#is it because that’ll be part of her character arc

[palavapeite]

Ok but why no armpit hair on Archie??? is my only actual complaint (tm)

#is it because I would have combusted otherwise #is it because that’ll be part of her character arc #ofmd #ofmd season 2 #ofmd s2 spoilers

[littlespoonevan]

I’m just so stuck!!!! on Buck’s reaction to the kiss because it’s like, he’s a little bit caught off guard but also a little bit swept off his feet almost???? And it’s such a contrast to the moments with Taylor and Natalia where they come back for him because Buck was still the pursuer in both of those situations, they were reacting to him

Whereas in this scene he so clearly doesn’t expect any of it even as he’s trying put the pieces together during their conversation. And honestly I feel like the last time we really saw Buck like this was with Abby because even though he was the one pursuing then too, his feelings for her took him completely by surprise. Like, it was the first time he experienced what it could mean to fall in love and he had that thought of “oh I could have this if I want it”

And that’s not to say he’s in love with Tommy or even that any of this is about Tommy at all but it’s once again a moment where Buck is offered something and that thought comes back of “oh I could have this if I want it.” He could be with a man if he wants to and maybe he does want to

And it’s just!!!!!! So much!!!!!! To see what this might mean for not only his romantic arc but also for him himself!!! How this will change him and make him feel more at ease within himself like he’s so desperately been trying to do these past few seasons

And y’know one day we’ll hopefully get the culmination where it’s the right love and the right person and god that’ll be one for the books but for right now, seeing him look so nervous and excited and hopeful at this part of himself he never maybe let himself consider before has honestly shaken me to my core I’ve never felt this happy for a character before???????

#look Buck likes them older and more confident than him what can he say agshskd #no but for real I’ve felt like crying all morning #911 related #911 spoilers #7x04 #evan buckley #mine

[phlurrii]

Out of curiosity, what does the psychic cat fam exactly do out there? (This doesn’t have to be exclusive to just now, also could have been just Meau, Noe, and Mew) Aside from vibing. They live in a paradise where food isn’t a concern and nothing with a brain would try to hurt them. Do they play fight? Teach the youngin’s their future jobs? Have games? Maybe some swipped books to read? Explore the world outside of their tree for funsies? See who can steal as many goodies from human society without getting caught?

I know it’s silly but I like the “filler” of things. To think about what characters are doing when the “plot” isn’t being progressed. It’s part of why I like the slice-of-life genre from time to time. Life isn’t always an adventure or fight against some opposing force, but it can still be fun!

I agree, I’m honestly a bit upset with myself, given how long each update takes I never noticed I wasn’t adding in enough filler. Something I plan to fix once we’re in Noe’s arc, as we are sadly, or luckily? Way too close to beginning it to shove any sudden filler in. For now I’m blaming it on first time story telling and having to do art school on the side X3

As for the gang, Meau did fly a little bit off the handle due to not having a lot of stimulation when she was younger before Noe showed up. As for what they did/do, for reasons that’ll become clear later; they mostly talked in the early days!

She would show off her creations, abilities, transformations, and forming ecosystems to him. He would ask about as many questions as one would with a new world and she thrived off it. They would watch other Pokémon’s life in secret like it was a soap opera, sometimes intervening to make it more interesting or admittedly have it lean towards the ending they wanted. Usually betting and taking opposing sides as to what would happen.

Battling is a particular big one for Meau, she loves to get down and dirty with other legendaries and mythicals even if she has the power advantage. Most often fighting with her brothers, she wouldn’t be above transforming into the Pokémon she was fighting to even out the playing field, or even change her type so she was inherently weaker to it. It’s why she’s never been against human with their Pokémon battles, battling is an innate part of her creations and herself.

Missingno. on the other hand loves to explore, even with his age, he knows the world is in a constant state or change and ventures off on his own to explore it. He’s not nearly as against humans as Meau and has explored their cities and settlements. Most intrigue by their computers/technology nowadays and how he’s able to to interact with them. Meau has explored with him on occasion, but prefers to stay away.

I’d also imagine they like to race in very difficult conditions. High up in the atmosphere or just outside in the actual vacuum of space. Deep in the ocean, forcing them to make their own path through rock and stone. Which probably pisses off the weather trio invading all 3 of their areas, but that leads perfectly into the next one.

They love to piss off the other legendaries, because… well, what can they do?

There has been more then on tropical storm, tsunami, volcanic eruption, and general disaster caused by the Ancients pestering another powerful legend. Lastly, they sleep, if the current time is too boring, peaceful, or simply there is nothing to do that interests them… they’ll sleep for a couple thousand years.

As for more current day stuff, it’s much tamer since Bucket was taken, Meau woke up from a much needed thousands years nap to a very different world. Humans had well established themselves even further, technology exists, and they can clone/create pokemon. So she is staying in the tree with her suddenly growing family, just to watch. She wants to know what everything’s up too from a distance given they’ve somehow managed to trap and almost kill another mew, make a Mewtwo, and possibly a second one.

So she’s just always watching human society from the tree, whilst also teaching and nurturing Odysseus. He spends more of his time exploring the tree and occasional testing out powers. With Meau’s assistance. The trees massive and filled with Pokémon, so he’s got quite the endless bit of entertainment. Decamark is the newest edition and thus follows a lot of what Ody does! Though Noe has been poking them, figuratively, with a stick to figure out what he’s capable of.

#ask #mew #ancient mew #pokemon #mew pokemon #the ancient mew #pokémon mew #mewtwo #pokemon mewtwo #puzzled zebra

[anderscim]

oh! something actually not about david for once

(whit young train of thought)

(take this giant wall of text with a grain of salt)

// spoilers for drdt chapter 2

i believe many of you have already picked up on this, but i’m just thinking about how whit uses his sense of humor and his lighthearted “indifference” to deflect any feelings of grief.

okay i think i’ll have to explain a bit further so. here we go

think back to whit’s secret:

“your mother is dead. you always omit that truth.”

and, unironically, this is true. he had a couple of opportunities to bring up his “true secret” but never did.

for me, the part that specifically stands out is when he claims his life is too uneventful to know what his motive secret is, and even lists some of his minor secrets to prove his point:

(side note: whit being a bisexual icon. hehe)

in a way, he’s almost acting like he forgot about his mother’s passing, although something like the death of a family member is usually a painful fact that would hang over people’s minds.

whit probably felt that, if he ever tried to properly process his grief, he would break down as he was unable to hold all of that emotional baggage at once. so instead, he pushed his mother’s death into the back of his mind; in doing so, he wouldn’t have to remind himself of it again.

also, when he admits to his secret during the 2nd trial he handles it very lightly.

he mentions it in passing almost as if it’s a spontaneous realization, rather than something that hangs heavy on his mind.

and yes, i do know that there isn’t really much else he could say here, but i still feel like it’s important enough to address. and this may just be me, but i feel like his word choice was really vague which seems slightly out of character for him—but i may be wrong about that so i’ll fact check later.

anyways,

both of these together, i think it’s safe to say that whit:

refrains from addressing anything about his mother / repressing his grief surrounding her death

tries to act indifferent about it

and my personal interpretation is that he does this so he doesn’t have to deal with his grief.

however, this doesn’t just apply to his family.

this also applies to whit’s sense of humor in the killing game. think about the number of times hu had to yell at him at class trials for the way he seemed to be taking everything lightly—at first i didn’t think much of it, but now, i think the reason why he’s actively trying to be lighthearted, and comes up with as many jokes as possible during the trial, is so he doesn’t have to think about the fact that someone just got murdered.

whit’s current lighthearted demeanor is his coping mechanism, but i feel like he’s accumulated a lot of bottled up emotions over time because of it. however, he’ll have to face them sooner or later—and i think that’ll be a very important portion of his character arc.

and actually, i’m kinda scared that character arc is gonna consist of whit actually having to face grief head-on sometime in the next two trials or so.

and uh, i think

you know

what i mean

silently places a death flag on charles

anyways

feel free to reach out to me, refute me, etc. whatever floats your boat honestly

because i would LOVE to hear your opinions on this! really

(and as always take this with a grain of salt)

#drdt #danganronpa despair time #whit young #bagel’s train of thought #very. calmly. looks at charles #but honestly i see it happening both ways #i feel cruel for saying it but it had to be said 😭 #also just me or. is “take it with a grain of salt” becoming my catchphrase #fanganronpa #fangan

[stormiclown]

The Most Hated Girl In Paris Au: Chloe Salt and Possible Redemption

Overview: Listen, I may not like the direction Chloe’s character has taken or what she represents [the white woman tears, rich, privileged, nepo-baby, classist, fascist, racist], but I myself love a redemption journey, ya know, as long as they prove that they deserve a chance or earned it!

One of my (many) problems with Chloe Bourgeois isn’t her nonexistent redemption arc but the fact that many of her stans and a select number of characters within the show are just handing her chances on a silver platter (which she acts like she’s entitled to anyways) without any effort on Chloe’s part to earn or deserve them. This is not a redemption. This is just handing a spoiled brat undeserved chances of the off chance that she’ll change. And she doesn’t. In fact, it just makes her look worse.

That brings me to my next point: Consequences. This is how I knew for a fact that Chloe’s “redemption” arc was never real from the start. Because never at any point during her arc was she given any actual long-term consequences for the way she behaves or how she treats people. In Writing 101, the foundation of a character’s change for the better would be them realizing that their actions have an impact on other people, their surroundings, and/or themselves. The next step should be a slap in the face from reality. For the rug to be pulled underneath them and they’re forced deal with the fact that it isn’t always about them and that they are not all that. But with Miss Bourgeois, we never see any of that. If anything, she believes that she’s entitled to the endless chances at redemption that everyone keeps giving her. And is actively defended by others who correctly call her out on her inability to grow and learn. When people try to help Chloe change or give her an example to follow, it just inflates her ego. No wonder everyone’s given up on her.

With these writing and character flaws in mind, I’ve come up with an AU where Chloe’s actions have piled up and now she has to decide if she wants to make things worse for herself or actually change and be able to love.

It starts with Queen Wasp, where the train crash incident actually leads to numerous people pressing charges against her, whether they were on the train or had family members who were on the train. Since Chloe is a minor, the best they could do was an ankle monitor for an indefinite amount of time. Given how she’s also stolen a miraculous, she’s not allowed to be outside when there’s an akuma attack.

In typical Chloe fashion, she just keeps digging her grave while cheering herself up. By making everyone else feel worse. However, seeing as Chloe was being held accountable by the law, the school staff feel more comfortable punishing Chloe for her bullying and harassment of other students. She threatens to get her “Daddy-kins” involved, but they argue a point back that makes her blood run cold. If Mayor Andre Bourgeois cracks down on his daughter who has been famously dubbed “Train Witch” it may be the final push that’ll end with her father not being re-elected. Seeing no other way out of it, Chloe must go through detention for the first time in her school career.

Given how Roger Raincomprix stands for the pursuit of justice and safety, I have no idea how he still allows Sabrina to be friends with someone who by all accounts, should have a criminal record. In this AU, Officer Raincomprix forbids his daughter from being friends with Chloe and to steer clear of someone he views as a budding criminal. Parents of the students who attend Francois DuPont also follow suit. They tell their kids to stay away from the Mayor’s daughter and to not associate themselves with her. They’ve done this before the train incident. (As we’re shown in canon, Chloe ruthlessly bullies her classmates and people outside of school. It’s not far fetched to assume that she regularly bullies kids from other classes). Now, effectively friendless and a social pariah, Chloe has to endure scorn from both her school mates, adults, and the majority of Paris. She now the most hated girl in Paris.

Bustier would also wake the fuck up. I know she likes to see the best in people (to a toxic degree) and believes that love conquers all, seeing her student, the one she’s made endless excuses for, actively endanger the lives of innocent people including one of her own classmates (Marinette was on that damned train for gods sake!) should’ve been enough to shake her faith in Chloe or shatter it completely and question if she was really going about this in the right way. This also causes her to re-evaluate the way she’s been treating Marinette and her other students when comes to her blatant favoritism of Chloe. In this AU, the train incident is the last straw and Bustier decides that she isn’t going to force her students to forgive her. You know, because she almost killed one of them and it wouldn’t have been a good look. Now that her second biggest enabler has switched sides, her classmates are more encouraged to stand up for themselves and not take her shit lying down anymore. Marinette (who also pressed charges against Chloe) calls Chloe out on her crap more often, reads her the filth that she is, and isn’t cowed by her usual threats anymore. When Chloe acts up in class, Bustier holds her accountable and gives her three strikes. On the third strike, she sends Chloe to the principal’s office for the first time.

With Adrien, he finds it difficult to look at Chloe. While he defended her and brought attention to the fact that Ladybug lost a miraculous (by accident) on national TV, maybe hearing that one of his classmates almost died because of Chloe’s poorly thought out choices, might make him view Chloe in a completely different light. And since Gabriel Agreste is all about self preservation, he refuses to allow Adrien to associate with Chloe anymore. Chloe possibly looses her childhood friend and this is what finally breaks her.

In canon, Chloe is used to hatred, but refuses to acknowledge why so many people want her to rot. But this much hatred on a national, possibly even global level would be enough to destroy anyone. Especially a 13-16 year old teenager. But knowing that her best friend since diapers possibly views her as a monster is too much and she falls into despair. Because at least before Queen Wasp, people acknowledged her existence, even if the attention was primarily negative. Now Post Queen Wasp is a hell that she is solely responsible for creating. People either refuse to look and pretend she doesn’t exist, or they show her that she does exist and lash out at her in a flurry of suppressed rage and vitriol.

Her melt down comes later. At the beginning, she toed the line between not caring, and being annoyed that things weren’t going her way and that everyone was making a big deal out of nothing. No matter. Everything will blow over soon and life will go back to the status quo, with her as the Queen and everyone else as the peasants beneath her feet. But it doesn’t go away. Because unlike the show, people remember. They remember and aren’t willing to forgive or forget. And this is the first kick to the gut, not the disapproval, not the shame, but the fact that the usual routine has been changed and is unfamiliar. People like Chloe have one fear: The status quo being challenged.

