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feyascorner · 4 months

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3 | The Fangs Between Us

summary. You hate him, you think. You want to hate him, at the very least.

“Are you afraid I’ll hurt you?” he asks, his expression indecipherable. “I didn’t realize the great savior of the city could be afraid of a mere vampire spawn.”

“You did try to strangle me last time we spoke."

warnings. angst, comfort, slow burn, reader is a bard, large chunks of italicized texts are flashbacks

pairing. Astarion x GN!Reader

parts. TFBU masterlist

a/n. redemption arc is coming i swear :) this is a whopping 4.7k i got kinda carried away but oh well,, Thank you so much for your comments on these they make my day and i appreciate each one<3

Dance upon the stars tonight

Smile and pain will fade away

“And what might our dear bard be working so passionately on?”

You look up from your notebook, ceasing the messy scribbling of lyrics into its tattered pages. Astarion perches himself beside you, the flames of the campfire flickering in the reflection of his eyes as you stop humming and raise a cautious brow. A vampire spawn. You’d never seen one in person–-only had you heard of them in your childhood tales of the spawn that would sweep away naughty children if they didn’t finish their vegetables. Up close, you can almost see his fangs protruding from the grin he's constantly wearing.

You wonder if it’s a genuine one.

“That bard at the grove today,” you recall. “Alfira? I’m trying to finish the lyrics and write them out for her.”

“Is that so? Surely you’re receiving some sort of payment for these gracious services?”

You train your eyes back onto the pages, shaking your head. “I’m doing this for fun. Her song is beautiful. It just needs—” you squint. “--adjustment.”

He laughs, and you can see the fangs clearly now. They’re sharper than you expected them to be. “I believe that’s a drastic understatement, my dear. My heart felt for those poor squirrels. I’m quite willing to bet that they have an aversion to bards now.”

“And you’re suddenly a musician yourself?”

“It doesn’t take a musician to recognize poor singing, darling Tav,” he returns. “And considering I’ve spent the past few days listening to your music, I’m sure you’ll understand why I considered it such an abomination.”

You narrow your eyes. “I thought you didn’t like me–or my music.”

“You? I'm still deciding,” he shrugs and you roll your eyes. “But I must say that I’m growing rather fond of that lyre of yours. Have you had it for long?”

You give him a sidelong glance before answering slowly. “I’ve had it for ages. Practically when I just started.”

“Explains itself then, I suppose.”

“And you?” you watch as he leans back on his palms. “Do you have any other talents to offer to our companions, or is it just your teeth?”

“Now, don’t be so cruel, dear,” he smiles wider. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you’re rather fond of them as well. Don’t think I haven’t noticed you staring all the time.”

“I’m on guard,” you clarify.

“Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

You’re not sure if you can sleep with one eye open, much less both of them closed. You’re not sure if you trust him at all, either, but as he stares up at the starry sky, simply listening to the crackling of the campfire, you decide you’d rather save yourself the energy for what awaits tomorrow.

“Why did you do that earlier?” you find yourself asking, and he replies by glancing at you from the corner of his eye.

“Do what?”

“Save Wyll from that goblin arrow,” you mumble. “I thought you didn't care about any of us.”

“And what gives you that impression?”

You deadpan, staring at him with lidded eyes and he laughs out loud. It sounds more genuine than anything else he’s offered so far. It's nice.

“It’s a simple transaction, dear. One where I receive protection in turn for the occasional aid I can give with my own blade.”

You squint at him, but you see no signs of deception. So instead, you simply nod and resume scribbling into your notebook, softly humming to yourself alongside the lyrics. And when you halt, stuck on a particular lyric that you can’t seem to remember, you hear him shift, standing himself back up to retreat to his tent.

“Something about faith and care comes next if my memory serves,” is all he says before striding away. While you watch him in confusion, you click your tongue and try to focus again. And when you look down at your page, you remember the rest of the words.

Somehow, you feel the corners of your lips lift.

“As much as I’d love for this to be a charming, long-awaited reunion, one of the parties imposes a danger to the other.”

You wince at the sarcasm dripping from Gale’s voice. Duke Ravengard’s expression remains solemn, unmoving like a stone, while your companion pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration. “We can’t harbor a vampire spawn in our home. We’re supposed to be finding them, not keeping them!”

You hate the irony of the statement because the camp you’d spent so many months in with an uninvited guest in your head, had also been your home. One where you spent your nights in a vampire spawn’s tent. It’s not so different, you keep telling yourself. But you’re painfully aware that the Duke only knows a sugar-coated version of the falling out between you and said vampire. He doesn’t know how his son had to tear Astarion away from you and how your voice had been sore for weeks afterward.

“As much as I have my own opinions with allying with a vampire spawn,” the Duke stares at Astarion warningly. “Wyll did say this spawn saved his life while your party ventured together. For that, I'm willing to see reason if he’s cooperative, rather than restrain him with the Fists.”

You never thought much of it until now. With how many life threatening experiences you and your companions had come across, it felt natural to save one another. At first, it had been out of necessity—fear that one person would turn into an illithid. Yet, with time, you'd all grown fond of each other, one way or another.

You think back to when Astarion had saved Wyll and wonder if that part of him is still in there. Maybe it was never there at all. Maybe it had been another one of his manipulation tactics that you're so prone to falling for.

Gods, you're hopeless.

The wizard standing beside you sighs irritably. “But that was before he tried to squeeze the life out of-”

“How long do we need to keep him?”

Gale balks at your words. “You can’t seriously be considering this.”

“Just until we’re able to locate the rest of the spawns spread throughout the city, which you kindly decided not to mention in our last conversation.”

You shoot Gale a glare, silently questioning if he’d been the one to confess the existence of the spawns underground, but he’s too busy scanning over Astarion, who’s mindlessly fidgeting with his knife. The said spawn seems to feel your gaze, because he glances at you, then grins.

The bastard is smiling.

“The man you killed this morning is a spawn himself, yes?” the Duke clarifies. “There have been numerous reports the past few days about strange figures with fangs throughout the city—I’d known they’d existed, but to the numbers that are being reported…”

“You couldn’t have possibly believed myself to be the only spawn around?” Astarion laughs bitterly. “I do not wish to go hungry, Duke, but I don’t need nearly as many bodies that’s been showing up—assuming that I did drink from anyone, of course.”

Ravengard ignores him, speaking as if he’s not there. “I could still have him detained if that is what you wish. We can continue as we have and search for the spawn without his help.”

You know it’s a fruitless effort if last night has told you anything.

“You don’t even have evidence that I drank from a single person in this entire bloody city!” Astarion spits back, rolling his neck in exasperation.

“No,” you purse your lips, finally looking up. “I’ll be responsible for him.”

Gale clears his throat alarmingly. “Now, dear leader, let’s have a private conversation before we make any hasty decisions, yes? Surely, we don’t have to decide right this moment.”

And while you open your mouth to respond that no, you won’t have Astarion rot away in some gross cell, the Duke nods. “Very well.”

Gale pushes you to the corner of the room, with his face clearly paling in disbelief. “Please tell me you’re joking. You want someone who nearly strangled you to death sleeping in the room next to yours?”

“Ravengard wants us to find out where the other spawn are hiding, and the only lead we have is sitting right there,” you defend yourself. “Throwing Astarion into a dirty cell won’t do anything to convince him to help us.”

“The Duke doesn’t know what he did to you!”

“He doesn’t need to. Astarion’s made it very clear he’s not going to spill any information if the Duke is the one asking, and we need a lead. I nearly died last night, Gale. I want to avoid that if I can.”

His eyes soften just a bit, but it’s enough. With a loud sigh, he scrunches his nose. “And you’re sure you’re not doing this for more personal reasons?”

At this, you pause. Your eyes waver, and the look Gale gives you is almost soul-crushing if it weren’t for the fact that you feel like you’ve already hit rock bottom. You know this is not a good idea. You know that being so close to him again after so many months is not a good idea, especially when you’ve just finally begun your journey to forget him.

You curse the gods above for your luck.

The silence prompts Gale to speak. “I’ll tell the Duke we can’t involve ourselves in this.”

“Gale,” your voice almost cracks. “Please.”

He doesn’t want to agree, you can tell. Any sane person wouldn’t invite a bloodthirsty vampire spawn who’s willing to use his own hands to kill his so-called lover into their home. You want to think that you’re void of bias, but you know it’s a pathetic attempt to reassure yourself. Still, the expression on your face must be quite the sight because Gale takes one look, glances at Astarion, then slumps his shoulders. You’ve won.

You hadn’t even realized the door had been swung open, where your other companions had been standing, taking one look at Astarion then to you. While Gale wallows in his own defeat, you turn to the others, eyes glimmering with a kind of hope that they haven’t seen in months.

“Your judgment’s gotten us this far,” Shadowheart sighs. “We’d be fools not to trust it now.”

Lae’zel clicks her tongue. “My blade is ready to slit his throat if need be. Just command me, and I shall.”

“We aren’t going to try to kill him," you retort.

“It’s only right to return the favor."

Dinner is awkward. You’re finally getting to try Gale’s stew, but it’s hard to focus on the taste when all you can feel is the searing stare of the person sitting across from you. He only has a goblet of crimson liquid in the same shade as his eyes in front of him, and it remains untouched as he takes in the rest of the house.

“So,” Gale offers. “What have you been up to?”

It’s not much, but it’s better than sitting in complete silence.

“Wandering the streets at night, mostly. Oh, and murdering half the city, apparently,” Astarion lets out his usual high-pitched laugh at the end, and your fingers tighten around your spoon. Shadowheart glares at him through her lashes, and you think she may lunge at him any second. You want to think you wouldn't stop her.

You feel for her, really. Being the group’s cleric comes with its advantages but also with the unspoken burden of watching your companions in pain. She’d been the one to ensure Astarion hadn’t left long-lasting damage to your throat. She’d been the one to soothe your headaches and cast a sleeping spell on you in hopes it’ll allow you to rest longer than just a few hours. She’d also seen you nearly bleed out multiple times, one of which occurred mere hours ago.

The sudden scrape of Lae’zel’s chair being pushed back catches your attention. She stands, lifting her bowl with her. “The air here is suffocating. Sort out your differences before I sort them out for you.”

