yosukes / souyo doodles frrom the last four months of 2022!

So l want to go full conspiracy theory about Phoenix's parents so I can figure out my own head canon for it. So indulge me

Disclaimer: this is deeply unhinged over analysis to come at what will only ever be a head canon. I'm not taking away other people's head canons or saying they're wrong. This is all fun. I just started thinking about this a lot and need to write it down

So there are really 3 main categories I want to sort between and then when I've narrowed it down to that I will extrapolate further into.

Theory 1: Phoenix's parents are fine and just chilling off screen.

This is the occums razor approach. We never hear about them so why should we assume they aren't just normal parents? My issues with this are as follows.

Phoenix has a massive tendency to form a found family at the drop of a hat. It is constant. Every single wayward kid he comes across he just fucking adopts and it barely even crosses his mind as a thing he is doing. He just sees a child in need and brings them right into the fold. I'm not saying this isn't a thing people with a functional family unit do, but it normally takes a little more thought than he ever seems to give it. His default seems to be thinking kids in need don't have a safe family to go to. The only time he ever strays from this is with Trucy, who he is both unsure he will be able to effectively care for after being disbarred, and is the only part of the found family he adopts legally. It makes sense to me he'd jump through those hoops when he didn't for someone like say Ema.

My other issue is his attachment issues. He bonds very close connections very quickly to people and I'm not even talking about his defendants. I think it's honestly best shown with his romantic connections.

There's not too much we can really decern from Feenie and Dahlia/Iris because we never really see how Iris was acting during that relationship but the guy is definitely very deeply attached to her. It could easily also just be a bad case of first relationship and young love but it could also be something deeper.

More interesting is Miles. He imprinted on that man like a baby duck. And let's be completely honest here even if he was madly in love, becoming a lawyer for your crush you haven't seen in a decade is absolutely unhinged. Again it is possible for him to do this with a happy family background but I also just don't see it. It seems like the kind of thing a kid without a family would do to the only person who ever stood in his corner. I don't think he act in such an extreme manner if he had a happy home life.

Theory 2: dead parents

So this is compelling and I like it. But my issue here is that he is surrounded by people with dead parents. Many of whom he's had to comfort through said loss or through events retraumating it. As someone who has a dead parent, when you are in that situation if you have personal experience to draw on, you fucking draw on it. You mention that you understand how they feel because you lost a parent too. Losing a parent at a young age is incredibly isolating and when you find someone who shares that experience you tell them because it's a thing only other people with dead parents can ever really understand. I think it would have come up given how many orphans he talks to.

Theory 3: absentee parents.

Spoilers this is my personal take. It explains his attachment issues, his tendency to automatic found family, and the fact he doesn't mention them when consoling orphans. I will devil's advocate and poke a hole though because it's only right.

He does also interact with a few foster kids and adoptees. But I do think this makes more sense than the alternatives. The three that come to mind being Apollo, Miles and Trucy. Trucy makes sense. They absolutely could have had that conversation off screen. Miles' being taken in by Von Karma feels atypical enough that I feel like Phoenix might not bring up his own issues when discussing it given the severity of Miles' trauma. Also if he was a kid that's as just in the system all his life I imagine it wouldn't feel similar to Miles ' situation. Apollo is more complicated but their relationship is such that I think Phoenix just not bring it up in a work environment makes sense. It's also not like he's a kid just enteringnthe system, he's someone else that grew up in it and is now out so Phoenix probably doesn't have much advice or support to offer. They're more in the same boat.

But absentee parents is pretty vague. And I think there's some stuff we can narrow down.

So evidence:

1) Phoenix is stated to be an only child in 2-2. So he is probably to an extent familiar with who his parents are. That's not really the language you use about yourself if you were abandoned as a baby. It also suggests he wasn't in permanent fostering where he'd likely not be as dismissive of having a sibling.

2) the only reference to his mother I can see being made. I will warn you. I am going to examine the fuck out of this.

So as far as I can tell this is the passing reference to Phoenix's mother that is listed on the wiki and in some fandom spaces. There's a lot to unpack her.

First off, this is a turn of phrase from oldbag. It's not an actual reference to the woman existing. However that is not what I find interesting here. It's Edgeworth's reaction. So at this point Miles is fully aware of Phoenix being the same person from his childhood. I've seen some fan places doubt he realises that but this line is from the end of the case and confirms it

But after Oldbag says that, he's audibly unsure and uncomfortable. A part of that is most certainly to do with the case and I'm pretty sure that's as the intent but this is canon dialogue so I get to put on my death of the author cap and interpret wildly beyond what it is intended to mean.

To me at least, it also reads as the kind of discomfort you see when someone refers to a person's parent in a way that is untrue due to unpleasant circumstances. And this is from literally one of the only 3 people we know for certain have some awareness of Phoenix's home life. It sounds like he's made uncomfortable about a reference to Phoenix's mother, then tries to shake it off and direct away from it by talking about the case. This gives us a key bit of information though. Miles knew so whatever happened had to have happened before they were 9.

So my final head canon. Phoenix was to somee extent abandoned by his mother before 9 years old and likely when he was already old enough to have some familiarity with his family. I also think it's likely he wasn't in some kind of permanent foster residence where he might start considering someone being a foster sibling. This could be residential care facility or honestly more likely to me at least being taken in by either his father or other family members but ones who weren't particularly invested in his care.

Thank you for coming to my ted talk

Permanence

corpse husband x fem!reader 

summary: you meet corpse on a stream and you’re surprised when he reaches out to you 

warnings: cursing, mentions of tattooing

word count: 1.9k

notes: This is proof read but could have missed some stuff. This is my first corpse fic and my first time writing fanfic since I posted that super cringey book on wattpad when I was like 12 or something. I’d appreciate feed back so please reach out to me :)

main blog @itsmysleepover

read part 2 here!

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

You were cleaning up your station so you can get home and stream. You loved your day job as a tattoo artist but you also really enjoyed streaming. It started as a way to promote yourself as an artist and the shop you worked at but it eventually became a really fun way to destress at the end of the week (or day if you were really itching to stream). “Hey Y/N was that your last client?” your boss, KC, asked as she walked to the front of the shop and put new flash drawings on the walls.

“Yes ma’am!” You said back excitedly. You finished cleaning your station and tossed your black gloves in the trash. “And you can’t trick me into staying and taking walk-ins,” you joked with her. She rolled her eyes and walked back into her office “It was one time,” she said as you slid on your jacket. As you walked out your phone buzzed in your pocket and you checked to see who had texted you. It was a message from Sean asking if you were free to play Among Us with him and some other streamers. You replied that you were on your way home right now and totally down. You were excited to see who was playing this time around since their Among Us streams are super entertaining and have gotten really popular.

On your way back you tweeted and posted to your Instagram story that you’d be streaming soon and set up all your stuff once you made it home. After a few minutes, you had a couple of thousand people watching. You entered the discord chat and Sean spoke up. “Everyone this is Y/N she’s sensitive so be gentle.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you guys and I’m not gentle, I'm ruthless,” You say into your mic and notice the chat calling you a liar. Everyone was in the lobby waiting for the game to start. “You sound way too sweet to be ruthless,” Corpse said. The countdown started and you were imposter with Charlie.

“This should be fun,” you told the stream. Yout tried playing strategically but after such a long shift your brain was mush. You saw Poki in nav and killed her then vented into shields. Not long after the body was reported and you were sure you were going to get voted out or at least sussed.

“Where was the body?” Felix asked. “Nav and I didn’t see anyone near there so whoever is imposter must have vented,” Corpse responded. Felix spoke up again. “I think I saw Y/N walk that way and I haven’t seen her since.”

Shit, shit, shit shit. “I’m in shield right now so-” you said trying to defend yourself but Charlie spoke up. “I was doing tasks with her earlier and I saw her walk into shields so she’s safe but I’m still not sure about Rae.” Everyone discussed a bit more and some people, including Corpse, voted for you but Rae got the majority vote and was ejected. You released your breath and kept playing being extra careful.  

“Okay, guys that was super close. Corpse knows and is out to get me,” you said to the chat. You were eventually voted off but one round later victory was written across your screen with your ghost and Charlie’s avatar. “Good game guys,” Corpse said.

“I told you guys I was ruthless!”

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

You sat at your station doing nothing because a client had canceled a four-hour session. You were listening to music and sketching some stuff but you were bored out of your mind and you didn’t want to leave in case you got a walk-in. The music got quiet as you received a twitter notification saying someone had messaged you. You reached for your phone and saw you had gotten a dm from Corpse.

C: hey :)

You didn’t know what to respond. You were mostly confused as to why he decided to message you out of the blue. Did he want something? But what would he want?

Y: Hii! This is sudden

C: was i bothering you?

    shit sorry!

Y: Youre fine I wasn’t doing anything rn

C: how has your day been

    i dont usually do stuff like this

Y: Im glad you did im doing better now I was so bored

C: what were you doing that was so terrible

Y: NOTHING! thats the problem :(

C: im sure youll find something to do

You stared at his message. Unsure what to respond.

Y: Im gonna give myself a tattoo

C: what?

    NO!

You tossed the needles you used for your tattoo into the sharps box. “Oh my god you didn’t,” KC said. She noticed the wrap on your calve from the tattoo you just gave yourself out of boredom. “It’s not my fault I didn’t have anything else to do!” You said trying to defend yourself. She sighed and just shook her head. “Just go home business is slow today.” It was raining so the shop probably wasn’t going to get a walk-in anyway and you didn’t have any more clients for the day. It was only 2 pm but you drove home and after making lunch for yourself decided to stream. You weren’t expecting too many people so it was bound to be super chill. Your leg felt sore reminding you of the tattoo. You snapped a quick pic of the fresh jack-o-lantern on the side of your calve and messaged it to Corpse.

Y: [image] it came out nice!

C: thats  super cool actually

    i was concerned why you would just give yourself a tattoo but i found your instagram and       youre super talented

Y: Thank you!

For some reason, it felt strange to just have that be the end of your response.

Y: Im about to start streaming if you wanted to watch

    [link]

C: ill be watching ;)

What’s that supposed to mean?

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

You sat in your apartment watching tv, hand lost in a bag of Doritos, and scrolling through twitter. You had stopped paying attention to the anime playing on the screen since you’ve watched it a hundred times and knew you wouldn’t miss anything. It was Saturday and you usually take those days off. Take the time to do chores or meet up with some friends but today you felt like not doing any of those things. As you continue your endless scroll (not helping the twitter addiction you told yourself you’d try to get a handle on) you got a message from Corpse.

C: wanna talk?

You looked down at the message unsure of how to answer. It was a simple yes or no and the obvious answer was yes. You and Corpse had started talking more regularly. You still didn’t have each other’s phone numbers but it was fine. Your conversations weren’t too big-- just you sending him memes, tiktoks, and telling him how much you liked the songs he would drop. Or him complimenting a tattoo you did. Sometimes he’d message you during streams telling you funny stuff his fans would say in the chat and you’d do the same. You learned a bit about each other but nothing too deep or serious. Like how you two lived a few cities away and you both really liked Donnie Darko. When Sean first invited you to that game out of everyone else there you were most excited to meet Corpse. He’s just so sweet and funny. Of course, you’d love to talk to him but you were also itching to talk to him and the last thing you’d ever want to do was make him uncomfortable.

Y: Yeah id love to talk

Here goes nothing.

Y: Wanna facetime or something?

     No pressure or anything it could even be a regular call

     I think facetime is just my default lol

You sent those last two messages quickly after you had sent the first. You wished you could know what he was thinking. It was killing you to think you had turned him off from talking to you completely. You put your phone down on the couch and went to wash your hand of Dorito dust. When you got back from the kitchen you turned off the tv and tossed yourself onto the couch.

Still no message.

Why am I so fucking stupid?  

Just as you were standing up to stretch from sitting on the couch all day your phone buzzed. You reached for it fast and looked to see that it was him. You became super excited still not even knowing what the message said. It could have told you to never talk to him again for all you knew.

C: sure lets facetime

    xxx-xxx-xxxx

You had his phone number. You added him to your small but growing contact list and called. You sat on your couch waiting for a response when he finally picked up the screen was black. It didn’t upset you; you kind of expected it and didn’t care what he had to do to make himself more comfortable during this call.

“Hey,” he said. His voice was raspier than usual.

“Did you just wake up?” You asked and looked at the time. It was about a little past noon and you had only eaten Doritos all day. Shit, you should probably make a decent meal.

“Not that long ago but yeah,” he responded and giggled. That giggle.

“Well, I’ve eaten nothing but Doritos all day while rewatching Ouran High School Host Club, so you’re welcome to join me as I make myself something to eat.”

“Sounds like fun; what are we eating?”

“I don’t know yet,” You said as you stood up and made your way to the kitchen. You opened the pantry and looked. You noticed a can of diced tomatoes and reached for it then checked the expiration date. It was still good. On your counter were some onions and garlic. “How about some tomato soup?”

“Sounds delicious.” you smiled at Corpse and your phone screen not knowing if he was also looking at his screen or not. “You’re really pretty-- you know that?”

“Thanks, but you don’t have to--”

“I’ve already told you what an incredible artist you are so many times I bet you’re tired of hearing it, but you already know what a talented artist you are.”

“That is very kind of you Corpse,” you said to him bashfully as you chopped the onion and opened the can of tomatoes. “But once again you don’t have to reach so far to compliment me.”

“I’m not reaching you are talented and beautiful and--”

“I thought I was pretty.” You could hear him chuckle with a smile on his face. “You’re both,” he said. You could feel your face getting warm from blushing.

“Fuck you you’re making me blush. My face is all hot and stuff.”

He laughed at how flustered you got. “That’s the cutest thing ever.”

You didn’t know how to respond so you just put some olive oil in a pot and tossed in your onions. It became silent but it was a comfortable silence. You turned the stove on and watched the flame for a few seconds. “If it was dark we could pretend we were together and having a bonfire or something,” you said to the phone as you turned the camera to show him the flame (still not 100 percent sure if he was looking at you or not).

“I’ll put it on the list of things to do when you visit me someday.”

🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊 🖊 there now we're even LMAOOOO

me right after getting this: ALL RIGHT, BET.

(several hours in) I have made a mistake

[ask meme here]

Lucia Lieberman (Lone Wanderer), Miles Young (Sole Survivor), and Gabriel Young (The Courier)

🖊 All of my Fallout protagonists are related because the idea of one family getting drawn into world-altering events not because its their destiny to but because they all happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time makes me laugh my ass off. Using Miles as the point of reference, it goes as follows-

- Adam Young (Fallout 1): grandnephew

- Noah Young (Fallout 2): great-great-grandnephew

- Gabriel Young (Fallout 3): great-great-great-grandnephew

- Lucia Lieberman (Fallout 3): great-great-great-great-grandniece

🖊 Miles's sister Cassidy Young was living on the West Coast at the time of the Great War; she was one of the original inhabitants of Vault 13 and is Adam's grandmother. Lucia’s mother Catherine is one of her descendants; she moved with the branch of the Brotherhood of Steel across the country, where she met James (last name Lieberman, at least in my canon).

