#you cannot fathom the impact this game had on me

[panickingpagan]

Safe place

Undertale came to the ps4 in 2016, 7 years ago, I was 10. I did a pacifist run and never reset, in my mind they’re happy up on surface :)

Close ups under the cut

#my art #art #digital art #artists on tumblr #procreate #undertale #undertale fanart #true pacifist #undertale sans #sans undertale #sans #papyrus #undertale papyrus #frisk #frisk undertale #tag anything in here as ship and I will hunt for sport #undertale pacifist #toby fox #rain #you cannot fathom the impact this game had on me #I can say with 100% certainty this game changed me for the better #umbrellas are so hard to draw for no reason

[plottwiststudios]

Furina Deserved More Empathy

Most of you are here because you dig my writing for "Women of Xal", but please bear with me on this: Furina is a worthy character to study, respect, and love. To me, she is Genshin Impact's best character, and certainly my favorite from the game.

But although her characterization was top tier, the characters and writing around Furina were just... so ugly to her in a few areas that I believe are worth talking about. Even if you think the Fontaine arc was perfect and beyond reproach with how Furina was handled at the end, please at least hear me out. I promise I do come with not only my empathetic insight, but a writer's with a keen eye for the unfair, as well. Everyone, strap in and click that spoiler line for more~

"But Furina is only human, isn't she? Even though she has had a long life, her mind is no stronger than that of any other ordinary human being. I cannot begin to fathom what she has had to endure. It must have been torture for her." - Neuvillette

This quote comes immediately after Neuvillette realizes that his partner in crime, Furina, has been playing a role of a god far outside of her true personality every (perceived) second of every day for 500 years without end. Fooling the world, and keeping the secret that she was a mere human was crucial. If she didn't, her nation would have met oblivion via drowning, according to an increasingly real prophecy. If you don't know the story/why, it's complicated, here's the cutscene. Collaborating with her divine 'half', she commits to this agonizingly long performance willingly by weighing her own happiness with the lives of the people. And does that take a toll on her?

Yes! It got bad enough to where she started crying without realizing she was -- in front of a citizen she of course had to deceive. She had to use her vast experience to play it off, and, well, you see how easily that citizen bought it, and you can see how Furina is handling that situation, even if you're not used to Genshin's models. What I'm trying to get at here is, Furina carried Fontaine's salvation on her back for 500 years. In complete secret and isolation. And as we are playing a video game, we naturally see to the finale of her 500 year performance...

By putting her on trial as a fraud god!

Now, although I felt grimy from the jump about the whole "Trick Furina into her own public trial", the plan itself is legitimately justified from the player / accusing party. She played her role too well, and now her own nation and allies think she's not taking the threat of her nation seriously. (The threat? Ironically the flooding she's trying to prevent) Her peers do know she's hiding something. So in a desperate gambit to get her to talk and hopefully give them something to stop the incoming flood, they trick her into arriving at her own trial. And, I believe my necessity, she is given more trauma for her troubles before this trial ends. You can watch it all here.

Even for players who didn't figure out Furina's big secret, this trial was BRUTAL to watch, and the fact the player character initiated it by trying promising Furina that her secret can be safe with the player -- WHILE the player was actively and secretly transporting Furina to her trial is just... cutthroat. Necessary given the lack of context (mostly), but cutthroat. I'm glad Furina considered her options with entrusting the player, but ultimately would have decided not to. Because we didn't deserve Furina's trust.

Long miserable story short? Furina is judged guilty and sentenced to death, but she doesn't care, because to her, she spent 500 years, only to think she "failed" and now everyone will drown and die. So she's left essentially dissociating with only tears to show consciousness. Longer story short? She didn't fail! Her trial was all part of the plan her divine half cooked up without telling her about the trial! To save the nation. (Prophecies, am I right?) And the nation is saved! All because Furina kept up the act for 500 years -- well past her emotional breaking point. Like, well, well, well past her breaking point.

Most importantly: Furina is free to be a regular human that no longer has to perform. She no longer has to rule as a god. So what's the first thing she hears from us? (Link for the conversation)

tldr: "We sure Kathryn gave us the right address we obtained without permission? Wow, Furina's living situation got a whole lot worse different after she stepped down from ruler."

If you're wondering if I skipped a few cutscenes covering how Furina got there and how she's doing, don't worry! Same here: After the story's climax, Neuvillette tells us that Furina steps down and numbly packed her bags and hecked off for peace and quiet. Did we ever VISIT this woman after asking her to trust us before destroying that request for trust? Did ANYONE besides Neuvillette give her an apology, or go out of their way to check in on her besides Clorinde? Am I supposed to assume that the same writers who keep doing insensitive things, has a staggering fear of dark skin, and seldom have enough courage to trust the audience, are expecting us to fill in the gaps of time with the most positive outcome that Furina was apologized to and supported off-screen? And hey, if you're on team "We had no choice, given the circumstance; no apologies needed", then look at it like a human, not (just) an apologist! If YOU underwent 500 years of never being you, but an exaggerated trope for the world, and at the end, that world temporarily rejects you in public, cutthroat fashion, is this how you would like to be treated?

An organization gave out your address to help the player

The player only visits you to help NPCs

Pressure you to perform yet again, this time for fun!!!

Express how your boundaries for no-acting actively hurt the NPCs

No noted thanks or conversation about your sacrifices

The writer to your life railroads you into feeling bad for boundaries

Someone dryly states, for her own reasons, that you were inactive

Made fun of for your lifestyle decisions post-freedom from acting

The writer of your life railroads you into singing for the NPCs

Some more I am probably going to regret not remembering

Even people who haven't played the game, but read this will note that something went amiss. One or two of these bullet points can be seen as fine or not-horrible when isolated, but literally all of this happened to Furina. Even if you want to say that all of these are properly addressed offscreen and not mentioned in the game, then what about the writer's desire to resonate with the audience?

To the writers of this game who obviously do not take words to heart: We resonate with Furina just fine. She's a beautifully written character and I have nothing but the fiercest of respect for her. But we don't resonate with how she was treated after her 500 years of torture ended. Not by the characters or writers. As writers, how did you WANT us to react to these insensitive scenes? Why? Did you think the lines of dialogue through from a humane angle, or were you stuck in the immediate present of writing a "funny"? Did you think about the cost of not letting the most tortured character in the country have any scenes after her trial until we're looking for her to help people we've never met before? Was the tonal whiplash wise in your eyes? Could you find no better way to get Furina comfortable to sing and get her vision? Why do I get the feeling that even an author with no experience might have known better than to do some of the things you decided to do to Furina? As writers, do you think everything I've stated is what she deserves, or even the natural course of events for a character as important and as good as Furina? Is that the extent of your writing prowess and creativity?

This is a story about a nation of justice. So where's Furina's justice?

#Genshin Impact #Furina #Fontaine #4.2 #neuvillette #At least her fellow Archons properly showed her the respect she deserves

[lil-miss]

Butch/femme ask game!

For you: 1, 2, 8

For the girls: 1, 3, 6

Answers for the girls were kinda long so they're under the cut

Me <3

1 . when did you discover you were butch, stud or femme? This is actually a hard one. So I would say this journey for me started around the time I broke up with my ex about 3 years ago. I wanted to explore my own identity as a lesbian a lot more because they kinda tried to push me into identifying differently for reasons I still cannot fathom. So I read a lot, like, A LOT of lesbian literature and poetry and essays and I really identified with the way these lesbians described being femme and concerning butch/femme dynamics. Yea, it was kinda a slow piecemeal discovery but I fully figured it out like around the time I started writing Galaxy Girls.

2 . when did you discover you were a lesbian? It's a long story that involves abandonment, private school, essentially child neglect, and Mount Lassen. The long and short of it is I walked up a mountain by myself and I came down a lesbian.

8. can you share the story of you coming out? UHHHHH. No. Coming out was kinda weird for me where I kinda did, kinda didn't. Like I'm out to my parents but we never had like the sit-down "Mom, Dad, I'm a lesbian" talk. So there's not really a story, sorry to disappoint. And even when coming out to friends, I mention being a lesbian in casual conversation so sometimes I'll get "Oh, I didn't know you were a lesbian" reactions and we just move on.

Girlies <3

1 . when did you discover you were butch, stud or femme? Dib discovered it pretty much at the same time that she figured out she was a lesbian. It was more personal for her, she met other, mostly older, butches and spoke with them and discovered her own identity by asking questions and listening to them talk about their life experiences. From there she got like really into it and picked up a lot of butch and lesbian literature, she'd always been a tomboy and had a weird relationship with her femininity and girlhood even at a young age. So I feel like her finding her butch identity was super comforting since the idea of being butch encapsulated her relationship with gender a lot better than being a tomboy or just masc. You guys are actually going to read Zim's discovery of her identity as a femme! So I won't say too much because some of the moments are really emotionally impactful (at least for me). Zim explores her sexuality with a more academic approach and discovers herself that way through literature, research, and other writings. She's entering this building her identity from scratch so she's cautious about talking about things that only a few months or a year ago she would have deemed "defective behaviors."

3 . what does being butch/stud/femme mean to you? Dib sees being butch more as her gender than being a woman. Another part of her feelings around being butch relates to her desire to be with a femme. She desires the closeness and validation of her identity that being in a butch/femme relationship would bring her on a personal level. But also she's had such generally bad experiences with people she doesn't really seek out meaningful relationships despite her desire to be in one. Zim experiences being femme as this piece of her that she was pretty much barred from because of her upbringing in the empire. Zim repressed her experience of sexuality and gender to fit into being an "ideal Irken" but now that she's free of that she can exist as a fuller version of herself. All this to say she associates her femme identity with her freedom from the empire.

6 . how long do you take to get ready in the morning? Dib: 20 minutes, 30 if she needs to shower. Zim: 45 minutes to an hour at minimum, but usually about an hour and a half. She's a high-maintenance girl.

#homestead homestuck housewife #lesbian alien posting #galaxy girls iz #lesbian zadr #invader zim au #invader zim #invader zim fanfiction #zadr #fem dib #fem zim #ask games

[greensaplinggrace]

buffy the vampire slayer for the TV show ask game?

favorite male character: Spike alskjflksd. You cannot even begin to fathom the impact his character had on me when I watched this show as a teenager

favorite female character: Buffy Summers, who is probably one of the only characters in the world that can make me feel for them as much as I do. Everything about her is so understatedly tragic that it makes me want to cry almost constantly.

least favorite character: Xander :/

prettiest character: Willow's definitely the cutest and hottest imo, but Tara's the prettiest hands down

funniest character: Spike lol, I adore how chaotic he is and how insightful his comments always are. On top of his actual comedic lines, legit just his existence is funny.

favorite season: Seasons 1 & 5 are tied for me

favorite episode: Fool For Love. School Hard. Prophecy Girl. Once More, With Feeling. The Body. Touched.

favorite romantic ship: Spuffy!!!

favorite family ship: The Scooby Gang?

favorite friend ship: Buffy & Willow. but also Spike & Joyce

worst ship: Bangel

leave a tv show or movie in my ask box (x)

#laksjdfks ty for the ask! #i love talking about buffy #btvs | ats #buffy summers #ask games #myramblings #asks and answers

[fox-daddy]

Wings of the arcana (Animus magic)

Animus magic in wings of fire is to put it mildly massively over powered. Having no limitation, you can use it directly on a dragon, on an item, inanimute object, anything pretty much. You can make it do whatever you want, I.E 'have Fathom do whatever I say' unless you've already enchanted yourself to be protected by others animus magic there's nothing you can do about it.

