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#yeah that’s probably what reduced the quality of the series
wolfstrong · 1 year
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hi sorry if i come off as a hater lmao it's just i hate xander and you seem to like him, could you explain why? I know he has some positive qualities and can be a decent friend but i've always perceived him as a Nice Guy (tm) and often just a misogynistic creep (maybe i need a rewatch where i try to have more compassion idk)
I don't think you come off as a hater, everyone has a right to dislike any characters they want!
Yes, Xander is one of my favorite characters and I have a deep affection for him! I do agree he can be very misogynistic and also creepy (more so creepy in the first couple of seasons, his crush on Buffy often made me very uncomfortable) I'm not going to say I "forgive" his misogynistic actions, but I guess I see it more as a problem with the show as a whole. You know, the time period and such and such. BTVS is a very strange show because it was progressive and groundbreaking in some ways and also very flawed in other ways. It's got some of the most realistic and well written female characters I've ever seen in a show, and yet its constantly undermines them with misogynistic jabs. i don't know, its weird but I digress. The point is I can kinda look past those two specific flaws because I see them more as functions of the show itself.
I like Xander because he's the "everyman" of the series. He's the very unspecial normal guy and idk I just really like that. I’m not trying to reduce the other scoobs to just their practical talents, but Buffy is the slayer, Giles brings the smarts and has his watched role, and Willow has her magic and before that her hacker skills. But all Xander has is himself, all he can give to the team is himself and he does it every single time without question. And like he knows this, everyone knows this about him. If all he can do with himself is physically throw his body in the line of danger to try and help someone else, he's going to do it. How many times does Xander run into the fight only to get punched out. And it's like yeah, its probably stupid and self-destructive, he's never going to be able to face off with the demons they fight because he's just a regular human. But he tries anyway and I love that. I don't know, it's just very admirable to always try, even if you feel like those around you are stronger or better then you. I guess i personally struggle with this, feeling like other are better then me or have more to offer or are more talented. It's nice to see a character whos in a similar situation yet still gives it his all every time. I think he's really relatable because of that and I feel for him.
I really love his loyalty. I know that his dislike for Angel in the earlier seasons stems from his crush on Buffy (which is ew) but also I think a part of it is because he feels protective of her as a friend. Like when Angel turned evil and they were debating what to do, Xander was like "maybe we should just kill him" and everyone acted like he was a huge dick for saying that, but I had to agree. Angel was trying very hard to kill Buffy, to kill all of them, and Xander was trying to prioritize their safety. Oh also there is a part of the season one finale (I think it was that episode... i could be mistaken) where Willow and others get kidnapped because of Buffy and Xander gets so mad he says "If they hurt Willow I'll kill you" which i know is kind of harsh, but like I think it really shows his loyalty and priorities. At this point, he did have a crush on Buffy, but he'd known Willow for much longer and his friendship to her was more important. So like idk, when we see him at his most angry or cruel its always on behalf of his friends.
I also just love that he's goofy and funny and cute. He has a certain charm that so based around the fact that he's slightly pathetic and lame. Just look into his big brown puppy dog eyes and tell me you don't like him just a little bit... he's literally a big loyal slightly stupid dog, come on now. He's always got sleeves that are just a bit too long that they flop over his hands, his shoes are untied his hairs a floppy mess and he has a giant smile and a weird cracky voice that goes up a pitch when he's nervous and he's always trying so hard to get everyone to laugh. I love him :) I can't help it, I just really love him
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facelessxchurch · 4 months
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Review/Rant: Official Merch Store
General Short Version
Remember how he said he would hire professional artists for the official merch store? Yeah, Landy lied bc of course he did. Pretty sure he designed this stuff himself. I mean, a too big amount of items are his doodles.
I didn't expect much, didn't even hope for merch for my favs, but I expected at least some new SP art instead of recycled art (some art is so old it's still from when the first trilogy was released) and well, text.
And no, Landy's shitty 5-second doodles of Skul and himself don't count as "art". Neither does the skull silhouette on some items. Couldn't even be arsed to add eye socks and nose smh :/
3 pages full of garbage merch. He really went for quantity over quality here.
And to add further insult to injury, the prices of the items he sells are heavily overpriced.
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So yeah, this entire store is a sign of disrespect and balant insult to the fandom. I hope no one buys this.
Long Version
The Notebooks/-pads
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Too much empty space. WAY too much empty space. You couldn't possibly have done this in a lazier way.
The sarcasm one is hardly even SP-related. Plus, he didn't even attempt to pretty the text up a little with typography. He didn't use the 'bold' font for "Caution" which would have been the bare minimum. This doesn't even count as trying.
I TRIED to make the two with characters on it a little better by reducing the empty space, but it's really hard to polish a turd. Especially if ya don't wanna put more than 5 min in lol
Totem Bags
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This store has totem bags, but they are worse than the Kickstarter one. At least the Kickstarter one had text big enough that you could read it from afar. For the text on the new ones, you'll need a magnifying glass.
Clothing
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Some of the text has the same problem as the totem bags: too small to read. The only time text should be that small is if it isn't meant to be read or when it's "if you can read this you're too close" T-Shirt. This applies especially to A6.
If you have B2 you don't need B1. What happened here? Did he have an item amount quota to reach?
A3, B3 and C3 are Landy's shitty 5 second doodles again. Unless they are used to signed the cloths they don't belong on the clothes. Pay for a custom design, you cheap ass scammer!
A4 and A5, the stripe with Skul should be thicker. If it's on a shirt you shouldn't need a magnifying glass to see it. Also, the blue stripe needs more contrast, the blue is eating the black outlines of Skul. The red stripe on the blue shirt... I just really don't like that blue tone and I hate that he doubled down on it. For the website too.
C1 should have had the sold letters bc you can't read it from further away with that effect on top.
C2 at last you can read this one. Not getting any creativity points from me tho. Once again it's just text and probably took him 5 seconds to design.
Now listen, here is what I want instead. I have this zip-up hoodie from Killstar. I love and essentially I want this but in SP.
Faceless One version: The symbol on the front is the Faceless Church symbol. The back is a picture with Mev in the middle and his generals around him and it's done in the style of those stained glass windows you see in Christian churches but black and white. I don't know what I want on the sleeves. Maybe bursts of flames, symbolizing Mev's fire attacks. Or perhaps just parts of the 'Gospel of the Faceless' scribbled along on the arms in English, Latin or even Irish??? Or one arm a snake to symbolize Nef and the other a lion to symbolize Baron as his right and left hand men?
China Sorrows Version: The symbol in the front should be a crest with a scorpion on it. The back image is a drawing of China in the Art nouveau style. The arms should be a roll of paper curling down each arm with various symbols drawn on them, artfully intervening with each other.
Hats
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I wouldn't say that "We don't talk about vampires" is one of the more iconic quotes of the series, but besides that not even an attempt was made at typography. Or like, a little vampire head silhouette with an open mouth and exposed fangs. or even just fangs around the text or anything at all even.
It doesn't assault my eyes, but it's also incredibly boring.
To the people saying they wanted to buy Skul's head: just go to a hat store and buy a fedora. It's gonna be better quality than whatever Landy would smack on the store for a criminal price.
Everything with his face on it
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No. How full of yourself do you have to be to try and sell merch with your face on it. The quotes are awful too
The quotes on the postcards are so awfully 2012 Tumblr "quirky" I'm-not-like-other-people ^w^ edgy bullshit vibes. Wasn't cute when it came from the emo kids back then and it coming from a +50 year old man trying to be relatable to the kids these days is just sad and cringe.
Also, I'm pretty sure by sending people that greeting card is how you end relationships including familiar relationships.
Baby's first InDesign Skull
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It's what it says in the title. Should have just used the iconic Skul logo instead to make it look like SP and less like random shit you can find on Etsy after reaching page 100.
Really should have just used the old school icon. Thee is a reason it's so iconic: it's easy to recognize as Skul and not random skull/skeleton number 5643489. Plus, using the old one is about the same amount of effort as making the new one.
Honestly, it should have been custom art, but the iconic SP icon would be the lesser evil by a far.
On top of hat, black text is hard to read on a red background js.
Also, what kind of chaotic evil alinged bastard uses a metal pencil case???
Prints
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Ngl I always thought the "Mortail Coil" cover was one of the best of the entire series. I also really love the OG "Dark Days" cover. OG book covers as prints? Easy win! Still fucking overpriced tho. Plus the OG covers also would have looked good on clothing, way better than the shit he ended up slapping on there.
As for the collage with all of the characters in it: I always thought it looked awful. The characters were just thrown in there without much thought or care. Also hate that he used the ugly ass SoW Nef instead of the way better-looking Book 1 cover Nef.
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Rainbow Ruler
This isn't even Skulduggery-themed. I feel like HarperCollins told Landy he had to put something in the store for the gays but instead of making something like a cute lil Valkyrie/Militsa pin he just smacked this into the store.
The Skulduggery Apron
The only thing that makes it SP-themed is that they smacked a sign saying "Cooking with Skulduggery" on it. Otherwise, it looks like every other skeleton apron you can get around Halloween.
Coaster
So empty and boring again. It looked way better with the moth eventho it was a "Silent of the Lambs" movie poster rip-off. Still don't know why a skull is the official Sanctuary logo. Seems kinda weird for the good guys. On a meta level: I guess literally EVERYTHING in universe has to revolve around Skulduggery.
Make the Sanctuary seal more interesting and then invert the values so the background if black and the lines are white and this could actually look decent.
Skulduggery Clock
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This looks like a your-photo-here clock that you can order at every random print shop. Here are some examples from HP to show HOW a custom clock for the fans is meant to look like next to it. (Also look at this Thresh watch, it's so good I almost regret not wearing watches.)
Lunchbox and Waterbottle
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Same thing as with the clock. Tho the water bottle also has too much white space.
Mouse-/Gamerpads
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Recycled art again. The mousepads look weird with Val placed smack dead in the middle. Plz apply the rule of thirds and move her a little to the right.
Pillows and Bag
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AGAIN WITH THOSE SHITTY DOODLES Someone tell Landy that if it takes about 5 seconds to draw it does NOT belong on merchendise!
Also, that floating "Bad Magic" Skul really doesn't work on it's own, Just... just use the damn Skul icon if you gotta be lazy.
Final Words
Overpriced lazy garbage that Landy definetely designed himself. No person with self-respect would even consider participating in this cash grab.
It's an insult to every fan, really.
How to fix this? Delete everything from the website, hire a professional artist, go for quality over quantity. A few items that sell really well are a million times better than a bunch of items that don't sell. If the shop goes well you can always expand.
Almost all of the store should have been custom art apart from a few exceptions where old promo art and book covers are used for tops and posters.
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the-firebird69 · 1 year
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We released this car today and yes it's a coup and it's called Chronos it seems after the god of time our father time to some but it's really about the plan Saturn which is Hera's domain
Zues
It is mine and this is what I'm doing and I'm having it released and I wanted it right now not that we are looking one and we are also going to make the large SUV and the regular size SUV and the minivan series is three of them and plus some of these new cars he's going to post yeah this is looking they look like our leisure line and we are going to start doing it now and having meetings and getting them approved and putting them in production he wants the PT cruiser back in with the one that he's souped up to jazz up and they like it he's thinking about that roadster it's not sure and the convertible crossfire definitely wants that back people liked it, it's going to handle better but it looks nice already and Mick Jagger wants to do the commercial so it could seek him out today. There's another convertible but it's bigger and we're going to put that in and there's a whole bunch of sedans smaller and larger and largest it's all going forwards right now we prepped for it but now we're doing it for real
Hera
Thank you Hera and Zeus I would see this ago and we are prepping meeting where building them it's slightly more modern except this car here looks exactly like this and he didn't even help design it no he did a little she did a lot more and we are putting in the three series race car types and he wants to add a small one and we're looking at that there is a small Chrysler car and it'll probably bring that back and it is a sports car and it's going to be fast like the lotus esprit. The less expensive hypercar let's call it from Craigslist 85,000 the small one will be $35,000 it's affordable and most cars cost that if this is very high quality and has the honeycomb shell and reinforce frame computer types it's very nice it will be getting on all these vehicles now and it's our company not anyone else's and we're taking over all the dealerships but you're pretty much empty and we're renovating and upgrading and we're going to do it in phases and we're going to open the shops today huge sales ar anticipated, we have a lot of phone calls and a lot of questions a lot of people want to buy them right now I was taking orders online so far we have 300 million orders answer now see you in 20 minutes ago in the real it's going up now in about a billion
Frank Castle hardcastle
There's a new story out Chrysler is coming back and it's in the news tells the people see it and then see it's a new owner they have his name and someone has a photo in their article not many and it looks a little like our son and so Neil is going to go around and imitate him and it doesn't look like me but okay. We hate that guy. There's a few other things that we can suggest it used to be a pickup truck he says we should probably leave it alone for now unless there's a demand and we hear there is but not much it's also cars are less sporty and he's going to post those and we get that it's like a luxury car like Cadillac but for a lot less money the regular sedan is about 22,000 and we're going to cut it down to about 17,000 so it's affordable to some the smaller version is less about 15,000 and we might reduce prices once we start production
Duke Nukem Blockbuster
And yeah the prices are a little bit high and we talked about it and we are going with 18,000 for the full blown sedan 15,000 for the mid-size and 12,000 for the compact and it's not called compact but it is smaller but not really that small it's the one size smaller than the Kia optima it's the ultima
Thor Freya
Let's get this out
Olympus
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fou-and-foue · 4 years
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admit it.
fate apocrypha was good but some of you people don’t know how to properly appreciate a plot that isn’t entirely character driven
but you were also the one who decided to watch it in the english dub rather than the french dub
which is far superior
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felassan · 3 years
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Jon Renish (Foundation Technical Director @ BioWare, working on DA4) recently did a Twitch stream where he played through some DAO. Although he works on DA, this is his first time playing through DAO. He’s playing through it looking at random details from a dev perspective as he’s currently working on DA4 and therefore wants to know more about the previous games.
On the stream he mentioned some tidbits on the development of DA4. There were also some insights and anecdotes about the development of DAO and similar. It’s a 3 hour stream so I collected them here in case that’s of use to anyone (for example not everyone can watch streams which don’t have subtitles/captions). The stream is a fun/interesting watch though, so if you’re curious or able to watch I recc doing so. 😊 The rest of this post is under a cut for length.
Please note that there’s some paraphrasing on my part, this is not a transcript.  There are also some additions from another dev who featured on the stream to give some commentary. The stream also contains more snippets that at times I couldn’t make out (I tried my best!).
(There is a mention of Cullen’s VA in the text below.)
DA4
Jon said he can talk about things about DA4 that aren’t “consumer-facing”, but he can’t say anything about the game that would be consumer-facing but which isn’t already publicly available. There are several reasons for this. One, that’s not his job, there are people whose job this is and they let each other do their respective roles. Two, BW are a publicly-traded company, so if he said something that could affect that that would be insider trading. Three, they’re not done making DA4 yet, so if he said that they have added [x] to the game and people got all excited about that or pre-ordered on that basis, but [x] ended up being cut, people would be like ‘BioWare lied to us’, when it’s just that things changed during the course of development, as is often the case
He’s glad that fans are excited for the game but notes that fan expectations are always double-edged. It can be really tough as some people started ‘playing’ the game in their heads as soon as they heard of it. That’s fine, he loves that, but he hopes that peoples’ expectations don’t turn into requirements. Clearly BW have alluded to certain characters, like Solas, being in the game, but some fans say things like “If [say] Morrigan isn’t in the game, then, rahhh!” Y’know, there’s a lot of talk about how certain characters have to be in the game, and yeah.
