on the nutcracker story and definitely takes a lot of liberties and gives more of a horror vibe. really fun read for the most part up until the epilogue which felt like the author shoehorned 15 historical events and figures into 15 pages because they could. the final chapter was still really nice though and i think tied everything together nicely, but the pacing of the rest of the epilogue was bad enough to drag my rating down to 3.5 stars

#shay speaks #the kingdom of sweets #erika johansen #bookblr #booklr #book review #really informal review this time but ehhhhhhh #also i wish we got years with the chapters instead of One mention of it being 1905 in the middle of the book and having to figure it out #like either leave it vague or use dates consistently please do not throw one single date in there and then never again #but thats more of a minor thing compared to the epilogue. imo anyway #oh natasha you are such a bad person and unreliable narrator trying to justify everything #but its okay #i support womens wrongs etc

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zincbot · 9 months

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crying sobbing missing rottmnt

#rottmnt #MY EMOTIONS ARE SO CRAZY ABT IT RN I JUST WATCHED A VIDEO TALKING ABT IT #i appreciate perspectives of 2012 fans appreciating rise retrospectively but i just. feel so helpless #i've been an avid fan ever since they put the show on netflix I WATCHED THE HELL OUT OF IT. offically and everything. i liked it i rated it #i did everything i could. the movie too. i used the hashtags i did everything an individual person could to help this show out #and obviously there's nothing anyone could have done. i'd like to think that maybe if there was more positivity. maybe nickolodeon would.#maybe they would have given the show a chance. gave it a consistent schedule and a proper toy line. but with how early rise was shot out?#i don't think all the positive reviews in the world could have changed anything #i'm furious. it's just a show obviously but it's one of my top 3 tv shows of ALL TIME. and it's probably number 1 #(at least rn)#i'm just. mad lol #and sad

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itspileofgoodthings · 1 year

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okay but Kola saving Mills not once but twice … KILLED me

#all the reviews are like …. But what was the point #and it’s like. Love???? Understanding ?????? Basic human compassion???????#the dinosaurs barely existed and barely registered in a compelling way but why should that matter #lol #no really. when your story is about adam driver trying to take care of and communicate with a little girl #who doesn’t speak the same language as him and is lost and traumatized #and then in doing so is also cared for #like. the movie is about grief!#and that thread is consistent all the way through. they hit all the beats #and when she reaches for his (ridiculously oversized) hand at the end as they leave earth #it’s just like. right. they made it through #anyway it’s about fathers and daughters #(they kind of low-key didn’t need his real daughter tbh. the story would have worked even more stripped down)#(but as Nina correctly pointed out the audience would not have been able to as comfortably interpret the fact that this relationship #was fathers and daughters #also like !!!!! there were so many real moments #like when she ran back to save the struggling baby dinosaur and he was like NO but then came and helped her anyway #and when she made him put the flower in his hair #and when he was about to drown in quicksand or whatever and she finds the tree branch #they were equally matched and beautifully acted #and the dynamic was inherently father and daughter. and not all the easy parts!!!!!!#when she was scared after being dragged all over the place by that evil dinosaur he had to sit there and wait for her #and draw her out with the sound signal and just. Be patient!#and when she was mad about her grief he had to make himself share his #anyway sorry for all the spoilers it was just good #65 #adam driver

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transfennecbuddy · 1 year

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So, I actually listened to this song a while ago (thanks Youtube algorithm!) and meant to say something about it, but I legitimately forgot. But now I've remembered, mwaha! This song is called Be My Guest, and for the life of me I can't find out who the song artist is! (I think they might just not have a name?) So I'm linking this song at the end so y'all can find it and listen to it.

(EDIT: I think their name is Azari, whoops. I'm still linking the song tho.)

Also, I would like to add a disclaimer before I even start talking about this song, lol. I do not know any actual names to describe any of the instruments, so if it starts sounding like I'm talking about nonsense, that's why.

So. This song is so good but in a sneaky way! It doesn't come out with any loud instrumentals or emotional singing. It's quiet and soft and sneaky and I LOVE it so much! I love this song's vibe and everything! The music is really simple but eases into the background, and the vocals at first just follow the beat, which sets up a really sly, really calm sort of song that still is easy to jam to. Like you could close your eyes and just relax to this song. You'd end up dancing a little, of course, because the beats are just too immaculate and well-placed to avoid not snapping to them, but it fills the silence in a way that's fulfilling but quiet. There's something definitely there, but it doesn’t demand your full attention. You can do something else while letting this play in the background and take up the back of your thoughts. (Which was why I was going to play this while working when I'd remembered I hadn't wrritten about this song yet.)

Then it adds a lil jazziness to it with some more off-beat beats (that sound kinda like a maraca, actually)! And I love these beats! They're so good that I can almost taste them in my mouth and savor how good they are, mm! The jam levels surpass pure vibing and get me to tap my foot, it's so nice! Now the song's taken up a lil more conscious thought, just enough to realize hey, this is frickin good, but you're still just enjoying the musical silence that it has.