In wings of the arcana this is diffrent. Firstly you can't enchant a dragon directly. Although you can still have an item enchant a dragon indirectly. You cannot make an innaminate object move by itself. So you can't tell a coocnut to hit Lucio in the face. However you can encahnt it so that whoever picks it up feels the urge to throw it at Lucio's face. Which brings me into how Animus magic is messured in this world and how exactly it works.

Any dragon can be hatched with Animus magic and weather Mc had it before they died or not having the fools magic means they have the animus magic of an arcana. Or what is known as 'true animus magic' This allows Mc to encahnt dragons directly, to make innanimate objects move and has almost no limitation for what it can do. However, the strength of their magic depends on how trained Mc is in it. For example Mc who is still new to speaking can enchant a necklace to make Asra speak only the truth but being weak in their magic Asra can break out of it rather easily and be disappointed in Mc for doing that.

This is due to Animus magic running on two factors. Mental strength and idenfitication and the strength limit being tested by if the magic can impact emotions, perceptoions or reality itself.

Asra being a strong animus themselves has a strong mental resilance against Animus magic. Making it hard to enchant them without them being willing. Working around animus magic means they can identify it quickly and effectively only making their ability to resist stronger.

Compare that to Julian who is scared of Animus magic and doesn't understand it. That fear and uncertanty makes him weaker to Animus magic making it easier to enchant him. However, due to working with Asra he does have a higher chance of realizing it's animus magic. This won't help him fight it himself but could allow him to tell the others and get help. Unless the spell fores him to stay quiet about it.

When it comes to animus dragons magic stregnth there are two factors at play, natural power and worked on magic. I'll explain this more as I go down the list of the M6 and their relaiton to animus magic. Before I get onto the arcana.

Asra: On the higher half of those hatched with animus magic. Both parents having nautrally baseline strength. This means Asra is more likely to notice they're an animus early on in life. Especially with both his parents keeping an eye out. However, his natural ability wouldn't allow him to do something like turn a bolder into gold. Rather they would be able to do smaller spells like making an earring make the wearer warm no matter the tempature, making a ring that causes Julian to be unable to see the colour green, or make a bolder look like it's made of gold. At this level Asra can influence the feeling and look of objects but not actually change what the object is. Messing with perspective and emotions. Even as Asra trains themselves up their magic mainly focuses on tricking the sensors rather than changing the actual object. Although at the time of the game Asra is able to change smaller objects entirely. Able to do things like make a firescale dragon's scales not burn or an icescale dragons scales to not freeze. While Asra could try and change a dragons memory it would take his full concentration and a lot of time for them to make the item powerful enough to change a dragons memories.

Muriel; has weak animus magic. Unable to use it to change objects or mess with many perspective elements he can use it to help calm emotions using charm to have a soothing effect on those nearby. Allowing him to gently use it to check how a plant or animal is feeling. Being emotion based. Due to his connection to it he is just as fast at picking up on enchanted items as Asra is, although lacks some of the ressistance Asra has from their exposure.

Nadia has no animus magic however is one of the most resiliant against it only matching Asra maybe even beating Asra at it. Having a fortified mind it's hard for enchanted items to effect on her unless she is willing or doesn't realize it's animus magic. However her ability to pick up on animus touched items is rather high so good luck with that.

Portia has less resistance or the ability to pick up on animus items but has a better chance than your avrage dragon.

Lucio has a stronger ressistant against animus magic than Portia but a much harder time idenitying Animus items. Making him more supsetible to falling for it than Portia.

Julian has a weakness to Animus magic due to his fear making it harder for him to mentally fight back against it. However, they have an easier time picking up on animus touched items than Lucio does.

Mc has a naturally strong resisitance to animus magic and a natural ability to idenity it. This is due to having the fools magic.

With that segway; the major arcana and animus magic. The major arcana have the strongest animus magic ever. Said to be the first dragons with animus magic they have all the abilites as in the wings of fire. Almost no dragon outside those resilant can fight back against their magic, even then certian arcana have animus touched items even those mose resilant can't beat. I.E the devils chains. Only the fool has the power to break them, not even the star can. In return the star has her water, able to heal almost any injury and able to catch glimpses of the future.

They are seen as the only 'true animus' dragons due to having no limitation on their power.

#the arcana game #the arcana #the arcana mc #the arcana apprentice #the arcana spoilers #wings of the arcana #the arcana au #wings of fire au #wof au #animus magic

[lwveless]

current spotify playlists, and the meanings behind them:

oh god i was so in love and for what : musically a great playlist, great concept. AND FOR WHAT???

im gonna die on this school bus : my bus took 25-30 minutes to go to school in '19-'20 and these were the songs i blasted at the time. so nostalgic i can't even fathom to delete

in love with figments of my mind : great concept again. strong musically. a quarantine playlist.

the feminine urge for older guys : for when ur friends bully the FUCK out of you for showing interest to any guy over the legal age at the young baby age of sixteen

güneşimsin : the magnum opus. musically not that structured or strong, but the cultural impacts... unexplainable.

i'm going back to 908 : :)

a decade of the hunger games : its LITERALLY the HUNGER GAMES

blue's boys : i wonder where they are now. me personally i want to put all of blue's boys in a house and put cameras everywhere like big brother. this playlist is the closest thing i have to that.

the april fool : i literally was the april fool cannot erase that at all

sun gods and their curses : while all of my anger is infamously stored in my boobs, all of my spite is stored in this playlist. most controversial playlist so far culturally.

red string of fate: conceptually and musically strong HOWEVER it is on thin ice considering its a relic from may '22

fay, the biggest blu shipper : fayby :) also the full title of this playlist is SOOO much funnier but it would get me shot

berfin nur and the six : in forty years fay is going to write this retrospective book and you can put your bets as to who the six are, and who's going to die at the end

my starboy, your stargirl : another may '22 relic but it's a VIBE

im psycho high : also vibe

psych ward (oysters) : oysters

i miss you more than anything : culmination of grief. no other reason.

mütevazi yunan tanrıçası : songs i listened to while a ve b darlarken

hard feelings/loveless : esa "dövmesi" kaynaklı. iyi çok iyi bir gündü. çok fazla abba dinleyenlerin acı sonu.

ill stay in the pool and drown : first color coded playlist with unbelievably strong musical points. an underdog overshadowed by the next playlist

god exists between people : most cohesive playlist yet

i love you / i'll pass : i am fleabag is me

ramona flowers : blue hair also musically girlboss playlist

gelecekten spoiler : takes the place of "the end." with a more emotionally cohesive musical structure when it comes to The End

do you see me in everything? : the impact glimpse of us had on the world killed all of us.

you're heavens incarnate : melting tribute playlist. a playlist about being in love when there's no one to love.

shame she's fucked in the head : a month and a half since you broke up with your first bf and when you miss him even though YOU broke up. then it culminates in this.

beach house in antalya : while güneşimsin is culturally a magnum opus, narratively this is my magnum opus.

my year of rest and relaxation : a different, more jarring playlist.

what will we do when we're sober : you can think you're in love when you're really just out of your mind

how we'd drift buying groceries : to everyone ive ended up breaking up with after ive talked with them buying groceries

the moon is beautiful, isn't it? : being born on a barely visible waning crescent, the day before a new moon, just means that all the suns energy went into creating a new sun

i ♡ sun : summer playlist! specifically august!!!!

#spotify

[mochikage]

To my favorite person, please take care of yourself, i love you in every universe.

anon if you are reading this -- the sun and moon rise each day and night in an endless cycle just to have a glimpse of you and your beautiful soul.

My dearest anon,

I would like to first ask you in the most polite way possible if you sent this to the right person for I simply cannot fathom how something as sweet as this was meant for me.

The second thing I would like to ask is if you're happy with yourself for you have ruined any future love letters or kind anonymous notes that I will (or won't) receive in the future. I wish I was a blessed enough write to be able to put into words how much this one sentence meant to me in this moment in time. How strangely coincidental it was for me to read these words.

If only you knew what I had asked from the universe herself then maybe you would be able to understand the impact this had on me. I wish I could understand myself how Fate plays her favorite game and brought you, dear anon, to my inbox in this specific time.

I hope this wasn't sent by mistake, for I am not ready to look like a bigger clown than Pennywise himself.

This, in simple terms, just made my jaw drop.

#this ask makes me believe in fate #like #if i could only explain these last two days and everything leading up to this ask #like i had so much anxiety when i got this and freaked out a little bit because of how coincidental it was #but all ranting aside #anon thank you for this #i don't know if you are psychic or what #but i hope you have a good day <3

[anime-grimmy-art]

Told you guys I’d ramble in due time.

I absolutely adore Bravely Default 2. It came at a really bad time cos I can’t waste 70 hours on a jrpg, but well, it’s too late to be concerned about that now. And as is tradition with me obsessing over a new game / show / whatever, you’ll basically find a fullblown review disguised as ramblings right under the cut. Be aware that I’m gonna talk about EVERYTHING, so spoilers are a given. Some maybe even for the previous Bravely Default games.

Also, if you wanna talk about this game in any capacity, hit me up, I’m DESPERATE to talk more about it.

Just for reference on how long this is gonna be, I made a voice recording while driving to remember all the points I wanna make, and that recording is almost 2 hours long. I did cut it down but still, this is gonna be a lot.

I’ll start off with the things that actually bugged me about the game, since there are only 3 things that really bothered me. First of, I really don’t like that you can name Seth. He has too much personality to be a self insert and player integration is not that big of a part in the game that this decision can be justified. It wouldn’t bother me that much if it didn’t leave a bad mark on the ending. First of all, we were robbed of Gloria desperately shouting for Seth, which makes the impact work less, and it’s just so prevalent that the name can’t be said because you have all the normal sound design going. If they’d just let the credits still play I wouldn’t have batted an eye, but because every other sound comes in it’s so obvious they’re just silently shouting in this scene, which makes it look silly. Like I said, this decision is more a detriment than an addition, and it’s a shame it casts a shadow on an otherwise heartfelt ending.

Speaking about lost potential, the other thing that really bothers me is the lost potential in certain plot points and character conclusions. I mainly mean Adam and Edna here. Both of them have been built up to be these formidable foes but they just, die. If it was just Adam I’d be fine with it, since you expect Edna to backstab him and be the actual big bad of the story, but I cannot fathom why they dropped Edna this HARD. If not Edna herself, I don’t understand why we don’t get more of a reaction from the Fairies and especially Adelle. I mean, Edna was her sole reason she left for her journey in the first place, then Edna dies and that’s it? No part where she grieves for a second? No concern from the others about Adelle? Mind you, I haven’t finished all the Sidequests, so maybe there actually is one in which this is addressed, but I think even just a Party Chat after Bad End 1 would have been sufficient to show how Adelle suddenly feels about the loss of Edna. It would have made Bad End 2 / The Secret Ending even more impactful, because, yeah, of course, you kinda know Adelle isn’t going to turn her back on fairy kind, but one of the reasons she doesn’t leave is because if Enda didn’t get a happy ending, then she shouldn’t either. It would have been amazing foreshadowing if she showed this sentiment before this scene happened. Other than that, it’s a shame that we know so little about Edna, or rather, how she became “bad”. I get she’s supposed to be corrupted by the Night’s Nexus, but how did it even come to this? It can’t have been a gradual thing, after all, Adelle says Edna was always good natured and then just disappeared one day. Really would have loved seeing more of that plot point.