On characters which are quantum (i.e. characters which can die or which can have similar end-states as death in previous games): their being quantum makes it really hard for the devs to work with those characters in subsequent games. The devs naturally aren’t going to put as much effort into characters which could have died previously. A character can have had an amazing appearance throughout/role in a previous game, but if there is a risk of something happening to them and of them being removed [effectively] from the plot, it just doesn’t make sense to have them as a major character in a subsequent game. If a character can, say, sacrifice themselves in some glorious ending, the devs have to make sure that if they use them again, in worldstates where the character didn’t do that, the character is kind of ‘muted’, as the devs don’t want to disrespect the players who made a different choice
A comment in chat expressed a wish for Shale in DA4. Jon’s response is that he has no idea on that front
Bugs don’t come out of crunch, they come out of development in general. Crunch does impact on the quality of a game though. In recent years BW are always really trying to reduce crunch, they’re currently working really hard to bring it down. The best way of doing that is by controlling scope. As creatives it’s tough to balance wanting to make great stuff and be industry-leading with the desire to constantly do extra passes over things they’ve created like the audio, art etc. Their biggest enemy is time, other ways of reducing crunch or time spent in general include iterating tools to make often-repeated processes as time-efficient as possible
I think the following was an observation on the industry in general as opposed to a BW-specific/-exclusive comment: he thinks that as a result of this sort of thing [working to reduce crunch], a lot of games are going to have to be smaller and a lot more focused in scope i.e. the devs will have to focus on hitting the key selling points of that particular game/series as hard as they can, and cut down on branching out sideways/wide on a bunch of random other stuff
Jon doesn’t personally engage in character creators in games, but he knows that for some players that expression is worth a lot of time and focus. BW want to be industry-leading in this kind of stuff as it’s something which is interesting/key/integral to their games
In a way BW have made their own nest of problems what with every DA game being so different to the previous one. Still, he notes that each game has a staunch fanbase that says that their particular favorite game is the best one in the series
He doesn’t want people who think that DA4 isn’t what they want to buy it and be upset - there are so many other great games out there! BW are going to make the game they’re going to make - if some people like it, that’s great, and if some people don’t, that’s cool. Sometimes waiting until reviews are out and/or really seeing beforehand if a game is something that you want [has things/features in it that you want] prior to getting it - as opposed to jumping right in or pre-ordering - is a good idea. Fans don’t always know what they want, but they do know what they like - these are 2 different things
He hopes that whatever they ship for DA4, people go “I enjoyed this experience”, and that then, if there’s additional content for it down the road, people can decide, “do I want this further content?”
On hair: BW are using the new hair technology in the latest version of the Frostbite engine, so they’ll see what they can do! This was said in response to a comment about the hair in the latest FIFA games (as EA make FIFA)
A comment in chat asked about a flying mechanic (griffons). Jon’s response is that flying is such a heavy gameplay mechanic that you can’t put it in a game without everything in the game being built about it (see Anthem)
Relating to the above comment, in DA4 mounted combat would be cool but then they’d have to make the game ‘around’ mounted combat and make the mounted combat feature meaningful
On the underwater concept art: it should not be interpreted as a promise of gameplay. BW have amazing artists who sit down for a couple weeks while they’re in early production and just draw loads and loads of all kinds of stuff. Concept art is like a moodboard or Pinterest board. Elsewhere in the stream he advised, take all the concept art together like a mosaic and ask, ‘what is the overall theme[s] here?’, and to zoom out from individual details. [This stuff echoes PW’s word on concept art]
BW don’t generally write things or the choices as bleak as the choices in DAO were anymore. This is a conscious choice on their part, they want their game to be fun [note: this was said when the side quest in Orzammar where the Warden has the option of convincing a dwarven mother to abandon her young baby to die was being played through. It seems to refer to intensively grimdark choices/beats of this kind]
I think this was more of a general comment on games: SSDs (solid state drives) mean that players will see shorter elevator rides (Mass Effect - was this a reference to the remaster?) and fewer switchback corridors (those are actually loading zones). Generally, these are going to change mechanically the time it takes to do stuff in games
The devs have lots of features on their backlog that they’d like to offer players but each will ofc involve implementation and subsequent maintenance, and each one that is chosen to add is being chosen over something else. And sometimes, it’s hard for them to tell if [x] feature or [y] feature would be better to add to the game
They’re about to work on a giant feature (a pure tooling feature, something that isn’t consumer-facing) that is probably going to take ~2 staff years of effort [I think “staff effort” includes multiple staff working concurrently, so 2 years of staff effort doesn’t = 2 years of time chronologically] to get done in the next few months. They’re investing all this effort across the people working on it because they don’t want their artists and designers etc to have to deal with the problem that it’s going to solve anymore. I’m not sure what this feature is but elsewhere in the stream they referred to tooling and automation and gave the example of, the better your tooling is, the fewer times you have to manually set the camera for a human vs elf vs dwarf position, for dynamically-generated [cinematic?] content and for the first pass to be automated (if this is the case, less time is spent/wasted on redoing it and manually touching it up) [see last bullet point in this section]
He doesn’t know how big DA4 is going to be but said “let’s ballpark and say like most games it’ll be somewhere between 70 and 100 GB”
If we kept our Wardens as the PC throughout all 3 games, at the end they would be so powerful that it’d be a bit like “Let’s just do [thing], I’ve killed gods before, whatever”. He thinks it’s good that they have fresh characters each time in DA in order to reset that power level. Some people want more Commander Shepard in the next Mass Effect and he feels like, ‘what else could you possibly want / what else could that character possibly do after 3 games?’
When asked how much freedom he/they have now to focus on next gen, he said that there’s actually almost no difference on that front. The problems never change. They now have better renderers, better ray-tracing, better graphics cards etc, but they have always made DA games for high- and low-spec PCs, so it’s actually about gameplay systems. The freedom isn’t power-based and them getting access to more cores and more RAM generally isn’t going to change how the games are played. The games still have to be made for hard drives on PC. Dev creativity matters more than power here. The challenge of building a BW game is more about/from managing loads of different plotstates, loads of different art pieces, etc
On the title situation (two): names are the last thing they worry about because names have to go through legal before being approved. Every name, including character names, has to be checked in case it’s a famous person, or associated with something bad, or offensive in a different language due to localization etc
They don’t do face scans of people with big beards
There was also a bit about changes/developments to/in the cinematic design process and associated tooling [?] but I found it too hard to follow sorry >< This bit of commentary begins at timestamp ~ 1:52:45 and continues til ~ 2:00:05 [keep listening through the bit where they pause for a cutscene]
General BW
There’s currently ~350 staff in Edmonton, ~200 in Austin and more elsewhere
He notes that DA games sell pretty well, but relative to EA games in general, they’re a drop in the bucket compared to FIFA
DAI
5% of players of DAI never created a character [Q: does this refer to people who just used the default appearances/presets with no editing, or people who only played multiplayer?]
The mounts don’t actually go faster than running, this is an illusion
I think they said it has 55,000 lines of dialogue. [I’m pretty sure I remember devs elsewhere saying it has 80,000 lines of dialogue]
One of the companions had to have their name changed during development because of legal/translation reasons. It sounds like the original name sounded too close to something offensive
DA2
Back when DA2 was internally code-named “Nug Storm”: this was at the beginning when it was pitched to the team on a set of slides. The image on the slide for that pitch had devil horns, a metal hand and no flesh, it was just made out of fire and flames
DAO
The engine DAO is made on is the third engine that they tried for it during development. [David Gaider has gone into the DAO engine stuff some on Summerfall’s series of DAO playthrough streams]
The cracks on the cracked eluvian asset are modelled after the crack on the Tardis in Doctor Who from around that time, as at the time some devs had been talking about Doctor Who a lot. A dev actually added this factoid to DAO’s entry on TV Tropes but someone else (evidently not a DA dev) came by and deleted it saying that it was too much of a stretch x)
Before the game had its name there was an HTML script that randomly generated possible titles for consideration, it adds verbs and nouns together e.g. “Grim Dark”. One of the craziest possibilities that it once generated that the devs always remember is "Bone Wind”
One of the portraits that’s used for decoration around the world in-game (it’s of a bearded human man) is actually of a specific BW staff member
He played through Stone Prisoner, where Wilhelm’s son Matthias gives exposition in the cellar. Matthias is voiced by GE and this had been pointed out to Jon earlier on. Jon: “I don’t think that character’s voice acting was super strong there”
On the in-game area towards the end of Stone Prisoner: Outdoor areas in games are large and one of the things needed for them is streaming, so different chunks can be ‘streamed in’. There’s a tower [?], and technically the top of the tower was made an outdoor level so that sky stuff could be there, though it didn’t really need to be. The person that made it an outdoor level chose the very smallest chunk size for the terrain mesh, which determines how fine of a streaming they do. So when playing, every time you moved like 4 meters, the game would stream out 50-100 chunks behind you and the same in front of you (this is the bubble around the player of what actually exists). Because it was so small, it was constantly thrashing the CPU and disc to do all the loading. The devs were like “this isn’t going to work”, but they barely had any time. The solution: they made a new level that was outdoor and copied all the sunlight and other settings, but with the largest chunk size. They copy-pasted the entire level from one to the other. The problem with that many chunks then is that there was a giant expanse of flat terrain sticking out of the middle of the tower. They didn’t know if the story was going to involve shots of the outside of the tower for this sequence or not, so they took the terrain deformation tool and bundled all the terrain vertices at the bottom of the tower in a giant clump. So to this day there’s a mess of vertices and twisted terrain at the bottom of the final level that probably no-one has ever seen [not sure though if this anecdote is in reference to a place in that DLC or somewhere elsewhere in the game?]
There were also some tidbits on Anthem, however I didn’t note them down (sorry).
If you think I misheard or misunderstood anything from this stream please let me know and I will edit/fix it. :) 
(Thankyou to some of my friends who explained a tech detail from this to me.)
[source]  <-- current rewatch link
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if I'm being honest I never really cared for series 8 or 9 & mixamajig was such a mess I can barely remember which tribes belonged to which series. and tbh if the royal idiots didn't take up more of my brain than I'd like them to I probably wouldn't have bothered to care about any of year 3 this franchise peaked at series 4 - 🎵
Honestly I completely agree with you, not just because of my huge bias towards series 4 but mostly because of the massive drop in quality of everything post-M3. Mixamajig was pretty weird, alot of the characters acted nothing like how they were described in the Lego descriptions, not to mention the massive abundance of animation errors, it's pretty easy to tell it was somewhat rushed. Sure, some parts of Mixamajig may still be salvageable, but I think the best way to fix it is to almost completely rewrite it or something, maybe split it up into two separate specials so we don't have to introduce two whole waves worth of new characters in a single episode, that way everyone gets a fair amount of screentime.
EKHID is probably the best of the Post-M3 episodes IMO, it had the closest animation to the older episodes (using the Chad smooth and clean flash animation over the Virgin weirdly gritty sloppily "hand-drawn" animation), the story was decent, and they didn't try to cram in more than 9 new awesome characters to collect and build in one episode. Of course EKHID does indeed have it's flaws, the noticable absence of Tapsy, the fact that some of the background Mixels had a bigger role than characters with actual sets, and the fact that Camillot's dad really sucked at his job of being a good parent, but in comparison to the other two Post-M3 specials, EKHID's issues aren't nearly as bad.
NNGA. DEAR GOD, NNGA...
NNGA is like if you took the worst aspects of both Mixamajig and EKHID, turned those bad aspects up to 11, put them in a blender, removed the entire point of Mixels from the plot, and basically gave it such a boomer message of "phone = bad". NNGA is littered with animation errors (from what I've been told it apparently has more errors than Mixamajig), the protagonist of the episode not only acts completely out of character from how they've been previously established, but they also made the protagonist a LITERAL BACKGROUND CHARACTER. This background character, who I should probably mention is Booger from the previous episode EKHID, is also a complete Gary Stu, meanwhile a bunch of the characters with actual Lego sets have ironically been reduced to mere background characters, which is honestly just really depressing for long-time fans like myself. LOOK AT HOW THEY MASSACRED MY BOY, POSSIBLY EVEN LITERALLY SINCE SOME PEOPLE THEORIZED THIS STATUE IS A MEMORIAL ONE IMPLYING THAT NIKSPUT IS FUCKING DEAD!
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Anyways getting back on track, another cardinal sin of NNGA is that it just, doesn't even feel like a Mixels episode. The characters barely Mix, they don't use the power of mixing to finally defeat the Nixels once and for all, instead we get fucking COORDINATED GROUP DANCING and Gay Laser Big Chungus Booger, a fucking lame and cringe way to kill off King Nixel if you ask me. Also can I just say that the whole premise of the I-Cubits is just such a boomer plot? Like apparently the I-Cubits are supposed to be an allegory/commentary on Apple products, so yeah the whole moral of the story is "Phone = Bad". Ok boomer.
In conclusion I agree with Anon, Mixels peaked with M3 and everything else was just downhill from there.
~ Mod Niksput
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thattimdrakeguy · 3 years
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Between these following points, which one would you say was things REALLY started to go wrong for Tim in terms of the quality of character work: His jump from YJ to Teen Titans under Johns and others, the death of Jack Drake in Identity Crisis or shortly after the deaths of Conner and Bart?
Hmm. I’d say the beginning was when they put Tim as Steph together when it was pretty obvious they wouldn’t make a great couple but pretended otherwise. But even then most of the comics where pretty good quality it was just that aspect. Cause you have Tim being passive aggressive and dismissive over her on one side, and on the other side you have Steph being reckless and straight up sexually harassing Tim--
It was the kind of relationship where if you’d switch the genders you’d have a major storm of hate. So it’s just freaking gross to me.
But when they wrote that story arc where they showed really well why they should never be a couple, and would be hard time to say why’d they’d even be friends, and yet ignored the fact that Steph did many many toxic and even emotionally abusive things during it. (Like she’d gaslight, insult, refuse to talk to, and even threw stuff at Tim over an assumption she wouldn’t bother letting him explain, and  later stalked the girl she just assumed Tim cheated on her with and insulted her as she impersonated a nurse and later nearly beat up a kid she thought was Robin that she already nearly got killed--really messed up crazy stuff, and it was done by her creator--so.) Was about the time I feel it was really ���Yeah, it’s kind of over for Tim.” cause then it was just Dixon shoving his OC in more so despite the questionable logic.
And then when Dixon left it exhilarated even more cause Jon Lewis’s run was terrible. He didn’t understand Tim, and he added in so many bizarre aspects like Jack Drake hallucinating Valkyries as his ex-wife, who’s name he got wrong (Which shows how little Jon Lewis researched), and bizarre sci-fi stuff that didn’t really fit in Gotham City’s level of it being mostly grounded, or at least for a comic.
Geoff Johns getting a hold of him and the rest of the core four though is when I’d say it was permanently screwed. Cause they could’ve gotten back from the rest, but when they decided “Lets make everything edgier” it was kind of over for Tim as far as I’m concerned. When you remove the aspects that make the character the character. They are not the same character anymore. 
And slowly but surely from then Tim became reduced to edgy genius stereotypes and lost all of his nuance, most of his personality, and when it became obvious writers started ignoring that stuff about him, it was just done for Tim. He became nothing and expendable to an extent for DC.
Like it especially hit a downpour when people in Tim’s lives all died. Weirdly Tim’s own series with Adam Beechon still understood that Tim was an idealistic kid that’s perseverant and would do his best but struggle a lot with it, and showed him dealing with suicidal thoughts (implied) and a very authentic depression, while being desperate to bring Cass back before she seemingly dies (people forget that Tim also thought Cass died too unless I remembered how that went wrong), but overall still living his normal life. 
But since Geoff Johns who was getting more power in DC started writing Tim as a super edgy super angsty super genius, it was just so done for Tim. His character didn’t matter, just what melodrama they wish to use him for instead of him as an actual protagonist based on his own merits as a character. His own merits just didn’t matter anymore, they were duds to them.
Genuinely a bit depressing how easy it would’ve been for Tim to stay a float but DC not having the smartest chaps on board didn’t help. And I feel like a dick for insulting them, but when Tim started losing success to the point his fan base is not that vocal (still large, but do they really think they’d bother?) after every time they’d change him more and more, and they can’t realize “Hey, maybe just let Tim be himself again” is probably the best idea, then they‘re pretty freaking clueless..
Tim’s had a bad time for quite a while.
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momochimchim · 2 years
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I'm curious who are your favorites out of your ocs?