A large part of the reason Chloe thinks she’s untouchable is because people aren’t willing to challenge the status quo (aside from the class beginning to stand up to her in season one). And if they do, they end up apologizing for thinking the worst of Chloe, or told to back off by other characters. If anything, every one of her victims would be well within their rights to spit in her face and double down on their worsening opinions of her. After all, Chloe hasn’t given them a reason not to. She has a record of being at her worst when people are actively challenging the status quo she’s created which riles her up into further cruelty. Now that a new status quo has been formed, one that she doesn’t have any control over, she has no power and it increasingly becomes more unbearable.

Every time someone or something deviates from the usual status quo that she’s used to, a little part of her soul dies. Her father refusing to go along with her whims anymore is another slap to her face. As Mayor Bourgeois has been her biggest supporter ever since she was a baby. In canon, Chloe has always taken her father for granted, but his disapproval wounds something deep within Chloe, which contributes to her mental break down.

This is due to the fact that Chloe is a very rigid person who thrives off of a set routine that she forces everyone around her to follow. People like this can’t accept change, and instead of learning how to adapt, they try to destroy the source of that change which just makes things worse for them. And that’s what Chloe has attempted to do. But every time she tries, she is always shut down by the people around her, which makes h things even more horrid in her eyes. If the show is any indication, Chloe cannot learn and cannot adapt because everyone always bends over or forget to hold her accountable. This does not work for a chronologically story driven show like Miraculous Ladybug. Since Queen Wasp wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg, all of the problems people have with Chloe are brought out into the open as people openly bond over the fact that she’s getting her just desserts. Right in front of her. Que tantrum and then scorn.

It’s a terrible loop in which, Chloe’s own inability to change and adapt contributes to the endless cycle until one day she breaks.

I’ve written this AU out this way because Chloe Bourgeois does not deserve a redemption to be handed to her. What she deserves are long lasting consequences and several reality checks that will force her to actually look at herself and ask herself if this is truly how she wants to live for the rest of her life. Then, and only then, will she deserve to at best have a chance redemption.

But even if she does change for the better, she isn’t owed forgiveness by anyone.

Redemption isn’t about forgiveness. It’s about personal growth.

#chloe salt #i guess #miss white rich girl has so much privilege and I hate it so this is good food #ml salt #I might actually make this a thing #but only time will tell #The most hated girl in paris #ml au #ml writing salt #☕️🫖 #teddy talks #miraculous ladybug #adrien salt #probably

[skyland2703]

Now that I have access to good quality pictures of The Coinless #1, I believe I can give it a proper review~

SO LET'S GET STARTED!!

I'm gonna start with saying the art here was fucking gorgeous. And I’m not gonna cover the basic points, too many people already have. Just lil things that held MY attention, knowing all the plot twists and spoilers~

Does this mean Drakkon DID have public executions in the street??

Bulk/Kim crumbs!!! Bulk is such a Simp man. OHHH

and and and— he tells Skull everything. Every part of his day. And I think skull hears, Skull understands.

This might get a little out of order now, but

It’s so sad the way she sits here bundled up like this. It also melts my heart. And she misses Zack So MUCH. And the guilt is swallowing her whole.

SHE IS NOT YOURS—

You know what I’d be up to kill him too if I were in this world.

ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE MOMENT OTP DOUBLE TEAMMMMMMMM!!!!!!!!!! Please I love THIS SO MUCH.

Bro deserved this shot ngl.

…now why do you have this stowed away like this, huh jason? Are we keeping the trauma like a trophy?? Are you going to wear that when you leave your little recluse’s hut???

Untreated PTSD made worse by more incoming trauma. This guy got so fucked up and yet he finds a way for ME to be annoyed at HIM.

Baby. Baby. Babyyyyyyy. Ultimate himbo Simp. BBY!!

These women are in LOVE by the way. For the record. Just so you know. And every single scene they had deserved a post of its own because HHHHH

But this one in particular. They’re SOFT but they’re pretending to be so tough. They just need a HUG. That’ll fix like 99.9% problems.

Also does anyone remember what did happen to the scorpina of that universe??

This is so funny to me and I don’t even know why

Iconic shot. Could hear the BONK noise in the background.

Glad finster got this moment. Even if it was short lived~

Zack what are. You. Trying. To. Achieve. Why does he keep calling her out like this?? Like he's ridiculing her for what happened to HIM?! WHAT. IS. THIS.

Also does this mean we get lava zombie kim???

HE SAID HIS NAME HE SAID HIS NAME HE SAID—

oh he betrayed them.

oH buLk is hurt.

aSDFGH

Like i said, the art was GORGEOUS. Drakkon was annoying as fuck. I needed to punch him in every single shot he was in.

This feels like a potential redemption arc for him, and I don’t LIKE IT. I don’t like redemption arcs. 99.9% of them. They’re almost never done right.

Obviously, this COULD be something really good, but I feel like

Also the fact that all of the characters not explicitly mentioned are all zombies now saddens me beyond explanation. It somehow kills scope for fanfiction to me?

But on the bright side, Bulk’s development is some of the best of the BEST. He’s the glue that’s holding the team together, he’s also the guy who thought he’d never get this, the underdog, the guy who thinks he doesn’t deserve any of this, and yet, and yet in every interaction of the team, he shines through. He’s the one who’s holding them all together, even though his own world— aka skull— is collapsing.

and i hope we get more development for him.

And please please PLEASE can we have everyone turn back to normal when this shit ends?! These people need a goddamn break.

#…so when’s the next issue coming out?? #power rangers #boom! comics power rangers #power rangers comics #power rangers unlimited: the coinless #world of the coinless #somehow i keep circling back to the idea that they’d have been happier if shit would’ve ended at Ranger Slayer and/or DND #so I’m most probably gonna disregard this anyway~ #but it was fun while it lasted #farkas bulkmeier #eugene skullovitch #tommy oliver #kimberly hart #Trini kwan #Scorpina #Jason Scott #Zack Taylor #kiya #ranger slayer #Lord Drakkon #my review?? first time ever???

[artthemasquerade]

She was their Deity

"Like a deity, Miki is what keeps Akira and Ryo going, it is what makes her love and hate them both for all eternity. Because to them now, she is nothing but a symbol to fight wars over. A saintly love without flaws and a deep regret that’ll never truly be forgiven. Because Miki will never be allowed to be a human being in their eyes again, for in their eyes and through her end, she has become divine."

Okay so I've finally gotten around to watching Devilman Crybaby, and I don't hate it, I actually like it a lot more than I thought I would despite its flaws and oh boy are there some flawwsss (holy shit they did Sirene so fucking dirty in this series!!! Worse part of crybaby for real) and I can't say I was 100% fond of how they depict Ryo (before going into this series I did headcanon that they were portraying Ryo/Satan as someone who had lived in such a warlike mindset for so long he couldn't get out of it even when he thought he was human, and thus couldn't live in peace, Akira was the only thing that gave him peace but he couldn't admit it, if he admits love exists and thus sorrow exists and that'll slow him down from doing what needs to be done. Maybe I'm just coping but whatever it works for me, and if that was what the creators were going for then they needed to make it more clear and have more eps cause the break neck speed this series had really hurt it! But I have to say the last four eps were really good and ep 9 and 10 really brought me to tears like damn the series had good bones it just needed more time!😭Also I needed more Zennon pleasseeeee! 

Crybaby really made Miki an almost saintly character and while I do like that she ultimately helped Akira by inspiring every devilman to come out and fight for humanity, I do miss her feisty side and her being just a normal teenage girl being unfairly murdered all because Akira had lived with her family and how society tends to punish women especially teenage girls who are barely involved more harshly than the people directly involved. But whatever those are different takes and honestly both are good but ya know personal preferences and hey since I like to play with time loops in my AUs its one of those possible things (tho I will say that my crybaby verse is much more edited and Sirene has pretty much the same motives and arc as she did in the manga and ova cause woww nope not having what happened crybaby)

But more nice things I will say about the series, I really love the music, it is amazing and also I love the intro so much, I've been listening to it a lot and I try to watch it when I watched the next ep! I love the ink blotty look to it and the symbolism!And that's what lead me to make this picture, cause yes my ot3 exist even in my crybaby verse, but oh boy is it messy!XD Since Miki is pretty saintly in crybaby, I wouldn't be surprised that Akira and Ryo would come to see her as a saint after her death, Akira mourning her loss and Ryo regretting letting her die. So I did some grayscale shading with the watercolor brush in procreate and it was fun to mess around outside my usual style and yes I gave Ryo his sideburns, he needed them back! XD it was fun to play around with my style and maybe I'll do something like this again sometime, maybe not crybaby related tho.

Btw if you like what you see and want a commission drop me a direct message on tumblr, instagram, a note on deviantart or artistree https://artistree.io/missn11

#devilman #devilman fanart #devilman art #my art #fanart #digital art #akira fudo devilman #akira fudo #digital fanart #devilman crybaby #devilman crybaby fanart #devilman crybaby art #ryo asuka devilman #ryo asuka #miki makimura #devilman miki #miki makimura devilman #akira/miki/ryo #blood #nudity #video #my video #speed paint #my speedpaint #artists on tumblr #procreate #procreate fanart #procreate art #Youtube

[marvelmarieeee]

Initially I thought I don’t want Wednesday to become Tyler’s master as his arc needs to be about him gaining full control of his mind and actions and making peace with the monster inside that might not be as scary and blood thirsty as we’ve seen.

But now I think that would’ve been actually cool. She could be his master and use that both against her new enemies and to get revenge on him. She would act absolutely horrible and become more of a dark character who abuses others and that’ll create a row between her and Enid.

And then she’ll be able to realise all that and she and Tyler could actually discuss here what happened and what part he played in Thornhill’s plans and whether he had feelings for her. (He of course says he wishes he knew if they were true but he doesn’t)

Wednesday has once again a nice heart to heart with Bianca because wow, suddenly we are both in a situation where we doubt what other people feel for us and what’s real. So Wednesday has to accept that while she can ban herself from feeling, she can’t do anything about other people, it’s up to them, whether they hate her or they want to be with her (must be total idiots).

And then she has to make amends with those who didn’t deserve what she’d done to them and she also promises to set Tyler free.

Some plot, some common enemy, some big developments in their friendship with Enid as the show runners say their relationship is the main focus of this show.

In the end Tyler figures out he’s actually in love with her, but she’s certain he never was and won’t be and that’s really good, because look at what happened. Tyler’s however very grateful that she got his freedom back and apparently he’s not going crazy without a master yet. So they are sorta kinda friends. Fingers crossed for romance acceptance season 3.

#weyler #wednesday x tyler #tyler x wednesday #tyler galpin #wednesday addams #wyler #wednesday netflix

[ilovewebtoons]

Hii, I just wanted to rate some Webtoons I’ve read in the past.

I Love Yoo

The art is great and it used to be my favorite webtoon but after a while it starting dragging. The characters became more unlikable and unfortunately the webtoon lost its humor which I had considered its greatest charm. The issue is that chapters feel way too dense nowadays. Its a shame because I had been looking forward to see my ship develop. Reading the first ten chapters and then the last few shows how much the tone of the story has changed. The best part of the story was in my opinion the Gala arc, right after it the story took a tragic turn. But during it I interacted so much in the fandom and we made theories based on everything! It was so so much fun. I think the biggest bummer is seriously the tonal shift. 6/10

Sirens Lament

I remember reading this weekly when it had barely finished its first season. It was absolutely lovely. The art is breathtaking and the characters are beyond likable, I love them. I just want to root for them all. The ending (honestly the last few chapters) had me in tears and I was completely obsessed with the secondary couple (Tua and Pele omg). I loved it. If I had one criticism, its that after 2/3s of the story the plot started to feel a tiny bit dense at times but even then, just seeing the gorgeous artwork made up for it. 9.5/10

Lets Play

It started off fine, I loved the artstyle and was invested into the plot, and as someone who played a lot of games as a child and young teen, I loved the references to games! The sequence where Marshall began playing the game was, in my opinion, the best part of the entire story. I was reading weekly at the time and Lets play had become the webtoon I looked most forward to updating because of it. That changed once Marshall had finished the game though. What I didn’t like were the things that followed, especially the amount of sexual content. 5/10

Cursed Princess Club

This webtoon is amazing. I’ve been reading it since the day it was released and oh boy, its everything!! It has everything. Likable characters, great humor and an intriguing plot. I don’t even know what else to say. People tend to criticize the artsyle which was remastered in the physical copy, but I never had a problem with it personally. I have the least to say here because I just liked everything. Every decision the author makes, I like. And the plottwists make sense and she also builds up her plot over 100s of chapters, its crazy! Like you’ll be in chapter 100 something and she’ll call back to something said in chapter 12. And the chapters are long. I never feel robbed when spending my coins! 10/10

The four of them

Its a very refreshing webtoon. I love the characters and their development. And honestly, it never once bored me. The 4 main characters are very interesting, and you really just want them to succeed. When they mess up, instead if getting annoyed, I’d root for them to do better next time and learn from their mistakes. And after reading the comments, I can say that most felt that way. The stakes were also rather low which makes the reading experience a lot more chill than the other webtoons, a true breath of fresh air. My only criticism is that the chapter lengths vary to much, so when you’re buying a chapter w coins you take a bit of a risk of getting a shorter one that’ll be done after a minute of reading. Its an amazing story to binge though! 9/10

#webtoon #cursed princess club #the four of them #I love yoo #lets play #sirens lament

[casliveblog]

Custom Toonami Block Week 178 Rundown

The Witch from Mercury: So the shadowy organization trying to oust Suletta as an illegal Gundam user is kind of having a problem seeing as the government seems to solely define Gundams based on their ability to set their pilot’s soul on fire and kill them and since Suletta’s not dying they’ve got no proof, seems like a roundabout way of doing things honestly. Enter Elan Ceres, local emotionless boy with a tragic backstory. Turns out they suspect Suletta may be enhanced to resist the inherent Gundam soul-burning capabilities rather than… idk, just making something that doesn’t do that. Since Elan is one such enhanced person secretly using a Gundam, he’s the perfect person to tell if Suletta’s doing the same. His plan is kind of ridiculous because he’s just like ‘hey wanna go out? And bring your Gundam’ in the most monotone way possible and it’s kind of hilarious but because Suletta has the social intelligence of a five year old it works. Either way, Elan does get to try out Aerial and finds it doesn’t have the same pressure as a normal Gundam so Suletta wouldn’t need to be enhanced to survive piloting it which makes him REALLY pissed off since he’s basically still dying when he uses Gundams but is physically enhanced to not die so easily. It’s like your car being really fast but the seat’s made of sandpaper and broken glass but finding out the sandpaper and broken glass seat was just an optional feature and this new girl has a satin and goose down seat. Either way Guel gets pissy because Suletta’s exceeded her three fiancé limit in five episodes and challenges Elan to a duel where the stakes are part of the cast never interacting with the main character again or Suletta fighting the guy the whole arc is building towards her fighting, like they’re not even trying to hide how obvious the outcome is, they even make Discount Jimmy Olson bet against Elan again just to seal the deal that Elan’s gonna win. Though even so it’s kind of a humiliating defeat since Guel steals his brother’s mech when he’s not even supposed to be fighting anymore and gets it absolutely destroyed by Elan’s Resident Evil laser grid of stungun lasers, so yeah that’ll be fun to see Suletta fight.