Ok, last gripe I have, some choices in the soundtrack and sound design. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the OST, and I will get to that, but damn, whatever Revo used for the lead instrument in Wiswald hurts my ears. It’s a really good track, but I always have to turn down my volume because these high pitched sounds physically hurt. And for sound design. Dude, the Night’s Nexus is the least threatening, nightmare fueled abomination that ever existed. I get that its growl is kinda supposed to be layered with Edna’s or sth, but it, it just sounds silly. If they went the route of just swinging between different voices or began distorting it from phase to phase, it would have been fine. But the choice they made really made an otherwise creepy design just absolutely silly.

Ok, enough jammering, on to the good stuff. Like I said, there’s going to be a lot, so I’ll try to be brief in each aspect.

Gameplay

I honestly like the new battle mechanics more than the old ones. This individual, turn based system feels way more dynamic and it’s easier to strategies in battles. Because nothing made me more angry than setting up for a heal and the enemy suddenly being faster than me and killing my healer. Now it’s easier to plan ahead a bit.

I also found myself experimenting more with the jobs. Not sure what it really is, but none of the party members leaning more towards certain types of jobs and the job leveling being way faster probably helped.

And I know some people get up in arms because the boss sometimes can be a real pain in the ass (looking at you pope dude), I still found it very interesting getting around counters or even using these counters as a benefit. As an example, I made Adelle my main physical fighter and gave her lots of counter abilities to help her profit from being countered by enemies themselves. Now, she can attack enemies, get countered, automatically evade that counter and earn a BP at the same time. Made a lot of boss fights way easier and fun to exploit.

Music

Ok, I will try my best to be really, really brief, because in my recording this part takes up almost 40 minutes. Anyways, Revo might have just become one of my absolute favorite composers ever. I don’t know what kind of magic he used, but I initially wasn’t that impressed with the OST, but every time I listened to it, I just fell in love harder and harder. Before getting into specifics, I wanna highlight the two things that made me love this OST overall. First of all, this soundtrack almost seems like a refinement of BD’s. While losing some of that fairytale vibe, it sounds even more fantasy now. And in contrast to the original, this almost sounds more balanced? Like, BD’s OST felt high energy throughout, BD2’s on the other hand manages to find a good balance between high and low energy pieces. Like, the character themes or battle themes are absolute hype, but the overworld themes are a lot calmer and easier to listen to while exploring. Second big point that makes this soundtrack amazing is that Revo is an absolute god at using emotional progression/storytelling and leitmotifs in his songs. And heck, do I love myself my leitmotifs. You’ve got some obvious ones, like the final battle theme in which all the character themes and other leitmotifs are integrated. Then you got some maybe more subtle once, just like how the overworld themes are just the main theme, just a lot calmer and using the lead instruments of the towns of the areas.

But my absolute favourites gotta be the character themes and the main theme. I love how fitting the themes for the characters are and in general, each of them is such a bop. At first I prefered Elvis’, because I sure am a sucker for jazzy vibes, but over time Adelle’s became my fav. It’s just something about the trumpets, and how the theme almost sounds a bit melancholic and bittersweet, that drew me in. And considering her story, mostly her bad end, that the bittersweet tone really fits.

Then there’s the main theme. Just like BD’s it shouts “triumphant anthem” and it definitely gives you a very familiar vibe, but I’d argue it has even better emotional progression. Heck, the first time I heard the music start up in the reveal trailer, I didn’t have to look at the screen to know this is gonna be a BD game. Also, the credit song version had me weeping at the true end. I’m someone who’s very easily affected by music (if me shouting about soundtracks on this blog wasn’t proof enough) and just hearing that ending song, getting the after credits scene, just for the second credits to start as a freaking duet. Dude, at that point I just started sobbing, I’m not gonna lie. Just this little part showed how much Revo knows how to put emotion in a song and also write it in such a way that he can elicit strong, emotional reactions from you too. 

Story

People have been complaining how the story is too boring and kinda disappointing in comparison to the last one, but I just think the games tried to accomplish different things here. Since the BD series is a celebration of old, classic jrpgs, “cliche” storytelling is a given. Though, BD did throw a lot of meta stuff in there too. BD2 in contrast just feels like a direct execution of that initial idea. It feels familiar, it feels comfy and it feels safe. Except for the little things with the endings and then overwriting the Nexus’ “save file”, BD2 doesn’t really get that meta, which is totally fine. It doesn’t try to reinvent or innovate anything, it just wants to be a fantasy story, that might be cliche, but still fun and enjoyable in its own right.

I’d also argue that the pacing is a lot better than the old game, because with BD I sometimes found myself skipping through scenes to get on with the story. Not that this game didn’t have me rushing through stuff as well, but I found it kept my intrigue way better than the original.

Characters

Next to the music, this is the part that I absolutely love the most. While, yes, they did lose a lot of potential with some characters, mostly with the villains, the main cast is just so much fun. I love these 4 dorks so, so much.

I honestly can’t stand how much people compare them to the original cast. Yes, ofc, I’ve been doing my fair share of comparisons too, but calling these four a more boring version of BD’s party physically hurts me. Because except for some initial impressions, the Heroes of Light are completely different from our beloved Warriors of Light.

While yes, Seth and Gloria give off strong Tiz and Agnes vibes at first, they both grow into such different characters that they’re not really comparable. I think this shows with Adelle and Elvis even more. I do understand how people could compare Adelle and Edea, since they’re both the feisty girl type, but I can’t understand how people can see Ringabel and Elvis as the same character type. While those two are the “suave” party members, they act so differently from another. And that’s honestly apparent the first time you meet them. 

Anyways, I love these 4 so much.

We technically don’t know a lot about Seth at all, but they manage to pull so much out of just the fact that he’s a sailor, that it makes him really endearing, really fast.

I was kinda disinterested with Gloria at first, because again, the initial impression was Agnés2.0, but she grew on me a lot. Gloria is way more hard headed and honestly sassy in comparison to Agnés and I absolutely adore it.

Elvis. Elvis, my man. I love this fantasy scottosh wizard so, so much. He’s such a ridiculous character but so endearing at the same time. You got all this dorkiness, with him setting himself on fire as a student, him doing god knows what for a good drink or just laughing danger and prejudice in the face. But then you got his super empathetic and caring side. Mind you, most of his wise moments come from quoting Lady Emma, but still, as much as he’s hopeless with certain social situations, he’s actually still really good at reading the room and playing things smart. He’s a smart and powerful idiot, which makes him a danger to everyone and himself, and I love him for it. (I also can’t believe they called him Lesley I MEAN COME ON)

And then there’s Adelle. I liked her from the start, but I didn’t think she would stick out to me. I think now she’s my favourite character. Not even talking about all the stuff that happens in chapter 3 and onward, because these story threads are awesome in their own right, but there’s just something about her personality that’s interesting and appealing to me. Like I said, I’m not surprised people compare her to Edea, I did too at first, but while Edea walks very close to the line of a Tsundere, I was really surprised that Adelle is, well, not a Tsundere at all. Yeah, of course she’s putting Elvis down a lot, but that stems more from her preventing his ego from going to his head than her being all embarrassed. No, Adelle is actually really well adjusted when it comes to communication. While it’s hilarious that she and Elvis met with her chucking her shoes at him, the two just got along well right from the start. Adelle in general has this really open and helpful personality, but also doesn’t shy away from putting her foot down, even if that sometimes comes out as an embarrassed sputter. She’s also the mother hen of the group. She looks out for the other three and gets concerned about them real fast. 

I dunno, Adelle just really grew on me over the course of this game, and then her kinda being paired with Elvis too, as partners and as partners, makes me like her even more. Because as much as I like their personalities individually, I like their character dynamic even more. I honestly love the relationships between all four of them a lot. You really feel them grow closer as friends and all the little character sidequests just always made me really happy.

Conclusion

You might not believe me, but I really held back there. This could probably have been 3 times its length. As much as I love this game, it’s of course not perfect. It struggles and flails in some parts a lot and it certainly has some aspects that might turn people off. But for me, it was just a very familiar and comfy game that didn’t necessarily deliver anything new, but that told its story in such a way that it still got me excited to keep going. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing and the conclusion of the story actually got me to cry. While not groundbreaking, this game is highly enjoyable and leaves you absolutely satisfied at the end.

Also, I would like to iterate that I am desperate to get more content about this game, so if you wanna chat about it, hit me up.

Anyways, anyone else felt like having a fever dream when everybody in chapter 2 started talking fantasy scottish? Cos I sure did.

#bravely default #bravely default 2 #bd #bd2 #fanart #review #ramblings #seth #gloria #adelle #elvis #elvis lesley

[bansheeoftheforest]

Uh, is there still an angst break? Ignore this ask until your ready if so 👉😎👉

-

What was the au where Jekylls pushed down the stairs and experiences a skull crackening again? Oh well but I've been thinking of a branch of that where Jekyll doesn't know hes dead like all day. I also cant remember if that was already discussed or not

The lodgers patch him up, he complains of a headache, and goes on his merry way! He's confused why all the lodgers are so nervous and being nice to him all of the sudden, why creature is looking at him with a stange mix of empathy and pity. He was told he fell down the stairs, fell unconscious, and obtained a bit of an injury. He cant fathom why Frankenstein is "The only doctor who can treat him" why he has to constantly go to her for checkups. Why Maijabi is suddenly following him practically everywhere.

Hyde squeezes back control for a moment and tries the potion but it doesn't work. Maybe a bit of pain but certainly no transformation. Jekyll assumes his injury or whatever medication they're giving him to treat it somehow negated the effects

Jekyll complains about "suddenly blacking out" the lodgers know its because his soul is slippery. They tell him it must just be a side effect of the injury and not to worry

How long can they keep it secret from him? When does he find out? Does he? Does it get to be years only for him to realize that he hasn't aged? That he still needs checkups from Frankenstein? Does he learn sooner? Does a lodger crack and say it? Does he rot? Does he notice how so very cold he is. How animals act around him? It's all very interesting,,

-

I actually did think a bit of Jekyll's kidnappers for the amnesia kidnapping au! When drawing that lil sketch of Henry and O'Leary meeting Robert I had considered making it so O'Leary was suspicious of Lanyon like "Oh theres no news anywhere of someone matching Thomas' description who's missing. But some random people walk up claiming to know him? Begging to take him back with them?" And he'd think they were the kidnappers. But ultimately I decided against it as I felt Lanyon and Rachel were pretty clearly, genuinely concerned for "Thomas" :p

-

I tried playing assassins creed once, the first(?) one. But the controls were confusing and everything was sorta thrown all at me at once, and I got bored of it quickly

But! I went to the store the other day and just so happened to notice Syndicate was being sold for 15 dollars 👀 So I bought it because funky Victorian assassins and your influence! It's a bit less confusing then the first ac game I tried but why is going down or dropping so hard bdksnks. I'm having quite a bit of fun! If you dont count my rage and annoyance-, the B button refuses to cooperate with me unless I'm looting corpses >:(

The b button being the bane of my existence aside, I AM having fun! I like the funky outfits and I want to play as the girl twin (evie?) forever because her clothes are good and shes better at attacking than jacob(?) For some reason. Probably the stun her weapon has? Oh well! I have not unlocked any new outfits yet, nonetheless I wish there were more.