I'm not sure what the series are that you're drawing them for, but they're all very elegant looking. So full of life 🤍
What are your favorites like if you have the time to explain?
OMG-- OOOOO THANK YOU FOR ASKING 😭😭💞💞 I APPRECIATE THIS A LOT 😭💞
Right now, i personally like Neo, the crazy(?) younger brother of one of my histories 🤔 He's a little childish, a little too Immature. Also he's obsesive over a girl who crearly shows her despise towards him (i think i didn't showed her yet), He kind of wants a motherly figure but twisted. He has a lot of traumas and his brother is in love with him so yeah ... Why my histories are so fucked up oh god. I like Than, the older brother, too<33 both of them got serious issues-
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I like Yuu (Or Yoru? 🤔) too! He's a vampire king of a mixed kingdom! I actually don't have too much decided for him, whether he's a noble vampire or a converted one... I like him bc despite being small he's without doubt better than most of the adults out there💪🏻. Also even when he looks cold, he's indeed very kind hearted, loyal too<33 Truly a capable and trusty one
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From the same universe of Yuu, I like YanYan and Mirai(I might change his name tho)<33 YanYan is so oblivious 😭😭😭 They're just dumb and i love them, they give me serotonin
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Also my alien girls, Thelgex and Melmex! Thelgex is the one who has shorter "hair", Anyways. They came from a planet where the population got reduced to only women! They have such high quality technology, even their bodies are so refined, they're top on all. BUUUT, They have almost no emotions. Despite that, there are no crimes, they're perfectly behaved and distinguish between good and bad. Anyways, the girls can have emotions! Though, they're considered anomalies in their planet, and aren't allowed to leave (They consider it dangerous, and actually it is, because they feel more intensely). Melmex is part of the few who has emotions. She slipped away when Thelgex was leaving the planet and got away with her dnkdfkfm.
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Uhh i like Ryuu too 💞 He's hot, yeah 😫💖
I actually like all my OCs, but THEM, they're on another level 🛐 It's probably their history 🤔
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indigosprite · 3 years
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In another ask, you shared your thoughts on why you didn’t like 6996 etc. do you think 2795 share the same problem? I think while Tsuna and Kyoko doesn’t seem as weird as 6996 on the surface upon further speculation and reading works where Kyoko becomes this bamf vongola tenth wife who does anything for Tsuna, it sort of treads the same vibe as Chrome and Mukuro in some way. Idk I just want to hear your thoughts on maybe 2795 and maybe 2786 as well.
Hi hi
Had to search these because I literally did not have any ships for this show until I rewatched it and just merged my favorite characters into one pair that happened to be a ship. I  forget the others exist...With that being said, take this with a grain of salt because I honestly don’t even think about these ships a lot, forget they even exist. How KHR was written will always make the the very idea of Tsuna with any of the female characters feel weird or odd unless you’ve managed to read or create enough Fanon that changes your characterization of the original dynamic. I don’t think they share the same problem but maybe a similar one ? Tsuna and any female character compared to Mukuro and Chrome is very different in my opinion. (funnily enough it’s also because Mukuro isn’t a misogynist shsjsjsj) 6996 could work, they actually have a relationship that’s very personal to both parties and unlike 2795 they’re both aware of it and have a distinct unique connection with each other that consists of shared interests trust and mutual respect. it’s just odd to think about because chrome looks up to Mukuro and the power imbalance feels weird, he’s literally keeping her alive. (Which I know is disgustingly sweet I find it very heartwarming. )
2795 is this one sided crush with zero redeeming qualities. There was nothing remotely romantic or intriguing happening between Tsuna and Kyoko the entire series. If we took out Tsuna’s inner thoughts we honestly would’ve thought she was just this nice girl he knows from school. If we took out Tsuna’s thoughts in general and left it up to the fandom pulling this ship out of their butts it would honestly be 1000% cuter. All their interactions read like
“this girl is so lovely I really like her and she’s talking to me that’s amazing”
“Thanks for the pencil. Do your best on the test okay?”
I’m not swooning over the most lackluster interactions on the planet because he is over romanticizing it. Even the reason why he likes her is not that interesting or convincing. Which I mean I get it he’s only 14 he’s not thinking about all the small stuff like emotional support or validation or like not wanting to be alone etc. It’s still just you’re pretty let’s be happy all the time while you hold my hand forever. He deserves that he’s literally a kid. but even when i was younger i didn’t see it between them ever. On top of their interactions being boring they never give us things that make you go “oh wait she might actually like him hmmm” . they could have tried a little harder to make it a little more romantic? sometimes they show us Kyoko in a pink background hands clasped surrounded by hearts and I forget she’s supposed to be viewed in that light. I forget we’re supposed to actually consider her liking him too but what are we supposed to think Kyoko is looking for in a guy that makes Tsuna a possibility when she doesn't exist past eating cake and worrying about her brother and Tsuna. I think it’s also fair to note that they never imply that Tsuna actually thinks about her beyond his image of her but we see how caring he is with his friends to the point where he can point out their flaws and work through them anyways and accept them. Tsuna realizing Yamamoto was not himself during the Guardians trial is a perfect example of this, it establishes the relationship they built with one another. another example is Tsuna acknowledging that Gokudera is overwhelming and short tempered but he wouldn’t trade the guy for anyone because he is loyal and a good friend.  he cares for Kyoko as a person in general but he never reaches that depth when it comes to her. he doesn’t have to either because it’s just a crush, how you manage to take that through the next ten years of his life I honestly don’t know. 
TL;DR : My ONLY problem with 2795 is the fact that there is nothing to work off of but the implication that Tsuna likes this girl and that’s why they are endgame. she matters very little, just a figurehead of his normalcy. she’s written just as badly in fics, can I blame you? no you were probably like 14 writing them. do a lot of people still do this ? yeah so i’m just not interested until the fanon has changed her character for everyone. 
I know I sound super hypocritical because “Sprite what the fuck does 6918 have that’s soooo intriguing they actually canonically hate each other how is that any better.” the answer: Mukuro and Hibari have a more established relationship with mutual feelings than those two, even better they’re actually really strong feelings (of pure hatred). Bonus, despite being aloof both characters also have fully developed personalities and Opinions/Behaviors that we can mold however we please. they actually have a relationship to play around with that's what makes it fun and lets you have those “actually they’re pretty similar in this aspect” because you know shit about both of them individually. 
Now for 2786,,, as i sit here and think about it Haru and Tsuna make so much more sense for all the reasons him and kyoko don’t . 
Kyoko and Haru were already made solely to be Tsuna’s love interests (specifically Kyoko) , but then it went on to be something they didn’t even bother hiding when they reduced their characters and their interests to looking after kids and repeatedly worrying over Tsuna. The reason I don’t find it appealing is because there really wasn’t any dynamic there at all. This boy liked this girl and that’s literally all it was. She has no depth , and despite being written for him nothing about Kyoko screams you’re perfect for this kid. Nothing says, You’re compatible, You have common interests, you two can rely on each other. She was pretty and nice and polite and that’s all they shared along with half the cast. With Haru they went the completely opposite direction, this girl likes him and is upfront about it. she's not a better candidate just because she's not the typical pretty girl whos quiet and polite and caring,(She’s not the better written female character either, this is reborn. they all lose here.) she’s the better candidate because we actually have a personality to compare to Tuna's. she was purposely given this big personality because he was never going to be in love with her because she’s like all the other intruding figures of his life. Again we have this one sided crush, know he doesn’t like her at all but you can actually see where they do go right and wrong. she’s a complete person. 
Haru can handle a little wild in her life, she was the first one to know he would be a mafia boss and it didn’t phase her at all. Tsuna might need that later in life.
In the future when Tsuna finds her crying she tells him not to think her feelings have anything to do with him, completely different dynamic from kyoko whos emotions are always directly related to male characters and what they are doing. 
Haru and her cosplays are so perfectly absurd and she does not care how weird he finds them, she has this big embarrassing trait to her that Tsuna comically responds to but just grows to overlook and accept.  
she actually talks to Tsuna quite a lot and helps him out whenever she can, because he doesn't like her she's allowed to actually exist in his world and he sees her fully because of it. It makes sense to see his significant other who will be involved in the mafia as an asset who he wants to protect and not just...something he needs to protect bc they honestly don't want this.
she interviews the entire cast of the show because haru just fits there, in a yamamoto like way, she can just handle it. 
Tsuna and Haru could have been perfect friends or a couple. they had the grounds for it. it’s just not what he wanted but I can totally see them working out for each other later in life. they make so much sense! i’ll have to think about them more sometime soon. 
Hope I answered you questions, this got long.
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beybladefanboy · 3 years
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Beyblade Seasons Ranked
Here is my personal ranking, from worst to best, of the seasons of Beyblade Metal Fight: Metal Fusion, Metal Masters, Metal Fury, and the awkward spin-off Shogun Steel. Yeah, let’s get into that:
4 Shogun Steel
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Honestly even if I did like Shogun Steel for what it is, it would still be at the bottom just by default. It can barely be considered part of the Metal Saga. The main characters in the last three seasons are either absent or reduced to supporting roles in favour of new characters who aren’t nearly as interesting or likeable. It is by definition a spin off. It feels very disjointed from the rest of the series because of these factors along with the lighter tone, the changes to the Beyblade system, and even some continuity errors particularly with Fury. Bringing back Doji again was also the biggest leap in logic this whole series made and feels downright lazy. The whole story just feels like a watered down Fusion with many of the story beats being similar and some characters never growing past mere echoes of the old characters. Some of the bey battles are fun and Ren and Takanosuke are decent characters but there’s a reason this show doesn’t get much attention. It falls into the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy trap of being overly dependent on original series sucker punches for its appeal and not putting as much effort into the new stuff. So as a result, the new stuff, some of which has potential, isn’t as fleshed out as it should be. This show is honestly fine on its own but awful when compared to the Metal Saga and it is comparing itself to the Metal Saga. This show intentionally put itself in the Metal Saga’s shadow and seemed content with being just that: a shadow of greatness.
3 Metal Masters
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Okay, this is where I’m gonna start pissing people off. Don’t get me wrong, Masters is great and I don’t think it’s clearly worse than the other two seasons or anything. I think the main three seasons are very close in quality and putting them in any kind of order was incredibly difficult. However, I do think Masters is slightly weaker than Fusion and Fury. First off, it introduces Masamune. I don’t like Masamune. I find his whole “I’m the number 1 blader” shtick incredibly obnoxious and he’s everything I don’t like in real Americans: self absorbed, disloyal, big mouthed, entitled, and just annoying in general. He did have good character development over the course of the season but I personally can’t stand him. The pacing of this season also isn’t the best. With the exception of the Dark Tsubasa arc (which I’ll get to!), the season is just a normal world tournament until they get to America, which I don’t find very interesting. Kenta is also criminally underused. In Fusion he was basically a second main character and there are some episodes specifically following him. Then in Masters, he’s pushed aside in favour of side characters. People say Fury underused characters, and I’ll get to that, but holy crap, Masters gave Kenta no room to grow. Aside from him though, the other characters are used really well. I particularly like how Kyoya and Ryuga are incorporated. This is actually the season where I grew attached to Ryuga during my viewing in December. I was starting to like him in Fusion but this season cemented my newfound attachment. This season also gave us the dark Tsubasa arc, which is one of my favourite plot points from the show overall. It’s a fascinating look into the mind of a character I already really liked and it allowed Tsubasa to develop a lot. I love the conclusion that you cannot drive out the darkness in yourself, you have to accept it as part of who you are in order to properly control it. It’s brilliant, and I can personally relate this message to my own life. The dark Tsubasa arc is probably the strongest part of the season overall as the rest of it until we get to the HD Academy conflict kind of drags for me. However, when we do finally get to the HD Academy conflict, it is very fun. The whole “spiral energy” thing was actually pretty creative and while brainwashing isn’t a new concept for this show, I think they went more in depth with it in this season and it was pretty interesting. So yeah, still a really good season.
2 Metal Fusion
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If I was ranking based on nostalgia, this would be number one. In fact, it probably deserves to be number one. However, I do have a few problems with this season that hold it back and it’s not the pacing. Actually, out of all the seasons, Fusion probably has the best pacing. The main villains, Doji and Ryuga, are introduced early in the season and all the characters are developed throughout the season, building up to the final tournament: Battle Bladers, which is also set up fairly early. The story is predictable but very well-structured. My biggest problem with this season is the plot twist with Gingka’s dad. Not only is it painfully obvious, but the reveal of the twist drags the plot to a screeching halt for nearly an entire episode, hurting the pacing and making an entire episode an exposition dump. It also made Gingka’s dad a terrible character. You can argue that him abandoning his teenage son and making him believe he was dead was for the greater good, although I personally still think it’s messed up, but breaking Gingka’s point counter like that was a step way too far. That moment serves to further the story by forcing Gingka to work harder to get into Battle Bladers. But did it have to be his dad who broke the point counter? I argue it didn’t. Gingka’s dad was flat out abusive to his son on that occasion and was pretty cold to him in general as Phoenix and yet the plot and even some of the characters praise Ryo for doing this. Why?! The way the story is structured puts Ryo in the right for abusing his son which disgusts me. That is my biggest problem with this season and possibly the whole series to be honest. I hate it that much. However, apart from that and those random filler episodes with Sora that in my opinion were boring, this season was really solid. Like I said, the story is told well and the characters are all introduced and developed well. Battle Bladers is definitely the highlight of this season, having the most intense battles and hardest hitting moments. Those episodes are exhausting to watch, because of Reiji and Ryuga. Reiji was randomly introduced in Battle Bladers and decided to try and rival Ryuga in how much he could traumatize the characters (and younger me). I have no idea why they decided to do that, but it worked. Ryuga in this season is the best villain in the whole series. He has such a presence to him: his (dubbed) voice, his sadistic expressions, his abilities, the music that plays when he’s onescreen. He’s over the top but in my opinion, Ryuga is the perfect balance between entertaining and intimidating. He’s even slightly sympathetic by the end of the season when he gets taken over by dark power and is seen trying to fight its control. They managed to both make Ryuga an irredeemable psychopath and found a believable way to redeem him. I love that in the end, Gingka isn’t fighting to defeat Ryuga, he’s fighting to defeat the dark power, which came from the greed and hatred of humans. Basically, the problem isn’t humanity, it’s humanity’s greed/hatred and being consumed by these feelings lead to evil. That is genius. This season also had two of my favourite battles in the entire series: Kyoya vs Ryuga, and Gingka vs Ryuga.
1 Metal Fury
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Yeah, I said it. Fury is my personal favourite season. It probably has more wrong with it than Masters and Fusion but honestly, Fury’s strengths more than make up for its weaker parts for me. The only problem I have with Fury that actively hinders my enjoyment is Kyoya’s poorly handled arc, which I’ve been over multiple times and wrote a whole fanfiction rectifying. To sum it up briefly: it was rushed and weakened Kyoya’s character when it had the chance to develop him. I will admit this season also had too few episodes. I don’t think it was rushed per say, it just feels like parts are missing. There should’ve been more leading up to Nemesis’ revival and an actual epilogue episode because as it stands now, Fury ends really suddenly without much actual confirmation of where the characters we know and love ended up. It’s kind of jarring. Overall however, I really love Fury. I love the adventure style story and there's so much variety to the bey battles this time around, both in terms of the beys themselves and the stadiums. It’s just more interesting to watch. It also did a great job giving all the major characters victories, not just Gingka. This is something Masters also did well and a gripe I have with Fusion: Gingka gets all the major victories in Metal Fusion and pushes the other characters to the wayside. Well, Masters and Fury fixed this issue in my opinion. The very final fight of Fury against the shadow Nemesis could’ve been executed better in my opinion. However, it hits all the right emotional beats for a final battle and still grabs my attention rewatching it, so I can put aside my criticisms of it while watching it. Also, I like that “destiny” is something these characters are controlling themselves and can go either way rather than being some unstoppable force that they will all give in to eventually otherwise they’re villains. Because that’s how Yugioh does it and it’s probably my biggest problem with that show. In that series, it feels like the characters are all just blindly accepting “destiny” and those that don’t, Kaiba and Marik most notably, are deemed villains for wanting to take control over their lives and not be governed by some invisible force. Yes, I know Marik went to some horrible extremes using this logic but it still bothers me that the only characters in that show that don’t throw their lives away blindly following someone else’s whims are deemed villains. It’s just kind of messed up. Fury thankfully subverts this. “Destiny” is not an unstoppable force in Beyblade, it’s the will of the characters and those characters are allowed to make their own choices. It makes the story more interesting and the characters more likeable because the characters are the ones driving the story, which feels so much more natural. Yeah, I really like the characters in Fury. Honestly, I’m more attached to Yuki, King, and Chris than anyone introduced in Masters and the other legendary blader characters all bring something different and interesting to the table that I don’t think older characters could have. I also like how the old characters are used. Sure, Tsubasa and Yu are underused this season. But guess who also got a lot of focus last season? Tsubasa and Yu. And some of the characters who were underused in Masters, Kyoya and Kenta, get more focus in this season. They did mess up Kyoya’s arc in my opinion but the effort is there and I appreciate his presence before and after that. Kenta especially was severely underused in Masters so this season decided to make him relevant again and they did it in such an endearing way. You all know how much I love Ryuga and Kenta’s friendship. It’s one of the things that should have gotten more focus but what we do get is good enough build up. This season was the one that drew the most emotion out of me during my most recent viewing and that was because of Ryuga and Kenta. I was devastated by Ryuga’s death (even if he may not actually be dead, that’s certainly what it felt like in the moment) and the scene where he gives Kenta his power was the most touching moment in the entire show for me.
