Let's Plays and Streamers seem at first like basically the same thing, but in reality they're so so different. Let's Plays are nice, episodic, chill, and focused. Just the player and the game and their first experience with it. Streamer VODS, meanwhile, even if you set the length aside they seem maliciously designed to cause me specifically as much psychic damage as humanly possible. Yet out of the literally dozens of other things I could and should be doing with my time, here I am suffering this.
Streamer is too distracted by chat, misses an obvious weird bit of level design, forgets they have morph ball bombs to investigate with. Takes a super circuitous route around the area and adjoining area, almost impressively steadfast in their refusal to go to the one place they need to progress, and getting increasingly frustrated in the process.
Simultaneously, they're too distracted by the game to completely pay attention to the chat. Either they keep missing people's attempts at hints or advice because it gets lost among the other senseless chaotic spam. Or worse yet, seeing it but ignoring it anyway; because by the time their guide has finished typing the answer to their request for help, they're six or seven rooms and a tram ride away from the place they need to be, and by then too committed to other false leads to actually listen.
In unrelated news, while I love it on the whole, I have been one of the people somewhat critical of Dread's structure of frequently locking the player off from backtracking too far, because it felt too patronizing and handholdy. Now, though, I have a fresh appreciation for how unfortunately necessary that design ethos can actually be.
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Related to your last ask, is there actually a big Madonna-Whore dimension to the "male-dominated Faerghus (+F!Byleth) against feminine treachery" take on AM? It seems to me the only antagonist that really plays into that is Cornelia, who has an obviously oversexed design and (IIRC) is labelled a temptress by Gilbert at least once. Edelgard doesn't seem like a good fit (especially in the context of purity kink stuff you've mentioned before) and Patricia is never even on-screen.
Perhaps that's not the best term; another, less common name would be an Ave/Eva dynamic, referring to the Blessed Mother (Ave Maria, etc.) and Eve (as in "Adam and...") respectively - essentially a good woman/evil woman contrast, with sexual elements being optional.
I checked, and I made this observation about AM as early as October 2019 when a lot of the discourse was still fairly fresh. The route contains multiple instances of Dimitri being betrayed by women, with the two that hit the hardest being women he considers family (with Cornelia having to serve as a sort of proxy for Patricia as she is for the purposes of the story already dead). If you play as male Byleth or ignore their role in the story, this turns AM into a story of a man working through his trauma and finding closure with the love and support of other men: two surrogate father figures, his closest childhood friend temporarily estranged from him because of his own issues, and the boy whose life he saved and to whom he's become bonded to through extreme trauma. It's an intimately homoromantic setup, and multiple others have noted that it's remarkable that a male protagonist is given a story that centers around the importance of community and emotional support and the need for forgiveness as opposed to vengeance. AM is thus comparable to Echoes in that it centers intimate male relationships, including different expressions of male queerness, while sidelining or dividing its female cast - note that Rhea, the most morally grey female character in the game, is entirely absent from AM. The difference though is that AM centering men doesn't feel as malicious as Echoes sometimes can toward its female characters, and the female Lions are given a modest amount of story relevance and the usual range of possible endings even if they aren't the focus.
...But then if you play as female Byleth and make AM all about her relationship with Dimitri, then it's the story of a broken man betrayed by evil women and saved only by the love of a good woman. That's significantly less interesting, especially as Byleth is such a non-entity of a character.
That said though, as discourse evolved and the Edelstans ran with with the belief that Faerghus is the embodiment of toxic masculinity I thought it better not to explore that idea as much, both because they have a selective inability to understand the concept of analyzing fiction as fiction (instead of treating it as a real-world culture that must be brought in line with their allegedly progressive values) and because many of them seem uncomfortable with male queerness except in the most abstract terms, and thus would overlook this positive element of an emotional, male-centered narrative just as much as the writers themselves did. One could accuse them of homophobia, and of only caring about sapphic relationships because they like jerking off to lesbians...
...but that would be petty, wouldn't it?
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Deltarune Theory: Ralsei is a guide for the script
It feels crazy that Deltarune Chapter 2 has only been out for like, what, two weeks? As of the time I’m writing this, and yet, there has already been so much secret hunting and speculation over this. Not even the full game, and people already go crazy over it. Naturally, I am part of this craze. In fact I was one of the people that played it as soon as it dropped.
And, I thought it was only me, but, at least for a little while, Ralsei’s behavior struck me as… odd. Not outwardly malicious, but just… odd. Particularly the first bit of the game, it was just so… happy and convenient? And Ralsei was at the center of it all, orchestrating it, making sure everything happened accordingly.
Eventually, that initial feeling of distrust went away, but… not quite. And it seems a lot of people began to feel the same way, pointing out bits about Ralsei that are just… out of place. Things that didn’t seem to stand out in the first chapter, are now popping out about him.
Questions include:
How does he know about what’s outside the Dark World, about the school?
How does he know about the game mechanics and call them out by names?
Why is he so interested in keeping the balance between only Kris acting and him and Susie doing magic?
Why does he seem so eager to dismiss what happened with Spamton NEO?
Why doesn’t he turn into stone or even get weak at any point during the time he spends in Cyber World?
Are the parts of his name and design connecting to the Dreemurr’s intentional, and if so, what does that mean for his relation to Kris?
How and why does he take player control away to look at what Susie is doing? Why must he wait until Kris is willing to do it? What does he tell them when he succeeds in this?
Now, I don’t intend to pose here “a supreme theory to rule them all”, I’m just a guy having fun and I’ve seen people voice particularly similar ideas to this one I’ve had, so I want to at least try to answer these questions through a relatively simple idea that would, almost entirely, immediately answer ALMOST all the doubts.
First, let’s start with some steps to build up this idea. For one, we know for a fact that Ralsei holds knowledge over game mechanics and may even break the fourth wall at times.
But we also know that Ralsei’s design resembles a lot of characters from Undertale we know and were fond of. For one, he can be likened to Toriel in the sense that he is the one to give you the first tutorial of the game and his clothes resemble her original outfit as well. Another connection, much more common, that people have made is that he is like Asriel, no doubt due to his name being an anagram, but also due to the fact he is also a cute young goat.
I would like to do a complete turn around here though, and say I do not think any of this points to Ralsei being related to Kris in the familial sense, for more than one reason, but my main one being that I don’t think Toby would be as frankly disgusting as to imply such a thing when there is so so much teasing in the direction of Ralsei possibly having a crush on Kris. I mean… really, Toby?
You know, I’m not too sure this would be the smartest idea, Mr. Fox, but alright.
However, I do think all these hints in his design and name have a purpose. And it has to do with how us, the fandom, see these two characters. For one, they are very beloved characters, and Toriel is one that we associate with her tutorials and guidance, whereas Asriel is one that people have yearned to see more in action. They are back, in a sense, but not present in our adventures so far.
What I’m getting at is that Ralsei is specifically designed to be the darling of the fandom. He is made to be loved, to be trusted, to cause feelings in us that make us want to protect him and accept his advice. This, in a way, also affects the in-universe characters who see him, as Susie put it: “as a big portable teddy bear”, whose job is “giving hugs”.
And I don’t just mean this in a character design way, like “oh wow Toby was so smart to make a perfectly marketable boy!” No. I think Ralsei exists as a meta element, his form being a direct manifestation of what we want to see.
He looks like that because he wants us to see him and lower our guard and expect his guidance. Remember how his form was shadowy and vague throughout all of chapter 1 until the very end of it and how he poofs into nothing but a pile of clothes in both chapters so far, no matter what form he’s in? What if he’s a shapeshifter? What if Ralsei isn’t even his real name? That certainly would explain why he says he doesn’t know what being Ralsei-like is like.
Ralsei? Ralsei? Oh God he’s gone.
Now, do I think he’s lowering our guard in the sense of leaving us vulnerable for an attack? Not exactly. I think it's so we learn to accept him…
Accept that he is a GUIDE for the game’s script. His entire existence hinges on guiding the main characters, specially Kris, throughout the story, and making sure the whole story, all seven chapters, play out exactly as planned.
You see, Ralsei isn’t evil. His goal is pretty simple, actually: guide us, the player, throughout the game, making us feel as safe and happy and secure. In that sense, of course he pushes so hard towards the pacifist route. After all, that’s the one that’s closer to a completionist route, as the sparing + recruiting mechanic adds more characters to your town, and therefore more content. He wants you to see all this content and get the most enjoyment out of it. His code urges him to bring you the best experience possible.
This would also answer why he does that thing with taking our control away from Kris and to watch Susie’s shenanigans. Because it’s satisfying to us. Notice how stressed out and pushy he gets in the alternate route when Susie comes out of Noelle’s room without being able to let us see what happened. He knows he messed up, something went wrong. He was supposed to let us see, so that we wouldn’t be bored, because God forbid the players be bored.
Just imagine this going through his head.
He also seems to genuinely care about Kris and Susie, and with good reason, as he knows these are the protagonists, and he is supposed to care for their well being too and ensure they reach their goal. I do think, however, there is a good amount of being genuine in his care, as he has no reason to react so boldly sometimes to either of them, showing outrage or affection in pretty telling ways. He isn’t heartless despite carrying out this job.
However it is also worth noting, for all his care, he cannot do the one thing that Kris would desire the most: free them from our grasp. And that is his ultimate failure towards them, and may end up creating conflict later on in the game.
From, here, there are two possible pathways:
Ralsei does not know about the dilemma Kris is going through, and believes Kris is entirely oblivious and passive towards being in a video game. He may even end up being the final boss to fight, as he desperately tries to keep everything on rails while Kris very much does not care for any of that.
Ralsei is entirely aware of what’s going on with Kris, after all, everything in a game’s design is planned, even the cutscenes, therefore even Kris’ struggles. Ralsei knows of the fate that lies ahead, that Kris will eventually be free, how it all ends. But to get there… is still a road ahead.
I think Ralsei’s affection towards Kris will definitely be explored in the later chapters. Not just because of the teasing we’ve been getting, but, if Ralsei really is a guide of the game’s code and script, what would that mean for him to get so attached towards the character the player is controlling?
Ralsei will have to make a choice. He will either recognize Kris is suffering and cannot wait any longer, or be faced with possibly having to fight them himself. This is why those two pathways matter as well. If he doesn’t know, his choice will come later and it will be an unpleasant surprise for him to find out the game universe is breaking apart around him with the self awareness of certain characters. If he does know, however, his choice is NOW, and waiting for the inevitable will be torture.
Just how long until he breaks? Or will he keep the facade until the very last chapter?
Like I said, I don’t intend this theory to be the biggest, most revealing and coherent theory. But… It could add a very interesting layer to Ralsei’s character, as well as answer many questions posed beforehand. He knows the school layout and game controls because he is part of the code. He can get to the other Dark World’s easily and remain unharmed because the game demands him to be. He looks like this so that we love him. He wants to give us the most fulfilling Castle Town so that we will love the game. He doesn’t protest even when Kris does things like try to give him the thorn ring, because to him, everything will be okay anyway. Everything he is, is for us. He isn’t evil or malicious per se, he just opposes Kris’ biggest need.
But he may have gotten himself attached. And that may be a clue to sparing him if he does become a final boss.
But! Tell me what you thought of this theory! Do you think it’s way too weird and farfetched, or do you think it’s possible that it could happen? Or maybe you agree with some stuff but not with other stuff? Go ahead and tell me!
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Desperado — 09 (M) | JJK
Pairing: Badboy!Jungkook X Reader
Summary : A messy situationship at it’s finest. You don’t even know whats headed your way, just even engaging in the slightest within him. See, he has an assignment to complete. A mission granted by his father thats do or die. You just so happen to be a major pawn in that assignment. He didn’t mean to take an interest in you. Surely it was an accident right? Only except. you hold much value in this game that he’ll do anything to complete it. Oblivious is what you are. Poor thing. Poor.. Poor thing.
Genre: Mature/ Mafia!Jungkook
Trailer: xxxxx preview 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08
Word Count : 7.3k
Warnings : This honestly isn’t for the light hearted and the weak…High angst, usage of drugs, drug mentions, mental illness, switch!jungkook, Brat reader, possible stockholm syndrom, kidnapping, assault, death of side characters, murder, weapons, usage of weapons, masturbation, physical violence, blood, alcohol, weed, unprotected and protected sex, spanking, honestly its a lot of aruging…
Copyright: please do NOT repost, translate, or modify my works in any way, shape or form, on any platform. If found doing so , it is considered as plagiarism and appropriate LEGAL action will be taken
TW : Suicide, Body Hanging for display.
Her hair moves so flawlessly and the her breasts spill over the mini triangle bra with each sensual move she makes. The way her waist and body whines against the pole could leave absolutely anyone in a trance.The rhythm of the music blasts in the air and she’s directly on beat to it, not missing anything through the song playing.
The led lights are dimmed low enough in a red color, but enough for everyone to see. Shes uncaring at the men in the room sizing her up in her designer high waisted thong that hugs her hips very well, showing off her round, plump ass. That was what she wanted, the attention all on her while they throw hundred dollar bills for her.
“ Who knew someone could get down and dirty like that.”
To no suprise, Jimin, the ladies man but heartbreaker for sure, enters the private room and closing the door beind him. He throws a stack of money towards her, as he was the seemingly late one to the meet-up.
“ Jungkook is late, he’s never late. What’s taking him so long?” A grumpy Namjoon says, looking down at his apple-watch. It’s half past 10 pm and usually he’s the first one here.
“ He’s probably sucking up to yn-”
The girl turns her head sharply towards the boys, overhearing what they said. She furrows her eyebrows at them, “ Why would he be doing that..”
Taehyung lets out a small groan. “ Because Mr. Lover boy has gotten himself a crush. The worst part is, she’s his target for this mission.”
“ Shut the fuck up. I don’t have a crush on her, i’m just doing my job.” A semi-loud voice roars through the doors. Everyone stops to look at the sudden intruder and to relief it’s him, Jungkook.
Of course he has to lie about that. He knew for sure he caught himself up with you and the feelings were strong. Though the big bad mafia boy catching feelings for his target is highly uncommon, and Jungkook doesn’t know the consequences.
“ Jungkook..” The girl says, frowning at him with her hand on her hips. He takes a seat on the couch and tilts his head at her to go on. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head at the young boy. “ You fell for her.. so what about us?”
It isn’t hard to say that he doesn’t have any more feelings left for the girl. She and him both knew what they agreed upon. The pair had history together, sexual to be exact. Romance was hardly there if he were to be honest. She’d began actually working for Won-Shik, under this club they’re in now which is owned by him, a year ago. Jungkook had entered the club once when he was considered a minor, but that was to pass a message along to the girl from his father. He was told to go straight in and straight out. Of course, he did the exact opposite. Sat around looking at all the half naked women that night as the music blared loud.
It wasn’t until his phone rang and it was Casper telling him to hurry up and come back to the car, is when he finally decided to get up and look for the girl. When he did find her, it was over with for him. The girl was, and still is, stunning. One of the many foreign girls in the club but she’s the one that stood out of all. She wore nothing but a small outfit as she danced on the pole. Her beauty mesmorized Jungkook that night as he watched her dance in awe. Soon enough she came to him showing her her dimply smile and perfect teeth.
He was stunned alright. She knew he looked to be too young for the club so she asked him his age. He told her, and thats when she nearly called security on him until he told her who he was and affiliated with. The message was passed along accordingly to her, she got the memo. Jungkook though, kept coming back to that club and always going to where she was, following her around the club like a lost puppy. She enjoyed his time, as all she did was sit and talk with him and that turned out to not be enough for him. He wanted her, and she insisted that he was too young for her.
So Jungkook did what any other person would do when feeling rejected, he started to present himself like a true man and mafia boy. The gym was his favorite place after that and he buffed up very well. That jawline of his got sharper and his personality gained more confidence and dominant by the time he turned nineteen. He of course kept going at her, shooting his shot anytime he could and yet kept getting denied. It wasn’t until his nineteenth birthday is when he begged her telling her how bad he wanted her, and that lap dance he kept suggesting months before. Since it was his birthday and he was legal, she gave him what he wanted but that still wasn’t enough for him. He wanted her underneath him bad. The slight age gap between them didn’t phase Jungkook at all. What he wants, is what he gets.
And he did.
And kept getting it, and getting it, and getting it since then.
“ Relax baby, I’ll still be coming around you know that.” His voice is smooth, smirking at her. He wasn’t going to be coming around as much, but he knew that would disappoint her.
She purses her lips and begins walking towards him and sits directly on his lap, straddling him. Jungkook can’t push her off the way he wants to because it would confirm the crush rumors from the boys about you. So he lets her sit there, uncomfortable as hell for him.
Namjoon clears his throat to get the rest of the group attention. It’s nearly 11 pm and Crystal has been blowing up his phone ever since he stepped foot in the club. He told her beforehand about the meeting, but she wanted him at her apartment by at least 1 am.
“ We all know you love yn, but remember who you are Jungkook.” Namjoon says, glaring at the boy who returns the glare back at him. “ Fuck you. Like I said, im just doing my job.”
“ If you were doing your job Jungkook, there’s no way in the hell that it should take you this long. “ Jin retaliates. He knows hes right.
By this time, Jimin had finished preparing seven perfectly rolled blunts filled with the most finest imported weed. He places them onto the tray, taking his own and then passing the tray to Yoongi. Each of the boys take their own until it reaches down to Jungkook who takes his and puts the tray back onto the table.
“ Enough about her. I was summoned to go over the details for the next seven days. “ Jungkook groans, sparking his blunt and inhaling. He passes it Melanie, who takes it to inhale as well.
A malicious smile comes upon Yoongi’s face as he exhales the smoke into the already fogged up air. One thing he loves to talk about is torture. One of bangtan’s best walking torture device to be known.
“ Tonight we are starting.. I say you let me go first.” Yoongi pauses, taking a long inhale of his blunt. “ I’m coming for their trade transaction place. Arson, let me burn the bitch down and then fuck around with their father.”
It’s a good idea. Sending a message after burning it down straight to it’s opponent. Fire is Yoongi’s thing, and that’s his signature marking in the Bangtan Boys. The father of the shooter was one of their dealers, until the shooter’s father fucked up by taking money out of bangtan’s cut little by little. The boys knew about it, they waited for the perfect time back then to take action. Of course, giving them a mission to complete.. or so he thought. The mission was a false one. Created by Jungkook to catch him off guard. Jungkook used some of the mafia men on Won-Shik’s side to set up a trade off of drugs, decieving the shooter’s father by thinking they were just setting up a regular mafia trade from another gang. The trade was complete, but their protection was no more. Needless to say, the men didn’t even make it back to their cars. It was a bloodshed war between Jungkook’s assigned men and their men. The point was to send a memo that the Bangtan Boys were coming for them, and coming hard.
Everynight for two weeks unimaginable signs were sent to their family. Ranging all the way from several gunshot bullets going through their home, to severed heads of previous betrayers of the bangtan boys, sitting right on their porch. By now, all the other gangs in Korea knew not to have any business with them.
“ Day 2 I want it. I’m going for the mother. That scamming bitch and her precious flower shop? I’m shooting it up. Whoever lives, lives. Whoever dies, dies.” Jimin shrugs, smirking as he leans back in his spot.
“ Day 3, for me I’m sending another message. One of their men is gonna die in my god damn hands. I’ll be sure to take a selfie and send it to the father. The body will lay hanging on that pretty little oak tree in their yard.” Taehyung says. The boys are roar with shock that he’s said that. Normally he doesn’t like touching a dead body, so it’s a change for him.
The boys continue listing off the days and assigned tasks for the rest of the night into the wee early morning. Namjoon left after his, of course going straight to his girls apartment. They don’t judge him, seeing as though the boy really is in love and knows when and how to handle it. He definately doesn’t mix business and his love life together, unlike his other hyung. Soon enough the banter and socializing ends and it’s time for Yoongi first.
Night 1
It doesn’t take long for Yoongi to find the place. The empty steets of Seoul have soon faded into just dirt roads with the city left behind. The humming of his porsche echos through the night time air. Yoongi takes one final turn, making sure to pull into the place slowly like a true hunter keeping it’s eye on its prey. It’s not a full house tonight, even better.
Taking the jug of gasoline out his car, he carries it with ease up to the empty warehouse. The wildlife outside don’t make a noise. As if they know who’s approaching and just shut right up. Forty degrees fahrenheit outside and lastnight’s snowfall piled all around.The darkness outside is haunting, anything could pop out at any second to kill the man. That doesn’t scare him at all. Darkness is always what he crave. Inside and out.
“ Sir.. do you want us to go in with you?”
Yoongi stops dead in his tracks. He’d almost forgotten about the back-up men Jungkook ordered for him. It’s not like he needed them anyways, but since Jungkook can’t be there with Yoongi, that was the next best choice.
Rolling his eyes without turning around,“ No. Wait in your cars. I’ll handle it on my own.”
Just like that. The boys are off like lightening. Yoongi takes one final step towards the two double doors, and begins to pour the gasoline at it’s starting point. Usually, he’d go from the inside out, but seeing as though he wanted them to scurry out fearing for their lives, this is the next option as well. Soon enough, the enire jug is empty and he’s now poured all of it around the outside of the warehouse. Leaves crunch with every step he makes back to the starting point. Part of him hopes they can’t hear him from the outside. It’ll ruin the plans.
The lighter in his pocket feels so smoothe against his palms as he reaches for it. It’s one of his signature ones with his initials on it. An andrenaline rush runs through his veins as flicks the ignition with his thumb. The flame all bright and orange as he stands there infront of the building. It’s going to be a damn good night.
Without hesitating, Yoongi runs his fingers through his hair and throws the lighter right onto the gasoline puddles. The way the whole ring of fire lights up infront of his eyes makes him laugh hysterically while watching the whole building go into flames. The loud crackling sounds of the now decomposing warehouse jumps him back into reality.