Also! I was thimking, and my current quests are taking place at 1868? Did I get that right? And Jekyll is like 35 in 1885. So in game he'd be 18! An au like I believe you mentioned sounds very interesting 👀 but I must play more to know what's going on and daydream about it

That would be the resurrection au <3

But god, I really like that branch! Especially combined with the hc that he can't feel pain bc the HJ7 and the transformations made him immune. Frankenstein patched him up and made fleshweaver to heal the crack in his skull but it still has to be bandaged, he surely broke a few bones, yet all he has to do is to be careful because it doesn't even hurt. He doesn't even realize how severe the injuries are because it doesn't hurt, it very well might just have been that he accidentally slipped at the bottom of the staircase and accidentally hit his head on the railing during his fall, rather than getting physically pushed and flying down the stairs, shattering his skull upon impact with the marble floor. Y'know what would be extra fun? If he only starts getting a bit suspicious about how severe the injury was once he realizes his lungs stop breathing for minutes at a time when he gets distracted, or his heartbeat stops dead in his chest. I know that that's not how biology or even creature works but lets say the HJ7 is funky, Zombie Jekyll my beloved. Perhaps he would only fully grasp what had happened once he blacked out too much and 'passed out', but his soul slipped out enough to leave his body unconscious on the floor while his soul/ghost was just... Watching. And it's not until Maijabi (who, as you said, follows him everywhere) immediately calls for more Lodgers saying that Henry's soul is getting unstable and Frankenstein's lousy job is starting to shine through that he fully understands that it was not a mere hit to the head. Or maybe it is when days, weeks, maybe months has passed and the headache never goes away, he only feels how his body starts feeling so much more... Fragile and delicate, that the guilt has eaten Helsby up alive and he corners him and spills everything, knowing he is going directly against what the group agreed to but not being able to keep it a secret much longer-- or maybe Creature would tell him immediately, once Henry is, for once, alone perhaps days after the initial accident. He cannot see Henry struggle to understand what is going on when he already knows what's happening to Henry, his mind, and his body. He doesn't listen to the plan that Frankenstein and the Lodgers has set up and immediately tells Henry the first moment they are alone. That would certainly be horrifying, I can only imagine how the Lodgers would find Henry after that, once he actually knows and manages to process everything. He would be so mad, not only to have been killed in the first place, but also because he was robbed of an afterlife because the Lodgers were selfish and could not accept the consequences of their actions. He would be mad, he would be so pissed and I have no doubt he might actually be mad at Maijabi too for even agreeing to help Frankenstein and the rest of the Lodgers. That anger would not stay long, though. That anger would soon turn into misery and sadness and paranoia so even as Henry has tried to push Maijabi away, Henry still ends up on his doorstep begging him to help him make sure he is not rotting, because no matter what anyone says, he is sure he can see rotten spots and patches on his skin and he is just so scared and jdhfjsdfdsfsfs... <3

--

Ooooooohhh, I was actually daydreaming about this just this morning! Granted, I woke up at 5 and began to daydream to fall asleep quicker but I still like the thought of O'Leary being suspicious of Robert/Rachel/Jasper/the Lodgers bc he is protective of 'Thomas' and doesn't want anything bad to happen to him and especially with the idea that Henry still has hallucinations and they both think he was abandoned by his family, left to rot at a mental asylum. O'Leary might very well think that it might be Henry's friends and family that dumped him that Henry had 'escaped' the hospital and that's why they knew he was missing since the Asylum itself obviously wouldn't have posted the news... I really liked Jeks idea, okay? Like a lot, I absolutely love it <3

--

Oh, the oldest AC game I played was Unity bc it was free after the Notre Dame fire, and I can confirm, I played 15 min and could not get through it even if i would have wanted to, it absolutely sucks so i have no doubt the older games are just as frustrating <3

BUT!!!! I'M SO GLAD MY CORRUPTION IS SPREADING AND YOU BOUGHT AND PLAYED IT AND ARE ENJOYING IT SO FAR!!! Trust me, Syndicate truly is an absolutely amazing game and is definitely one of my top 3 games of all time. I sometimes play it w my friend watching me play and trust me, I know that rage of trying to do smt but the character does smt else... or you try to do smt but the game doesn't react and you miss your chance... Oh well, still a wonderful game <3

My friend loves to play as Evie as well but I'm definitely playing Jacob every chance I get and I honestly get a lil pissy when I have to play as Evie bc I always prefer to play male characters, plus, I just like Jacob better bc he is a sweetheart. He is also canonically bisexual as hell!!! Have you met Abberline yet? The police officer? Him and Jacob together is one of my fave ships for the game. I also bought the ultimate/golden/whatever name it was edition so I had a bunch of extra outfits, I love the sherlock holmes outfit for Jacob but my friend keeps bullying me for it </3

Honestly? The time difference is the bane of my entire idea for the au bc if it's during their time Henry hasn't even graduated yet, and definitely not well-known enough for them to actively meet for whatever reason, and if you use the timeline for the jack the ripper dlc (in 1888) a lot of... Less than pleasant things happen so it wouldn't really make a lot of sense for a crossover to happen at that point but maybe it's just bc im a pussy and refuse to play the dlc. Rn, while imagining the au, I just imagine the 1868 timeline to be the same as the TGS timeline. I like to imagine the Frye Twins hearing about Henry and the Society and promptly breaking into his office to ask him to make poison and stuff for them. I also have a feeling that Jacob would flirt wildly with Henry and that Henry would be less-than-amused. It would also be a very fun thing with the fact that there would be two Henrys, with TGS Henry Jekyll and AC Syndicate Henry Green, soo... XD

#Man I really want to hear your journey through syndicate!!! #Oh man I cant wait until you meet Maxwell #and Crawford for that matter #he was the guy I based the crawford in the fic off of bc i had no idea what else to do <3 #OHH there would also be a lot of mixup with Lucy Thorne and TGS Queen Lucy #oh i can imagine them being rivals #that would be fun <3 #ask #darling-dolly-darlene #banshees au #resurrection au #amnesia kidnapping au

[theteej]

on white performative anxiety on election night

Ok, here we go. I had decided that I would not watch the election results unfold last night because quite frankly--it was clear that it would be a close race, and just like with sports games it takes a particular type of narcissistic imagining to think that constant watching will change the impact of an event simply because you watch it.  Also, this isn't a sports game--it's people's lives.  So I ordered a pizza and worked through three unread X-Men collections (decent, by the way--especially the new take on Marauders).

By 8pm I was getting frequent texts, and despite putting my phone in another room, i heard the buzzing enough to get me off the couch. I logged onto social media to see a flood of white Democrats having a complete meltdown as if the election had been called.  And that same existential dread/despair cataclysmically reverberating across social media in New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia.  I was so confused.  What the actual fuck were people upset about?  He hadn't conceded. Most states hadn't been called.  The responses felt so much like being in high school or college where I'd studied for exams and felt reasonably prepared but then got overwhelmed in the psychic energy of performed anxiety/fear/studying that everyone did around finals.  Hell, in pre-covid times I had to limit my time on campus as a professor in the last week because the palpable miasma of fear/anxiety/performative freaking out was too much for me, even though I WAS JUST GRADING THE FINALS. Honestly, I was baffled.  Why were people like this?  They knew that Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania were not going to count their early voting polls first, and the in person would screw Republican.  WHY WERE THEY FREAKING OUT?

And then it slowly dawned on me.  They really had believed their own lies.  They thought there was going to be a magical, massive blue wave of repudiation of President Trump, after the xenophobia, the racism, the wanton cruelty, the vicious fascism.  They needed to believe that this moment would redeem them, this electoral moment would fix them.  And they were mourning, almost disproportionately, this sense of utter collapse.  They were treating the reality of the closeness of the election as somehow equivalent to the idea of a Trump re-election victory.  What the actual hell.

I started to see a lot of "I can't believe it's even this close" statuses.  I put down my pizza in annoyance and kept reading.  There were so many variations on the time-honoured "this is not who we are" canard so many people tell themselves about America. People were mourning, in real time, the lie they'd told themselves.  There was a fundamental believe that Trumpism, the vile populism and toxic mix of racism and other oppressive elements, was an "aberration" that could be corrected.  There was a willing disbelief that this was not part of the very core of this country, that 'America' as a concept is a bad place--one made entirely possible through enslavement and genocide and one that was absolutely fixable through a simple electoral action.  And it's wild, because that's never been the case.  Not now, not ever.  I remember in 2008, being overwhelmed by white people wanting to celebrate Obama with me, but I was also keenly aware of racism and the fact that my own state had just voted to take away same-sex marriage.  Dr. Jim Barrett, a professor in my graduate program at Illinois, stopped me, a new, black graduate student who he didn't know, and said, "isn't the election great?" and i said, "I'm from California, and I'm more worried also about how easily people can dismiss queer rights."  He paused for a second, and then said, "but we did it this time with Obama!"  Here was a full-grown man with a PhD in American history casually telling a black graduate student (WHOSE NAME HE DID NOT EVEN KNOW) how great it was to be able to absolve oneself of responsibility via an electoral process, and to imagine an America without self-criticism, just redemption.

And that's what was at the heart of this baffling pre-capitulation, one that exceeded even the easy stereotype of the always-losing Democrats.  BIDEN HADN'T EVEN LOST. He had (and as of now still) leads in electoral votes! But everyone was moaning, gnashing teeth, and grieving.  But what they were really grieving was their own innocence.  Their naïve assumption that they could be the heroes in a story, in a history of violence that was expressly built for them, even if they wanted to deny it.  Trumpism sells a fantasy of white revanchism, of recovery, and even those whites who imagine otherwise can't exorcise it via a ballot because the entire system of it is at its core, still violent and racist.  Y'all seriously wanted a parade, a movement repudiating this.  What America do you live in?  Did we not go through the same black summer?  Of course we didn't.  You saw this summer as a moment of profound alliance building and a recapturing of a mythical value of inclusion.  We saw it with surprise--oh white people either just realized that black lives are cheap, or they were sufficiently bothered/bored enough to perform about it.

So much of this is a navel-gazing performance of anxiety.  2016 was traumatizing for people who didn't want to think Trumpism was America, but it IS.  And it's done in your name.  

This morning, I saw even more of this.  A friend and colleague wrote a lengthy status about her anxiety about it all and hope that 'good' would prevail, and bemoaned the lack of a real wave of change.  A friend, family member, or colleague of theirs immediately commented with pro-Trump sloganeering.  And she did nothing.  She kept commenting.  This broke me for a second.  How could she not see what a joke all of this was? What she was?  Here she was bemoaning a lack of some sort of prelapsarian goodness, trying to make some sort of "we'll get through this message," and she couldn't even see what she was doing.  There was no acknowledgment, no censuring, no pushback, no RESPONSE to the Trump sloganeering, because she could not fathom the idea that this was connected to HER.  The disappointment she felt, that so many people expressed on social media? It was performative, it was a mourning one's inability to distance oneself from genocidal, suicidal logics of all of this populist turpitude.  She couldn't even denounce the very Trumpism on her own fucking wall, in response to her comment.  Of course there was no blue wave, of course there was no rebuking.  Why should there be?  There are no consequences.  Just white folk hoping civility will save them, with the same baffling surety as King Canute commanding the waves to cease lapping at the feet of his throne.  The whole event felt like a farce--people attempting to distance themselves from a violence done in their name by refusing to even pushback against he very violence that endangers millions of people, incarcerates children, kills with impunity.