Inuyasha The Final Act: We kinda jump right in on this one, like idk if this is how it was in the manga but it feels like there’s an episode missing here because we jump straight into the climax of a different filler episode, not that I’m complaining about skipping the preamble. Inuyasha’s useless because of the New Moon and so Miroku and Sango have to fight the bone demon and its daughter trying to heal it because apparently every single plot point in Yashahime was reused from the original. Anyway throwing both characters into a filler battle at the height of their self-destructiveness for each other was a terrible idea and Miroku’s more poisoned than ever and Sango ends up destroying Hiraikotsu to save him. It’s funny because Inuyasha’s broken his weapon like three times by now so he’s just like ‘there’s gotta be some plot device we can use to fix it’ and he’s immediately proven right when they go to the Master of Potions who as far as characters of the day from Final Act go is pretty fun, if only because he’s a perv and gets Inuyasha drunk as fuck. He has two tests for Sango and Miroku because we’re getting our lategame upgrades out in packs of two. Sango has to confront the spirits of the demons that made up Hiraikotsu who surprisingly feel kinda betrayed despite being made into a weapon by the woman that presumably killed them they thought she was cool and don’t like getting rubbed poison all over. They give her the ultimatum that next time shit’s getting real she has to ditch Miroku and not destroy them and she’s just like “I’m sorry about that but it will definitely happen again, our relationship is basically a series of standing in front of buses for each other”. Meanwhile Miroku basically gets the diet version of the Yusuke screaming in a cave arc from YYH and gets a poison that will allow him to suck up all the poison he wants, like he’ll still die if he gets too much but it won’t hurt so he’ll die but faster. Inuyasha finds out and chews him out for it which is nice to see, like I think Inuyasha’s relationships with both Miroku and Sango are kind of underplayed in the series since about halfway through they start doing filler episodes strictly across shipping lines but it was saving Miroku that let Inuyasha first unlock the Wind Scar and it’s nice to see he’s still equally not up for Miroku pulling martyr shit as he was back then, it’s just funny they have to try and hide Miroku slowly dying five feet away from Kagome, like these guys do not trust her to not freak out at all. Both Miroku and Sango confront their respective tests by saying they don’t intend to die for the other but want to get stronger to live with them and in a funny little twist they kind of accidentally solve each other’s tests instead of their own. Sango’s demons don’t know shit about love so her speech does nothing but they sense Miroku’s equally fighting for his life and they get that so they let her go, while Miroku can sense Sango’s impassioned speech and pulls through. So yeah, Sango’s got a bigger better Hiraikotsu for like two months before she hangs it up/gives it to Hisui to get an infinitely cooler model, and Miroku now has the power to die faster, upgrades successful.

Castlevania: It’s a big ol’ wrap-up episode for the Season Finale, Trevor gives over the Belmont Estate to Alucard, basically walking us through the symbolism of it but it’s still a very nice gesture given Trevor’s kind of gone back and forth about whether the place actually means anything to him and Alucard’s basically living on top of his own family’s cemetery now which probably isn’t as creepy as living in the same room where he killed his own father but oh well. Isaac is off in the desert which is probably the worst place Dracula could’ve thrown him but whatever he kills a bunch of racists and makes them zombies so he can basically start over and make his own genocidal zombie army. Carmilla’s abducted Hector to do similar and it’s like… bro, have a little backbone, call her bluff, what’s she gonna do, kill you? I feel like I’ll like Carmilla more as a main villain than a side one because she’s not fucking shit up and ruining the main evil faction’s integrity to let the heroes win anymore she’s just being a colossal bitch but I can’t help but shake the feeling that we’re back where we started with two villains exactly the same as Dracula just without the moral complexity and ambiguity which was what made Dracula fun in the first place, idk time will tell I guess. Also always feel like Carmilla has her carrot and stick backwards like she seems to be trying to seduce people when they’re not into it and then beating the shit out of them when persuasion and gaslighting would be more effective but far be it from me to be an armchair Vampire Countess. But yeah the twin Forgemasters take off to remake their own armies, one the master of their own fate and one a slave (and thank god they dodged making this racist as fuck). Trevor and Sypha have a long talk where Sypha basically has to hammer into his head that she’s basically proposing to him and he still friendzones her but generally agrees to go off with her so they can do the cleanup sidequests now that the main quest is done which is nice, like a lot of this finale is very grim and bleak and upsetting but the scenes with those two are very beautiful and warm. Meanwhile Alucard comes to the crushing reality that his two best friends have just ditched him and he’s killed anyone else that have ever meant anything to him and he’s got a big empty castle to let that sink in within.

Jujutsu Kaisen: It’s getting to the end of the arc and Kenjaku has appeared (also there’s a scene of naked Meimei telling her brokers Japan’s gone to shit that’s animated with so much love and horniness but it’s not really relevant) Anyway Kenjaku genjutsu’s Yuji for a bit and it’s kinda fun seeing someone with the ‘copy low-level techniques’ powerset actually be threatening because that’s usually such a lame power. Meanwhile the Kyoto guys finally show up and Miwa even does her whole Dark Gon Nen vow to make her attack super effective and it does JACK SHIT so I hope she got a refund on that like if the guy immediately Aizen’s your career-ending final slash it shouldn’t count. Like I know Mechamaru told Miwa to find a way to be happy and that’s not necessarily in fighting but I’m kinda sick of all the girls getting the ‘I never really wanted to fight’ and then conveniently getting written out of fights like bitch NOBODY wants to fight and by no means is fighting the only show of character strength but this is a shonen show and your plot relevance does hinge on your ability to fight. Also Mahito just gets sacrificed so Kenjaku can use Geto’s attack from the movie which is basically just a big getsugha tensho but Kenjaku realized he can make it a Mahito-flavored getsuga tensho by injecting Mahito into it but I think it also throws away the spirit like I don’t think Geto’s technique lets you reuse your stock. Also a neat little nugget where they say Geto was basically fighting Yuta at half power during the movie or else he would’ve kicked his ass, always sucks to have someone fucking die when they’re at half power but it makes it more understandable at least. Anyway Choso shows up, says Yuji’s his brother and refuses to elaborate but good news is he’s on the good guys’ side now, it’s nice to gain an ally after losing like five throughout the course of this arc. It basically really is that scene from the end of the Soul Society arc with everyone ganging up on Aizen though luckily Kenjaku doesn’t solo oneshot everyone and he does have help from random ice lady who’s Sukuna’s retainer I think. Either way ice lady’s pissed and is about to kill everyone but Yuji when Yuki shows up and is ready to bring this bloodbath to a close with the Shanks energy she exudes.

Delicious in Dungeon: This one’s kind of a light episode, Laios hops around magical paintings like it’s Super Mario 64 only to find the food inside doesn’t come outside and doesn’t fill you once you leave. It is kinda funny to basically watch him skirt through all the important moments in this prince’s life and I thought this’d lead to more worldbuilding because god knows this series could do with some worldbuilding but it seems to just be a gag for now, if this ends up being important later that’ll be nice though. The next bit is a little more interesting with another Chilchuck outing, this time with a Mimic which are apparently just kinda Hermit Crabs in this world. There’s a fun little puzzle and Chilchuck’s grumpy personality biting him in the ass again and he actually gets a little fucked up for a bit which is a first, like I think this is the first time I’ve seen blood on one of the main characters and we’re like half a dozen episodes in. But yeah, turns out Chilchuck’s old but not as old as me so it doesn’t really matter and the oddest part of this is that Laios is the leader but is the youngest and stupidest of the group like why is he in charge is it just a rule that the human’s always the leader of the party?

Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End: Nothing too special happens this episode but it’s still probably one of my favorites of the two vignette episodes. First we learn Himmel is kind of a pseudo-King Arthur figure and there’s a legendary magic sword because there’s always a legendary magic sword but when it came down to it Himmel couldn’t pull it but still beat the Demon King with sheer pluck and shonen determination but people couldn’t reconcile his failure to pull the sword of prophecy so they lied and said he did it anyway and it’s kind of a neat little piece about heroism and myth and how every person you look up to has probably farted in public at one point. The next bit is about Stark’s birthday and we get the ICONIC clothes-melting potion scene and I deliberately avoided watching the whole thing in the dub so I could see it here and it was worth it, absolutely fantastic. And it’s kind of nice, Fern going through town seeing how Stark just naturally helps people wherever he goes and she’s kind of trying to reconcile the idea that all men are pervs with him not doing anything particularly pervy except like one or two small things which was alluded to last vignette where she refused to let him carry Frieren despite him literally just wanting to help. I get the feeling Fern’s only close ties being a sinful yet overprotective religious father figure and an antisocial female elf has not given her the best outlook on men so she’s got some adjusting to do. Still she powers through and confronts how he feels about himself with the reality of his actions she’s seen in him and it’s a nice scene so Fern’s now officially become a level 4 friend and unlocked Stark’s tragic backstory. Basically his clan is known for being great warriors and his brother Itachi… I mean Stoltz is better than him at everything and his family relentlessly shits on him for being shit at fighting despite him being like five but Stoltz really did love him and cared for him despite his parents’ neglect, even telling him to run when the village was destroyed, the decision he’s internalized for the whole rest of his life despite again BEING FUCKING FIVE so yeah it really is kind of Sasuke’s backstory but Stark chose to help people and internalize his grief instead of making it everyone else’s problem. Also Frieren makes Hamburg Steaks which just raises many questions about the world of Frieren like specifically hamburg steaks are only called that in Japan and are called such because of the reference to Hamburg, Germany, lots of things in Frieren have German-ish names so it’s not inconceivable for there to also be a Hamburg in the world but for it to ALSO be the place hamburgers are named after and then they also use the Japanese entomology for the hamburg steak just makes my brain go back and forth on how that works in a fantasy setting, like it’s like having French Fries in a world without France and it bugs me more than it probably should. Still it’s a very sweet episode and the fact that Frieren of all people remembers Stark’s birthday and ensures Fern treats him as well as she treated her on her birthday is just kinda cool and the extra backstory is good for Stark’s character.

Vinland Saga: Thorfinn’s in the middle of taking his one hundred punches but Snake distracts him during his punch-taking stance and he gets fucked up. Thorfinn ends up telling everyone they ain’t done shit but try and kill each other so he’s gonna double down and really try to talk things out. He ends up taking all one hundred and earning the respect of everyone in the crowd in a daring remake of Rocky 4 and his response of ‘yeah can’t exactly come out swinging for a peace negotiation’ is really funny, glad Thorfinn hasn’t lost all his sarcastic edge just cause he’s a pacifist now. He even gets the whole “I have no enemies” speech which is as impactful as it needs to be for this point in the story and he finally gets his audience with Canute. We find out that Canute is actually the one that enslaved Thorfinn which seems like an odd choice for that point in his character before he’d gone fully crazy. Like I was under the impression that Thorfinn just kinda BSOD’d so hard he wandered into someplace that was being pillaged and ended up enslaved but learning Canute did it because he attacked him is kinda weird like you’d think with all the shit going on that day he’d have wanted to keep Thorfinn close so he could cool off like maybe imprison him or something but not enslave him and throw him out somewhere else considering what a valuable asset he was during the war. Still, Thorfinn’s grown a lot and apologizes for cutting Canute and is thankful that he wasn’t just executed on the spot. And it’s just funny because Thorfinn brings Einar to the meeting and Einar is not afraid to mouth of to Canute when he disrespects farming or farmers and I just imagine Canute being like ‘who the fuck is this? Why’s your new boytoy so mouthy Thorfinn?” like it’s like how Darth Vader knows everybody on Cloud City in Empire Strikes back except Han Solo and it’s wild that he just comes there and starts shit. Anyway Canute has gone full anime villain and thinks he’s in a JRPG because he’s going to use the power of friendship to kill god… idk what exactly that plan entails because you’d think stopping war and slavery would start by… not doing war and slavery but Canute has some plan in his troubled head about salvation for the worst of humanity through the unification of all people so yeah idk how he plants to ‘kill god’ or what that’ll even accomplish but the bottom line is ‘murder and enslave all I can rn so we can end murder and slavery’ he’s more on the Lelouch side of megalomania than the Light Yagami side because he knows this is a terrible plan and doesn’t expect to get off scot free but he’s definitely lost it. Thorfinn respects the idea but still disagrees with the method so Canute’s like ‘oh cool, respect, now tell me which one of us remembered to bring a legion of elite Vikings to the peace talks, oh right it was me, so you have no leverage’.

#ooc #Toonami #Custom Toonami Block #The Witch from Mercury #Inuyasha #Castlevania #Jujutsu Kaisen #Delicious in Dungeon #Frieren #Vinland Saga

[bloomboxygo]

ARC-V Month Day 15: Salt for the Salt Lord: Yuzu's Exhaustive, Exhausting Elegy

@arcvmonth

(How amusing that I'm doing this prompt on the Yu-bois' Day.)