Well, that ranking probably pissed some people off. Again, I love the classic three seasons. (I’m not a fan of Shogun Steel but it has its moments.) Choosing between the three of them like that was incredibly difficult, especially Fusion and Fury. In the end, I just had to go with my gut.
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moonlights-inkwell · 3 years
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Oh, Can’t You Hear The Scratching?
Jaskier x Reader
Word Count: 4747
Summary: A serious injury leads to you being forced to leave your travelling days behind you and try to reintergrate yourself into a life you left behind. But it seems something from travelling has decided not to leave you
A/N: So. Um. This was meant to be some post Mountain smut, but turned into some semi-angst and is probably gonna turn into a series (and kinda (?) a companion piece to my Oxenfurt Series) where Jaskier and the Reader just sorta embrace some domestic bliss. So yeah. Title taken from That Unwanted Animal.
The first chill of Autumn is enough to wake you from a dead slumber. The cold nips at the tip of your nose, leaving it almost painful and chaffed, and you curse internally at the windows of your small home, which lately has done little to keep out either rain or cold. Pushing yourself up from the warmth of your fur-lined bed, you sit up and wince when the chill hits your chest, causing you to heave out a sigh as if you had been punched, blinking bleary-eyed before turning to gaze out of your window. It’s still dark, but no longer pitch. The sky is the colour of the violets that grow along the path that leads to your cottage but paling slowly, no sight of sun or moon, cloud or stars. Soon the horizon will be warmed by the orange glow of the sun, but right now you find yourself in this blissful timelessness, caught between dusk and dawn, sleep and awake. Moments like this feel rare, special, and you dedicate them to memory, to remind yourself of the mundane beauty of the world when you feel lonely and upset. These moments are wonderful, and your lips turn up in a tired smile. 
Sleep is trying desperately to overtake you once more, begging you sweetly to rest as long as humanly possible- after hard nights working in the tavern, you deserve rest and respite, but you fight against it. Swinging your legs out of bed and standing up, you groan in annoyance.  
“Melitele’s tits.” You curse, slurring with sleep. Padding barefoot to the window, you lean against the wall and rub your eyes, toying with the thin fabric that hangs to the side of the windows. It’s much too early in the day, and much too early for you to be feeling this way. This feeling only normally comes with Winter but reminds you all too much of the day you met Jaskier. It was as if fate had insisted you to be ready for him. Your heart sinks at the thought of him.  
You left the Witcher and your Bard behind in the spring. It wasn’t an easy choice, or even really a choice that you made, but it was the only one that was given to you. It came as a result of fighting a Wyvern. You hate Wyverns, always have and always will, but the fight against this one had cemented that in your mind, seeing as it sunk its claws into the left side of your face, and nearly blinded you. You didn’t even really know what damage it had caused until you sunk, faint, to your knees and Jaskier screeched in horror at the sight of you. I'm not that ugly, am I? You thought to yourself and chuckled slightly before falling unconscious.  
You woke in a healer’s tent, barely able to comprehend spoken language as the medic told Geralt you were lucky to be alive, never mind retaining the vision in both eyes.  Something in the back of your mind told you that you should be in pain, excruciating pain, but you can’t feel a thing. Your face would likely keep the marks of the beast forever though, he told the Witcher, voice as emotionless as possible. The hand holding your own tightens its grip. Jaskier. You smiled and cracked open the uninjured eye, but the smile faded at the sight of his red, tearstained face. He looked like he had been sobbing, and he probably had. He fretted about you when you got splinters, so the idea that you could have died was too much for him. He glanced down at you, and upon seeing your open eyes cupped your face gently and pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead. It’s like no kiss he’d given before, it’s full of something you haven’t felt from him, sadness. Regret. It feels like goodbye. When he pulls back his lips and chin are stained with your blood.  
“I’ll find you in winter.” He muttered and your eyes narrowed in confusion. Tears overtook him once more, and he dragged you into his lap to sob onto your bloodied blouse- he'd never been squeamish about blood before, but in that moment, it was as if he was trying to get as much of your blood on him as possible, to mar and mark himself with proof that he was yours. Your fingers threaded through his hair, but whatever the Healer had given you meant that you couldn’t feel the softness of the chestnut locks, smell the musk and lavender scent that you know permeates from him over the coppery blood. It's hollow. You can’t feel him at all and would have taken the agonising pain of the wound if it meant that you could feel the touch of his skin on yours.
“Till winter.”
It was goodbye. At least for the time being.
Geralt took you home on Roach the next day, and insisted you remain. Retune yourself back to the life in your village, rather than a life that will kill you at any and every turn. He said it so firmly you couldn’t force out an argument, and so you’ve remained since that day; remaining in the old home you resided in just outside of the village, returning to your job in the tavern, and trying in vain to pretend that you aren’t in pain, not spending your days missing your bard, counting down until the seasons change and Geralt will return to Kaer Morhen and you can feel a dandelion on your skin once more.  
Absent-mindedly, you drag the tips of your fingers over the fading scar over your eye, it’s no longer garishly red and surrounded by mottled green, yellow and blueing bruised skin, instead almost white, with a strange shining quality about it. You don’t hate it, but you hate what it represents. Weakness. You found scars wonderful as a child, proof of how adventures had marked you, even on the road with Geralt it had been something of note, proof of how no monster had felled you yet. This one has felled you, left you more than just marked. It’s a conversation starter with patrons at the pub though, it sees you regaling people with your tales of traveling with a Witcher, and sees the pockets of your pinny grow heavy with coin as the nights draw to days, but the song starts up and you feel your throat begin to swell closed, lips suddenly wordless and eyes swelling with tears. Toss a Coin to Your Witcher is capable of reducing you to tears, your Dandelion would be proud were it under different circumstances. You miss him like a lost limb. After so long around him, always touching, always grinning, always talking, the absence makes you uncomfortable, especially at night.
Jaskier had always been there at night, oh what the luxury of your travelling partner being your lover had been during nights on the road. The sound of him singing in the darkness, illuminated only by the firelight and framed by the canopy of the trees, as if on a stage and performing for an audience of only you, how it felt when he dragged you, often kicking and squealing in laughter, towards your shared bedroll. While you are glad of a permanent bed, you miss sleeping beside him. It feels childish to admit that you find it hard to sleep without him, even if you are only admitting to yourself, but it is difficult without him; you miss the feeling of his arms around your waist, head between your shoulders and breath fanning against your skin, lulling you to sleep. Not only that, but you miss the sweetness that comes before sleep, tiredly resting on his chest and listening to him talk- usually utter nonsense you care little for, but enamoured by his passion and way of speaking- or singing, ringed fingers burying themselves in your hair while your fingers thread through the Shag Rug of chest hair.  
The shadow that passes by the window doesn’t catch your eye, distracted too much by memory, and you turn tiredly back toward bed but stop. Bed will do nothing but remind you of the chill behind you, lack of arms about your waist and head resting in the hollow between your shoulder blades. That won’t do. Instead, you find yourself padding to the small room that keeps the hearth, lip trapped between gnawing teeth as you begin a search for a means to light the fire and warm yourself a serving of last night’s stew but stop. Scratching. Scratching. Something is scratching at the front door. That’s not normal. All your life there has never been scratching at the door, even in spite of its close proximity to the woods no creature normally drags their claws along the wood, save for once, when a wolf had found itself lost and confused, but even that had been a pup. Just Imagining things, you try in vain to convince yourself, hand falling onto the matches and drawing a sigh of relief from you. It takes a second or so for your hands to stop shaking, but when the scratching dies you manage to strike a match and start a fire beneath the hanging pot of stew. Warmth, at long last, and light too.  
You sit on the floor to warm yourself in front of the hearth, humming softly along with the phantom of a song you hear in your dreams. It’s not one you know too well, you don’t even know if the song has lyrics, but it's one of Jaskier's and that means it’s your favourite. Tears that threaten to fall blur your vision and in the glowing flames you almost swear you can see him, sat across from you.  
It’s familiar, hauntingly so. You can all but feel the hard stone beneath your feet turn to prickly, drying grass, your sleep shirt turning to almost threadbare chemise and trousers. You can even feel the bruising ribs from an especially rough incident with a werewolf that saw the Witcher walking to a nearby village for food to help you feel better. The flames in front of you ripple and roar, causing the wood to pop and crackle, and with each noise you jump slightly and flinch in pain. Jaskier sits across from you, staring at you intensely and strumming at his lute. He’s beautiful in the light of the fire, lashes dark and his eyes focused, taking in every flinch and jostle.
“Try not to move so, Little Miss. You'll only hurt yourself. Well. Hurt yourself more.” He's trying to sound unaffected, but the intensity of his gaze betrays him. You worried him; a skill you’ve been honing in your time with Geralt and him, and you know how he worries. He's more of a mother-hen than a fighter in the first place, flapping about and acting as if you’re some delicate flower in polite society rather than someone who enjoys being combative, but combined with your human fragility? He frets. Overwhelmingly so. His eyes, the colour of the sea after a storm, moves from your eyes to where he knows your injury to be and then back to your eyes once more. You can’t quite meet his eyes, distracting yourself by looking over the intricate ivory embroidery that decorates his doublet.
You hate worrying him. He’s been so kind to you, always so giving: making sure you have enough stew to eat, warm enough when autumn comes about, threatening any man who looks at you with anything less than respect. He knows how you revel in fighting, but each and every injury you get sees the bard fretting even more so than normal. Though you can't meet his gaze you can feel his eyes on you, and hear the soft melody he's plucking, which makes you shift on the spot, letting out a pained moan as you do. Focused on the searing pain in your ribs, you don’t quite hear the bard gasp out your name and rush to your side, only knowing he's even there when you feel a warm palm rest on your thigh and turn to see him on his knees in front of you.  
“Fucking hell, Little Miss, are you alright? Do you need something? Shit... I- I can try and fetch Geralt, he won’t be too far-" The brunet rambles, eyes wide and grip on your thigh tightening, which serves to make your breath hitch- but not from the pain. Jaskier is always touching you, you’re quite certain he was not given sufficient human contact as a child, but never has he touched somewhere as... intimate as your thigh. The heat of his hand seeps through your trousers, and goes straight to your core and face- cheeks bright pink. He's still rambling, you realise, and reach out gently to cup his cheek, silencing him immediately. Stubble you can’t see on his boyish face prickles your palm, and you meet his eyes once more, noticing how wide the pitch of his eyes had grown.  
“I’m fine, Dandelion. Truly. Just moved too fast... bruises, and such.” You laugh weakly, tilting your head. “It will pass. Just need to distract myself.”  
He laughs with you, hand squeezing the meat of your thigh and so close you can feel his breath fanning against your skin.
“I can distract you if you like?” He offers, voice lower than normal. You smile in return and nod, expecting a song or joke but what you get instead is his lips pressed against yours. Warm, wind chapped, perfect-
A log pops and you come from your memory, blinking and sniffing as the smell of the soup makes you smile. It’s not much, but it’s enough. Before you can reach up for a spoon to mix it, you hear it again. The scratching. It's back, and worrying. You miss Geralt, not for the first time that night, missing how his acute hearing would be able to tell you if it was an animal or human- specifically if it was a wolf as you suspected. Scratching, scratching and scratching. It worries you, but not enough for you to become fearful; instead making you smirk, eyes narrowing into dangerous slits and shifting towards the sword you've kept beside the door. Less than a second later you dart toward the door, and grip the cold hilt of the blade in one hand, body pressed against the wall beside the door. The scratching stops when you move which only makes you hold your breath, eyes slipping shut as you try to relax once more. Calm doesn’t come, and instead you heave out a sigh and call out,  
“...Hello? Kacsper? Is that you?” It wouldn’t be the first time your employer had come by in the night to ensure a young woman alone would be safe at night, which you thought to be immensely invasive but, in this moment, you cannot stop yourself from hoping it was him.  
“...Dear Heart?” A voice you didn’t expect at all replies, weak and choked. Jaskier. Only Jaskier has ever called you anything like Dear Heart, the only person to ever even think to call you by pet names, but not in that voice. Pained, like he was injured. Something logical in the back of your mind tries to remind you of Dopplers or any number of creatures that can change their voices, but the sound of your lover’s voice is enough to see you throw caution to the wind. You drop the blade to rip the door open, completely unfazed by the ear-splitting clatter of steel on wood. The door is open before you realise how forcefully you pull and there, shivering in the autumnal cold, is your bard.  
It’s hard to tell in the minimal light of your cooking fire, but he looks a mess. Chestnut hair splayed across his forehead in wet clumps, from rain or sweat you have no idea, deep red doublet and trousers stained with something that could be either mud or blood, and eyes sunken and darkened from a lack of sleep and something else. A sort of... hunger, longing that you know, but not in this intensity- he would look at you like this before kissing you, or bedding you, like you were ephemeral and easily gone without his touch. His frame lurches, holding to the door frame for stability.  
“Jask?” You whisper, and it’s enough for him to surge forward and crash his mouth to yours. The look in his eyes mirrors how he kisses you, hungry and rough, cracked lips moving against your own in such a way that you almost fear the blood you can taste is your own, but it’s definitely not. You feel like you ought push him away, chide him for coming so late and frightening you, but instead your arms wind around his neck to pull him closer still, lips moving gently against his, trying to slow the kiss. It’s been so long, too long, without his lips on yours, months without his touch when you would seldom live an hour without his touch. He takes the hint and the kiss instead turns sweet though still desperate, his hands resting on your hips even after you pull back and stare up at him like he’s a phantom or dream. “Jaskier, what are you doing here?”  
“...I missed you.” He says simply, voice cracking and breaking your heart at just how sad he sounds. “I. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to intrude, Little Miss. I should-"  
“Shut the door, Buttercup.” You interrupt him, hands sliding from his throat to hold his cheek. “And sit down. You look dead on your feet. Where's Ger?”  
Jaskier flinches at the mention of the white-haired man but does turn to close your front door. As soon as it’s closed, keeping the cold somewhat at bay, his arms are around you once more and face buried into your hair, drawing a contented sigh from you while your own arms work their way around his back. It’s been far too long. He feels like he always has, soft but with a firm layer of muscle just beneath, not obvious by looking at him, but there none the less. Hugs have always felt restrictive, like being caged but his have always felt like safety. It’s the same now, just more tight, and you cannot tell if he knows how tightly he’s holding you. Honestly, you can’t bring yourself to care. He could leave a Jaskier shaped bruise on your flesh so long as he robs you of the Jaskier shaped hole in your heart. He doesn’t smell as usual though, lavender and musk replaced with sweat and sulphur, telling you just how long it must have been since last he bathed.  
