#this isn't even half of the stuff I could've used as examples

[sarnai4]

Opening Up

About opening up...Dagur kinda doesn't. (Spoilers ahead)

This is something I've seen some fans talk about where they say Dagur would reveal personal information easily. I see where they're coming from with this. Looking at Dagur, I'd expect that too. He's outspoken, emotional, unrestrained, etc. He seems like someone who could randomly say, "I had a good cry today," and it wouldn't be anything surprising. HOWEVER, that changes for me when I look at the proof from the show. If Dagur was half as open about things as this would imply, then we wouldn't be forced to speculate so much about his past and the things that have happened to him. In another case of me spending too much time studying Dragons (probably. Still worth it), I tried to collect all the examples of Dagur sharing information. They have something in common. Each time, there's a specific reason. I'll go in chronological order.

In "Enemy of My Enemy," Dagur tells Hiccup how revenge can make you do things you didn't think you were capable. This was an interesting moment of really getting to see how the villain we saw Dagur be wasn't who he always was. It even shocked him how extreme his actions became. This has the potential to be some heavy stuff, but he didn't just outright say it for fun. He said it because he saw Hiccup going down that same path. This isn't, "I can't believe the things I've done and really need someone to talk to." It's, "I see you following in my footsteps and they led me in a terrible direction. I don't want that for you."

It takes Dagur F.O.R.E.V.E.R. to admit he didn't kill Oswald. Even as a good guy, he doesn't say it easily. In "Family on the Edge," he implies that something Heather said out of the sent her adrift, killed their dad, and tried to kill them list wasn't true, but he doesn't just say it. He writes it in the letter, admitting that and how he was worried that the other Berserkers wouldn't follow him otherwise. If he wanted to do it for emotional release reasons, he could've just said the first time or even told her way back when he thought they were on the same side. Rather than that, he puts it in a letter so that her final relative won't be quite as bad as she thinks he is.

In "Searching for Oswald...And Chicken," Dagur has two moments. First, he tells Heather how he's spent most of his life in varying stages of existential crisis. (Just wow for that. Wish we had heard more about it because that is quite the emotional load he nonchalantly dropped) Again, this clearly isn't to get something off his chest because it's not even something he brings up again. He just tells her so that she'll have proof he knows what is meaningless, hopefully getting her to stop throwing herself in harm's way to find Oswald. Later, he tells Hiccup he keeps anger, frustration, and rage to himself. This also isn't to share so much as to prove he can keep secrets and deserves to be trusted with the location of Vanaheim.

Then, we have "In Plain Sight." There, we find out he used to get bullied. He waited until as much of the last moment as possible to tell Fishlegs and Snotlout this. They had already flown from the Edge to Berserker Island and were literally walking down to meet Ansson. So, I don't think it's him wanting to share sensitive information. It's him knowing they're about to be there with the bully and since Ansson doesn't care about playing nice, it's going to be obvious that he used to bully him. This is just softening the blow a little by telling them first. Didn't really help, though, since they still laughed at him being called "Dainty." (Not cool even though I get how weird it would be to hear someone call him that)

Unless I'm mistaken, that's everything. I don't think there's another time when Dagur reveals something personal. Each of these had some deeper purpose. This is why I don't believe Dagur would start speaking about his past traumas without a prompt. Now, I'll say I do enjoy having him talk about this in stories and I support other writers who do. I just believe it takes a little nudge. He's not going to sit down next to someone and talk about his time in jail. He has literally never spoken about his time in jail in the entire show except the first RTTE episode to say that he spent 3 years thinking about Hiccup. So, it actually leaves a lot of room to be creative with what his past even has first, then what situation would get him to spill the beans.

#HTTYD #RTTE #Dagur the Deranged #Past #Trauma #I think most can agree he has PTSD #We just don't know the specifics of why and I want to know #Heck we still don't know why he sent Heather adrift #I need answers😭 #He's winking because he knows his lips are sealed forever

[beaft]

Hi and sorry in advance for using this as an excuse to rant a bit about Good omens 2! I feel the same, I binged it with my girlfriend and at the end we just sat in silence for a minute and then went "...what the fuck was that." It was so incredibly poorly written and plotted in many aspects, though I understand that if one doesn't love dissecting stories piece by piece to analyse it from all possible angles it could be hard to understand why some people are saying it's bad. I feel like it's comparable to a house that looks pretty but is build on really shitty foundations and has a lot of structural issues. Most people can't see anything wrong with it and find it good, but the people who know how those things are built can immediately see all the glaring issues under the surface.

In short, in my opinion a lot of this season's short comings hinge on it's complete lack of thematic coherence and structure, completely ignoring or even discarding what was at the heart of the original story. This season was a disjointed jumble of scenes and concepts that only superficially lead to other scenes that within the bigger picture had no weight at all, plot or thematic-wise. Once you start thinking back to some of the plot threads the show established to move the story forward it's almost ridiculous how little they actually meant for the conclusion. And I don't mean stuff that 'might be resolved in the third season'! Creating a miracle to keep Gabriel hidden from everyone? He could've hid in a closet and it would've had the same effect for the plot. Muriel being set to keep an eye on Aziraphale and Crowley? Nothing, no consequences, in fact Aziraphale fucks off on his investigation right after, which, by the way, served no purpose than to give us some exposition that in the end got re-iterated to us during Gabriel's flashbacks. He doesn't actually figure anything out in a way that impacts the story lol. Even the whole "we have to make these two women fall in love so that Heaven believes us!" is kind of just forgotten by the end of the story, and nobody holds them accountable to their claim. The character of Jim is completely non-existent for half of the season and has no emotional arc or impact as a character on Aziraphale and Crowley - he could've been a magical cardboard cutout that spouts funny lines every now and then. There were so many set-ups within this season itself that had completely lackluster or non-existing pay-offs it's actually kind of ridiculous.

So many of the things people list or write about when talking about this season are there in concept, but they're not acted upon in the writing. A prime example of this is the Aziraphale/Crowley and Nina/Maggie parallels that people are pointing out - but within the season's current day scenes there isn't any romantic or emotional development between Aziraphale and Crowley, and the story doesn't center itself around that parallel or development. The only scene I could think of that even remotely does something with that is the Jane Austen dancing scene - except where Nina and Maggie have a conversation about what is going on right in that moment and how they're feeling, Aziraphale and Crowley are as good as emotionally dead and then the scene already ends.

If you start breaking down the plot elements it could've been made so, so SO much more tight-knit and coherent by focusing on what was important - ergo the character's relationships now and the bigger plot beats. As much as I loved the flashbacks in season 1, in this season they merely serve to tell us what we already know about Aziraphale's and Crowley's relationship and to add some superficial and pointless context to the different locations Aziraphale visits. Another thing I think is a big difference between this season and the original story is that every character, every concept had a Point to it, usually a joke or some sort of funny commentary (whether it was good/actually funny is another thing entirely). That's what made it feel interesting and sharp, whereas the new characters in this season just kind of... are. If you break down the concepts to their bare essence, coffeeshop owner in a toxic relationship and record shop owner who has anxiety are pretty bland as character concepts go. Shax as a character is also just so... pointless lmfao. It's almost badly caricaturing the concept of Gomens demons, which are already caricatures, so the effect is somewhat reminicent of beating a dead horse long after it has died. Anyway, so sorry to clutter your inbox like this but I just needed to get this off my chest. It's so weird seeing the dissonance between what is textually there in the show and how people are reacting to it!

hi! i hope you don't mind but i'm posting this publicly because tbh you really hit the nail on the head with every single one of these points. the whole season felt like this:

over and over again a potentially interesting plotline would get introduced, and then the writers would kind of just. forget why it was there? best example is, as you say, the nina/maggie thing - originally it began as a cover story to explain away the Forbidden Miracle, but that quickly ceased to be relevant, and the "we need to make them fall in love to get heaven off our backs" became a half-hearted running gag that was returned to every now and again with increasing half-heartedness. no sense of forward planning, no callbacks or consequences, just the constant sense of frantic improvisation without an end in sight.

#good omens #good omens spoilers #long post

[ghostflowerdreams]

The Lost Boys are a bunch of hoarders. I can see each of them having a massive collection of things from over the years and from their victims.

If they see something they like they will take it. For example if their latest victim has a nice leather jacket that looks like it'll fit them, well, it's theirs now because it never hurts to have a spare -- or twenty more. It's the same thing with jewelry and any cash in wallets.

That's not to say they'll keep everything. What they don't want will most likely be pawned off. Some things they like and actively collect while other things they will get because of necessity like candles. Vampires have better eyesight in the night than normal humans, but that doesn't mean they can see in total darkness. This is most likely why they had all those candles lit in the cave.

The cash taken from their victims isn't only used for food, but towards candles, batteries, gasoline, and other things that aren't easily found on their victims or on the boardwalk.

Most of the time they steal shit. They don't even need to use their hypnosis-compel ability or illusions to get want they want. Though I can definitely see them doing things the old fashion way just for the fun of the challenge it brings. Other times they avoid stealing if it'll be something that draws too much attention after a while. After all, the more often something goes missing the easier it is for unwanted eyes (like vampire hunters) to catch on and make the connection.

Would they even need to worry about being caught on camera or video? One of the points in the film was that vampires don't have reflection in mirrors. We saw this with Michael's reflection being transparent because he was only half-turned, but what if that wasn't the norm anymore (as it could've just been an old mirror)?

Vampires traditionally couldn't be captured in mirrors because they were made with silver, and thus old timey cameras which used silver nitrate plates also couldn't capture the vampire's image. However, modern mirrors are made with aluminum and advances in technology has made it so film/(digital) cameras can do a lot, even capture vampires just fine, well, that's the theory anyway.

I suppose it'll be up to the fans and writers to decide if the boys can be capture or not. Will they be invisible no matter what? Or did that vampirism aspect only apply in the past (because silver was used and is typically a weakness for most monsters), but they can now be caught on cameras? If so, will they look like normal people? Will their eyes give off a weird reflective glare like most animals do in photographs? Or will their imagine be super blurry no matter what anyone does to try to "enhance" it, while everything else in the photo (or video) stays super clear and normal?

I digress. The point is that I can totally see them having piles of stuff scatter around their hotel-cave.

Each one will have a pile of clothes. I wouldn't be surprise if some of it is out of style too. They either forgot about it or still keep it around to help feed the fire because why else do they have those drum barrels around?

They also got a lot of books, vinyl records and cassette tapes. I imagine on slower days or late at night when everything is closed they find ways to entertain themselves, be it by reading, listening to music or the radio. If not, they probably have a collection of various games too like darts, playing cards, monopoly, charades, chess, etc.

As for what does each one personally collect?

Hmm, I guess Marko with the state of his jacket he probably collects patches and pins. Maybe even owns a few sewing thread sets with other art and craft supplies.

In the cave there was some seashell mobile or wind chimes hanging around. I think Dwayne is the one to make it (or one of the boys got it from the souvenir shop knowing it'd be something he'd like). He might like collecting seashells. I can also see him collecting some books, animal bones, antique keys, sea glass, ammonites, pretty or interesting looking rocks, etc.

Paul is probably the one to expand the collection of music and games. Batteries too, though I wouldn't be surprise if all the boys add onto it and make sure their stockpile of batteries never runs too low. Maybe movies and concert ticket stubs? I don't see him paying for it though, so he probably snatches them from others. He might even collect or make his own guitar picks too.