WARNING: This post will contain a thorough analysis of the downfall of Yuzu Hiiragi throughout ARC-V. Expect spoilers regarding all the series, very harsh criticisms on her handling as well as surrounding matters, yet I implore you to not mistake these for hate for the character. Despite everything, Yuzu is still one of my favorite characters after all. But I need to be thorough here. I won’t pull my punches.

Do not read past the “read more” if you don’t want to feel bummed in this month of celebration. However, do please understand where I come from with this.

Salt comes from many possible places, but above all, comes from a place of passion.

I had decided to hold off on the prompt a bit to see if someone else would cover the obvious topics first. The Bracelet Girls’ treatment is still fairly debated to this day. It all ended up with the Salt prompt not being popular at all, which is understandable. You fans must have been tired from confrontations with others who disliked the series overall and didn’t hesitate to show it. You’re tired of the hatred this show gets. But salt and hatred are not the same thing. I’ve scoured places left and right in search of opinions and answers regarding the show while it was airing. While there were people dismissive of the show and concept from the start, there were also a lot of fans who were captivated by the concepts, the world, and the characters, who were just angry that it all ended up in flames for them. The Niconico votes which dropped the ratings of ARC-V to near rock bottom? That was salt, not hatred. That was anger at all the wasted potential out there, and that was a way for these people to express it.

Why am I saying all of this? Because I want to be fully sincere on my opinions and where my passion comes from. And for that, I cannot hide what the show has done, and I cannot hide my opinions and frustrations. Yuzu is integral to ARC-V, and is emblematic of the show’s shortcomings.

Now, if I haven't lost you by this point, last warning. I will be thorough and relentless here. I will sprinkle in some positives here and there, but that’s to strengthen my points in the salt, so I don’t believe it’s off topic.

Without further ado, let us get started.

Prelude: The peak clarity of the Musical Maiden

For there to be a downfall, there must be a high point. And Yuzu’s high point was among the highest anyone could get in this show. I’ll just pull up this thing you might not remember.

This is the chart, used to declare, half-jokingly, Yuzu as the protagonist of ARC-V during Standard. I stand by that opinion wholeheartedly, as she entered both a character arc and the story arc, and those were somewhat intertwined. I already talked about this somewhat during my Day 9 entry, about how Yuzu’s character arc was about clarity, a thing that was heavily tested and doubted of hers at first because of Yuto (Admittedly, it was rather stupid with her first Duel with Masumi, relying heavily on symbolism and putting logic aside). Again, the rematch (Only rematch she ever has BTW) was her highest point. But… My feelings on that were already expressed so… Here’s a DBZA clip that’ll perfectly sum it up instead.

(Ignore the 16 please)

Sidenote: it always felt weird to me that Yuzu’s greatest accolade was considered that she beat Yuya, the protagonist. While unprecedented, that really wasn’t the point of the Duel, AND it was considered a failure on her part because of her role. She wanted to bring the Pendulum out of Yuya, after all, and try to understand it… And she failed. Now this all makes me think that… These two never really dueled at the same time to win, like… Not as partners, or as opponents. That’s a dang shame, there were some opportunities… That we’ll come back to.

But now, she’s established, and has a couple of great traits that make her a strong character and the delight that she was:

Bad temper hiding great kindness, with quite a bit of bark in her

Strong and numerous friendships, and some rivalries

Great involvement in the world and its ways, headstrong and active.

An established Duelist with above average skills for the setting

The finding of being a little fish in a big pond, spawning insecurities about herself and the world, that strives to improve and protect, not without difficulty, and because of that, adapts to a greater world around her and grows.

And now, slowly but surely, we see how each point gets taken away throughout the series. Oh, it’s not just one moment that did her in… It was slow and agonizing.

Act 1: The Shining Songstress starts to dim

Let’s keep it chronological and address the points as we go.

After Yuzu and Masumi’s Duel, we got Masumi giving her opponent, and now acknowledged rival, Crystal Rose, blossoming a new beautiful friendship!

Oh wait, but Go Zappa’s gone. Aaand Masumi shortly after. That sucks right away.

Yuzu and Mausmi bounced off of each other very well, in part thanks to that writer’s efforts, because Masumi was also an active player in the grand plot, buuut got kicked out by Reiji via brainwashing, and soon enough by that point, she’ll get kicked out of the show.

Well but now’s not a concern. After all, the Maiami Championship has just started, and is providing us with great Duel after great Duel, capping the second day off with Sora vs Shun, THE one Duel that drew the most people in. This is a strong revelation for Yuya, Yuzu and You Show School in general as their friend was just revealed to be a psycho. So they try to figure things out afterwards, and… The plot is now focusing on Yuya’s actions during that chaotic night of Fusion vs XYZ. Yuzu and Gongenzaka just couldn’t be there in time as they ran off in other directions, and there’s… Something off about that. A thing which I couldn’t find at first.

No one really has an opinion on Sora turning bad… Or rather, the only one who did is now knocked out cold for a bit.

Yuzu… Has no opinion on her Master being a psycho?

This isn’t THAT much, but it’s a clear sign that Yuzu as the main character, even as a half joke, is no more at this point; her title is now “main girl”. Now it’s Yuya who takes center stage as he explains everything to Yuzu when he wakes up. It’s… Really weird that we hear no self-reflection from Yuzu, HIS STUDENT.

Would she question HER Fusions now? Would she even think for a moment about how these were used for War and apparently Fusions are the bad ones? Would she think back to Yuto’s words about Fusion not suiting her? It probably wouldn’t amount to much because, like everyone else, she thinks Sora is still their friend deep down, and won’t believe what happened that easily. But… It would have been nice just to see some moments with her, as Yuya wasn’t available.

But… Enough about that: after Yuya’s woken up, there’s some bigger fish to fry for her. Some edgelord is out and about putting people in the hospital while dueling, and Yuya has to fight him. Long story short, he tries to convince the dark boi, only for that to fail and he becomes a darker boi, annihilating him and heavily regretting it. That was simplified, but the matter of fact is: Yuzu is after him and he’s still down and confused, so she decided that she’ll do her best, also to console him. And hey, she’s up against an Idol Duelist! Neat, do we get to see a music battle, or-

Naah, we hardly see any of it. We get snippets of the Duel that made it sound like a mess (FYI, I had to redo this Duel accurately in my fanfic and it was not easy), and after Crystal Rose is Summoned (For the last time, BTW), we get a Bloom Diva for lethal, a cute wink, and the confirmation that Yuzu’s dueling had brought Yuya back from his berserk-induced slumber.

That’s… Somewhat understandable. After all, Reiji hadn’t dueled for a good 27 or so episodes, and people were just waiting for him to smack fellas with his D/D/Donger. Oh yeah, there was another Yuzu who was the focus with Reiji. We’ll get to her later.

Still disappointing, but it’s hardly the end of Yuzu. Actually, right after that, she does declare that Yuya and her are rivals now (wonder how that will go). After all, now she’s in the battle royale, and started her matches off with a double kill when teamed up with Gongenzaka after all! She’s on a roll! She’s going places- AAAAND there’s Dennis.

That’s where her winstreak ended. Dennis won because he stole Bloom Diva, who became too strong for Yuzu to handle. Perhaps some reflection could have been done on how reliant she grew on her, but there are bigger matters.

Case in point, Yuzu 2 has arrived! It’s Serena, and she’s out there to hunt XYZ peeps. After some scuffles and some escapes, we arrive at an admittedly really nice moment for Yuzu. That’s her actual first encounter with an Academia student. And here is where you realize just how blind the Fusion soldiers were, and just how caged Serena was. Yuzu… Effectively sacrifices herself (and the “main girl” role indirectly) just so Serena could know the truth. It’s funny to think that unlike Yuya and his counterparts, the first counterpart that Yuzu encountered was the hostile one. But… Yuzu convinced her to see the truth for herself. That’s a really, really nice moment…

BUT THAT’S ALL WE GET OF THEM TOGETHER!!! (uh-uh-uh… We’ll get to another thing eventually, don’t fret)

Seriously, we have some great bases for a great friendship! Yuzu needs to become stronger, while Serena needs to open up more and become less rigid! If they would have been together for more episodes, they could have built a bridge that allowed them to both grow together by learning from each other! That could have been a great dynamic!... But nah, it’s a swap instead. Bleugh.

It also really sucks that this is the only proper interaction Yuzu will have with another Bracelet Girl. Seriously, the series has a stigma of separating people to an insane degree, and Rin and Ruri pretty much have zero contacts in the present, which is… Astonishing!

But that’ll come for later, as we get to Yuzu’s encounter with the Obelisk Force! She’s actually fighting Academia? The main force? HOLY MOLY she’s- Wait, there’s Yuri now.

Act 2: The misadventures of the Defiled Diva

So yeah… The Yuri encounter. By some people, this is what killed Yuzu’s character. But no matter how damaging, her assassination just cannot be contained in a singular moment. Still, I’d argue that it’s the one that did the most damage to her.

The short version is, Yuri tries to capture Yuzu as it’s his job, and Yuzu runs away like a wuss.

Now, on its own, this is more than justified. Yuzu thought that only Serena was the target of Academia at the moment. And now she’s learned that she IS a target and they’re coming to do who knows what to her (really, not even Yuri knew).

However, there's a thing people seem to forget with that encounter. At the start, Yuzu learned that she was a target, and stood down a complete psycho who's job is to take her to the one that started an interdimensional war, who carded two people she dueled previously and completely scared away the soldiers she was supposed to fight.

AND SHE BACKHANDS THE PSYCHO, DOES SEVERAL BACKFLIPS, GETS INTO POSITION AND ANGRILY DECLARES TO FIGHT HIS ASS.

This is by far the most badass entrance Yuzu ever did for a Duel! That was Shun tier! Arguably, this backlash and response was one of the most badass intros in ARC-V (alternate god states not counting because they’re cheating).

And yet… We see nothing of the Duel. The only things we know is that Yuzu’s field and hand is empty, Yuri has the then unnamed Starving Venom on his side, and Yuzu ran away apparently for a whole night, crying out for her hubby and begging him to save her.

Sigh… Just what did Yuri do that was so scary to Yuzu? It got so bad it kind of traumatized her apparently, and we never see what it is. Moreover… Yuri’s only really scary things he did with his Duels were beating 5 opponents at once and the Destruction Flower and Fruit combo he did, but neither of those scenarios are applicable because he needed Clear Wing for the latter! SO WHAT HAPPENED THEN?!

It's completely plausible that Starving Venom destroyed Bloom Diva, after his anime effects were revealed. My point is that they should have shown just a tad more, just Bloom Diva getting destroyed when she was touted as the Yubel, the invincible Monster at the time, would have been something.

Heck, Red Screen of Death showing Bloom Diva getting skewered COULD have been enough. Because apparently the other Melodious Fusions really deserved it despite pretty much no other Monster getting that treatment. (Seriously, the hell is up with that…)

Anyway, let’s move on, after all, Yugo came to unknowingly save the day here. So finally, after some explanations, some genuinely touching moments and conversations, and a high speed sequence that has Yuzu yelling a lot, scared spotless, we finally got to a point in which Yuzu is out of danger.

So what's her current situation? She has established herself as a competent duelist, but she got put into a situation that's much bigger than she is, and there are still many questions unanswered, all brought down by a fierce Fusion Duelist that annihilated her. However, she can rely on a friend to push forward and grow.

And…

SHE DOES NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST.

She was put in the exact same situation as she did against Masumi, and during the whole time Yuzu and Yugo were in Synchro (Estimated to be a couple of days) she does not make an attempt to learn it!

WHY. DOESN’T. YUZU. LEARN. SYNCHRO?

She could at least try and fail, maybe momentarily putting her as a Fusion Specialist, but NOTHING AND THAT WAS ALL BECAUSE OF-

Intermission: Melodious Maidens Marred by Marketing

Before we continue with Yuzu specifically, I have to mention the Melodious Monsters. I alluded to this in the past, but Yuzu learning Fusion was exactly what put the Bracelet theme on the map with flowers representing the pinkette. I’m sure, SURE that the plan was to have her learn all the summoning mechanics and have those be Bloom themed, as from Standard, all Extra Deck Monsters can be born.

But Melodious weren’t popular and didn’t sell well. At all.

And I believe that the Melodious Monster lineup was cut… Right there. This is the point where Konami decided to stop creating new Melodious Monsters, because they simply don’t sell.

Now, there were a few Monsters shown after, those being Score, Solo, and Bloom Prima. It was more than likely that they were ideas some time after the Fusion wave of support was introduced, which included Tamtam and Opera. Cards can take a lot of time to make, after all.

It could all have been avoided were it not for the people at the OCG just having their brains turned off while porting all the later effects, because SO MANY fail to take this lady into account.

 I guess I could have talked about it in Day 3, but that was dedicated to Bloom Diva. Anyway, to make it brief, Aria’s one of Yuzu’s more common Monsters, and her first Monster shown on screen. In the anime, the effect is very bad, inflicting 800 damage once per turn to the opponent should they fail to take battle damage from Aria’s attack. Eugh. In the OCG, it was changed to provide effect targeting and battle protection! Except… It’s all kinds of effect targeting, including your own.

SO MUCH of the Melodious support after that fails to take that into account, rendering those effects useless when she’s on the field: Canon, Fortissimo, Pianissimo, Tamtam, MELODIOUS ILLUSION WHICH HAS ARIA IN THE CARD ART.

This is just… A tremendous lack of foresight or a spiteful joke on the creators’ part. Had they thought of making it better, perhaps they wouldn’t have decided to end it so abruptly. Which is relevant for Yuzu considering how Monsters can relate to a character, especially in ARC-V, and she’s just… Unable to actually demonstrate her supposed strength and importance because Melodious just won’t sell.

Back to Act 2

Uh, so where were we… Alright, Yuzu not learning Synchro from Yugo. This point alone greatly hurts one of Yuzu’s previously established strengths: growing in order to adapt to the bigger pond she found herself in. She still fights at this point, but she never considers if she’s good enough at that and has to improve, which would be warranted considering YURI BODIED HER NOT TOO LONG AGO TO THE POINT OF BEING TRAUMATIZED. And yet… He’s NEVER brought into discussion during their time together, and I just… WHY? DID SHE FORGET ABOUT HIM?!