Deft fingers wind into the wispy hair at your nape at the same time that lips press to the crown of your head, followed by a deep inhale, you aren’t the only one to have missed the simple things like this. So much is hidden away in touch and smell, especially when not too long ago the two of you spent near every moment joined at the hip.  
“You smell like posies.” He mumbles into your hair, and you smile weakly at the observation.  
“You smell like death, Darling.” You reply before you really consider how mean the words are, though you hope your voice is playful. “I'll draw you a bath-"  
“No, no, no. Don’t... don't move, Muse. Let me... Let me cherish this moment. Reunions are supposed to be a happy time.” He doesn’t sound happy; he sounds as if he's choking back tears. “Gods, how I’ve missed you, Dear Heart.”  
“I missed you too, Buttercup. Like a lost limb.” It should seem a melodramatic turn of phrase, but it truly isn’t. It was like losing half of yourself to be away from him. Having him wrapped around you now is the closest to normal you’ve felt since leaving his side. “...Why are you here though, Love? Oughtn't you be with Ger-"  
“Don’t say his name.” The usually sweet voice of your bard comes out venomous, and his grip only tightens, “I’m not travelling with the prick.”  
The Prick. That’s new. So many of Jaskier’s songs are about the Witcher, but now he's the prick. You can’t help but blink in confusion, head tilting to look at your man but he instead swoops his head down to kiss you gently. He's trying to distract you, of that you're certain, but you decide it best to indulge him, kissing him sweetly and pulling back before he can deepen it.  
“...Stew.”  
It’s his turn to look confused, head tilted to one side to stare at you while you pull away.  
“Stew?”  
“Do you want some?” Gesturing blindly to the pot behind you, you begrudgingly break free of his hold on you. “You look hungry. Stew, a bath and then bed. I think it would do you the world of good.”  
“When did you become a domestic goddess, Little Miss?” He asks incredulously, lips turning up in a smile. He’s taunting you, but you don’t care as long as he stays smiling. “My Little Miss would sooner skin a deer with her teeth than cook.”  
“You can thank my mother for that. Old habits die hard, even if they are ones to make me a perfect wife.”  
“You’re a perfect wife already.” He says with a degree of finality in his statement, sitting by the fire. He makes it sound like you are his wife, and the thought brings a blush to your cheeks. “Are you going to join me?”  
“I need to get bowls for the stew.”  
“I mean in the bath.” He shoots a wink in your direction that you suppose is meant to be flirty, but on this defeated looking Jaskier it comes across more pathetic than anything else. Had you been asked an hour before, you would have moved heaven and hell for a chance to be in your miniscule bath with the Bard, using bathing as a preamble to ride him until your brain and legs turn to jelly and there's more water out of the bath than in it, but this Jaskier needs a gentle hand, and a helping hand to remove the layer of grime and melancholy that is covering his entire being. “You... You don’t have to. I. I'm being presumptuous, aren’t I?”  
“How?” You ask weakly, descending to your knees at the bard's side. “It's hardly the first time you've asked to see me unclothed.”
“It’s been months. You probably have a new lover. I mean, look at you, how could you not?” He asks, gesturing to your body as if it was supposed to mean something to you. “You look like a gift from on high, and I... I left you here. To grow soft, and gentle and domestic.” His hand rests on your thigh but there’s nothing romantic in the touch, just longing. Like, despite his hand on your bard flesh, you're in fact a thousand miles away or he's lamenting to the spectre of a lost love. “Someone else has snapped you up, and I’ve lost you, and come here, and you’re too polite to say no.”  
“We both know I would never be made to do anything I don’t want.” You smile, and lean in to press a chaste kiss to his lips. He chuckles softly, and watches you as you ladle some stew into a bowl and hand it to him. “And I don’t. Have anyone else.”  
“You said a man's name when I was at the door.”  
“My employer. He’s... odd. Constantly sniffing about.” You reassure him, watching him spoon up some of the both and sip it before sighing, from the taste or reassured that you love him still. “If I didn’t want you, I’d have stabbed you.”  
“You. You waited.” It’s a statement, and you nod simply in agreement.  
“You said you'd come in winter.” His eyes focus on you once more, drinking you in like it is both the first and last time he shall see you.
“You look like you did the night we first met.” He says conversationally, and you smile, remembering how he had winked at you mid song. It feels a hundred years ago, though you know it couldn’t be more than six years ago. “I thought you were the most sublime creature on the planet. There’s not an ounce of feral in you, just... beauty and softness, with something wild behind the eyes.” He says soft like it’s a thing to be admired, not disparaged. His eyes, stormy blue and sad look about your childhood home with nostalgia for a time that you don’t know. “You look like a life worth living, Dear Heart.”  
“...A life worth living?”
“Yes. This. This you, all gentle and half asleep, looking at me like you love me. A little home and a fire, Darling Love telling me to eat and bathe and sleep. Domestic. A life worth living.”  
“I do love you Jaskier.” You interrupt, letting the words fall off your tongue like they’re the easiest thing in the world to say. They feel that way.  
“You shouldn’t. I left you here.” The words come out hollow, and you take his hand from your thigh to your lips and kiss it. You can all but see the knotted weaves and threads of his mind, and hope the kiss will soothe them, even a little. His hand tugs free for a moment to ghost his fingers along the scar on your face, making you shiver.
“I was hurt.”  
“I should have stayed. Should have stayed by your side.”  
“You’re here now, Julian. That’s enough.” It shouldn’t be, but it is. He's here, not exactly as you’d like him to be, but having him beside you is more than enough. The comforting presence of warmth beside you is more than enough to wipe away the months of absence.
He sighs your name like a prayer, “I love you.”  
“As you should.” You tease, and he places the bowl beside him to take your hands in his, prompting you to give up all pretence of propriety to instead climb onto his lap, intertwined fingers bridging the gap between your bodies. “You’re upset.”  
“At the sight of the love of my life looking like a perfect little wife in an empty home.” Obtuse Jaskier might just be your least favourite form of the Bard, him trying to mask feelings he wears so openly, like he thinks you a fool. You’re unwilling to pry, though, so bite your tongue. “I’m half convinced I died on that mountain, and you’re just what my mind has created as a dying thought.”  
“Shush.” You coo, lips chastely brushing against his. “You're as alive as I am, keep the melancholies out of it. If I look like some... darling bride then be quiet, seeing as that would make you a very foolish husband to spend your night bemoaning your fears and not kissing me.”  
He chuckles at that, a small triumph, but enough to fill your heart to bursting point.  
“I’d be a fool for leaving you here alone.” He starts but a sharp noise of annoyance cuts him off.  
“Stay forever to make up for it, then.” You retort, “Sleep next to me until I can’t remember a single morning without you.”  
He blinks at that, enrapturing you in how the black of his eyes swells until you cannot see any of the blue.  
“You want me to stay?”  
“For always.”  
He grins, almost wide enough to distract from the tears that well in his eyes and you lean in to kiss him once more, his hands settling on your hips to pull you closer still. You've missed this, the stupidity that fills your head when his lips are on yours, tongue gently trailing along the seam of your mouth, never invasive, just inquisitive.  
“You truly do need a bath though.” You grumble against his mouth, Jaskier pulls back in mock indignation.
“I know you don’t actually mean that and just want to undress me.”  
“Oh, shut up, Dandelion.”  
His hands turn from cradling to tickling, sending you into reams of laughter that he echoes. All, for just a moment, feels right in the world, now that he's with you again.  
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connan-l · 3 years
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All right, so now that I finally digested the final a little I have some random messy thoughts about Fruits Basket 2019. It got really long lol, but this has been stuck in my head for a while so I needed to get it out!
Honestly, it was a very good adaptation and I’m still in awe I was able able to see the whole manga animated. Fruits Basket is pretty important to me, as I read it for the first time when I was around twelve and it was definitely one of the series that impacted me the most — the way it tackles themes of cycle of abuse, loneliness, grief and moving forward still feel very special to me even now (I briefly wrote a post about it months ago after rereading the manga), so of course I was delighted upon hearing the reboot announced and for the most part, it didn’t disappoint. I’d never truly thought I’d be able to see characters like Rin or Machi actually move on screen in my lifetime so in a way it still feel surreal lmao (RIP to Komaki though). It was really refreshing to revisit the story in that way, especially given amusingly enough I am myself in the middle of some big changes in my life where I have to leave things behind so it felt sort of... well, I won’t say empowering per se, but quite encouraging and satisfying to watch Furuba, and especially its final, at this timing, in a way. It wasn’t perfect, there are certainly a lot of flawed directive choices that I question and unfortunately quite some important cut contents — but even at its lowest it stayed all in all good. I’m genuinely a bit stunned there are people who thinks the entire thing is worthless or a failure, because man, I have seen what a bad anime adaptation looks like, and Fruits Basket 2019 definitely isn’t one. Natsuki Takaya herself was clearly very invested and satisfied in that adaptation — I mean, just the fact she drew arts for every single episodes or for the season 3 ending really shows that I think. And while there’s a part of me who will always have a soft spot for the 2001 anime, there’s no contest that the 2019 one is the superior one and more representative of the original manga as a whole.
I believe some people really don’t realize how... uncommon it is to get such a consistently good-looking and complete anime adaptation for a shojo manga? Shojo really aren’t lucky in that prospect usually; they rarely get animated, and when they do they’re usually very bland or outright bad, or they get one short season of like 13 episodes that never receive any follow-ups — even shojo considered like classics tend to get poor treatment, unless they’re Sailor Moon of course or a long-running magical girls franchise like Precure (and even then we could have a discussion about the way Sailor Moon’s treated compared to say Dragon Ball for example, but that’s another topic entirely). So yeah it is quite awesome we were able to get this kind of anime adaptation that covers the full manga with good quality from start to finish, and I am so, so glad it exists and that it managed to revive and makes the series so popular again. (Hopefully its success means we’ll be able to get more good anime adaptation of shojo manga from now on!)
But yeah, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t problems with it and I also understand why some of the manga fans had issues. We were kind of hyped with the fact this would be a complete adaptation and in the end we only got a... sort-of-complete one lol. The art and animation stayed fine during the run (there certainly were some episodes that were uhhh, lacking in that sense, but that’s just how it is sometimes with productions and budget), but I admit I was a bit letdown regarding the direction, where it often seemed… a bit uncreative or heavy-handed. There was some very beautiful and smart shots here and there, but on the whole I really had an issue with the adaptation failing to actually take more ambitious decisions on its visual aspect, especially compared to the pretty pannelling of the manga — and when it did take these decisions it just was… kind of obnoxious and in-your-face, like the show is trying to hold the watcher’s hand (with unnecessary things like Kyo’s father record player derailing or the whole big ropes symbolizing the curse that often slapped you all over the screen, which usually just made me want to roll my eyes because of how annoying it felt.) Multiple people also pointed out the overdramatization of some scenes like the Kyo and Tohru’s confrontation at the end of season 1 or Akito and Ren’s fight which was, indeed, not very good and a weird choice. Fruits Basket is already a pretty dramatic show and these scenes are already intense, there was no need for such over-the-top theatrical display of emotions that only made them comes off as comedic. I’m probably nitpicking here but it also bothered me some characters’ expressions didn’t feel properly retranscribed (Shigure especially, whose characterization depends a lot on that, really suffered from this), or that odd habit of making some big panorama plans instead of focusing on the faces and bodies, which particularly sucks during emotional scenes (like the backgrounds were pretty I guess, but that’s not what was important here lmao).
Also that might be just a personal thing, but can I point out that the openings were pretty disappointing to me... They're not bad, but they all looked so... bland. The songs are fine but the rest feel so uninspired and it's kind of sad... I dunno, I wasn't asking for much but I just think they could've done more than just scrolling each character looking vaguely melancholic or making them walk randomly one after another :/ The endings have at least pretty illustrations and I'm okay with them (I liked what they did with Kyoko’s photo in season 3 too), but the OPs kind of feel as if they ran out of budget and ideas for them or something. I kind of feel the same with the OST as well, where they’re generally fine but were a bit lackluster, and sometimes… they were kind of played at bad times? I remember the Rin episode in season 2 were the music felt a bit out of place and took me out of the immersion, which is a shame cause it was otherwise a pretty good episode. But that might just be a me-thing here lol. The voice actors were awesome though! (The Japanese ones, at least, I didn’t watch any other dubs). I’ve said it before but special kudos to Maaya Sakamoto cause damn she’s so perfect as Akito, and Shimazaki as Yuki and Toyosaki as Rin truly delivered too. I didn’t know Manaka Iwami at all but I was really impressed by her Tohru, especially in season 3 — she really was good at capturing her character’s subtle emotional turmoils (I think she makes a better Tohru than Yui Horie too, although I admit I missed Horie a little lol.)
Anyway, on the topic of lack of ambition, that might be an unpopular opinion but there’s also the fact that I’m sad they didn’t actually... try to change or add more original scenes. By which I mean, obviously we had some changes, but not ones that were really interesting (when they’re not actively detrimental to the story). For example, I was really hoping that we’d be able to get at least one original episode focused on Ritsu (and Mitsuru too why not) in season 2 or 3, or on Kagura or Kisa; I dunno, it would’ve been a good occasion to give something more to the characters that got sidelined in the original manga, or add some moments that would’ve been nice to develop like about Akito post-cliff confrontation, but we never got that. And well, that makes sense now that we know they seemingly had an episode restriction (at least on season 3), but, yeah, that’s still a shame. Honestly in the end Ritsu’s character made even less sense in the anime, because like, it was nice they tried to adapt his introduction episode so that it feels less “you have to adapt to gender norms to feel better about yourself,” (the gender non-confirmity is definitely one of the bits that aged the less well in FB) but then they still made him cut off his hair and give his feminine clothes to Kagura at the end so why lol. (And speaking of his episode introduction, I dislike that they cut off his conversation with Tohru after the suicide attempt, not only for Ritsu but also for Tohru cause it is one of the small instances bringing up her issues that is set up early on and that is crucial to her, but I’ll come back to this later.)
And now about the biggest problem to me being, the cut content and episodes rearangement. So, just so we’re clear, I definitely don’t think an anime adaptation needs to be a page-by-page adaptation of the manga to be good. Every decent adaptation needs to have changes, and the ones that tries to just follow the source material without any heart often tend to get pretty bad. So changes are good! Cut content are needed sometimes. But in Furuba 19, it really... wasn’t the case.
And the most unfortunate thing being that the one suffering the most from this is the show’s main character herself, Tohru.
So, obviously other characters also got done dirty by this; Yuki and Machi’s relationship was so incredibly shifted in the background and rushed it’s almost funny. I’m one of the people who thinks that, while I do think they’re cute, I definitely agree on the fact their relationship was a bit underdeveloped in the manga — and that Machi’s character especially suffered as a result by being a bit reduced to just "Yuki’s love interest" when she was a character with so much more to offer (and as a whole I also tend to agree with the fact that Yuki probably didn’t need a romance at all and that his arc is more meaningful while focusing on his platonic relationships, but that’s another topic entirely) — but man, if the manga already underdevelopped them, then ohhh boy, the anime just completely dropped the ball. It feels very odd because to me it seemed like season 2 was taking their time with setting them up, so if they knew they had only 13 episodes for season 3 then they should’ve started the changes there; instead we got 1 nice Yuki/Machi/Kakeru episode, and then it’s like "Yep, they’re in love, just trust me." (It does makes me wonder if season 3 wasn’t originally supposed to be longer but then got restrained because of budget or covid or something…) Kakeru also very much suffered because of them cutting off his girlfriend and his complicated relationship with Tohru… Now, to be honest, I’ve always found the Kakeru/Komaki/Tohru subplot pretty... contrived and useless, and Komaki’s not so much a character more than a device for Kakeru’s development, but it does have some good moments relevant to the story’s themes (I like the ‘‘you can’t play suffering olympics with people’s pain’’morale) and it is important to his character (and Komaki is cute, I admit), so it was still sad they shafted it entirely. (Also I kind of like the tense relationship between Tohru and Kakeru. The fact they both seem to not appreciate each other even afterwards feel sort of refreshing even if it’s never explored unfortunately orz.) I was still surprised they didn’t actually try to make a Komaki cameo at the end? Cause I think it would’ve fitted and Kakeru’s girlfriend had already been mentioned in season 2 but... for some reason they... didn’t. (Mayyybe we’ll get an OAV like with Kyoko and Katsuya? Who knows.)