As for David...I don't actually know. Probably books, oh, maybe cool looking zippo lighters? He does smoke so that would make sense. Oh, what if he has a collection of pocket and folding knives? It certainly wouldn't be hard to come by. I imagine there's been plenty of times of people thinking they can take him on with just a knife (this of course is before he reveals he's a vampire). He would probably find it amusing and be like 'oh, how nice' if it's something he doesn't have already. He'll be picky about it though. No shitty quality knives unless it's aesthetically pleasing.

Other possibilities is watches, badges, matchbooks, dice, shot glasses or keychains from states/countries they've been to (though this might be more of a Marko and Paul thing) and coins.

#the lost boys #the lost boys 1987 #the lost boys (1987) #tlb 1987 #thoughts #david the lost boys #marko the lost boys #dwayne the lost boys #paul the lost boys

[kitkatopinions]

Honestly, I feel like people who say Yang can’t notice Ruby’s behavior are also ignoring she’s literally meant to be protective/overprotective. As somebody who has felt responsibility for a family member growing up:

You’re attuned to the little things. You watch for them. I can list specific examples.

When upset, their texting style changes and uses briefer responses. They’re curt. They try to isolate themself when normally they want to talk about issues. They slip into being passive aggressive at times. They don’t try to seek me out for conversations as often.

I could accept Yang not noticing if she hasn’t been billed as a protective/overprotective sister and if Ruby wasn’t visibly behaving differently. I listed SUBTLE changes I’ve caught onto. So it baffles me people say Ruby was hiding it because she wasn’t. And even if she was, being written as overprotective or protective, YANG WOULD HAVE CAUGHT ON SINCE SHED VIEW RUBY AS A RESPONSIBILITY IM SURE.

Even then it’s insane to act like a family member who has no history of violence will turn violent when expressing angry emotions. Then again, based on what they did to Qrow, I guess that is consistent writing.

I've seen people claim that anyone who has a problem with how Yang was written in V9 is "infantilizing" Ruby.

I don't know how to explain to people that saying "a suicidal seventeen year old in wartime who just lost a friend deserves a little more care than the occasional half-hearted 'are you okay,'" isn't actually infantilizing. It's also a wonder, because if I recall, rwde posters got told that expecting a seventeen year old girl to make the choice to help either the people of Mantle or the soldiers fighting Salem was cruel and horrible and we were all being far too hard on Ruby and nobody should expect Ruby to be able to hold it together under those conditions, but the second we say "Ruby needs a stronger support system from her friends and family" suddenly it's infantilizing, and how dare we suggest that Ruby not be able to get one hundred percent better all by herself, and how dare we suggest that maybe a seventeen year old might need to be taken care of a little bit here and there, and how dare we put all that on poor Yang who has her own life and can't spend all her screentime attached to Ruby.

For the record, I don't think that Yang needs to spend all her screentime attached to Ruby and I don't think that she can't have her own life. I don't even think 'she and Blake should have waited to get together' because like, they were basically forced into it by the world around them (which is a fact that this show absolutely won't take seriously or be interested in examining.) I do think that this "Blake and Yang got together while they were all stuck in chaos-central and Ruby had a breakdown after all the heavy stuff from V8 happened including the death of Penny and it feels like a bad time" thing was a bad writing choice, but that's the writers fault and it could've been avoided if Blake and Yang had been dating in volume 7 instead of them putting it off unnecessarily and/or choosing to make it happen mid-Ruby-breakdown (they could've had Blake and Yang kiss during their reunion instead of just hugging.) But that's besides the point, because the point is, I don't blame Yang the character for getting together with Blake. What I do dislike though is the way that the writers wrote Yang to act towards Ruby. Every moment that she has with Blake can stay the same! The almost hand-hold and making jokes? Although I think the jokes are in poor taste, having them flirt is fine. But then when Ruby and Weiss stop walking, Blake and Yang could notice and stop walking, and turn to try to join the conversation. Blake can still throw herself into Yang's arms when she sees her alive! But then when Ruby comes to after literally fainting from how bad her stress and trauma is, Yang can be super worried and be really hesitant to start moving on. Blake and Yang can still cheer each other on in the chess game! Only instead of Yang just accepting clear deflection and seeming to forget about Ruby's problems the second something somewhat distracting happens, we could've had Yang trying harder to get through to Ruby and pushing her to open up, only stopping when Ruby actually shuts her down and tells her she doesn't need it or want it right now. Blake and Yang can still have their moment on the bridge! Only it can also include them starting that scene with Yang taking a moment to call for Ruby and Blake helping to calm her down and get her to focus on the problem at hand (maybe with a cute "we can find her, but first we have to take it one step at a time, so just focus on me for a moment, yeah?" And Yang taking a deep breath and looking at Blake and being like "Yeah," more calm now and with her voice warm because seeing and hearing Blake is grounding to her.) They can still be caught up in their kiss so much that they didn't even notice the change of environment! Only then after Ruby runs off, Yang can be running after her but unable to keep up, with Blake and Weiss right behind her because they care about Ruby just as much, and they can lose track of her trail of petals and Yang can be like "Dammit!" And Blake can be like "I don't like this, Neo is out there," and Yang could be like "You saw her just now, she - she can't fight like this, she can't go wandering off alone!" We can still have Blake holding Yang while Ruby tries to commit suicide! But then we could also have Yang asking frantic questions about "where has Ruby gone? What happens to humans who ascend? She's not dead, is she?! Oh my God, what if she's dead?!" And we could have Yang have a bigger reaction to finding Ruby in the tree, and we could have given Yang focus when she sees the twisted zombie-like Ruby clones that the Cat conjured up instead of having Jaune's trauma so focused on, and we could've had Yang actually worry about Ruby and not just put her right back in the place of "perfect leader" when Ruby just said she didn't want that.

The problem is that the writers aren't writing Yang to act like a caring older sister because they are bad at emotional depth and they're bad at sensitivity, and they really seem to struggle with letting characters feel without taking them away from plot to do so. I'm not asking for Blake to be removed from Yang's story or to get less focus, I'm just asking for the writers to learn how human siblings usually react when their loved ones are having breakdowns, and improve on how they write characters to express emotions.

It's ridiculously over sensitive that fans can't stand to see any criticism of Yang at all without trying to come up with every excuse imaginable, or deflect like "Ruby can take care of herself!" Ruby is seventeen. I'm in my mid-twenties and two years ago I got roaring sick, and my older sister was concerned and helpful and kind and there for me, and I was like "gee isn't it great to have a sister who is here for me and helps me when I need it," and surprise surprise I was never like "She's infantilizing me!" Ruby the seventeen year old with clear PTSD having a breakdown to the point of fainting who was crying while an adult man screamed in her face and then ran away to sob on her own while an evil murderer was out to murder her... Actually did need support! And care! And attention! Honestly, the way that some people in the fndm have been acting towards Ruby ever since they decided she was a threat to their enjoyment of Yang and their ship is really weird.

#rwde #canoncrit yang xiao long #tw; suicide mention #tw; suicide

[grayluforever]

Am I the only one here who likes InuKik better than InuKag?

DISCLAIMER: This little analysis took me quite some time to type out, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't downvote it right away and at least read it until the end.

I haven't finished the anime yet (currently at episode 129) but from what I've seen so far, I can safely say that I'm not too fond of InuKag as a ship. It just kind of seems like one of those bland "boy meets girl and they fall in love" ships. Sure, they have some cute moments here and there, but what really turns me away from the ship is stuff like Kagome constantly - and I mean CONSTANTLY - abusing the power of the beads of subjugation whenever she's in a bad mood and everyone in the group siding with her without even considering Inuyasha's feelings in the matter. He just needs to say or do something that might irritate Kagome even in the slightest, and the next thing we see is him face-planting at least once after an unsolicited sit command from Kagome.

For example, in one episode where he was in the modern world, Kagome's mother sent him on an errand to bring lunch to her daughter. What's the first thing Kagome does when he reaches her and is about to give her the lunchbox? That's right, she tells him to sit. This is but one of many examples that I noticed in the anime.

Here's another one: Kagome brings food from her era to Feudal Japan and cooks for the whole group. Nobody complains about her cooking, however, Inuyasha seems to prefer the instant ramen over the food that Kagome made. What does Kagome do? She gets angry and tells him to sit.

Last one: Inuyasha goes to see Kikyo. She's his first love, the first woman who ever accepted him for who he was after a lifetime of being ostracised from two fronts for being a half demon, a being that isn't wanted in neither human nor demon communities. Kagome gets angry over him wanting to see Kikyo and tells him to sit. While I understand the sentiment of her being angry and jealous, by no means does this warrant physically harming Inuyasha by making him face-plant into the ground.

Kikyo, on the other hand, seems to really, truly care about him. Sure, she did go overboard when she attempted to drag him down into hell with her because she wanted to die with him, and she held a knife against his throat at some point when she talked about the weakness that is Naraku's human heart, but she never intentionally harmed him, right? She was incited to kill Inuyasha by Naraku and sealed him against a tree by piercing his heart with a holy arrow, but she did that because she was under the impression that Inuyasha fatally wounded her - when it really was Naraku who disguised himself as Inuyasha to trick Kikyo into hating her lover. Before the tragedy, they seemed like a happy couple that was just about to achieve perfect harmony by becoming normal people. Inuyasha was very close to using the sacred jewel to become a human - a normal person. The consequence of this would've been that the jewel would've gotten purified, which would've released Kikyo from thr burdens of being a priestess, she could've become an ordinary woman, too.

Whenever Kagome punishes Inuyasha through the beads of subjugation for whatever reason, everyone in the group, literally EVERYONE sides with her. "Poor Kagome, how could that dummy Inuyasha hurt your feelings like this by going after Kikyo?", I dunno, have you considered the fact that this is his first love we're talking about here? He still loves and yearns for Kikyo. He can't let her go, because his feelings for Kikyo are still strong. Of course, it's normal for Kagome to get jealous. It's a human trait. But that doesn't mean it's okay for her to just yeet him into the ground like a toy figure every time he does something that's not to her liking? If we'd turn the tables, if Inuyasha would dare to hit Kagome even ONCE out of a bad mood, I'm sure there would be an uproar about this in the Fandom.

Kagome just seems like this moody, entitled schoolgirl, while Kikyo gives off more calm and mature vibes. This is also the reason I like Kikyo more than Kagome. She puts more thought into her actions.

#anti inukag #anti kagome #pro kikyo #pro inukik

[bookdragonwrites]

Buddy Daddies was good, but could've been better.

I'm sure some or all of this has been said, but here are my thoughts. Spoilers, obviously.

Before I begin: I enjoyed Buddy Daddies. I really did. I'm a sucker for accidental child acquisition and affectionate bickering. This isn't me saying Buddy Daddies is bad. It has a lot going for it and I'll very happily watch it again sometime.

However. As someone with a background in writing (though admittedly not screenwriting), I did have some issues with the storytelling.