Truth be told, it’s not just that which I find issue with regarding Yuzu’s time with Yugo. It’s that… Other than that strong first appearance in which they get to know each other as people who remind the other of whoever’s dearest to them, there really isn’t much that comes out of this. They attempt to warn people about the interdimensional war with no success, and pretty much no acknowledgement, effectively wasting their time. So, naturally, in order to spread that message, they need to get to the Friendship Cup.

For all intents and purposes, for explanation and conversations… Their relationship ends here, after they witness Jack bodying Yuya and throwing him to the hounds during the ceremonial intro. Sure, they’ll meet again later, but it won’t have anything of importance.

Then again, Yuya getting bodied did lead to one of Yuzu’s genuine highlights.

That’s right, it’s what Mikiyo (the Idol Duelist)’s Duel should have been! A Duel focused on Entertainment Duel to send a clear message to Yuya: that he’s not alone, and that they will get through this together, that everyone who’s important to Yuya is praying for his success, for his return.

And for that… She really duels like Yuya. Extensive descriptions of her Monsters and their state, bold, risky gambles and acrobatic tricks to reach for Action Cards, ACTUALLY USING ACTION CARDS FOR ONCE (did I mention that she had so much trouble with Action Cards that she NEVER resolved one prior to this Duel… AND SINCE!)... Yeah, Yuzu became Yuya in that Duel, and for a very good reason. A great, great moment by Yuzu overall, and a unique and genuine highlight of her character (it really helped that Jack thought she was the best Duelist, possibly because of how sincere her message was.)

So now she’s established as a competent Duelist in the setting she’s in, even got her own fanbase, Melissa’s fanboyism and Jack’s approval! Awesome! I wonder what’s next foOOOOOOH NOOOOO!

Act 3: A Composer’s Chanson, Crushed

Sergey… Good lord, where do I start? In all honesty, given what the others have put out here, talking about this topic alone would be sufficient enough for a prompt, but I need to be thorough.

This whole heap of praise and action is getting is… Really sad and frustrating in hindsight because it was merely a setup to her getting absolutely demolished by this monstrosity. Yeah because a creepy giant hourglass man fighting, cackling like mad at a certain point, and beating a relatively little girl wasn’t bad enough (Ahem-Videl vs Spopovich-Ahem), we just need to have her on her highest high in popularity beforehand.

Let’s dial it back a bit. How is this all set up? Well, Roget, the Security exec, wants to take Yuzu for himself, thus he orders Sergey to do it. I’ll leave it at that for now, because there’s an issue with how his mystery was handled: how can you keep a Duelist mysterious, and a setup for the second round of a match, with a first match that they have to partake in? Well… You make it look like everyone’s an idiot.

I know, I know it’s supposed to be mysterious for us, thus some concessions need to be made for the surprise. But Sergey’s a bad case because he had his previous Duel shown against some nobody. His deck was shown to be really weak until suddenly turning the tides and one-shotting the opponent.

This sounds like an incredibly gimmicky strategy… WHICH IT IS, and the characters don’t know jack about it for the sake of the mystery. HECK, MELISSA, the one who’s supposed to see how these Duels play out and WHO DID, is surprised that Sergey uses that same gimmicky strategy during the Duel.

Like… The setup for putting Yuzu out of commission was done in the most contrived way they could, making EVERYONE look like an idiot. Off to a fantastic start.

So, how does the Yuzu vs Sergey Duel actually go?

Well… Let’s just say that Sergey’s strategy only worked because of the Melodious’s famous win condition known as: “Get a bunch of Fairies on the Field and attack with them” being the only one available in that case.

And BOY nobody came out unscathed from this. Not even a single Melodious Monster because they are… Victims of bondage play. Thorny bondage play. I’m not showing them in that state again, just watch my meme if you are so curious.

In more technical ways, what Yuzu is up against was a strategy in which Sergey summons Monsters with 0 ATK in ATK position, then damages himself for set values to protect himself so he can get his LP as low as possible (200) to deal the finishing blow, and has a secondary tactic that immobilizes all Monsters while slowly burning their user (the burn effect never came into play)

This strategy was to be used against Yuzu and Serena, and to be fair, both of their styles are straightforward and had to play into that strategy. However, had Yuzu done so much as respect the Gorz rule of attacking with the weakest Monster first, she would have actually completely disrupted that strategy.

But of course, people believed the mistake lies somewhere else… That being Bloom Prima. She got all the blame, and it was just the biggest bomb on stage. May I remind you of a fun fact:

This. She’s the only Melodious Monster featured in a VJump, and Yuzu’s Duel with Sergey was to be her debut. How did it go?

HORRENDOUSLY. Bloom Prima facilitated the opponent’s strategy due to her multiple attacks leaving the opponent at 200 LP exactly after everything, which was the point where Sergey was at his strongest. And would you look at that, her offensive capabilities were nullified and she got Yuzu one-shot, knocked off the course and PRESUMED DEAD. This not only was another major blow to Yuzu’s character, but also set Bloom Prima to be ridiculed worldwide as a worse alternative to Bloom Diva.

Then again, Bloom Diva wasn’t the apparent option for Yuzu. She had just gotten Polymerization, and Bloom Prima was the only Fusion she had that could get everyone off the Field so she wouldn’t suffer burn damage. It was an apparent decision… But clearly the wrong one in the long run.

Oh and morally, she is also destroyed. Bless her heart, she even wants the best for her opponent as he was hurt, and tries to spread the message of the Friendship Cup being wrong if it allowed situations like this, when she thought she won so she could spread her message. Of course, classic anime trope, this ends up being the biggest mistake anyone can make, and her kindness and concern got repaid with a speech about beauty in destruction, and a home-run off the course towards a building, courtesy of Sergey.

Oh, and BTW, just so we’re clear…

THIS IS YUZU’S LAST 1V1 DUEL!

Like… Sure, there’ll be something for her to do some time soon actually, but any full Duel, any 1V1 with a single character… THAT’S IT!

And I could only imagine how painful that wait must have been for Yuzu fans back in the day… Because not only did she not Duel, she also grew… Weaker overall. Yeah, this really was another harsh blow to her character. However… That didn’t kill her. Not yet. Not figuratively…

And not literally because the next time we found her, she’s saved by Sora and has pretty much… No thoughts about her situation. Really, she probably got dealt the harshest loss in her life and there’s no reflection, no nothing. Her time while waiting for Sora was spent being a nanny to three kids she had no connection with and won’t matter in the long run. Great. She’s not allowed to think anymore? Are the lowest points in her life, signs of starting to grow, now simply brushed off as if nothing happened?!

Really, that time of hers is pointless, and it doesn’t help that there was potential for a genuine interaction between Yuzu… And Shun! During the Crow vs Shun Duel, Tanner (the smallest one of the kids) gets blown away due to his recklessness and Shun stalls the Duel a bit to save him and bring him back to the group… Which included Yuzu. They were near one another… And there were no words exchanged. No thoughts, no nothing, no glances even. Yuzu is now confirmed not dead in Shun’s eyes and he has nothing to say about it. …What even.

After more hijinks, the cops show up to apprehend Yuzu, but Sora was quick to stop them. Here we get what I feel is a genuinely wonderful scene. That’s right, it’s the Fusion Fright Waltz, in which Frightfur Chimera and Bloom Prima just dance on the floor, ripping it and everyone else to shreds in the weirdly cutest way imaginable. It’s… Genuinely an astonishing scene in concept, and it really took me in.

But this was the last we ever saw a Melodious Monster battle. It was in a battle royale carried by Sora (BTW, nitpick, but Yuzu didn’t even receive the intrusion penalty despite entering later). It’s really sad that this whole dancing sequence’s purpose includes giving Bloom Prima a pity win.

But the other purpose is to establish that now Sora is on Yuzu’s side. Sooorta. He’s still affiliated with Academia, but doesn’t want Yuzu and Yuya involved. It’s an overall nice scene with Yuzu showing that she’s still in this by refusing Sora’s offer to teleport her back to Standard, to her friends and family, because at the time Yuya was imprisoned and she couldn’t bear it if she couldn’t see him again. She, of course, also tries to convince Sora to defect. It’s all handled alright, but… Sora doesn’t end up defecting NOW, but some episodes later during Yuya and Crow’s Duel, which is… Just weird! Why wouldn’t he have defected by this point?

Maybe because Tsukikage came in to interrupt, and after some discussion with Sora, he offers to also save Yuya while bringing Yuzu to the Underground. Yep. The slave camp is the safest option right now.

We… Don’t get much out of that period as well. You’d think we could get something about Yuzu finally reuniting with some of her friends. Could she actually talk to Shun? Maybe some less heated talk with Sawatari? Chojiro? GONGENZAKA? No. Nothing. What we see of her in the underground is her working with the kids and her bracelet acting up as Yuya’s going Ber-Zarc. Well, at least it’s stopped, and it all seemed quiet until- uh oh there’s a breakout and a revolution coming underground.

This is gonna get chaotic.

Act 4: Ceaselessly Captive Contralto

So with all this confusion, Yuzu kinda had only one thought in her mind: ensure that Yuya was safe. And she needs to be stopped multiple times so she doesn’t run off on her own without a clue on where she’s going.

Honestly… Fine. It’s clearly a stupid decision by Yuzu, but since all of that happened and big bracelet glow means big bad news, of course her mind would be clouded by that.

What happened after she got held off the second time by Gongenzaka is… Less fine. Essentially, while they were talking, a horde of men… Separated the two. Didn’t really trample them or anything, just… Separated them and they couldn’t see each other again. That… Defies logic and was used as a setup to have Yuzu on her own. After the setup for Yuzu’s loss at the hands of Sergey, I’m only slightly miffed by this one.

Well, she’s now alone, but her bracelet is acting as a GPS for Yu-boy activity. Naturally, the way that she is now, she takes that chance to finally reunite.

Aaaand… Sidenote, but according to my scourings and light research, this might just be the point where people started hating Yuzu. To tell the story from their perspective, generally it seemed they found the whole Friendship Cup dull and derailing, and now Academia arrived and there was action. Fights started to break out outside the tournament, the revolution started, and the four Yu-boys were reunited, had their Dragons out, and were starting to reunite with a big rainbow spiraling sky signaling danger. Buuut Yuzu runs in at that moment and kind of stops it all, only leaving Yuya there.

People really started hating Yuzu for this, for killing the hype when that meant she saved the world. Or rather… Her bracelet did. None of this is her fault, really. It’s just that her bracelet is a plot device whose purpose is to delay or contrast the final boss. It was too early to have that happen, but people really blamed Yuzu for being a hype-killer here, and I think it’s unwarranted.

SHE’S TOTALLY TO BLAME FOR WHAT HAPPENED NEXT.

Now let’s see the situation.

Yuya is fighting Barrett and is on the ropes, being floodgated to oblivion so he couldn’t do anything, pretty much.

Serena is almost knocked out, begging Yuzu to leave.

Barrett is sighting Yuzu as his target now that she’s come to him

Sora’s fighting the Obelisk Force, or rather… He’s trying to but he can’t Duel because his arm got blocked by a Hunting Hound’s mouth.

So… Considering the situation, what did Yuzu do?

Not only did she not pull out her Duel Disk and duel Barrett to help Yuya,

Not only did she not attempt to break Sora out of the hold with a Monster or something,

NOT ONLY did she not run away in general,

NOT ONLY did she not at least try to help Serena up and gauge what’s going on,

SHE JUST STOOD THERE LIKE A LEMON, COMPLETELY TRUSTING A HELPLESS YUYA WHO COULDN’T, AND WOULDN’T, DO JACK SQUAT ON HIS OWN, ESSENTIALLY WAITING TO BE CAPTURED!

YOU SENSELESS STRAWBERRY!

YOU DECIDED TO BE THERE IN THE MOST UNHELPFUL WAY POSSIBLE, POSSIBLY DAMAGING EVERYONE’S CAUSE BUT THE ENEMY’S.

Oh and Sergey’s here again. Fantastic.

Before we go on, DON’T TRY to point out the fact that she has no Duel Disk. That’s proven wrong by her having it back all the way to another dimension as she kept it, and there was no occasion in which a Duel Disk was given back to her during Synchro. The only reasonable outcome is that she always had it on.

Well, thanks to him, Yuya actually has a fighting chance… And the opportunity to sorta avenge Yuzu actually. Not the best time to do it, and not the right Sergey, though. He’s changed.

Oh yeah, and the first thing that happens is that Yuzu gets put in a cage via Field Spell. And then Sergey beats Barrett, who brings Serena to Academia despite having lost. Hurray for pragmatism I guess.

Yuya doesn’t even get his moment to avenge Yuzu. And he never will, because Yuya gets beaten and… YOU GUESSED IT… Yuzu gets kidnapped by Sergey.

Well… That sucks. And begins a new trait that will be OH SO INFAMOUSLY related to Yuzu… Her being Princess Peach. And not in the more positive ways she’s being portrayed recently with the newer games (seriously, the latest Nintendo Direct was fantastic for her), but as a perpetually kidnapped and stranded girl who needs to be saved.

SIIIIIGH…

That moment of Yuzu standing there also is greatly damaging to Yuzu’s character traits I talked about in the beginning. Mainly:

Her prowess as a Duelist is pretty much never shown and thrown out the window. Bear in mind, she will never Duel again after this, which means it would be 65 EPISODES OF NOT DUELING STRAIGHT. Her prowess is going to be mentioned, but in the worst way possible which I will cover soon enough.

Her connections and friends are ever dwindling as she gets separated all the time. And will continue to dwindle as the show goes on.

Her active involvement is greatly put on a leash as she’s the prime target, and she will struggle to ever display another moment of genuine courage or agency… With one exception.

We’ll soon get to that exception because next time we’ll really see her, will be her being invited by Roget to “assist City’s downfall” via the Jack vs Sergey Duel. I can’t really see any reason to do this besides spite.