🖊 Lucia actually ends up meeting both her living relations during her lifetime because I like shenanigans. After the events of Fallout 3, she winds up heading west and ends up in New Vegas. When she walked into the bar where Gabriel was staying, Gabriel noted the resemblance, became concerned that he might have had a dalliance with a woman that resulted in a child that he’d forgotten thanks to the bullet in his skull, and immediately hid behind the bar. Of course that only drew Lucia’s attention, and the rest is history. After the events of New Vegas she moves to the Commonwealth, where she ends up encountering Miles.

🖊 Lucia has a bonafide, genuine guitar taken from the same vault she retrieved the Stradivarius violin from. Maintenance is difficult, but music stores aren’t big targets for looting so she can usually find parts/replacement strings, if not figure out a substitute on her own.

🖊 Lucia was raised with 50′s suburb values in mind and will not swear except under extreme duress. This has led to difficulties writing her, as I swear like a goddamn sailor. The plus side is, it’s incredibly easy to tell when she’s extremely pissed off.

🖊 Lucia’s big brother/little sister relationship with @himborc‘s Melik will always make me smile. Sometimes a family is a buff, gruff cyborg man with issues, a tiny golden lesbian also with issues, and their vaguely dog-shaped creature who has no issues and is in fact the best boy.

🖊 Lucia’s Catholicism and subsequent struggle with faith are based on two things. The first thing being the result of the G.O.A.T. test she took in fallout 3, which said she was going to be the vault chaplain. (fun fact- the result you get is based on the highest skill points you get on the test. Lucia’s was barter.) The second thing is that a) I was raised Roman Catholic and b) I like dumping my problems on my OCs, so Lucia inherited my crisis of faith. Whoops.

🖊 Miles is a DILF, with his specific Dad subclass being the Quiet, Crafty Dad. He’s a little reclusive, preferring to spend his time creating things, and its hard to show his love in traditional ways. His love language is acts of service- if you need something, he’ll retrieve it for you. If you need help, he’ll help you. And he’ll do it all without trying to draw attention to himself.

Benjamin Anderson, Branwen Greenleaf, and Ahkasa Sohloni

🖊 Ahkasa and Benji started out as characters I played in Skyrim, funnily enough. Ahkasa is a Khajiit thief and Benji (there named Bun-Jah Andreesar) is an Argonian mage with a focus on Conjuration.

🖊 Related to the above- Benji’s anxiety issues and association with necromancy started due to the number of explorable crypts in skyrim. I thought it would be funny to have someone who tomb-dove on the regular also be afraid of the undead. This rapidly disintegrated into him being afraid of a lot of other things.

🖊 Branwen started out as my very first DnD character, a halfling Life Domain cleric. The campaign she was in petered out, but I’d always wanted to use her again somewhere. Luckily I was working on Benji’s backstory one day, and needed a character to be a mentor for him, so I retooled Branwen to be a Grave Domain cleric and unleashed her on the world once again.

🖊 Ahkasa and Branwen are the only two OCs I pay attention to currently that have good relationships with their parents. Whoops.

🖊 Ahkasa likes making things with her hands, and can usually be found whittling or knitting something at camp.

Bridget Summers

🖊 Ah, yes. The OG. The firstborn. Her design started out because I took umbrage with how the default SR3 Fem!Boss was supermodel thin; I wanted to make someone who looked a bit more like my body type (but with a few more muscles). She has gained her own voice since then and my life has not known peace since.

🖊 I’m forever grateful to @autumnyte for helping me in the early days with Bridget; she wouldn’t be half the character she is nowadays without those RPs with Alair, and no matter what she’s up to nowadays he’s still important to her and in her heart.

🖊 Bridget’s my usual test dummy for first playthroughs of games because I know how she’d react to things. Also because I like seeing her in different character creators. So sue me.

🖊 Bridget has ADHD (again, because I like dumping my own experiences into my characters), though she didn’t have a name for it until she started going to therapy sometime between SR2 and SR3. It’s part of the reason why she had a hard time in school- a limited attention span, difficulty completing things once the novelty has worn off, and a preference towards things that have her brain and her body fully engaged does not mix well with traditional American teaching structures.

All of them *^*

Heya Ash!! Oof you're giving me a project lol thank you so much for the ask!!!

1. How big is your mods folder?

That is a really great question. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head, but it got to the point where I had to put all my mods on a thumb drive and only move them around as I need them because I'm computer was running so terribly. So I'd say it's a lot 😅.

2. How would you describe your style?

Uh, I would say very graphic novel type vibes. I'm a huge graphic novel buff and the story I'm actually working on I intended to be a graphic novel, but it really got away from me and is much too big for that now (not a brag, just my legitimate crack head antics) so when I got into Sims editing the thought was always to kind of keep the drawn/comicbook-y feel to it.

3. What is your favorite challenge?

Thus far it's been the stereotype challenge ! It was a lot of fun and I got to do it with four of my OCs who ended up fitting the criteria pretty well! I just think it came out really well both as an edit and as my OCs.

4. Do you make CC?

Aahahaahahahhaahahaah!!!!!! No. I tried to make poses one time! One singular time and it ended so poorly that I decided to swear off making anymore off my own CC for the distant future. Maybe I'll try it again, maybe I'm scarred for life, only time can tell!

5. What type of CC do you hoard?

I had answered this one before, but I FUCKING LOVE POSES!!!! And like I said I didn't have the best experience making my own so I prefer to use downloaded ones. But I never really clean out my poses in case I need them for something else! So my pose folder is astronomical at this point.

6. What default eyes and skin do you use?

You know.... This really is a question I should have the answer to but I'm totally drawing a blank right now so I'll go ahead and put a link to the eyes here and the skin here when I can look it up! ✌

7. How many URLs have you had, and what are the meanings behind them?

On this blog I've only had the one? And I feel like it's pretty self explanatory, I love Morgyn because 1.) They're the absolute best 2.) Untamed magic? Yes ma'am! 3.) They're gender fluid / nonbinary like me!! And 4.) They're an absolute snack!!!! So it was a perfect fit for me.

8. Who is your favorite gameplay blog?

Why would you do me like this??????? I can't choose!!! I love them all and I'm friends with all of them because they're absolutely amazing people that I love so much!!! I don't have a favorite! 🥺

9. Favorite story telling blog?

Please see above answer!!!!! I LOVE YOU GUYS ALL SO MUCH I AHDHAHSGA I CANT!!!!

10. Who is your favorite CC creator?

I don't really want to answer this one either 😭 but I think the only person I know that makes CC is the awesome @barbieaiden they made a really kick ass emo glove CC that I absolutely love and you should check out. (Sorry if the rest of you make CC I'm sure I've probably seen it, probably even downloaded and reblogged, but this is all I can think if right now 💜) Also my go to for all pose stuff is the glorious @katverse they do incredible poses for pretty much anything you could think up, highly recommend.

11. How do you edit you photos?

This is certainly going to get a few gasps, but I make all of my edits on my phone!!!!! I use just a basic free photo editor app and kind of bend it to my will to get what I want out of it! I'm really bad at figuring out stuff like Photoshop and I'm not willing to pay the expensive price when I can do it and get just as good as a result as I want from something free easy and portable.

12. What's the last screenshot you took?

Once again it has to do with an edit I'm working on so here's the last one I put up if you're interested.

13. What do you do when you are unmotivated?

Honestly, this! Editing and the Sims are my escape from the real world. It helps me when I'm having a hard time with my anxiety because it gives me control over something, it helps me a lot with writer's block I can't tell you how my stories have been inspired because of it. But I guess if I'm bored in the game I usually just start a new save or play another game for a bit, I always come back after like a day though! To be fair I haven't been doing this long enough to feel unmotivated yet, maybe we should revisit this when I've been doing this longer than two months 😅

14. Who is your current favorite Sim?

Ugh!!! As you guys have found out about me I don't like to play favorites......... But if I had to say maybe my OC Parker's Sim, he just came out perfectly and is just spot on.

15. Who is your current favorite Sims that isn't yours?

Guidry!!!! He's frickin' hilarious and just so great. I honestly didn't expect them to put as much into him as they did but I'm glad they did!!! He's the best!! He's no Morgyn, but he's pretty great too.

16. Recreate someone else's Sim in your style.

So this sounds like a lot of fun! But I really don't want to change anyone else's Sim, I know how much we all put into them and they're basically like our babies. They mean a lot, so unless I get explicit consent from someone saying I can use their Sim in my style I'm going to pass out of respect this time.

17. Do you talk about the Sims with people in your life?

Yes! One of my really close friends is the whole reason I'm into editing and mods and stuff! She showed me everything I know and is totally awesome for that. (@jennifermakesstuff on Instagram, go check out she's absolutely amazing and a crocheting god, go do it)

18. How many packs do you own?

.......... I don't want to answer this..... It's honestly a problem..... But I have them all.... Minus the star wars one I just I cannot bring myself to get it, it just looks terrible. But yeah I collect the packs and it's a problem 😅 but if you need advice on what pack to get next I'm your person!

19. How many posts do you have on your blog currently?

141 👀 I uh.... I have nothing else to say about that lol

20. How many drafts do you have currently?

Too many. But they're all like ask games and stuff for my OCs so yup!

21. How many posts are currently in your queue?

Only two 🙃 I need to get back to editing so I can hopefully have some more but I'm sick right now so... Maybe it's time for me to start that gameplay I've been threatening.

22. Have you ever moved blogs?

Okay yes, but not intentionally but I've moved three times? I had a blog for when I first started on tumblr it was for music stuff but I forgot to pass code to it so now it's just there, the other one I had was for my art & make up stuff but it wasn't doing good at all so I just turned it into my personal blog, and then from there I moved to this one! Also I'm avoiding my personal one like the plague right now because of a whole disaster that happened with someone I followed and I don't have the balls to unfollow them so I'm just pretending that account doesn't exist 😅.

23. Are you in any Sims related discords?

Yep! This one right here by the very amazing @clumsyghostie I'm really new to discord so it's the only one I've been apart of (EVER) but everyone has been really nice and friendly!!

24. What are your thoughts on the most recent pack? (Paranormal)

I like it! It added more to the gameplay than past packs have, but I always felt it left something to be desired in the way of CAS and build mode. Spoilers starting here if you care: Also it would've been cool if you could have had more interactions with Temperance like you can with Guidry, and if the specters did more that would be cool too. Either way I think it's good, I wouldn't say it's groundbreaking for the game experience, but it is fun.

25. How many hours have you played the Sims?

Let's find out 3,215 hours 😅 that's board line a problem hahaha if my math is right (it probably isn't because I'm gay and bad at math) that's a hundred and thirty three days straight? Jesus I might need help lol.

26. If you play gameplay, do you play with mods?

I used to! But I play on a regular laptop so it can't really run gameplay mods unfortunately so unless I'm doing edits my game is vanilla.

27. What's the furthest you've gotten on a challenge?

So I'm really bad at challenges! My favorite lately has been rags to riches it's a lot of fun but I always get bored after they get married and pregnant :/ I never know what to do after that because like the challenge is over but I'm so invested in these Sims 😅

Thank you again for the asks! This was a lot of fun 💖 I know I answered all the questions just now but feel free to send me an ask for whatever you want! I love interacting with you all, you're all so amazing 💖💖💖

About Motivatedtale

.:Contents:.

.:Author’s Note:.

.:Summary/Idea:.

.:Characters:.

Motive

Unmotivated

.:Stray Facts and Resources:.

FAQ

Rules

.:Inspiration:.

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.:Author’s Note:.

   Hey, so I've noticed this a long time ago but I’m just now confronting it since I got my computer fixed- it seems pretty impossible to reach the “About Motivatedtale” on mobile, even with the literal LINK to the page (I could only sort of access it through some loopholes in a browser- and the link just took me to my Tumblr instead), so I wanted to compile the information that’s in there into a post for any mobile users who may follow this blog. I’ve got more followers here than my art blog-- so even if there’s not much interaction each post, I think there’s at least a few people who might not have access to an about page here. Changes are very likely to be made and things will be added occasionally :)

.:Summary/Idea:.

 “Have you ever wondered what happens to creations when a creator gives up?”

 Motivatedtale is essentially an abandoned AU with no finished story or a plot. Which, ironically, not having a story is the story itself. It’s a tale about how the lack of motivation (along with other things like self doubt and lack of interest) in a Creator leaves a story unfinished, and with no reason to exist, no story, the AU is crumbling into nothingness, as it is being forgotten by the only one who knows about its existence- the Creator. However, there’s two characters in it that have to deal with that burden of having no ending or reasons to exist. And they’re completely aware of what’s going on.

 At least, the first one that was created is aware, because they were made to be that way. They inform the only other character (Frisk/Motive) about all of this when they meet. They’re a Sans of course (which is sort of a self aware joke because a lot of people either start with the Sans of an AU when creating characters, subtly revolve around a Sans of an AU in a story, or the entire story literally and shamelessly revolves around a Sans. This is not an attack on anyone). This Sans goes by Unmotivated, and is quite bitter about existing.  These characters have no finished story, no destiny, and no purpose. Being self aware of this can be a great burden on hope and happiness; ignorance is bliss, after all.

 What the AU would’ve been if it was “completed” is unsure.

 How the story ends is not fully decided or meant to be disclosed (for now), but even if this AU is finished or not, it is already technically complete. It symbolizes a project that is given up on; a project that is abandoned, and what would happen if the characters in these types of projects were conscious about this- if our ideas existed somewhere out there, somewhere where our decisions, intentional and unintentional, have a serious affect.

 So, if this AU is abandoned, it’ll be quite ironic.

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.:Characters:.

Motive

    Motive is the Frisk of this AU, and one of only two characters that are in this AU. Motive was created after Unmotivated, but the coloring of their design was given up on towards the very end. Their sweater is unfinished because the creator gave up on them due to being overwhelmed with empty and destructive thoughts, but the outline/shape is still there. The sleeve usually is never shaded/effected by light.

  Motive is an optimist, and believes that their AU will one day be finished. They have the soul of motivation, which is outwardly visible and tied to the loose hanging strap of their overalls. They don’t have preferences in pronouns (though they/them is usually the default), and calling them by any pronoun is fine (she/he/they/it..it really doesn’t matter, honestly).  

  Motive acts impulsively a lot of times and does not think of the consequences of their actions…or, they do, but they choose to move forward with their actions anyways. Since optimism is one of their key traits and it’s exaggerated and simplified in their character and logic, it can result in some bad outcomes. The same goes for their impulsitivity. They’re not that serious natured, and act more like a child than a young adult (despite being 18). However, they do make a lot of (sometimes unnerving) jokes that could be considered uncomfortable, but they mean no harm. While Motive is quite intelligent and empathetic, they’re distracted quite easily and might say or do inappropriate things during certain situations.