1 Overambitious choice of genres

If you only have 12 20-minute episodes to work with, there's only so much you can properly explore or draw attention to. Therefore, it's a good idea to pick a small set of core characters, a few core themes, and a single main genre (maybe two, if they're related). Buddy Daddies got the characters right: we've got Miri, Rei, Kazuki, and Kyuutarou. Four mains is good. No issues there. The themes were fine: found family, letting go of the past, deciding what you want from life. Nothing ground-breaking, but then themes rarely are, so that's not an issue. The problem here is genre. Buddy Daddies tried to take on two disparate sets of genres at once. First there's parenting comedy with the odd bit of comedy assassin/spy silliness. Cool. Obvious choice. All for it. Then they throw in adult drama/assassin thriller. Now they're trying to juggle two genres at once, and both require a different tone and level of seriousness as well as different takes on the core themes. If they'd picked either one to focus on and used the other one more as a background worldbuilding tool, it would've been fine. Instead, I got whiplash from how fast some episodes kept switching between genres. One second, we've got Miri at daycare, doing cute kid things. The next, we've got Kazuki and Rei involved in a gory gunfight. Another minute later, we're back to Miri with Kazurei trying to troubleshoot some minor issue they think she's having. This was especially bad in the second half of the show. The thing is, mixing these two genres can be done (Spy × Family being the obvious example – it's in the title) – if you have the time for it. 12 episodes is not enough time. If they'd tried to cram the full plot of Spy × Family (or even the entire first series) into 12 episodes, it wouldn't have worked nearly as well as it did. I'm sure the Buddy Daddies team simply didn't have the budget for 24 episodes, and that's unfortunate, but they should've tailored their script to the runtime. On the opposite end of how this could've been solved, we've got something like Barakamon (12 episodes). Barakamon has a not-dissimilar set-up to the light-hearted aspects of Buddy Daddies: a Tokyo calligrapher with writer's/artist's block gets sent to a sub-tropical island, where he's essentially adopted by Naru, an outgoing girl a year or two older than Miri. Over the course of a summer full of low-stakes shenanigans, the calligrapher comes to realise that Naru (who functions more as a little sister than a daughter, but we'll set that aside) and the other islanders have given him some much-needed perspective on life. The show chooses to focus on the low-stakes shenanigans almost exclusively, and generally treats the calligrapher's professional worries as one of multiple plot devices and as a source of comedy. There are a few episodes at the end that are a bit more serious, but even those have many light-hearted moments. The first half of Buddy Daddies seemed to be trying to do a similar thing: Miri decides she has two papas now, and Kazurei have no clue how to parent, so they end up applying their skillsets as assassins to the situation. I really liked those episodes: there was some assassin stuff on the side, but mostly we were watching Miri and Kazurei get lost in the weeds of modern parenting. I wish that could've lasted. I didn't really want or need all the serious stuff to take centre stage instead. (Of course, one could just as easily have done an assassin thriller with comedy elements, but I can't think of an example off-hand.)

2 Rushed plot

Related to the previous point: a rushed second half with a climax that didn't pay off. I keep coming back to this somehow: the first half was fine. The plot was straightforward and the pacing suited the content. Really enjoyable. Kudos. Then we got into the second half, and suddenly there's a metric shitton of really serious problems with only perfunctory foreshadowing. The organisation Kazuki and Rei work for becomes a looming Spectre of Doom ('it's certain death to leave or even have split loyalties, and the Boss wants his son back at any cost, so you're both shit out of luck') rather than a vaguely nefarious plot device. Rei's past is really, really dark, and apparently needs to be dealt with in far more detail than Kazuki's. Why? Dunno. Easy drama, I guess. But fine, I'll forgive that. It's a show for adults, after all. The thing I can't forgive is the rollercoaster speed at which we then zoom through a complicated series of events. And not in a good way. Just... an endless series of stuff, one dire situation after another, with bits of Miri in between. Rei's father reasserts himself in his son's life. Miri's mother shows up again for no reason (more on this later). Kazuki just gets tossed around on the waves of constant upheaval. Kyuutarou can't decide what he wants or needs to do about any of it. At this point, I stopped being invested, because it all went by so fast that I didn't have time to care. And why the hell did Kazuki and Rei think it was remotely reasonable to go to Rei's father's house, kill a bunch of his people, demand to be left alone, and then expect to A) survive and B) be back in time for Miri's Christmas event? Did they get concussions in the plot rollercoaster? And then it all culminates in... nothing? Well, not nothing. Rei loses the use of his dominant arm. But otherwise, they get off scot-free and somehow manage to run a restaurant for ten whole years, apparently without the Spectre of Doom bothering to follow up on these two escaped assassins, who both know tons of stuff they shouldn't. They're a major liability, useless gun arm or no, but the plot doesn't seem to care. Had this been a Barakamon-style comedy all the way through, I could've let that slide, but Buddy Daddies insisted on taking on these really mature elements and then simply didn't bother giving us a climax that lived up to them. It's my understanding that the BD team were shooting for realism and a 'surprise'. The climax contained neither. Instead, I was left bewildered and wondering when the other shoe was going to drop. Apparently there only ever was one shoe.

3 Miri's mother

I liked the way Miri's mother was handled in the first half (again). She's a complicated woman who made some enormous mistakes, but I liked the way the narrative showed that not all women are cut out to be mothers, and it takes courage to admit that. The way she went about finding someone else to take care of Miri was deeply irresponsible and frankly awful, obviously, but we do get an acknowledgement that it's possible to be a mother and be unable to love your child the way she deserves. Or so I thought. Then she came back. For no apparent reason. Aha!, I thought, clearly someone's paying or blackmailing her to do this (Rei's father, maybe?). But no. She'd had a truly epic change of heart. Suddenly she wanted to be a mother again, because now she had cancer and had lost her job, so I guess she had nothing better to do than cause upheaval in her daughter's life once again by selfishly insisting that she have her back and that Kazuki and Rei, whom Miri loves, have no further presence in this young child's life. Seriously? I don't buy it. Also, way to betray the point you'd made in the first half, geez. Is it possible to resent becoming a mother (against one's will, even), or is it not? But it gets worse! Basically as soon as she has Miri back, Final Words Man bumbles in to have a protracted shoot-out. Apparently he can't just do his damn job without a bunch of unnecessary melodrama. But at least he does half the job he set out to do. Miri's mother is dead. Aha!, I thought, she isn't really dead, and she'll come back once more, this time maybe to coparent or something (or at least find some sort of compromise). But no. She's dead. The End for Miri's mother and the most unnecessary character comeback I've seen in a while. This is lazy writing for easy Sad Points. The most infuriating part is that this entire 'I want Miri back' subplot serves little purpose to the greater narrative and could've been cut with minimal drawbacks. I didn't need or want to see more of Miri's mother. Her first appearance had been perfectly self-contained and didn't leave much by way of dangling plot threads. The Spectre of Doom could just as easily have summoned Rei to go see his father and then sent Last Words Man to attack Kazuki and Miri. Why add this subplot at all if you're already having to rush through the rest of the story? Mystifying.

-rant over-

Now, again, I still found plenty to like in Buddy Daddies. It's just that it could've been so much better, and I really wonder why the writing team made the decisions they did.

#buddy daddies #buddy daddies spoilers #spoilers #analysis #plot analysis #this is a lot longer than i'd expected

[popculturebuffet]

Sam and Max Save the World Retrospective Finale: Bright Side of the Moon! (Patreon Review for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy freelance police and after a short delay, we're finally back with the final chapter of telltale and skunkape's SAM AND MAX SAVE THE WORLD! Rest assured as the fact i've often called this the sam and max telltale retrospective shows, i'm nothing if not consistent, this isn't the end of the road as we'll be going onto it's sequel, Beyond Time and Space, next month and The Devil's Playhouse whenever the remaster comes out. If I need to stall for time we've got PLENTY of other sam and max content to shove down your ravenous max sized gullets.

But the future is the future and the past is a rainbow colored cult leader our heroes have to stop in order to Save the World. It's been a long strange trip.. and honestly some of the most fun i've had doing these reviews. As I said in the first chapter of this retrospective, and I feel bears repeating now we're at the end... I often don't quote jokes.. because there's so damn many. Trying to do reactoin images recently I had to rely on a best of montage because the game is around 7 hours long and just.. DENSE with quotable lines. And even with that I've had to pace myself and only done about half an hour simply because the writing is that sharp. The level design is also fantastic for the most part, and the puzzles aren't that obtuse and this again being the internet age, when they are it isn't a problem. That also brings me to a few odds and ends about the game as a whole I haven't really talked about. The first is the hint system. See I did try this in the first chapter, but felt max was just rambling and it was a joke.

Yeah the hint system is very helpful, it's just sometimes you have to ask twice because it's max we're dealing with. Kev told me it was and I just.. plain forgot for most of the game till this chapter. I was so used to the gameplay loop of trying it myself then using the guide I genuinely forgot I had an in game helper there. I still required it when I got stuck on one puzzle, but for the most part it makes the game so much easier. And of course being a professional I took the fact there was a really helpful tool I could've been using this whole time like a pro

The other thing is the dialouge changes to the remaster, waited on till now so I didn't run into any spoilers I hadn't already run into years before doing this retrospective. And look I know a lot of longtime fans of Sam and Max aren't fans of the changes... but they were necessary. The game was 14 years old at the time and none of these jokes had aged well. And in a LOT of cases the replacement joke is better. To use an example in Reality 2.0 originally the googles they have for max were desgined for "special needs children"

Yeah it wasn't funny THEN, should not have been made in the first place, and has only aged worse with time. By contrast the replacement is the COPS emphasising you can use it for various sporting activities. It's a more sam and max joke than "Hey let's laugh at children with disablities!". There were other just.. outright gross jokes like asking "Why the sex change" when bosco crossdresses in the final chapter (More on that later), and bosco implying he pretends to be an underaged girl online. which just

NONE of that was funny to start with, so taking it out of the game dosen't really hurt it. It only dosen't work when they don't sub in another joke, and that's more "If your going to all the trouble to edit out these lines, re-record the dialouge and fix stuff up why didn't you make a new joke when you have for OTHER lines you cut out?" And even then i'm sure there's a rational explination why Skunkape didn't. It's fine to touch up your work for a rerelease especially when said work is simply something your not proud of anymore. If it's okay for them to touch up the textures, add needed accesiblity options, and other neat stuff.. why isn't it okay to get rid of some offensive stuff that simply dosen't really fit sam and max?

Now those odds and ends are out of the way it's time to return to the moon to put an end to this hypnosis scheme, reconnect with some old friends, and save the world. Goody!

Chapter wise, Bright Side of The Moon is a strong contender for my faviorite. It is REALLY hard to pick betweent his one and The Mob, The Mole and the Meatball. Writing good as usual, but there's an epic scope, a genuine tension and unease, and it really feels like a grand finale to everything you've done up to this point, while still keeping the level design tight. The only real issue is the long walk from the blister of tranquility back to your car. And having to walk back a bit when you need to get back to sam and max's street is a common issue it's just emphasized here. But overal one hell of a finale gameplay wise. let's get into the story.

We open with Sam catching up ot the audience.. by complicated deduction, he figures out Hugh Bliss is behind things, and finds out from the Chief where he is: THE MOON ALICE... I mean the giant face was kinda a big clue. So our heroes head back to the moon! I covered their previously moon adventure recently if your interested. It's in large part because Bad Day on The Moon is one of the only two stories pre-telltale explictly refrenced in this trilogy, via the photos in the boys office, the other being Meet the Road, from which both bosco's this season and stinky's next season come form, simply fleshed out into fully explorable places here. There's nothing saying the other Freelance Police comics or tv show aren't canon, and it's likely light on call backs outside of hit the road to be accesible to new audiences. And possibly rights issues ala the tick, which REALLY needs a proper comics refresh that brings it all together. But that's a retrospective for another day (and if anyone's intrested let me know).