This, of course, presents her a handful of opportunities to talk back to Roget’s absurd plan and try to argue for her own ideal, smiles. She’s kinda meek about this, and pulls back in fear if Roget ever steps forward though, so…

WAIT NEVERMIND.

Turns out, as Roget’s plan crumbles, he gets desperate and declares martial law so that he has complete control. IN A LAST ACT OF DEFIANCE, she shoulder tackles the guy as he was doing his speech, told everyone that he sucks and to not believe him, and encouraged Yuya to finally win the whole thing and spread his message. It was a short lived moment, but a great one by her, and it showed that she had some frickin’ bark and bite left, despite her position.

She gets put into a smaller cell for her efforts, and soon gets bailed out by Sora and Tsukikage- NEVERMIND, Roget comes in which the most bizarre tech of “THE ROOM OF INFINITE ROGETS”, beats the two right after he kidnaps Yuzu in a way that… Nobody knows, honestly. Apparently she was just gone as the first Roget was defeated.

Not to derail much here because the sequence is logically deaf, but in Yuzu’s perspective, she was kidnapped there, brought to the elevators, dragged by the end and assaulted, Reiji confronts Roget and she gets dragged back in THE ROOM, Reiji figures that out and embarasses Roget, but because he’s stubborn as a brick, the guy drags Yuzu away again to Academia to use her as a bargaining chip. Jack comes to PUNCH THE ELEVATOR WITH HIS SYNCHRO THUS MAKING IT EXPLODE AND ENDANGERING YUZU WHAT THE F- Oh nevermind, Yuzu’s actually saved by Yuya.

It took a lot of pain and endurance, but it’s finally over. Yuya and Yuzu are properly reunited at las-

Wait no, Roget walks from the edge to the center of the room, slowly, without anyone stopping him, so he can activate his transporter device just so City gets essentially erased.

Ah, but it just sent him away to a wormhole and it stopped working.

Phew.

NOW it’s over. Now Yuya and Yuzu are finally reunited at last, and they will go through this journey together. They’ll end the interdimensional war and go back home with every-

SURPRISE WORMHOLE!

Act 5: Fickle Flattery for a Fallen Flower

Yuzu and being separated has to be some sort of fetish for the showrunners at this point. After a long awaited reunion, they just had to yoink Yuzu away, ALONE, in the most contrived way they could. Oh yeah and she ended up in Fusion Dimension. The WORST Dimension for her.

Now, as she tries to explore and figure out what’s going on, some lady mistakes her for an escaped student and calls agents to subdue her. She eventually gets cornered and has no choice but to Duel 1v3. Finally, she gets to Duel!

Sike, she ain’t allowed to!

Asuka frickin’ Tenjoin jumps in to save her, all to promote Cyber Angels and have one pity win. Neat! Good intro!

Well at least she’s a friend, and seemingly Yuzu’s able to settle down for a bit. Heck, she even found Yusho. Minor nitpick here, but I’m surprised Yuzu isn’t even a bit angry at Yusho for leaving at the worst possible time. But that’s, I think, more of a viewer thing because boy Yusho couldn’t choose a worse time to do what he did. But that’s not the point of this rant, it’s almost becoming an essay.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t amount to much. You’d think a good friendship would form between Yuzu and Asuka, with the latter as the “big sis” of the two. Heck, she even lends her clothes. And after some backstory on how the Students were goaded to do war crimes, Yuzu even offers to help-

SIKE! She ain’t allowed to!

Turns out, news of a guy beating a You Show student popped up and Asuka and Yuzu come to see what’s going on and SURPRISE, it’s Yuri, who promptly scared Yuzu spotless. So yet again, Asuka has to do the work here of actually saving he- Nevermind, Yugo comes in AGAIN to warp him.

There’s a silly moment between Yuzu and him, but their time together really doesn’t amount to much. Shame… Next time we see them together, they’re at You Show School with a plan of attack before Dennis comes from behind them and Yuzu gets scared yet again. Sigh…

This ends up in an escape with Yuzu and Yugo on the motorbike. Despite Yugo’s protest, Yuzu actually wants to fend for herself! Maybe we’ll see her-

SIKE, SHE AIN’T ALLOWED TO!

Turns out, Yuya makes Yuzu warp Yugo away. Right after that, the kicker edgelord returns for revenge against Yuya. At the same time, some goons sent by Dennis are trying to fight Yuzu, Gongenzaka and Sawatari.

Yuya was concerned, but Yuzu told him not to worry, because she is a capable Duelist that can fend for herself, and now’s the time for her to demonstrat-

SIKE. SHE IS NOT. ALLOWED TO.

The goons simply STOP DOING ANYTHING to watch Yuya and Kachidoki’s Duel! They simply stop doing their jobs for nothing. Because the showrunners couldn’t be arsed to even show the others besides Yuya duel a little! Not even a faraway screenshot of Monsters being out and about! NOTHING! All to let Yuzu not Duel or do anything of note, just after they praise her informed skills.

This is a sour point of Yuzu’s later appearances that isn’t really talked about much. She is constantly praised and talked about as a strong duelist, and a person who wants to be active. But it’s all a farce. She’s simply not allowed to do anything of actual importance as an individual. “Show, don’t tell” is simply inverted as all of Yuzu’s abilities are now informed!

Then again… It won’t stop here. The biggest example of this is about to come up soon.

So the Duel between Yuya and Kachidoki ends with Yuya as victor, and the group runs away to find a ship for Academia, where Yusho is also headed. They can’t find one, so HEY! Serena’s back! And she has a ship for them to ride on! And finally Yuzu and Serena reunite! Maybe they can-

Aaaand that’s it. That’s the killing blow.

From this point on, Yuzu is no more.

After a cruel journey, this is where the life of Yuzu as herself ends. I mark THAT as the point of the character assassination.

So, what was the method employed for this? Well… Let’s dial it back just a bit.

The ship was a pirate ship led by a filler character, all used as a trap by Academia so that both the pirates, the helicopter, and Serena could capture Yuzu. Serena proceeded to do it by GENTLY MOVING YUZU ASIDE AND SEPARATING HER, THEN CUFFING HER WITH ONE HAND AND NO RESISTANCE.

That marks her bark pretty much gone. Her toughness? Her courage? Dead. Roasted. To never return. Actually, not really… It’s only implied now, never shown. They will tell you she is still a strong asset and Duelist. But they show her as helpless as they possibly could. All because the status quo of “boy saving the girl” for shounen needs to be preserved or some crap. DESPITE HER FUNDAMENTAL ROLE IN THE STORY (We’ll get to it).

In fact, let’s jump ahead just a bit. Yuzu’s never escaping that. Once Serena caught her, that was the end of it. She’ll be brought to Academia, brought to the creepiest man and second worst character of ARC-V, and will have a Parasite in her head. You’d think this could be a set up for Yuya to duel her actually. Maybe he’ll duel to save her and has to struggle with the Doktor’s influence, and with Z-ARC awakening from within him from his anger. Perhaps his bond towards Yuzu can make sure at least the berserk form tries not to hurt her directly… But nah. You already knew the answer.

Yuzu never duels while controlled by a Parasite, and she’s the only Bracelet Girl with this distinction. Not only that, but the other girls also displayed a vicious side thanks to the Parasite, other than the emotionless one. Yuzu? JUST emotionless and helpless. To the point that the Doktor uses that as a means to provoke Yuya which… WHYYYYYYYY?!?

Nah, this is sheer contempt towards Yuzu displayed right here. Some people there hate her guts and hate the fact that she’s supposed to be strong. So they’re mocking us. Mocking us with this display of utter obscenity.

As her agency and toughness are gone, so are her connections too. She pretty much lost every friend she could, besides one. Admittedly a very important one. That conversation and warmness she felt towards Serena? She displayed it to a parasite controlling her. It was never real, never resolved. While Serena COULD hear Yuzu’s kind words and see her warm smile… She sure as heck didn’t talk about it.

Jumping ahead again, the final Parasite battle was Yuya vs Serena and Ruri. That ended up in him winning, but it didn’t matter because the Parasite girls still awaken and get brought into the ARC-V (the construct built by Leo)’s tanks. The girls eventually come back to themselves because the Doktor got carded, thus turning the Parasites off. Do they come off better because of it?

ABSOLUTELY NOT.

This is the first time Yuzu has met Rin, Ruri, and Leo in person. Rin won’t have much of an impact on her, but Ruri was the one Yuzu was mistaken for all the time by Shun and Yuto early on, and Leo’s the one who’s responsible for all that happened to her.

Yet she displays no strong emotion, no surprise, and doesn’t interact with really anyone sans Yuya in the most flaccid of ways. We can chalk it up to all the Bracelet girls because they got homogenized, to the point that “Dimensional Lamps” as a term for them was rampant at the time due to their sheer lack of agency and sense of selves. (Also because when the reactors lit up they looked like lava lamps)

The homogenization comes to a head when the girls all pRay at the same time with sad looks on their faces and tell Yuya they fully believe in him.

Then again, this might be fully intentional…

Act 6: The Requiem of Ray’s descendant (and “rebirth”?)

Now, it’s known by the fandom, but the Bracelet Girls’ role is all tied to Ray Akaba, the daughter of the Professor, who tried to revive her and thus kidnapped them in order to do so.

Without getting into Ray too much (Another can of worms that I don’t want to cover right now), I’ll say that she used the four En Cards constructed by her dad in order to fight the big bad Z-ARC, the Yu-Boys’ original form. Each Card then became a bracelet as the moment of the split happened that defeated Z-ARC. Yuzu got the Pink Bracelet, symbolizing En Flowers, and Ruri, Rin and Serena got En Birds, Winds and Moon respectively.

This gives Yuzu a potentially game changing role in Z-ARC’s defeat! And she… Kinda did, but here’s how I view it. My apologies if I sound too cynical at this point.

Fast-forwarding to THAT MOMENT, because the presence of the Bracelet Girls is near zero as they got absorbed into ARC-V with tears in their eyes. And they apparently all converged into Ray, without any sign of struggle, discussion, reflection, or any kind of individuality.

There is one moment of Yuzu’s that comes shortly after Ray is “revived” (possessing Reira’s body thus ruining them in their entirety BTW) which can be a reasonable argument against her character death. The En Cards are all activated, and Z-ARC’s greatly hurt and he returns to his demon duelist form instead of the giant dragon that wrecked everyone. However, the fight’s not over and Ray has actually placed herself on the verge of defeat, as Z-ARC could just summon and attack for game… 

Were it not for Yuzu, who came out of Ray to plead Yuya to take control and come back from Z-ARC’s clutches. And it sure works, leaving Yuya to lead to Z-ARC’s loss.

Conceptually… This sequence is overall really nice, with quite a lot of symbolism (Which I’m honestly not the biggest fan of). Showing how the closest bond can overcome a soul that’s been conflicted overall, and change them for good. And Yuzu got to save the day, right…?

My problems… Lie elsewhere.

This… All felt empty to me due to how it was delivered. It’s a nice concept surrounded by a sea of filth, and all the setup completely shatters my suspension of disbelief.

Yuzu’s speech carries little weight to me because of this sequence, and I’m not even entirely sure of why. Was it because of how they’ve treated her before, to the point where all her individuality was lost? Is it how everyone in that sequence kind of assumed they’d win despite the circumstances? Is it how flaccid Yuzu’s speech is, without any tension besides the minimum on her part, without any tears, but with her pRaying and looking serene as if she’d won already? Is it whatever remained of my suspension of disbelief being scattered on the floor as crumbs? Was I just tired? Did my blood boil when she said “I became stronger because of you” DESPITE WHAT SHE’S BEEN LIKE SINCE THE PAST 50 EPISODES?!

I could understand one thing however… They just didn’t care anymore about anyone besides Yuya… And Yuzu has merely become his motivation fuel.

OK since I know I’ve struck some nerves with that last sentence, I feel I need to summarize my views on Fruitshipping, or Yuya/Yuzu.

It’s always been a great part of their characters, admittedly, since the beginning. You’d be insane to suggest that the ship isn’t valid in any way because it’s always been there since before the start: it starts off extremely valid as a childhood friendship with Yuzu and Yuya supporting each other through their many problems (though it was Yuzu supporting Yuya mostly) and bringing each other up as best as they could.

At first, it was just that, a genuine strong connection that inspired both of them, and made them support each other through thick and thin, and it was something great.

Then, as the story went on, it became a story of Yuzu getting kidnapped and wanting Yuya to save her. It’s something that became more and more frustrating as time went on, but it was brought upon them by the horrendous circumstances so they’re more than fine there.

But when lastly, it became evident that Yuzu got reduced to so little in every aspect of her character, that only Yuya mattered, and here’s where it gets sickening for me.

In the last stretch, she no longer was Yuzu. She became Yuya’s girl.

That’s why I have such conflicted views on the ship, because it seemed that the show tried to put the ship on a higher and higher pedestal… While treating it like garbage as a relationship at the same time. And it wasn’t like this then. It had remained solid since shortly before this point.

And again, Yuya’s the one that matters in the show’s eyes, so… Yuzu saved him! Hurray! Now what’s her payoff for doing so?

…Being stuck in a crying child with a Dark Dragon boy throwing a temper tantrum.

That’s right, the entire post-ZARC segment is just so Yuzu (and the others) can become a rescue mission for Yuya. I refuse to elaborate on it.

Except the ending, of course because it all went well and… Yuzu came back. And the others are inside of her.

And again, we get a reunion between Yuya and Yuzu which… Kind of was nothing. Yuzu just pops up from a portal, says two words, and holds hands with Yuya for a bit before he takes off to duel his papa. After so much separation, so much turmoil… that's it. Not even a hug or anything like we had in Synchro.

I… Hope you see my point here.

I feel sorry for Fruitshipping fans on the show's behalf, because… That was less than nothing! I'm pretty sure anyone who knew and cared about these two, were they to write that scene, would have had Yuzu glomp Yuya. 

Again… I do not recognize whoever came out of that portal as Yuzu. It's easier for me to talk of her as Ray (heck, apparently some sources do due to how she is conceptually).