He heads right towards the big tree next to the right of the warehouse, leaning on it with one foot up against it with his hands crossed. That sinister smile doesn’t leave his face. He enjoys the view of the men from the inside running out as fast as they can. Some falling in the ring of fire in the process. The fire is no match for any human as they try to stop drop and roll. Ha, as if that would work with a 15 foot fire consuming the warehouse. The dead bodies pile up on their own, just burning in the fire over their simple mistakes of falling and thinking they would survive the fire.
Until the golden egg comes out. He’s furious as runs out perfectly, as if he’s been through this, without managing to catch on fire. Yoongi chuckles, leaning off the tree. “ Kang Dong-Woo.”
Usually Yoongi would use the honorfics to people who were much older than him. In this case though, he doesn’t deserve honorifics.
“ Min Yoongi.” He says, harshness laced within his voice. Dongwoo frowns when nearing the man. He knows what Yoongi is capable of, and that’s what sets his fight for flight into action.
“ Let’s get straight to it. Your daughter is after our leader. She seems to be doing the dirty work for you yeah? Did you not train her enough? Of course you know she wont be able to live after this right?”
Dongwoo laughs right into Yoongi’s face as if he was joking. It angers Yoongi, so he grabs Dongwoo by the shirt and drags the man over to the fire where he kicks the back of his legs to where he’s kneeling inches away from it.
“ I don’t think this is a laughing matter, Dongwoo.” He growls, tightening his grip around Dongwoo’s arms that are behind his back. “ You want to die?”
“ She’s gonna fuck you all over.” He growls.” You may think she’s not capable of finishing off you guys one by one, but she is. I raised and trained her since a kid. She’s stronger with more energy than me. She’ll kill you all when you least expect it.”
Yoongi rolls his eyes at him.” The dumb bitch can’t even shoot right. Going for someone else knowing Jungkook would save them is an ameteur move. Should’ve went straight for his damn head.”
“ I’ll make sure she’ll bring you guys hell Min Yoongi. All of you. Tell that shit to Jungkook and his daddy for me alright?” He mocks, laughing again at the boy to taunt him.
Yoongi doesn’t care for it. He’s had enough of this foolish talk. With one swift move he kicks the man’s back making him fall down to the left side, away from the fire. He’s lost it. He’s totally lost it at this point and there is no going back. Kick after kick after kick, he doesn’t stop. No. Not until the Dongwoo is sure to cough up blood. The crimson liquid poors from his mouth as he lays there. No remorse is felt.
Besides, the bastard bitch needed to get the message. Consider it message recieved.
Night 2
The flower shop is full, but not full to its entirety. There's tons of different bouquets and arrangements set around the pretty shop, from what he can see from the outside. It’s almost closing time, an hour left. Jimin’s fingertips grip on the steering wheel, anxious but patient to make his move. He’s running off of pure adrenaline and 2 cans of monster that are crushed and sitting in the passenger seat. Waiting isn’t his forte and he’d honestly like to get this show on the road now.
The moon is out and shining bright tonight. A sigh escapes his lips when he glances again at the shop. The only reason he’s not done it yet is due to the fact that there is a child and his mother inside. Rule number 2 of Bangtan, injure no child. The price to pay if you were to break the rule? Simply it would cost you your own damn life.
As if time would of went any slower for the boy, the child and his mother finally made their transaction and made it out of the store, heading across the street to continue their journey of shopping. It’s go time.
He knew to come prepared with his bulletproof vest and full face ski mask, long Sleeve black shirt to cover all the markings he has and also the two tattoos on each of his arms. He knew that the little lady wouldn’t be so dumb to not carry, or at-least have someone inside that would be her undercover security. Considering who her husband is, there’s no way she won’t be protected.
Oh how innocent the people look to not know what’s coming next. Jimin loads his Glock 19 with golden bullets that have Bangtan Boys initials and symbols on it just before pulling his mask down and getting out the car. He makes sure to signal his back-up men to create a distraction so he could make his entrance. Sure enough, a loud boom in the near distance of what sounds like some type of construction falling, echos loudly. It turns heads from all around to look where the sound came from, making it easy for Jimin to slide into the flower-shop.
Not a sound made by him. He draws his gun and pulls the safety off the trigger, then cocks it. Eyes are all on him as his eyes shift around the room looking for his target. There she is, eyes wide in the middle of a transaction for two middle aged couple. His eyes set into hers, lowly smiling and pointing it at her. The way everyone frantically screams and cries out doesn’t phase Jimin, no. It just encourages him even more as he starts firing shots mid air, shooting any and every person in sight for the hell of it. Bodies drop to the ground, and the bloodbath begins.
Jimin doesn’t hesitate to step over everybody, eyes still set on his target. The middle aged couple’s shrieks were cut short by their bodies dropping to the ground with three shots each to their hearts.
“ Park J-” He cuts her crying off with a finger to his lips, daring her to say his name in public. She gets the memo. “ I wouldn’t if I were you.”
The barrel is pressed against her temple as she trembles with fear. He cocks his head to the side, smiling at her when he taps the gun against her head harshly, repeatedly. “ You know why I’m here.”
“ You kill me and she will murder you all.”
Jimin chuckles, “ That’s what you guys think. We don’t have time for your gimmicks. It was you guys who stole money from us. Why did you think you’d still be protected from the law from us? Getting your daughter to go for the leader first is dumb, like the rest of you.”
“ We almost went to prison for you guys, remember that? We needed that cut money from you guys to pay off our legal fees. Thats why we stole. We completed your dirty work while trying to pay off the fees, its the least you guys could of did as a reward.”
“ That’s not how it would’ve worked. You fucked up. All of you.”
With two shots to the leg, she falls into Jimins arms. He rolls his eyes and throws his body off of him and onto the floor. It’s going to be a headache trying to explain to the dry cleaners why there is blood stains on his designer ripped jeans.
Night 3
It was too easy, way too easy. It took nothing to lure that man right into Taehyung’s trap. Nothing but a simple few slick comments made to him for him to get a riled up at the wrong person. Taehyung had spotted the man prior heading into the park with a small duffle bag. He assumed it was for a night trade off for some other person who had delivered drugs for him. Nontheless, it was merely too easy to pose as the alleged person who completed the mission.
A rookie. That guy must’ve been a rookie.
When the money was handed off to Taehyung, he tossed it to the side and struck the man down. The two did fight on the concrete floor for a bit but the man was no match for Taehyung’s quick moves. Taehyung’s pocket knife dances around the man’s throat as his body is pinned to the ground.
“ Rookie mistake not verifying if I’m the real one.” He chuckles, pressing the blade against the mans neck. The man pleads for his life but it’s no use. Message must be sent, that it’s no way you’ll fuck around with Bangtan and escape.
“ You know, I would’ve trained you more than Dongwoo. Letting the weakest link go run an errand? Ha. Your boss set you up for that one.”
Although the man is merely innocent, it doesn’t stop Taehyung from slicing into the man’s neck. A blood curdling scream comes out, but soon hushed over as his will of breathing and screaming is cut. It’s music to Tae’s ears.
The body is transfered per request of Taehyung to his back-up men. It’s not like him to touch a bloody dead body. So they take him into the back of their car and follow Taehyung to the residential house of the shooter. Nothing more than 10 minutes away.
The lights are cut off in the neighborhood. Not a sound made other than the two cars coming down the street. Everyone seems to be at peace and quiet in their homes. Sleeping to say the least. Upon arrival, Taehyung parks his car right infront of the house. The back-up men drag the bloody body out the car and onto their lawn, placing it right under the oak tree.
Taehyung takes the rope be brought along with him, and begins to tie multiple knots around a sturdy branch from the tree. When done, he wraps some of the rope around the dead boy’s neck, tying it into a slipknot and hoists him up high into the air.
The body dangles from the tree like a flag waving in the sky proud and high. He signals for the boys that the assignment is done and that they’re free to leave. Taehyung though, he just sits back in admiration of his work. It’s been a while sinice he felt this way. So he stands there soaking it all in.
Message recieved.
Since it’s been three entire days of hell, Jungkook knew his day will be approaching faster than ever. If only it could get here faster though. Truth is, Won-Shik isn’t too happy about Jungkook’s plan still not being complete. At this point, the father is going against him any chance he gets to just get this over with.
Luckily, tonight he’d be able to meet with his father again with some good news. It hasn’t been brought to his attention yet about your father being in Taiwan. With the technology of Won-Shik’s men, your father could be brought here within 12 hours tops.
“ Father.” Jungkook says, entering his office doors. The boy fixes his leather jacket upon entering and places his hands back into his pockets. “ I have news.”
Won-Shik is one to not play around with. Interupting his office time is a big, big deal. One is to not enter without it being urgency. That rule still applies to the heir of the company. “ It better be damn good because your plan isn’t getting anywhere Jeon Jungkook.”
Won-Shik takes his glasses off and sets them to the side on his desk. Its full of papers and photos of himself and Jungkook when he was a child. His favorite one right in the middle, where Jungkook had just ate some cherry flavored ice cream and his lips were all red as he smiled for the camera showing his two front teeth. It reminded him of when Jungkook was easier to manage rather as to now where he’s a damn menace.
“ Taiwan. Her father is in Taiwan. I don’t think it’s Taipei though.. he’s hiding so a city wouldn’t be ideal. I say search the mountains first, then the city.”
Bringing this proposal to the table meant that Jungkook wanted to atleast gain his father’s trust back. Hell, he wanted all this to be over with by now because you were driving him crazy to the point where he’s beginning to actually forget who the hell he was and why he was assigned this mission. The plan was not to fall, but to complete. He’d be lying if he wasn’t knee deep in love with you right now. It all comes down to him protecting you from his father at this point.
“ So your little plan is suddenly working huh.. still doesn’t mean she gets to run free Jungkook.” He says, smirking at the boy to challange him. Jungkook knew that. Once it’s proven that your father is the snitch, all of the family dies.
You’re innocent. Too innocent to know that or to be even tangled in that mafia mess of his. Part of him wishes he never met you and never had been assigned this mission. Then everything would be so damn different and emotions wouldn’t be caught up in this. From the moment he met you, he knew it would be hard. You have always held a special part in his heart. Only because you acted just like his mother. Sweet, but sassy and it hurt him a lot on how you remind him of her. You even word your words just like her, even when upset. Everything about you, is just like her.
It was hard to not get attached to wanting to get to know you more. Somehow he thought that if he got to know you, he’d somehow fill that hole inside him of his mother’s disappearance. As if you were going to be his new replica as you would be the one to put a band-aid on that hole to patch it up.
Here you are, not knowing you could die any moment and it will all be thanks to Jeon Jungkook, who couldn’t save you fast enough.
“ I know. But she’s innocent. She doesn’t even know her dad worked with us. I swear she doesn’t.” Jungkook bites his lip in hopes that there could be someway to save you by the hands of your father.
“ I dont care!” He roars, jumping out his seat. Jungkook flinches, backing up a bit from the sudden outburst. “ You know not to mix business and pleasure. You reap what you sew. You get to pay the consequences.”
Jungkook knew that though.
“ Father-”
“ Nothing more. I’ll have my team start the search right now. You on the other hand, get you god-damn shit together Jungkook. You’re the heir, not a damn lover-boy. Got it?”
It is no use of arguing with him. Jungkook looks down at the ground and nods his head yes just before Won-Shik dismisses him. It’s going to hurt. Seeing you dead. He hopes for a miracle can happen, that your father will not be the snitch. That you and him could live happily ever after. There will no be any happily ever after about this situation though. One will die. Just a matter of who it will be.
The vibrating sensation in his pocket snaps him out of his trance. An incoming call from Namjoon. It’s alarming since today is Namjoon’s day of hell, and only one thing could be happening right now if he’s calling for Jungkook.
There’s been a mistake.
“ What is it Namjoon.”
“ She fucking outsmarted me. The bitch caught on to where my location would be for the next kill. I don’t know where the fuck she is Jungkook.. this is bad.”
Jungkook sighs heavily, closing his eyes while letting out strings of curses come from his mouth. Shit couldn’t get possibly worse than this right now. Namjoon said he’d wanted to go straight for the killer and bust her up a bit. Give her some words and a branding on her. He had wanted to do it with a knife, carving the initals of Bangtan Boys into her upper hip. Namjoon had zero problem tracking her next location down, as he had been keeping an eye on her all day. To him, it seemed as if she would be heading to an orchestra shop in the city. Every step she took, Namjoon took it too.
Until she rounded the corner to go inside the shop and she wasn’t there. There wasn’t any outlet. The shop was on a dead end street surrounded by other shops that they both had passed. There was no way she didn’t go back, he would of saw it. He saw her go into the store, so she had to be there right?
Wrong. You see she knew all this time that Namjoon was followering her while in disguise. The orchestra shop where she led him to, she knew the owner. They were good friends. She had spoken to him asking if that she could use his upstairs office to read over some of the newest edition of music pieces for her to practice. He obliged, and she made up there in time before Namjoon came inside.
Up there, she’d be lying if she wasn’t scared to death. All this week the boys had definately given her hell. Each day with zero remorse. It was taking a toll on her for sure. Taking up this assignment by herself wasn’t something easy but she wanted to prove to him that she can be just like him. That she wanted to work with him too to take down Bangtan for decieving them and leaving them in the dust.
She can’t do it. The boys are to expierenced for her. It’s a bad mistake that she cannot come back from. You see, she thought it would be easy to befriend you and become close to you after you’d laid eyes upon Jungkook your first day here. She knew you’d soon fall for him, like any other girl did, and that would be her easy acess to him from you. It was all planned beforehand. To be quiet and observe you and your moves with him. In her mind, Jungkook needed to die first. The boys can’t function all that well without him, so that would be the weak spot to take advantage of if he would’ve died when she knew he’d take the bullet for you. She coudn’t shoot him first, it’d be too straightforward and blunt.
It was going all well. Deep in the inside she was jealous of you as well. Sungmin had been her crush for years, they even almost dated. Until you came along and he left her in the dust for you. Sungmin is everything she wanted in a boy, but you took that away from her. Her chances to date him ruined by you. It hurt everyday to see him head over heels in love with you, when that was just her at one point before you came along. Not only that, but she seen the way you play with Sungmin’s emotions. It made her upset that you do that. Sungmin’s love is a drug, whether it be friendship love or romantic, nobody can get enough of it.
All this stressed her out to her max. Her family being hurt because of her, her mom unable to walk for the next few weeks is all because of her. Only cause she cannot complete this task she brought onto herself. As if being in danger because of Won-Shik and Bangtan wasn’t enough beforehand, she just made things worse all in all. There is no way out of this for her and her family. So it’s time to just accept it and say goodbye to it all and start a new life.
“ I’ll find her. You wait at the base and I’ll report back to you guys after I find her. When I do, you will come and finish your damn task Namjoon. Do you hear me?” Jungkook’s beyond pissed at this point. If it wasn’t for him, the boys would be lost as fuck without him.
He shoots Casper a text, letting him know that he is to follow him closely as he searches for her. To his luck, Casper was already outside his apartment building in his car. Not long after he pops those contacts in and changes his outfit again, he’s cruising the streets of Seoul in his midnight purple lamborghini.
The pain in his shoulder throbs with each turn he has to make with the wheel of his car. A little pain medicine would of helped beforehand, but rushing to get this shit over with was more important. This bitch definately has it coming. It’s been taking Jungkook these past few days to not just up and kill her. No that would just be too easy. Torture and marinating her to lose her shit at the last minute is something so satisfying to him.
The streets of Seoul soon end behind him and the Mappo Bridge comes into view. It had been an a whole hour searching around the areas of where she could’ve been, including where she was last seen. No sights of her at all. She’s good at this for sure. Text messages are sent back and forth between the boys and Jungkook. They’re all on edge, tired, and frustrated at this chasing game that they’re all playing.
He’d almost missed it. The body walking alongside the side-walk of the bridge with their head hanging low and hoodie on. It’s the hoodie of his school, but most importantly it has their class graduation year on it. It has to be her. Jungkook flashes his hazard lights on, letting Casper know to pull over with him.
It’s now or never.
After sending the text to Namjoon, he’s out the car and jogging towards the suspect. Height, body type, and shoes match the alleged identity. It seems she’s too into something to notice the extra footsteps behind her. He can’t do anything to her though, it’s not his night.
“ Kang Minlee.”
She stops dead in her tracks as if a ghost had called her name. Frozen, she stands there contemplating on running or staying. If she runs, she’s dead. If she stays, shes dead.
“ You think..” He pauses, grabbing her arm and turning her around to face him. Her face is red from crying and her glasses all fogged up from underneath her mask. For a split second, Jungkook does feel regret.
Killing a classmate of his wasn’t something he’d ideally let happen. But it’s far too late to not have her killed off. “ You think that running away is the best option?”
Minlee trembles underneath his grip, “ I made a mistake. Please just let me go. Let me and my family go and we’ll leave you alone forever.” She breaks down into tears, placing her hand over his in attempt to let her go.
It didn’t hurt Jungkook to see her like this. All in all it just feels weird to him. Weird to have one of his classmates begging for her life to be spared from the gruesome events to come.
“ You know I can’t do that.” It honestly can’t be an option at this point. It’d be better to just continue out her days of hell with her family. “ You came for me, that means you die.”
Finally she jerks her arm back from his still in tears as she starts to back away slowly. Jungkook knew that she wouldn’t run. Not in this case. Letting her cry it out was the best way, hell it’s the only way because Namjoon would be here any minute to brand her. It would mean she belonged to Bangtan after that, and she’d have to keep quiet as they planned out her death.
Her sudden movement from the ground to climbing up the railing of the bridge alarms Jungkook. She cries louder when Jungkook comes closer to getting her down so he stops. Suicide? Right now? What happened to being all big and bold? It confuses Jungkook as to why she would take her own life right now. Either way she’d still end up dead and unhappy if Bangtan would kill her or she’d kill herself.
“ Jungkook!” She semi-yells, pointing to the direction behind him as another guy approaches them. Just in time, the sound of Namjoon’s car can be heard from afar. He’s getting close.
The guy she’s pointed to is Casper, who’s also alarmed at the fact that she’s close to the edge right now. Jungkook holds his hand up at Casper for him to stop right there and shakes his head, meaning that it’s too risky for Casper to step in right now. Casper nods and Jungkooks turns back to the scene.
“ Don’t you think that I’ve suffered enough? Everyday you guys give me hell. My mom can’t walk because of you guys, and my dad has health issues. You left us in the dust when we needed your support the most! I was almost put up for adoption a year ago because of you!” She sobs, wiping her never ending tears with her hoodie sleeves.
Jungkook doesn’t know what to say, or do. It’s not like him to have sympathy over a rival. It’s just not in him at this very moment.
Minlee continues on, “ Yn? She took what’s mine. My Sungmin. She plays with his heart and it hurts him a lot. I wouldn’t have did that. But no, he’s head over heels in love with him. I got left in the dust when she came along and it looks like everyone loves her, including you Jungkook. My friendgroup does anything and everything she wants because she’s just oh so little miss perfect. That was supposed to be me!”
There it is. The jealousy. Jungkook would have never known it. It’s all news and shock to him. Sungmin and Minlee? Didn’t seem like a match to begin with.
Her dramatic meltdown continues on, but Jungkook allows it. Namjoon will be here any minute to sneakily get her down. Where is he and why the hell is he taking so long?
As if on cue, Namjoon pulls up to the scene and immediately gets out his car running towards the girl. Jungkook waves his hands for him to stop, eyes wide with a finger to his lips. The last thing he wanted was for the girl to jump. A death from their school? Surely was to be put on him and his boys.
Namjoon stops infront of Jungkook’s car, confused as to what’s going on. Jungkook mouthes to him the words suicide attempt. That’s when Namjoon gets it and decides to let him handle getting her down.
“ Yeah it was meant to be you. But I plan to take Yn away anyways. Then you and Sungmin could come together again.” Jungkook’s convincing isn’t convincing enough, she doesn’t buy it at all.
“ If I get down I’m going to die. There is no escaping that within the next few days i’d be dead in your hands. I made a mistake and there is no going back. Spare my parents. Let them live. I’m the one that started this. I’ll be the one to finish it.”
The girl lifts one foot off the railing and leans backwards. Jungkook’s breath hitches along with Namjoons. No. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
“ Kang Minlee!” They both scream, running towards her. It’s too late though. Her body falls gracefully down as all three of them watch over the railing. She looks peaceful, a smile on her face while her body is sprawled out in the air.
Inches before she hits the water, the three of the boys look away with only the sound of dense water splashing to fill their ears. Namjoon sighs, putting his hands against his head. Jungkook stands there in complete shock. Casper, well Casper just shakes his head knowing the two boys weren’t prepared for that.
“ We fucked up Jungkook.”
“ I fucking know that Namjoon.” His voice cracks. It isn’t like Jungkook to cry. No not at all. Especially for a target like that. At the end of the day she was human and she did what any daughter would do for her family.
She was also your friend.
You hadn’t heard about her death yet the next day. It’s a normal saturday morning for you. This time you’d decided to go to the cafe with your laptop and write your essay for your Psychology class. The cafe is nice, it’s cat themed and has some pretty kittens running around the outside of the kitchen and customer service area.
As soon as you order and sit down with your Caramel frappe you spot a white kitten laying near you on the floor. A smile comes upon your face when it comes to you when you call for it. They don’t have these in Canada. Cat Cafes. The kitten lets out his purrs when you rub his back as he lays across your lap. The nametag says Mochi, a cute name for a cute kitten.
Minutes seem to pass by without your knowledge. You’d been too into typing to hear the news on the tv being broadcasted live. It wasn’t until you heard suicide of a teenage student on Mappo Bridge. That got your attention.
You listen carefully as the news reporter goes into detail of how the body was found. It had gotten caught on a rock as the stream moved it around. A mother had found it with her kid as they walked across the bridge that early morning to look at beautiful water. It saddens you to know someone took their life. Maybe if that person had access to getting help, they’d live to see many more days.
When they announce the name and show a school picture of the student, the look on your face drops.