One scene that was skipped/rearranged that I’m very bitter over is the whole Tohru/Kagura confrontation and Kagura/Rin scene — it might not seem like much, but the moment of Tohru refusing to forgive Kagura is very important, and I was pretty annoyed they turned Rin’s trauma response to Kagura’s violence and her subsequent apology/hug to a gag, it legit felt tasteless. The Tohrin scene they removed at the very end too was frustating; it was great they managed to fit in the "Rin doesn’t want to forgive Akito" bit at least (I was afraid they’d cut it off entirely), but it was so essential for her to say to Tohru, not to Haru and Momiji (plus the way they put it in felt very random and awkwardly placed there, when they were initially talking about Tohru before orz). OH AND the Akito/Hana friendship too! Yeah I know it’s not a Big deal but I absolutely love the little glimpses of their friendship and it’s very important to me so I’m disappointed over them not including the ‘Ah-chan’ scene… (It was kind of weird that the show sort-of implied Hana and Kazuma got together too cause that’s… not the vibe at all from the manga… oh well.)
Most people I’ve seen generally only bring up season 3 regarding the cuts/rearangement because it’s the most obvious and the biggest offender, but I personally think there were already problems with season 2 and 1. At first glance I didn’t have much issue with some of the rearrangement, because early Furuba can indeed be pretty episodic, but thinking back on it as a whole I think it might’ve been better to leave some stuff, like Hana and Uo’s episodes for example, to season 2 (I do wonder if they did this specifically so the reboot would offer original content and differ from 2001 early on...) and cut off other not-so-important things from S1 & S2 — because as a result season 2 kind of suffer a bit by being The Yuki Season, which, for as much as I love Yuki, did end up being a bit annoying and made his development feel less natural and gradual, as well as the fact it sidelined the other characters a little and left them with not much conclusion in its final. So this added to how much they ended up cutting in season 3, it makes the show as a whole feels really unequal. I think they did overall a good job in season 3 with what they had, and they really nailed some of the dramatic and Kyoru moments (the sheets scene, cliff confrontation and post-hospital confession were practically perfect), but it is a shame that it ended up as an extremely marathoned emotional roller-caster rather than a more well-paced watch that we would’ve had if it had been 20 or so episodes. (I know others argued that season 3 was what it was because there wasn’t enough content left to cover for 22 or 24 episodes, but I disagree and even if there weren’t, it would’ve been the perfect occasion to add original episodes then. But I think it was more of a budget and Covid issue personally.)
But anyway, all of this isn’t actually what I’m the most annoyed with (and YES that’s a already a lot lmao), those are stuff I can live with, but like I said earlier the most problematic is what they cut off from Tohru’s character. And that indeed includes her parents’ backstory.
So, just so I get this out of the way; yes, I do understand why people were relieved to not see Kyoko and Katsuya’s relationship play out on screen, and yes the age gap and teacher-student thing is creepy and I do kind of wish it hadn’t been written that way. (Though I was a bit amused by people who thought we didn’t get the backstory because of the questionable age gap when, uh... you know I very much doubt the anime industry has an issue with that. Like, to start with, we wouldn’t have had Uo and Kureno’s romance if that was the case (even if Uo and Kureno is less problematic, it’s still the same basis of a underage high school girl/20+ adult man relationship), and second there was a literal romcom anime about a high school girl and an adult man that was broadcasted at the same time as Furuba season 3 lmao. So nah, it wasn’t there the problem to them, it was just time and episode restriction, which was pretty much confirmed with the announcement of the OAV focused on them.)
So, Kyoko and Katsuya is definitely Problematic and I agree on their relationship being uncomfortable; however, I’m a bit baffled that people were literally cheering on not having that part in the show, because it is... it is not just like a small bit of family trivia, it is Extremely important and actively essential to Tohru’s character and Fruits Basket’s themes and narrative as a whole. It’s very important to understand Kyoko’s character, of course; to humanize her and finally present her as a very flawed person and not just the idealized mother that Tohru project upon her, and it is extremely important simply to understand Tohru herself as well; to understand where her way of thinking, her trauma and attitude stems from, and this in a way that just isn’t possible to see with the little fragments of that flashback we got or the bits of Kyo and Kyoko’s interactions.
See, Tohru’s character is principally constructed around two things; her grief over her mother and her almost-pathological selflesness and people-pleaser needs that comes from her abandonment issues and loneliness, and her arc is very much about letting go of both of these things and finally moving forward and letting her life change. There’s this perception of Tohru I see sometimes that she’s not a very interesting character especially compared to others like Yuki or Kyo, or that she ‘‘stays the same kindhearted, naive girl from start to finish,’’ and while I deeply disagree with this I know where it comes from. The thing with Tohru is that she is firstly an extremely emotionally repressed character, and so a lot of her depth and development is made through small, gradual details scattered throughout the manga. It’s done in such a way that except for some obvious scenes those small, apparently insignificant moments are easy to miss or disregarded, and unfortunately it is a lot of these details that the 2019 anime cut, or rearanged in a way that feel less impactful or makes less sense; such as, like I pointed out earlier, her conversation with Ritsu after his suicide attempt. As I’ve seen others point out, this result in altering Tohru’s portrayal and rendering her character mostly about her romance, undercutting and downplaying all of her small, subtle character moments and developments, and miss a bit the second part of the story where the narrative actively challenge the ‘savior/therapist/mom’ that other characters and Tohru herself projected upon her.
And as a result it also means undermining things like her parallel and relationship to Akito, which idealistically should’ve been slowly built up throughout the last season but because of how rushed season 3 was in the end felt a little flat. (Akito’s character in general had some issues also because of the unequal pacing and rearranged scenes, though admittedly I think this was also an issue present in the original manga.) Kyo’s character and his romance with Tohru is the one element that managed to get out of this mostly unscathed (although Kyo also does suffer a bit from it), but because of what was removed from Tohru’s character it still inevitably impacted them by making their characters as individuals lacking. It’s not like it is a complete failure, mind you; I think the anime at least did a decent job at showing Tohru is Not Okay even at the beginning in season 1 (they certainly did a better job at it than the 2001 one lol) and managed to roughly portray her issues well enough overall, but it is just… lacking in the subtlety and nuances that, to me, makes her character and writing really special and unique.
(This post explains what I’ve tried to say here in a much more eloquent and better way that I ever could, and this all put into perspective what I basically love so much about Tohru and Fruits Basket in general.)
And, you know, it would’ve been sad but comprehensible with any other character, but here we’re talking about the story’s literal protagonist, which is why it is the part of the adaptation that makes me feel the most bitter. Tohru and her story is truly amazing and well-written, the thing I was looking forward to the most with this reboot — and while I do understand the episode restriction and I do believe they still did their best with what they had — her arc still deserved to receive a full proper adaptation, not a kind-of-half one.
So, yes, I am at least glad they’ll adapt Kyoko and Katsuya’s story in OAV, but the fact that it will never be included in the actual main narrative is still actively detrimental to it, and it will never have the same effect that if it had been played out before the Kyoru sheets scene where it should’ve been. (I hope they also won’t cut the fact that their story is narrated by Kyo, because that is also a very important detail for both Kyo and the story, but I have the feeling they will…)
Welp, that was quite a long, messy rambling. Not sure if anyone will actually read all of it but if you did then congrats lol. I feel in the end I’ve been really harsh and negative with the reboot… I do love it a lot! If someone asked me I would wholeheartedly recommend it (though I guess I would still argue to read the manga first if you really want to experience the story in all its nuances). I think they truly did an impressive job — even with season 3, which a lot of its episodes were beautifully done and did make me tear up a few times lol. I’m just sad it couldn’t actually offer a better, more nuanced delivery of the story’s depths and of one of my favorite manga protagonists that means a lot to me. But that’s an adaptation that so many fans wanted for years and I’m happy and grateful it’s here cause Fruits Basket deserved at least that much!
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nileqt87 · 3 years
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Despair For Castiel: A Review
From a series of posts before and after watching:
Before:
As far as I'm concerned, I'm now imagining the Empty having to deal with Gabriel and Balthazar redecorating the Empty into the angel/demon afterlife (probably with a lot of wacky alternate realities and bad porno) with all the free will angels and redemptive demons invited, Cas finding Meg and eventually Jack again for his true happy ending that he can have and Crowley probably trying to install himself as king again. Then when Rowena finally exits as Queen of Hell, she'll join and Crowley will annoyed, but Gabriel will be happy to see her again. LOL.
Megstielers also got robbed hard with all that setup of Cas still pining for Meg for YEARS, the Empty using her image (not Dean!) to taunt him (the Empty clearly saw Meg in Cas' head when it could have taken the form of anyone, including Cas like last time) and a whole dropped plot thread that Cas made a deal with Ruby to break a demon out of the Empty, which only makes sense with the one and only demon he'd actually want to let out of the Empty. That's dangling one 'ship a whole bunch of carrots (like every single Clarence reference for a decade) to rip the rug out from under them.
I suppose I should've seen it coming when the previously on segment for 15x13 was a Pizza Man and the Babysitter retrospective that shoved Cas out of the Pizza Man role beside Babysitter Nurse Meg to shove Dean into Megstiel's sexy times meme. I guess it turned Cas into just Dean's Baby in a Trench Coat (which was an insult about being useless to Dean's cause without powers, which suggests Cas has no worth to him otherwise), since he got infantilized with the removal of the Pizza Man originally being him.
I still haven't watched the episode. The Tumblr crap is that off-putting.
What should've been an epic moment in Cas' story is now tainted by his love of humanity, found family and free will (his real love story is with all of humanity and finding belonging, in spite of always being on the outside looking in on a life he can't have because he's not human) being reduced to horny girls who just want fetish smut with Dean and don't give a fig about canon Cas outside of a toxic, abusive crack!ship. It's always so immature and vapid!
It was immediately clear when I joined the fandom that shockingly few gave a crap about any character but Dean, even refusing to see what he's become in later seasons. Also numerous examples where they admit having not seen the show in a decade or only knowing the show via manipulative .gif sets. Cas and Sam (if they remember him at all) are just props or prizes to be won. They ignore context of familial/platonic relationships. Canon love interests aren't good enough because they're not the big prize of being a main. I also note the deluge of Wincest girls who hate Cas for existing (he's in their way) in the anti-Destiel tag.
I can't say the .gifs are making me want to watch, even though the dialog is vague enough to still fit Cas' actual character for the general audience who isn't glued to social media.
As for Dean's non-reaction, I had similar problems with Jensen's constipated acting back in 15x03 when Cas finally walked away while Dean looked like he couldn't care less, which the writers coincidentally praised Jensen for (holy crap that interview was up his backside) and completely ignored Misha actually giving a good performance in a scene that actually meant something long coming for Cas. I certainly can't say the same about the quality of this scene, which just looks forced on both ends.
I hope I like the episode more than the sounds of it, but my hopes aren't high. This is not how I wanted Cas' final moments on the show to be.
After:
Well, I got up the stomach to watch it tonight. Thankfully, in context, it definitely got blown way out of proportion by what the Hellers turned it into (as usual). Yeah, even when watching while unfortunately not blind to the wackadoodle fandom discourse, it played out better on screen than the .gifs. And frankly, a whole lot less like creepy Care Bear stare nightmare fuel than the few choice screenshots kept showing (yikes). I still wish Sam and Jack had been there, because they're just as much part of what connected Cas to feeling like part of a family (even more so in the later years), but it's not the total monstrosity it was turned into online.
Average viewers who just take canon as is without trying to read into it what they want to be there instead, IMO, will safely interpret it platonically (even if coming after a particularly hellish few years in Dean's personality rot where the whole friendship was beginning to be questionable) more often than not because that's what the canon has said for a dozen years. Again, I repeat that Cas already told the Winchesters he loved them when he thought he was dying.
It's a crime to have Cas' perfect philia (brotherly), storge (parental) and agape-style (sacrificial and unconditional) loves being immaturely twisted into eros in a way that degrades the whole meaning of the character's journey. People telling each other they love one another when it's not sexual should never be mocked into being afraid to do so because of this insidious, willful misinterpretation. If only somebody had told Cas they love him instead of him always being the one with his heart on his sleeve!
This character went from being tortured into a robotic, emotionless, ancient, not-remotely-humanoid being who couldn't relate to the simplest of human needs to being someone deeply in love with humanity and wanting to find belonging amongst it despite knowing it would always end with him watching them all grow old and die after having families and such experiences angels are forbidden from having (another reason why Jack was so important to Cas' story).
The wording is valid for that philia/agape interpretation, given Cas definitely equated Dean (whom Cas watched sacrificing himself for Sam endlessly, including why he had to be raised from perdition in the first place) with a guide role in his learning to understand humanity and proudly-defiant free will before he could love it. It's valid enough to say that Cas wouldn't have broken his programming permanently without being challenged to question everything he'd ever believed and give up his entire angelic belonging. That much of it did begin with Cas just happening to be the angel who succeeded in the Hell rescue.
Obviously, it's also canon that Cas had a long history of not following orders and getting lobotomized by Naomi, but Cas actually understanding humanity and what free will means did happen only after this particular rebellion. I'm very glad at least that was in the speech, but of course, it's being hopelessly ignored.
I stand by my interpretation that what Cas can't have has always been the tragic version of The Little Mermaid where she turns into sea foam in the end. Cas has always looked in on what everyone else takes for granted from the outsider's perspective. There's a part of him that will always be left out, no matter how well he learns to fit in and how much those around him begin to treat him as a real person. Cas never really got to truly belong with humanity, no matter how much he loves and is loved by it. He's also not getting to stay where he wants to be. There's no Pinocchio ending for Cas that turns him into a real Winchester.
Sadly, Dean's constant othering of him and Jack like they're just more monsters to hunt only alienated them more. Jack was someone Cas could relate to as a supernatural being capable of human emotions, which might also have furthered his draw towards Meg. Sam was also someone Cas could relate to as freaks and abominations amongst their own kinds. Sam always had that same struggle, also with his own family. It goes a long way towards explaining why Sam was always so empathetic to Cas and Jack in a way that Dean couldn't be. All three kept conflicting with that black & white humans = good/other = bad mindset that sometimes creeps in with Dean. When Cas was Dean's "best friend" in the early days, he rationalized it by thinking of Cas as being "like" a human ("You used to be human, or at least like one.").
Yet it still remains true that Cas often found himself looking to Dean to teach him about humanity back when he didn't know enough about it to be inconspicuous amongst them. Dean gave him the crash course in both what humanity is willing to do for each other, but also its flaws and failings at the same time.
Perhaps the saddest scenes in the episode were actually Sam watching everyone poof in front of him. Sam has really been forced to watch a lot of death scenes this season all by himself (as with Rowena), but he looked the most broken by Eileen's. Cas is going to be hard on him, because I genuinely think Sam was far closer to him in the end. Sam was the one who actually was trying to reach out to Cas when Dean repeatedly kept him out of the loop. Sam being left out from the final words with Cas or even hearing first-hand about the deal with the Empty just furthers that tragedy. While Dean has been raging at everything in sight, Sam and Cas have both looked broken, sad and tired all season.
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therokoko · 4 years
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“A bad attitude on set is deadly” - Interview with Alex Rider Director and Producer Andreas Prochaska 
Andreas Prochaska on adapting the books, casting Otto Farrant and the challenges of releasing the series in times of Corona
Based on a podcast interview with Austrian news outlet Der Standard titled “Schlechte Laune am Set ist tödlich”. I’ve translated the important bits. 
1. How he came in contact with Alex Rider: 
Well, that was relatively simple. I have an agent in England, and he sent me the script for the first episode as well as an outlook, a kind of series bible about how things were going to proceed, and I read this and thought: “This works for me. That’s something completely different.” 