For now our heroes head to the moon, and we see our first of MANY character returns, as , fitting a season finale, at least one major character from every previous chapter shows up on the moon, now having joined Prismatology. The only exception is the soda poppers...

It's a mildly weird omission but I get why: they only needed four call back characters for the puzzles, their terrible and I hate them, and their the only group present on the moon that didn't intersect in some way with Hugh's plan, so there's no real reason for him to care about them.

And we do find out his plan.. and I like how it's revealed: you can just casually find out in the gift shop. That's it. Hugh just has his plan up there.

It also is a shockingly well thought out one, as each plan had a contegency.. and as we find out this episode Hugh had both a moon base and a final plan should all these fails. You gotta admire the guy for being through. And each one in the previous chapter was a seroius threat to the world, an amusing as hell one sure, but if our heroes hadn't stopped it Hugh woudl've likely conquered the us and eventually the world. And even if he couldn't do that last part , his controllign the us would at least stall for time long enough for him to carry out his masterstroke with no one to stop him.

You might also be noticing that Brady.. is absent. And that's because his plan, while kicking off our heroes knowing about hypnotisim.. wasn't planned. It's also nicely set up that way: unlike the others after ther'es never a reveal of a larger part of the conspiracy and his plan does nothing to help Hugh in the long run. It's just to make BRADY feel better and bigger, with his minons being chosen.. because their show was succesful and his wasn't. As for how Brady stole the protype goggles, also from the gift shop, hence Harry Mole now working as security. Thankfully he ONLY checks sam so we're able to smuggle a telekinesis talismen out in max... though we'll have to get it out later.

The TK Talismen is one of several we'll collect but first we have to get past sam and max's oldest and most dangeorus foe: DOORS!

Yes once again Agent Superball is guarding one. This time it's a bit easier though, as he gives us a unicorn which tests one's prismatology level. It also allows you to ask everyone "Want to touch my unicorn" which is just the best. Sam gives you the solution, pointing out how it likely works like a cheap mood ring, so you simply need to heat it up.. and I figured out HOW quickly... All it requires is a quick jaunt back to earth, as we start the adventure on the moon. Before we check in on Sybil and Bosco, I check the closet.. and also get the coat hanger for the tv again. Sadly... the last trophy room item is pretty weak, just the vr gag. There's a great and entirely close to home gag out of how they destroyed the internet

But it feels like a let down after the presidents head and leonard> Leonard is plot relevant this time as Max fed him the deed to america. Like the talisman we can't get it YET, but we shall. So it's time to check in with Bosco but before using his micro we see his deal for the episode: He's become his mother!.. no really he's pretending to be her and unlike most of his personas which are just a shoddy accent, he commits to the bit and it's hilarious. Gratned Sam and Max being.. shocked by this as much as they are has aged like wet cheese on the titanic, he's just wearing drag, but Max's frustration Bosco won't break character and eventually buying into the bit is comedy gold.

Anyways Bosco is selling an earthquake machine but as usual we can't buy it yet. We can however use his Microwave to cheat the system, and I do like that Bosco's various conviences are something that commonly come up to solve the puzzles. It's something you'd think of instantly given their always there, especially after the ketchups come in play twice and instead of calling you a dum dum for thinking that they just.. let you be right.

Before we go back to the moon though we check on Sybil and for her final random job.. and i'm goign to miss these as I didn't realize till Kev told me that next season your quest buddies change. Sybil and Bosco aren't written OUT, but I will be sad to see them not around as much.

WIth Sybil though I kinda get it as it's entirely hard to top her FINAL JOB... QUEEN. OF. CANADA. Yes really. It's both so entirely random and such an escalation from her previous more mundane jobs as dating service person, carbondater and beta tester. It's a cermonial thing but it's still just a heck of a reveal and a lot of fun with canadian sterotypes. I assume Red Green is her minister of ducktape and her minister of annoyance is of course.. Lorne

I assume he was one of Max's presidental pardons. I also assume one of the cofnidtions was he was shipped in a crate second class. It had at least one airhole though.. maybe... so that was nice of him.

At any rate this will naturally be useful to us later. It does give me a chance to talk about the gameplay loop though.. and how it works. You'd THINK after 6 chapters of "go to sybil or bosco to move the plot along" it'd get boring.. but honestly.. no. The writing is sharp, and each time things are radically different. I mean across these 6 chapters Sybil gets locked up by a patient, gives you a psyche eval, needs her death faked by you without her realizing it to save her from the toy mafia, has a dating service, gets her heart broken by you two via the lincoln memorial, beta tests and finally becomes queen of canada among some other shenanigans we'll get to. While with bosco he takes on various disguises, has some new doodad set up or someone hassling him, from jimmy twice, once as a skinbody once as himself, to whizzer.. you'll ALWAYS need to visit these two.. but they'll always have some funny stuff to say and something fresh. It's a way to recycle the enviornments sure but it dosen't feel stale. I can see why they swap them out next time: as sad as I was to find that out it DOES make sense to change your item buddies each game to keep things fresh.

Anywho, now we can get through the door via our bright red unicorn horn

So we're on to the next part of this episode and it's fairly straight forward: Hugh Bliss is in the deepest part of his blister of tranquilty, which is a very close second with Ted. E Bears to my faviorite setting of the game. It's weird rainbow amusment park complete with a roller coaster, a shark floating in acid, and as said earlier a gaggle of familiar faces from each chapter, each having a new prismatology talismen that grants a psychic power we need to get to the final section of the chapter. Starting with the most familiar of faces, we have Abe Lincoln, whose not really happy to see the guys who blew him up real good a few chapters ago. Hilariously though it's not any of the obvious reasons: he's fine being just a head, and as for loosing the presidency only a "grade a psyschopath" would want the roll. Max is naturally touched> I mean grade a. His real beef is that they ruined his chances with Sybil... deciding he wanted to get back out there. Max has.. several questions about that.. questions we thankfully don't here as otherwise the rest of this review would just be me rambling incoherently from madness. Not the BIGGEST difference mind but I like to at least have the illusion of quality control here.

Our heroes are happy to help and thus we get one of the funniest sequences in the entire game as the two have to feed abe lincoln pickup lines. It's easily the best of these long strings of "answer it right or go back to start" puzzles, as there are just enough options to get a LOT of great comedy out of Lincoln's horrible pickup lines and Sybil's annoyance, but not so long it becomes frustrating like the midtown cowboys stuff in episode 2. You successfully get the head of abe lincoln laid

And get us the talismen. The next one is an eye that can see through stuff and it's with our old friends the C.O.P.S. who are a TAD mad about our heroes taking away their goodhood, but allow them to beta test their game. Which once again and not with hyperbole, is one of the best jokes in all 6 chapters. Seriously the writing for this chapter is the peak of Save the World: In a post apocalyptic hellscae only the strong survive. Can you face the challenge of TIC, TAC, TOE?! Well you shouldn't as you need to loose. luckily the game just sorta. .had me loose. I was genuinly trying to win but either the game was rigged for me to, or the switch futzed it up. Either way , another talismen got. Now before we get our last one we need to open our present from the gift shop. Getting it out of max was easy, just use the gastronomy talismen, which I already had when I had him eat it. The hard part.. is getting the thing open. It took me ages and was the one puzzle that REALLY got me for this chapter. I looked it pu and it turns out it's simple. There's a lunar landar outside you can get into, using your coathanger, netting the key. You simply place the talismen under it, activate the lander which can only go up an ddown and boom, telekensis kyle. Well specifically bending anything similar to a spoon, which is clever. Is the puzzle frustrating? yes. Is the prize worth it? yes. So with that our final talismen, which allows you to pull jimmy out of a hat. Just him. To get it we talk to Philo Pennyworth, the most welcome return of all. I mean I fucking love the COPS but i've got minor spoilers they'll be in the next two games. I don't think Philo shows up nearly as much so his long awaited return was appricated. He can pull jimm y out of his hat but since jimmy's clinging to a parking meter to avoid more shenanigans from our heroes, we have to bend him off. With that philo pulls him out and is disgusted enough to let us have his talismen.

With that we can enter hugh's sanctum, which is neat, using the spoon bender to open the door, the eye to see so we can bend the door and jimmy to hit the switch.

Normally this would be where our heroes confront our villian, violence and some puzzles and jokes ensue... but in a clever twist on telltale's part... Hugh KNEW they were coming, would likely do some shenanigans to get into his sanctum and presumibly what htey had for lunch. For the record it was a hamsteak with extra gravy and extra ham and an all dress flavor stygian being of questionable origin. It also turns out our heroes are too late as while Hugh didn't do it 25 minutes ago.. his plan is already set up: to use a crystal thing with him in the center to make EVERYONE on earth Hugh bliss.

As for WHY he'd do that, it turns out he's a sentient colony of plankton and eats emotions, a neat and utterly batshit twist, and his translucent look he takes on for a second is genuinely unsettling. Really Hugh's entire demeanor post turn is unsettling as he's still got that squeaky sing song voice, think Regular Shows Pops if he snorted hellium.. but instead of being just.. blindly happy and a tad hammy, you can also sense his malice and pride at what he's done. Sure guys gotta eat but he's just so gleeful. Now granted you could poke holes in this , say there were easier ways than mass hypnosis to get a free emotoinal meal, etc etc... but you have to remmeber what game we've been playing for the past 6 months

So it REALLY dosen't matter and the fact Hugh went to all this lengths is likely part of the joke. But the one thing that can stop endless bliss? Max. His chaos is the one thing that can possibly upset this plan... so Hugh lured him here to steal his bliss... so he takes out his sloth, hunger and violence, leaving Max a shell, Sam disturbed and our heroes needing to round up three other maxes to restore him to proper zaniness and resotre the world. First up is Red Max, all of max's anger and violence.. and he's SHOCKINGLY disturbing. Usually max' s violent tendencies are played for laughs, the violence done off screen. This max.. has a gun, laughs manically and is geninely creepy. Dispatching him is nicely tricky but not too bad once you think it out: being a max, red max jumps around, jumpsa round, get up get up get down.. and his stalking grounds just so happen to be right next to the roller coaster. This.. really just gives him a fun ride, but luckily there's a big ole chekov's spork on the track, and since it's spon adjacent, you can bend it, send Red Max for a ride.. and disarm him. Or dishand him. Max gets his rage back and we're on to our next one.

Our next max to collect is the Green max, who being the embodiment of max's endless hunger for sentient planets and artifical cheese, is currently terroizing boscos. Suprisingly you DON'T use the gastrolgy talismen which is good as i'm pretty sure the contents of Green Max's stomach at this point would get Telltale brought up on obscenity charges. The solution is no less horrific though: you FEED HIM JIMMY. Yes you have him eat a rat.. which to be fair i'm sure Max's has done at some point but is still pretty .. eeeuuugh. We use the magician's hat from fethearly to pull him and max's stomach out which is way less graphic than it sound but still will haunt my nightmares for many moons to come, and thus max has his hunger back.

All that's left is sloth which, while max is OCASIONALLY lazy is the only one tha tdosen't quite fit. This max just... lays on the moon. To get him we finally give Sybil her due in one of the funniest callbacks of the game. So you remember how max was feeding the deed to the united states to leonard?

Turns out you need to get him to cough it up, give the deed to Cybil and canada now owns the untied states!