Minlee. It’s Minlee on the screen. Its all too much for you right now. Your stomach twists and turns along with your hands that begin fidgeting. She seemed so healthy and happy these past few days when you saw her. It didn’t add up. It wasn’t going to ever add up to you that you had just lost one of your new friends.
Packing your things up in a hurry, your phone begins to go off with a bunch of text messages at a time. You know it could be the groupchat. What you wanted to the most right now, is to go home to cry and calm down. You shove everything in your backpack and place the kitten back on the floor nicely before taking off towards the door. You bump into somebody on the way out, causing them to drop a picture in their hand. The two of you both reach to pick it up, but they pick it up first before you.
“ I’m sorr-”
You’ve seen her before. Long curled hair, big dimple on her left cheek, and bangs.
There’s no fucking way.
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All the Youkaimatsus so far
JExcept sets that have all of them as the same youkais (Nekomata, Tanuki and the various Kitsune sets from Tabimatsu)
Pinup Poster from the Osomatsu Character Book #6 (July 2016)
A classic. The very first iteration of Youkaimatsu. Kind of hard to find since it was a bonus poster from the character book, so unless you were actively looking for the book, you wouldn’t find this.
Osomatsu - Kitsune (unknown how many tails he has but is often depicted in fan artworks as 6 or 9, 9 meaning strongest/wisest a kitsune has been, Spirit Fox)
Karamatsu - Karasu-Tengu (pun on Kara, Bird Man)
Choromatsu - Dodomeki (usually a woman cursed with long arms littered with many bird eyes because of greed. Most popular one imo)
Ichimatsu + ESP Nyanko - Nekomata (Two-tailed cat, legend says that cats who live longer than a 100 years gain a second tail)
Jyushimatsu - Rokurobi (available in two flavors. Long Neck and Floating Head. He is the former. Theorized to not actually be a youkai but created for entertainment. Also used as a literary device for a wandering soul.)
Todomatsu - Yukki Onna (Also a joke on Todo being scared stiff. Yuki Onna pull tricks on humans that usually end on the person’s death via cold. Has a harsh and soft side)
Youkai Units from The Great Youkai War event from Hesokuri Wars (November 2016)
Most popular Youkaimatsu set, this baby could get milked for miles, but for some reason isn’t. Has a lot of variants (Awakened, Darkness, Snow, Sakura and Hyakki Yagyou) and connected to a lot of other sets: Denki Mystery, Colorless Overalls, Mononoke and a bunch of others. She is the top DOGG set.
Osomatsu - Shuten-Douji (Oni Leader with a penchance for Sake, literally carrying a big ass bottle of it on his back, since he is the leader of the sextuplets and the one seen drinking beer the most)
Karamatsu - Aoandon (Summoned after 100 supernatural stories are told. Originated from the blue (ao) paper lanterns (andon) that were sometimes used to give a chilling atmosphere)
Choromatsu - Daitengu (Great Tengu, Tengus were theorized to be ascended souls, but also has its origins in a Dog Beast that looked like a comet. For some reason Dog Beast turned into Bird Man. The bird man’s beak is often anthropomorphized into long noses. Tells humanity to behave by throwing invisible stones at them)
Ichimatsu - Nine-tailed Kitsune (So wise. So powerful)
Jyushimatsu - Inugami (Dog God that possesses people)
Todomatsu - Bake-Danuki (also known as tanuki, mischievous spirits, mostly known in pop culture for their BIG FAT NUTS)
Dayon is a miko, a shrine maiden. Hatabou is an Onmyoji, an exorcist, Dekapan is a kannushi, a shrine priest. Totoko and Iyami are regular civillians
Youkai Hyakki Yagyou merchandise from Animate Girls Festival (September 2017)
One of the lesser known sets, considering that it’s just designs for a line of merch but their designs are so good? Why don’t people use these designs more often.
Osomatsu - Karasu-Tengu
Karamatsu - Nine-tailed fox
Choromatsu - Shuten-Douji (A possible reference to Season 1 Episode 2 where he gets the most drunk?)
Ichimatsu - Mizuchi (Legendary Water Serpent/Dragon)
Jyushimatsu - Kamaitachi (Beast that rides on dust devils. Cuts people using it’s scythe-like nails. The wounds are sharp but painless)
Todomatsu - Ungaikyou (A haunted mirror that can be used to trap spirits. The spirits in the ungaikyou can manipulate the reflection shown on it’s reflection.)
Kitsune Servant Set from Tabimatsu (September 2017)
Ok I know I said I wouldn’t cover the Kitsune sets from Tabimatsu since there are like 5 different Kitsune sets, but this one is noteworthy cause they have secondary Youkai traits other than the regular kitsune traits.
Osomatsu - Oni’s horns
Karamatsu - Tengu’s wings
Choromatsu - Orochi around his neck
Ichimatsu - True Kitsune (Or Nekomata’s paw?)
Jyushimatsu - Wanyudo (Flaming Wheel)
Todomatsu - I don’t know, but there’s something around his neck?
Japanese Youkai set from Shimamatsu (January 2018)
Shimamatsu was such a good game, what a shame it ended so soon. The 3D models were so cute. Edit: The two designs are from before and after evolution!
Osomatsu - Enma-san (A wrathful god in charge of judging souls in the afterlife. Resides over hell)
Karamatsu - Yamato no Orochi (Eight headed and Eight-tailed serpent/dragon)
Choromatsu - Kamaitachi (wields an actual scythe)
Ichimatsu - Youkai Catman or a Bakaneko (Catboy, furry)
Jyushimatsu - Yobuko (lives in the mountains, repeats whatevers shouted into the mountain, explains the phenomemon of Echos)
Todomatsu - Yuki Otoko (Snowman, a Yuki Onna basically)
“Inn” Osoma and Choroe from Osomatsu Season 2 Episode 17
A BUNCH OF PEOPLE REMINDED ME AND HOW COULD I FORGET THE BEST YOUKAI EVER. Osoma baby,,,, I’m so sorry..... Srsly, this skit was so good, I hope they make more skits like this where they make entirely new characters out of the framework of the sextuplets.
Osoma - A Zashiki-warashi, child spirits who live in store rooms or extra rooms, they died buried in their homes. Pranksters but meeting one is said to bring good fortunes to families. Osoma gets crossovered a lot with the other Youkai sets in JP fanart. A popular pairing is Dodomeki Chorosuke (from Denki Mystery) and Osoma also Kitsune Osomatsu (from the poster) and Osoma.
Choroe - Not necessarily a youkai, in fact in the episode she’s presented as just a regular human. But is theorized often to be a Yama-uba. An old woman banished to the mountains. She provides shelter to weary travelers (in the myth it’s just a humble shelter but you know. an inn is also considered a shelter) before eating them. In one story she eats the recently birthed baby of a woman who had to give birth in the mountains.
Mononoke from Hesokuri Wars (May 2019)
Technically they are all the same type of being, Mononoke, but they look different from each other. Mononoke can posses individuals and cause suffereing and even death. And technically they aren’t Youkais but Onryos, vengeful spirits. But Onryos can also be used to refer to youkais and truthfully I just wanna include this set cause their designs are so cool looking. This set’s attacks contain glimpses of units of other sets.
Osomatsu - Bear themed
Karamatsu - Wolf themed
Choromatsu - Rooster/Chicken themed
Ichimatsu - Spider
Jyushimatsu - Boar
Todomatsu - Bull or Ox
Edo Rock The Great Youkai Harvest Festival from Tabimatsu (October 2019)
This set is interesting cause rather than youkai alone, they are also musicians. This set also has another set like Hesokuri called The Great Youkai NEET which is basically the awakened versions, properly showcasing more of the youkai traits.
Osomatsu - Shuten-Douji (Again, we need to stage an intervention for you damn)
Karamatsu - Karasu-Tengu (Again)
Choromatsu - Mizuchi (actually riding said serpent)
Ichimatsu - Black Kitsune (Hot Topic, Goth version)
Jyushimatsu - Frog. Just. Frog. (could be a reference to the legend of Jiraiya, the ninja who could shapeshift into a frog/ride big frogs. His mouth is cover just like a ninja is too.)
Todomatsu - Kamaitachi (could be a reference to season 1 where Todomatsu wields a scythe)
Iyami - Oni (not sure if he’s any particular oni but he does have the horns and metal club)
Atsushi - Ibaraki-Douji? (White hair and singular horn, most imporant servant of Shuten-Douji)
Promo Merch from Sega Cafe collab (September 2020)
Edit: Thank you @zenryokubatankyu for notifying me! Another set of promo youkais! You can get them by random by ordering a drink or meal at the now-defunct Sega x Osomatsu collab cafe. And the return of F6? Damn I haven’t seen you since Season 2!
Osomatsu - Oni
Karamatsu - I’m not exactly sure but he seems like a Mizuchi, a water serpent/dragon. He also could be another legendary serpent/dragon though.
Choromatsu - Kappa
Ichimatsu + ESP Nyanko - Karasu-Tengu
Jyushimatsu - I’m not sure, at first i thought it might be a crab youkai judging from the legs, but upon closer inspection he has spider webs on his robes, so they may be spider legs instead. Could be a Jorogumo, a youkai that wields fire breathing spiders with it’s spider legs
Todomatsu - Bakaneko (I think? The veil could be the napkin a bakaneko puts on it’s head)
Ayakashi Sextuplet’s Retro Halloween Cafe merch from Web Kuji (October 2020)
Thank you @gradelstuff for telling me about this! Ayakashi are Youkai that appear above nearby bodies of water. Although the youkais they’re dressed up as (or are?) aren’t really what you would call ayakashi? Although it’s cafe themed, it isn’t actually from a cafe collaboration. These designs are merchandise meant to be won through lottery. So if say you really love Kara and Choro’s designs (I do), then tough luck buddy!
Osomatsu - Oni
Karamatsu - Now you may think he’s Dodomeki since he’s covered with eyes, but turns out there are two other eye-relateed youkai! Mokumokuren is a youkai phenomenon where eyes appear from torn paper walls and tatami floors, initially i thought this was it given the checkered pattern he was wearing. But he might actually be a Hyakume, a youkai covered head to toe in yellow eyes specifically. Underneath those eyes is a body of flesh roughly in the shape of a man. This Youkai isn’t particularly malicious, only detaching one of it’s many eyes to follow you and survey you for criminal activiy. He might also be a BackBeard, a youkai allegedly from the US, err that would make him a cryptid I guess? A Backbeard is often characterized as a shadow with a Yellow eye with a red iris in the center. Note: Backbeard’s true origins are not known as there doesn’t seem to be any cryprid called a Backbeard, it first entered the Japanese public eye as an antogonist in the show Gegege no Kitaro. Although ever since then this “yokai” has appeared in other media and games in Japan.
Choromatsu - He isn’t exactly dressed as it (only themed as it) but the youkai he represents is the one he’s holding, a Kasa-obake, One of my favorite youkais and it’s literally iconic. Thought to be a Tsukomogami, an object that gains a spirit after it turns 100 years old.
Ichimatsu - Edit: I’m not sure but he might be a Kuchisake-Onna. In the description attached to his teaser, it makes mention of specifically his wide smile, his dos dagger and his beautiful shirt. A kuchisake onna is a yokai that wanders in the street covering her face with a mask (skull mask for ichi) and a sharp object (his dos dagger). TW GORE DESCRIPTION: She asks you if you think she’s attractive and depending on your answer she muders you with her scissors, plunging it into you OR she takes off her mask showing her wide smile, her mouth slit at the corners to her ears and asks “how about now?” and depending on your reaction she cuts you in half with her sharp object OR she slits the corners of your mouth to look like hers. END DESCRIPTION. Ichi has the mask, sharp object, wide smile and “attractiveness”. Obviously it would be inappropriate to portray ichi in the same fashion as the kuchisake onna so he was probably given the internal organ tattoos to represent the gory yokai. (internal organs usually = gore in japan). This is speculah and he might be another youkai but this is all i can think of rn.
Jyushimatsu - sailor themed Jiangshi. Jiangshi are basically Zombies originally from Chinese culture. They hop around, and crave for life force. this little jyushimatsu has taken to tomato juice instead. (Bonus: the zombie that osomatsu is in the zombie set in hesokuri wars is also a Jiangshi)
Todomatsu - Kitsune (sly fox)
“The Night Path” Youkai from Osomatsu-san Season 3 Episode 6 (November 2020)
The latest and what sparked me to make this post tbh. This set reuses the Rokurobi design from the very first Youkaimatsu iteration! Full circle yo! I like to think of this set as an addition to the original youkaimatsu, since they’re both from the primary sources.
Jyushimatsu - Rokurobi (Again)
Totoko - Amabie (mermaid with three legs? prophesized about either good harvest or an epidemic, trivia: “Amabie” trended when Covid 19 hit the world)
Hatabou - Azukiarai (a youkai that originated from the sound of something like beans being washed near a river, anyone who comes near will fall into the river)
Dayon - Nopperabou (Faceless spirits that take the form of humans. They are harmless usually, they just scare humans)
Dekapan - Kappa (Mischievous River spirits)
That should be all of them!
Recap:
Osomatsu has been a Kitsune, Shuten-Douji (twice), Karasu-Tengu, Enma-san and an Oni
Karamatsu has been a Karasu-Tengu (twice), Aoandon, Kitsune, Yamato no Orochi and a Mizuchi (?)
Choromatsu has been a Dodomeki, Daitengu, Shuten-Douji, Kamaitachi, Mizuki and a Kappa (No repeats!)
Ichimatsu has been a Nekomata, Kitsune (twice), Mizuchi, Bakaneko and a Karasu-Tengu
Jyushimatsu has been a Rokurobi (twice-ish), Inugami, Kamaitachi, Yobuko, a Frog from Jiraiya and a Jorogumo (?)
Todomatsu has been a Yuki Onna (twice), Bake-danuki, Ungaikyou, Kamaitachi and a Bakaneko
You can definitely see a trend (lmao), I’m looking forward to more Youkaimatsus from Osomatsu-san!
bonus:
Osomatsu-san cameo from Yokai Watch!!!
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Do you have a robot master OC (of the eight plus Drum) that you’d say is your favorite? If you haven’t done an infodump for them yet then you should do that one next
i couldn't choose a favourite if i tried, i love them all, but since you mentioned drum i thought i'd give her some new art and a proper dedicated post too! infodrump [ayyy] under the cut
drum, serial number SWN-002, is my take on the popular [????? i'm still a bit of a mega man fandom newbie i don't know hjdfn] 'wily equivalent to roll' oc template! she keeps things running at the various castles and fortresses and hideouts and whatever else her dad holes up in, whether that's by doing housework, planning schemes, or dodging taxes. whenever wily is trying to take over the world, drum acts as his second-in-command, ensuring that everything goes according to plan and ordering around the latest group of robot masters
she's every bit the edgy mid-00s teenager she looks: sarcastic, apathetic, and always talking back to her dad. she's more obedient than bass is, but she doesn't care for her job at all and will resort to any flimsy excuse or act of malicious compliance she can come up with to slack off. due to her purpose as an organiser and commander, she's a bossy control freak who's quick to anger when things don't go exactly her way, although when she's off work the worst of these traits recede in favour of more conventional teenage apathy. she sees herself as above the time and effort it takes to go out of her way to be mean to people like wily and bass tend to do, but she's equally uninterested in being nice on purpose and her default attitude is squarely on the nastier side
when she doesn't have work to focus on - and sometimes when she does anyway - drum is the lead vocalist and guitarist in a garage band, of which she is [currently - a friend's ocs get involved later, but that's a whole different post] the only member. i'm not good with music terms but she's into whatever genre stuff like wake me up inside and crawling in my skin is [i know those aren't the names hdfjf it's just the words i know people will recognise]. the sort with the crunchy guitar and the very loud lyrics about being sad and/or angry. playing or blasting music helps her to calm down when she's in a bad mood, which is pretty much all the time. the first warning sign of a new wily plot is a spike in search popularity for my chemical romance
i haven't gotten around to designing it, but drum has a non-armoured form like most of the other more explicitly kid-like robots, which she mostly uses for loitering around malls when she has an excuse to not be at home. she rarely buys anything, just hangs out and radiates an aura that makes suburban white women hurry their three kids into the next shop. drum often ends up hanging out with like-minded teens in the same vague area of the goth/punk/emo venn diagram she occupies, and makes a bit of a game out of seeing how honest she can be about her life without revealing that she's one of the world's most wanted robots. she tells herself that it's just something she does out of boredom and curiosity towards humans, but it mostly stems from loneliness and the desire to have literally any friends that aren't her brother's dog
as a sort of contrast to the healthy and positive relationship between their lightbot counterparts, drum and bass absolutely DESPISE each other and make no secret of it. each of them thinks of the other as an insufferable prick and they'll get into petty arguments over just about anything, from whose turn it is on the xbox to who treble loves more. [for the record, it's drum. she lets him hang out in the kitchen while she's cooking and sneaks him food scraps when bass isn't looking. he's the only family member she has an even remotely positive relationship with.] pretty much the only thing that can get them to stop fighting is mutual hatred of a bigger prick, and so far the only person to consistently get them to put their differences aside like this is wily himself - as much as the wily kids hate each other, they hate their dad just a little more, and have a history of teaming up just to mess with him. sometimes mega man can spark that spiteful cooperation, but drum's total apathy towards the light-wily family rivalry means she usually sees him as not worth her time and just finds bass' obsession with beating him even more annoying
drum wasn't made for combat, and as such she doesn't have a signature weapon or any fancy tricks like the copy chip. usually she just orders other robots to do the fighting for her. however, she is equipped with a standard arm-mounted buster, and can hold her own in battle with a 'fight smarter, not harder' approach if she has to. she's also outfitted with the same treble adapter that bass has, so if she's backed into a corner she can call on him for a power boost. treble is capable of supporting both adapters simultaneously, so as an absolute last resort they can all combine into treble-boosted drum & bass, who theoretically has all the combat power of bass plus the strategic thinking from drum and the boost in power from treble. in practice, though, drum and bass are so at odds with each other that they can barely hold together in the same body without either fighting for control or outright splitting apart to argue harder. again, it takes a lot of spite to get them to work together, but if something draws their combined ire and convinces them to cooperate they're an utterly terrifying force to be reckoned with
the game idea i vaguely have in my mind would feature drum as the final-not-final boss before wily reveals he was the mastermind behind it all and surprises absolutely nobody. she was put in charge of the latest world domination attempt, probably as the result of a 'why don't YOU take over the world if you're so smart' conversation, and in true drum fashion she follows a standard wily plot outline to the letter - including the blatant flaws, like all eight of her chosen robot masters forming a rock-paper-scissors wheel just begging to be exploited by the copy chip, and making a clear path from just outside the death fortress to her base of operations. after she's defeated in combat, she sarcasically wonders aloud how mega man could have possibly bested her plan and then helpfully points rock directly to wily's castle. she didn't wanna do the stupid scheme in the first place
again, i love all my ocs too much to possibly choose a favourite, but i'd say drum was the most fun to come up with if only because i had the help of some mates in a discord server. someone was like 'hey if there's bass is there a roll equivalent called drum or something lol' and i SPRINTED to microsoft paint to rough out a character design and the next entire day was just a constant stream of all of us bouncing ideas off each other and creating the meanest girl in the universe. her design changed a little bit from the initial sketch, most notably she used to have the half-shaved hairstyle that every gay person tries at some point before that changed to a midpoint between phoenix wright and sonic the hedgehog, but overall everything about her as a character flowed really well from the start. while she's fallen mostly into my hands since the initial brainstorm, she absolutely wouldn't exist without those friends' input and i feel that that's important to mention!
i'm very tired and i've been working on this on and off for the past day so i'm gonna call the infodrump finished here - thanks for giving me the excuse to talk about her! unfiltered and transparent versions of the art below as always
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so I recently read through your "Always a hero"-works. And now I am hooked on LfM. And while Adrien Seems so much different from canon, he really isn't? Marinette not being in his "friends-folder" means he sees no reason believing her over Chloe. (I cannot recall situations like that in canon but when does canon explore sidecharas much other than to akumatize them)
It essentially is canon Adrien, though been focusing on his worst aspects as we’re going into 4 seasons, and those issues have yet to be addressed and I’m a tad salty and LfM is a salt fic response fic. And Adrien for a while will have that salty focus. Largely because
And yeah, canon won’t put focus on side characters (or even truly focus on our lead herself) as those characters have to circle around the love square, their akumas, or
Actually the most we got is Chloe.
She got focus outside Adrien and the love square. Unfortunately, all her focus was a big waste of our time and essentially another tease of “is she going to be redeemed or not”. Ultimately not and its like, why even bother spending two seasons focusing on will she won’t she be better. That could’ve been shortened down to one. Now she’s a very irritating character and canon wise, I don’t want to see her with another miraculous ever again.
Which is a shame as I was one of many up to see Chloe redeemed, especially since I’m fed up with the idea that 14 yos girls are irredeemable but Gabriel will probably be redeemed. It shouldn’t be like that for Chloe or Lila. But they want to push that these girls are absolutely evil, more so than the active terrorist who is a neglectful father and by Chat Blanc abusive so...
It’s also a big shame cause there was so much potential in the side characters outside love square and Adrien.
Putting this under cut cause I just go off and it gets lenthy.
Alya could’ve had an amazing arc if she was a full time hero. Could’ve had a struggle of balancing her hero and civilian lives, as one she is essentially living her dream. Another option is learning, hey, being a hero isn’t all glory and glamour. And depending on the miraculous, there was more to learn, especially since I myself am not big on her having Fox anymore and there are better alternatives, both in matching her but also teaching her things she needs to learn. She could learn to be more of a team player and to be more conscious of her friends as when she gets going in her goals, she can be quite inconsiderate. She can also learn to be more self conscious of her own security as she can rival Adrien in reckless behavior around akumas. And in truth, any miraculous can teach her the importance of secrecy, not Fox exclusively.