  Since Motive is technically a new character and was not fully developed by their Creator (backstory, powers, etc), their underdevelopment as a character is actually a big part of their development as a character. 

(More is to be added later)

Unmotivated

 The Sans of the AU, and the first ever character created (which again is poking fun of the idea that people usually start with the Sans of the AU for characters). Unmotivated is bitter and cynical towards his existence and his Creator, and is completely aware of the multiverse and AU Creators. A big fourth wall breaker. He’s apathetic, bored and often paints himself as emotionless and uncaring to hide any hurt/feelings of helplessness. He bottled them away a long time ago.  At first, Unmotivated was hopeful about his AU, but he was alone for an unspecified but long amount of time in his AU, and was driven to toxicity and bitterness during that time. He’s seen his universe grow, halt, and then slowly deteriorate- he has seen new ideas come and go, and is helpless to stop the rampant decay of his universe- his home- his story. He’s overall a pretty lonely character. 

When or why he got the nickname “Unmotivated” is unclear- but it’s definitely supposed to be a pun. He hates the name but finds it funny and ironic at the same time. 

  Unmotivated’s soul is held by a string that is woven into his rain coat. He considers this to be poor design choice but doesn’t really do anything to fix it. He often keeps his soul in his pocket for safe keeping.  (More is to be added later)

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.:Stray Facts:.

• The AU resets (sort of like an update) each time a new idea is added. This is how Unmotivated is generally aware of Motive when they’re created. • The “Creator” resembles anyone who has abandoned or given up on their projects or ideas. This isn’t meant to put people that do this in a negative light.

•The white of Motive’s sleeve isn’t meant to be shaded since it’s “incomplete.”

FAQ (most are from amino since not many people ask here)

- What was the AU supposed to originally be before it was abandoned?

 This is undecided and left up for interpretation. However, based off of the design of the current characters, it can be safely assumed that the AU was supposed to be more lighthearted and cutesy. There are random bits and ideas spread throughout the AU that give glimpses to what it could’ve been.

- Can I draw fanart of these characters?

 Of course! I’d be honored to receive fanart and would love to see it! Just please keep things appropriate if you do.

- Is Ink Sans or Core Frisk going to be in the comic?

No.

 I’ve gotten asked this several times, and the answer is no. Doing this would completely ruin the theme and point I’m trying to get across with this comic. This story revolves around a Creator and their Creations, and there will be no other characters made by other people.

- Are Motive and Unmotivated shipped together?

NO.

 It’s fine as a joke but please realize they aren’t. This isn’t an AU centered around romance and would distract from the goal of the comic if I had that. While I’m not anti-frans in any sense, I still don’t want it in my comic.

- How often do you plan on updating the comic?

  Each page is published whenever I finish it nowadays due to stress of a schedule. I post them in bulks of 2-3 on amino and twitter, and whenever I finish the page on deviantart, instagram and here.

- Is the Creator a character?

 Yes, and no. The Creator represents not only myself, but any artist that has struggles putting their creations out there due to insecurities or other causes. They’re more symbolic and fluent rather than a structured and identified character. Of course though, if there is any introduction of the Creator, I would have to give them some sort of design- and I do have general ideas of what they’d look like. However, they’re still supposed to represent a broader group of people than just myself.

- What does Unmotivated think about other AUs/Sanses?

 Unmotivated has an apathetic mindset when it comes to AUs and other characters like him. He’s incredibly self aware and sees a much bigger picture. He knows characters are just pawns to their creator, and won’t get fazed by any story. Sort of like watching actors in a movie while constantly reminding yourself that they’re just actors. However, he is quite envious of anyone with a complete and happy storyline, since that’s something he lacks but yearns the most. That’s something he wish he had.

 Keep in mind Unmotivated and Motive cannot interact or travel outside of their AU, and no one can interact with their AU except the editor/creator.

Rules

• Please do not publicly RP with these characters unless given permission. This might be changed after more of the comic is complete, but I do not want these character’s personalities to be strewn.

•  Please do not draw or write NSFW with my characters– I am a minor, and a large part of my audience are also minors.

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.:Inspiration:.

  Alright, this part is going to be a lot less formal and more personal. The idea for this AU came from my own self doubt and self destructive attitude as a creator. Doubting my own works and ideas has seriously held me back for a long time, and it STILL holds me back as I’m sure it has for many, MANY other creators like me. Musicians, artists, writers.. Almost all of us have that fear of trying out a new idea or making something you usually wouldn’t. Almost all of us have felt that crushing self doubt when you see someone better than you, and you tell yourself you’ll never be like them, your art will never be that great, you’ll never get that far…so on, so on.

  So, while I was trying to come up with an idea for an AU (which I had actually been considering for well over a year), the thoughts crept in.

“no one will like this”

“there’s enough AU’s”

“you’re unoriginal”

“this is a waste of time”

“the fandom is dying”

“you have horrible character designs”

“AU’s are overrated”

“this doesn’t fit your audience”

“people will judge you”

“you never finish anything”

“this is stupid”

“your art isn’t good enough”

“you’re not good enough”

“someone probably already came up with this idea”

“no one cares about your idea”

“no one would bother with your art”

  And ironically, all these thoughts gave me this idea.

  Even so, these thoughts have still been nagging me every time I even try to work on this, and it’s been taking a lot of courage to take on the heap of anxiety I have over something so harmless. I didn’t join the Undertale fandom for over a year simply because I was afraid of being judged for my interests,, fun fact. Never thought I’d be able to make an AU. I’m still quite nervous posting art of anything that isn’t Mario related for some reason.

  Putting all this to side though, I find the concept of what happens to unfinished and/or abandoned stories and projects interesting, especially if there’s an alternate reality that’s actually effected by your decisions. Kinda like you’re a god. I mean, imagine what it would be like if you had a creator and they just gave up on you, and you’re left with no purpose. Seems like it would suck, haha.

  So that’s basically my AU, Motivatedtale. If you have any thoughts or questions, I’d love to hear them. Thanks for reading if you did!

Lucifer Morningstar is an introvert.  A very awkward and unusual introvert.

In an attempt to not create a bunch of random side-blogs, I’m just going to drop this here.  Sorry Doctor Who/Torchwood fans.

With the whole covid-19 thing, I’ve been trapped at home more than I had anticipated recently and I was looking for something a bit more fun and frivolous to watch so I finally gave Lucifer a go.

I honestly don’t know why it took me so long to get to this, my brother had watched it when it was on tv and had mentioned it in passing several times.  Suffice to say, once I finally gave into Netflix, I found it to be quite an enjoyable watch.

What really struck me in the serious is how it becomes obvious that Lucifer is an introverted character who is hurt.  Wait - what you are thinking?  He’s an introvert?  Oh man, he’s totally a huge introvert.

Let me walk you through why he’s clearly an introvert despite a quick glance at his outward actions.

1.) Hiding in plain sight. 

An interesting aspect to his personality is how he hides in plain sight.  When he moves to LA, he rents the building that houses Lux and his penthouse suite.  Lux is a place where he is surrounded by people, if he wants to partake in revelry all he needs to do is go downstairs and party with people in the club.  However, he can also retreat to his place easily which is surprisingly well stocked with books and another piano for him to play in private.  I doubt all of his books are for show, he frequently denies thinking deeply about things, but he always seems to be one step ahead of others which has always implied to me he plays the “I’m smarter than I look/act” card.  Early on in the show, he occasionally invited people up to his place to party but it wasn’t a common experience.  Think of the pizza delivery guy being invited to stay and party.

Despite his love of drinking, drug use and sex, he makes it quite clear that drinking and drug use rarely have an effect on him for long.  He is rarely hung over or wasted since his metabolism clears the alcohol too quickly for him to feel it and on multiple occasions he states he mainly drinks as he likes the taste.  One of the few times he was high was after he smoked a massive amount of pot at the teenage delinquent recovery farm as indicated by him sitting at the detective’s desk eating potato chips and dipping them in nutella realizing it was an amazing flavor combination.  For him, drugs seem to simply be something that is fun and a way to amuse himself and based on his drinking, it is mainly a way to meet and socialize with people.

As far as the sex, it is clear that he uses his casual hook-ups as a fun distraction.  To avoid any possible intimacy with others, he hides behind the fact that sex is a pleasurable act and by keeping his sex life 100% casual, no person in his or her right mind would even consider dating him.  He has made himself impossible to be seen as possible long term boyfriend in a steady relationship.  He likely struggles with his own angelic power to pull out people’s desires and his ability to seduce them.  Since his default is to have people literally throw themselves at him, he likely sees most of them acting in response to his powers and necessarily to him as a person.  As he wants people to follow their desires and free-will (as he simply removed the inhibitions that were present and did not create them) he gladly indulges them as well as himself.  If I were him, I’d be like “well why not?” an attractive person wants to sleep with me, sure do it, no harm, no foul.

I found it most telling based on how sensitive he is to his sexual reputation as well as his ability to meet his current sexual partner’s needs.  First off, when a random kid pretended to be him, he was incredibly upset that his imposter lacked his skills.  He’s Lucifer Morningstar, he has skills and a reputation associated with them.  Secondly, when the detective decided to interview his previous partners for the past 8 weeks (all 92 of them) two things were very obvious i.) he went to great lengths to make sure no matter what he did, that person had the most amazing sex of his or her life ii.) not a single person he slept with saw it as anything more than an amazing night of no strings attracted sex.  His actions did not inspire them to want more of a relationship from him.  How his facial expression become quite sad as all 92 of them stated it was just empty sex showed how alone he is. Another unusual trait is that he has been the most sexually responsible angel ever.  Granted, the vast majority of angels were never going to have sex in the first place, yet he has a much more responsible track record than Amenadiel.  It is clear that he has had sex with thousands upon thousands of humans over the years and he never once resulted in a human-angel pregnancy.  This may also be linked to the fact that Amenadiel by default, desires a ‘normal’ regular relationship while Lucifer has been avoiding having a “normal” relationship.  It would imply that if he found someone to have a kid with, he would be in a “normal” long term relationship with that person.

Overall, his first career on earth was to make sure he had an establishment that represented what he felt others perceived as his core personality, that as the devil, he would have to surround himself by partying and temptations.  Owning Lux is a way for him to keep up appearances and maintain his public persona as well as his persona that is seen by celestial beings.  Lucifer is a classic example of a character who is totally alone in a crowd.

2.) Few close friends

Another true introvert trait is to have a small tight knit group of friends.  Lucifer fits to this exactly.  He has excellent social skills, and again due to his former job and his nature, yet does many actions by smooth, polite and calculated actions - from a distance.  His job of granting favors is based on how he knows someone, who knows someone, forming a vast network he has to draw upon to make sure that the favors work out the way the person would like them to.  He doesn’t do the favors though because he cares for the person, more than he seems to do it to pass the time until he finds a job with more meaning.

It is starting his second job as a civilian consultant for the LAPD that his preference and need for a small friend group becomes obvious.  The most obvious one is his relationship with Chloe. 

Chloe Decker: He is first intrigued at why his powers do not work on her, his immediate physical attraction to her as well as seeing her as a kindred spirit also drew him to her. She is the outcast of the department and he knows all too well what it feels like to be the literal outcast.  As a result of their common situation and the fact he can’t sway her, the two of them can speak openly and honestly.  Granted, the biggest issue with his relationship with Chloe is the fact that she denies the obvious truth that he tells her even though she has seen enough evidence that he likely is not some random British guy living in LA running a high end nightclub.

As their relationship deepens he begins to find comfort in the fact that despite his inability to influence her, she still appreciates his company and values him as a friend and a work partner.  Even though he panics and holds her miracle status against her at first, he comes to realize she can’t be held responsible for something she has no control of and is unaware of.  Linda time and time again tries to get him to realize that he keeps her away due to his absolute fear that she would reject him.  Since she’s the only person who could accept him as is, it means her acceptance of him is the biggest risk to his own heart in regards to her. 

In part, his complicated relationship is tied to his fear that she would reject him, so him loving and caring for a single person as he does for her is too risky.  He’s a seriously hurt dude, he’s terrified of being hurt anymore by someone he cares for.  Chloe really takes a long time to realize how deeply he is hurt.  I get that she’s his opposite but I do felt out of all of the characters, she got short end of the stick in regards to character development.  Everyone else has had major changes and realizations yet she only sort of struggled with Lucifer’s identity in the first half of season 4 and she was off her “mark” when she was a bit preachy with him.  Thankfully, she stopped that bit and realized that he more needed her to listen to him and to support him.  It really got that concept that sometimes you need to just be there for someone and not try to fix it - since Chloe is a fixer. 

Mazikeen:  She is his right-hand woman.  The only demon to leave hell to follow him to earth, she first acted as his personal assistant, running the day to day operations of Lux and also working as a bartender.  Despite all of their conflicts, they care deeply for each other and have each other’s back.

The hardest part of growth in their relationship is when it went from master-servant/boss-assistant to more that of peers.  Even as he began to change in how he worked with humans, he keep their relationship as their default from hell.  He really hurt her feelings since she developed feelings and both of them are terrible at expressing them to others.  They have a relationship and work dynamic that they had for thousands and thousands of years - it is pretty impressive that they are learning and growing in a relatively short time period to respect each other and mature.

I found the most emotionally moving parts between them to be in season 3 when Chloe begins to get involved with Cain/Pierce and he expresses his worry that at least he has her and she’ll never leave him.  Maze interprets this as him being selfish and treating her as his number 2.  She lashes out at him and all he does is look back at her in return is hurt as he almost quivers.  Since she was his right hand woman in hell, she is the person with whom he has had the longest and most trusting relationship with since being cast into hell.  Did he phrase things in a way that helped in the situation - no.  But was he telling her his honest feelings that he really does feel like she is someone who is always there for him and supports him - yes.   When she goes behind his back to work with Cain/Pierce, he’s hurt and feels betrayed.  Sure, some of it is karmic payback for the times he’s hurt her, but after his failed experiment with Abel, he has every right to not just pop willy-nilly between earth and hell.

I have the vibe that they will eventually settle into a sibling like relationship treating each other the same way he interacts with his angel siblings like Amenadiel and Azrael.

Ella Lopez: So far Ella has been the only human friend that he has worked with with whom he hasn’t used his angelic charms on.  He was uncomfortable around her at first; she’s religious, she’s outwardly friendly and very much into giving hugs.  Ella “wastes” her time on what he would see as pointless pleasantries in the office.  Yes, Lucifer will lay on the pleasantries, but his always have a purpose - Ella’s are just her being nice.  He did like her opinion that the devil got a bad rap, but then she kept thinking he was a method actor in addition to being a nightclub owner.

Despite their obvious differences the two of them are both very straightforward people who have a strong sense of personal justice and are dedicated to solving the crimes.  He quickly begins to joke around with her and with her four older brothers, she finds no issue with dealing with his antics - it is more like par for the course. 