The rest of you collectively nod. She doesn’t say anything else before leaving the room.

“The room at the end of the hallway upstairs is yours,” Shadowheart says finally. “Don’t bother me if you need anything else.”

She stands up as well, leaving her bowl in the sink before pacing up the stairs to her own quarters.

Somehow, the atmosphere is even worse now. You don’t dare lift your eyes from your stew, and you honestly hope it explodes before you have to sit here and drink all of it in this silence. Gale, thankfully, does not leave. Instead, he sets down his utensil.

“I suggest we have a set of rules in place–for the sake of everyone occupying this home,” he clears his throat. You shoot him a questioning look, which he dusts off.

“Fine,” Astarion leans back in his chair, now swirling the goblet of blood in his hand. “What do you have in mind?”

“No drinking. From anyone here.”

You blink a few times, then hear Astarion hum in acknowledgment. “Shame. Though your blood was vile anyway.”

“And don’t cause any trouble. One of us will go with you when you need to drink, so you can hunt for whatever animal you prefer these days. Otherwise, unless we say so, you’ll remain here.”

“Why, this sounds almost identical to a prison. Looking for a job as a warden, Gale? A midlife crisis, perhaps. Does wizard life not suit you anymore?”

“It suits me plenty, thanks,” Gale snorts. “We’ll be out during the day to rebuild the city, so you’ll have to entertain yourself in your own room. Don’t touch anything—especially my stuff.”

Astarion grins. “That almost sounds like an invitation.”

The wizard then turns to you. “And you? Do you have any other rules you’d like to add?”

You finally lift your head from the stew, looking back and forth between the two before shaking your head while pushing your chair back. For someone who’d imagined aimlessly for months about seeing your former lover again, you can’t seem to look him in the eye for fear of what you might feel. “I’m going out.”

“I’m going to take that as a no.”

Wordlessly, you pace toward the door, refusing to look back to suppress the urge to sprint back into his arms. You don’t know what you were thinking just a few hours ago, but this was not going to end well. If you couldn’t manage a simple dinner sitting across from him, what could you manage?

You’re in such a rush that you forget to bring anything besides your wallet.

By the time you’re on your way back to the house hours later, you have a backpack shoved full of fabrics with nails and a hammer to go along with it. As you pass by the taverns, you hear music playing from inside, alongside a few cheers and what you can only assume to be a crash of chairs as people applaud.

You can’t help but peer through the window as you walk past, where a bard merrily plays on his drum, lightening the mood of the entire tavern—even the bartender smiles along as he plays tunes you’ve heard a million times before. And while your hands itch for a lyre—to feel the string snap against your fingertips—you know no good will come of it. You’ll only sit before the instrument, your hands unable to find the emotions to exert in the form of notes.

As you stare at the bard, you remind yourself you’ve long given up on that kind of life.

So instead, you continue your way to the Highberry’s home. When you knock on the door, a very weary Cora Highberry greets you with bags under her eyes, but a calm smile still stretching on her lips nonetheless. She steps out of the way, inviting you in, and you do so.

“You didn’t have to, dear,” she says as she takes a bag of the city’s finest fruits from your hands. “The neighbors have been oh so gracious to us. They’re helping the children so much, I couldn’t possibly ask for more.”

“I was just passing by, that’s all,” you offer. “I wanted to check on you since I left a bit abruptly last time.”

“Oh, dear, you know how to make a woman feel special. It’s been terrible, really. I haven’t gone so long with my husband in ages…” she laughs, wiping at her swollen eyes. “But we were an old couple anyways…I had some time to prepare my emotions. I just didn’t think he’d go like that.”

You nod as she hands you a mug of hot tea. “But never mind that. I’ve spent the past two weeks talking about nothing but myself, so I’m quite tired. What about you, dear?”

“Me?”

“You look like death themselves,” she frowns. “I’ve lived for quite long…I recognize that heartbroken face anywhere. Has something happened?”

The way she’s staring at you—it’s different than pity. You can’t quite identify it, but she smiles again. It’s not the kind of smile most people give you—not one of anticpation, not one of gratefulness, but just a regular, old smile. And it makes your shoulders untense just the slightest before they tense again. You take a swig of the tea, nearly burning your throat in the process as you set the mug down, splitting a pathetic smile. “No, I’m okay. Just--tired.”

Very, very tired. Not physically, no, but tired of the indecisiveness that is your heart.

Her face falls softly. “How troubling it must be to have the weight of the city on your shoulders."

Before you can answer, there’s a loud thud upstairs. She notices your alarm and shakes her head. “Ah, must be Berry. She’s one of the younger children, and she’s been taking my husband’s death quite hard. Please excuse me, dear. I need to go put her back to sleep.”

And with that, you’re left alone on the first floor of the building again. You contemplate staying to say your farewells but the cries from upstairs convince you otherwise. Taking one last swig from the mug, you gather your things and leave.

When you get back home, it’s well into the night, an hour or two after midnight, you’d think. None of the lights are on, so the first thing you do is light a candle when you step through the door, dropping your backpack onto the dining room table. Dunking all your materials out, you take the hammer and start your work.

There’s something soothing about the darkness outside, with the way nothing seems to exist besides you and your own thoughts in a city that overflows with a sense of community. You try not to think about the man most likely reading in his room just a floor above you and focus on hanging the fabrics in front of all of the windows. The cloths are mismatched in color, and your hammer work is nothing more than sufficient, but it’ll do for now. At least until you can get actual curtains installed.

You worry that some of the fabrics aren’t thick enough to absorb all the sunlight, so you layer another fabric on top of it until you’re sure that even your candlelight cannot be seen from outside. Why you’re going so far for him, you do not know. You prefer to assure yourself that you need him to help stop the spawn from devouring the entire city, but even in your own thoughts, it sounds like a lie.

You wonder if he cares nearly as much as you do. He probably doesn’t.

You hate him, you think for the millionth time today. You want to, at the very least.

You flinch when a splinter in the wooden wall splits your skin open, forming a drop of blood on your index finger. Curse the heavens above, nothing was going right today. You quickly reach for a towel but nearly jump when you hear his voice from the stairs.

“You really need to stop with that habit of yours.”

You spin around, and he’s already at the foot of the stairs, reaching to grab a towel from the kitchen. But you’re faster, snatching it away and pressing it over your hand while he raises both his own, imitating a surrender of getting any closer. You can’t look at him in the eye—you don’t want to either. “What habit?”

“You’re speaking to me now?” he raises a brow, and you turn away again after shooting him a glare. “I’d thought you’d avoid me forever—scurrying off like a squirrel whenever I step into the room.”

You should avoid him forever. But the words don’t reach your tongue, and you choose to ignore him.

He doesn’t budge. “I meant bleeding around me.”

“What?”

“Every time I see you, you always seem to be bleeding.”

You frown at him. “Maybe you just prefer being around me when I’m bleeding.”

“You might be right." You think maybe he’s done with this painfully awkward conversation until you see him staring at the windows covered with random pieces of fabric, and suddenly, you feel embarrassment creep up your skin. You realize how bizarre your actions must appear in someone else’s eyes, staying up to the break of dawn so that he’ll be able to traverse someplace outside the confines of his own room…

It might make him think you care, and the worst part is that a part of you does.

“I hope you don’t expect me to thank you, darling.”

The nickname feels like a stab to your heart, haunting, even, but you do your best to brush it off.

“For what?” you manage to force out through clenched teeth.

“The cell they would’ve thrown me into is nothing different from trapping me in that room, I’m afraid,” he laughs bitterly, and you want to crawl into a hole from how cold his voice sounds. Distant. Like how he’d sounded the day you found him next to his nautiloid pod. “But I suppose I should be grateful for having a bed instead of having to spend my days rotting away on the dirty floor?”

You bite your bottom lip, brows furrowing. “I don't expect anything from you.”

But you do. Not quite an expectation, but a lingering wish that maybe you can heal. It's pathetic, even in your own eyes and surely everyone else's, but you can't be bothered to care.

It pisses you off a bit. How he seems perfectly unfazed while you continue to drown in your own feelings.

“Are you just here to taunt me, or is there a reason for this conversation?” you snap. This is not quite how you wanted your reunion to go.

He raises a brow. “Taunt you? I'm only answering questions you're afraid to ask.”

“I don't need to know anything about you,” you grit through your teeth. “You left my mind the second you abandoned us.”

What a poor, wishful lie.

“Ha!” It doesn't really sound like a laugh—more a scoff of disbelief. It's like he knows what you're thinking, and for a split second, it feels like there's a tadpole in your head again. “Of course you think I'm the villain of your precious heroic tale! Honestly darling, the irony just writes itself.”

You fight the urge to scowl, but you're not sure if you're successful. You find yourself gripping onto the towel harder, teeth clenched as your chest tightens just hearing his words. You truly hate that he seems to care less than you—it’s like he's not even taking you seriously.

And that damned nickname.

It feels like talking to the Astarion you first met—one who’s only intentions were to use you—but this time, you don't think it’s a mask. He doesn't want anything more from you. Only your own suffering from taking the power that would have made him untouchable.

“So tell me, dear, do you wish for me to grovel at your feet?”

Your eyes widen, and the term of endearment that once made your cheeks flush only makes you feel sick. “What?”

“Do you expect me to drop to my knees, begging for your forgiveness?” he says again, eerily composed while you struggle to come up with words. “Perhaps I would have if we were still staying in that camp. Put on a show, even."

You frown, setting your hammer down on the counter. “I’ve never made you grovel. I’ve never made you do anything.”

“Maybe not directly, no, you’re too kind of a soul to do so,” there’s venom lacing the words that feel nothing short of a lie. Somehow, he’s still smiling. “Instead, you made me beg for your help. You accepted—made it feel like I had a choice. Then tore it away just the same, in the cruelest way possible. Impressive, really. I didn't expect such dramatic sins from you.”

The way he looks at you, words dripping with sarcasm, makes you want to melt into the floor, ceasing to exist as a whole. But alas, you continue standing like a deer in headlights, unsure of how to respond. You look down to see the towel stained with your blood and inhale deeply, watching the dark sky lighten with daybreak through the window. “The sun’s rising.”