Honestly, Alya and Nino should’ve had their miraculous swapped (most characters actually don’t have a miraculous that suits them in terms of kwami, powers, or/and symbolism). Alya at the core is meant to be a supportive friend that is supposed to have her friends’ back, but also prefers to be on the front lines. Turtle would allow this, and teach her to be more aware of the danger she and her friends are in. It won’t essentially stop her reactive behavior, but she can learn to be more smart about it.
And with Nino, it was always weird to me how popular it was for him to get Turtle. And then it happened in canon and I’m just put off by the assignment. Nino at the core isn’t a character that wants to be on the front lines, but Turtle is a miraculous that is meant to be on the front lines as a protector. Nino is a support role, but not in that sense. Fox would’ve been better as its more designed to help from the shadows. It won’t be as aesthetically pleasing still as Nino is so color coded for Peafowl, but would fit better as it allows Nino to be a background support. It would also help him learn to be more observant and aware of others, and wanting to be a director, you need to learn to put on a good show that draws your audience in. Mirage can give him a chance to truly practice this. Mindful, Fox still isn’t my top pick for Nino (I think Fox would be more fitting with Marinette or Felix), Peafowl still is as that’s what he is coded for, and even canon wise, it would be a more fitting miraculous for him than Turtle. But of what Fu has, Fox would’ve been the better pick for Nino.
And speaking of Nino, it’s revealed from a tweet from Thomas that Nino had lost an older brother and that his hat belonged to him. That actually gives Nino an emotional tie in to the plot as, while he wants his brother back, he wouldn’t go to the extent that Gabriel is.
Classmate wise, there’s potential too.
Origins shows that everyone was afraid of Ivan and assumed the worst of him, he could’ve had an arc of changing those views. Go from being feared to being seen as a hero to trust. A source of protection and security.
Juleka wants to shine out more. But she struggles in that spotlight and to even be heard. She could have an arc about being heard, and building her confidence.
Rose is a girl ruled by her heart and is full of love and trust for others. It could be interesting seeing her have a miraculous and struggling with the factor that fighting is involved, but she herself is a pacifist (at least I get that impression). And that can be an interesting thing to explore, as she’s not wrong, but sometimes fighting is the only way. She can also learn to be more conscious that there are those who will take advantage of her and will have active malicious intents to her and others.
Kim actually states that he wants to be a hero. Not only could him as a hero be fun, it could help him mature as a character and be more serious, as akumas demand focus and be treated as serious. Copycat shows that he can be an observant character, I’d be intrigue to see ML’s residential himbo be surprisingly observant and offer up advise to his friends.
And of alternative love interests...
Well, this is more Kagami than Luka, at least in terms of character potential and an arc to see. Though, as of now, if all the predictions are correct SPOILER ALERT, Lies will break up Adrien and Kagami, to me its going to make them another Chloe. More specifically, why did we spend two seasons building up and teasing these alternative love interests only to immediately break them up at the start of s4.
To me, that sets them up as pointless inclusions who ultimately didn’t bring anything to the narrative.
Either way, this is about character potentials and I see more potential to explore with Kagami than Luka, and that’s more on the writers and how they handle Luka as most Luka episodes wound up more about Adrien than him. So he is largely a character I just don’t know what to do with.
Kagami though, she’s an aggressive character that could learn to cool it, she wants to branch out/rebel from her mother, she wants to make friends but struggles with it, and can learn to be more conscious of others and step up into the hero role, of helping others.
Honestly, working solely off Riptose, she would’ve been a better rival for Adrien than Marinette. Not just as a love rival, which he truly has yet to have, but a rival in general. While she wants to branch out from her mother’s influence, fencing is still her passion and her goal, something Adrien himself lacks. Outside being romantically involved with LB, he has no passion or goal for himself. Kagami can challenge this, why is he here when he doesn’t truly care about fencing?
And as a romantic rival, she’s one of the few who doesn’t need a miraculous to join fights, she can vigilante to assist LB and pay her back for her helping in cleansing her, but could end showing that she’s a better partner to LB as she takes things more seriously and is more battle smart in fights. Which ultimately would force Adrien to step up his game, take things more seriously, and wise up for throwing a tantrum will only take you so far. Especially when there’s a 3rd party member that’s judging you for your immaturity and shows LB she doesn’t have to bow to his whims just because he’s having a tantrum.
...You know, maybe Luka then would’ve been better as Marinette’s rival. Not a love rival, Marinette has enough between Chloe, Lila, and Adrien’s fanclub. But more of a rival for Ladybug. Though, it won’t so much be an arc for Luka himself but one for Marinette. If Kagami and Luka are supposed to help Adrien and Marinette grow, then this at least keeps in that theme.
With the show taking a turn that Marinette is feeling overwhelmed and stressed with her role as a hero and now Guardian, and slightly playing off Origins and her doubts of whether she’s a good hero; Luka could’ve been an interesting character for her to come across and consider. Ultimately, he is set up to be a very solid hero: he is calm, mature, shown to be a planner, and considerate and aware of others. Only thing he has against him is that he’s a removed character and is mostly seen sitting on that boat.
Romance between them I’d leave as optional, but it could be intriguing to see Marinette considering the possibility of retiring as Ladybug and passing it on to Luka so she can fully embrace her Guardian duties and not be so overwhelmed. And in general, it is a big wonder, who would take over as the Ladybug if Marinette has to leave and not come back, or that she can’t balance between being a hero and being the Guardian (and in truth, Tikki is no longer a good kwami for Marinette to have as she’s developing an Atlas complex through her and she hasn’t been helpful as a guide and adviser in a long time).
Now the show writers would butcher this, but it could’ve been interesting to see. Maybe Luka could’ve been a means to help her learn to manage things better if she has to stay LB and Guardian.
But yeah, it’s a shame that this show won’t delve past the LS which has long since gotten stale and quite toxic. There’s a lot of potential, but they won’t touch it. Won’t care to.
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a VERY in depth look at fire emblem: three houses and its grooming problem
OR: how this game managed to make an accurate portrayal of grooming and exactly how it made it palatable
(warning: really long. though to be fair, the length is mostly screenshots. you can also read this in google docs)
***
SO i’ve been wanting to write something Formal and In Depth for a while, because this game’s reception has been a nightmare for me and other csa victims and quarantine hit, so i finally had time. i just really wanted to get all my thoughts in one place before i move on from 3h. i’m basically done talking about this after this one because... idk what else i could say that hasn’t been said here, really. fe has history with this, and the in-game excuses ring hollow when we know the fe devs disregard csa victims at every turn while pandering to male gamers who love sexualised teenage girls.
long, long analysis under the cut:
Some previous context: Fire Emblem games have a history of normalising harmful romances
It’s understandable for many to not know the history of the series since 3H was insanely successful and it brought a lot of new fans. Fire Emblem has always been a character driven game where making your units bond was encouraged both for gameplay and story reasons. Some end in special romantic epilogues, and some of those relationships were concerning to say the least: Sylvia, 14 years old, can marry every eligible man in Genealogy of the Holy War, Jill from Radiant Dawn, 18, can marry her father’s protegé who is 34. This is not a new phenomenon for the series, it just became more noticeable and malicious post-Awakening, because it became first person fanservice.
FE decided to rehaul the series sometime in 2011 by including dating sim elements, which made it explode in popularity. Avatars were introduced to represent the player in-game, allowing them to marry whoever they wanted. The first game to include a pseudo-dating sim was Awakening, released in 2012. The player can marry every named playable character, on top of the usual FE shipping mechanics . Donnel, Nowi and Ricken, all children, are part of your party. Nowi is a thousand year old dragon that looks like a child of 11-15. She loves playing, and throws tantrums, and overall acts very childishly, but the narrative insists that she’s really an adult feigning childishness.
In Fire Emblem lore, dragons are veeeery slow ageing people with the power to transform into dragons, which means they can be biologically still children even when they’re hundreds or thousands of years old. Tiki, another similar character, is considered a child in Shadow Dragon by her adult dragon family while explicitly being around Nowi’s age. Despite evidence to the contrary, Awakening treats Nowi like an adult who can marry. Fire Emblem had previously included many dragon child characters in the past, but none were romantic options for anyone, and they were considered a younger sibling of sorts. Nowi was a first in the series, and after her inclusion these romances became common with characters like Nyx in Fates and Flayn and Sothis in Three Houses. Worth noting is her design, which is incredibly sexualised. A (not so) fun fact is that the outfit designer of Awakening and Fates was none other than Three Houses’ future director, Toshiyuki Kusakihara:
Ricken and Donnel are just regular 13-15 year old boys. No magic. Other adult characters and your avatar just marry them, and it’s stated they will have children in the future. The next game, Fates, actually managed to outdo this somehow: Your pedophilic romance options are now five, and unlike Awakening’s avatar Robin, whose age was unknown and could potentially be portrayed in their mid-teens, Corrin canonically is in the 18-21 age range, making this unambiguous pedophilia. Fates is a very standout game when it comes to Fire Emblem’s worst parts: There’s no “children from the future” excuse for the avatar having children like in Awakening. The avatar impregnates all spouses (or gets pregnant) and has the child after an in-game time skip, which means you can canonically impregnate your approximately 15 year old sister in a Fire Emblem game. You really do not want to stan these devs.
pictured: definitely not 18, even if the english localization really tried to pull that.
Which is yet another thing in this game: Incest with adopted siblings is possible and even encouraged. Incest is constantly fetishized through the character of Camilla, who is an attractive and sexualized older sister obsessed with the main character. Another (not so) fun fact is that most characters will continue to call you ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ in the story even if you’re married because Fire Emblem rarely changes the story to fit with your marriage options. The most insidious thing about the incest and pedophilic couples in Fates is that they’re completely normalized. It’s not shown as abusive, and they look like normal couples that could even look cute out of context. They confess their love, tease each other, blush and have cutesy epilogues.
pictured: marrying your sibling and a literal child
All of this is to end with the conclusion that this is a constant pattern with Fire Emblem, especially the ones with marriage. Any potentially awful relationships portrayed are not outwardly abusive. You won’t catch Xander gaslighting Corrin, or anything. They’re a “cute” relationship that just happens to be incest. Their interactions are not outwardly unhealthy, and it’s tailor made for ‘’’harmless’’’ shipping, but in the end, it’s incest and pedophilia portrayed as a valid pairing that’s “healthy” by all means. It’s normalization of something that’s objectively horrifying to live through. As a CSA victim, Fates literally made me quit the franchise for all the years it was popular.
When Three Houses announced that it would take place in a school while you play a teacher, after seeing all of this play out all FE fans could feel was dread. When 3H announced even later that all romance would take place post-time skip everyone forgot about their reservations instantly— ignoring the fact that everyone being over 18 when marriage happens doesn’t absolve all potential problems with predatory writing. How you write a couple with an age gap is critical. Moving on with Actual Three Houses:
Byleth has a canon age unlike Corrin and Robin, but the game tries to hide it
Corrin and Robin were both avatars meant to be somewhat customized. Byleth cannot be customized. They have a set appearance and age. You can choose Byleth’s name, gender and birthday when you start up the game, but Byleth canonically cannot be born anywhere after September 20th 1159, their “canon” birthday, since their father states in his diary that they’re already alive. 3H starts in the year 1180, which makes Byleth 20 or already 21 depending on their chosen birthday.
All other Three Houses characters have their ages shown clearly in their unit menu, and all bios update accordingly when you learn new information, including yours. Byleth’s age is revealed in a cutscene, but despite this, the game tries to “hide” their age. This is all Byleth has in their bio even well into the endgame:
It’s presumably so the player can “headcanon” their age, as the player avatar, but they still have a canon age, because they’re not a customizable one. It’s a very odd design choice that makes no sense until you consider that the game is romantically pushing teenagers at you. Romanceable students range from 14 to 22 years old before the time skip, but the great majority are in the 15-18 range. Early on, when you introduce yourself to your students, they seem taken aback by how young you are and comment how you seem like you’re “their age.” This is your only dialogue option in response:
No sixteen year old has ever told a twenty/-one year old that they’re the same age, but this is anime high school dating sim logic. An addendum is that this game has incredibly shallow dialogue options to hide how linear it really is, and this is the first glaring instance. This comes up later on with the romance options—you have little to no options to reject a student’s advances. Boundaries as both a player and RPG protagonist are non-existent in this game.
pictured: “yes” and “sure why not” dialogue options to agreeing to meet with a student alone. linhardt just turned 17 last month
Byleth can flirt pre-time skip
Most of your units are students, thus all romance should in theory, stay in the war phase…. Which doesn’t happen at all. All the narrative framing of characters’ “closeness” and foreshadowing of romance are definitely a part of the school phase. The worst offender by far is an in-game event called the Goddess Tower, the school’s local romantic spot. It’s said in universe that a man and a woman who make a vow there on a specific night will stay together forever, and this is a prelude to the marriage scenes five years later, which will take place in that Tower. You can even pick who to bring with you to the Tower, and this is what Byleth says to themselves before the drop down menu shows up:
this is one of those lines that’s like semi-innocuous, since byleth is addressing the player here, but what the fuck is a teacher doing thinking about a student “that way”???? my girl doesn’t know there will be a 5 year time skip where they’re going to be legal she’s just saying this about a bunch of sixteen year olds.
The Goddess Tower itself is a mess of bungled flirting and unnatural romantic scenes, made all the worse by the fact that you can only trigger this scene with a student. Older characters like Seteth, Catherine and Shamir are locked out of the Goddess Tower. They can’t be picked from the menu, and if they’re your highest support, the game will default to the next highest supported student. Here’s some lines from Ingrid’s scene:
ingrid is 17 when this takes place. the youngest byleth possible is well over 21 and the oldest is turning 22 next month
Check out this post for more examples of the Goddess Tower. Byleth’s dialogue options here are right out of a god damn PSA about child safety. They genuinely come off as a huge creep here, especially “Just the two of us….” My dude.
Thankfully one of the few instances where you can turn the student down, but notable anyway. Dorothea’s C support, where you have the option of following her flirty lead, and her response will be the same regardless of your choice:
Another infamous bit of inappropriate flirting is Edelgard’s Japanese C1 support, which you’re likely to unlock before her 18th birthday in June because it’s her very first support:
This was thankfully removed in the English version (Though she still has the same flustered reaction), but the intentions are there. Curiously, I’ve seen many supporters of the Byleth/Edelgard ship say they were upset this was removed, while simultaneously denying the ship has any grooming connotations whatsoever— when an authority figure making ha ha, unless? 😳 sexual jokes in front of underage/barely legal kids to see their reaction is textbook grooming:
Once a trusting or special relationship is created, the offender may carefully test the victim’s reaction to sex. (x)
Not helping is the fact that Edelgard falling in love with Byleth during the school phase is practically canon judging by dialogue in CF of her missing you “more” than the others. Which leads to:
Some interactions pre-time skip resemble grooming tactics
In fans’ minds the lack of boundaries are somewhat mitigated by Byleth’s supposed good intentions, and it’s common to hear fans say Byleth obviously didn’t go to Garreg Mach intending to marry one of the kids they’re teaching because grooming must be malicious from the start. However, it’s well known that unlike premeditated abuse of younger kids, sexual abuse of older teens often happens by “accident”
In contrast, educators who teach at the late middle and high school level target victims in this age range. They might be outstanding teachers, although they may also be mediocre (Shakeshaft, 2003). Sexual abuse at this level may be less premeditated and planned and more often a result of bad judgment (Shakeshaft, 2004). (x)
In other words, by putting zero boundaries between teacher and students and enabling weird situations, which is 3H to a T. Many students flirt, but Byleth doesn’t say anything, or even flirts back.
Secondly, Byleth is like… barely a character, so this isn’t meant to be a callout post accusing them of being a manipulative abuser or whatever, because this is about the dev team putting teenagers in these flirty positions to satisfy the player that Byleth is meant to represent. Byleth is just the plot device they use to do so. People often say this flirting isn’t grooming because Byleth has “good intentions,” but they’re a self-insert, and a self-insert doesn’t have to have any in-universe intentions because the outside writing drives their actions— the thing is we KNOW these writers are not above writing pedophilia as harmless romance. People project good intentions on Byleth, because that’s the avatar. You’re supposed to project on them. This of course includes their “good intentions,” and when I play 3H I headcanon that too, but canonically speaking, these intentions are 100% ambiguous. They never voice attraction to another student, or disgust at the thought of dating them because they speak in small, limited dialogue options and thought bubbles. We don’t have a real, canon indication that they would oppose dating a student before the time skip nor that they would actually do it.
What we do have are the canonical interactions that make people uncomfortable, however. Byleth can think of students in “that way” when the Gatekeeper describes a romantic getaway on the Goddess Tower. If we take them at face value, then their dialogue options clearly establish that they’re okay with flirting with students as young as fifteen, at the very least. They “die” before potentially starting to date any of them for real, but the beginnings of an uncomfortable romance are there and the game fully embraces this as okay .
This is all a result of the writing. Fates never condemned you for picking your sister over any of the other thirty (?) romanceable characters, just like Three Houses doesn’t condemn you for picking Lysithea over any older women in the teaching staff. It’s just another S support option, and it even gets some sweet extra content. She’s touched that you care for her, and you do everything in your power to take care of her frail health, and you guys get happily married. No one ever mentions that you were her high school teacher when she was fifteen and you met at said high school, and she was your favourite student— and this is, you know, something of an important detail in any relationship. Just like Fates, it’s sweet and shippable out of context, which just encourages normalization. How dare you say this is unhealthy? It’s tender! Look how much he loves her!
The thing is that 3H initially presents your students as your charges in school. You’re unambiguously in charge of them as both tactician and instructor, even if you treat each other in a familiar way. Even if most students technically outrank you as nobles, Garreg Mach as politically neutral ground implicitly puts you above them as their teacher. The younger ones are vulnerable teenagers, away from home in a boarding school. Most have some sort of underlying emotional problem that they come to you for. They come to you for advice, and sometimes just venting. You can give them gifts, and have tea every week with them if you so wish in an off-screen conversation. Tea also serves as the “skinship” of this game where you get to see the anime boy/girl of your dreams from up-close, which is a pretty creepy thing to do with a fifteen year old anime girl even out of universe, but I digress.
Looking at this chart in the essay I linked earlier gave me a little bit of a stroke, because the “Strategies” aspects are all things you do in 3H prior to the time-skip:
This is obviously accidental, but still concerning because we know these devs have a twisted idea of what romance is, and that culminated in what I sincerely hope is an unintended but still eerily accurate portrayal of grooming.
Emotional confidence, teatime and gifts, flirting, making a vow together at the Goddess Tower, sex jokes, are all things you do pre-timeskip, and some student’s personal arcs make this even worse. Marianne, Dimitri and Bernadetta have mental illnesses, and they heavily rely on you for support. Edelgard and Sylvain express attraction towards you. You meet Felix’s father and he puts his full trust in you. Ignatz, Bernadetta and Marianne have very low self-esteem. Characters like Ashe and Annette have major parental issues that they discuss with you. In short, you see them at their most vulnerable as kids, and then get together as adults.
About the only thing you don’t do pre-time skip in that list is “Isolate,” but some character arcs post time skip have this distinct vibe nonetheless. Many students leave their homes in the war phase explicitly because of you and no other reason. CF Ingrid in particular outright betrays Faerghus and everything she knew for you, as she says she doesn’t really believe in Edelgard’s war. Knowing you as a teacher can string her along in her Goddess Tower scene while she’s underage puts this in an awkward perspective.
This is what makes the five year time skip hold little weight. Everyone is an adult when the relationship is consummated, yes, but it starts pre-time skip.
Emotionally vulnerable teenagers having a strong relationship and frequent alone time with their older teacher, who is a confidant and someone that makes them feel special is already looking bad, but the absolute loyalty, idolisation and close relationship when they’re adults only makes it worse, even if it’s probably just a result of poorly thought out game design and player pandering gone wrong.
It’s not just player pandering, however. The devs just clearly think these relationships are okay. Other non-Byleth student/teacher romances deserve a mention, too—Manuela is forty something and thinks of her romantic potential with some 19 year-old:
Thankfully, this support ends at B, but others don’t. She has romantic endings with Lorenz, Ferdinand and Dorothea, who she even canonically met before Garreg Mach as a child and who idolises her as an opera star. The game doesn’t stop at the normalisation of grooming with Byleth, they’re just the most noticeable example, especially since it’s a power fantasy for the player who can romance all of them, not just a few.
The time skip had the opportunity to fix some of the creepy implications, but it didn’t
People like to look at the time-skip as a justification of romance. That 15 year old kid is 20 now, after all, and your students are adults, who have matured and grown outside of your influence.... Except your interactions with them remain virtually the same. They still call you Professor and hold you in some extremely high esteem as an authority figure.
Three Houses has an avatar worship problem like all newer Fire Emblem games and this definitely contributes to the uncomfortable implications in the narrative, because literally everyone respects you and adores you to an uncomfortable degree. Even as grown ass adults, the avatar worship just makes it seem like your students still idolize you like when they were kids awe struck by how cool you are.
They don’t show the change from “mentor” to “peer” satisfactorily, like they intended for the romance elements to work. Byleth’s name is customizable, making a first name basis difficult, but they easily could have changed your war phase title to something that would make it seem like your students’ view of you changed, like a military title such as Commander, or even just Eisner, your canonical last name. All students still call you “Professor,” in the war phase, though. Some students even call you Professor when you’re about to propose to them in the S support, like Lysithea. Leonie, one of the oldest students who is actually your age, has this to say about calling you by your name… you know, like a normal peer and friend would:
White Clouds is also a whole year while VW, AM, and SS take place during six to seven months, CF during five. You spend more time as their teacher and mentor than as “peers,” so Leonie’s position is pretty understandable despite being like, barely a year younger than you.
To rewind, this game lets you pick a “special” student pre-time skip, who you’re encouraged to build bonds with through tea, gifts and the Goddess Tower. You’re their favourite teacher, as said by many other characters. They grow up and join you in your war regardless of who they have to fight, some even just to be with you. They still affectionately call you Professor, and look up to you. You can then marry them. This is unironically seen as both acceptable and even romantic.