And… Again, I know, but how's the sudden presence of multiple people inside your body not at least confusing? Imagine for a moment Yuzu feeling like this: now she has three girls inside of her and she's technically a prison containing them! That would stress her out so much, as she not only knows of Ruri and Rin's status as prisoners of Academia, she effectively freed Serena from the cage that was that faction! AND NOW SHE'S THE CAGE!

But nope. All happy, all good because Yuya got his girl… See you all in VRAINS, where we stray away from Pendulum as we possibly can.

…SIGH.

Conclusions

Yuzu's situation... Really hurt me. It's gotten to a point where I cannot praise her greater moments without thinking about how it all went so wrong later in the show. But at the same time... I son't ignore that greatness that made me like her so much.

Scouring fan sites and forums regarding ARC-V’s run was… Painful to watch. Of course I did it for Yuzu, as I was most interested in her. And the reception… Is truly harsh. Such a fall from grace only made the Yuzu fans suffer… The ARC-V fans too. It’s tough seeing all the negativity from the distance, to the point that there are such scathing opinions written out there such as “Yuzu is the worst YGO girl because her good run early on was never good. It was all an illusion to hide a useless character. At least Kotori’s uselessness was honest.”

I wouldn’t think that in the slightest, but knowing that there were people that either were so hurt by what happened, and some that capitalized on that to insult Yuzu even more and feel justified about it… It hurts to watch from a distance, so I can’t imagine what fans who remained fans had to get through.

Yet still… It all stemmed from the fact that there was contempt later on in how they’ve written Yuzu. Contempt is simply what I felt.

Now… I’ll admit, I know as little as anyone here how troubled the production at the time really was. I heard it was bad. I heard there was quite a bit of rushing and ARC-V was supposed to be 200 episodes, 50 per Dimension. But I cannot excuse what they’ve done. Not when they’ve included the Captain Solo episodes, blatant 5Ds padding, the frickin’ Battle Beast and the Post Z-ARC arc. It wasn’t just a matter of rushing.

But luckily it’s not all doom and gloom.

Duel Links is to thank for this. It might be legitimately the best place Melodious has ever been in, and Yuzu is treated the way she deserves to be. All the ARC-V content we got as of late did benefit her! Yugo’s stories and funny conversations reinforce that dynamic that made the first conversation so great. AND SHUN’S EVENT. A Yuzu that actually is severely worried about her soul companions’ fate, and stood up to Shun to tell him right away what happened with great concern for him is… Already so much better than the last 30-40 episodes with her.

AND SERENA IS COMING. That is HUGE for Yuzu because of how she was the first to properly interact with Serena and they trusted each other, after that sheltered life of hers made her so blind. It would FINALLY bring more Bracelet Girl conversations to the table, with added anxiety, then comfort at the fact that they all shared a body or that Yuzu interacted with the Parasite, but Serena was warmed by her words despite all of that, and how sorry she felt to not being able to do anything about bringing her Friend like this- THERE’S SO MUCH POTENTIAL HERE!

Well… That’s it for the story. I must admit, I got carried away. But I won’t subtract any bit from this, if I need to go out, I need to go out swinging.

If by any means, you have lost some respect for me for all that I’ve written… Then I hope you can forgive me. I expected this to be overkill for some, but I had put warnings beforehand. Hurting any feelings is not something I want to do.

If you want to debate some points I’ve made… Then by all means, feel free to do so. Something fruitful might always come out of this, after all.

If you’re asking me “Who hurt you?” I’m answering with “The show did. Physically.”

If you’re now calling me an ARC-V hater for this you are dead wrong.

How do I prove it? I don’t need to… I’m here, and that’s enough proof that I’m not a hater: trying to bring something to ARC-V month whenever I feel qualified enough to do so; trying to enjoy what you guys have to offer out of your positive experiences; trying to see all the good that ARC-V holds brought to light, because it has A LOT OF GOOD. While there’s a lot of frustrations that have hurt me, even physically, there is also a lot to gush over, to wonder, and to be warmed by.

I didn’t write a fanfic just so I could “fix the ending”. I wrote a fanfic to see what spin a little what-if might bring and how much more it could bring out from the wonderful characters. Granted, I took more liberties as time went on, but I wanted to preserve ARC-V’s core message because, while… Somewhat simple, it’s a good message. It’s just that the ones running the show stopped treating it well.

Yuzu simply deserved much better than what she got, is all I’ll say. 

I promise, that’s the last of my salt right there. Perhaps there will be some snide remarks here and there, but it’s only a matter of me being sincere, perhaps to a fault. My next posts will all be about bringing you smiles, trust me.

If you’ve read this far… Thank you for listening to my salt. I hope I haven’t made your day worse with that whole thing, but if I did… I’ll make it up to you. (Except when I’m sleeping, which should be shortly after I post this. In that case... As soon as I'll wake up, OK?)

Until then, fellow performers.

#arcvmonth2023 #arcvmonth #yugioh arc v #arc v #melodious #zuzu boyle #yuzu hiiragi #yugioh #spoilers #salt #day 15 #Youtube

[idk-my-aesthetic]

Spy x fam 76 spoilers!

There was so much incredible about this arc, and I want to talk about more of it, but I want to start with Nightfall

I’ll say it again I wasn’t a huge nightfall fan before this arc. I lowkey thought it’d be cute for her to develop a bit of a crush on Yor in a comedic way but besides that didn’t think too much of her

This freaking arc tho??? Oh my g-d???

1) this is just a general statement about the series as a whole but sxf truely is like. Both a love story and a spy thriller. You can’t take away the themes about love (both romantic and platonic) and family without completely compromising the story. It’s just one of the best stories I’ve ever seen with the way the creator weaves in drama and action and the SYMBOLISM. The PARALLELS. Im losing my fucking mind so-

1.1) listen. Listen. I know it sounds like I’m saying nonsense but I cannot express how IMPRESSIVE the story telling here is. Doing this so well is HARD. There’s a reason so many action movies have garbage tacked on romance plots. It takes a lot of different skills to make a good action drama vs a romantic or emotional drama. And this series just does such a good job at having an engaging world, stakes that feel genuinely scary and grounded, and characters that manage to both work as narrative tools while still feeling like real actual multidimensional people.

And that ability to have such incredibly multidimensional characters that still push the narrative is what brings me to Nightfall

2) this was the first time (at least in my opinion) nightfall became more of her own person and not just a token romantic rival to progress Loid and Yors romance. She’s starting to feel more like a real person.

One of the things about her that absolutely jumps out to me is her similarities to Yor. Her willingness to self sacrifice for the people she loves, her sheer power, and most importantly the way she views love

Yor and Fiona both view love as a strength. At the moment Twilight views it as a weakness. He also assumes that’s how the others around him view his attachments, as a form of weakness. Including Nightfall, he assumes she’s going to think him weak and she’s too flustered to correct him

I think there’s two possibilities with what will happen with Nightfall and Twilight.

A) Nightfall is going to help Twilight realize it’s okay to be in love with Yor and to love Anya (because I do think he will begin to view her as a weakness as well). It’s probably going to break her heart but we can already see how much she’s willing to sacrifice for him

(In an ideal world she’d go through a lot of character development, fall in love with Yor as well and then they’d be a throuple, but I am realistic enough to understand that’ll probably never happen and go write my own fic or smthn lol)

B) nightfall becomes a representation of the parts of himself that Loid will eventually sacrifice/turn away from in favor of his family. This is honestly what I was expecting to happen before this arc, especially cus it would be easy to do a mirroring thing with Yor and Yuri. (For the record I don’t think it would be a thing of like fully rejecting their old lives for either Loid or Yor but I also can only predict so much lol).

3) I really really hope nightfall continues to evolve. Yuri as well. As much as it is important to have rival or threat characters like them in this type of stories I feel like their characters have so much potential. But at the same time that’s one of the huge struggles with writing! It’s incredibly difficult to balance the narrative role of a character while still making them feel real. I think they’ve done and incredible job so far and I am curious where they’re going to go with it

#spy x family 86 #spy x family manga #dinner has arrived and I’ve been rambling for an hour I gotta GO

[sirjuggles]

Worm Reading - Arcs 10 and 11

So, I’m gonna be honest here: I have read way ahead of where my notes are. I’ve had a bunch of time to read recently but not much time to sit down and write up notes, and so I’m at Arc 10 in my notes but Arc 18 in my reading. Honestly I don’t think I’m going to have time to sit down and give every Arc a full post it deserves. With that in mind, I’m going to do a couple of combined posts to do a short catch-up to where I’m currently at. 

I will say, I really enjoy answering questions and discussing storylines and characters and predictions/theories, so if there’s something I skim over that you’d like me to talk more about or if there’s a particular part you’d like to draw my attention to, please feel free to shoot me an ask! (no spoilers please)

Arc 10

This started out with the capture of Shadow Stalker, and the related reveal of Regent’s true power. At first I was confused on how he could operate both his body and his puppet at the same time, but over time it clicked that he can do that the same way that Skitter can control massive hordes of bugs with fine detail; it’s a side-bonus of his power that expands his mental capacity.

The Alec/Shadow Stalker interlude was so heavy and so good. Felt really nice to see Sophia actually get rocked finally, even if it required Alec going WAY over the line to do. I do note that Sophia could technically come back at some point, even if it seems as though she’d likely avoid that at any cost.

Honestly reading Alec’s Interlude the first time through was absolutely riveting and horrifying. That dude is so much more screwed up than he lets on. That said, I find it fascinating that despite how much of a sociopath he knows he is, he does consciously decide to keep hanging out with the Undersiders and going along with Taylor’s generally-altruistic plans. All of his interactions with his sister and the Slaughterhouse 9 hammered this home: he doesn’t really have any compunctions about being a selfish sociopathic asshole and hurting other people for his casual entertainment, but it feels to me like he’s realized on some level that he can use Taylor as a substitute moral compass, and that’ll keep him from going down the path of his father or sister or the Nine. It also feels to me like he’s intentionally not thinking about the fact that he’s doing this, because it doesn’t jive with the part of him that is a sociopathic monster.

The reunion of Taylor with the Undersiders so soon after the betrayal reveal felt a little forced. I kinda expected her to strike off on her own for longer, but they seemed to reunite almost immediately. Rachel’s anger and lashing out was tough to read, but that’s mostly just because I like Rachel.

We also see Imp in action for the first time! I will say when she first showed up during the Shadow Stalker capture, I was like “Who the heck is this??” I can honestly say I figured out who Imp was about 3 sentences before her identity was revealed, which isn’t much of an achievement. I find it super interesting how Imp and Grue’s powers achieve the same effect in different ways. Both of them focus on concealing themselves and hiding from the world around them, but Grue’s power does this actively and aggressively while Imp makes it so those around her forget she even exists. We’ve established that powers are in some way related the headspace a person is in when they have their trigger event, but in a lot of cases it’s a very tenuous connection. Imp, however, is one of the most direct-lines I can think of between the experience she lived and the power she obtained (even if it’s not what she would have wanted).

We get introduced to the idea of the Slaughterhouse 9 here, AND to the end-of-the-world problem!

We truly meet Dragon for the first time. I do still like her. She’s got a lot going on.

Arc 11

Oh we got to see the Skitter Lair for the first time! I really like Skitter’s new home, the mini-supervillain lair that Coil provides for her. Her theatrics with the terrarium lighting setup and the beetle-controlled switches speak to a little bit of a flair for the dramatic that she doesn’t acknowledge. In a different, more cartoon-y world I think it would have been awesome to see a fully-developed Skitter as a morally grey villain, her lair filled with creepy-crawlies and loyal minions by her side.

Speaking of loyal minions, we meet Sierra and Charlotte in this arc. They are fascinating characters, each getting pulled into helping Skitter run her territory without really intending to. I didn’t like Charlotte at first, but it is implied that she’s been shaped by some of what she’s gone to since things fell apart. I do find it interesting that she seems to be more ok with working under a nominal “villain.” Sierra on the other hand seems like a more competent administrator, and really does do a good job of running things and taking care of people when Skitter’s not around. But Sierra does get hung up on the Villain label, and it’s a shame.

Taylor really is good at taking care of her territory, better than any of the other local villains. Some of my favorite parts of this story are seeing her throw herself into taking care of the people in her territory.

This gets touched on a little bit later, but the whole fact that Taylor can administer her territory better than everyone else is a double-edged sword, because it relies on her being powerful enough to fight off encroachment: the rise of capes really does push humanity back to a might-makes-right system of rule. Have we ever truly escaped that? Maybe, maybe not, but we certainly have more veneer over it these days. The fact that Skitter has the power to rule her territory effectively is nice, but it relies on the people with the power being as caring as she is. Just like someone else says, what happens when someone like Hookwolf conquers territory? 

Cool to see Tattletale’s different approach to operating her territory based on her powers.

Ugh. The Merchants. Basically the whole sequence with invading the Merchant jamboree is super skeevy, glad when that’s over. We never really get the chance to see much of Trainwreck as a character, but it is interesting to wonder what his experience was like as a mole for Coil within the Merchants. Was he the kind of person who was comfortable in that environment? Or was it a struggle for him to live like that, putting up with it for some personal motivation?

We see that Skidmark has gotten his hands on a Cauldron case. We’ve seen these vials pop up a few times, but they seem to be very tightly-controlled. I wonder where this case of vials came from?

As awful as Skidmark’s little meth-head wonderland setup is, it frankly is a pretty effective way to basically manufacture a small army of parahumans. In the hands of a better leader with a ruthless streak, it seems like this strategy could work so long as you can keep control of a growing band of people with powers (Jack Slash seems able to do this, but I doubt many others could). 

This reminds me of my curiosity about what’s going on in the rest of the world. It’s been mentioned that third world countries have a higher incidence of trigger events. What is happening with this new tide of parahumans from conflict areas around the globe? Sadly many of them are probably meeting violent ends, but surely some of them choose to use their powers to escape, or in the case of the more villainous/deranged to spread the chaos that created them. It seems like this situation should be bubbling over and creating a pressing concern worldwide. I think this ties into some of the Cauldron talking points, but it’s only been mentioned peripherally. 