His smile drops, something foreign flickering in his eyes. He suddenly steps toward you, and as soon as he gets within two feet, you find yourself stepping backward, your fingers tightening around the hammer. You have no idea if you'd even be able to use it, but it's better than digging your nails into your palms.

It doesn't go unnoticed.

“Are you afraid I’ll hurt you?” he asks, his expression indecipherable. “I didn’t realize the great savior of the city could be afraid of a mere vampire spawn.”

You don't want to think he'd truly kill you. Not really, but your mind flashes back to the look in his eyes when he had his hands wrapped around your lifeline, and you grip the hammer tighter, heartbeat pounding impossibly fast.

“You did try to strangle me last time we spoke,” you mutter.

His lip twitches, and he steps back bitterly. You feel like you can breathe again.“Ah, yes, that.”

You swear your stomach drops to your feet at the mere suggestion he’d forgotten what haunts your nightmares every night, forcing you to lurch from your rest in a cold sweat, hands shaking, and having nobody to turn to for comfort. He couldn't be that cruel…could he? You want to scream at him, punch him, kick him, tell him he’s not being fair. You want to defend yourself, say that all you’ve ever wanted was for him to be safe, but even that feels like too much when he’s giving you so little.

“Very well, I’ll indulge you,” he grins again. You realize your time is running out, the sun beginning to peer out from the horizon. “Why did you assume responsibility for me? I can’t imagine why you’d want such a terrible foe in your life living right next door of your own sanctuary.”

For the city, you tell yourself. For Cora's husband and the poor victims drained off their life, all alone in the darkest corners of Baldur's Gate. “...I didn’t do it for you.”

He searches your face for something, his eyes narrowing. He's waiting for you to continue, but there's no more fuel in the tank, and now you just want to sleep for a very long time. You assume he comes up empty when the corners of his lips fall, and he turns to climb up the stairs. Sunlight hits your back as your eyes trail him in his steps, and it does nothing to warm how cold it feels in the room.

“That much I’m aware,” he stops his steps for a brief moment. You barely catch it, but it's there. “Terribly aware.”

And when he finally leaves, you bury your face into your hands.

"I'm nervous."

"What for?"

"What if the ascension goes wrong? Are you sure we should really be doing this, Astarion?"

He brushes your hair out of your face, cupping both your cheeks in his hands. "We'll be okay, my love. I will still be here, and so will you. I'll just finally have enough power to protect what I care about."

He sees the hesitance in your eyes and leans his forehead against yours. You melt into his touch, placing your hands atop his.

"So please, stand beside me for this," he pleads.

And despite the way your intuition screams at you otherwise, despite the way your very being begs you to pull away, you nod, sealing your fate.

"I'll be right here."

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#baldur's gate 3 #astarion ancunin #baldur's gate astarion #bg3 astarion #astarion x tav #astarion #astarion x reader #bg3 x reader #fluff #bg3 #angst with a happy ending #angst #gale of waterdeep #shadowheart

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redriotinggg · 4 months

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I need anyone who genuinely dislikes Usopp to take a long look in the mirror because yeah, he can be a bit annoying at times but he is honestly a good and interesting character!!

He is just as loyal as any other member of the crew and fights the strongest when he’s fighting on someone else’s behalf. (See: him fighting for Sanji in Skypeia, fighting for Robin at Eneis Lobby, fighting for Luffy in Dressrosa, fighting for Tama and Nami in Wano.) He is a major player in so many of the battles in the series that it baffles me that people can think of him as an unimportant member of the crew.

And Usopp is a fucking genius??? Hello???? He’s able to make weapons powerful enough to create storms and tornadoes. He is canonically a jack-of-all trades that supports the crew in their daily lives and in battle. The Going Merry only lasted as long as she did because Usopp was around to care for her. He was the only one to see her Klabauterman!! Usopp is not only creative and fun but is able to bring those creations to life, whether it be his drawings or his gadgets, and I think that’s so beautiful. I miss pre-TS because of all his inventions we got to see.

Let’s not forget that Usopp is so, so kind!! He made friends with the kids in his village and told stories to Kaya to help her feel better when she was ill. He fought to protect her and Syrup Village from Kuro. Personally, I will never get over filler ep on Fireworks Island (ep. 134) where he cheered up Kodoma and encouraged her to continue her pyrotechnics, assuring that her parents were proud of her. Knowing he also lost his parents at a young age makes the scene hit that much harder. (And again, he showed his genius by figuring out a way to launch the firework that killed Kodoma’s parents!!) It may not be canon to the manga but but I think that episode is super accurate to his character.

What I think makes him the most interesting is that we see his flaws and mistakes more than any of the other Straw Hats. We see his insecurities in Water 7 and his fear in Dressrosa. But we also see him growing and learning and being encouraged by his crewmates. Aside from Robin, I think Usopp has changed and grown the most out of the Straw Hats. With his goal to become a brave warrior of the sea he has so much potential for even more growth!!

Like I said earlier, some people think Usopp is annoying which he can be sometimes, but that’s also because he’s literally comic relief. And he does so well at it bc he’s actually so damn funny?? He makes me laugh out loud all the time. One Piece wouldn’t be even half as funny without Usopp.

I also appreciate that as an individual he has so many moments with the other Straw Hats. There are a lot of relationships that don’t get explored as much as we’d like, but I think we get to see Usopp’s friendships with the crew pretty often. He fights for Luffy, plays around with Chopper, teases Zoro, is teased by Robin, gossips with Nami, hangs around Sanji, and his whole relationship with Franky has so many layers to it.

Aaahh, I have so many hopes for Usopp in the series that I pray will be fulfilled!! I want him to have a badass arc in Elbaf full of character growth. I want to see him develop and continue to use his Haki (which he gained when trying to save Luffy are you KIDDING me). I want his reunion with Yasopp to be emotional and bittersweet. If he could personally beat Yasopp in a fight I would ascend to the heavens.

Usopp is such an important, complex, and interesting character and I absolutely hate to see him reduced to being a gag character or the weakest member of the Straw Hats. He may not be a monster but he is amazing and I love him.

TLDR; if you disrespect Usopp I wish you a very Die.

#usopp #god usopp #one piece usopp #op usopp #HE IS VERY IMPORTANT TO ME #anyone who disrespects usopp is a FOOL and BLIND and doesn’t deserve anything #he is so important to the series why won’t you guys get that #fellow usopp truthers hear my cries!! we will give our sniper the respect he deserves #one piece #strawhats #red’s ramblings #op meta

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thegreatandpowerfulversy · 3 months

Text

It's Worm liveblogging time! About time I finally got around to actually reading it and not just letting the wormposts flow over me and deposit information via osmosis.

I started this morning and have read through the end of Arc 2 so far, so this isn't quite liveblogging from the beginning, but I can summarize the thoughts I would have posted had I decided to do this earlier.

Taylor apparently already has her powers from the start? I honestly thought the story began before her trigger event. Seems like it's only a few months after though, she's new to it all. I guess we see the background in an interlude later.

Also, wow, I thought my experience of high school as a nerdy trans girl was bad, but goddamn. I'm a little surprised Taylor hasn't murdered any of her bullies yet. Maybe later.

Spiders on his dick! What a unique, one-time event that surely will never even remotely happen again.

It took me an embarrassingly long time to remember who Regent was. You guys don't talk about him much.

Is Armsmaster trans or something? Probably not according to Wildbow, but since when is he a reliable source anyway. Trans according to post osmosis is good enough.

Dad :(

Taylor really does have a lot more self-control in the beginning than I expected.

At least she has some basic opsec knowledge and goes to the public library to make contact. Not that it helps against a Thinker, but it's the right idea.

The Undersiders have a boss? Why do I get the feeling that the boss won't be lasting very long...

There is no way that Lisa doesn't know exactly why Taylor is here. I guess she's having fun playing with her? Or maybe she also sees the next layer too and knows Taylor is possible to turn to be a villain for real.

...You know, as someone who gets a majority of her worm knowledge from an avid Taylor/Rachel shipper, reading the actual start of Worm is bizarre. Rachel does not make a good first impression here. I understand the smugbugs much better at the moment.

Friends :)

I do not like Victoria Dallon. Sure, punch Nazis, but that's a bit beyond punching.

I really do not like Victoria Dallon. Not just police brutality, but also blatantly using cult manipulation tactics on her sister, and trying to amplify that with her aura? Come on, Amy, we've got to get you out of there.

That's it so far! I imagine the arcs get significantly longer as the story goes on; they'd kind of have to to reach the "6.5 times as long as my own longest fic" mark that I've heard about. As a writer, that's a phenomenon I know all too well.

Anyway, I'm having a good time so far, and I can't wait to keep reading! I've been warned of some spots later that I will have to skip over, but I can deal with a few dick-spiders for now.

#worm #wormblr #worm liveblogging

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everlastingremorse-blog · 2 months

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The Rat Grinders are Minmaxers

I’ve been thinking through a lot of the discourse surrounding the bad kids and their immediate dislike of the Rat Grinders, and how it’s not fair and all that stuff.

And that is important to consider, but it took me awhile to realize how un-fun it would be to play in a group of rat grinders.

Like Brennan said in an earlier adventuring party (and I am paraphrasing), “this year we get to see what it’s like when being an adventurer means going on adventures.”

Like, in earlier seasons, Aguefort would go on some long tangent about how adventuring is enacting violence in order to change the world.

Not that I completely agree with that assertion, but it’s also true that there is a narrative in DND, thus there are narrative arcs. Going on an adventure in DND means having personal arcs exploring how your character’s motivations are changing and interacting with the world. One of my favorite parts of Dungeons and Drag Queens was seeing these new players get really invested in their characters.

And then there are minmaxers. Now if you don’t know, Minmaxers are players that really optimize their character to game the system. Think Evan Kelmp. He’s set up in a way to prioritize fighting over anything else.

Now Kelmp is a bit of an exception, as most Minmaxers tend to (at least from what I’ve seen) avoid roleplay, while Brennan made Kelmp explicitly for roleplay. In other words, Minmaxers don’t make good stories.