Many of these interactions like tea are gameplay elements and thus come off as the devs not thinking too hard about it. Except, again, we know they have no problem in writing outright pedophilia, but Fates in particular had heavy backlash over this, which explains the need to tone it down a little. Grooming was their “compromise” between not turning off the casual audience while still cheekily pandering to that crowd. Everyone is technically over eighteen in Three Houses, even if they act extremely similar to their teenage selves. The “technically 1000 year old” romances like Flayn and Sothis were also left intact.
This is an important distinction, because a bit of a popular “it’s not grooming” argument when dealing with the war phase is Byleth’s weird dragon powers slowing their aging. Unlike the kids, all adult non-students in Three Houses undergo no portrait changes during the time skip, including Byleth. The thing is that in Chapter 10, they receive dragon powers as part of some plot nonsense, so it has different implications than just anime hating everyone over 25. There’s implications in the game that this definitely affected their ability to age normally, such as the Flayn ending:
However, we don’t know how their aging was affected and to what extent. Three Houses’ lore didn’t specify much about the way dragons age. Rhea undergoes dragon madness, so we can thus tentatively assume Fódlan’s dragons are similar to Archanea and Valentia’s dragons, which would mean there’s a chance Byleth even aged normally for a few years before slowing down significantly like Nah from Awakening did. It’s entirely possible they’re biologically 25-26 like they’re meant to be, because they didn’t physically die. They were just asleep.
Even if they really did not age a day over 21/22, it still makes the pre-time skip hold weight, however. Byleth can flirt with them as teens prior to any fantastical excuse, and they’re still a mentor figure in the students’ eyes, which goes on to colour every interaction with you in the war phase. Post-time skip everyone is legal, but they still have that history with you, and the game makes no real effort to change that whatsoever. It still fulfills the student/teacher fantasy despite the many, many technicalities it tries to pull out of its ass.
Intsys is self aware and knows that this upsets people
To say these devs probably didn’t mean it that way is not entirely impossible, but they don’t exactly inspire confidence. They even “acknowledge” their flippant way of treating teacher/student relationships in a DLC quest during school phase:
Of course, this is a silly complaint because a teacher being friendly with students is a good thing! Students learn better in a positive environment! The problem here is that it’s obviously referencing and mocking the people upset that this becomes romantic later on. I think anyone would have been able to forgive the overly friendly nature of Byleth and the students’ relationships if no line had been crossed regarding romance. This is Fire Emblem after all, and it wouldn’t be Fire Emblem without supports and relationships values.
But also, Intsys is very good at jokingly acknowledging when they’re being creepy rather than striving to do better. It’s not the first time they’ve done this. A really bold faced example is when the Fire Emblem mobile game widely known for fanservice released a ten year old child (no magic or dragons, either, just a child) dressed as a bride and had her say: “This outfit is just for the [bride] festival, don’t get any weird ideas!” when they were the ones who made a child bride for fanservice purposes.
this one was pretty fucked up even by their standards. comment sums it up
The devs also once called Camilla from Fates a “cow” in an interview for having huge breasts and a little tiara that looks like horns. They designed her that way, but then mocked her for looking like an oversexualized caricature. Any way you look at it, they’re well aware they’re being off-putting and cheekily being like, tee hee, I sure made a dating sim set in a high school! Which ultimately leads to the final point:
Though canon definitely has its problems, it’s less about canon and more about the devs’ bad intentions and the fans’ general lack of empathy for CSA victims:
This is not to diminish canon’s impact at all, because it’s outright malicious to portray an unhealthy relationship as cute and harmless. In short, they just pull technicality after technicality out of their ass to make student/teacher okay somehow instead of just..... not having student/teacher at all. After Fates having fucking incest, 3H and teacher grooming seems outright tame and that definitely contributed to the wide acceptance in the fanbase, because it’s less outrageously pandery. I can’t believe I have to say this in 2020, but…... that’s still not good, lads.
I will also admit there’s some nuance here regarding some of the students, especially those 20+ year olds who aren’t easy to manipulate teenagers like Mercedes. We can sit here and argue all day about whether or not this game legitimately 100% can be considered grooming because of those 20+ students, and all of those in-universe technicalities since there’s no real life academic journal on grooming who will talk about the offender being a dragon, but the end of the matter is that the devs chose to portray their pseudo-dating sim franchise in a school, while your MC is a teacher and most of the students are teens. These relationships are also 100% normalised and okay in-game. They did it with incest and with teacher/student, both topics that are majorly upsetting to CSA victims, and that alone is worth calling out. They even mocked people who were upset about it with a little DLC quest, just to rub it in.
This whole post was a critique of 3H and Intsys, but it’s impossible to critique the game without critiquing the fan culture around it, because the devs definitely had a fanbase in mind. We know they take feedback, since they toned it down after complaints about Fates, but the reason why they didn’t just get rid of pandering aspects, is because they’re popular. There’s a huge demand for this, and that’s exactly why they keep doing it, and it’s the simple reason that online anime spaces full of adults have always placed a particular interest in teens and sexualising and shipping them. A Fire Emblem game set in a school with a calendar and a lot of romantic and social elements that started development in 2017 just screams Persona 5 inspired. Fans obviously noticed.
”edelgard is soooo thirsty” jokes are a lot less funny if you know going for the thirsty kid is a legit strategy
Now, I don’t know shit about Atlus, and after seeing all these memes regarding Persona 5 and the fans’ positive reaction to them, I have zero intentions to play it, but I’ve unfortunately played every single FE game and watched the transition to classic FE to 3DS FE to 3H. I have my criticisms about modern FE’s writing quality for sure, and while I obviously can’t say it used to be perfect because it was still a fairly mediocre (but fun) game about teenagers beating up dragons, it’s now become one of the single most unfriendly fanbases if you’ve gone through any kind of sexual trauma. Incest shipping, pedophilic shipping, and sexualizing teenagers was always there to some extent, but it’s blown up now that the devs have emboldened those fans by doing it in canon itself. It’s rampant, especially on “waifu” circles, and now grooming ships are mainstream and everywhere. Even LGBT friendly “safe spaces” are unbrowsable. F!Edeleth in particular is commonly seen as the holy grail of wlw representation. Linhardt is the most popular M/M option despite the other two being adults. Doromanuela was given a shout-out by Dorothea’s English voice actress.
Old FE games had background things like that all the time, (Roy/Cecilia is Literally gender swapped Petra/Byleth) but the keyword here is background. Not like... 80% of the ships involving the MC in game, which means you weren’t bombarded with this every day. Worse, the discussion about this topic has been non-existent. Reddit has not touched this at all despite the community there being well known for meticulous criticism, Twitter and Tumblr have seen its fair share of discourse, but it’s quickly dismissed. Just click here to watch people dismiss the concerns of every single grooming and CSA victim, or even call them stupid like we can’t recognize this shit in every single fandom. Of note are the fans who dismiss grooming concerns by saying all flirting occurs post time skip (which is false, as we just said) and the characters are only 3-6 years apart anyway……………….. and then gleefully consume/produce pre-time skip content:
miscellaneous tags on a pre-time skip linleth comic (20/21/22 and 16/17 if you’re not keeping count) not posting the comic itself cause i don’t want anon hate lol
While there’s an argument to be made for romance with anyone who was 20+ pre-time skip, there is NONE for the underage kids. None. And like, even if you somehow still want to argue that 3H itself isn’t grooming because of the time skip, a huge chunk of the fanworks objectively are, and this is a huge problem that needs to be called out and nobody does so whatsoever. That comic has 2500+ notes.
This isn’t even a call to tell people to throw out their copies and riot, just to be aware of this and try to make fan spaces a little more bearable for CSA victims. A lot of people call this ‘toxic cancel culture’ and whatnot, but I personally can’t defend a dev team who I KNOW has done heinous things in the past, and continue to support the pedophilic mentality in online anime fan spaces but like, in a cheeky subtle way. They easily could have made Byleth a student who tutors the others because of their experienced mercenary background with Jeralt, or just not let them romance the kids at all. They could have pleased both the dating sim and high school camps by letting you choose to be either a 21+ teacher or a 17 year old student with the appropriate romance options, too. They didn’t do any of this, and their questionable past begs me to ask why, and none of the answers I can come up with are very encouraging. They also even blatantly gave you extra content when romancing students.
I hope contextualizing the 3H grooming at least makes some people understand why it’s so upsetting to see it everywhere. It’s just the decent thing to do to tag your posts, and to not dismiss any of these things. It’s just the decent thing to do to listen to people who are sharing their experiences and respecting their boundaries if they simply do not want to interact with you if you decide to continue supporting Intsys.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. Stan Claude von Riegan.
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Things I want from the Netflix Live-Action Avatar
1. Faithful Casting - An obvious, stupid answer, I want all of the actors to look appropriate for the roles they are playing. Dark-skinned waterbenders and pasty pale firebenders. Obviously, getting every single character to look exactly like their cartoon counterpart is unlikely, but at least the main characters should hopefully be cast as close as possible, though hair and make-up can go a long way. After all, none of the blonde women on Game of Thrones were actually blonde, Lena and Emily were both brunettes. Granted that was HBO funding, but still proof of tv quality special effects.
2. Accurate world design - The Avatar cartoon is a juggernaut of Wuxia style fantasy, and I really want the world to look and feel as close to the cartoon as possible. With all the bending, illogical archetecture, and hybrid animals, while I know a more accurate adaptation will be costly, a good set, costume, and cgi team can really bring this world to life.
3. Queer representation - These days, Netflix seems to be really on board with LGBTQ+ representation, far more than Nickelodeon. Hopefully, Bryke will feel more free to include LGBTQ+ characters, as they did with Korrasami. I think Zuko in particular is a great choice among the main cast. He’s already so confused about who he is and what he wants out of life, there’s no reason you couldn’t add questioning his sexuality to that stirred up pot of emotions. While Zukka is seeing a surge in popularity, Jet is definitely another top contender, due to the interesting friction that’s ripe within their character flaws to become a compelling ill-fated romance between two enemies. Or even just creating a new guy to be Zuko’s love interest would also be welcome. I just think Zuko is the best candidate of the original cast of characters to be LGBTQ+ as it already fits nicely into his character arc of finding what’s right for him, deciding his own fate, and seeking his own happiness. Iroh’s lessons about wanting things for himself instead of what other people told him to want, translates so beautifully to Zuko trying way too hard to date women despite a lack of interest in them. It’s such a natural fit to his story that it’s kind of perfect for Zuko.
4. New Plotlines and Scenes - Whether the show will be a half-hour or hour long format hasn’t been announced, but between possibly longer run times or longer seasons with more episodes, or possibly even both, this could allow the creators to include moments they either had to cut out of the original show, or didn’t have as much time to do as they wanted. For example, Azula was going to have an arranged marriage plotline in season 3, and that’s something they could bring back. There’s also the search for Zuko’s mother, which was covered in the comics, but never addressed in any of the shows. Even smaller things like Yue’s fiance. He charges at Admiral Zhao and goes overboard and we never see him again. Turns out, the creators kind of forgot about him.
5. Potential for Tonal Shifts - While this is a live-action adaptation, it’s unclear at the moment who the target audience for this will be. Whether it’ll be aimed more toward fans of the original, or drawing in a new crowd. But with the more realistic cinematography, slapstick and comedy aren’t going to work as well in a live-action setting. There’s definitely still room for comedy, but the squatch-and-stretch rubberiness of cartoons that allow for exaggurated expressions can’t be matched by live actors. This could potentially lead them to make a more “mature” and darker Avatar that totes itself as more of a dramatic war epic and less of a child-friend comedy adventure.
6. Pushing the Envelop - In a similar vein to point 5, without the censors of Nickelodeon hanging over their necks, there is a lot more freedom with this project to address issues more openly that they may have had to imply or skirt-around in the cartoon to keep it more child-friendly. Even something as simple as confirming Jet’s death. Especially if the tone is darker and more mature, there’s a lot more room for them to really push into more explicitly depicting themes and ideas from the original series, even showing us what happened the night Ursa left.
7. Incorporate Diagetic Languages - Even if it’s as simple as characters greeting each other, it’d be nice to hear even just background extras speaking diagetic Asian languages. I’m going more blanket here because while the writing in the show is Traditional Mandarin, the cultures take inspiration from Japanese, Tibetan, and Inuit as well, and I’m open to both angles. Whether everyone speaks some Mandarin, or if each nation has their own language, any amount of using native Asian languages would be nice.
8. Dante Basco as Uncle Iroh - Okay, so maybe he still has the Zuko voice, but Dante is the only original cast member who is ethnically Asian, and would be appropriate to cast in the live-action setting. Even if he’s not Iroh, casting Dante to play anyone would be welcome. Whether he’s the tempermental Zhao, the malicious Fire Lord Ozai, the sagely Avatar Roku, the brave Hakoda, the stern Master Paku, the wise Master Piandao, the conniving Long Feng, or really any of the older adult male characters, Dante Basco would be a great choice, even just as a cameo character like the Cabbage Merchant.
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No, the Creature’s name is Fraulein’s Monster — Thoughts on: The Captive Curse (CAP)
Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH, DOG, CAR, DDI, SHA, CUR, CLK, TRN, DAN, CRE, ICE, CRY, VEN, HAU, RAN, WAC, TOT, SAW
Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.
Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it.
If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraphs above, along with my list of previous metas.
These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: CAP, mentions of SAW, mentions of ASH.
The Intro:
The obvious Frankenstein reference in the title of this meta is the only one I make in the whole meta, I swear. It was a mistake to make the monster look like Frankenstein’s Monster, but I’m not gonna drag you guys or the meta down with that.
We’re professionals here.
This is a game with rather big shoes to fill, to be honest — it’s our first game in Germany, comes right after a very well-received “haunting” game and has shades of being a “haunting” game itself, its (small bit of) marketing played off Grimm’s Tales, and Savannah’s comment about staying in a castle where she discovered that the real monster was human cruelty is directly pointing towards it. CAP and its story could have crumpled under the weight of high expectations like MED, MID, and (in a slightly more controversial opinion) SEA did, but instead it did the opposite: in nearly every way, it improved on the Faerietale Formula that SAW inspired, and added to it.
Rather than a spooky haunted faerietale with a Hidden Villain, we have instead a monster — out in the open, even — as our main villain. The difference between ghosts and monsters isn’t really important in, say, a “Scary Stories to Tell In The Dark” or “Goosebumps” book, but it’s fairly important in a mystery, and even more in a Nancy Drew mystery.
As I’ve said a few dozen times in this series — and if you’re not tired of it yet, you will be soon — ghosts are a Reality in the Nancy Drew universe; they exist, they cause trouble, and they sometimes even help the living (or at least coexist with the living).
Monsters, on the other hand, never really exist — not banshees, not werewolves, not malicious wolves with opposable thumbs and the ability to cook poisoned foods, and certainly not monsters that in no way resemble the main villain from a Universal classic horror flick. Monster in the Nancy Drew universe is a Title, not a type of creature. Whenever there’s a monster on the loose, it’s a sure sign that there’s a bitter individual somewhere looking to hurt someone — usually for a personal grudge.
Which, as it happens, is exactly what happened here.
We’re still firmly in a Faerietale game — the ‘Nancy’ games start with ASH — but I do think it’s important to note here that the girls in this game (the victims of the monster, Renate, Anja) are all shadows of Nancy. The previous victims, sharing the designation of the Girl in the Dress with Nancy, are shadows of what could happen to Nancy if she doesn’t change the fate that’s been designated for her — down to the red hair of the original Girl.
Renate is a type of detective, trying to solve the mystery of the tragedies that strike the castle through the actions of the past. And Anja — well, let’s just say that Anja and Nancy have a lot more between then than the first glance might show.
The two women are foiled, especially with their love lives. Nancy’s dating a good man — despite the obvious, glaring problems in the relationship — and so their argument (and her own selfish behavior) isn’t the end of the world, nor the end of the relationship. They stop, they assess, and — with a little help from Anja — Nancy’s determined to try a little harder, leading us straight into ASH. The big thesis statement of the game is delivered, like last game, by our villain — “There’s nothing like love to bring order to a scattered world”. Anja gives Nancy good advice: communicate, and work for what you want.
Anja, however, was not dating a good man; she encouraged him, much like Ned does with Nancy, to be better, to try harder, to really reach for what he could be — only to be cast aside as soon as all the hard work that she had put in to supporting him led to good results. Her world was not scattered before — but after Markus, there was nothing that could put it back together again.
There’s nothing like love, indeed, but when it’s the wrong kind of person…well, the message that Anja took out of it was that somebody, somewhere, should care about her. And if they weren’t going to…well, a tragedy necessitates the force of Fate, and we know what Renate says about fate:
“Fate has a habit of digging in its claws when tempted.”
The last thing I want to touch on in this introduction — which I realize is a bit heavy on themes, but so is the game — is the importance of Titles within this game. The Bürgermeister, The Castellan, The Monster, The Girl in the Dress — this game operates a lot on character tropes, like any self-respecting faerietale, and the titles go a long way to showing who each character is. Karl feels dwarfed and inadequate next to his title; Anja wanted hers so badly that she was willing to lie; the title of Monster strikes fear into the heart of the vast majority of our cast.
And the Girl? The Girl in the Dress is a symbol of helpless fate, a sacrifice to propel the narrative forward. Remember what Renate tells Nancy? “The monster, he is here for you.”
Tellingly, it’s Nancy’s changing of what exactly it means to be The Girl in the Dress that allows our faerietale to meet with a happy ending, rather than a tragedy (the ending normally brought about by Fate, in Renate’s words). In keeping the title but changing the scope of the title, Nancy figuratively beats the Monster, and saves the memory all the Girls that came before.
The Title:
The Captive Curse is, as far as titles go, a masterclass. Nearly all the titles of the 20+ numbers are fabulous, but CAP’s title is a shining star even among them. Let’s talk about the important word in the title — “Captive”.
There are a lot of things that are “captive” in this game. We have the captives of the monster, to start off with, but there’s a lot more where that came from. The residents of the Castle and the castle’s town are also captive — they’re held captive by fear, as evidenced by the doors that refuse to open even when Nancy begs them to.
Shrugging off the idea of keeping this meta even a little bit spoiler-free, I’d also add that Markus is a sort of captive of Anja — there under false pretenses, drawing a web around him to finish him off — and equally that Anja is a captive of Markus’ — the shadow of her dick ex-boyfriend hanging over her dream job, watching him profit off of being a truly terrible person.
Renate and Nancy get in on the action, too. Renate is a captive of guilt, returning to the castle to try to prevent further deaths, haunted by her sister’s early death. She’s also a storyteller — a profession famed for having a “captive audience”. Lastly, Nancy is forced into the costume rather than her own clothes — a captive of the tale that’s being spun by our major players.
The Faerietale
In SAW’s faerietale, Nancy was the visiting prince, the Knight in Shining Armor to look after and save the kingdom. In CAP’s faerietale, however, her role gets changed around — not the least of which because we discover what an actual Knight in Shining Armor really is, courtesy of Renate:
“A knight in shining armor never did nothing for nobody. He never fought. A knight in dented, scraped armor - now that’s what you want.”
This isn’t the cynical take that some might spin it into — the Nancy Drew universe is not and has never been a Nolan-style grimdark-fest, skeptical of any good deed or honest inclination — but instead a declaration that it’s what people do that makes them heroes, that makes them good, that makes them who they are, not what they are (or what they seem to be).
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that, in a game exploring what good a Knight in Shining Armor might be, that the series’ resident Knight appears within the context of his fight with Nancy.
Ned in the video games series is the closest to a Knight that we really get; he doesn’t make mistakes, he’s always patient and kind and understanding, and helps out the best he can without being actually on the scene. In other words, his armor has no dents, nor scrapes, not so much by his choice (excepting possibly CRY), but by Nancy’s. By constantly leaving him behind, she’s cast in him his role as Knight in Shining Armor — but, as Renate points out, that’s not necessarily a good thing. Ned has the potential to be and do more — as ASH will show us.
And yes, there’s someone in the series that fits the knight in dented, scraped armor, but this is not the time for a Francy meta. If ever there is a time for Francy meta.
The biggest thing that changes from SAW to CAP is that Nancy’s learned from last time, and starts trying to figure out the faerietale she’s in the minute it starts in earnest. When she hears Renate’s tale, she’s sure she’s figured it out — guessing it was about Renate’s sister — but we’re shown that her perception is a little off (as the girl was Renate, not her sister). This shifting up of the roles is crucial thematically to our ending, where Nancy gleefully assumes the role of the Girl in the Dress as the hero of the piece, rather than the victim that the Girl had always been.
What Nancy happens upon here I’ll cheerfully call the Power of the Storyteller. All faerietales shift and change depending on who’s telling the story — look at the thousands of versions of Cinderella had all over the world, all too old to just be a knockoff of their geographical neighbor’s story or (yes, I’ve heard this) based off the Disney property.
With Anja telling the story for the majority of the game, it’s a tale about how sometimes the “monster” (and her version of a monster, specifically) wins — and how sometimes they deserve to win, to perpetuate the faerietale as it always has been; as Renate reminds us, “when death goes to take a ride, he follows the road that serves him best.” In Anja’s mind, there must always be a Monster, and there must always be a Girl in the Dress. With Nancy taking over the story, however, it’s about how the victim doesn’t have to be the victim, and that they have the power to assume their own destiny.
In other words, they’re playing out the central conflict that Renate outlines in her first discussion with Nancy: “If our time together is a comedy, then I was brought here by coincidence. If our time is a tragedy, then it must be fate.”
Coincidence and fate are also, coincidentally (heh) the driving forces in a faerietale — except that fate is also a driving force for romance. And because romance is our Chief Concern in CAP’s story, a lot of the story is about fighting against fate. In the end, it’s a coincidence that Nancy arrives, but Anja tries to spin it into fate by making her the Girl in the Dress. It’s only when Nancy takes charge, not letting fate have its say, that she arrives at the ending and is able to best Anja.