The fact that Azrael also couldn’t help but become friends with her seems to indicate she has some sort of personality that celestial beings really like, especially those who have the shittier jobs e.g. Lucifer running hell and punishing and Azrael being the angel of death dealing with, well, death.  The fact that she made sure Ella would become friends with Lucifer was really sweet and even though he was at first upset since he doesn’t like people trying to manipulate with him, he realized that Azrael’s action was in right place. She got her favorite brother and favorite human to become friends since she knew they would get along even if she couldn’t be with them - you know, having the whole angel of death as her day job.

His love of Ella as a friend though came out when her older brother Jay was in town and mixed up in the illegal diamond cleaning.  Yes, he brought his own feelings with his older brother into the mix, but he was correct.  Jay is not the absolutely perfect brother, he was involved in shady stuff.  I think when he confronted Jay was one of the best scenes in regards to him standing up for and protecting his friends.  He made it very clear that if Jay ever hurt Ella again he’d be in trouble as he knew how important it was to her to continue to see her brother in her own most positive light.

I really get the vibe that they feed off of each other being goofballs - Ella was a nerd and picked on as kid and had a lot of issues to deal with.  He’s the cast out son, they are both outcasts on the rebound and they like to have fun with each other.  This really comes to a head in season 4 when Lucifer, Chloe and Ella go to the nudist colony.   Chloe is a complete stick in the mud and by the time she turns around the two of them are naked and ready to go.  As adults on their own and away from their family and their former “teenage” issues they finally get to be who they want to be and I just think their dynamic duo antics are adorable.  She is the friend that will do silly things with him while Chloe remains too, well stoic. When Ella has her crisis of faith, Lucifer doesn’t fan the flames instead, he’s confused how to react so he doesn’t tell her what to think.

Trixie:   She immediately loved Lucifer from the moment she met him.  He is incredibly awkward with her.  He’s not sure to do with her little kid hugs, he tries to not hold her hand when they investigate the elite private school.  Yet, no matter how frequently he calls her a little urchin and doesn’t understand why she likes him, she grows on him.

I personally loved her bedroom sign in the first season - “Trixie’s room - no boys allowed - except for Lucifer.”

Trixie is a classic example of kid radar seeing people for who they are; she accepts Lucifer and Maze with no judgement, she just sees them as these rad adults whom she can play with. 

I really liked when he tried to buy her the new doll since she destroyed her old one - in a way he respected her kid logic - did it teach her a lesson - no.  But it was a logical extension as a means to an end.  He came from a background of illogical parenting so to speak.  He dealt with rules that didn’t always make sense it is clear he spent too much time pondering them thus leading to his current situation.

Does he like other children still? Not really, he still didn’t know what to do when he touched a kid’s head with a little pat as his backyard picnic with Cain as he wiped his hand on his sweater.   Yet, since he has gotten to know Trixie through his interactions with her it is clear that he likes her.

Dr. Linda Martin: Dr. Martin is my fav female character on the entire show as she is a compassionate, caring and intelligent individual and a secret badass.  Her relationship with Lucifer started how all of his interactions with people who desire him do - with her wanting to sleep with him.  Over time, she realizes that she can’t and shouldn’t be sleeping with him and he also begins to realize that he can work with her without having to pay her with his body and pay her the normal way - with money.  He learns to treat himself with more respect and not just give away himself to her.  Showing a bit of a shift in how he sees himself with those he actually knows.

I think she really was his first example of how to have a normal human transaction with well, a human.  She is incredibly patient with him and even when he reveals his true self to her, she is able to accept him with a little nudge from Maze.  Despite being overwhelmed due to his families odd demands on her and almost killed by his very upset and stressed out mother, she protects him as a client and as a friend. 

Sure, he always interprets her advice in interesting ways and she knows him well enough to realize that he avoids things and is in denial but she always still cares for him.  He also does frequently figure out what she wants him to realize - he just likes to make it more difficult for himself.  I wonder if the more that they got to know each other, his ability to influence her waned as she saw him as more than a playboy and he saw her as a doctor who could help him and later as a good and trusted friend.

Most importantly, she never gives up on him and truly believes in him despite all of his detours and distractions.  When he has his identity crisis in season 4, she is the first person he shows his devil wings to.  This comes from a place of deep trust in her and even though she can’t help him, she is there for him as a friend. 

I don’t think he’d ever admit it to her directly, but Lucifer likely understands that Linda’s friendship with Maze has helped Maze grow as a person - er demon - and her advice has helped him in how he interacts with her learning how to change his relationship with her from boss-assistant to more that of peers and friends.

Dan Espinoza: Oh yes, despite all of their stupid male ego headbutting, Lucifer is friends with Dan and he does care for the man.  When they first met, Dan was definitely a being a bit of a dick to Chloe; mainly by keeping his own secrets to protect her even though it drove her nuts.  If anything bothers Lucifer more it is people lying and hiding things from him.  Lucifer is almost pathological with telling the truth and not lying; and well Dan was not the most honest at the beginning.

So of course, he received full on Lucifer hazing; once the police admin punished him by demoting him for messing with evidence he slowly became more sympathetic to Dan.  He did use his skills to get Dan to admit that he wanted to correct his mistakes and when Dan started to lose it with Azrael’s blade, he saw that Dan was a stronger and more complicated man than he wanted him to be.  If Dan were a simple man, driven by simple desires and actions, Lucifer could write him off.  But Dan isn’t, his biggest change is when he realized he needed to stop calling him Detective Douche and actually call him Dan, in part due to Dan standing up to his teasing.  

Was it right for Lucifer to keep up his petty antics for so long?  Likely not, but Lucifer learned that some of Dan’s actions and personality traits are actually good things and his day shadowing Dan was annoying for poor Dan, but at least allowed him to realize that not everyone is the same.

Lucifer also has been more honest about his feelings in front of Dan than many others - when they went to get a favor from the Russian mob boss, he freely admitted his own hatred for himself and how he hurts everyone he cares about. If he said that in front of Chloe or Ella, both of them would rush to tell him it isn’t true and he’s being too hard on himself.  Instead, Dan kept his distance and realized that both of them think the grass is greener on their side of the fence.  Lucifer is secretly jealous of Dan’s more simple approach to things and Dan thinks Lucifer truly is careless and wishes he could be a flippant as he appears to be.

Dan really is a reminder how how Lucifer is unable to open up to others and make himself more vulnerable.  Unfortunately, this results in Dan frequently getting hurt and he makes epic bad decisions in season 4 out of grief over Charlotte’s death, blaming Lucifer for all of his pain.  But no matter what happens, it is clear that Lucifer would not wish for bad things to happen to Dan as he is a good guy and a capable detective.

Is their friendship a perfect one?  Far from it, but both of them really do try to care and support the other guy as long as they aren’t pissed off at each other.  It likely doesn’t help that Lucifer’s friendship with Dan is pretty much his only one with a normal human guy.  He’s got plenty of angelic brothers and Cain really isn’t normal by a long shot so it makes Dan even more important to have him in his circle of close friends.  As a 100% totally normal dude, Dan acts frequently as the ‘in’ to understanding (or really lack of understanding) what is happening.

Eve:  I just finished re-watching season 4.  I’m still not sure where I’d place Eve in all of this.  She’s only in season 4 so far and based on her actions, I’m not sure I’d call her one of his close friends. If anything she was pretty much an impediment to all of his relationships - albeit maybe not quite on purpose . . .  she’s a woman who still hasn’t figured out who she is despite realizing she needs to not define herself in the context of a relationship. 

Sorry for not having more thoughts on this, I need to ponder it more. 

What I will say is that their relationship issues stem from the fact that he is an introvert and she’s an extrovert.  He realized that Eve was a “bad” influence on him and he struggled to express his feelings to her.  The fact that it takes him shouting out at her that he “doesn’t like who he is when he’s with her” was painfully difficult for him to say.  It is clear that he cares about her deeply and he wants her to be happy.  Yet, he can’t and really doesn’t want to deliver on her actions or feelings.  The worst part is that it tears him up inside since in a way he saw her as a possible long term partner which was a big deal for him.

3.) Works either alone or in small groups. 

When it comes to his role with the LAPD, Lucifer’s modes of action are not that of a typical extrovert.  He is either working closely with his partner Chloe, or occasionally with Ella or Dan.  He is never part of a large group nor is he taking a typical leadership role.  Due to his need to protect others and his need to get answers as quickly and directly as possible, he frequently goes off on his own.  In part, this is so that he can take full advantage of his angelic powers and immortality, but also to protect those he cares about.  Sure, he walks into a Korean gang headquarters and tells them to come out, but he doesn’t try to chit chat or smooth things over with them.  He goes in, finds the head boss and pretty much strikes a deal with him that he can’t refuse.  When he wants an answer his methods are far too direct.  Find suspect/target/person and just question them or threaten them and then question them.  There is no charming and social games.  He can’t be bothered with banal pleasantries when he wants to know something.  If Lucifer were a true extrovert he would want to talk to others and feed off of the energy he gets from being with them - yet - he never has shown this.  He sees getting information as a task he needs to complete as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Even though he is hurt when Chloe and Cain become closer and begin to hang out or work cases without him, he still shows up and does work to help out with cases.  He also is good at working by himself and is able to work things out when he applies himself.

He also has an excellent sense of intuition when reading people.  Of course, one of the major aspects of the show is that he projects his own issues onto others.  This leads him off of what they are doing sometimes, so his read isn’t quite right.  But he is perceptive when he sees odd behaviors and is able to connect things without full information.  This is both what he did with Ella’s brother Jay and more importantly with Pierce/Cain.  He invites him for a drink and then stabs him with the knife.  He looks incredibly nervous after he kills him as he can’t kill a human as an angel - he keeps switching between trying to be calm and have a drink while he waits for him to wake up with a nervous sweat.  Did he know for sure Pierce was Cain?  No, hence the nervousness until his intuition was proven correct was his true feelings on his gamble.

Furthermore, when he does work with Chloe or others, he always has their back and will go to any length to work with them.  This to me indicates that he finds working with a select few people with whom he can trust is how he is most comfortable and he doesn’t need to be the center of attention and the one in charge like how he was in charge of hell. It is clear that by the end of season 4 even though he returned to hell it wasn’t because he enjoyed to or wanted to - it was because he had to protect everyone he cared about.  He also has a natural chemistry and ease working with Chloe where even in tough situations they instinctively know what to do and how to act.

4.) He expresses himself through actions. 

Lucifer is an incredibly hurt individual.  He was punished by having to take a job that he didn’t even want or even desire and most of his family abandoned him.  He’s terrified to open up and show his true feelings and pain to others as they would take advantage of it as a weakness to hurt him further. Honestly, I think he still doesn’t quite understand how his actions landed him in hell.  He was questioning the establishment and it is clear he thinks deeply about rules and how they influence others.  Anything he thinks is illogical he ignores as he can’t be bothered to care to follow those rules and conventions.  I think about how he made Chloe rethink the “swear jar” for Trixie - he pointed out rules without a clear basis don’t make sense.

Since he struggles to express his feelings in a way to help others. e.g. mainly in his denial/fear to tell Chloe he truth does two things; i.) he makes it about him or ii.) he tries to demonstrate through his actions.

The making it about him method, is a subtle way where he wants to know how to solve his own problem to help him understand or interact with others.  But since he doesn’t want to say for example “I need to figure out how Cain can die since I promised him and I am true to my word.” he instead hides behind the idea of “I need to find the author’s killer so I can read how she got over her writers block.”  By extension, since the manuscript is an instruction guide, he thinks he’ll learn something so that he can follow through on his promise.  It is a very obtuse way to act, but since he hides behind his narcissistic facade no one will understand he’s not doing it for himself.

As far as his actions, he really shows it when he reorganizes Chloe’s desk; he realizes that she deals with all the paperwork and since she is capable she gets even more paperwork piled on to her workload.  He cleans up her mess and anal retentively arranges her pencils and makes sure the right angles on the files are all lined up.  He also found a method of filing that makes more sense to him and it inadvertently helps her find the missing piece of evidence for their most recent case.  I liked how he color coded everything.  Did he need to add the picture of him in his underwear as her backdrop?  Hell no, but he figures out that since she likes him, what’s wrong with her seeing a part of him that she likely will never see.

This also gets him into trouble; again, buying the doll for Trixie, trying to out perform Cain in gifts for Chloe and always seeing things as a competition.  He wants to give people physical proof of his care for people without actually saying it.  Specifically he wants to express his care through a tangible amount of some sort of physical object.

5.) He hides behind his narcissistic behaviors. 

As Lucifer struggles to come to terms with himself and expressing his feelings he has hid behind his narcissism.  What is a great way to keep people away from you and keeping your distance from them?  Being completely self-absorbed with yourself that no one would ever want to be friends with you.  His narcissism is a HUGE turnoff for the vast majority of the population.

It is so clear that he wants to develop close relationships but he’s so afraid of hurting others and even more so hurting himself. He’s hid behind his hedonistic behaviors and his self-absorbed actions for thousands of years.  He really is a very particular person; he is constantly adjusting his sleeves under his suit coat, his shoes are always perfect, he moisturizes and his hair is styled elegantly.  He likes things arranged elegantly and it shows how important control is to him.  If he is 100% in control of everything, again he’s protected from being hurt.

As he works at the LAPD and forms his important friendships, his appearance changes.  In the first season, he wears black or dark grey suits, his shirts are white, black, dark purple, dark blue and grey, if I recall correctly.  He keeps his look simple and professional, almost cold.  His matching pocket squares are also basic and mainly a single solid color with few patterns.

Yet overtime, he becomes more adventurous in his appearance, he starts wearing more light blue shirts, he begins to add in more color with burgundy, forest green, and even a caramel colored suit.  His pocket squares become more interesting with patterns and more color combinations.  With the increase in color and variety he appears much more approachable and has more of an air of friendliness even though he still only cares for his small group of friends.

A case that was a real struggle for him was with the online dating app for “fabulous” people - Top Meet.  He wanted to continue to judge people based on superficial appearances, as it has been his own wall and it has served him well.  When they ultimately confront the killer, his own knowledge of nature and narcissists allows him to save the day by tossing the head sculpture at him and the detective can apprehend him.

His car serves as both another front and also shows how he longs for few intimate friendships or relationships.  He’s got that lovely little Corvette and it is a two-seater.  He doesn’t drive a giant, flashy car that can fit lots of people.  Instead, he has a small almost cute (I personally think it is cute) car that only another person can sit in.  He only wants to ride with one person at a time as he values his close relationships.  Yet, having a car that only can fit one other passenger shows a part of his narcissistic front - that only a person who he’d see as worthy would be able to ride with him.

Overall, by looking at how Lucifer chose to have a job on earth in a nightclub where he could simply hide was the first indication he’s an introverted character.  The longer he has been in LA, the more close friendships he has formed and they are very important to him as well as his oldest friendship with Maze.  When he realized that Maze was attracted to Eve, he noticed it, but hasn’t made mention of it yet (likely that will happen in season 5).  The fact that he noticed it meant he really has stopped seeing her as his right hand woman and more just as an individual with feelings.  His close friendships really show that he’s an introvert not an extrovert.  It is obvious that he gains meaning and connection from these close relationships in a way he never experienced before.  His preference for working either alone or in a small team also shows that he is much more comfortable as well as his preference to express himself through actions as opposed to using words since that is much harder and more uncomfortable.  Lastly, by hiding himself from all others behind a self-absorbed image he has been able to keep others away from him for thousands of years.