And I think that’s for two reasons:

1. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Having a character built to fight (and that’s how most Minmaxed DND characters are built, according to me) means you’re going to use fighting as a solution. Why try to convince someone when your dumb stat is charisma and you could probably kill them easily if you tried. Murder hobos are bad for stories.

2. It’s impressive, the first time. Don’t get me wrong, Minmaxers show a strong mastery of the system they’re working in. Just like the rat grinders. They’ve gotten to a real high level by (in my opinion) a flaw in the system, and it’s a fun loophole… the first time I saw it. If there is no story (no quest that you’re going on) then it’s going to just be boring grinding. It’s like looking at a painting in a museum. You can look at it. Examine it. Think about it like a painter, and then like an art critic. Read some analysis of the work, but eventually I want to move on. I might come back later, but I’ll hit a limit on what I can do. I can be impressed by the mastery of the system, now what? Now they go back to grinding rats.

And that’s why I dislike the rat grinders. They are adventures, but they don’t go on adventures. They just gamed the system. They followed the rules without following their spirit. And I’d hate to play a game with players like that.

But hey, things are looking up. Obviously, the rat grinders have a lot going on that we just don’t know yet. There is a story there, and I can’t wait to see it.

Also they have a really hot drago———

*sounds of muffled horny screams as I’m dragged off into the distance.*

#dimension 20 #rat grinders #dropout #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year #fhjy spoilers #d20 fhjy #oisin hakinvar #my beloved

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hekateinhell · 4 months

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In some of the earlier drafts of Memnoch the Devil, David Talbot was supposed to die, NOT Armand:

From what I saw, a lot of Anne's drafts and notes at Tulane for MtD where more heavily focused on developing the whole religious aspect and the lore that she wanted to follow, but this really caught my attention in a big way for obvious reasons. In an another world, David would've self-immolated instead of Armand, and the book would've ended with Armand and Lestat walking together in Central Park!

"Almost Claudia, but not"... Ouch.

I will say that I understand why ultimately Anne decided to go the route that she did with Armand in actual canon (aka what's literally on the page)—I think it does make sense for his arc given his background and religious trauma. I understand it, but also as a reader and an Armand girlie, I would have been much more satisfied by this ending 🥲 (no surprise there!). Alas, I am not Anne Rice, and I'm just so grateful that she thought ahead to make her notes, drafts, and diaries accessible to us after her passing so we can have fun trying to understand her creative process and considering all the possibilities!

Lastly:

"I do think David has go to to go. Maybe he should go instead of Armand." just takes me right out.

ANNE.

#i'm in between the liminal space that exists between christmas and new year's (even though i don't really celebrate either of them)#and i was going through some stuff on my phone and had fit about this all over again #listen it's memnoch season AROUND THIS TIME IS WHEN IT HAPPENED!!!#i promise you the images were so much better but tumblr ruined them like it does everything else 🤧#armand #lestat de lioncourt #david talbot #the vampire chronicles #vc #anne rice #the skateboard of shakespeare #quotes

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antianakin · 5 months

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I used to love Ahsoka as a character and I thought she was a really interesting foil/parallel to Anakin but at some point I started to disconnect with her character and be all ‘huh that doesn’t seem right’ and for ages I couldn’t figure out why/what it was specifically that was bothering me that wasn’t just *gestures at post-Wrong Jedi!Ahsoka as a whole*

From airing of tcw s7 onwards and also a little before that in some (but admittedly not all) parts of rebels she just doesn’t act like a Jedi.

Like we’re clearly supposed to think that she does and she uses the Force to do things and she uses lightsabre combat and sometimes she even listens to what the Force is telling her(!) but she doesn’t act the way a Jedi would or should most of the time. She doesn’t use or express their teachings or philosophies or act in any way according to them even when she says she does* or the narrative implicitly claims that’s what she’s doing

(*when she’s around Kanan this gets a bit less notable bc she does act more Jedi-like around him and I can’t figure out whether that’s deliberate or accidental or what it’s supposed to say or mean about them both if it’s intentional)

Before that she was fun and also flawed and I think if they’d kept those roots while either showing how she’d manage to overcome/learn from those flaws or that she hadn’t managed to move past them at all but was still trying her best then she would have stayed interesting! But instead her character gets flattened and her flaws get narratively erased (while still being very much there just not acknowledged in any way and/or presented as though they’re not flaws at all) in favour as propping her up as The Best Jedi TM and making her feel like a caricature of an ideal rather than a real character.

Like I am mid-Ahsoka show right now and she doesn’t even feel like the same character! Everything that made her interesting is just gone and the narrative constantly implies that she’s right even when she very clearly is not???

Writers challenge! Accept that characters have flaws and should have flaws to make them interesting and help drive the plot rather than making them perfect bc they’re your favourite!

Yeah, I don't even mind Ahsoka growing OUT of her earlier flaws (which are primarily the same ones that Anakin was given, like impatience and overconfidence/arrogance) and into different ones that reflect her new experiences and maturity. But it also would've been great to see how those flaws she started with, the impatience/impulsivity and the overconfidence/arrogance sort-of grew WITH her.

Like the way the Wrong Jedi arc shows her refusing to trust the Council LONG before she has any reason to do so and going off on her own to try to prove her own innocence which just makes her look more guilty and pushes the Council into more of a corner while also trusting ONLY the person who ended up framing her in the first place. The way that her more childish impatience and overconfidence has sort-of grown into the more dangerous impulsiveness and arrogance in the Wrong Jedi would've been so so interesting to look at if anyone writing it had been willing to acknowledge that she was in the wrong.

And you could keep going with that in later arcs and have her still be sort-of mistrustful of authority (especially Jedi authority), inclined to believe in her own superiority of opinion, and impulsive in her judgments. That's generally what we see in season 7, especially regarding her behavior towards characters like Mace and Obi-Wan. She believes she's right ALL THE TIME and this would be FINE if the narrative actually supported the idea that she WASN'T. Ahsoka can think she's right, but the audience should understand that she isn't. That's how her flaws got portrayed in earlier seasons of TCW and why I tend to prefer them to later ones. And this would've been a great place to follow up on her comment about not trusting HERSELF. Maybe Ahsoka has sort-of wandered away from mindfulness since she left the Order and so instead of continuing to look at the mistakes she made that caused the Order to mistrust her, she just starts blaming the Jedi for everything. And when she starts making accusations at Obi-Wan, have him point out that not only is she not being fair, but she's not being HONEST, with herself or anyone else. Because truly, it's not the Jedi she doesn't trust. It's not the Council playing politics that she's afraid of. It's her own flawed judgment leading her to her own destruction.

And there's SO MUCH you could do with that moving forward into Rebels, to showcase Ahsoka's continuing struggle with trusting her own judgment and how she's grown since Order 66 and into her place as a rebel where she HAS to trust herself more, but she still doesn't entirely trust herself to be a JEDI. Perhaps her uncertainty over Anakin's fate has a part to play in that. Instead, they just made her a spy despite the fact that a LACK OF SUBTLETY was one of her major personality traits in TCW and never once was she shown doing any kind of real spy work and we don't really see her doing any in Rebels either aside from a few conversations with Hera. We have no idea how she ended up growing into that role or WHY she took on that particular role rather than something that would've fit her existing skillset better. Ahsoka's position within the Rebellion is one of the places I think they really faltered with her because it could've been utilized to genuinely help her character move forward and develop her more as a Jedi survivor. Instead, she's just kinda... there and her entire narrative tends to revolve around Anakin, a problem that persists and actually got worse with the Ahsoka show.

I don't truly mind that Ahsoka is perhaps not acting much like a Jedi, at least not all the time, because that could be a really easy way to give her a journey BACK to being more like a Jedi. Much like the Kenobi show had Obi-Wan acting very out of character and unlike a Jedi in order to have him go on a journey to reclaim that identity and become the wise Master we all know and remember, they could've done something similar with Ahsoka. Let the narrative embrace that she's not acting like a Jedi as an intentional choice so that she can move forward from there and BECOME a Jedi again. This is also an arc that Kanan himself is sort-of going on, so it would've been pretty easy to parallel them a little in Rebels if they'd been willing to represent Ahsoka as anything other than a literal angel come to earth.

The problem with the Ahsoka show is that it DOES give her flaws, but the flaws it chooses to give her are the opposite of what they should be. (This paragraph might get a bit spoilery, so if you're trying to avoid spoilers until you finish the whole show, just skip this paragraph.) Instead of showing Ahsoka as impatient/impulsive and somewhat arrogant, they show Ahsoka being too UNFEELING. Ahsoka's primary flaw in the Ahsoka show is that she's too detached because her feelings regarding Anakin's fall have apparently caused her to pull away from connecting to anybody on a deeper level or something. And they choose to show this by having her literally recite Jedi philosophy of non-attachment and have Sabine push back against it. So now it's not just that Ahsoka is too unfeeling but that she's too much like the Prequels Jedi, the BAD Jedi who FAILED. And only once she lets go of those Jedi philosophies holding her back (and instead explicitly chooses to emulate ANAKIN, the dude who let himself be consumed by selfishness and greed and betrayed everybody and threw an entire galaxy into tyranny) is she able to move forward in her relationships. Instead of recognizing that Sabine is impulsive and arrogant and letting that shine a light on Ahsoka's own flaws so that they can BOTH work on them more, it just chooses to justify Sabine's impulsivity and arrogance instead and Ahsoka needs to accept Sabine as she is and support her completely no matter what horrifically selfish bullshit she does. Moral of the story, never hold your loved ones accountable for anything they do wrong!

Long story short, I think Ahsoka was 100% at her best in her bratty teenager phase in early TCW when the narrative actually was willing to admit she HAD flaws that she had to work through and her character has been completely flattened ever since they decided to pretend she no longer has any flaws and is just always right about everything (except for when she's acting TOO MUCH like the wrong kind of Jedi).