One of the great questions that this faerietale presents is about the Monster is whether or not it ever existed. In a Faerietale, the Monster nearly always exists in some form or another, needing to be drawn out and killed by our hero(es) before the day can be saved.
Indeed, in Anja’s modern-day retelling of the faerietale, the monster doesn’t exist — at least, not in its Monstrous form. In her story, Markus is the monster, and she must put on the guise of a monster in order to defeat him — in other words, if a monster is going to win, it’s going to be her.
To quote Ned’s astute observation, “[Castle Finster] has too many monsters.”
But it’s Savannah’s words that we should look to, as she’s a Storyteller just as much as Renate is. Savannah, heavily implied to be speaking of Castle Finster, says that the monster she found wasn’t a ghost — it was human cruelty that made the castle and its history so terrifying.
So we’re faced with the question: did the monster ever exist, or was it solely bad people, stealing cattle and sheep and young girls away for their own wicked purposes? Was there truly an amorphous being roaming the countryside, or was it just a clever way to shift blame from those who would do evil unto others? Remember what Renate tells us about monsters:
“The worst monsters are self-made. They are people like you and me, but they have taken a terrible turn. They let everything awful, everything sad, take up all the breathing room in their hearts, until all they know is revenge.”
The answer I would give is that, for this faerietale, it doesn’t matter if the Monster is real or not. The concern is not the nature of the monster, it’s the people’s reaction to the idea of a monster, real or imagined, that sets off our faerietale and provides the stakes. The fear is real and palpable, and the ends of our villain, while understandable and perhaps even praiseworthy, require some downright dastardly means.
The Mystery:
We open first on a look back at a young girl in an Era Past being captured by an unseen monster in the woods near a castle…only to have Nancy drive up on the Castle Finster itself in the modern day. Nancy’s been called in by the owner of the castle, Markus, who wants any troubles with the legendary monster cleaned up before he and his Rich Investor Friends arrive.
Rather than a welcoming piece of history, Nancy is greeted with a scared, unwelcoming town, the fear of the monster looming large and cutting deep — and that’s before the Curse itself turns its eyes on Nancy, forcing her to play along as the Girl in the Red Dress, the favored victim of the monster. Those in the castle are kinder than those outside of it, but there’s still the sneaking suspicion that someone is up to no good, using the guise of the monster to wreak a little havoc of their own invention — and time is running out before the monster claims yet another victim…
As far as the mystery goes…I don’t like to use words like “spectacular” because let’s face it, every game has its holes, but honestly CAP’s mystery is pretty spectacular. Attention-catching, a bit sad, a bit horrific, and loaded with faerietale tropes, subversions, and themes — there’s honestly just not much wrong here, especially given the limitations of, well, making a Nancy Drew game in the first place. The writing does a masterful job at hinting at horrors that, given the rating, they can’t say out loud, while still telling a fully cohesive story that even the young players will be able to grab at and understand (if not to quite the same extent)
The Suspects:
The game begins with Lukas Mittelmeier, so perhaps we should too. Lukas is the rather precocious son of the head of security of Castle Finster, as well as being Anja’s nephew. Bright, mischievous, and a huge fan of games and pranks, Lukas makes the castle a little more interesting — as well as making Karl’s life a bit more hellish.
Unlike another youth living in a castle (coughJanecough), Lukas is bright enough to be a competent culprit…he just isn’t malicious enough. Sure, he’ll play dress-up, spook Karl a bit, and stall Nancy outside the gates of the castle, but that’s really as far as he goes. He would have been an especially poor culprit, thematically speaking, and so it’s a good thing that the game never really attempts to lead you there. Even his dressing up as the monster is more meant to lull the player (and Nancy) into letting down their guard so that the real monster is a bit scarier.
Next up is the Bürgermeister and bad-luck-magnet himself, Karl Weschler. Having encountered his doppelganger as a small child, Karl has expected — and received — bad luck for the rest of his life, and lives in fear of being the cause of unhappiness to those around him. He’s also a board game enthusiast, having developed the (incredibly fun, it should be noted) board game Raid! and enlists Nancy to help him polish it while she solves the “huge monster problem” that Markus hired her for.
As a culprit, Karl would have been interesting, but thematically a little off. It would have had to be a situation where enough bad things happened around him at the castle to make him want to shift the blame, dressing up as the monster in order to throw the punishment off of himself and onto a nebulous force. An interesting plot to be sure, but not one that fits the more sinister nature of the game.
Our charming castellan and cunning culprit, Anja Mittelmeier is next on the docket. Incredibly good at her job, polished, polite, and fiendishly dedicated, Anja keeps the castle in good running order, gives Nancy advice, and is a doting aunt — all while secretly sabotaging Markus by acting as the monster.
I have a lot to say about how good a character Anja is — which I’ll cover more in the next section — but she’s also the perfect villain. All the information you need to figure out who she is happens to be presented to Nancy pretty quickly, but none of it is in the proper context to make it obvious. Even her line — “there’s nothing like love to bring order to a scattered world” — is sweet and romantic at the time, and rather chilling and menacing when you have the whole context of exactly what Anja is doing to ‘bring order to a scattered world’.
It seems only fitting that after Anja should come Markus Boehm, the owner of the castle and the ex-boyfriend that Anja is working for revenge against. Markus is snappish, short-tempered, obnoxious about his money, and rather boorish — though he has some of the funniest lines in any Nancy Drew game — and is guilty of a lot, though not of haunting his own castle.
Casting Markus as the villain would have made this game an entirely different faerietale, one that would have necessitated Anja becoming The Girl in the Dress rather than Nancy. It might have been a more stereotypical Nancy Drew story, but it also would have been weaker – after all, a lot of the horror in this faerietale comes from the curse having its eyes firmly on Nancy, rather than on her watching it unfold.
Finally, our most divisive character is probably Renate Stoller, a cake-loving storyteller bound to Castle Finster by a mixture of fate and history. Personally speaking, I’m a total fan of Renate; she has a lot of freedom to liken the situation to stories and to spell out the fact that all stories are ambiguous without being morally relativist or faux-deep.
As a villain, Renate would have been interesting — set to haunt the castle that has haunted her for so long and caused her pain — but it would have removed the Storyteller archetype from the game, causing the player (and Nancy) to doubt everything she’s said, which would have been a shame.
The Favorite:
There’s a lot to love in CAP, both big and small, so I’ll try to tackle this section with some sort of organization, rather than just gushing from point to random point.
My favorite moment in the game is (in a stunning change from 90% of Nancy Drew Games) tied between the beginning and the final confrontation. The old-time film style beginning (a great example of a “cold open” of a type of horror totally distinct from SAW’s brand of horror) through Nancy’s first discussion with Karl is tightly paced and incredibly well done, introducing our main problems, a few characters, and how Nancy is stepping into this faerietale that’s been all but prepared for her. Special shout out to Karl’s “huge monster problem” dialogue, and Lukas’ getting caught at the castle’s gates — just some really great, distinct character writing that we normally don’t get this soon into a game.
The confrontation, which is normally somewhat cheesy, sometimes awful, and nearly always ill-supported (HAU being the best/worst example of this) in a Nancy Drew game, here instead shows off Nancy’s quick thinking and almost triumphant, smug nature when she figures it all out and traps the villain. The games coming up, as I’ve mentioned above, I refer to as “the Nancy games”, as they give us a lot of insight into who Nancy Drew actually is, aside from an amateur/burgeoning professional detective, but SAW and (to a larger extent) CAP really start giving us peeks at Nancy’s character — not as an infallible main character, but as a girl with an actual personality.
My favorite puzzle in the game — and I realize that it barely counts — is quite honestly Raid. Normally, the games that HER comes up with as minigames within their games are lackluster at best and criminally annoying at worst, but Raid (along with the games in ASH which are particularly enjoyable) is fabulous; it gives us more of that faerietale vibe that the game runs on, brings in Germany’s well-deserved reputation of being the King of Board Games, and actually contains a few moments of good characterization for Karl as well.
And I’m a sucker for getting to create your own card for the game. That’s just stupid cool.
One of the things that CAP does particularly well is its characters, so let’s talk a bit about them here.
Renate, a common favorite, mostly lives up to her hype, due to her storyteller’s dialogue, status as a Sage (slightly different from the usual Sage in a Nancy Drew game, due to her backstory), and intense relatability with falling asleep after eating cake.
Lukas is one of the few child characters in the ND games that actually feels like a child, so he gets points there automatically, even without noting how charming he is. Having Nancy talk to him under the table is also gold, even with the sense that she’s just humoring him, and having him dress up as a monster in a fake out that fools nobody (and even better, is not meant from a writing standpoint to fool anyone) feels perfectly in character for a relatively unsupervised rapscallion like Lukas.
Last on the favorite character list is Anja, a character done To Perfection. It breaks my heart sometimes that she’s the villain, but her character also wouldn’t be complete without being the villain — nor would I love her so much. Anja is patient, loving, a great aunt, friendly, gregarious — and a villain. Her line when she’s talking to Nancy about how she was honest and worked hard every day, and no one cared hits me every time. Anja’s a perfect example of a character who is intensely sympathetic and quite relatable without ever having the thought that her scheme involving Nancy was even a little bit okay. She’s a villain that I’d love to have come back, whether as a villain again or as a begrudging helper.
Finally, let’s get down to the miscellany.
The dialogue in CAP is pitch-perfect, from the distinct way of talking that each suspect has, to Markus’ insults, to the one-off phone call with the pamphlet company. The game in part is so fun because the dialogue is so fun, walking the line between faerietale-style narration (Anja, Renate) and almost Buffy-speak modernity (Karl, Lukas, Markus).
The last thing I want to touch on it — yes, you knew it was coming — the fight between Ned and Nancy. Yes, I’m a Francy shipper, and I do love that Frank is the one Nancy turns to for help with the fight, but that’s not what this part is about.
First off, I love that problems that would /necessarily/ come up in a relationship like Ned and Nancy’s are brought up here; Nancy’s constant jet-setting, while a common side effect of the job she does, is also something that would cause tension — especially considering that Nancy doesn’t really tell him when she sets off for another state/country at a moment’s notice.
A thing that has become Increasingly obvious over the entire series is that Nancy is, let’s face it, not gonna win any awards for Girlfriend of the Year, and in fact might win the opposite award. Ned is constantly giving her attention, validation, helping out when she calls him, and is understanding when she cancels; for her to not give the same amount of care to him (in different ways, as everyone needs different things, of course) becomes more and more glaring as time goes on.
My firm stance on being a bit anti-Nedcy comes from the belief that Ned deserves to get as much out of a relationship as he puts in, and Nancy, as the person she is and even as the best person that she can be, just can’t provide that. Their needs as people are just too different for a relationship to be fair for either person – and, as this game demonstrates, though Ned has the shorter end of the stick, it’s not fair for either one of them.
The Un-Favorite:
There’s not a lot that goes into this section, to be perfectly honest.
The forest is probably my least favorite section of the game — the part that I consider before starting a new game over — but besides tweaking it slightly to help navigation not be quite so frustrating (see below), even the forest is a pretty good puzzle.
The bag puzzle — especially if you, like me, forget every time that you can rotate the objects in Renate’s purse — is the only other annoyance in the game, and ranks as my least favorite puzzle over the forest simply for the fact that you can use a walkthrough to navigate the forest, while you can’t use a walkthrough to do the bag puzzle for you.
Other than that, CAP is just a wholly solid game — no least favorite dialogue, no awkward moment, no point where I turn down my brightness to make it seem like This Isn’t Happening.
The Fix:
So how would I fix The Captive Curse?
Honestly, the first and only change I would make is to fix the forest just slightly. I get that it’s a puzzle, but it’s not quite visually distinct enough to make it feasible for a lot of players to learn how to navigate. To fix this, I wouldn’t take out the forest, I would just make each piece of it a little more visually distinct, with more markers so that players couldn’t lose their place as easily.
There’s nothing other than that worth fixing. Even my dislike of the bag puzzle isn’t strong enough to suggest scrapping it, and it’s a type of puzzle that many people like and are quite good at — not to mention the fact that it’s not at all gamebreaking in its difficulty.
The Captive Curse is often sort of a “top middle” or just “middle” ranking for a lot of players due to the fact that it’s not quite as showy as a lot of “favorite” games, and thus can get lost in the fandom shuffle. But looking at it as both pieces and as a whole proves that this game is one of the most solid in the series sporting a great mystery, fantastic characters, and more than a little faerietale wisdom to carry to the next story.
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Levi Lost
Leviathan x gn!MC
Words - 2038
Content Warnings - tiny bit of angst, lots of fluff, platonic relationships, BFF Levi
Prompt/Inspiration - retelling of the in-game chat of the same name “Levi Lost”, also includes references to the Devilgram “Love, Friendship, and Justice”
Summary - You’re enjoying a quiet day to yourself when Levi begs you for help - he’s lost.
AO3
You were sitting in your room one lazy Sunday afternoon, enjoying the peace and quiet as you read one of your new favorite books that Satan had recommended to you. It was so incredibly rare for you to have a moment to yourself, but everyone else was occupied with other things:
Mammon had a modeling gig; Asmo was on a shopping spree after seeing a new collection from his favorite designer had been released; Lucifer was with Diavolo presumably to have tea (though you had your doubts that was all he was up to); Satan had gone to check out a new bookstore (or so he said, you figured there was a cat involved somehow); Beel had sports practice at RAD; and Belphie of course was asleep in the attic after a very filling lunch. You hadn’t heard from Levi yet, but assumed he was asleep as well after staying up all night gaming.
DING
There goes my peaceful afternoon, you thought as you reached for your DDD with a sigh to check your incoming messages. You figured it was probably Mammon finishing up with his gig, letting you know he was heading to your room so you better be there and let him know how awesome he looked today.
But it wasn’t Mammon at all. In fact, it was Levi, and he had sent you a rather odd message.
“I have sad news. I’m lost.”
Lost? How could your favorite otaku be lost? He hadn’t even left his room yet. You didn’t want to just dismiss him though, on the off chance that something was in fact wrong.
“Are you okay?” you replied.
His response was almost immediate, and he had already sent through a flurry of additional messages before you had even finished typing out your own response.
“I went for a walk. I’ve been walking around for so long now. I wanna cry. Save me.”
Oh shit. He really was lost. He had left his room! You couldn’t figure out what would possess him to go out and exercise alone, but then you remembered the couple other times he had asked you to help him get into shape. Perhaps that’s what this was too?
Your instincts were to tell him that you’d be right there, and not to worry. But as you were typing you realized that you had no idea where he was exactly. And he didn’t know enough about where he was either to allow you to find him. If you went out on your own, you would doubtless get lost before you even reached him.
“What about your brothers?”, you asked instead.
“My brothers would only make fun of me.”
Right. You knew that all too well. Even though there was no doubt about their love for each other, they wouldn’t miss the opportunity to tease him. And besides, they were all still out for the day. Except Belphie, but he was probably the last one you should ask.
Just then you heard the familiar click of the front door as it closed, and steady, heavy footsteps ascending the stairs. BEEL! He’d be perfect. He should have no trouble finding Levi, and he certainly wouldn’t tease him for his predicament, at least not maliciously.
Wasting no time, you flew out of your room and caught the Avatar of Gluttony right as he reached the top of the stairs.
“Beel!”
“Hey,” he said as he looked you over, trying to figure out what could have sent you dashing out of your room in such a rush. He knew you had been enjoying a quiet day by yourself, as he had decided against inviting you to watch his practice earlier to make sure you’d rest, so he wasn’t quite sure what could have happened while you read a book.
“I need your help. Please. I’m supposed to meet Levi, but umm, I’m not quite sure where he is. I think he might have gotten a bit turned around too.”
Even though you knew Beel wouldn’t have said anything to his brothers, you weren’t sure exactly what Levi was up to and why he went out, so you did your best to cover for him and offer a plausible explanation for why he wasn’t in his room where he should be.
“Sure. Of course,” Beel replied with a smile. He didn’t believe you for a moment though, you were way too flustered to just be meeting up with Levi. And if all you needed were directions, you could have easily called up any of his brothers to assist you. And why would Levi be out of the house without you anyways? He rarely left his room as it was, and whenever he did these days it was always with you.
Ah. That must be it. Levi had gotten lost. Perhaps he was trying to surprise you somehow, and his plan backfired. It didn’t really matter though, Beel would help you out and get you to Levi, no questions asked.
“You’ll need to buy me a burger. I’m starving after practice.”
“Deal!” you agreed, “Just let me grab my shoes and let Levi know I’m on my way. I’ll meet you downstairs in just a sec.”
Without waiting for Beel’s response you spun on your heel, returning to your room to get dressed. Since you would need to make a stop to grab Beel his food once you got into town, you decided to grab something for Levi too. Something that you were sure would put a smile on his face. Quickly, you began typing out a reply to Levi, hoping you could soothe some of his anxiety while he waited.
“Hey. I’ll be there soon. Don’t move,” you hesitated for a bit before sending the next part, unsure if giving him a heads up would make things worse or give him a chance to prepare himself. You decided it was best to warn him so he wouldn’t be too surprised and flustered when he saw you, “Beel is coming with me.”
———
“Beel is coming with me.”
Levi let out a groan as he collapsed on the ground. Could this get any worse? It was bad enough he had to let you know just how much of a loser he was, getting lost while trying to exercise, of all things. But now Beel was going to know too? Why did you have to tell him?
No, he couldn’t blame you. It wasn’t like you were all too familiar with the Devildom yourself after all. Levi had lived here for over a thousand years and he still had managed to get lost. He couldn’t expect you to fair any better than him, as pathetic as he may be. And out of all his brothers, Beel was probably the safest choice. Belphie would have teased and mocked him mercilessly, and he didn’t even want to think about how obnoxious Mammon would have been. Yeah, Beel was fine.
Propping himself up on his elbows, Levi took a look around to see if he could make out any landmarks or familiar buildings. He appeared to still be in a park of some kind. The walking trails hadn’t seemed too popular or well used when he found it initially, which is precisely why he had chosen this location. Less of a chance of someone seeing him, which really had seemed like a good idea at the time.
For a moment he thought about getting up and walking some more on the off chance he’d be able to escape on his own, but then he remembered your instructions to just stay put so he settled back down, and turned his attention to the sky overhead.
It wasn’t often Levi got to enjoy the stars since he spent most of his time inside. Looking at them now, he could see why Belphie liked to take naps in the planetarium so much. The vastness of it all was relaxing, and the longer he laid there, the smaller and smaller his problems seemed.
He thought about how he had wanted to impress you, which is what led to his current situation. You always were happy to see him, and as far as he could tell, you were genuinely excited about the thought of spending time with him.
But he envied how easily Mammon could just scoop you up and carry you away. Why was he so fast anyways? And he saw how you lit up when Satan had danced with you so gracefully and managed to dip you just right, like something out of a romance movie. And Beel...well there was no point in comparing himself on that front. He’d fall short across the board, in all categories.
And yeah, he might be able to over power most of his brothers when it came to magical abilities, but that didn’t exactly help when it came to doing things you enjoyed. It wasn’t like he could summon up Lotan just to join you when you wanted to explore the Devildom.
So the first step, naturally, seemed to be to get into better shape. Running had proven too hard for him when had tried it with you previously, so he figured walking would surely be much easier, something even a shut in like himself could manage. And oh boy had he been wrong. So very very wrong.
———
As Levi laid in the grass, gazing out into the sky, you couldn’t help but smile at him. He was safe, and didn’t appear too worse for wear. You weren’t sure how, but Beel had managed to lead you to the right spot, much quicker than you had thought possible. You guessed it wasn’t that surprising though, Beel exercised regularly so he likely knew all the paths and routes around here. And even though you didn’t really tell him the truth as to why you needed help finding Levi, he seemed to have worked it out on his own.
“BOO!”
“Ahhhh!!”
Levi let out a high pitched squeal and you cackled as he floundered on the ground, scrambling to right himself.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you said, wiping the tears from your eyes as you regained your composure, “I just couldn’t resist.”
But Levi didn’t care. You were here now and he wasn’t alone anymore. To say he was relieved to see you would have been the understatement of the century. No, millennia probably. You looked like an angel to him.
“Oh, what’s that?”
Levi gestured to the large, heavy basket hanging from your arms. It looked suspiciously like a picnic basket, but he had no idea why you had one with you. He could see Beel standing a bit behind you, it appeared he was carrying two as well.
“It’s our lunch, obviously. Or would it be “linner” now?”, you shrugged, “Anyways, I made sure to pack a bunch of your favorites so we could have a nice picnic together. I included bentos too.”
His eyes lit up at that. What was this? Had he fallen asleep and was now in some dream world? Maybe he actually never left the house this morning and he was in fact trapped in a dating sim this whole time? Not only had you come to his rescue, but you managed to get there in what he was sure was record time, and brought him food to boot.
“And don’t worry. Beel has a couple baskets of his own, so they’ll be plenty left for us.”
You flashed Levi a smile and handed him your basket, before grabbing the picnic blanket you had packed and smoothing it out in front of you. As Levi moved to join you on top of the blanket, you leaned in and whispered to him,
“I hope you don’t mind, but I told Beel we were having a picnic. It was the best explanation I could come up. I’m not sure he bought it though, but he didn’t ask any questions at least.”
Levi could seriously kiss you right now. Or at least he would if this was actually a dating sim. And if Beel hadn’t now joined the two of you on the picnic blanket. So for the moment he’ll just settle for enjoying your company.
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Are there things you cannot possibly explain? Are strange things happening to you? These four may be your last hope!
The Challengers of the Unknown section on the DC Comics website from July 1997.
Transcripts under the cut:
INTRO:
Step into The Light...
CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN
The scene: A jumbo jetliner crashes in the Rockies. In the aftermath, four lone survivors pull themselves from the wreckage and are instantly transfixed by a mysterious bright light bathing the disaster site. The light, growing brighter and brighter by the second, "sings" to them, envelops them, until it is all... until it is everything!