But it doesn’t stay that way! This song has the AUDACITY to pause, take away the new syncopated beats, and leave the end up of beat undefined and (lyrically) silent! And I UTTERLY. LOVE IT. When you're not expecting it, it's like you've been vibing ever harder as the song goes on and you expected to vibe more from the build, but then the music drops out from under you and gives a slower, more careful answer. Like someone is sneaking behind you (which fits with the lyrics)! And the suddenness plus how good the slow down is gives me shivers. I love this part! It blends into the background less, but it's so good and satisfying to vibe to! And there are random real-life sounds in there (like a car horn) that don't sound random or jarring at all! Everything sounds so smooth and well-produced and satisfying!

And then after that, the song goes back to vibing with a few more beats added and it's just... When I'm paying attention to the song, the vibing and fulfilling drop and return to vibing makes me want to cry happy tears, and when I'm not paying attention, it makes me want to wave my hands and tap the beat into anything I can find. Like it's so good that I have to let the music out somehow.

And the end! The end of the song is so slow and sly and MM so good! And the art is so beautiful, I had to say something about it! And the way this song blends the roboticness of the vocaloid's lyrics, the music, and the real-life sounds is just wonderful! This whole song just feels well-produced in a way that even someone with no experience producing music can tell! Like the song artist knows just when to push and pull back to make an awesome song!

This song is so good for working because it's so varied and interesting yet quiet and unobtrusive about it! And honestly, I love it so much that it immediately got put onto my Vocaloid playlist! I recommend it to literally anyone!!

Here's the link to the song:

youtube

#hi hi again!#I'd love to go on and on about what songs I've been listening to recently #but I've mostly been listening to Scapegoat by Ghost and Pals and I feel like no one's surprised by that lol #so how's y'all's days going?#and what have y'all been listening to?#PFF leave it in the comments below and don't forget to like and subscribe!!! (/joking on that last part)#also I am hoping #HOPING #to maybe be a bit more consistent on reviews?#like maybe do them once a week or something?#I dunno don't hold me to it school's starting again soon #but it's a hope #anyways bye! <3 #kitty's reviews #azari #vocaloid #Youtube #this tag popped up automatically when I linked the vid and I dunno I feel like keeping it #lol feeling generous today

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mg549 · 1 year

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5 years in review (2018-2022)

#art review #year in review #art summary #art meme #my art #i wanted to look at them together :)))#i feel like 2018 is a solid start #2019 was a little rough as i learn a new medium [digital art]#2020 was mw sort of finding brand stability in the types of pieces i did #2021 was pushing myself to really improve with focus on texture and unintentional focus on lighting #and 2022 was a fucking STRUGGLE trying to learn how to put art out consistently while working full time #like for example. jan feb march of this year. i only put out one piece each month #bc i rly dont like my job lmao and it took so much out of me >moving cross country >starting first full time job >moving AGAIN across town #also the piece from july looks wonky to me now but it still is the most polished thing from that month bc i did a bunch of quick art fight p #ieces #unintentional themes for this year: realism. red/teal palettes [or more generally warm/cool contrast].#almost exclusively music fanart or mh/sta stuff #idk im always over critical of my year in review stuff when i first make them then warm up as i become nostalgic #you can also notice a trend of yellow slowly becoming completely absent from my works. this is bc my old laptop had issues with displaying #color and washed yellow out so i never saw it. hence why old drawings of ppl look RLY JAUNDICED. i couldnt goddamn see it #and i dont rly gravitate towards yellow too often #aqua is my fave color in general but also to work with #i didnt do 0 traditional art this year but i felt like i did less that usual probably bc i used to work on my bed but now i work at my desk #which is Very Small and doesnt have a lot of space for me to get out pens or paints or whatever #that and also. less time and energy than in previous years :(#my faves for each year by month: jan-21 feb-19 mar-21 apr-22 may-22 jun-22 jul-18 aug-22 sep-21 oct-#18/21 [tie] nov-21 dec-22 [altho i def seem to always push myself to make sth rly good in the last month of the year tbh]

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orcelito · 9 months

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OKAY i fixed the most glaring canon inconsistency for ITNL that i discovered last night

which is. the fact that i fully thought the final battle happened in December. but turns out it happened in Octovern!

idr if they mentioned it outright that they were heading there, but they mentioned "humanity's last stand" in December so. i just. fully thought that's where everything happened. but then Meryl mentions Octovern at the end & i double checked and. yea it sure says Octovern on the wiki lmfao.

i'll have to read thru it more carefully (i wasn't exactly reading too closely for details yesterday) to figure out Exactly what the fuck is going on with the locations here. but for now, every reference to the final battle in ITNL has been changed to Octovern

sigh.