Seriously I.. don't see a downside. With that she gives us the money for bosco who charged a zillion dollars this time. I also love his justification "All I know is I keep making up the biggest price I can think of and you guys keep paying it, now tell me, whose crazy?". With that we have the earthquake machine.. aka the last of his satlite network. I'd also be remiss if I didn't point out the finally "do you have any" gag. See the rest are all just a great stream of Sam asking Bosco for random stuff. This one though.. turns out EVERY ONE is a solution to a previous puzzle. It's fucking glorious especially with Max's mounting bafflement that in all the things sam asked for he never asked for these when heneeded them. Bosco DOSEN'T have hugh bliss tied up back there, but can't blame Sam for trying. It's a brillaint payoff to what's already one of the best running gags in the series.

So with that we head, whoah oh, back to the moon again, and use the satlite to flip lazy max over, take his tale and max is' restored. With that we're FINALLY to the finale, with Hugh, mad they were able to beat him, deciding to put on a show.. specifically putting Sam thorugh a ton of magic stuff while max watches from the crystal chamber thing. It's easily the best climax of the whole game: tense, fun, and using every talismen you've gotten so far to turn the tables on hugh before using the lunar lander to finish him off. Hugh Bliss is no more. Problem is.. the machine goes off so now everyone is maxified. Our heroes naturally have a solution for that though... PUNCH EVERY PERSON IN THE WORLD. I'm.. not exagerating or underplaying it. That's how season 1 ends. Our heroes are happy, the world is saved and Max is going to punch every last person to de-max them. And that would honestly be a perfect ending to a perfect season of gammery.. but this being sam nad max they took it one last step further for the credits.... which is max punching EVERY single character we've seen, or most of them at least to the games best song. I didn't think you could top War.. but .. here we are

It both beautifully sums up max, and is a relaxing and hilaroius way to close out a relaxing and hilaroius game. I can't stop listening to it, not that i've tired very hard. It's so damn good. It utterly baffled me when I saw it, but I still loved it. I can't belivie THIS I show they ended it.. but I can't imagine a more perfect ending to this game. As an added touch the menu music for the remaster is an insturmental of this so it makes a nice bookened for your adventure.

So with that we've closed out Save the World.. and this may be one of the funnest experinces i've had reviewing. It not only opened me up to finally reviewing games, with more to come, but I got to play a game i'd long craved to , got paid for it and enjoyed every second of it. All thanks to kev. While this only ends the first third of this project.. it dosen't make it any less special or hard to say good bye to this game. This was true fun and I thank so many of you for reading... and see you next month for round 2.

#sam and max #sam and max save the world #sam #max #sybil pandemik #bosco #hugh bliss #telltale games #skunkape games #Youtube

[sageofthestrange]

🌸 (i know astarion has a canonical scent but i'm curious what alternatives you think he should have!)

For all these asks, I'm going to append these resources below for anyone reading so they aren't just lost by all the perfumery terms I'm throwing around. Plus, highly recommend them if you wanna start figuring out more about fragrances and what you may enjoy in one! The science is really something else and is one of the oldest out there, arguably, in terms of cosmetic use in history! \o/

The Perfume Society's Introduction to Fragrance Families

This HUGE chart describing Fragrance families and subfamilies with examples and all kinds of good little notes (it's from the /fa/ board on 4chan; yes, I know. Sometimes, good stuff comes out of that nuclear dumpster fire).

Wikipedia's quick run-down of Olfactorive Families/Terms used in perfumes isn't half bad if you just want a very quick run-down.

Fragntica's Giant Compendium of notes used in all kinds of perfumes to look up and see examples of along with a small description of the note!

OOC. I've always had a weird hate-love relationship with the devs' choice of scent notes for Astarion. On the one hand, bergamot, rosemary, and aged brandy all point to a classic gentleman's airy, light cologne with a nice undercut of something more deepier and muskier... I just felt like they could've gone harder with it, you know? While all that fits for the profile of a charming, noble courtier, it almost feels too light for the character Astarion is. Too lacking for what lurks underneath. With all the imagery you can connect to Astarion on top of his archetypal, elven handsome rake image combined with the gloom, darkness, and intrigue and Gothicism vampirism innately presents? I think they should've gone with a much more 19th Century to 17th Century fougère style of cologne. Personally, if I was deciding on the notes and the accords... Gosh, there's so many smells you can assign to a character but the main component is keeping to a general type of accords/family/overall scent profile. For Astarion, I'd continue with that herbaceous type of profile but undercut it with something that almost makes you feel profane yet wanting to see what truly lurks beneath, be it pleasures or tragedies. Throw more into the notes of bergamont, rosemary, and aged brandy, those can be the top notes of the refined image he puts forward but it should be laden with something much more musky, dark, almost heady but dangerous. Below is my little list of scents I'd pin on him and such, be they examples or me going through notes as I ramble about more.

Wicked but beautiful. BPAL's Dorian Grey is almost my poster child for what type of smells I'd give Astarion as a basis: "Inspired by and created for my beloved Tedwin: my eternal, beautiful, wicked Dorian Gray. Refined, elegant, and lovely, with a noble bearing and seemingly gentle air. This blend is an artful deception: a sweet gilded blossom lying over a twisted and corrupted core. A Victorian fougere with three pale musks and dark, sugared vanilla tea."

Playing up that image of the forbidden vampire who lurks in the night? Darken the refined notes even further. Ambers, sandalwood, or red musks. Laden with the sweet, poisoned throb of a gourmand note like red cherries, vanilla, maybe even honey, before opening up to an intense, hot wave of dragon's resin and blood red wine. You could do all sorts of combinations but I'd keep close to heady, hot notes than simply deep ones like pure vetiver, leather, or black opium.

Clove can be surprisingly intense on the nose and can be combined to evoke a lot of emotions and images I can see on him. I also see him as someone leaning towards more herbal scents overall given his first two choices; Morrocan roses and narcissus flowers for that almost sweet touch, maybe with a crisp white linen touch to lighten the notes on him.

When I think of his scent profile, I think of reds against bone white, with touches of colour in-between like spattering of flowers. He very much strikes out to me as very warm yet very crisp.

#crookedtouch #ANSWERED. #OOC. #(i had to restrain myself from going into a whole research spiel for him but ty for the send!!) #(sorry if this is a bit disoragnized hdfjb)

[pocketbelt]

Pokémon Violet impressions

Finally got to finishing it after putting it on hold a bit to handle other stuff. Bit of a different format because it isn't so cleanly divided. The short form is that it is, in spite of it all, the best the main series has ever pulled. But, due to some stylistic and design choices, I do think Legends Arceus pips it for the full series' best title, and I do like that one more, much as I loved this.

Paldea as a region is one of high highs and low lows; I think most of the southern half of the island is just kind of whatever. The towns there feel kind of bleh and uninteresting, and the spread of available Pokémon in the south is kind of lacking. There's only a few mons of interest in the southwest and south, and things are a bit spicier in the southeast (Axew! Charcadet!) but it isn't until you start going towards the "middle" of the island, the pure west and east ends, that things really start to open up, to get interesting and towns and cities start looking good. Eventually Violet starts firing on all cylinders, and when it does, it's slamming it out of the park.

Following on from that, while the opening areas feel a bit bleh and dry for Pokémon picks (unless you get lucky with what gets spawned in raids), once things start opening up, Gen IX's Pokédex is easily one of the best around. Lots of my favourites made it in, which helps, but the brand new Pokémon just keep getting better the further you go. Some are direct twists on old designs (Wiglett is an obvious example) that aren't "forms" of old mons, they just look similar but are different creatures, and that little bit of wiggle room in distinction lets them delightfully weird with reinventions. You need a lot less justification for how something can be an alt form of another creature when it turns out they aren't the same creature at all, they just "so happen" to look like it. I was fond enough of Sword & Shield's lineup and all, but Scarlet & Violet's is way beyond it.

In particular, I really can't understate how important going in fairly blind is. I bang on about it a lot elsewhere, but of all the design aspects that must be considered for an open world, the most critical of all is that there must be surprise. There needs to be secrets, there needs to be things for you to find that you did not expect and could not have anticipated. This is what makes Elden Ring my GOTY pick this year, because it is wall-to-wall secrets and surprises and things I couldn't have fathomed. Likewise, the lack of this is what ultimately damns Zelda: Breath of the Wild, because after a point there's just nothing to find. It's always a shrine, or a breakable weapon of which there aren't very many types. This is the crux of making a good open world: these things are ultimately based around exploration no matter how you slice it, and for exploration to be interesting in a game, there has to be something new to see, find, experience and do. Pokémon's core conceit of finding ever newer creatures to fight, catch, tinker with and use is a natural fit for the format, and in this respect Pokémon Violet slams it out of the park. I was just continuously delighted and routinely surprised by new Pokémon all the way to the end, after I got past the first two gyms' zones. That they could do this across two open world Pokémon games in the same year, as Legends Arceus did the same back at the start of 2022, is fucking wild.

A lot is made about the performance issues and bugs Scarlet & Violet have, and to an extent it's true; this game could've used more time, because it is genuinely ambitious, perhaps too much for how little time (relatively) Game Freak had for it. You might scoff at that, and cite games like BOTW or Xenoblade 3 as proof otherwise, but having played both (Xeno 3 is my second-in-line for GOTY, even!), the claim that ScVi aren't ambitious and their open world isn't as complex just doesn't hold up: - ScVi are constantly, constantly generating and placing Pokémon all around you, in much more aggressive fashion than either BOTW or Xeno 3. There's so many of these bastards around you at all times, way more than what BOTW has loading in and out and regularly matching and passing Xeno 3's enemy numbers. It's actually a nuisance, at times: the hitboxes for proccing fights are a bit bigger than the model of the Pokémon, and with so many tiny ones around it's so easy to stumble into fights that it practically feels like you're back in the old random-battle days sometimes. - On top of spawn lists changing for time-of-day and weather conditions, lots of Pokémon have specialised animations and scripting and variations to react to different environments and spawn conditions, making the dirty great numbers of them more impressive than what Xeno 3 can do. Magikarp are distinct from all other fish Pokémon because they can go up on land and have special flopping animations for doing so; windy weather starts slinging light Pokémon, like the Hoppip and Jigglypuff family lines, through the air at high speeds, practically ragdolling as they go; ghosts fade in and out, Pokémon with shells will hide when approached too quickly and stay there, some mons dig underground to travel and all Pokémon have different aggressive/passive behaviours based on species, regardless of player party level or the like. By contrast, enemies in Xeno 3 are a lot more static, not reacting to the environment or its variables and only deciding aggression based on player level, enemy tier or direct contact; BOTW only has a handful or two of enemies to balance out giving them more numerous behavioural routines and reactions to actions taken around and against them. It's not either of these are worse or less enticing than ScVi, just as ScVi isn't worse or less enticing than these; each game's approach is based on the experience it wants to deliver, and Pokémon's central goal is to make its world feel teeming with life and also pay respect to the long-established behaviours and traits of a good ~400 or so distinct creatures. - Moreover, ScVi's only loading zones are when you go into Mesagoza or inside the few kinds of buildings that have distinct interiors, and outside of that the game only loads when fast-travelling or when you're starting the game. It matches BOTW in this respect, and Xeno 3 segments all of its sizeable zones apart, loading in between them. To say it isn't impressive is to either not understand the potato the game's running on, or to simply be wrong. - Further, ScVi is multiplayer and Xeno 3 and BOTW aren't. It's actually kind of insane how well ScVI's multiplayer works: it tracks four players across the entire open world and adjusts spawns, even accounting for version exclusives, to the areas immediately around them while fairly accurately tracking positioning for all players and all Pokémon around them. Again, considering the potato this is running on, it is genuinely impressive.