I feel, once again, like I'm the one person who felt confident for an exam during finals week.  Everyone's freaking the fuck out, performing, demonstrating a goodness, trying to foolishly imagine the country as good.  I think back to March, when black voters in South Carolina made very clear what was going to happen.  White people were not coming to save them.  Electoral legerdemain was not going to happen, there was no last minute deus ex machina.  There was the brutal calculus that many people don't see the fascism as bad, and remain so insulated that they don't care if the brute returns, so much as the lesser peoples are put in their place.  Those black voters saw that their best chance was the utter uninspiring, safe, and milquetoast flavour of whiteness, Joe Biden.  And they were right.  We can push that one, perhaps.  Make changes.  But this was always going to be a bitter slog, and at most, a close thing.  America is a bad place. We cannot redeem it through performance, through simply voting.  We don't exorcise our structural violence with selfies and dashes of ink on sealed papers.

Now that we know this, we can actually push back against the attempted voter fraud that IS happening right now, and then hope that this mediocre blue man wins.  And then maybe y'all can join us in doing the hard, daily work that also involves critically acknowledging our own complicity, investment, and inclusion in a violent, illegitimate space.  We have to live in these contradictions, to push and transform it, and remember that there are no cheat codes here.  Just grinding work, and no cookies or congratulation.

Be fucking better, y'all.

[stagnantmako]

I rip affectionately on Dirge a lot, but I really want to just take a minute to talk about what I like about it and why it absolutely has a place in the compilation.

The major theme of Crisis Core was coming to terms with your own mortality and the legacy you life has. Leaving behind a mark, how you impacted the people you leave behind with your deeds. Zack was sure in who he was and what he wanted. Unlike Cloud, Genesis, Sephiroth, and even Angeal - he was content with the sort of person he was. His character growth was not a giant revelation about his past, it was simply to accept that the strong are burdened and learning to deal with that burden.

The themes of Final Fantasy VII were identity and rebuilding yourself after trauma. Finding out who you are, cementing your beliefs, connecting to people around you after you've had your trust broken or suffered great loss - how those around you influence who and what you are. Cloud pretends to be someone else through much of the game, he flip-flops between identities, memories, thoughts, feelings - and slowly over the course of the game he grows comfortable in his own skin. He's not the only one. Almost everyone within FFVII is pretending to be someone else or holding on to an aspect of an old life.

Advent Children, for all it’s problems, seems to be about how hard the continued work of living is. The pain of accepting life and all it’s pain and learning to embrace the joys of it. Life never stops challenging you - and going at it alone doesn’t help, you need connections to hold you accountable and help guide you to be the best person you can be. Personal growth does not equate the end of a struggle. Life is full of them. Painful memories are just as much a part of who you are as the good ones. But those painful memories are just memories, and with people around you or even with just your own two feet, you can move forward and fight for yourself and them.  It ends with all eyes facing forward, towards the future, learning from their past mistakes and becoming stronger for it.

Dirge of Cerberus is the logical conclusion to this chain. Dirge is about grief and what happens when you don't let go. Friendships you’ve lost, loved ones who have passed on, things you feel you could have done different. Dirge is about the consequences of letting yourself stay wrapped up in your own grief, stuck on one stage or another. Nero and Lucrecia both trip into denial and then veer straight into bargaining with the devil himself to bring back what they lost. In both cases, it ended up being harmful to the person they cared for - both of the people they sought to save became puppets to Hojo. Those people are ultimately damned to survive them.

Vincent breaks free of that cycle because he realizes the past is gone. That he has to value the present and the life he has now if he wants to honor Lucrecia and her memory.

Nero refuses to even consider a future without Weiss. He literally cannot fathom moving on. Even when he dies himself he's too dependent on Weiss and returns to him in spectral form, abandoning his very identity to fuse with his brother so he's not left alone.

Nero: Let us become one. Let us come together, so that none may ever tear us apart.

Lucrecia never lets go of the guilt for Grimoire’s death. Hell, to be totally honest I don't think Lucrecia even knew Vincent very well because she was so wrapped up in his connection to Grimoire. To prevent it from happening again, she revives Vincent against his will and damns him to eternal life.

Lucrecia: I’ve made too many mistakes. Lucrecia: And I’ve hurt you so, so much. Lucrecia: Why did I do what I did? Lucrecia: I’m so sorry.

And, well, Vincent spends decades longer than he'd even known her mourning Lucrecia (or at least his idea of Lucrecia) and his old life.

Vincent: I used to be nothing but a stone in the river of time, but three years ago it was you and the others who taught me I had to move ahead.

The difference between all of them is Vincent found connections outside of his past. People who wrenched him out of the pit he was in and gave him new purpose. But unlike Lucrecia and Nero, he's open to allowing them into his life.

Shelke, too, is able to begin letting go of her trauma and grief for who she was and gets to learn to know the person she is now. Her sister dies protecting her (as Weiss arguably did for Nero) and while she's horrified and gutted by the loss, she allows herself to work through it. Her stopped clock starts moving forward again. Shelke says goodbye and moves forward because when Vincent offers out his hand, she takes it and allows her life to expand from what it was to what it could be.

Like, listen. The version we got of Dirge was incomplete. We missed a lot of content. The gameplay was pretty bad, the camera is the greatest enemy the game has. But Dirge has its place in the story.

And it ends the series on a far more hopeful note than Advent Children or even the original game did. It has things to say about its characters and themes that are worth listening to.

#meta. #slams the I LOVE DIRGE button

[nuptia]

AN  INCOMPLETE  LIST  OF  THEMES  AND  MOTIFS  THAT  RELATE  TO  WREN’S  NARRATIVE.

NOTE:  these  themes  relate  to  the  first  arc  of  her  story,   which  is  where  the  majority  of  wren’s  threads  will  be  placed  in  order  to  keep  a  forward  momentum  on  this  blog   (   and  to  make  her  narrative  more  manageable  to  me   ).   her  themes  are  likely  to  develop  as  she  does,   but  i  want  to  spend  a  little  time  talking  about  certain  things  that  will  reoccur  on  this  blog.

HUNGER  /   GREED   /   TO  DEVOUR       (      tw  for  food  in  this  specific  section,   please  skip  forward  if  these  topics  disturb  you       ).

LYRICAL  THEMES:       at  seventeen  i  started  to  starve  myself      /       i  thought  that  love  was  a  kind  of  emptiness       /       and  at  least  then  i  understood  the  hunger  that  i  felt      /      and  i  didn’t  have  to  call  it  loneliness.       [       hunger  by  florence  +  the  machine       ].

GENSIS:       elijah  controlled  every  aspect  of  wren’s  life  and  this  specific  aspect  of  trauma  manifests  in  wren’s  relationship  with  food.   he used  it  as  a  punishment,   he  used  it  as  a  reward,   he  used  it  merely  to  show  he  had  control       ---      wren  would  define  her  relationship  with  him  as  one  of  constant  hunger       (       both  of  her  own  body,    but  the  way  he  devoured  her,    as  well   :       that  fact  she  was  literally  a  void  around  him  waiting  to  be  filled  as  he  ate  her  whole       ).

POST - ELIJAH:     she  gorges  herself  for  weeks  after  she’s  killed  elijah,   eager  to  take  back  some  semblance  of  control,   desperate  to  fill  some  sort  of  empty  pit  inside  of  her.   she  feels  constantly  sick  and  heavy  over  it,   but  lashes  out  when  maria  tries  to  get  her  to  stop.    EVENTUALLY,   SHE  LEARNS  THAT  CONTROL  IS  NOT  ABOUT  DEVOURING  EVERYTHING   :        it’s  about  getting  the  choice  of  when  you  devour  and  how  much       (       but  she  won’t  ever  lose  that  greedy  pit  inside  of  her  that  demands  more,  more,  more       ).

A  SIDE  -  NOTE,   DEVOURING  GODHOOD:       to  wren,   elijah  is  and  always  will  be  a  god.   a  vengeful  one,   but  she  can’t  fathom  a  mortal  holding  so  much  power  within  them.    she  aches  to  eat  him  whole  and  take  whatever  godhood  he  has,   to  become  godly  herself       ---       this  is  what  she  imagines  full  control  to  feel  like,   eating  god  to  become  a  god.

FUTURE  MANIFESTATIONS:       i  am  hoping  to  later  explore  the  concept  of  fullness  and  the  overflowing  cup,   and  how  this  relates  both  to  pregnancy,   motherhood,   and  found  families. 

PREY  ANIMALS       (       featuring  most  prominently   :       gazelles,   does,   and  bunnies       ).

LITERARY  THEMES:       all  the  world  will  be  your  enemy,   prince  with  a  thousand  enemes,   and  whenever  they  catch  you,   they  will  kill  you.   but  first  they  must  catch  you,   digger,   listener,   runner,   prince  with  the  swift  warning.   be  cunning  and  full  of  tricks  and  your  people  shall  never  be  destroyed       [       watership  down  by  richard  adams       ].

GAZELLES:       agility,   alertness,   and  grace.   apt  metaphors  for  wren  and  her  body.    it  should  be  noted  that  wren  remains  the  opposite  of  clumsiness       ;       she  is  consciously  and  constantly  aware  of  her  body.   every  inch  of  it   :       she  can  check  for  wounds  with  removing  clothes,   every  part  of  her  known  and  felt  to  the  deepest  degree.    if  she  fumbled  or  messed  up  around  elijah,   she  was  punished       ---       she  protects  herself  against  this  by  making  sure  her  body  is  under  her  control  constantly.

DOES:       nature  that  cannot  be  subdued  and  adaptability.    does  were  her  mother’s  favourite  animal       (      and  as  her  mother  had  powers  relating  to  nature,    you  can  imagine  why       ).       does  symbolise,   for  her,     elijah’s  inability  to  snuff  her  out       ---       he  forced  her  into  a  world  of  harsh  white  lines,   apartment  complexes,   a  city  that  bustles.     but  she  remained  unsubdued,    growing  against  his  harshness  like  a  tangled  thorn. 

BUNNIES:       fear  and  creativity.   wren  is  a  woman  in  the  run.   it’s  the  most  integral  part  of  her  story       ---      she  is  escaping  unjust  punishment  and  can  only  do  so  by  the  act  of  fleeing       (      which  requires  great  creativity  just  to  stay  alive,     but  also  it  means  she  is  constantly  in  a  state  of  fear       ).      she  hops  between  words  in  a  very  chaotic  way  and  she’s  rarely  static.    she  exists  in  constant  motion,    just  like  a  bunny,    filled  with  fear  and  creative  because  of  it.

FUTURE  MANIFESTATIONS:       i  can’t  imagine  that  wren  would  ever  become  a  predatory  animal,    but  i  would  like  if  she  became  associated  with  bird  imagery       ---      it  would  be  quite  befitting,   given  her  name,    and  i  think  it  would  represent  the  claiming  of  freedom  she’s  been  denied.

A  TURNED  BACK       (       representing  an�� inability  to  understand  your  own  face  and  unknowing  yourself  so  deeply  that  you  begin  to  know  yourself  all  over  again       ).

LITERARY  THEMES:       when  i  imagine  myself       /        i  am  always  leaving       /       i  couldn’t  drawn  my  own  face  if  god  asked       [       the  vault  by  andres  crepas       ].

DISASSOCIATION:       wren  has  no  idea  who  she  is       ---        she  has  been  nothing  but  a  belonging  for  so  long  that  she  isn’t  sure  there’s  much  left  of  her       (      to  draw  on  earlier  themes,    she  must  devour  to  become  something  at  all,   to  fill  herself  up  instead  of  remaining  empty       ).   she  plays  a  little  game  with  herself  in  bathroom  mirrors  where  she  holds  up  her  finger  and  says       ‘this  is  my  finger  and  it  is  pretty’       to  try  to  get  a  better  understanding  of  her  body.   everything  about  this  is  made  so  much  worse  by  the  fact  she  is  unendingly  on  the  run.   she  is  always  turned,   she  is  always  running,    so  how  could  she  possibly  stop  to  know  her  own  face?