The major point about his character growth is learning that having a small support group of real friends and family he can find what he’s been looking for.  A place to belong and be accepted.

Review: THE WITCHER 2: ASSASSINS OF KINGS (2011)

With the first Witcher game under my belt, I decided to plunge straightaway into the second game in the series: The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Expecting little beyond improvements in graphics and controls, I was very curious to see how the game delivered on the cliffhanger ending of the first game, in which Geralt of Rivia defended King Foltest of Temeria from a would-be assassin, only to reveal that the killer was also a witcher. I’d had a decent time with The Witcher: Enhanced Edition, particularly in the storytelling aspects and the choose- your-own-adventure narrative, but had found myself frustrated by dated game design and graphics and lackluster combat. Still, it was, by the end, an arresting experience that had captured my intrigue enough to make me want to go back and replay it to see what paths I could have chosen. Choice is truly the number one aspect of The Witcher, in that Geralt generally chooses not to choose sides, but is often found forced into doing so. Choice is also the highlight of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings, so much so that by the end of the game I was nearly horrified with how all of my decisions, ambient though some of them were, had stacked into a neat pile of awful fuckery. If you want to feel good about what you’ve done by the end of a game, The Witcher series might not be for you. But if moral ambiguity and robust, branching paths are what you seek, then read on dear reader, because things are about to get immediately messy in what is some ways a vastly superior sequel to the first game, but in other ways falls short of the narrative potential established by its predecessor.

From the start, Witcher 2 is once again a big game of Choose Your Own Adventure. Opening with a prologue establishing Geralt’s involvement in a political assassination, the player is continually given agency over where Geralt is going, what he wants to do, and how he is going to do it. This is at once the game’s biggest strength. Just as in the first game, Geralt’s choices have domino effects that tumble down the slippery slope of lesser evil decision making, affecting what characters do and whether or not they might appear elsewhere in the game. And, furthering the CYOA aspects, certain portions of the grander story are hidden from sight should Geralt choose to go down a different path. Maybe some characters will have happier endings than we see them get if Geralt decides to help them instead of quest elsewhere -- maybe not. Perhaps the biggest departure from the previous game’s style is that the entire second chapter of Witcher 2 is different depending on which side of a conflict you choose to enable. This, of course, is also all based on whom you’ve sided with previously, with deft moments of quick situational judgements, some of them timed. Give the elven rebel his sword so he can defend himself, or push him to the side so you can leap into the fray yourself? Not every decision is placed in front of the player as a monumental choice; some of them are as simple and clean as whether or not you pick up an object in front of you, knowingly saving someone’s life. This makes the world -- and the story -- feel surprisingly alive, vibrant, always on edge as though the lightest touch in any direction will spell consequences for some and reward for others. This does, however, create a shorter gameplay experience overall. Where my full playthrough of the first game was close to fifty hours, I clocked in just over thirty hours here, but this is partially because the full content of the game cannot be seen in only one playthrough. There’s a massive amount of game to be held, but the unfortunate reality is that it can only be seen piecemeal. It’s like getting to the end of an actual Choose Your Own Adventure novel, only to realize there’s a vast amount of pages left unread because you didn’t take the roads less traveled...or simply traveled differently. For better or for worse, the first time through this game will leave the player with the sensation that there is a lot that they didn’t get to see, despite the freedom of branching paths being thrilling and adventurous. And the story itself isn’t nearly as investing as the previous game. Geralt’s adventure in clearing his name of wrongdoing and tracking down his memories are at the forefront of his story, but in the background is a complex, political plot that simultaneously is and isn’t important to follow. Decisions made by Geralt heavily affect what’s going on, even as Geralt himself is constantly growling about how he wants to track the kingslayer and a missing friend. But the game and the characters populating it continually drag him back to the fray because they need him, dammit, and if he wants the means to his ends then he’ll have to endure everyone else’s shit. Perhaps that’s the point: Geralt’s actions continually change the entire world around him, whether he wants to be a part of it or not. That said, the straightforward narrative is defiantly strong here, partly because the branching system demands it need be. This is a Story with a Purpose, the Purpose being to establish a series of unfortunate events happening around Geralt, if not to Geralt. But when it’s as bland as it is -- save for the bits where Geralt is trying to clear his name -- it can be difficult at times to maintain a steady pace. And the entire third act takes place in a ruined elven city which is a chore to navigate, nearly ruining the momentum and the whole of the game’s experience; there’s two disasterously difficult combat engagements to wade through as well as a grating boss battle with a large beast, not to mention a magical puzzle which demands navigating the labyrinthine ruins if you want to discover what it is. And yet, by the end, the house of cards comes tumbling down into the awful realization that everything behind the scenes has been doing its utmost to raise the stakes high enough to win the whole pot, and depending on Geralt’s actions, it does so to varying degrees. I sincerely doubt there is anything close to a happy ending in one of the alleged 16 conclusions the game contains; if anything, it can only go from shitfucked to fucked-with-hope-on-the-horizon. And, despite the sometimes slog, that’s effective.

Gameplay has seen a heavy upgrade. Gone are the original title’s point and click controls, replaced with a more intuitive interface that relies heavily on action and exploration. Similar to Arkham Asylum’s Detective Vision, Geralt can use his medallion to scan the world around him for interactive elements or objects to search through. Neat in concept, but oftentimes the execution is lacking; it can be incredibly difficult to find objects on the ground left by corpses without always using the medallion, as they can get lost in the surrounding scenery. Upgraded, too, is the combat, which is thankfully no long a boring fucking exercise in clicking at the right time to string together combos. Geralt rolls, swings, magics at the click of a button, using the WASD and mouse camera to keep an eye on the action. The triple division of combat styles -- fast, strong, and group -- are replaced with a fast and strong attack bound to the two mouse keys, and upgrades can make it so Geralt’s attacks can hit multiple people. Blocking is integral, but Geralt needs vitality for a block to be effective, or it will chip away his health. I both enjoyed and did not enjoy the new combat system. It’s functional, but I couldn’t help but feel out of control in tense moments, attempting to roll or dodge or block or use signs between sword strikes. Geralt only swings at whoever he is targeting, not simply in front of him, so if you accidentally turn the camera to the wrong angle while trying to attack he will swiftly turn and swing at someone else entirely, leaving him open to devastating counterattacks from behind. Frustration can mount quickly, as it seems that Geralt is a whole hell of a lot squishier this time around than in the first game. Sure, the first Witcher had plenty of moments where getting overwhelmed could happen in the blink of an eye and Geralt would turn into fresh meat, but Witcher 2 makes every sword fight feel like an exercise in dodging just to stay alive. Maybe I wasn’t playing with enough patience, but it felt like I spent more time rolling and running to regain health than I did connecting with satisfying blows. Sometimes, quicktime events pop up during major boss encounters, which are devastatingly difficult in needless ways. Just like in the first game, Witcher 2 will absolutely dial up the volume on the difficulty knob without warning and around an unseen corner, to an extent where I found myself pained by exhaustion and anger at yet another GAME OVER scene. This is compounded by the strenuous camera, which is awkward at best in outdoors environments, frustratingly awful in close quarters hallways. Making things even worse is the game’s departure from the previous healing methods in The Witcher: where potions could be downed on the fly, and food eaten to regain mild portions of health, now the only way to heal is potions while meditating, or simply by meditating. Without the ability to heal in the middle of combat the thoroughly aggressive enemies will stymie even seasoned players as they watch their health bar helpless disappear with no respite.

Graphically speaking, this is leaps and bounds better than the original. High-detail, crisp textures, far draw distances, I very rarely had any stuttering or framerate issues. At worst, there was minor pop-in and fade in, some seams showing where textures were laid out, and jittery models here and there. Also, motion blur and bloom were turned on by default. Never fun. It was an absolute job to take in the world on hand, with the variety of monsters and humanoid characters to encounter, lovingly rendered with tons of color and flair. Outside of the story, this is where the game truly shines. Before there had been low-res models being reused left and right, but here nearly every character model (outside of factory-line soldiers) feels unique enough to recognize in and out of combat. It’s really a fucking wonder to behold. It felt the same as the graphical leap between Uncharted and Uncharted 2, with nearly an overwhelming amount of detail in the world to take in, dizzingly put together in a way that is breathing and living.

That said, is the game actually an improvement over the first title? Well, yes and no. Graphically, interactively, yes, to an extent. The branching narrative is bold, but feels like there is so much you’re missing out on once you’ve chosen a particular path. For example, there’s a dragon that exists in the game, and its origins are shrouded in mystery. I only discovered them based on a trophy I got at the end of the game, which felt like a huge cheat to learn that way. If the game had told me something about the dragon’s nature, even down the path I took which actively led me away from the dragon, then I wouldn’t have felt disappointed, but it didn’t. I learned the answer through a trophy. And in many ways, while this game does things better than the first game, it’s only to slight degrees, and while I do want to go back and play this again, it’s difficult to do so after a somewhat disappointing first run. Geralt’s story was excellent, and kept me on the edge of my seat whenever it came around, but everything else that happened felt largely disconnected from what was driving Geralt this time around, and ultimately only served as setup for the third game in the series. Again, perhaps that’s the point: perhaps Geralt will have to face the weight of his decisions, that which defines the world at large whilst he maintains a selfish lean towards his personal goals. Geralt of Rivia both is and is not the most important person in this story -- he is but one man who is forging a path towards his wants and needs, but maybe he’s crumbling kingdoms along the way, intentionally or no. While I’ve heard nothing but Game Of The Year praise for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I’m keeping my expectations tempered based on this sequel, which is fun and daunting and clever, but the drawbacks are hefty, saved only by the draw of the lead character and the living story itself.

Final Score: 7.5/10

Process and wip images for A House That Holds Long Limbs (Part 8)

Previous process and wip documentation: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Parts 6 and 7

Read the pages here: Part 8 (full complete version will be linked from YYH North Bound master post)

I personally love exploring character dynamics and character interaction! It's definitely what I tend to focus on in comics and stories. Plus you get to draw lots of closeups of people's faces and have a lot of fun with expressions. And that's what Part 8 is full of.

IN THIS EDITION, after the usual script and thumbnails, I'll take a bit of time to talk about expressions and characterization (my thoughts on Raizen and Hokushin specifically, but also some general thoughts on how I approach writing characters and character interactions). More details of some of the panels from part 8 so you can see the faces better!

Script and thumbnails

(If you look closely at the top of pg 2, you can see the page behind was where I started drawing my random dream sequence hahahah)

It’s always kind of funny to look back at the script and see my rushed typing (or texting on my phone, since I’m often doing this on mobile...) - odd typos and dangling/incomplete thoughts like ”my blodd” (lol).

Part 8 was one of the first sequences conceived in the development of this story. As a result, the script and the thumbnails both line up very closely to the final, because I’d already been thinking about it for so long and playing the scene out repeatedly in my head. I had a very concrete sense of how I wanted to direct it, unlike many of the action sequences from previous parts. The main areas I struggled with were historical details (the karaginu was originally labelled “tarp” in the script as a placeholder until I decided what it would be), and the biggest pagination change was probably moving Raizen’s “Maybe you just didn’t take enough off lol!” to the previous page so that Hokushin’s (literal) punchline would be at the beginning of the next.

Expressions

I have a huuuuge soft spot for subtle expressions - the kind where just a bit of extra line or texture around the eyes or the mouth, plus the dialogue or context of the scene, adds nuance to an expression. Especially ones that otherwise can read as relatively neutral. Even a very simple expression that’s just dots for eyes and straight lines for the upper/lower lids and eyebrows can have a lot of variation in how you interpret them, simply based on context and slight adjustments. Here are some examples with Raizen, where his face is super basic:

A: pretending nothing is wrong, calmly answering question

B: pleased with self for being smart - clearly a happer expression than A

C: similar to A, chillaxing and answering question

D: no big smiling mouth so he looks more like he’s focused on intensely sniffing the air

E: same as B basically, but a bigger smile of “everything’s fine!” (when you read the text)

F: extra thickness for his upper lid gives the sense that he’s in the middle of his casual sexy/chivalrous how ya doin’ expression

G: ... which changes in this panel to be more a realization (“oh shit I’m on fire”)

Actually, Raizen and Hokushin are both pretty difficult face types for me, being more “mature” looking male faces with stronger features/jawlines and narrower eyes. Hokushin especially has been challenging because his design has really low eyebrows which result in a default glare. Togashi still manages to make him fairly expressive and not look like he's glowering all the time. With my more limited art skill and lack of confidence, I tend to soften his expressions by really laying on the top line of his eye (this sounds like I'm putting mascara on him or something lmao), and also adjusting the size of his pupils (within reason or it starts to look even less like how I draw him normally, which is a big problem since his shaved head is a defining aspect of his series character design so he already looks pretty different). Here are some comparisons of his face - bearing in mind I had to keep his eyes wide open because of the seals in the story:   

A: crying/relief

B: this one here is supposed to be a bit miserable/self-loathing because he really didn’t think Raizen was going to look for him

C: shock, unexpected

D: thinking + “ugh plan B”

E: worried/apologetic and then “OOF/URK”

F and G: a progression to show the differences in rendering the eye. First is a bit angry because he’s realizing where all the blood for the seals came from, then he notices Raizen’s hands, and G is that example of softened expression (more lines on the top eye, larger pupil) to show how bad he feels about Raizen’s injury. 

One last thought on expressions. They can easily lose their nuance when inking (the slightest shift to a line can change the expression completely), and especially for someone like me who has unsteady hands it can be a bit of a nightmare. The nice thing about ballpoints is that they can retain a bit of the pencil sketch quality, which helped me freak out less when inking the last page with Hokushin’s glare. Here’s a comparison of the progress:

Though this particular expression isn’t that subtle, you can still see some differences as the drawing gets built up. When the pencil lines are gone and the drawing gets rendered in bw only, a lot of shading is lost. The messy lines can be interpreted more flexibly by your brain since they’re less defined and you haven’t “committed”, so the final version looks and feels less expressive. (This is why a lot of artists prefer their sketches to the finished piece, myself included...) Characterization This will get very specific to this comic, obviously, but hopefully my approach (and biases haha) will come through. With something like a fancomic, there are obviously existing expectations around the characters, but the benefit of working with these guys is that they’re not as prominent in the story or the fandom, so I feel more comfortable playing around and filling in the gaps. (This is probably why I like minor characters so much.)