All that said, it's true; the game's state is far from ideal. To some extent it's unavoidable; even Xeno 3 is having to pull resolution and rendering tricks and aggressively culls models at a noticeable distance to keep the Switch from lighting on fire. But there's a level of bugs and technical issues that betray that this one needed a bit more time, even just half a year could've made such a difference. Most bugs are simply silly things, visual oddities or momentarily getting stuck in a falling animation, nothing new to open world games, but sometimes things can go hilariously wrong. For what it's worth, playing alone for basically my entire run time outside of a few hours with a friend after beating the story, the worst I had was the odd visual glitch and one lone crash, where the game soft-locked on a fight trigger. A lot of the more recurring issues are things like entry and script triggers that have visuals for debugging (in this case, a non-glowing Pokéball, as glowing ones denote items you can pick up) being visible when they shouldn't be, or the game's memory management and camera disagreeing, leading to it unloading terrain that's still in view and having to rapidly re-load it as the camera was sliding around to set up a fight. A lot of this, while far from game-ruining and even, for me, not actually affecting immersion or the experience that much, is still worth a slap or two simply because Pokémon: Legends Arceus released 10 months prior and simply didn't have any of these same issues. There's some nuance to that - PLA's world is actually a set of smaller open world regions akin to Xenoblade than one singular giant world, for example - but it speaks to how ScVi both needed more time and how there wasn't as much communication between teams as there perhaps should've been. For that, I mean, PLA's menus and various tradition-breaking quality-of-life enhancements (ScVi share a lot of the key ones, but not all) surpass Violet's by a fair bit, when that should've been tech and design shared completely.

While the first two gym leaders are a bit plain, Gen IX sports some of the best gym leaders in terms of design and character (VIII had a fair few contenders as well, so they're just generally getting better as they go) and gives a lot more character to its cast than Pokémon has for a while. In truth I never found Gen V's attempts at a bigger plot and more character all that enthralling, but this feels like a renewed attempt at that, at actually being more of an RPG than the series usually is. Gym leaders starting from the Water & Electric Gyms onward are full of character and use their fleeting time very well; characters recur across scenes and have lots of great lines and fun moments, the storylines for the Team Star questline and Arven's whole story in the Herba Mystica questline are series bests, and the entire final sequence after you beat all three main questlines (Pokémon League, Team Star and Herba Mystica) is far and away the best ending sequence the series has in ways I simply don't want to spoil. This is one key area where ScVi beats Legends Arceus hands-down; despite the flavour of its isekai setup and the harshness of the older time period, PLA doesn't do too much with it or the characters it has. I mean, shit, there's an entire cast of teachers with fun personalities and scenes you can just completely skip by not hanging around the school at all, like I did, because I assumed all the classes were just framework for tutorials I didn't need!

The trade-off to that is that the enemy trainer roster has been savaged heavily; there's very few trainer types, with the majority falling under the broad scope of "student" because the academy at the core of the setting accepts students of all ages (akin to a university, if a university also accepted people as young as 5). There's a broader scope of body types on display, which is nice, but they try and beat the fact that every Student has the same uniform by mixing and matching eye and hair colours and styles/designs, which doesn't really work. Yeah, Pokémon trainers of any given type look the same as each other, but the designs have nearly always been pretty fucking strong in spite of it; the generics are all too generic, this time around. The pressure on Game Freak's dev time mostly shows through this sort of detail; as alive as the world is, its people outside the Gym Leaders, Team Star leaders and plot-centric characters are much duller and more boring than before. In particular, there's a shift in the art design for how most people are drawn from Gen VIII, and it actually hurts IX quite a bit. In particular, you have to try a good bit to make the player character not look terrible.

This isn't helped by one of the killer cutbacks: fashion items are mostly out the door, you can only pick headgear, bags, socks, shoes and gloves, more or less. Your body pieces are locked to one of four kinds of school uniform, which feels like an explicit cut to save time and resources. This is a crying shame, as recent games' fashion elements were a delightful part of giving character to, well, my character, and letting players express themselves.

I can keep going on, but the short of it is that Violet is fucking excellent, in spite of it all. There's just too much going on in terms of mechanics and technical aspects to say it isn't ambitious, and it can't even be called half-baked in its other aspects either; the characters and storyline writing is some of the series' best and it has some moments and lines that are just fantastic in their own right, and there's an eye for detail all over the place. There's foreshadowing for plot elements right from the get, there's well-executed character arcs, there's an internal attention to detail for long-established items and aspects of the series (there's a very distinctive pick for a certain character's Pokéball of choice that struck me, for instance). It isn't lazy, it isn't half-baked, far, far from it: Game Freak are showing a level of care and ambition they haven't been able to manage fully since the jump to 3D! But, they continue to be constrained by either time or resources, and either a significant expansion in staff (especially art asset staff) or a significant increase in dev-time is required.

We saw this a bit already - Sword & Shield having DLC expansions one year and outsourcing a remake of Gen IV the next gave them the time to put together two open world Pokémon games of very different stripes, at the same time. Imagine what they could pull if they had another year, or hell, focused all their staff on one game and handed the IP out for more spinoffs to fill time instead?

Who knows. Pokémon has been trying to build foundations to scale off of for several iterations now, and they finally managed to rip off the bandage of the series' built-in scope creep in Sword & Shield; god willing, the next one now has foundations to use.

#Pokémon Violet #pokémon #scarlet #violet #impressions #review #pocket-media-tag

[weabooweedwitch]

to that prior anon: what makes something a disability is how it impacts the life of the person who has it. for example, you use arthritis as an example of smth being "just a medical condition" but without medication that would cost more than $12k/month if I didn't have insurance, I am in constant pain and literally cannot walk or use my hands. my arthritis is disabling, while for others it's just constant low level pain and they may not consider it a disability.

please remember it's up to the person with the medical condition to determine if it disables them, and it varies person to person even with the same condition.

In their defense i think they were just asking a question because it is definitely like, a weird gray area? It honestly brings up a good discussion about, when do you you start calling something a disability, and how, I think, the broken health care system really, uh, falsely categorizes a lot of people based on what insurance is up to. Also different countries apparently have different guidelines, like for example my Canadian friend gets disability benefits literally just for being autistic despite being very "high functioning", putting that in quotes just because I know that can be kind of a controversial term.

But also, I'm so sorry you deal with that, I dont quite have arthritis but I can totally empathize wirh chronic physical pain 🥺 its actually horrifying reading the prices of some of these treatments sometimes and im really glad you have your medicine taken csre of. I often think about what would've happened to me if I hadn't been on state insurance when I was diagnosed with my equinus, I think it was literally like at least 5k per leg (i actually barely remember tbh, it couldve been higher or lower), which, I guess ultimately isn't a lot, but on my income and my moms income would have been so significant I would've felt actual guilt seeking treatment. Like, there was a legitimate possibility that the mere price could have kept me from... walking normally? And like my mom is 58 and she's been told she qualifies for knee replacements but she's literally scared of even getting them because of how long the recovery period can be and the financial loss and also just the price? So my mom could end up in legitimately worse health, although I guess that also has to do with like, America not having good workers rights where she could've taken off laid leave for surgery or something

It's that whole expression about "disability is defined by the environment" or something like that. Sort of like that whole controversy with Mr Beast where he paid for a bunch of people to get their sight or hearing back. Those people had treatable conditions and were stuck living in a way that negatively impacted their lives simply because they couldn't afford it? Like I can't even imagine not being able to use one of my five senses just because I couldn't afford it, but I know that's um already a reality for like, people who can't afford hearing aids and stuff like that

I think I'm starting to ramble here but like, I wish people had more sympathy for the disabled (and im talking about like society, not the last ask just to be clear, I feel like they were legitimately just curious). Like sometimes when you see people like violently hating the homeless, sometimes those people are literally people who got into horrible accidents or had some sort of injury and they wound up addicted to painkillers and had to turn to drugs when they can't afford prescription pain meds or those prescriptions get them addicted. I had a manager who was in a car accident and the painkillers made her eventually switch to straight up heroin. Even our disabled vets don't get good healthcare half the time

But yeah, as for me, I guess consider myself kind of straddling the line between disabled and able bodied, leaning more towards able bodied, but I can still have issues, like my knees are still kinda jacked up and even though i can stand and walk great now, stairs can be really tough sometimes, especially when I'm coming home from work and my body aches. and I still get pains in my back sometimes when I'm bending and leaning to the point I use a menthol roll-on gel for pain relief. Part of me kind of likes that I, I dunno, overcame the challenge and all that, but like, I think I would've preferred a body that didn't hurt lol 😅

#im kinda rambling lol im so like half awake rn #but yeah i hops you keep youe chin up despife the inconveniences of life

[messiambrandybuck]

My mother makes it a point to acknowledge the fact that I like the same sex; she makes it a point to include both binary genders when talking about my future relationships. She's been supportive of me each time I came out to her (first as bi, then as pan), saying that the labels didn't matter to her.

And yet, she's also made it a point to let me know how I "didn't show any signs growing up". Repeatedly. My own mother has told me she was convinced I was groomed into my first same-sex relationship (I'd like to officially point out I was not, don't worry), and hinted that was the only reason why I'm not straight. [my mother and I are both very passive-aggressive with each other, and most of our arguments are through these 'hints'. Sadly, there was no way in which I could've misinterpreted the hint.]

And then she has the audacity to validate what she says by telling me about how she wanted to "march for the gays" when she was a teenager. As if that canceled out all of the horrible and, dare I say, homophobic things she's said.

I'm telling you all this because I need those in a similar situation to realize that what your parents are doing? It's not okay! Nothing about them invalidating your orientation/identity, and making you constantly second-guess it, is okay! I know they're your family, but that doesn't excuse their behavior. The blood of the covenant is thicker than the water of the womb, darlings- please keep yourselves safe 💚

#pride #advice #aidan talks #this isn't even half of the stuff I could've used as examples #but I figured it was enough to get my point across #the saying isn't just ' blood is thicker than water' #that's what toxic family wants you to think and sadly it's been vastly normalized #no #found family that's safer than blood family will always be more important

[fumiko-matsubara]

List of Multi-talented AssClass Characters

This includes both characters who have actually showcased their many skills and characters who had shown potential to be multi talented.

¤ The teachers, assassins, and Gakuhou won't be included in the list as they are already a given.

Asano Gakushuu

I mean, do I even have to say anything? He's got the grades, the athleticism, the artistry, the reputation, and even being able to responsibly handle all of these at the same time. Rather than asking what else he can do, the better question is: What CAN'T he do??

This guy is the epitome of multi talented because it's not just him having a lot of skills, but you can really expect him to be good at each and every single one of them. Truly an ace.

Akabane Karma

This one is just half-assed lol. But let's be real, I can't even expressed how much of a genius this guy is, it's actually terrifying. Like imagine being able to remember the stuffs you've secretly studied for after two weeks of study ban, to the point that you managed to place 2nd in rankings among the entire 3rd years?? He's ridiculous.

I think it's just him being disinterested that's stopping him, because it should be obvious that he'd be the type to easily become scarily good at the skills he just picked up.

Isogai Yuuma

Being practical is his strongest suit. It probably stemmed from the fact that he's currently the one providing for his family, but I could totally see Isogai picking up plenty of skills just for the sake of making things easier. For all we know, he could've tried applying for different kinds of jobs that required certain skills before he settled on being a waiter.