FUTURE  MANIFESTATIONS:       i  have  drawn  my  own  face       ---       god  didn’t  have  to  ask      (     i  did  it  all  myself       ).   i  want  her  to  associate  

NATURE       (       what  is  motherhood?   i  want  to  become  a  tree      ).

LITERARY  THEMES:       not  that  i  want  to  be  a  god  or  a  hero       /       just  to  change  into  a  tree,   grow  for  ages,   not  hurt  anyone       [       notes  by  czeslaw  miloz       ].

NATURE  AS  MOTHERHOOD:       wren’s  earliest  memory  is  planting  tomato  seeds  with  her  mother.    she  remembers  her  mother’s  dirt  -  touched  fingers  over  her  own,      her  gentle  voice  telling  her  the  right  way  to  do  it.    instruction  hadn’t  felt  like  punishment  then   :        it  had  been  an  act  of  care  to  her.    her  childhood  home  had  been  filled  with  flowers  and  plants,    her  mother  ensuring  that  nothing  ever  died.    the  house  was  ever  -  alive,    a  paradise  of  flowers,    home  to  nature  itself       (       and  her  mother  was  the  eternal  creator  of  it  all       ).     

DISASSOCIATION  OF  NATURE:       in  contrast,     elijah  is  all  cities  -  and  -  skylines.    she  hasn’t  touched  dirt  in  a  long  time  after  she  entered  her  relationship  with  him.    he  makes  sure  she’s  clean  and  shiny,    which  means  she  doesn’t  get  to  be  around  nature  anymore.   the  plants  are  fake.    while  on  the  run,   wren  is  surrounded  by  dust  and  grime,    motel  rooms  with  dying  plants,     cars  fuming  up  the  world,     the  unnatural  taste  of  bullets.     she  thinks  of  herself  in  terms  of  failed  motherhood  because  a  mother  to  her  has  always  been  best  represented  by  a  tree.

TREEHOOD:       god,   the  tree  is  the  wren  symbol.   she  wants  to  dig  her  roots  in  deep  and  have  something  close  to  a  home,    something  stable  and  real.     it  is  in  direct  contrast  to  her  constantly  on  the  run,    a  girl  trapped  in  motion.    she  wants  to  be  static.    there’s  also  a  lot  here  to  do  with  transforming  and  getting  to  be  something  else   :      she  might  not  know  who  she  is,    but  she  knows  who  trees  are,    and  that  means  a  lot  to  her.

FUTURE  MANIFESTATIONS:      idk  i  personally  think  that  she  should  get  to  be  a  tree  if  i’m  being  honest  with  you.   but,   also,   i  want  her  to  relate  more  to  nature  and  for  the  majority  of  her  motifs  to  be  nature  -  themed.   i  think  her  disassociation  from  nature  is  perhaps  the  most  impactful  thing  that’s  happened  to  her  because  of  her  it  represents  the  failing  relationship  between  her  and  her  mother.  i  would  like  to  replace  her  tree  motfit  with  a  bird  motif:       desperation  for  stability  vs  utter  freedom.

PERSEPHONE  AND  DEMETER       (       the  myth  that  never  needed  hades     ).

THE MYTH:      tumblr  has  very  much  romanticized  persephone/hades  which  i  don’t  care  about  but  i  like  the  story  more  when  it  concerns  the  trauma  of  a  mother-daughter  relationship.    demeter  had  her  child  ripped  from  her  and  demanded  that  the  gods  give  her  back       ---       all  they  could  get  for  her  were  six  months  with  her  child.    let’s  split  this  up  better  into  wren’s  childhood  and  adulthood.    before  elijah,   wren  was  utterly  her  mother’s.     afterwards,    she  was  utterly  elijah’s.    there  was  never  any  room  for  wren  to  be  herself.   she  misses  her  mother  in  that  tender  way  that  you  love  the  seasons  and  a  ripe  harvest   :       the  hope  of  return  seems  dull  and  far  -  away,    but  wren  still  longs  for  it.

FUTURE  MANIFESTATIONS:       escape  hades  and  return  to  demeter.    she  wants  to  feel  her  mother’s  arms  around  her  again.    she  wants  to  become  demeter  and  give  her  child  daisies  and  laughter  and  a  man  who  isn’t  hell  itself.

#[ & ] headcanon. #i will be like. here is things about wren that will crop up in my writing in a little list #and i'll look and billy and post 'this man is a virgin' #the duality.... #if anyone reads through this i am madly in love with you actually #anyway pick ur fav theme mine is treehood #sometimes my baby just wants to be a tree. that's all

[z-007]

A Journey of Sadism (mental and physical)

I was born in the 21st of April 1992, in Jableh-Latakia. But, since my father was an employee for Total French company in Syria, I grew up in Damascus. At the age of 4, I was diagnosed with Diabetes type 1. It was very hard for me at the beginning when I was a child, and my mother suffered a lot, giving me insulin injections, which I found painful at that time, and analyzing my blood sugar to inspect what did I eat if the result was soaring sky high. I hated her at the beginning, simply because as a child, I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. At 8 years old I went to a school that is Sunni Islamic Pre-Historic School in Dummar called -Young Scientists- something that I discovered later on to be ironic. In Syria, If you weren’t good at school, you were cursed, you became like a Boxing Heavybag. They also used Falakas, the art of whipping feet. It didn’t stop at that, simply because parents became part of this process too, using any tool at their disposal in beating their child, chair, water hose, hammer, clothes hanger, electric cables, let alone being slapped on the face in a way that I started feeling my bones were shaking, and my eyes will throw fire, or kicked in your head and started bleeding. All of this, was because my marks in Arabic, mathematics, history and geography were not good except in English. It was the best language to understand for me, and the subject in which I saw myself to be a good student. As a consequence of that, I started losing control and cause trouble to my so-called teachers at that time. Luckily in 2001, I found my sanctuary that took to a completely different world. It was the first time I saw James Bond in GoldenEye. I was so thrilled by the action sequence, the theme of betrayal and everything about it was cool. This was a turning point in my life to become a Bond fan. I also learnt how to sing rap songs like Faint for Linkin Park, and Bleed It Out. And all of my father’s friends who were French, British and Americans were impressed. It was something that I remember with a loving memory to those people. Later I watched the rest of the Bond films and the happiest moment in my life was when I found the complete DVD set in Tartus. Simply because no DVD store in Damascus had the complete set except one who was also our neighbor. The curse of buying films in Syria was that they were badly used CDs at the bloody beginning. It was very rare to have a CD converted from an original DVD. This greatest franchise in the whole world has sealed my internal wounds for not being a good student. Ironically, the mental case of mine came back to me when I was at High School, especially it was a time that determined who I am, luckily it passed with no harm to me, because a single mark changed future to some students .I forgot to mention, that the school principle when I was at the ninth grade, didn’t stop calling my parents and telling them not to spend a single penny on me, because he thought I will never be successful. But I brought a mark that was better than his children’s. In 2010, I became a student of English Literature in Damascus University, I remembered that I was not a bad student at that time with an average of 80 percent. But the Syrian Crisis began in 2011, the press was already screaming for blood and the political unrest escalated to the extent that we had to change residence. This was the bane of my existence to open my eyes and find myself in Latakia. I was simply cursed and hostile, because I didn’t speak like Alawaits, their accent felt like starving dogs, in other words, they bark. They are trivial, shallow minded wankers who had nothing inside their heads except clothes, mobile phones and narrating a fairytale about themselves having sex with girls and a horny 40-year-old women they come across and imagining penetrating their vaginas and sucking their nipples. I registered in Tishreen University at third year, I managed to transfer my documents to that platonic place. The professors didn’t like me, simply for participating in their lectures, and the fact that I spoke French, Spanish and a little bit Russian. As a consequence, I kept failing at University over and over. Moreover, I had different ideas, and University Professors are bigots and snobbish. Their opinion was the only one that matters. The impact of the mentioned earlier, had made my pain started with breakdowns, screaming my head off and security gathering around me like” what happened to you?”. Added to that, emotionally speaking, I had a horse sex drive in that Mohammadian society. Girls dressed in a way that said to male students, “come to me.”. The majority of women at that city showed their breasts, waist, legs, and what attracts me most their feet, especially, high heels, that gave them a very elegant look. For my good fortune, all I had in front of me was Pornographic DVDs and websites, so I kept masturbating from 11:30 pm until 10:00 am from night to daylight. Still wondering, how men attracted them, I didn’t have any idea, and the question kept circulating. I also hated the idea of marriage, especially that I always loved to live my life the way I fathomed. I didn’t like the idea of getting buried alive by being a bloody father and spend the rest of my life with only one Angry Factory, aka, one woman. The psychological problem kept increasing and started with depression; taking anti-depressants for a while and go back to my normal life when soothed down. I kept taking them every now and then. Students were not allowed to know about their mistakes at any cost, this was a University rule. Self-doubt has caused me to go to a neurologist who started doing me brain scans, simply, I just wanted to know why am I that stupid, for failing continuously and still I didn’t get an answer. I was always deprived of sleep, studying my arse off and my professors didn’t care seeing their students DIE and SUFFER in front of them. Everybody panicked from me, always avoided seeing me, treated as unusual man. At that time, due to the fact that I kept taking anti-depressants, they became ineffective and stopped giving me relief. Part of what killed me thousands of time when I’m still alive was realizing that I cannot become an MI6 agent at any cost. I simply wanted to do 1 % of what James Bond did, take notice, that I was not pursuing women, I was looking for action and suspense. I wanted to be stationed in the heart of ISIS or Spectre and operate in the shadows to protect Queen and Country. I didn’t like Hasan Nasrullah, Vladimir Putin who looked like a Bond villain or Ayatollah bloody Khomeini, even Ali Bin Abi Talib himself, and that’s why I was also crucified for being a James Bond fan. Family and friends made a laughing stock out of me. I started dinking excessively, and suicidal thoughts kept recurring to me. They didn’t stop driving me to bring a razor and wound myself to death, it wasn’t the MI6 job that destroyed me the most. It was self-doubt. Doubting my brain efficiency and abilities, and especially that I saw students whom I thought less capable to express themselves in English than I am. My family tried to see the professors in Tishreen University-Latakia, unsuccessfully. I simply couldn’t have any idea what is the main reason I kept failing over and over. How could I develop myself without knowing my mistakes?!!, I later told some people that I wanted to be an MI6 operative, I thought that might sooth my tension, however, it got things worse. I started attacking the professors while giving their lectures orally and physically. I also broke the classroom washbasin, and the entire classroom windows, then security staff gathered around me after 3 minutes, they were about to send me to an unknown destiny, later, everything stopped after the head of the English department told them not to take any action. The last problem I did was with World Literature professor, whose name is Noor AL Araby, she was a real bitch, I remembered studying her syllabus for a month, she told us that Virginia is not required for the exam, and she brought it. As a result of that, I wrote her three pornographic stories on the exam paper. Stories people see in Brazzers and Naughty America (Porn films companies). Everybody got pissed off, the story was about to be dragged from my house to a security branch for torture. Luckily, my uncle who was a Colonel in the Republican Guard he had connection to the President of the University, told the professor to drop out the case, but she was persistent to have my balls for Christmas decoration. She spread what I wrote her on the internet and about to send them to newspapers. My parents begged her not to and we had medical reports that proved that I had neurological and mental case. Then I was suspended from the University for years, from 2016, till now. She did all she could to destroy me to the utmost level. I was happy when I realized she got very agitated. Especially, there were students confirming that exam questions were paradoxical to the things she lectures about.