We do start getting glimpses of the eldritch creatures again from being around others’ trigger events. Every time we see these it reinforces my conception of them as higher beings, strange and unknowable. What their intentions or grand effects are going to be on this world... still unknown. For people like Skidmark or Bonesaw, who have been around multiple trigger events, I wonder how close they are to putting together some sort of understanding?

Cool seeing Faultline’s crew in action. They honestly seem capable and like a pretty good bunch from what we saw from Gregor’s interlude.

#Worm #Wormblr #Wildbow #Worm Readalong #Mine #Worm Spoilers

[writing-for-life]

Hi! I have a sort of strange question about the Sandman that I hope is ok to ask :) I’m waiting for season two before reading the comics so my current fics have all been based around what we’ve seen in the show. Yet I’m also branching out into work that covers more of what the Dreaming is like/how it functions, and aside from my own interpretation I’m trying to research what’s canon while trying to avoid spoilers.

This is a very rambling way of getting to my point! But I was wondering what other dreams/nightmares might appear next season? Or if you have any favourites that might be interesting to look into? As for what the Dreaming is like, I know there are different parts to it, but I’m curious about how much of that we see in the comics/might see in the show.

Thanks for the ask!

Oh, that’s such a tricky question to answer because it is wholly based on assumptions of what S2 will be like. And from all that has leaked so far, I am assuming the following and trying to keep the spoilers vague:

a) We will get Season of Mists

b) We will get parts of A Game of You, strongly altered compared to the comics and probably interwoven with SoM

c) We will get The Song of Orpheus and Thermidor

d) We will get at least the start of Brief Lives

It’s tricky to say what other one shots we might get, so I’m leaving them out just now.

So based on that and with regard to dreams and nightmares: I don’t think any new major ones I’m afraid. The Corinthian will be out until The Kindly Ones if they stick roughly with the comics, so will Fiddler’s Green. It wouldn’t surprise me though if they gave Stephen Fry more screen time, and it would work. He might also have smaller appearances in one-shots like Soft Places if we get them. I don’t think the Corinthian will reappear earlier than TKO though for narrative reasons.

Lucienne, Merv and Matthew will be there obviously. Gault—not sure, if they stick with when Brute & Glob appeared in the comics, that’ll be her arc done.

Cain and Abel will definitely be back, but they’re quite strictly speaking not dreams. Maybe, just maybe, we’ll get to see Eve, but it wouldn’t surprise me if Lucienne at least gets part of her “job”, so to speak.

Alianora might get a teensy appearance in AGoY, but she’s quite strictly speaking not a dream either. She’s a good one for fics though because her and Morpheus’ story is woefully underexplored.

Maybe we’ll get more Martin Tenbones, that’d depend on how they do AGoY. Same goes for other inhabitants of the Land, like Luz and Wilkinson (and the Cuckoo I guess?). I’m really not sure how much of that we’ll get. Also, they’re not much use if you want characters that are anthropomorphic because they’re not.

And then there are obviously minor characters like the Gatekeepers, Goldie, Taramis etc.

But I’m afraid that you’ve already met most of the dreams and nightmares in S1.

You’ll be dealing far more with gods, demi-gods, angels, demons and fae from now on. And you could write about many of them, and some are really interesting and very important for the overall arc.

As for what the Dreaming is like: You’ll get glimpses in SoM, you’ll also get more glimpses in AGoY (again depending on what they decide to give us). Brief Lives is mostly set in the Waking (although there’s some back and forth and scenes set in dreams), so is Thermidor, so is much of Song of Orpheus.

I don’t know if that answers your questions at all, feel free to ask more specific ones if I haven’t answered them.

#asks open #send asks #about anything really: sandman | writing | life #the sandman #dream of the endless #morpheus #sandman #sandman season 2 speculation #sandman s2 #sandman season 2 #season of mists #brief lives #a game of you #song of orpheus #thermidor #asks answered #asks

[etruatcaelum]

💙 crack ships ⛓ RP timelines 🗝 selectiveness in the RPC🧂 my least favorite part of the canon

opinions on…

💙 crack ships

more power to the folks who can have fun with ’em but they do sweet fuck all for me.

at best i go “?”

⛓️ RP timelines

i don’t. actually know what this refers to hrkghds like a chronological ordering of threads? i am loosely single-verse and i always have in mind the approximate point in the timeline when everything i write is, within a margin of handwave, because i couldn’t not do that even if i tried.

🗝️ selectiveness in the RPC

here.

🧂 least favorite part of canon

stupid answer: i want more grimm modeled after big herbivores. you can tell this is a story created by city people because nearly all of the nightmare creatures are designed to look like carnivores but like. do you have any idea how fucking scary a moose is? seeing an adult moose materialize out of the willows and walk across the road in front of you while you’re walking into town is the closest we’ll ever get to real life grimm. and yet!

serious answer: there’s a post Somewhere on my personal that i would in theory link here where i talked about how killing off sienna cut the legs out from under the white fang arc. but i of course can’t find it 😭

broadly: rwby isn’t categorically opposed to tactical violence in activism. ghira’s pacifism is a personal choice and both he and blake consider sienna to be an ally and support her leadership of the white fang, with the condemnation of adam’s violence hingeing on his exploitation of and violence toward other faunus; likewise things like the rioting in mantle after jacques lays everyone off and robyn’s vigilantism are given overtly sympathetic framing and in robyn’s case shown to be justified. but in order for the nuanced position the narrative intends to put forward to land properly, there needs to be a character representing the ‘judicious tactical violence’ approach in juxtaposition to adam’s spiteful and unstrategic violence and killing sienna at the penultimate moment destabilizes the narrative at a critical inflection point.

i think the stronger choice would’ve been for adam to pull off his coup but have sienna escape, injured but alive, to rally the still-loyal faction of the white fang behind her and intercept him at haven. then the arc could be closed out on a note of sienna cleaning house in the white fang to ditch the ‘just want to watch the world burn’ sect adam cultivated and ghira planning a new, allied-but-separate organization to focus on things like peaceful advocacy in tandem with the white fang’s direct action. much cleaner that way. if i ever cave and add sienna here that’ll be the blog canon, more or less.

it’s a pity because the things the white fang arc tries to communicate are really compelling—fundamentally it’s about the difficulty and complexity involved in social activism and the importance of humility and thinking critically about what you’re doing and who you’re following because things are never as simple as we’d like them to be—and it almost but doesn’t quite stick the landing. although the silver lining is that it was clearly a learning experience for the writing team and the class narrative in V7-8 was a lot more clearly articulated, and then the narrative signaled a return to the faunus subplot with blake’s stuff in V9, so i’m optimistic about future volumes.

#WRAPPED UP IN A LIE ( ooc. )

[theother-victoria]

Thank you everyone for the overwhelmingly positive feedback on What Once Was! I wasn’t expecting it to be that popular but since it is, I wanted to share some of my thought process and where I took inspiration for some of the scenes.

@snobwaffles tagged as u requested <3

For starters, I really enjoyed how the Hoyoverse writers didn’t give Scaramouche a typical redemption arc. I know many people were saying it was one and it did feel like one, but you take a closer look at the writing and realize it isn’t one because of one key difference: he is not forgiven by anyone. Part of it is due to the erasure of himself from Irminsul and the fact that those he needs to apologize to are dead 💀 ok well maybe Kazuha and the Kamisato siblings but we’ll see how their future interactions go.

This is debatable because redemption arcs are inherently a personal thing (to the character) and I could delve into a whole analysis on the quest and his character, but the most important thing in regards to “What Once Was” is that rather than “redemption,” “acceptance” is a better word for his development. I went through great pains to ensure (Name) did not come off as forgiving or disdainful after finding out the truth because a.) the former feels rather cheesy and for a story that focused on him rather than the reader, it would feel cheap and b.) the latter is a disappointing and unrealistic response in that situation.

Rather, I wanted them to be understanding. They empathize with the pain he’s gone through and understand his past self’s actions, but that doesn’t necessarily equate to forgiveness.

If you read closely, you’ll notice that (Name) never says “I forgive you” to him. The most they say is “why should I abandon you?” because they understand that he is trying to change himself for the better and that is enough to accompany him for the rest of his journey.

There’s a bit more about the ending (where I took specific lines from, etc) but that’ll be at the end of this post.

(Explanations for the rest of the story utc broken down by region)

act i: mondstadt

There’s not too much to discuss in this one tbh 💀 Mondstadt is relatively straightforward in comparison to the other two regions but there’s still a couple of Easter eggs hidden here and there.

For the descriptions of Mondstadt and the rest of the nations, I just opened up the game and described what I was seeing to the best of my abilities- it took me an embarrassingly long amount of time to do so 💀

The first place (Name) and Ena go to is Thousand Winds Temple and I chose it for the sole reason that it was where Scaramouche made his first appearance in the “Unreconciled Stars” event. The historical significance of it also aligns perfectly with Akademiya (Name) doing their research at the time. Starsnatch Cliff, the next location he brings them to is also a popular getaway for couples in Mondstadt, so I added that for a cute romantic touch.

Did you catch the reference to Kaeya at Angel’s Share? How about Venti upon entering Mondstadt? There’s cameos from other characters throughout the entire story- did you catch them all?

Their last stop in Mondstadt- the top of the cathedral- is a reference to Amber’s birthday art actually! It was that one chibi art of her and the traveler sitting atop the church and Amber pointing out how a perfect view of all of Mondstadt could be seen.

act ii: liyue

I was writing Liyue when the Lantern Rite event was happening so I took extra measures to recreate that familiar festive spirit when describing the harbor and the celebrations. I actually drew upon my own experiences and some of what I’ve witnessed when writing this part, along with stories my parents have told me.

The biggest one is the releasing of the Mingxiao lanterns at the end. While Ena and (Name) write their wishes on them before releasing them, he also mentions how the people of Liyue have a tradition of writing riddles on them. This is a direct reference to a tradition in real life! Ever since the 6th century, festivals celebrating the Lantern Festival in China would have a popular activity of guessing lantern riddles (which became part of the festival itself during the Tang Dynasy), and it’s still done today in major cities such as Chengdu, Hangzhou, and Shanghai.

The releasing of lanterns can also symbolize people letting go of their past selves and getting new ones, so it could also be interpreted that Ena is doing this in order to further let go of who he was and embrace who he is today.

There was also a tradition in the early days where matchmakers would pair young people together in hopes of creating couples and the brightest lanterns were symbolic of good luck and hope so interpret that as you please 🤭

act iii: inazuma

This is where the bulk of the symbolism lies and also the chapter that gave me the biggest headache

The Statue of the Omnipresent God in Inazuma City which they pay a visit to early on clearly doesn’t look like the Shogun. Ever since Inazuma came out, there’s been a theory going around that the statue is meant to be Istaroth, the God of Wind and Time, especially with the Eye of the Storm necklace it has. It’s the theory that’s the most credible especially after Act 2 of Shogun’s story quest with the lore drop of Istaroth helping to get the Sacred Sakura Tree planted and it’s who I had in mind when writing it (the rhetorical question of who it’s supposed to be), but there’s also other theories out there.

The ringing of a bell at a Shinto shrine is meant to alert the gods to your wishes. In that sense, Ena is basically asking for his mom’s help 💀

I googled what the term “prodigal” meant and by extension, “prodigal son” and I got some interesting results. A prodigal son/daughter is someone who leaves home and behaves recklessly, but later makes a repentant return. Scaramouche definitely fits the former part, but he hasn’t really made a repentant return unless you count the Traveler whooping his ass, much less to Inazuma where after the developments of the archon quest, really wouldn’t serve much purpose because no one of importance would remember him. The Biblical parable of the Prodigal Son is similar. A son receives his inheritance (is being the Shogun’s creation a form of inheritance in terms of exalted status?), travels to a distant country (Snezhnaya, Mondstadt, Sumeru, basically the rest of Tevyat), wasted all his money in wild extravagance, becomes desperately poor (his humiliating defeat in Sumeru), returns to his father, and is received with open arms.

He fits the definition quite well, but it’s clear he’s not quite done with his journey as there’s still parts of the definition that he hasn’t met yet. Ena has definitely moved past the leaving home and behaving recklessly part, but he hasn’t made a repentant return home yet, which is what I wanted to write in the Inazuma chapter.

The ending of the archon quest ends with him remarking that Nahida seems to have his whole life planned out for him, which made me wonder what he would do after owning up to the consequences of his actions and is what served as the basis of this story. Inazuma is where I really got to explore this idea, especially when returning to Tatarasuna that is the ultimate manifestation of his guilt. This is the part that is meant to represent his repentant return home, but unlike the Biblical definition, he does not return home to his father (mother). But similar to the Biblical definition, he is welcomed back with open arms- in this case, the ghosts of the residents of Tatarasuna. In that sense, the Tatarasuna arc represents the end of his journey as the prodigal son and now, he is free to become who he wants.

act iv: sumeru

Nahida was… surprisingly hard to write despite only having a few lines. It took some input from others to get her personality down just right. The smart cookie line is probably my favorite one <3

The voicelines that (Name) hears when witnessing Ena’s memories are the same ones he heard when he was recovering them, but I also added some from Dottore and his character teaser + the iconic “are you dead or just stupid” line.

For the ending scene, I actually took reference from two fanmade comics. For the “What do you do with a broken doll” lines, I took that from @/4dango’s (twt and insta) comic titled “Kagome Kagome” and expanded on the idea that perhaps starting over is the best idea sometimes. @/emaiiyaru’s (insta) comic “atoning for my (your) sins” was where I derived the idea of letting go for the sake of your happiness from. I saw their comics early on and combining the two formed the ending I was working toward for three months.

Anyway, those were thoughts and inspirations as I was writing that behemoth of a fic. I hope you enjoyed reading this and learned a thing or two in the process!

#scaramouche x reader #genshin impact x reader #wanderer x reader #how do I tag this #victoria.writes #victoria.collected miscellany #that previous tag is a stretch tbh #scratch that both tags are a stretch #time to create a new tag that will be used once a year at most #hmm how about this #victoria.behind the scenes