Then top it all off with his good grades, being athletic, and leading the class well, yeah he's got it good.

Sugino Tomohito

One day we are going to have a whole discussion about Sugino having many hidden talents (that he's also VERY good at doing). Let's start off with baseball. It has been confirmed by Matsui himself that ever since Sugino had joined a local baseball team in town, along with perfecting his own curved ball pitching technique, it's been assessed that in the technical side of baseball, Sugino should have already surpassed Shindou in most areas.

As stated by Karasuma in the character book, Sugino literally has ZERO flaws in his assassination skills and if you look at his stats, there was not a single category that he was lacking in omg. Sugino had also shown exceptional skills in the art department, specifically in acting and drawing, as repeatedly praised by Korosensei.

Chiba Ryuunosuke

Being multi-talented isn't just about having as many skills as possible, it's also about being incredibly good at the skills you have even if they aren't that many. Chiba is a great example of this.

Sniping, maths, architecture, and spatial awareness ー those are some of the skills he was explicitly shown to have in canon and there is no denying that he is good at every single of one these. Not just good actually, but exceptional, to the point of being directly praised by actual professionals themselves.

Kayano Kaede

Being a gifted young actress, it would be no surprise that Kayano would have to have a very wide range of skills in order to be able to tackle any acting role given to her, which is what she was specifically known for.

And who passes the entrance exams of an academically renowned school on their first try at the last minute? She has it all lol.

Kataoka Megu

I think Megu is the type to find herself picking up skills and become good at them since she is a leader with a natural sense of responsibility. Especially when it's sports, because you're telling me that this ace swimmer with a record for freestyle swimming is also good at basketball, enough to both coach, lead, and carry her team all at the same time?? Damn.

Of course not forgetting the fact that she's also one with exceptional grades and is good at languages, Megu is defintely a well-rounded leader. Wish we could have seen more from her.

Hayami Rinka

As remarked by Koro-sensei, Hayami is a "jack of all trades but lacks in her own individuality and passion". Because she is said to be skilled enough in so many things, she became a reliable worker who people can depend on no matter what it is for as she can surely tackle them.

Perhaps a little bit too reliable? While there are some skills that she is obviously good at, like her sniping and dancing, I don't think people would really notice how much of an ace she is at first glance, likely because she wasn't being loud about it (as in she was lowkey).

Maehara Hiroto

Defintely the dress to impress type.

I am adding Maehara to this list because this dude came back 3 years later and suddenly he's good at b-boying!

He's good at sports, dancing, singing, he gets along with people, he dresses well, and for a carefree playboy like him, the last thing you would expect from him is his best subject being Maths, right?

I won't be surprised if plenty of these were just because he wanted to impress the girls he goes on dates with. If anything, it's likely lol. Whatever helps him I guess.

Bonus: Potentially multi-talented

Yada Touka

Being under the tutelage of Irina, it would be no surprise that Yada would end up wanting to expand her skillset as she'd find it beneficial for her in the future.

Nakamura Rio

Maybe because she's bored or just wants to be funny, but Nakamura had shown skills with... random stuffs (like diassembling gadgets or the ability to make geeky boys flustered with her dirty jokes through the school radio... 😭). As long as it can be funny, I think she can pick up anything she can use to toy with others.

Kurahashi Hinano

Drawing! It's surprising because no one can argue that she is the best at it among the girls, but it wasn't explicitly showcased AT ALL (if it weren't for that skills ranking in the manga extras, we wouldn't have known this). I wonder what else she's really good at that haven't been addressed.

Takebayashi Koutarou

I am adding that joke from the career chapter of Koro q that Takebayashi is apparently good enough at dancing to land a career for it 😂

But yes, he also ranked 4th best artist among the boys for being the "2D master". Being an anime fan does have plenty of perks... I wonder how good his singing is 🤔

#yes this is an appreciation post #:) #assassination classroom #ansatsu kyoushitsu #assclass #asano gakushuu #gakushuu asano #akabane karma #karma akabane #isogai yuuma #yuuma isogai #sugino tomohito #tomohito sugino #chiba ryuunosuke #ryuunosuke chiba #kayano kaede #kaede kayano #kataoka megu #megu kataoka #hayami rinka #rinka hayami #maehara hiroto #hiroto maehara #kurahashi hinano #nakamura rio #takebayashi koutarou #yada touka #meta #headcanon #???

[spade-snax]

Alright! Here goes my Bugsnax Grumpus last name headcanon!

(This ended up being way longer than I thought it would've been, oh god-)

I think we all can agree that the headcanon where a Grumpus child has their parent's combined last names as their own last name is a very common headcanon people share. It's a good one! Even I like it a lot. And when applied to OCs or fankids it makes for some hilarious names.

It'd make sense in-canon and I feel like it gives the Grumpus world more depth as their own little tradition. (Honestly give me ANY culture/tradition headcanon for Grumpuses PLEASE THOSE ARE MY FAVORITEEEE I even had one for teeth a while ago that I may share publicly one day!!)

But I've been thinking about this, especially because of Cromdo and my own OCs - Neddy and Rason Honeyfidget. With Rason being Neddy's dad, if we only used this headcanon then Neddy shouldn't have this last name... Well, there's a lore reason why he doesnt and that is that his mother has died while he was still an egg, a while before hatching. Rason made him take on "Honeyfidget" only.

But that's just the backstory that got me thinking at the name traditions as a whole, so I'll try to avoid OC talk any further to make this friendlier for others who do not know about my OCs and are just interested in reading this headcanon.

Another headcanon I want to mention as I apply it to my own is the headcanon that Triffany changed her last name to Bronica's last name as a way to honor her. You can definitely change your name to anything you want in the Grumpus world, but changing your last name to a relative's like your grandparent's last name is possibly quite common!

And now I want to bring up Cromdo and the fact he is divorced. It has been confirmed that Cromdo is divorced and that his name may reflect that. (Though originally it was answered in the AMA that "Cromdo Face" just sounded funny at first and that it is possible that he did loose a half of his last name this way!)

Also I want to say that he wasn't abusive to the child mentioned! I remember there was a small confusion and drama about that. And I believe one of the devs on the YH discord mentioned that the 1# tie was a reference to Octodad. I do not remember if that confirmed that he is a father or if this answer by Sage was possibly wrong. He cannot see the child because he lost custody of them and lost in court. I do not have screenshot evidence of this. On a side-note I believe this could be one of the reasons he grew to be so money hungry. He didn't have enough money back then to keep his child. Again I want to say it could be ONE of the reasons and not the exact reason why he is this way.

This is more so of an ramble about my headcanon and what I want to say rather than some comprehensive thing, I am so sorry dfwergeg it's just how I write and explain things and I gotta mention it ALL (Great addition to "Guzma, your ADHD is showing")

Anyways, back on track with my HC.

But in this/my headcanon - Cromdo is divorced, he has had a child, and lost a part of his last name because of the divorce. I do not know how human marriage last name and stuff works properly so uh, see this as just speculation about a fictional species' culture rather than a carbon copy of our own. Which it clearly isn't LOL

I personally think that you can do multiple things with your last name when you get married! (And how it can affect the child's last name!)

Let's use Chandlo and Snorpy as examples, because I think they make great last name combinations. (And Snorplo is HELLA !!/pos)

- You can change your last name to your partner's last name, like we do commonly. (At least, with all the cultures I'm aware of and how marriage works for us.) Examples: Snorpy Funkbun, Chandlo Fizzlebean

(This one isn't very common to do!)

- You can change one half of your last name to a half from your partner's last name. Examples: Snorpy/Chandlo Funkbun/Fizzlebun

(Not as common either, but it still happens. It is actually more common than the first example. This was the case for Cromdo. I'll get back to this later. Grumps usually reserve this for their childen, which is the most common way of naming your children!)

- You keep your last name after marriage! Example: Snorpy Fizzlebean. Chandlo Funkbun. Canon examples would be Wambus and Triffany as well!

(Most common one to do as many wear their last names with pride or for other reasons - such as Trifanny when she changed her last name to Bronica's last name in this headcanon.)

Before we get to the kids again, I'm gonna go back to Cromdo and what can happen during divorce.

During divorce you can simply change your name back if you changed it, or keep the last name you took from your partner. Many simply change their last names back to what they were originally. Some, if they went by the half/half method, take away the half from their ex-partner only. This leaves some Grumpuses with one worded last names, such as Cromdo.

I think he changed a half of his last name during marriage. After the divorce, he didn't want to "wear" his partner's name anymore and changed his name to Cromdo Face only as Face was a part of his last name he was given at birth. This is most often the default for Grumpuses who have been divorced and took only half of their partner's last name.

If Cromdo - (or any Grumpus with a one-word last name! There's certainly rare cases of Grumpuses who have one word that didn't go through divorce. Possibly Grumpuses with bad attachment to one of their parents - so they change or remove that half of the last name they got from said parent. If their last name was a combination.) - were to re-marry he could take one half of his new partner's last name, or not change his name at all.

I want to get onto how naming a child would work with this situation, so I will talk about ways of naming children before I get back to this! And by naming I of course mean the last names only, lol.

(One rule is that, unless you change your name later in real life for any reason, it's gonna have to be one of these otherwise! Your Grump parent cannot make you up a new last name. It is just a part of the tradition they have. Though re-naming isn't looked upon in any way by the majority of Grumpuses as there are many reasons to do so!! Unless you're a jerk or you value your last name TOO much.) (Also when I say "you" I don't mean YOU as the reader literally. I mean a hypothetical Grumpus child!! It's just how I like wording things.

(...I've been writing for almost an hour, brain scrampled eg)

- Your last name is the combined name of your parent's last names. Examples: Fizzlebun, Funkbean

(VERY COMMON! Most Grumpuses will do this when first naming their child!)

- Your keep one of your parent's last name! Fizzlebean or Funkbun.

(This all works if you have multiple parents btw! Can make for SUPER crazy long and funny last names. This *all* applies to marriage, too! I hope it is easily applicable. I do not want to go in depth on that. Feel free to hit me an ask about this if you want me to explain it more in depth!! I wouldn't want to exclude polyamorous relationships ^^ )

(Also yes, last names that are just the same word repeated twice/multiple times are possible too. Fizzlefizzle, Funkfunk... How fun are these to say? Gives me Grumpus OC name ideas already.)

But yes! Back to Cromdo! Or any Grumpus in the same situation, but as I've stater earlier, Cromdo is just an example here. If he were to re-marry and NOT change his name, there's two posibilities:

His new partner has a full last name.

In this situation, if they have a child they can keep the full last name from Cromdo's partner. Or they can have one word from his partner + Face. For reasons stated below the child cannot have "Face" as their only last name.

His new partner has a one-worded, short last name like he does.

In this situation, if they have a child they have to name it a combination of their last name's. No exception. Having a short last name is a sign of something happening in your life, and it is traditionally not put onto a child, unless they are adopted with no last name. That still counts as something that happened in their life, as their birth parents possibly just gave them away with no care in the world.

------------------------------------------

At this point I am almost completely off track, so please do ask me questions as I am not sure where I completely left off - Or rather if there is something I forgot that I wanted to mention.