After the accident, race car driver Clay Brody, theoretical physicist Brenda Ruskin, game designer Kenn Kawa, and pilot Marlon Corbet go back to their lives - lives which now seem shallow and unreal. In the weeks that follow the strange occurrence, each is haunted by recurring dreams of the crash and its aftermath, blindly unaware of the changes that have taken place - altering their lives forever!
The four are unexpectedly reunited by Sands, an elderly gentleman with a very special power: the ability to recognize others who have also been touched by The Light. The mysterious benefactor makes them an intriguing offer: If they agree to band together to continue his work, he'll fund them, give them access to information he's gathered over the years, and help them develop their newfound powers. This could be the turning point.. the moment they've been waiting for: to seek the truth, explore the unexplainable... to challenge the unknown!
---
BRENDA RUSKIN:
Flamboyant in style, Ruskin is deeply passionate about her career and most other things in her life. Easily the smartest of the Challengers, she became one of the youngest theoretical physicist in history, working out the mysteries of quarks and dark matter, and her nerve and straightforwardness put her in demand on the lecture circuit. Her love life is less successful, and whereas Brody has no relationships, she has too many of them, with old boyfriends tending to pop up at the worst possible times. Her romances tend to be short-fused and burn out rapidly.
While she has no surviving family, she's ardent both in theorizing about the unknown and in placing those theories in the context of existing scientific knowledge, to make the unknown understandable, though she has a more liberal definition of understandable than most. Her innate empathy with technology seems somehow stronger since the incident that created the Challengers, but it doesn't unsettle her.
An only child pushed to excellence by parents at the expense of friends, Ruskin seeks companionship as much as knowledge from the Challengers. But the one she feels closest to is Kenn. Though she's serious about being friends with all of them; she's almost always at odds with Corbett, and finds Brody alternately arrogant and smothering, as if he can't believe she can take care of herself. Sparks of all kinds occasionally fly between her and all members of the group. She just loves the adventure and the sheer "unintellectuality" of the whole thing.
---
MARLON CORBETT:
Pilot, from Denver, CO. Marlon comes from a middle-class background with strong family values, including strong but not overbearing, traditional religious beliefs and a liberal political tradition. Though the urge that drove him to fly was to find something beyond all that.
Following a liberal arts college education, Corbett enlisted in the air force, and later became a civilian pilot. His family is large, supportive and tightly knit, he's probably the most eager of all the Challengers to dig into their mission, and easily the most lighthearted.
Of the four of them, Corbett has the most to lose by his involvement in the Challengers. His family and fiancee, (who's threatening to end their engagement), don't understand his involvement with "the occult" along with his willingness to abandon his job, and he's not even certain he understands it himself. The situation becomes a test of his family's strength.
Marlon has been troubled by unsettling dreams since the incident that created the Challengers. He disregards the feelings until he meets Sands and realizes they are all changed.
Because he has the strongest family life of the four of them, he is both the most supportive member of the group and apparently the most tenuous, since he has a life elsewhere. But he's tied to the group by the desire to be something more than what he has been, to not be just a member of his family or of a nondescript flight crew, but to stand out, to prove himself. the most easygoing of the group, he openly likes everyone, rising above their petty squabbles and frequently providing the viewpoint that lets the rest of the group rise above them, too.
His natural charm makes him a good front man for the group when they have to deal with the public or smooth the ruffled features of officials.
---
KENN KAWA:
The hardest to pigeonhole of all the Challengers, Kawa designs role-playing games for a living, and enjoys his skill at "playing" widely diverse characters. A firm believer in believing, his beliefs are equally mutable, tending toward wilder concepts; one week he'll espouse psychic surgery, the next primal scream therapy, the next Zen meditation. His family offers no clue to his true nature: his parents divorced, they and his sister are scattered across the globe, and he rarely sees them, though they exchange the usual birthday and holiday cards.
Unknown to anyone, he has an ex-wife and child, but prefers to keep them away from this part of his life. Kawa meanders through relationships with women, who tend to remain his friend rather than angry ex-lovers when he breaks up with them. But Kawa has constants: loyalty, an active practical imagination, an eye for details, a zest for new possibilities - and the ability to keep a secret.
Certain aspects of his fluid character are affecting his everyday life since the incident that created the Challengers, but he welcomes it, embracing anything new as a positive change in his being. Kawa enjoys periodically changing the direction of his life, so the Challengers come at the right time for him. There's little malicious about Kawa, but he delights in testing, seeing how far things can be pushed before he has to go a different way, and this is his chance to test reality. He "tests" his fellow Challengers as well, constantly challenging their preconceptions; he's the most open to the unknown of all of them. He particularly pushes Ruskin's buttons, triggered by her hot temper and her subtle claims to intellectual superiority, but underneath it all they enjoy each others company.
---
CLAY BRODY:
Race car driver, from Pikeville KY. Coming from a coal mining family, Brody is solid and dependable, but his childhood also left him with a taste for risk, and beating it. His father is dead, his mother and his three sisters have never left KY; and since a wild period in his teens when they wrote him off as bad, he hasn't dealt with any of them.
He's very methodological, believing only in what he can see, feel, plan or strategize. Even following his encounter with The Light, Brody resists acceptance of the paranormal and particularly of the spiritual, viewing everything with a skeptical, grounded eye. But, even he cannot deny that his experience during the incident that created the Challengers has changed him, and that change frightens him the more he understands it. Until he meets Sands, and learns the others have been similarly changed, he thinks he's going crazy.
While pleasant enough toward the others, and far from hostile, Brody is guarded around them, determined to find rational explanations for what they investigate, to ground the group in what he perceives as reality. In many ways, he's their anchor. He stays with the Challengers due to a secret need for a family he never really had, but learned behavior with his own family gets in the way. What the others mistake for occasional arrogance is actually shyness. He's rarely without black driving gloves, not really for his image, he wears them to guard himself from... something.
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Star Wars Battlefront II (the good one)
My nonfunctional internet is preventing me not only from finishing off my essay, not only from watching the lecture that I would have shown up for were it not for mediary COVID restrictions, but it’s also stopping me from writing anything here that would require any sort of research or confirming details. That leaves me with less options that I would have thought.
Browsing through my Steam collection for ideas on what to talk about, and something jumped out at me pretty quickly.
Star Wars Battlefront II (the 2005 game, not Star Wars Battlefront 2, the sequel to the EA remake much maligned for malicious microtransactions) is a first/third person shooter that, while showing its age, remains one of the best games the franchise has ever put out. This is, of course, an opinion coming from someone who has yet to play Knights of the Old Republic, but it feels like Star Wars as a franchise has more misses than hits. So what makes this one land?
While I’m woefully unfamiliar with the early 00s shooters that Battlefront II was competing with (aside from Counter-Strike Source, but I’d argue that’s a different target market), I am extremely familiar with this one. I think part of why Battlefront II is so fondly remembered is on account of it being almost a gateway game for people getting into shooters in general- I for one played it extensively on my mate’s PS2 in primary school, and later on someone else’s PSP, and I doubt I would later have clicked so strongly with Halo if I hadn’t.
But what Battlefront II has more than anything else I feel is ambition. After the conclusion of the prequel trilogy, Star Wars’s universe was big, and the developers seemed interested in representing about as much of what we see of it’s style of warfare as they possibly could. As a result, the maps are a glorious smattering of worlds and terrains, loving and detailed recreations of places from the various films as well as a few that are probably new (I might just not remember them), each drizzled with vehicles and turrets and resources. Each of the game’s four factions share the basic units with very few differences (except for the Super Battle Droid), making them easy to understand and grasp for newer/younger players, with the complexity of each’s unique units paying off those willing to grapple with their weakness and play to their strengths. Some are definitely better than others, but that isn’t especially obvious at first. The basic classes reflect tropes seen in other games and while again some falter it’s not by enough that picking them in the wrong situation is a guaranteed blunder.
There are, of course, the heroes, major characters from the series granted to a player who’s doing pretty well, and I feel like this is another pretty well handled mechanic, even if a little awkward. There are enough of them, and they’re distributed enough between maps and factions, that they don’t tend to feel stale, and it’s pretty obvious that while they can absolutely ruin a team it’s also pretty easy to mishandle them. Unfortunately, heroes are related to one of my biggest complaints about the game, but we’ll get to that later.
One of the biggest selling points in my eyes are the dogfight levels. Now, I’ve never played X-Wing or the like, in fact my experiences with dogfighting games is extremely limited. But this part of the game fucks so hard. The design ideas begun with the class selection continue with the (admittedly small) range of starfighters you can pilot, with specialised interceptors, bombers, and landing craft to go alongside the effective all-rounders. The mode offers a variety of playstyles, between hunting down opponent’s fighters to bombing their flagships to boarding said flagships and destroying their systems from the inside. There is also the option of manually controlling the turrets, as well as acting as a gunner for someone else’s bomber/lander, but these positions are unfortunately underpowered and underexplored- they’re also, ultimately, less fun. But the dogfighting just feels right. I can’t really explain it, but moving in that 3-dimensional space feels not only satisfying but accurate to the source material in a way I don’t think any future Star Wars game has yet replicated.
I suppose the various game modes are worth discussing. Skirmishing on whatever map you want is the standard, at least in multiplayer, but there are a few unique offerings you won’t see in other modes- Hunt, where it’s a faction versus some of the series’s wildlife in a mode that always feels imbalanced towards one side or the other. There’s obviously Assault- the standard name for the space dogfights but on one ground map (Mos Eisley) it is of course the ever-popular heroes free-for-all, a chaotic mess but one where you can test out each one and figure out what their abilities actually do. But in the broader strokes, you’ve got the story, and the Galactic Conquest, as the two main other modes.
(oof, they really didnt build this with this resolution in mind huh)
That’s right, this game has a story, and it’s…okay? Ultimately it’s just a series of missions with the 501st, as they fight in the clone wars, turn on the Jedi, and ultimately become the Empire’s tool of oppression, separated by exposition. You get to run through some scenes from the movies, including the boarding at the start of the first movie and the Battle of Hoth, though some of the missions feel harder than intended- no matter how good the player is, the AI is not going to fare well in the tougher missions and you have a solid chance of ending up on your own.
Galactic Conquest is the game’s more unique selling point, being something like a basic version of Risk but with the dice-rolling battles replaced with Star Wars Battlefront II. You earn credits over time and through victory that you can spend unlocking types of units, getting new fleets to improve how many fronts you can wage war on, and unlock powerups for use in the actual battles. It’s largely fine, feeling like a bit more controlled and strategic version of just playing randoms in Instant Action, but it suffers the most from the biggest problem this game has.
The game’s truest flaw is its AI. They are dumb as a sack of potatoes, and the main thing holding the game back from perfection. And it was the early 00s so imperfect AI was to be expected, but it’s a bit more than imperfect here, I guess. Robits standing still while shooting you (or just at all, while you’re sniping them), extremely questionable vehicle and turret usage, and literally crashing starships into you, your flagship, or their own flagship. Bumping their difficulty up doesn’t really help, either. Even more egregious is the AI’s usage of heroes- or rather, that they don’t. If you’re playing single player, the game will always give earned heroes to you rather than your robot teammates, will not let one of them take if it if you decline to use the character, and you will never see one on the opposite side. This would imply that there wasn’t code for the Ais to use them, except there clearly is because Assault Mos Eisley exists- and they’re arguably much better there than in any other mode! It’s a real shame, because the low quality of the AI combined with the nature of the games means that victory is extremely polarised based on the player’s skill- if you bad all the way up to pretty decent at the game, your input basically doesn’t affect the outcome, whether you win or lose. If you’re good at the game, you will never lose at singleplayer, possible exception again being Assault Mos Eisley. It’s a little absurd, honestly. Also, I’m not even sure they go for the flag in CTF in space.
I am, however, willing to look past these flaws. The game is far from perfect, but it’s just incredibly fun. It’s a type of gameplay that they’ve tried to replicate, but never quite recaptured- and I think part of the reason for that is because the awkwardness is part of the charm. It’s nostalgic- both for those who played it when they were younger and just those in my generation who grew up on the Prequels. It’s also way more expensive on steam (bruh 14.5 AUD for real?) than I expected, but it goes on hard sales pretty often (I think I paid like a buck fifty for it), so it’ll be within budget at some point. I don’t know if I can recommend it for those who aren’t nostalgic, though, solely on account of those awkward features you likely wouldn’t be able to ignore like I do. And that’s a shame, because it’s not like they’ve made a better version of this game.
Fuck EA, basically.
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Cheer For Me - Bakugo Katsuki
Overview: After finding out the devastating news that use of his explosive quirk has damaged his hearing, Bakugo believes he has failed as a hero in training. However, a certain support class student isn’t ready to give up on him yet.
Pairing: hard of hearing!Bakugo x support!reader
Warnings: partial loss of hearing, angst from a grieving Bakugo.
Author’s note: Hi lovelies! This is my first ever BNHA fic. THe idea came to me a while ago and I just couldn’t rest until it was all written out. Let me know what you think, and I hope you enjoy!
———
He never though that this would happen to him.
He was Bakugo Katsuki. He couldn’t possibly be suffering from damaged hearing. No. That was impossible. Illness and other handicaps, those were incidents that happened to all those other extras in this school and the world, not to him. He was a hero in training. He had to be at the top of his game, dammit.
“I’m afraid all those loud explosions you’ve let off in close proximity to your ears has provided extensive and lasting damage to your hearing. I’m sorry Bakugo”. Recovery Girl gazed up at him, leaning on her cane with a glimmer of pity in her eyes.
Bakugou gritted his teeth and balled his hands into fists, feeling a sheen of sweat stain his palms as he tried to contain his damaging explosions. “You can fix it though, right? You’re the best healer in Japan. I need to be perfect, you understand? I’m going to be number one”.
Recovery Girl sighed and shook her head. “Cuts, abrasions and physical wounds. All those I can fix, but even there is a limit to what I can heal. Sometimes the human body just can’t be repaired. I can’t fix your hearing young Bakugo”.
A wave of shock slammed into him, followed by shards of ice that pierced deep within his gut as effectively as if bloody Icy-Hot had just unleashed his right side. He stared blankly at Recovery Girl, noting her mouth moving as she continued to talk, but everything was muffled, as if he was submerged underwater. The only thing he was aware of was a sharp ringing in his ears as he looked around the sterile, white room.
Like a man who had had too much to drink, he lurched to his feet. Blindly he stumbled out of the room, shoulder crashing into the frame of the door as he moved past. Great. More pain.
“Woah woah dude! What happened!” Kirishima pounced as soon as Bakugo staggered into the corridor, arms reaching out to grab his shoulders as his crimson eyes filled with concern. He had brought Bakugo here as soon as training concluded after all.
It was Kirishima who had noticed something off about him. During a regular combat training session the two of them had partnered up like always. However, this was the first time something had gone wrong. Despite Kirishima’s loud yells, Bakugo had failed to dodge Deku’s punch to the jaw despite the loud warning. He had never failed to listen to Kirishima’s advice before, despite pretending otherwise.
“Out of my way Shitty Hair” Bakugo snarled at his friend. The last thing he wanted was more pity.
“But dude-“
“Leave me alone!”
Bakugo broke into a run, throwing himself through the corridors of U.A. At a sprint, shoving through crowds of surprised faces and letting muscle memory take over until finally he was slamming the door of his room closed, collapsing onto his bed with the breath puffing out of him. Heart pounding, he stuffed his face into his pillow, refusing to acknowledge the thin stream of tears that rolled down his cheek. He was not weak dammit! Heros don’t cry.
But how could he be a hero now? Everything he had worked for, his ambitions. His whole damn dream. Who had ever heard of a deaf hero? His hearing wasn’t gone yet, but Recovery Girl had warned him if he kept using his quirk....
His explosions. The one thing he was so proud of. The quirk that was going to make him number one was slowly destroying him instead.
Bakugo had never felt so lost. Refusing to accept his fate, he turned over and willed sleep to take him, deliberately ignoring the barrage of texts lighting up his phone in the dark gloom of his lonely dorm.
———
Blinking his eyes open in the glare of the morning sunlight, Bakugo stumbled out of bed, collecting the pieces of his uniform as he dressed ever so slowly. Dread filled his body as he remembered his situation. He didn’t want to face everyone else. If there was one thing that could be counted on at UA High, it was that gossip spread like wildfire.
He moved about his morning routine like a zombie, brushing his teeth at an extra slow pace, taking the time to double knot his shoes. Slow and stiff movements that signalled how unwilling he was to head to class and see his classmates and anyone else who now knew about him.
“Get yourself together. You’re Bakugo Katsuki. Who cares what all these extras think”.
He hyped himself up in his head before exiting his dorm room, making a quick stop by the kitchen to grab a protein bar before heading to class. No one was in sight, which meant he was going to be late. Shoulders held stiff, he made it to the giant door marked with his class number. Hearing the distinct chatter and buzz of the menagerie of voices inside, he braced himself before shoving open the door.
Avoiding eye contact with his classmates he stepped inside, immediately strutting to his desk and throwing himself into his chair, ignoring the nineteen different gazes of his classmates that roved over him. Uniform even more messy than usual, he sat with his head resting on a fist, waiting and praying for Aizawa to wake up from his stupid yellow sleeping bag and begin the class.
Bakugo could not have had a worse day in his life. It was bad enough with all the stares and whispers from other students in the hallways, but he couldn’t handle the soft murmurs of his classmates whenever they were near him, stealing glances when they thought he wasn’t looking. It was obvious to Bakugo that none of his classmates had a malicious intent. Quite the opposite actually, but he still didn’t want pity. He wasn’t weak.
It was hero training, the last class of the day where he felt broken inside. Taking Recovery Girl’s advice to the fullest, he tried to contain his explosions, letting off weak pops towards his opponents that definitely weren’t strong enough to take them down, only detain them for a moment. For the first time ever, he was defeated. Opponents slipping under his guard, easily able to evade the half-assed explosions propelled in their direction. Each sparring session ended with Bakugo taking the loss. Well, almost each one. He was still able to hold off that little weak pervert Mineta, and a few other fighters who heavily relied on their quirks, instead of good old fashioned hand to hand combat.
His lowest moment came though, when Deku’s fist slammed into his jaw in their last match, snapping his head backwards as his body fell heavily to the ground. Bakugo lay there panting as his mind clouded over in a mixture of anger and disgust at himself. It had finally happened. He was weak.
Deku’s eyes had widened as soon as Bakugo regained his feet, feet steady as he braced himself for a barrage of anger and explosions to come his way. Instead, Deku witnessed something he never thought he would see in his life. Bakugo simply glared, rubbing the large purple bruise forming on his jaw before walking away.
This wasn’t the Bakugo he knew. That Bakugo was so animated and full of passion, giving every match, every punch, every move, his all. Midoriya’s heart felt heavy. He had to do something. Even though Bakugo was never the nicest person to him, it was a completely alien feeling seeing his childhood friend brought so low.
———
The next day Bakugo repeated his routine of dressing slowly, moving in a stupor as he made his way to class again. He wasn’t looking forward to another crushing defeat in hero training again. He didn’t think he could handle the embarrassment. Now that he was aware of his condition, he couldn’t help but notice how every sound he picked up was just muffled enough to put him on edge, the way a radio may have been turned down slightly, just enough to not be comfortable.
He hated it.
His surprise came when he had made his way into home room again. Everything was the same except for a pale pink note on his desk, signed with a little heart in the corner.
“Bakugo - when you get a chance come to the design workshop. I have just the thing for you”
Bakugo was skeptical and confused. What the hell was this note for? It was definitely for him, that was obvious, but why the hell would someone from the support class need him? Tch. He thought about ignoring the note, but his curiosity was piqued. He glanced around at everyone in his home room chatting away, but no one payed him or the note any extra attention. He kept searching, looking at their faces to see if anyone had noticed the note, but no one appeared suspicious. He sat there pondering, until his eyes landed on Deku. Flicking his eyes from the note clutched in Bakugo’s hand to his face, Deku gave a soft nod, mouth forming into a small smile as he met Bakugos eyes.
Immediately Bakugo crushed the note in his fist, unsure of what to feel. Stupid Deku, why did he have to meddle everywhere? It was clear he was involved somehow. However... Bakugo couldn’t deny he was curious. Who had wrote the note and why did they need him? He resolved to go immediately after class.
Making his way down to a part of the school he rarely visited, Bakugo stopped in front of the design studio. This was so stupid, but he was here now. Raising his hand, he knocked hard against the door with his bruised knuckles, shoving his hand back in his pocket with a scowl. Power Loader was the one to open the door. Although his expression was hidden by the oversized helmet he wore, his body language was one of interest.
“Ah Bakugo. How can I help you?” Power Loader leaned against the door frame, crossing his arms.
Grimacing, Bakugo thrust the crumpled note in his direction. “I was told to come here, but I’ve got no idea why one these extras need me”.
Power Loader took the note in between his orange tipped fingers, glancing down at the pink paper before immediately straightening in surprise. “Ah yes.” He turned to yell over his shoulder back into the workshop. “Y/n! Come here please!” He turned back to Bakugo. “I believe Y/n was the one who sent for you. This is definitely her handwriting.”
What the-?
Bakugou raised his eyes to peer past Power Loader into the mess of the workshop, locking eyes onto a girl coming towards the door, spanner clutched in her left hand as she used the back of her arm to wipe a smudge of black grease off her face. Upon seeing Bakugo, her eyes lit up, smile spreading across her face as her steps quickened.
“Bakugo! Just the person I needed.” She bubbled over with energy, bouncing on the balls of her feet before she lunged forward, grabbing his wrist and dragging him into the room. “I’ve been working on these ever since I heard about your situation.”
Sputtering, Bakugo allowed himself to be dragged forward past an amused Power Loader, mind swimming with a million questions. “Tch, what the hell are you talking about?”