Suspension Time

At the time I was suspended it was a slow killer for me. Literary, I realized that I was the worst student in the history of the planet. I decided to follow Boxing, I remembered that I was fit enough for the game. I found out that I did well at round bouts on the ring. I could do sparring sessions, shadowboxing…etc. I was able to run at least 10kms per day, 300 sit-ups, 80 press ups and 20 pull-ups. I tried to be a champion but every time I kept persevering, in addition to that my left palm was broken and my right eye was wounded. I got cold and sick, and I realized that I had to spend at least 2 months with vaporizers, fertilizers and strong meds. I kept striving in Boxing with no success. I lost confidence in myself and felt humiliated. I said to myself, why didn’t I choose to work for the Syrian Secret Service, I went to the branches, and when they saw that I was discharged from the military because of diabetes type 1, they asked me to get lost. I was surprised when I found out that my dentist was an officer in the Ariel Intelligence in Syria, I told him the story, he said “this is not your fight, you might think that you can do well in the field, but your enemies are smarter than you, they know how they can take you down and destroy you once and for all. Second, we had people who kill targets, who can do silent killings, detonate and sabotage, whether male, or female, but they have nothing to lose, their parents are killed and very poor, working to make money, and you are a discharged, rich bastard and you want to join us. I’m surprised when you told me that. I was a James Bond fan like you, but believe me my friend, that the real intelligence work will never come up to your expectations. Once the film you watch finishes and the novel ends, go back to reality, what you look for does not exist. I realized that I couldn’t become an asset for MI6, or any spy agency in this world, I felt that I was under surveillance by my country. I knew that they could look at my messages, trace my location any time they wanted. That was not the real problem, suicidal thoughts and self-punishment ideas didn’t leave me. So, I talked to my uncle to send me to the Special Forces, or any Military Barracks to become a martyr, to take the bullets to my chest. I remembered when I drank wine bottle on my own, I told my parents that I wanted to wear a C4 charge belt and blow myself up inside ISIS. They were horrified, then I was unconscious and within minutes, I found myself inside the clinic, after I told my problem to the psychiatrist, about MI6 dream and the doubt that I’m under surveillance. He told my mother that I’m a Psychotic. I was injected with needles and medications that made me feel like cutting my head off. He also sent me to Damascus for electro-therapy (to take electricity directly to my brain). I also became a field of therapy by my Doctor, he was testing medications on me like Invega that made me shake while standing up. Hence, he decided to give me Zeldox 60 mg, second generation anti-psychotic. My only comfort was when I slept. Waking up to life while taking those meds was a curse. I lost my sexual drive (libido), I remember feeling dizzy all the time, I remember calling the doctor every time when I tell him about the side-effects concerning dizziness and loss of sexual drive, he kept telling me that what you say is incorrect and that it didn’t have any symptoms. By miracle, my father brought me lower dosage medication, life changed for me. I knew cat-houses in my city, every money woman I went to for an intercourse, they took a lot of money. They were abusing me. The sluts didn’t make me enjoy the intercourse the way I wanted. They were controlling me as well, and this is why I left them. After I told my psychiatrist that I reduced the dosage, he said that my condition will deteriorate. He confirmed to me that Chemistry in my brain was not right, then I told him to screw himself. Reducing the dosage had an effect as well. I remembered at a certain time that painkillers were like a bag of peanuts for me. And when night came I felt incredible fever in my head. I felt like being boiled alive. And I kept seeing nightmare afterwards, voices telling me that I will pay the price of reducing the medication dosage. Complete terror and horror kept chasing me for a very long time. After recovery, I logged into the James Bond groups on Facebook, they made me trivia to answer, did me a test about the James Bond 24 films from Dr.No 1962 to Spectre 2015. After I answered them all correctly, they called me Agent 00Zein. Made me an admin, and I had many friends from all around the world. In the 5th of October the global James Bond day , I celebrated with millions of the franchise fans. My great father, brought me a modern computer and IPhone X to follow up with these groups.

Nowadays, I’m not looking for immigration, nor women or anything else in this world. I have chosen to help my parents when they grow old, and help them. This is the best way I can pay them back. I decided to watch films about espionage world, read books, imagining the events and enjoy it fully and get my arse back to reality.

This is the only way; I cannot be punished.

I can imagine myself a soldier of 30 Assault Unit in Ian Fleming’s room 39 in WW2, or talking with Sir Alex Younger about my mission in VX or Whitehall. If not Sir Alex Younger, it could be Admiral Miles Messervy, Admiral Hargreaves, Madame Olivia Mansfield, or Lieutenant Colonel Gareth Mallory. And realize that” It was a matter of pride that the 00 Section has been chosen for this test. This painful experience kept coming back sometimes, notwithstanding, I have chosen to take with a pinch of salt, lol.

[book23worm]

A Time Warp

My dear Tumblr friends,

In truth, I’m not really sure how to go about writing this. There is so much I need and would like to say. So, please, bear with me as I muddle through this.

I discovered Tumblr in 2012, right around the time of the London Olympics. I discovered tagging and posts and fandoms and fan fiction. But most importantly, I discovered people. People who shared similiar interests and ideas to me. People who were creative and funny and interesting. Tumblr was a space where I could escape into my feels for everything and anything. A space that I didn’t have anywhere else in my life.

Fast forward to 2013 when I lost my job. I decided to pack and leave and go all the way to China. With that, came the end of Tumblr. When I returned to South Africa in 2014 after my year contract was up, I made a sweep of social media. Facebook stayed. Twitter ditched. Tumblr stayed. Instagram... Did not exist at that point. At least not for me.

Coming back to Tumblr felt like home. I reconnected with old friends and fandoms. I discovered new fandoms and with that, lovely new friends. Of course, hockey fandom meant my sleep patterns were disturbed but it was worth it.

Like all fandoms, hockey was not without its share of criticisms or dare I say, drama.

But that sense of community, of belonging drove me. It gave me strength. It gave me hope. For that, I will always be grateful to the tremendous humans in hockey fandom. You are the MVPs. You are the Special Ones. You are the Great Ones.

But I also cannot deny that once again, Tumblr gave me an escape from the real world. An escape that was not altogether healthy. Because, at the time, I didn’t confront the fact that I was so utterly miserable at work or the new city I chose to live in. I kept trying to convince myself it would work. I would fit. I would find a space. I never did.

2016 was a reckoning in that regard. I quit my job and moved back in with my parents. That was possibly the healthiest and unhealthiest thing I could have done. I don’t regret my choice to quit. But I do regret not having an inkling of what I was doing or where I was going next. I do regret not prioritising my mental health, particularly with regard to the complex relationship I have always had and have with my mother.

Tumblr became my go to space. Every day. Every game. Every moment. I was there. I witnessed and blogged. Reblogged. Argued. Made content. Had amazing conversations. The 2016 Olympics and the Pens winning the Stanley Cup in such a close timeframe was mindblowing.

Still, it didn’t take away from me feeling like my own world and the world at large were coming apart at the seams. It started with Donald Trump being elected in November 2016, a grave foreshadowing of what was becoming a trend across the world, the rise of populists. Not to mention how this tidal wave seemed to insert itself everywhere. Into all the cracks and spaces. Fandoms were not left unscathed. Tumblr was not left unscathed.

Amidst all of this, I chose to return to China. I wanted to find a space where I was at peace. Where I could feel like myself again. Where I didn’t have to rely on screen time to feel a sense of joy. Another move to China meant the end of social media.

Technology had advanced tremendously since my first stint in the Middle Kingdom. So I invested in a VPN, a portal to the world beyond the Great Firewall. I wish I could say this helped me feel connected, like I was still a part of things. It didn’t. For the life of me, I couldn’t really tell you why I felt like this.  

So, I logged out by choice this time. Out of Facebook. Tumblr. YouTube. All of it. Gone. I walked away, not sure if I had made the right choice or not.

Of course, it’s not true that I didn’t keep up with what was going on. Watching the Pens win the Cup again in 2017 was something magnificent. Watching how ecstatic my fellow Pens fans were was something extraordinary. Logging back in once or twice over that summer in 2017 and marvelling over the festivities gave me the greatest joy.

Then reality came smashing down around my ears. Pens fandom bitterly divided by the impending White House visit. People shouting at each other and over each other. People arguing with each other. People trashing each other. At the time, I didn’t say anything. I offered no opinion. I offered no comfort. That is something I regret to this day.  

And then, that photo came out. That person surrounded by our team. Our beloved Pens in the White House.

I cannot tell you how emotional I was over that photograph. A visceral anger. Disbelief. Sheer sadness. I could not fathom how a team that I had poured my soul into could do that. They had a choice. We all had a choice. Something died in me that day. Not my love for my team. But my respect.

It’s not for me to say whether sports and politics should be mixed. It’s not for me to say whether we should or should not support teams, based on what they do and do not speak on. It’s not for me to say that people should not keep supporting the teams they love and fandoms they enjoy being a part of. I actively encourage people to do things and contribute to things that positively impact their well-being.

But as time has gone on, at least for me anyway, it’s cemented my fervent belief that silence is deadly. Not speaking up if you have the platform to do so means human lives will be lost. It is a falsehood to think that one drop in the ocean doesn’t have some kind of impact somewhere. For me, the Penguins had that chance to speak. To say something. And they didn’t take it. Not one of them took it. There have been other things that have happened in hockey that I fundamentally cannot stomach, not least of all the impending law suit bought forward by Daniel Carcillo. 

Of course, me saying this doesn’t mean much, right? The world will not shift because of my feelings about this. The Penguins (a team I no longer recognise given that most of the players I adored have been traded) will continue to play as they should. People will continue to support them as they should. Fandom will continue to thrive as it should.

However, as painful as it is for me, hockey is no longer something I can be a part of. This hasn’t been a decision I’ve taken lightly. It does not make me a saint or ‘woke’ either by stepping away. It doesn’t make you a good or bad person supporting any particular sport. It just makes you a person. 

In saying this, some of you who are still reading, may have some questions.

To the extraordinarily wonderful people in hockey fandom... This is not good-bye to you. God, I really hope its not good-bye. I love each and every one of you. Each of you is a force for good in the world. Furthermore, I support your choice to engage with and support hockey and to uphold hockey fandom on Tumblr. I will continue to follow each of you because you are the greatest gift of my experience of hockey fandom.

As for my blog, I’m not sure which direction I’ll be going in. I’m certainly going to keep my URL as I’m far too attached to it. I have decided to leave my hockey content for those who still gain joy from it. To delete it would be as if my experience never existed. And that is not right. It happened, for better and for worse. If you wish to unfollow, there are no hard feelings.

Right now, the world is so fraught and uncertain. I wish I had the words to express something hopeful. When you can, choose kindness. Choose to actively uplift someone. Be brave. Now more than ever. Speak up. Speak out. Particularly if you can. Not everyone will agree with you. That’s okay. Go with respect in your heart. Find joy. Find that scrap of happiness and set the world alight with it. Finally, you are valid. Just as you are. You are enough. Just as you are.