#star wars #the clone wars #tcw #star wars rebels #rebels #ahsoka critical #ahsoka tano critical #anti ahsoka show #ahsoka show negativity

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morthra · 6 months

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after shibuya | n.k

pairing : nanami kento x reader

warnings : manga spoiler, fluff, established relationship, nanami after shibuya arc

contents : reader is gender neutral, comfort, reader missing nanami

it's been weeks since nanami left the house for a mission. gojo had told you about nanami's condition on the first week, saying he had some pretty bad injuries and that he needed to rest for more weeks. you were worried of course, but gojo forbid you to see nanami and insisted you on staying at home for the time being.

today, on the sixth week, nanami is finally coming home. gojo had called you earlier that nanami is dismissed and that he was going home. you waited patiently on the couch, eyes never leaving the door ever since you got the call. you played with your hands anxiously as you heard footsteps outside the door. you stood up and walked closer to the front door, heart beating fast.

and there he is, your beloved husband. observing the bandages that was covering half of his body as you worriedly walked to him and helped with his belongings, putting it aside. "i'm home, love" nanami said weakly, voice sounded raspy as if he hadn't talk for weeks.

you eyes began to well up, tears began to roll down your face one by one. you wasted no time in hugging nanami, sobbing hard. "you're safe, you're home, nanami" you said. nanami sighed in relief and smiled, looking down at your figure hugging him tightly. he settled his hands on your back, stroking in slow motion.

you pulled away after a while, wiping your tears. "let's go to bed, yeah? i missed you" nanami said softly, smiling down as he looked at you. you nodded and guided him to the bedroom upstairs, being so careful with him. you let him in first after you opened the door, nanami chuckled. "i'm okay, love" nanami said. "not until you rest on the bed" you said, persistent. nanami just laughed and shook his head slowly.

you closed the door behind you and soon joined nanami on the bed. admiring his face, half uncovered with the bandages. you brought your hand closer to his face caressing it ever so gently, afraid to hurt him.

nanami looked at you lovingly, his hand finding its way to the one that was caressing him. you smiled at him, he smiled back. soon soft giggles could be heard, as you two snuggled close to each other. feeling each other's heartbeats.

"[name]," he called you. you looked up at him, "yes, nanami?" you said. he thought for a while before saying, "i was thinking of taking you for a vacation, a little break from everything. just the two of us" nanami explained, his loving eyes never leaving yours. "sounds good to me, but you're still recovering nanami. . ." you said to him worriedly. "we can wait. the scars are almost fully healed too, so don't worry love. i'm thinking of going to Malaysia, Kuantan" nanami said, smiling happily.

you smiled back and nodded, agreeing with his ideas. "Malaysia? i've heard the food is great there, the trip is gonna be fun! especially when i'm with you" nanami laughed, seeing you trying to flirt with him. you both talked more about what to do there and he planned some stuff before finally drifting of to sleep. hugging each other tightly, heart feeling content knowing nanami's finally home and safe with you.

#nanami kento x reader #nanami kento x you #jujutsu kaisen x gender neutral reader #jujutsu kaisen fluff #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #nanami fluff #nanami kento fluff #jujutsu kaisen one shot #jjk fluff #jjk drabbles #jjk x reader

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iamhereinthebg · 4 months

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Haven't they broken several rules they've established just for everything to revolve around Tsukasa? Like...

1. A mystery can't be defeated in their own boundary (and yet Tsukasa somehow ripped Kako's heart out in his own boundary)

2. You can't use your tsueshiro in a boundary without permission (and yet Tsukasa ordered his to hold down Mirai)

3. Nobody could move because the school's time was frozen (yet Tsukasa did, as well as Yashiro, and Hanako who if I remember correctly suddenly unfroze on his own to break down into tears)

The earlier chapters were way better at following previously established rules and concepts compared to whatever's going on right now

They did ! :))) (want to explode)

I can understand the idea that Tsukasa is a rule breaker, he did destroy the previous n°3 in his own boundary too and it was an interesting twist! I can understand the idea and why it can be interesting, but the way AidaIro using all others characters/plots to make him stand out is just terrible. Dirsregarding rules is not a new thing about AidaIro unfortunately but Tsukasa really wins all medals on breaking them.

As you said, he was able to move when time was stopped and for which reason?? We don't know. Hanako was able to move once Akane and Teru got to him, probably because Akane is a clock keeper and can somehow give the permission to people to move.

I said it before and I will say it again, but wanting to show a character is powerful/cool by making the others characters look stupid is terrible writing, and that's the feeling I got with Tsukasa in general. (and chapter 109 is just a whole sequence of the characters being made fun of)

We don't know where to stand because he has every kind of tropes attached to him. They want us to understand he is some kind of martyr who is 'omg poor lil Tsukasa who was so selfless at only 4yo boohoo' (no matter which translation I read for the red house arc, he is believable somehow with Kou but then we get the flashbacks with Amane and it's gone). They put him in an 'angel' position and naive position in a lot of aus, want us so bad to understand deep down he is a nice boy. When we watched him do every possible horrors on screen. And don't get me wrong, I don't mind this, it's cool. Him forcing Mitsuba to eat, creating him, the way he treats some characters... It's the way they are not doing that to other characters who is so strange in my opinon. They know how to handle grey characters like Hanako or Teru (from the reader's pov) so I don't why they try so hard to put Tsukasa in a good light.

He is not a believable kid character in the red house arc, being smarter than Kou and Nene is not making him cool, it's just making Kou and Nene absolute idiots.

Him destroying his shackles thanks to Mirai power? It's not him being clever, it's Mirai and the clock keepers being made fun of. Him knowing what Hanako should be doing by using Nene? Not making Tsukasa cool, it's making Nene just as an object for Hanako's love, and to get a reaction out of him, most of the time by making Hanako look stupid. (I could go hours on why Nene is just here to serve as a mean to Hanako's character since some arc rather than being her own person but that's for another day)...

I understand that Tsukasa is like 'the antagonist and should be some steps ahead of the portagonist' but it's just so repitive in the way he is unpredicatble that it became boring and predictable. I was overjoyed to see him like this in chapter 108. (which was let's be honest the only good chapter in this new arc)

Tsukasa is really good here, which is why the drop of quality in chap 109 is even worst. Seeing a new side of him as a supernatural and his sorrow/hatred for Amane is really great. He even moralizes Nene about why sometimes you just need/have to get yourself out of situations alone, and that's how he himself proceeds because his brother never went to see him in 50 years. That he had no choice but to do so. It's great! Really great! To see that he is also an unpredicatble character and who decides to do what he wants not taking people's opinions in mind, because even his older never helped him when he called for him during all this time. It adds a good layer to his character and seeing him weaker/not really knowing what to do is something we desesperatly need for his chacter. But as everything in chap 108, chap 109 throws it out of the window and goes back to the usual ' we have set ups but terrible pay offs' things that has been happening a lot in the recent arcs.

He is also way too OP. As you said suddenly his tsueshiros could move again and he got rid of Kako. Even Hakubo and Teru being ones of the most powerful characters, were defeated once, Tsukasa never was seriously. It's never explained why he is so powerful (probably because he has an entity inside him/he eats others supernaturals) but the difference of levels is just insane, and absolutely not compelling to read.

We don't know why he is doing what he is doing and they try so hard to make him mysterious. They want us to get to know him without saying anything relevant or his backstory. We are left with whole chapters of absolutely nothing. Welp too bad I am not patient enough to see Tsukasa doing random stuff when half of the characters have rushed characters development or none because 'there isn't much time'.

AidaIro want us to understand they love him and that we should too but they are just destroying every other characters rather than make him loveable.

I hate what they did with his character, his role is terrible because it's destroying eveyone else's. Tsukasa is the favorite and it shows, but it's so badly done that I can't help but hate him.

#toilet bound hanako kun #tbhk #tbhk spoilers #tbhk analysis #somehow idk #I will be honest Idc much about Tsukasa since I don't like him so it's really surface level #my opinion too but yes ahah #I am really bothered by how he is written #jshk #yugi tsukasa #yugi amane #I know the manga isn't finished and that we will get more backstory later but I am tired of waiting for him to be a loveable character to m #sorry Anon I used this ask to say why I think Tsukasa sucks #I think his personnality is funny i will be honest #but WOW his role? fcking terrible #jibaku shonen hanako kun #this post could be resume as 'I want him gone' tbh #and ty for the ask! I totally agree with you!

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project-sekai-facts · 4 months

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WxS event teaser commentary

I no longer despise WxS teasers for being unclear thank you Rui4 teaser. If I see one more person say this is definitely a Nene event I will start asking people to explain their reasoning without using the words Cyber Sniper.

Sorry for not doing one of these last month, college is not fun. Anyway, we're back now and there's barely anything to get out of this teaser but we'll try.

It's definitely a Rui event. There's so much purple there's no way it's not him. Also like, he's the only one left in WxS for their 4th event, and I doubt clpl is gonna pull a stunt like they did with the double Saki and Ichika banners back in the earlier years of the game. It's definitely a different vibe for him, what with the Showtime Ruler teaser having the nostalgic storybook, and Donketsu having a very melancholic feel, but nonetheless all his songs have a pretty unique style, obviously tying to his character arc of being "different".

It reminds me a lot of Kimagure Mercy actually. If this was going to be a 3DMV I would assume it would look something like that, but unfortunately this is 2DMV only. Maybe the sort of cyber/futuristic theming will tie into the cards? At the very least the song jacket will be taken from this teaser, as always.

It's impossible to tell what this event could actually be about, the teaser gives us nothing. Well, actually there is one thing, but it's a bit of a stretch. While looking through reactions to the teaser I found some tweets pointing out that there's coordinates at the start of the video that land you exactly in the real-life location of Scramble Crossing, so I double checked this and it's legit.

I was talking about this with some other people and one of them brought up that Scramble Crossing is where Rui used to do some of his guerrilla gigs before he joined WxS, so we were wondering if this event might cover some of his backstory (specifically his first year of high school spent at some sort of private/grammar school that was brought up one time and never again). However, it is a bit of a reach, the coordinates are probably just a nod to the location the game is set in. That said, I don't think we're going to rush into the plot introduced at the end of Tsukasa's event, we don't want this current arc ending within 2 or 3 events lol. The WxS disbandment arc, the mystery surrounding Nagi arc, and Mafuyu's arc all went on for literal years so there is always room for a more character-focused Rui event before we get more into the overarching plot I guess.