Y/n stopped by a workbench, letting go of his wrist and clasping her hands in front of her. “You got my note yes? Well, I’ve been working on a little something for you. I think this is the answer to your problem.”
Turning to the low bench strewn with various gadgets, tools and scraps, she reached across to a small black box, flipping the lid open as she pulled back and handed it to Bakugo.
“What do you think!”
Lowering his eyes to the box in his hand, Bakugo screwed up his eyes in confusion
“The hell is this?”
Rolling her eyes with a smile, Y/n took the box back and popped the two small objects out in her hand. “Hearing stabilisers! I made them for you. In record time actually. I doubt I’ve ever made an item for the hero students so fast before! I thought if you started to use them now, then they will help lessen the damage to your ears. Your explosions are ultra powerful, and I can’t heal your ears, but I can prevent you from causing anymore damage to your hearing.”
Shocked, Bakugo looked at the two small orange devices, meant to curl around the rim of his ears and nestle just underneath the lobe.
Silence was thick in the air. Y/n’s beaming smile began to slowly fall as words were yet to materialise from the aggressive student’s mouth.
“Look if you don’t like them, I can improve the design. Make it look-“
“Shut up.”
“What?”
Finally, Bakugo raised his gaze, hard crimson eyes bearing into hers, the hard line of his mouth relaxing slightly as he looked at the stabilisers then back at her.
“I said shut up. These are... perfect”.
It was her turn for her mouth to drop open in shock. Stunned, she rocked back and forth on her heels as her beaming grin slowly spread its way back across her gentle face.
“I’m glad. After all, the future number 1 hero shouldn’t be damaging his ears. He needs to be able to hear his fans cheering him on.”
Catching the mischievous twinkle in her eye, an unfamiliar warmth stirred in his chest.
“I...I don’t say this much but... thank you.”
Once again bubbling over with energy and kindness, y/n stepped closer.
“You’re welcome Bakugo.”
———
BOOM!
The thunderous explosion tore through the perfect blue sky above the UA training grounds, bursting with every shade of burnt orange and yellow in the spectrum as the target dummy soared through the air, landing with a mangled thunk as it hit the earth halfway across the arena. If the dummy had been a villain, he would have literally been toast.
“Dude! That was awesome”. Kirishima cheered, awe flickering across his face as he whooped in admiration.
“Yeah Bakugo! That was sick.”
“Way to go Kacchan!”
The clamour of his classmates filled the air as Bakugo stood his ground, orange devices lodged firmly under his ears and panting heavily as Kirishima threw an arm around his shoulder.
“Your’re back! You’re kicking ass just like you used too! What changed Bakubro?”
Before he could answer, a distant whoop sounded across the arena. Squinting into the sunlight, Bakugo spied a figure sitting in the stands, waving enthusiastically.
Straightening with a snap, Bakugo dislodged Kirishima’s arm from around his shoulders as a small grin flickered across his face.
“Her”.
Breaking into a jog he headed for the spectator stands, aiming for the figure of the girl who had helped him get his confidence back.
Stopping a foot away from him, her signature smile was firmly locked in place as she took in his hero costume, now complete with the hearing devices of her making fixed behind his ears.
Looking at her form with a slight uncertainty, Bakugo spoke without harshness in his voice. “What are you doing here?”
Teasingly, she replied. “Like I said. You need to hear your fans cheering for you.”
Eyes widening slightly before a smirk settled on his face, Bakugo closed the distance between of them, seizing her waist and pulling her figure close before his lips met hers.
Her arms snaked around his shoulders, fingers settling in the soft blond hair at the base of his neck before they broke apart.
Breathing quickly, Bakugou leaned his forehead against hers, not believing his actions but simply unwilling to break the spell this girl from the support class had over him.
“You’re amazing, y/n.”
Smiling shyly and leaning up to place a kiss on his cheek, she spoke softly. “No Bakugou. That’s all you.”
Staring into her warm gaze, moving his hands to entwine them with hers, Bakugo had never been more certain of what was in store for him and his future at UA.
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“Aren’t you the one who got expelled from DeSales?” These were the first words that you said to me as you approached me at David’s bonfire in 2011. We were seventeen years old. A group of us came here after a Friday night football game. There were a handful of neighborhoods in our village, perhaps five important ones, but the one we were in that night was the best – the one where sophistication meets elegance meets English-inspired architecture. There was a twenty-seven Jack Nicklaus golf course in front of David’s home. Inside the house was a grand reception room, medium sized ballroom, martini parlor, two dueling libraries, a small art gallery, and a wine cellar. Throughout the home, opulence of the tenth degree: marble floors and 18’ high ceilings and two servants. Just beyond where I was sitting, there was a heated pool, veranda, and small tennis court. Jews get everything. This whole village was Jews, new money snobs, and plastic surgery. But I never minded.
You repeated the question, “Hellooooo, Naomi, right?” I looked up at you with red, glossy eyes. I was stoned, and David’s two servants had been serving Cabernet since we got there. I smirked, raised my head at you, and said, “Who’s asking?” You extended your hand and introduced yourself with the charismatic, all consuming smile that I would one day become familiar. I did not return the warm reception; I had a magical sadness about me that year that began with the death of my rapist and ended with my name being the topic of more than one scandal. I hardly remember much of the year at all, but I remember meeting you there that night. In That Place.
You acted like you were meeting a celebrity. You mentioned a few of the rumors that spread around DeSales about me, most of which were incredibly true, and I told you that night, “It doesn’t matter what people say about you unless you believe it.” You told me that you had just transferred to the village school and that you were incredibly lucky: You lived in a modest home on the edge of town that had not been seized by Wexner for further construction of his brick empire.
I was completely awestricken by you. You were so bold, so empowered to speak truth, so nonchalant in the way you spoke, and had this magnetic flowerchild persona. If it hadn’t been for you that night, I would have drank alone at the firepit of David’s home. It was true that I was still frequently invited to events that year and next, but I was never really one of these people and I always remained on the outskirts of parties and social gatherings. When the night ended, I told you not to talk to me again. You needed a fighting chance to assimilate in this odd, wealthy village school that was more reminiscent of an episode of Gossip Girl than a place in Ohio. You were never going to get that if you associated with me.
~
We reconnected in February 2014. It was a historically brutal winter in Ohio, frequently closing down the university, and I was frailer at 106 lbs, more contemplative, and battling an autoimmune disorder that was so severe that I was sure it would have killed me. Looking back on it now, there is no doubt in my mind that your antithesis to everything that I was saved me. From the moment we reconnected, there was rarely a moment that we were apart. Every morning, you held back my hair as I spent the morning vomiting into a dormitory toilet. When I would try to crawl back into bed, you would force me into a warm bath, lay out clothes for me, and often blow-dry my hair when I was too weak to do so myself. Without fail, and for the entire semester, you would walk me to the cafeteria, watch me eat breakfast, and we would undoubtedly end up back on the bathroom floor for several more hours. But you’d still make sure that I attended my afternoon classes, even if that meant sitting on the business halls’ floors in effort to see that I didn’t leave. You were the only person who knew how bad my health had gotten that year.
Because to everyone else, I was confident and had accomplished in my studies precisely what I had in my social circle of business students—complete mastery, complete command. I was fastidious, wearing almost exclusively Brooks Brothers button downs that tucked into dark colored slacks or designer jeans, and carried myself with an air of superiority that few ever questioned. In school and in the finance society, I was the best. I maintained a portfolio of investments that had achieved a 56% return that year, and when I shared my opinion on what our club should be investing in, I was rarely wrong. It awed some, and frustrated many male egos that couldn’t understand it. I was an excellent financial analyst to be, interviewing at several bulge bracket investment banks in New York and Chicago that year. And when anyone questioned me or alluded that I couldn’t possibly being doing as well as I was, I would raise my prominent nose nostrils at them and say nothing at all.
I didn’t dress, walk, talk, or play like other college students did. I was incredibly aloof and malicious, whereas you were a never-ending ray of sunshine. You were bohemian and buoyant and wise all wrapped into a blonde package of beauty. My persona was much more overpowering and chilling. Yet, you liked me, and you held my secret, and no one ever questioned why you—the special education major—were in the business hall at 2 pm, 4 pm, 8 pm, and 10 pm everyday. In fact, most of my companions that year really preferred you to me and it was often a relief to have you there as a shield.
In the summer of 2015, we moved into an off campus apartment in what would be considered the Chinatown of Columbus, Ohio. With my full-time job in financial services and lucrative investments from the prior year, I had tried to convince you to live downtown in a high-rise apartment, but you wouldn’t have it. You always wanted to pay your own way, and Chinatown was what you could afford. So we lived there with Ethan Allen furniture, your bohemian nonsensical decorations, including a plethora of crystals, bags of cannabis, and music posters. By the end of the summer, I was showing signs of recovery, though the months of medical bills had put me in a tougher spot financially than before. I was still able to casually pay our rent and fixed expenses, afford food, and pay my own tuition without much concern. Though it was in September that everything changed.
You worked at a Bob Evan’s right behind the university that summer to save for college, but you had racked up $17,000 on a credit card that was accruing monthly interest. You wanted to save, but you were forced to pay that down and there was never an expense that you met that you didn’t like. It has always been who you are: you spend too much on others, too much on holiday decorations, too much on latest clothing styles, too much online, too much on fast food, just too much. So even though you worked your sixty hours a week until that political bill made everyone like you work thirty-seven and a half hours and not a moment more, you couldn’t make tuition. And I couldn’t help you.
I remember one night we were in Cincinnati for a Cal Scruby concert when the idea came to me. I said, “There are a lot of girls in Pi Phi that I know that use this escort site to make fast cash, and you are much prettier and have a much better personality.” So while we waited for the concert to begin, we turned the Marriott hotel room into a glamorous studio for photos, and wrote you a descriptive, alluring profile on that website. Looking back on this now, I am not sure what I was thinking except that it seemed like a perfectly sensible thing to do, and everyone else was doing it. An older, established Cleveland man solicited you within the hour. You planned to meet him later that week. A thousand dollars just like that.
But that fateful morning, you confessed that you couldn’t do it. And I knew then that if you didn’t return to school that semester, you might never. And I thought about your credit card debt, your newly broken down car, and your ambitions slipping away from you. And I couldn’t let you, the brilliant bohemian with so much to offer to the world, possibly lose it all that easily. So I knew what this all meant for me, but the way I saw it, and still see it, is that it was the least I could do for the person who likely saved my life. So I became you: I went to a hair salon that day and dyed my harsh, almost black hair, to bleach blonde; I bought extensions; I bought baby blue eye contacts; I used makeup to manipulate a small mole on my cheek; I contoured my face, used drugstore eyelashes, and it was convincing enough. That night, I wore a pink kimono with ripped jeans and pale high heels. I wasn’t nearly as tall as you, but I hoped our Cleveland man wouldn’t notice. And he didn’t. And that was that.
These visits continued twelve times, and we never spoke about them. It was our next big secret, and one I never planned to mention them to a soul. Your fall tuition was paid and I was relatively healthy, and we had our oasis in Chinatown. Everything was finally alright, it seemed, until December.
There was only one problem: That Piece of Shit Heroin Addict. Back in the summer before the school year began, you had met Josiah. Perhaps it was my jealously of losing part of you, but I never took to him. You could have had any of my friends majoring in finance – we both know that they all loved you, and could have given you the life you wanted – but you chose him. I am certain that your biggest flaw has always been loving flawed people and thinking that you could positively influence the outcome of their lives’ through love and belief alone. Josiah was everything that I loathed about a person: he was uncouth to a fault, sported a horribly unkempt appearance with long, blonde, greasy and tangled hair, had terribly patchy facial hair, had lightly yellowed teeth from years of smoking and drug abuse. Best of all, he drove a sports car. His family was from the neighboring county, and in Ohio, if you don’t live in the capital county, you might as well live in the middle of a fucking farm wasteland infested with heroin, blue-collar jobs, and Mountain Dew.
I tolerated this boy in the summer because you loved him. But it worried me when you would come home at 3 a.m. with him and his cronies, and they would all end up sprawled out on the floor of our apartment. These people were not good enough for you, and they brought you down with them. I would have done anything to better myself that year—I associated myself with the most elite people our university could offer, all of whom today ended up becoming prominent investment bankers and private equity directors, some traveling internationally, some making over half a million dollars annually – but you always found yourself attracted to the bottom.
He manipulated you. He told you lies about me, and made you think differently about me. He fed you drugs. He sedated your sunshine and stole your youth. And then in December, he convinced you that I was nothing more than a haughty, arrogant, self-serving person, which perhaps was right to some degree, but never with you, and that you needed to leave. So one night in December, when I was traveling, you stole everything out of our apartment – right down to the kitchen table and bath curtains – and left me to come home to nothing. You never returned my calls or texts, and it was more than a year before I ever got an explanation.
You went from my fascination to my friend to my caregiver to my roommate and best friend to my deepest regret.
In fact, for the next six years, you tried to contact me sporadically, pleading for forgiveness, but there was nothing that I could offer you. At times, you would comment on my life events that you could see through social media. You told me how happy I looked in my wedding photos, but little did you know for those four years that I was getting beaten, evens sometimes being held at gunpoint, literally; you told me how successful I had become from my work, but little did you know that I was facing more than one harassment suit; you would tell me you were happy that my life had become so wonderful, but you had no idea that at the very time you sent that, that I was sitting in a hospital waiting to be radiated for cervix cancer. And through all of it, I thought of you frequently, sometimes spitefully, sometimes with more regret than a person can carry, sometimes with fondness.
~
But I never returned any of your correspondence until last week. And now, here we are at a Panera in a rundown suburb, and I am staring right at you. The passage of time has not been your friend: you wear bold framed glasses that remind me of Buddy Holly. Pregnancy has turned your beautiful blonde hair into an ashy brown shade and your long, cascading curls have been cut into curly short strands. You have gained perhaps thirty or forty pounds, hidden under a large, flowing hippy blouse – so that has remained, your style.
When I approach you, you throw your arms around me for what feels like an eternity. I had planned to dig into you; I had wanted you to feel the internal war that has been raging inside of me since your departure. But I can’t do it. As you pull away from our embrace, you try to speak but your lower lip trembles. Your eyes are red and strained and you weep as you grab for my hand. People around us begin to stare, but my sole focus is on you. I suppose it always has been. You begin a long soliloquy of apology, that at times is so incoherent and sincere, I can only help but think that this has eaten away at you for as long as it has me. So I don’t chide you for abandoning me, I simply smile and say, “I Forgive You.”
As we catch up, it seems our friendship is a marker in time for you much like it is for me. There was before you, you, and after you. Your “after you” is dark – things have been much harder for you for the past six years than they have for me. One unplanned pregnancy, another planned pregnancy, multiple lost jobs, government assistance, an alcoholic partner, and death threats galore. It is hard to imagine the young bohemian that I once knew has achieved such a disappointing life. You never finished college and you work as a PSA in a hospital. You mentioned repeatedly how tired you are, and I see you: it’s a spiritual exhaustion that knows no bounds. It is the type of exhaustion that one can only feel when they have done nothing that they set out to do in life. I am familiar.
I often take your hand in mine. We talk until the Panera closes, and then promise to meet again soon.
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#10 - Jailbreak
Setting: let’s enter the SpOOkY!!! girl, i’m sorry i have to take a moment to appreciate the KI that this episode is. from the statues that come to life to the purple water, the red sky, the bat props that Sly can ninja-spire onto, the music. it’s like a Scooby-Doo episode. Contessa’s house looks like a freakin insane asylum hahahahaha this is all fantastic. i’ve been to Prague and the towers are literally the same. i know i should be analyzing this in the Themes section but in terms of environment, Prague (both levels) are the crux of Sly 2, if not narrative-wise, then definitely emotionally-wise. @designraccoon made this amazing post a while back which went into detail about how the Prague levels represent the darkest nights in the entire series and then in Canada it’s day. i mean, the whole game is great but these central four episodes (from A Starry Eyed Encounter until A Tangled Web) are, in my opinion, what make it so amazing. there’s definitely climax because the stakes are so high. 2/3 of the gang and Carmelita have been captured, Neyla has double-crossed us, Bentley (who was up until this point the weakest link physically) is all alone, and as we find out by the very beginning of the episode, the Contessa is a secret Klaww Gang member. well, this is all dandy. having Bentley alone further establishes how haunting this episode is because we first witness the hub as him, which has never happened before. he’s an itty-bitty-witty turtle roaming around the ultimate spooky level. and the Contessa, she didn’t come to play hunty. i’ll go into more detail about her character below, but she feels more of a threat than Rajan or Dimitri. not because she herself is scary, but because she’s built an empire. Dimitri had bouncers and Rajan had his staff, but Contessa has an entire army and (at this point) Interpol backing her up. in terms of environment, the hub feels huge because of the giant prison in the centre. it truly is a pain in the ass to enter the prison, but that just highlights the fact that, well, it’s a prison. in general, SP really captured the essence of a European town: the stone pavement, the bridges and the sections under them, some historical arcs blocked by cage bars, etc. all this being said however, if we factor in the narrative, Jailbreak’s Prague feels very dead. maybe it’s done on purpose, but due to the gang’s absence and the prison’s overbearing presence, this (similarly to A Starry Eyed Encounter) feels like a prelude. we’re defo onto something big, but we first have to break out Sly and Murray. and lord knows what comes next is big...
Characters: i want to expand the Setting section here but also leave the big gang moments for the Theme section, so this is really about the Contessa. this episode is soaked in melodrama. the themes are heavy, the morale is low, the narrative is complex to say the least. The Predator Awake’s ending was such a shock that we genuinely forget about Carmelita’s whereabouts, as she’s not even mentioned here. we meet the Contessa and, even though she’s already been introduced, this is the first time we really get to know her. the hub really encapsulates her character: a total psychiatrist witch whose gothic surroundings reflect her malicious intentions. a true villain, the definition of the word. she’s a member of the Klaww Gang but also has an ulterior motive and even gives the gang a run for their money with her hypnosis. the bitch also has a blimp she uses for swift getaways, i mean what more can you want. and this is not even her ultimate form as A Tangled Web will see her deliver some very important lines of dialogue and truly show off how evil she is. but for now, she lurks in the shadows. similar to Rajan in the previous level, she spends most of the episode absent (you’ll notice there’s no Clockwerk part in this episode too). this is probably done to give the player some breathing space after the Neyla twist and allow the gang to gather their strength. but her presence is felt, due to how she embodies her hub, the personification of the obscure and the SPOOKY ! for me, the Contessa is as big a villain as Clockwerk, Neyla and Dr M. she’s just selfish and that’s her downfall, as we’ll see in the next episode where she’s presented in a very Nietzschian fashion. it’s like they merged Miz Ruby and Clockwerk: they honed the spooky aspect by added intelligence. Miz Ruby was too short sighted and lacked ambition. the Contessa created herself after she murdered her husband, made herself rich through her psychiatry scam, earned a strong rep via Interpol, and touched the divine by getting her hands on the Clockwerk eyes. the self-confidence is unreal.
Themes: uh, fear theme !!!!!!!!! (like the full shebang, not the half-baked version from The Predator Awakes) our characters are put to the test, forced to face their fears. Bentley had to learn how to drive the van, drive all the way from India to Prague, and explore this nightmare of a level all on his own. Sly was captured by the police and Murray was rendered weak, his will and control taken from him with the use of spice. the theme fits the level like a glove and everyone gets to confront their fear. Bentley succeeds in saving his friends, Sly (although not shown directly but instead mentioned via the Contessa) breaks free from the “hole” under which he’d go mad, and Murray goes head to head with the Contessa at the end of the level. as i analysed in the Setting section, the fear theme is further established by the spooky environment and missions (werewolf statues and evil robots that come to life), as well as the prison’s interior. i mean, consider the gang’s biggest fear is getting arrested but enhance it by a hundred by making the prison seem as hellish as possible. its sombre green and blue tones are reminiscent of Arkham. it truly feels like an insane asylum, with its towering cells, booby traps and devices used for hypnosis. the fear theme is dominant here, but there’s also the theme of separation. up to this point in the game, the gang’s unity has been taken for granted. soon after Bentley and Murray learn the basics, the gang is split. this not only increases the difficulty of the challenges they have to face on their own, but also puts things into perspective. mainly, things only work out when they’re together. you’ll notice that after Jailbreak (and by extent A Tangled Web), there’s an increase in group missions. He Who Tames the Iron Horse, is full of them. their time apart has all three of them realise that teamwork is essential, and that their friendship is the basis for their success. and lastly, a mind theme. i feel like there’s a connection between the hub and the Contessa’s character: her trained mind is so hard to breach, similar to the prison with its high walls. she’s a brittle spider but shouldn’t be underestimated. mind over matter, basically. her head’s interior is full of high security and intricate designs, spotlights and guards. everything feels so claustrophobic in there. both her expertise in psychology and the prison are devices used to break through with her prisoners. and once Sly and Bentley manage to penetrate the walls and get through to Murray, she’s caught off guard because of her seemingly flawless fortress.
What I Like: lots of stuff here. i was always a fun of the spooky-ooky so this is perfect. Bentley is my least favorite gang member but i really enjoyed his narration and how he came through even though the odds were stacked against him. the Contessa is my fav villain from the game, maybe even the series, so there’s that too. in terms of details, i really like Sly disguising himself as a werewolf statue on the bridge, even going so far as to imitate their open mouths. and the prison’s interior is great too. OH! AND that little bell you can hit to distract guards in the hub. i love that little bell.
What I Don’t Like: i’d have to say, the missions are kind of a drag, especially after The Predator Awakes which had some pretty good ones. apart from following the Contessa around and playing as Murray in the prison, the rest are tiring in my opinion (i’m not referring to the operation). specifically, Code Capture and Lightning Action feel like filler, maybe because they’re all made available at the same time, when Sly breaks out. i was never fond of the hacking and this is the episode it’s introduced in so... yea...
Quote: Inconceivable! She's no health care professional!
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