I mean, especially … you mentioned “Das Boot” earlier, which was the production I worked on before, and which was burdensome in every way, I mean not only because of the time it took but also because of the topic, because we killed, I think, 26 characters in “Das Boot”, not counting extras, and of course that has an effect on you. And then I also filmed “Spuren des Bösen” [Traces of Evil, a German 8 part crime series made between 2010 and 2019, A/N), in which a mother jumps out of a window with her baby, and I was looking for something with a lighter tonality, and something which I hadn’t done before in this particular form, and “Alex Rider” was perfect for that.
I also didn’t know the book series at all. I read it completely unbiased and thought: “This is actually a cool, daring concept – so to speak somewhat exaggeratedly Coming-of-Age meets Jason Bourne....
[This job] was a result of “Das Boot” insofar as someone working for the distributor, Sonar, knew someone at Eleventh Hour – and it’s not just over here that people talk, and when someone says “listen, this guy has done a decent job, take a look” or something, that helps, and in this case it’s probable that the people became aware of me through these contacts.
2. How they approached adapting the books:
Well, it already started with the fact that our series is a mixture of the first book of the book series, namely “Stormbreaker”, and “Point Blanc” – I don’t remember right now whether that’s the second or a later book.
In Stormbreaker, the drama of the protagonist is established with the uncle who dies and the realization that this uncle wasn’t who he appeared to be. Stormbreaker had been made into a feature film which was produced by Harvey Weinstein and for which Anthony Horowitz had written the script, and that was pretty much a lead balloon. And because of that it was relatively clear that everything bad that had happened with that feature film needed to be avoided, namely that everything was totally over the top.
And my job was to [adapt] this material, which actually … I started reading the novel afterwards, and I stopped after 20 pages because I realized that that wasn’t helping me because they are actually books for 12 year olds, or at least Point Blanc is – when I read it I thought: “This is an English, better-quality version of the ‘Knickerbocker Gang’ [a German children’s book series about a group of child detectives, A/N] or something like that”. And the task was to just adapt this material for an older audience and to just draw the characters in a different way emotionally, to draw them in a more realistic way. When you look at the entire season it does occasionally reach into almost absurd spheres, but it was important for me to pave the way for the audience by starting out realistically with a protagonist that could just be the boy next door.
3. How he went about filming a spy series:  
Well, the most important thing for me in every story are the characters and to get as close to them as possible. I developed a sympathy for this unwilling hero quite quickly. And, as I said, I tried to make the surroundings as British as possible given my Austrian view of things, and to draw a character that you believe and for whom failure is always a possibility, because I find it incredibly boring when you have these superheroes and you already know that they are never in any real danger.
And this was very important to me also in working with Otto Farrant, who plays Alex, to guide him and direct him in such a way that you get the feeling that it’s possible for things to not turn out well, so that you go on this journey with him emotionally, and as to the rest it is … I don’t approach things mathematically. It’s not as if I feel: “Ok, in minute 10 this particular thing must happen, and in minute 20 this thing must happen.” For me, every story is a journey, and you try to make these journeys as good as possible following your instincts.
Like, for instance, the opening scene. In the script the villain was sitting on a roof manipulating some things on his laptop. And then the thing that happens with the man happens – I don’t want to spoil anything, because it’s actually a pretty nice surprise – and this was only 2 thin pages, and I thought: “Actually, to start this series off in an epic fashion, I’d rather like to introduce another character here, too, to charge this scene as much as possible so that you’re just drawn into this world.” And equally in episode two, that’s so to speak the episode of the test, where he has to pass the test designed to show whether he’s suited for this mission, and the script called for a hut in the woods and a road in which things happen, and I thought: “Ok, if we are dealing with a secret service, the military is not that far off.” And so I told the location scout to look for abandoned military bases, and we ended up on a former nuclear weapons base somewhere in the South of England, which made the producer sweat quite a bit because this was a relatively complex location compared to what had been in the script. But those are the things where I, as a director, can try to create visual appeal for a global audience. The series has been sold to a hundred countries, which comes with certain expectations, and of course you don’t want to disappoint these expectations.
4. On the circumstances of the release and viewer reactions: 
It came out in England in the beginning of June, which is sad, of course, because we had planned to have a premiere celebration at some festival, which wasn’t possible because of the current situation. And so this release on Amazon almost felt a little stepmotherly. So I just refreshed the link on Amazon.uk again and again to see how the people reacted to it, and there were actually many very positive reviews in a relatively short time. I think we are at 4.6 out of 5 stars at the moment, whatever that means, …
There are of course, again, total haters who only give one star and say: “What a bunch of crap.” But the majority of people seem to really like it. So hopefully, or it seems we have managed, at least in England, to … that the fans who read it as children watch it, so to speak, in retrospective joy and that they remember the times in which they read it, and still [feel like the series] adds something new.  
5. On the casting process: 
There was … even before I came on board, they made an England-wide, i.e. Britain-wide casting call. And in England, there are quite a lot of youth theatre projects, which were also contacted. And we received, I think, more than 3000 e-castings, which were screened beforehand. I still saw about 200 e-castings, and then this number was reduced bit by bit. In the end there were 3 people left in the room, one boy was from Game of Thrones, another one was very young – barely over 16, which would have been difficult -, and then, to be honest, there was only Otto. On the one hand, that was surprising because you think that there are loads of great actors in England, that it would be difficult to find the right hero, but in the end it was just very clear. It was an interesting casting situation: there was Anthony Horowitz, then there were the two executive producers from Eleventh Hour, then there was Wayne Garvey from Sony International Co-Productions, and also a casting agent from Sony America, and they all sat behind me like an assembly, and I just took the camera and worked with the actors and just tried to ignore the audience – I also felt like I was being cast again as well in my work with the actors, but … it was, yeah, it was very interesting and exciting.
I virtually grilled him for hours, tried again and again to draw the different scenes in different temperatures and with different emotions out of him, just to see what his range is and how much I would be able to work with him later on in terms of fine-tuning. Because carrying 8 episodes is an extreme challenge for a young actor, and it doesn’t help me if the boy is just dashing and then he carries only half an episode and then breaks apart. That is why it was so important to really test him thoroughly, also in combination with Brenock, who plays his best friend - we tried different combinations – and with Ronke, who plays his confidante in the household, just to try and find the right chemistry. And that was a very exciting and very satisfying process. What was really great was, when he had those three, there wasn’t any discussion anymore at all, we all agreed – I mean it would have been equally possible for Anthony to favour someone else or for Sony to like somebody else better, but it was really incredibly harmonious and unanimous.
6: On what made Otto Farrant stand out: 
Well, it was his perseverance. I mean, really, we had one scene which we really tried in 10 or 15 variations, and every time I felt that he understood where I wanted to go. To direct often means to change the temperature of a scene using only short adjectives, and for that you need someone who understands you and who can also implement that. And I just saw that he doesn’t give up that he really has stamina, and that was essentially – apart from the fact that he really comes across as incredibly natural and likeable – the deciding factor for me in the end.
7: On the responsibility of making Alex Rider and the first weeks on set: 
Well, I mean the … Alex Rider is, I mean to English fans, a promise like James Bond, on a different level. And you need someone who – and of course you need that with every film and with every series – you need an actor who touches the people emotionally, to whom they can connect. That is, of course, something you can’t … beforehand … I mean, of course you can, as we did, try everything out during the casting process, but you only know whether it really works out after a week of shooting.
And I really – especially in the first 3-4 weeks, in which I was still searching, too – I mean with every production you start on the first day of shooting and you want to throw away all the material you shot on the first day right away and start over on the next day – but he was searching, I was searching, and in a way I became – it sounds a little exaggerated right now – I became a little bit of a surrogate father during that time, because I noticed that he needed a certain type of attention and a certain security that only I as the director could give him. That is, he could come to me with every problem and with every decision concerning the character, and that worked out really well …
8. On the challenge of “carrying” a series as a lead: 
As for the “carrying”: on the one hand he has to, so to speak, function technically, i.e. he must be able to, so to speak, deliver every scene, i.e. to know the dialog, to have the right energy, and do that over the course of months - now, luckily, Otto is 21; I don’t think that would have worked with a 16 year old. And that meant that while we were shooting Otto had to read the other four scripts, which were still being written while we were shooting, and he had to comment on them and to learn them by heart, and the transition was seamless. I had to interrupt my shooting schedule for two weeks because we had a location that was only available at a specific time, and so I left the set and flew to Austria to start the cutting process, and on the next day the other director came in and just kept working with him. That means Otto had to adapt to the other director, and that’s a challenge for every actor, but especially for a young actor. ...
I [as a director] could only keep it together up to a certain point in time, until my episodes where done shooting. [...] And of course, when the lead actor is in a bad mood when he comes to the set in the morning, that is at least as bad as when I come to the set in a bad mood. That emanates in all directions. So the strength of character of someone, who also knows … I mean, he doesn’t know yet about the power he may have in the second or third season, when he maybe becomes executive producer or I don’t know … but [it’s important] that you, as a human being, just treat everyone with respect in such an environment.
Source: Der Standard AT 
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yeonchi · 3 years
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Sea Princesses Book Review X1: Educational Books
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Raws downloaded 2 July 2021 Screencaps extracted 3 July 2021 Transcription completed 4 July 2021 Translation completed 8 July 2021
Scans, transcripts and translations available on Google Drive
This ride never ends. When will it end?
Bonne Lecture, everyone. Last year I bought, translated and reviewed the Sea Princesses main and literacy series books as a lockdown project. Back then, I said that the educational or bathtime books would not be included within the scope of my translations, but what I meant to say was that I wouldn’t purposefully shell out more of my own money to buy those books so I could translate them. I am open to translating other media, but only if someone sends me the raws or I find them online. There is also a comic series published by Editora On Line, but from the looks of the covers, they are mostly adaptations of episodes from the first season of the animated series, which makes it even more pointless for me to even make the effort to buy (or even translate) them.
Even though Fabio Yabu’s name is on the books, there is a chance that he is only created as the creator and illustrator of Sea Princesses and that the books were actually ghostwritten. The main reason why I say this is because Yabu never mentioned those books on the Princesas do Mar website when it was still up. As such, I consider such spinoff media to be non-canonical to the series because they are not official stories, but I will still judge them as if they were in order to see whether the publishers got things right or wrong.
These educational books were released by Ciranda Cultural (presumably around 2010) as a set that also includes some stickers and a CD, or is it a DVD? Yeah, apparently according to the disc, it has different content when you put it into a CD or DVD player, provided that it doesn’t confuse the DVD player (because this has happened when people tried to make CD-DVD hybrids). What’s on the disc is a mystery, but if anyone is able to rip the content from that disc, feel free to upload it somewhere (like archive.org) and shoot me a message so I can take a look at it.
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For some reason, people think it’s weird for adults to mention children they don’t know personally, but regardless, I would like to acknowledge Lorena Landia, Ana Paula and Lendo Histórias because if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have been able to extract the screencaps (and auto-transcribed subtitles) that made the raws for these books. However, some of the videos aren’t in very good quality because they don’t show the pages to the camera for long enough for me to get a decent screenshot or the lighting is bad or they’ll have one video in 1080p and another in 360p. I’m not going to put blame on Lorena Landia (who actually read all eight books on camera) for not being consistent in video quality, however I would appreciate proper scans of the books if anyone out there is able to provide them.
Each book is 8 pages long and mostly consists of introductions about various marine animals relating to some of the princesses featured in the series, obviously including the main three, namely Polvina, Ester and Tubarina. Some of the books also mention their parents as well; we get to properly see the Stingray King and Queen, who were reduced to background characters in the animated series (and got less screentime or prominent shots than Jaune, Goldina and Flourison combined), and the Turtle King and Queen, who had a little more prominence. The Octopus King and Queen are also mentioned and that’s essentially all that we see of the parents in these books - we don’t even get to see the Whale King and Queen even though they were featured in the animated series.
Marcello is featured in the book on sharks while unsurprisingly, Marcela is not even mentioned. For some reason, Hugo isn’t mentioned in the book on turtles given that he and Tata are supposed to be twins, but I’m not that surprised either because the animated series never acknowledged it or even stated that he was the Turtle Prince (they just implied it and they didn’t even put a lot of effort into that). Surprisingly, the book on stingrays states that Soraia is Tubarina’s cousin - um, excuse me wtf? OK, I know The Legendary Fish revealed that Tubarina and Soraia were related because shark-rays exist (and stingrays are indeed related to sharks), but I’d call them distantly-related at best, not cousins. Marcello, the Hammerhead Shark Prince, is Tubarina’s canonical cousin and he’s probably more related to Tubarina than Soraia.
One final thing; the book on stingrays mentions an aquarium like the one in Guaruja, Sao Paulo. This is referring to Acqua Mundo (Aqua World), which is a 90 minute drive from Sao Paulo (same duration to Santos), but about an hour’s drive from Santos because you either have to cross the Santos Estuary (which takes about 20 minutes and costs around USD$2.30 each way) or go around via Cubatao. For relevance, here is an old photo of someone posing with a Princesas do Mar sign in front of the entrance to Acqua Mundo circa the early 2010′s (tweet credit here).
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In conclusion, the educational books are just as I expected; 8-page-long books that are merely worthy of being take-home reader books for a Prep student’s reading homework - you take a book home each night, you read it to your parents, then they sign it off to say that you read the book before you take it back the next day and repeat the process. There’s not a lot of substance in them, but most of it is best left to the sticker albums, without which I wouldn’t have bothered to review the educational books in the first place. Stay tuned for my review of the sticker albums.
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edenfalling · 3 years
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[Fic] “Between the Saltwater and the Sea-Strand” - Naruto
Summary: Yukiko and Kakashi run an undercover mission in the coastal port of Asase during monsoon season. Rain can make anyone philosophical. Part of the Apartment Manager AU, set after The Guardian in Spite of Herself and before An Unorthodox Pedagogical Approach. (3,515 words) Note: Written for warriordrgnmage, in response to the prompt: Naruto: Hatake Kakashi/Ayakawa Yukiko set in the Way of the Apartment Manager Series Timeline. For the Bingo card: Monsoon. It is also a fill for the genprompt_bingo square monsoon. For obvious reasons, Yukiko and Kakashi are using fake names while undercover. Yukiko is Aoi, and Kakashi is Hyoujin. Also, you may notice that this is gen! See, while I am perfectly cool with people shipping Yukiko with Kakashi, that is 100% never going to become Apartment Manager canon, for many, many reasons. If anyone wants a shippy AU, you are welcome to write it yourself, because I flat-out CANNOT. Seriously, even if I tried, you wouldn't want the results. They would be awful. Trust me on that. --------------------------------------------- Between the Saltwater and the Sea-Strand --------------------------------------------- Kuwa Natsume looked up as Yukiko slung herself in through the office window in a spray of rain, raised one eyebrow, and then looked back down to her account books. "Misplaced your shadow?" "Does anyone have a shadow in this weather?" Yukiko said wryly as she shut the window, reducing the sound of rain from deafening to merely incessant and inescapable. "I thought I was used to rain, but coastal monsoons are something new, yeah?" "We get that a lot from inlanders," Kuwa-san said as she drew a sharp line under a column of numbers and wrote a sum. "You get used to it, and it's easier for shinobi -- you have all that fancy ninpou and whatnot. But in all honesty, Aoi-san, where is your partner? I can't finalize your supply contract without both of your signatures." Yukiko made a face as she combed water out of her black-dyed hair. "Is it that important to be fussy when this is all ninety percent illegal anyway?"