#mod talks #speculation #you should check out maiki-P's work btw it's good #he does a lot of rock and drum covers and has weird trippy MVs he's very cool #(mod spent a lot of time listening to his music yesterday after trying to find out who he was)#(also this preview is so good i had it playing most of the time i was writing this)

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cairavende · 5 months

Text

Worm Arc 14 thoughts from 14.8 through the end:

Gonna get a little bit gay up in here pretty soon. But first, some other stuff.

Pretty much jump right into "Oh shit everything is fucked" with the bio-weapon just spreading everywhere right away.

Skitter's focus on Tattletale specifically when trying to get them to higher ground was top level Chatterbug/Smugbug content. Like sure Sundancer and Trickster too, she wanted to save them. But when Bentley wasn't climbing fast enough what she said to herself in worry was "Tattletale."

Fucking god. Tattletale telling Skitter to fly to the higher building and use bugs so Trickster could teleport them and they'd follow? But fully knowing it wouldn't work and just trying to get Skitter to safety?

"It doesn’t look like her plan will work out. Tell her I’m sorry." - I WAS FUCKING BAWLING

I had figured that Bonesaw's contingency wasn't just a "everyone dies right now" virus or whatever. It would need to be artistic. And it would need to be a punishment to the local capes, both hero and villain. And the way to punish them would be to "take the city from them". "Make them watch it destroy itself." "Make them help".

I feel like what she did covered that general outline with a heavier focus on taking everything away from the capes. But still, god damn Bonesaw. Absolutely fucking terrifying. Super powered face blindness. At the base at least. Don't know who anyone is. Damn.

SKITTER IT'S NOT GAY YET THAT ISN'T TATTLETALE IT'S BONESAW! GAY WILL COME LATER!

If Jack put's his slimy fucking hands on my daughter again I will personally remove them.

The "Don't swear!" from Bonesaw while pretending to be Tattletale was fun. I managed to hit on it before that, but it was a good confirmation.

Fucking Jack and his "You’re versatile" after seeing Skitter make decoys while prepping to tie someone up with spiders. FUCK OFF WITH YOUR DREAMS YOU DICK. YOU CAN'T HAVE HER.

Instantly confirmed when Skitter flat refused to shoot someone despite Jack and Bonesaw telling her to. My daughter might not be perfect but she's not going to be one of you!

Coil fucked up a bit on the phone. He wasn't dealing with the pathogen so he should have done better. Even just asking everyone there to say something so he could listen to the voices. He would have known right away it wasn't Tattletale and Grue. Patching them through to Cherish that easily was a mistake. He really doesn't do as much as he could be. Like ya he's evil but that doesn't mean I'm not disappointed when he isn't using his full potential.

Cherish very fucked up when she thought letting Jack and Bonesaw know where she was would be good for her. Hope she likes her eternal torment at the bottom of the ocean. (Ok there's a chance she'll get pulled out in the future I guess.)

I'll admit, when Amy left with Victoria earlier I wasn't expecting to see them again so soon.

"Panacea is the healer, top floor, Jack is the slasher, the blond girl is the chemist-tinker." I don't know why, since it doesn't rhyme or anything, but I got very "The pellet with the poison's in the flagon with the dragon; the vessel with the pestle has the brew that is true" vibes from this.

Jack trying to convince Amy by talking about how many of her ancestors were successful by being cruel and Taylor just internally going "How many were successful because they cooperated?" Love my daughter.

Victoria is still very much . . . not dead.

HOLY SHIT AMY YOU PUT YOUR SISTER IN A PERSONALIZED FLESH COFFIN MADE FROM CATS AND DOGS?

Seriously. Personalized. It has her face on the outside made out of bone. What the actual fuck Amy?

Proud of my daughter for shooting Jack, even if it didn't work.

It's probably fine that Skitter got Amy to break her brain rule again. I mean like it's good. It was the only way to fix the pathogen. It saved herself and the city. That is all good. Just . . . there might also be some long term negative outcomes. Probably fine though.

Getting gets cured and goes off to cure the city be gay.

"I leaned forward and planted a quick kiss on her lips." - EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!

WOLFSPIDER WOLFSPIDER WOLFSPIDER!

SO FUCKING GAY I LOST MY FUCKING MIND WHEN IT HAPPENED

"'You couldn’t have waited until after you’d cured me before you put the bugs on your face?' Tattletale asked. She was smiling as she asked it." - ALSO EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!

SO GAY. DOUBLE GAY. EXTRA GAY. ALL THE GAY!

CHATTERBUGCHATTERBUGCHATTERBUG (SMUGBUG IS FINE TOO)!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY GAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Also the level of effort the girls went through after that trying to figure out how to cure Grue and Regent without kissing? Fucking amazing. Kissing was only ok for these three. Obviously.

GAAAAAAY

Gay (bug)horse girl gay (bug)horse girl gay (bug)horse girl

And the remainder of the Nine got away. Which is pretty fucking bad I guess. What with the whole "end of the world" and all that. I get that story point is the *actual* big end of the arc. But it's been overshadowed. By the gays.

Did I mention things being gay? I just want to make sure. Cause they were. Gay that is.

Interlude 1 - Sierra is amazing. She is exactly who Skitter needs to be running things while she's away. Charlotte is also amazing and I think worships the ground Skitter walks on. My daughter is, as always, absolutely terrifying when described from anyone else's PoV. She only gets more so every time. She just uses bug speak without even realizing now. Amazing. I love her. Atlas is helping and I'm so proud of him. He even got to take the gun. I hope he gets to keep it.

Interlude 2 (thought about making this it's own post but I'll just keep it really simple) - God dammit all three of the big 3 are Cauldron created? Ugh. Legend you appear to be trying to do the right thing but you sure as shit aren't paying much attention are you? Holy shit like, you believed so much of what the Doctor has been saying for years? God damn bud. How could you look at Cauldron and assume they *aren't* doing human experimentation? Especially since you know they have done it in the past! Like god damn man! At least you do kind of acknowledge that maybe you were purposefully ignoring the signs cause you wanted to be ignorant. Maybe there is a little bit of hope for you. Hell of a lore dump interlude though. Gives me lots to think about. Also I'd absolutely listen to The Number Man talk about spreadsheets all day long.

GAY

#Worm #Worm Web Serial #Parahumans #Cairavende reads Worm #The Slaughterhouse Nine #Taylor Hebert #Lisa Wilbourn #Rachel Lindt #Wolfspider #Chatterbug #Smugbug #GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY #SO FUCKING GAY I'M DYING #I'm sure once Vicky wakes up and is released from her FLESH COFFIN that she will be just fine #Maybe a tiny itty bitty bit of therapy will be needed #For real though the first time The Number Man started talking I instantly wanted to be alone in a room with him.#It didn't matter that he was running over the possible outcomes of a end of the world situation and talking about the deaths of billions.#Fucking hell just spreadsheets to me man! PLEASE!#You can give me estimates all day long.#ALSO FOR REAL THOUGH IT WAS SO GAY #WOLFSPIDER WOLFSPIDER WOLFSPIDER WOLFSPIDER #CHATTERBUG CHATTERBUG CHATTERBUG CHATTERBUG

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alex51324 · 6 months

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Second Act Problems and Izzy's Death

I thought I was out of things to say about That Ending, but now that I'm thinking about the rest of the show, here's what I'm figuring out: to me Izzy's death seems to set the season's flaws in stone, in a way that makes them a lot harder to overlook.

Like, second acts of trilogies are hard--you have to move pieces into place for part 3, while telling enough of a self-contained story to keep the audience invested, but not resolve so much that there's no tension left for part 3. It's difficult, and it's pretty typical for the middle installment of even very good trilogies to be considered the weakest of the three. (I had trouble getting through The Two Towers, and I know I'm not alone in that.)

What we got, with OFMD, was a part II that has a lot of really fun moments, but doesn't hang together very well. There are lots of loose ends, things that don't quite make sense if you think it through, bits that never pay off, but it's fun to watch--and gives the invested viewer a lot to speculate about in terms of how things are going to resolve.

If you have to pick a direction to err in, that's a good one to pick--especially for a sitcom! We've still got part 3 to weave in the loose ends: some of the things that don't make sense now, will make sense once we see where it was going, and the rest will seem less important once we're looking at a complete story.

But, to those of us invested in Izzy's character, his death brings all of that to a screeching halt. The loose ends involving him can never* be woven in. His relationship with Ed can't be resolved, and his relationships with the crew can't develop any further--even if Ed and the other characters come to understand things about him and his death (perhaps through flashbacks, guilt hallucinations or other devices which will give us Con on our screens), that will only develop their arcs, not his.

(*Unless, of course, we get real, autonomous ghosts, a resurrection, or a complete retconning of the death into something else. I'd personally take any of those, over a complete lack of Izzy, but I'm not able to fool myself about it being good writing.)

It also sucks a lot of of the fun out of the earlier parts of the season. For a lot of people who are already upset about how it ended, rewatching the good parts just makes them feel worse. Ditto for speculating about where it's all going. I have some ideas about what the narrative payoff for Izzy's death is going to be, but thinking about them isn't fun.

Izzy's death seems pointless, because one of the challenges of writing a second act is that the audience doesn't yet know the payoff. I'm sure Djenks and the writing team have a plan, and it might even be a good one! But at this point, trying to figure out what the point of it all was, just throws a spotlight on the loose ends, the hurried pacing, the muddled messaging around the themes of love, violence, and revenge, of what exactly piracy represents.

"Doesn't hang together very well, but has a lot of fun moments" is a good direction to err in on a Part 2, as long as you don't plan to suck all the fun out of the room in the last few minutes.

#ofmd #ofmd critical #izzy hands #that's the real honest distillation of what went wrong here #I'm not having fun #are you?#I keep circling around it in a parody of normal fannish activity #looking at gifsets/reading metas/trying to start inside jokes/developing theories #all the usual stuff #but it's not fun

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savethegrishaverse · 25 days

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Here is the Transcript to the Questions Answered by Eric Heisserer!

Recently, we were very fortunate that Shadow and Bone showrunner Eric Heisserer agreed to answer some fan questions! Below is the transcript of the screenshots that have been previously shared—not an entirely new interview. The transcript in this format should be much more accessible and convenient, particularly for anyone using a screen reader.

To make it easier to read through Eric’s responses, we’ve nested his answers below coordinating questions.