By the way, for combining last names and such, you can also mis-match! Doesn't even have to be combinations. This applies to everything, even for (Full last name + one-word last names) where it makes sense the most. Examples: Beanfizzle, Bunfunk, Bunbean, Bunfizzle, Beanbun, Beanfunk. I'm personally a big fan of Bunfunk and Beanbun :P)

And this applies to siblings, too! It isn't uncommon for parents naming their children mis-matched last name combinations if they have multiple ones. (This ties into my headcanon for Filbo's many siblings and that he isn't a single child. He's in a big household and has at least 2 siblings. ONE OF WHICH I want to make into an OC! This requires me to make the parents, too, but I am not so bothered about that :P)

I'm out for now, all my brain power has left me a few paragraphs ago and I've got to go eat lunch

But again I encourage people to ask me questions (If anyone was brave enough to read through this!!)

And if I got anything wrong, do let me know! I am not all-knowing and I could've missed some VERY OBVIOUS mistakes.

And sorry if the writing is wonky at times! Sometimes it is done on purpose but sometimes the fact I only pretend I know how to write + the fact English is my second language IS SHOWING

(Also I sometimes just write how I think, without much thought put into the sentence if I don't proof read, so HSDFWERGRGT)

#bugsnax #longpost #long post #long #bugsnax hc #bugsnax headcanons #bugsnax headcanon #i wanna make sure i tag this right edfwerg #brain scrampled eg.....

[starry-milk]

[ 15.01.22 @ 2:17am ]

dumping my belle thoughts here, gonna be all over the place

ok ok ok so belle? belle

honestly the beginning was pretty hard to follow. between the opening scene where she's already a u-user and the part where her mom dies and she joins u, it's hard to decipher when everything takes place. there's no like explicit "4 months ago" or timeskip to show the timeline so i was a bit confused for the first like 20 minutes

god, the lack of logic is only coming to me now. i was so caught up in the initial euphoria of finishing it and the "separating reality from the universe of the movie/show you just watched" stage. like realistically, how on earth would shinobu have known that suzu was belle? in the scene where she gets unveiled and everyone is in the old elementary school, he isn't seen wearing the u-headphones. he's just looking off of the screen. so from that, there's no way he could've really known, unless he has a pair and wasn't wearing that but that's unlikely. i don't even know if it was that useful for the plot? i don't know. i get it was interesting for the story but come on :/ also for some reason, i didn't really think it fit for kamishin and luka to be in the classroom, but that's just me

ok the animation? the regular anime-style animation was fine. subpar, definitely, but it didn't take away much. the 3d-style animation is where this movie really shines for me though. the scene where everyone sings together after belle is unveiled was so beautiful though. like all those lights (hearts?)? god, i got genuine chills. reminded me a lot of the lantern rite scene in genshin. but anyway, yes i loved the 3d-animation.

the music? best part, i'd argue. maybe. absolutely beautiful composition and choice of singing voice for suzu/belle. definitely will be adding a few of the main songs to my jpn playlist.

ok another part that iffed me was the various age gaps? for example, hiroka and mr terada (?), one of the choir ladies in high school and that 8th grade boy, and suzu and kei. now suzu is in high school, obviously. seems like a senior? judging by familiarity w kamishin, and he was revealed to be a senior. kei seems to be on the younger side, middle school or first year at most. it obviously wasn't explicitly revealed that suzu and kei got together at the end of the movie, but judging by the "i love you"'s said, you can infer from that. overall, age gaps iffy but eh, i can deal with it

what else what else

oh! tropes. ok so for the beginning half of the movie i really thought it was going to be one of those "unknown world beauty and the beast type of trope but it turns into childhood friends" trope but i was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't. am i upset? meh, not really. i wouldn't have minded suzu and shinobu together, is all.

for a while i really thought he was beast. i thought he had this whole emotional complex and dead mom, and he loved suzu but couldn't reveal it, that stuff. i'm probably wrong, but i think that the production team was initially like "oh let's make shinobu the beast" for the first half of the movie, but then thought that was too cliche so they made it the kid only seen in one or two scenes. completely out of left field

god it's really hard to get my thoughts down my mind is going a million miles a minute, i'm overstimulated, listening to music, really itchy, and there's a bug in my room

ok i do appreciate the touch on child abuse though. and the autistic representation with tomo but that is completely my opinion and most likely wrong.

ok i know it's only a movie, but i really wish they could've given us more. i want to know what happened after belle was unveiled. did suzu blow up on the internet? was she still able to use belle as her AS? what was the story with kei and tomo's mom? was tomo the small child suzu's mom rescued years ago? did suzu and kei get together? what happened to them after that? did they stay in contact? or did suzu and shinobu get together? did they just stay friends? what's the deal with shinobu?? does he have a dead parent? was he a u-user and just isn't seen in-world? so many questions, but no answers :(

i can say that i want a sequel, but i'm not sure if it would enhance it or take away from the special feelings of a stand-alone movie.

OH

ANOTHER THING THAT BOTHERED ME

that sun image at the end that was so obviously taken in real life and not drawn/rendered. like i think that ruined the ending a lot. it's one image. not even animated or anything, just slapped on there. it would've been so much better if it was at least drawn/rendered out and not taken in real life.

hmm, what else. i am still very much overstimulated. listening to the soundtrack rn and it's nice

i think i might change my rating from a 4.5/5 to a 4.

it's very much like a barbie/disney movie in that you know it's not objectively the best movie ever. considering the animation, storyline, plot, logic, and everything. but it still brings about so much joy and happiness that you can't help but love it

ok i think those are all my thoughts

it was really nice to get those all down. i don't really... have anyone to talk to at the moment so it's liberating being able to go off, albeit to myself on a blog no one knows about.

but in any case this movie made me happy and stim a lot, despite my criticisms

#ramble #little things

[grayluforever]

Am I the only one here who likes InuKik better than InuKag?

DISCLAIMER: This little analysis took me quite some time to type out, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't downvote it right away and at least read it until the end.

I haven't finished the anime yet (currently at episode 129) but from what I've seen so far, I can safely say that I'm not too fond of InuKag as a ship. It just kind of seems like one of those bland "boy meets girl and they fall in love" ships. Sure, they have some cute moments here and there, but what really turns me away from the ship is stuff like Kagome constantly - and I mean CONSTANTLY - abusing the power of the beads of subjugation whenever she's in a bad mood and everyone in the group siding with her without even considering Inuyasha's feelings in the matter. He just needs to say or do something that might irritate Kagome even in the slightest, and the next thing we see is him face-planting at least once after an unsolicited sit command from Kagome.

For example, in one episode where he was in the modern world, Kagome's mother sent him on an errand to bring lunch to her daughter. What's the first thing Kagome does when he reaches her and is about to give her the lunchbox? That's right, she tells him to sit. This is but one of many examples that I noticed in the anime.

Here's another one: Kagome brings food from her era to Feudal Japan and cooks for the whole group. Nobody complains about her cooking, however, Inuyasha seems to prefer the instant ramen over the food that Kagome made. What does Kagome do? She gets angry and tells him to sit.

Last one: Inuyasha goes to see Kikyo. She's his first love, the first woman who ever accepted him for who he was after a lifetime of being ostracised from two fronts for being a half demon, a being that isn't wanted in neither human nor demon communities. Kagome gets angry over him wanting to see Kikyo and tells him to sit. While I understand the sentiment of her being angry and jealous, by no means does this warrant physically harming Inuyasha by making him face-plant into the ground.

Kikyo, on the other hand, seems to really, truly care about him. Sure, she did go overboard when she attempted to drag him down into hell with her because she wanted to die with him, and she held a knife against his throat at some point when she talked about the weakness that is Naraku's human heart, but she never intentionally harmed him, right? She was incited to kill Inuyasha by Naraku and sealed him against a tree by piercing his heart with a holy arrow, but she did that because she was under the impression that Inuyasha fatally wounded her - when it really was Naraku who disguised himself as Inuyasha to trick Kikyo into hating her lover. Before the tragedy, they seemed like a happy couple that was just about to achieve perfect harmony by becoming normal people. Inuyasha was very close to using the sacred jewel to become a human - a normal person. The consequence of this would've been that the jewel would've gotten purified, which would've released Kikyo from thr burdens of being a priestess, she could've become an ordinary woman, too.

Whenever Kagome punishes Inuyasha through the beads of subjugation for whatever reason, everyone in the group, literally EVERYONE sides with her. "Poor Kagome, how could that dummy Inuyasha hurt your feelings like this by going after Kikyo?", I dunno, have you considered the fact that this is his first love we're talking about here? He still loves and yearns for Kikyo. He can't let her go, because his feelings for Kikyo are still strong. Of course, it's normal for Kagome to get jealous. It's a human trait. But that doesn't mean it's okay for her to just yeet him into the ground like a toy figure every time he does something that's not to her liking? If we'd turn the tables, if Inuyasha would dare to hit Kagome even ONCE out of a bad mood, I'm sure there would be an uproar about this in the Fandom.

Kagome just seems like this moody, entitled schoolgirl, while Kikyo gives off more calm and mature vibes. This is also the reason I like Kikyo more than Kagome. She puts more thought into her actions.

#anti kagome #pro kikyo #kikyo deserved better #inuyasha #anti inukag #anti inuyasha x kagome #inuyasha x kikyo

[popculturebuffet]

So what is the worst, or top however many if you can't decide one, example of a Marvel Hero turning evil?

OKay first off happy to get a marvel question secondly I needed to think... Beast: This one is complicated as it's a case of salvaging bad writing: See Hank probably COULD'VE been turned back from a self righteous jackass who brought the past versions of the original x-men into the present in a half assed plan to "Make cyclops less evil", that no one thought was good idea. Brian Micheal Bendis, flawed as he is and as bad as all new x-men is, at least left the door open for that. Instead.. his next bit action is to try and not let his own people save themselves from the inhumans, and to continue being a smug dick. So I more hate it because Hank could've been snapped back before Krakoa took him over the moral event horizon, but I can't blame BeN Percy for feeling at this point this is who Hank was, nor writing it well. Evil Hank isn't badly written i'm just sad it had to come to making him a full villian to still make him viable as a character. Madelyn Prior: This is another one tha'ts complciate din that the writing for the stories isn't bad and she's gotten her redemption.. it's more what caused it: editorial wanted Scott Summers back with Jean Grey and thus wanted his wife killed or something. Basically it was just stupid status quo is god bullshit that it's a miracle the writers made into a decent story with inferno. It didn't help there was a full on evil version of her lurking around a while. Captain Marvel: This is a weird one in that Carol didn't TECHNICALLY turn evil on paper, but in practice she turned full jackboot during Civil War 2: A lot of this was tie ins, but the main book didn't help: Even after being toled her precog she was using for this wasn't 100% accurate.. she kept going with her minoirty report bullshit. IT took a while for the character to recover from it and pretty much every ally she had rightly turned on her ass. Iron Man: One reminded me of the other. Tony during civil war did some entirely AWFUL stuff in the main book alone: setting up a prison camp for his friends in a dimension that makes one's mental state worse, helping make a fucking clone of thor, buryin ga black man in chains, and as a result every writer, for better or worse, made him into their punching bag for everything wrong with the registration act, piling on attrocites and weirdly not being a skrull. It was only sheer luck that Iron Man and the acompaning phenominal solo run from matt fraction helped repair his reputation.. and some brain surgery. Tony still has a habit of relapsing into ass but still. Hank-Pym Ultron: This isn't so much making a character evil.. but whoever thought grafting hank to his second worst mistake for no good reason and never freeing him was a good idea needs a quick punch to the gut.

There probably are more, but I just don't have any off the top of my head.

#iron man #beast #goblin queen