In the case of Raizen and Hokushin, we know these two have a close relationship and history only through assumption and insinuation. We never see them interacting directly in the series at all. Actually, we don't see Raizen interact with anyone except Yusuke in non-flashback sequences (aside from the kudakusushi. In the anime, more scenes were added with his estranged friends, mostly their fond memories of him beating them up lmao). But it's very clear that they're extremely important to each other. Hokushin obviously speaks of his king in an exceedingly respectful fashion. Meanwhile, Hokushin is actually the last name Raizen says before he dies - his second last line, to Yusuke, is "Take care of Hokushin and the others" - or in my Taiwanese edition, "I leave Hokushin and the others to you". (Lol “the others”. Also I need to draw a comic about this at some point.) Despite this zero actual interaction, it's still extremely easy to imagine it because their characters are so clearly defined. In fact, they're both such consistent archetypes with enough particular quirks that they practically write themselves. So it wasn't difficult to extrapolate and imagine much younger versions of them, and how they may have interacted if they had only just met, which is the foundation of North Bound. Archetypes and stereotypes walk a fine line together, but they do serve as really useful building blocks for sketching characters quickly. This is why I really enjoy symbolic systems like astrology (or some of the the modern incarnations - personality assessment frameworks) because of all the character sketching it helps you do really quickly. Astrology in particular because, without even caring about birth dates or charts or whether astrology is "real" or not, the basic idea of a sign and its bucket of traits and symbols is simply a great resource when you want fleshed out character archetypes to build off of. I talked a bit about this in my Lenormand post, but I think of zodiac signs as one of the many games humans have developed in our attempts to categorize our world into recognizable patterns, and since we've been at it for thousands of years, there's a wealth of reference material, scenarios, analyses not only of the individual archetypes, but for all sorts of combinations and relationships. Some of it very well-thought out, and some of it just lots of fun to read. For my purposes, applying this to North Bound, Raizen is basically a Leo. He's dramatic, positive, powerful, passionate, a straight-shooter. Not only does he embody its main traits, he's literally a king (or eventually one in this story, I guess). And he even has a mane, for crying out loud. Meanwhile, Hokushin is a solid depiction of a quintessential Virgo - hardworking, practical, analytical, stoic, kind - and literally the loyal servant that typifies the Virgo paradigm. The Leo/Virgo duo is a classic partnership, and at the point where we meet them in the series, the relationship we can see has stabilized to exactly that. At the same time, there's tons of potential for a hilarious dynamic as well, especially imagining how they got to that point. (If you wanna have a laugh, look up some analyses of Leo and Virgo relationships and you'll see what I mean.) His freakouts next to Raizen's "hahhaa everything's fine!" carry most of the humour (similar to how his freakout at Yusuke's vandalism of the rurimaru stones carried a ton of the humour in that episode lol). Obviously there are other things that further finetune their characters so that they're more than bland cookie cutter personalities (Raizen's deep thinking about the future of the Demon World, for example, and Hokushin's sense of humour and appreciation/enjoyment of fighting), but in broad brushstrokes, these archetypes work incredibly well, and make it so easy to come up with scenarios and write interaction to the point that I'm now ridiculously behind in actually turning them into comics ahhhhh...

Building a better USMNT together: A 7-goal thriller against Mexico

Things get stressful this week.

Welcome back to “Building a better USMNT together,” a series where I play Football Manager 20 to build the USMNT of our dreams with your help. If you’re new, start from the beginning here.

Last week, we qualified for the Olympics and won the CONCACAF Nations League. This week, we try our best to win an Olympic medal and play our first 2022 World Cup qualifying matches. It gets dramatic.

Tokyo did not treat us with hospitality

For the Olympics, we were drawn into a group with Nigeria, Jordan, and Germany. I knew we couldn’t count on getting anything in the last game, and that our subs could coast against Jordan, so the first game was the most important.

We got off to a slow start, but Weston McKennie put us on top with an absolute stunner.

And then we threw away the points in the 93rd minute when Nigeria were granted a penalty for... well, I don’t know. Even the game commentary thought it was bogus.

The match finished all knotted up, 1-1, and we were put into a position where we needed to put in a big performance against Germany to make it to the knockout rounds.

Things went as expected against Jordan, though we were thoroughly unimpressive. The ratio of shots to shots on target was not inspiring.

But incredibly, we got the result we needed against Germany to finish second in the group ahead of Nigeria. Suat Serdar helped us out with an early red card, and we returned the favor in the second half. The reds were the only two real highlights all game. It was a terrible match where nothing happened, which suited our needs perfectly.

The quarterfinal draw was not kind to us, and once again, we failed to put together any promising attacks. It looks like Argentina did us dirty with an 87th-minute goal in a game where shots were even, but they were the better team throughout, and our Olympics ended without us having put in a single impressive performance.

Given that I was able to bring pretty much our A-team to an Under-23 tournament, I was really disappointed by the performance. I’ve won a medal at the 2020 Olympics with the USMNT on FM before, and I almost always put in a better effort than this. The team just never clicked.

Here’s the Olympic dream team, in case you’re interested in how things are going in the rest of the world. Chucky Lozano making it while no Americans managed to sneak into the subs stings a bit.

I yelled several times in both joy and anger against Mexico

The draw for the Hex gave us a pair of extremely tricky games to start off — at home against Mexico and away to Costa Rica. While that’s a bit annoying, I went in knowing that if I got four points or more out of those two matches, we’d be strong favorites to qualify for the World Cup.

Before I had to finalize the squad, I finally got Folarin Balogun — who we have at Dallas on loan from Arsenal — to commit to the United States.

He’s going to be a star for us and gives us a different type of player to rotate with Josh Sargent. I really like Sargent’s combination play as a deep-lying forward, but Balogun is much faster and can play when we want a striker who runs in behind the opposing defense.

At home against Mexico, I wanted to play Sargent and Efrain Alvarez together. Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie were unavailable for the match through injury and suspension, respectively, so I thought a 4-2-3-1 formation suited our best available personnel. We lined up like this:

And we got off to an absolutely unbelievable start. First, Christian Pulisic obliterated the Mexico defense to set up Sargent for what turned into a tap-in, despite Guillermo Ochoa’s best efforts.

And we doubled our lead a few minutes later with a stunner from our left back, of all people. Look at this switch by Russell Canouse, playing in McKennie’s place, and a perfect hit by Dallas’ own Chris Gloster.

But we started to fall apart. El Tri pulled one back off a corner, then looked completely full of confidence for the rest of the first half. Hector Herrera scored the equalizer with this deflected effort, and in a flash, our lead was gone. We headed into the locker room tied up at 2-2.

At halftime, I felt the need to make a couple of changes. Canouse picked up a yellow card playing a ball-winning midfielder role, which makes players tackle harder by default. I wanted to have someone in that role who was able to play aggressively, so I took him out for Michael Bradley, who earned his first call-up in over a year due to McKennie and Adams’ absence. Antonee Robinson also replaced Gloster, who picked up a yellow and a minor knock. Otherwise, I didn’t change the tactics.

And seven minutes into the second half, Bradley and Robinson set up a go-ahead goal for Mexican-American teenager Efrain Alvarez, who was playing in his first competitive match for the senior national team.

I was in the middle of contemplating sticking with the tactics vs. going more conservative when this happened:

I didn’t even have the chance to finish my thought. Robinson did it again, setting up Sargent for the goal that should have sealed our victory.

Should.

We had to endure a dramatic finish, thanks to an absolute brain fart by John Brooks. WAKE UP, JOHN.

We ultimately did manage to hang onto the victory, though I imagine the stress I felt during the match did some lasting damage to my body.

The results from the first round of Hex games are largely what you’d expect in terms of points, though the actual scores are a bit wacky. Honduras got obliterated by Jamaica, who might actually be the third-best team in CONCACAF at this point.

And we got a big away result too

For the Costa Rica match I decided to switch things up, putting in Balogun and his Dallas teammate James Sands. Initially, I had Balogun playing as an advanced forward, Parks as a deep lying playmaker, and Canouse as a ball-winning midfielder. But Costa Rica was well on top in the first 15 minutes, and I decided to change the roles of those three players so they’d get closer together.

It worked. From the point I changed the roles, possession went 50-50, and Costa Rica stopped generating shots. We eventually got our winner by earning a phantom penalty that should have never been given, which I think we’ve earned given the Olympics and last episode’s George Bello incident.

Tim Weah scored from the spot, and we got our smash-and-grab victory away to Los Ticos. It wasn’t an impressive performance, but as anyone who’s followed the real-life USMNT will tell you, there’s no such thing as a bad win in Costa Rica.

Here’s the results from round two. With Honduras and Panama failing to win against each other, there’s a pretty clearly defined top four and bottom two in the six-team tournament. Us and Mexico are big favorites, while Jamaica and Costa Rica are battling it out for the last automatic qualifying spot and Honduras and Panama will need to improve significantly to have a chance at the fourth-place playoff.

An update on Dallas

Hey, we won the Supporters’ Shield!

I don’t consider this much of an accomplishment because, as I noted in a previous episode, the MLS AI is really bad. Other teams have released star players because they don’t know how to manage the cap, so we’ve basically been handed this trophy by default for managing our squad adequately.

We also experienced another fun MLS bug this week: An all-star squad with no goalkeepers.

I’m not going to lie to you, I just simmed the game and let them lose.

On the next episode, we’ll play the MLS Cup Playoffs, say goodbye to FC Dallas, and reveal where we’ll be playing club ball in the future. I’m really looking forward to bringing a ton of young Americans to Europe.

Previous: Episode 5 / Episode 4 / Episode 3 / Episode 2 / Episode 1

how 'bout newtina ship meme 2

Here you go! :D

* Who comes homelatest?By default, Tina, because Newt works at home; she does work very late mostnights, however, owing to the nature of her work.* What was the absolute worst fight between the parents and children about?There are no real big fights because the children adore their parents;there’s bickering and a few little arguments here and there, but nothing major.* Who has the shortest temper?Linnet Scamander has a fiery temper, definitely, and while she’s all sweetand innocent most of the time, she definitely has a short temper.* What are the relationships with grandparents like?Well, obviously their grandparents on Tina’s side are deceased, so theironly grandparents are Newt’s parents.Newt’s mother is very doting to the kids, and she loves spending time withthem; his father is a little more reserved, being a Ministry man, but beingaround the children makes him loosen up a little bit. Sometimes Newt’s parentshave to babysit if Jacob/Queenie aren’t available, and the children adore them.* Who steals what out of someone’s closet?Linnet always steals Phoenix’s Gryffindor jumpers because although she’s aRavenclaw his jumpers are baggier and warmer. Leo definitely starts to stealwaistcoats and bowties from Newt’s wardrobe. Both Linnet and Wren have a habitof “borrowing” Tina’s blue coat or cloche hat; Phoenix likes to wear Newt’scoat for fun, and to explore the individual pockets. Before the kids were born, Tina liked to wrap herself in Newt’s coat becausereasons.* Tea, coffee, or anything else [all family members]?Tina is not herself unless she has a cup of coffee in the morning; afterthat, she can survive on tea. Newt’s preferred beverage is any kind of tea –English brew, herbal etc. When the kids are older, Phoenix and Linnet both needcoffee to survive; Leo settles for tea, and Wren is in a world of her own settlingfor juice. Let’s not forget mugs of hot cocoa whenever the kids want/need it(many conversations are had over hot cocoa)* What chores are assigned?It’s mostly stuff in the case when the kids are old enough; Phoenix is incharge of the Niffler and cleaning his den out of gold; Linnet feeds theMooncalves and animals like the Fwooper; Leo settles the Erumpent, feeds theGraphorns, makes sure the Bowtruckles are happy and even feeds the Nundu fromtime-to-time; Wren makes sure the Kneazles in their home are fed/given water,and then feeds the Occamies. Newt, of course, deals with most of the magical creature duties but it’s alwaysuseful when the children help out because it gives him more time for otherthings (i.e. editing his book again ordoing things in his shed). Tina soon becomes just as adept at caring for themagical creatures, helping wherever she can.* Who’re the best and worst dancers?Wren, I feel, is by far the best dancers by far in the family because AuntieQueenie and the Kowalski cousins do it a lot with her. The worst dancer isprobably either Newt or Phoenix – the whole family’s rather awkward, really.* Something banned within the household?Bringing the Niffler out of the case – the last time they did that, itstole all of the money and jewellery in the house. * How do the parents feel about dating?It differs depending on the child and parent, really. I feel like Newt isdefinitely uncomfortable when Linnet and Wren are dating because he still viewsthem as little girls (he’s very close to both daughters), whilst Tina merelyreminds him that they’re old enough to date (though if the boy is a lot olderthan she would worry just a tad). As is usual with sons, there’s not so muchconcern when Phoenix or Leo date – though Tina does admittedly feel a littlemelancholy about Leo dating because Leo is still very much her baby that shehas a soft spot for.* What would they do if one of the kids brought over a boy/girl for dinner tomeet them? (Worded weirdly, I apologize)Newt and Tina would be polite to one of their son’s girlfriends comingover, though Newt is definitely still very eccentric and soon offers said girla look around the case. With their daughters, Tina is of course veryprofessionally polite to boyfriends whilst Newt is surprisingly quiet and staysout of things, watching from a short distance away and studying the boys likehe would creatures. (when it was Linnet bringing Michael home as a boyfriend/fiancée, it wasdifferent because they had known Michael for nearly two decades and he was likea son already)* What do they do on days off?Spend all day in the case, of course, what else? Afternoons are spend sittingand relaxing as they bond with the creatures; Dougal is a favourite with Tinaand the children, and the Bowtruckles entertain Leo for hours. * One of the most surprising things that’s happened?Finding out that Wren is a Legilimens like her Auntie Queenie; it was quitea shock and it took some time for the family to adjust to it.* Who continuously checks up on the kids when they’re gone [i.e. school]?They’d write letters from both of them to the kids at Hogwarts, owling eachchild at least once a week. I feel Newt writes the letters more often than Tinadoes, given that he has more time, though it’s always signed from both of them.* Out of everyone, who’s the nerdiest?Probably either Newt or Leo, if being obsessive with magical creaturescounts as “nerdy” (and Leo has glasses)* Out of everyone, who’s the most likely to do something incredibly stupid?Phoenix and Linnet are both risk-takers, and a lot of risks can be reallystupid. Of course, Newt is the one most likely to nearly get killed trying totend to or bond with a magical creature.* Who gets annoyed easiest?Half of me says Linnet because of her temper, and the other half says Wrenbecause she can hear everyone’s thoughts and that makes her snappy/irritatedeasier.* Who’s the most reserved?Leo; he’s very shy and quiet, keeping to himself and reading his father’sbook instead of playing like the other children do. (Also Newt, of course,though he’s less reserved around his family)* Who’s more motherly?Tina doesn’t fancy herself the “motherly” type, though she is a goodmother; Newt does more of the “motherly” duties, really, like taking care ofthe kids when they’re sick (I can see Newt being a total mother hen)* Who’s the most organized?Tina – Newt’s shed is a mess, and the kids don’t care much for organisationso she has to do it (and she’s an Auror which involves some degree of beingprepared/organized)* Who’s the reader?Tina reads a lot in the case, both to herself and aloud to thecreatures/children; Linnet has a love of books, and Leo reads his father’s bookover and over again when he’s little.* What are the bedrooms like [as in, how do they look, weird question, I know]?Newt and Tina have the larger master bedroom, of course, so there’s a bedfor them to share and dressers/a wardrobe. Tina soon finds that Newt likes toleave pages of his manuscript or notes on his creatures lying around, and nomatter how often she tidies them there’s always another bunch left spreadaround the room. Tina likes to keep books on her end-table, reading in bed atnight before sleeping.Phoenix’s room has toys when he’s little, but when he’s older and more his ownperson he has a lot of Gryffindor house things around, like a scarf on thebedpost, gloves by the window etc. His room has his broomstick for Quidditch,and he has Quiddictch posters up around the room.Linnet has her stuff neat; she ties her Ravenclaw scarf around the bedpost, herclothes folded or left in the wardrobe, and drawings she’s done on the wall.There’s a small neat pile of books on the table, and everything has a place.Leo’s room is a little earthy, like he has a plant on the windowsill, and hetacks up his own notes or observations of his father’s creatures around theroom. His Hufflepuff jumper is either strewn on the bed or over the back of thechair near his desk – if he’s not wearing it. Wren’s room is similar to Linnet’s, but a little messier; she leaves books outon the bed or on the floor, clothes folded neatly but left on a chair becauseshe’s forgotten to put them away. There’s maps on her walls, and herfascination with dragons had led her to sketch them – the sketches are all overthe room, on walls or on the desk.* Who has the better sense of style?Probably Linnet; she’s the bubbly and bright one, and she also likes tokeep up with the style of the time.* Cute things the SO does?Tina thinks the way that Newt sleeps is adorable; his hair messy andfalling into his face, freckles a contrast to his skin, his whole body utterlyrelaxed…it always warms her heart.Newt enjoys watching how Tina reads; occasionally when she’s reading she’llpull a face or something in reaction to something. Newt just thinks It’sadorable.* Cute things the children do?Phoenix always looks away when he grins, like he’s bashful about grinningfor some reason. Linnet sleeps like a starfish, spread out and nearly hangingout of the bed. Leo, when he’s younger, just constantly wants to cuddle witheither parent (usually Tina – he’s a Mummy’s boy, really). Wren, as a child,carries around a teddy bear nearly all of the time, and she has a habit offalling asleep in one of the creature’s enclosures curled up with it.* How strict on grades are they?Newt and Tina really aren’t strict on grades at all, so long as thechildren try their best – Newt remarks he didn’t even finish school, thoughTina says that that’s not the best example. But yes, they’re not strict at allon grades as long as the children try their bests. * Who holds the entire family up when leaving?Oh, definitely Linnet; whenever the family think they’re ready to go (forexample, for the train to Hogwarts), she goes “Oh wait!” and will run upstairsbecause she thinks of another thing to bring. * What do they do if one of their children doesn’t win/get something theylooked forward to (i.e. a part in a school play)?The first year Phoenix tried out for Quidditch he didn’t get it, and he wasreally very upset about it; he was at school, so Newt and Tina asked Jacob tomake some Niffler pastries to send up to the school because Nifflers arePhoenix’s favourite creature. They also wrote up in the letter that he tried,and that he can try again next year after some practice.  * What’s their favorite place to eat out at?The Scamanders aren’t really a fan of eating out – they very much prefereating in the privacy and comfort of their own home. The best scenario of “eatingout” would be at Jacob and Queenie’s.* What do the children/SO do when one of the parents is gone for a few days(for work)?When Tina goes away on missions or Newt goes away on a trip to studycreatures, it feels strange in the house. If it’s Tina who’s away, Newt feelsrather unnerved without her and spends time in the case like he usually doeswhen things are strange; the children join him, though they’re all just asquiet because there’s the worry of “what if she gets hurt?”. If it’s Newt who’saway, because he brings the case with him, it really puts the kids at a loss ofwhat to do; Tina is equally unsure, but she usually asks if her work can besent home (like paperwork) so she can be with the kids, and she takes them tovisit the Kowalskis whenever possible to distract/entertain them.* What are their Hogwarts Houses?Newt was a Hufflepuff, obviously. Tina didn’t go to Hogwarts so that’sdebatable (but I personally think she’d have been a Gryffindor based on herdetermination and the fact she keeps running into danger etc.)Phoenix is a Gryffindor, Linnet is a Ravenclaw, Leo (who is Newt’s miniature)is a Hufflepuff, and Wren is a Gryffindor like her older brother.