Okay, taking these one at a time -- because some of these will have very long answers, and I may have to return at later intervals to answer them: (note: questions will be in bold)

"I'd like to know if there's a way to liberate the pre-written scripts if Netflix doesn't plan on using them" - Asked by Christian Thalmann, the creator of the Fjerdan language.

"There is a way to liberate the Crows scripts from Netflix, yes, and in fact that would be part of the buyout for another streamer when acquiring the rights to Leigh's novels. It would be a package deal."

"In my view, "The Crows" have the potential to revitalize the Grishaverse. Unlike "Shadow And Bone," this new show could rely less on elaborate visual effects and offer a fresh narrative angle. Heist-themed shows are currently in high demand, adding to its appeal. Am I mistaken in thinking that our focus should primarily be on "The Crows"? The likelihood of "Shadow And Bone" returning seems slim, but l've always believed that "The Crows" had a greater chance of success." - asked by fellow fan Joleen

The focus on the Crows is helpful in two ways -- first, those scripts are written, which lets us get a running start at production, and second, just from casual analysis of book sales, it's far more popular worldwide than other Grishaverse titles. So it will be a bigger draw for viewers.

The trap though is the cost. It's more grounded than S&B, sure, but the Ice Court is a unique location that either requires a really costly set build, or set extensions and VFX work to make it look authentic, which means nearly every shot of the heist once our crew gets there could be a VFX shot.

My guess is the budget would be on par with S2 of S&B.

"If/when the spinoff is back (finger crossed) was there anything he had planned that would completely surprised, for good reasons obviously, the audience. And we should hold our breath for that twist/turn?" - asked by fellow fan Rti

Yes, there is a surprise or two in the Crows spinoff season, but overall it's as close to the novel as we could make it. And Leigh's novel is such an amazing story with natural cliffhangers that work as episode "out" moments, etc. I think the biggest move we made was to feature every single Crow's backstory to go with their episode. So that was fun/sad/exciting.

"What was the difficulties you mentioned about filming Season 2 in that Reddit comment? Don't want to sound negative but what went wrong?!" - asked by fellow fan Mitra

S2 kept throwing challenges at us, and it started long before we got to production. Like months earlier, when we learned the location we used for the Little Palace in S1 was closed to us due to the pandemic. So right there we lost out on a ton of S&S scenes, because it wouldn't be a match. But we also had written a compelling side arc for Ivan and Fedyor in S2, these two Grisha trapped on either side of the civil war. Each of them played a big role in the story, but Simon (Ivan) had a feature film that overlapped with our schedule and couldn't move, which meant we lost him. So Daegan worked to revise the season keeping Fedyor and leaving Ivan as most likely dead from the end of S1. He was Kirigan's right-hand man for the season. But poor Julian caught COVID just when we were to shoot out most of his scenes, and after trying to make the schedule work, we had to come to the brutal truth that there wasn't a way to keep Fedyor in the story. Our only option was to bring him in at like episode 8, which would've been too little, too late.

COVID continued to be a monster all through production, requiring us to juggle schedules and miss out on days, and it was madness for the cast, who had to pivot with almost no notice whenever someone was ill and quarantined. This isn't unique to our show of course -- it happened with everyone. It's just a challenge.

Beyond that, we had been given the go to write a special standalone story, The Demon in the Wood. This would have been released on its own around Christmas, like a BBC special but for Netflix, and would help bridge seasons 1 and 2 by showing a little of what Kirigan was doing before we see him in 52, and also provide more character context, etc. Christina Strain wrote that and did great work adapting Leigh's short story. But it never went the distance.

There was a lot more to 52 as well, scenes and side stories and little interactions that were lost due to budget or time restrictions. Again, not unique to our show, but agonizing all the same, since what you get is not what we had written, or in some cases even shot.

I'm incredibly proud of the cast and the team, and Daegan did the heaviest lifting while I was off finishing the Crows writing room. But we had a lot more thrown at us.

"How long was the sizzle reel ready to go but he had to keep it secret?" - Asked by members of the Discord Team

That sizzle reel was put together about four months before the second season dropped.

"I would love to know his perspective on the impact of streaming on storytelling. Would we have had to launch a campaign like this 10-15 years ago for a show like this? What are the main pain points when it comes to streaming models & telling unique, diverse stories?" - asked by fellow fan Acorn_Bri

Streaming is a challenge to serialized storytelling in that it looks at 'content often with a different agenda and uses metrics that can take a creative issue and exacerbate it. Like in broadcast, if viewership and thus ad revenue has slightly declined, the show will need to find a way to make their 22 or 13 episodes on a proportionally smaller budget. What is not done is reduce episode order. But if a streaming series underperforms or doesn't meet expectations, and the streamer doesn't cancel it outright, the go-to budget reduction idea is to reduce episode order for the next season.

When you just have 8 episodes and continue to deal with notes to compress, pace up, or omit for what you'd scripted for a longer season, reducing further to six or four episodes is exhausting.

This happens due to a slide in autonomy from what the showrunner position had been. What the chatter on the picket lines revealed to us is that most showrunners today don't get to see their own show's budget, and thus don't get the freedom to make budgetary decisions that could better protect the story they're telling. More and more, showrunners not at a legacy network aren't the final say or at times even involved in hiring key roles. I don't have any ideas that aren't already in a contract language, I just see how the job on this side has gotten harder and there isn't much of a way for us to make it easier for each other like we could with having writers on set or in post production, because the streaming model has made that impossible.

—

Once again, we would like to give a big thank you to everyone who asked their questions, and an even BIGGER thank you to Eric Heisserer for answering them!

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coraniaid · 7 months

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To the ever growing list of dead adult women in Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Catherine Madison, Jenny Calendar, and Joyce’s friend Pat so far, with at least three more significant names to come over the next three years) we can now add Faith’s first Watcher. This character never officially gets a name, but she’s called Diana Dormer in the Go Ask Malice tie-in novel and I’ll use that name too just to avoid typing out “Faith’s first Watcher” repeatedly. ‘Diana’ has zero lines of dialogue and appears on screen for zero minutes (which is pretty bad even by the standards of this show) and after this episode she will never be mentioned by anyone again, but nonetheless I think she’s a very interesting character.

Even if Faith’s arc in Season 3 wasn’t fully planned out from the start, Faith, Hope & Trick establishes quite a lot of what her character will look like going forward. In particular, we see signs of what she’ll later self-diagnose as a “problem with authority figures” in her initial enthusiasm about the possibility for “having fun” now that she’s “Watcherless and fancy-free”, and in the first of a handful of hints about the circumstances of her pre-Slaying life (“my dead mother hit harder than that”, she tells a vampire mid-fight).

And we also see, at the end of the episode, that this posture of tough self-sufficiency that Faith assumes is something of an act: that her Watcher’s death has actually had a huge impact on her, one which she’s been trying and failing to suppress since before she arrived in Sunnydale. It’s surely not a coincidence that we have a scene of Faith hurriedly packing and preparing to flee town this episode which mirrors the scene of Buffy doing the same thing just last episode. After all, there was a part of the quote from Revelations I omitted earlier: the problem Faith has with authority figures is that “they end up kind of dead”.

What was Faith’s Watcher actually like? The show doesn’t think to tell us; the writers simply don’t care. All we know about her from this episode, other than that she’s dead, is the vaguest of suggestions that she was older than Giles (since, on seeing Giles, Faith comments that she hadn’t “known they came that young and cute”) and perhaps that she was in rather better standing with the Watcher’s Council (Diana, after all, probably was invited to the retreat, or how else would Faith have known about it?). We also know that Faith blames herself for not being able to protect Diana from Kakistos (“I was there […] I saw what he did to her [...] I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t. And I ran.”).

I think those scraps – a dead, possibly abusive mother who, we’ll learn later, spent a lot of time “enjoying the drinking and passing out parts of life”, and a dead Watcher she wasn’t able to save – explain a lot about how quick Faith is to bond with practically every adult who spends even five minutes making the effort. From Joyce in this very episode (“your Mom’s really cool, huh?” she tells Buffy within minutes of meeting her, her loyalty bought by a plate of food and the promise of a second soft drink), to Gwendolyn Post in just a few episodes’ time, to the Mayor himself in the second half of this season. Faith has a problem with authority figures, in that she really desperately wants one in her life.

One last thought.

Something I hadn’t really considered before – and which I’m not sure the writers thought through either – is that Faith knowing about the Watcher’s retreat (and assuming Giles would be at it) means her Watcher must have told her she was going to the retreat herself, presumably sometime shortly before she died. And at this point, even assuming she was Called soon after Kendra died, Faith can only have known Diana for a couple of months.

So at some point soon after meeting her, and only shortly after finding out about being a Slayer, Faith’s Watcher must have had to sit her down and tell her that she’d be leaving the country for a bit, to go and hobnob and kayak and socialize with the other Watchers in England, and that Faith would have to look after herself again for a little while. I can imagine Faith playing it tough, like it was no big deal. Other kids might be scared, but not her. She can take care of herself, after all, can’t she?

And then her Watcher died, right in front of her eyes, and it turned out that she couldn’t.

Still, this episode at least ends on a positive note. “The Council has approved our request,” Giles tells Buffy at the end of the episode. “Faith is to stay here indefinitely. I’m to look after you both until a new Watcher is assigned.” Things have been tough – as Buffy notes, Faith had “a lot to deal with” – but she’s got somebody else to look after her now, so everything’s going to be fine forever.

… right?

#btvs #buffy rewatch 2023

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animereviewsbykyranskye · 8 months

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My current top 15 Anime and why

Because why the fuck not. I'm doing top 15 so that I have some variety behind it. Otherwise I would just be gushing non stop XD

Apparently numbers go big now - AND THEY GO SMALLER IF YOU TRY TO TYPE IN THE SAME LINE AS THEM???

comparison:

15 -

DA HECK????

(Edit: I was going to colour all the numbers because I wanted a rainbow. WHY THE FUCK FOR THEY CHANGE TO SMALL WHEN YOU COLOUR THEM??????)

Guess the titles of the anime get a small heading. Anyways. Onto the actual list!