Sending all my love,

Book23worm xoxo

#I'm not sure how to tag this so there's that #I don't even remember how to do this #So there's that #I have missed you all

[poptropicashitposts]

Here are my Top Ten Islands!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••

10. Wild West

Wild West Island was the first Island I ever played! I remember being extremely excited when I got the Marshall badge and it was a part of my character's costume for a veryyy long time. I think the nostalgia is why I love this island so much, but in my opinion it was also a very well done island!

9. Lunar Colony

This Island TRAUMATIZED me, like I was absolutely caught so off guard by the ending and man, has it stuck with me. The realization that just because you don't get a happy ending doesn't mean someone else doesn't; Salerno got her happy ending but it wasn't the one we expected. Also Space!!

8. Night Watch

I know that there are quite a few mixed opinions on Night Watch Island but personally I loved it! I had this strange weekend ritual where I'd wake up at around 8am and play Night Watch Island followed by Black Lot Island. I had no idea why it was always those two islands but I Night Watch had a lot of replayability for me! I think that's a prime reason to why I like it so much.

7. Mystery Train

Oh boy, where do I start with this island. I absolutely love islands with historical themes! Seeing all those iconic figures from the late 19th century interact with eachother made 10yro me SO happy. I was genuinely convinced from the start that Gustave Eiffel was the theif, so I was probably one of the few people that didn't see the plot twist coming which in my opinion made it so much more enjoyable!

6. Game Show

I remember Game Show Island being one of the islands that took a bit longer for me to complete, and honestly I wish the lore was further expanded upon because it had me HOOKED! I love Harold Langley with all of my heart and there isn't enough content of him out there. I adored the mini-game show games and found the end puzzles quite challenging. It was overall an island that I really really really enjoyed and it's just kinda stuck as one of my favourites.

5. Virus Hunter

Virus Hunter Island was all the rage when I first joined the Poptropica fandom because it was the most recent one to come out, AND it was the first island to have sound! Dr. Lange owns my mortal body and I have sooo many headcanons about her. During the time in which it came out I was very invested in biological workings and it provided a positive outlook of the internal workings of the human body!

4. Cryptids

I think we can all agree that Cryptids Island is a fandom favourite, we are all Harold Mew's children and feral cryptid kids. Do I even have to explain what's amazing about this island? We all share one braincell and that braincell is LOVING this island

3. Steamworks

I cannot put into words how incredible Steamworks Island is. I know not everyone liked the isolated aspect of it but that's what made it stand out for me! Steampunk. Isolation. Plants monsters. Such a questionable yet perfect combination! Zak ended up being an entire cute sweetheart and the whole premise of Sprocket was genius. I also believe it was the one of the hardest islands to complete and that fact matched perfectly with the other underlying themes of the Island!

2. Astro Knights

Astro Knights Island changed my life. It's where my love of Medival History first originated from you better believe I was biggest Arthurian Legend in my age group. Again, I love historical islands! The Knights! Space!! Mordred!! The VIBES!!! MEDIVAL!!!!! SAVING A PRINCESS!!!!!!!! This island impacted me so much as a child and it's where so many of my intrests have stemmed from. The Binary Bard is also one of my favourite villains and omlll this island means so much to me.

1. Mocktropica

I can say, wholeheartedly, that I am the number one fan of this island. It's official. This island CONSUMED me. This Island has been ingrained into my personality and not a day goes by where I don't think about it nor make a reference. I have so, SO many theories and headcanons about the Executive Capitalists Including their names, backstories and so much more. Poptropica is a game targeted towards the younger generations, particularly children, and yet this WHOLE island is one big pile of satirical, meta GENIUS that I cannot put into words just how... incredibly well done it is. Anyone of any age could play this island and get a laugh out of it, in fact I think most of this island's brilliance would fly right over younger children's heads. The Bonus Quest is also my favourite! I'm legally married to Mark Hertz he is a whole sweetheart. This islands takes the absolute PISS out of capitalism and I am HERE for it. Glitches? Taxes? Robots? YES YES YES!!! It's so mcfricking satirical and ironic and... holy heck I can't. I love this island so much, It permanently has a place in my heart. There are so many iconic lines and little details in the background that make every playthrough more enjoyable than the last and everytime I play it I feel like I'm tripping on acid. The entire thing is an absolute fever dream and I want to know what Jeff Kinney was taking when he even fathomed the idea that this Island was based upon. This island somehow has both a Utah vibe and a Netherlands vibe. I can't. Like can you imagine living in the damn NETHERLANDS and your entire life just gets ruined by capitalism-, in the NETHERLANDS. I could banter on about this island all night but I will end this list here.

#poptropica characters #poptropica worlds #poptropica villains #poptropica islands #poptropica #thank you so much if you read th entire thing oml #reblog with your own top ten list!

[zanguntsu]

what are ur thoughts on each bleach arc o: like quality wise!

oh boy this got longer than expected. Whoops.

substitute arc: i rlly like this arc! its short but i love how it sets up the characters and i adore the integration between ichigos human life vs shinigami life And i like the monster of the week set up its a fun and its a lot more character focused in the beginning. the fights were very character driven, like with grand fisher, sora, the hollow that went to hell. all the fights felt like they had a meaning that had a strong impact on a character, like ichigo having closure after defeating (he should have killed him tbh) grand fisher.

soul society: one of the best if not the best arcs imo. theres a good amount of development, the fights are good and have emotional weight (ichigo v byakuya, uryu v mayuri, chad v shunsui, yoruichi v soi fon) and the newly introduced characters are interesting! very iconic and cool! there was a lot of character arc conclusions? Closure? like with uryu and yoruichi as well as rukia. the characters are a strong point here too and the introduction of soul society brought in world building and it was something we really needed to see. soul society as the villains was pretty good and it did show them as a threat. its a good arc and had a good cliffhanger ending to the next arc

arrancar arc: its a pretty good arc but this is where i feel like bleach was starting to fall off in quality since kubo didnt plan for the series to go past ss. like the plot was a little repetitive with the rescue arc the placing was pretty bad and its where the kubos problem of having too many characters started forming. there are some pretty good moments though, i really love the ichigo vs grimmjow and ichigo vs ulquiorra fights along with rukia vs aaroniero (rukia development time,,). the arc just felt pretty slow at times ig? But there are some very good moments

fake karakura arc/deicide: i like this arc even though i know half of it was bullshit. there are some good fights, soi fon vs barragan is one of my faves bc her bankai and it was just interesting to see the captains more involved even though i wish they didnt just stand there. like cmon the fate of the world is at stake gang up on ppl u have numbers. i do think its bullshit to have aizen be That powerful (i will excuse the hogyoku use bc thats his trump card and was set up) but having him take down everyone like that was eh. like i know it was meant to show how powerful aizen was but honestly i wish there was a better way. maybe make them all fight amongst each other like with momo but its all mind games and shit i feel like that was a better way of showing how strong aizen was. also speaking of aizen i wish there was more character to him like take away his manipulative badass thing and its just nothing. what drives him to kill the soul king and why? was it loneliness (which is a poor motive tbh), injustice? what brought him on this path? i feel like tousens goals had more to it then aizen tbh

the deicide arc was pretty okay i love mugetsu but im sorry there was absolutely no lead up to him. i love that form but its pretty bullshit that it didnt get as much as a mention in the past and i wish it did bc that would have made mugetsu have a lot more impact. i remember how ppl theorized that it was how isshin lost his powers even though it was proven otherwise but i wish they went with that. but i did like seeing zangetsu again and that touching moment with him and ichigo was good also the rukia and ichigo goodbye was very emotional. was it a good arc? maybe not plot wise but its pretty beloved

fullbringer: oh this is where the quality definitely dropped which sucks because i feel like this arc had a very interesting premise and plot set up. i know that i havent watched/read all of the fb arc but i do know enough of it just not much in between the beginning and end. i wish that the fullbringers had more focus bc they were all forgettable except maybe riruka and they should have had more screentime and the concept of fullbringers is genuinely interesting?? humans with hollow powers is a good concept and its a shame kubo didnt expand upon this more

oh and i have some beef with the villains bc its a fucking tragedy of wasted potential. ginjo is like. almost there to be considered a good villain. hes the previous substitute shinigami and u only bring it up at the end?? thats such a huge chunk of information and it sets up a connection between ichigo and ginjo. idc about tsukishima he can be whatever but i do think ginjo could have been a pretty good villain if he wasnt as blatantly evil. like i know the betrayal schtick is getting old but i would have preferred him as a villain with good intentions, like having him against soul society is a good motive bc ss commits war crimes but it was never clear in this arc (aside from ss monitering the substitutes) but it just didnt feel as strong as a motive to make him do what he did.

one good thing i do have to say about this arc was i do like ichigo in this arc and how much conflict he experiences and we get to see him commit murder although i do wish this had repercussions on him. i feel like soul society’s intervention was unnecessary but thats just me. the fullbringer arc being centered around humans was a good idea, bringing the series back to its roots and i just wish we spent more developmemt with the humans before jumping back to soul society, like more time on the aftermath of the last arc. also this arc should have been the chad arc im dying on this hill.

tybw: wow! this was a trainwreck of an arc! i have. So Many issues with tybw and its where kubos writing weaknesses truly shine. the biggest issues are its pacing which is absolutely abhorrent and it takes up at least a third of the entire series (literally. tybw had 206 chapters out of 686 since tybw officially starts on 480). we had periods where the main cast dont show up for like. 50 chapters. the other biggest problem were the characters. why did kubo think it was a good idea to introduce 26+ characters. why. there is absolutely no time to develop them and while some may receive screentime the majority have no impact to the plot beyond their fights with the characters we actually care about. there is no reason for people to give a shit about them. i can barely remember their names, much less their backstories

and one of the bigger problems was the antagonists themselves. they have a motive and while i understand hatred towards soul society. yhwach’s motives were the worst out of all the villains. i cannot fathom what motivates him because it went fucking everywhere. did he have beef with ss? was he waging war out of self preservation? did he want to end death? like the narrative hints at all of these but it just feels like a mess of a character! i never liked yhwach to begin with since his very concept is awful (seriously? giving a previously thought group of people who experienced genocide a nazi motif? what the fuck kubo). hes a villain but theres no substance. his powers could have been cool but it was on the point of needing a deus ex machina to take him down.

and the fights are forgettable with the occasional good ones (shunsui v that one fuck, rukia v that other fuck) but there are some bad fights (askin v yoruichi, the quincy thor guy). there are some good moments, like all the bankai reveals, it adds more to the characters but it also causes so much jumping around in the plot and this is what happens when u have this many characters and some will be forgotten (so sorry chad). it sucks. some of the fights dragged on longer than necessary and it was just. so much. all of these issues really downgraded the arc and thats what made it the mess it was.

and a lot of the ideas brought in to tybw are criminally underused. ichigo being a quincy may have been wack but i did like the idea but it really only had some sparse moments like masaki and zangetsu development, creating a connection between ichigo and yhwach but that was really it. it was not like his hollow powers which coexisted with the plot and had huge moments and was just a constant presence. you could forget that ichigo was a quincy tbh and we needed more quincy moments. and the soul king was horribly underused because it did have set up from the arrancar arc, it was aizens entire goal! but kubo never really explores the ideas of the soul king and only in cfyow do we really get more info about it and thats no good because the soul king is a vital piece of bleach lore and worldbuilding.

anyways thats my two cents sorry this was rlly long

#ask #anon #sorry this was more of an essay #i just have a lot of feelings about this laundrey detergent show 😔 #ramble tag #long post #nazi mention #its brief but i hate the vandenreich so