TYSM <3

Oh, no, he’s not that bad. He just gets horny when fighting someone who’s actually strong enough to beat him up (even if said someone is a 12 year old boy) and makes such…interesting…sounds while doing so that you’d have a hard time explaining to your parents that no, you’re not watching anything explicit (at least not in that way), honestly doesn’t care whether you live or die if you aren’t entertaining, might murder you just for the lulz if he’s bored, is best friends with a cold blooded assassin with a lot of issues, would kill a child if the child was powerful enough to put up a fight, has a TYPE when it comes to his murderous creepy crushes (Machi: the cold, focused lady with incredible talent who hates him, Chrollo: the extremely powerful thief with unique abilities who doesn’t particularly care for him as far as I know, (possibly)Illumi: the talented assassin who tolerates him as long as he doesn’t lay a finger on Illumi’s beloved little brother Killua (and if Hisoka ever dares to joke about killing Killua then, well, too bad for him)…yeah, Hisoka really has a type)…

yep, he’s really not THAT bad, people are just too hard on him, don’t you think? Poor guy.

You’re welcome :) I still have the crying Saiko pic tho. I might send it to you someday (lol jk jk I messed up her lips on that pic and I am too ashamed to ever show it to anyone. I might still redraw it and send it though because what else could you expect from the Dwarf in the Flask?)

Ah, that’s true. No nose + No mouth + ‘Squad leader is disappointed' look = Urie’s default face…

Watercolors really are so pretty. I love how you can make them look delicate even when using super bold, bright colors. They’re also perfect for painting angsty stuff.

TYSM, Queen Luna is so nice *hugs*

I guess I’m careful on the internet partly because it really IS dangerous, and partly because I just feel uncomfortable doing anything I know my parents wouldn’t approve of without talking it through with them? Idk, see, I can lie to people I don’t like/don’t know very well and not feel guilty about it as long as I have a good reason to, but when I care about someone I’ll feel terrible about hiding something from them even if it’s honestly not a big deal ^^;;

Luckily though I asked my parents and they don’t have a problem with Steam as long as I’m sure the games I play on there are PG-13 :) so I’ll be trying CP when I have the time! Tysm for the help and the rec <3

OH really? Wow! And yeah, Ascension glitches sometimes for me too…but usually if I try again after a while it works again. The ending is pretty awesome, so I do recommend that you try again sometime ^^

(Ishida is trolling auto-correct as well)

I’m going to college soon and I hope Ishida’s tweet won’t be summing that up too LOL (jk, jk)

I WILL FIND A WAY TO ESCAPE. I WILL CREATE THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS AND DESTROY THIS WORLD AS REVENGE, JUST YOU WAIT

Oh sure, I don’t think I’d have trouble getting along with Riza! I meant Roy taking you to meet Riza and you taking Roy to meet me XD

Imagine Evans and Riza teaming up on the Roy/Luna couple though. 

Riza: “Are you going out on a date? Colonel, please button up your shirt.”

Roy: Riza u trying to ruin my swag  “but-”

Riza: “No buts, it looks much too sloppy.”

Evans: “Luna, I found your phone. Take it with you, ok? Call me if something happens and don’t stay out too late, you need your sleep-”

Luna: “You do realize I’m older than you?”

Evans: “…”

Luna: “…nothing, of course I’ll take my phone!”

Evans: ^^

Riza: *sigh* Kids these days.

Evans: Yeah…

Scar and Evans are both in denial so they’ll keep going round and round in circles until Queen Luna decides to be her awesome self and fix it all up.

(‘Great, because I’m not! Have fun’ seriously you are QUEEN)

I’m sure the queen is absolutely gorgeous <3

I’m sorta like that too- with most people physical contact is a huge NO I hate it, but with people I’m REALLY close with (my mom, my little sister) I love to cuddle. Idk, I’m weird lol

I ship it too. Ugh why do I ship everything except the canon ships

I’m gonna forget it later if I don’t write it now:  I’ve watched Zankyou no Terror and I’m pretty sure you’d like it! It’s about terrorists and has plenty of suffering and ridiculous english. Right down your alley XD

…wow. Just. I have no idea what to say other than ‘this is why I always wear headphones when watching anime’. I mean. Nope, I’ll be quiet.  The pic’s still really good, tho!

Yeah, poor guy, I wonder why people give him shit. It’s a mystery.

Aw, I wanted to see it… well, if you’re not comfortable sharing it, then it’s no problem ^^ If you ever do redraw it though…. I actually want to get my feels destroyed for once. 

I literally clicked on a random chapter. He has his nose and lips tho. Speaking of Urie, oh god the new chapter. I cry.

One time in elementary school, we did this thing with watercolours that I really loved, even though my art turned out like shit: You draw a tree trunk with brown colours normally, then take pink colours (or whichever you want), dip in a toothbrush or normal brush and try to like… spray the paper? Splatter the paint? I honestly don’t know how to describe it in english XD  But it looks pretty cool when done ^^

Well, as long as you don’t give out personal info and go to weird sites that could give viruses, it’s not that bad. You can never be carful enough, tho, so it’s nice that you’re cautious ^^ And it’s nice that you tell your parents. Mine don’t even know I have a tumblr XD I don’t think they care, though. Mostly because they trust me not to do stupid shit on the internet.

Oh, sweet! I’m pretty sure that CP is pg-13, There’s no cussing as far as I remember and no gore either ^^  Just a bucketful of angst. Tell me when you start playing! And which route you choose as your first one :D My recommendation is either Karma or Rod. Well, Fritz and Waltz are locked until you’ve done 2 routes, but Rumpel (the 3rd unlocked character) has quite a few spoilers in his route, so I’d recommend doing him 3rd.

It’s been at least a year since I’ve played Ascension. It still glitches RIP. It seems the game hates me XD

Ishida is the troll king. We need to make him a crown or something.

I’LL JUST FILL THE FLASK UP WITH EVEN MORE CONTENT YOU LIKE!!! I’LL BRIBE YOU WITH A NEVER ENDING SUPPLY OF FANWORKS AND ANGSTY BOOKS! 

I think I’d get along with Riza just fine XD We’d sigh over Roy and paperwork together :P What do you think you’d be like if you’d meet Mustang?

Riza always ruins his fun XD I think there was that theatre video in which she’s like ‘don’t forget to brush your teeth and floss, sleep at least 8 hours a day’ etc. She’s really his mom (and yet I ship them like titanic (minus the catastrophic sinking))

Yes mom, thanks for remembering my phone, I would’ve forgotten it myself XD I’ll call you if I need someone to pick me up :P

At first it’s cute how you two are shy about it, but then at one point I get fed up and just set you up so you can finally hold hands and be happy. I don’t even try to be subtle anymore. I’ve had enough of that XD

Nah, that’s not weird at all. It makes perfect sense ^^ A lot of people I know are like that! One of my friends doesn’t accept hugs/touching from anyone, including family and very close friends.

It’s a rule of the universe. If you ship it, it’s not gonna be canon. 

THE NEW CHAP. DAMN THE NEW CHAP. I’m mostly (only) emotional over Urie, though. I’ve stopped caring about the others a long time ago ^^;;;

Whoah, that’s pretty interesting! I’ve never played the game or seen any playthroughs, but still.  The Oggai are not to blame for what they’re doing. If I was abducted when I was that young, I’d probably be an obedient puppet as well.., 

One thing I can say about the designs: they’re suffering. Other than that, the sketches are a tiny bit messy, but they do seem to fit their personalities well ^^

And thank you <3 I change my icon quite often, so don’t be surprised if you find a new one often :P

THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH Solves a Mystery in Episodes 197-203

Welcome back to THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH! Noelle Ogawa here, and I'm your host as we run through the latest group of episodes of Naruto! We're still deep in filler territory, but this time we're in for a longer, much more concentrated story. There's a bit of a break from the "comedy" that we've gotten used to in terms of filler, and we're moving onto something that feels a lot different than usual: The threat is more along the lines of long-term espionage, something echoing the spy work of real-life ninjas. 

  The village is in danger from a famed ninja who's been on the Anbu watchlist for quite some time. He has a plan brewing, one that's years in the making, and he's ready to execute it. The village is on high alert, and it's up to the gang of genin to save the day. And this time, the whole group is here!

  So let's see what everyone thought!

This is the first time we’ve had a major filler arc that focused more on long-term espionage VS a large military threat. Do you think they’ve handled the differences well?

Paul: Aside from some clunky writing (“Oh, look, it's the never-before-seen grandpa character that Naruto is good friends with!”) and some scenes that required everyone to act like blockheads in order to advance the plot, I enjoyed the Genno Infiltration arc. It had ninjas being sneaky, it emphasized the teamwork of all 11 of the main Genin characters, and despite it being filler, Genno's plot grew into a convincing threat that challenged three generations of Leaf Villagers.

Kevin: I’ll get more into it in my highs and lows, but in short: mostly yes. I really like the different style of enemy and flow of the arc, and especially liked how many backups Genno had planned. Then the ending happened.

Jared: I think there’s certainly some flaws in this arc, but it was fun to see how everyone handled the dual threats happening at the same time. There was enough mystery and intrigue scattered throughout with the idea of a full scale assault and/or fighting an enemy who’s already within the borders. There’s a great shot of Guy waiting for news on if they’re about to be invaded which really captures a deep feeling of dread and anxiety.

Joseph: This was one of the best filler arcs of late. The ending was just shy of Naruto farting into the camera, but the rest of it really brought everyone together, and I liked the fact that it was all set in the village. 

Danni: As far as I’m concerned, it was the best filler arc in the show so far. I found the whole thing riveting. The show never quite tipped its hand as to what Genno was up to, and Genno was a great adversary for the group. His methods were some of the most ninja-like we’ve seen from anyone, and his motives were incredibly sympathetic: Old soldier trying to complete his lifelong mission despite its futility is really interesting as is. Throwing in that late twist about his son manages to make it heartbreaking as well. Really stellar group of episodes here.

Kara: I really enjoyed this arc a lot. There were a few minor issues I had with the underpinning of it all (the uncertainty of Genno’s character was essential to the story, but some of it didn’t scan as tidily even accounting for him being undercover), but overall it felt really well thought out with genuine stakes and a chance for lots of characters to do what they do best. Also I kind of love that the main flaw in Genno’s plan stemmed from taking Naruto complaining about his buddies at face value - guess he’s never seen the show before.

Carolyn: I wasn’t a super big fan of the ending, I thought that was pretty cheesy and basically undid everything that happened before it. But overall, I enjoy seeing a different sort of threat and the opportunity to break up all the fighting. 