Technoroid OVERMIND

Ayo. Starting out with a really random one. So if anyone were to look at my Anilist then they might be a bit confused. I decided I'd keep movies out of here as well as anything I haven't specifically finished. Also takt op. Destiny needs a re evaluation.

Anyways. This premise is so sick and I feel like they managed it really well. The characters were all really fun and the music was fantastic which is honestly the most important thing about Idol shows. I really like idol shows but often struggle with the stupid drama in them that just leads to seasons upon seasons that didn't need to happen or wouldn't actually happen.

In this they're just androids. The fantasy twist works so well for the genre and I honestly don't know why it isn't done more often. This way they can bullshit the drama and it actually makes sense.

Honestly my favourite character was Kite. He was great and his voice always gave me shivers. Especially his piece in the closing. Damn.

I don't want to go into full reviews with this, rather just gushing about things I like and stuff. I really don't think this got the recognition it deserves - probably because of it's deviation from the norm - but it would be cool to get some sort of sequel.

(Edit: There's a manga releasing apparently. Imma check that out.)

UniteUp!

Continuing on with the trend of idol animes apparently. UniteUp! was so good. As I mentioned in my Reviews while I watch of the show, it felt so grounded and real that other idol shows just don't seem to capture. These were all real people with real problems dealing with real life.

I also like how we had such a large cast of characters but it never really felt overwhelming as they focused on group dynamics and specific individuals rather than trying to cram every single person into their own arcs.

Once again the music was fantastic and by god was this show pretty gay. Honestly I don't know what the sentiments of others are, but the Anela duo definitely weren't straight and neither were Akira and Daiki. That bath scene says it all.

Anyways. If you want a fun time with a really solid idol anime, please check it out. I saw earlier that we're getting a season two soon. I am so looking forward to it.

Trigun Stampede

Damn! I don't even know what to really say about this one. The visuals are absolutely stunning - there is no doubt about that. The score and the characters are excellent. And how dare they leave us on that cliff hanger.

I have absolutely no history with this story and still need to watch and read the originally but I am really looking forward to seeing how the story adapts between the three.

You can ask my partner. I've already said we're watching everything trigun related as soon as we are done with our current show.

I'm really looking forward to season two. And especially seeing how this all pans out. Apparently there will be tears according to the fandom. Concern.

Re-main

Damn this show came out of nowhere for me. I watched it quite awhile ago and have been meaning to rewatch it again.

The premise is definitely a sports anime but honestly so different. All because of one thing. The fact that he is an amnesiac is such a fascinating concept to work with - especially with how he was before (trying not to spoil - can't remember when this comes up in the anime)

And then the ending?? Damn. They seriously set up that cliff hanger and I really hope this show gets a sequel.

I really can't say too much about it without giving away some spoilers but damn does it change up the formula and do it so fucking well.

Given

Given is great. Such a pure but heartbreaking portrayal of love on one side with such conflicting but also nurturing views on the other. Having the different realtionships throughout this is really well done how they all bounce off of each other. Especially when they entertwine it with the music.

As it is said. That is how they communicate - through the music.

I'm busy catching up with the manga and really hope the anime continues with it.

Also the fucking is just fucking gorgeous. It has no write to hit you that hard.

Also - something else that shouldn't be allowed to hit you that hard. Damn Mafuyu has had a difficult past. We love how he learns to heal and grow with Uenoyama at his side.

Anyways, moving on.

Bakuten!!

Okay. Who said a sports anime could be this pretty.

I love the art style and the music throughout all of this. I love the portayal and the evolution of these character - seriously all their arcs are great. The interactions of the team is so tangible and real.

I watch a lot of sports anime and I often struggle with some of the drama used within the sports - it feels like the only thing that ever fuels the story is the matches. Whereas in Bakuten - the character seriously fuel the story. You can understand their motivations much more than just - I want to play this sport and be the best!

I also feel like they really captured everything really well in the movie. The whole concept of wanting to sore is great and really well executed.

I also love the interactions they have with the other team. It's not just a once off competition or practice match that they face each other. We actually get tangible characters for the whole team and see how much they two teams are similar to one another. It's a very healthy rivalry that isn't normally this expanded on in sports anime.

Sasaki and Miyano

Yesssssss. These two are just absolutely amazing. Their whole story arc and relationship is just tooth rottingly sweet. They bounce off of each other so well.

And I love the fact of how slow the actual story is. They meet at the start of Miyanos first year (from what I know - I still need to read the novels) and sasaki's second and they only end up confessing just before graduation happens. It really plays out well and is so healthy.

There is no problematic elements like in so many BL stories which is such a breath of fresh air. And the fact that sasaki is very specific about making sure to maintain boundaries to ensure that miyano is comfortable is also excellent.

On a slightly different note - I still need to see the Hirano and Kagiura movie. Been dying to watch it. I've been keeping up to date with both manga and both of these stories are amazing. I love the dichotomy of the two stories and how they are coming to their own realisations of their feelings in honestly very different ways.

I also recently watched the dub of the anime due to some videos on tiktok. Fucking hell it is absolutely hilarious. Kellen Goff as Sasaki has no reason for being that good. Seriously. Damn.

Link Click

On a completely different note. Damn this one makes you questions your own morals and reality as you know it.

I really don't want to get into this one much as I do believe watching it blind is the best way to go.

The art style is fantastic and that opening hits like a truck it is so good. The characters just click (pun not intended) and you just understand their motivations and don't know which side to side with most of the time. It brings about such high moral dilemmas that will seriously mess with your brain sometimes and there is one episode that will likely make you cry.

Anyways. Season 2 has just started airing and I am so ready for it.

Buddy Daddies

Why did a show about two queer platonic dudes who adopt a child while beings assassins hit so damn hard.

The show jumps between episodes with backstory and episodes with them just being good dads and it is balanced so well. This anime won't end up getting a sequel most likely with how it ended but damn I wouldn't say no to one.

Rei is my favourite character and I relate to him far too much. His interactions with the world are so fascinating and his whole arc with Miri is honestly some of the best media I've seen.

I absolutely loved watching this show weekly and it always brightened up my day when I realised a new episode would be up.

If you would like further thoughts on this one then check the Reviews while I watch on it for more chaos.

No Game No Life

So. This was the first ever anime that I ever watched. It was a random recomendation from a friend. Look at where we are today.

This show is honestly just so fun. The characters are silly and the whole plot is just absolute chaos. I really enjoy the games aspect and how it was all incorporated into the world.

I can't even really say much about it. It is just a guilty pleasure of mine and will always hold a special place in my heart.

Also. Please can it just get a second season already.

Assassination Classroom

So. Unlike everything else on the list - this one I only finished really recently. My partner and I were watching it together. And to put it out there straight away. I cried. That ending was far too emotional.

I really enjoyed the humour throughout the whole thing as well as the constant underlying dread of the whole situation.

They also really played out Koro-senseis backstory really well. The teasing to it was excellent. I must say though that one of the twists seriously came out of left field. Like damn.

I've just recently bought the boxset and am reading through the manga. Once again. It's absolutely amazing.

Also the openings of them all jumping are absolutely fucking hilarious and you can't tell me otherwise.

If you want to know what officially sold me on the show was just in the first episode. (Note we watched in dub)

Don't ask me why but I found this to be the most hilarious thing ever. The absurdity and the line delivery was magnificent. I annoy my partner by quoting it atleast once a day.

Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan

Speaking of comedies. This show has no right to be this good. The absudist dead pan comedy in the middle of whats meant to be a TV show is such a random premise but just works so well.

Due to the nature of the show, the characters are extremely relateable. I especially love Kumatani and Kikaku.

If your on the same side of anime tiktok that I am then you have definitely seen/heard snippets of the dub.

I think this was the first anime that I originally watched in sub and then tried it in dub and actually enjoyed it. (I often find that whatever I originally watched it in is the only one I can watch it in - it's very difficult for me to change it)

The voice acting on both sides just works perfectly for the show. And that final episode and how they did it was the best thing ever.

Please just give it a try.

Angel Beats

Okay. Time for a hard hitter. This comedy like assassintaion classroom is fucking excellent but will make you cry, like damn.

In complete and utter contrast to No game no life, this was the second anime I had ever watched. I had found a video that gave some suggestions and thought I would give this one a try. When I say it destoryed me, I mean it literally. I constantly think about the end of this and I absolutely love revisiting it.

The twist and turns along the way are fascinating and I love how each one alters the characters and the narrative. Each of the characters feel unique - even the lesser developed side characters - with fascinating and complex backstories.

The whole thing just makes you question your own place in life.

Moriarty the Patriot

Another one I just randomly tried because I saw a video on tiktok. The first episode immediately pulled me in. I thought it was just going to be some simple detective story (At the time I didn't know much about Sherlock Holmes and who Moriaty was so I didn't have any of that to guide me into this story.) But nope.

I keep saying this but in this one I really mean it. The characters are built so well. The dichotomy between William and Sherlock - as the fandom would probably agree - is just amazing. How they bounce off of each other - i don't even know how to really descirbe it.

Honestly just go watch it.

And if you enjoyed the anime - please go check out the manga too. If the anime was done well - then the manga is done to lamost perfection.

This show was what got me into reading and then eventually buying manga. I now have every single one that is out.

Yuri!!! on ICE

Did I make the title gay? Yes.

Okayyyyy. This is just going to be me going on about how much I love this show. Bare with me.

So I was in an anime watching slump just before I picked up this show. I had been seeing some videos popping up talking about it and decided to give it a try (this was in 2020)

I immediately fell in love with this show. Literally everything about it. I ended up rewatching it three times over the course of a week. It got to a point where I was so upset that there wasn't more content for it that I just cried for half a day. (Ask my partner - it was chaos)

This show is the reason I now read fanfiction - all because I found a way to technically have more content for it.

This show holds such an important place in my heart that I sincerely cannot express it properly.

If you've never watched it - go give it a try. It would mean a lot - and hopefully one day we might get a season two.

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Thanks for reading, if you managed to get to this point. I find it interesting how my explanations managed to slowly get shorter throughout the list as I just started becoming more emotional than factual.

I hope you enjoyed it and maybe grabbed a recommendation or two. If you'd like to know more or hear me ramble on more about anything in particular then please let me know.

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