"The more illegal, the more important to nail down all the details," Kuwa-san said. "What court would adjudicate the case if you sign alone and Hyoujin-san decides next week that he won't pay for his share?" Yukiko personally agreed with Kuwa-san's caution, but her cover persona would probably make one further push. So, "Oh, don't worry about him. Hyoujin trusts me completely--" Kuwa-san raised her eyebrow again. "--nearly completely when it comes to contracts. What's the point of having a partner if you can't split your responsibilities?" "I would say partners split focus, not responsibility. If you don't maintain some degree of joint liability, what's to stop one of you from turning on the other?" "Ethics?" Yukiko said with a winning smile, and allowed herself to laugh at Kuwa-san's carefully calculated answering smirk. "Fair enough. Let me look over the terms and I'll drag him over here to pretend he knows how to use a brush sometime before-- when do you close today?" "Six." "Before six. Actually, let's say before five, yeah? He's not that hard to track or sweet-talk if you know what you're doing." Yukiko held out her now-dry hand for the supply contract and wiggled her fingers until Kuwa-san passed it across her desk. She retreated to the broad windowsill and began flicking through the pages. It wasn't complicated, just a dead drop of miscellaneous dry goods in neutral territory that would hopefully establish her and Kakashi as reliable clients and Kuwa-san as a reliable supplier -- a standard way for missing-nin and gray market merchants to feel each other out. If the goods wound up as a cache for a long-term Leaf-nin mission, well, nothing in the contract specified that Yukiko and Kakashi had to be the ones to make the pickup. And their cash was perfectly legitimate Fire Country tender, so as far as Kuwa-san was concerned, there was nothing to worry about. (Yukiko was fairly certain there was nothing to worry about on Konoha's end of the bargain either. Kuwa-san had a rock-solid reputation for following through on her contracts. Nobody survived twenty years in the gray market without either keeping their word almost religiously or spending a fortune on bodyguards, and Kuwa-san barely bothered to pay for warehouse security.) "Where do you source kunai?" she asked as the rain's intensity kicked up a notch, beating against the windowpane in a nearly solid sheet of water. "Wind Country," Kuwa-san said without looking up from her accounts. "Earth Country's metallurgy is better, but the border tariffs aren't usually worth the slight increase in quality. I could change that if you're willing to pay the difference." Yukiko feigned consideration. "I don't care, but Hyoujin can get picky about steel composition. What would the increase be for this number of kunai and senbon?" Kuwa-san named a figure. Yukiko made an exaggerated expression of disgust. "No thanks! He can whine and make do. I'm not paying that much more for what, a half percent less chance of flaws? It's not like anyone expects kunai to last anyway. Use 'em and lose 'em and buy some more, that's what I say. Or steal whatever's left from your targets! That's economy, yeah?" "Officially, I can't encourage any behavior that would reduce my chance to sell you more equipment, Aoi-san. Unofficially? Yes, that's very economical. If only all my clients were equally practical." "Eh, there's all kinds of ways to be practical. What we're good at is mostly spying and killing -- it's more efficient to hire a ninja than do that stuff in-house, yeah? Just like you're good at moving stuff around to where we need it, so it's more efficient to hire you instead of us trying to figure all that stuff out from scratch. It's win-win, is how I see it." Yukiko tapped the papers to shuffle them into a neat pile, then handed them back to Kuwa-san. "That looks fine on my ends. Me and Hyoujin will be back sometime this afternoon to sign and pay the next installment." "It's a pleasure doing business with you, Aoi-san," Kuwa-san said. Yukiko grinned and dove backward out the window, into the pounding rain. --------------- Kakashi was lurking in one of Asase's numerous quayside bars, most of which were run out of the back doors of warehouses and also did a brisk side business in assorted seafood dishes. Rain pelted down on the roof tiles in a clattering racket that Yukiko found personally soothing but professionally irritating -- it was a lot harder to eavesdrop through the constant noise, not to mention the complications it added to genjutsu. She and Kakashi had spent their first night in Asase mutually grousing about the unpredictability of electric ninjutsu in waterlogged conditions and the difficulty of filtering ambient sounds out of illusions. Today Kakashi was sipping a bowl of lobster broth through a long, curved straw that vanished into the deep blue folds of the scarf he'd used to shroud his face. To the casual eye he was staring out an open window toward the rainswept harbor, his oversized gray hood restricting his range of sight and hearing, but Yukiko followed the combined angle of his feet and chopsticks to their targets: a trio of young missing-nin drinking in the far corner, defaced forehead protectors proclaiming their renunciation of Kiri. They were small-time, only a few months out on their own each with barely a name and one line of description in the latest bingo book editions, but anyone willing to go against the Bloody Mist was worth a second look. Whether this particular investigation would conclude in a job offer or an assassination was still up in the air. "Heya, Hyoujin. Thinking of roping in some new blood for larger contracts?" Yukiko asked as she dropped into a seat across from him (back to their targets) and set her ramen down on the unsanded wood of the table. Kakashi shrugged. "Maybe, maybe not. Three's better than two for flexibility, but more than four on a mission gets awkward without ranks and a chain of command. Nobody who leaves a village wants to go back to those kind of restrictions." Yukiko tilted her hand. "Eh, there's assholes on power trips and there's division of labor -- not necessarily the same thing. I let you take the lead in a fight and you let me take the lead on retrievals. That's just practical, yeah? But we wouldn't throw each other away. Shinobi are tools, sure, but if you don't look out for your teammates, how can you trust they'll look out for you?" Kakashi shrugged again and continued sipping his broth. Targets hear? Yukiko signed under the guise of snapping apart her chopsticks. Yes, Kakashi signed back as he lifted his bowl and drank the last of his broth under the shadow of his hood and scarf. No bite. Yukiko slurped a mouthful of noodles and nicely salted broth. "Grouch. Well, whatever we do for future contracts, today we have to sign off on the supply contract with Kuwa-san. We'll need the goods for that thing in Tea Country and she wants both of our names in writing." "Sign for me," Kakashi said "Tried that. She won't bite." "So fake it. Illusions are your thing, Aoi; pretend I'm there and forge my seal." Yukiko slurped another mouthful of noodles in her best imitation of Naruto's sloppy manners. "Oh, sure. Lying is the best way to establish trust for future contracts, yeah?" "She's a civilian, how would she know?" "Not the point. C'mon, Hyoujin. You won't melt in the rain. Let's go make nice with Kuwa-san and I'll make it real worth your while." She ran the edge of her sandal up the side of Kakashi's shin and gave him her best imitation of her cousin Yura's flirtatious smile. Kakashi twitched. Yukiko slapped the table and let her smile shade into a more genuine grin. "Ha, I win." "Fine. Finish your soup and let's go drown ourselves. Again." "Eh, getting soaked's not that bad. Especially when you've got a partner around to help you peel out of all your soggy clothes and warm up when you get home, yeah?" Kakashi twitched again, then rallied and let a tiny arc of electricity jump between two raised fingers. "And then get wet again?" Yukiko held onto her cover persona by the skin of her teeth. "Now you're talking my language. All right, I'm done. Let's go give a little now so we get more back later." --------------- Signing the contract with Kuwa-san took all of twenty minutes -- half of which was entirely for show, as Kakashi lived up to his cover persona and whined about the kunai quality until Yukiko overruled him -- after which they had the afternoon and evening entirely to themselves and a conveniently established reason to retreat to their rented room and lock themselves inside Yukiko's best privacy genjutsu. "We can't stay longer than another day now that the contract's signed," Kakashi said as he flashed his hands through the seals for a quick and subtle bit of ninjutsu that left their clothes and skin completely dry without spilling any excess heat. "Do you think the targets will be receptive if we approach them openly?" Yukiko shook her head, grimaced at the awkward motion of her still-tangled hair, and began working the tie out of her ponytail. "No chance. I don't know if they'd even be open to a joint mission with Aoi and Hyoujin at this point. Sumire wants security and Kenichi likes profit, but they're still raw enough to see tigers in every other shadow, and Eriko's almost too paranoid to make deals with someone as solid and non-threatening as Kuwa-san. On the bright side, they're wildly unlikely to join up with anyone else." Kakashi slumped back onto the futon with an annoyed set to his eyebrow. "And since they haven't moved against Fire Country assets, there's nothing to justify an assassination without a contract. I hate leaving loose ends." Yukiko dropped down to sit cross-legged beside him, fingers slowly working through her tangles. "Think of it as a guaranteed vacation in a few months. Our agents will send word the next time our trio pass through Asase, Aoi and Hyoujin turn up to sign a new contract with Kuwa-san, and we sound them out for a joint mission. They ought to be the right balance of calmer and hungrier by then, and we'll get a better reading after a week or so of close contact." "Ugh." "Yeah, yeah, talking to people is terrible and scary." Kakashi rolled over onto his stomach and buried his face in his arms, the soft, voluminous fabric of his hood blocking all apparent lines of sight. "Only the living." Yukiko froze, then sighed and flopped onto her back with her arms above her head. "Yeah. The dead talk back just as much, but it's still so much easier." "Sometimes I wonder how many people in Konoha would qualify for a 'Lone Survivor of My Genin Team, Including My Teacher' club," Kakashi said into the futon. "Then I stop wondering because the math is too depressing. But we could start a private chapter just for us." "Sometimes I hate that you trust me enough to say things like that," Yukiko said to the ceiling. "Then I tell myself not to be an idiot, because it means I get to say equally horrible things to you. Like that I'm pretty sure if we recruit our targets, at least one of them will be dead within two years, and I'm not sure that balances the odds that all three of them will die within one year if they keep working as missing-nin. After all, there's always a chance they might retire and start a farm." "Says the woman who got so bored with civilian life she jumped into a chuunin exam the minute Sandaime offered her a chance." "Says the Anbu assassin." Kakashi snorted. "We're all so fucked up." "Yeah." "Might as well be fucked up with other people who understand." "Yeah." They lay in silence for some time, listening to the steady thrum of rain on the roof tiles above. The air was warm and sticky, and the breeze eeling through the open window smelled faintly green beneath the ever-present fish-salt-rot odor of the sea. "Let's accidentally-on-purpose bump into the targets tomorrow morning, buy them breakfast, and float the idea of a joint mission later in the year," Yukiko said eventually. "Might as well plant seeds when the ground is soft." "You pay." "It's all mission funds in the end." "To clarify: you handle all the human interactions. I'll stand behind you and look vaguely menacing so they'll think at least one of us is competent." "To clarify: you'll look vaguely constipated, while I impress them with my social competency. Networking is an important skill for missing-nin." "I object to that assessment." "Which one of us has experience making business deals directly with civilians instead of through the mission office?" Kakashi flicked a gust of wind at her, re-tangling her hair. Yukiko pulled out Aoi's grin as she kicked Kakashi gently in the ankle. "Ninjutsu isn't a valid argument, which means I win. Your forfeit is fixing my hair." "Having teammates and friends is a terrible choice and I should never have made it a second time," Kakashi grumbled, but he sat up and tapped Yukiko's shoulder. "Turn around and hand me your comb." --------------- They hadn't been able to slap any chakra tags on the targets -- Eriko's paranoia was too thorough for even the subtlest of genjutsu threads to make it past her guard longer than a couple hours -- but Yukiko had gotten a decent sense of their chakra signatures over a series of not-quite-encounters during the past week. It helped to have rooms in the same lodging house, of course. Kakashi took first watch, leaving Yukiko to spend the back half of the night with a manual on steam heating systems and the interminable patter of rain. Eventually the sky began to lighten from matte black to flat gray and her spider-light sweep across the building and surrounding streets caught movement from their targets. "Time to go," she said as she stood. Kakashi remained unmoving until she nudged him with her foot, secure that he was actually awake and wouldn't strike her in reflexive defense. "I remember pretending to be a morning person when I was too young to know better," Kakashi grumbled into the futon. "It was a terrible idea then and it's a terrible idea now. Nobody should be awake before the sun is halfway up the sky." "Unfortunately the targets set the schedule," Yukiko said as she tucked her book away into a holding scroll. "Come on, put on your face and let's get to work." Kakashi flicked a minor wind jutsu in her direction as he rolled to his feet, but Yukiko had braided her hair so this time it stayed secure and untangled. "I wonder if I should switch to bulky scarves as an off-duty option. It's easier to eat and drink through the gaps between layers than to yank a mask up and down very fast or while people are looking away, and people have been much less interested in Hyoujin's face than they tend to be in mine." "That's because Hyoujin doesn't have a reputation. There's no glory in pulling down some random missing-nin's scarf." Yukiko grinned at Kakashi's affronted eyebrow and slipped out the window ahead of another wind jutsu. It wasn't hard to find their targets today: apparently Sumire's morning grumpiness had won over Eriko's paranoia and the trio of former Mist-nin were huddled near a breakfast yatai, half-sheltered from the incessant rain, and haggling over prices with the male half of the married couple behind the counter. Yukiko couldn't have asked for a better opening if she'd tried. She eeled her way up to the counter and grinned at the woman scraping down the stove from whatever she'd last been grilling. "Two miso and two fish on rice -- salmon for me, mackerel for my partner," she said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder at Kakashi, who was standing, smugly dry, under a wind jutsu shaped into an invisible umbrella. "Oh, and how much extra for nori with the salmon?" The woman named a price. Yukiko rolled her eyes. "I hate bargaining on an empty stomach, so I'll just pay nine tenths of that and we'll all pretend you're not robbing me blind, yeah?" She glanced sideways to where the three young missing-nin were still arguing with the other cook. "I hate listening to arguments on an empty stomach, too, so how about I cover these loudmouths, too? Or at least the difference between what they're willing to pay and what you're asking." "Deal," the man said, interrupting the mockery of persuasion Kenichi was currently attempting. "Pay up and thank the nice lady for making sure I don't turn you away unfed." Eriko slapped her hand over Sumire's wallet. "No. It's poisoned." Yukiko rolled her eyes again. "There's a difference between reasonable caution and paranoia, yeah? I want a peaceful breakfast and our last mission went well, so I'm willing to pay a little extra to smooth things over. It's not like it's that much money. And hey, if it'll make you feel better, consider it a-- a-- Hyoujin, what's the word I want?" "Why would I know? You handle contracts," Kakashi said as he slipped a bite of mackerel through the folds of his scarf. "Ugh, why are we still partners?" "Because I'm very good with knives." "Point!" Yukiko slapped the yatai counter and turned back to the trio of missing-nin. "Anyway, breakfast. You're right that nothing comes free, so let's say that I'm paying for you to consider a joint mission sometime in the future, if me and Hyoujin have a line on a job that needs more than three people and we're kicking around the same market, yeah?" Sumire blinked. Kenichi looked like she'd slapped his face with a whole salmon. Eriko scowled and said, "That's not how contracts work." "Yes it is. It's called a-- a-- it's an option, that's the word! You can ask any of the suppliers in town, they'll tell you. I'm paying for the chance to run a job past you, because anyone who makes it out of Hidden Mist is worth a trial run, yeah? You don't have to accept. You just have to listen. And now I'm done with this conversation because I don't like having arguments on an empty stomach any more than I like listening to them. Don't die, and me and Hyoujin will see you around." She grabbed her rice bowl, her cup of miso, and her disposable bamboo chopsticks and kicked Kakashi's ankle to make him turn around and stop staring creepily at the trio of missing-nin through the folds of his scarf. Bite? she asked in handsign masked by a low-level illusion -- the chakra for which ought to be covered by Kakashi's own completely explicable umbrella jutsu. Maybe, Kakashi signed back, then added aloud, "What do you want to do for our next vacation, if this job goes as well as the last one?" Yukiko shrugged elaborately as she swallowed a mouthful of fish and rice. "Eh, there's worse places than the ocean. And by then, the rain should be over for the year. I like water a lot better when it stays flat on the ground than when it's trying to crawl up my nose and into my ears, yeah?" "That's because you have no imagination," Kakashi drawled. Yukiko considered countering with her own innuendo, but no; they were leaving Asase. They could leave Aoi and Hyoujin behind with the rain and introspection and return to more familiar ground. So she poked Kakashi with her chopsticks instead, and laughed when he neatly dodged the strike. As they walked past Kuwa-san's warehouse, bickering companionably, a watery ray of sun pierced briefly through the clouds over the storm-wracked sea and laid a path west to the green reaches of home. --------------------------------------------- End of Story --------------------------------------------- Well, that took significantly longer than it needed to, but I won in the end. \o/ Also, Kuwa Natsume (from Whose Allegiance Is Ruled by Expedience) is now officially part of Apartment Manager continuity. You're welcome. :D
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