Unlike a lot of the filler, here the whole genin squad (and Shikamaru) are all working together. How do you think that was handled? Is there anyone you wanted to see more of?

Paul: My only complaint is that the older, more experienced ninja took too long to realize that certain elements of Genno's plans were straight out of the “Sneaky Dude Playbook”. Tricks such as faking one's own death or traps that are actually diversions must be commonplace in a world populated by shinobi, so characters like Tsunade should be more cautious before committing all of the village's fighting forces to a mission based on incomplete intel, although I guess the point is that the Fifth Hokage is still inexperienced and impulsive.

Kevin: The actual squad was probably the weakest part for me. People didn’t really bounce off of each other, and they were just kind of walking around for the most part, not even having especially interesting conversations or thinking about potential backup plans like Shikamaru eventually realized. I didn’t really get a sense of urgency outside of when the kids were about to accidentally blow up the entire village.

Jared: Everyone played their roles accordingly in the younger group which led to some interesting groups that had to work together. Unlike the other filler arcs that are just Naruto and 2-3 others, it gave everyone something to do and made them useful. Like Paul said, the older group was kind of left to dry in terms of somehow not seeing what was truly happening, so that could have been handled better.

Joseph: The division of capabilities was all pretty straightforward, but they handled it decently for the most part. Like Paul said, the hardest hurdle to jump was the fact that all the Genin somehow figured this out faster than the higher ups. I know it has to be that way, but it made Tsunade and the rest appear a little dimwitted. 

Danni: I enjoyed seeing all of them working together. It felt like a natural culmination of all their different combinations in the filler thus far. We’ve seen them all work together in various small groups, so it made sense they’d be familiar enough with one another to be able to work together as one big group. 

Kara: I liked seeing so many of them utilized. I also liked seeing Naruto’s Clone Jutsu used for something besides “literally whatever needs doing,” and the occasional reminders that our ninja kids are actually surprisingly good at what they do. It’s one thing for a random chucklehead to get knocked out by Rock Lee, but to have a master ninja genuinely impressed by Hinata’s Byakugan is pretty cool.

Carolyn: After going through almost the whole series, the Chunin exams are still my favorite arc. Anything that brings everyone back together is great in my book. I liked seeing all the characters in one place and I think everyone’s strengths were mostly catered to appropriately.

Someone you thought you were decently close to, such a neighbor or coworker, turns out to be a spy. How do you think you’d react? What would you do?

Paul: I'd dump them like a bad habit. That may sound cold, but someone I thought I knew was recently outed as a sexual predator, and I cut them out of my life and took steps to knock the pegs out of the platform that I'd unwittingly helped them build. If I found out someone I loved was plotting to destroy my entire community, I'd show them no mercy.

Kevin: Depends on if I know that they know that I know. If I think I can still act without them knowing I’m trying to stop them, I’ll probably call the authorities to get someone to act who actually has counter espionage training. If I know that I’m busted and may be putting people in danger by going through with plan A, I’ll probably just not do anything at all, since at least then I’m not making the situation worse. If the spy is about to actively harm people and I’m the only one who can do anything… honestly that’d probably be an in-the-moment decision. I’d like to think that I’d try to stop them, but I also know that my default is either of the two other plans, so jumping into action isn’t something that I’d naturally do.

Jared: I’d probably be very disappointed and sad, but at the same time, I’d have to cut them out of my life if they’re being distrustful. Although, I’d also be confused on why a spy is trying to get close to me in the first place.

Joseph: Depends on what kind of spy work they’re doing. If it seems cool, pays well, and doesn’t hurt anyone, I’d like to see what kind of cut I could get out of it. I’m kidding, of course… unless I’m not?

Danni: I’d start Googling “How to check your house for bugs. No, not that kind. The other one. The spy one.”

Kara: Like Paul, I not long ago had to drop someone hard - not a sexual predator, but a very abusive and underhanded person. It’s not entirely the same as the spy scenario, but there's a lot of similarities, with the main one being coming to terms with the fact that this person and I had never actually been friends and I was only ever a means to an end. I actually hurt for Naruto in this arc because of exactly that (although his version had a mitigating twist at the end). All you can really do is drop everything and, if at all possible, warn anyone else who might be affected.

Carolyn: Are they a good spy or a bad spy?

On the other hand, let’s say you were a ninja spy sent to infiltrate the village. How would you go about your mission? What would you do?

Paul: I'd try to take a page out of Genno's book. He was an excellent spy, and he fit in so well that he deceived an entire village of seasoned ninja not once but twice. Leaf Village only caught on to his schemes because he deliberately tipped his hand. So I'd keep my head low, perform my cover job in a slightly below average fashion, and be pleasantly mediocre in my social interactions, so as not to draw attention to myself.

Kevin: Depends on the time scale. If I have infinite time, I’d honestly probably do what Genno did: Just keep coming back to the village multiple times to set up traps and backups until I have a ridiculously convoluted web of plans that is almost impossible to counter in its entirety. If I have a limited amount of time, then it becomes more relevant to know what my exact mission is, whether I’m infiltrating to kill a target, steal a document, destroy the village, or something else. 

Jared: Genno had the right ideas in that you’ve got to be sneaky, conniving, and also be able to blend in to the point that no one’s going to miss you if you suddenly leave. You want to be able to do whatever side job that you have to do at a level that’s essentially the equivalent of a C-. Passable, but you’re not excelling. After that, it’s about getting out without anyone raising a stink about it.

Joseph: I loved Genno’s ability to be lowkey. I feel like I could totally blend into the background for a bit, but I also like attention too much to keep it up for long, and I’d probably spill the beans too soon and fail.

Danni: I can’t count the number of times at work I’ve just been going about my business like normal and a coworker beside me turns around and jumps because they had no idea I was there. I seem to naturally just have no presence wherever I go, so honestly I could probably just walk in and take whatever I need without anyone noticing. 

Kara: I’m gonna be real, I’d fail. I suck at lying and sneaking around. You know that bit in Into the Spider-Verse where Miles plays too dumb? That’s me. Don’t hire me as a spy; I’ll stay back at my village and do paperwork.

Carolyn: If you act fairly stand-offish and antisocial most people just leave you alone. So, I would do that and then do my spy thing.

Genno admits that the main reason why he went about his plan is because he felt he needed to fulfill his mission before he dies. Regardless of the morality of this choice, do you sympathize with his thought process? 

Paul: I don't agree with his goals, but I understand where Genno is coming from, and that aspect of his motivation added a spicy bit of generational conflict to a story that was already brimming with subterfuge. They also made it clear that Genno wasn't really trying to destroy Leaf Village so much as he was re-enacting a “treasure hunt” in memory of his deceased son, although I'm not sure if that particular bit of characterization was necessary.

Kevin: I sympathize with it insofar as that’s something that makes sense for an actual ninja. Even if it’s decades later, you still have a mission to fulfill. Genno’s also one of the best ninja we’ve seen in the entire show, so it makes sense that out of everyone, he’d be the one to follow through with that ideal. As an actual action, I can’t say that I agree with it. Much like any grudge, letting it fester for decades on end is admirable from one angle, but pitiable or childish from most others. 

Jared: He was a ninja to the end. I wouldn’t say I sympathize with his entire thought process, even if it was somewhat of a ruse. If he’d really been trying to harbor all of that ill will for so long, I’d consider that to be just unhealthy. 

Joseph: I don’t know that I buy the fact that the charges he left behind would only deal superficial damage to the plateau, but yeah, I can sympathize with wanting to see the fruits of your labor before you pass on. 

Danni: An old ninja caught in the existential crisis of dying before his now futile lifelong goal can be completed? Hell yeah! A devoted soldier having to come to terms with the reality that his nation has either changed or no longer exists feels like a conflict straight out of Metal Gear Solid. I love it. 

Kara: At first I wasn’t feeling it. But then I remembered ninja in this universe give literally everything to their profession. It’s the thing that’s always kind of freaked me out the most about the whole series, that level of devotion to the point of body modification, self-harm, or destroying any chances for any other roles in your life. So in that context, in the context of Naruto, I can absolutely understand feeling that need.

Carolyn: A treasure hunt was his goal, though. Could he not have done that some other way without putting an entire village on edge? I thought the ending didn’t quite make sense, to be honest.

We get another recap episode, with the top 5 fights so far. Do you agree with the choices? If not, what would your top 5 be?

Paul: The fights between the Leaf Village Genin and Orochimaru's disciples were over-represented. I don't know if I have a Top 5 exactly, but I wish Sasuke vs. Orochimaru in the Forest of Death, Rock Lee vs. Gaara during the Chunin Exams, and the Third Hokage vs. Orochimaru had made the list.

Kevin: I find it interesting that the top 5 fights basically boil down to the Sasuke Retrieval arc minus Tayuya and Kimimaro. Personally, I think that speaks volumes to how good the arc was and why it is still remembered so fondly, although I probably would’ve swapped Kiba’s fight out for Gaara vs. Lee.

Jared: I think the top 5 were surprising to say the least, and that’s also the nicest thing I can say about it. Off the top of my head, I’d probably go with Lee vs. Gaara (how on Earth did this not make it?!), Naruto vs. Sasuke (Valley of the End), Naruto vs. Gaara, Hinata vs. Neji, and maybe Third Hokage vs. Orochimaru. I’m sure parts of that would change, but the first three would probably be a lock.

Joseph: We’ve watched four or five years of Naruto in the past eight months. I don’t even remember who fought what at this point. Most of the fight choices were fine, but I’d be lying if I said I paid full attention to this episode. 

Danni: The Sasuke Retrieval arc was way too represented. I can’t say I care much for any of those fights outside of Naruto vs. Sasuke in the Final Valley. Throw in Naruto vs. Neji, Rock Lee vs. Gaara, Sasuke vs. Orochimaru, and maybe Drunken Master Rock Lee for fun. 

Kara: This should have just been 23 minutes of Lee dropping his weights. I was actually a little annoyed at this episode because it felt like the writers finally throwing stacks of papers in the air and admitting they had nothing. And then tacking cross Sasuke on the end.

Carolyn: Rock Lee, Rock Lee, Rock Lee. I would have my boy Lee against Gaara no question. And Shikamaru’s Chunin exam fight has always been a huge favorite of mine, so that would be in there, too.

Lastly, what were your highs and lows this week?

Paul: My high point was seeing Leaf Village pull together to thwart Genno's schemes. That was the Patlabor 2 of filler arcs. My low point was the recap episode, which I mostly fast-forwarded through, if I'm being entirely honest. The bit with Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Sasuke teleconferencing into the awards show struck me as especially bizarre.

Kevin: Both related to the Genno arc:

High - The basic plot of the arc. For the past few weeks, it’s mostly been comedy and our main characters being idiots. For these episodes, they got to trace the steps of a master planner, Naruto had an emotional connection to the villain, there were obvious breadcrumbs that actually paid out well, and generally the arc was pretty well written and different from what we’ve seen.

Low - Then the ending happened, and the show tried to make us feel bad for a terrorist who tried to destroy the village because he was just trying to be remembered and he lost his son in the conflict that had originally given him his mission. No, show, you cannot tell me that he’s a good person. His last actions were to literally destroy the village. And I know that a lot of the bombs were defective because he met Naruto (who looks like his son for no reason) and he wanted to go on a treasure hunt, but that’s not good character writing. That’s just really convenient and takes out all of the tension of the rest of the plot, since now the audience knows that there’s no actual danger.

Jared: High point would be the Genno arc, as I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. Given how much we’ve had to slog through with filler, it’s nice when it’s actually decent. Low point would be the recap episode because their top five is bad and also it’s just strange how they just willingly break kayfabe in it. You could probably do some interesting things by playing with the idea that these are characters being played in a show, but it doesn’t really hit that mark here.

Joseph: High - The Genno arc was surprisingly satisfying and made me forget how bad the past couple weeks have been. Low - I have a feeling the magic haunted painting arc that started after won’t be as cool as I’d like it to be. I LOVE SPOOKY PAINTINGS THAT COME TO LIFE. 

Danni: It’s hard to choose a single high point from the Genno Arc so let’s just go with the whole thing: I loved it a lot. Low point goes to the recap episode, since only one of my favorite fights actually made it in there. 

Kara: High point is the beginning of this Yakumo arc, both because my girl Kurenai is back and because this looks like some fun horror. Yakumo’s weird face reflected in Kurenai/Naruto’s eye actually got me. (I am sure I will regret this whole sentiment before long.) Low point was the recap. I actually yelled at the screen when the whole Orochimaru thing started, which is double bad since I’m sure the intent was to hype the audience up.

Carolyn: I have to agree with Kara, as anything horror is a plus for me, even if it falls flat. And recap episodes are never interesting to me. I might also add Naruto screaming at Genno that he will never understand as long as he lives and he’s going to “live a long time!!!” That was pretty great.

And that’s it for this week! Remember that you’re always welcome to watch along with the Rewatch, especially if you’ve never seen the original Naruto! Watch Naruto today!

  Here’s our upcoming schedule:

-Next week, DANIEL DOCKERY goes through some haunts! 

-On August 16th, NICOLE MEJIAS finishes up a mission!

-And finally, on August 23rd, CAYLA COATES wraps up the Rewatch in its entirety!

CATCH UP ON THE REWATCH!

Episodes 190-196: Matchmaking Gone Wrong

Episodes 183-189: No Laughter Allowed!

Episodes 176-182: Reach for the Stars!

Episodes 169-175: Anko’s Backstory At Sea

Episodes 162-168: The Tale of the Phantom Samurai

Episodes 155-161: Quickfire Curry

Episodes 148-154: The Forest is Abuzz With Ninjas

Episodes 141-147: Mizuki Strikes Back!

Episodes 134-140: The Climactic Clash

Episodes 127-133: Naruto vs Sasuke

Episodes 120-126: The Sand Siblings Return

Episodes 113-119: Operation Rescue Sasuke

Episodes 106-112: Sasuke Goes Rogue

Episodes 99-105: Trouble in the Land of Tea

Episodes 92-98: Clash of the Sannin

Episodes 85-91: A Life-Changing Decision

Episodes 78-84: The Fall of a Legend

Episodes 71-77: Sands of Sorrow

Episodes 64-70: Crashing the Chunin Exam

Episodes 57-63: Family Feud

Episodes 50-56: Rock Lee Rally

Episodes 43-49: The Gate

Episodes 36-42: Through the Woods

Episodes 29-35: Sakura Unleashed

Episodes 22-28: Chunin Exams Kickoff

Episodes 15-21: Leaving the Land of Waves

Episodes 8-14: Beginners' Battle

Episodes 1-7: I'm Gonna Be the Hokage!

  Thank you for joining us for the GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH! See you next time!

  Have anything to say about this batch of episodes? Let us know in the comments! We're accepting questions and comments for next week, so ask away!

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Noelle Ogawa is a contributor to Bubbleblabber and Cup of Moe. She can be found on Twitter @noelleogawa.

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